John F. Kennedy and Baseball

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Web site is a treasure trove of information of all-things JFK. Little wonder it has numerous baseball-related items digitized and available to the public. Here are just a few highlights.

In his 1935 Choate Yearbook, Jack Kennedy's biography notes that he played baseball during the 1931-32 school year. In later years, however, he concentrated on basketball and (of course) football.

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On June 24, 1960, then-Senator Jack Kennedy wrote to Hank Aaron to thank the Milwaukee Braves star for his help during the Wisconsin Presidential Primary, a critical victory for JFK en route to the Democratic Party presidential nomination. With Aaron suffering through a month-long hitting slump at the time, Kennedy expressed his hope that Hank would "push that average up over the .300 mark." Too bad he misspelled Hank's surname "Aron."

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About two weeks later, just days before the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Kennedy received a letter from former major league star Jackie Robinson. Robinson had originally campaigned for Minnesota senator Hubert Humphrey, but ultimately chose to support Richard Nixon over Kennedy for the presidency. In this letter, Jackie made this interesting statement:

Please, don't consider me presumptious [sic] but I would like to make one suggestion. While trying to impress anyone with your sincerity, you must be able to look them squarely in the eye. I recognize you probably weren't aware of this, but I found myself concerned because you did not do so with me. I purposely challenged you to see what would happen and found your eyes going elsewhere when talking with me. The ability to look a man in the eye is important, at least to me.

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WGN Television broadcaster Vince Lloyd interviewed President Kennedy before the White Sox faced the Senators in the opening game of Washington's 1961 season. It was the first time a sitting president had been interviewed on live TV at a baseball game.

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In his address at the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame Banquet held at the Waldorf-Astoria in December 5, 1961, President Kennedy stated "I will not enter the debate as to whether football or baseball is our great national sport." He then followed up with same comment that he made at the Senators' home opener eight months earlier: "The sad fact is that it looks more and more as if our great national sport is not playing at all -- but watching. We have become more and more, not a nation of athletes, but a nation of spectators."

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Just seven months after Roger Maris hit his 61st home run, breaking Babe Ruth's long-standing single-season record, President Kennedy met with Yankees star at The White House. Maris, national campaign co-chairman of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, exchanged a signed copy of his book "Roger Maris At Bat" for a signed copy of Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage." They also both signed a baseball that was to be auctioned of to raise money for the MS Society. (I wonder where that ball is today.) The visit must have inspired Roger, as that evening the Yankees right fielder slugged his first home run since opening day.

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The day after the first 1962 All-Star Game was held at D.C. Stadium in Washington, D.C., the man that Commissioner Ford Frick called "baseball's perfect knight" visited "Camelot," as President Kennedy took time out to greet Cardinals legend Stan Musial, Stan's wife Lil and daughter Janet.

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On February 5, 1963, Daniel J. Silva, Commissioner of the Cape Cod Baseball League, wrote to John Kennedy asking if the President would "be interested in donating a trophy to be known as the 'President John F. Kennedy Trophy.'" Kennedy's personal secretary wrote back a week later noting that "the President appreciated your thinking of him and he would love very much to donate a trophy for this league but inasmuch as he has received so many, many requests for trophies he had to adopt the policy of not donating trophies."



Today, the league's champions are awarded the Arnold Mycock Trophy.


Cape Cod Times/Ron Schloerb

For those interested, there's lots more baseball-related content at the JFK Library.

Bambino Tobacco

Babe Ruth lent his name to dozens of products during his lifetime: Babe Ruth Ice Cream, Babe Ruth Home Run Shoes, Babe Ruth Caps, Babe Ruth Union Suits, and so many more. The slugger could sell most anything.

 

 

Bambino Tobacco was no different than the rest of these products, except that Ruth did not receive a penny from the sale of these tins.



At the time the tobacco was sold (more about that later), the nickname "Bambino" was synonymous with Babe Ruth. And the product's image of a silhouetted batter was clearly based on the famous slugger's classic swing.



But Bailey Bros., the makers of Bambino Tobacco, never made an agreement with the Babe and got away with the implied endorsement without having to reimburse Ruth.

Scour auction sites for "Bambino Tobacco" and you'll find that numerous vintage tobacco tins bearing his nickname and silhouette have been sold in recent years. When I ran a check in early 2015, auction prices ranged from less than $600 for one in poor condition to a nearly pristine tin that sold for over $5,000.

While these auction sites were eager to sell the collectables, none had a clue as to the date that the product was made:

• Robert Edward Auction stated "circa 1930"
• Hunt Auction stated "c. 1920-30"
• Legendary Auction (formerly Mastro) wasn't even self-consistent, at one time stating "produced during the 1930s" and another "1920s."

So, when was "Bambino Tobacco" available?

The earliest advertisement I could find was in the Baltimore Sun of April 30, 1922:



The ads stopped less than a year later, the latest I could readily track down being found in this advertisement for Peoples Drug Stores in the Washington Post of April 8, 1923 (see lower right-hand corner for mention of Bambino):



By the December of 1923, Bailey Bros. had filed for bankruptcy and Bambino Tobacco was no more.

Will Eno's Unknown Man with a Mustache

In 2011, the New York Public Library published and freely distributed a book titled "Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100." The NYPL described its centennial celebration book as follows:

From Laurie Anderson to Vampire Weekend, Roy Blount Jr. to Renée Fleming, Stephen Colbert to Bill T. Jones—more than 100 luminaries reflect on the treasures of America’s favorite public library. Marking the Centennial of The New York Public Library’s Beaux-Arts landmark at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, now called the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Know the Past, Find the Future harnesses the thoughts of an eclectic assortment of icons as they ponder an even more eclectic assortment of objects. From among the Library’s vast collections, these writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, musicians, athletes, architects, choreographers, and journalists—not to mention some of the curators who have preserved these riches—selected an item and describe what it means to them. The result, in words and photographs, is a glimpse of what a great library can be.

Stephen Colbert penned an essay about a selection of J.D. Salinger letters. Yoko Ono chose to write about a book edited by composer John Cage. And acclaimed playwright Will Eno chose to focus on this photograph from the A. G. Spalding Baseball Collection:


The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library

Eno wrote, in part:

Back when the backyard was the world and everywhere else was far away, I had, like almost everyone else of my height and weight, a baseball card collection. It was only a few dozen cards, none that special, and in no particular order, but it was something real to have and hold, something to refer to when it was raining or my arm was broken. It's long lost and was lost so well that I couldn't even tell you what decade it got lost in.
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Humanity has its troubles and drawbacks, of course, but when you look at the things we cherish and save, we all seem very dear, very clumsy and life-sized. It's in this context, or one very like it, that I would like to highlight, from the A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection, "Unidentified baseball player with mustache, Boston." I do this partly as a Boston fan, and partly as a fan of anonymity. You would think, in the past couple hundred years, someone would've figured out his name. If efforts have been made, he has resisted and remains nameless, or, named, in a way, but named only by an archivist.
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So, by all means, be sure to stop by the Declaration of Independence, ... enjoy the Japanese erotica and make sure to see the first letter home from Christopher Columbus. ... Just don't forget that there was also once, and still remains in some way, an unknown man with a mustache, standing in the sun, playing baseball.

As it turns out, this photo was one of four taken by Boston-based photographer James Wallace Black (1825-1896) that the NYPL has listed as "unidentified." The others are:

1.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library

2.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library

3.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library

Each of these men sat patiently as he was photographed in Black's studio at 173 Washington Street. And, now, each of these men whose names have remained elusive can be removed from the veil of anonymity and identified.

Portrait number 1 depicts the English-born Sam Jackson. Jackson played in portions of just two seasons in the National Association (baseball's first professional league). He filled in for Boston's injured star George Wright for 16 games during the 1871 season, and participated in four games for the Brooklyn Atlantics in 1872. A scorecard featuring this same image of Jackson (see red arrow and expanded detail of the card) was recently revealed to the public in a January 5, 2015, episode of PBS's "Antiques Roadshow."



Portrait number 2 is of the great Ross Barnes. Barnes first burst on the scene as an immensely talented teenage shortstop for the Forest City Club of Rockford, Illinois. This was the same team that produced the great pitcher and eventual sporting goods mogul, Albert G. Spalding. Barnes was arguably the greatest player in the five-year history of the National Association. In 1871 he led the league in runs scored (66 in just 31 games played) and batted .401. The next season he paced the circuit with 99 hits, 28 doubles and a .430 batting mark. And in 1873, he dominated completely: leading all NA batters with 60 games played, 125 runs scored, 138 hits, 31 doubles, 11 triples, 43 stolen bases, and a .431 batting average. In 1876, he led the newly formed National League with 126 runs, 138 hits, 21 doubles, 14 triples and an average of .429. The Spalding Collection at the NYPL features this additional image of Barnes:


The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library

And the nattily dressed gentleman in portrait number 3 is Dave Birdsall, a veteran catcher who gained fame in the 1860s with the great Union Base Ball Club of Morrisania. (Today, Morrisania is better known as the South Bronx, a neighborhood located half a mile or so east of Yankee Stadium.) When Birdsall sat for this photograph he was in his final full season, generally patrolling the outfield for the 1871 Boston Red Stockings. Here's another image of Birdsall:



Finally, the photo chosen by Will Eno is of a ballplayer named Frank Barrows. Barrows played 18 games for Boston of the National Association, batting just .151 as a part-time outfielder. However, it was as a star second baseman in the late 1860s with Boston's Tri-Mountain Base Ball Club that Barrows made his mark in the game. In fact, it very well may be his likeness that graces the cover of "The Base Ball Quadrille" sheet music, published in 1867 and dedicated to the Tri-Mountains, "Champions of New England":


Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection

Compare the two faces:



So while this "unknown man" is now known, worry not, Mr. Eno. There are hundreds upon hundreds of other old baseball photographs that remain unidentified. Then again, their number is dwindling as a stalwart group of baseball researchers do their best to match names to faces.