Out of the pass

This vintage baseball photo shows Christy Mathewson, Pitcher for the New York Giants Baseball Team, in a head-and-shoulders portrait. This vintage baseball photo is unretouched.

Photo: Courtesy of Library of Congress

Dad grew up in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan.

A life working in baseball—for the Yankees, the Pirates and the Hall of Fame—would shift that loyalty over time, but he kept a framed photo of the 1945 Cubs. It was always around, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall or tucked behind a bookcase, almost the way you might keep a picture of an old girlfriend.

What Dad didn’t know, though, was that the books on those shelves were hiding a real piece of Cubs history, safe and out of sight as the decades passed.

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