A benefit game for Titanic survivors
From SABR member Tom Shieber at Baseball Researcher on April 12, 2012:
The Titanic, George M. Cohan, a celebrated murder, The Great Gatsby … and baseball, all come together in a pair of photographs available at the Library of Congress’ Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. … Less than a week after the Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a brief notice was similarly buried … at the bottom of sports page of the April 20, 1912 issue of The New York Times. It read:
Ball Game for Titanic Survivors
President Frank Farrell of the Yankees and President John T. Brush of the Giants have consented to have their teams play an exhibition game at the Polo Grounds to-morrow afternoon at 3 o’clock for the benefit of the destitute survivors of the Titanic.The contest, the first Sunday game ever played at the Polo Grounds, attracted over 14,000 fans, an impressive total on such short notice. And while the ball game was a laugher (the Giants trounced a depleted Yankees squad, 11-2), the event was a serious effort to raise money for the hundreds who managed to escape with their lives. Various newspapers reported that the receipts from the game totaled a tidy sum of $9,425.25.
Read the full article here: http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.com/2012/04/benefit-game-for-survivors-of-titanic.html
Originally published: April 16, 2012. Last Updated: April 16, 2012.