Messitt, Right Field, Omaha Omahogs/ Lambs, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

This baseball card of Messitt, Right Field for the Omaha Omahogs, was produced by Goodwin & Company for Old Judge Cigarettes in the late 19th century. The card belongs to a series of images of baseball players used as promotional material for a New York cigarette factory. In this period, the commercialization of leisure activities such as baseball generated an appetite for images of popular players. But mass advertising also created a demand for cheap visual material, often at the expense of the athletes themselves. These trading cards helped turn baseball into a widely loved and highly profitable sport. A historian might explore the connections between the tobacco industry, mass media, and sports. By looking at archives of baseball teams, the records of advertising companies, and other such materials, we can reconstruct the social context that gave these small cards such a large cultural significance.