Babe Ruth: An American Icon

German soldiers of 150 Panzer Brigade with captured American armored car courtesy https://warisboring.com/fighting-in-plain-sight-impostors-on-the-battlefield-d1d8bb0ef12f#.my03dtnq1.

For decades, baseball was as American as apple pie.  The story goes that in the closing months of the Second World War, German soldiers, flying American flags and wearing American uniforms, were impersonating American soldiers in order to infiltrate enemies.  Therefore, American soldiers started asking questions that only other Americans know the answers to.  When Brigadier General Bruce Clarke incorrectly stated that the Chicago Cubs were in the American League, he was held at gunpoint for five hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Greif#Commandos).

If anyone represented baseball, it was Babe Ruth.  "The Great Bambino" played professional baseball for 22 years, from 1914 to 1935.  While he started his career with the Boston Red Sox, he spent most of his career playing for the New York Yankees.  Ruth was not afraid to take a risk.  While he was the home run king, he was also the strike out king.  Ruth was not afraid to take a risk; he refused to let anything deter him.  In 1924, after running into a wall during a match against the Washington Senators and being knocked unconscious, he insisted on staying in the game.  On his next time up to bat, suffering a bruised pelvic bone, he hit a double.  Babe Ruth won the World Series three times with the Red Sox and four times with the Yankees.

In 1936, Ruth was one of the first five baseball players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Babe Ruth has only grown in popularity since his death in 1948.  According to one collector, his earliest baseball card now rivals the famous Honus T. Wagner card in value (http://www.deanscards.com/Babe-Ruth-Baseball-Cards).

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/353321533243650468/

The Ghosts of Ebbets Field

"[It is] one of the most notorious abandonments in the history of sports." (U.S. Federal Judge)




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbets_Field#/media/File:Ebbets1913OpeningDay.jpg

Charlie Ebbets started buying up parcels of land in Brooklyn, a block at a time, including a garbage dump where pigs used to dine which they called Pigtown.  Within five years, he built a baseball stadium, but neglected to include a flag, keys to the bleachers and a press box.

The opening game featured the Brooklyn Dodgers, named after the streetcars that its fans used to dodge, and the Philadelphia Phillies.  The Dodgers quickly worked their way into the hearts of Brooklynites.  With the bleachers full, more seats were added in the 1920's.  Lights were added in 1938 to pave the way for the first night game.  The press box was added in 1929, along with a scoreboard in 1940.

The scoreboard came at the time of major success for the Dodgers, a baseball team that captured the pennant several times including 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956.  

Probably Ebbets Field's biggest claim to fame came in 1947, when the color barrier in baseball was broken with manager Branch Rickey's hiring of Jackie Robinson.  Number 42 stole many a base at Ebbets Field with his wife Rachel, and later his children, cheering him on from the stands (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2013/04/april-15.html).

While the Dodgers kept knocking on the door of success, they were never able to clinch the World Series.  That all changed in 1955.  Once more, the Brooklyn Dodgers faced the New York Yankees, the heavy favourites.  Ebbets Field was packed for the series.  For Brooklynites who couldn't get tickets, they stayed home and watched the series on their televisions or listened to it on the radio.  One fan pointed out that he was going to the game to watch it "in colour, rather than in black and white".  Things looked bleak for the Dodgers after the Yankees took the first two games.  No baseball team had ever come back to win the World Series after such a start.  However, with players like Jackie Robinson, the team came back to win the championship.

Henry Petroksi, a former Brooklyn resident, said in his book Paper Boy that the streets surrounding Ebbets Field were surprisingly quiet at first, filled with disappointed Yankee fans returning home.  Brooklyn fans were in shock.  However, within 90 minutes, Brooklynites erupted in celebration.  After decades, Brooklyn's loyal fans had finally been rewarded.

Sadly, the celebration was short lived.  As one writer says, the Dodgers were "victims of their own success".  Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley wanted to expand Ebbets Field, but had no where to go.  He wanted to build a new stadium at the Atlantic Yards where an old market was being torn down.  New York City Commissioner Robert Moses (after whom the Parkway is named) wanted a baseball stadium built at Flushing Meadows.  However, Walter O'Malley said that his team was called the "Brooklyn Dodgers, not the Queen's Dodgers".  In 1956, real estate developper bought Ebbets Field.  The following year, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbets_Field).

In 1960, Ebbets field met the fate of the wrecking ball.  Where famous ball players once played, a massive apartment complex was built, named Ebbets Field apartments.  In 1972, when Jackie Robinson died, the complex was renamed in his memory. 

Ebbets Field would not soon be forgotten.  Frank Sinatra sang about it in his tune "There Used to be a Ballpark".  Roger Kahn wrote about it in his book The Boys of Summer.  The HBO documentary filmed it in Brooklyn Dodgers:  Ghosts of Flatbush.  One U.S. federal judge called it "one of the most notorious abandonments in the history of sports".  

http://uspsstamps.tumblr.com/post/32212104084/on-september-24-1957-the-brooklyn-dodgers-played

Jimmie Foxx Basis for A League of Their Own Character

"He has muscles in his hair." (Lefty Gomez, New York Yankees pitcher)

Jimmie Foxx, who played professional baseball for 20 seasons, was only the second person in history to score 500 home runs, after Babe Ruth.  Foxx was the inspiration for Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own.

Born and raised in Maryland, Foxx was signed by the Athletics in 1925 at the tender age of 17.  Four years later, Foxx had a breakthrough year batting .354 and scoring 33 home runs, meriting him a spot on the cover of Time.  

By 1933, Foxx earned the Triple Crown of Baseball, with a batting average of .356 and 48 home runs.  Lefty Gomez, a New York Yankees pitcher, explained:  "He has muscles in his hair."  It was Gomez who pitched a ball to Foxx which the latter hit into the third deck of Yankee Stadium, a rare feat.

The Great Depression forced the Athletics owner to sell Foxx's contract to the Boston Red Sox.  Foxx played in Boston for six years in which he earned 50 home runs one season, a feat not duplicated until 2006.

Foxx's skills diminished after 1941, possibly the result of drinking.  He finished his career with the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.  Often referred to as the "left handed Babe Ruth", Foxx ended his career as a pitcher.  He played with such greats as Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg.  

Foxx passed away in 1967 but his jersey hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  He will also be remembered as the character Jimmy Dugan, played by Tom Hanks, in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Foxx#/media/File:FoxxRuthGehrigCochrane.jpg