All-High Stadium is a football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 stadium

Stadium

A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...

 in Buffalo, New York

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

. It was opened in 1926 and was refurbished for the fall of 2006. It is part of the Bennett High School

Bennett High School, New York

Bennett High School, Public School 200, is located in the University Heights section of Buffalo, New York. The principal is Dr. David Mauricio. It is named for Lewis J. Bennett, who donated the land for the school and for All High Stadium. Portions of the movie The Natural were filmed in All High...

 complex. It is bounded by the high school and Main Street to the northwest, Manhattan Avenue to the northeast, Hill Street to the southeast, and Mercer Avenue to the southwest.

It was used in the filming of a key scene in The Natural

The Natural (film)

The Natural is a 1984 film adaptation of Bernard Malamud's 1952 baseball novel of the same name, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert Redford, Glenn Close and Robert Duvall...

, a 1984 release set in the 1930s, as a stand-in for Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales...

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, which was unavailable. Although there is some ivy along the walls suggesting Wrigley, the upper deck in the outfield is more suggestive of Chicago's other major ballpark of that era, Comiskey Park

Comiskey Park

Comiskey Park was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series and more than 6,000 major league games...

. In some portions of the scene, football lines are visible, which is not anomalous, as both Chicago parks served as homes to football teams at that time.

In fact, All-High Stadium has only a single level of stands with a roof. The upper deck in the film appears to have been inserted in post-production, and the scoreboard either matted in or built as a temporary structure over an existing tall smokestack on a building that stands at the north corner of the stadium, presumably part of Bennett High's heating plant.

Most of The Natural's baseball action scenes were filmed in War Memorial Stadium

War Memorial Stadium (Buffalo)

War Memorial Stadium is the name of a stadium that formerly stood in Buffalo, New York. The stadium was on a rectangular block near the downtown area. Its main entrance was at Jefferson Avenue to the east and Best Street to the south...

, which has since been demolished. All-High Stadium still stands, albeit substantially remodeled since The Natural filmed here.

All-High Stadium served as the home pitch for the Buffalo Storm

Buffalo Storm

Buffalo Storm were an American professional soccer team. They played for one season in the USL-1984 Roster: Dennis Mepham Randy Pikuzinski Rudy Pikuzinski Carlos Salguero Däniel Johansson...

 of the United Soccer League

United Soccer League

The United Soccer League was a professional soccer league in the United States in the mid-1980s.After the demise of the second incarnation of the American Soccer League in 1983, four ASL teams founded the USL...

 in 1983. It is the current stadium of National Premier Soccer League

National Premier Soccer League

The National Premier Soccer League is a United States soccer league recognized by the United States Soccer Federation and FIFA as a Division IV league...

 team FC Buffalo

FC Buffalo

FC Buffalo is an American soccer team based in Buffalo, New York, United States. Founded in 2009, the team plays in the National Premier Soccer League , a national amateur league at the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, in the Northeast Keystone Division.The team plays its home games at...

 in 2010. It is currently utilized by Medaille College

Medaille College

Medaille College a private liberal arts college located in the historic Olmsted Crescent of Buffalo, New York, that draws extensively from the Western New York and Southern Ontario regions. It is a private, nonsectarian, co-educational institution.-History:...

's men and women's soccer teams.

As of 2010, a new stadium at Riverside High School will replace All-High stadium for most purposes.

External links

• An article about the stadium's 2006 refurbishment
• Another article with a couple of photos
• A website with photos of various locations used in filming

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