A Summer of Celebrating Baseball

Baseball’s centennial in 1939 inspired the improvements to Doubleday Field. Celebrations packed the summer with games, tributes, and parades. On the bright morning of May 6, just hours after WPA workers put finishing touches on the renewed field, throngs of festival-goers lined Main Street, eager to glimpse the sharp military uniforms of the cadets marching towards the “Dream Diamond.”

Packed Doubleday Field, Summer 1939

Images from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, N.Y.

Crowds gathering in Cooperstown during the centennial season

The opening game honored former West Point cadet Abner Doubleday, and featured teams from two military schools, Albany Academy and Manlius, who played amidst cheers from 3,500 spectators. Lester Herzog, New York’s WPA chief, opened the centennial season and presented Cooperstown’s mayor, Rowan Spraker, with a commemorative bronze tablet that symbolically transferred ownership of Doubleday Field from the WPA to Cooperstown’s citizens.

A poster hung in a shop window during the centennial season of 1939.
Image from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, N.Y.

The New York Yankees warming up for an exhibition game against the Newark Bears, Summer 1939.
Image from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, N.Y.

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