Exhibit captures Stamford's sports past

STAMFORD -- Within a glass case at the Stamford Historical Society is a photograph of an 84-year-old Cy Young, surrounded by Stamford youths during the 1951 Little League World Series, which they won.

The photo will be displayed alongside a baseball Young autographed at an upcoming exhibit on the history of youth sports in Stamford.

"He signed balls for the kids," Dan Burke, curator of the exhibit, said. "Can you imagine what a thrill that would be?"

Photos and memorabilia from the 1951 Little League Champions are just one among dozens of exhibits of uniforms, equipment and trophies amassed for "Forging a Community: Stamford on the Gridiron and on the Diamond 1860-1975."

The exhibit chronicles development of organized sports in the city from the Civil War on.

Former Advocate sports editor Bob Kennedy will give a lecture on the evolution and growth of Stamford youth sports at the exhibit opening, from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the 1508 High Ridge Road society.

Burke took the last year and a half to prepare the exhibit, whittling down an abundance of sports memorabilia, photographs and historical lore culled from his research into a show that fits in two large rooms and a hallway.

He said aside from displaying related items for some of Stamford's best known sports heroes of the 20th Century, the exhibit also throws light on how sports helped merge children from communities of Italian, Irish, Polish and other ethnicities.

"Sports was a real glue that brought these guys very close to each other," said Burke, whose family dates back to the late 1890s in Stamford. "You could have the Irish in the southern part of the city and the Italians on the West Side, but when they got together on the field they were a unit."

From reviewing documents, Burke has discovered a dizzying number of baseball teams that proliferated in the city from the late 19th Century through the first quarter of the next century, reflecting the activity of teams sponsored by local industries, scholastic competition, as well as neighborhoods patching together their own loose teams to play.

The collection includes antique woolen uniform jerseys from long-defunct league teams such as the Lock City Greys, Scalzi Paint, and Yale & Towne, which maintained its own internal six-team league for the more than 8,000 employees it had in the early 20th century.

Through his research, Burke found dozens of independent club teams with idiosyncratic names such as the Whipporwills, the Greyrocks, the Algiers, The Seaburys, and the Hoytvilles.

Also on display is a recruitment letter from the House of David baseball team to Mickey Lione Sr., a Stamford sports legend, asking him to join their team in 1915. The team, historically significant in baseball history, was sponsored by the Israelite House of David, a Michigan religious organization whose leader, Benjamin Purnell, assembled renowned barnstorming teams that toured rural America from the 1920s to the 1950s.

"Apparently they had heard he was a good player and wanted him to join the team," Burke said. "It shows that at that time that players were able to be noticed for their talent and there were scouts at games."

A large part of the exhibit deals with the tenure of football coach Michael A. Boyle, who led Stamford High School's football squad from 1907 to 1939, racking up 23 consecutive winning seasons and a winning percentage of .809.

The era of Boyle's dominance ran parallel to the accomplishments of the Stamford Pros, a semi-professional football team that formed in the mid-1930s and was renamed the 1940's as Stamford's Golden Bears which was coached at times by Stamford sports legend Al Shanen.

Because of Stamford High's squad's almost unchallenged mastery of state football, games both home and away were attended in droves by city youth, Burke said.

"If you look at the pictures, you can see how packed Mitchell Field with people sitting in the stands, surrounding hills and even the walls of the field," he said.

The society galleries are open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

Jane Flounders, volunteer coordinator for the historical society, said looking at the exhibit materials, she is eager to see how the city's growth was reflected in the burgeoning organization of sports teams and the city's immigrant past.

Flounders said regardless of ethnicity, there is a similarity from generation to generation as children of recently arrived families began to associate with people of different backgrounds through sports or business.

"I feel the exhibit really gives you a sense of how the city evolved and has become what it is today," she said.

Source: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Exhibit-captures-Stamford-s-sports-past-3842828.php

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