worldseries

Nick Altrock & Al Schacht had a baseball comedy act that they put on to warm up the Polo Grounds crowd before Game 2 of the 1922 World Series, on October 5, 1922: "Play-by-Play Account of Yankees-Giants Tie Contest By Joseph Val Nick Altrock and AI Schacht, world's series comedians extraordinary, held the center of the stage at the Polo Grounds yesterday throughout the early afternoon and up to the very minute when play began. In fact, the comedians outdid themselves to such an extent that the voice of the an- nouncer could hardly be heard when the batteries were made known. Altrock and Schacht carried the house with their final act, a slow-mo- tion pitching and batting feature, which was absolutely the best trick in their repertoire. The fans simply roared in glee, and depended on their eyesight, or the scoreboard, to dis- cover that Bob Shawkey was the Yan- kees' pitching selection and Jess Barnes was to toss them up for the Giants." New York Tribune, October 06, 1922 chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1922-10-06/ed-...

An interesting article about Al Schacht and the comedy duo: sabr.org/bioproj/person/al-schacht/

LOC, the photo seems properly dated based on the caption card in the Notes above, but misdated as 1923 above that. Please check with the Pictorial History Committee, Society for American Baseball Research.

Thanks for the details and correction, Art Siegel .

Melissa (LOC P&P) You're welcome. I see that it is still identified above as 1923, thoug

George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. In 1936, Ruth was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members.

Bill Edwards here is William Hanford "Big Bill" Edwards (1877 –1943) an American football player who played guard for the Princeton Tigers football team of Princeton University from 1896 to 1899 and member of the College Football Hall of Fame (Class 1971). The "mascot" is named Raymond Kelly. The date of the photo October 7, 1924 was Game 4 of the World Series at the Polo Grounds. Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 08 Oct. 1924. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1924-10-08/ed-...) www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1192410070.shtml

The Evening Star identifies the boy as Raymond Kelly, mascot for the NY Giants. Actually, Raymond Kelly (1918-2001) was the Babe's personal mascot. That probably wasn't as creepy as it sounds. www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/sports/ray-kelly-83-babe-ruth-...

Thanks Dean Z and Seuss.. We'll add Raymond Kelly's name to the catalog record.

Brooklyn mascot Joe "Red" Monahan. He was team mascot for 1916, and later went on to coach high school sports in Brooklyn. The story of how Hi Myers discovered him, while out of school with whooping cough sneaking into Ebbets Field, is told in a 1948 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article:
fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%205/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20E...

Art Siegel: thank you for finding the name and background information on Joe Monahan. We will update the record.