John R McLean

[bgar3]

I am not a card guy so this may already be well known, but in doing some research on the early Cincinnati teams (I am an early book and photo collector), I found a card for John R McLean, the catcher for the 1867 Cincinnati team, who was described in Ellard's Baseball in Cincinnati (1907) as the "first man to stand close behind the bat, with bare hand.", and a "catcher without equal in his day." The card is an N1 1887 Allen and Ginter American Editor's series, and is also in the N35 series. Mclean was the editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, and later became part owner of the Cincinnati team and editor of the Washington Post. His photo in the Ellard book seems to be the one the N1 card is based upon. Apparently it was only a severe facial injury that kept McLean from being a catcher on the more famous 1868 and 1869 teams. As an aside, I highly recommend the Ellard book as an early baseball history reference.