The Oneida County History Center will host a virtual talk by Lou Parrotta, the City of Utica Historian, on the history of baseball in the Mohawk Valley, and the local players who made it to the Major Leagues, set for Wednesday, August 12th. [Read more…] about Mohawk Valley Baseball History Virtual Talk
Baseball
Baseball on the Erie Canal Virtual Talk
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site has announced a virtual presentation by Derrick Pratt of the Erie Canal Museum, who will discuss the Erie Canal’s many connections to the earliest days of professional baseball. [Read more…] about Baseball on the Erie Canal Virtual Talk
Life After Baseball (Podcast)
This week on The Historians Podcast, Brad Balukjian tracks down ballplayers from a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 for his book The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2020). [Read more…] about Life After Baseball (Podcast)
‘Prince Hal’ Schumacher: A North Country Baseball Legend
A celebrity sports delegation attended the Saint Lawrence University commencement on June 12, 1933.
“It was the first occasion that a major league ball team had ever came here to see one of their number receive his degree,” the Ogdensburg Journal reported. “In fact, it was the first time that such a ball team ever came to the village.”
Twenty-two members of the New York Giants were at the university campus at Canton to see standout pitcher Harold Henry “Prince Hal” Schumacher graduate. [Read more…] about ‘Prince Hal’ Schumacher: A North Country Baseball Legend
Ballston Spa’s Abner Doubleday and Baseball
This week’s guest on The Historians Podcast is Ballston Spa author and historian David Fiske who questions the persistent claim that Ballston Spa native and Civil War general Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown. [Read more…] about Ballston Spa’s Abner Doubleday and Baseball
Baseball Legend Cy Seymour’s Final Resting Place
In 1905, Professional baseball player James Bentley “Cy” Seymour (1878-1919), led the National League, and all of professional baseball, in batting with a .377 average, hits with 219 and runs-batted-in with 121 with the Cincinnati Reds. He played for the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, and the New York Giants throughout his career.
After his professional career he worked in wartime jobs in the Speedway shipyards and Bush terminal in New York City. While working in the shipyards, he contracted tuberculosis, and died at his home on September 20, 1919. He was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery, Lot 46, Section 15. [Read more…] about Baseball Legend Cy Seymour’s Final Resting Place
19th Century Baseball In The Catskills
The Time and The Valleys Museum is set to host the Mountain Athletic Club (MAC) of Fleischmanns and the Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn at the Grahamsville Fairgrounds in Sullivan County for a nineteenth century baseball showcase, on Saturday, August 24. [Read more…] about 19th Century Baseball In The Catskills
Abner Doubleday’s 200th Birthday Celebration Set For Ballston Spa
Members of the Saratoga County History Roundtable and Brookside Museum are set to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abner Doubleday’s birth on June 26, 2019 in Ballston Spa. [Read more…] about Abner Doubleday’s 200th Birthday Celebration Set For Ballston Spa
Golfer Babe Ruth Played at Plattsburgh’s Hotel Champlain
Babe Didrikson’s visit to the North Country in 1934 was historic, especially for Plattsburgh, where it was acknowledged as one of the greatest moments in the city’s history. She was an American hero (thanks to a startling performance in the 1932 Olympics), undeniably one of the world’s top athletes, and a phenomenon because of her high levels of talent in various sports. Plattsburgh’s remote location in New York’s northeast corner makes it difficult to get noticed, so Didrikson’s visit was regarded as a major coup.
Coincidentally, she wasn’t the only Babe from the stratosphere of sports fame to visit Plattsburgh in the 1930s. Even more unlikely is that both Babes were among the most famous athletes in America, and both were able competitors in sports other than the one that brought them the greatest fame. Didrikson, a track-and-field gold medalist, brought her basketball team to Plattsburgh, while Babe Ruth, a baseball giant, came north to play in an international golf tournament. [Read more…] about Golfer Babe Ruth Played at Plattsburgh’s Hotel Champlain
Vintage Baseball Reproductions Available from NYC Archives
Heralding the official opening of the major league baseball, the NYC Department of Records & Information Services has announced the sale of unique baseball reproduction historical photographs and illustrations from the Municipal Archives collection.
Highlights include reproductions of original architectural drawings of Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, and photographs of bygone champions such as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. [Read more…] about Vintage Baseball Reproductions Available from NYC Archives