"How many people do you think there are in that photograph?"

“The Great McGinty,” the celebrated political satire written and directed by Preston Sturges’ and released in 1940, isn’t a baseball movie, but our national pastime does play a prominent role in a scene about halfway through the film.



In the relevant sequence, Dan McGinty (played by Brian Donlevy) is a corrupt mayor who works out the details (that is, the dollar value) of a not-so-subtle bribe from the operator of the local bus line:

Mr. Maxwell: But how can the city even contemplate a municipal bus line when it has a 99-year contract with me? A contract that you may even remember something about, Mr. Mayor.
Dan McGinty: Look, Mr. Maxwell. I’m only the mayor, see? Now, if it was up to me, I’d make you a free gift of all the bus rides to this city. I think you run a beautiful bus. I travel on them myself. And I’ll be genuinely sorry to see them disappear from our streets.
Maxwell: Disappear? But there must be some way, some solution of mutual satisfaction. I don’t know how to talk to a mayor, but if I could only persuade you that ...
McGinty: You can’t persuade me, Mr. Maxwell, because it’s entirely out of my hands. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, just for old times’ sake. I’ll send the chairman of the bus committee up , and if you can persuade him, it’s all right with me.
Maxwell: Is he, eh ... difficult to persuade?
McGinty: Well, he probably ain’t impossible. Glad to see you looking so well.
Maxwell: But, Mr. Mayor, can’t we ...
McGinty: Drop in again some afternoon. We’ll go to a game. You like baseball don’t you?
Maxwell: Well, I’m not a fan by any means.
McGinty: You know that’s where you fellows make your biggest mistake.
Maxwell: Yes ...
McGinty: You worry too much about business and contracts and the flaws in them, and things like that. Get out in the open, fill your lungs with fresh air. Forget your troubles.
Maxwell: But let me ...
McGinty: Now look at that crowd. How many people do you think there were at the game?
Maxwell: I’m sure I don’t have the faintest idea.
McGinty: Look again. How many people do you think there are in that photograph?
Maxwell: 10,000.
McGinty: Guess again.
Maxwell: 20,000. Mr. Mayor ...
McGinty: You’re not even warm, Mr. Maxwell.
Maxwell: Well ... [Suddenly realizing what’s really going on.] Oh. You mean it’s more like 40,000?
McGinty: It’s more like it. But that ain’t it.
Maxwell: Mr. Mayor, about that flaw you mentioned ...
McGinty: There’s no flaw in that photograph, Mr. Maxwell. It’s perfect. What was your last guess?
Maxwell: 50,000?
McGinty: [Laughs]. There were 75,000 people in that stadium. Ain’t that wonderful? 75,000 filling their lungs with nature’s own sunshine. I’ll send the guy up to see you. Goodbye.

You can watch the scene here:



The photo to which Mayor McGinty refers is shown full screen.



Smack dab in the middle of this movie, McGinty has asked a baseball trivia question. Of course, for the mayor, he’s not asking about baseball at all. But for me, he is. So, let me pose the same question (but, lucky for you, I won’t expect a payoff): “How many people do you think there are in that photograph?”

To answer the question, we must first determine exactly what game is pictured.

The Ballpark

Take a close look at the upper deck and you’ll see that it is adorned with a unique and very familiar frieze, one that has long been associated with just one ballpark.


Detail from 1927 Osborne Engineering architectural drawing showing Yankee Stadium frieze

There’s no question we’re taking a look at Yankee Stadium. This also means that the photo was taken no earlier than the opening of the stadium: 1923.

The Decorative Bunting

Those with a keen eye will also notice that the photo shows that the facades of each deck at Yankee Stadium are adorned with bunting: patriotic fans (the arched, red, white, and blue bunting) and traditional U.S. flags. It was (and still is) common to decorate baseball parks in this fashion for special events such as opening days, patriotic holidays, All-Star Games, and World Series.

There’s little doubt that something special was going on at Yankee Stadium when the photograph was taken.

The End of the Right Field Grandstand

Another clue in the photo is that we can clearly see the end of the right field grandstand. It stops rather abruptly, short of the right field foul line. But during the 1937 season, the Yankees extended that grandstand such that it curved around into fair territory beyond the foul pole.

Here’s a photo of Yankee Stadium during the 1936 World Series:



... and here’s an aerial photo taken during the 1937 World Series, showing the extended grandstand:


LIFE, October 18, 1937

This means that McGinty’s photograph must have been taken before the extension was completed, we now have a “no-later-than” date of 1937.

“It’s a Grand Old Game”

After a good deal of searching, I managed to stumble across this piece of sheet music for a 1931 tune titled “It’s a Grand Old Game”:



That sure does look like the same photo as that seen on the wall in McGinty’s office. However, when I cropped that photo (removing the picture frame) and laid it over the sheet music cover, I noticed some very subtle differences.



In particular, notice that the bunting on the very corner of the right field upper-deck grandstand has moved slightly. Also notice that the players and umpires on the field are not in the same positions. There’s little question that the photos, while not identical, were taken just minutes apart.

Given that the sheet music was published in 1931, we now know the photo must have been taken sometime between 1923 and 1931.

A few web sites state that the photo on the sheet music shows action during a World Series game between the Giants and Yankees in 1923. For example, the KeyMan Collectibles web site notes that “the front cover shows a scene from a World Series game between the New York Giants and the New York Yankees in 1923 at Yankee Stadium.” And, a picture of the sheet music at Getty Images states that the cover “shows a scene from a World Series game between the New York Giants and the New York Yankees in 1923 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York.”

However, there is a problem with this identification. Known photographs of Yankee Stadium during the 1923 World Series show no bunting on the facades of the grandstand. For example, here’s a photo that was published in the October 13, 1923, issue of the Washington (D.C.) Sunday Star taken prior to Game Three at Yankee Stadium:



No. The sheet music photo, and therefore McGinty’s photo, are not from the 1923 World Series.

So, what is the exact date of the game we see in the photo? To answer that question, we must consider three additional clues: the umpires, the visitors’ baseball caps, and a second look at the decorative bunting.

The Umpires

As the umpires are all wearing black, it makes it quite easy to count just how many are on the field in McGinty’s photo. There are four. On the face of it, this clue doesn’t seem to be of much help, as we are familiar with most every big league game having four umpires. But such was not the case during the time frame we are considering.

By analyzing data made available (for free!) at the always-invaluable Retrosheet web site, I was able to determine the number of umpires used in each of the 11,092 regular season games played in the major leagues from 1923 through 1931. Here’s the breakdown:

• A four umpire-crew was used in 27 games (0.24% of games)
• A three umpire-crew was used in 7,897 games (71.20% of games)
• A two umpire-crew was used in 3,167 games (28.55% of games)
• A single umpire was used in 1 game (0.01% of games played)

In other words, the vast majority (a whopping 99.75%) of all big league games played during this window of time featured either a two- or three-man umpiring crew.

But for our purposes, we only need to take a look at the 692 regular-season games played at Yankee Stadium from 1923 through 1931. When we do, the breakdown is as follows:

• A four umpire-crew was used in 4 games at Yankee Stadium (0.58% of games)
• A three umpire-crew was used in 548 games at Yankee Stadium (79.19% of games)
• A two umpire-crew was used in 140 games at Yankee Stadium (20.23% of games)
• A single umpire was never used in a game at Yankee Stadium (0.00% of games played)

Again, nearly every game featured a two- or three-man umpiring crew: 99.42%! And over our nine-season span just four games at Yankee Stadium were umpired by a four-man crew. In fact, these games were all part of just one series between the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Yankees played in September of 1928: a Sunday afternoon doubleheader on September 9, followed by single games on September 11 and September 12. The fourth umpire was added by American League President Ernest S. Barnard because of the importance of the games: the Yankees trailed the first-place Athletics by just half a game as the clubs headed into the opening doubleheader.

Now take a look this wonderful panoramic photograph of Yankee Stadium from the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum:



Don’t be fooled by the handwritten label in the top right-hand corner of the panoramic that reads “WORLD’S SERIES / 1928 / N.Y. YANKEES – ST. LOUIS CARDINALS.” That information is incorrect, as detailed in my blog titled “A Yankee Stadium Mystery: Rare Footage of Babe Ruth and the Puzzling Panorama of a Packed Park.” The correct date for this photo is September 9, 1928. That’s right! Conveniently for our research, the picture was taken during the very doubleheader that led off the four-game set at Yankee Stadium in which four umpires took the field.

And now let’s take a closer look at the panoramic:



Here we clearly see the four umpires (circled). What we don’t see, however, is any bunting at the park. We can safely assume that if there were no such decorations for the doubleheader, the club wouldn’t bother to add bunting for the third or fourth games of the series. In other words, the photo from “The Great McGinty” is inconsistent with any of these four games and so it must not have been taken during the regular season. Yankee Stadium did not host its first All-Star Game until 1939, which means that the only real possibility is that the photo was taken during a World Series.

From 1923 through 1931, the Yankees played in four Fall Classics: 1923, 1926, 1927, and 1928. But as we have already determined, 1923 can be ruled out (no bunting at Yankee Stadium during that World Series). This leaves us with just the 1926 and 1928 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals and the 1927 Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Visitors’ Baseball Caps

Careful examination of McGinty’s photo, as well as the sheet music photo that was taken at nearly the same time, shows that the players on defense are wearing light-colored caps. As the Yankees wore their traditional dark caps during the 1926, 1927, and 1928 World Series, the players in the field must be members of the visiting club. In both the 1926 and 1928 World Series, the Cardinals wore caps with a light-colored crown (and dark bill), which you can see in these World Series photos:


Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby meet at the 1926 World Series


Bill McKechnie and Miller Huggins meet at the 1928 World Series

But during the 1927 Series the Pirates wore dark caps, as worn by the base runner in this photo:


Action from the 1927 World Series

And so we have now eliminated 1927 as a possible year for McGinty’s office photo, leaving us with just 1926 and 1928.

A Second Look at the Decorative Bunting

Take a look at the following pair of pictures taken at Yankee Stadium. The top photo is from the 1926 World Series and the bottom from the 1928 World Series.


Yankee Stadium during the 1926 World Series


Yankee Stadium during the 1928 World Series

Notice that unlike the photo of the 1928 World Series (bottom), the photo from the 1926 World Series (top) shows no decorative bunting at Yankee Stadium. Just why the club opted not to adorn their park that fall is unknown, but it eliminates 1926 as a possible year for McGinty’s photo. We are now left to look for a matching photo in the 1928 World Series.

Finding a Matching Photo

In 1928, the Yankees avenged their 1926 World Series defeat at the hands of the Cardinals by trouncing St. Louis in a four-game sweep. Only the first two games of the Series took place at Yankee Stadium, suggesting that McGinty’s photo captures a scene from either Game One (October 4) or Game Two (October 5). On October 14, 1928, the Washington (D.C.) Sunday Star published this photo of Game One in its Gravure Supplement:



The picture is the same one that was used on the cover of “It’s a Grand Old Game,” and (as previously discussed) taken at nearly the same as the one seen in “The Great McGinty.”

Having determined the exact game pictured, let’s get back to our original question ...

How many people do you think there are in that photograph?

According to most every source, the reported attendance for Game One of the 1928 World Series was 61,425 ... a figure far short of McGinty’s claim of 75,000. But is that really the correct number?

The reported attendance was the total number of people who paid to attend, not the total number of people in the park. The latter number is much more a matter of conjecture, but is most certainly larger than 61,425. Contemporary newspaper accounts generally estimated the crowd to be anywhere from 70,000 to 80,000. Here are just a few notes from contemporary newspaper stories:



Binghamton (NY) Press and Sun Bulletin, October 4, 1928


Binghamton (NY) Press and Sun Bulletin, October 5, 1928


Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, October 5, 1928

In summary, while it’s not possible to know the exact number of people at Yankee Stadium that day, we can be sure that the figure exceeds Mr. Maxwell’s final guess of 50,000. Indeed, The Great McGinty may very well have been correct when he said, “There were 75,000 people in that stadium. Ain’t that wonderful? 75,000 filling their lungs with nature’s own sunshine.”

A Yankee Stadium Mystery: Rare Footage of Babe Ruth and the Puzzling Panorama of a Packed Park

Back in October of 2009, New York Times reporter John Branch broke a story about some newly discovered footage of Babe Ruth. The "never-before-seen" film was found in a collection of home movies belonging to an unnamed individual in New Hampshire and ultimately ended up at Major League Baseball's Film and Video Archive. The folks there suspected that the footage dated from 1928 and, according to archivist Frank Caputo, guessed that "it could be a world series game, could be opening day, maybe a holiday, July fourth?" But, as noted in a video accompanying the Times article, "the archivists are still trying to pin down the exact date of the footage."

Soon after the story came out, I decided to take a crack at solving the mystery.

Of course, it was simple to confirm that the location seen in the footage was Yankee Stadium. Not only do shots showing its structure match perfectly to the well-known stadium, but the Yanks are wearing their familiar pinstripes. That part was a piece of cake.

Next, I needed to establish the correct year of the photograph. Outfield advertisements can often be helpful in dating baseball images. They generally change every season (sometimes multiple times within a season) and can act as chronological "finger prints" that are uniquely associated with a particular year. (Outfield advertisements at New York's Polo Grounds were instrumental in solving a mystery in my blog titled "Take Me Out to the Ball Game Polo Grounds.")

Here is a frame from the new footage showing some of the outfield advertisements beyond the left field bleachers.



Alas, the sun is shining brightly on the walls, washing out many of the distinctive graphics. Still, take a look at the picture below, taken during Game Three of the 1928 World Series and published the following day in the Hartford Courant. While the quality of this halftone image is not great, careful examination shows that the outfield advertisements match those seen in the still from the footage:



While this comparison was helpful, I hoped to find a higher quality photo that would show the exact same advertisements as seen in the footage. I turned my eyes to this magnificent photograph from the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum:



The panoramic image, shot by the Cosmo Foto Service, is actually a composite of three separate photographs, each "seamed" together to make a single, large-format picture. The process is less elegant than the stunning images made by special panoramic cameras (see my blog titled "Nix Flicks Sticks in Box for Sox in Rox"), but it is still an effective way to create a dramatic print.

According to the caption written contemporaneously on the front of the photograph, the image was taken at the 1928 World Series between the Yankees and the Cardinals. Since the outfield ads matched those seen in both the Hartford Courant and the footage, my initial reaction was that the panorama confirmed the year as 1928. But after a closer look, I began to worry ... not about the year, but about the claim that it pictured action from the World Series.

An article in the Washington Post published the day after the first World Series game at Yankee Stadium that season stated that "the grand stand tiers were bedecked in bright bunting and the national colors in much more profusion than ever before." But the panorama showed the famed park devoid of the traditional decorative bunting.

Furthermore, when I examined the player closest to the camera, the right fielder, I saw that he was wearing a uniform inconsistent with what the Yankees or the Cardinals wore during the 1928 World Series:

Note that the player's cap, pants and jersey are light-colored and his stockings are dark-colored with two white stripes. Now take a look at this photograph of Cardinals manager Bill McKechnie and Yankees skipper Miller Huggins posing at Yankee Stadium during the World Series:


New York Yankees History

Huggins and the Yankees wore pinstriped uniforms with dark caps and dark stockings ... quite different from the outfit worn by the left fielder. McKechnie and the Cardinals also wore pinstripes, and their stockings are nearly the opposite of those worn by the left fielder: light colored with multiple dark stripes.

In short, the player in left field was neither a Yankee nor a Cardinal, and the park was not decked out for an occasion such as the World Series. And yet the shot is certainly from 1928, as the outfield ads matched those seen in the 1928 Hartford Courant photo. What was the scoop?

In 1928 only one major league club wore road uniforms consistent with that worn by the right fielder: light-colored uniform and cap, and dark-colored stockings with a pair of white stripes. That club was the Philadelphia Athletics. Here are drawings of the uniform worn by the 1928 Athletics from the National Baseball Hall of Fame's online exhibit, Dressed to the Nines:



For this reason, it seemed likely that the team in the field as seen in the panorama was the Athletics.  Embracing this theory, I set out to see if I could come up with an exact date for the image.

The Athletics played 11 games at Yankee Stadium in 1928. Checking attendance records for each of these games, I found that only one date attracted the astounding crowd seen in the panoramic: a doubleheader played on September 9. On that day a record 85,625 fans packed Yankee Stadium. All signs point to the panorama capturing the scene at Yankee Stadium that very day.

Why did so many fans attend that game? Well, first of all, it was a Sunday doubleheader. And secondly, there was the very real feeling that the Sunday twin-bill (along with the subsequent two games of the four-game series) would have a major impact on just which club would advance to the post-season. The A's entered the day with a half-game lead over the Yankees, but after losing both games of the doubleheader and splitting the last two contests, Philadelphia left the Bronx trailing by 1.5 games. As the Yanks went 10-5 over their remaining 15 games and the A's posted an 8-5 mark in their final contests, one could argue that the four-game set was indeed the difference-maker in the pennant chase.

Taking another look at the mislabeled panoramic, I noted that the shadows were quite short. Thus, the photographs making up the panoramic image were assuredly taken early during the first game of the doubleheader. The second game can also be eliminated as a possibility since lefty Rube Walberg pitched the first 6.2 innings of that contest and the pitcher in the panoramic is right-handed:



With the date and game nailed down, a look at the box score revealed just who was in the field for the A's. On the mound was Jack Quinn who, at 45 years of age, was the oldest player in big league baseball. Catching the veteran moundsman was Mickey Cochrane, who ultimately earned the Most Valuable Player Award that season. Around the infield was Jimmie Foxx at first, Max Bishop at second, Jimmy Dykes at third, and Joe Boley at short. And the outfield featured Al Simmons in left, Mule Haas in center, and Bing Miller (whose stockings were so helpful in researching the photo) in right.

Just why the panorama was misidentified is not known, but I suspect that the folks selling the picture figured it would sell better if they passed it off as a World Series game, instead of a regular season contest.

Having gotten significantly sidetracked clearing up the misinformation written on the front of the panorama, I returned my attention to the newly discovered footage and the parade of batters captured on film.

Early in the footage, a left-handed batter is seen swinging and running to first. The stride and follow-through is unmistakably that of Yankees legend, Lou Gehrig:



The footage then quickly cuts to another unmistakable lefty at the plate: Babe Ruth. Interestingly, in this same scene, we see Gehrig (far left), who had failed to reach base just moments earlier, returning to the Yankees dugout:



However, the narrator of the New York Times video states that "Lou Gehrig waits on deck as the great Bambino strikes out."

Wait a second. How could Gehrig be waiting on deck when he just completed his at bat and is seen returning to the dugout? Here's how: That isn't Lou Gehrig waiting on deck!

Sure, throughout their careers together, Gehrig almost always followed Ruth in the batting order: Ruth batting third and Gehrig batting cleanup. But, in this particular footage, that just wasn't the case.

It's not clear who misidentified the on-deck batter, the folks at the New York Times or the folks at MLB Productions, but even though the quality of the video is rather poor, one can tell the on-deck batter is taller and leaner than Gehrig. More about that fellow in a moment.

At this point I had established that the action in the film took place at Yankee Stadium in 1928 and that Gehrig batted ahead of Ruth. A quick check at the always-useful retrosheet.org web site revealed that manager Miller Huggins flip-flopped Gehrig and Ruth in the batting order for a stretch of some four weeks near the end of the season: from August 25 (starting in the second game of the double-header) to September 20.

Here's what was reported in the New York Times the day after the of August 25 doubleheader:

After our boys, in the first game, had given one of the most terrible exhibitions ever seen of bad pitching  puny hitting and general indolence, Miller James Huggins instituted the most drastic shake-up of the last several years.

What Miller James did to the batting order between games was nobody's business. He took it apart to see what made it tick and then threw the pieces together in a very careless manner.

The one and only Babe Ruth was dropped from third to fourth place. Henry Gehrig ascended from fourth to third, Joseph Dugan was made lead-off man, Combs fell to second and Mark Koenig landed with a sickening thud in sixth. To make matters unanimous Tony Lazzeri was benched and [Leo] Durocher played second base.

One of the few Yankees to be unaffected by the line-up reshuffling was the man who batted fifth: Bob Meusel. He remained in that spot during Huggins' late-season switcheroo. Indeed, that's the 6' 3" Meusel seen waiting on deck during Ruth's at bat in the footage, not the 6' 0" Gehrig. Here's another frame from the film, showing "Long Bob" Meusel (at left) leaning on his bat as Babe Ruth stands at home, clearly upset that he was called out on strikes:



At this point, I had made good progress with the footage, determining that it was shot sometime between August 25 and September 28, 1928. I next took a closer look at the opposing team's catcher. Here's a still from the footage:



We can determine the following about his uniform: the crown of his cap is light-colored and his stockings are dark-colored from knee to shoe, possibly with light-colored stripes. This combination of cap and stockings was worn by only one American League club on the road in 1928. That club was none other than the Philadelphia Athletics.

The Athletics played just four games at Yankee Stadium during the time-period noted above: the doubleheader of September 9, and games on September 11 and 12.

Hold on! Is it possible that the film footage was taken on the same day as the mislabeled panoramic picture? Certainly the massive crowd shown in the footage points to that date, but I wondered if there might be a way to tell for sure that they matched. Happily, I found a way.

I decided to overlay a still from the footage (below) on the panoramic picture. Both images show the crowd down the third base line.



Despite the fact that the cameras shot action from significantly different angles, I was able to align the images such that the gates at the bottom of stairways (see arrows) were aligned perfectly:



Note that some of the fans in the front row have draped clothing atop or over the railing. While the still from the footage is much blurrier than the photograph, I was able to match the shadows created by the clothing (see arrows). Take a look:



There's really no question about it. The footage and the panoramic picture were both shot at Yankee Stadium during the first game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics on September 9, 1928. In fact, reviewing play-by-play of the game, the action captured in the film fits perfectly (and only) with what occurred in the bottom of the fourth inning. After Mark Koenig led off the frame with a single to left field, Gehrig popped out to second. Ruth then struck out, after which Meusel flied to center. No other sequence in the game matches what we see in the footage.

I found additional corroboration of these findings in a Boston Globe story published the day after the game:

When the Yankees came up again, Koenig snapped out a sprightly single to left but Gehrig popped out to Bishop. Ruth fanned again and Meusel flied out to Haas. The canny Quinn pitched low and outside to the Babe, to prevent a rightfield catastrophe. The Babe was considerably peeved when the third strike was called and threw his bat toward the stands, narrowly missing [New York City mayor] Jimmy Walker.

To bad the footage didn't stay on Ruth a bit longer so we could witness his bat throwing tantrum. Oh, well. At least now the mystery has been solved.

By the way, back in 2009, Keith Olbermann also came to the conclusion that the footage came from the September 9, 1928, doubleheader. Both of our work was featured in John Branch's follow-up New York Times article.

Finally, if you're interested in obtaining a copy of the rare 1928 panoramic image, don't hesitate to contact John Horne in the Hall of Fame's Photo Department (jhorne@baseballhall.org).