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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
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- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
Comments
That is some serious talent, right there. If they were all in the same outfield, I'd bet even @Kasey could pitch for that team and have success!!
CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY SUPER WAY COOL PHOTOS!!!!
Glad I didn't have to play CF in the old Polo Grounds. 485 ft to dead center. What a lot of room to cover. He had no problems with it.
Yeah, he was Amazing Mays. Polo grounds was 500 ft. until 1957, Yankee stadium [1923] was 490 ft., lots of doubles and triples for the Babe, then reduced to 461 ft. still deep. 😎
Only Four players are credited with hitting a hr into the centerfield bleachers at the Polo Grounds. Hank Aaron and Lou Brock on consecutive days, Joe Adcock, and Luke Easter, an old negro-league player. Centerfield was 425 feet with a wall at the corners approximately 20 feet tall. Right center and left center were approximately 450 feet. But the most interesting part of the park was a runway that continued about 60 feet to a clubhouse with the 483 sign.
No one has ever been credited with hitting a ball that reached the clubhouse.
I believe Ted Williams served two separate times.
He did.
The Giants played the Cardinals at Rickwood Field yesterday.. Major League Baseball paying tribute to the old Negro League and it's stars such as Willie Mays.
Edit: Everyone has heard of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson from the Negro Leagues. Satchel Paige actually pitched a couple of seasons in the Majors joining the Cleveland Indians at the age of 42 (?) and made a few appearances for the Braves in the 60's, as I recall it. In his prime, Paige had an amazing fastball once challenging Josh Gibson (?). "I'm going to throw you three fastballs" And proceeded to strike him out.
But there's another player who I didn't know that was featured in Yesterday's tribute. Oscar Charleston. Known as the Hoosier Comet he excelled in every facet of the game: Hitting, Fielding, and base running. Someone said he excelled at Hitting, Fielding and fighting drawing comparisons to Ty Cobb.
He won the triple Crown three times and amazingly accomplished nearly all of these feats as the team's manager.
Check out this batting order for the 1972 All-Star Game in Atlanta. Holy cow! This could be considered the original dream team. When Hank isn’t batting cleanup you know it’s something super special.
I'm most familiar with the '66 Braves. The Braves first season playing in Atlanta. As I remember it, Aaron almost always hit 3rd in the lineup. Usually reserved for the hitter who had the best combination of average and power.
That aside, what a lineup. And Torre, who batted cleanup for much of career was a catcher before moving to first base, as I remember it.
Only with Lee May at first and Bench manning the catcher spot could I ever have imagined Torre playing third base and batting 7th in the lineup.
Hank blasted a 2-run homer that night in front of a delighted Atlanta crowd to help the National League win 4-3 in 10 innings, starting an 11 game winning streak for the NL.
This was also the final All Star game for Roberto Clemente, who died in a plane crash later that year.
My UGA roommate just messaged me that he attended that 1972 Atlanta all star game as an 8 year old boy. What a fun memory to see Mays, Aaron, Stargell and the Big Red Machine in person!
The 50's, 60's and 70's were indeed the golden age of baseball … at least to me. I grew up in the Chicago area and my Dad would take me to Cubs games at Wrigley Field pretty regularly. If the Cubs were not in town, we would travel to the south side and go to old Comiskey Park. On the rare occasion when both Chicago teams were not playing and Dad wanted to go to a game, we would head north to Milwaukee County Stadium. I had the privilege to see some very excellent ball players from both the National and American Leagues. Watching Willie Mays run the bases was perhaps the single most exciting thing I ever saw on a baseball diamond. Roberto Clemente gunning down base runners with his throwing arm was also unbelievable every time it happened. And only 8 teams per league until 1961, so the talent level was incredible. Thanks for stirring the memory pot!!
It was, the golden age of baseball, but when the benches cleaned back then, more than one player as coming out with a swollen eye. I remember listening to a double header on the radio when Frank Robinson and Eddie Matthews got into it after Roobie slid hard into Matthews. During the broadcast, announcer related that Eddie played the entire second game with his left eye swollen shut and Robbie was bleeding from the mouth and spitting blood the whole second game. Golden indeed.
baseball fights now are merely spectator sports - both on and off the field. A chance for a player to say hi to a friend he hasn't seen in a while.
@TurkDawg I don't know why I found this, but Nate Colbert, a reserve for the Padres, had one pa in that game. Credited with a BB and a run. Amazingly, he returned to Atlanta for a double header on August 1st when he hit 5 homeruns and had 13 rbi's.
Sadly, we lost Nate on January 5th, 2023. R.I.P. Nate Colbert.