Sunday Apr 13

Another Baseball games
Yanks & Robins

Visited
Freidas Children

Berta Tannesoff's family
and attended lecture by
Lipsky at the Pennsylvania

Met Cousin Sam Scheurman
of Long Branch after not
having seen him for years

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Matt's Notes

Two days, two exhibition games, and not one home run from Babe Ruth. Still, Babe's future Murderers Row mate, left fielder Bob Meusel (called "Bustin' Bob" by the Times, though his "official" nickname was "Long Bob") hit a 7th-inning homer and a walk-off single to score Whitey Witt in the 10th.

I would imagine Papa saw all this action from the cheap seats, so his view might have looked a little like this:



It's hard to imagine, in this era of designated hitters, TV timeouts, and multiple pitching changes (I love Willie Randolph, but why does he pull his pitchers so much?) that Papa was able to make a three o'clock Yankee game and still manage to visit two friends (maybe Frieda and Berta, whoever they were, lived in the Bronx so Papa caught them on the way back from the Stadium) and also catch Louis Lipsky at the Hotel Pennsylvania in the West 30's. But the numbers don't lie: both games Papa saw that weekend, including Sunday's extra-inning drama, were over in under two hours. (As I write this, the Mets have been playing for two-and-a-half and they're only in the 7th. David Wright just hit an RBI triple, though, so I'll take it.)

Papa's mood seemed to rise and fall in relation to how busy he was (when he was alone, his mind turned toward his romantic struggles, his longing for home, his father's continuing illness) so I'd say this was a good day for him. He spent time with friends, ran into a cousin from distant Long Branch, N.J., enjoyed a gorgeous 66-degree day at the ballpark, and attended a lecture by one of the era's most influential Zionists (this was actually his third Lipsky lecture of the year). Despite his worries, he must have felt lucky to live in New York, where it was easy to cover so many bases on a Sunday in April, 1924.



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Here's who was on the field that day:

Brooklyn:

Dick Loftus, cf
Jimmy Johnston, 3b
Zack Wheat, lf
Jack Fournier, 1b
Tommy Griffith, rf
Joe Klugman, 2b
Johnny Jones, ss
(?) Gonzales, c
Burleigh Grimes, p
Andy High
Art Decatur, p

New York:

Whitey Witt, cf
Joe Dugan, 3b
Babe Ruth, rf
Wally Pipp, fb
Bob Meusel, lf
Aaron Ward, 2b
Everett Scott, ss
Wally Schang, c
Waite Hoyt, p
Earle Combs
Joe Bush, p

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Additional References:

• Bob Meusel biography at Wikipedia
• The 1924 Brooklyn Robins at baseball-reference.com
• The 1924 New York Yankees at baseball-almanac.com

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Image sources:

• Yankee Stadium, 4/3/23. Library of Congress # LC-B2- 5958-12. No known restrictions on publication.
• Bob Meusel, Library of Congress # LC-B2- 5252-11. No known restrictions on publication.