Show Something That Could Be in the Baseball Hall of Fame

[gracecollector]

Parts of my item are already in the HOF. These are two 1908 "OUR HOME TEAM" Postcards published by H. E. Smith Publishing, St. Louis. and include one Chicago Cubs version and one Chicago White Sox version.

These were once owned by Alan Jackman, a very early autograph collector. As a boy, he and his brother David spent 9 years (1902-1912) assembling a scrapbook with photos of just about every player, manager and umpire in the majors. The boys cut photos out of Spaulding Guides, newspapers, and - you guessed it - these "Our Home Team" postcards. When it was finished in the fall of 1912, they began taking it to Pirate games in their hometown of Pittsburgh and also traveled by train to other parks in order to get as many of the photos autographed as possible. Their successes included Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and at least 34 other HOFers. Ty Cobb, according to legend, stopped a game and had all his teammates sign for the boys.

Alan became the custodian of the scrapbook and kept it in his possession until 1975. Towards the end of his life, Mr. Jackman donated the incredible scrapbook to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. It was "enthusiastically received by the director and librarian 'who could think of no compilation of autographs to match it'." I like the anecdote that only one player ever refused to sign for the young boy (identity unknown), and he was a non-hall of famer, so in Alan's words "he missed out on his chance to be in the Hall of Fame!"

I've contacted the HOF about the postcards and they've invited me to bring them to the Archives Library and match them to the scrapbook if and when I visit Cooperstown.



Photo of Jackman Bros. Scrapbook from the book "Inside the Hall of Fame."