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Home of the Braves?

By MIKE MILIARD  |  May 9, 2007

The team’s early, flashy players — “Grasshopper Jim” Whitney, Charles “Kid” Nichols — helped loosen up stiff Brahmin culture. Their parks — the harborside Congress Street Grounds; the South End Grounds, with its turrets and spires — were unlike anything seen in baseball, which to that point had not contributed mightily to the fields of architecture or public design. And the team was good, winning eight pennants over its first 23 seasons.

Back in their heyday before World War I, Braves fans — including JFK’s grandfather John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald — would convene at Nuf Ced McGreevey’s Third Base Saloon in the South End. “That was to baseball what CBGB’s was to punk rock,” says Johnson. “A gathering place where the baseball tribes would hang out: players, spectators, press, politicians. The city of Boston was the epicenter of baseball. Not just Major League baseball, but baseball culture in this country. And the Braves franchise was at the heart of it. Everything we enjoy now about the game, the DNA is the Braves’ DNA.”

070511_braves_main2
DREAM FIELDS: The fanciful South End Grounds (top) were replaced in 1915 by Braves Field in Allston, then the largest ballpark in America.
That includes a fascination with players’ personalities and antics, and the Braves had some corkers over their first several decades. One of the first and best was King Kelly, who came to the team in 1887 for what was then an astronomical bounty of $10,000. He was a prodigious run producer — and a prodigious drinker. Purportedly, one game was delayed because he was tippling with some rich swells in the box seats.

“He was a wild man!” says Johnson. “He wasn’t just back-page news, he was front-page news. If ever there was a perfect superstar for the city of Boston, it was King Kelly.” (The fact that he was Irish sure didn’t hurt.) According to Kelly’s Wikipedia entry, he “was often accompanied by a black monkey and a Japanese valet.”

Kelly was the subject of a pop song (“Slide, Kelly, Slide!”) and, in 1927, inspired a movie of the same name. He also wrote baseball’s first autobiography. He was truly larger than life — even the rules of the game bent to his will. “Sometimes he’d cut from first base across the infield to third,” says Johnson. “And with the crowd egging him on. And sometimes he’d get away with it! It was wild stuff.”

In the teens, then again in the ’30s, the Braves were home to another eccentric and talented Hall of Famer. Springfield’s own Rabbit Maranville — just 5’5” and 155 pounds — was one of the game’s most beloved clowns. He was “the Ozzie Smith of his day,” says Johnson. “He would sit on the second base bag, take a relay toss, and fire strikes to home plate from a sitting position. People went crazy! They loved it. He was a showman.” (“After a few drinks,” reads one bio, “he became the hotel-ledge walker, the goldfish swallower, the practical joker.”)

The team’s players weren’t the only characters. George Stallings, who managed the Braves for eight years — including the season of their highly improbable World Series victory in 1914 — was the son of a Confederate war hero. He dropped out of Johns Hopkins medical school to pursue a professional career as a catcher, playing exactly four games at that position, (for the 1890 Brooklyn Bridegrooms). Stallings became a manager fairly young, and could be seen on the bench in a natty suit instead of a uniform — one he would not change for as long as the team was on a winning streak. And while skippering the New York Highlanders — later to be renamed the Yankees — he employed some rather innovative techniques. “He had a guy stealing signs with a telescope from an apartment window,” says Johnson, “telegraphing him the information.”

There were other Hall of Famers. Cranston, Rhode Island’s greatest center fielder, Hugh Duffy (1892–1900). The lefty workhorse Warren Spahn (1942–1964). The slugger Eddie Matthews, who was in the Hub for just his rookie season in 1952 but is the only man to have played for the team in all three of its home cities.

There were famous-by-proxy players, such as strikeout-prone Vince DiMaggio. Vince played his first two seasons here (1937 and 1938) while his brother Joe was becoming a superstar in pinstripes, and two years before his other brother Dominic patrolled center field for the Red Sox.

Then there was a slugger named George Herman Ruth, who was enticed in 1935 to return to Boston in the gloaming of his career with a promise from the team’s owner, Judge Emil Fuchs, that he could manage the team upon his retirement. The 40-year-old Sultan of Swat ended up playing just 28 games, many marked by sloppy fielding, but did clout six home runs, including one in his first at-bat of the season, off the great Carl Hubbell.

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Comments
Home of the Braves?
Thanks for the wonderful article on the old Boston Braves. I was 16 when they left town for good & have never totally forgotten them and the impact they had on my early childhood years. It all now seems like part of a lost ghost world. Day games, 50 cent tickets, those great uniforms with the Indian on the sleeve and the tomahawk on front. They can have all the big money & hype we must endure in MLB today. What I wouldn't give for just one more day, circa 1949-50, at Braves Field watching a big league doubleheader for fifty cents.
By bostonblakie on 05/12/2007 at 7:44:13
Home of the Braves?
I was born on November 7, 1952, so technically I was born when the Braves were still in Boston. However, I grew up hearing about the Milwaukee Braves, and not knowing their history. One day, probably in 1961, I was in my garage with my father, and I came across a datebook for 1952. I was excited by this, since it showed the calendar page for the day I was born. Then, I looked through the rest of the datebook, and saw schedules for the Boston Red Sox (the only sports team I cared about) and for something called the Boston Braves. My first guess was that they were an old minor league team. When I asked my dad about them, though, he told me that they were the team that was then called the Milwaukee Braves. My jaw dropped. I had watched the Braves play in the World Series in 1957 and 1958, and had watched them come close in 1959. "You mean that we could be watching Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Bill Bruton and the rest of the Braves, instead of the living-on-past-glories Red Sox?", I thought to myself. Shortly afterwards, Dad took me past Nickerson Field and showed me what was left of Braves Field. I thought that it was an incredibly stupid move to tear down part of a perfectly good ballpark to put up some stupid dormitories; but I looked at the old light towers, the right field wall, the old track for the outfield wall inside this wall, the right field pavilion, and even the trolley tracks next to the ballpark, and thought of what might have been. Sometimes, even today, I'll walk into the pavilion and look for the seams that mark the place where the Braves shifted the foul lines in the last years of the park. Or, I'll head to the western end, where another seam marks the end of the old pavilion (since expanded) and try to imagine the grandstand beginning a few feet away... the Jury Box in right... the bullpen nearby... seeing National League teams without the need for interleague play... and so on. I'm happy with the Red Sox now -- don't get me wrong -- but it would be nice to have a choice.
By thebigcat on 05/13/2007 at 1:37:51
Home of the Braves?
The article states that the Braves played at the largest field in the majors from 1936 to 1941. I am afraid that is not so. The Cleveland Indians played their first game in the old Lakefront Stadium (Municipal Stadium) on July 3, 1932. That stadium held nearly twice as many as Braves Field, 78189 versus 43,000. Enjoyed the article although more info on the '48 Braves would have been nice. I remember the World Series that year and some famous old Braves, Spahn, Sain, Vern Bickford, Bob Elliot, et al.
By Regis on 05/14/2007 at 8:04:06
Home of the Braves?
Admittedly, the wording of that paragraph could be clearer. But I meant only to point out that Braves Field was the biggest in baseball at the time it opened in 1915 -- while also noting, parenthetically, that it had a new nickname between '36 and '41.
By MM on 05/14/2007 at 11:59:09
Home of the Braves?
The Braves won 14 division titles in a row, not 11. The streak was ended only just last year. Thanks for this article!! I'm an Atlanta-born girl, whose father is from Massachusetts. I've always rooted for both teams, and felt that it was especially apt to do so since the Braves were once a Boston team. It surprises me how many 'rabid' Sox fans don't even know they were ever here. I can't wait for the series this weekend! Nothing makes me happier than being at the Greatest Park in America, watching my favorite teams battle it out.
By RachelC on 05/15/2007 at 1:54:15
Home of the Braves?
We mustn't forget the man who originated the idea to bring professional baseball to Boston, Ashburnham, MA native Iver Whitney Adams. Mr. Adams was the founder , organizer and President of the first-ever Boston Base Ball Club and of the Boston Red Stockings. From an invitation in 1871, and a declaration of financial backing by Mr. Adams, baseball great Harry Wright moved from managing the "Cincinnati Red Stockings" to work professionally with the first-ever base ball team in Boston, the "Boston Red Stockings" He managed the Boston Red Stockings (1871 - 1875), Boston Red Caps (1876 - 1881), Providence Grays (1882 - 1883) and Philadelphia Quakers/Phillies (1884 - 1893). His teams won six league championships (1872 - 1875, 1877, 1878) and he finished his managerial career with 1225 wins and 885 losses for a .581 winning percentage.
By riceflan on 01/01/2008 at 1:37:18

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