DATE: Monday, October 20, 1997              TAG: 9710190149

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   34 lines

THAT WAS THEN

The scoreboard for baseball's 1933 World Series games was not the

first of its kind provided for local fans in Norfolk. The

Ledger-Dispatch ran a front page picture Oct. 2, 1913, of the

scoreboard over its Plume Street entrance for fans to follow the

play-by-play action between the New York Giants and Philadelphia

Athletics.

The nostalgic views in the other two photos taken by Charles

Borjes depict the estimated 3,000 avid Norfolk area baseball fans

who gathered on Oct. 3, 1933, in front of The

Virginian-Pilot/Ledger-Dispatch building on Plume Street to follow

the opening World Series game between the New York Giants and the

Washington Senators at the New York Polo Grounds.

An electrically operated scoreboard mounted on the front of the

building, equipped with a battery of amplifiers, kept the fans on

their toes until the Giants were declared the winner on that

particular day. Many of the still living fedora- and cap-wearing men

in the picture will undoubtedly be able to recognize their

enthusiastic faces. Oldtimers will remember the no-longer-existing

W.G. Swartz department store in the background. The most fortunate

spectator in the picture was the vest-wearing man perched on a stool

outside a secondstory window in the upper left corner of the crowd

scene. He indeed had the catbird seat!

George Tucker

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu