Brearley Banter

new additions to web site

i am very excited to post the latest batch of new images from our archives.  the search started when rich altman from hollywood collectibles told me about his celtics reunion show coming up in april at the shriners auditorium in wilmington massachusetts. i was looking for photos of celtics legends like bill russell, sam jones, john havlicek and satch sanders to name a few. as i dug through the negative archives from those great celtics teams of the 1960's and into the 1970's i came across some great images. however, along with the celtics greats were great opponents from the era; jerry west, pistol pete maravich, willis reed, walt frazier.  some really nice photos of these legendary players. please check out the new additions section of our site to see some of these. also, if you are planning on attending the celtics reunion show we have a nice collection of images of the players attending that would be great for autographs.

two of the players we get a lot of photo requests for at the brearley collection are sandy koufax and johnny unitas. unfortunately, we didn't have much, if any, negatives of these two legends. i recently uncovered some images of unitas and koufax. the photograph of koufax in particular is awesome.  it captures him after delivering a pitch against the chicago cubs at wrigley field.

holiday wrap up

the holiday season has passed and we hope all our customers are happy with the brearley collection photos they have given or received. it's nice to know that people are unwrapping packages containing brearley collection photos on christmas morning. thanks to all our loyal (and new) customers who shopped with us this holiday season.

Going Forward: we will be closing our retail store friday december 31. in preparation for our closing we are having a huge sale on existing stock. please drop by if you are in the boston area and take advantage. we are planning to re-open in the faneuil hall marketplace in the spring of 2011 so make sure to check out the website and facebook pages for updates on the yet to be determined location. the downtime will allow me to dive into the negative archives and hopefully find some gems. so be on the lookout for some new historic boston photographs to show up on our website in the near future. and of course i'll continue to uncover some great classic baseball photos as well as basketball and hockey; the list goes on so please check back frequently.  thanks and happy holidays

Bob Feller

i took some time to reflect on bob feller after his passing last week. not so much the statistics, but more so the person. feller was possibly the most heralded of "bonus babies" of all time. he made his debut at the age of 17 and pretty much dominated from then on. he was a phenom who had the attention of the baseball media in every city. these days there is 24/7 sports radio and tv, the internet, newspapers, magazines, fantasy sports; it's over saturation. however, it was tough back in the day as well. newspapers routinely printed 3 editions per day and major cities could have half a dozen newspapers. that's 18 papers per day so there was a lust for the hot story or a great photo. the brearley collection photos of bob feller capture this. since a vast majority of the collection was taken by Boston press photographers we have the unique view of seeing the attention feller garnered as a visiting player. i can imagine photographers clamoring around a teenage feller trying to get that perfect photo for the evening edition.

after retiring, Feller was criticized for claiming he could throw harder than the modern player, or that the talent when he played was greater. fair or not, i've come to respect that the man believed something and had the courage to speak his mind about it. on the topic of courage; did you know Feller was the first MLB player to sign on for World War 2? he missed 4 full prime seasons to serve his country. this parallels ted williams (another man who wasn't afraid to express his opinion), in that he was willing to sacrafice in order to serve his country

 

red sox awaken from their offseason slumber

red sox fans are getting a nice early christmas gift in the form of first baseman adrian gonzalez. to me this deal traces all the way back to january 2009 when the red sox failed in their attempt to land free agent mark teixeira. that event gave the yankees a distinct advantage that we could not overcome without acquiring a comparable slugger. of course teixeira was a cash transaction while the deal for gonzalez will cost us a handful of high end prospects, but the end result should be an improved sox team going forward. but make no mistake, this team is far from complete. let's hope the front office continues to be aggressive and we can add another bat and upgrade the bullpen.

i'm excited to see gonzalez hit in fenway. he isn't a traditional slugger in that a lot of his power is to the opposite field. this should be advantageous to him as a left handed hitter with the green monster barely 300 feet from home plate. but this guy isn't cut from the traditional cloth that defines red sox sluggers from years past. obviously manny ramirez, jimmie foxx and jim rice were right handers. ted williams was a dead pull left hitter (remember the "williams shift").  mo vaughn is comparable because he excelled at using the wall by taking the ball the other way. but vaughn, while as strong if not stronger, was not quite as polished as gonzalez as a hitter. add in gonzalez's gold glove defense at first base and the red sox are looking at one of the most complete players in the game.

holiday shopping

my mother susan and i were up bright and early friday morning for the unofficial holiday shopping kickoff better known as black friday. early morning rain yielded to sunny skies in the afternoon and we had a nice crowd at our faneuil hall marketplace store. there were plenty of folks browsing our selection of ted williams baseball photos but our historic boston street scene photographs were by far the biggest attraction of the day. our image of the hindenburg over boston is always a show stopper. we knew the general facts surounding the photo such as the fact that the image was from the morning of the same day it exploded in lakehurst, new jersey. however, through the years visitors to our store have shared some other great facts about the ill-fated dirigible. i was told by a lifelong boston resident that the hindenburg had circled boston for a better part of the late morning into the afternoon. this was due to inclement weather south of massachusetts towards lakehurst. this gentleman told me he remembers being in school and all the kids, and teacher, in his class ran to the window to see the huge air ship. he went on to tell me that later in the day he was outside playing baseball and the blimp passed over again. such an historic event made even more interesting with that great story. my father, and founder of the brearley collection, always told us that our photos were "conversation pieces". the meaning of that expression didn't quite sink in until i grew up and became involved in the day to day operations. 

Bob Montgomery & Denny Doyle

I recently had a great time searching the archives for the autograph show featuring the 1975 Red Sox. I've done quite a few searches for the more popular players like Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Luis Tiant, etc., but it's the lesser known players that I really get a kick out of finding a nice image of. For example, I came across a nice shot of Bob Montgomery at bat in his last season (1979). It reminded me that he was the last active player that Major League Baseball allowed to bat without wearing a batting helmet.

I also came across a shot of the infamous moment from the 1975 world series when Denny Doyle was tagged out at home after an apparent miscommunication with third base coach Don Zimmer. Doyle claims to have heard "GOGOGO" from Zimmer and Zimmer claims to have told Doyle "NONONO". Needless to say, Doyle was out by 30 feet.

At the signing I asked Denny to inscribe the phrase "I Heard Go" on the photo. Mr. Doyle politely declined, and said to me "I wish we had more time to discuss and debate the truth behind this event." He proceeded to write "GO" in bold letters below his signature on the photo. I take this as an indication of his strong belief that GO was the message relayed to him that night and the mistake was made by Zimmer (but we'll never know).