August 18, 1950: A Summer Friday at the Polo Grounds

Today in 1950 · Friday, August 18, 1950

Whiz Kids Robin Roberts, manager Eddie Sawyer and Dick Sisler in October 1950, the season Philadelphia's young team took the National League pennant

Whiz Kids Robin Roberts, manager Eddie Sawyer and Dick Sisler in October 1950, the season Philadelphia's young team took the National League pennant · Los Angeles Daily News, 1950, published without copyright notice, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On this Friday in 1950, the National League pennant race came to Coogan's Bluff, and New York got the better of it. At the Polo Grounds, Leo Durocher's Giants beat the league-leading Philadelphia Phillies 7-4 — a rare bad evening for the 'Whiz Kids,' the youngest team in baseball, whose kid pitchers and Richie Ashburn's legs had carried them to the top of the standings all summer.

Across the East River the same evening, the Brooklyn Dodgers — the defending league champions still chasing Philadelphia — beat the Boston Braves 8-3 at Ebbets Field. Two ballparks, two home wins, one city: the everyday rhythm of a summer when New York had three major-league teams and the pennant seemed to run through all of them.

The Phillies would survive the autumn chase by the narrowest of margins — this series reaches that final-day drama on October 1. For now, August baseball under the lights was the story, and the war news shared the front page with the box scores.

Also on this day

  • In Korea, North Korean artillery shells fell inside Taegu as the defenders of the Pusan Perimeter fought to hold the city's approaches.
  • The New York City Ballet premiered a new production at London's Covent Garden.
  • Belgian Communist Party chairman Julien Lahaut was assassinated at his home in Seraing, a week after shouting 'Vive la republique!' during the royal oath ceremony.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Mona Lisa” by Nat King Cole (Billboard best sellers) — the hit that turned jazz pianist Nat King Cole into one of the era's top solo vocalists. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: Disney's first all-live-action film, “Treasure Island,” was the nation's No. 1 box-office draw (Variety) — Robert Newton's Long John Silver fixing the movie-pirate image forever.
⚾ In sports: Eddie Sawyer's “Whiz Kids” Phillies sat 5.5 games clear of Brooklyn in the National League, while Detroit led a four-team American League fight with the Yankees three back.

Sources: Retrosheet box score: Giants 7, Phillies 4 (Aug 18, 1950) · Retrosheet box score: Dodgers 8, Braves 3 (Aug 18, 1950) · US Army official history (Appleman), ch. 19 · US State Dept. telegram, Aug 18, 1950 (FRUS) · TIME, Aug 28, 1950 · Wikipedia: August 1950 · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans) · Retrosheet 1950 game logs and box scores. Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

More from this series: Today in 1950 — the daily archive · every post from August 2026

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Postcard Heart – The 1950s Doo-Wop Love Letter That Never Needed a Stamp v.21

Image
Story Behind the Song · Postcard Heart , Track 1 ▶ The player starts right at this track (00:00). Let it keep playing for the full album. He only meant to buy a postcard. Blue sky, a little red canoe — the kind you send to someone far away with a line like "wish you were here." He was still writing it in his neatest hand when she walked past the postcard stand, and suddenly there was no faraway town worth wishing about. That is the whole heart of this song, and of the album that takes its name from it. The doo-wah harmonies bounce like a stamped envelope skipping across a mail sorter, while the lead vocal keeps one hand on the counter, half in love already. By the second verse they are taking the long way past the square, and a small heart drawn next to a name has quietly re-addressed his whole life. If you have ever mailed your feelings to the wrong distance, this opener sets them straight: the only address that matters is standing right in front of you. I...
Read more

August 17, 1950: Indonesia Reunites as One Republic

Image
Today in 1950 · Thursday, August 17, 1950 President Sukarno of Indonesia in Washington, D.C., 1956 · U.S. News & World Report collection, Library of Congress, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons On this day in 1950, Indonesia dissolved its federal structure and proclaimed itself a single, unitary republic. The federal state — the Republic of the United States of Indonesia — had existed for less than eight months, created when the Netherlands transferred sovereignty on December 27, 1949 after four years of independence struggle. The date was no accident. August 17 was the fifth anniversary of the 1945 independence proclamation, and President Sukarno — the man who had read that proclamation — now led the new unitary state. In the days before, on August 15 and 16, he had formally declared the dissolution of the federal framework the Dutch had built between 1945 and 1949, consolidating authority in Jakarta under a new provisional constitution. For a world just entering the se...
Read more

August 19, 1950: The First Saturday-Morning Cartoon Block Begins

Image
Today in 1950 · Saturday, August 19, 1950 An American family watching television at home in the 1950s · Evert F. Baumgardner, National Archives, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons On this Saturday morning in 1950, American children woke up to something new. ABC became the first US network to broadcast Saturday-morning television programming made for kids — the opening act of what would become one of the great rituals of American childhood. Two live shows premiered that morning. 'Animal Clinic' brought real animals into the studio with facts about their care; 'Acrobat Ranch,' broadcast live from ABC's Chicago operation, was a circus-themed variety show hosted by Jack Stilwell as 'Uncle Jim,' featuring two young tumblers billed as Tumbling Tim and Flying Flo, with children from the audience competing in games and stunts. Neither show is remembered today, but the idea they carried — that Saturday morning belonged to children — became a US broadcasting institut...
Read more