Photography: Greatest photographs not taken

[sphere and ash]

Tom—I was actually referring to a different photograph, but the Conlon image of a player leading off first against the Cubs in 1908 is another example. I actually own the photograph, so I have a real incentive to push for the Merkle identification, but I believe very strongly that it’s Herzog and not Merkle.

I hadn’t thought of some of your examples, but like them all.

Ken—here’s the Homer in the Gloamin’.

[bobfreedman]

I wish there was a photo of Pee Wee putting his arm around Jackie walking off of the field

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by bobfreedman

I wish there was a photo of Pee Wee putting his arm around Jackie walking off of the field

Interesting you should mention that moment. After watching '42' I googled that image, as well as the images of Robinson and Chapman making up and a few others. The Robinson/Chapman photos do actually match up with the movie well, but as you say, it's disappointing to not find the Reese/Robinson.

[Bibitte2]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Interesting you should mention that moment. After watching '42' I googled that image, as well as the images of Robinson and Chapman making up and a few others. The Robinson/Chapman photos do actually match up with the movie well, but as you say, it's disappointing to not find the Reese/Robinson.

I have the Story in here boys...

[sphere and ash]

Not only is there no photograph of Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie Robinson, there is not a single mention of it in the contemporary press.

[bobfreedman]

Urban legend?

[sphere and ash]

There is some speculation that the event never happened. However, that’s how Jackie Robinson remembered it. I added that it wasn’t mentioned in the press to defend my conjecture that there hasn’t been a significant, newsworthy moment since Ray Chapman that hasn’t been photographed; if this event had been considered newsworthy at the time, it would have been mentioned.

[Dewey]

http://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/fa...robinson-in-47

A good article on the Pee Wee and Jackie question. Lester Rodney, writer for the Communist paper The Daily Worker, remembers the event though he only wrote about it many years later.

[TCMA]

In terms of pre-1920 historically significant moments, the closest we may come are the posed shots of Opening Day festivities, World Series opposing players and managers shaking hands, Chalmers Award (MVP) presentations, Honey Boy Evans trophy (highest BA) presentations, etc.

Images of these moments differentiate themselves from the standard portrait or full body news service photo because we can easily pinpoint specifics. For example, here's a shot from the HOF website of Eddie Collins receiving the 1914 AL Chalmers Award in Philly before the 1914 World Series. I spy 5 HOFers between the two teams, though there were more present:

https://baseballhall.org/discover/in...-award-is-born



And here's Honus Wagner receiving his Honey Boy Evans trophy in 1909. BTW, the HOF website notes that the trophy was presented in Pittsburgh, which is incorrect, it was presented in NY - which reminds me I've been meaning to get in touch with them on that:

[TCMA]

John McGraw and Pants Rowland before the 1917 World Series, with Bill Klem:

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

Tom—I was actually referring to a different photograph, but the Conlon image of a player leading off first against the Cubs in 1908 is another example. I actually own the photograph, so I have a real incentive to push for the Merkle identification, but I believe very strongly that it’s Herzog and not Merkle.

I hadn’t thought of some of your examples, but like them all.

Ken—here’s the Homer in the Gloamin’.

Thanks, I was more thinking of the hit itself, but I know that's a lot to ask

[SAllen2556]

This was 1910 wasn't it? Not really a famous moment, but this was the one I thought of when you mentioned famous action shots.

I'd be curious if any photos of the 1919 World Series show any "fishy" moments. Seems like there'd have to be one.

ty-cobb-072015-sn-ftrjpg_73dsfqts1kwj1nynns7ewt0bv.jpg

[sphere and ash]

Yes, it was 1910, but Conlon didn’t photograph the play because it was significant; it’s significant because Conlon photographed it. Despite nearly forty years taking baseball photographs, Conlon never photographed a newsworthy moment; he was primarily a portrait photographer.

The 1919 World Series helps support my conjecture: there isn’t an image of Morrie Rath being hit by Cicotte’s first pitch. During the 1920 World Series, by comparison, there are photographs of the triple play and the grand slam home run; the entire game was chronicled.

[steve B]

I don't know camera history well enough, but I suspect large film rolls and auto advance weren't available until well after 35mm became the standard.

I can give a bit of a glimpse at why any important event from the 70's on was probably photographed.


A friend of mine worked at a camera shop that had a number of pros as clients. One did semi freelance work for one of the Boston newspapers. They'd give him a list of shots they wanted for articles, plus if anything special happened they'd pay extra.

It seemed like a cool job, but after looking for the photo credits I was amazed at how many nice shots he got. So I asked how.

The answer was that he always brought 3 cameras that had auto advance and worked from either a 1000 or 3000 image roll of film. He often ran two at once, and took somewhere around 10,000 images each home game.

He'd usually have the rolls developed and remove the shots the globe wanted keeping the rest. So if say "Yaz batting" was on the list they'd get every frame he took during his at bats.

When something special and unexpected happened he usually gave the paper the entire rolls of film undeveloped. I forget what it was exactly, but on particular one he actually left the game and brought the film directly to the paper. They developed it and had the picture in the afternoon edition, well before anyone else. yes, he was paid pretty well for that one.


I'd love to find his file of negatives, assuming the weren't tossed out at some point.

[Runscott]

Well-said Steve.

Most of the greatest photos taken in the early 1900's were not of famous plays, but rather of famous players. The cameraman set up to maximize his chance for success, but we've all done that and ended up with garbage. In today's age of iphone photos, many people forget the time that was spent setting up a shot - lighting, depth-of-field, etc. for a roll of film that gave you 24 or 36 shots and you had to wait a while to get the prints back, and then you had to hope they didn't screw them up. If you look up what Ansel Adams did to set up a shot you'll get the extreme version, but a Charles Conlon effort was much closer to Adams than it was to a photographer even from the 1970's, much less a millennial with an iphone.

[GKreindler]

I've gotta imagine that there are still some amazingly historic photos out there that will come to the public eye soon, whether it's through private collections or photo morgues...they just gotta...I hope.

That being said, I'd say the Chapman Mays incident is definitely a biggie in terms of significance. I've definitely never seen any shots from that game, but considering there's no shortage of photographs from the 1920 Yankees season (especially because of Ruth), I feel like somebody must have taken a shot of it, Afterall, when the beaning happened, Ruth was sitting on an astounding 42 home runs, and the Yankees were in the middle of a pennant race with Cleveland and the White Sox. So with the former coming to New York for the last time that season, it had to be considered an important series.

I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. I bet that photos were taken of the incident, but maybe they're long gone. And that's whether they were never published by any papers, or were and the negatives/prints were trashed at some point.

FWIW, I would also LOVE to see an image of Rath getting beaned during the 1919 World Series. What saddens me is that we know that less than twenty years later, having a photograph of the first pitch in the World Series (many times the first pitch for each game) was often done. And, at least by '36 or so, those photographs were often taken from behind home plate with the outfield in clear view. Can you imagine how cool it would have looked to have a photograph like that of Rath facing Cicotte? Even if he got plunked with Eddie's second offering, I just think the significance is insane.

Pair that with a photo from the Chapman beaning and you have two of the major hinge points to the coming of Babe Ruth's celebrity.

Man, I love this game. And for sh!t sure I'd love to paint either one.