04/18/24
October 18, 2013
An oldie but a goodie: Gene Mack's annotated sketches of all the major league parks, as they appeared in the 1946-47 Sporting News.
posted by DrJohnEvans to baseball at 04:39 PM - 5 comments
I saw a game at Tiger Stadium (formerly Navin Field and Briggs Stadium) before they switched over to Comerica Park. Interesting field, but it was really showing its age and I'm pretty sure it was a good idea to move when they did.
posted by grum@work at 08:53 PM on October 18, 2013
The Polo Grounds haunts my dreams. Maybe it was a dump. I'll never know. Wish I could have gone there just once. For any game, football or baseball.
posted by beaverboard at 11:08 PM on October 18, 2013
Thank you, Dr. John, for stirring up a lot of childhood memories. I remember Gene Mack's cartoons in the Boston Globe. He did them for almost every big event in Boston, political, sporting, cultural, or whatever, but it was his cartoons about the teams like Bruins and Red Sox, Harvard and BC football, crew races on the Charles River that were his trademark. The cartoons of Fenway Park and Braves Field really got me going, but 1946-1947 was just a little bit before I began to understand baseball. Still, I remember the parks and my dad telling me some of the lore about them. I also had the pleasure of a game in Briggs Stadium during the mid-1950s. My sister had married a guy from Detroit, and my parents and I visited one summer. It would have been 1956 or so. We sat in the upper deck along the 1st base line - great seats and a really good Detroit team. That was the time of Al Kaline, Charlie Maxwell, Norm Cash, and the like. There were some really good times watching baseball in the old stadiums, and in Fenway Park before it was re-done. Baseball's still great, but I miss the old days.
On edit: I nearly forgot what was my favorite Gene Mack creation. He drew a cartoon featuring a school bus regarding high school football in the greater Boston area. All of the unbeaten teams were depicted riding the bus, and as a team would fall from the ranks of the unbeaten, a cartoon player representing the school would be depicted falling off the bus. I followed the cartoon avidly every week, usually with great envy for the teams that continued their ride. Somehow, my home town never seemed to stay long on the bus.
posted by Howard_T at 11:35 PM on October 18, 2013
Thank you, Dr.John. Ahhh, the memories!!! My first big league game was at the Polo Grounds--during the Mets' inaugural season. Looking back at it now, it was really a dump by then. But to an eight-year-old kid going to his first game it was a real adventure!
posted by billinnagoya at 03:14 AM on October 19, 2013
Love it ... I was fortunate to attend one game in Shibe Park (after it was renamed in honor of Connie Mack) about a month before the Phillies' final game before they moved to the Vet. They had erected a giant scoreboard in front of the RF fence.
It likely would be a pain for them, but I would love to see MLB Network search for, and show, games from the old-time stadiums. A number of these were still around in the mid-60's; would be nice to see them.