10 for 10: #8 Player Photos, pre-1960
Posted by Sean Forman on May 24, 2010
This post is the eighth in our series of ten new features for our tenth anniversary.
Examples: Hank Aaron, Mordecai Brown, Bid McPhee
Every once and awhile an e-mail drops into my inbox that is wholly unexpected and opens up the possibility of something on the site I hadn't imagined before. David Davis (who is now a hero of mine) sent me one such e-mail. David has put together a mammoth set of files that has small headshot photos of about 90% of the players in major league history. Even better, it was structured in such a way to make placing them onto the site relatively easy.
Due to copyright concerns for more recent photos, we are currently only showing photos for pre-1960 debuts. This represents thousands of photos. You can see photos of players from Cap Anson to Don Zimmer, but we don't yet have Aardsma to Zimmerman. This may change in the future when I've had a change to weigh the issues. Until then, enjoy putting a face to players who for too long were just numbers on a page.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Clean, classy. Great addition.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Wow, that is great. Thanks.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Photos were a great addition, especially to those pre-1960 players.
May 24th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
This is probably going to sound bizaare, but... Beautiful! Excellent idea.
May 24th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Wonderful! Thanks a million.
May 24th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Love 'em! A valuable addition to the pages.
May 24th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
It's incredible how something so simply adds so much to each page
May 24th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
simple*
May 24th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Pictures, uniform numbers and WAR data..... truly amazing features. I love it.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Would be interesting to take those pictures and build some photo mosaics of famous baseball scenes using them (using something like this software: http://www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/)
May 26th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Yet one more reason why B.R. is one of the best sites on the World Wide Web bar none! Outstanding job guys, and thanks.
May 26th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Awesome. Thanks to Mr. Davis.
Also, FYI, it's not showing up as a trackback, but Neyer linked you guys in his Wednesday links column.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Sean thank you (as always)! I spotted these a couple of days ago by chance (Gus Triandos, of all things!) and fell immediately into "Who's Who in Baseball?" love with them.
Thank you thank you thank you for the best 10 for 10 gift I could've received!
May 30th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Thanks for the picture!
You are the best!
June 5th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
The addition of photos is outstanding! Thanks guys. I really appreciate the work you're doing. Awesome site.