If you haven’t already, check out the baseball books available at the Internet Archive. In the 1900s and 1910s Spalding published a number of guides for local city baseball scenes, and the Internet Archive has volumes for Denver, Cleveland, Chicago, and New York.
In particular, the 1905 Chicago Amateur Base Ball Annual and Inter-City Baseball Association Year Book is a treasure trove for anyone interested in semi-pro and independent professional baseball in that era. There are team photographs of well-known semi-pro clubs like the West Ends, Gunthers, Spaldings, and All-Chicagos. And, right in the middle of all these white teams, there is this photo of the 1905 Leland Giants:
Google Books has similar volumes. Go to http://books.google.com/books?id=E6gpAAAAYAAJ and download the PDF file (the pagination for the online version is weird). Go to p 473 for a different picture of the Leland Giants (from 1907 guide?).
Posted by: Bill Mullins | October 9, 2009 at 04:15 PM
Beautiful! Great archaeological digging!
Posted by: james e. brunson | October 9, 2009 at 03:41 PM