Josh Gibson, The Heartbreak Kid

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Josh Gibson, The Heartbreak Kid The kid tapped his bat on Yankee Stadium’s home plate and tugged at the sleeves of his gray visi­tors’ uniform, revealing biceps “built like sledge ham­mers.” Before him, the stadi­um’s left field roof, with its famous gingerbread lattice facing, soared one hundred and eighteen feet into the air some four hundred feet from home plate. The scene was the World Series...
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Pride of the Philadelphia Phillies: An Interview with Mike Schmidt

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pride of the Philadelphia Phillies: An Interview with Mike Schmidt Baseball is, essentially, a game of history. In no other sport can athletes measure their performance with such precision against those who have come before. Every aspect of the game is recorded, from most base hits to lowest earned run average. As time passes, players’ evaluations and rankings increasingly come to rest on the statistics they compiled during their careers. While nearly...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents When Worlds Collide History, politics, and art collide in a newly opened exhibition of works by renowned illustrator N.C. Wyeth (1882- 1945) and his grandson, James Wyeth (born 1946), at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Delaware County. One Nation: Patriots and Pirates Por­trayed by N.C. Wyeth and James Wyeth brings together eighty draw­ings and paintings that challenge viewers to...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to the State Historical Markers of Pennsylvania By George R. Beyer Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2000 (456 pages, paper, $15.95) It is generally well known that the Commonwealth’s state historical marker program is among the most popular public history initiatives ever mounted by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). The program, also one of the...
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Radio Station KDKA

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Radio Station KDKA On Tuesday evening, November 2, 1920, about one thousand people in the Pittsburgh area listened to the results of the presidential election of candidates Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox on “wireless” receivers. Transmitted by a one hundred-watt station that would become KDKA, this was something new-radio broadcasting. And radio would revolutionize communication just as the...
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Roberto Clemente (1934-1972)

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Roberto Clemente (1934-1972) On New Year’s Day, 1973, Vera Clemente stood vigil on Piñones Beach, east of Puerto Rico’s San Juan Airport. When it became known that her husband, Roberto Clemente, died in an air­plane crash during a humanitarian mission, the memory of “The Great One” would touch people from the Keystone State to South America. Clemente gave Pittsburgh and baseball eighteen years and...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Nellie Bly Thank you for the most interesting “Pro­files” in the Winter 2003 edition featur­ing Nellie Bly. The article failed to men­tion, however, that Nellie Bly was recent­ly honored with a commemorative thir­ty-seven-cents-postage stamp by the United States Postal Service (USPS). According to Francia G. Smith, vice president and consumer advocate for the USPS, “the Postal...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Documenting Pennsylvania’s Past: The First Century of the Pennsylvania State Archives Edited by Willis L. Shirk Jr. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2003 (242 pages, paper, $32.95) A detailed and highly graphic centennial celebration in print, Documenting Pennsylvania’s Past: The First Century of the Pennsylvania State Archives offers readers a glimpse at the vast...
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Major League Governor: John Kinley Tener

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Major League Governor: John Kinley Tener The life of John Kinley Tener (1863-1946), governor of Pennsylvania from 1911 to 1915, is a remarkable success story in the annals of Pennsylvania­ – and American – history. Tener was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on July 25, 1863, to Susan Wallis Tener and George Evans Tener. A month after his father’s death in May 1872, his family immigrated to Pittsburgh. In August, Susan...
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Barney Dreyfuss

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Barney Dreyfuss One of the most influential figures in Pennsylvania sports history was a German Jew who came to the United States in the early 1880s. Barney Dreyfuss (1865-1932) went to work as a bookkeeper in a distillery in Paducah, Kentucky, where he began his association with baseball by organizing a semi-professional baseball club. After moving to Louisville with his company, he bought into the Louisville...
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