To get a sense of how popular OJ's were in their day, consider that major league baseball was hugely popular in the 1880's, and that the majority of fans never had the opportunity to ever attend a game. As such, most fans probably had no idea what their favorite players looked like save for a woodcut in a newspaper.
Now consider with the release of the OJ's, fans everywhere now had access to a real photograph of pretty much any player they chose. It's hard to imagine that OJ's weren't immensely popular, if not the rage of the day. For avid baseball fans they were a miracle.
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