June 12th, 2015: Philly Base-a-ball
 

Shorpy put up a picture of downtown Philly taken in 1912.

http://cellar.org/2015/philly1.jpg

An interesting detail was Snellenburg's, which had been around for over forty years at that point, had a sign/scoreboard
with baseball scores, on the storefront, sponsored by the Inquirer newspaper

http://cellar.org/2015/philly2.jpg

I would think that posting the results would kill sales of the paper but it probably stirred up interest so people would buy the paper
to read the inning by inning story of the games. Or maybe the scores would hold people over until the Inquirer came out in the morning
instead of buying the competing Evening Bulletin.

1912 didn't provide a lot of options to the papers.

Just wondering why there's a RHD car there.

I don't recognise the make and in 1912 imported cars must have been rare beasts.
I'm assuming that it was imported to the US. It would seem unlikely, though not impossible, that it was built in the US for export.

Not that important in the great scheme of things, just my curiosity at work again.

Attachment 52028

A lot of early cars had right hand drive. It was new technology that hadn't been standardized yet.

http://www.horseless.com/right-hand.html

Thanks for that, glatt. I had no idea about that.

It's interesting to compare the reasons for LHD in the US and RHD in the UK.

In the UK the accepted reason for us driving on the left is that whether on foot, horse back or horse drawn vehicle, your sword arm was nearer to a potential adversary and so the tradition continued with motor vehicles.

Speaking personally, I haven't had to fend off a highwayman, rogue, vagabond, footpad or brigand for some months now. ;)

In the same way, the US has LHD because the right hand was historically used for the shifter, hence leaving the left hand free to flip people off.

In a car, you steer with your left hand and you shoot with your right.

I just noticed the Inquirer newspaper is right across the street. Makes me wonder why the baseball score sign in on Snellenburg's and not their own building?

Here's another RHD, Carruthers, a NYFD steam pumper from about 1915.

http://cellar.org/2015/nyfd.jpg