Carpet recorded day when Yankees visited
Photos show Sacandaga’s old fun park
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 8-20-05
Baseball memorabilia collector Bob Mayer of Putnam Valley has a 9-inch by 12-inch carpet square commemorating the New York Yankees’ 1942 trip to Amsterdam to play their farm team, the Rugmakers.
The blue carpet square shows a baseball pitcher in front of a tan baseball and carries the inscription, “Welcome to the New York Yankees and Amsterdam, N.Y.”
Presumably, the item was produced by one of the city’s carpet mills—Mohawk or Bigelow Sanford—as a souvenir of the July 20, 1942 exhibition game at what was then Mohawk Mills Park, today’s Shuttleworth Park.
It was an unforgettable day, according to longtime city resident Sam Vomero. Vomero recalled that not only were the Yankees, including Joe DiMaggio, in the city for festivities including a ticker tape parade, but also the James E. Strates Shows arrived on a 30-car train to set up a huge carnival on upper Church Street.
The Yankees won the exhibition 9-5 in the tenth inning. Joe DiMaggio hit a home run in the fourth. Four thousand fans attended the game. In 1949, 4,500 people were on hand when the Yankees—including Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto--came to Amsterdam again to play the Rugmakers, defeating the local team 9-2.
Mayer lives downstate in Putnam Valley and mainly collects baseball gloves, bats and old photos. One of his photos was installed at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for an African American exhibit. He is doing research on a 19th century team called the Wallkills from Middletown and is researching early baseball in Peekskill.
“I also look for anything that is considered regional to the tri-state area, concentrating on New York items,” Mayer said. “The rug was just something that caught my interest in an auction back in 1996. I have not seen another since.”
CONEY ISLAND NORTH
There are several photos of Sacandaga Park at the current Fulton County Museum’s Great Sacandaga Lake picture exhibition at 237 Kingsboro Avenue in Gloversville. The amusement park, operated by the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville Railroad, was torn down in 1930, as the area was flooded to create the Sacandaga Reservoir.
The 750-acre park began as a Methodist summer retreat in the 19th century. According to Fulton County historian William G. Loveday, Jr., the railroad bought the land after the Methodists themselves retreated as more and more hard-drinking interlopers invaded their wilderness sanctuary.
Sacandaga Park received a boost in 1902 because of a calamity at a rival Adirondack facility. Mountain Lake Park had a 14-fatality train wreck on its rail line, the Mountain Lake Railroad, and never recovered from the disaster.
The heyday of Sacandaga Park was the period from 1902 to 1920. “Automobiles and bumpy, dusty roads were still no serious threat to comfortable rail transportation,” Loveday said.
The park was called Coney Island North. It featured a golf course, bowling alleys, midway, donkey and pony rides, roller coaster, Kinescope Theater, water rides, miniature train rides, boats, swimming and a merry-go-round. German immigrants at the Gustav Denzel factory in Philadelphia crafted the merry-go-round. The carousel was disassembled before the floodwaters arrived in 1930 and ultimately relocated to Shelburne Village in Vermont.
John Philip Sousa played Sacandaga Park, as did Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and W.C. Fields.
“Sport Island (at Sacandaga Park) was a big attraction with its baseball stadium,” Loveday said. The Johnstown, Amsterdam and Gloversville professional team drew big crowds there on Sundays. Johnstown’s blue laws prevented the team from playing Sundays in the city.
Also in the current photo exhibit at the Fulton County Museum are pictures of some of the hotels at Sacandaga Park, including the Adirondack Inn, which could house 250 guests.
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