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mchenrycards
Featured Contributor, Vintage Corner, Senior Membe
The Houston Astrodome had opened in 1965 and provided Major League Baseball the first opportunity for a baseball game to be played inside with zero threat of the weather washing out a game. The Astrodome also provided opportunities for new angles of the grand old game like the one I have posted today.
What we see here is the great right fielder of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente batting in a game that had no special meaning in terms of history or the league standings. As a matter of fact, Clemente would have a tough game this day as he went 0-4 in a 5-2 Pirates win which saw Pirate teammates Willie Stargell and Bob Bailey do most of the damage with home runs that day.
In this photo we also see Astros' catcher John Bateman sporting the new Astros uniforms that made their debut at the start of the previous season after playing under the team name of the Colt 45's the three seasons before the change. It is interesting to note that Bateman was also using the catching style that had gone out of style with the advent of Johnny Bench utilizing the hinged catchers mitt. This new style eliminated the need to have your right hand behind the glove in an effort to secure the ball after the pitch. This style of catching Bateman was using was the cause of most, if not all old baseball catchers having fingers on their right hand point to all points on the compass due to foul tips easily breaking their digits.
Behind the plate calling balls and strikes was umpire Stand Landes who was a Marine Corp veteran and a participant in three World Series' and an equal number of All Star Games as an umpire. Landes would eventually lose his 18 year career as an umpire by being outspoken about how the umpires were treated by the leagues and demanding better working conditions but instead he received his pink slip.
An interesting item about this Pirates-Astros series is that the umpiring crew worked with three umpires, which was the norm until the middle 50's. From a personal standpoint, One of the other umpires in this series was Augie Donatelli (not pictured) who's son would go on to marry my cousin 15 years after this photo was taken.
I hope you enjoy this photo of the day and appreciate how innovative a photo taken from this angle was for it's time.
What we see here is the great right fielder of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente batting in a game that had no special meaning in terms of history or the league standings. As a matter of fact, Clemente would have a tough game this day as he went 0-4 in a 5-2 Pirates win which saw Pirate teammates Willie Stargell and Bob Bailey do most of the damage with home runs that day.
In this photo we also see Astros' catcher John Bateman sporting the new Astros uniforms that made their debut at the start of the previous season after playing under the team name of the Colt 45's the three seasons before the change. It is interesting to note that Bateman was also using the catching style that had gone out of style with the advent of Johnny Bench utilizing the hinged catchers mitt. This new style eliminated the need to have your right hand behind the glove in an effort to secure the ball after the pitch. This style of catching Bateman was using was the cause of most, if not all old baseball catchers having fingers on their right hand point to all points on the compass due to foul tips easily breaking their digits.
Behind the plate calling balls and strikes was umpire Stand Landes who was a Marine Corp veteran and a participant in three World Series' and an equal number of All Star Games as an umpire. Landes would eventually lose his 18 year career as an umpire by being outspoken about how the umpires were treated by the leagues and demanding better working conditions but instead he received his pink slip.
An interesting item about this Pirates-Astros series is that the umpiring crew worked with three umpires, which was the norm until the middle 50's. From a personal standpoint, One of the other umpires in this series was Augie Donatelli (not pictured) who's son would go on to marry my cousin 15 years after this photo was taken.
I hope you enjoy this photo of the day and appreciate how innovative a photo taken from this angle was for it's time.
