Galleries
54 pieces across 6 galleries. Open a section to read the stories; each piece links to notes on its issue and its player.
"Shoeless" Joe Jackson
My fascination with Joe Jackson began in high school, when I wrote a paper on him and the Black Sox for U.S. History in February 2002. The cards, magazines, catalogs, schedules and photographs here place him in his own time: the Cleveland star, the White Sox slugger, and the man the game banned for life.
Black Sox & Associates
The eight men out, their manager, and the gamblers and witnesses who orbited the fix of the 1919 World Series. Read together, these pieces tell the story of baseball's darkest October.
Deadball Era
This section prioritizes E-series caramel and D-series bakery cards. The heart of it is the 1909–11 American Caramel set (E90-1): colorful candy cards that came with hard caramel, claiming "100 subjects" on the reverse while more than 120 are known. Joe Jackson's consensus rookie lives in this set, which is why it is the focus — that, and the look of the issue itself, with its painted backgrounds and the scarcity that comes from short prints and candy-store survival. Around it sit other caramel and bakery survivors collected the same way: story, eye appeal, and original distribution scarcity over checklist completion.
19th Century
Tobacco cards from the 1880s, when the game was young, the cards were photographs pasted to cardboard or lithographs inserted in packs of cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
Greg Maddux
Greg Maddux, “The Professor,” was my childhood favorite player, which is why he has a gallery here when almost nobody else from the modern game does. I collect him the way I collect the vintage: earliest and scarcest issues first, then a little Atlanta game-worn gear that ties to the same story.
Other
Pieces outside the core themes of the collection. Many of these are likely to move on.
See also: Issues & players reference · Research.