Cap Anson Team Photo With Black Child

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by raulus

You can count me among the group that is uncomfortable with judging historical figures based on current mores and concepts, even though I'm also quite uncomfortable with many of the obviously terrible things that were commonplace in historical society.

Much of my discomfort stems from the fact that I will likely be judged harshly by future generations for things that seem relatively quotidian to me, like driving a car with an internal combustion engine, eating meat, or having 3 kids. Now obviously those things today are very different than being a hard core racist. But 150+ years ago they might not have seemed quite so far apart (aside from the car thing, since cars didn't really exist). But 150+ years from now, my driving and dining and reproduction habits might be viewed just as perniciously as we currently view hard core racists from 150+ years ago.

I also don't have Cap Anson in my collection, mostly because he's not part of my collecting focus. However, I'm sure that plenty of other players in my collection were less than saints.

I will say that I can conceive of stuff that I definitely wouldn't collect because it's so disagreeable to me personally. Nazi stuff comes to mind as an obvious example. Maybe CSA stuff too, because I'm not big on traitors? But it's always a tricky thing to attempt to draw the line, simply because it's so nuanced in so many ways. So I can also understand why others would draw the line in a different spot than I do.

This is the way I look at it.