Sullivan, Left Field, Chicago, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1887

Curator: Immediately I notice this sepia-toned portrait, part of the "Old Judge" series from 1887, a baseball card featuring Sullivan of the Chicago team, meant to be included with Old Judge Cigarettes. The Metropolitan Museum houses this particular print. Editor: There's something so captivatingly solemn about this image. It feels very much of its time. Almost melancholy, in a way that belies the vibrancy typically associated with sport. It’s muted, weathered… ghostly even. Curator: Yes, the tones and texture definitely invoke that feel. We’re seeing a blending of the popular passion of the era with capitalist imagery—tobacco. The “Old Judge” brand is clearly presented, so we get an intermingling of sporting and consumerist symbolism here. And the player's direct gaze draws you in, as if he represents something bigger than the game itself. Editor: Right, there's a strange juxtaposition too – Sullivan, an athlete in peak physical condition, being used to advertise a product detrimental to health. Think of the broader context of late 19th-century marketing. It's pushing this ideal of robust masculinity, athletic prowess, whilst simultaneously hooking consumers onto something damaging. Were players even consulted, given their status in society then? Curator: That’s a very insightful connection. Also, this "Old Judge" brand name—conjuring ideas of law and the 'old west'. I can see it as part of a wider, nostalgic ideal, one where images like these functioned to forge, perhaps, an idealized white American identity rooted in frontier symbolism. Editor: Absolutely. And the racial dimension can’t be ignored. Sports history has deep roots in race, and images like this often subtly upheld hierarchies while pushing a singular vision of idealized white American heroism. This baseball card might seem innocent, but it quietly reinforces social and cultural assumptions from that time. Plus the hyper-masculinity...it all works together to suggest so much more about the period's ideals and social engineering. Curator: The endurance of images like these… How baseball cards as keepsakes preserve certain cultural mythologies—this little fragment becomes an unexpected, loaded time capsule of sorts. The pose he takes with the baseball also feels rather deliberate, even artistic. Editor: Exactly. By looking closely at something as simple as a baseball card, we're invited to peel back layers of meaning, revealing much broader truths about that particular time. Even in a 'snapshot' that can appear almost insignificant at first glance, there's history alive in front of our eyes.