Saturday, August 13, 2011

A Trip to the Ballpark

Today I visited The Ballpark, a cool little card/memorabilia shop in Apple Valley.  My main goal was to try to find some 1970 Super Valu giveaway John Wheeldon prints of Ron Perranoski and George Mitterwald.  I didn't find either of those, but I did come away with some very cool programs and magazines.

First, I found a couple Kansas City Athletics score books from 1960.  I was about to pass on them until I opened them up and found out that the two programs were scored, and were games against the Yankees.  The names Mantle, Maris and Kubek jumped out at me so I snatched them up.  Clicking on the images below will display larger versions.


The first game was on Saturday, August 6th, 1960.  Dick Hall started for the A's and Bill Short started for the Yankees.  It was a blowout, with the Yankees winning 16-4.

Roger Maris hit a pair of 2-out home runs and Mantle went 4-5.


Bill Tuttle hit a pair of homers for the A's.



It was a 97 degree day in Kansas City, a hot one for the 24,039 fans that showed up to watch.  You can see the box score at baseball-reference.com.


The concessions seemed pretty reasonable.


25 cents for a large Coke, 15 cents for popcorn and 25 cents for a Reitz Red Hot.  A fan could have a pretty good time at the game for about $2, including a program and pencil, cigar and a couple of Schlitz beers.

There's also a somewhat disturbing ad for Reitz, supplier of the hot dogs.  Do those pigs really know what they're advertising?  Maybe they were granted amnesty in exchange for their participation.


The second Kansas City program was for the next day, Sunday, August 7th, 1960, where the A's got their revenge, and beat the Yankees 13-3.  Bud Daley was the winning pitcher for Kansas City, and Ralph Terry took the loss for the Yankees.  The complete box score is here.

At $4.99 each, these programs are fun to look through.  I suppose the value is lower, but I prefer the program to be scored so I can see which game the fan actually attended.  Both of these programs are in amazing condition considering their age and the fact that someone had to hold it at a ball game and get it home.  No creases, very flat and the covers are still glossy.


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