{"id":1866,"date":"2023-03-15T12:32:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T19:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:03:31","slug":"50s-family-baseball-customs-and-routines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theimmers.com\/smalltowns\/50s-family-baseball-customs-and-routines\/","title":{"rendered":"50s family baseball customs and routines"},"content":{"rendered":"

50s family baseball customs were not an addition to family life, they were essential to family life. Family baseball customs were more than recreation, instead it was part of the daily routine of family life. They were routine family life, a pastime, an obsession, and a passion. The game defined the mood of the country in the mid-20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Baseball was a family custom in the 50s\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"These

Edwardsville Illinois intersection shows the way to grandmother’s house for Sunday diners and family time<\/p><\/div>\n

Little league baseball games on warm summer nights included a trip to grandmother’s house and homemade ice cream. The ice cream maker and the ingredients were always available at the dairy farm. We purchased the ice on the trip. The impromptu gathering usually included grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The last of these family gatherings was in 1954. My family moved to Washington State in 1955 and my grandparents to Phoenix in 1956.<\/p>\n

Attendance at Saint Louis Cardinals games, across the river on Route 66, was a family custom. We attended major league baseball games a few times per year. I have vivid memories from some of the games. The St Louis Cardinals were still playing at a ballpark in St Louis called Sportsman\u2019s Park<\/a> during the late 40s and early 50s. This stadium was very small compared to the next generation of stadiums in the 1970s and 1980s, about 30,000 capacity. It was built in 1908 on the site where previous baseball stadiums had been since 1866.<\/p>\n

My first big league game was a best day memory<\/h2>\n

I can remember the first time we went to Saint Louis for a big league game saturated my senses. I was 6, in 1949, and very impressed by the physical structure. The building was huge compared to any other building I had seen. There was no huge parking lot or parking structure in those days. Many of the people who came to the game walked or rode public transportation. I knew the Cardinal lineup and some of the players on other National League teams.<\/p>\n

My father, grandfather, and uncles were all baseball fanatics. During the summer, 50s family baseball customs almost always included a game of catch on Sunday afternoons at the family farm. My uncle Robbie was the pitcher, either my dad or my Uncle Fred were the catcher. Robbie went to at least one big league tryout. I don\u2019t remember which team the tryout was for, probably the St Louis Cardinals. He was not selected.<\/p>\n

Toys were family baseball customs<\/h2>\n

At age 8 in 1951 my baseball glove was my favorite toy. Elementary school boys considered baseball gloves a prized possession. The gloves were a signature for the big-league stars and chosen based on the player\u2019s name as well as how well the glove played. Children prepared the gloves for use and maintained them using very specific procedures and material. The glove pocket, the precise spot where the ball was caught, was created by placing the glove in a bucket of water with a ball wrapped in the pocket area. After being broken in the glove was maintained with special oil that was rubbed into the leather to keep it flexible.<\/p>\n

The time I remember choosing a Glove was 1951. The glove that I chose was the \u201cMartin Marion Shortstop \u2013 Rawlings G600\u201d. I don\u2019t remember the price. My father was very conservative in purchasing toys. He was very liberal with athletic equipment. I usually had plenty of balls, bats, and gloves.<\/p>\n

Baseball Sunday afternoon routines at grandma’s house<\/h2>\n

The routine for Sunday afternoons at grandmother’s dining room table included listening to the radio reporting of baseball double headers. The game of catch on the dirt road on the North side of the house was often played while listening to a Saint Louis Cardinal’s game broadcast. The radio was placed in an open window adjacent to the game of catch. I sometimes listened to the broadcast and watched the game of catch. The announcer for the St Louis team was Harry Caray<\/a>. Harry Caray was the announcer for St Louis for at least another 20 years and for other major league teams for another 25 years. In subsequent decades I always thought of the Sunday afternoons at the farm when I heard Harry Caray or saw his name in the news.<\/p>\n

Lazy summer afternoons at the family farm near Highland, Illinois, were radio afternoons. Lazy is relative term. The work for harvests and daily chores was always done on schedule. If the weather was unusually hot, as it was 1954 with a 117-degree day, the pace was intentionally slower. The family was all Cardinals fans and usually knew the current big-league standings on a daily basis. I can remember listening to one double header in particular. It was early 50s and Stan Musial<\/a> was hitting a lot of home runs. We were listening and counting along with the announcer, Harry Caray of course. Stan Musial did not set a record that day, but he did hit 5 home runs.<\/p>\n

Family baseball customs included participation<\/h2>\n

During the 30s and 40s thousands of towns had local teams. Our family farm located on Decks prairie, which was not a town rather just some farms with about 20 families was located, had at least a couple of teams. My father and uncles had nicknames that derived from their baseball team. Uncle Eugene was \u201ccoach\u201d and Uncle Fred was \u201cbunt\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"bats

3 generation 1948 family photo includes baseballs bats and gloves<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 30s and 40s most rural schools were for grades one through eight and did not have any baseball fields or other athletic facilities.\u00a0 Farmers sometimes allocated space for a baseball field. I can remember one afternoon in 1950 walking along Silver Creek through the corn fields at the family farm and hearing a \u201cstee\u2026rike\u201d echo through the oak forest. My grandfather was the umpire at a field in the middle of an oak forest. I did not know the field was there until I stumbled upon it. I have seen baseball players walk out of a corn field onto a baseball diamond just like in the movie \u201cField of Dreams”.<\/p>\n

The construction of Interstate 70 in 1967 buried the family farm baseball field under the highway. The location was near the Illinois Visitor Center at the west end of Highland, Illinois. You can see Silver Creek on an Illinois State map.<\/p>\n

50s family baseball customs often included impromptu discussions about baseball at any time and any place. A newspaper open to the sports section was on the kitchen counter while we were washing dishes after Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s house. I discussed the team standings with my aunt. The Cardinals were in first place, which was a rare occurrence in the 50s. They finished the season in 4th place.<\/p>\n

50s small town culture was about baseball\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Children played baseball, actually softball, on the school grounds from early morning until the end of the school day. Of course, we did go to class. The children who played baseball often arrived early, sometimes an hour before school started, to play in the morning. We played at both morning and afternoon recess and there was a 45-minute break for lunch. The ball was provided by the school. The gloves were personal property brought to school. The social status for elementary school boys was determined to a great extent by athletic ability. There weren\u2019t any gangs or clicks. We played almost all of the school year. There had to be a lot of snow on the ground to stop baseball.<\/p>\n

Small town culture involved walking, to the movie theater, grocery store or other locations in the business district. Our front yard was on main street near the business district. Front yard practices with my father often had visitors to observe and chat about the Little League season in progress. Roxana main street was like the Cheers Bar in Boston, everybody knows your name.<\/p>\n

TV ownership in Roxana was less than 50% in the early 50s. Sports fans expressed interest based on the venues and media available. The number one interest was high school basketball. It was a short walk down the street and the players were local heroes. Attendance was 50% of the town population.\u00a0 The largest fan base was for professional baseball. Nation wide coverage was primarily by radio. TV sets grew from 17000 in 1947 to 10 million in 1951 when radio sets numbered 58 million. For world series games some neighborhoods would have several radios that you could hear from the street tuned to the game.<\/p>\n

Children’s habitats included locations for baseball<\/h2>\n

Children did not require much space for baseball. Our front yard in Roxana was only about 60 feet long but it worked for baseball until I was about 8. After that we played catch in the front yard but no more batting or fielding balls.<\/p>\n

Because of nearby windows front yard baseball was impractical. Batted balls frequently hit our house and neighbor’s windows. We played right in front of the front door to the house which was glass. We broke the glass in the door several times. The neighbor\u2019s house bedroom window was only a few feet from the edge of the front yard. Batted balls gone astray broke it least once. The strange thing about the broken windows is that I never got any static from my dad about the broken windows. He just fixed the window. I got static, meaning sometimes physically beaten, for offenses that I thought were much less important than the broken windows.<\/p>\n

\"vacant

Roxana Illinois 3rd St front yard vacant lots down the alley next to the grocery store<\/p><\/div>\n

Undeveloped lots in the city center and residential areas provided space big enough for children\u2019s baseball games. The vacant lot next to our house was large enough for baseball as long as I lived there which was until I was 12. I played most of the baseball, when I was 8 or 9, in nearby vacant lots, although there were baseball fields at the elementary school and at the high school. There were vacant lots on the main street in the downtown area. Businesses development stopped after the 30s and 40s. After the war the development for both housing and businesses was in the suburbs. As a result, Roxana always looked kind of incomplete.<\/p>\n

Vacant lots and baseball were essential to children’s habitats<\/h2>\n

The dimensions of a child\u2019s baseball universe, or somewhat interchangeably softball, spans neighborhoods and states. At Edison School in Roxana, Illinois, the vacant lots between 3rd street and 1st street provided several places to play baseball. Edison School was grade 1 through 4 so not a lot of space was needed for 9-year-old games. I don\u2019t remember baseball being played in this space. There was space on the East and West sides of the school with the West having a slightly larger space and a diamond with bases marked out. There were two baseball diamonds with backstop cages on the north side of the school.<\/p>\n

Informal games of workup, catch or a scaled down field in one of the small spaces for teams, seemed to materialize at any of these places. Within 3 blocks there were 7 areas large enough for elementary school age children to play. Open space is a necessary element for a child\u2019s habitat.<\/p>\n

I usually had a bat and ball with me when we went to the farm during the day. Sometimes my dad pitched batting practice on one of the fields or the barnyard. Sometimes I just practiced hitting by myself. The ball would not roll very far on the uneven fields used for crops, so I did not have to go as far to chase the ball after I hit it.<\/p>\n

Baseball stars were celebrities and household names<\/h2>\n

My neighbor lefty Reynolds was a semipro baseball pitcher. Everybody I knew was or wanted to be a semipro. Roxana was only 2000 population, but they had a baseball team on an irregular schedule in the 30s and 40s. Some of the players on a team were not paid. Most did not have any experience with a major league franchise. They played for fun and the possibility of local fame.<\/p>\n

Baseball was part of family status and identity. My Kansas City cousins were excited to get a major league baseball team in 1955. They were all girls and all baseball fans. The Athletics had just moved from Philadelphia. I saw these cousins infrequently after we moved to Washington state that year. I don’t know if their enthusiasm held up after the Athletics finished at the bottom of the league the first two years.<\/p>\n

The most recognizable voice from my childhood is Harry Caray. I listened to his Saint Louis Cardinals broadcasts for several years. After I moved to Washington state I occasionally listened when he was the announcer for other baseball teams. Hary Caray invented the famous home run chant that everybody knew. He never called a home run as it came off of the bat. While the ball was still in the air, he monitored the progress:\u00a0 it might be, pause, it could be, pause, it is, pause, a home run. Because of this technique, he never had to correct a mistake when the ball was not over the wall. When I discussed baseball with fans from other states, I usually found that they knew Hary Caray’s home run chant.<\/p>\n

50s family baseball customs included celebrities icons and heroes<\/h2>\n

50s baseball heroes were a combination of celebrity, icon, folklore, and idol. The family fan base was related to location, the team for the city you lived in or near, or the team for the city that you were from. The backstory for baseball player stardom was free agency or more accurately the absence of free agency. Teams obtained players by signing them when they first came up to the major league or trading with another team for them. The team owned rights to the player and controlled what team they played for. Players could not negotiate with other teams for more money. Players were together for years or for their career. Many players adopted their baseball home as their family home and became part of the community. Stan Musial, St Louis Cardinals, was a good example.<\/p>\n

50s baseball news was down and dirty not glitz and glamor. The media rarely covered the private lives and personalities of players. The lack of education or social graces were not considered newsworthy. Paul Dean, who had a short but very successful career in the 1930s, mentioned that he had dropped out of school in the second grade and did not do very well in the first grade. Fans accepted this statement as matter of fact. It was not newsworthy. Weekly Newsreels presented with Hollywood films covered scores, League standing, and performances but not the personal lives of players.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

50s family baseball customs were not an addition to family life, they were essential to family life. Family baseball customs were more than recreation, instead it was part of the daily routine of family life. 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