Teaching With Documents, Volume 1

Contents:

It’s in the Cards: Archives and Baseball

Baseball cards are part of the experience of millions of Americans. They are the physical embodiment of dreams and thus usually represent a solid and positive part of childhood memories. Even if we ourselves have never saved, flipped, or collected cards, we know someone who has or continues to do so. The current card-collecting craze furnishes evidence of its allure for both young and old.

Picture cards supplied with the purchase of merchandise go back at least to the 1880s, when sepia-toned, cardboard-backed photographs of sports stars began to accompany certain tobacco products.

By the 1930s, chewing gum and other manufacturers had also entered the market, but it was not until 1952 that the first really modern baseball cards like the one pictured here were issued. These cards, manufactured by Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., of Brooklyn, New York, were 2½ by 3½ inches and provided color photographs of each major leaguer on one side and full statistical and biographical data on the other.

They proved small enough to fit into a T-shirt pocket or back pocket, large enough to contain entrancing facts, eye-catching enough to provide visual appeal, and sturdy enough to withstand flipping contests and inventory reviews. In short, they were just what kids wanted.

Baseball’s Appeal

In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of different developments widened baseball’s appeal. Teams expanded, both in number and location of franchises, and an even greater audience was reached when networks began to televise major league games. The infusion of outstanding black and Latin players raised the caliber of play. Growing numbers of affluent and impressionable youngsters became interested in the game and wanted reminders of the heroes they saw, heard, or read about. Topps was willing to provide those reminders to the baby boomers—along with its bubble gum.

Consequently, within a few years, Topps, using scouts to canvass and sign all likely major league prospects, controlled the bubble gum card industry. Today the company has multibillion-dollar sales, largely from its continued dominance in the sale of baseball cards.

The player depicted in one of Topps’ 1959 issues is Saturnino Orestes Arrieta Armas "Minnie" Minoso, a Cuban who played his first professional game as a member of the Negro National League’s New York Cuban Giants.

Minnie, as colorful as his many names and—as the document’s statistics suggest—capable of generating hits, stolen bases, and runs in profusion, was one of the first truly dark-skinned Latin Americans to play in the big leagues. Before Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues, only the lightest-hued Latin Americans were admitted to the majors, whatever their abilities.

Playing in a distinguished and often brilliant fashion, Minoso, "the Cuban Comet," performed primarily for the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox until his active playing career ended in 1964. In 1976 and again in 1980, while serving as a coachwith the White Sox, Minnie put in token playing appearances, possibly making him the only person whose big league playing career technically spanned five decades.


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Black Players

Major league baseball was so transformed during the period in which Minoso played that, while in 1950 only five major league teams had integrated, by 1959 every team had at least one black player. In the 20-year period 1949-1969, the National League, quicker than the American League to integrate in order to take advantage of the new source of talent, named a black or Latin-American player as "Rookie of the Year" 10 times and as "Most Valuable Player" 15 times.

Of the 407 players represented in Topps’ initial full card series in 1952, only 16 were Latin-American or black (about 3.9 percent); by 1982, the numbers had swelled to 792 and 230 respectively (29.4 percent). In 1986, one Latin-American country alone, the Dominican Republic, furnished at a single infield position—shortstop—12 major leaguers who played at least half their teams’ games. Ironically, Minoso’s homeland, Cuba, a heavy contributor previously, dried up as a player source to U.S. teams with the advent of Castro, himself a beisbol aficionado.

This card was one of numerous exhibit items featured in a Federal Trade Commission restraint-of-trade action. In this action, Topps’ major competitor, the Frank H. Fleer Corporation, charged that Topps monopolized the bubble gum picture-card industry by signing minor league players to long-term exclusive contracts, effectively keeping Fleer from competing on an equitable basis.

The card’s presence among commission records maintained at the National Archives (Docket 8463; Docketed Case Files, 1915-1968; Records of the Federal Trade Commission; Record Group 122) reminds us that, when the national government plays a significant role in any event, its records reflect that fact.

As a result, the holdings of the National Archives are rich in their diversity. Not merely passive indicators of serious government activity, its documents also reflect values and facets of the larger underlying culture. Thus they need to be examined in that broader context as much as for the light they shed on how a particular agency perceives and executes its responsibilities.

Exercises

1. Duplicate and distribute the document. Ask each student to examine the document closely and give evidence to support answers to these questions:

• What does each abbreviation mean?• What was Minoso’s best season?• Was he fast?• Was he a productive hitter?• Was he a powerful hitter?• Was he a dependable hitter throughout his career?

Some of your students will probably volunteer to find out how Minoso performed during the rest of his career and to share the information with the class.

A good follow-up for this activity is to ask students to plot a graph on a transparency based on categories of the data found on the baseball card. For example, chart the number of Minoso’s singles for each year shown. Demonstrate the results to the class.

2. Baseball is now an international sport included in the Olympic Games. Direct your students to investigate baseball outside the United States to discover which countries have the most active leagues, to account for more professional players coming from Latin America than from Canada and to find out who the outstanding players are from other countries. Discuss the findings in class.

3. If there are any retired ballplayers in your area, ask volunteers to interview them regarding their baseball experiences. The interviews might be published in the school newspaper.

4. Ask students to research the role of minoritiesin professional baseball and share their findings in an oral presentation to the class. The students might choose from the topics listed:

a. The major event that made it possible for Minoso and other black players to enter major league baseball

b. Indicators that demonstrate black and Latin-American playing prowess in the 1950s and 1960s

c. Integration in the National League as compared to the American League and the standing of the integrated teams within the leagues

d. Latin-American and black ballplayers elected to the baseball hall of fame

c. The relationship between integration in baseball and the growth of women’s sports

f. Opportunities and limitations of sports as a vehicle for upward mobility

5. Almost all of us have collected something at one stage or another in our lives. Compile a list on the chalkboard of things that members of the class have collected. Explore the reasons for collecting things by asking the class why they have collected various items. Narrow the discussion to the collecting of baseball cards. Consider aloud with the students such questions as:

a. Why have baseball cards been so popular as collectibles?

b. Why are they issued?

c. What is the big fad in card collecting currently?

d. How do you account for its popularity?

e. How have cards changed physically through the years?

f. How do you explain these changes?

g. What other types of physical forms of cards (3-D, holographic, etc.) have you seen? With what products?

6. Ask students to observe ads featuring athletes and to record the following information:

a. What companies sponsor the ads?

b. What marketing techniques are used?

In a summary paragraph, students should consider why athletes do promotionals and why young people buy the products promoted by athletes.

Optional follow-up activity: Tell students that Congress has exempted baseball from antitrust legislation on the grounds that baseball is a sport, not a business. Ask two interested students to debate the statement: Resolved, baseball is a sport, not a business, and therefore it should continue to be exempt from government regulation.

Bibliography

Some other sources to consult on collecting baseball memorabilia and the phenomenon of baseball in the 1950s:

Boyd, Brendan C., and Fred C. Harris. The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book. 1973.

Clark, Steve. The Complete Book of Baseball Cards. 1976, 1982.

Erbe, Ron. The American Premium Guide to Baseball Cards: Identification and Values, 1880-1981. 1982.

Frommer, Harvey. Rickey and Robinson. 1982.

McLoone, Margo, and Alice Siegel. Sports Cards: Collecting, Trading, and Playing. 1979.

Peterson, Robert. Only the Ball Was White. 1984.

Rosenthal, Harold. The 10 Best Years of Baseball: An Informal History of the Fifties. 1979.

Senzel, Howard. Baseball and the Cold War: Being a Soliloquy on the Necessity of Baseball. 1977.

Sugar, Bert Randolph, ed. The Sports Collector’s Bible. 4th ed., 1983.

Sullivan, George E. The Complete Book of Baseball Collectibles. 1983.

Topps Baseball Cards: The Complete Picture Collection, 1951-1985, A 35-Year History. 1985.

Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy. 1983.

Vernon, John, and Richard E. Wood. "Baseball, Bubble Gum, and Business: The Making of an Archives Exhibit," Prologue 17, no. 2, Summer 1985.

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Chicago: "It’s in the Cards: Archives and Baseball," Teaching With Documents, Volume 1 in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. United States. National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989), 192–196. Original Sources, accessed March 28, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=2LYTMAUUI6GDUTA.

MLA: . "It’s in the Cards: Archives and Baseball." Teaching With Documents, Volume 1, in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, edited by United States. National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, Vol. 1, Washington, D.C., National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989, pp. 192–196. Original Sources. 28 Mar. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=2LYTMAUUI6GDUTA.

Harvard: , 'It’s in the Cards: Archives and Baseball' in Teaching With Documents, Volume 1. cited in 1989, Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. , National Archives Trust Fund Board, Washington, D.C., pp.192–196. Original Sources, retrieved 28 March 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=2LYTMAUUI6GDUTA.