Photography: Greatest photographs not taken

[sphere and ash]

Not only is there no photograph of Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie Robinson, there is not a single mention of it in the contemporary press.

[bobfreedman]

Urban legend?

[sphere and ash]

There is some speculation that the event never happened. However, that’s how Jackie Robinson remembered it. I added that it wasn’t mentioned in the press to defend my conjecture that there hasn’t been a significant, newsworthy moment since Ray Chapman that hasn’t been photographed; if this event had been considered newsworthy at the time, it would have been mentioned.

[Dewey]

http://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/fa...robinson-in-47

A good article on the Pee Wee and Jackie question. Lester Rodney, writer for the Communist paper The Daily Worker, remembers the event though he only wrote about it many years later.

[TCMA]

In terms of pre-1920 historically significant moments, the closest we may come are the posed shots of Opening Day festivities, World Series opposing players and managers shaking hands, Chalmers Award (MVP) presentations, Honey Boy Evans trophy (highest BA) presentations, etc.

Images of these moments differentiate themselves from the standard portrait or full body news service photo because we can easily pinpoint specifics. For example, here's a shot from the HOF website of Eddie Collins receiving the 1914 AL Chalmers Award in Philly before the 1914 World Series. I spy 5 HOFers between the two teams, though there were more present:

https://baseballhall.org/discover/in...-award-is-born



And here's Honus Wagner receiving his Honey Boy Evans trophy in 1909. BTW, the HOF website notes that the trophy was presented in Pittsburgh, which is incorrect, it was presented in NY - which reminds me I've been meaning to get in touch with them on that:

[TCMA]

John McGraw and Pants Rowland before the 1917 World Series, with Bill Klem:

[prewarsports]

As to my point number (3), the Leica I became available to photographers in 1924-1925 and was the number one innovation in portable photography ever. It made high quality images available via 35mm film. I believe this innovation and those that followed led to many of the more "historical moments" being photographed as cameras overnight went from large clunky devices to something you could fit in your coat pocket, stay for the whole game, and still make the evening papers. Just my opinion.

[prewarsports]

Again, the examples being shown are awesome but ALL Pre-Game images to my point above. Photographers basically did not stay for the actual games which is why the famous moments were not photographed. Many of these early photographers by all accounts were not even sports fans, they just saw business opportunities or were assigned to events by the paper. They might shoot the World Series one day and then not do another sporting event for weeks and cover local beauty pageants and politics (where they would also show up, take a few shots and get home for dinner).