This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/26/2015
This lot features an extremely rare original large-format team-cabinet photo of the Homestead Grays dating from 1913. Fifteen team members are pictured posing together on the field, including Hall of Famer and team founder Cumberland “Cum” Posey, who is pictured in the middle row, third from the left. The caption along the bottom of the photo reads: "Homestead Grays/Champions of Homestead & Vicinity, 1913." This is an extraordinarily historic photo and could be the earliest team photo of the legendary Homestead Grays in existence. The Homestead Grays club was officially founded in 1912 by Posey, who, after his playing days with the club, built the team into one of the most prominent Negro League clubs of all time. Homestead was a steel town in Pennsylvania and the black mill workers created, as a recreational activity, a ball team that would eventually thrill baseball fans for years. From 1912 through the early 1930’s, under the leadership Posey, the Grays traveled extensively throughout the east as an independent ball club. They were known as barnstormers who would play ball in hundreds of small towns, usually taking on and beating the best local baseball talent available, white or black. The photo measures 10” wide by 8” high and is affixed to a cabinet-card mount. The mount measures 14” wide by 11” high and shows some deterioration in the top corners and bottom left, but otherwise the photo itself is in very good condition.