thephan wrote:

BatFlipsFTW wrote:Why would that give you a sinking feeling?

Since WWI created a substantial number of orphans, it would be of questionable taste to honor the effected by calling the team Orphans after their plight. It would not be a wonderful honorarium to that human struggle of the time.

Anger and sinking feeling over unwoke organizations in the 1910s scene. I am literally shaking.

thephan wrote:Today in baseball history:

In 1914 Ben Tincup became the first member of the Cherokee nation to play in the major leagues. The 21 year-old Phillies right-hander made his debut at Pittsburg's Forbes Field in an 8-2 loss earning him a typical "welcome to the Phillies" kid.

In 1930, Babe Ruth had a big day in Philadelphia when tied the major league record by hitting five homers in two games and six homers in three games. He swatted three homeruns in the second game of the previous day's doubleheader, added two more in the first game of May 22's twin bill, and piled on with one more in the nightcap. Lou Gehrig also went deep three times in the second game of the doubleheader for a 20-13 Yankee victory over the A's at Shibe Park.

A Native American mlb player not nicknamed Chief?? That's unpossible.

He actually seems like he was pretty good at first so I was curious why he stopped playing for many years but it seems WWI service broke that up initially.

Rather amazing given the nasty history of the Phils with Jackie Robinson.

I happened upon this video about Willie Mays' "The Catch" this evening which reminded me of just how very bizarre the Polo Grounds was by modern baseball standards. The outfield fences were well under 300' down the baselines (258' in right field!), but the outfield was roughly rectangular so center field was mostly about 450' all the way across, except for the notch in straightaway center that was a crazy 483'.

I'd like to see modern baseball played on a field like this.

phatj wrote:I happened upon this video about Willie Mays' "The Catch" this evening which reminded me of just how very bizarre the Polo Grounds was by modern baseball standards. The outfield fences were well under 300' down the baselines (258' in right field!), but the outfield was roughly rectangular so center field was mostly about 450' all the way across, except for the notch in straightaway center that was a crazy 483'.

I'd like to see modern baseball played on a field like this.

Years ago (and probably still) they'd have a couple old timey baseball stadiums available in MLB: The Show for Playstation...2? I think. Polo Grounds was easily the most fun one to play in. Lots of inside the park HR because you could hit a line drive in between the outfielders and it would just roll forever.

philliesphhan wrote:

phatj wrote:I happened upon this video about Willie Mays' "The Catch" this evening which reminded me of just how very bizarre the Polo Grounds was by modern baseball standards. The outfield fences were well under 300' down the baselines (258' in right field!), but the outfield was roughly rectangular so center field was mostly about 450' all the way across, except for the notch in straightaway center that was a crazy 483'.

I'd like to see modern baseball played on a field like this.

Years ago (and probably still) they'd have a couple old timey baseball stadiums available in MLB: The Show for Playstation...2? I think. Polo Grounds was easily the most fun one to play in. Lots of inside the park HR because you could hit a line drive in between the outfielders and it would just roll forever.

This exchange led me to find this little tidbit on the internet, from sabr. It's and oldie but a goodie:

http://research.sabr.org/journals/insid ... -home-runs

Willie Wilson had 5 (!) inside-the-park home runs in 1979, when the roster of AL ballparks was:

Fenway Park
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (sans Mount Davis)
Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium - at that time it was newly fitted with extra grandstands/decking for the Rams)
Royals Stadium (Kauffman Stadium with astroturf)
Yankee Stadium II (post-renovation Yankee Stadium, so no "monument valley" or flag pole in play in a ridiculously deep center/left-center)
Tiger Stadium
County Stadium (Milwaukee)
Cleveland Municipal Stadium
Memorial Stadium (Orioles)
Comiskey Park (White Sox)
Arlington Stadium (Rangers)
Exhibition Stadium (Blue Jays)
Kingdome (Mariners)
Metropolitan Stadium (Twins)

Looking at that roster, four are the same basically (when you count more-or-less duplicated Yankee Stadium) with maybe slightly altered dimensions at the California ballparks, and the rest weren't like really old ballparks with deep, deep center fields, with the exception of Tiger Stadium (which had a 440 foot center field fence). Comiskey Park, Memorial Stadium, County Stadium, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and Metropolitan Stadium were all in-line with current standards (400 footish CF), and outside of the redoubtable Fenway, none of these places had really odd angles or things of that nature. If anything they were more like the trend of the 70s - regular, predictable roundedness to the outfield fences.

One other thing I learned from this article:

Those were legitimate home runs - at least the bounce home run was until 1930 - but we do not include those hits as IPH because they ultimately become unplayable.

Ummmm… what? Now I have all kinds of questions about Babe Ruth.

Wolfgang622 wrote:One other thing I learned from this article:

Those were legitimate home runs - at least the bounce home run was until 1930 - but we do not include those hits as IPH because they ultimately become unplayable.

Ummmm… what? Now I have all kinds of questions about Babe Ruth.

Prior to 1920, if you hit a walk off home run, the home run only counted to your total if your run was needed to win the game. So if you hit a 3 run home run to win a tie game, you didn't get credited with a home run. There were a lot of weird rules that worked both ways with things.

phatj wrote:I'd like to see modern baseball played on a field like this.

Maybe you could gin up a Polo Grounds outfield in maybe a football stadium but it seems doubtful. I took a look at the Linc dimensions and you cannot got 480' there. Look like 420' rail to rail.

phatj wrote:I happened upon this video about Willie Mays' "The Catch" this evening which reminded me of just how very bizarre the Polo Grounds was by modern baseball standards. The outfield fences were well under 300' down the baselines (258' in right field!), but the outfield was roughly rectangular so center field was mostly about 450' all the way across, except for the notch in straightaway center that was a crazy 483'.

I'd like to see modern baseball played on a field like this.

The aerial view of this field is preposterous!

Wolfgang622 wrote:One other thing I learned from this article:

Those were legitimate home runs - at least the bounce home run was until 1930 - but we do not include those hits as IPH because they ultimately become unplayable.

Ummmm… what? Now I have all kinds of questions about Babe Ruth.

As a big fan of baseball history, I'm surprised you never knew about bounced HR. It's unlikely that rule helped Ruth much though as other factors hurt him more. As you noted, a lot of stadiums still had ridiculous distances to center field, and for a while there, a foul ball was determined by where it landed in the stands, not where it passed the pole. "Fair when last seen" I think it was called. So if you hit one down the line fair 440 feet, but it curved ever so slightly foul well after it was into the stands, it was considered foul.

philliesphhan wrote:

phatj wrote:I happened upon this video about Willie Mays' "The Catch" this evening which reminded me of just how very bizarre the Polo Grounds was by modern baseball standards. The outfield fences were well under 300' down the baselines (258' in right field!), but the outfield was roughly rectangular so center field was mostly about 450' all the way across, except for the notch in straightaway center that was a crazy 483'.

I'd like to see modern baseball played on a field like this.

Years ago (and probably still) they'd have a couple old timey baseball stadiums available in MLB: The Show for Playstation...2? I think. Polo Grounds was easily the most fun one to play in. Lots of inside the park HR because you could hit a line drive in between the outfielders and it would just roll forever.

The Polo Grounds was always fun to play in with how absurd the dimensions are. But yes, the current version of The Show still has old some timey ballparks in it.

It's absurd the Phillies ever won any games prior to moving to Connie Mack/Shibe considering this was the Baker Bowl configuration:

Lifebuoy had some magical powers to it.

stevelxa476 wrote:Lifebuoy had some magical powers to it.

But the Phillies still stank.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

stevelxa476 wrote:Lifebuoy had some magical powers to it.

But the Phillies still stank.

I said "some"!

philliesphhan wrote:It's absurd the Phillies ever won any games prior to moving to Connie Mack/Shibe considering this was the Baker Bowl configuration:

It was the same dimensions for both teams.

Sure, but who played 70+ games there