The incredible fun of identification and detective work in photography.

[Lucas00]

I would like to tell my Story of identifying where and when this snapshot of Pepper Martin was taken. My first shot with a beautiful border on it!

I debated making this into a full post but thought it would be a fun read.

With the help of a friend I have identified the exact location and within a very short time period it was taken. Not only is it an amazing story but also has a bit of historical significance.

First we started with the sign above Peppers Head. Faultless Hat Cleaners, Leo L Anderson. Using a resource I didn't know existed, (which was used for all of the articles and ads I'll be referencing.) Newspapers.com. We found the exact location. 24 W Ohio st, Indianapolis IN. This was immediately followed by confusion, why was Pepper Martin standing in the middle of Indianapolis Dressed head to toe in full uniform? No big league teams exist as im sure many keen readers will have immediately thought as well.

I then dated the uniform from 1931-1932. My first thought was, being so early in Peppers career this likely has to do with his 1931 world series demolition show and his newly established overnight household presence around the United States. Which on a bit of a tangent Pepper hit .500 with 12 hits 5 sbs and a home run while the rest of the team barely hit .200. He led the team to a world series win in essentially his rookie year..

I then took a read through Peppers Sabr bio. Major Kudos to sabr. As always they have incredible info about players other hobbies and unknown doings. In the article it is mentioned that Pepper was invited to go on a vaudeville (essentially a theater/comedy show tour) making $1500 a week or $30,000 a week today. Very shortly after his series heroics, Only 3 weeks after to be exact. Using newspapers.com And some keyword searching I found the tour and I found various articles and advertisements for the shows. All of them refer the Lyric theater, which is not even a minute away from where this photo of pepper was taken. Though I'd also like to note there was a theater right beside where Pepper is standing in the photo called the Ohio Theatre of Indianapolis. So they likely had shows there as well or it could be a crazy coincidence.

On the tour was also three guys you might know by Curly, Moe and Larry. The Three Stooges.

Pepper absolutely hated it to say the least. He quit the gig after just four weeks, saying, “I ain’t no actor, I’m a ballplayer.”
Imagine quitting A $30,000 per week gig type job in a time when ballplayers made essentially a regular wage. Just shows how strong his feelings and resolve was. The papers also reported his lack of "Sparkle" on stage. And calls it a poor act. He Definitely was not meant for the Red Carpet!

So now we can come up with a pretty concise date the photo was taken. Three weeks after the series, was October 31st. With Pepper only staying on the tour for 4 weeks. This would leave the time period taken as one day in November, 1931.


I hope everyone who took a read through my post might have some newfound passion in attempting to identify a photo they own!

Huge shout-out to my friend Jerry who helped me and used his Newspapers.com account. A seriously amazing service I wasn't aware of and would recommend subscribing to if you are into photos and have some you would like to act like Sherlock Holmes with.