August pickup thread

[Kawika]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

“Because his skin is black he can never play on any but itinerant colored nines that at best eke out a hand to mouth existence.
With all its insurmountable handicaps, baseball is not the place for Matthews.
He should begin the battle for life somewhere else.”
And so he did.

Very powerful words expressing the prevailing attitudes of another time.
Your post piqued my interest. I have access to a website which offers scans of old high school and college yearbooks. Unfortunately there are usually a lot of years missing. Best I could do for Matthews was a citation for lettering in baseball in 1903 which indicated he was in the class of 1905. As it happens the 1905 yearbook, which presumably would have his graduation photo, was not available. I did see a few 1905 Harvard scorecards on eBay that listed Mathews on the roster.

ETA: Upon further perusing I stumbled across a photo of "The Varsity Nine" in the 1903 yearbook.