BATTER UP!

[2jakes]

Cool info - some I knew, a lot I didn't. That said, what surprises me about the above ads / offers is not that credit was being extended, but that it seemed to be all but setting the company up to be cheated. Even in the '20s, there was decent documentation around car and housing and even furniture loans based on what I've read (and active repossession when the buyers fell behind on their payments), but I can't image a company sending a pair of $14 boots out to somebody ten states away because they sent in a dollar, a name and an address. Considering the cost of travel, communication, etc., back then, if they were cheated, it would be prohibitively expensive to try to repossess a $14 pair of boots.

I agree.
All I can think is that there was a different mentality with the companies & the customers
back then.

 

[Fading Fast]

Of course it could also be that the boots were actually a $1 pair of boots marked up to $14 "easy credit terms." There was an awful lot of that going on in the 20s and 30s in the "factory direct to you" racket.

Sears and Monkey Wards sold a lot of merchandise thru similar credit deals, but you had to supply references from businesses you had dealt with before you qualified. Their merchandise was generally worth the price, but a lot of the "advertised in the back pages of Popular Mechanics" stuff was dodgy. For example, Midwest Radio Corporation was well known for selling gaudy, oversized "factory direct to you" radios on credit from mail order magazine ads, but the radio you actually got for your money was cheaply built, full of tubes that didn't actually do anything, and came in a thin, shoddy, highly-embellished plywood cabinet. It looked like the picture in the ad as long as you didn't get any water on it.

Sadly, this explanation makes sense to me. Even if they were $3 boots, as long as a large enough minority paid $14 for them, you can write off a lot of "bad" credit losses and still make money - as long as you can live with yourself.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, when it came to civilians owning "just like the players wear" stuff, that was limited, for most of the Era, to endorsed gloves and shoes. If you wanted to own an actual major league cap, for example, you had to run down on the field and swipe it off the player's head, or be nice to him and maybe he'd give it to you. You couldn't even get a souvenir team cap at the ballpark until 1945, when the Cubs made a deal on a supply of cheap felt one-size-fits-all caps with the wishbone-C sewn to the front. They didn't expect this to go anywhere, but it did -- and by the end of the 1940s souvenir caps were common. These were very popular with kids, but occasionally you'll spot one on an adult head in a crowd photo from the fifties forward.

Typical under-the-stands souvenir stand run by the Harry M. Stevens Co. at Ebbets Field. This type of stand was common in all the parks serviced by HMS -- the ones at Fenway in the early '70s were very much the same. Note the souvenir caps piled up -- all Brooklyn caps except for a Phillies cap hanging up on the back wall. It was a very rare thing for kids to go around in other than their "home" caps -- when I got a cheap felt KC A's cap at a liquidation store and wore it around town, it created quite a stir.

Getting the actual regulation cap was a different matter. You could order some teams directly from Tim McAuliffe, Inc., a sporting goods distributor in Boston that supplied caps to several teams by the early 1950s -- but they didn't advertise, and you had to know somebody to get their address. And the Gerry Cosby sporting goods store in New York carried actual Major League caps for the local teams -- but they didn't advertise this, and not too many people were aware of the opportunity. It wasn't until 1969 that genuine major league caps started to be sold thru ads in the Sporting News, Baseball Digest, and similar publications. I have a genuine KM Pro Red Sox cap from the early seventies from such a source.

Souvenir cotton uniforms for the kiddies were available by the early 1950s as well -- they had a dim resemblance to the real thing, but were not particularly "authentic." Branch Rickey, ever alert for the chance to make a buck, licensed a whole line of Dodgers souvenir sportswear in the late '40s to be sold thru Sears, but even he didn't go so far as to allow actual uniform jerseys on the market.

The only place a fan could get a "just like the big leagues" jersey before the explosion of licensed marketing in the '80s was, again, the McAuliffe company in Boston. They would make up jerseys to order for anyone, for any of the teams they supplied, specifically the Red Sox, the A's, and the Angels. These were the exact shirts worn by the players, and if a fan knew about this service, they could take advantage of it -- but very few did.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Sears and Monkey Wards sold a lot of merchandise thru similar credit deals, but you had to supply references from businesses you had dealt with before you qualified...

This sounds quite clunky and also subject to manipulation. That said, Sears and Monkey Ward were smart, well-run businesses, so I'm sure the model was reasonably efficient (not too cumbersome for the customer or company) and was effective at vetting out most bad credits (or Sears and MW wouldn't have been as successful as they were).

Meanwhile, when it came to civilians owning "just like the players wear" stuff, that was limited, for most of the Era, to endorsed gloves and shoes. If you wanted to own an actual major league cap, for example, you had to run down on the field and swipe it off the player's head, or be nice to him and maybe he'd give it to you. You couldn't even get a souvenir team cap at the ballpark until 1945, when the Cubs made a deal on a supply of cheap felt one-size-fits-all caps with the wishbone-C sewn to the front. They didn't expect this to go anywhere, but it did -- and by the end of the 1940s souvenir caps were common. These were very popular with kids, but occasionally you'll spot one on an adult head in a crowd photo from the fifties forward.

Getting the actual regulation cap, though, was a different matter. You could order some teams directly from Tim McAuliffe, Inc., a sporting goods distributor in Boston that supplied caps to several teams by the early 1950s -- but they didn't advertise, and you had to know somebody to get their address. And the Gerry Cosby sporting goods store in New York carried actual Major League caps for the local teams -- but they didn't advertise this, and not too many people were aware of the opportunity. It wasn't until 1969 that genuine major league caps started to be sold thru ads in the Sporting News, Baseball Digest, and similar publications. I have a genuine KM Pro Red Sox cap from the early seventies from such a source.

Souvenir cotton uniforms for the kiddies were available by the early 1950s as well -- they had a dim resemblance to the real thing, but were not particularly "authentic." Branch Rickey, ever alert for the chance to make a buck, licensed a whole line of Dodgers souvenir sportswear in the late '40s to be sold thru Sears, but even he didn't go so far as to allow actual uniform jerseys on the market.

The only place a fan could get a "just like the big leagues" jersey before the explosion of licensed marketing in the '80s was, again, the McAuliffe company in Boston. They would make up jerseys to order for anyone, for any of the teams they supplied, specifically the Red Sox, the A's, and the Angels. These were the exact shirts worn by the players, and if a fan knew about this service, they could take advantage of it -- but very few did.

It's funny how, in retrospect, this money making opportunity seems so obvious - and as you've pointed out, plenty of owners were not shy about making a buck anyway they could - but it sat all but untapped until, as you noted, the '70s. Today, they'd be pumping out those "team" cardigans for big dollars.

 

[Fading Fast]

I started in retail in college and then got a summer job on Wall Street and realized that retail was a brutally low paying field that ground out its existence; whereas, Wall Street was like the big leagues of business - much, much more aggressive and pro-active people, bigger risk but bigger rewards and an incredible energy (all things retail lacked).

 

[2jakes]

A rarity
Chicago Sox in clean uniforms.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Although it was sixty years ago tonight that Ebbets Field breathed its last as a major league venue, the park itself remained standing for nearly two and a half years, and it wasn't as an abandoned decaying husk. The Dodgers had two more years to run on their lease, and when they decamped for the West Coast they left behind a skeleton crew, including longtime park superintendant Babe Hamberger -- who refused under any circumstances to go west -- and second-echelon O'Malley operative Matt Burns, who became the team's "East Coast Represntative," based in an office on Clinton Street.

Burns, in turn, sublet the park for a variety of events including international soccer games, high school, college, and Negro League baseball, an auto "thrill circus," and assorted other promotions during 1958-59. The Dodgers also used the park as a site for tryouts during this period, as a hub of operations for its Eastern-based scouts.

Hamberger, a Brooklyn man down to the soles of his feet, more than anyone in the organization knew what the park had meant to the people of the neighborhood -- and on pleasant afternoons he'd open the gates so that neighbors could wander in, explore the building, and maybe just sit in the sun and be alone with their thoughts.

Roy Campanella also had a presence at the park during these last years. Although he was disabled by his 1958 auto accident and would never walk again, he sponsored an all-African American exhibition team called the Brooklyn Stars, who played several games there during 1959. A team of Negro Leage barnstormers including no less a personality than Satchel Paige appeared in the final adult baseball game at Ebbets Field on August 23, 1959. The last baseball game of any kind was a youth-league contest played by 12 year olds in September.

The last time the gates opened for the Dodgers happened during the 1959 World Series. With the team playing to monstrous crowds against the White Sox in the L. A. Coliseum, faithful old Babe Hamberger opened the gates and a few hard-core fans drifted in to sit in the stands and listen to the games over the radio.

A soccer game on October 25th was the last event ever held at the park. The soccer goalposts remained in place when the wreckers rolled in on a cold February morning in 1960.

Babe Hamberger resigned from the Dodger organization that day. He had never known another employer, and had worked for the team since 1921. Walter F. O'Malley declined to award him a pension.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Great stuff.

So, were they claiming, even back then, that soccer would replace baseball as America's past time?

Seems almost cruel to let the public listen to the Dodgers on radio in Ebbets Field as they played in LA.

Since O'Malley (what an *ss) didn't award him a pension, did Hamberger get another job in Brooklyn?

⇧ Both wonderful photos

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hamberger never held another job again. He scratched out a living on Social Security until he died in Brooklyn in 1978. He expressed some interest in getting a job with the Mets in 1962, but in the end he just couldn't bring himself to work at the Polo Grounds. He grieved the loss of the Dodgers for the rest of his life.

Soccer had drawn very well at Ebbets Field going back to the 1920s -- there were enough European immigrants in the local population, especially Irish and Italians, that soccer was a very popular sport in Brooklyn. Some of the matches in 1958 and 1959 drew over 20,000 people, and one of them led to a genuine European-style soccer melee when a mob of Italian fans swarmed onto the field and knocked out an official. Frankie Germano wasn't there in person, but he was certainly there in spirit.

Another big annual event at Ebbets Field was the "Salute To Israel," which drew large crowds thruout the 1950s -- and in 1957, that Salute featured an appearance by an Israeli soccer team playing a team of US amateurs. A celebrity of some prominence happened to be in New York on the day of that game, and was prevailed upon to kick out the first ball.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ I get having devotion, but I also get having to make a living - take the job at the Polo Grounds for God sakes.

I'm surprised soccer didn't gain a better footing (tee-hee) considering the built in fan base of immigrants it had. Or did they - as was the meme (I hate what the Millennials did to this word) of the time - want their kids to play baseball not soccer?

I get it was part of the times and part of her shtick (I think I'm using it correctly), but come on Marylyn, that's the dress and those are the shoes in which you chose to kick a soccer ball. When I read about her life, I feel sorry for her, but her public image - the amped up va va voom - turns me off to her.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

National League Park, Chicago, Cubs vs. Giants, Aug. 30, 1908

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Not sure where these are...my eyes can't read the small print, lol.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have always wondered how she managed to walk across the outfield grass in those shoes. Ooowee.

I think it was probably peer influence more than parental influence that geared kids to baseball -- baseball was integrated into the Brooklyn culture in a way that transcended any other sport. Cooperstown myth to the contrary, if there is any community that can be truly said to be the birthplace of the Game, it's Brooklyn -- which was a hotbed of amateur "base ball clubs" going back to the 1840s, and even during the heyday of the Dodgers, there was a bubbling culture of amateur and semi-pro ball in the borough: a semi-pro club called the Bushwicks was probably better than the Browns, Athletics, or Phillies during the years just before the war, and attracted many future and past major leaguers and big crowds to watch them play Negro League teams, the House of David, and other barnstormers. Compared to all that, soccer was still a niche game.

Former Dodger Dazzy Vance suits up for the Bushwicks and prepares to face some old fat guy on the Bay Parkways.

 

[2jakes]

Not sure where these are...my eyes can't read the small print, lol.

View attachment 87080 View attachment 87081
Rob

I can’t either....had to go all the way to Congress!

 

[2jakes]

Gilmore Stadium

I’ve been relying on this more and more as time goes by!

 

[Fading Fast]

Gilmore Stadium
View attachment 87110

I’ve been relying on this more and more as time goes by!
View attachment 87111

With my glasses, I have 20/20 vision and I've been relying on a magnifying glass more and more as well as labels, in particular, are being printed smaller and smaller for some reason.

Yesterday, I had the magnifying glass out and was standing by the window for maximum light to read the teeny tinny label on our mold and mildew spray bottle (it's a miracle of printing that they were able to get that many words in that small a space).

And don't even get me started on the microscopic Sanskrit that many expiration date are printed in - those are clearly not intended to be read.

Cool sweater on the kid though.

 

[2jakes]

With my glasses, I have 20/20 vision and I've been relying on a magnifying glass more and more as well as labels, in particular, are being printed smaller and smaller for some reason.

Yesterday, I had the magnifying glass out and was standing by the window for maximum light to read the teeny tinny label on our mold and mildew spray bottle (it's a miracle of printing that they were able to get that many words in that small a space).

And don't even get me started on the microscopic Sanskrit that many expiration date are printed in - those are clearly not intended to be read.

Cool sweater on the kid though.

In my neck of the woods we have warning labels.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Before Ebbets was a field, it was a man -- Charles Hercules Ebbets Sr., a man who loved baseball and his hometown in equal measure.

Charley Ebbets devoted over forty years of his life to Brooklyn baseball. He had no particular skill as a player, but a more devoted fan you'd be hard-pressed to name. He followed the famous amateur clubs of the 1870s, the Eckfords and the Atlantics, and when Brooklyn got a professional club in the Inter-State League in 1883, 23-year-old Charley Ebbets went to work for it as an all-purpose clerk, bookkeeper, and concession vendor. He learned the business of baseball from the lowest levels up, and didn't miss a detail along the way. The Brooklyn club joined the major-league American Association in 1884, and the National League in 1890, and Ebbets advanced thru the organization as interest in the team grew, buying stock as it became available and emerging as President in 1898. Along the way he invented the rain check ticket -- an institution that remains with us to this day -- and the inverse-standings draft system still followed to this day by most professional sports leagues.

In 1902, Charley Ebbets saved major league baseball in Brooklyn, when investors tied to Baltimore interests announced plans to buy a majority interest in the club in order to transfer the team to that city. Ebbets hocked everything he owned to buy that stock himself, declaring that the ballclub truly belonged not to any one man, but to the people of Brooklyn. He considered himself merely the caretaker.

The team, then known as the Superbas, played in Washington Park, a ramshackle wooden firetrap hard by the Gowanus Canal, but Ebbets wanted something more substantial for his fans -- and focused on a marginally-developed section of land east of Prospect Park occupied mostly by farmers. An odiferous pit in the middle of the plot served as a communal garbage dump, where the farmers brought their pigs to feed -- hence the name "Pigtown." Land in Pigtown was cheap, and Ebbets began buying up individual small lots piecemeal, hiding his purpose behind a dummy corproation, until he was ready to announce his true purpose. "Baseball is in its infancy," he declared in revealing plans for his elegant new ballpark, with its Itailan marble ticket rotunda and its graceful brick archwork.

Ebbets spent every cent he had to build Ebbets Field, and had to sell a half interest in the team to contractors Steve and Ed McKeever to raise the rest of the money he needed. The Ebbets-McKeever Exhibition Company owned the new park, with the ball club as its prime tenant. Brooklyn won its first pennant of the modern era in 1916, and followed it up with another in 1920, and Charley Ebbets dreamed of a prosperous future. But it was not to be -- he experienced financial , personal, and physical problems thruout the early 1920s, and died of heart failure in 1925. He was not yet 65 years old. The Dodger-GIant doubleheader at Ebbets Field scheduled on the day of his death went ahead as planned -- because, his family declared, Charley wouldn't have wanted anyone to miss a game on account of him.

Charley Ebbets was buried in a simple, unostentatious grave at Greenwood Cemetery. Thirty-five years later, the shattered rubble of his ballpark joined him there as cemetery landfill.

In 2008, fifty years after he accomplished what a cabal of Baltimore investors had been prevented from doing, Walter F. O'Malley was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. A hundred and fifteen years after he saved baseball in Brooklyn, paving the way for arguably the strongest emotional bond between public and team that has ever existed in the Game, Charley Ebbets remains outside the Hall. Is that justice?

 

[2jakes]

Reprising my “Ebbets Field” stompers!

 

[2jakes]

Warming up.
Joe’s last season in the big leagues. Photo by Charles M. Conlon @ Polo Grounds. 1920.