October 28, 2004

Searchable Archives

I found them while searching for old baseball cards, but there's so much more. Hours of fascination for those with a love of history.

The US Library of Congress Online Collections Finder.

Posted by: Ted at 05:43 AM | category: History
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October 27, 2004

Historical Baseball Cards Online

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, 2,100 early baseball cards dating from 1887 to 1914.

And here's a nifty site that includes some 30,000 vintage baseball card photos (click the "OBC Specials" button), and an article about Topps, the all-time king of baseball cards, and some of their more obscure card sets and collections (click their "Library" button, then select the "Topps Insert, Test And Supplemental Baseball Issues 1949-1980"). It sounds dry, but there's a ton of interesting history to be found inside.

Years ago (1938 to be precise) four brothers, Abram, Ira, Joseph and Philip Shorin, erstwhile cigar manufacturers, established a chewing gum company in Brooklyn (where else?). Wanting to select a name that would let the public know how good their gum was and they settled on Topps (the extra "p" was for effect) and unwittingly created what was to become the largest bubble gum card entity in the Western Hemisphere. At some point, most probably toward the end of World War II, or just after, they began marketing their famous Bazooka bubble gum and yet another American institution was born. Looking for ways to increase product exposure, Abram hit upon the idea of packaging their bubble gum with trading cards. This was in 1948 and things have never been the same...

Newer Rocket Jones readers might not have seen my personal collection. It's small but dear to my heart.

Posted by: Ted at 05:28 AM | category: History
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October 26, 2004

Baseball Oddities

Just for fun, I googled the phrase "Baseball Oddities" and here's a sampling of what popped up.

"Despite my enduring respect, there are many attributes of the game that make me scratch my head." -- Aaron Arkin.

Four things that don't really make sense: Pitchers that can't hit, arguing balls and strikes, coaches in uniforms and pitchers wearing a windbreaker when they run the bases.

Here's a quiz about odd baseball stats and trivia. It's tough, I only scored 6 correct out of 15!

In May, 2001, Baseball Digest printed an article about the Nine Strangest Major League Games. Good stuff.

This next one had me laughing. A Day at the Ballpark - with Middle-Schoolers. In it, the author talks about a surreal day watching the Oakland A's taking on the Boston Red Sox.

Middle schooler: How much for the sodas?

Vendor: Three dollars.

Middle schooler (with a very sarcastic look on his face): No, for reals, how much?

Vendor : (remains silent, but obviously thinking of a very bad word)


Finally (I'm tired of typing, there's plenty more to choose from), this site is a baseball blog by a stats fanatic who does the analysis on the most undeserving selections to the All-Star Team. As expected, there's a lot of great players who made it long after their prime, getting there on reputation alone.

Posted by: Ted at 05:46 AM | category: History
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October 25, 2004

McGillicuddy and McGraw

Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy changed his last name and became forever known as Connie Mack. After eleven seasons as a catcher in the major leagues, he managed for a couple of years and then bought the Philadelphia Athletics in 1901. When New York Giants manager John McGraw called the Athletics "a white elephant nobody wanted," Mack adopted a white elephant as the team's logo, which the Athletics have used off and on ever since.

Connie Mack loved baseball, but he never let himself forget that it was a business.

... he once confided that it was more profitable to have a team get off to a hot start, then ultimately finish fourth. "A team like that will draw well enough during the first part of the season to show a profit for the year, and you don't have to give the players raises when they don't win," he said. The most famous example of Mack's tight-fistedness came on July 10, 1932, when the Athletics played a one-game series with the Cleveland Indians. To save train fare, Mack only brought two pitchers. The starting pitcher was knocked out of the game in the first inning, leaving only knuckleballing relief pitcher Eddie Rommel. Rommel pitched 17 innings and gave up 33 hits, but won the game, 18-17.

Mr. Mack managed the A's until 1951, when he retired at age 81. In all, he managed 7,878 games, ending up with 3,776 wins and 4,025 losses. Each of those numbers is the major league record.

In the 1890's, the Baltimore Orioles were first a National League team before moving to the American League. Their 3rd baseman during those years was John McGraw. He displayed a talent for innovation within the game and his desire to win was fierce. Among his credits, he helped develop the hit-and-run and suicide squeeze play. McGraw was an excellent player, hitting over .320 nine seasons in a row and leading the majors in runs scored twice.

After retiring from the field, he took charge as manager of the New York Giants. In 31 years as manager, his teams won 10 pennants, finished second 11 times and took home three World Series trophies.

His 2,840 wins rank only behind Connie Mack in baseball history. On July 6, 1933, John McGraw came out of retirement to manage the NL in the first All-Star Game. He died less than a year later.

One interesting article I found while researching this talks about John McGraw and the Negro Leagues.

McGraw was a man ahead of his time. He tried to sneak a man past baseball's Color Barrier nearly fifty years before Branch Rickey. In 1901 as a manager of the old Baltimore Orioles McGraw brought second baseman Charlie Grant to training camp. Claiming that Grant was actually "Chief Tokohama," a Native American, McGraw hoped to use Grant's talents in the coming year's pennant chase. The problem with this was that Grant was by no means a Native American. He had played the previous year for the Columbia Giants, a Negro Leagues outfit. Charles Comiskey caught wind of this and the hammer came down. That season Charlie Grant again played for the Columbia Giants.

The article has plenty more about not just John McGraw, but other players who could look past race and enjoy playing the game with other men who loved it too.

Posted by: Ted at 05:07 AM | category: History
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October 24, 2004

Dizzy Dean and the Gashouse Gang

In 1934, the St. Louis Cardinals fielded possibly their best-ever team. Loud, bold and brash, they became known as "The Gashouse Gang", and can be summed up thus:

"It ain't braggin' if you can do it." --Dizzy Dean

Featuring the pitching duo of "Dizzy" and "Daffy" (Jay and Paul, respectively), the Dean brothers combined for 49 wins that year. The team also boasted exceptional fielders and hitters like Joe "Ducky" Medwick, Pepper Martin and Enos Slaughter.

The Gashouse Gang won the World Series in seven games over the Detroit Tigers, with each Dean brother picking up two wins.

In 1947, six years after retiring from baseball, Dizzy Dean was the sportscaster for the St. Louis Browns. The Browns were terrible year after year, and probably best known for bringing in a pinch-hitting midget. In exasperation, Dizzy one day stated on the air that he could do better than the team on the field. Management took him up on the boast and allowed him to start the last game of the season. Dizzy Dean took the mound, allowed no runs in four innings, and rapped a double in his only at bat.

Posted by: Ted at 05:46 AM | category: History
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October 23, 2004

Before there was Bill Buckner

Forever identified in baseball lore for "Merkle's Boner", 19 year old Fred Merkle was first baseman for the New York Giants when the blunder happened.

The play itself was clouded by contradictory affidavits by players, conflicting opinions by various baseball officials, and protests lodged by both teams over the umpires' handling of the incident.

The confusion started when Merkle, the runner on first, failed to touch second after an apparent game-winning base hit. Instead, he turned back toward the dugout, as was customary at the time, when he saw the run cross the plate. As the happy Polo Grounds crowd filed across the field towards the centerfield gate, second baseman Johnny Evers got the ball and stepped on second, claiming a forceout which negated the winning run. With the fans already crowding the field, the game could not be played to a decision, and had to be replayed.


When the Cubs and Giants ended the season in a tie, the Cubs won the rematch, sending them to the World Series.

Fred Merkle played in three World Series with the NY Giants, another with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and a fifth with the Chicago Cubs, and all ended up losing. In 1926 he was a coach for the New York Yankees when they made it to the World Series, and they lost too.

Fred Merkle never won the World Series, but he made it there six times. Not many players can say that.

If you're feeling a sense of deja vu about this post, it's because I covered the exact same subject last year during the World Series. Doh!

Posted by: Ted at 04:39 AM | category: History
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October 22, 2004

Heinie, Hack, Stuffy and Amos

Who? Just four of the guys who played on the last Boston Red Sox team to win a World Series, in 1918.

From the book Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox, by Allan J. Wood:

In 1918, the United States was struggling through the first World War. An epidemic of influenza took the lives of more than 650,000 Americans. Fuel shortages and food rationing were daily facts of life. Against this chaotic backdrop, the Red Sox began their quest for an unprecedented fifth World Series title. And a young Boston player named Babe Ruth began his historic transformation from ace pitcher to the greatest slugger the game has ever known.

This nifty site is a treasure trove of baseball history and links. For instance, this page shows who played where that season for the Beantown Boys. You can click on the player's names too to go to bio pages.

This page links to the box scores for the series (in six games over the Cubs), and here's a chronological list of baseball happenings that year.

Grab a dog and a brew, and enjoy some baseball history.

Posted by: Ted at 06:10 AM | category: History
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October 16, 2004

Monitors in a vacuum

Last night on the History Channel I watched a show that touched on the famous battle between the ironclads Monitor and the Merrimac.

For some reason (ok, it's my limited imagination, satisfied?), I never thought of the Monitor as anything but a one-off, a unique design that fit the circumstances of the moment. I knew that because of the low freeboard - only 12" above the surface of the water - the original Monitor sank during an attempt to navigate the open ocean. What I didn't know was that because of the success of the original Monitor, six further classes of that type of warship were built by the US.

The nine ships of the Canonicus class displaced 2,100 tons and were supposed to have a top speed of 8 knots, though they never quite reached it. Armament consisted of two 15-inch Dahlgren guns mounted in a revolving armored turret, and ship's crew was 100 officers and men. Like all monitors, they were designed for river and close coastal work.

From this nice site about Civil War Monitors:

Five of these nine ships saw action during the Civil War. The Canonicus operated in the James River, then in blockade service, and in attacks on Fort Fisher: the Saugus saw extensive service in the James River and in the assault on Wilmington; the Tecumseh operated in the James River, then in the Gulf of Mexico. It was mined in Mobile Bay on 5 August 1864 and sunk almost immediately; the Manhattan operated also in the Gulf of Mexico, including attacks on Mobile Bay; the Mahopac participated in the attacks on Charleston and Wilmington, and also operated in the James and Appomattox Rivers. The Wyandotte, the Ajax, the Catawaba and the Oneota were never commissioned.

Peru later bought two of the US ironclads, which participated (rather ineffectually) in their war against Chile.

There are some fine photographs here of various classes of monitors, showing the variations and evolution that they underwent during their run. If for no other reason, they are remarkable for transforming modern naval warfare from the classic "steer the entire boat to aim a broadside" into the flexible tactics allowed by turretted arms used ever since.

The last of the type, the USS Cheyenne, was decommissioned in 1937.

Posted by: Ted at 06:57 AM | category: History
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October 08, 2004

F. H. Hogue was a dirty old man

Or maybe it was just truth in advertising. Either way, enjoy these authentic vintage produce labels (in the extended entry - pinup quality stuff, no nudity). more...

Posted by: Ted at 05:49 AM | category: History
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