Are these team issued photo set proofs? Not pre-war. Reds

[baseball tourist]

I came across these black and white glossy photos today at an antique market. Look to be 1960's and 1970's Cincy Reds team issued photo sets....maybe proofs? Each image has the player's name tabbed
below his image and you can make out the shadow of the label edge - making
me think that these are photos of an origianl mock up sheet of photos. Some have been cut out from the sheets.

Any info would be appreciated. I know there are many knowledgable photo collectors here!

[Rob D.]

Chris,

Before the digital age arrived, the Associated Press (and other wire services) would mail sheets of athletes' black-and-white mug shots to newspapers at the beginning of various sports seasons. Without knowing what size yours are, I can't say for sure, but at first glance that's what they reminded me of. (And these individual sheets didn't always have an AP attribution on them, so the fact that yours might not be marked "Associated Press" doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility.)

Edited to add: The fact that a few of the photos are cut from the sheets makes me think these are AP-issued photos. Again, before things went digital, hard copies of photos would be "pasted" on sheets in a newspaper's composing room to create a page for the paper. The photos could be removed and reused many times.