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The Sporting News Newspaper: December 2, 1909 COMPLETE/original - $275 (near Chelsea)
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The front cover has two small holes around the top near the date at the top.
The front page has a photo of Pittsburg rookie John B. Miller under the heading “Clever Young Pirate.” Miller helped Pittsburg win the 1909 World Series against Detroit. He played second base and was Honus Wagner’s double play partner.
Next to Miller’s photo is an interesting article on a rule change consideration—“to Relieve Pitchers From Batting”—64 years before the American League adopted the Designated Hitter rule.
Page 2 has an amazing article titled “Getting Too Mild: Football Only Killed Eleven in a Couple Weeks.” WTF????
Page 3 has a team photo of the Louisville Colonels, minor league champions of the American Association League. There’s also a short article on the Detroit Tigers beating two Cuban teams. In December.
Page 4 has two interesting feature articles: “Topics by the Manager” and “Gossip of the Players.”
Page 5 has an article about a Canadian minor league baseball team, the Montreal Royals. There’s also an ad for The Sporting News Supplements. Back in 1909, you could get 10 free supplements, plus two bucks shipping. Today, each one of those supplements are worth thousands of dollars.
For this edition, the supplement was Mordecai Brown. Brown, who played for the Chicago Cubs in 1909, was nicknamed “Three-Fingered Brown.” Yep, he lost two fingers in a farm accident, but he mastered the three-fingered curveball, which was damned hard to hit, apparently. Brown was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1949. On the same page at the right bottom is a weird little ad for Gedny’s Pearls, which claimed to “check all unnatural discharge of the urinary organs.
Page 6 mostly has articles on the minor leagues, but there’s a neat ad for Spalding’s Hom Gym Appliance.
Page 7 has more minor league news and a great ad for
“The Reach Ball.”
The back page has a Q & A section over “All Baseball Topics” and a Budweiser ad.
I’ve seen a few very expensive 1909 Sporting News supplements for sale, but never a complete newspaper.
I’ve enclosed it in a polypropylene cover over a thicker cardboard backing, which is how I will ship it.