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Honus Wagner Photo Gallery
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Baseball History Comes Alive Tops the One Million “Hits” Mark!
Today, June 10, 2023, at exactly 6:45 p.m. CT, the Baseball History Comes Alive website officially surpassed the milestone one million “hits” mark!
Thank you! -GL
Seven and a half years ago, on January 20, 2016, I launched the Baseball History Comes Alive website. My goal at the time was simple: I wanted to help preserve baseball’s glorious past and rich traditions through interesting essays and photos.
A Little Background…
This journey began back in 2005 when I was the unofficial “identifier-of-old-ballplayers” for the Baseball Fever website, working with my mentor and baseball researcher par excellence, the late Bill Burgess. It was here that Don Stokes and I first became acquainted. Don – also a great baseball researcher as well as a wonderful artist – and I had a lot of fun working together identifying many players in old team photos. It’s a collaboration that continues to this day. It was also during this period when I was asked to become an assistant editor of the SABR Boston Public Library project, helping to identify ballplayers in almost 3000 old photos from the 1930s and ’40s.
Then in 2014, following an invitation from Ron Bolton, the founder of the Old-Time Baseball Photos Facebook page, I became the site’s co-administrator and contributor. I began writing one or two short baseball history essays each week. I never dreamed Ron and I would still be at it almost nine years later and that our following would grow to over ninety thousand readers.
Baseball History Comes Alive is Born!
Following the success of the Old-Time Baseball Photos Facebook page, I decided to venture into “uncharted waters,” and create my own website. Knowing nothing about website construction, domain names, hosting, or SEO, I simply followed the instructions I found on one of those “Do It Yourself” website builder sites. I settled on what I thought was a “catchy” name and selected a highly visible Pinterest photo-friendly theme for the site. After much trial and error…voila!…my first essay for the Baseball History Comes Alive website appeared on January 20, 2016. I then anxiously waited around, wondering if anyone would actually visit the site.
To my amazement, I soon realized I’d stumbled onto an underrepresented baseball niche: fans of old-time baseball who enjoyed reading about baseball history and looking at old baseball photos. The hits started coming, slowly at first, but before long the site began showing significant growth. I billed it under the rather bombastic subtitle, “The Internet’s Number One Site for Old Baseball Photos and Essays,” while sheepishly hoping others would come to agree with my bold claim. And now, here we are, seven and a half years later, and we’ve topped the one million hits mark. Today, if you do a Google search for “Baseball History,” this site comes up on the first page.
Thank You!
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all my loyal readers whose continued positive feedback has always made my humble efforts to preserve baseball’s glorious past worthwhile. I’d also like to thank my regular contributors (especially Bill Schaefer and Michael Keedy), and my guest contributors, all of whom have helped me “carry the load.” They’ve all added much quality to the website. Special thanks also to my Old-Time Baseball Photos partner, Ron Bolton, and to our resident baseball artist, Don Stokes, who has always been very generous in allowing me to use his outstanding artwork.
To celebrate the happy occasion of surpassing one million hits, I hope you don’t mind if I nostalgically repost my very first Baseball History Comes Alive essay and photo gallery which appeared on the day the website was launched, January 20, 2016:
Honus Wagner in the 1940s
“Bowlegged, barrel-chested, long-limbed… he was often likened to an octopus. When he fielded grounders, his huge hands also collected large scoops of infield dirt, which accompanied his throws to first like the tail of a comet.” –From the Honus Wagner biography on BaseballLibrary.com
Recognize the “Old-Timer” on the right? I’m sure you do…it’s none other than the great Honus Wagner in one of his many seasons as a Pirates’ coach. Not sure of the exact year,but it’s probably from about 1942-46. He’s giving batting tips to a couple of young Pirate “whippersnappers.” On the left is Jim Russell, who played for the Bucs from 1942-51; and on the right is Frank Colman, a Pirate from 1942-46.
The famous Honus Wagner baseball card.
Here’s a few words about the career of the great Honus Wagner:
“The Flying Dutchman” played 21 seasons in the major leagues (1897 to 1917). He started with Louisville (1897-1899) and then the rest of his career was with the Pirates (1900-1917). Wagner managed the Pirates in 1917, and then became a coach for 39 years. He was the hitting coach from 1933-1951. Arky Vaughan, Ralph Kiner, Pie Traynor (player-manager from 1934–1939), all future Hall of Famers, were some of the notable “pupils” of Wagner.
Over his Hall-of-Fame career, Wagner hit .329, with 3400 hits (7th all-time), 101 home runs, 1732 RBIs (21st all-time), 722 stolen bases (10th all-time), .391 on-base percentage, and .467 slugging average. He won eight batting titles (tied for the most in National League history with Tony Gwynn). He was a five-time National League RBI leader, five-time stolen base leader, a six-time slugging leader, and was the star of four Pirates pennant-winning teams (1901, ’02, ’03, ’09) and the 1909 World Series champions. His number 33 has been retired by the Pirates. He was selected to both the major league All-Century team and the All-Time team. In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Wagner as one of the first five members. He received the second-highest vote total, behind Ty Cobb and tied with Babe Ruth.
There has always been much debate as to who was the better player, Cobb or Wagner. Cobb is frequently cited as the greatest player of the Dead Ball Era, but many of their contemporaries regarded Wagner as the better all-around player, and many baseball historians consider Wagner to be the greatest shortstop ever. Cobb himself called Wagner “maybe the greatest star ever to take the diamond.”
Gary Livacari
Photo Credits: RMY Auctions, and from the Charles Conlon collection, the George Brace collection; and public domain.
Information: Excerpts edited from the Honus Wagner Wikipedia page
Statistics from Baseball-Reference.com
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