Harry Wright Scorecard in Clean Sweep

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by GaryPassamonte

Amen, Barry. It's all about the money and similar to cutting up bats and uniforms to make chase cards. Maybe we should cut up the Mona Lisa or the Declaration of Independence so that people could get a piece. Why not? I have to admit to buying one of these sheets because Ross Barnes played in the game. I have never felt good about that purchase.

There are some out there who would gladly cut up the Declaration. Lots of rare cuts .

[bigfanNY]

And they would sell them to collectors trying to piece together a collection of singers of the Decloration of Independence..

[bigfanNY]

But at the same time the marketplace discounts items like:scorecards, programs, yearbooks even Who's who that have multiple autographs. In the last REA I sold a Tiger program that sold for half what I could have gotten by cutting out the Mel Ott signature. Never mind the value of the other autographs. I personally cannot cut these things up but I do not vilify those that do they are just reacting to the market conditions. And until market changes it will continue to happen.

[Baseball Rarities]

I once owned Wright's 1882 scorebook from his days with the Providence Grays. Unfortunately, it has long been sold. I am hoping that it is still intact.

Barry (or anyone else) - When do you think that Wright actually scored these? During the actual games, or sometime afterwards? The reason that I ask is that they are so meticulously done that it seems improbable to me that Wright actually had the time do this during the actual game. I know that the famous Kalamazoo Bat image shows Wright with what seems to be a scorebook in his hand, but I still wonder if he just took notes during the game and transposed them later on, or if he actually was able to create these fabulous scorebooks while the games were actually going on.

[GaryPassamonte]

That's a good question, Kevin. I would lean towards the score books being done in real time. Pitching changes and position player substitutions were minimumal at the time. I don't believe on field strategies were very complex either. Wright may have just been neat and scored the game while sitting back in his easy chair.

[ramram]

I have the June 26 - August 2, 1883 Providence booklet of Wrights.

I think I may have an answer regarding as to whether Harry Wright actually scored the games directly into these scorecards/scorebooks during the game. My answer is that sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't.

In some of these scored games Harry has multiple small tic marks for tracking assists, errors, etc. These were the games he scored during the game.

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In other games, he did not use these multiple tic marks and I believe he scored them on other scorecards and then entered them into the booklet later.

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For further proof I'll digress for a moment. On the back of each booklet, or at least the one I have, Wright has cut down a single scorecard and glued it to the back of the booklet to add a little color.

Back.jpg

I figured that scorecard may hold a clue so I pulled it back as best I could. Sure enough, it has a scored game on it and it's one of the games from my booklet. That game in my booklet did not have the multiple tic marks on it. So, I believe Harry scored that particular game on the individual scorecard and then added it to the scorebook later.

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One more thought, I believe the scorebook Harry is holding in the dugout is actually one of these booklets.

Harry.jpg

He had these trimmed down and gilded before they were put into the the full year's scorebook. You can see where part of his writing is cut off from the top of the scored pages.

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Rob M

[RedsFan1941]

fascinating stuff!