Art Wilson was a Bloomer from 1906 to 1908 and had a nice big league career. I love that his T207 calls out his time here in Bloomington, IL.

Check his SABR bi:

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/art-wilson/

Butch Henline was a Bloomington Bloomer in 1919 and went on to have a solid big league career. In 1922 he became the first big league catcher to hit 3 home runs in a game. After his playing days ended, Henline went on to have a nice career as an umpire. As an ump, he was the first to eject Jackie Robinson from a game. I’ve included a link to his SABR bio below. This is his 1933 Mrs. Sherlock’s Home Made Bread pin from his time with the Toledo Mud Hens. Little bit of Bloomers. Little bit of oddball!

One of my projects is collecting cards, photos, autos, and other random memorabilia of players with some relationship to Bloomington-Normal, IL - esp. minor league teams from 1887 to 1939. Here is a 1914 B-18 Blanket of George Moriarty. George played for the Bloomington Blues in 1902 and went on to have a long and varied big league career. He was a player, a manager, and an umpire at various points. He was also a newspaper columnist, a songwriter, and a poet! He was known as a tough guy who once fought 5 White Sox players at once when he was an ump. A sportswriter said old George was losing it because he fought those 5 fellas to a draw. You can read more about George at his SABR bio (link below). As an aside, his grandson is Michael Moriarty, who played Ben Stone on Law and Order, among other roles.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/george-moriarty/

Ed “Rube” Kinsella was born in Lexington here in McLean County, IL. He played for the Bloomers in 1904 and 1905. He has the “10” on him in photo 3 (1904) and “11” in photo 4 (1905). He pitched for the Pirates in 1905 and for the Browns in 1910. I love this auto I recently found. Towanda is right down the road and the inscription is priceless. The photos are from old Spaulding yearbooks. It’s been an option to get images of teams and of players that didn’t make it to the big leagues.

Wacky binder page from my Bloomer collection.

From top left…Elam Vangilder - Bloomer 1917. He won 99 games over 11 big league seasons - mostly with the STL Browns. Andy Woehr was a Bloomer in 1921.Andy played 63 total big league games in 1923 and 1924. The bottom sig and the snap are of Walter “Boom Boom” Beck. Boom Boom played 12 big league seasons and was a Bloomer in 1925. The snap is from 1932 during his time with the Memphis Chickasaws. I love that it has “Boom Boom 28 years old” on the back. Like his mom or grandma wrote it.