Quote:
Originally Posted by Patsy Tebeau
It's a bit hard to tell given that the1872 rendering of the uniforms on threads of our game is only 1 and a half circles in the accuracy rating, and that the only photos I could find of them in 1872 was with them wearing those coats over the uniforms so it is possible it could have been them. I know 1873 has the word athletic across the chest as we can see in the studio photos but I think looking at what we can see from the images of the 1872 teams the top part of the shirts that are visible doesn't appear to have any sort of logo poking out where as these uniforms have them all the way at the top of the chest. The site I found it on had it labeled as so, and I think the one player does resemble meyerle a bit but the more I look into this I'm not entirely convinced myself so good catch there. Though there were occasions where they wore multiple uniforms like for example the Baltimore Canaries so we can also possibly assume there could be a missing documentation of another uniform but without solid proof I wouldn't jump to conclusions.
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Craig Brown, the illustrator of Threads of Our Game, is meticulous about including sources that support the uniform illustrations. These can be excerpts from contemporary newspaper articles or photos that have been carefully confirmed as showing a particular team. (Group photos are best for that purpose.)
There have been many photos and tintypes of old baseball players offered for auction or on ebay, with the claims that they are images of major league teams or well-known major league players, that have been debunked on sites like this one. In the 19th century and early 20th century, it was a standard practice for amateur teams to have at least one group photo taken each year, and especially in the 19th century, it was common for individual amateur players to go to a photo studio in uniform to get a keepsake of themselves. Most of the early baseball photos that turn up in estate sales and antique shops do
not have famous players or teams in them.