1913worldseries

In 1910, Johnson caught a ceremonial opening pitch of a baseball from President William Howard Taft, inaugurating an annual Presidential "first pitch" tradition for the first Washington D. C. home game. Answers.com says: "In 1913, at the age of 26, Johnson turned in probably the most dominating season by any major league pitcher in history. 'The Big Train' won 36 games, lost 7, had a miniscule 1.09 earned run average, and struck out 243 batters in 346 innings. Johnson completed 11 shutouts and threw 56 consecutive scoreless innings during one stretch. No pitcher ever again won 36 games in a season. For his efforts, Johnson won a new Chalmers automobile as the American League's Most Valuable Player."

Wystan, Thanks for the additional information on the event depicted here. We will add a bit more detail to the caption when we update this record.

1863-1946. A native of Ireland, Governor (1911-15) John K. Tener of Pennsylvania was deep into baseball. He had been a professional ball player for Chicago, and even while Governor he also served as President of baseball's National League. He is shown here with his wife, Harriet, whom he married in 1889. She died in 1935. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_Tener

Wystan, Thanks for the additional information on Gov. Tener and his wife, and for providing the date from the side of the negative. It turns out this is one of those cases we find where the date on the negative is not the same as the date of the event shown. This is Gov. Tener and wife Harriet at Game 2 of the 1913 World Series between the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Giants, which took place on Oct. 8, 1913, rather than Oct. 9, 1913 as noted on the negative. (Game 2 took place at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, PA while Game 3 took place the next day at the Polo Grounds in Brooklyn, NY. This photo shows Shibe Park based on the seating and other related photographs.) We'll update the description with more detail when we work on this record.

It appears to have been the case, frequently if not invariably, that Bain's crew would date the negatives on the day that prints were made to be sent to subscribers; in the case of breaking news, this often involved a one-day time lag.

On November 19, a few weeks after the photo was taken, Governor Tener accepted appointment as President of baseball's National League. The appointment was ratified by a convention of National League team owners in New York City, December 9 and 10, 1913:

Another Bain/LOC photo of Gov. Tener at the ballpark -- this time in 1914, at Ebbets Field:

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