I agree with you about this that the fielders are SO much better today. I think fields are also in so much better shape today.

@@sdgakatbk Thank you.

He was ok.

Roy 'Campy' Campanella was one hell of a catcher. Most Valuable Player in the National League in 1951, -53 and -55. 1955 set the season record for most RBI by a catcher (146) & at his retirement held the career home run record for catchers. All this in only 10 years playing time. In my book the top three all time catchers are Campanella, Berra and Johnny Bench, in whatever order you want .

@@areguapiri lol

Over a twelve year period, from 1946 until 1957, Yogi hit 262 home runs… …and struck out 252 times. Mull that one over for a while!!

Besides baseball, I think horse racing and boxing were very big. Also college football. As far as professional sports, baseball was way ahead. Pro football hadn't taken off yet and the NBA was just formed by merging the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League. Hockey wasn't as popular as it is today and the NHL was a 6 team league until expansion in 1967. There were a number of players in the minor league AHL that were NHL level or very close.

Ol Reliable

Yes, and back then there were no steroids! Baseball players did not bulk up like they do today. Few worked out much at all (really, not until Carl Yastrzemski started working out during the off season in the mid-sixties). The game was a great deal more interesting. Also, these October games were played during the day when the weather was mild, unlike today where they are played in cold weather (far too often) because of television ratings. Baseball was really not meant to be played in the cold.

He was a tremendous hitter

@johnnyjustice9988 1 second ago My father and grandfather were there at game 1 and ran into Jackie Robinson afterwards getting a milkshake. They got his autograph on a ticket stub. Jackie sat right next to my grandfather. I've still got the stub!

HERE, HERE, I MISS HIM SO

Only man to win the Cy Young Award and the MVP in the same year.

The game you are referring to is most likely the August 6, 1949 game against the Saint Louis Browns, with Joe hitting the HR off Cliff Fannin for a 9-8 win. (Looked up Joe's walk off HRs on baseball-reference.com and that's the one that came up)

Originally he started taking films to find flaws in players' batting and pitching motions. I understand that's how he got into making films. Those were probably mostly pretty close-up shots. So I guess he never got away from that.

I can confirm that it's not the same guy. That little guy throwing out the first pitch was my dad, and I happened upon this video looking for some footage of this event. We have lots of newspaper clippings and photos but this is the first video I've ever seen of the event. My dad passed very recently so it's lovely to see him as such a cute little guy. But I can tell you Dad would have been tickled to be mistaken for a professional ball player.

Originally he wore #3. The last Yankee to wear the Babe's uniform number. You can look it up.

"#7 would be worn for 17 seasons by arguably greatest Yankee of all time." Greater than Babe Ruth ?????? I don't think so

@@michaelstearnesstearnes1498 In Babe's day the uniform number indicated where in the batting order a player was hitting. Babe always hit 3rd, Lou Gehrig 4th and so on.

Mantle originally wore #6. Who knew that years later Roy White would wear that same number for about 15 years!

The picture quality is great. it's too bad the transfer to You-Tube was so choppy.

There was a rule in baseball at the time that if a game started in daylight, they weren't allowed to turn on the lights later when it got dark. A very dumb rule that was eventually thrown out, but there it was.

O'Malley was smarter than Rickey.

@@RRaquello No that's not true. BLUBBER OMalley was a conniving liar who would lie in your face. Branch Rickey was a man of integrity.He was a world War 1 veteran who actually played professional baseball and broke the racial barrier with Jackie robinson. He made the minor league farm system ,he started florida spring training. Blubber made his money by foreclosing on people's houses during the great depression. He never played any sports except food eating contests and did serve his country during world War 2 even through he was eligible.

@@RRaquello blubber omalley swindled the people of brooklyn and stole their team and stadium away from them he always hated brooklyn he was born in Manhattan went to school in the Bronx worked in Manhattan and lived in long island he had nothing to do with brooklyn

I'm not talking about morals here, but business smarts. O'Malley was a scheming shyster lawyer, but those are the guys who always win. Also, I don't share your high opinion of Branch Rickey. Yes, he was the most successful operator in the history of Major League Baseball, but he was a lying hypocrite and sanctimonious scumbag. There's an interview on here with Frank Thomas (the one who played with the Mets). Watch that. Also, his breaking the color line, he's made a saint for that, but as Ralph Kiner pointed out, that was his way of getting good players without having to pay for them. Read the opinions of the guys who played for Rickey and how they were cheated, lied to and swindled. When Giants owner Horace Stoneham went out and got black players, like Monte Irvin, he bought their contracts from the Negro League teams, so at least they were able to get back some money on their investments, but Rickey just signed the players and gave the Negro League teams nothing. To me, O'Malley and Rickey are two sides of the same coin, only O'Malley out-swindled Rickey. I'm sure Rickey had the knife out for O'Malley as much as O'Malley had it for him, only O'Malley stuck his in faster. Stoneham was at least an honorable man, so he got swindled by O'Malley too.