Scrapbook

Scrapbook

I met Luke Appling in the fall of 1989 at a memorabilia show in the downstate town of Lewistown.  With nobody else in line, Old Aches and Pains talked to me nonstop for ten minutes, until his host prevailed on him to start signing pictures and whatnot.  What most animated Appling was the Chicago weather (“the snow felt like knives driving into my neck at short”) and a bad call by an umpire that took away a base hit that would have broken up Bob Feller’s Opening Day no-hitter at Comiskey Park in 1940.  Ever since that encounter, I’ve developed an interest in the 1930s’ and ’40s teams Appling played on.  Most of the players outside of Appling and pitchers Ted Lyons weren’t that good, but, oh, the uniforms with the “o” and the “x” inside the curves of the supersized “S.”  How I’d love to see those make a comeback for Sunday home games.  

This is another way of saying I bought five snapshots on eBay of a Yankees-Sox game at Comiskey, exact date and players unknown.  No DiMaggio or Appling stands out, and only one player can be seen with a number; Clare thinks it’s 25, to me it looks like 29.  The seller said it was sometime in the 1930s.  The upper corners of the pictures all have a black, upside down “L” imprint on them, so I’m guessing that’s where those little paper/glue anchors went to hold the pictures down on a scrapbook page.    

It looks to be an hour or so before game time.  Players are walking about or warming up.  One of the Yankees is nearing the visitors’ dugout, where a teammate has taken up a spot on the top step to scan the crowd.  Maybe a Sox fan has taken to heckling the Bronx Bombers; at least I hope so.  Two people in the Sox dugout, probably coaches judging from their age, are actually giving the raspberries—thumb and forefinger in a circle before the mouth, the other three fingers along for the ride—to someone.  Two men in suits, reporters maybe, look on in laughter.

The ballpark appears both immense and stately, those wonderful outfield arches leading to a center field that measured some 440 feet to the plate.  An exterior shot show the main entrance, the bricks unpainted and sporting letters that spell out: Comiskey Park Home of the White Sox.

If only.