Johnstown stops the unstoppable Yankees
Coming to Johnstown, PA, on July 26, 1927, the New York Yankees were flying high. They had a record at this point in the season of 67-26-1 and had won their previous two games against the Chicago White Sox. The legendary Murderer’s Row, the hard-hitting starting Yankee’s line-up that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Bob Meusel, and Earle Combs, led the team. Ruth would hit 60 home runs in 1927, which is a record that would stand for 34 years. Gehrig would finish the season with 175 runs batted in. Many fans and baseball historians consider the 1927 Yankees the best baseball team of all time. So it was big news when the Yankees arrived in Johnstown to play baseball. “Johnstown baseball fans who attend the big exhibition game between the New York Yankees and the Johnstown Middle Read more…
Frederick baseball showed some hustle in the Blue Ridge League
On Thursday morning, May 27, 1915, H.A. Albaugh showed his love of baseball in two ways. He drove 42 miles over stone and hard-packed dirt roads from his home in Westminster to Frederick in order to see the Frederick Hustlers make their professional baseball debut. The drive took him about two hours and before leaving home, he made a bet with a friend that Frederick would win its opening day game. If the Hustlers lost, Albaugh promised that he would walk home. It was a daring bet. The Hustlers were playing the Martinsburg Champs who had been the league champs in the defunct Tri-City League the previous year. Albaugh and Frederick City had chosen their champion, though, and the Hustlers didn’t disappoint. Professional Baseball Comes to Frederick Though baseball came to Frederick County near Read more…
The Return of the King: The Babe Visits the Place He was Discovered
Word had gotten around that Babe was back, the home run king of the American League had returned. Those who heard came to see him; some even took the trolley from Frederick to Thurmont and then switched to the Emmitsburg Railroad to make the rest of the journey to Emmitsburg. So when George Herman Ruth walked onto Echo Field at Mount St. Mary’s College on May 7, 1921, a crowd was there to greet him. The Babe Discovered It was far larger than the one that had greeted him when he made his first appearance on the field in 1913. At that time, Ruth was a young man of 18 years who was playing baseball with the team from St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys of Baltimore. The school was a reformatory and orphanage. Ruth had been there since Read more…
The Unstoppable Thurmont Sluggers
Baseball has always been a popular pastime in Frederick County. The county has had professional, semi-professional, and amateur teams, often engaged in fierce competition for the title of league champion. In the 1920s, Thurmont had an amateur baseball team that played in an eight-team county league, along with teams from Mt. Airy, Emmitsburg, Point of Rocks, New Market, Woodsboro, Middletown, and Brunswick. Woodsboro emerged at the top of the heap at the end of the 1922 season. And when the 1923 season started, it was expected that they would again reign victorious. They met with a problem, though. It was Thurmont’s baseball team. Near the end of July 1923, Woodsboro and Thurmont met at the Woodsboro baseball field for their first game against each other during the season. It was one of the largest crowds ever to Read more…
Take a look at the oldest known baseball card
I’ve been working on a couple articles about the Blue Ridge Class D Baseball League and I came across this story while doing research. Baseball has its origins in America to the 18th Century. The earliest mention that has been found so far is a 1791 ordinance in Pittsfield, MA. As the game gathered fans, people sought ways to capitalize on the popularity. One of those ways was baseball cards. The first dated baseball card, according to the Library of Congress is an 1865 team photo of the Brooklyn Atlantics. Unlike baseball cards of today, this one is an original picture mounted on a card. “None of the players (or the skipper) have been identified by individual name. The Brooklyn team created the card as a promotional stunt and because it was a frequent league champion,” David Brown wrote in Read more…
For All the Baseball Fans Out There…
“Babe” Ruth was a baseball legend. You can find out why in When the Babe Came to Town. My new ebook shows how the Babe connected with the fans through his many exhibition and barnstorming games.When the Babe Came to Town is a collection of some of these stories highlighting games that Babe Ruth played in Emmitsburg, Maryland; York, Pennsylvania; Oakland, California and Cumberland, Maryland. It was big news when Babe Ruth came to town. Many residents of these smaller towns unused to seeing Major League baseball games in the days before television. They had only read about Babe Ruth’s talent in the newspapers or heard about it on the radio. The Babe came to town and showed them what they were missing as he hit home runs out of the park. There are a lot of these stories out Read more…
The Mystery of History. Boring It's Not!
You would think that with history, things would be set in stone. I mean, history’s happened so the facts of what happened are there for everyone to see. That should make my job as a writer who likes historical topics easy. Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve run into two instances recently that have both frustrated me and intrigued me because they are a bit of a mystery. This morning I’ve been culling through the internet, my research library and making calls to try and find out how a baseball league, that by all accounts ceased playing in 1930, was still competing in 1934. I went through an article I had from my idea folder and made notes about the season opening for the Chambersburg Maroons in the Blue Ridge League in 1934. I took the specifics of the event from the Read more…
Eddie Plank: Gettysburg’s Legendary Lefty
P is for Plank The arm of the A’s; When he tangled with Matty Games lasted for days. – Lineup for Yesterday by Ogden Nash Though he was known as Gettysburg Eddie, his real name was Edward Stewart Plank. He was a hero to many, but not because he had fought and survived on Gettysburg’s battlefield. Gettysburg Eddie fought on a different battlefield. He held a mound of earth surrounded by a diamond-shaped field. He held it week after week, year after year, and he did it by hurling a baseball. Gettysburg Eddie was the first left-handed pitcher in baseball history to win 200 games and then the first to win 300 games. Even today, he has the third-most wins among left-handed pitchers—326—and ranks 11th among all pitchers. Plank was born on August 31, 1875, on his family’s farm north Read more…
Lou Gehrig may not have died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease
I saw an article in the New York Times the other day that caught my attention. Normally, I don’t pay attention to sports stories but this one is more than a sports story. Besides being a phenomenal baseball player, Lou Gehrig is known for how he died. Gehrig was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a incurable and fatal disease that causes the eventual loss of all voluntary muscle control. It is estimated that around 30,000 in the U.S. have the disease, which tends to strike 40-70 year old men A peer-reviewed paper was published in the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology suggests people diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease as it has come to be known might have had a concussion or brain trauma instead. The paper doesn’t specifically address Gehrig, but the authors have been interviews Read more…
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