Stanky On The Basepaths
posted 5 months ago | 2 comments
Eddie Stanky was quoted as saying that if it meant being safe on a close play, he’d spike his own mother. I’m not certain he really said that, or if he said it, whether he truly would have done it, but I am certain that everyone who played against...
Eddie Stanky At Bat
posted 6 months ago | 1 comment
As leadoff batter, Stanky would step into the batter’s box at the start of a game, and just as the pitcher began his windup, Stanky would throw up his hand, step out of the batter’s box and ask for a time out. An imaginary speck of dirt has flown ...
Stanky Ball
posted 6 months ago | 4 comments
After nine years making enemies of Giant fans as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Leo Durocher replaced Mel Ott as manager of the New York Giants halfway through the 1948 season. To rub the salt in deeper, when the season ended, he traded Willard ...
Baseball Today
posted 6 months ago | 0 comments
I love the game of baseball, be it sandlot, Little League, minor league, women’s softball, or best of all, Big League. At the same time, I do not love the business of baseball or the way the new owners have turned their backs on old baseball tradi...
Way things Used To Be 40--Big Business Baseball 2
posted 7 months ago | 2 comments
Continued from Big Business Baseball Part 1)
Finley abandoned Kansas City in 1968 and moved his Athletics to Oakland where their fortunes, but not their attendance, quickly improved. (They were replaced by the Kansas City Royals, which under Manag...
Finley abandoned Kansas City in 1968 and moved his Athletics to Oakland where their fortunes, but not their attendance, quickly improved. (They were replaced by the Kansas City Royals, which under Manag...
Way things Used To Be 39--Big Business Baseball
posted 7 months ago | 1 comment
During baseball’s golden years, the teams were owned by men who treasured the game and dabbled at the business. In the 1950s the teams got bought by corporations whose executives treasured the business of and dabbled at the game. These new owners ...
Way Things Used To Be 38--The Decline of Baseball
posted 8 months ago | 0 comments
After the Giants and Dodgers abandoned New York City and moved to California in 1958, the changes in Major League baseball accelerated. In 1961 the original Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis, took the name “Twins,” and a replacement team th...
Way Things Used To Be 37-Baseball's Golden Years
posted 9 months ago | 2 comments
When I saw my first Major League game baseball was known as “America’s Favorite Game,” and “The National Pastime.” That was back in 1940 when there were sixteen Major League teams, all in the Northeast and Midwest, all at most an overnight train-r...
Way Things Used To Be 36--The Polo Grounds
posted 9 months ago | 0 comments
Just as the history of the United States has been tied to the geography of North America, so the history of New York Giants baseball was tied to the asymmetrical bathtub shape of the Polo Grounds.
The playing area was 550 feet long from the backst...
The playing area was 550 feet long from the backst...
Way Things Used To Be 35--New York Giants Baseball
posted 9 months ago | 0 comments
The week after my father bought me my first mitt, he took me to my first ballgame at the Polo Grounds to see how Major Leaguers played the game. I was hooked by the sheer beauty of the place before the game even started—the perfect green diamond o...
