Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

The Braves play the Cardinals in a North Oakland South Oakland Little League game at Bushrod Ball Fields on Tuesday, June 7, 2011. Generations of professional athletes have gotten their start at Bushrod Ball Fields

Generations of professional athletes have gotten their start at Bushrod Ball Fields, part of Bushrod Park, an unassuming neighborhood park on 59th Street between Telegraph and Shattuck Avenues in North Oakland.

Fields of Dreams

Bushrod Park has two baseball fields, a softball field, batting cages, outdoor basketball courts and tennis courts, and a recreation center with an indoor basketball court, weight room and arts center. It is named for Dr. Bushrod James, a Philadelphia physician who willed the land to the City of Oakland in 1903 on the condition that it create a park named for him.

A Rich History

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bushrod Ball Fields was a proving ground for black baseball players. Its American Legion Baseball youth leagues started the careers of Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and Curt Flood, who were also classmates at McClymonds High School in Oakland. The Hall of Famer Willie Stargell also got his start at Bushrod, though he attended high school in neighboring Alameda.

Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders used Bushrod as their practice facility in the early 1960s. According to the sportswriter Glenn Dickey, the team’s owner, Al Davis, was so certain that spies from other teams were watching practices from a nearby apartment building that he ordered players to change their jersey numbers from the ones they wore on game days. He later moved practices to a high-fenced field in Santa Rosa.

Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

Pistachio shells litter the ground beneath a fan watching the Braves play the Cardinals in a North Oakland South Oakland Little League game at Bushrod Ball Fields on Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Rickey Henderson

In the 1970s, Rickey Henderson tore up the base paths at Bushrod while a student at nearby Oakland Technical High. Oakland Tech’s varsity team no longer plays at Bushrod, going instead to Rickey Henderson Field at 45th Street near Telegraph Avenue, named in 2009 after the major leagues’ career stolen-base leader.

Baseball to Basketball

These days, most of Bushrod’s most athletic boys are striving for careers in basketball. Gary Peyton, Brian Shaw, Jason Kidd and Leon Powe, all N.B.A. players, got their start playing in the Bushrod Easter Tournament.

Mystery Ice

On April 9, 2006, a giant block of ice fell from the sky and left a three-foot hole in the grass. The police declared the ice to be pure water — not from an airplane or toilet.

This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.