April 27, 2017 - National Babe Ruth Day - 17 Fun Facts about Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium

Elisa's Daily Scoop
NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: 25 DAYS

The Bambino, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium

Well hello!!
My day is going well.  Had a number of errands to do and more to take care of when Kelsey gets out of school today.

She will be my partner in crime while Gianna is at play rehearsal til 6pm today.  With the play being tomorrow night, the cast is putting in a long day of practice.

Anyhoo -- today just happens to be National Babe Ruth Day!  

For all of our baseball fans (which includes me and of course Tanya, with her long-standing commitment to see every last American baseball stadium and annual All-Star Game - we thought it would be fun to combine the celebration of this baseball great with a little Throwback to the cities where "The Bambino" is most well known for playing - Boston (with the Boston Red Sox) and The Bronx, NY (with the New York Yankees).

Tanya is going to fill in with lots of personal experiences, having done tours of both Fenway and Yankee Stadium while I give you lots of Fun Facts about both of these iconic ball parks.

(credit: ganymede)

​As mentioned above, today marks the day that baseball fans around the country honor one of baseball’s all-time greatest players.  It’s National Babe Ruth Day.
 
A little about The Babe:
George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Jr.,  born on February 6, 1895, in Baltimore, Maryland was nicknamed “the Bambino” and “the Sultan of Swat.”  

His career spanned 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), during which, he played for three teams from 1914 to 1935.

(credit: pophistory.com)

Did you know...
Upon seeing George Jr. for the first time, the Orioles players referred to him as “Jack's newest babe”, and thus the most famous nickname in American sports history was born. Thereafter, George Herman Ruth Jr. was known as the Babe.

As for the nickname, "Sultan of Swat", it refers to the meaning of the name “swat”  - to hit it hard and so one “swats” a baseball when hitting a homerun.

​It appears that the first “real” baseball player who was called the Sultan of Swat was Ty Cobb, possibly by Babe Ruth himself. The Babe may have been given this nickname in 1920, when he hit 54 home runs

The New York Daily News (credit: cbssports.com)

Babe Ruth’s baseball career started as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. In 1919, the New York Yankees bought his contract and he became a full-time right-fielder.

As one of the league’s most prolific hitters, he helped the Yankees win seven pennants and four World Series titles.

Ruth set many career records, in his time, for home runs, slugging percentage, runs batted in, and on-base plus slugging.  

In 1927, he was the very first player to hit 60 home runs in one season.

Following a short stint with the Boston Braves, Ruth retired in 1935.  In 1936, he became one of the first five players to be elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  

The baseball great was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1946 and this visit on this day in 1947 for "National Babe Ruth Day" would be the second last time he was at the stadium. He died on August 16, 1948.

Both of the teams Ruth played for have quite a bit of history to the stadiums within which they play, in two incredibly iconic cities!!

Let's take a look at each of these.

First, let's go north to Boston to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox - Babe Ruth's first team:

​FENWAY PARK
HOME OF THE BOSTON RED SOX

Fenway Park taken from the top of the Skywalk Observatory in Boston (c) travelincousins.com)

1. Fenway Park was constructed in 1912
for the 1912 season and was named by
then Red Sox owner John I. Taylor.
He said, "It's in the Fenway section of Boston, isn't it? Then call it Fenway Park."

2. John I. Taylor changed the club's
name from Americans to Red Sox
prior to the 1908 season.

3. The first game was on April 20, 1912 between the Red Sox and Highlanders with a score of 7 to 6 Red Sox in 11 innings.

4. It cost $650,000 to build in the
​park in 1912.

5. Beginning in its very first year,
Fenway Park hosted recreational
league and high school baseball
games until the 1950s. Some of the
games included state and regional tournaments, college all-stars, park
league games, teams from local
newspapers and many others.

6.  When Fenway opened, there were no stands in right field. The area was used as a parking lot for players.

7. JFK’s grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, threw out the first “first pitch.”

8. There were two fires at Fenway in the early years. One in 1926 burnt the left field bleachers to the ground, while another in 1934 that damaged the center field bleachers.

9. Until 1933, there was a 10-foot incline in front of the then 25-foot wall in left field wall at Fenway Park, known as “Duffy’s Cliff" named after Duffy after outfielder Duffy Lewis, who mastered the 15-degree incline.

10. “Duffy’s Cliff” served two purposes: It was a support for the wall in left, and was to compensate for the difference in grades between the field and Lansdowne Street.

11. The AFL’s Boston Bulldogs and Boston Patriots were among the many football teams to call Fenway Park home. The Patriots played at Fenway from 1963-1968. BC, BU and Dartmouth also played college games at Fenway.

12. Fan tours of Fenway did not begin until 1993.

13. Current Seating Capacity: 37,493 at Night, 37,065 during the day.

14. The bullpens were originally in fair territory and were not moved to the outfield until 1940.

15. Fenway Park has seven retired Red Sox numbers: 1 for Bobby Doerr, 4 for Joe Cronin, 6 for Johnny Pesky, 8 for Carl Yastrzemski, 9 for Ted Williams, 14 for Jim Rice and 27 for Carlton Fisk.

16. Of those seven numbers, three were added in the year 2000 or later (Fisk, Pesky and Rice). That ended an 11-year stretch in which no Sox numbers were retired (though Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 was retired by MLB in 1997).

17. On March 7, 2012, it was announced that the park had been added to the National Register of Historic Places.


​YANKEE STADIUM
HOME OF THE NEW YORK YANKEES

Yankee Stadium (credit: wikipedia)

 1. Thomas Edison started a cement company in 1899, and the extra-durable cement he developed was used for the original walls.

2. New York Governor and soon-to-be Presidential nominee Alfred Smith threw out the first pitch in the new stadium (now old??) in the Bronx.

3. Old Yankee Stadium was the first three-tiered sports facility in the States.

4. Some wanted the brand new Yankee Stadium in 1923 to be called "Ruth Stadium." Owner Jake Ruppert wanted Ruppert Stadium. They settled for the nickname "the House That Ruth Built."

5. The first game ever played at Yankees Stadium was the Yankees vs. The Red Sox.  The Yankees won 4-1.  Babe Ruth hit a three run home-run in the third inning (the stadium’s first homerun, too).

6. Yankee Stadium’s design was actually catered to Babe Ruth’s batting stance.  The right hand fence was only 350 feet from home plate, compared to 490 feet in deep center field.  The left-handed Ruth had no trouble hitting home runs into right field, and the right-field bleachers were eventually nicknamed “Ruthville.”

7. The Yankees won the 1923 World Series (the same year they began playing in the new stadium), against the NY Giants.

8. "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" was staged before 61,808 on July 4, 1939. His uniform number four was the first in baseball history to be retired.

9. Before the construction of Yankee Stadium, the Yankees shared the Polo Grounds with the NY Giants.

10. On August 16, 1948, Babe Ruth died of throat cancer at age 53. His body lay in state at Yankee Stadium and was viewed by more than 100,000 fans.

11. The stadium hosted 37 World Series and a total of 100 World Series Games.  The Yankees won 26 World Series titles
at Yankee Stadium.

12. The last home run to be hit in the park before its demolition was hit by Yankees catcher Jose Molina on September 21, 2008 against the Baltimore Orioles.  It was the last game played in Yankees Stadium.

13. The film "61" was filmed in Detroit, not at Yankee Stadium. Billy Crystal explained the Motor City ballpark architecture was better able to be made to resemble that of the Yankee Stadium of 1961.

14. There was widespread and indiscriminate disposal of valuable items during demolition of much of the Stadium in the mid-1970s.

15. On September 11, 2001, within 90 minutes of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium was evacuated.

16. Joe Torre was witness to all three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history: He saw Don Larsen's beauty as a 16-year-old fan, and the gems of David Wells and David Cone from the dugout as Yankee manager.

17. Bob Sheppard holds the record for seeing the most games at Yankee Stadium.



THROWBACK PHOTOS - BOSTON  &
THE BRONX  

The Skywalk Observatory, Boston (November, 2015) (c) travelincousins.com

John Hancock Building - tallest building in New England (c) travelincousins.com

Fanueil Hall (c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

Splashing into the Charles River on our Boston Duck Tour (c) traveincousins.com

Boston Opera House (c) travelincousins.com

At Beautiful The Musical at the Boston Opera House (c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

Meeting on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx after a Yankee Game (July 2014) (c) travelincousins.com

Holiday Train Show at the NY Botanical Gardens, Bronx (December 2014) (c) travelincousins.com

(c) travelincousins.com

This week is certainly going fast! 
Almost the weekend. Hope you are having a wonderful day!

See ya back here tomorrow!
-E
xoxo

Tanya's Daily Scoop
NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: 5 DAYS

Throwin' it back to Fenway and Yankees Stadium

Hey there!

So let me get right to it...
After going to the gym yesterday and taking Cosette to the stables, I was sitting there as she was grooming Dream and I got an itch...

I added another trip to my calendar!!!

While it's not a big trip by any means, I'm sure that I will have a blast - because that is what I do!

I'm going to Austin, Texas in June before heading back east for the BIG family trip etc etc etc...

I've recently been stunned by the number of vegan establishments that have popped up all over the place in none other than Austin - of all places!!

I had actually been telling a friend of mine who had just got back from Austin - how I need to book a trip - solely based on the FOOD!  Oh my!

I was hoping that there would be a baseball game in Arlington (Texas Rangers and a 3+ hour drive from Austin) during the same time frame. But I wasn't so lucky with that.

​What I was very lucky about is that there is a Muse concert during the same weekend and I do love Muse!

Muse concert in Phoenix, AZ 2010 (c)travelincousins.com

Seeing Muse with Jeff in Phoenix 2010 (c)travelincousins.com

Muse in Los Angeles, CA 2013 (c)travelincousins.com

Seeing Muse with Dave in Los Angeles 2013 (c)travelincousins.com

So far I have sent a few messages to see if anyone is at all interested in coming with me.    
But at this point the only answer that I got was from Elisa and sadly she will not be able to join in on the fun.

So will this be a solo trip?

Only time will tell and quite honestly there isn't all that much time before I leave!

Now let's talk some more about baseball, and more specifically The Babe. Babe Ruth that is. 

What a fine example of an athlete and being a Yankees fan I sure am glad that the Red Sox had cursed themselves with:

The Curse of the Bambino

​The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition evolving from the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004.

This misfortune began after the Red Sox sold star player Babe Ruth, sometimes called The Bambino, to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919–1920.

Before that point, the Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises, winning the first World Series and amassing five World Series titles.

After the sale, they went without a title for decades, even while the Red Sox won four American League championships from 1946 to 1986, as the previously lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports.

The curse became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years. (Credit: Wiki)

And while that rivalry still stands and while I am not or will ever be a fan of the Boston Red Sox - Dominic actually is! 

Red Sox vs Yankees 2012 (c)travelincousins.com

​You might be wondering how on Earth that happened...
Well Dominic's Dad, Dave C. is a Red Sox fan and always had been. No band wagon fans over here.
Dave C's paternal side of the family all originate from good ol' Bean Town. Well obviously they don't originate from Bean Town - as they came over from Ireland. But that was long ago and they have been in and/or around Boston ever since.

And while I really love the City of Boston, I am not a Red Sox fan whatsoever, but Fenway Park that is another story - I love the old historic stadiums and have caught more than my fair share of games at good ol' Fenway. Even touring the stadium on a couple of occasions!

(c)travelincousins.com

(c)travelincousins.com

(c)travelincousins.com

(c)travelincousins.com

Fenway 2013 (c)travelincousins.com

The rivalry lives 2013 (c)travelincousins.com

Fenway Park 2016 (c)travelincousins.com

Fenway Park 2016 (c)travelincousins.com

Fenway Park 2016 (c)travelincousins.com

​Of course my heart belongs to the Yankees and of course I've been to my share of Yankees games as well - both at the old and the new stadium.

Yankees Stadium 2008 (c)travelincousins.com

Yankees Stadium 2010 (c)travelincousins.com

Yankees Stadium 2012 (c)travelincousins.com

Yankees Stadium 2012 (c)travelincousins.com

My preference was of course the old stadium which held all of the amazing history.

And speaking of Babe Ruth and of history, I've also had the privilege of visiting Babe Ruth's Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Babe Ruth House, Baltimore 2012 (c)travelincousins.com

Babe Ruth House, Baltimore 2012 (c)travelincousins.com

Good times that's for sure!

That's one thing I love about Thursdays - celebrating TBT (Throwback Thursday) and being reminded of all the wonderful memories that we've had and knowing all of the wonderful memories that we are currently making.

On that note I've gotta get out of here and take care of bunches-o-stuff! 

See you guys tomorrow,
-T