Baseball History Comes Alive

Great Baseball Photo Collections, Part One: The Leslie Jones Boston Public Library Collection

Gary Livacari

1 month ago

Scroll Down to Read Today’s Essay

Subscribe to Baseball History Comes Alive for automatic updates. As a Free Bonus, you’ll get instant access to my Special Report: Gary’s Handy Dandy World Series Reference Guide!

The Leslie Jones Boston Public Library Baseball Collection Photo Gallery

Click on any image below to see photos in full size:

Fred Frankhouse, Al Simmons, Red Barkley, Buddy Hassett, Casey Stengel, 1939 (colorization by Don Stokes)

Arky Vaughn and Eddie Miller, 1939 (Boston Public Library collection)

Tony Cuccinello and Wally Berger, 1936

Guy Bush, 1936

Jim Tabor, Tony Lupien, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, 1942

Bobby Doerr, Buddy Rosar, Ted Williams, ca 1945

Bobby Doerr, Babe Dahlgren, 1941

Billy Herman and Frank Demaree, 1935

Ralph Hodgrin, Buddy Hassett, Max West along with some Braves’ wives and girlfriends, 1939,

Enos “Country” Slaughter and Al Simmons, 1939

Carl Hubbell and Jim Turner, 1938

Pepper Martin and Albie Fletcher, 1935

Chief Bender and Bobby Shantz, 1951

Babe Dahlgren and Jimmie Foxx, 1941 (from the Leslie jones Boston Public Library collection)

Babe Ruth with manager Bill McKechnie, 1935

Babe Ruth Carl Reynolds, and Lou Gehrig, 1934

Babe Ruth and wife Claire, 1935

Babe Ruth in dougout, ca 1934

Billy Werber, 1938

Lefty Grove, Joe Cronin, Wally Moses, Jimmie Foxx, and Doc Cramer, 1937

Wally Moses and Connie Mack

Art Shires and Hack Wilson,1932

Harmon Killebrew, Jim Gentile, Norm Cash, Rocky Colavito, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, 1961

Old TImers Game: Smoky Joe Wood, Cy Young, Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, 1946

Red Sox club house featuring (l to r): Ed “Bull” Durham, Wilcey Moore, Bob Kline and Paul “Ivy’ Andrews, 1935:

Great Baseball Photo Collections, Part One:

I was honored this past weekend to give a PowerPoint presentation at the annual SABR convention in Minneapolis highlighting the Leslie Jones Boston Public Library Baseball Collection. Today I present the first of a three-part series on the greatest baseball photo collections. In Part Two, I’ll show selections from the George Brace collection, and in Part Three, the Charles Conlon collection.

The Leslie Jones Boston Public Library Baseball Collection

Leslie Jones was the sports photographer for the Boston Herald-Traveler from the 1920s into the early 1950s. The vast majority of his work was from baseball’s Golden Age of the 1930s. During this long span, he amassed a photographic collection of the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves of close to 3000 pictures. Almost all of the photos were taken at Fenway Park or Braves Field.

The collection was stored away in the recesses of the Boston Public Library and was largely forgotten. In 2011, someone from the Boston Public Library rediscovered this treasure trove. But there was one problem: Almost all of the players in the photos (other than the obvious star players) were unidentified. The Boston Public Library then contacted The Society For American Baseball Research (SABR) asking for help in identifying the pictures. I was asked to join the team headed by author Mark Stang tasked with identifying the players in the photos.

Many players were easy to identify, but others required massive amounts of research, time, and effort. It always gave me a wonderful feeling of satisfaction when I could positively identify some obscure, long-forgotten ballplayer from the ’30s or ’40s who would otherwise be totally lost to history.

This historic collection included many individual and small group shots, team pictures, fans, gag shots, action shots, locker room shots, celebrities, players’ wives, umpires, front office personnel…you name it…if it had anything to do with Boston baseball during this period, it’s in this collection. The collection provides a wonderful “taste” of baseball as it existed during this golden, bygone era, and also serves as a great slice of “Americana” from the ’30’s and 40’s.

There are some extremely rare photos in this amazing collection, including some never-before-seen pictures of star players like Ruth, DiMaggio, Williams, Foxx, Cronin, and Grove. There’s a lot of shots of Ruth from his last year 1935 as a member of the Boston Braves. Since the collection covers both the National League (the Braves and their NL opponents), and the American League (the Red Sox and their AL opponents), many lesser-known and largely forgotten players from both leagues are featured in the collection.

I thought it would be fun to post some of the best from the collection. The featured photo above is one of my favorites: Casey Stengel with some of his 1939 Boston Bees players, wonderfully colorized by Don Stokes. Check out the photo gallery above to see some of my favorites from the collection. Other players in the photo are: Fred Frankhouse, Al Simmons, Red Barkley, and Buddy Hassett.

Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: All from Boston Public Library Leslie Jones Collection; Colorizations by Don Stokes

Subscribe to our website, Baseball History Comes Alive with over 1500 fully categorized baseball essays and photo galleries, now surpassing the one million hits mark with over 1,204,000 hits and over 950 subscribers: https://wp.me/P7a04E-2he

Share on Facebook

Exit mobile version