Kerry wrote:
What's identified as "the old Washington ballpark" (the overlay even references "Griffith Stadium, Washington, D.C."), about 15 minutes into the video, is actually Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

Oops.

It's kind of a surprising error since the two parks aren't all that similar looking. Sportsman's has the pavilion in right field whereas Griffith had a very high wall with no grandstand. It's odd to hear Fairly talk about the Mantle 565-foot home run by noting the discussion of whether anyone could hit the scoreboard at Griffith; the scoreboard at that ballpark was embedded in the right field wall; there was a billboard and clock at the rear of the left field grandstand at Griffith and perhaps that's what Fairly's referring to.

He also inverted Hilda Chester's name (he called her "Chester Hilda,") when discussing Ebbets Field, but that felt like a simple mis-speaking to me.

In all, pretty interesting stuff.
I just saw this. Having grown up the DC area and seeing 25 + games per season in old Griffith Stadium, I think I can clarify this. First, Kerry is right. The park that Fairly identifies as "the old Washington park" was, in fact, Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The video did not show a picture of Griffith Stadium.

 In a way, Griffith Stadium was the mirror image of Fenway Park. The high wall and out of town scoreboard were in right field and the big bleachers were in left. Mantle hit his 565 foot home run to left field in 1953 off lefty Chuck Stobbs and was, of course, batting right handed. The ball Mantle hit bounced off a National Bohemian Beer (the Senators' chief broadcast sponsor at the time) advertising sign that was positioned above the left field bleachers and ricocheted out of the stadium. The rest of the story Fairly tells is correct. Red Patterson the Yankees' PR man left the stadium and found some kids who had the ball and asked them where it landed. Based on that he measured the distance of the home run with a tape measure. That was the origin of the phrase "tape measure home run" that became popular during that era.

My guess is that Fairly never played in Griffith Stadium unless the Dodgers played an exhibition game against the Senators. Fairly came into MLB in 1958 and his only AL season was in 1978. By the time he played in the AL, Griffith Stadium had been torn down 16 years earlier and Washington no longer had an MLB team.

    

Edited 2 times by Mike Hais 06/07/11 12:40 PM.