BATTER UP!

[LizzieMaine]

Paramount News covers the 1946 All Star Game at Fenway Park, featuring Ted Williams' home run of Rip Sewell's famous Ephus Pitch.

Plus, if you ever wanted to see and hear a seal imitating a tobacco auctioneer, you'll find it here. The Eyes and Ears of The World!

 

[2jakes]

Perhaps Ruth’s most interesting and famous comment on the Called Shot came during a conversation with Ford Frick, his ghostwriter who eventually became baseball's commissioner. Several years after the game, Frick tried to get a clear answer out of Ruth. “Did you really point to the bleachers?” he asked.

Doubtless tired of answering yet another inquiry or maybe not wanting to lie to his friend, Ruth replied, “It’s in the papers, isn’t it? Why don’t you read the papers? It’s all right there in the papers.
From The Web

 

[LizzieMaine]

Charlie Root: "I'd have set him on his ass if he'd done that."

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Yeah, I never saw that as him calling the shot...I'm sure he knew Root would drill him, if he did.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Go wan, ya big gorilla. Point. I dare ya."

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ I do not want to be on the receiving end of a fastball to the head from that serious looking man.

 

[vitanola]

109 years ago last Saturday.

Merkle's Boner.

 

[Harp]

A great ode to the Hot Dog: Sports Illustrated, July 3-10/17 Steve Rushin's featured review, Meat, Pray, Love

 

[LizzieMaine]

With all the debate lately about the National Anthem and sporting events, here's the woman who started it all: Miss Gladys Goodding, who occupied the organ booth at Ebbets Field from 1942 to 1957.

Goodding, a veteran of silent movies and radio, was the first full-time ballpark organist in the history of American professional sports, hired by Dodger GM Larry MacPhail to fill gaps between innings and entertain patrons before the game. She invented the idea of specific "theme songs" for individual ballplayers, and institutionalized the idea of playing the Mexican Hat Dance during the 7th inning stretch, with fans encouraged to clap along -- a tradition that many other teams adopted into the 1970s. She also composed the team fight song, "Follow The Dodgers," which she played as the team took the field in the first inning of every game, and again as spectators were exiting after the contest.

It was during the 1942 season that the Dodgers, under orders from MacPhail, who was about to go into the Army, began playing the Star Spangled Banner before every home game. Not every team followed along with this -- as late as 1950, Red Barber, when airing Dodger games over the nationwide CBS network, felt obligated to explain to listeners outside New York that the Anthem was played before *every* game in Brooklyn, not just on special occasions. It wasn't until the mid-fifties that all teams fell in line with the new tradition.

Goodding not only played the Anthem, she always sang along as well, in a rather hearty operatic contralto. Here she is playing the anthem before Game 7 of the 1952 World Series.

Goodding had little fondness for Walter F. O'Malley, and was understandably left behind when the team went west. She was offered the job as organist for the Mets in 1962, but declined, claiming her health was too frail to make it up to the Polo Grounds -- or maybe she was just another Brooklyn loyalist who saw the place as enemy territory. But she worked right up until her death in 1963 as the organist for Madison Square Garden and the New York Rangers -- and until the day she died she always played "Follow The Dodgers" at least once in at each performance.

 

[2jakes]

A league of Their Own.

First players signed to the AAGPBL in 1943.
Back, L-R: Claire Schillace, Ann Harnett and Edythe Perlick.
Seated: Shirley Jameson.

“Pepper” Paire-Davis, the inspiration for Dottie Hinson,
the role played by Geena Davis.
I met the real Dottie at a conference. A really nice person
to talk to, she gave me her photo which she signed for me.

Another “Dottie”

Dorothy Schroeder, (shortstop) was the only girl who played all 12 seasons
for the AAGPBL. She played from 1943 through 1954.
Listed at 5 ft. 7 in,150 lbs. Schroeder batted & threw right.

That’s gotta hurt!

 

[Ghostsoldier]

National League Park, Chicago, July 23 thd, 1904

Opening day, N.Y. base ball club

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Polo Grounds, New York, Oct. 13, 1910

Rob

 

[2jakes]

Polo Grounds, New York, Oct. 13, 1910

View attachment 87911
View attachment 87912
Rob

Note the plethora of derby hats!
You’d probably be considered “neked” without a hat back then!

The derby was mostly associated with urban society.

 

[Fading Fast]

Note the plethora of derby hats!
You’d probably be considered “neked” without a hat back then!
View attachment 87913


Makes me wonder if these hats were made special for the boys!
View attachment 87914

View attachment 87917
The derby was mostly associated with urban society.

We've talked a lot over years about the "death" of the hat and how much more casual dress in general has become - both pretty true, but a variation on these themes is how amazingly homogenous hat attire was at that game (plenty of non-derby hats, but clearly the derby dominates). I've seen similar pictures form the first few decades of the 1900s where 80% percent of the men at a game or fair or something all have on a similar boater style hat. Nothing dominates today the way similar hats seemed to back then.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing to remember with that particular photo is that the Giants at the time catered largely to the downtown business crowd -- their games started at 330pm to allow the Wall Street bunch to get up to Harlem in time for the first pitch, and the derby was, at the time, the hat du jour among that crowd.

By the time of the Era, of course, the derby suggested something different -- you were either a tough mug, Andrew H. Brown, or Al Smith.

 

[2jakes]

Or...

By the time of the Era, of course, the derby suggested something different -- you were either a tough mug, Andrew H. Brown, or Al Smith.

I’ll drink to that!

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Babe's one involvement in politics was his campaigning for Smith in 1928, and he did it in his own distinctive style. One memorable afternoon Ruth was among the celebrities attending a rally for Smith at the Hotel Biltmore, along with his teammates Lou Gehrig, Waite Hoyt, and Tony Lazzeri. Someone invited the Babe to mount the dais and say a few words on behalf of the candidate, which he did -- only to run out of steam. He fumbled around for a bit and saw Lazzeri sitting down the table, and invited him up. "Here's Tony Lazzeri, folks!" he declared in his most jovial tones. "He'll tell ya who all the wops are gonna vote for!"

It is not recorded what Lazzeri said in response.

 

[2jakes]

It is not recorded what Lazzeri said in response.

He said...

 

[2jakes]

1920s mania for baseball and straw hats!

 

[2jakes]

Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers
1911