T206 Original Photos - Snodgrass & Dots Miller

[frankbmd]

Just wonderin'

if Snodgrass caught the ball in his bare hand or with that oven mitt.

[Runscott]

Frank, a lot of catchers posed that same way back then. If a ball had been thrown, it seems it would have hit them in the chest.

In the 1880's catchers gloves were sold in pairs - the right-hand glove was fingerless for throwing, and the other glove came with or without finger-tips. The 1885 Spalding ad descriptions are sort of difficult to decipher, describing the gloves as 'left-handed', but 'sold in pairs'. The 1889 Reach Guide is a bit more clear: "Full left hand, made of the best and heaviest mouse-colored buckskin. The full left hand glove with or without sole leather finger tips. Extra thick padding and lined with best Chamois skin. The right hand glove is made without fingers, extra padded."

Addendum regarding the first non-catcher Reach baseball gloves: The 1889 Reach Guide also describes their new fielders gloves ("this season we introduce for the first time"), also sold in pairs. They state "it is soft and pliable that a player can pick up a ball as well with as without it....All professionals are wearing the Fielder's glove."

Unfortunately, my versions of these guides are too old and brittle to make photocopies of the drawings. I'll try to take photos later.

[MVSNYC]

Awesome pics...Miller's bat looks like a tree trunk!

[wonkaticket]

Found these kicking around the net...sorry if you have them already Scott.




I know not T206 what was I thinking...



I have some others just need to add the cards next to them.

Cheers,

John

[vwtdi]

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by wonkaticket

Found these kicking around the net...sorry if you have them already Scott.




Cheers,

John

John, that Wilson is a good example of 'almost, but not quite'. There have been several times where someone has claimed that the T206 'artists' took an 'almost' photo and modified it somewhat to come up with the final T206 image. In most cases we've eventually found the actual photo, which ended up being an exact match. The artists for the T206 set were certainly skilled craftsmen, but they weren't free-handing very much of their work.

Instead, we find that many players had a standard pose that we see examples of repeated over the years. For instance, you can find a zillion examples of Ed Reulbach's famous 'follow-through' pose - all very similar, and spread out over his entire career. Many of them could mistaken as the original photo used for his T206 art - especially some from his Federal League days, which would, of course, be impossible.

[wonkaticket]

I too assumed they "tweaked" them a bit good info Scott. I was on the fence on the Wilson but thought I would pass along.

Cheers,

John

[Runscott]

Simply because some of the non-portraits were such close matches to the photos used, I always felt that 'tweaking' was the exception rather than the rule. Once Steve B explained the detail of how the photo images were transferred to the beginnings of the T206 artwork, that theory made even more sense.

At some point I'll display a card (maybe the Reulbach 'no glove') along with an assortment of the 'close but no cigar' photographs from his career.

Not to further my debate with John D, but because he couldn't locate the original photo for Dots Miller, he (or someone else in the discussion?) said they thought that maybe the T206 art for some 'in action' shots was created by taking a photograph of a different player and tweaking it to look like the intended player. I still don't buy into that theory, and finally locating the Miller photo rebukes it, at least somewhat.

[deadballfreaK]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Just wonderin'

if Snodgrass caught the ball in his bare hand or with that oven mitt.

The catcher in the Meyers photo is using the same technique. Makes me wonder if the pitchers in that era were really that fast compared to nowadays.