Yesterday, Leo Strawn, Jr. had a great “Leo’s World” post on random odd baseball uniforms, in which he had some uniform questions as well as observations. In the comments that followed, some readers helped clear up some confusion. Leo wanted to share this additional information. Here’s Leo:
A few readers noted it does say “REDS” inside the “Wishbone C”, which I completely missed.
Not long ago, Bill and Tim at Gridiron Uniform Database enlightened me on some black & white photos from the mid-’30s and earlier. Evidently, the film used in those early days didn’t always read color the same way we’re used to with more modern black & white film. I asked if they could figure out what’s going on in that photo of Wingo. If they can provide any enlightenment on this, I will pass it along in a future Good, Bad & Oddly volume.
Also, in an upcoming volume (probably 3), I was planning on posting photos showing how dyes from that era were not colorfast, which could explain the Wingo pic.
So, I don’t have a concrete answer, but I do have a couple of ideas, based on the following photos…
This is Rube Marquard who played for the Reds in 1921. Okkonen’s database appears correct for 1921, if the colors are reading the way we would expect them to, with the possible exception of an outline around the “C” on the cap. (Sometimes, it’s hard to read details in that database.)
So, the Wingo photo could just be a matter of the red dye fading on the jersey after multiple washings, which appears to also be the case in this pic of Greasy Neale.
However, the rabbit hole can keep getting deeper. While trying to find more pics from this era, I discovered another anomaly. This photo of the 1919 Reds (below) shows a mishmash of jersey logos. Some show the “REDS” as the same value as the outline around the “Wishbone C” while the red interior of the “C” appears faded (similar to the “C” in the Wingo photo), so that could possibly mean that the REDS lettering is blue in color on some of the jerseys (Okkonen only shows red lettering). Uniforms weren’t always uniform in those days.
My best guess would be the red dye faded on some of the jerseys (including the one Wingo is wearing on the card), but based on the 1919 team photo, the REDS lettering may have been blue on some also, at least in that season.
Jumping out of this rabbit hole, at least for now!
I guess I didn’t realize that the Reds had different C fonts for their jersey and hat.
Back in the day, newspaper photographers often used filters on their lenses to highlight or de-emphasize certain colors. In an era of color vs. color matchups, this was done so that newspaper readers could differentiate between the two teams. If a team wearing red were playing a team wearing green, photographers and their editors knew that the both teams’s uniforms would bee matching gray when the photos were printed in the paper. A red filter would block the red team’s color, lightening it.
It’s possible that the photo of Rube Marquard was taken without a filter, while Greasy Neal’s could have been shot with a red filter.
This was a regular practice in the early and mid 20th century, but I don’t know how widespread it was. And it doesn’t explain the differences in the Reds team photo above. That’s more likely an issue of dyes lightening or simply a different batch of uniforms. In my research, royal and navy felt often lightened to lavender over time, red to a musty pink or orange.
I wasn’t aware of those filters until the past week or so. I had a conversation with the guys at Gridiron Uniform Database who informed me of that very same thing when I brought up to them what I thought was a mistake in their database from 1926. I think it was pretty widespread based on my conversation with Tim and Bill. Tim said that practice pretty much ended around the mid-30s. In retrospect, I should have shown them the Wingo pic and asked their opinion after talking with them and prior to including it in volume 1.
That definitely makes it harder to pin down colors in some of these old b&w pics and I’ll take that into consideration when looking at photos from that time period from now on.
Cheers!
A few readers noted it does say “REDS” inside the “Wishbone C”, which I completely missed.
As Mr Turner writes, the filtering rendered it nearly invisible. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Thanks. I definitely need to look at these early 20th century pics more closely though.
Cheers!