Probably some of the fans who can afford World Series tickets are big business execs who came down on the Acela.
https://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/homeplate/baseball/index.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/sports/10anderson.html
http://summerbyrail.com/the-route-2018/
Nixon and Ted Williams
https://www.apnews.com/bc21e0abbad641df9f5891467f96dc8f
The 1933 Nats had FDR throw ou
MARC is providing service for the Nationals World Series games.
Just imagine what it would be like to schedule team travel for a LA-NYC world series if the best means of travel was Amtrak.
Sure would give the ace pitchers plenty of recovery time between turns.
Especially in the absence of any way to schedule a special train, or attach sufficient private cars to existing ones.
Of course, were Amtrak the ‘best means’ of travel for baseball teams it would presumptively also be best means for a wide selection of general travel … and perhaps be much more profitable and run far more services than it does now. Those things might preclude the need for the Anderson-type ‘cuts to make Congress act’ that have resulted in the special train/private car restrictions…
If air transportation did not exist, professional sports leagues of all sorts could not exist on the national level and would still be mostly confined to the region east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River.
And if you look at pre-war MLB, that’s pretty much what you had…
Yeah, nothing west of St Louis or south of Cincinnati and Washington.
Trains were basic transportation for MLB up through 1957, then the Dodgers and Giants moved to the West Coast and air travel was required to get there in a ‘reasonable’ amount of time. In 1962 MLB expanded the number of teams and the schedule from 154 games to 162.
Not mentioned so far was the necessity of many more (usually on Sunday) doubleheaders to compensate for travel days between cities in the pre-plane days. After the NY teams moved to California, most teams relied on charters, but the LA Dodgers bought their own plane for travel.
Before a “local” team like the KC Royals (Yeah, I know the A’s were first, but no one has ever admitted to liking them), my folks and grandparents would mention their favorite team might be the Giants, Dodgers, or Cardinals, whatever they could catch on the radio at night.
The majors used trains. The minors used buses in many cases from what I’ve read.
Not to mention Amtraks one train per day schedule on most long distance routes. Could have made even the 1946 world series between Boston and St Louis a challenge to get everyone on the one train that could get them there on time.
Of course, all 7 of those games were day games, with a 1:30 PM start time…little bit of extra flexibility there.
I don’t disagree with anything you say…but I’d like to point out that at one time travel schedules during the regular season were a lot more practical than at present. Early in the divisional era, an east division team would make a “tour” of all the west coast teams in a single pass, for instance they might stop in Kansas City on their way west, then hit Los Angeles, Oakland and Seattle one right after the other, and then maybe hit Minnesota on their way back. Under such a structure, it would be more practical traveling by train than the way they schedule now. I think creating the third division in each league was about the time the schedules became less organized
Here is a fine set of pictures depicting Baseball and Railroading.
Courtesy of Mike!
Dave Klepper probably saw scenes like this
Article from March 1957 New York Central Headlight magazine at Canada Southern
http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/headlight/headlight.htm
https://med
I believe that they changed the “home team” schedule format during the second world war due to travel restrictions.
Instead of the customary 2-3-2 (home-away-home) format, they used a 3-4 format
Well, the Nationals won their first championship in the history of the team (back to 1969). Is this the first time that the visiting team won every game in the World Series?
I didn’t have a horse in the race (if you will), but I’m glad the Nats pulled it off.
Interesting question, though. I have no idea - I’m not much of baseball stats fanatic.
First Washington World Series win in 95 years.
Yes it is the first time all WS games have been won by the Visitor, so much for home field advantage.
I overheard someone saying something about the last time a Washington team was in the playoffs, Calvin Coolidge was in office. Brings it home to you. This is not quite Cub level, but then again the Cubbies are a different story…
And they won it fair and square; every game had to be fought for, and they demonstrated their clear right to be considered the ‘better’ team.
The Washington Senators last won the World Series in 1924, they last participated in the World Series in 1933.
The book that was later made into a Broadway muscal ‘Damn Yankees’ was centered on the Washington Senators and their American League rival the New York Yankees.
The Washington Senators after the 1960 season moved to the Minneapolis-St.Paul area and became the Minnesota Twins. Washington then got an expansion franchise that was also the Senators - that franchise moved in 1972 to Dallas and became the Texas Rangers. In 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to DC and became the present day Washington National.
