October Pickups

[ooo-ribay]

I'm happy to pick this up from a fellow member. The canvas banner measures 47" x 29". Laraine Day was a movie actress who appeared in 40 movies from 1937 to 1960. Also included was the microphone she used to interview players and a signed copy of her book. What follows is from her obit:

Because of her 13-year marriage to Hall of Fame manager Leo Durocher, Day was known as "the first lady of baseball." Day married Durocher in 1947, after divorcing her first husband, musician Ray Hendricks. Day and Durocher were divorced in 1960.

In 1950, Day started a 15-minute TV pregame show on WPIX-TV, interviewing players of Durocher's New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.

"She had her room under the stands, next to the dugout, with all the lights and the TVcameras, and she'd bring a ballplayer every day to interview them," recalled Herman Franks, a Giants coach under Durocher from 1949 to 1955.

"She was pretty knowledgeable," Franks said from his Salt Lake City home. "I never heard of a lady doing [ballplayer interviews] like that. Today, it's quite common . . . but in those days, it was unknown for ladies to be talking about sports."

Day often traveled with the team to spring training. In 1952, she spent some time on the road during the regular season - an experience that produced a memoir of her baseball life, Day With the Giants.

Franks remembered spring training in 1951, when the Giants had their camp in St. Petersburg, Fla. (swapping their usual Arizona location with the Yankees for a season), and Day and Durocher hosted nightly dinner parties at their beach house.

"We used to play charades," Franks said. "Leo would be one captain, her the other. We got into some pretty fierce battles with that."

Each season the Giants would play exhibition games on the West Coast, and Day would play hostess at her Hollywood home - bringing ballplayers together with such movie stars as Danny Kaye, George Raft and Irene Dunne.

"The ballplayers enjoyed meeting all these actors and actresses," Franks said.

I think many of us love the process of learning about our memorabilia. Because of this pickup, I'm now versed in the history of Laraine Day, WPIX-TV and her "salt shaker" Electro-Voice microphone. The Sports Illustrated is on its way, to complete the collection.

IF ANY OF YOU DETECTIVES COULD FIND A PERIOD PHOTO OF LARAINE WITH HER MICROPHONE OR BANNER, I WOULD BE ETERNALLY GRATEFUL!