Vintage Baseball Images Offer Glimpse of the Past
This stereoview shows a baseball game being played on Washington Green, possibly a few years earlier than the well-known baseball photograph in the school’s archives. Woodruff House, which still stands at 1 Kirby Road, is in the background.
Last spring,
John Gennantonio, a collector of 19th-
In response to Gennantonio’s first question, then-School Archivist
century baseball memorabilia, contacted The Frederick Gunn School
Misa Giroux and Stephen Bartkus, Curator of the Gunn Historical
about a pair of vintage photographs he had recently acquired. One
Museum, both confirmed immediately that the images were indeed
was a small, black-and-white photograph about the size of a calling
taken on Washington Green. “These are amazing!” Bartkus said. “They
card, known as a cartes de visite, or CdV. The other was a stereoview,
are 100% Washington Green and The Gunnery. The building in the
a precursor of the modern 3-D image, which must be viewed with
background is 1 Kirby Road, now known as Woodruff House.”
a stereoscope to achieve a three-dimensional effect. On the back of
the CdV was a handwritten notation, “baseball at The Gunnery,”
of when the images were created — and whether they predate the
Gennantonio’s first clue to the provenance of the photographs. On the
1869 image in the Paula and George Krimsky ’60 Archives and Special
orange mat framing the stereoview was a second clue: the words “first”
Collections — that remains a mystery for now.
Gennantonio was thrilled by this news, but as for the question
and “second” nine, and what appears to be the letters “W.B.B.C.”
When Gennantonio contacted the school, he had two questions:
Just looking for that diamond in the rough
Were these images taken at what was then The Gunnery? And could
A native of Cincinnati, Gennantonio has been fascinated with baseball,
they be even older than the first known photograph of a baseball game
and the Cincinnati Reds in particular, since his youth. “I think it’s
in progress — the one taken at the first Gunnery reunion on August
because I grew up around the Big Red Machine, going to games with
4, 1869, on Washington Green? That photograph, in which school
my parents, and idolizing Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, the
founder Frederick Gunn appears, is a treasured piece of school history,
Great Eight. I started collecting baseball cards and I found out that
a reflection of life in our small town, and baseball in its earliest days. It
I really loved the history of the game,” he said. “Any piece of baseball
was also featured in Ken Burns’ documentary and book, “Baseball.”
memorabilia — a photograph, a glove — there’s a story behind it.” Fall 2021
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