Bierbauer, 2nd Base, Philadelphia Athletics, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1889

Curator: This baseball card, dating back to 1889, is part of the "Old Judge" series by Goodwin & Company, designed as promotional inserts for Old Judge Cigarettes. It features Bierbauer, a second baseman for the Philadelphia Athletics. It's striking in its simplicity. Editor: My first thought is how sepia-toned and dreamlike the print is. There’s a romanticism to it. It really transports you back to the late 19th century. I can almost smell the tobacco! Curator: These cards weren’t just about selling cigarettes. They played a part in popularizing baseball culture. Think of them as proto-social media: instantly accessible images creating and reflecting celebrity culture. Editor: Baseball as an emergent religion, then? Here is Bierbauer as saint-like figure, his posture, frozen mid-swing, practically iconic. I'm also struck by the slightly awkward rendering of the motion— the ball seems oddly placed. It suggests the artist might have worked from individual still photos rather than live observation. Curator: Exactly. These cards highlight a critical intersection between sports, marketing, and early photographic reproduction technologies. They contributed to the construction of a very specific American mythology. Editor: The backdrop also looks carefully posed to conjure something rustic and “old timey”. I’m wondering about how staged and deliberately crafted these images truly were. Beyond just a portrait of Bierbauer the ballplayer, the composition evokes something beyond the baseball field. Perhaps a bit about what the 19th Century thought of as good ole times, and also how sport itself creates these mythologies of past times. Curator: And notice, Goodwin and Company didn't just passively reflect society, it also sought to mold tastes. It shows the relationship between emerging mass culture and the strategies used to capture audience attention. This image, even at this scale, captures a much larger set of historical forces. Editor: Agreed. This small photograph holds an entire world, or rather, it projects an idealized vision of an era gone by that carries on. It encourages us to look deeper at what and whom society chooses to remember and celebrate.