Willie Mays Returns to New York

On May 25, 1951, Willie Mays played in his first major league game.  19 years and 50 weeks later, Mays returned to the city that embraced his early career. Entering the major leagues with the New York Giants under the managerial reign of Leo Durocher, Mays became a...

The Saga of Eddie Gaedel

On August 19, 1951, Eddie Gaedel strode to home plate in a St. Louis Browns uniform adorned with the fraction 1/8 rather than a whole number, signifying his physical stature similar to that of the folks who set Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road. Gaedel’s cup of...

The Decade of Baseball Migration

The 1950s was a decade of change. Elvis Presley spearheaded the introduction of rock and roll, television replaced radio as the preferred mass medium for news and entertainment, and several baseball teams migrated westward—way westward for two teams, mid-westward for...

Disco Demolition Night

Disco’s transition from musical genre to mainstream phenomenon occurred when John Travolta mesmerized movie audiences in 1977 with his portrayal of fictional Brooklynite Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.  After Travolta’s bravura performance, disco...

The Shows That Changed Television

Television’s progress as a creative medium began, arguably, with I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  When the television series about a ditzy redhead married to a Cuban bandleader premiered on CBS in 1951, it introduced the three-camera format...