Former Joplin, Mo., resident and all-around good guy Ferrell Anderson with his bat in 1946 on a sunshiny baseball afternoon, pictured here in matte finish on card stock in his Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. Ferrell Jack Anderson (Andy) was born in Maple City, Kan., and went to college at University of Kansas. He played major league baseball from 1946 to 1953 as catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals. Anderson was signed by the New York Yankees in 1939 after spending four years as an all conference football tackle at the University of Kansas. He was purchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers from the Yankees system in 1942. Only a few months into the season he was drafted and went into the Army. He left the service in 1945 and returned to the Dodgers minor league system. He appeared in 79 games for the Dodgers in 1946. He was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1951 and then purchased by the St. Louis Browns. In 1953 he was sold again, this time to the St. Louis Cardinals. He played in 18 games for the Cards in 1953.

Photo maker's story
This photo was produced by the Burke/Brace studio, not a modern-day reprint. Burke’s larger-format 8x10 photographs are much scarcer than his standard 4x6 or postcard-sized photos and were usually the ones that the players themselves got. The longest-running operation of all the great early photographers, George Burke and George Brace covered baseball in one form or another for the better part of the 20th Century. A case of mistaken identity made by the Chicago Cubs resulted in Burke becoming the official photographer for the Chicago Cubs. (George Burke was mistaken as Cubs former photographer Francis Burke.) To undertake his new "big league" endeavor and having little experience with the sport Burke sought the help of the baseball-knowledgeable George Brace. Ever-present at Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, Chicagoan George Burke set out in 1929 to compile the most complete portfolio of player portraits - a feat made possible by the presence of both an American League team and a National League squad within the same city. As the official photographer for the Chicago Cubs, Burke quickly became renowned for his candid pre-game photos and thought-provoking portrait depictions. Over the course of several decades, the photos comprising this impressive archive - most of which were hand-developed from Burke's original negatives (only a small percentage are were taken by earlier photographers and re-produced by Burke in the 1930’s and 40’s as 2nd-generation photos) - were produced by the Burke/Brace studio in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and were obtained by a Chicago-area collector directly from the studio. The significantly extensive assortment of mainly first-generation photos has truly captured the essence of America's game as it existed during the early 20th Century. Each original masterpiece reveals a fresh portrayal of the bygone ballplayers, many of whom were obscure, short-term roster occupants whose likenesses were rarely preserved in photos.

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