Just when did the Cubs Hall of Famer sign these scorecards?
Getty Images says:
Chicago Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks signs autographs at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Banks would go on to win the Most Valuable Player award in the 1958 and ‘59 seasons.
Okay, so what we know is that this was before or during the 1958 season.
This scorecard, visible at the center of the photo, is definitely from 1958.
Here’s the ‘58 scorecard:
Here’s the image from the photo, flipped so you can more easily see the match:
All right, now we have this narrowed down to one season. And, thanks to one scorecard that’s opened to the scoring page near the top center of the photo, we know the opponent:
It’s the Cubs vs. the Pirates. That narrows it down to these 10 dates:
June 5-6-7
July 10-11-12
Aug. 19-20-21-22-23 (the 20th was a doubleheader)
We can narrow this down further. It’s a bit hard to read the Pirates and Cubs roster lists on that card, but here, I can help you with that:
Here is the image of a 1958 Cubs vs. Pirates scorecard scoring page from this eBay listing:
At the top, Aug. 20, 1958 is written, and in fact, that card is from the second game of the doubleheader that day, the pitchers, scoring and attendance match — the game was shortened to five innings by rain. The Cubs won that game 5-1.
More importantly, if you look closely at the roster lists for both teams, they are a perfect match. Here, you can see both the card from the photo (right) and the one from the eBay listing (left):
So, this has to be from the five-day, six-game 1958 Cubs vs. Pirates series in August.
But which day?
One of the reasons that a photographer might have been sent out to take a photo of Banks at that time is that, in a nine-game stretch just before that Pirates series, Ernie had batted .405/.463/.973 with seven home runs, making it within the realm of possibility that he might take a run at Babe Ruth’s record.
Banks went 3-for-3 with two homers in the game Thursday, Aug. 21, which gave him a total of 40 home runs through 122 games. He homered again in the series finale Saturday, Aug. 23, and Richard Dozer’s recap in the Tribune noted:
Banks’ home run, a leadoff blast in the fourth inning, left the Cub shortstop even with Babe Ruth’s 1927 pace of 60 homers. Each hit his 41st in his 124th game. Ernie needs one in either game Sunday to keep up.
With that two-homer game and reaching the 40-homer mark and even having a small chance of matching the then 31-year-old homer mark of Ruth, that might have been a reason to send a photographer to Wrigley to take photos of Banks. The weather forecast for Friday, Aug. 22 was for clouds and showers; for Saturday, Aug. 23, “becoming” mostly cloudy, but obviously this photo was taken in full sunshine.
My informed guess is that this photo was taken Saturday, Aug. 23, 1958 — but again, that’s just a guess. Attendance at Wrigley Field that day was 16,097, which would appear to match what we see in the background behind the kids getting autographs. That was the second-largest crowd of the series; the doubleheader Wednesday, Aug. 20 drew 20,974, back in the day when “two for the price of one” was an enticement to come to the ballpark.
The Cubs lost that Saturday game 6-1. The other date where this photo seems most likely to have been taken would be Wednesday, Aug. 20, before the doubleheader.
We do know it was during that series, though, so at least it’s been narrowed down that far.
As for Banks, who batted .319/.388/.672 and hit 13 home runs in August 1958, he wasn’t even named NL Player of the Month (it went to Braves pitcher Lew Burdette, who went 7-1 with a 1.98 ERA). And in the final 32 games, he slowed down a bit, hitting seven homers to finish the year with 47, most by a Cub since Hack Wilson’s 56 in 1930.
Just a little slice of Cubs life from 66 years ago. It’s sobering to think that the kids in the photo, if they’re still living, are in their 70s or 80s, and that Ernie Banks has been gone for a decade.