Postcards

Nothing captures the classic baseball stadiums of the mid-20th century better than postcards, which in the 1930s and 1940s, were made of linen and featured rich colors. Postcards became wildly popular in the early 1900s when it became possible to write messages on the backs. During their heyday, postcards were so popular that the postal service struggled keep up with the demand. Postcards depicted a dizzying array of ballparks in big cities and small towns in every corner of the country. Displayed here are postcards of Ebbets Field, Polo Grounds, Crosley Field, Forbes Field, Briggs Stadium and many others ballparks that exist only in memories today. Linen postcards were gradually replaced the Kodachrome color postcards of the 1950s as the printing of color photography became less expensive.

Player postcards date back to the Deadball Era. Pictured below are a rare 1907 Wolverine postcard, three 1920 Cincinnati Reds postcards, three 1938-39 Reds postcards, a 1948 Boston Braves Team postcard, and an assortment of player postcards from the 1950s. While most major league teams in the 1950s made B&W postcards of players, the striking Dormand color postcards were introduced in 1953. Pictured here are Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Also displayed here are postcards issued by the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Browns, a Spic 'n' Span postcard of Del Crandall (mid-1950s), a Bill & Bob's postcard of Lew Burdette

(late 1950s), three Reds postcards from the mid-1950s, and a group of 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers postcards, which shows a team in transition that surprisingly won the World Series that October. The images on the latter, which include Hall of Famers Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, were mostly captured in the L.A. Coliseum, where the Dodgers played until their new stadium at Chavez Ravine opened in 1962. Drysdale is pictured in Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, where the Dodgers had at first planned to play in 1958 before deciding on the Coliseum.