About a month ago I received an email from a reader named Lucas who provided some wonderful photos that he says are from 1926 or 1927. Check it out.
Lucas believes this to be Billy Southworth in 1926 or 1927. I’m not great at matching faces together, but I am great at identifying uniforms and when these photos may have been taken. Regardless of who the player is, we think we can figure out what uniforms are being worn, and when/where these photos were taken.
Looking at the background first, noticing the wood fence, splotchy grass, and lack of urban infrastructure, we believe these photos were taken at a Spring Training facility. Which facility? Not entirely sure, but if we narrow it down to 1926 or 1927 that would mean these could be taken in San Antonio, Texas in 1926…. or Avon Park, Florida in 1927.
The uniform being worn in the first two photos is undoubtedly a road uniform because of the pinstriped fabric. The sock pattern is consistent with the road uniforms of the late 1920s. Based on the pinstripes, the sock pattern, and the Birds on the Bat design, we believe this could be a 1924 or a 1926 road uniform, and not 1925 because they wore a large sleeve patch in ’25.
In the third photo he is wearing the World Champions jacket from 1927, meaning this photo can not be from any year earlier than 1927. Looking at his socks in this photo, he is wearing a stripe pattern consistent with the 1926, 1927, and 1928 Home Socks. But when we look at his pants, we notice there are no pinstripes, meaning that rules out both the 1927 and 1928 home uniforms, making it likely a 1926 home uniform underneath the jacket.
Looking at our evidence above, we have three matches for uniforms. The road uniforms are likely from 1926. The jacket is definitely from 1927, and the uniform under the jacket may be a 1926 home uniform based on the pants and socks combination.
We also need to consider that players wore older recycled uniforms from previous seasons during Spring Training. Consistently seen in many Spring Training photographs, players are often wearing the uniforms from previous seasons, or even mixing and matching elements from past and upcoming seasons.
With all of that in mind, it is likely that this player was given a set of 1926 uniforms for Spring Training in 1927. And that these photos, assuming they are taken roughly at the same time, are from Avon Park, Florida where the Cardinals had their Spring Training in 1927. Awesome stuff.
Thank you to Lucas for providing these photos! We had never seen these before, and they offer a great look at what we looked like 100 years ago.
You’ll also now find these photos on the 1926 and 1927 database pages.
Cardinals Uniforms & Logos 