The Library and Archives Canada and the Dawson City Museum in Yukon, Canada has made available newly discovered film of the famous 1919 World Series. As featured in Eight Men Out (1988), many of the White Sox players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, were banned from baseball for allegedly throwing the series to the Cincinnati Reds.
The more than four minutes of baseball footage is probably the best quality video of the most infamous World Series in baseball history. British Canadian Pathé News filmed the scenes, and the film was stored in an old swimming pool-hockey rink before being found again in the Canadian archive in January.
The segment includes scenes from the first and third games of the series (starting with some clips of the third game). Among the scenes, at around the 3:06 mark there is a short clip of what legend reports as a bungled double-play ball by Swede Risberg after Eddie Cicotte made a great play in stopping the ball. For more descriptions of what is on the film, check out the story from the Society for American Baseball Research. To watch the film, check it out below.
Thanks to Sonja for telling me about the fascinating video.
Do you think the White Sox players should have been banned forever? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On April 15, 1947 as a soft breeze blew across Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Jackie Robinson took his position at first base to play his first official Major League Baseball game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson was 28 years old, having served in the U.S. Army and played in the Negro American League before Dodger general manager Branch Rickey recruited Robinson in 1945 to join the Dodger organization.
On this date against the Boston Braves, Robinson broke the color barrier that had existed in baseball for more than fifty years. The last such player before Robinson was catcher Fleetwood Walker who played for the American Association’s Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884.
Robinson’s major league career that began that day would not be easy. But Robinson triumphed over the hate he encountered, both as a man and as a player, making him the greatest hero of any sport.
Baseball eventually recognized his accomplishments too. On this date in 1997, Major League Baseball retired his number 42, making it the first number retired for all teams.
Robinson’s Major League Debut
To go back and relive that sunny day at Ebbets Field on this date in 1947, listen to this 2007 NPR interview with writer Jonathan Eig, who wrote a book about Robinson’s first year called Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season. The interview discusses the historic game played this date in 1947.
Movies About Robinson
In 2013, a very good movie bearing the name of Robinson’s number 42 was released. But another earlier movie from 1950 told his story starring Jackie Robinson himself in The Jackie Robinson Story.
Below is the entire film, although the sound quality is not great. The recreation of his Major League debut begins around the 54-minute mark. The movie condenses events to give Robinson a triple on a day the first baseman went hitless. In the real game, he did score the go-ahead run after reaching on an error.
Another Rookie Debuting On This Date
Finally, here is a trivia question about that April 15, 1947 game. On that date, one other rookie besides Robinson took the field for the Dodgers that day, who was it?
As explained in the video above, the other rookie was Spider Jorgensen. Jorgenson was called up on such short notice that he did not have a glove. But his new teammate Jackie Robinson loaned Jorgensen one of his gloves.
Using that glove, third-baseman Jorgensen fielded a ball hit by Boston’s Dick Culler, throwing it to Robinson at first base to make the first out of the game. The Dodgers won by a score of 5–3.
May you baseball fans enjoy this day where every team is in first place starting on a clean slate. I’m talkin’ baseball!
The above classic baseball song is Terry Cashman‘s “Willie, Mickey, and the Duke (Talkin’ Baseball).” Cashman, a producer and singer-songwriter who once played minor league baseball, was inspired to write the song after receiving a picture of Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider. The original “Talkin’ Baseball” tribute to 1950s baseball came out during a baseball strike year in 1981, reminding fans why they still loved baseball.
According to Wikipedia and ESPN, Cashman has made versions of the song for most, but not all, baseball teams. But even those teams without their own version of “Talkin’ Baseball” can dream on this opening day.
Bonus Opening Day Trivia Question: When and where was the first interleague opening day game in Major League Baseball history? Answer: It was April 1, 2013, caused by the recent realignment moving one team to a different league.
What are you most excited about this baseball season? Leave your two cents in the comments.
After my favorite baseball team had a heartbreaking loss, I picked up my copy of Joe Posnanski’s The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America (2007) for some comfort. While reading it I came across a story from Buck O’Neil about his days in the Negro League that put into perspective my puny broken baseball dreams.
Willard “Sonny” Brown
Willard “Sonny” Brown
In the book, Posnanski relates O’Neil’s story about Willard “Sonny” Brown, who O’Neil had managed on the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League. In 1947, the same year Jackie Robinson made it to the Major Leagues, the St. Louis Browns signed Brown and his Monarchs teammate, Hank Thompson.
The Dodgers had worked to try to prepare Robinson for the pressure of the Majors with a stint in the Minor Leagues. By contrast, the Browns immediately sent Brown and Thompson to the Majors. There, the two men became the first black teammates on a Major League team.
By the end of the 1947 season, though, the Browns sent both men back to the Negro League’s Monarchs. Thompson would eventually return to the Major Leagues and have a successful career (although a troubled life), but it was Brown’s only time in the league.
The First African-American to Hit an American League Home Run
When Buck O’Neil visited school kids across America, though, he told them about Sonny Brown. And he would tell about one particular at bat.
Late in Brown’s one season in the Majors, on August 13, the team had already given up on the player. But on that Sunday, Brown came in as a pinch hitter in the second game of a double header against the Detroit Tigers.
Brown was surprised about being called into the game. And he did not even have a bat. So, he picked up a damaged bat of the team’s best hitter, Canadian-born Jeff Heath.
At the plate, Sonny Brown connected with a pitch, driving it so it smashed off the center field fence that was 428 feet away. Brown ran around the bases at full speed, turning the hit into an inside-the-park home run. It was the first home run by a black man in the American League.
But there were no congratulations in the dugout for the historic hit. None of Brown’s teammates even looked at him. The only acknowledgement Sonny Brown saw was that the notoriously short-tempered Jeff Heath took his bat that Brown had used and looked at it. Then, in disgust, he smashed the bat against the wall.
“It Wasn’t Easy”
Buck O’Neil used to ask the school children what lesson they learned from the fact that the player had broken Willard Brown’s bat after he hit a home run. He would tell them, “The lesson, children, is that it wasn’t easy.”
In Patty Griffin’s song, “Don’t Come Easy” from Impossible Dream (2004) she sings:
I don’t know nothing except change will come; Year after year what we do is undone; Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run; I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home.
Sonny Brown did find a home. The World War II veteran continued to have a successful career in the Negro Leagues. He ended his career there a few years later with a .355 lifetime batting average, a lot of home runs, and six All Star appearances.
Brown then continued playing baseball in Texas and in Puerto Rico until he retired from the sport with his nickname “Ese Hombre” (The Man) in 1957.
Brown — who was born on June 26, 1911 in Shreveport, Louisiana — died in Houston, Texas in 1996. Ten years after his death in 2006, Major League Baseball gave him the recognition he deserved. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Leave your two cents in the comments.
On Monday, former Cincinnati Red reliever Pedro Borbon passed away from cancer in Texas at the age of 65. Borbon, who was born in the Dominican Republic, was an important part of the Big Red Machine teams that won world champions in 1975 and 1976. He pitched in more games than any other Major League Baseball pitcher during the period of 1970-1978. He holds the record for most pitching appearances in a Reds uniform and is in the Reds Hall of Fame.
Growing up in southern Ohio in the 1970s, I was a big fan of the colorful Borbon on my Cincinnati Reds. Most baseball fans discover the sport as kids, and there is nothing like discovering the sport as your team is becoming one of the all-time greats. The Reds manager Sparky Anderson earned the nickname “Captain Hook” for pulling his starting pitchers so much in those days, and one of the reasons he could do so with confidence was because he had Borbon in the bullpen. During Borbon’s Reds’ career, he played in 20 post-season games with an ERA of 2.55.
Borbon had another claim to fame in that he was mentioned in the movie Airplane! (1980). In the film, Ted Striker (played by Robert Hays) is trying to concentrate while hearing voices in his head, including a public address announcer saying “Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon . . . Manny Mota.” From what I can tell, although Borbon had some short stints on a few other teams like the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, he never played on the same team as record-breaking pinch-hitter Manny Mota. The writers probably chose the Manny Mota reference because Mota was well-known as a pinch hitter, but I have not seen an explanation for why the writers chose Borbon among all the Major League pitchers. Perhaps they chose him because he was well-known, or because he was good, or maybe because he was a colorful character. Among other antics, during on-field brawls he used his teeth on a Mets hat and on Pirates player Daryl Patterson (who then had to get a tetanus shot).
Borbon’s son recently noted that his father often talked about the movie reference: “A lot of people remember him by that. He liked that.” At Borbon’s request, there is not going to be a memorial service in Texas. But I hope he does not mind that I thank him for the memories he gave me by playing the Airplane! clip that he liked. RIP.
. The interview discusses the historic game played this date in 1947.
(2007) for some comfort. While reading it I came across a story from Buck O’Neil about his days in the Negro League that put into perspective my puny broken baseball dreams.
(2004) she sings:
