Photography: Greatest photographs not taken

[lumberjack]

The pre 1920 photos concentrated on the ceremonial: a flag raising, meetings at home plate with umpires or team captains, the size of the crowd for an important game...that sort of thing.
We have a couple of astounding group shots of the all star teams. For example, the group put together for the Addie Joss tribute game and for the series of exhibitions against Connie Mack's Athletics prior to a World Series.
Don't forget the action shot of Ty Cobb sliding into third against Home Run Baker that supposedly exonerated Cobb of intentionally spiking Baker (although if you look closely at Baker, he appears to be at least two feet to the outfield side of third as Cobb approaches the base). This makes you think Cobb ran the bases like an ape.
If you lived in New York City in 1910, there would have been 228 major league games played between April and October. That's 2052 innings. At some point, a lot of editors might have said, "Haven't we done enough of that this year."
Beanings....I have a Paul Thompson credited shot of Geo. Moriarity being carried off the field when he was with Detroit (the circumstances of his injury are not explained), but beanings, let's face it, happened a lot. A minor leaguer, John Dodge, had been killed a few years earlier, but it doesn't appear to have been big news.
Charles Conlon, who seems like a very formal soul, might not have taken a photo of a prostrate Ray Chapman....Weegee, had he been doing baseball, probably wouldn't have had any problem with capturing the moment. Attitudes changed....
There is a shot of an unconscious Babe Ruth from the twenties, Mickey Cochrane in 1937 in New York, and plenty of shots of an injured Pete Reiser. There are more.
Finally, the Detroit Tigers sympathy walkout. I had no idea even one photo existed of the players leaving the field until I looked at this thread.
Al Travers, the unfortunate who pitched that day for Detroit, said in an interview years later that his photo had been in the paper the following day. This was significant to him in that his mother was convinced union goons would converge on their house. There doesn't appear to be a photo of the one-day Tigers, which is a pity.
lumberjack