This day in baseball: A Subway Series, before the subways

The deciding game of the 1889 World’s Championship Series was played on October 29th, featuring the New York Giants of the National League and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the American Association.  The Giants won the best-of-eleven series, 6 games to 3.  As the annual competition between the champions of the National League and the American Association, this series proved to be the precursor to the modern World Series.

WashingtonPark01
Brooklyn’s Washington Park, 1880s (Wikimedia Commons)

Infographic: Career hitting records

Here’s another great infographic depicting record holders for the most career singles, doubles, triples, home runs, and grand slams — as of 2009.  The one out-of-date piece of information on here is in the grand slam category, as Alex Rodriguez passed Gehrig’s record in 2013 with his 24th career grand slam.

Mike Wirth Art
Mike Wirth Art

“October,” by Hester Jewell Dawson

Here’s a piece that was first published in 1986 in Stone Country.  I haven’t been able to figure out whether Stone Country is a newspaper, magazine, journal, or what, but that’s not nearly as important as the poem itself.

*

the high fly ball,
arches out above left field,
hangs there in the sky
outblazing the sun
while fifty thousand heads swings and cry
“Over the wall! Over the wall!”

then hold, fixed and dumb
as the ball drops
down and down, a dead bird
into a waiting glove

and there you have it: the song,
the flight, the perilous whisper of truth
or of love or possibly of faith

then the descent
and the end of the game

This day in baseball

In Game 5 of the 1988 World Series, Orel Hershiser keeps the A’s to a meager four singles.  The 5-1 victory becomes the final game of the series as the Dodgers clinch the World Championship.  The Dodgers pitcher also won Game 2 of the series and is named Most Valuable Player.

LA Times
LA Times

Quote of the day

Any minute, any day, some players may break a long standing record. That’s one of the fascinations about the game, the unexpected surprises.

~Connie Mack

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library/Major League Baseball/Getty Images
National Baseball Hall of Fame Library/Major League Baseball/Getty Images