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mchenrycards
Featured Contributor, Vintage Corner, Senior Membe
Today’s photo of the day features Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean and White Sox hurlers Month Stratton and Johnny Whitehead. This photo was taken on May 9, 1938 at Chicago’s Comiskey Park and was played between the two Chicago big league teams as a benefit for the young pitcher. Stratton was a up and coming star pitcher for the White Sox before a hunting accident forced doctors to remove his right leg. The Sox and Cubs decided a benefit game was in order for Stratton and the proceeds from that days gate (about 30K) went to Stratton along with a brand new automobile.
For most players this would be the end of the story. A tragic accident, a benefit game and the player would be nothing more than a trivia question in the White Sox history but Stratton would not let his story end there. Fitted with a prosthetic leg, he would go on to work himself back into playing shape and would play a number of years for various minor league teams. This former All Star would never sniff the majors again but his story was so inspirational a Hollywood movie was made of his story that starred Movie legend, Jimmy Stewart. The movie is titled simply The Stratton Story and is worth a look when you see it on Netflix or even late night television during the baseball season.
Stratton continued to farm is Greenville, Texas and went on to live a good life despite his handicap. His story provide to be inspirational to disabled veterans from World War II as many of them came back from the war missing limbs and looked to Stratton as a role model for how to cope with the loss of a limb.
I love the look of this photo because it features old Comiskey Park and Hall of Famer Dean but this photo also shows the skills photo editors of days past used to edit their photos for publication purposes. It was common practice to crop down a photo and “erase” any background images in order for the primary focus of the photo to be spotlighted. You can see that in this photo an editor did just that by obscuring a portion of the other Sox pitcher on the mound, basically making him non-existent when the cropped photo would be published in the paper. The photo that ran in the papers was the portion that featured only Stratton and Dean. Imagine only seeing from the "edited" area and over to the right and you will see what newspaper readers saw the next day.
I hope you enjoy today’s photo of the day.
Stratton checking out his uniform in 1937...pre-accident
For most players this would be the end of the story. A tragic accident, a benefit game and the player would be nothing more than a trivia question in the White Sox history but Stratton would not let his story end there. Fitted with a prosthetic leg, he would go on to work himself back into playing shape and would play a number of years for various minor league teams. This former All Star would never sniff the majors again but his story was so inspirational a Hollywood movie was made of his story that starred Movie legend, Jimmy Stewart. The movie is titled simply The Stratton Story and is worth a look when you see it on Netflix or even late night television during the baseball season.
Stratton continued to farm is Greenville, Texas and went on to live a good life despite his handicap. His story provide to be inspirational to disabled veterans from World War II as many of them came back from the war missing limbs and looked to Stratton as a role model for how to cope with the loss of a limb.
I love the look of this photo because it features old Comiskey Park and Hall of Famer Dean but this photo also shows the skills photo editors of days past used to edit their photos for publication purposes. It was common practice to crop down a photo and “erase” any background images in order for the primary focus of the photo to be spotlighted. You can see that in this photo an editor did just that by obscuring a portion of the other Sox pitcher on the mound, basically making him non-existent when the cropped photo would be published in the paper. The photo that ran in the papers was the portion that featured only Stratton and Dean. Imagine only seeing from the "edited" area and over to the right and you will see what newspaper readers saw the next day.
I hope you enjoy today’s photo of the day.
Stratton checking out his uniform in 1937...pre-accident
