Opening Day Auction Closing May 9th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/10/2015
The public's thirst for play-by-play information from the 1919 World Series was such that millions of fans across the country stood outside newspaper offices to follow the games as they unfolded. The method used to transmit the latest plays was not by radio but by giant "Player Boards" mounted to the front facade of buildings. Featuring a large-scale representation of a baseball diamond, operators moved players and a little ball around the board to replicate the action unfolding many miles away in Chicago and Cincinnati. In this fashion millions of "spectators" across the country watched almost in real-time as Rads lead-off man Maury Rath was hit by pitcher Eddie Cicotte. This was the signal, transmitted to by player boards across the country to countless bookies that "the fix" was in. These photographs were originally assembled by the “Address Standard Ball Player Corp,” of New Bedford, Massachusetts to promote their Magnetic Baseball Player Board. A post card size advertising card in the album highlights their product as, “The only base ball player board with the rolling ball and swinging bat, The best by test: no lights ..no strings simple and inexpensive to operate, used by over 200 newspapers…”.
This leather bound volume collects thirty-two original photographs, most of them taken during the infamous 1919 World Series. The photos document the use of the company's player boards in a wide variety of cities across the United States and Canada including New Bedford, MA.; Tampa, FL.; Springfield, OH; Clarksburg, WV; Lynn, MA; Atlantic City, NJ; Winnipeg, Canada; Hamilton, OH; Waterbury, CT; Sharon, PA; and Newport, RI; and Fitchburg, MA. The 1918 World Series is also depicted in a few photographs with Babe Ruth in the line-up for the Boston Red Sox. Another photograph pictures a 1916 player board labeled as the “First Patent,” depicting line-ups from the Red Sox and the Philadelphia. Photographs measure in the range of 7" x 9" and 3 1/2" x 4 1/2" and each photo is mounted on a black album page with some pages having photos mounted back to back on the same page and other pages displaying two smaller photos mounted on the same side of a page. A truly unique photograph album depicting the most notorious sporting event in history and the unsuspecting crowds who followed every play.