Location
Panel 12: Kearney 323
Start Date
27-10-2012 8:30 AM
End Date
27-10-2012 10:00 AM
Description
I grew up an avid fan of baseball, football, and basketball in Rochester, NY, in the postwar years. The Rochester Royals were the only major league team but for me basketball was a stopgap until baseball began. The Royals and their players were fine, and I filled scrapbooks with the doings of Bobbie Davies and others. However, the Red Wings were the real deal for me. True, they were a minor league team but they were my minor league team. The games were easy to get to, and I could easily take a bus or even walk to them. The Knothole Gang card let kids into 9 or 10 free games, and my Dad often came with me on weekends for double-headers. He, too, was a baseball nut and socialized me into becoming a Yankee fan. The Italian ballplayers were our heroes, and the Red Wings had a few for us to follow and support. The fact that their parent club was in St. Louis at the time was fine since it was a National League team and good players would not go to Yankee rivals. By the time Baltimore became the parent club I was losing interest in the Wings and had moved on to other cities. However, the Wings kept a hold on me, as tenuous as it was. This paper examines that significant tie between a boy and his home team in a minor league city and its impact on his maturing young years.
Additional Files
Growing Up with the Rochester Red Wings in the Forties and Fifties
Panel 12: Kearney 323
I grew up an avid fan of baseball, football, and basketball in Rochester, NY, in the postwar years. The Rochester Royals were the only major league team but for me basketball was a stopgap until baseball began. The Royals and their players were fine, and I filled scrapbooks with the doings of Bobbie Davies and others. However, the Red Wings were the real deal for me. True, they were a minor league team but they were my minor league team. The games were easy to get to, and I could easily take a bus or even walk to them. The Knothole Gang card let kids into 9 or 10 free games, and my Dad often came with me on weekends for double-headers. He, too, was a baseball nut and socialized me into becoming a Yankee fan. The Italian ballplayers were our heroes, and the Red Wings had a few for us to follow and support. The fact that their parent club was in St. Louis at the time was fine since it was a National League team and good players would not go to Yankee rivals. By the time Baltimore became the parent club I was losing interest in the Wings and had moved on to other cities. However, the Wings kept a hold on me, as tenuous as it was. This paper examines that significant tie between a boy and his home team in a minor league city and its impact on his maturing young years.