The SABR-Rucker Archive

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Welcome to the SABR-Rucker Archive, one of the most extensive collections of baseball images in North America. This collection will contain nearly 80,000 unique images from the roots of baseball in the 19th century up to current major league teams and players. These images represent more than 150 years of the sport and its growth from homemade fields with players wearing no gloves to the global pastime today played by hundreds of millions of kids and adults, from Little League to the Major Leagues.

We have digitized the entirety of the collection and are in the process of initial cataloging in order to make all of the images available as part of the search engine on SABR.org.

The cataloging of this collection will be an ongoing member project managed by Pictorial Committee chair Cary Smith and SABR member Jason Schwartz. The catalog for the the SABR-Rucker Archive includes 27 distinct metadata fields, ensuring that the history contained in these images is recorded to the greatest extent possible. Please click here to sign up as a catalog volunteer.

Featured Photos

Babe Ruth Hits Home Run Against Boston Red Sox June 25, 1920

Roberto Clemente Running Out of the Batter’s Box

Mickey Mantle, Joe Garagiola, and Tony Kubek

Roberto Clemente with Family at Shea Stadium

About the SABR-Rucker Archive

The SABR-Rucker Archive was donated by longtime SABR member and photo archivist Mark Rucker, a Henry Chadwick Award recipient for his contributions to baseball research.

Photos show all aspects of the sport, from small-town teams to the Major Leagues, journeymen players to Hall of Famers; American major league players, Negro League players, town teams, college teams, foreign teams (such as Cuba and Japan), women’s teams and novelty teams (such as the House Of David). There are thousands of images of Hall of Famers, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Henry Aaron, Ty Cobb, Roberto Clemente, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Wee Willie Keeler, Al Spalding, Cy Young, Nap Lajoie, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, etc. Hundreds of other Hall of Famers and important figures are represented as well, including managers, executives, umpires, and others with close associations to the game.

The SABR-Rucker Archive images encompass a wide variety of categories. Mediums include original and later prints, slides, negatives of various sizes, original and reproduction baseball cards, newspaper clippings, postcards, advertising trade cards, exhibition cards, contact sheets, cigar labels, posters, stereo views, cabinet cards, cartes-de-visite, newspaper sports cartoons, caricatures, and various paper ephemera. There are also copies of photos, cards, programs, woodcuts, artwork, advertisements, magazine covers, and articles.

Over time, the collection will become more robust as we work to catalog the entire collection. SABR also controls the rights to the images in the collection and they can be purchased using the link on each individual image page. For additional licensing opportunities, please contact SABR directly.

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