I don’t believe that the absence of any significant, newsworthy moment prior to October 1920, nor their ubiquity after that date, has anything to do with automatic film loading or advancing. I believe it has something to do with technology, but that technology already existed by 1917; there was just no need for it in baseball photography until October 1920. There is something else that created that need.
There was at least one photographer at the Chapman-Mays game, from the New York Daily News. I think it’s likely, however, that he left before the beaning, either because he had what he needed or because he had to meet a deadline for an evening edition.
One can never say that no photograph of a historic moment before October 1920 will appear because of the problem of induction, but I think it is extremely unlikely. I tried to comb the Daily News’ photo morgue to see if they had a photograph of Chapman, but couldn’t gain admittance. I’ve been through all of the Daily News’ paper archive for 1920, however, and there was nothing about it, so I doubt it’s there.
Last edited by sphere and ash; 09-16-2018 at 08:20 AM.
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