Dunnigan's baseball nine, who are they? Children's baseball team from the early 1900s. If you know please post a comment.
It is likely that these children smiling at us from a century ago are no longer with us. The image comes from a collection of large format negatives in the Tribune library. They were enclosed in a 1950s era Telegram-Tribune window envelope, labeled “Mrs. Leonard.” The images however are decades older.
How old?
Two of the collection’s fourteen images are of the Santa Manuela school where Lopez Lake is today. That school building was constructed in 1901 and in the photos the site looks established but still relatively new. Only one image in the collection is dated, 1908, another is from the Arroyo Grande flood of 1914 and three appear to be from San Francisco at the time of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition.
The clothing looks like early 20th century so lets guess around 1914. All the boys sport hats, most wear suspenders. The inscription reads “Dunnigan’s Grammar School Baseball Nine.”
I am not aware of a Dunnigan school locally though there was one near Woodland, CA that closed February 5, 1934 after 67 years of operation. It could be that Dunnigan was the name of one of the kids or the coach. Most look like late grammar school age, or early high school for the older boys. Let’s guess that this is from the Arroyo Grande area.
There are 10 boys visible and one more hiding behind. At least four fielders have stubby blobs of gloves with tiny mitt pockets to catch the ball. The only baseball bat has all the elegance of a wheel spoke.
The catcher wears a scowl and pounds his mitt as if to challenge a base runner to score on him.
Today a team picture would include a coach or two and perhaps a team mom. Kids wear uniforms and most games have league sanctioned umpires and often have league officials organizing candy drives or some other fundraiser. These kids played the game for the love of the game, without the added burden of adult structure and egos. If they did travel to play a game it wasn’t in an SUV with cartoon stickers of family members and pets. No juice boxes or water bottles are seen littering the field.
Baseball season has begun again at college and high school.
If you recognize any of these players of the National Pastime please post a comment.
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1950s era not likely to be with us? MY AGE AND I AM STILL GOING STRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Somehow, I doubt that it was the 1950′s, unless these guys dressed up deliberately as farmhands and used a bat that one the boy’s grandpa stored in the garage. And nobody wrote script like that on the bottom of the picture in the 1950′s. So, I must disagree.
The large negatives also speak of an earlier time than 1950s. They are an odd size, about five inches on the longest dimension. They are from a time when the lenses were poor or nonexistent (pinhole cameras) so the negatives had to be big to register enough detail.
OK, I taking a wild guess on this photo!!!
I’m leaning toward the 1908 timeframe. Suspect Dunnigan is not the name of the school; if it was, it would say Dunnigan Grammar School. Because it’s possesive, I’d say Dunnigan is one of the student/players on this team. As for location, this could be Arroyo Grande and the grammar school in the background is Santa Manuela Schoolhouse (actual location is now under water at Lopez Lake). The school house has since been relocated, and restored to its original condition, to downtown old Arroyo Grande and is a museum (part of the AG historical society).