Category: Art History

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1833  (Continuing “Imaging Aliens, Part I:  American Traders in Yokohama Bay, 1859“)

These images—American baseball cards from the 1950’s and early 1960’s—seem to come from an removed, unknown source, at least to me.  The odd thing is that I have a recollection for some of these designs, seen in my tender years, and seeing them now is an odd assault on my memory.  I do remember the dark reds and the severe cut-outs, but now they look so unusual, so unnatural,  bizarre, as though the artist who rendered the design had never seen baseball players—or men—before.  They might as well have been aliens pouring themselves from their space ship (why do those spaceships have landing lights?), or Americans disembarking from their tall ships in Yokohama harbor in 1859.

  I must point out that these images come from what I think may be a fantastic baseball book:  Brendan Boyd & Fred Harris The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book (1973).  It is solidly funny, witty, and insightful, and the book covers things far beyond baseball cards, even in its remarkable and scant 150 pages.  Oh, and they know their baseball cold cold cold, and they know it far and away beyond just the numbers.

The only weird thing about Mr. Gino Cimoli (1923-2011) was his baseball card when he was with the Dodgers. He was actually the first California-born hitter to play for the newish Dodger California club, and was a decent fielder and batter though not often gifted, and managed to be the fourth outfielder in difficult-to-break outfields, like the 1960 Pirates (having Bob Skinner, Bill Virdon and Roberto Clemente)  and the 1961 Milwaukee Braves (where he found himself behind two other good players and Hank Aaron). He did play an important role in filling up the holes in the 1960 club, and conbtributed to their pennant, but found himself traded the next year, anyway. He was with his third team in three years in 1962 when he managed 15 triples (!) for the KC Athletics, following with 11 triples the next year–a pretty good feat, epecially when you’re 6’2 and 200+ pounds. 

But his basebal card is onbe of the oddest bits I’ve ever seen.

Little or nothing needs to be said about Mr. John Sain or that day of rain. I’ve included this card because of the bizarro choice of graphic backdrop, which means nothing.

Lastly, I could not help but publish this card for Billy Loes in large format.  I have no idea what anyone–the designer, the photographer, or Billy–was thinking when his card was put together.  In the annals of Surreal Baseball Art, Billy Loes’ card is a post-anticipatory (?) early Kandinsky. 

I should also point out that Billy Loes was a good pitcher: he had four very good years for Brooklyn 1952-1955, but things went badly for him in 1956.  He managed to stay on for another five seasons, which means that folks thought he might come back.  He didn’t.  

JF Ptak Science Books    Post 1832

Following hundreds of years of intrigue and shadowy majesty, of imagined life and legend, the Japanese finally allowed its transformation to take place, opening itself to trade and other permissibles with the rest of the world.  It was the beginning of massive cultural, industrial and scientific cross-fertilization, ending centuries of isolation and self-sustained empire–and which basically took six years to occur.  The change started with the efforts of the U.S. government and its liaison in Commodore Matthew Perry, establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Japan via Perry’s expedition there in 1853. By 1859* the transformation was very well underway, with Yokohama—as one of the major trading ports in Japan—being what former US

Ambassador to Japan William Leonhart called “the microcosm of Japanese modernization”, and the port opened for trader with the foreigners.  Japanese artists responded to this influx of exceptionally different people with the Yokohama-e school of woodblock illustration—these artists were primarily from the Utagawa school, and worked illustrating the controlled invasion of their country for three decades, producing some 800 prints. 

I like the idea of microcosms. Actually I like the detail within microcosms—sometimes, admittedly, the microcosms just don’t work, though their elements sometimes do. 

The Yokohama-e school of  Japanese illustration was the pollination zone for the distribution of Japanese interpretations of these new cultures coming to their country.  They are a beautiful mix of the old (the very old) and the forces that were rubbing up against that antiquity, the old reacting to something brand new, images never seen before. 

And in all of this beauty of newness, and all of the observations of never-before-seen rituals, and uniforms, and ships, and people, the thing that I have latched onto like a bad cold from a kindergartener is the American flag—and actually, the field of blue and the stars of the American flag.  For some reason the blue field is almost, always, tiny; and I’ve no idea why.  But I just love it—the flag looks big and billowy and alive, and it has that tiny blue space.  

*1859 was a very big year in the history of science:  it saw the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and also the creation of Bunsen and Kirchhoff’s spectrum analysis.  A monumental year for the development of insight and vision.