Philadelphia Team, from the Kalamazoo Bats series (N690) issued by Chas. Gross & Co. to promote Kalamazoo Bats

Art Historical Context

This 1887 albumen photograph captures the Philadelphia baseball team as part of the Kalamazoo Bats series (N690), issued by Chas. Gross & Co. to promote their sporting goods. Measuring just 2¼ by 4 inches, the small-format image belongs to a category of ephemera that blended photography with advertising during baseball’s formative professional era. Albumen prints, prized for their rich tonal range, allowed manufacturers to reproduce team portraits affordably and distribute them widely as trade cards. The card reflects the growing popularity of baseball in the 1880s, when teams became symbols of civic pride and commercial opportunity. By featuring recognizable athletes, Chas. Gross & Co. linked their Kalamazoo-made bats to the excitement of the game, turning a functional product into a collectible keepsake. Such cards helped shape early fan culture and foreshadowed the modern baseball-card industry. Today, this photograph resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, where it illustrates the intersection of sport, commerce, and the emerging use of photography in popular media. Its survival offers visitors a tangible glimpse into both nineteenth-century athletics and the inventive ways images circulated before mass printing dominated.