giants

Saturday Apr 26

by


Had Miss Rosen out at
Ball game, I was glad
after I saw her home. —

She is far from the type that
I need, No more such
matrimonial tryouts.

Spent the entire evening
visiting various Zionist
Clubs on the East Side.

———-

Matt’s Notes

Poor Miss Rosen. Papa had been down on her from the moment his friends, the Linzers, introduced him to her a few days earlier, and she obviously didn’t help her cause at the ball park. (I’m tempted to say she “struck out” at the game, but as you can see I restrained myself.)

I’m not sure which game they saw that day, but Papa must have felt heavily handicapped by Miss Rosen if he couldn’t enjoy himself at either. Out in Brooklyn, the National League champion Giants climbed into first place with a 5-2 victory over the Robins (a.k.a. Dodgers) which would have been tough enough to frown through on a sunny, 60-degree day. Meanwhile, up at the Stadium, the Yankees defeated the Red Sox, 4-3, in an 11-inning thriller that included an inside-the-park home run by Wallie Pipp and a game-winning bunt by Whitey Witt. “Search the records far and wide and you won’t find many better games,” declared the New York Times, “it was packed with all the thrills of a lifetime.”

Papa would have needed catastrophically bad chemistry with Miss Rosen to see such games and remain unmoved. But what offense could she have given? Did she eat ketchup on her hot dog? Did she say she didn’t like movies? Had she never heard of Palestine? It’s hard for me to imagine what might have made Papa so dismissive of her, but maybe his romantic sensibilities didn’t permit him to enjoy something as crass as a “matrimonial tryout.” Maybe Miss Rosen wasn’t really that “far from the type” Papa needed — she just might have been a victim of his desire for a less contrived love story.

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Additional Notes:

I think Papa says “spent the entire evening” at the beginning of the third paragraph of this entry, but I’m not sure if I have the word “entire” right. Here’s what it looks like:

Please write or drop a comment if this looks like something else to you.

Also, if you’re a baseball fan, do yourself a favor and check out the Times‘ recaps of the day’s games. I can’t get enough of their baseball writers’ bemused tone:

Sunday May 4

by

Attended games at Polo
grounds, and after that attended Maccabean
meeting at Pennsylvania
Hotel.

I am glad to notice
that my beloved camp
is progressing even if
slowly, at every meeting
it is my pleasant duty
to initiate new members.

Our meeting was visited
by guests of various O.B.Z.
camps in the city.

————–

Matt’s Notes

I enjoy the ironic, playful tone of the New York Times’ baseball writing from Papa’s day, but I think the anonymous New York Giants beat writer is my favorite. Here’s how he (presumably not she) opens his account of the double header Papa saw:

If 42,000 persons had not been present it would be kinder to say nothing about what happened at the Polo Grounds yesterday. But by this time it is no secret that the Giants brutally assaulted the hapless and helpless Phillies, winning both ends of the Sunday double-header, 13 to 3 and 12 to 3. Not all of the 42,000 saw the massacre through, for some were faint-hearted and others wanted to get home while there was still daylight enough to find their way there.

He goes on to wonder why anyone would see the Phillies in the first place, “even though they were twice offered for sacrifice at the nominal price of $1.10.” This serves as a great example of the resourcefulness required of baseball writers to say essentially the same thing 154 times a year (the length of the season in 1924) and also answers my question of what Papa paid for tickets. The Polo Grounds would have had over 10,000 empty seats that day, but I think this photo of the more crowded stands on opening day of 1923 still gives us a good idea of what the field looked like from Papa’s point of view:

polo grounds

I also continue to be amazed at how quickly baseball games were played back then. The double header described above wrapped up in four hours (yesterday’s Yankees double header took 6) allowing Papa plenty of time to hop on the IRT at 155th Street, head down to Penn Station, and make his “Maccabean” meeting at the Hotel Pennsylvania.

“Maccabean,” as noted before, refers to Papa’s chapter of the Zionist mutual aid society B’nai Zion. It looks like the meeting he attended was larger than usual and included members of other B’nai Zion camps (it must have taken place in one of the Pennsylvania’s private dining rooms) because it was an induction ceremony for new members. Papa would have run the meeting and conducted the initiation rituals in his capacity as Master of Ceremonies.

On minor quirk in this entry is Papa’s use of the initials “O.B.Z” to refer to B’nai Zion. This must be an inadvertent conflation of the group’s Hebrew (B’nai Zion) and English (Order Sons of Zion) names, unless I’m reading his handwriting wrong:

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Additional Notes:

The Jewish Daily Forward, descendant of the venerable Yiddish daily that Papa most certainly read in his youth, published a story about Papa’s Diary Project in this week’s English language issue. It’s called “Dear Diary: Back in Time” and you can read it here.

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References:

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Image source:

Opening Day, Polo Ground, 4.26/1923. Library of Congress #LC-B2- 5982-1

Tuesday June 17

by

Yesterday and today I
did not work so I went
again to a ball game at
the Polo Grounds.

I am so worried that Netties
baby son is ill, he
is coughing so.

May the Allmighty speed
his recovery.

He is named after beloved
father, May he grow up and
be as good as his Grand-
father, for he and Ruchale
are the only bright spots in
the life of their parents.

—————–

Matt’s Notes

Papa saw the Dodgers (a.k.a. Robins) take another game from the Cincinnati Reds on this day, a 5-4 decision in which Tiny Osborne pitching a complete game for Brooklyn.

Saturday Aug 2

by

Again a baseball game
Life is so monotonous
Visited relatives in the
Bronx.

———

Matt’s Notes

I assume Papa caught the Giants-Pittsburgh matchup at the Polo Grounds en route to his relatives in the Bronx. (If the Yankees were in town he might have seen them, but they were in St. Louis playing the Browns.) Papa would have taken the 9th Avenue Line to the Polo Grounds at 155th street, jumped off, watched the game, and jumped back on to cross over into the Bronx.

Alas, failing to sense Papa’s terrible ennui, the Giants worsened his mood by losing, 7-6.

Image source:

Sunday Aug 10

by


Baseball game with friend
Julius just a poor way of
killing a beautiful day.

———-

I’m not sure of a better way to spend a beautiful day than at a baseball game with your good friend Julius, but Papa had been to a lot of games lately. More importantly, this entry is in keeping with a recently-emerged theme in Papa’s diary in which he describes his disappointment with his life through expressions of boredom, monotony, and stasis. Another day at the ball park is another day without significant change.

I would also wager he had a particularly “poor” day because he saw the Giants lose a double-header to the Reds, 4-2 and 5-1, at the Polo Grounds. At least, I assume Papa saw the Giants game — the Yankees were out of town and the Robins, a.k.a. Dodgers, took a double header from the Cardinals, 6-5 and 8-4, and I figure Papa couldn’t have seen their performance at Ebbets Field and felt his day was a total loss.

Then again, those of us so inclined know that when you tap a vein of dissatisfaction, it’s often difficult to keep away from it no matter where you are (ask my wife about my recent behavior on the pristine, perfect beaches of Tulum — I brought the cliche of the unrelaxable New Yorker to a new, glorious standard) but Papa’s eventual victory over the demons of stasis and his creation of a a new, ever-changing life remains an example of a lode worth digging for.

Sunday Sept 14

by


Baseball game
and evening with friends

—————–

Matt’s Notes

With the Yankees out of town on this day, Papa could have seen the Brooklyn Robins (a.k.a. Dodgers) play the Reds at Ebbets field or the New York Giants play the Cardinals at the Polo Grounds. Both teams were battling it out in an enthralling pennant race, so it’s hard to imagine which game Papa would have chosen. Let’s try to figure it out:

Papa’s attendance statistics and habits in 1924 would indicate he was fan of the world champion Yankees; he went to the Stadium seven times, including two exhibition games against the Dodgers, and took at least one date there. The numbers reveal less about his National League leanings, though. By my reckoning he went to Ebbets Field three times and the Polo Ground four, but both teams were in town on three of those days and we can’t really be sure who he saw (one of those tossup days also included a visit to relatives in the Bronx, so geographical convenience favored the Giants since the Polo Grounds were on the way). All in all, there’s really no way to tell who Papa preferred that year. Advantage: None.

The Giants were out front all season but had quieted down in the stretch, and at 86-55 they were only one-and-a-half games up on the 85-57 Dodgers. The Dodgers had been in fourth place and seven-and-a-half games back on August 18, but since then they’d gone on a 25-6 run that began with a sweep of the Pirates (who were no slouches and had enjoyed their own late surge). “It is now reasonably certain that one of these local teams will represent the National League in the world’s series,” noted the New York Times, “The Giants, with a shifted lineup and a tottering pitching staff, have been fighting hard to keep ahead of the fast-moving Robins.” With the season clearly on the way to a photo finish, I’d say Papa, as a baseball fan, would have been more intrigued by the surging team. Advantage: Dodgers.

Both the Dodgers’ and the Giants’ opponents were out of the race (though the Reds were not mathematically eliminated as the Cardinals were) so the competition wouldn’t have factored into Papa’s choice. Still, the Dodgers had the National League’s best pitcher and future hall-of-famer, Dazzy Vance, on the mound against the Reds. Vance was on his way to a 28-6 record and a 2.16 ERA, and he was no doubt a big draw; in fact, the Dodgers had 27,000 fans in the stands that day versus the Giants’ 25,000. Advantage: Dodgers

The ride to Ebbets Field was probably shorter than the ride to the Polo Grounds from Papa’s Lower East Side home, but Papa’s willingness to go for long jaunts on the subway without complaint makes convenience a negligible consideration. Still, Papa had a bunch of friends in Brooklyn — perhaps those were the friends he spent the evening with — so we’ll give a slight geographical edge to the Dodgers.

And there we have it. If we take everything into account, it looks like Papa probably saw the Dodgers and Dazzy Vance shut out the Reds on September 14th. The final score was 3-0.

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My mother adds:

Interesting. In all the years I knew Papa, he never took me to a Yankee game, while he took me to dozens of Dodger games from the time I was about five years old onward. It was at wonderful Ebbets Field where he taught me to keep score and then brag to the people around us —“Look how this little girl can keep score”. When the Dodgers and Giants left us for California, he never became a Yankees fan, but instead we rooted for the hapless Mets. He lived long enough to see the miracle of 1969.

We loved talking baseball and politics together.