Page 6 - Lucky Dog Lunch Menu 2019
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The “Lucky Dog” Story
The name “Lucky Dog” originates from the D & M also became well
famous Draper & Maynard Sporting Goods known for its other lines
Company slogan, “The Lucky Dog Kind.” The of sporting goods from
slogan was first heard at Fenway Park when boxing gloves to golf
Babe Ruth spoke to a rookie with a new clubs.
baseball glove. Noting the D & M trademark
depicting Maynard’s bird dog, Nick, the Babe By the 1920s, over
exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve got one of the lucky ninety percent of all major league
dog kind.” To the good fortune of Plymouth’s baseball players used D & M gloves, and
D & M Company, Ruth’s words were overheard D & M employed over 1,100 people in the
by one of their salesmen and shortly Plymouth area. They had established branch
thereafter, D & M had the slogan copyrighted. offices in New York, San Francisco and
Quebec, and they shipped orders worldwide.
In 1881, business partners Jason F. Draper
(1850–1913) and John Maynard (1846–1937) Babe Ruth himself would come to Plymouth
founded the Draper & Maynard Company in to have his baseball gloves custom made. One
Ashland, New Hampshire to manufacture of his more memorable visits came in 1916
buckskin gloves. One year later, the firm when D & M workers gathered around him as
pioneered production of a padded model at he tried to stitch a baseball. After struggling
the suggestion of a baseball player. with it, Ruth finally looked up and said, “I
can hit ’em better than I can make ’em.”
In 1900, D & M accepted a ten-year tax
waiver to relocate their headquarters from D & M closed in 1937 after the death of
Ashland to Plymouth. Using their needle and Maynard, who had outlived his partner
thread expertise, D & M established itself as a by twenty-four years. The D & M factory
major supplier of baseball equipment for building—located at the north end of Main
both professional and amateur Street on the roundabout—was renovated
players. in the 1990s and now houses the Plymouth
State University Art Department.
Plymouth State University’s D & M
Collection features items manufactured
in the Plymouth factory as well as
items from D & M Ltd, the oldest
sporting goods factory in Japan.
The spirit of Nick the “Lucky Dog”
lives on here at the Lucky Dog
Tavern and Grill.
Please feel free to smoke
on our outdoor deck.
