Photo Satchel Paige and Joe Louis together
 

Hi All:

I am not a photo collector, but I just obtained a photo showing Satchel Paige and Joe Louis together. See scan below. It is not a wirephoto, nor is it glossy. It is 6" high and 9 1/4" wide.

Can anyone give me background on the photo? Where taken, when, who the third fellow in the shot is, etc.

Any info would be appreciated. Anyone interested in it?

Thanks,

Fred

Nice photo.

VERY interesting handshake, and great photo

Ol' Satch and the Brown Bomber
 

I will take a stab at narrowing it down a bit. I suspect that this photo was taken in Detroit because it appears that Satch has a road uniform and Joe Louis hailed from Detroit. I down know for sure about the uni, but I'm guessing this is circa 1948.

Perhaps the Cleveland experts can weigh in regarding the uniform.

Here you go, just happen to have this in my inventory:

Thanks Hank! I got the year right at least. ;)

Wonder if this was the first shutout by a black pitcher in the majors?

Paige Louis photo
 

Hank:

Thanks for the info on my photo. Even ID'ing the other fellow in the picture.

Since I am not a photo collector help me out here. Yours is obviously a wirephoto. Mine is not and is cropped differently, but it appears to be the same photo.

What is mine? It is on different paper than a wirephoto would be. I assume rights were owned by Acme Telephoto so how could the same image have been reproduced on different paper, cropped etc.?

Does the AMcK on the back of your photo ID the photographer? If so was he "allowed" to reproduce the image?

Any info/education you or others can give would be greatly appreciated.

Fred

That is a great photo.

Hard to say, Fred. I assume yours has nothing on the back, so I would say it's a copy of some kind. The definition looks pretty good, so it might have been done from the negative, but maybe just a good copy from a print.

From Wikipedia:

"The Indians were in a heated pennant race on August 20, 1948. Coming into the game against the White Sox, Bob Lemon, Gene Bearden and Sam Zoldak had thrown shutouts to run up a thirty-inning scoreless streak, eleven shy of the big league record. 201,829 people had come to see his last three starts. For this game in Cleveland, 78,382 people came to see Paige, a full 6,000 more people than the previous record night game attendance record. Paige went the distance, giving up two singles and one double for his second consecutive three hit shutout. At that point in the season, Paige was 5–1 with an astoundingly low 1.33 ERA".

NOTE: The game on August 20th was Paige's career best low hit game in his major league career that he didn't even begin until he was 42 years old because of baseball's color barrier. It also is of special note that at this point in the 1948 season, Cleveland and the White Sox were in a heated battle for the American League pennant...