CNE Grandstand Exhibition Stadium was the fourth stadium to be built on its site since 1879. When the original grandstand was lost due to a fire in 1906, it was quickly rebuilt. This part of the stadium's structure stayed even as the stadium underwent various changes to its configuration over the years until its 1999 closure. The new building seated , more than the previous grandstand. The building held two dining halls that could seat , a Exhibition Hall, electric plant and storage facilities. It was designed by firm Marani and Morris, and built by Piggott Construction. It had a large -wide stage and three radio rooms for broadcasting. The roof had a total of 300 floodlights and spotlights. The roof was specially designed to provide no place for pigeons to roost.
Expansion for CFL football When the
Toronto Argonauts moved from
Varsity Stadium for the 1959 season, a smaller bleacher section was added along the south sideline. In this form the stadium seated 33,150. The inaugural game at the renovated Exhibition Stadium was an
exhibition interleague game between the hometown Toronto Argonauts of the
Canadian Football League (CFL) and the
Chicago Cardinals of the
National Football League (NFL) on August 5, 1959. The game was the first time an
NFL team played in Toronto. It was also the first
NFL–CFL exhibition match held since the establishment of the CFL in 1958, and marked the beginning of a three-year, four game exhibition series between the leagues. When the
58th Grey Cup was played at the stadium in 1970,
Calgary Stampeders coach
Jim Duncan described the condition of the natural-grass surface as "a disgrace." In January 1972,
Metropolitan Toronto Council voted 15–9 to spend $625,000 to install
artificial turf. The vote passed despite five councillors changing their vote to oppose the motion, because the cost had increased from a previous estimate of $400,000. Two months later, contracts totalling were approved to install the AstroTurf, with work to be completed by June, in time for the start of the Toronto Argonauts' 1972 season.
Reconfiguration for baseball In 1974, in a bid to acquire a
Major League Baseball team, the city voted to reconfigure the stadium to make it compatible for baseball, leading to the arrival of Major League Baseball in Toronto in 1977 in the form of the expansion
Toronto Blue Jays after a failed attempt to lure the
San Francisco Giants to the city. Originally planned to cost million Football capacity was increased from 33,150 before the renovations to 41,890 initially, then finally to 54,741 after work was completed.
Baseball problems Exhibition Stadium was unusual among MLB ballparks in that it was a football-specific venue later renovated for baseball, whereas most U.S. venues hosting baseball and football were either ballparks where football was a secondary consideration or "cookie-cutter" facilities designed from the outset to host both sports.
Joe Robbie Stadium was built primarily for football but it was also designed to easily accommodate baseball and soccer. Like most multi-purpose stadiums, in Exhibition Stadium the lower boxes were set further back than comparable seats at baseball-only stadiums to accommodate the wider football field. Moreover, at the time of the renovation a
Canadian football field was almost 34% larger than an
American football field. While in some respects the larger Canadian field arguably made retrofitting for baseball somewhat easier than was the case south of the border with previous examples such as
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum or future examples such as
Mile High Stadium, it nevertheless left many of the seats down the right-field line and in right-centre extremely far from the infield; they actually faced each other rather than the action. Some seats were as far as from home plate — the largest such distance of any stadium ever used as a principal home field in the major leagues. The Blue Jays realized early on that these seats were too far from the field to be of any use during the regular season. As such, they were only sold when necessitated by demand during the 1985 and 1987 pennant races, as well as the 1985 American League Championship Series. As the original grandstand was used for the outfield seats, these were the cheapest seats but were the only ones which offered some protection from the elements; the Blue Jays were the only MLB team using a stadium with such a configuration. Despite the poor sightlines of many seats, as well as the cold weather from the close proximity to the lake (see below), the Blue Jays nonetheless enjoyed strong attendance.
Football problems Because the full length of the third-base line had to be fitted between the north stand (the original grandstand) and the new south stand, they could no longer be parallel to each other. As a compromise between placements suitable for the two stands, the football field was rotated anticlockwise away from the north stand. An April 30, 1984, game against the
Texas Rangers was postponed due to winds. Before the game, Rangers manager
Doug Rader named
Jim Bibby as his starting pitcher, stating "he's the heaviest man in the world, and thus will be unaffected by the wind." However, Bibby would never make it to the mound. Two Rangers batters complained about dirt swirling in their eyes, and Blue Jays starting pitcher
Jim Clancy was blown off balance several times. The umpires stopped the game after only six pitches. After a 30-minute delay, the game was called off. The stadium also occasionally had problems with fog, once causing a bizarre
inside-the-park home run for
Kelly Gruber in 1986, when an otherwise routine pop up was lost by the outfielders in the thick fog.
As a popular feeding ground for seagulls Due to its position next to the lake, and the food disposed by baseball and football fans, the stadium was a popular feeding ground for
seagulls.
New York Yankees outfielder
Dave Winfield was arrested on August 4, 1983, for killing a seagull with a baseball. Winfield had just finished his warm-up exercises in the 5th inning and threw a ball to the
ball boy, striking a seagull in the head. The seagull died, and some claimed that Winfield hit the bird on purpose, which prompted Yankees
manager Billy Martin to state "They wouldn't say that if they'd seen the throws he'd been making all year. It's the first time he's hit the cutoff man". The charges were later dropped. Winfield would later play for the Blue Jays, winning a
World Series with the club in 1992.
70th Grey Cup and replacement Exhibition Stadium's fate was sealed during the
70th Grey Cup in 1982, popularly known as "the Rain Bowl" because it was played in a driving rainstorm that left most of the crowd drenched. Many of the seats were completely exposed to the elements, forcing thousands of fans to watch the game in the concession section. To make matters worse, the washrooms overflowed. In attendance that day was then-Ontario
Premier Bill Davis, and the poor conditions were seen by over 7.862 million television viewers in Canada (at the time the largest TV audience ever in Canada). The following day, at a rally at
Toronto City Hall, tens of thousands of people who were there to see the Toronto Argonauts began to chant, "We want a
dome! We want a dome!" So too did others who began to discuss the possibility of an all-purpose, all-weather stadium. Seven months later, in June 1983, Premier Davis formally announced that a three-person committee would look into the feasibility of building a domed stadium at
Exhibition Place. The committee consisted of
Paul Godfrey,
Larry Grossman and former Ontario Hydro chairman Hugh Macaulay. That same year, the city also studied a number of potential sites for the new domed stadium, and in April 1984, CN agreed to donate of land near the
CN Tower for the stadium; groundbreaking began in October 1986, and the stadium, which would take on the name
SkyDome (now Rogers Centre), opened in June 1989. It was intended that the Blue Jays would play at Exhibition Stadium for the last time in 1988, and that the SkyDome would be ready in time for
Opening Day in April 1989. However, due to construction delays caused in part by widespread construction worker strikes across Ontario, this was postponed and the Blue Jays began their season at Exhibition Stadium before moving to the SkyDome in June.
After replacement by SkyDome Exhibition Stadium mostly stayed inactive over the decade following the opening of SkyDome (being used sometimes as a racetrack or a parking lot), except for the occasional concert or minor sporting event. The World Wrestling Federation (now
WWE), needing a new venue after a decision to discontinue events at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1995, held one
card at the stadium on August 24, 1996, for a crowd of 21,211. The main event was
Shawn Michaels vs.
Goldust in a ladder match. A series of
CASCAR races were held at the track during the 1990s, with the stadium being reconfigured for such races.
Demolition The stadium was demolished in 1999 and the site is now the location of
BMO Field and a parking lot. A few chairs from the stadium can be found on the southeast corner just north of the bridge to
Ontario Place's main entrance. As is common with stadium demolitions, a number of the remaining seats were sold to fans and collectors. The original locations of all bases and home plate are marked in the parking lot south of BMO Field. Although not widely used while the stadium was in operation (given the well known references to Cleveland's
Municipal Stadium), the term "Mistake by the Lake" has been used more recently in reflection by Toronto media to refer to the now-demolished venue. ==New stadium==