In the 1909-1910 era, baseball cards were created of the Cardinals, but were hand drawn. Based on the photographic record we see, the Cardinals wore fairly plain uniforms in this era, with just an STL on the sleeve. This artist, however, decided to sensationalize the uniforms, and added lots of piping and extra color to the uniform. While these look nice, and we very much enjoy these illustrations, we find that they are just that. Fictional illustrations.
The smoking gun for this history mystery is the Slim Sallee illustration and Slim Sallee photograph. The illustration is without question drawn directly from the photograph.
History Mysteries:
Why would the artist add details that didn’t exist?
Are there any unidentified photos that show similar uniforms?
Cardinals Uniforms & Logos 