Newspaper history — Labor Day clam bake

The Post-Star and Glens Falls Times players wound up splitting the box of cigars offered as the prize for the winner of the baseball game at the annual Glens Falls Typographical Union, № 96, Labor Day weekend clam bake at Cole’s Woods.

“For five long innings the eighteen men battled back and forth, first one side and then the other having a slight advantage,” The Post-Star reported on Sept. 7, 1920. “But at the end of the fifth inning, (with the score tied), owing to the fact that Umpire Walsh of Syracuse was getting weak from standing in the center of the diamond, a halt was called in the proceedings.”

More than 100 union members and guests attended the Sunday afternoon outing nearly a century ago.

Other activities included running and jumping races.

The menu featured sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, sweet corn, fish, sausage, bread, clams, lobster and “King watermelon.”

A good time was had by all on the holiday weekend when no Monday morning newspaper was published.

“It was a happy gang that walked along the dirt road to the car trucks, and it was a happy day for a happy lot of men, for they had partaken of the best bake they had ever attended,” The Post-Star reported. “All seemed sorry that the year 1920 could bring forth but one bake, but all seemed anxious for the new year to be born and the months roll by until Labor Day comes again. For then there’ll be another bake of bakes, and once again a body of pleasure-seeking men will sit around the bake-board and partake of another delicious repast.”

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