The fascinating history of baseball cards in Joliet, Illinois spans over a century. Some of the earliest baseball cards produced featured players from Joliet’s minor league teams in the early 1900s. Baseball and baseball cards have long been intertwined with the story of Joliet.
Joliet has a rich baseball tradition dating back to the late 19th century. In 1886, Joliet fielded its first professional baseball team when the Joliet Rackets joined the original Western League, one of the first minor leagues. This sparked Joliet’s long love affair with minor league baseball that would last for decades. Throughout the early 1900s, Joliet was home to teams in various lower minor leagues, including the Joliet Jackies, Joliet Cubs, Joliet Giants, and Joliet Rangers.
It was during this time in the early 1900s that baseball cards featuring Joliet players first started being produced. Some of the earliest known baseball cards to feature Joliet players came from tobacco companies around 1909-1911. At the time, tobacco companies like Fatima, Sweet Caporal, and Piedmont issued sets of cards that included players from minor leagues across the country. Not surprisingly, some Joliet players from this era ended up on these early tobacco cards. Figuring out which specific Joliet players appeared on these early cards takes some detective work, but they helped grow the popularity of the local minor league teams.
In the 1920s, Joliet’s minor league teams began receiving wider coverage in sports pages and received more attention from baseball card companies. The booming popularity of the hobby in the 1920s meant that Joliet players now had a better chance of being included in regional sets from companies like Goudey and Diamond Stars. Players from the Joliet Giants and Joliet Cubs teams of this period frequently appeared in Illinois/Midwest-focused baseball card sets of the time. Stars like Joliet Giants outfielder Paul Waner and pitcher Burleigh Grimes gained some national notoriety that led to their cards being in high demand by collectors.
The Great Depression in the 1930s took its toll on minor league baseball across America as attendance dwindled. Joliet’s teams struggled financially and changed affiliations frequently. The city remained committed to the sport. Joliet fielded teams nearly every season affiliated with various major league clubs like the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox. Topps Chewing Gum emerged as the dominant baseball card maker in the post-war 1940s-50s and frequently included Joliet players in their sets focused on Chicago-area minor leaguers. Stars like Joliet Cardinals outfielder Joe Cunningham and pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell gained some fame during this era.
By the late 1950s, Topps had become the monopoly maker of modern baseball cards as the hobby boomed with Baby Boomers. Their 1958 and 1959 sets included over 20 Joliet players combined from the Joliet Cardinals and Joliet Pirates teams. This helped grow interest in Joliet’s minor league product and put the city more on the national baseball card collecting map. Icons like third baseman Ken Boyer, who broke in professionally with Joliet in 1952 before reaching the majors, became widely collected among fans. Boyer went on to have a stellar career with the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
The 1960s saw Joliet’s minor league teams achieve some of their greatest successes on the field. The Joliet Pirates won the 1960 Midwest League Championship. Stars like future MLB All-Star outfielder Matty Alou launched their pro careers in Joliet. Topps continued to include over a dozen Joliet players each year in their flagship sets through the 1960s. The 1969 Topps set alone featured 18 players from that year’s Joliet Twins squad. This helped bring national attention to the talent flowing through Joliet, cementing the city’s place in baseball card history.
Unfortunately, changing economics of minor league baseball in the 1970s led to Joliet losing its team affiliation after the 1973 season. The city was left without a team for several years. However, Joliet’s rich baseball history and place in the hobby was commemorated with retrospective and vintage baseball card releases in the 1970s-80s boom. Sets from Fleer, Donruss and others paid tribute to the classic Joliet minor league teams and players of the past. In 1985, Joliet was back in the baseball card spotlight when Topps released a special “Turn Back The Clock” insert set focused entirely on players from the 1960 Joliet Pirates championship team.
In the modern era, Joliet has fielded independent minor league teams not formally affiliated with major league clubs. The 1990s-2000s Joliet JackHammers gained some notoriety. Their players appeared in independent league and regional sets. In 2017, Joliet was awarded a new Class A minor league franchise called the Joliet Slammers, affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. Current Slammers players can now be found in modern card releases. While Joliet no longer has a affiliated minor league team, its rich baseball card history as a longtime hotbed of talent continues to be remembered and collected to this day. The story of Joliet will always remain intertwined with America’s pastime and the hobby of baseball cards.
