I recently picked up this really cool photo of Whitey Ford from 1949. Unfortunately, I can't seem to track down enough information about why he is wearing a Clippers uniform.
My understanding is that Max Rosner's Semi-pro Brooklyn Bushwicks played exhibition games at Dexter Park from 1917 until the early 1950's against semi-pro teams, Negro League teams, and a few minor league teams. The opposing teams were sometimes comprised of major league stars, most notably in the late 1920's when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were on teams (Larrupin Lou's and Bustin' Babe's).
There was a Class D minor league team, the Batavia Clippers, that played in the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League. It appears that Whitey is wearing their uniform, based on the hat and uniform name. But there is no record of Whitey playing for that team. Perhaps Whitey played on this post-season exhibition team that was comprised of mostly Batavia Clippers players with a few stand-ins? The photo is dated 10/9/1949, which coincides nicely with a picture I found online at
http://brooklynology.brooklynpublicl...4/Semipro.aspx, which shows a photo of 4 Bushwicks players as printed in
The Eagle on 4/10/1949.
Anyway, if you have any Bushwicks / Dexter Park photos/memorabilia to share, please do so! I'm intrigued. More importantly, if you can help me shed some light on why Whitey was wearing a Clippers uniform in 1949, I'd love to know!
