Original fan photos of Johnny Vander Meer's 2nd consec no-hitter- 1st night game NY

[mcgwirecom]

sweet pics Scott! Ruth sporting the open collar. I read that he forgot his tie at the original HOF induction and thats why he had an open collar at that, but I guess he liked it!

[Scott Garner]

Gary, Andrew, Lance and Randall,
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you liked seeing them.

[doug.goodman]

just wow

[Kawika]

The Babe would have been right at home in the Disco Era in that leisure suit.
Very cool photos, Scott, a glimpse into another time. Somewhere in the borough of Brooklyn that long-ago Wednesday evening my young mother,
eleven years old at the time, was probably doing homework or listening to the radio. She's not in your picture, but that's what I'm seeing.
It's hard to make out the players' faces but Baseball Almanac dot com http://tinyurl.com/bjnubqj tells us that number 4 was Dolph Camilli.
The player sporting what I make to be number 6 on the right would be second baseman Johnny Hudson. (If that's an "8" it would be third-string
catcher Paul Chervinko who wasn't in the box score, and, besides, Hudson's bbref.com photo suggests he's your man). Three players on the roster
had a zero as their second digit: Centerfielder Ernie Koy #20, Utility Man Gibby Brack #30 and substitute catcher Roy Spencer #10. I'd go with Koy
by virtue of his large size; the vague look we get from the back doesn't disagree with his bbref.com pic (how's that for science?). The short guy
with his head turned to the right might well be Gibby Brack. He was a bit of a funny looking fellow and he was in the lineup that night. Or it could be
the batboy. We can be pretty sure that number 32 is not Koufax; the guy in the fedora next to him is almost certainly Barry Sloate who was a Cub Reporter
in the Spelling Department at the Brooklyn Eagle at the time.





Yeah, I know. I've got a lot of time on my hands.

[Scott Garner]

Wow David,
Thanks for checking in! That's some terrific detective work and I appreciate you taking the time to add the possible player info.

You are correct that Babe could have fit right in with the disco era. I suspect that the time he spent in FL in the off season probably made this an easy choice to sport the open collared look.

When I first looked at these photos, I was also struck by what a different era it was. Male patrons all wore suits and hats. I particularly was grabbed by the panoramic shots that show the grandstands at Ebbets in all of its grandeur, packed to the hilt with over 38,000 in attendance for the first night game ever in NY. Two of the photos feature the newly installed GE lights. To most of the patrons in attendance this was something completely new, as baseball in NY was always played during the day.

Perhaps many of you know this, but night baseball in the major leagues was the innovation of HOF'er Larry McPhail. Night baseball was already being used very effectively in the minor leagues, and while with the Columbus Red Birds, McPhail saw the dramatic improvement in night game attendance first hand.

As GM of the Cincinnati Reds, McPhail was tasked with increasing annual gate attendance during the Great Depression. He knew that the men of the household mostly worked during the day, so it was a huge challenge to increase day baseball attendance. McPhail reasoned that adding 7 night games a year would increase gate attendance enough that they could afford to add one star player to the roster every year instead of every third year. Seven night games was chosen because it would allow them to play each of the other teams in the NL in a night game. After much resistance, McPhail successfully introduced night baseball in Cincinnati in 1935.

When Larry McPhail came to the Brooklyn Dodgers as GM in 1938, the Dodgers organization was virtually bankrupt. Bringing night baseball to Ebbets was McPhail's first prime initiatives as he knew this would be essential to successfully turn around the franchise.

Here is a photo of Larry McPhail in January, 1938 when he first took over as GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[Kawika]

[Kawika]

Scott: The foregoing photos are four panels of a 1940 panorama of the Ebbets Field signage prepared by the Harry M. Stevens Co. for the purpose of touting their advertising capabilities to potential vendors. (I have similar contemporary panels for Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds). They might make interesting "ancillary" dakine for your snapshots. I posted them nice and large so you can get all the detail. You can see that some of the signage from your photos still remains two seasons later.