April 2015 Pick-Ups

I'll start the April pick-ups with some Racing Memorabilia; a 1957 Sunny-Grand Speedway Trophy, sponsored by Midway Tavern. Not exactly Indianapolis, Sunny-Grand Speedway was a 1/2 mile asphalt/dirt oval in a cantaloupe field between Sunnyside and Grandview, Washington that operated from the late 1940's to 1970's.

Stories of this track are the stuff of ridiculous racing legend; telephone pole guard rails that acted like car crushers when they "speared" jalopies, pit-stops with beer handed to the driver, a spectator could "claim" a car for $99 and drive in the race that night in the 50's, and this only covers the on-track carnage... Here's a great blog on memories of Sunny-Grand Speedway: http://www.racingwest.com/bb/message.php?board=4&thread=81622

More racing memorabilia from Sunny-Grand Speedway. This 1962 Program gives a great overview of the track's summer schedule, including Friday night races under the lights. The CWJRA, or Central Washington Jalopy Racing Association lasted until 1971. Pictures of the "Jalopy Jockeys" on the back page; some red-nosed bootleggers in this bunch.

Back to baseball, here's a very nice addition to the local sports collection from the Northwest African American Museum in Seattle. After the museums' exhibit, Pitch Black: The History of Black Baseball in Washington, NAAM curator Chieko Phillips sent me this as a thank you for research contributed to the project. It was used in the exhibit's Amateur Baseball/Jimmy Claxton section. The poster is ridiculously large and I don't know where to put it or how to mount it properly. It's 5 feet tall X 8 feet long; the original postcard the image was taken from, is dwarfed in the upper right corner. It was a great project and attendance at the NAAM increased 60% during Pitch Black . The town of Roslyn has not changed much in 100 years, I could probably take a similar photo there tomorrow.