A Beauty of a Book Review: The Great American Baseball Scrapbook

Good morning, Uni Watchers.

Just a quick programming note: first, thanks again to all for your kind thoughts the past couple days. Today is the viewing, so I’ll be off the grid for most of today, and tomorrow will be the funeral service and burial, so I will also be away from the boards on Thursday. Paul and the UW crew have been admirably filling in while I tend to these matters, and I thank them for all their efforts and support. We should have full content for the remainder of the week, and I will have several articles to follow. So, please do keep checking back!

Now then.

Longtime pal and conrtibutor Jimmy Parker has authored many articles for Uni Watch over the years, and when I took over the ediorship from Paul back at the end of May, I asked Jimmy if he’d like to contribute more articles, on about a monthly-ish basis, and he heartily agreed. Jimmy is the proprietor of the most excellent Beauty Of A Game website, and he also goes by that handle on Twitter/X and Bluesky.

Mr. Parker returns today with another wonderful book review, this time for the National Pastime. I think you’re going to really enjoy this one.

Here’s Jimmy with…

A while back I wrote about my fondness for visiting thrift stores in search of old sports books. With the 2025 MLB season getting under way I thought it would be a great time to share another find from the Beauty of a Game bookshelf, this one with a baseball theme. Today I’ll be looking at a really fun read, The Great American Baseball Scrapbook. Written by A.D. Suehsdorf, and published in 1978, The Great American Baseball Scrapbook fits within a unique time in the study of baseball history and the hobby of baseball card and memorabilia collecting. This was 7 years after the founding of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), 5 years after the publication of the seminal (and similarly named) The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book, and just one year after Dr. James Beckett did his first pricing survey of baseball card collectors.

Part history lesson, part photo album, and part display case, The Great American Baseball Scrapbook was an early entry in a genre of baseball book that would later become fairly common. An Editor’s Note opposite the table of contents reminds the reader that “Scrapbooks are random, personal, and always incomplete. It prefers time that has mellowed, whose edges have begun to curl.” And in its 160 pages, the book presents that mellowed time through a variety of objects, from some of the biggest names in the early hobby of baseball memorabilia collecting. Even though the book is arranged in chapters chronologically, I’ll be taking a look at some of its contents according to item type.

Even back in those early days of the hobby, any book that would claim to present items of importance to baseball fans would have to start with cards. And The Great American Baseball Scrapbook doesn’t disappoint. Various series of cards are spread throughout the book, highlighted by a few I’ll mention here. Perhaps some of the most striking cards of all time, several of the 1887 series of Allen & Ginter tobacco cards are shown with an A&G tobacco canister from that era. A double-page spread offers views of 1911 Turkey Red“cabinet cards”, so called because these were larger cards, printed on thicker cardboard to be displayed in a cabinet. One of the first cards to be issued with chewing gum, 1933’s Goudey Gum series also features in a full-page display of 20 cards. It’s important to remember that, at the time of publication, the Allen & Ginter cards were still less than 100 years old, and at a little over 40 years old, the Goudeys would have been most likely recalled from childhood by a good many of the book’s readers.

Another long-time relic of the baseball fan, the ticket stub, also gets favorable treatment here. Throughout the book various ticket stubs are presented, representing a variety of games and design styles.

World Series tickets are displayed, including some from the controversial 1919 World Series featuring the Chicago “Black Sox.” But perhaps the most heartbreaking, at least to Phillies fans, would be the series of 1964 Philadelphia Phillies World Series tickets shown – printed before the Phils lost a 6 1/2 game lead with only 12 games left in the season.

Team photos of various styles, as well as in-action photos, also get lots of love in the pages of the book and provide the reader with interesting glimpses into different uniform styles throughout the years. Highlights include numerous panoramic team shots (always a favorite of the author) as well as some shots featuring historically significant or unique uniform options.

There’s a photo of 1948 Oakland Oaks Manager Casey Stengel, in a beautiful field jacket, with infielder Billy Martin behind him. There’s Black Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte wearing what looks to be a turtleneck underneath his jersey, which features some gorgeous lettering. There’s also a 1920 Philadelphia A’s jersey belonging to Bill Wambsganss that shows the white elephant symbol of those Connie Mack teams as well as the player named stitched inside the back collar in red thread.

As any good scrapbook, or baseball memorabilia collection for that matter, would show, there are also many items that can’t be easily classified or fall outside mainstream collecting categories. Examples range from ads (a beautiful Wheaties ad featuring Joe DiMaggio) to calendars (a promotional calendar featuring Jackie Robinson, among other Robinson items) to record albums (”Stan-the-Man’s Hit Record” and “My Favorite Hits – Mickey Mantle” had to be chart toppers, right?).

Then, there’s whatever this is – a wooden bat that splits in half to fan out, showing the players of the 1907 Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s a shame that the picture is so small and that it is shown above a Christy Mathewson fan that sadly suffers from obvious water damage.

Since its editorial mission was to present that “mellowed time” of the baseball fan’s memory, the book stops in 1969, which one must remember would’ve been less than 10 years before the publication date. Perhaps it’s fitting then that the book ends with a double-page spread of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson, shown mid-follow through, over a collage of early tobacco cards – a fine way to exemplify the contrast between the game’s earlier days and its more recent history.

The Great American Baseball Scrapbook is a great book to sit down and flip through, soaking in the items and the stories presented. While later books of this type may be more thorough or insightful, it’s great fun to look at this book and be reminded of what baseball history looked like almost 50 years ago.

Since May, Jimmy has done an absolutely fantastic piece on the Top 10 Sports Movie Posters of all time, as well as two wonderful articles on Norman Rockwell: Norman Rockwell — Uni Watcher? and Norman Rockwell — Behind The Scenes, and a look back at James Earl Jones’ Man Cave in The Sandlot. Another incredible piece from Jimmy was IDing souvenirs from Ebbets Field. His most recent offerings were a review of “Movies with Balls”, and a Pro Football book review.

Did any of you have this (or similar) books growing up? Do you still have them? This isn’t one I remember from my youth, but it may be one I need to pick up!

Your thoughts?