"Jackie With The Monarchs, 1945" Has Moved

In case anyone is actually following my "Jackie With The Monarchs" series, I've moved all the previous posts to a new site dedicated solely to the series where future posts will be as well. You can find it here: Jackie With The Monarchs, 1945.

Clip from The Royal Years

Came across this YouTube gem that I believe is a clip from a documentary called The Royal Years produced by Kansas City public television in 1996. Has some great footage of early Royals action.

Mantle Homers Twice at Municipal Stadium, June 21, 1961

Via Uni Watch comes this aerial shot of Kansas City's Municipal Stadium from 1961. The wire photo service added the supposed paths of two home runs Mickey Mantle hit in a game against the A's on June 21. Roger Maris of course ended up on top of the home run race in 1961, but on this day the Mick hit two and Roger none. Mantle's homers both came off A's starter Bob Shaw. Roger had to settle for a walk, single, triple and two runs scored. The Yanks prevailed 5-3. Mantle drove in all five runs.

Eleven Yankees played in the game on June 21; No fewer than seven had called Municipal their home stadium previous to 1961:

Elston Howard: Monarchs 1948-50, Blues 1953
Mickey Mantle: Blues 1951
Bill Skowron: Blues 1952-53
Jack Reed: Blues 1953
Clete Boyer: Athletics 1955-57
Roger Maris: Athletics 1958-59
Bud Daley: Athletics 1958-61 (Daley had just been sent to the Yankees a week earlier)

Royals In Monarchs Duds: July 30, 1995

For 1995, the Royals spread out the Salute to the Negro Leagues over a three day weekend. Friday, July 28 was Buck O'Neil night. The Royals presented Buck with a portrait of himself, and attendees received a copy of the portrait. The next night, former Negro Leaguers signed autographs and were honored before the game. And on Sunday the 30th, the Royals and Tigers broke out the throwback uniforms, the Royals sporting 1924 Monarchs uniforms as they had the previous year, and the Tigers wearing a 1920 Detroit Stars style. (Attendees on Sunday received a Monarchs cap, as has been the case for most of the Salute to the Negro Leagues games.) Unfortunately I have no pictures from the game. The Monarchs jerseys and lids assumedly looked something like this:



Here's a shot of the actual 1920 Detroit Stars:

And here is Ebbets Fields modern remake of the uniforms:

The Tigers likely wore a dark jersey that day as the road team, so exactly what they looked like, I don't know.

On the field, the Royals eked out a 3-2 win behind a 2 run homer by Vince Coleman and 5.2 innings from starter Scott Anderson in which he allowed one run. Anderson spent ten years in the minors, getting cups of coffee in the bigs in '87, '90 and 6 games with the Royals in '95. The only win of his major league career came this night, wearing the uniform of the Kansas City Monarchs. The Royals swept the Tigers during the three day tribute to the Negro Leagues. Vince Coleman hit 10-15 in the series.