When the subject of baseball in Brooklyn comes up, the discussion centers around Ebbets Field, the Flatbush venue most famously home to The Boys of Summer. Those legendary 1940s and '50s teams that featured such historic and beloved players as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges. Ebbets Field hosted its last major league game in 1957 and was torn down during the winter of 1960. But decades earlier, just before World War One, the Dodgers were based in the Park Slope area and played at Washington Park. Once they moved out, the land was occupied by another stadium, which housed a different franchise. The upstart Federal League, which played in the 1914 and '15 seasons, had a Brooklyn team called the TipTops. Owned by a local baking magnate Robert Ward, whose company produced TipTop bread, the club took over the abandoned lot along 3rd Avenue and built a new brick and steel venue. The only no-hitter in the Federal League's two...
The historic value or the irony in a shot isn't always apparent when you click the shutter. We're at the Cardinals' spring training home Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida in March 2005. As is the case for many exhibition games, the managers and their key aides view the action not from the dugout, but from the field itself. Bookending Cards skipper Tony LaRussa are (on the left) his longtime pitching coach Dave Duncan and (to the right) Jim Leyland, then working as a scout for the club. Who could have predicted that a year and a half later, LaRussa and Leyland would be the managers of opposing clubs in a World Series? 2006 was when the Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers -- managed by Jim Leyland -- in five games. Somehow, I can't imagine LaRussa or Leyland framing that scenario while comparing notes on prospects, bench players and maybe the local eatery where they'd share dinner.
Comments