September 28, 1947: The 1st Yankee Old-Timer's Day

Left to right: The Georgia Peach, the Sultan of Swat, 

and the Grey Eagle. Between them, 10,579 hits.

September 28, 1947: While the New York Yankees officially count Lou Gehrig Day, July 4, 1939, as the 1st Old-Timers' Day, the first of the annual event at Yankee Stadium is held on this day.

Among the guests are Babe Ruth, then age 52, wearing a suit and his camel-hair coat, and appearing in spite of the cancer that will take his life within a year; Ty Cobb, 61, wearing a Detroit Tigers uniform, Number 25; Tris Speaker, 59 and a coach for the Cleveland Indians, wearing his uniform, Number 43; and Cy Young, 80, who pitched for both the Indians and the old National League team, the Cleveland Spiders, wearing an Indians uniform, Number 29. Cobb, Speaker and Young all retired as players before numbers were regularly worn.

Also on hand were Duffy Lewis and Harry Hooper, who, with Speaker, formed the great Boston Red Sox outfield that won the 1912 and 1915 World Series, before Speaker was traded to the Indians. With Ruth as a young pitcher, Lewis and Hooper won the Series again in 1916 and 1918. Had Walter Johnson, who died of cancer the year before, still been alive, he likely would have been invited as well, as he had pitched to Ruth in a war bond drive game at Yankee Stadium in 1942.

Left to right: Cy Young, Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker,

Harry Hooper and Ty Cobb.

There's also a regular game, the last of the regular season. The Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-3. Johnny Lindell hits a home run off Lou Brissie, the war hero who has to wear a metal plate on his shin to protect his surgically-repaired leg. The winning pitcher is Bill Wight -- not to be confused with Bill White, later a fine 1st baseman, a longtime Yankee broadcaster, and a President of the National League.

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September 28, 1947 was a Sunday. In other baseball games:

* The Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 5-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Browns started Dizzy Dean, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals before his 1937 injury, and by this point a broadcaster for both St. Louis teams.

A few days earlier, frustrated with their pitching, he said, on the air, "Doggone it, I can pitch better than 9 out of the 10 guys on this staff." The Brown pitchers' wives complained to management, and they decided to put their money where Dean's mouth was. Since Dean was still only 37, they chose the last day of the season, when the spectator-poor Browns would have even more trouble than usual filling Sportsman's Park, to have Dean pitch for the Browns. It didn't work: Attendance is only 15,910, about half the ballpark's capacity.

He went 4 innings, and got a hit off future Yankee All-Star Eddie Lopat, but pulled a muscle rounding 1st base, and had to leave the game. The Browns' bullpen proved Ol Diz' point as much as he did, losing the game for him.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers, having already clinched the National League Pennant, lose their meaningless regular-season finale, 3-2 to the Boston Braves at Braves Field. Johnny Sain pitches 5 innings in relief to pick up his 21st win of the season.

The game ends on a run scored due to an error by the Dodgers' 1st baseman. It's not Jackie Robinson, who got the day off. With poetic justice, it is Ed Stevens, one of the Southerners who'd signed the petition to keep Robinson off the Dodgers in Spring Training. He never appears for the Dodgers again: In the off-season, he's traded to Pittsburgh.

* The New York Giants split a doubleheader with the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Jints win the opener, 4-1. The Phils win the nightcap, 3-1. Despite having hit a major league record 221 home runs this season, led by the 51 of Johnny Mize, the Giants hit no homers in this doubleheader, and only finished 4th in the NL, 13 games behind the Pennant-winning Dodgers.

* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Ted Williams of the Red Sox goes 2-for-4. With the regular season over, Williams has won the Triple Crown for the 2nd time: He batted .343, hit 32 home runs, and had 114 RBIs. But Joe DiMaggio had led the Yankees to the Pennant, and ended up leading them to the World Championship. Again, DiMaggio, not Williams, is named the American League's Most Valuable Player.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Former Yankee Ernest "Tiny" Bonham pitches a 2-hit shutout. Ralph Kiner finishes 1-for-4 with a RBI. He does not hit a home run, finishing with 51 on the season, tying Mize for the NL and major league lead. Not entering the game for the Pirates is Hank Greenberg, who is retiring, and played his last game 10 days earlier.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 1-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Fred Hutchinson, later to manage the Reds to a Pennant, pitches a 6-hit shutout, to beat Bob Feller.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Bill Nicholson, known as "Swish" because he struck out a lot by the standards of the era, was kind of a precursor to Dave Kingman: All or nothing. This time, he got all of one, hitting the game's only homer. Johnny Schmitz pitched a 5-hit shutout. Stan Musial did not enter the game for the Cards.

Since it was a Sunday, there were also NFL games played, but only 3 of them:

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 45-42. Wikipedia and Pro-Football-Reference.com agree that the game was played at Shibe Park. Except it couldn't have been, unless it was played at night, after the Phillies finished their doubleheader with the Giants. It's much more likely that the game was moved to Municipal Stadium (later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium) or Franklin Field.

* The Chicago Cardinals beat the Detroit Lions, 45-21 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. This one is possible, since the White Sox were in St. Louis -- oddly, the city the football Cardinals would move to in 1960.

* And The Green Bay Packers beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Bears, 29-20 at Green Bay City Stadium.

July 14, 1962: An Expansion Team Holds an Old-Timers Day

July 14, 1962: At the Polo Grounds, the New York Mets host their first Old-Timers' Day. The Mets are a 1st-year expansion team, having played a grand total of 84 games. There are, as yet, no "Mets Old-Timers," unless you count the already-departed Bobby Smith, Joe Ginsberg, Clem Labine, Herb Moford, Jim Marshall, Don Zimmer, Hobie Landrith and Harry Chiti, all of whom were still active and unavailable.

The old-timers' game featured former New York Giants (the team now in San Francisco) against former Brooklyn Dodgers (the team now in Los Angeles). The Giants included Bobby Thomson, the man who hit the home run that gave the Giants the 1951 National League Pennant. The Dodgers included Jackie Robinson, the 1st black player in modern baseball; Roy Campanella, appearing in a wheelchair, 4 years after his career-ending, paralyzing car accident; and Ralph Branca, who gave that Thomson home run up.

Duke Snider, still active with the Dodgers, was introduced. Gil Hodges, still active with the Mets, wore a Dodger uniform for the ceremony, before switching into a Met uniform for the regular game. However, neither played in that game.

Branca, who was 36 and arguably should have still been playing, and Thomson, 41, faced each other again. This time, Branca got Thomson out on a fly ball to center field. Alas, it didn't count for anything, and it didn't help Branca's reputation.

In the current-players game, the visiting Dodgers smashed the Mets, 17-3. Dem Erstwhile Bums scored 8 runs in the 2nd inning, and 6 in the 6th. Willie Davis and Maury Wills, neither of them known as sluggers, hit home runs. Even the Dodger pitcher, Stan Williams, hit a home run. Of course, the game was at the Polo Grounds, with its 483-foot center field fence, but its left field pole only 279 feet away, and its right field pole just 257. Richie Ashburn hit one out for the Mets.

The attendance was 37,253 -- which meant that, in spite of the legends we hear about the early, horrible Mets outdrawing the Pennant-winning Yankees, there were over 18,000 empty seats at the Polo Grounds.

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July 14, 1962 was a Saturday. These other games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels, 9-8 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Angels were groundsharing until their Anaheim stadium could open. The Yankees blew a 7-3 lead going into the bottom of the 8th. Tom Tresh hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 10th inning. Ed Sadowski hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 10th, but the Halos could get no closer. Marshall Bridges was the winning pitcher, in relief of Bill Stafford.

Elston Howard also hit a home run. Mickey Mantle went 1-for-4 with a walk, Roger Maris went 2-for-4 with 2 walks, and Yogi Berra did not play.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Bobby Wine singled Jacke Davis home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Juan Marichal started the game for the Giants, but didn't get out of the 4th inning; while Dallas Green started for the Phils, and pitched into the 7th. Despite blowing a save, Jack Baldschun was the winning pitcher, and Stu Miller the losing pitcher. Willie Mays went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Jim Gentile led off the bottom of the 14th inning with a home run off Gary Bell. I guess Bell, later to be current Yankee rookie Jim Bouton's roommate on the 1969 Seattle Pilots in the season of Ball Four, didn't take his own advice to throw him inside fastballs, or "smoke him inside." Brooks Robinson went 2-for-5.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Colt .45's, 4-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-3 with an RBI. The Colts became the Houston Astros in 1965.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 0-for-3, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly. Frank Robinson went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Braves, 2-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Ernie Broglio pitched a 6-hit shutout. Stan Musial went 2-for-3 with a walk. Hank Aaron went 0-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Al Kaline did not play.

* The "new" Washington Senators beat the "old" Washington Senators, now known as the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew drove in all the Twins' runs with a 1st-inning home run off Bennie Daniels, but Jim Kaat couldn't hold the lead.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 4-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4.