Rusie, Pitcher, New York, from Mayo's Cut Plug Baseball series (N300)
Medium
Commercial lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 13/16 × 1 5/8 in. (7.2 × 4.1 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick
Accession Number
Burdick 222, N300.29
Tags
Art Historical Context
This small commercial lithograph from 1895 captures Amos Rusie, the powerful right-handed pitcher for the New York Giants, as part of Mayo’s Cut Plug Baseball series (N300). Produced by P.H. Mayo & Brother in Richmond, Virginia, the card was designed as a promotional insert for the company’s cut-plug tobacco. At just over two by one-and-a-half inches, its compact format made it easy to tuck into tobacco packages, turning everyday purchases into opportunities for fans to collect images of their favorite athletes. In the 1890s, baseball’s growing popularity coincided with the rise of mass-produ...