I meant to include a photo of Larkin in the above post. Here it is. barry larkin completes a dp j

I dunno Hoyacon. Mantle stills looks pretty d*mn good per almost all the newer advanced metrics. Here's two- First career Win Shares (WS). Mantle is 10th all time among position players. 1. Ruth 756 2. Cobb 722 3. Ba Bonds 704 4. Wagner 655 5. Aaron 643 6. Mays 642 7. Speaker 630 8. Musial 604 9. E Collins 574 10. Mantle 565 Next JAWS - Mantle's 13th. 1. Ruth 123.9 2. Ba Bonds 117.6 3. Mays 115.0 4. Cobb 110.0 5. Aaron 101.4 6. Hornsby 100.3 7. Wagner 98.2 8. Speaker 97.9 9. T Williams 97.9 10. Musial 96.2 11. E Collins 94.1 12. Gehrig 90.1 13. Mantle 87.2 MickeyMantleDM_468x606

I know very little about the spring training ballparks in use during this era. However, one thing I wondered about is whether or not these two teams may have played an exhibition game or two somewhere along the way as they headed north out spring training which was a standard practice at the time. Still, the stadium looks like Fenway to me. Note the small press box type facility on the roof along the first base line which existed at Fenway during this era. The aerial photo of Fenway Park below shows this box which is distinct and unconnected to the main baseball press box. I don't know the year of the photo but it looks to be from the same general time frame. fenway park aerial view

Here's a little bit more about Yogi, MLB & D-Day I just came across from MLB.com. http://mlb.mlb.com/content/printer_friendly/mlb/y2004/m06/d06/c762644.jsp At some point during the landings, Yogi went on a 50-foot rocket launcher boat that ran close in to shore to attack enemy points. I think the 50-foot rocket launcher mentioned in the article is this craft - Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) - an LCT modified to be a platform for rocket launchers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Craft_Tank_(Rocket) Here's a photo of the LCT (R) in action. 792px-LCT_Launching_Rockets

It's hard to navigate around in these group forums. It doesn't look I can add more than one photo or edit it, so this is a continuation of the above post. The picture above is Phillies leadoff hitter Lou Chiozza who has just fouled back the first pitch of the first night ballgame at Crosley Field May 24, 1935. Note the location of photographers near the foul lines and the batter's box. I think this was a fairly common occurrence at the time, but I think it generally happened only for potentially historic events like the first night ballgame or the last out of a no-hitter or Joe DiMaggio's record-setting hit streak. The photo below is of Joe D as he was trying to extend his hit streak to 57 games. Again, note the location of the photographers. This was just patently dangerous and stupid but no one at that time seems to have given it a second thought. I don't know when the practice ended and I also wonder if it ever resulted in any photographer ever getting hit. I doubt it only because I've never heard of any such incident. joe dimaggio trying to extend hit streak to 57 games