This weekend the National Baseball Hall of Fame will honor this year’s inductees; Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner.
The Baseball Hall of Fame began in 1936, but the first ceremony inducting former greats wasn’t until the museum first opened its doors on June 12, 1939. Continue reading
Johnny Vander Meer c. 1939
It’s debatable what baseball records will never be broken. I don’t bet on things that I have no control over. But I would be willing to gamble that no pitcher will ever pitch back to back no hitters like Johnny Vander Meer did.
On June 11, 1938 the 23-year-old Cincinnati Reds lefty threw a ho-hitter over the Boston Bees in a 3-0 victory. In Vander Meer’s next start on June 15, 1938, at the first night game at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, Vander Meer repeated his no hit performance in a 6-0 triumph over the Dodgers.
In the second no hitter, Vander Meer was wild walking eight Dodgers. Continue reading
This undated publicity photograph from the 1940s shows Alexis Smith in a sultry pose.
There have been movie stars with the last name Smith. But the big studios encouraged promising actors named Smith to change it to something else.
The most successful Smith actor of all-time was arguably Gladys Smith. But she changed her name to the more glamorous sounding Mary Pickford. Continue reading
Brooklyn, NY – The undefeated Brooklyn Dodgers tonight equaled the Major League record of nine consecutive games won at the start of a season, by defeating Philadelphia 3 to 2. The only remaining member of the 1940 Dodger team which also won its first nine games of the season, captain Pee Wee Reese, prepares to draw a line through number 146 after tonight’s win. Looking on is Walt Alston. The mark was first set by the Giants in 1918 and the St. Louis Browns also won their first nine in 1944. photo: International News Photo – Herb Scharfman 4/20/1955
The Brooklyn Dodgers would go on to set a new record winning their tenth consecutive game the following day, beating Philadelphia 14-4. The Dodgers finally lost a game on April 22 to The New York Giants. Continue reading
Will Remain In Britain For The Duration
Vivien Leigh, who won swift fame as Scarlett of “Gone With The Wind,” plans to return to the American movies, but not until the war is over. Miss Leigh, pictured here in London, and her husband, Laurence Olivier,returned to Britain in January, 1941, during the height of the air blitz. He joined the fleet air arm and she signed for the leading feminine role in “The Doctor’s Dilemma,” by George Bernard Shaw. “Both my husband and I felt that we should return to England,” she said “and we both feel that we should remain here until the war is over.” photo Wide World 3/23/1943
Eight years earlier in May 1935 Leigh debuted in the play The Mask of Virtue at London’s West End. The 21-year-old beauty became famous virtually overnight. Six film companies, three British, three American offered her a film contract. Leigh signed with Alexander Korda for ten pictures in five years for £50,000. Continue reading
Newest Dodger
Vero Beach, FL – (L-R) Branch Rickey, Dodger President, Dick Shea, electronics engineer from General Electric, umpire Bill Stewart and Fresco Thompson scout for the Dodger system. They are looking over Rickey’s newest pet – a mechanical umpire that calls balls and strikes and gives speed of pitch over the plate.It is worked by means of a magic eye. It won’t replace the human umpire because it can’t operate at night. photo: Gunther-Keystone 3/15/1950
The machine pictured above was called the “cross-eyed electronic umpire.” It was claimed the machine “could call balls and strikes closer than any normally endowed arbiter.”
Always the innovator, Branch Rickey said, “I expect it to be of definite value in determining the abilities of young pitchers since the machine also will establish the velocity of a fast ball as well as to show beyond question whether the ball is in or outside the strike zone.”
But Rickey also emphasized that he machine was “not intended now or ever to replace manual umpiring in actual games.” Continue reading
Connie Shows His Men How The New Ball Works
Fort Myers, Fla: Connie Mack, veteran chief of the Philadelphia Athletics explains the new ball to Walberg, Grove, Rommel and Shores as spring training gets under way here. 3/5/1931 photo International Newsreel
With a new lively baseball introduced after 1920, it was no surprise that balls started to travel further. But as the 1920s progressed and hitters kept hitting more and more home runs, baseball writers, fans and those within the game felt that the hitters had achieved too much of an advantage. So after a decade of increasing run production, the National and American Leagues made the decision to try and curb the scoring by changing to a new baseball.
Yankee Stadium, N.Y.: Yankee slugger Roger Maris holds up the baseball that he hit for home run number 60 in the third inning of the game with the Baltimore orioles, Sept. 26. Maris hit his 60th homer of the season off pitcher Jack Fisher to tie Babe Ruth in home runs hit in a baseball season. But Maris’ 60th came in game number 158 and therefore doesn’t qualify to tie the record according to baseball commissioner Ford Frick’s ruling. credit: UPI 9/26/61
What the photo slug does not say is how Maris got the baseball back.
Unlike Maris’s 61st home run on October 1, which would set off a melee in the right field stands for the baseball, the retrieval of the 60th was relatively simple. Continue reading
Bogy, Baby & Boy
Humphrey Bogart’s wife, Lauren Bacall, known to the public as “Baby”, and their son Stevie, pay Bogart a visit on the set at 20th Century-Fox where he is starring in the newspaper story, “Deadline U.S.A.” Little Stevie takes an active interest in movie production, since he plans to be a movie star like his daddy when he grows up. credit: 20th Century-Fox December 27, 1951
When Humphrey Bogart made Deadline U.S.A. for 20th Century-Fox he was on loan from Warner Bros. to Fox. Maybe that is why the Fox publicity department did not care if they spelled Bogart’s nickname, “Bogey” correctly or not. In September of 1953 Bogart finally ended his long association with Warner Bros. having previously formed his own production company, Santana Productions to make independent productions including six films with Columbia Pictures between 1949 – 1951.
Steohen Humphrey Bogart (born January 6, 1949) did not follow in his father’s footsteps. Continue reading
Charlie Chaplin photo: United Artists
This 1919 portrait of Charlie Chaplin taken at the height of his success shows that behind the make-up and little mustache was a handsome man.
Chaplin, as one of the co-founders of United Artists in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, had many official publicity photographs taken like the one above and below to promote the founding of the company.
The historic moment taken when the papers of incorporation were signed creating United Artists Corporation on April 17, 1919. Left to right in the foreground are the founders. D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.. In the background are their attorneys, Albert Banzhaf and Dennis O’Brien. photo: United Artists
