Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Origins of Baseball - eBay Purchase

Lately I've been craving reading up on the history of baseball and seeing those old baseball photos from the 19th century. So I found myself on eBay picking up this set of 100 cards illustrating just that. This set is chock full of funny named teams, big mustaches and Hall of Famers I've never heard of!
Can anyone name this park? I don't know either. This card is the last of the set and it doesn't really talk about the picture. It looks like some building named "Washington Heights is perched on top of that cliff back there if that helps.
The Boston Beaneaters (what does that even mean??) was the most successful team of the 1890's taking 5 National League pennants during that decade.
Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949. He had a record of 239 - 130 and had 6 20 win seasons in a row. His Chicago Cubs won 4 pennants and 2 World Series with Brown leading the team. It says on the back that at age 7 Mordecai accidentally stuck his hand under a corn chopper, slicing his index finger off and badly breaking his thumb and middle finger. His hand was placed in a splint, but he fell on it while chasing a hog around the yard, badly contorting the broken fingers.

3 comments:

zman40 said...

Those are pretty cool. I wonder what year that old ballpark burned down.
I like the close-up on the hand. The commentary on the back is never enough.

James B. Anama said...

Don't know why I've never come upon this blog until now, but you've been added to the Sports Card Blogroll.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama
bdj610

Bay Rat North West said...

That looks like an early photo of the Polo Grounds for the Giants.

Other Hobby Blogs