BASE BALL (circa 1890)

These town boys, barefoot and in overalls, pause for a team tintype (1890’s). Perhaps one of them will go on to play for the Oswego Starchboxes or the Chicago Orphans (now the Chicago Cubs). 

Interestingly, Lewis and Clark’s return journey home from the Pacific Ocean included playing a game of “Base” (a form of Baseball) with the Nez Perce Indians? Interestingly, Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr., who some consider the “Father of Baseball”, made an ‘expedition’ out west (in 1849) to teach the game of Base Ball across the new continent….from New York, to California, and even to Hawaii? Ponder the truth of famed Apache warrior, Geronimo, while a prisoner at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, engaging in a game of baseball. 

Two years prior to sculpting this piece, I was perusing the internet, and Googled, ‘images of the old west’. The photo of these boys, Indiana glass factory workers, from 1910, came up. I was so moved by the spirit of the image….I saved it in my research files for over a year, and was later inspired to create this sculpture in clay.

SCOTT ROGERS