1st Recollections of pre-war players

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Posted By: LenK59

Hi all....long-time lurker here...post once in a blue-moon....i first discovered pre-war players during elementary school....you could order books in class and i ordered a book with short bios on what seemed like "ancient" ballplayers....Foxx, Gehrig, Ruth, Alexander, Young, Wagner, Johnson, etc.....was fascinated by the vintage b & w photograpy...they seemed "otherworldly" to me....and legendary from a long-gone era...this was back in the mid to late '60s..........any recollections?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I don't know the start, but I was aware of the old timers like Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson when I was a kid. My maternal grandfather grew up near Detroit and when I was a kid told me he saw Ty Cobb and visiting Babe Ruth play-- and when he told me that I knew who were Cobb and Ruth.

Baseball is a game tied to and appreciative of its history. If you closely follow and play the modern game as a kid you will come into contact with the old players and stories, from Jackie Robinson to Christy Mathewson. Today's football fan kids might have little to no idea who is Sammy Baugh or Don Hutson, but any young baseball fan knows who is Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. In a blabbermouth, obnoxious special effects-laded Fox Sports or ESPN baseball game coverage, the announcers will mention Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams with frequency. Don Hutson, Red Grange and (excluding the time of his recent death) Sammy Baugh are almost never mentioned during a Fox Sports or ESPN football game. That says it all about baseball versus football.

A key to the baseball history fascination is that, unlike football, the game today is largely the same as the game in 1910 or 1930. You can easily imagine plugging Christy Mathewson into today's Texas Rangers' lineup, or Jim Thome into the 1935 Philadelphia Athletics. With training for the modern game, could Walter Johnson or Ty Cobb play in today's MLB? I would think so. And would Nolan Ryan fit cleanly into a 1909 dead ball rotation? No doubt. All you have to do is put a 1935 uniform on 1977 George Brett and stick him in the next game. 1909 and 2008 football are different games.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I would guess it would have been with the mid 1970's Topps issues which showed players like Cobb and Matty in their all time greats series. I'm sure I read the backs of the cards.

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Posted By: Jerry

My first recolections is while collecting the 60 & 61 Fleer sets as a kid and reading about the old timers.
Also, Glenn Myatt who played in the bigs from 1920-1936 was a family friend and when we would go over to his house , He would tell stories of Tris Speaker, Cobb, Ruth and the Like.

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Posted By: CN

One of my 1st recollections of pre-war players was in the early 70,s when Kelloggs came out with a 3-d set of all time greats.CN

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Posted By: Phil Garry

My story is the same as Dan B's.

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Posted By: Vincent

. . . I too recall those days. My first sports-related book purchases were as an elementary school student in the mid/late 1960's. The books were purchased through a classroom association with the Scholastic Book Clubs. I still have one or two of the books I purchased . . Strange but True Baseball Stories, and another book regarding current stars Mantle, Mays, and friends. I might even have a Who's Who in Baseball edition I got through SBC too. I think I paid between 35-75 cents each.

I think I recall the book you're referring too. But the title eludes me. My wife just mentioned that the Weekly Reader was a regular reading guide at that time too.

Sorry for not being of more help. Thanks.



Postscript: Scholastic Book Clubs is still active and kicking. Very cool.

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Posted By: Vincent

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Posted By: Ken McMillan

My first recollection of a prewar player was when I was 5 or 6 my mother and grandmother talking about Uncle Elmer. Elmer Miller was my grandmother's uncle who played for the Yankees in the teens and early 20's. This would have been in the mid 60's that I heard this conversation from. Over the last 20 years or so I have been collecting Elmer Miller memorabilia.

Kmac

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Posted By: Anthony S.

We had a Baseball Encyclopedia in the bathroom.

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Posted By: Anonymous

The 1960-61 Fleers and the old basball hall of fame paperback.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I went to the hall of fame when I was 7 with my dad and knew all of the old players even back then but I'm not exactly sure where I learned it from. My dad told me about Yankees players but I went right for all of the old Pirates stuff when I was at the Hall,and somewhere have pics to prove it. I know before that trip to the Hall I told my dad I would hit more homers in the majors than Ty Cobb did and I knew how many he had. For now,Cobb is safe. I also know that the first game I went to was Old Timers day in 1982,and I picked out the tickets for that specific day as my 7th birthday present to see the old players.

When I was 9 my favorite baseball card was the Ewing/Mascot Old Judge card after I saw it in a price guide. Only took me 20 years to get one!

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Posted By: J Levine

Mine was a little different. I remember hearing stories from my grandfather. My grandfather was a host at the racetracks here in Southern California. Both at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita. He would tell stories about certain players and how they would bet the horses, pick up the waitresses, and how they were tipping the porters, waiters and hosts. By the time I was in elementary school I had heard stories about both Meusel brothers, Gehrig, Allie Reynolds, Doerr, Grimm, Hartnett, etc. The first true vintage card I bought was the strip card depicting the Meusel brothers which I presented to my grandfather who was completely touched.

BTW, he also told stories about other athletes and movie stars including Didrickson, Joe Louis, Bette Davis, Spencer Tracy, etc.

Joshua

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Posted By: Bob Manning

My first encounter came when I was given "Big-Time Baseball" (Harold Hart & Ralph Tolleris):



Published in 1950, it featured "The All-Star Team of All Time"

P Johnson
C Dickey
1B Gehrig
2B Hornsby
SS Wagner
3B Traynor
LF DiMaggio
CF Cobb
RF Ruth

and a "Second Team"

Mathewson
Cochrane
Sisler
Lajoie
Boudreau
J. Collins
Williams
Speaker
Musial

and a whole segment of history of the game in the previous fifty years: "Alexander pitched 16 Shut-outs in one season," "Eddie Collins stole 6 bases in a single game," "Frank Chance was hit by a pitched ball 5 times in one day" (Gee, I wonder why.) And two of the guys on the "All-Star Team ..." (Wagner and Traynor) still lived in Pittsburgh, where I lived! Here I was, collecting '50 Bowmans and suddenly discovering that Johnny Hopp, Clyde McCullough and Dale Coogan weren't the only guys ever to play the game, and that the baseball world was lots deeper and older then I'd thought. I read every page of that book at least a dozen times, and still have the copy I owned then. In many ways it's my time machine.

It would be many, many years before I ever heard of a T06 or a T3, and even more before I owned one, but I was hooked. The "ancients" had it all. And still do.

Bob

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Posted By: Joann

Early elementary school, there was a book series of biographies that we had to pick from. I somehow picked a Babe Ruth. I remember it talked about St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys and showed a picture (line drawing illustration) of him not being able to cut the shirt material straight. It also showed one of Brother Mathias, and told the story of Babe catching a game at the school and the pitcher was getting hammered and Babe was laughing out loud at him, so Mathias put him in as pitcher to teach a lesson, and the rest was history.

There was another in the series about Knute Rockne. It talked about him not being able to speak English when he got here at a very young age. One day his mother saw him fighting out on the sidewalk with some other boys saying "Take this, take that", and him saying that at least he had learned English.

That's all I remember, those scraps of the stories and a few pictures in my mind's eye. But I think that may have been when I first started liking sports and baseball. I don't even know why I picked those two books - for all I know they were the only ones left.

I've thought about trying to find them but don't remember what the series was called. Somehow I don't think I'm going to get very far by googling "Ruth book mid-60's".

Good thread. Thanks.



J

ETA Just saw Bob's post about his book. How absolutely cool that you still have your copy. I'd give a lot to be able to even remember what mine were called so I could look for a copy.

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Posted By: Rob D.

I know I read this book as a 12-year-old no less than 10 times and the chapter on Cobb at least 20 times. Reading about his intensity on the field not only piqued my interest in that era of baseball but also impacted me in how I played the game. The one thing I always took pride in was sliding hard into second base and breaking up would-be double-plays. I know that was instilled from reading as a pre-teen about Ty Cobb. I'm really glad I saved my copy of this book all these years. (The cards on the cover, by the way, belonged to Larry Fritsch.)

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Posted By: Joann

Wow Rob. That might be the coolest kids' book cover ever.

J

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Posted By: Mark L

My earliest recollection of a pre-war player goes back to when I was about 6. In Pittsburgh, there was a wrestling show on local tv, and between matches you could watch Pie Traynor extolling the services of American Heating (Who can? Ameri-can!) He was a still something of a celebrity in Pittsburgh up until his death in the early 1970's.

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Posted By: Frank B

It was Strat-O-Matic baseball for me. When I was 12 I ordered some of the
old time teams that went back to the 1907 Cubs. With names like Orval Overall
and Three-Finger Brown how could you not love them.

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Posted By: Rob D.

I just took a look at the inside cover of my book, and it's apparent I carried it around through high school. Written on the inside left edge:



Obviously, someone felt he needed a little extra help during a biology test.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

I just remembered having a library class once a week around the same time,maybe 2nd or 3rd grade and we took a new book out each week to read until the next class. Our school had a history series of all the baseball teams individually and I know I read every book in that series cover to cover,so I probably learned a lot about the old players back then. The longer the history of the team,the more interested I was. I remember being disappointed with the books of the teams like Angels,Astros and Mets that had very little content because I was stuck with it for a week

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Len K, thank you for starting this great, nostalgic thread. What we have here is the answer to that other thread about why we collect.

Seems that everyone only cared about 'this' year when I was a kid. Once in a while an adult might mention some player I'd never heard of... who cares. But then, two books got me interested in the old guys, an interest that waned a bit before its current serious waxing...

The first book I think I was given in the summer of 1964. I've long lost my original copy, this replacement I found is from 1966. It is just over 11" tall, and about 8" wide, a huge book for me at age 9.

Oh the stories. I read about Mike Kelly, who one day was managing, while his team was in the field. A foul was hit near the dugout, straight toward Kelly, he announced, "Kelly now catching," and caught the ball. The rules said a substitute had to be announced, and a substitute could enter the game at any time, that was all. Nothing about when, umpire recognition... Kelly lost his argument. The rule was changed; a substitute could enter only when the ball is dead, our modern rule today.

John McGraw used to stand at third, and if a runner was about to tag up on an outfield fly, he'd hold their belt for a moment, so they could be thrown out. The umpire couldn't keep his eyes on everything... but one day as the runner tags, Mr. McGraw grabs the belt, the runner breaks for the plate, and McGraw is left holding the belt! The runner had unbuckled it.

In about 175 pages, with lots of photos and medium size type, the book covered the history of the game, beginnings, league wars, Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, Black Sox, Gehrig... I loved it.



The second book was "My Greatest Day in Baseball"... George Sisler's story was a fine one. Rogers Hornsby loved putting the tag on Ruth for the last out of the 1926 World Series. The book had numerous editions. Mine would have been from the early 60s. I have my first one somewhere, in boxes of baseball books that will crash down from the attic, through my ceiling, smashing me down in my bed, pinning me against the boxes of books under the bed. Gotta go some way, I guess.


A great thread, keep the stories coming!!!

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Posted By: LenK59

Frank...i have that same book...copyright 1969...and mine's more beat up than yours....still have it.....pure magic to a kid who loved baseball and still does....a beautiful time-machine.....and Vincent, thanks for the info... you've jarred my memory about the weekly reader too.....best wishes

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Posted By: Bob Pomilla

I guess my first exposure to prewar players, would have to have been hearing the name of the larger than life,"Babe Ruth". He was a transcending figure and one need know nothing about baseball to know of Ruth.

However, my first meaningful exposure to prewar players would, like a couple of posters above, had to have been those Fleer sets. I found the pictures and bios fascinating.

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Posted By: MacDice

For me it was when I read a book written by Lawrence Ritter called The Glory of Their Times that my grandfather gave me. I remember becoming fascinated with Rube Marquard.

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Posted By: Dave Williams

My dad was absolutely NOT a sports fan, we never went to ball games, he was working all the time.

But my mom was cleaning out some elderly ladies attic about 1974 or so, and found about 30 61 Fleer baseball greats, which were split between another boy and myself. I was about 12 or so. We divided them up evenly, each picking one, and I got first pick and took Frank Chance, because of "Tinker to Evers to Chance". The other kid picked Ted Williams, I'm not sure how we divided up the rest.

Between the 1976 Topps set, plus a baseball record book I bought for myself about the same time, I was hooked on baseball history and records.

I'd scour flea markets, antique shops looking for baseball cards, and got some T 206's that way, plus bunches of Red Mans, Bowmans, and others.

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Posted By: DMcD

Baseball kind of happened all at once for me in 1956. Learned how to bat and throw and catch. Went to my first MLB game. Opened my first wax pack. I remember that I would read the back of every card and I was particularly fascinated by the guys like Early Wynn and Enos Slaughter and Ted Williams who had stats going back to the thirties, and also by the birthdates of some of the coaches and managers that dated back to the 1890's. (Those ancients were then as old as I am now). We lived on a GI Bill block in New Rochelle and every kid's dad grew up in the city and was a Giants fan or a Yankees fan or a Dodgers fan. These guys had seen Ott and Hubbell, Gehrig and Dickey, Camilli and Mungo play and loved to tell us kids that the modern guys couldn't hold a candle to their heroes. Most of us kids were Jewish so Greenberg was the one player that we held in the greatest esteem. I close my eyes I can still see myself, four-foot-nothing, looking up at the man himself and asking for his autograph (recounted here in an earlier thread: http://tinyurl.com/9j7dww ).

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Posted By: sean

Hi Jerry!

Very cool you knew Glenn Myatt! Thought you might get a kick out of this one: