Baseball with the Scarecrow

In August of 1906, Harper's Weekly published a small piece on a charity baseball game played by a group of prominent New York actors and managers. Among the players was Fred Stone, dressed in full Scarecrow costume, playing catcher with a birdcage over his head serving as a mask!

As can be seen from the photo, the game was a comic affair. The manager Sam Harris is shown at the plate, using the largest bat I've ever seen! Other players included George M. Cohan, Abraham Erlanger, and De Wolf Hopper. The accompanying photo shows quite an array of uniforms.

The game took place at the American League park, and featured the actors taking on the managers - the outcome of the game isn't clear, although the article states "The result of the match was vigorously contested, in spite of the fact that the umpire was attired in a suit of mail." More than $3,000 was raised and donated to a home for destitute and crippled children.

Another interesting point of the magazine is the centerfold photo, which shows Mt Vesuvius after the great eruption that took place in April of that year.

As it happens, L. Frank Baum and his wife Maud spent the first six months of 1906 on a European trip - I believe it was their first and only - and arrived in Naples during the time that Vesuvius was active. Maud writes about the event in her travelogue In Other Lands Than Ours, describing the quantity of ash and destruction everywhere. A photo taken by Baum shows Maud surveying the damage and hot lava, which burnt her shoes.