ninety feet of perfection.

In 1937 Satchel Paige lead a group of 20 Negro League stars to leave in the middle of the season to play in the Dominican Republic for team Ciudad Trujillo. The team was run by dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and the team’s success had serious political implications. The adventure is well documented in his autobiography “Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever” and in Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary. To watch an interesting excerpt that discusses Paige and his time with team Ciudad Trujillo, click HERE.

Satchel lived one of the most interesting & exciting lives of anyone in the 20th century, the fact that no modern movie studios have made a movie about his life is a damn shame. If I was involved in the movie business, this would be the #1 movie I would want to get made.

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1976. Dave Parker wearing what could be very well the coolest shirt EVER. (Thanks to my buddy PL for sending this photo to me and literally making my week.)

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How cool is this photo?? Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle playing an old-timers game at Yankee Stadium in the early 70’s. The Mick playing First Base is both weird and cool at the same time.

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Willie Ludolph of the 1926 San Francisco Missions of the Pacific Coast League. I am a sucker for anything related to the Mission Reds as information and photos are kind of hard to come by. The reason behind this is that no one really cared too much about the Mission Reds as they lived in the shadow of the Seals during their entire existence which lasted from 1926  to 1937.

As far as Willie Ludolph goes, his Major League career lasted only 3 games as a member of the Tigers so it was far from notable, however he had quite the career in the Minor Leagues & in the Pacific Coast League (HERE for Stats). He played in parts of 13 seasons in the PCL with the San Francisco Seals, Mission Reds, Vernon Tigers, and had a great stretch from 1931 to 1937 with the Oakland Oaks. On a weird note, I found his obituary from the Sporting News in 1952 on TheDeadballEra.

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On Aug. 24, 1940 the Red Sox played the Detroit Tigers in a 12-1 blowout.  Well the Sox didn’t want to waste their bullpen arms in the blowout so they got a young Left Fielder named Ted Williams to chew up some innings. In the 2 innings that Teddy Ballgame took the mound he faced 9 batters in which he gave up 3 hits and 1 run and striking out 1. Not too bad if you ask me.

~ by duaneharris19 on April 24, 2011.

Posted in Baseball
Tags: baseball, baseball old timers game, boston red sox, Ciudad Trujillo, dave parker, detroit tigers, Joe DiMaggio, josh gibson, mickey mantle, MLB, negro leagues, new york yankees, oakland oaks, pacific coast league, PCL, Pittsburgh pirates, san diego padres, san francisco mission reds, san francisco seals, satchel paige, satchel Paige Trujillo 1937, ted williams, vernon tigers, Willie Ludolph