Picture this: Saturday night Dodgers-Mets

Yay! Blogger's back.

So, before we get too much further from last Saturday, here are some shots from batting practice and the game against the Dodgers. I won tickets and field access for batting practice in a contest via the team's Twitter account. The trivia question? Which players wore No. 20 in the Mets' two world championship seasons. The winner had to be the 20th correct response, and I got lucky.

Herewith, some shots (the full collection is here).




Carlos Beltran


Watching Ike


Turner's helmet


Skipper's advice


Ike Davis


On a break


Pridie stretches


Edgardo Alfonzo on the mic


Andre Ethier catches up with Jason Pridie


Pridie signs


That night's hero


Set aside


Hairston's kicks


Turner signs


Kevin Elster and Marty Noble


A Manny Mota moment


Reyes on the run


Wright at the plate


Ike and Murph


The night the streak ended


Kemp connects


David Wright's double


Bay connects

Stealing home on a '56 Topps card

Did a little Jackie Robinson research this morning, prompted by the 1956 Topps card shown above. I was curious as to when the slide into home may have occurred, presuming the scene depicted was based on a photograph of an actual occurrence. It was the number of the batter, really, that piqued my interest -- who is that? Through good deduction, dumb luck or whatever, it only took a few clicks to come up with the answer.

First, I suspected that it was a steal of home, because of the position of the batter so close to the plate, with his bat on his shoulder, gave me the impression that he had just stepped back. If Robinson was scoring on a hit, the batter would probably be further away from the plate, perhaps giving direction on whether -- and where -- to slide. Second, I figured that the opposing team was the Cardinals, based on the catcher's stirrups.

So I simply went to Baseball-Reference's Play Index (before I came across that list of Robinson's steals of home) and got the list of games in which Robinson stole a base against the Cardinals, then started clicking through box scores. Neither of his stolen bases in the two-steal game were of the plate, but the second one on the list -- August 29, 1955, was, and the play-by-play confirms that it was when starting pitcher Johnny Podres -- No. 45 in your '55 Dodgers scorecard -- was batting. Furthermore, Cardinals catcher Bill Sarni wore No. 15 in '55, and that certainly looks like a 5 on the back of the catcher; even if it's a 6, Sarni wore 16 in previous years with St. Louis.

Perhaps even more noteworthy: It was a triple steal to boot! That event didn't warrant much mention, however. In the New York Times story the following day, it had one paragraph dedicated to it, 10 grafs into the story. Podres' plunking of Stan Musial in a back-and-forth brushback spat grabbed the headlines and the photo. Musial was hit in the hand in the fourth inning but wasn't replaced until a double-switch in the seventh. (X-rays were negative, and he was in the lineup in Pittsburgh the next day.)

Compare that to the last triple steal, which wasn't even a straight steal of home (it involved a rundown), but did warrant its own headlines. It's so rare to even see a straight steal of home these days -- such an exciting play -- that the likelihood of a triple steal ever happening again has to be remote.

Looking as closely as I've ever looked at the Brooklyn 'B'

Until reading a post over at Mets Police today, I had never realized that the Brooklyn Dodgers "B" logo that appears on caps sold today is different from those generally found in photographs and on authentic, game-worn caps of that era. I left a comment on the post, but my curiosity wasn't diminished.

The bulk of the post comes from an e-mail sent to Mets Police in which the writer accuses the Dodgers, Mets and New Era of duping consumers into buying what he calls Bakersfield Dodgers caps, not Brooklyn Dodgers caps, citing the photos on baseball cards of Mike Piazza and Pedro Martinez from their Bakersfield days. Head on over to Mets Police to see those cards.

From the scans and an image of a retail cap, it sure looks like the logos are more similar to one another than they are to those on the caps of four Brooklyn Dodgers just below them in the post. Because the Piazza and Pedro Bakersfield card scans render the cap logos rather small, let's look at the retail cap and the four Brooklyn boys. It sure appears that the retail logo's B has a straighter line in the letter B and rounder loops as well. The reader says:

Look at any Brooklyn Dodger photo, and you’ll never see a B like the one the LA Dodgers/New Era are peddling. Nor is it similar to the one the Franchise collection is selling, which is a Boston B with a triangle cut out. But it’s a carbon copy of the Bakersfield B. It’s clear from photos of the Brooklyn Dodgers that although there were varients [sic] of their logo, it was never like these.

Me again. Now, it's true that the Franchise Collection cap has a B very similar to Boston's, something I'd never caught before, even though I have both clubs' Franchise caps. (Yet I did manage to catch that UCLA's on-field baseball caps use the Brooklyn Dodgers' logo -- and at a closer approximation to the '50s design than today's retail replicas.) Here we have a comparison of the Franchise cap logos (on the left) and those from a current fitted Red Sox cap and a 1932 Dodgers cap (on the right).

There are subtle differences to the point where it's not literally a Boston B with a triangle cut out, but it's easy to see where that comparison could be made. And so, using the logos found on Chris Creamer's site (note that the Brooklyn one has a straight line, not a curved one), I superimposed one over the other. The sizing is a little different (though I tried to get the individual image sizes as close to one another as possible), but they're definitely close enough to see a similarity.


As for those Bakersfield caps? Well, they're not exactly Boston B replicas, either. This card of Mike Siler, who was in Bakersfield in 1987, shows a cap logo much closer to Brooklyn's B, with curves in the vertical line and rounder loops. So not even all Bakersfield caps are Bakersfield replicas, as it were.

Now let's go back in time to compare logos further. Next up are two sets of three cap logos from actual players' lids. The first set are from three caps I've seen in person: Jackie Robinson's in Cooperstown and Cookie Lavagetto's and Sandy Koufax's in a Dodgers display at the Brooklyn Cyclones' Energy Company Park.


This second set comes from Corbis photos of Frederick Fitzsimmons and Duke Snider and another view of Jackie's cap in Cooperstown.


Two things stand out in these comparisons. First, the Lavagetto cap (middle B in top series) looks quite similar to the logo produced on replicas today. Second, the three in the second series all show a much more rounded B, to the point that they look like numeral 8's with embellishments added. That is clearly like nothing we see produced on today's retail caps.

But not all of the retail caps sport the Boston-like straight-lined B. This shot and this press release both show New Era caps with the curved vertical line and more rounded B.

So what does this all mean? For one thing, I don't think the Mets or Dodgers have anything to do with how the caps look. That's up to New Era or whatever company is producing them. I wouldn't be surprised if the only thing the Major League clubs really look over closely in order to give their approval pre-production are the designs that are worn on the field -- uniforms and caps for games and batting practice.

I also suspect that New Era (and any other companies that have licenses to produce them; for the sake of simplicity, let's understand that "New Era" from here on out means any company that manufactures replica caps for retail sale) is merely working off of a template drawn from just one of several variations of Dodgers logos. Though the finished product might not look quite like what the Dodgers wore in the '50s, it was probably designed from a logo not unlike what is on Creamer's page.

Plus, the different eras should be taken into account. Technology, materials and manufacturing methods are much different today than they were in the '50s -- that alone could account for some differences. Today, computerized machines likely play a part in New Era's production line; back then, it was probably some company employee sitting at a machine to put the B on the Dodgers' caps.

Looking for some validation to my hunches in this aspect of it, I got this e-mail response from Paul Lukas, the Uni Watch guru: "Back in the day, things just weren't very standardized. There were LOTS of logo variations. And yes, the materials and manufacturing processes were very different than they are today."

Could all the manufacturers do a better job of reproducing the Brooklyn B on its retail caps? Sure. It's done pretty well on some, so why not all? But I think there are many more likely answers to the differences in 1950s Brooklyn caps and today's retail replicas before we get to a conspiracy on the part of any teams or New Era to hoodwink the fans.

A ballpark above Grand Central?

Came across an amusing anecdote in a collection of baseball stories (said to be true stories, pulled from various archives and news reports) first published in ... imagine this ... 1949. It seems that a man named Charles White proposed, back in 1912, of building a field on top of Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan:

A visionary named Charles White came forward with a scheme in 1912 which would solve one of the major problems confronting the owners of baseball clubs. The owners were often complaining in those days about their inability to construct adequate playing fields owing to the high cost of real estate. Mr. White told them to quit worrying.

He submitted plans for a baseball field of immense proportions, sodded with bright green turf and containing all the other conveniences of an up-to-date ball field. This field, however, would be up in the air -- built over the roof of the new Grand Central Station, extending from Lexington Avenue to Madison Avenue and from Forty-fourth to Fiftieth streets.

First off, that outline is huge. As it stands now, Grand Central is centered on the plot between Lex and Madison and extends from just 42nd to 45th streets. Park Avenue sits between Lex and Madison, then splits (southbound to the west, northbound to the east) around Grand Central, with all the platforms and tracks underground. A ballfield "over the roof" of the terminal wouldn't be like a rooftop garden (the terminal building isn't big enough), but probably more like the proposed West Side stadium that the city hoped to build in the last decade to lure the Olympics and the Jets -- a platform over the underground rail lines. Of course, this was 98 years ago -- who knows what the plans really were.

Not only does White's plan bear a similarity to the proposed West Side stadium, but it have drawn the Yankees down from Harlem (they were tenants of the Giants in the Polo Grounds until 1923)? Even if it had, however, I doubt there's any way the Yankees would still be there. They would've outgrown it by now, probably decades ago, and knowing what the area around the train station looks like now, there would be no room for much in the way of renovations or expansion.

Had they outgrown it in the '50s, might they have moved West and become the San Francisco Yankees? Imagine that: Seven years after Joe DiMaggio's retirement, his one and only team moves to his hometown. Not likely. They'd established such an identity in New York. But if they tried to relocate within New York then, Robert Moses might've forced them to his stadium site in Flushing Meadows that Walter O'Malley had rejected for his Dodgers. Or if the Yankees managed to last in the ballpark atop the terminal until the '70s, when Yankee Stadium was renovated, or '80s, might they then have moved to the West Side or New Jersey? Who knows what course baseball history might've taken had a ballpark been built atop Grand Central.

The Mets jersey in Yankee Stadium

The Babe has a presence

I finally made it out to Yankee Stadium '09 yesterday. It was a gorgeous, mid-70s afternoon and I didn't even need a seat in the shade to feel comfortable, but I had one, and I was.

After emerging from the D train, I walked around Babe Ruth Plaza to pick up my tickets near Gate 4 and took a glance over at the construction site that was once Yankee Stadia '23 and '76. It's nothing more than a dirt field, with the bat still standing behind what used to be the home plate area. I never had a particular affinity for the place -- my memories were of games in my childhood in the '80s, not of seeing great ballplayers -- but it was still a bit of a shock, as everyone says, to see it gone. It's definitely a good thing, though, that they're finally moving on with construction of the park.

Inside about an hour before first pitch, I took the time to walk the whole way around the concourse, a needed improvement from the last place. No longer do you feel like you're walking through the subterranian tunnels of some Cold War weapons base. Instead, the wider walkways -- though not quite as wide as Citi Field's, it seemed -- and high ceilings made for a much more comforting experience.

Out behind center field harkens back to the old stadium, though, as you pass through a tunnel beneath the bleachers and behind the casino sports bar. A set of oversized retired numbers line the wall by the doors to Monument Park (closed by the time I got there, after batting practice), one of three places where the numbers are displayed (Monument Park itself is another, and a third display -- visible on TV -- is behind the bleacher seating in left-center). Then the narrow corridor continues past the sports bar entrance and emerges in left field.

I bought some lunch and intended to eat it while standing at a ledge behind the nearest seating section, but then I noticed numbers on the ledge and an usher came to usher away two people to my left. That's when I realized you actually need a ticket to stand (or sit, because there are high chairs along the shelf) in any of these spots. I suppose they sell those tickets as reserved standing room, rather than general admission. I much prefer the traditional way -- the ledges are there for anyone to use as a convenience. There are just some times I'd prefer to buy my food and drink and consume it at the nearest possible spot rather than trudging back to my seat and risk spilling anything.

After taking in the first four innings or so from my seat, I spent a couple of frames exploring. I checked out the museum, with an impressive display of New York baseball history (even if it's there as much to assert the Yankees' dominance as much as to remember the Giants and Dodgers and acknowledge the Mets), and chuckled at so many instances of Other Teams' artifacts: jerseys and hats from the Dodgers, Giants and, yes, the Mets. Citi Field may have a Rotunda built to honor Jackie Robinson, but Yankee Stadium '09 has Jackie's hat, jersey and bat, plus jerseys from Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Pee Wee Reese and Mike Piazza. We won't be seeing a Derek Jeter jersey in the Mets' museum any time soon, and I'm fine with that.

The collection of autographed baseball is impressive, too, and I took special note of 15 of them, finding all randomly, except for Mike Pagliarulo's, which I looked up to get a shot for a friend of mine who loved Pags when he manned third base at the old place. It was cool to look at Thurman Munson's locker, too, which I had only glanced the one time I was in the Yankee clubhouse for a story and didn't have time to really look at it as I was keeping an eye out for Jeter, Jorge Posada, Sterling Hitchcock and Lee Mazzilli for the story I was working on. And next to Munson's locker is a replica of a current stall, with a touchscreen that allows fans to put their own names on the LED board above their heads and take pictures. One proud Mets fan with more guts and guile than I put "Let's Go Mets" on the sign and revelled in all of us taking his picture.

On the way back to my seat, I paused to look at all the overpriced baseball cards at one kiosk, including an uncut sheet of 1984 Topps for $100. Curious, I went on to eBay to see if any were available. One with a Don Mattingly rookie card (the attendant at the kiosk didn't say if either of the two sheets for sale had any particular players on them) could be had for $149, but another auction was only up to $4 or $5 with a few bids in.

I was back in my seat to see CC Sabathia struggle in the eighth, allowing Seattle to tie the score at 2. The guy next to me who had downed three Pepsis (that I had seen) by the bottom of the second had returned with another (no telling how many he had when I was gone) and expressed his displeasure at CC's inability to get outs and Joe Girardi's refusal to bring in Joba. It worked out OK in the end, though, because Alex Rodriguez hit his 595th home run -- a Yankee Stadium shot to be sure, landing in the first row in right field -- to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead that was protected in the ninth by Mariano Rivera.

In the end, I find the new place to be bright and welcoming, but no more intimate than the old place. It's still a colossus, certainly more stadium than ballpark, but it's a needed upgrade from the one it replaced. Even though the concourses are bigger and open to the field, it still felt in some places like we were inside, beneath the stand, rather than outside or under cover of the stands. That may be a feeling derived from the open space above our heads, sloped up and outward for the seating sections.

But it certainly isn't a bad place to see a ballgame -- if you can afford it.

Photo Friday: Vintage Spring Training

In some ways, I'm still not caught up from vacation, because I hadn't intended to skip two slide-show Fridays. The plan was to have this one in the bag for two weeks ago, then resume with the weekly collections the following week. Clearly, didn't happen.

At least it's still spring training, though these images fit more toward the beginning of camp. Back in February, I bought the March 3, 1958, issue of Sports Illustrated and the April 5, 1948 issue of LIFE magazine on eBay because they had photo spreads -- and covers -- dedicated to spring training. They're fun images to look at, especially because, until recently, Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg was still used (by the Rays) and Vero Beach was still the Dodgers' home. Now, both are retired, at least as spring facilities. More images can be found at the Google LIFE photo archive, LIFE.com and SI on Getty, plus 39 covers at SI.com.

I'll dig up something for next week and then hopefully will have fresh batches of photos throughout the season. I might not get to a game a week, but I definitely have the archives to come up with something to post each Friday, as long as I stay on top of things. I don't expect I'll choose to do any more that aren't my own shots. This was a one-off look back at what spring training used to be.

Farewell to "MVP 55"

A quick memory of Johnny Podres, who died over the weekend at 75:

Summer of 2001, I'm driving down to Lakewood, N.J., to cover the BlueClaws in a game that night. On the Garden State Parkway, I pass a Cadillac or Lincoln or some other luxury car type that's common with grandfathers. Think Jerry Seinfeld's dad on the show. In this instance, the New York plates on the bumper read "MVP 55." Clearly a personalized tag, I try to catch a glimpse of the driver, but can't really make him out. The rest of the drive, I'm trying to remember if I have any idea who the MVPs in 1955 could have been. (Roy Campanella and Yogi Berra, by the way, and I think I got Berra, but I knew he lives in New Jersey.) Remembering that Podres continued to be a Spring Training instructor with the Phillies, I wondered if that could be him, heading down to visit their lower Class-A team.

Down at the ballpark, I'm making my pregame rounds of the clubhouse and walk into manager Greg Legg's office.

"Dan, have you met Johnny Podres?" Legg asks me.

A gracious and funny interviewee, Podres, of course, makes it into my notebook that day and I check off another baseball legend I've met on my mental roster.

Here's that notebook entry:

THRILL RIDE: Johnny Podres, the 1955 World Series MVP for the Brooklyn Dodgers, remembers riding the Cyclones' namesake.

"When I got to Brooklyn, I went over to Coney Island and rode the Cyclone," said Podres, who works for the Phillies as a part-time roving pitching instructor. "We were sitting right in the front. What a ride."

While a short-season Class A team back in the borough does have historical interest, it won't be quite the same, Podres said.

"It's not gonna be like Brooklyn," Podres said while discussing curveball grips with Lakewood pitching coach Rod Nichols in the clubhouse Saturday. "At least it gives them a team in Brooklyn. They've got their foot in the door, you wonder what can happen from there. But I doubt it."