A major daily newspaper I worked at in the mid 1990s had a great library of first-generation and wire photos from the turn of the century. My duties as a copy and layout editor for the Sports department had me pulling file photos on almost a daily basis. You would be shocked at the manilla folders 2, 3 and 4 inches thick dedicated to photos of Cobb, Ruth, Shoeless Joe, etc. Routinely there were multiple photos of the same pose, many in pristine condition. I spent a lot of time browsing those folders.
This was at a newspaper in the South that never had an association with Major League Baseball. I can only imagine what rests in the bowels of newspapers in big-league cities.
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