BATTER UP!

[2jakes]

Babe Ruth makes front headlines in Washington Post.
from The FBI Story (1959)

LizzieMaine.....really?

The FBI Story: Stewart at Herzog's Seafood, Wash. DC.

 

[2jakes]

 

[2jakes]

June 11, 1938

Johnny Vander Meer No Hitter Box Score.

"A truly dominant no-hitter in which only three opposing hitters reached first base and none of them ever went further. Johnny Vander Meer faced the minimum through three then then walked Gene Moore at the top of the fourth. Johnny Cooney hit a deep foul which was caught for the first out and Moore took off for second, but was gunned down when he fell returning back to first. Tony Cuccinello walked in the fifth, but was also gunned down leading off the base a little too far. The only other batter to reach base also walked in the fifth, but was left on base."

"Before the no-hitter against Boston on June eleventh that year I was just a rookie that nobody, but Bill McKechnie knew." - Johnny Vander Meer

Johnny Vander Meer

No Hitter Box Score #1

June 11, 1938 at Crosley Field

LINE UP POS AB R H RBI
Gene Moore

rf 1 0 0 0
Elbie Fletcher

1b 1 0 0 0
c-Ray Mueller

ph 1 0 0 0
Johnny Cooney

1b-rf 3 0 0 0
Vince DiMaggio

cf 2 0 0 0
Tony Cuccinello

2b 2 0 0 0
Bobby Reis

lf 3 0 0 0
Gil English

3b 2 0 0 0
Johnny Riddle

c 3 0 0 0
Rabbit Warstler

ss 2 0 0 0
a-Bob Kahle

ph 1 0 0 0
Danny MacFayden

p 2 0 0 0
b-Harl Maggert

ph 1 0 0 0
Totals 25 0 0 0

 

[LizzieMaine]

In 1965, a forgettable Red Sox righthander named Dave Morehead no-hit the Indians in front of about 1200 people in a meaningless September game at Fenway Park. His next start, against the Angels, he was knocked out of the box in the second inning. "ATTABOY, VANDERMEER!" bellowed a voice in the crowd.

 

[2jakes]

June 13,1905

Giants Christy Mathewson, who, in 1901, became the first rookie in the modern era to throw a no-no, pitches his second career no-hitter, beating the Orphans at Chicago's West Side Grounds, 1-0. Matty and Mordecai Brown match hitless innings until the top of the ninth when the New York reaches the future Hall of Famer for two hits.

 

[2jakes]

June 14, 1933

Joe McCarthy and Lou Gehrig are both thrown out of the game,
with the Yankee manager being suspended for three games.
Fortunately, his first baseman isn't and the 'Iron Horse's' consecutive
game streak stays intact at 1,249 games.

 

[2jakes]

“Hey Joe...whadda ya know”

 

[Fading Fast]

What are people thoughts about baseball's current approach to uniforms?

Here I'm thinking about both the incredible number of uniforms each team seems to have today (with the Mets and Yankees, you never know which uniform they'll show up in on any given day) and the fact that there seems to be no enforced uniformity of how each player should wear the uniform and supporting gear (pants tucked into socks or not, color of cleats, style of t-shirts under the jersey, etc.)?

I'd swear, I've seen the Yankees in more than just these uniforms this year alone (I think I remember some "throwback" days - which are kinda cool):


And just some of the intra-uniform variety:

 

[LizzieMaine]

Don't like it. The profusion of variations are driven purely by the Boys, as a stroll thru any team's Pro Shop will confirm, and I think they dilute the visual impact of seeing your team in *your team's uniform* taking the field. Any fan, if pressed, will admit that we're basically rooting for shirts, and I think it's important for those shirts to have a certain consistency.

One of the things I've always admired about the Yankees is that their home jersey has remained the same since 1936. Lou Gehrig wore that shirt. Joe DiMaggio wore that shirt. Lefty Gomez wore that shirt. Frankie Crosetti wore that shirt. Snuffy Stirnweiss wore that shirt. Jake Gibbs wore that shirt. Horace Clarke wore that shirt. And so on. There's a real sense of continuity there, no matter who's wearing the shirt, and I hate to see them going in for marketing-driven variations. That blue with white sleeves thing looks like something a AA team would wear in 1982, and just isn't YANKEE.

The Red Sox haven't been quite so consistent over the years, and I didn't much care for most their divergences from their standard, although the basic motif has been the same since the late thirties. The basic design worn by the Dodgers goes back to 1938. The basic design the Tigers wear at home goes back to the latter days of Ty Cobb. Even the Mets wear a basic uniform that Ed Kranepool or Choo-Choo Coleman would instantly recognize. That's the type of consistency that means a lot to a long-time rooter for laundry.

As for the pants, I don't see the point of it -- those long sloppy pants look like they'd be more of an encumbrance on the field than not, and they make the player wearing them look gaumy and unathletic. I didn't like that trend of long, skinny, ultra-high-cut stirrups in the 70s and 80s, but at least it made the players wearing that style look sleek and lithe and fast on the playing field, and not like some Sunday-afternoon slob who's trying to crawl out of his Barcalounger to order another platter of hot wings.

Not to say there weren't variations in the past -- Carl Hubbell used to wear his pants half-way down his calves, to the derision of Dodger fans, Johnny Allen used to cut his undershirt sleeves to shreds so they'd flap when the pitched and confuse the batter until the league made him stop. Nellie Fox used to wear uniforms a size too big so they'd flap into the strike zone and increase the chances he'd be hit by a pitch without actually risking injury. And of course, Brother Kluszewski encouraged the Female Gaze by cutting the sleeves entirely off his jersey, the better to show you what a fine specimen of Slavic manhood looks like.

I want the Red Sox to bring back their striped socks, as worn from the 30s to the early 00s. The all-red look is far too Cincinnati to suit me, and I still havent gotten over Game 7 in 1975.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not quite the final Brooklyn game, though. The Dodgers had a final road trip that took them to Philadelphia for three more games to close out the season. The last game they'll ever play (until the revolution) representing Brooklyn was played at Connie Mack Stadium on a desultory Sunday afternoon on the 29th, with the Phils eking out a 2 to 1 win in a game neither team seemed to care one way or another about, wrapping it up in just over two hours.

The broadcast of this game survives. and is proof positive that even Vin Scully didn't always rise to the occasion. He had no idea, at that point, if he'd be invited to move to the Coast with the team or not, and sounds absolutely terrified of saying anything that could get him fired. The possibility of the move is not mentioned at all, and Scully plugs with tepid enthusiasm a special World Series talk show he'd be hosting on WOR-TV for Schaefer Beer, even though it would be the last thing he'd ever do for that sponsor. In his final sign off Scully expresses a rather wan wish that he'll be talking to all "all of you" again in 1958, but then says good bye by noting that it's "all down the drain for 1957." Not exactly his finest hour on the air.

Ebbets Field survived for three more years after the team left, used as a venue for rental events such as pro soccer, college baseball, and special exhibitions of various kinds. The very last baseball game known to have been played there took place in late September of 1959, involving a local youth league made up of 12 year old boys.

The Dodgers still held the lease on the ballpark until January 1960, and during the 1959 World Series the local maintenance staff opened the gates for Dodger fans who wanted to come in and sit in the ballpark and listen to the games on portable radios, as the L. A. Dodgers dueled with the White Sox on their way to their first Western World Championship. A surprising number of spurned souls took them up on their offer, the last doleful act of Dodger fandom in Brooklyn.

 

[2jakes]

September 24,1957:
Brooklyn Dodgers played their final game at EBBETS FIELD.
Danny McDewitt went the distance for the Dodgers, allowing
five hits and striking out nine to pick up his seventh win of
the season.

 

[2jakes]

"Picture Postcards Ready to mail!”
Burt Randolph Sugar

32 famous players reproduced in the form of postcards,
perforated and detachable for mailing.

Bought this book for $3 in the 70s.
Not so much for mailing as postcards, but a chance to see
images of early baseball players.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Ebbets Field survived for three more years after the team left, used as a venue for rental events such as pro soccer, college baseball, and special exhibitions of various kinds. ....

"[P]ro soccer -" US teams or was it foreign teams playing here?

...The broadcast of this game survives. and is proof positive that even Vin Scully didn't always rise to the occasion. He had no idea, at that point, if he'd be invited to move to the Coast with the team or not, and sounds absolutely terrified of saying anything that could get him fired. The possibility of the move is not mentioned at all, and Scully plugs with tepid enthusiasm a special World Series talk show he'd be hosting on WOR-TV for Schaefer Beer, even though it would be the last thing he'd ever do for that sponsor. In his final sign off Scully expresses a rather wan wish that he'll be talking to all "all of you" again in 1958, but then says good bye by noting that it's "all down the drain for 1957." Not exactly his finest hour on the air.....

As opposed to in the movies, sometimes the very heavy weight of life gets to even the best of us.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I want the Red Sox to bring back their striped socks, as worn from the 30s to the early 00s. The all-red look is far too Cincinnati to suit me, and I still havent gotten over Game 7 in 1975.

Did I ever mention that I once played in a series against the Bahamian National Team, and Ed Armbrister was their manager. We talked a bit. He was a nice guy, but said no matter where he goes, the only thing anyone ever asks him about is “The Bunt” in 75. I’m guessing he doesn’t spend much time in Boston.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"[P]ro soccer -" US teams or was it foreign teams playing here?

Both. Soccer was actually quite popular in Brooklyn in the late 1950s, and there was a lot of interest in these games -- the famous pictures of Marilyn Monroe at Ebbets Field were taken at a soccer match, not a baseball game. Soccer had been played at the park for years, even before the Dodgers left, and for the 1958 season an American Soccer League franchise, the New York Hakoah -- made up primarily of Jewish players -- became a primary tenant.

Touring European teams appeared there often as well, regularly drawing over 20,000 people, and occasionally there were even outbursts of Euro-style hooliganism that rivaled anything you'd have seen at a Dodger-Giant game.

The Dodgers still held the lease on the park during these years, so all these events brought extra revenue to Walter F. O'Malley, making it worth his while to keep a skeleton staff in Brooklyn to look after things. The Dodgers kept a small office on Clinton Street until 1960.

As opposed to in the movies, sometimes the very heavy weight of life gets to even the best of us.

Scully has said little over the years about this period, other than the fact that he didn't know what he would have done if he'd lost the job. There was some talk that he might join Red Barber and Mel Allen with the Yankees, and he later said that if he'd gotten such an offer he might have considered it. He was just thirty years old in 1957, despite having worked for the Dodgers for eight years, and you can see why he'd feel uncertain about what was going on, especially since he was born and raised in New York and everything he knew was there. Nobody knew who he was in Los Angeles -- there were already established broadcasters there who'd done PCL games and it was expected they'd get the Dodger jobs.

Eventually O'Malley did invite all three of of his broadcasters -- Scully, Jerry Doggett, and Al Helfer -- to go west. Scully and Doggett -- who'd only been with the club for a little over a year -- accepted, but Helfer, a veteran broadcaster who opposed the move, declined. He stayed in New York, and Anheuser-Busch hired him to broadcast all Dodger road games played in Philadelphia back to New York over WOR-TV, which he continued to do thru 1959. (It's telling that neither Schaefer nor any other Brooklyn-based brewery would have anything to do with such broadcasts, not wanting to put one more cent into Walter F. O'Malley's pockets.) Helfer, who had been Red Barber's first broadcasting partner with the Dodgers back in 1939-40, also had the honor of serving as the MC for the sad little ceremony that initiated the demolition of the ballpark in February 1960.

 

[2jakes]

Oct. 4, 1919

By the 4th game of the 1919 World Series between the champion Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds. Questions were already being asked re "Is The 1919 Series Fixed" which the Cincinnati Reds won.

Following 12 months of investigation and confessions from 2 of the players all eight implicated White Sox were banned from Major League Baseball for life and the first Commissioner of Baseball is created to ensure it never happened again.

 

[Fading Fast]

Stumbled across this on another forum and don't remember if the link was ever posted here. The sleuthing to date the awesome pic is fantastic:

The awesome pic

The awesome sleuthing:
http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-majestic-mystery.html

 

[belfastboy]

Stumbled across this on another forum and don't remember if the link was ever posted here. The sleuthing to date the awesome pic is fantastic:

The awesome pic
View attachment 138370

The awesome sleuthing:
http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-majestic-mystery.html

I want one of those sweaters!

 

[belfastboy]

"Picture Postcards Ready to mail!”
Burt Randolph Sugar
View attachment 137801
32 famous players reproduced in the form of postcards,
perforated and detachable for mailing.
View attachment 137803 View attachment 137804 View attachment 137802
Bought this book for $3 in the 70s.
Not so much for mailing as postcards, but a chance to see
images of early baseball players.

When I coached youth baseball rep teams I would make the kids take infield practice with two old old pancake non laced gloves. Great for teaching prop technique because you can't cheat or get lazy

 

[Fading Fast]

I want one of those sweaters!

J.Peterman used to sell a pretty close version, but it looks like they don't anymore as I couldn't find it on their website.

LC Vintage Baseball Sweater