Catchers and pitchers report to Clearwater, Florida today for spring training! #PhiladelphiaPhillies

Peck and Snyder’s late 19th century catalog,  Price list of out & indoor sports & pastimes, has all the equipment any athlete could need.

Peck & Snyder.. Price list of out & indoor sports & pastimes. [New York, N.Y. : s.n., not before 1889]

In honor of Election Day in the United States, we #Flashback to 1860 with this political cartoon titled The National Game, Three “Outs” and One “Run”, which compares the results of the 1860 presidential election with a completed baseball game influenced by the candidates’ position on the extension of slavery. 

The winner, Lincoln, representing the “Wide Awake Club,” holds a rail-shaped bat labeled “Equal Rights and Free Territory,”  and stands on “Home Base,” giving pointers to his competitors: Constitutional Unionist John Bell of the “Union Club” with his “Fusion” bat; Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas of the “Little Giant Club” with his “Non-Intervention” bat; and Southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge of the “Disunion Club”, holding his “Slavery Extension” bat, plugs his nose as a skunk sprays at him. 

Speaking in baseball terms, Lincoln declares “you must have ‘a good bat’ and strike a ‘fair ball’ to make a ‘clean score’ & a ‘home run’”. The other players respond with Bell crying “foul”; Douglas pondering his “fusion” not putting a “short stop” to the president-elect’s career; and Breckenridge whining that he shall leave for Kentucky as they have all been “skunk’d.”

The national game. Three “outs” and one “run” [graphic] : Abraham winning the ball. New York: Published by Currier & Ives, 152 Nassau St. c1860. 1 print: lithograph; 33 x 44 cm.(13 x 17.75 in.)

TGI #FlickrFriday This circa 1895 Grand-Stand Base Ball gameboard (top) features an advertisement for Pluto Water, which claimed to be “America’s favorite physic for constipation”. The gameboard was the inspiration for Philadelphia-based artist Jeff Kilpatrick’s bottle-label (below). Both objects were featured in Ephemera! : a 2013 mini-exhibition at the Library Company that displayed contemporary art inspired by Library Company collections. The exhibition was curated by Concetta Barbera and Christian Patchell, and can be viewed here: http://www.librarycompany.org/cartoonist/index.htm

Grand-stand baseball [graphic] : [French Lick, Ind.?] [ca. 1895]

Pluto Water. Jeff Kilpatrick. 2013