Recess! Essay - "Things Found in Books: Baseball Cards"
As curator of an historical childrens literature collection, I come across many things youngsters stuck into the pages of a book. One day I opened a book from the early 20th century and three baseball cards fell onto my desk. I remembered collecting baseball cards when I was growing up in the 50's. I saved them in shoe boxes, but unfortunately they have gone the mysterious way of my Jackie Kennedy scrapbook and Little Lulu comic books.
These old cards have a picture of a baseball player on the front, and the last name of the person pictured. On the back is an advertisement for Piedmont, the cigarette of quality. Since the cards were in a children's book, I suppose they belonged to a child, but since these cards came in cigarette packages, I suppose the child was given them by an adult. Supposing, by the way, is one of the most fun things about finding artifacts in old children's books.
I wondered who these players were and I wondered if the cards were worth anything, so I paid a visit to Chris Rodgers, owner of The Baseball Dugout, on University Avenue. According to Chris, these cards were part of an early series of baseball cards issued between 1909 and 1911. Chris also helped me identfy the players, Bill Clymer, Billy Gilbert and Charlie Schmidt.
I could find no information on Bill Clymer. Billy Gilbert played in the majors from 1901 through 1909, and Charlie Schmidt spent 6 years in the majors, from 1906 through 1911. He played with Detroit during their glory years when they were led by the great Ty Cobb.
So, did I find a fortune in the pages of an old children's book? Unfortunately, not. They are old, but, according to Chris, they are in too bad a shape to be worth much. They have scratches; in fact Billy Gilbert has both eyes scratched out. "Maybe a kid would be willing to pay $2 for them," Chris tells me, "just to have something that old."
"Just to have something that old." That is the fun of it, isn't it. The pleasure of having something old, something small and vulnerable, preserved by accident and in ones possession. A small triumph over the destructiveness of time, offering one the opportunity to touch the past in a tangible way. These cards could have been taken to school in a child's pocket, passed from hand to hand, then slipped between the pages of a book.
It makes me wonder where my baseball cards are. Could I have slipped some of them between the pages of a book? Could that book have been given to someone who passed it on to a daughter who gave it to a friend who put it in a cardboard box in the attic where it will be discovered when an old lady dies and sent to a used book dealer who sells it to a library? Could a librarian a hundred years from now open a children's book from the 1950's and watch a Mickey Mantle fall out of its pages? H-m-m-m.
I suppose so.
Rita J. Smith, Curator, Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature
Aired on National Public Radio station WUFT-FM: September 20, 1999
For more information on Recess and for the texts of other essays, please visit the Recess website.
For further information contact Rita Smith, Curator of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature.
