Sportswriters Deserve Place Inforbes Field History — — — — — I960
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
IKE I i Sportswriters deserve place nights a week before mens' groups, revealing the under- in Forbes Field history belly of the baseball and sports worldhe loved so much. "Colonel" Hershman owned the Press at that time, The Summer 1993 Pittsburgh Histmy featuring Forbes which gave the paper true local color. After he died, his Fieldand the Pirates fascinated me. Myentire childhood widow sold the paper to the Scripps-Howard group. was dominated by close association with baseball in Sportswriting in Pittsburgh was never the same after particular and all Pittsburgh sports in general. No that. mention was made inthe article ofthe great sportwriters of those early days, but they deserve a prominent place Jane Davis Colts inthe city's sports history. They included men likeHarry Rradmton, Fla. Keck of the Sun-Telegraph and my father, Ralph S. Davis, sporting editor ofthe Pittsburgh Press from 1905 I960: favorite memories to 1930. — of a 7th Game he didn't see These men—traveled with the teams the Pirates and Pitt Panthers to cover the games. Barney Dreyfuss Daniel Bonk is to be highly commended for his most saw to it that my mother had her own box in the third interesting article on Forbes Field. tier,on the third-base side ofForbes Field. Our dinner— My fondest memory ofForbes Field is the 7th game table conversations were dominated by exciting— of the 1960 World Series. The night before, my father sometimes sad, but mostly joyous and funny recita- called my St. Vincent's College dorm tolet me know he tions ofthe antics ofplayers such as Honus Wagner, Kiki had tickets in the third tier, third-base side. Unfortu- Cuyler, the Waner brothers, Pie Traynor, Babe Ruth, nately, Ihad gone to a movie and did not find out about DizzyDean. They were a raucous— lot, as were the men the tickets until too late. His brother sat beside him in the Pirate management Barney Dreyfuss, Bill instead, and Ilistened on radio up inLatrobe. Benswanger, Pop Warner, Jock Sutherland, and others. Mr.Bonk's most readable article has one small error. How Iwish we'd recorded these daily incidents in the "Greenberg Gardens" was created when a chain link in field, sports world of those days. fence was installed infrontof the Scoreboard left Men (and women) stopped my father on the streets shortening the distance by 20 feet or so, to enable to talk about the games, the players, the bad calls of the slugger Hank Greenberg to hit more home runs. Con- umpires and football referees, and his daily columns in trary towhat the article suggested, there were never any the Press. Ralph Davis was readily recognized by his seats in Greenberg Gardens. flowing black Windsor box tie and his horn-rimmed glasses. Itseemed to me, as a title girl, that everyone in John G. Arch Pittsburgh Pittsburgh knew him.He spoke sometimes two or three From the Editor We've found out who the three women are in the photograph on page 67 of the Summer 1993 "Forbes Field issue," and since faces so often go unknown inold photos, wethought many readers would be interested in knowing these. William D. Benswanger, grandson ofBarney Drey- fuss, the Pirate owner who built Forbes Field and directed the team for three decades, told author Daniel Bonk after the issue's release that all three women were his relatives. From left is his grandmother, Florence (Wolf) Dreyfuss, the widow of Barney Dreyfuss; a cousin, Jeanne Benswanger Bendheid of Washington, D.C., the only one of the three women stillliving;and his mother, Ruth (Dreyfuss) Benswanger, wifeof Willi- am E.Benswanger, Pirate president from 1932 to1946. William D. Benswanger, who lives in Pittsburgh, knows the photo wellbecause ithangs on a wall inhis home. The date is June 30, 1949, and the occasion was the 40th anniversary ofOpening Day at Forbes Field. 99.