This is our first stab at adding some video to our Small Fry Baseball website, so a little background is in order. Like a lot of families in the 50s and 60s, our parents took some home movies. When my brother Kevin decided to transfer these old reels to VHS back some years ago, it turned out that quite a few movies were taken of Small Fry baseball stuff. Some of this was may have been for the league itself, but most were shot by our Dad on a little 8MM Brownie movie camera. As luck would have it, there were also a few reels of 16MM film in the Farrell stash. When I checked these out for the first time a few months back, I was surprised to see that we had some early stuff of Boro Park, Franklin Field and some other ball fields I couldn’t identify. I thought this was pretty cool.
If you take a look at the chapter in our story entitled “1956 and Beyond”, you’ll see photos from the South Plainfield News-Review of the opening day ceremonies from 1956. There is a shot of the players lined up along the foul lines, Color Guard with the flag and a mid-50s station wagon in the center along with another shot of the mayor tossing out the ceremonial first pitch. Well it surprised me to find that we had a movie from that day with the parade into Boro Park, a shot of the mayor’s toss and some opening day action from the ballgame (which I think to be Dodgers vs Braves) that followed.
So that’s our first video, the opening day ceremonies from 1956. It is only a few minutes long, as most home movies were short back in the pre-digital age, and not in HD, I’m afraid. But if anyone can add some detail or recognizes anyone, by all means contact us through the website contact link. We’d love to add to the story. Maybe some of you out there have some Small Fry home movies of your own. We’d certainly be open to sharing them on our website.
Meanwhile, keep an eye open, we’ll be adding some more video in the near future.
4 Comments
YOU did a very good job on the movie. Loved it
Thanks Tyler, we hope to have more up soon.
That,s a great movie I,m there pitching for the Braves I hit the game winning HR in the bottom of the 9th. 2 out 3-2 count. Memories. Mr. Farrell was a great guy he gave me a lot of news paper time. If you have any articles I would love to have them.
Thanks Bob! I’ve been away from the site recently as summer has been keeping us busy, but glad you liked it and thanks for the kind words about our Dad. I’m sure I have some articles, certainly have one about this opening day. I’d be happy to send you copies when I find them. Send us your contact info by using the “making contact” link at the top of the page so we can send them on.