T206 JACK DUNN....Babe Ruth's 1st manager

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

John Joseph Dunn pitched for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in the late 1890's. In 1899 he won 23
games while losing 13.....his best season in the Majors.

By 1910, when ATC issued this card of him, his playing days were over. He was now the Manager
of the Baltimore Orioles of the Eastern League. Dunn had a good eye for BB talent, and it was he,
who first discovered a local St. Mary's High School kid by the name George Ruth. The Baltimore
Orioles were a formidable team when Ruth was pitching for them and were consistent winners of
the newly named International League. However, in 1914 Dunn had to sell Ruth....and, legend has
it that he referred to Ruth as "my $10,000 Babe"....and so, the "Babe" became Ruth's nickname.

Dunn's Baltimore Orioles continued to dominate the International League, as he discovered many
players, who went on to become Major League stars. Two of these were George Earnshaw and
Lefty Grove. From 1920 to 1924, Lefty Grove won 109 games and lost only 36 for Dunn's team.

There are many more interesting stories regarding the non-HOFers in the T206 set. Well, we can
not flip these T-cards over to read their bios; but, we certainly can search the internet and read
all we want to about them.



TED Z

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Just tossing that out there 'cause you're itching for a fight, big guy!!!!


I agree. That is NOT a horizontal card. And the ones that are horizontal are in series 150.


But a poster will disagree here in a bit...

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

They can argue all they want....I'm more interested in Jack Dunn's story....he's another unheralded T206 Subject.

TED Z

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

Personally, I think of the T206 Dunn as a "diagonal" card (his body is coming out of the bottom-right corner after all)


Steve

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Posted By: RayBShotz

Great stuff as always Ted.
RayB

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Just to add a bit...


Dunn managed in the minors 24 years. He managed Providence in 1905 and 1906. Then Baltimore 1907 through 1914. He moved the Baltimore team to Richmond for the 1915 season, to avoid conflicts with the Federal League. With that conflict gone the following year, he moved back to Baltimore for 1916, and managed them through 1928.

His 24 year record, 2107 wins, 1530 loses, for .579. Nine pennants won in 24 seasons.

Quite a baseball man...

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Posted By: paulstratton

So he's a pitcher making an over the shoulder catch a la Willie Mays then? You certainly wouldn't advocate catching a pop up with your left hand turned like that, it's a surefire way to get hit in the face. Not arguing, just wondering.

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Posted By: john/z28jd

There is no certain way to know if its a horizontal or not unless you find the corresponding picture it was drawn from that either proves or disproves it. Most people were taught that it wasnt one of the horizontal poses by the t206s gods who wrote the bible but we've proven them wrong before. The way his hands are turned and since he wasnt a catcher,I changed my original thinking on it a couple years ago that it was a horizontal but I would no way argue with someone who thought it wasnt. If someone finds this picture of Dunn I'd hope they would share it with the rest of the class

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Posted By: barrysloate

It can't be a horizontal card because if you imagine his body from the waist down, where would his legs be? Either he's standing and reaching for a pop up, or he's completely prone and lunging through the air. I say that can't be a horizontal pose.

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Posted By: RayB

Here's an interesting Dunn/Babe Ruth tidbit:

In 1914, shortly after his 19th birthday, Ruth signed a contract with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League. Because Ruth was not yet a legal adult, Orioles owner Jack Dunn became his guardian. In spring training he acquired the distinctive nickname Babe, a reference to his status as “Dunn’s baby,” and to his rookie status and his round-faced, youthful appearance. Batting for the Orioles in his first professional spring training game, Ruth hit a home run into a cornfield well beyond the right field barrier. A newspaper headline the next day read “RUTH MAKES MIGHTY CLOUT,” foretelling the future.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Thanks for that interesting "tidbit"....this is why I posted this thread. Jack Dunn has a story that has not fully been told.

TED Z

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Posted By: Aaron Patton

...Charles Alexander's epic bio on John J. McGraw goes into good detail (from what I remember) about Jack Dunn. Indeed, a fascinating (and very underappreciated) member of baseball lore.

Best,

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Posted By: David R

Seems horizontal to me unless he's making an over-the-shoulder Willie Mays catch. I agree that without the original picture it's impossible to tell and I also agree that the collecting Gods have no better ability to make this call than any of us unless they had the original picture or some other evidence that we don't.

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Posted By: Clint

I think it's very similar to this picture but from the side of course. Remember back then catching with two hands was a must no matter how they were fielding. My vote not horizontal.

Clint

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Posted By: Ed Ivey

His facial expression looks too nonchalant to be either a diving horizontal or a Willie Mays grab. Still, I can't fathom catching an oncoming fly ball with hands at that angle. I'm so confused.

I will gladly defer to the expertise of Ted and accept the vertical assessment.

Is this how Snodgrass muffed his fly ball?

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Posted By: paulstratton

It's not the catching with two hands I find weird, it's the fact that the only place you see people catching pop ups like that is at a t-ball game.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Let's resolve this ridiculous debate once and for all....here are the six HORIZONTAL cards in the T206 set.
American Lithographic printed these six in their 1st (150 Subjects) Series. The 350 and 460 Series do not
have any HORIZONTAL cards. Jack Dunn is in the 350 Series.

Compare the action poses and the horizon backdrop of any of these six Subjects with the Dunn picture.
And, then try to explain how the Dunn card can be classified as a horizontal card ? ?





Now, can we get back to talking about Jack Dunn's career and/or Babe Ruth's early playing days with the
Baltimore Orioles ?


T-Rex TED

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Posted By: paulstratton

If you say so. It's an odd pose though.

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Posted By: Rob D.

Many times this T206 card of Jack Dunn is incorrectly advertised as a Horizontal T206......not so, the only Horizontal cards in the T206 set are in the 150 Series.

Ted,

If you're so bothered by the horizontal/vertical discussion, then why raise the issue with the first line of your post?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I'm not bothered by the "horizontal/vertical" debate regarding this Dunn card; because, I don't think that
anyone can provide a valid argument that it was designed as a horizontal card.

Why I brought it up in my initial post here ? I don't really know. It doesn't matter anymore......I have
deleted it.


TED Z

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

"If you say so. It's an odd pose though."


I'm not just saying so. Note the 6 horizontal T206's. Obviously, they are horizontal designs, not just because
of the player's pose. But, because of their horizon artwork.

Had American Lithographic intended for this Dunn card to be a horizontal, they would have included backdrop
artwork similar to their 6 horizontal cards.

Incidently, I don't think that Dunn's pose is "odd". He is simply leaning back to catch a pop fly hit back to the
pitcher's mound. Back in the old days, pitchers fielded pop flies hit back in their direction.





TED Z

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Posted By: paulstratton

My "If you say so." was in reference to you asking to get back to the Dunn biographical aspect of the thread. Not in any way trying to infer you didn't know what you were talking about Ted. That being said, that's not how a professional baseball player would catch a pop up, and that is why it strikes me as an odd pose.

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Posted By: Jeff S.

I don't think it's a horizontal pose, but it does line up correctly if you turn it 90-degrees clockwise. The other 6 horizontal cards all have the name/team on the left side.

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Posted By: Matt

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Posted By: Anonymous

I can buy the Shannon. His eyes and arms align. And his body then aligns to his eyes and arms.

The problem I have with the Dunn is that his body doesn't line up with his arms and eyes. If it isn't horizontal, he is bending over backwards to catch a ball falling perpendicular to the ground. If it is horizontal, then his arms, body, and eyes all appear to line up correctly.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Boy, you were right with this one......

"Just tossing that out there 'cause you're itching for a fight, big guy"

TED Z

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

"he is bending over backwards to catch a ball falling perpendicular to the ground"

1st.....a fly ball does not fall "perpendicular to the ground".....it goes up in an arching trajectory and comes
down in an arching trajectory. Therefore, a PITCHER trying to catch a pop fly (or a high fly) near the mound
is going to have some difficulty in judging it (and especially if wind is a factor). That appears to be exactly
the case in this Dunn pix where he is leaning back in preparation to catch this type of fly ball.

2nd....if Jack Dunn was a 1st baseman, then I might be inclined to consider the "horizontal card" argument.
As, he would be in a stretching pose to catch the throw......but, Jack Dunn was a PITCHER during most of
his playing career.


TED Z

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Posted By: pas

If he was trying to catch a pop up wouldn't his glove be turned the other way?

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Posted By: Brian

<<"he is bending over backwards to catch a ball falling perpendicular to the ground"

1st.....a fly ball does not fall "perpendicular to the ground".....it goes up in an arching trajectory and comes down in an arching
trajectory. Therefore, a PITCHER trying to catch a pop fly (or a high fly) near the mound is going to have some difficulty in jud-
ging it (and especially if wind is a factor). That appears to be exactly the case in this Dunn pix where he is leaning back in prep-
aration to catch this type of fly ball.>>

If he is leaning back to catch the ball as you suggest, shouldn't his eyes be looking in the same direction that his body is leaning? Well, they aren't. If one judges the direction of the ball from Dunn's eyes/arms, it is falling perpendicular to the ground. If we agree that balls don't fall that way, isn't the only logical conclusion that the ball is where is eyes are looking -- making this a horizontal card.

I don't really care either way. If you judge the card's orientation from his eyes/arms, its horizontal. If you judge the card's orientation from his body, its vertical. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

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Posted By: Brian

Also, the position argument doesn't matter.

Pitchers catch bunts that are popped up in a basket fashion, generally falling forward. And firstbasemen catch pop-ups.

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Posted By: pas

Try imitating his pose, with the glove FACING you as on the card, and tell me what you think you could catch that way?

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Perhaps my imagination is getting carried away here....My thinking is that Jack Dunn is backing off the
pitcher's mound, struggling in an awkward manner, to catch a wind blown, sky-high fly that is behind
him. If this is so, it is a classic pix of why a pitcher should never field a ball hit in the air in the vicinity
of the pitcher's mound.

And indeed, in the modern game, the pitcher never fields such fly balls.

TED Z

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Posted By: Anthony S.

That Spike Shannon card has always been one of my favorite poses in the set. Very primitive drawing. Gigantic melon. He worked as a Bob's Big Boy sign in the off-season to help make ends meet.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Seems to me that Tedasaurus is taking on challengers 'vertically', head on... instead of giving up on the argument, lying down, and taking it 'horizontally'.


Ted, I told you so. You go rattling the 'horizontal Dunn' cage and look what wakes up.

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Posted By: samuel

edit: shouldn't have contributed to the horizontal/vertical debate.

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Posted By: paulstratton

Jack Dunn played plenty of games in the field so the pose is not as strange as I first thought.

3B Totals 143 0 0 499 3.5 444 178 266 55 18 n/a n/a n/a .890 0.00 --
P Totals 142 118 3,230 378 2.7 355 77 278 23 6 n/a n/a n/a .939 2.97 --
SS Totals 98 0 0 546 5.6 490 208 282 56 39 n/a n/a n/a .897 0.00 --
OF Totals 54 0 0 69 1.3 67 61 6 2 4 n/a n/a n/a .971 0.00 --
2B Totals 35 0 0 138 3.9 124 46 78 14 5 n/a n/a n/a .899 0.00 --
LF Totals 4 0 0 3 0.8 3 3 0 0 0 n/a n/a n/a 1.000 0.00 --
CF Totals 1 0 0 1 1.0 1 1 0 0 0 n/a n/a n/a 1.000 0.00 --
8 Years 477 118 3,230 1,634 3.4 1,484 574 910 150 72 n/a n/a n/a .908 12.40 --
Jack Dunn

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Posted By: pas

Indeed.
Maybe it is a Brooks Robinson type diving play at third.

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Posted By: paulstratton

Mr. Wakefield...graded or ungraded, soaked or unsoaked, that there was well done!

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Posted By: ROBERT ADAMS JR

Actually Dunn was more then a pitcher . His bio states he pitched in 142 games but played 143 at 3rd , 98 at s.s. , 59 outfield and 35 at 2nd , so you could picture him almost anywhere .

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Posted By: ROBERT ADAMS JR

Just noticed similar post a few up . Sorry !

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

You guys can continue this debate till this thread goes into triple digit posts. However, I have not
heard anything that can convince me (and others) that this T206 of Jack Dunn was designed as a
horizontal card. I'll repeat....this Jack Dunn card is in the 350 Series. There are 216 - T206's in the
350 Series, and not one of them is a horizontal card.

Here are indisputable examples of horizontal cards. What distinguishes them as such......

1....the player's horizontally formatted pose

2....the background artwork is horizontally drawn, congruent with the player's pose.
















Is there anyone out there that would like to further this discussion regarding Jack Dunn's career......
and, his mentoring of Babe Ruth ? There is much more to be said about an unheralded player/manager
like Dunn and his close association with the greatest BB player of all time, Babe Ruth.


TED Z

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Posted By: Joann

I think Steve D nailed it in the fourth post of this thread. He is coming diagonally out of the corner. This, to me, makes it essentially a vertical pose.

Diagonal??? Yes. Just like the Speaker T206. It may look like Speaker is leaning back to hit one, but the pose is pretty much the same as his T201 and T3 and in those he is straight up. The T206 has tilted the pose on a diagonal.

So take Dunn and mentally stand him straight up and then compare the result to the photo in Clint's post of 7/30 6:29. Pretty close.

But what is he doing? Posing - just like a lot of the images from the day. I can't think off the top of my head of photos that were actual game action versus warm-up kinds of activities (like many of the pitcher photos that became cards) versus outright poses, but many were posed - which would account for the awkward look that does not seem to relate directly to known game action. The Clint photo above appears posed.

So I think I land on vertical, with a diag tilt.

J

(And Ted, a thousand pardons for continuing the off-track meander of your thread. I can't add much about Dunn - only that I remember reading about him in the Babe Ruth Story but didn't realize it was the same guy as the T206 Dunn until your post. Thanks as always for your contribution to this group.)

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Posted By: pas

IF it is meant to be viewed vertically, why is the letter on the sleeve turned sideways?

TRYING TO ADD EBAY LINK TO AUCTION DESCRIBING CARD AS HORIZONTAL BUT WON"T WORK SORRY

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Posted By: pas

Note how viewed sideways his face is perfectly in alignment with the orientation of the card.

And the placement of his hands makes perfect sense.

And the orientation of the "B" makes sense.

So my admittedly far less informed than Ted vote is for horizontal.

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Posted By: Joe Drouillard

Hello Ted,

This card feels real, looks real and I would swear it is real, but as you can see it is a horizontal 350. So is it a fake?



Thanks,

Joe

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Posted By: Troy Kirk

I am with those that voted for tilted. No fielder in their right mind would lean backwards and use a basket catch to catch a popup unless he wanted to catch the ball with his head. Here are the real possibilities:

1. Horizontal showing a diving catch.
2. Vertical with a tilted photo to get all of Dunn to fit in the T206 card space.

I think if the actual photo used for this pose were found, it would look something like this:

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Posted By: Brian

I agree Troy. Thanks

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Posted By: paulstratton

What about Joe's 350 series? It looks real to me.

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Posted By: ali_lapoint

great thread.

my vote goes to horizontal.

sideways B seals it.

how about that babe ruth?

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Posted By: Anonymous

Now that I look again, maybe the B would go sideways if he raised his arms 90 degrees.