Our Navy

When I started this blog way back when, the subtitle was "my foray into sports card collecting" or something like that.  I still use that as a guideline, but I find myself following different paths at time.  Lately I've been drawn to some of the untold stories of the game of baseball.  Not directly card collecting.  I've been wrestling as to whether I should retire this blog or keep it and intentionally stray off the path.  I think I'll keep it and stray.  I'm not giving up card collecting, I'm just not very active in that arena right now.  But I digress.

It is interesting how a comment on a blog will send me down one path or another.  Or how a comment I leave will send someone else down a path.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I left a comment about Marla Collins on dayf's I go nothin' post.  Apparently that sparked a reader by the name of mike to seek out the Dale Murphy card.

Matthew commented that using archive.org he had found a Babe Ruth radio show that was sponsored by Quaker Oats and the US Navy and that there were hints that the Navy published a baseball book in the 1930s.

That set me to looking for the book.  Didn't find it because I got distracted by a publication called Our Navy.

In one collection from 1909/1910 I found several photos of naval teams.

In order to improve morale amongst the sailors, the publication sponsored a series of games.

They were competing for this trophy.

Here are the standings in the series in the fall of 1909.

In February of 1910 the trophy was given to the winning team from the USS West Virginia.

I've always had a fascination for war machines.  I found the following two images at the Naval Historical Center's web site.

And thus another path taken.  Thanks for indulging me.