[Slauson Slim]

[QUOTE=Flyingwedge;8031901]Yes, that is a great snapshot! The place looks full, apparently with spectators even out on the field along the outfield wall. The
ceremonial pitcher is standing on the mound, which was five inches higher back then, so he might have been normal-sized. I
guess all the photographers are hiding the catcher? I tried to figure out what game this might have been, but I came up empty.

I grew up in South Central LA in the '50s and '60s and attended LA Angels PCL and American League games at Wrigley Field. I recall sitting in the outfield behind a rope when there was an overflow crowd - it was a charity double header of a PCL Angels game preceded by a game played by teams made up of movie stars and other celebrities. Another time there we sat out there for a PCL game against the hated Hollywood Stars. My father told me of big time boxing matches and football games, and barnstorming baseball games featuring black teams playing Major League All-Stars, at Wrigley. Before WWII and marrying my mother he had hung around the fight game and was a habitue of pool halls.

Going to games, I recall entering, going through the concourse under the stands, and up stairs to the first level and there was the beautiful, green, cool, manicured baseball field, with crisp white lines, stretched out in front to the walls, and the houses behind. Juxtaposition from the streets to the field.

When the AL Angels played at Wrigley it was paradise - we got the see the AL big league players in person that we'd seen on television or read about - Ford, Berra, Maris, Mantle, Colavito, Kaline, Robinson, Aparicio, Minoso, Yastrzemski...plus the Angels Leon Wagner, Ted Kluzewski and PCL Angels star Steve Bilko.

For the first Yankees - Angels day game a buddy and I ditched school and went to the game in our parochial school uniform of salt-and-pepper cord trousers and white shirts. After a few innings we left the bleachers and snuck into empty box seats behind first base on the first level. I look around and sitting next to me in the next box is my father - who was supposed to be at work - in all his glory. Neatly attired in his tweed sport jacket and slacks, pencil-thin mustache, shades on, balancing a beer, keeping score on the scorecard, a pint of whisky in the breast pocket of his coat and smoking a cigarette. He looked at me and cooly said, "Don't tell your mother." He gave me a ride home from the game, telling mom he had picked me up at school - something he never did. She intuited something was fishy, but could not figure out what happened. We both got away with it.