Shieber: Buy me some peanuts: Elephants playing baseball
From SABR member Tom Shieber at Baseball Researcher on September 18, 2013, with mention of SABR member Paul Lukas:
Back in 2010, as part of his always-entertaining “There’s No Service Like Wire Service” series, Paul Lukas of Uni-Watch posted a link to this photograph of elephants donning baseball gear:
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I thought I’d research the photo to see what I could learn.
First, I focused on trying to determine the location of the image. Thankfully, the buildings in the background provided a number of clues.
Beyond the right-most elephant’s rump we see the words “GOLDE” and the phrase “2 PANTS SUITS.” Other signs nearby read “GOLDE CLOTHES.” Using these key words, I found a promising lead in “The Catalogue of Copyright Entries for 1923″ available at Google Books”:
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Apparently the Golde Clothes Shop had obtained a copyright on an illustrated sheet (a poster?) that promoted a special offering. This suggested that the building in the background was Golde Clothes Shop in New York, and that the photo was taken sometime around 1923.
Unfortunately, when I researched Golde Clothes Shop, I found that the retail clothier had over two dozen stores across the country in the 1920s. Maybe the photograph wasn’t taken in New York City after all.
Read the full article here: http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.com/2013/09/buy-me-some-peanuts-elephants-playing.html
Originally published: September 18, 2013. Last Updated: September 18, 2013.