Article 9:
The Flying Dutchman, Page 1

The Pittsburgh Pirate player grabbed his buddy's sleeve. "Dutch, this is crazy. So what if you don't smoke; everyone else does. This is 1906, not the dark ages."

Dutch turned toward his friend, ignoring the restraining hand on his arm. "Look, I know you don't understand, but I do not want my picture endorsing tobacco, especially to young kids."

The teammate let his hand fall away and shrugged his shoulders. "It's your neck if the fans don't understand any better than I do."

We don't know the actual details of John Peter (Honus) Wagner's decision to not allow his photo on baseball cards, but there are things we do know. Wagner, nicknamed the Flying Dutchman, played great baseball. He loved the game and for 29 years played shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. His long, powerful arms snagged many hard-hit balls and also made Wagner a player to be reckoned with at bat. Eight times he led the National League in batting and his lifetime average was .329.

Wagner started playing baseball when the game's popularity labeled it the "all-American sport." As a result, baseball player photos began replacing ones of actresses and Indian chiefs on collector cards. The cards came on packages of tobacco and could not be bought alone until the 1930s.

In 1906, the Dutchman's success brought the inevitable -- his photo showed up on a batch of baseball cards. He objected. His stand seemed radical to many, and historic speculators suggest that money undoubtedly led to his objections. They note that the tobacco companies didn't pay him and that Wagner personally used tobacco. However, his granddaughter disagrees. Leslie Wagner Blair, who knew her grandfather as "Buck," says in one account, "He loved children. He wanted to teach kids good sportsmanship. When it came time for that card to come out, it wasn't that he wasn't paid. He didn't want kids to have to buy tobacco to get his card."

At the turn of the twentieth century, smoking was socially acceptable and did not trigger health concerns like it does today. Many public figures smoked, but even then it was an adult pastimes, not thought of for kids.