In his National Pastime (2023) article “For Whom the Ballgame Tolls,” Sean Kolodzieg offers the following on the boyhood Cubs fandom of author Ernest Hemingway:
Hemingway was such a fan of the Chicago baseball teams that he ordered “action pictures” of Cubs players Mordecai “Three Fingered” Brown, Jimmy Archer, and Frank “Wildfire” Schulte from an advertisement in The Sporting News.
Sean’s citation for this fun tidbit pointed to The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922, and specifically a letter, circa 1912, that Hemingway sent Charles C. Spink and Son of the Sporting News. Here is the full text of the letter. (Forgive any misspellings and grammatical peccadilloes as Hemingway was just a kid. Plus this was a man known for asserting “the first draft of anything is sh*t.”)
Mr. Charles C. Spink & Son
gentelmen—Enclosed find $.35 for which send me the following baseball action pictures—
Mathewson—Mordecai Brown. Sam Crawford. Jas. P. Archer. Frank shulte. Owen Bush. Fred Snodgrass.
Yours Truly
Ernest Hemingway
600 N. Kenilworth
Oak Park. Ill.
Dating the Hemingway Order
As the letter was undated, it seemed a fun exercise to see whether the specific action pictures Hemingway ordered might be useful in pinpointing a range of dates for the letter. As it turned out, that pursuit was not only successful but unraveled additional insights about the 1909-13 Sporting News (M101-2) Supplements set not previously published and perhaps unknown to most collectors. Before sharing these results, I’ll first provide background for readers who don’t consider the M101-2 set a specialty.
Between July 1909 and December 1913, select editions of the Sporting News included 8-by-10 “action pictures” of 100 different baseball subjects. For example, readers of the October 13, 1910, publication found the Jack Coombs photo (above left) inserted within its pages, and readers of the December 28 Sporting News that same year received John McGraw (above right). Numerous sources, including the Standard Catalog and Old Cardboard provide the specific release dates for all 100 subjects.
That said, and as the Hemingway letter implied, springing for the periodical each week wasn’t the only way to obtain the supplements. Various (but by no means all) editions included print advertisements that offered readers the chance to order these same supplements on demand. Pricing was typically a nickel per supplement with modest discounts provided for larger orders. For example, the ad below appeared in March 10, 1910, editions of the Sporting News.
Clearly it was exactly such an ad that Hemingway would have ordered from though not this specific one. Among other things, the list of subjects did not include Jimmy Archer, Frank Schulte, and Fred Snodgrass, whose pictures had not yet been issued. Here are the release dates of the “Hemingway Seven,” which collectively point to ads on or after December 7, 1911, as ones Hemingway might have ordered from.
- Christy Mathewson – August 5, 1909
- Mordecai Brown – December 9, 1909
- Owen Bush – December 30, 1909
- Sam Crawford – February 10, 1910
- Jimmy Archer – January 12, 1911
- Frank Schulte – March 2, 1911
- Fred Snodgrass – December 7, 1911
The first post-Snodgrass ad I could find came in the January 4, 1912 edition. Happily, this ad also included Hemingway’s three Cubs (Brown, Archer, Schulte) and well as Bush and Crawford. Unfortunately, it did not include Mathewson, whose image had evidently sold out!
Could it be then that young Ernest’s letter reflected wishful thinking? Did he suppose he could order “off menu” in requesting a picture of the Christian Gentleman? Would the Sporting News return Hemingway’s “Big Six” order with only “The Other Six?” And was it this boyhood dream unfulfilled that set the lad down his famously dark path of fistfights and drunkenness? “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” His words, not mine. It turns out, however, there was more to the story.
Whether the Sporting News simply omitted Mathewson by accident in its previous ad, printed new copies, or simply happened on a previously undiscovered stack, Mathewson was once again available in the magazine’s February 1, 1912, edition. For good measure, so were the other six players Hemingway requested. Of the nineteen times an ad for these pictures appeared in the pages of the Sporting News, this was also the only such ad to include all seven players. Therefore, I think it can be said with some confidence that Hemingway’s order came from the February 1 edition of the Sporting News. He was twelve years old at the time.
Down the Rabbit Hole
But why stop there, right? Why not go thru ad by ad and subject by subject to crosswalk every time a given subject was available for order. Yeah, why not!
Not surprisingly, as the ads progressed over time, new subjects became available for order with no real lag. For example, the March 10, 1910, ad included the Gibson-Raymond supplement released in that very issue. More interestingly, but also not surprisingly, some subjects previously available became unavailable, whether permanently or temporarily.
The first ad to omit previously released subjects came October 26, 1911. Only 58 of a possible 69 subjects were listed in that ad. Among its key omissions were Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and the aforementioned Christy Mathewson. Cobb would never again return, while Wagner and the other ten would make anywhere between one and several more appearances in the future.
Cobb, then, was the first subject to sell out, his final ad coming March 30, 1911. Following Cobb, the next set of subjects to reach permanently unavailable status were (in order of release date) Roger Bresnahan, Christy Mathewson, Ed Walsh, Honus Wagner, and “Cobb-Wagner Shaking Hands,” last available for order through the ad of February 1, 1912.
Lost and Found?
Here is a closer look at the eleven subjects missing from the October 26, 1911, ad. As all but Cobb were again available in February 1912, it’s tempting to wonder whether the Sporting News simply ran across stock already on hand or simply returned to the presses to replenish exhausted inventory of these popular subjects.
Related, it would be great to know where all these extra supplements came from in the first place? Were they simply from returns of unsold issues, or did the Sporting News intentionally print extras for separate sale? Either way, a minimum for the number of copies printed per subject would be around 75,000, the approximate circulation of the Sporting News at that time.
I would certainly be interested to learn from readers who know such things whether print runs of the Sporting News were uniform throughout the year or perhaps waned during baseball’s offseason. At least potentially, variance in print runs of the publication could suggest variance in the prints runs of its “action picture” supplements.
Buying in Bulk
Returning to the graphic above, you likely noticed one of the columns, rather than a date, has the header “Wood,” and this is where things get really fun. The ads I’ve shown so far offer the various supplements a la carte style. However, other ads offered readers a whole stack with the purchase of one year’s subscription to the Sporting News. My favorite of these came December 3, 1914, which was more than a year after the supplements ceased their run as magazine inserts.
The advertisement notably offers a “set” of 75 action pictures. The specific ones are not identified, but we can likely infer them to be a subset of the 80 pictures still available as of the previous ad, which ran August 28, 1913.
FREE! FREE!! FREE!!!
As it turns out, ads on printed pages of the Sporting News weren’t the only places “sets” were advertised. While very few seem to have survived into the present, partial sets were also offered on the backs of select supplements. There were three different backs total, known sometimes by the top line of each advertisement:
- Free! Free!! Free!!!
- Do You Want
- If You Are Looking
As these “ad back” versions are very scarce, I don’t know that a complete checklist is known. However, it is known that a given back could be attached to multiple subjects. In my write-up I will focus on one particular subject as a stand-in for the others.
Along those lines, here is Joe Wood as an example of the “Free! Free!! Free!!!” back. Subjects listed and proposed dating will apply to other subjects with this same ad.
The “ad back” Wood was not simply a variant of his standard supplement, which was issued October 31, 1912, as the 84th subject in the series. Evidence of this is that the subjects advertised on the back include all sixteen subjects that were issued after Wood in the series. In fact, the only subjects not listed are seven that can reasonably be assumed to have sold out, the six previously noted plus Napoleon Lajoie.
- Roger Bresnahan
- Christy Mathewson
- Ty Cobb
- Napoleon Lajoie
- Ed Walsh
- Honus Wagner
- Cobb-Wagner Shaking Hands
The “ad back” Wood is also interesting in that many of the subjects themselves have different descriptions than in earlier advertisements. One example is Orval Overall, who is listed as a San Francisco Seal rather than Chicago Cub, reflecting an August 8, 1913, transaction. Still, the best time marker for the “ad back” Wood is that it includes the final subject in the series, Joe Birmingham, whose supplement wasn’t issued until December 11, 2013.
My best guess for the Wood is that it was inserted into the Sporting News shortly after December 11, 1913, in an attempt to A) boost subscriptions and B) dispose of surplus inventory. (The ad itself offered 20 pictures and a year’s subscription for $2 or 90 pictures and a year’s subscription for $4.) I think the strongest possibilities are December 18 and December 25, as the Sporting News seemed to push new subscriptions the hardest at the end of the year, but early 1914 is plausible as well. Notably, the 93 subjects Wood lists are an exact match for an ad in the January 15, 1914, issue of the Sporting News.
DO YOU WANT
Though the dating of the “Free! Free!! Free!!!” backs to 1914 would at least technically clash with the conventional understanding of M101-2 as a 1909-13 issue, proposed dating is somewhat speculative. Such is not the case with the “Do You Want” backs. Two examples are Zack Wheat and Grover Cleveland Alexander.
Like “Free! Free!! Free!!!” these ads include the final subjects in the series, hence automatically date to on or after December 11, 1913. However, their listings differ in two ways. For one thing, there are now only 84 subjects available (though the ads state “SEVENTY-FIVE”), nine fewer than advertised on “Free! Free!! Free!!!” Specifically, the following subjects are no longer available:
- Young-Criger
- Frank Chance
- Nap Rucker
- Hugh Jennings
- Pittsburgh Pirates
- Detroit Tigers
- Ed Plank
- Johnson-Street
- Philadelphia Athletics
More interesting, however, are the statuses of many of the subjects, reflecting a mix of Federal Leaguers, Pacific Coast Leaguers, and retirements. Just a few quick examples from the first column alone are Joe Tinker (Chicago Whales), Doc White (Venice Tigers), and Solly Hofman (Brooklyn Tip Tops).
Where “Free! Free!! Free!!!” merely hinted at 1914 distribution, examples such as Tinker, White, and Hofman date the “Do You Want” supplements to 1914 with positivity. As for exactly when in 1914, that’s hard to say, but my best guess is December, based on two factors. One, that’s when the paper pushed hardest for new subscribers. Two, a significant time would have needed to elapse following the previous offer to result in nine fewer subjects available.
If You Are Looking…
With the “Do You Want” supplements extending the set into 1914, should it be any surprise that even 1915 or 1916 is on the table for its last hurrah? Certainly this “If You Are Looking” ad back shown on this Clark Griffith suggests exactly that!
In something of a package deal, new subscribers not only receive “75 baseball pictures just like the one on which this is printed” but also “a set of five picture postcards [M101-3] showing Ty Cobb, Roger Bresnahan, Walter Johnson, Rube Marquard, and Vean Gregg; a Baseball Percentage Book, better known as a Ready Reckoner, and last but not least, The Sporting News Record Book for 1916.” That last item in particular suggests a late 1915 or early 1916 date for this final ad back.
The Dustbin of History
I’ll close things out with an unhappy thought. The various ads and promotions run from 1909 through the end of 1913 still managed to leave the Sporting News with 93 subjects they couldn’t get rid of. Even a year later, the number was stuck at 84. Fast forward to December 16, 1915, more than two years after the series officially ended, and the Sporting News is still doing its best to rid itself of its extra supplements.
Noting that the number 75 was used on the “Do You Want” backs, even when the listing of subjects was 84, it may well be that the “75” indicated here is a stand-in for any number between 75 and 84. Whatever the number, there’s a very good chance that Shoeless Joe Jackson was among the unwanted. Chances are also high that Jackson, et. al., were ultimately thrown in the trash as subscription promotions switched over in 1916 to a new series of baseball collectibles.
While the thought of a heap of near-mint Joe Jackson collectibles tossed out like yesterday’s news is a disconcerting one, we can perhaps take solace in the words of Hemingway himself from his novella The Old Man and the Sea: “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is.”
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Feel free to check out my raw data from this research, and let me know if you figure out anything cool. Please also let me know if you can point me to any ads I missed in my research.
