As we enter the beautiful days of December, the snow is falling, the roads are slick with ice, and the temperature is dropping faster than Kurt Warner’s quarterback rating. These are fun times, when everyone’s thoughts seem to turn to the end of classes, shopping for the holidays and the NFL playoff races. Well, those things are nice to think of at this time of year, but I’m focused on one thing completely different, and that’s baseball. It will be a few months before pitchers and catchers report and the snow gives way to pine tar and foul line chalk, and while the cold weather has me thinking about baseball, it’s just not about the Red Sox or any other team for that matter. My thoughts are centered rather on the team that Boston forgot, the Boston Braves.
The Braves left town 50 years ago, their exit from Beantown coinciding with the end of the 1952-53 winter season. The Braves were not quite as popular or treasured as their cross-town neighbors, but they provided many memories for those that took the time to notice.
The greatest season for Boston’s National League entry came in 1914. That year the club was tabbed to finish in the cellar once again and, as July rolled around, it looked like everyone was right, as the Braves had a firm hold on last place. But as the dog days of summer progressed and rolled into the fall, the Braves were winning and on their way to the World Series. In that series, the team swept the heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics, marking one of the most improbable World Series as well as one of the more unbelievable seasons on the whole.
Many interesting and exciting players passed through the Braves organization. Names that don’t mean much now, but were fan favorites, such as slugger Wally Berger, third baseman Bob Elliot, first baseman Earl Torgeson (one of the few guys to wear glasses in the league, and someone you didn’t want to tussle with).
There was shortstop Alvin Dark, outfielder Sam Jethroe (the first black ballplayer in Boston), and Tommy Holmes, a Brooklyn native, who had his own cheering section in right field where he would carry on conversations with many fans. This ‘jury box’ section got its name when a sportswriter noticed there were only twelve people sitting there for a game.
The two most famous players for the Braves were Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain. They were dominating pitchers, and their importance to the team parallels the modern day duo of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson.
In 1948, the Braves rode the fastball, curveball, and whatever else Spahn and Sain threw, all the way to the World Series. They faced the Cleveland Indians, who had crushed local hopes of a ‘Streetcar Series’ after they had beaten the Red Sox in a one-game playoff for the AL pennant. The Braves, despite their lovable cast of characters, lost to the Tribe in six games. After that year, the team’s level of play fell, and attendance plummeted, leading team owners to move the club to Milwaukee after the 1953 season.
Many people do not remember the great moments and interesting personalities that made up the history of the Boston Braves, but there is one thing that remains that perhaps was the club’s most distinguishing feature: its ballpark. Here at Boston University we know it as Nickerson Field, but it was once home to Braves Field, an expansive, lovable park, that on its best days could hold 40,000 people. BU bought the field after the team left, and most of it was torn down to make way for the West Campus dormitories.
So, as you make your way past Claflin, Sleeper and Rich halls, you’re looking out where baseball’s first super stadium was built.
The field was so big that when Ty Cobb first saw it, he didn’t believe a home run would ever be hit there, says Dick Johnson, a baseball historian at the New England Sports Museum.
Cobb was wrong, but it did take a few years for someone to actually hit a dinger over the fence. The field’s huge outfield provided for many inside-the-park home runs, but as the dead ball era ended, the team would constantly shift the dimensions of the fences, moving them in and out, and back and forth.
Home plate is gone, but you can find where it once lay if you’re smart enough. It was a few feet away from where the current soccer corner kick spot is marked closest to the Case Center. Dead centerfield pointed out toward where the Student Village now stands. Thinking about it in those terms probably makes you realize just how big the outfield was.
The physical features of the field are mostly gone, so you’re going to have to use your imagination to picture the field, but a few monuments still remain if you need help. The bleachers on the press box side of Nickerson served as the right field grandstand and the offices of the Boston University Police Department used to serve as the main entrance and clubhouse, so use those landmarks to get you in the right mindset. Being one of the prettiest and historical structures on the BU campus, it’s hard to miss that old arched ticket office.
With the snow, field turf, and other things on the field these days, it is difficult to picture that the place was the once-great site of the 1936 All-Star game. It may be cold, and baseball may be the last thing on your mind, but if you get a chance to stroll around Nickerson you should try and imagine what a game would have been like at old Braves Field. Take in the sights and sounds, the aroma of hot dogs, children laughing, and the sun beating down on the infield grass. It could warm you up just a little bit, especially in these cold months that are ahead.
On certain days when the sun is angled just right, when I walk past those arched entrances, I imagine that I’m going to see a Braves game. It’s as if I just hopped off the trolley, grabbed a ticket and made my way into the stands. I think, ‘Who will the Braves be playing today?’ and wonder, ‘Are the Dodgers in town to play an extra-inning affair?’ or ‘Will this be Babe Ruth’s last game?’
You never know what you might witness at good old Braves Field.
Of course, unlike me, you may find it difficult to imagine any of these things, but if you can, I ask that you just find a small place in your heart for the Boston Braves. They left this city half a century ago, but we should not let them be forgotten, for if we do let them fade away, our winters will have a chill that no amount of apparel could hope to combat.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
