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Monday, June 29, 2009

Post-Gazette: Forbes Field relics score rare memories

It’s a restrained but rare collection of memorabilia that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Forbes Field now on display at the Senator John Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum.

From the well-preserved uniform of a Homestead Grays player to the diaries of Barney Dreyfuss, the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and builder of the ballpark, “Forbes Field: A Century of Memories” is a microcosmic portrait of what once was Western Pennsylvania’s sports mecca.

Anne Madarasz, director of the center’s Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, said several items, including Dreyfuss’ diary, opened to June 30, 1909, the day the park opened, have never been displayed before.

“The rarest is the Grays’ uniform,” she said. “We think it’s only one of two still in existence.” (The other is elsewhere in the museum.)

...Other first-time artifacts:

• A 1909 caricature of Barney Dreyfuss as a swashbuckler holding a Detroit Tiger by the tail. Pittsburgh defeated the Tigers in the World Series that year.

From the Bochmann Collection (my neighbor)...Forbes Field - 1945.

Repoz Posted: June 29, 2009 at 03:35 PM | 6 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: history, pirates

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1. The cushions are crowded for Edmundo

Posted: June 29, 2009 at 04:32 PM (#3236639)

If I had a time machine, I would definitely go back and visit those old parks on their opening days. They must have been so grand in their day. IIRC, Forbes had one of those incredibly deep CFs.

2. Steve Treder Posted: June 29, 2009 at 04:37 PM (#3236644)

IIRC, Forbes had one of those incredibly deep CFs.

Not just CF, but left-center as well, which was 457 feet from home through most of the park's existence. Therefore it was a great triples park, along with Griffith Stadium the best triples park in major league history. Terrific ballpark.

3. jingoist Posted: June 29, 2009 at 04:57 PM (#3236676)

Plus lots of obstructed view seats that had girders blocking your view of the field.

As a kid growing up in Pgh during the 1940's and 50's, Forbes field was home to most of my earliest baseball memories.
I lived the first 10 years of my life on the Southside, just above the J&L;mill in Oakland, about 1/2 mile from the ballpark.
The new park on the Northside is a modern version of what FF used to be and is a worthy successor to FF, unlike that piece of trash 3 Rivers Stadium that had a short 30 year life and thankfully no longer exists.
As Steve said; center and left-center was where many a long fly ball went to die.
Billy Virdon and Bob Skinner used to catch balls that would be easy HR's in todays stadiums.
Likewise, Clemente got many of his 166 triples from legging out balls that got into the left-center field gap.

4. Jolly Old St. Neck Wound, Moral Idiot

Posted: June 29, 2009 at 05:32 PM (#3236707)

To give you an idea of just how spacious some of those old time outfields were, in the year that the Senators won their only World Series (1924), they hit a grand total of ONE (1) home run in Griffith Stadium. You can look it up.

I still have to believe that one of the top ten slugging feats in ML history was the day in 1950 that Joe Dimaggio parked three home runs into the left field bleachers there, at a time when the distance to the foul pole was 405 ft and the wall was 11 feet high. And then on Opening Day six years later, Mickey Mantle hit two home runs into a tree, over a 30 foot high wall that was 438 feet from the plate---these two home runs represented 40% of the total number of home runs hit over that part of the wall in the entire history of Griffith Stadium, the last being hit by Ted Williams on Opening Day in 1960.

5. TerpNats Posted: June 29, 2009 at 05:39 PM (#3236715)

Two Pennsylvania ballparks opened in 1909 and closed in 1970. The other, of course, was Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, upened 2 1/2 months before Forbes and closed slightly more than three months after (with a different tenant than when it started).

6. esseff Posted: June 29, 2009 at 05:43 PM (#3236718)

There's probably not enough interest outside Pa. to take an exhibit like that on the road, but I'd go twice if it would help. As one who remembers the old parks, I'd love to see it.

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Monday, June 29, 2009

Post-Gazette: Forbes Field relics score rare memories

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