Category: ARCHIVE

June 20: Lesson in Attendance

JUNE 20, 1948 | CLEVELAND, OHIO – Guess which team set the regular season attendance record on this date in 1948 (the dateline kind of gives it away)? It wasn’t the New York Yankees or some other storied franchise. It was the Cleveland Indians.

The Indians drew 82,781 fans to Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium on this date in 1948 to watch the Indians sweep a doubleheader from the Philadelphia A’s. Cleveland drew exceptionally well that entire year, and for good reason, they won the American League Pennant and beat the Boston Braves in the World Series.

The record for a game that mattered was set during the 1959 World Series when the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox drew 92,720 to the Los Angeles Coliseum, better suited for football, for game 5. The Coliseum was used by the Dodgers while waiting for Dodger Stadium to be built.

Speaking of attendance, it has been generally uphill since the late 1800’s with downturns for major catastrophes such as World Wars and The Great Depression. Attendance usually picks up after those events resolve.

World War I
Year average
1916 5,215 – War goes on but United States not involved.
1917 4,186 – United States enters World War I
1918 3,032 – War still going during the season, ends in November.
1919 5,843 – 1st season after the Armistice

The Great Depression
1929 7,802 – Stock Market crash October
1930 8,211 – Attendance record set. Economic downturn not fully felt yet
1931 6,850 – Depression sets in
1932 5,657 – Depression continues
1933 4,967 – Depression at its worst
1934 5,694 – Some recovery seen
1935 5,982 – More modest recovery
1936 6,529 – More modest recovery
1937 7,216 – Recession sets in, lasts through most of ‘38

World War II
1941 7,789 – Pearl Harbor attacked in December
1942 6,988 – War continues
1943 6,031 – War continues
1944 7,063 – War continues, but attendance increases from previous year
1945 8,814 – Japan surrenders in August, war ends
1946 14,914 – Attendance boom in 1st full season after war ends

The Great Recession – 2007 to 2013

See: http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/2000-2009-mlb-attendance/

2007 – 32,785 Beginning of Great Recession

2008 – 32,694

2009 – 30,206

May 8: Plot Against Jackie Robinson?

MAY 8, 1947 | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – On this date in 1947 the sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune claimed to have uncovered a plot to put Jackie Robinson back behind the color barrier. Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers three weeks earlier. The thrust of sports editor Stanley Woodward’s story is that some members of the St. Louis Cardinals threatened to strike rather than play a team with a black player. Woodward reported that the alleged strike was thwarted by a stern warning from Cardinal team owner Sam Breadon that the league would suspend any player taking part in a strike. Breadon and others denied that any of what Woodward wrote ever took place, but several players were known to be vehemently opposed to Robinson playing and discussions of some kind of job action were not unheard of.

Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947 wasn’t the end of racism in baseball, in many ways it was just the beginning. Before April 15, 1947 there were no blacks in the game to put down, insult, threaten or force to stay in separate hotels. When Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers White baseball and White America had to confront its racism. Some of it was ugly.

And some of it was hopeful, such as later that May in Cincinnati. Robinson was being taunted mercilessly until shortstop and team captain Pee Wee Reese, a White man from Kentucky, walked across the infield and put his arm around Robinson’s shoulder to show baseball and all of America that a White man born in segregated Ekron, Kentucky and a black man born in Cairo, Georgia were in this together.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
The Era: 1947-1957: When the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants Ruled the World, by Roger Kahn
Baseball’s Greatest Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Great Legacy, by Jules Tygie

MAY 15: Cobb out of control

MAY 15, 1912 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Baseball superstar Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers got so ticked off at a heckler during a game on this date in 1912 that he charged into the stands after him. Cobb was not known for his gentlemanly demeanor, but this was different. The man he went after, Claude Lueker, was disabled. He’d lost one hand and three fingers on the other in an industrial accident. American League President Ban Johnson came down hard on Cobb by suspending him indefinitely, which ended up being until May 27th, twelve days.

“The Georgia Peach” didn’t seem to care that he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He wasn’t afraid to get his spikes in the way of opposing players, was constantly fighting, and considered by many to be a racist. But Cobb could play ball. His numbers are among the best in the history of the game.

Lifetime batting average: .366 (1st)
Batting titles: 11 (1st)
Career hits: 4,189 (2nd)
Runs scored: 2,246 (2nd)
Stolen bases: 892 (4th)

He hit at least .320 for 23 straight seasons. He hit over .400 three times. Several times in his career he reached first and proceeded to steal second, third and home. He was among the first group of players elected into the Hall of Fame in 1936, and it wasn’t because he was well liked.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Ty Cobb
BASEBALL GURU

Major League Career Leaders

READ MORE:

Ty Cobb  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb

http://baseballguru.com/omi/ty_cobb.htm

June 18-Not again!

1962 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Remember yesterday’s story about Lou Brock being only the second player to hit a home run into the center field bleachers of New York’s Polo Grounds on June 17, 1962? The bleachers were 475 feet from home plate.

Well, it happened again the very next day. Henry Aaron, a more likely slugger, put one into the bleachers in center as the Milwaukee Braves beat the New York G.

What are the odds? Just four players had hit balls into the cent-field bleachers in the 52-year history of the Polo Grounds (Luke Easter of the Negro Leagues also did it) two of them on consecutive days.

The Polo Grounds had some interesting quirks. While the center field fence was a great distance away. The left and right field lines were short. The distance down the left field line varied over the years, but was usually 270 or 280 feet away, never more than 300 feet away, the right field line was even shorter. The upper deck in left hung over the lower deck, meaning a ball that could be caught if it fell all the way to the ground, could end up in the upper deck and be a home run.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Polo_Grounds
http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/national/pologr.htm
http://www.retrosheet.org/

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/04/not_715_ten_other_great_hank_a.html

June 17-Who’da thunk it

*1962 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – The centerfield bleachers in the old Polo Grounds in New York, home to the New York Giants before they moved to San Francisco, were 475 feet from home plate. Quite a poke. Before June 17, 1962 only one player had hit a home run into those bleachers – the Milwaukee Braves’ Joe Adcock. At 6’4″ Adcock looked the part of a slugger. 

On June 17, 1962 a second ballplayer hit a ball into the center field bleachers of the Polo Grounds, but you’d be surprised who. It was Lou Brock, a man known more for his base stealing than slugging. Brock wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the slow trot around the bases. He finished his career with 149 home runs and over 900 runs driven in.

Brock was still playing for the Cubs on this date, but would be traded to St. Louis two years later where he’d spend the rest of his hall of fame career as a Cardinal.

Bill Grimes is a member of SABR (The Society for American Baseball Research)