Our Game, the Blog of Official MLB Historian John Thorn

Action shots of early baseball are scarce and before 1884 are typically posed, as in pregame ceremonies, not instantaneous. Recently I came across a midgame photo identified as being taken in Detroit in 1887 and I was delighted to make it the header to my Facebook page, along with a “scraps” color litho of Hall of Fame first baseman Dan Brouthers as my profile avatar. (I change both quite often, so by the time you read this they may have been replaced, so I provide them herein.) But the point of this story is not the evolution of action shots — though it is a fine topic, and I may tackle it before long — but the serendipitous route by which I came to view the wonderful baseball collections of the Detroit Historical Society (https://goo.gl/Qqq370). Many of these holdings were new to me, and I’d like to ramble on a bit about them.

Here’s the “July 4, 1887” action shot from Detroit’s Recreation Park that I displayed on Facebook, which was credited to the Detroit News:

That is a plausible date, but so is 1886, which is the stated date of several photographs seemingly taken on the same day and in the possession of the Detroit Historical Society. Some different angles reveal details not visible in the image above. With its permission, I post a couple of the Society’s watermarked images below, all of them acquired in 1944.