One of the tragedies of the digital age is the loss of old photo archives. A recently discovered cache of negatives from the Post-Intelligencer shows the Seattle Pilots, an underdocumented team, in action.
The Post-Intelligencer archives yielded two sets of photos from 1969 detailing a very interesting time in Seattle history: spring training for the team in Tempe, the renovation of Sick’s Seattle Stadium to accomodate MLB, and game action. P-I employees found the negatives, and they were scanned by officials with the Museum of History and Industry and posted online. Take a look: they’re not captioned, but you can see folks like Joe Schultz. (No, no glimpses of Jim Bouton at first glance.)
The Seattle Pilots, of course, lasted only a year; after the 1969 season ended the team ended up in backruptcy, with the owners intending just to reorganize debt and return to Sick’s Seattle Stadium in 1970. Instead, a young Bud Selig swooped in, bought the team out of bankruptcy and moved the franchise to Milwaukee in haste for the 1970 season, and Sick’s Seattle Stadium is long gone.
Image courtesy MOHAI/Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection / SL.
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