Racism and baseball cards

[oaks1912]

Chris,
Absolutely correct. The Remars were distributed one player per week, free of charge, in most East Bay Area (Oakland) markets. However there are period collectors that lived in upper middle class areas (Kensington, Berkeley Hills, Piedmont for example) that do not remember seeing any cards of the black players being distributed at their local markets.

In diverse, middle class areas, such as the Berkeley flatlands, Richmond and East Oakland, all of the players were distributed at the local markets. I don't think the issue was with Remar Bakery, as owner Peter Pedersen sponsored around 100 youth baseball teams in and around Oakland beginning in the 1930's as part of the Remar Baseball League. The problem was likely with a few individual grocery store owners that either disagreed with integrating baseball, or that some of their customers may have been offended.

Three of the cards pictured were definitely tougher to acquire when I first started to build Remar sets 50 years ago. (Woods was the toughest for me to initially acquire) The Wilson card was likely printed in larger quantities due to his popularity with fans, and despite the absence from some retail markets (maybe 5-10%), other markets were likely given larger quantities, and the kids could grab as many as they wanted. Wilson, the last .400 hitter in the Negro Leagues also went on to become the PCL batting champ in '49 with a .348 average.

Mark

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

I was told by an authority on the topic that cards of African-American players in the 1949 and 1950 Remar Bread sets were tougher to find because some distributors refused carry them.

[mrreality68]

And it is still effected today as many collectors will not buy cards of Cap Aanson because of his history of Racism

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

And it is still effected today as many collectors will not buy cards of Cap Anson because of his history of Racism

I had not thought of this, the (for lack of a better term) virtue signaling of commenting on historical dislikes of people long dead seemingly effects the market more now than the current issues of the past. I would believe it does reflect stronger today. Some of the nonsense Stump published on Cobb seemed to affect pricing until many saw through the charade, the movie was a travesty.

That said I am sure there were isolated incidents such as noted on the Remars, but I doubt they were largely embraced. I would think it would more largely affect the pioneers of each sport far more that just players after the fact. If a true issue, then Jackie Robinson should be the most discarded and I see no discernable truth of that.

[Exhibitman]

Boxing provides a useful perspective on this because only boxing sets had cards of black athletes in decent numbers in the Jim Crow era.

There is a definite shortage of four 1910 T226 Red Sun boxing cards: Jack Johnson, Joe Gans, Joe Jeannette and Sam Langford. All were black fighters. No hard evidence as to whether they were short printed by the Louisiana company or simply thrown away when found, but there are very few of each in existence today. FWIW, I do not think it coincidental that every black man in the set is affected and given how few of these cards are out there, I think the intentional SP hypothesis is the more likely one. After all, those fighters were on numerous sets in the 1895-1912 period and those cards are not in such insanely short supply. They are found in the same approximate quantities as the other cards in the sets, which does not indicate a pervasive race-based trashing of cards.

There are numerous examples in boxing cards of black men being treated equal to white men with whom they competed. The most abundant boxing cards from 1921-1948 are Exhibit cards, and there were many black fighters in those sets. Although there was a form of gentleman's agreement after Jack Johnson's reign that kept the heavyweight title in a racial lockdown for 22 years, in 1937 Joe Louis won the title, a full 10 years and a world war before Jackie Robinson's debut. It seems to me that in boxing cards, with rare exceptions, if the man was given a chance to compete and did well, he was respected. Look at the back of the 1948 Leaf Louis card, which says Louis is "considered greatest heavyweight of all time."

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Boxing provides a useful perspective on this because only boxing sets had cards of black athletes in decent numbers in the Jim Crow era.

There is a definite shortage of four 1910 T226 Red Sun boxing cards: Jack Johnson, Joe Gans, Joe Jeannette and Sam Langford. All were black fighters. No hard evidence as to whether they were short printed by the Louisiana company or simply thrown away when found, but there are very few of each in existence today. FWIW, I do not think it coincidental that every black man in the set is affected and given how few of these cards are out there, I think the intentional SP hypothesis is the more likely one. After all, those fighters were on numerous sets in the 1895-1912 period and those cards are not in such insanely short supply. They are found in the same approximate quantities as the other cards in the sets, which does not indicate a pervasive race-based trashing of cards.

There are numerous examples in boxing cards of black men being treated equal to white men with whom they competed. The most abundant boxing cards from 1921-1948 are Exhibit cards, and there were many black fighters in those sets. Although there was a form of gentleman's agreement after Jack Johnson's reign that kept the heavyweight title in a racial lockdown for 22 years, in 1937 Joe Louis won the title, a full 10 years and a world war before Jackie Robinson's debut. It seems to me that in boxing cards, with rare exceptions, if the man was given a chance to compete and did well, he was respected. Look at the back of the 1948 Leaf Louis card, which says Louis is "considered greatest heavyweight of all time."

At about the same time, the same parent company super printed Jack Johnson for T218 as the sole superprint in the set.

[jingram058]

Eracism

[Fred]

Does anybody know if there's a difference in population of the 1916 Zeenut Jimmy Claxton card with respect to any other common 1916 Zeenut card? My thought is that if there's a huge known difference, then it's very possible people discarded the Claxton card due to his heritage. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess there's a higher population of graded 1916 Claxton Zeenut cards (than other players from that year) due to the notoriety of the card.

What about the N172 George Treadway cards? I've found those come up for auction at about a normal pace as other common cards. The price has gone up a little and that's probably due to the information available to the collecting public about the discrimination he suffered. He had a heck of a season in the National League in 1894.

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Boxing provides a useful perspective on this because only boxing sets had cards of black athletes in decent numbers in the Jim Crow era.

There is a definite shortage of four 1910 T226 Red Sun boxing cards: Jack Johnson, Joe Gans, Joe Jeannette and Sam Langford. All were black fighters. No hard evidence as to whether they were short printed by the Louisiana company or simply thrown away when found, but there are very few of each in existence today. FWIW, I do not think it coincidental that every black man in the set is affected and given how few of these cards are out there, I think the intentional SP hypothesis is the more likely one. After all, those fighters were on numerous sets in the 1895-1912 period and those cards are not in such insanely short supply. They are found in the same approximate quantities as the other cards in the sets, which does not indicate a pervasive race-based trashing of cards.

There are numerous examples in boxing cards of black men being treated equal to white men with whom they competed. The most abundant boxing cards from 1921-1948 are Exhibit cards, and there were many black fighters in those sets. Although there was a form of gentleman's agreement after Jack Johnson's reign that kept the heavyweight title in a racial lockdown for 22 years, in 1937 Joe Louis won the title, a full 10 years and a world war before Jackie Robinson's debut. It seems to me that in boxing cards, with rare exceptions, if the man was given a chance to compete and did well, he was respected. Look at the back of the 1948 Leaf Louis card, which says Louis is "considered greatest heavyweight of all time."

Hi Adam, I always lived the t9s. Sadly I sold before the prices went ballistic. Anyhow, they were a.premium and hand ordered , so is there any evidence the black boxers were ordered less frequently? I only remember hearing Johnny Marto was difficult. A short Italian who likely identified as Caucasian for those who don't know the set

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Hi Adam, I always lived the t9s. Sadly I sold before the prices went ballistic. Anyhow, they were a.premium and hand ordered , so is there any evidence the black boxers were ordered less frequently? I only remember hearing Johnny Marto was difficult. A short Italian who likely identified as Caucasian for those who don't know the set

T226 - the black fighters are short printed.

T218 - one of the 4 black fighters is the only superprint.

All other T card sets from the ATC - no evidence of super or short printing of black subjects. If anything Johnson, Langford and Jeanette appear to be more common than most but I don’t think anyone has been able prove the printing was uneven (the ability to request doesn’t necessitate different print runs or mixing sheet layouts; they reserved the right to substitute cards for what was on hand). Johnson appears to me to be the easiest subject in the entire set by a wide margin.

[bk400]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Boxing provides a useful perspective on this because only boxing sets had cards of black athletes in decent numbers in the Jim Crow era.

There is a definite shortage of four 1910 T226 Red Sun boxing cards: Jack Johnson, Joe Gans, Joe Jeannette and Sam Langford. All were black fighters. No hard evidence as to whether they were short printed by the Louisiana company or simply thrown away when found, but there are very few of each in existence today. FWIW, I do not think it coincidental that every black man in the set is affected and given how few of these cards are out there, I think the intentional SP hypothesis is the more likely one. After all, those fighters were on numerous sets in the 1895-1912 period and those cards are not in such insanely short supply. They are found in the same approximate quantities as the other cards in the sets, which does not indicate a pervasive race-based trashing of cards.

There are numerous examples in boxing cards of black men being treated equal to white men with whom they competed. The most abundant boxing cards from 1921-1948 are Exhibit cards, and there were many black fighters in those sets. Although there was a form of gentleman's agreement after Jack Johnson's reign that kept the heavyweight title in a racial lockdown for 22 years, in 1937 Joe Louis won the title, a full 10 years and a world war before Jackie Robinson's debut. It seems to me that in boxing cards, with rare exceptions, if the man was given a chance to compete and did well, he was respected. Look at the back of the 1948 Leaf Louis card, which says Louis is "considered greatest heavyweight of all time."

This is an interesting historical observation.

[Exhibitman]

Thanks.

[sbfinley]

I'll preface this saying that I'm not explicitly saying this card is "racist", but my teenage son was sorting some cards a couple months ago and brought to attention the back of Hank Thompson's 1950 Bowman card. He said, in more words or less: "Was it okay to use the term 'Negro" that loosely?" 1950 was 30 so odd years before my time so without getting in too long of a lesson that night my best response was "well the cards were made for kids to sell bubble gum so yeah... that was pretty tame and kosher for the time." It also gave me a nice segway to start teaching him more about the Negro Leagues as we have since then.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Thanks.

Love the boxing items you show about your cousin.

As for Jack Johnson, I know he dated white women and flaunted it. I saw a documentary on him that insinuated his love preferences affected his boxing career. Would that affect card sales and manufacturing?

Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

And it is still effected today as many collectors will not buy cards of Cap Aanson because of his history of Racism

As a Cubs collector, Anson's issue is more powerful than simple racism.

Many people and players were racist at this point in time as it was socially acceptable, but Anson wielded his power and influence to institutionalize racism as an operating procedure in the game.

That's a major reason racist like Jimmy Ryan is in the somewhat recently created Cubs Team HOF and Cap Anson isn't.

[Shankweather]

Originally Posted by BioCRN

As a Cubs collector, Anson's issue is more powerful than simple racism.

Many people and players were racist at this point in time as it was socially acceptable, but Anson wielded his power and influence to institutionalize racism as an operating procedure in the game.

That's a major reason racist like Jimmy Ryan is in the somewhat recently created Cubs Team HOF and Cap Anson isn't.

As a chronicler of the whole history of Cubs baseball cards, the Anson thing is incredibly tough for me. Anson was a huge star and would be the perfect grandfather of Chicago baseball, except for that whole "who he was" thing. I don't ignore his cards, but instead lean into the Anson/Banks contrast. Anson perpetuated the color barrier and Ernie Banks, at least for the Cubs, broke it. Ernie looks even better in comparison.

And I definitely support the team's decision to leave him out of the Cubs HOF. Now if they would just put in Wild Bill Hutchison and Bill Nicholson.

[ALBB]

and then there were those mid 60s " tract " cards....they were called-
with a religious slant