The baseball research community has been abuzz about a photo that surfaced last September of Braves Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville. The infielder, who played nearly a century ago, is shown wearing a hat with a swastika on it.
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The photo was originally posted by Paul Lukas at UNI WATCH BLOG with the attribution:
That’s Rabbit Maranville, circa 1915, and (photo contributor) Bruce (Menard) says the cap was worn to commemorate the sinking of the Lusitania. I know the swastika has a lengthy pre-Nazi history, so let’s not rehash all of that, but I didn’t know about this Lusitania connection. Anyone know more?
For centuries, the swastika was credited as a symbol of good luck. It was around long before the Nazi Party, which was founded in 1919, brought shame to the mark.
It is a pretty stunning thing, to see a baseball hall of famer taking ground balls for the Braves before a game while doffing a cap with perhaps the most infamous symbol in recorded history.
Even more amazing is the circumstances of the Braves’ fortunes immediately following Maranville’s swastika sighting.
Tom Shieber of the blog Baseball Researcher combed through countless records and photos in concluding the photo was taken April 14, 1914. Opening Day for the 1914 major league season.
Along with the Maranville photo, Shieber turned up a similar shot of Johnny Evers, of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame.
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Though there’s virtually no way to ultimately confirm why the swastikas were used, Shieber thinks he’s got a pretty good idea why Maranville and Evers wore the logo on their hats:
The swastika has been around for thousands of years, the word coming from the Sanskrit “svastika” meaning “all is well.” Up until its adoption by Nazi Germany, the swastika was known as a symbol of luck, and was often worn as a good-luck charm.
In 1914, there was no stigma associated with the swastika. Well, at least very little. On January 26, 1912, the New York Times ran an article with the headline “‘Jinxes’ Have No Place With Yankees: Manager Wolverton Will Drive Superstitious Ideas Out of His Ball Team.” The article goes on as follows:
Manager Harry Wolverton of the Yankees says that the day of the superstitious ballplayer is over. He doesn’t believe in jinxes, good or bad omens, rabbits’ feet, swastika signs, or all that ancient baseball lore.
Despite the best efforts of Harry Wolverton, the lucky swastika was and continued to be embraced by people around the world, including ballplayers. In fact, it is my belief that the Braves wore the special “swasti-caps” on Opening Day of 1914 as a good-luck charm … or at least as an end-the-bad-luck charm.
The Boston Braves entered the 1914 season having finished in the National League’s second division 11 straight years — dead last in four of the previous five campaigns. Opening the season in Brooklyn, it’s not hard to believe that the exasperated club might choose to adopt a good luck symbol to help turn things around.
If Shieber’s theory is correct, what a good-luck charm it turned out to be.
That was the season of the “Miracle Braves”, who won 68 of their final 87 games (!) to erase a huge standings deficit in claiming the pennant. The Braves then swept Philadelphia four straight in the World Series.
All the more ironic when you consider if there was ever a year for a throwback cap promotion for the Braves, 1914 would be it.
Thank god Marge Schott never bought the Braves.
6:42 pm on February 16th, 2010
How dare they not know that 30 years from then it would become a symbol of hate and death!
Know the future dumbasses
7:30 pm on February 16th, 2010
The symbol has been traced to ancient Iran so I’m afraid the controversy ain’t over! Sympathy with ancient Iran in 1915 … seems incredible, doesn’t it, that some ball players–not the worlds greatest scholars–would take such an interest in ancient Persian symbols.. and finding themselves unwittingly expressing support of, yep, Ahmadinejad’s nuclear enrichment plans!!
It just gets worse the deeper you look.
8:55 pm on February 16th, 2010
check out the 1916 women’s hockey team the Edmonton Swastikas. Just google Edmonton Swastikas if the link doesn’t work.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/43552490_ec293a89f1.jpg
10:09 pm on February 16th, 2010
Kudos for the Marge Schott reference….
2:33 am on February 17th, 2010
Were they a Korean Buddhist baseball team?
4:51 am on February 17th, 2010
The Braves. The Indians.
The swastika symbol is as old as the neolithic period. Many
Native American tribes have used the symbol, which has been found at Mississippian-era sites in the Ohio valley and more recently the native americans of the Southwest.
7:56 am on February 17th, 2010
Marge Schott…..LOL!!
9:55 am on February 17th, 2010
Swastikas are the symbols Japan uses on it’s maps to identify a temple. These are used even today.
10:52 am on February 17th, 2010
It’s a shame how innocent symbols and words become objects of hate and intolerance when put in the wrong hands.
The word nigger comes from the word Niger which simply means black.
Fag has multiple meanings none of which until the last 30 years had anything to do with disparaging homosexuals
And swastika was a symbols of good fortune.
I take from this that anything in the wrong hands can be very dangerous.
10:54 am on February 17th, 2010
So the fact that they acquired Evers that season from the Cubs, and he was NL MVP, had NOTHING to do with their turnaround?
11:28 am on February 17th, 2010
What’s the point of this anywho?:
American’s are stupid?
Baseball players don’t have a shred of political where-with-to?
The “stimulus” worked?
USC atheletes don’t get kick-backs?
Another example of how this once mediocre(except for the chix)site has gone the way of the passenger pigeon.
12:39 pm on February 17th, 2010
Doffing means “taking off.” The word you’re looking for is “donning.”
12:42 pm on February 17th, 2010
RoB68 Lemme guess brooks stole your idea and now your not the least bit bitter?
1:46 pm on February 17th, 2010
+1 jnding. You are correct - the hooked cross was used in many places in the USA before the 1940s.
And let me get this straight… some of you are piling on the Boston Braves because they wore a swastika FIFTEEN YEARS before Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took over Germany?!
We are talking about baseball players, not psychics, right?
8:55 pm on February 17th, 2010
“adam”, Huh?
And, stop making sense.
Or at least give me the gist of your rebutt.
2:05 pm on February 18th, 2010
While the Nazi Party may have started in 1919, it really didn’t take form until the 1930s, but regardless of that,
the Swastika, one of Heathenism’s oldest and most holy of symbols has been around for centuries and throughout the world long before its misuse by the Nazi’s, including being part of the Native American culture. This sacred image representied a legend that was used in their healing rituals. I suspect this is where it came from in terms of being worn ny the 1914 Braves’ bad boys..
9:36 am on August 24th, 2010
thank you bro.
9:24 am on September 22nd, 2010
Swastikas are the symbols Japan uses on it’s maps to identify a temple. These are used even today.
11:57 pm on February 26th, 2011
were can i get one?