Horlick Field, Racine -- Curly Lambeau (and the Packers) played here

There aren't many places where Curly Lambeau played for the Green Bay Packers that are still in use as athletic venues. One such place is City Stadium (City Stadium I) in Green Bay, adjacent to East High School. Lambeau played there from 1925 to 1929. After the Packers moved to City Stadium II, aka new City Stadium, for the 1957 season, the stadium became the home only of Green Bay East athletics.

Another such place is Horlick Field in Racine, Wis., which is where Lambeau and the Packers played one NFL game each year from 1922 to 1924. Their opponent was the Racine Legion, league members for those three seasons and one of two NFL entrants from Racine. (The other, the 1926 Racine Tornadoes, didn't play the Packers home or away.)

1922 Racine Legion team photo. (Image property of Racine Heritage Museum)

In its original incarnation, Horlick Field's seating was laid out for baseball.

Bottom photo source: http://www.projectballpark.org/history/aagpbl/horlick.html

Horlick Field is better known as the home field of the Racine Belles of the All-America Girls Professional Baseball League. The Belles played there from 1943 to 1950.

The Horlick Field property was later divided into side-by-side baseball and football fields. The pre-renovation brick exterior remains. This 2006 photo, taken from the southeast corner of the current football field, looks from the outfield toward home plate of the original layout.

Horlick Field is used today for high school football and baseball, city recreation league softball and the Racine Raiders minor-league football team.

Vince Lombardi on artificial turf

"I've been down in Tennessee looking at artificial grass. I don't suppose that means much in California -- but good artificial turf would be an advantage on rainy days here in the Midwest. The Packers have two fields, one in Milwaukee and one here, so we have to think about the expense. But when it's perfected, we'll put it in, maybe in two or three years."

-- Vince Lombardi, quoted in The Sporting News, Nov. 2, 1968

In three months, the Packers' field conditions would no longer be Lombardi's concern. On Feb. 6, 1969, he was introduced as Washington's new head coach and general manager.

Washington did play one game for Lombardi on artificial turf, defeating Philadelphia 34-29 on Dec. 7, 1969 at Franklin Field.

It's important to note that in the late 1960s the expectation was that AstroTurf and PolyTurf would decrease injuries, not increase them. "There is every indication synthetic surfaces cut down on casualties, particularly of the knee type," NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle said in 1968. (Wendell Davis on Line 1, Commissioner.) It's why even a warm-weather outdoor stadium such as Miami's Orange Bowl had PolyTurf from 1970-75.

Lambeau Field, circa 1957-60: Modest-looking from the outside

In its 1957-60 layout, Green Bay's City Stadium -- aka New City Stadium, City Stadium II and, by 1965, Lambeau Field -- was not terribly impressive from the outside. Although it was a marked improvement from its predecessor, City Stadium I, which seated 7,000 fewer people and lacked both a visitors' locker room and public restrooms. This photo is shot from what was then Highland Avenue; it was renamed Lombardi Avenue on Aug. 7, 1968. Notice the absence of arc lights, save for two small sets on the west (press box) side; there were no night games at the stadium until Sept. 4, 1961, when the Packers and Giants played a preseason game on Labor Day evening. It was in 1961 that the stadium was expanded for the first time and no longer had this appearance; a total of 6,519 seats were added in the southeast and southwest corners to increase capacity to 38,669. UPDATE: The above photo could not have been taken during the 1960 season. On April 6, 1960, the Green Bay Common Council solicited bids for lights at City Stadium. While the Packers played no night games at the stadium in 1960 -- the Labor Day preseason game with the newly relocated St. Louis Cardinals was an afternoon game -- the lights are visible in this aerial photo. You can tell it's not yet 1961 because the sideline seating has not been expanded.

1958 Packers -- no gold in the uniform

This is the only color photo I've seen of the Packers in their 1958 home uniform: White helmets, blue jerseys and white pants. I know the image is small, but it's definitely what was then called "new City Stadium" and would have to be either 1957, the year the stadium opened, or 1958, since Vince Lombardi introduced the green and gold as we've known them ever since in 1959.

UPDATE: I have operated on the presumption that this photo is from early in the 1958 season, perhaps the Sept. 28 game against the Bears or the Oct. 5 game against the Lions. But this week I found a uniform reference in Chuck Johnson's story on the Packers-Lions game, which ended tied 13-13, in the Oct. 6, 1958 Milwaukee Journal:

"One needed a program to tell the two teams apart. Detroit wore white uniforms and Green Bay, green. Otherwise they looked very similar."

Since we know that the Lions wore silver helmets and pants, home and away, from the mid-'50s onward, we can presume Johnson means jerseys when he says "uniforms." But finding this reference is an eye-opener, since it supports the conclusion of the outstanding Gridiron Uniform Database regarding the Packers' 1958 uniforms.

I'm standing by my conclusion that those are blue jerseys, while accepting the possibility the Packers wore green jerseys and blue jerseys with the white helmets and pants in 1958.

The green jerseys, apparently not worn during 1957, could have been left over from 1956. The photo below of Tobin Rote is from 1956, his last with the Packers and the Packers' last at City Stadium I.