A sold-out crowd, including representatives from each of the other 15 major league clubs, attends Connie Mack Day in Philadelphia to honor the 78 year-old president-manager of the A’s. The celebration includes the renaming of the team’s home field from Shibe Park to Connie Mack Stadium, a change that doesn’t officially take hold until 1953.
After five undistinguished seasons of being called the Bees, the National League club in Boston reverts to its original name. New owners of the Braves had hoped to change the team’s image by renaming the franchise.
An Army-Navy Relief game between New York’s two National League teams raises over $60,000. Dolph Camilli’s homer is the difference in the Ebbets Field exhibition as the Dodgers edge the Giants, 7-6.
1941 – The New York Yankees sell pitcher Steve Sundra to the Washington Senators. Sundra, who posted a 11-1 record in 1939, slipped in 1940 to 4-6.
1941 – In Monterrey, Nuevo León, 6000 fans watch the St. Louis Browns top the Boston Braves, 6 – 3. Chet Laabs, fighting to win the right fielder spot, hits a 400-foot home run in the 7th inning.
‘Losing Pitcher’ Hugh Mulcahy of the Phillies becomes the first major league player to be drafted into the Armed Forces. The newest member of the 101st Artillery at Cape Cod’s Camp Edwards had lost 22 games last season and 20 in 1938 to lead the National League in defeats both years.
1941 – At Havana, the Brooklyn Dodgers roll over the Cleveland Indians, 15 – 0. Pee Wee Reese and Joe Medwick use a batting helmet designed by two Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors with the help of Larry MacPhail. The two Dodgers, victims of several hit by pitches last year, pronounce the helmets satisfactory. Brooklyn pitcher Van Lingle Mungo celebrates the victory a little too hard and when tomorrow’s game is rained out, he continues to party. The result is that manager Leo Durocher sends him a note informing he’s been reassigned to the Dodgers’ minor league camp in Macon, Georgia. Mungo will pitch just two innings for Brooklyn this year.
1941 – Grace Comiskey, widow of J. Louis Comiskey, is elected president of the Chicago White Sox. Her husband died on July 18, 1939.
1941 – The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants open the spring training schedule with a 4 – 3 Brooklyn victory in Havana, Cuba. Pitcher Paul Dean takes the loss.
1941 – The entire Brooklyn Dodgers squad leaves New York to train in Havana, Cuba for most of the spring. Babe Phelps, a reluctant traveler and still unsigned, will leave the team in Miami, FL, rather than take a boat, and return to Maryland.
Enjoy our free trial and start listening to games, interviews and shows! Ruth, Mantle, Aaron, and Seaver!