Sixty years ago, the New York Yankees were on the eve of a new season. Last year on Twitter, I covered Babe Ruth’s first season with the Yankees, 1920, through The New York Times——Time Machine—— Archives. I heard from many how much they enjoyed reading daily articles. It was historic not only because of the home run chase of Babe Ruth’s home run record but also a battle for first place between the Detroit Tigers and the New York Yankees.
*That positive feedback inspired me to cover the 1961 season.
The 1961 baseball season was the start of expansion in MLB, first the American League was expanding to ten teams. A new team in Washington D.C. replacing the original franchise that relocated to Minnesota and is now known as the Twins. The other new addition is the Los Angeles Angels, the first west coast team in the AL. Another change is the 154 game schedule is now going to 162. The newly expanded schedule had already started many debates surrounding one recorded, Babe Ruth’s 1927 60 home runs in 154 games. On April 10, 1961, the season of change in the AL started. With the Chicago White Sox defeating the (new) Washington Senators.
**April 11, 1961, The New York Time full page coverage.
Tomorrow April 11, the Yankees home opener vs.Minnesota Twins. *Every morning, I read 1961, The New York Time sports coverage. I then prepare the articles for capture and create my Twitter posts. ** When I looked at the Times sports page today, I thought the full page deserved to be shared. Unlike last year I will add from time to time an extra element, the entire page.
Spring Training 2021 comes to an end on March 30, and the 2021 MLB season officially begins April 1, with the Yankees vs. Blue Jays at 1:05 at Yankee Stadium.
My archives are a series of Ozzie Sweet original film/pictures taken in 1971 at the Washington Senators Training camp. This year made it 50 years ago. Since 90-percent of those pictures have not been seen in public, I thought, time to share them. On March 22, I began posting pictures of Ozzie Sweets 1971, Washington Senators, photoshoot for Sport magazine on my Twitter page.
Why 1971? In February 1971, the Washington Senators spring-training camp opened, helmed by manager Ted Williams.
Ted Williams Ranked the fourth greatest ballplayer in the history of MLB
In camp is Curt Flood, who lost his challenge to baseball reserve clause in court. And Denny McLain, who broke baseball’s rules associating with gamblers.
Curt Flood, age 33, left the team 13 games into the season, never to play again. Denny McLain fought with Ted Williams all season, winning only 10-games, losing 22. By the age of 28, 1972 playing for two other teams, 2x Cy Young and 1x MVP, and last pitcher to win 30 games going 31-6 1n 1968, was out of baseball forever.
For 50-years, I have been involved in printing and making prints, a subject I will expand on in future blogs. Part of why I revised and updated my website was my desire to close down my fine art studio. Going into 2020, I was thinking about how to close down. As much as I love photography, I love printmaking. The shutdown allowed me to be away from the studio and think uninterrupted about what I wanted. Then one day, my inbox started dinging, with sales from images of mine on Fine Art America. I had not forgotten about them, just not thinking of them. There printing is excellent, and I visited my page and started looking at other artist’s works. Then I remembered Getty was on FAA selling images using their services. Then I discovered that the Daily News, a New York City newspaper, was also working with FAA printing service. Needless to say, lightbulbs were popping off, and pieces starting to come together. The next thing I knew, I was working with Squarespace, 99design, and Soda Creek.
Letting go of printing, in the end, was easier than I imagined.
Today is the first day of spring and the first day of my new website. My blogs will be short vignettes about the images and other interests. I want to say thank you to Sandra at Soda Creek Digital.
Eleven months ago, as COVID-19 started to spread, we left Spring Training in Florida and drove home to Westchester County, NY. Shortly after arriving home, I wrote about our trip home, all the while thinking now’s my chance to become a more active writer while in shutdown. It did not happen. Writing has always been my Achilles Heel. But, because of COVID-19 and the shutdown of my studio for five months. It gave me the time to reset what I want to change. Though I enjoyed my second career working with other artists, it began to feel more like a job—something I did not want after retiring in 2006. While the building/studio was closed, the 44″ Epson printer, printer heads dried up, clogging the lines. After extensive work on attempting to get the printer up and running. Between the expense of the repair kit, ink, and paper waste, in August, I gave up. I called 1-800-GOT-JUNK and felt a lot better. But, the shutdown has been far more devastating for the musicians, actors, and artists. Many artists I know and worked with lost their galleries here in the US and abroad that showcase their work.
Starting January into February 2020, I began printing the pictures for my project and purchased the inventory to complete it.
In August, having already given on my old printer, I decided I called B&H in Manhattan to purchase an Epson SureColor P5000 Standard Edition 17″ Wide-Format Inkjet Printer. This project was close to my heart. It has been something that I started thinking about a long time ago. Over the year’s I made changes to the concept. In 2010 I had 100-handmade boxes crafted. So, now 2021, it’s full steam ahead.
On Friday, I finished work on the last set of prints, and today, the last element the cover letter. So, now I will let the visuals speak:
The total amount of images, 2600. Every image had to be hand trimmed to fit correct in the boxes.
And today the last element
This Limited-Edition BoxSet is a photographic history covering the span of Yankee Stadium I II and III. All of the fine art prints, also called giclee’s, are archival museum-quality, using pigment inks on 100% cotton rag paper. The custom-made box and interleaved buffered-paper to protect the prints are acid-free. This combination gives you the highest quality fine art printing available.
Following a lengthy review of Yankee Stadium images, I found it daunting to create a visual story. I chose these 25 pictures as they show the stadium as it progressed and changed. They share a visual aspect, connecting the three Yankee Stadiums’ stories together. I chose to start with June 1, 1922, over earlier shots as it shows the construction’s beginnings. The 1922 photo’s perspective and the picture taken on March 19, 2010, are from the same camera location. August 16, 1937, the picture depicts the completed triple deck right-field stands, proving that Babe Ruth never hit a home run into the third deck. Other pictures are of all five scoreboards. One is from 1973, thanking the fans at the last game at Yankee Stadium on September 30, 1973, and another is the last game in 2008 with Babe Ruth on the screen. Also included are pictures capturing the last pitch at Yankee Stadium II in 2008 and the first pitch at the new Yankee Stadium III in 2009.
This Limited-Edition Box Set is comprised of a vast archive of-one-of-a-kind pictures. The Black & White images are public domain. All the Color images were shot by Paul Plaine and are copyright protected and cannot be reproduced without written permission.
Paul Plaine
You can contact me at paul@ballparkprints.com or through Message on twitter for additional information.
Seventeen Days at home, keeping busy with a variety of daily projects, organizing closets, going through boxes from our move five years ago, calling friends and family, emailing, and texting. Also tweeting a lot of baseball information. I have also not been watching TV too much, about two hours a night, and only a fraction of that time do I tune in to the news. I get most of my news reading various newspapers I subscribe to and various internet new links.
The popular talk seems to be pointing towards another four weeks of hunkering down. With that in mind, I started going through DVDs, looking at my Amazon Prime, and Fios on Demand. Lot’s of choices.
I have a set of movies that I look at every year. They never get old. But with all this time being home today started thinking what I should watch to fill in the days ahead. I started thinking maybe create themes. I watch Ground Hog Day every year, and I got the feeling I’m in my own Ground Hog Day movie. It will be a while before I watch it again.
What should I watch tomorrow? I asked myself? Having been inside except for that all-important grocery run, I thought escape movies.
I started making a list, and exclude Shawshank Redemption. We travel a lot, and on our way to Spring Training and back home, Shawshank seems to be on every night.
I decided to go deep diving to make my list:
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Count of Monte Cristo
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Papillon
The Great Escape
Escape from New York
Cool Hand Luke
Houdini
Empire of the Sun
Stalag 17
Stir Crazy
As I created my list that is too long to write here, all this escape stuff depressed me. The only escape movie I decided to watch is Stir Crazy.
Going through this process, I realized there is a movie I enjoy and have not watched in years. The last time I had seen it was at East Side movie theater in New York City near the Roosevelt Tram. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
Like Jim Stewart, it’s how I fill in parts of my day, sitting in a chair watching the daily action from my window.
These were the words that were rolling around in my head, leading up to our annual Florida Spring Training 2020 road trip:
“Well, come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know“
We left for spring training on February 29th, with a return date of April 1st. I follow the news closely every day. The reports on the COVID-19 Virus did raise our concerns. After all, we would be living in hotels, eating in restaurants, and attending spring training baseball games.
The second night in South Carolina in the hotel elevator, I talked to a couple heading back to Canada, they express that they feared Canada would close the border due to the coronavirus. You could sense their apprehension. Back in our room, I told my wife of the encounter she became even more concerned. I checked the news, we talked and agreed to continue on.
Once in Florida on the east coast at New Smyrna Beach, a real beach town my parents had lived in. we realized they had very little knowledge or concerns about the ‘Virus.’ This same attitude would follow us to the west coast and the four spring training games we attended.
Once MLB canceled Spring Training 2020, follow the NBA, NHL, and significant sports organizations around the world, we started to hear some conversations and not always concerns over the coronavirus. It was now March, 13th, just arriving in Fort Myers, and we made the decision to cancel the rest of our trip and return home ASAP.
When we got back home, we had a lot of work to do. Luckily the painters had finished working in the bedroom, and the closet renovations were completed. All we had to do was put it all back together.
“Well, come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble“
Tomorrow Atlanta Braves New Spring Training Ballpark Cool Today Park
Woke-up to the sad news Don Larsen passed away. October 8, 1956, was also the first time I would meet him in my aunt and uncle’s kitchen around 5:30. Back then, families lived within the same building, and my aunt and uncle lived a floor above us.
Aunt Anne come down while having dinner and ask if would okay for me to go upstairs and meet someone. Mom and dad knew and said okay. Leaving the dinner table back then was a big deal then. Sitting in there kitchen, having a beer with my uncle, was Don Larsen.
They had two season tickets to Yankee Stadium Section 5 club Lodge level. The seats were the first row seats1-2. They were directly behind Mel Allen and were all the sportswriters sat. Section 5 Lodge at the top of the stairs had a bar-clubhouse for the writers and the small group of ticketholders in that section. Back then, women were not allowed in any sports venue sportswriters bar/clubhouse.
My aunt often declined to attend games, sighting that Uncle Charlie would go up to bar for three or four innings, and she did not like sitting alone that long, and so I got to go to games. Many of the games I attended were Old Timers Day, Saturday and Sunday doubleheaders, and some World Series games. These games had a significant media presence. I did get to meet the writers in the beginning, and I was too young to realize the wow factor!
When my uncle died in1972 from cancer, Don Larsen sent my aunt a letter that she read I recall that he felt terrible that he could not make it to NYC for the funeral. Side note, my parents also knew him and never spoke of it.
Some years back, I went to Bryant Park to a Yankees event and spoke to Don Larsen and mentioned my Aunt Anne and Uncle Charles Shipp, and he stopped walking, and we exchanged a few words shook hand and parted our ways.
As the 2017 Major League Season winds down the race for first place in the AL East has tightened, and the WildCard race has gotten ‘Wilder.’
For the Yankees as of today September 4th after taking 3 of 4 vs. the first place AL East Red Sox are now 3.5 in back of them. They also have a slim two game lead on the first WildCard spot over the charging Twins.
Today they open a three game series vs. the surging Orioles in Baltimore.
As can be seen below the Yankees September Schedule (last regular season October 1st) puts their faith in their own hands.
Baseball needs to stop picking on its self! The game is fine! We do not play by a clock. Tweaking is okay.
By the way: An average professional football game lasts 3 hours and 12 minutes, but if you tally up the time when the ball is actually in play, the action amounts to a mere 11 minutes.
So much for, four 15 minute quarters with a 15 half-time break. If I do the math that comes out to one hour and 15 minutes. I forgot the 3-time outs per team, per half. That must be where the other one hour of time is used.
Again Major League Baseball stop picking on the game and its player and promote the game.
BALLPARK PRINTS 