Andy, Gonzo, beautiful job of sleuthing! This is exactly what we were suggesting in our previous post, but
we wouldn't have put money on anyone coming up with the photo sources for the images, let alone this quickly.
Absolutely, Sheckard's torso and most all of the guy on the far right in the A's picture are what's pasted repeatedly
into the assemblage for the artwork printed on the colored strips. The faces of Baker, Collins, Davis, and Hartsel
are also copied from the A's team portrait and pasted onto those body templates. We'd bet the Cub faces
are taken from the same team photo that provided Sheckard's torso.
It'd be nice to know where the Cub legs and Overall's pose came from, too, but the bigger questions remaining
are why and when these little collages were actually done. Were they made in 1910, or a great many years later?
We're completely confident they weren't made for any commercially-produced game, but might someone
have constructed them for a homemade game? Or were they cut out of a box housing some other
commercial product -- candy, cigars, baseball equipment, underwear? Were they decorative features
on a schoolboy notebook? A lot of possibilities...
|