A Baseball Family Album

Since writing the opening piece (no pun intended) on puzzles, my Deadball Era opus has been framed and now stares at me in my office. I am struck by how these images from 1900 and earlier remind me of a family album.

It is easy to forget that photography was once new, and that some of our ancestors were not schooled as kids on how to pose for the camera. My deadball montage combines images from artists with those of photographers, hired by the companies who made the cards, some to help sell Mecca Cigarettes (”Perfect Satisfaction” — as if nothing could be more heavenly than puffing on tobacco while examining a sketch of Frank Chance, Chicago Nat., or Seymour, Baltimore, or Leach, Pittsburgh, Nat.

Most of the players, even the ones rendered by artists, look straight ahead, into the eye of the camera. Hardly any smile or grin — this posing is serious business. None scowl, either, as if to intimidate opponents. Many pose with their weapons — thick bats, huge catcher’s mitts or those pancake gloves with no webbing. In one row, their white and grey uniforms stand out against a black background, maybe some velvet hanging in a studio. In another row, the backdrops are brightly colored. Some uniforms have the names of cities stitched across the chests — Boston or New York — a few have logos (the familiar large C for Chicago Nationals) — some are just plain, or pin-striped (the Yankees were not the first).

Scattered among the images of these proud ancestors of today’s players, are images of The Game. Only a few suggest movement, the technology was not there yet. So the “action” shots all seem to be posed, too: a firstbaseman stretches for a low throw; a batter swings in front of a standing catcher; a runner evades a tag at second with a slide, or just gets his foot back on first after the pitcher’s pick-off try.

These were the first “web gems” of baseball, moments “recorded” more in imagination, then transferred to an image that would endure. A card featuring Tyrus Raymond Cobb — “free with Miners Extra Smoking Tobacco” — has the 1911 batting champion squinting at a pitch on the way: will he chop at it? Bunt? “He is so fast on the bases that he sometimes seems reckless,” we are told. Cobb had hit .420 and was still just 25, but already he was “one of the greatest ballplayers of all time.” They got that right. His 1911 season was the most remarkable turned in yet by anyone. In those days, that was not easy to look up, so the tobacco card helped spread the message.

There are only a couple team photos — they sold Fatima Cigarettes in 1913. They remind me of an old poem I once wrote about these first images of baseball teams:

They lounge on the grass
Some with crossed legs
Bats strewn every which way in front

Behind them are more ball players
A row or two on rickety wooden bleachers
Sagging from their weight

Usually just a single letter or word
Dots their uniform shirt or cap –
They pose proudly
Like Civil War troops
In front of pitched tents

Some hold weapons of wood
Thick handles and long barrels

Inside a few leather mitts
Are baseballs scuffed white and gray
Like the pictures themselves

In nines they huddle
Or tens or eighteens
Their bearded and mustached faces
Tilt at odd angles
Away from the camera’s stare
And the hidden photographer
Poised to flash

Eyes radiate pride and spirit
For schools or villages
Or towns growing into cities

As uneasy as they are with the wait
They are at ease with each other:
Played together as a team
Sacrificed for a common goal
Pursued an unholy grail
Applauding individual efforts
Tasting collective success and failure:
United they pose

Photos and daguerreotypes
Pieces of metal and cardboard and past
Images of early American communities:
Bridegrooms infatuated with
The old ball game

A Baseball Family Album happens to be the title of my next book, out this spring from Pocol Press (you can google it up). This poem is not in there, but it could be in a future book that collects all my stuff except my “word portraits” of baseball people — which is what Album contains.

I like to think about how these ancestors are much more like today’s players — like us — than they are different. Their baggy flannel uniforms, held together with thick black belts, cover their very human torsos. Very few bare arms are exposed, so we an only guess at the muscles the uniforms hide. What did these guys do to “get an edge”? Chew tobacco … doctor their pitches with God knows what … sharpen their spikes … rub their bats with bones … maybe slip some pads into their pants so they could slide with reckless abandon, then get up, dust themselves off, and focus on the next base. To be honest, none of these guys in my puzzle look like sluggers, and they weren’t, and that’s OK with me. Only the very oldest images show men with mustaches, the “professional” look that dominated baseball in that era included short, neatly-combed hair. Oh yes, these guys are also all white. And, of course, they are all guys.

Kids today might look at this crew and ask, “Where are the blacks and Asians and Hispanics, the beards and the dreadlocks?” I like to think that someday, kids will look at today’s images, and ask, “Where are the women, the Chinese, the Russians?” (It took MLB a long time to “get ready” to integrate racially, so it will be wise not to hold one’s breath while waiting for the gender barrier to be broken. I expect that when it finally happens, someone will write an article about how all the records set when women were not allowed to play, are to be considered “tainted.”)

We have memories
Stories told between generations
Embellished over hot stoves
Recalled every summer
In the grandstand and bleachers
When something out there jogs
Something in here
Where they will live
As long as the Game
Is played

That is one of the big differences between a Baseball family album, and those we all have (I hope) at home — Baseball’s is single-sex, except for the scenes with fans. Kinda like my high school yearbooks — I attended an all-boys school, and later taught in one. My own kids attended public schools, and I think I recommend the co-ed route, but that’s just me.

To be fair, many of my best baseball memories include my Mom and my sister, and later, my wife and my daughter. MLB may remain sexually segregated, but Baseball, Ray, takes in the human race. I think there is something so simple about the game, that it has always had that wide appeal and attraction.

The above is an excerpt from Issue #436 of Gene’s Notes From the Shadows of Cooperstown.  To read the rest of the issue (or past issues), click here.