- Series: Pioneer Portraits I: 1850-1874
- City: Philadelphia
- Team: Athletics (NABBP)
- League: National Association (NAPBBP)
Alfred James Reach (1840-1928) “served baseball with distinction as player, organizer, club owner and provider of the equipment to attain the highest possible skill in the game” per his own Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide upon his death. “A good man, of the kindest impulses, his name will last as long as we have baseball” expressed the legacy of one of the great men of the early era of America’s game. The London-born, Brooklyn-raised Reach joked that he made the gloves he eschewed in the beginnings of the game in which he starred for the Brooklyn Eckfords and Philadelphia Athletics. He also made the AL’s balls while owning the NL Phillies franchise. A genius for marketing equipment and a lifelong love of the game made him one of the most influential figures of baseball’s first half-century.
- Began play in the amateur era, then founded the NL’s Philadelphia club in 1883
- Built the first modern ballpark in ’87, then rebuilt it with steel after a fire in ‘94
- Al's brother Bob Reach was a MLB shortstop for 3 games, 1872-1873
- Was the 88th player to debut in MLB
- Series: Pioneer Portraits I: 1850-1874
- City: Brooklyn
- Team: Star of Brooklyn
- League: National Association (NABBP)
Fraley W. Rogers (1850-1881) played at the cusp of the professional era, mostly with the Star of Brooklyn in the old Nat’l Assoc of Base Ball Players. Played the ’72 (championship) season for the Boston Red Stockings, compiling a decent .276 average in RF. Sadly, Rogers is the earliest known professional ball player to take his own life, by gunshot at age 30.
- The Star of Brooklyn was a breeding ground for talent in the 1860s
- ’72 marked the end of the “Knickerbocker Era” and the start of professional ball
- Fraley’s brother Mort Rogers was a National Association umpire who innovated the Mort Rogers’ Scorecards that inspired this series of Pioneer Portraits
- Series: Pioneer Portraits I: 1850-1874
- City: Brooklyn
- Team: Resolute BBC
- League: National Association (NABBP)
Maxson Mortimer Rogers (1845-1881) had a profound impact on both the national pastime and the innovation of the baseball card. Unfortunately, his unique contributions have been largely lost to memory and obscured by history.
Rogers began his sporting life as a cricketer and, by the mid 1860s, had become a prominent star baseball player and executive for Civil War era teams such as the Resolute BBC of Brooklyn. By 1864, Rogers was secretary of the NABBP, baseball’s first professional league, and was elected the league’s first vice-president in 1867.
As a professional printer and entrepreneur, Rogers self-published a weekly sports paper called the New England Chronicle from 1869-1870, devoting substantial ink to the developing game he loved.
By 1871, Rogers was umpiring NABBP games in Boston while self-printing and selling “Base Ball Photographic Cards” at the games for .10 cents a piece (the price was later dropped to .05 cents). Rogers’ stated ambition was to produce a card for every prominent player in the country, but as so few of his cards exist today it is difficult to know the exact diversity or quantity of cards he was able to produce.
The Mort Rogers’ Scorecards were foldable scorecards with an image of a baseball player on the front pane (including the player’s name, position and team), a scorecard in the center two panes for that day’s game, and a group of advertisements on the rear pane. Rogers produced and sold the cards from 1871-1872.
Although there is still great debate over which card or set of cards should be considered the very first, a solid case can be made to declare Mort Rogers the Father of the Baseball Card. Ars Longa pays homage to Rogers’ legacy with this very Pioneer Portraits I series of art cards.
- A testament to his playing prowess is Mort’s inclusion in an 1865 woodcut in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper depicting the “leading players” among NYC clubs (The woodcut includes a black-shrouded Jim Creighton in memoriam and an unidentified non-player thought to be Henry Chadwick)
- Mort’s younger brother Fraley Rogers was an early star in NY and Boston, but had an ill-starred fate as the first pro player to take his own life, at age 30, three days before Mort’s death
- Historian John Thorn, who has done groundbreaking work on contenders for “earliest baseball cards,” honors and cites Rogers’ work as the “first numbered set”
- In Mort’s honor, his Ars Longa card is numbered 60, the last in the set. The complete set will be numbered 1-58 & 60 with number 59 omitted from the series to represent the original Mort Rogers' Scorecards that are likely lost to us.
- Series: Pioneer Portraits I: 1850-1874
- City: Baltimore
- Team: Canaries
- League: National Association (NAPBBP)
John Joseph Ryan (1853-1902) broke into the majors with the Philadelphia White Stockings of the NAPBBP in 1873, their first season in pro ball. The team finished second with a record of 36-17. He played for the cellar-dwelling Baltimore Canaries the following year, the franchise’s last. Ryan went to the New Haven Elm Citys in ’75, their only year in the league. In 1876 Ryan joined the Louisville Grays for their inaugural season. He ended his career in ’77 with Cincinnati. Ryan’s best year was with the Grays in ’76, hitting .253 with his only HR.
- Ryan became a Philly cop and died in the line of duty, while making an arrest in a bar fight
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