One of Amsterdam’s most unforgettable days
By Bob Cudmore, Daily Gazette 2-19-05
Sam Vomero will never forget Monday, July 20th, 1942, the day the Yankees and the carnival both came to Amsterdam.
The Yankees’ exhibition game against their farm team, the Rugmakers, on that date is remembered by many. But Vomero produced a newspaper ad to show that on the same day, the James E. Strates Shows arrived in Amsterdam, traveling on its own train of 30 cars. Vomero, who lived on Morris Street in the East End, waited for the carnival train with a crowd of people at the old freight house Sunday night. Vomero, who was 12, gave up his vigil about 2 a.m. and returned to the freight house Monday morning after the train, including Strates’ private railroad car, had finally arrived. The carnival, sponsored by V.F.W. Post 55, set up at Karp’s Park on Upper Church Street and featured Adele Nelson’s “baseball playing elephants,” a trapeze artist and what was called “America’s best midway.”
The Yankees arrived at 12:35 that afternoon when the crack New York Central train the Empire State Express made a special stop in the city, depositing Joe DiMaggio and his fellow Yankees in a sea of autograph-seeking fans. Police Chief Frank Kearns assigned a special detail of patrolmen to keep the crowd off the tracks.
There was a parade complete with upper floor office workers pitching ticker tape onto the Yankees and the Amsterdam High School Band. According to David Pietrusza’s book, Baseball’s Canadian-American League, DiMaggio and Lefty Gomez missed the team bus when it left the Hotel Thayer on Division Street. The two ball players were given a ride to Mohawk Mills Park by fan George Sandy for the 4 p.m. game. Sandy recalled that DiMaggio asked, “Where in hell are all the girls in this town?”
Incredibly, fire had destroyed the grandstand at Mohawk Mills Park eight days before the big game Pietrusza wrote, “Hammers and saws replaced bats and balls at the site, and a miracle happened. By the time the Yankees arrived, not only had every barbecued seat been replaced, but the park’s total capacity had been increased by 200 sears.”
Joe DiMaggio hit a two-run homer over the 320 foot right field fence in the fourth. The game went to extra innings and the Yankees won 9-5 in the 10th.
A seven-year-old heart patient named Johnny Martuscello, wearing a Superman shirt, got to meet his idol, DiMaggio.
The New York City baseball writers were impressed with what Jack Smith of the Daily News called the “sheer love of baseball, enthusiasm and support”: they found in Amsterdam. An illustration accompanying Smith’s column showed a sign that was typical of Amsterdam that day, “Welcome Yanks. Closed for the afternoon.”
“Even the hardened veterans who have played exhibition games from coast to coast were moved,” Smith wrote.
Vomero was among the 4,000 fans at the ball game and that night walked to the carnival. The James E. Strates Shows returned the following year with a new featured performer, the Great Wilno. Wilno was shot from a cannon over two Ferris wheels into a net. The stunt worked well in Amsterdam but Vomero recalled reading that Wilno later died in Syracuse when he hit a Ferris wheel during a performance. Vomero said the Strates Shows can still be seen at the State Fair in Syracuse but the carnival never came back to Amsterdam after 1943.
The Yankees returned to Mohawk Mills Park in 1949 and drew a crowd of 4,562, about 500 more than 1942. The 1949 Yankees, including Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto, beat the Rugmakers 9-2.
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