Baseball's Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon - Hardcover

McCabe, Neal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810981777 ISBN 13: 9780810981775

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997

Synopsis

A celebration of the photographic art of Charles Conlon features more than two hundred images (selected from the photographer's eight thousand negatives) of such legendary figures as Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and others.

About this title

Review:

"This is an invaluable volume for baseball fans and American history buffs alike."

From the Author:

The Photographer at the Field of Dreams
To some readers the "field of dreams" is a hopelessly saccharine metaphor, but - paradoxically - it was a very real place. We know exactly what it looked like because Charles M. Conlon was there. But he wasn't languidly musing, he was all business: "Shoeless Joe, let me take your picture." "Is this heaven?" "No, it's the Polo Grounds."

Conlon snapped the shutter and another dream became real. Dimly-remembered names on dusty pages suddenly appear before us as living human beings. Nervous baby-faced rookies become confident veterans and then grizzled old-timers - transformed before our eyes. That laughing kid, Red Ruffing, once the losingest pitcher in baseball, is now the stern embodiment of a great Yankee dynasty. Charlie Gehringer, the "Mechanical Man," hasn't blinked in a decade. A slim young pitcher, a powerful slugger, and a fat old man take their turns in the batting cage - all named Babe Ruth.

But so! me dreams are dying. Wally Pipp sits forlornly with a wad of gum on the crown of his cap. Al Simmons stares dazed and exhausted into lost time. And the doomed Willard Hershberger will soon find his dreams dead...

When my sister (and co-author) first showed me the beautiful prints she had made from the original glass negatives in the Conlon Collection of The Sporting News, I knew that we had been given a unique opportunity to explore the baseball equivalent of King Tut's tomb, to breathe the air of ancient gods and kings. But we also tried to make the book fun, and when this book is stupid, it is very, very stupid: I happen to enjoy bizarre non sequiturs, such as Chicago catchers owning a disproportionately large number of bowling alleys, or Zack Wheat repeatedly killing Dodger fans. And how seriously can we take a picture of Jack Graney, a left-handed batter, posing right-handed while grinning maniacally? We tried to surprise and, at times, dazzle the reader with the ! beauty and variety of Conlon's photographs. The final phot! os in the book are quiet and still, almost elegiac, when we suddenly levitate in the last image.

Charles M. Conlon is the greatest baseball photographer who ever lived. He is to baseball what Mathew Brady is to the Civil War. His photograph of Ty Cobb sliding into third base at Hilltop Park is unquestionably the most famous baseball action shot ever taken, and his player portraits have become American icons, but, until the publication of "Baseball's Golden Age," he was virtually unknown, and the magnitude of his achievement had never been properly acknowledged. My sister and I hope that you'll enjoy this book as much as we did writing it!

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0810981777
• ISBN 13: 9780810981775
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 198