Cards depicting professional baseball players began to be produced in the 1880s, as a sub-variety of cigarette card. Though some of these were simple head-and-shoulder portraits, there was a greater interest in images of baseball players actually playing baseball. The problem was that camera technology at the time was not quite up to the task of actually capturing action (at least, not without extremely specialized equipment like Muybridge's). The compromise was these posed studio portraits. Baseball players would pose as if throwing, catching, or batting balls suspended on wire. Most, it must be said, were not natural models.
Large numbers of these early baseball portraits are held by the Library of Congress, which has over 2,000 early baseball cards (photographs, lithographs, and half-tone), and the New York Public Library, which holds many cabinet card-mounted versions of the same photographs used for the mass-produced cigarette cards (see, for instance, this mounted print and this cigarette card). This post draws mainly from the higher quality card-mounted prints from the NYPL, but interested viewers are highly advised to check out both collections--even for a non-baseball fan like myself, they are tremendous fun.
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| New York Public Library |
Deacon McGuire, Philadelphia Quakers, 1886-1888. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Unidentified player. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Jack Clements. Source
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| New York Public Library |
George Brynan, Chicago White Stockings, 1888. Source
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| Library of Congress |
Pop Corkhill, Cincinnati Red Stockings, 1888. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Jim Fogarty of the Philadelphia Quakers, 1884-1890. Source
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| New York Public Library |
William Hay [Washington?]. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Deacon McGuire, Philadelphia Quakers, 1886-1888. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Sid Farrar, 1883-1890. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Charlie Sprague, Chicago White Stockings, 1888. Source
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| New York Public Library |
George Pinkey [uniform looks like Philadelphia, but he never seems to have played for them...] Source
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| New York Public Library |
Jim Fogarthy, Philadelphia Quakers, 1884-1890. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Tommy McCarthy, Boston Reds, ca. 1890. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Unidentified player. Source
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| Library of Congress |
Dell Darling, Chicago White Stockings, 1887. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Joe Mulvey, Philadelphia [Quakers/Athletics/Phillies]. Source
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| New York Public Library |
William Gleason, Philadelphia Athletics, 1888. Source
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| New York Public Library |
Eventually they moved outdoors... though genuine action shots were still some ways away. Charlie Bastian and Denny Lyons of the Philadelphia Quakers. Source
1 comment:
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