OT? T206 era - knowledge of average Joe about baseball
 

Posted By: <b>Rob Fouch</b><p>I live on Long Island but am originally from West Virginia, where there are no professional sports teams. That makes me wonder about how much the average Joe (in 1909) in a rural area like that would know or care about professional baseball. I'm assuming they'd be able to buy the various brands of tobacco with the cards contained in the packs. Would the names of the players have meant much to them? Does anyone have an idea of how widely followed baseball was at that time? Seems like the following would be pretty decent in the big cities, and maybe in Southern Leauge towns. But I don't know how someone in my hometown (pop. 2,000), for instance, would manage to keep up with baseball. Or whether they'd even have the desire to. <br />Any thoughts?

OT? T206 era - knowledge of average Joe about baseball
 

Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>The Major League baseball players and teams were well known to small town and rural people. The locals would read about the games and players in the daily local newspapers, illustrated publications like The Sporting News and Baseball Magazine. There were many books about and by star players like Christy Mathewson and Ty Cobb. Before television and radio, people were more avid readers, following the President, Queen of England and baseball stars through periodicals. No one I know has seen in person Snoopy or Calvin & Hobbes, but millions know of their exploits through the newspaper.<br /><br />I get much of my sports news through reading newspaper articles and box scores. I watch zero golf on tv and in person, but check the box scores to see how the hometown golfers fared. I know about Michelle Wie and other athletes from having read news articles. This isn't much different than the averge Joe in 1909.<br /><br />For 1915 rural 10 year olds who loved to play baseball, you can bet they pretended they were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Cy Young. Just as kinds have pretended they are Superman, Captain Marvel and Tarzan. Even if the kids never saw the players in person, they were the heroes you emulated.