Step back in time features news items from The Daily Star 25 and 50 years ago.
25 years ago
July 23, 1987
Workers are preparing to put the final panels in place to finish a new, 300,000-gallon water tank in Bainbridge Wednesday. The tank is a key element in a $387,000 water project that Bainbridge started this spring after 20 years of studies and planning.
50 years ago
July 23, 1962
COOPERSTOWN _ One of the greatest collections of past and current baseball greats ever to assemble on one diamond will earn the cheers of about 10,000 fans at Doubleday Field today. And for four of them it will be the biggest day of their lives.
Recent stars Jackie Robinson and Bob Feller, along with venerables Bill McKechnie and Edd Roush will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this morning in ceremonies beginning at 10:30 a.m. on the steps of baseball's Capitol Building.
A few hours later (2 p.m.) they will be in the capacity crowd watching the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Braves battling for league prestige in the 21st annual Hall of Fame Day classic.
Not since 1955 when Joe DiMaggio was in a group of six men enshrined and Ted Williams was swinging for Doubleday's short fences has any Hall of Fame carried the excitement that goes with this one. Testimony to the appeal of this two-ring circus is that all seats for the game were sold six months ago.
The game, itself, is a natural. For it will bring to Cooperstown (pop. 2,500) a bevy of the game's most glamorous current stars headed by the Yankees' M-Squad _ Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris _ and Milwaukee's "future Famer" Warren Spahn.
The prime induction interest centers on Robinson, organized baseball's first Negro player who now becomes its first Negro Hall of Famer.
Robby made national headlines last week after he told this newspaper that being the pioneer of his race rather than the spectacular ballplayer he was earned him the enshrinement vote on his first year as an eligible. But was the 10-year Brooklyn Dodgers drawing card just being modest? The .312 batting average on his plaque, his fleet feet and glue-swabbed glove tell of his uncanny ability to hit in the clutch or the way he once drove pitchers daffy with his basepath side show.
