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
Baseball
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
Nineteenth-Century Baseball Myths, History (Podcast)
The Opening Day of Baseball edition of the Capital District Civil War Round Table Podcast features Tim Wiles, the former director of research at the Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown and current director of the Guilderland Public Library.
Tim talked about his time in Cooperstown, the Doubleday Myth, Troy-native Johnny Evers, the story behind ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ the services offered by the Guilderland Public Library, and much more. [Read more…] about Nineteenth-Century Baseball Myths, History (Podcast)
Rochester, Baseball and History
Baseball is our innocent pastime. Marked by stateliness and decorum, the game largely excludes the messiness and cruelty of the outside world. Saturday, July 25, 1959, was one of those rare occasions when history intruded on the grassy diamond. That evening, the simple game of pitching, hitting, and fielding became entangled with revolution, gunfire, and cold war politics.
The game took place in the sweltering atmosphere of Havana, Cuba. The Rochester Red Wings were playing the home team, known as the Sugar Kings. Along with the Syracuse Chiefs and Buffalo Bisons, Rochester was an upstate member of the triple-A International League, which included teams from Havana, Montreal and Toronto. [Read more…] about Rochester, Baseball and History
Brooklyn Dodgers Lecture at Old Stone Fort Museum
The next lecture in the Old Stone Fort Museum Winter Lecture Series has been set for Sunday, March 25th at 1 pm, with “A Night with the 1950 Brooklyn Dodgers of Old”, presented by local attorney and former Dodgers ball boy Marv Parshall Sr.
Parshall will share his recollections, stories and anecdotes of his time sharing a dugout with baseball legends such as Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. [Read more…] about Brooklyn Dodgers Lecture at Old Stone Fort Museum
Bloomers and Baseball at Peterboro Women’s History Weekend Sept 22-24
The Peterboro Women’s History Weekend will be held September 22-24, 2017. The name for this years weekend is taken from a 2016 biography of Elizabeth Smith Miller Ballots, Bloomers, and Marmalade written by Norman K. Dann PhD, biographer of Elizabeth’s father Gerrit Smith.
Miller is most famous for the trouser outfit that she wore to Seneca Falls to visit her cousin Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton introduced Miller to Amelia Bloomer who wrote about the healthy costume in her newspaper The Lily. Women’s rights activists began wearing the reform dress against much negative press and scathing public protest. [Read more…] about Bloomers and Baseball at Peterboro Women’s History Weekend Sept 22-24
Larry Wittner: A Short, Happy Life As A Baseball Fanatic
As a child, I was a baseball fanatic.
This fanaticism did not reflect any athletic ability on my part. Far from it! Growing up, like Bernie Sanders, in a lower middle class area of Brooklyn during the 1940s, I was often pressed into joining baseball games with the other boys in my neighborhood. But I was a terrible fielder, as well as a mediocre hitter. Stationed at my usual post in right field, I almost invariably missed the few fly balls or ground balls that headed my way. Also, when I finally caught up with them, I often managed no more than an inaccurate throw to the frantic infielders. When local kids chose up sides before the game, the organizers usually made me one of their last selections. Who can blame them? [Read more…] about Larry Wittner: A Short, Happy Life As A Baseball Fanatic
Old Time Utica Ballplayer George Burns
Sports enthusiast Mike Hauser has a personal stake in advocating National Baseball Hall of Fame status for George Joseph Burns, who played his best years with the New York Giants. Burns was the brother of Hauser’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side.
Burns is being inducted into the Fulton County Baseball and Sports Hall of Fame on July 11th during the annual vintage baseball game. [Read more…] about Old Time Utica Ballplayer George Burns