Maplewood History: Stuff I Found While Looking For Something Else

Newspapers.com is packed full of interesting information.  It is very easy to get sidetracked while using it as a source for your research. Often I discover something very interesting but completely unrelated to Maplewood.  For quite awhile I’ve had the idea of doing a blog post about some of these unrelated items.  This post features an advertisement I stumbled across that nearly caused me to do a backflip.

This advertisement gave a solid reality to an event that I had always considered was probably just a legend.  I was very pleased to find that it was almost exactly as I had been told sometime in the distant past.  I have known of this event for so long that I no longer know if someone told me about it or perhaps I heard about it on the radio. I don’t know.  I’m nearly certain I didn’t read about it. This is the first black and white evidence I’ve found.  I’m pretty sure of that.  Anyhow here it is.

There you have it.  The event about which I remember hearing was when Babe Ruth hit a home run ball that went completely out of the park (Sportsman’s) and broke the plate glass showroom window of the Chevrolet dealer on the other side of Grand Avenue.  The details are exactly as I remember learning whenever.

There is a very slight Maplewood connection.  Nangle-Gillis Chevrolet is listed in the ad.  What do you want to bet that there were a few Maplewoodians in the audience that day, the 6th of October 1926?

This phenomenal home run occurred during Game 4 of the World Series.  It was one of two that the Bambino “sailed over the pavilion” that day.  The final score was Yankees 10, Cardinals 5.  Not a great day for the home team.  But no worries, the Cardinals went on to win the series – 4 games to 3.  Go Cards!

Doug Houser     May 1, 2020