The National Game

Everyone knows this is Mudville.

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Booklet, 1905: Rules and Regulations Governing The Contest For The Professional Base Ball Championship Of The World. If you've seen another copy of this booklet or have done any kind of research around the National Commission and the 1905 World Series, I'd like to know about it.

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Mike Donlin with the Cincinnati Reds at spring training, Augusta GA, 1903.

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Members of the 1897 Baltimore Orioles vs the All-Americas team. At seasons end in mid-October through December these two teams played a schedule of exhibition games, beginning in the east and ending in the west.

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@GraigKreindler Matty is 😍

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Patsy Dougherty, 1904 New York Highlanders. Dougherty played left field for the Highlanders in an outfield that included Wee Willie Keeler and John Anderson.

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@CSmithGolf Photos like the Mathewson are relatively rare, but auction houses are your best bet—Leland’s, RMY etc. @LOTGAuctions is another good one.

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Packing for a move and sorting photos. Three early Christy Mathewson Type 1s: 1902 Bain, 1902 Bain, 1903 Hemment.

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J. Franklin "Home Run" Baker, NY Yankees 3B, c.1916. Photo: Charles Conlon

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@GraigKreindler I'm not into white sneakers and I have only one ancient coin, but aside from baseball I've collected brass trains, 19th-cent Brooklyn horse racing, fountain pens, Disston saws, Hudson Valley bricks...it's endless really...

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October 13, 1906: World Series, Game 5. Chi NL vs Chi AL. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the 1st, Steinfeldt grounds to SS Davis; Chance out at 2B; Isbell throws wild to 1B, Hofman and Schulte score. Despite the early lead the Cubs lose the game and, next day, the series.

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The 1884 Providence Grays, depicted in a supplement issued in the pages of the Rhode Island Sunday Dispatch newspaper. This was Radbourn's 60-win season, with the Grays winning the NL pennant and the World Series over the New York Metropolitans.

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Here's Charlie (top row, far left) in the same Freeport uniform at 1897 spring training with the Pirates.

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Charlie Kuhns, in uniform c.1896 with the Freeport, PA BBC. Kuhns made it to major league ball, playing one game with the 1897 Pittsburg Pirates, and seven games with the 1899 Boston Beaneaters.

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Walter Johnson warming up at Fenway Park, 1920.

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@AndrewAronstein @MarkArmour04 @tshieber @Dto716 @ZBDigitalibrary @SABRbioproject @ManCavePhotos Just saw this. I don't think it's McGann either. Would lean toward Ames, which I saw someone else guess above. Here's a similar shot of him, also showing the tiny mitt he used in this era

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Big Ed Walsh pitching vs the Boston Red Sox at South Side Park, Chicago on June 7, 1910. Joe Wood beat Walsh and the White Sox 7-6 in 13 innings. Early in-game snapshots don't get much better than this.

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HOF Hughie Jennings (sitting 4th from left) coaching the Cornell University baseball team, 1904. Jennings studied law at Cornell while coaching and passed the Maryland bar exam in 1905.

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South Side Park, Chicago, c.1905: No True Lover of Base Ball will Risk Any Injury To The Players or Interfere With the Game by Throwing Bottles Into The Field. Source: Chicago Daily News

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Interesting artifact: NY Evening Journal envelope, date-stamped 1915, addressed to former Metropolitans/Giants manager Jim Mutrie (c/o wife) living on Staten Island, from from ex-player-turned-sportswriter Sam Crane. That's likely Crane's signature at the top---a rarity.

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@michaelsclair Monte Cross

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Researching the great early-1900s jockey Walter Miller, I already knew he played amateur baseball, and that he knew John McGraw and sometimes worked out with the Giants. But still a small fun surprise to find McGraw as a personal reference on Miller's 1924 passport application.