I was excited to pick up this c.1912 type-1 photo of Les Nunamaker. Les was a Bloomington Bloomer back in 1910. Aside from the fact that I was able to score a cool photo of a Bloomer in the big leagues, this is also an early photo of Fenway Park. I did a search of photos of Fenway Park from 1912 and located a good one. The 3rd image of this post shows the same “Gold Seal…” that is visible in the upper-right hand corner of my photo. Kinda neat. You can actually see the fellas painting the wall in the 3rd image.

Thanks to Matt @Cardhound for helping me complete Ducky Davenport’s career run! Ducky was a heck of a player and finished his career in my hometown of Danville, IL in 1953. He was a 5-time Negro League All Star and had some great years in Cuba. These are his 1945-46 Carmelo Deportivo and his 1946-47 Carmelo Deportivo. I would love to find more of his cards! It sounds like there could be some Mexican postcards. Toes are crossed!

Pretty excited to add this Three I League official ball for my Bloomers collection. The Illinois Iowa Indiana (3 I or 3 Eye) League was around from 1901 to 1961. the Bloomers (aka Blues, aka Cardinals, aka Bengals, aka Cubs) were a part of the league from 1902 to 1939. This ball is from the 50s based on Totten being league president. Maybe someday I’ll find an official ball from when the Bloomers were active, but I’m happy to have this in the meantime.

It’s been fun and ridiculously affordable to start a pretty cool collection of autographs of Negro League greats. These are my slabbed and authenticated examples. The Judy Johnson is the most recent pick-up -

Check out his SABR bio to learn more.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/judy-johnson/

1969 Topps Gale Sayers. Love this set and the Sayers! Love the boldly colored, solid backgrounds…and the backs are sharp.