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Proud winners of the 1920 Washington Herald Junior Baseball Championship. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
There were 12 teams in the tournament with the championship game coming down to Parks versus the Yankees. Other teams in the "down-and-out" tournament were the Petworth Athletic Club (A.C.), Eastern A.C., Auditors from Southern Railway, Cavaliers, Hilltops, Arrows, New Haven, Rolands, Renrocs, and Maryland Juniors. All junior tournament games were held from August 23th to September 5th, and the event was "... to determine the best team of 18 year olds," according to the paper. The results from the September 6th edition are below.
The funny thing for me personally about pictures of young men of this vintage is I find them particularly cute because so many of them are wearing the long on top/short on the sides haircut that was also popular with young men when I was a D.C.-area teenager in the 80s and 90s. Hand several of these guys a skateboard each, and I'd be required to develop an instant crush on them. Catcher, guy two behind him holding the bat, and Mr. Tie Askew, I'm talking to you.
Where, I don't see anyone passed out on the ground?
Last guy on the right crouching looks like a young Ray Bolger and I'm still looking for Charlie.
Hard to prove or disprove the kneeling/crouching discussion, but I do see Charlie Sheen, or his Estevez forefather!
I also see manager Harry Houdini, or is that Thomas Edison?
VictrolaJazz and jimchig, you're both wrong, do you hear me? Wrong, wrong wrong. Cagney and all those guys in the second row appear to be neither sitting nor kneeling, but crouching. You both may now genuflect to pay obeisance to my perspicacity. On another note, nobody else seems to have spotted Charlie Sheen.
VictrolaJazz, I think you meant 'kneeling', third from left. And yes, he is a ringer.
Judging from the large P on several of the uniforms and the partial WORT on the uniform of the kid kneeling in the middle, it appears that this team represented the Petworth sector of D.C. -- a residential area in the upper northwest between Georgia Avenue and North Capitol Street.
I was born in D.C. in 1926 -- yeah, I'm an old guy. We lived on one of Washington's famous (or infamous) traffic roundabouts, Sherman Circle. All of the kids played there (after our mothers saw us safely across the street). I remember the same park policeman visiting the circle every day on his bike. We never called him Officer, but Mister Whatever.
When I was growing up, the trees in the circle were just saplings. Years later (and also many years ago) the circle was a virtual forest. Much has changed.
There is just something about the look of every one of these people: I cannot imagine running into any of them even in modern clothes.
Rear left, he looks kind of shifty to me.
So many, likely just having heard about the passage of the Volstead Act.
Most of those "boys" look to be between 15 to 18 years old. I wonder what the requirements to be in the "Junior" baseball league were. Only the "scowl for the camera" boy holding the cup, and the two fellas above him, trying to see between the taller guys' shoulders, are younger than high school.
Do the junior baseball champions always get police protection?
As well as faces.
Quick, spot the future ax murderer.
No, not him. Despite the dark, sunken eyes.
Nope, not the next guy. Although he does look a little crazed.
Yes, that's the guy! The cop on the right. He's on the edge!
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