2007.1.288

• photography

Black and white photograph in two parts (A & B) that have been attached with clear (now yellowed) tape. Photograph depicts six Oakland Oaks baseball players composed of pitchers. All are standing in full uniform (whites) with the "O" insignia on the chest and caps. They are on a baseball field and each has their arms raised with one hand in their gloves. A scoreboard is visible in the upper right corner behind the players. All players are right handed (righties) except for Italo Chelini who is on the far right. Caption affixed to back of photo reads: "The Oaks opened Spring training at Boyes Springs yesterday when the pitchers and catchers reported. Here are six hurlers who reported for work getting the kinks out of their arms, (left to right) Sam Gibson, Al Raimondi, Jim Land, Pete Barisoff, Hal Ford, Italo Chelini.--Tribune Photo." Borders have been painted around some of the players and there are white painted cropping registration marks to right, above and below Pete Barisoff (forth player depicted) for reproduction purposes.

Oakland Oaks (PCL)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Oaks_%28PCL%29 (7/13/2007)The Oakland Oaks were a minor league baseball team which played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1955. Along with the Los Angeles Angels, Portland Beavers, Sacramento Solons, San Francisco Seals, and Seattle Indians, the Oaks were charter members of the Pacific Coast League which was founded in 1903. The team finished last that year, and finished either last or next to last place four more times before winning its first PCL pennant in 1912. The Oaks (or �Acorns� as they were also called) played their home games at Freeman�s Park at 59th Street and San Pablo Avenue and at Recreation Park in San Francisco.After the 1912 season, the Oaks opened their new stadium, named Oakland Ball Park (or simply Oaks Park) though it was located in the neighboring city of Emeryville at San Pablo and Park Avenues. In their first season at Oaks Park the Acorns finished last, and were mired in the second division for more than a decade. In 1916, a struggling Oaks team made history by breaking the professional baseball color line, as Jimmy Claxton pitched in both ends of a double-header on May 28th, 1916. He was introduced to the team as an American Indian, but once the team discovered that his ancestry was both Native American and African, he was fired.In 1927, the Oaks won their first pennant at Oaks Park, finishing 120-75 (.615), 14_ games over the runner-up Seals.In 1943, a controlling interest in the Oaks was purchased by C. L. �Brick� Laws, who operated the team for its remaining seasons. In 1946, Laws hired Charles �Casey� Stengel, the former manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves of the National League to manage the Oaks. He responded with second and fourth place finishes, before the club won its most celebrated pennant in 1948. It was in Oakland that Stengel developed his talent for �platooning,� i.e., juggling his lineup to maximize each player�s potential in given situations, that served him so famously as manager of the New York Yankees.On October 18, 1967, twelve years after the Oaks played their last game in Emeryville, the American League owners gave Kansas City Athletics president Charles O. Finley permission to move the Athletics to Oakland for the 1968 season. Spring trainingFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_training 7/16/2007) Major League Baseball, spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to audition for roster and position spots, and gives existing team players practice time prior to competitive play. Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warmer climates to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many college students.Spring training typically lasts almost two months, starting in early February and running until just before the season opening day, traditionally the first week of April. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training first because pitchers benefit from a longer training period due to the exhaustive nature of the position. A week or two later, the position players arrive and team practice begins.While Florida and Arizona now host all Major League Baseball teams for spring training, this has not always been the case. The Brooklyn Dodgers trained in Havana, Cuba in 1947 and 1959, and in the Dominican Republic in 1948. [1] During World War II, most teams held an abbreviated spring training within easy reach of their cities. Before big league baseball reached the West Coast, a number of teams trained in California. Sam GibsonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Gibson (7/20/2007)Samuel Braxton Gibson (August 5, 1899 _ January 31, 1983) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played five seasons with the Detroit Tigers (1926-28), New York Yankees (1930) and New York Giants (1932). Born in King, North Carolina, Gibson attended Catawba College before making his major league debut on April 19, 1926. He was a starting pitcher on manager Ty Cobb's Tigers, winning 12 games and throwing nearly 200 innings in his rookie season. In a game against the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, he allowed the 4,000 hit of Cobb's career, who was playing in his final season for the A's.After playing smaller roles on the Yankees and Giants, Gibson played fourteen season in the minor league Pacific Coast League, playing for the San Francisco Seals, Portland Beavers and Oakland Oaks in 1931 and from 1933 to 1945. His best season was 1935, in which he went 22-4[1] and holds the Seals' highest single-season winning percentage at .846.[2] He was a teammate of Joe DiMaggio's and the two together were inducted into the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame in 2003. Gibson died in 1983 at age 83 in High Point, North Carolina.

Used: Oakland Tribune