Baseball cards have a long and rich history in Joplin, Missouri dating back to the late 19th century. As one of the early hubs for professional baseball in the region, Joplin saw some of the earliest baseball cards featuring local players start to circulate in the late 1880s.
Some of the first baseball cards featuring Joplin players were included in sets produced by tobacco companies as promotions. In 1886, Allen & Ginter began including cards of prominent minor league and independent professional players in their tobacco products. This helped grow the popularity of the sport across the country. Several early Joplin players appeared in Allen & Ginter sets in the late 1880s, helping expose their talents to a national audience.
In the 1890s, several other tobacco brands like Goodwin & Company and American Tobacco Company also began using baseball cards as promotions. More Joplin players started showing up in regional Midwest-focused sets from these companies. Stars of the independent Joplin Miners club that competed against early minor league clubs in nearby towns were some of the first local heroes to have their likenesses distributed nationwide in this emerging new hobby and collectible.
As the sport grew rapidly in popularity in the early 20th century, Joplin became a hotbed for minor league baseball. The city was home to the Joplin Miners of the Western Association from 1903 to 1915. This helped spur more local interest in collecting cards of players plying their trade in Joplin. Tobacco companies continued using cards as promotions and the Joplin Miners had many stars featured over the years they were in the Western Association. Players like Dode Paskert, Harry Steinfeldt, and Rube Oldring all hailed from the Miners and had sizable local followings. Their cards remain some of the most sought after by Joplin-area collectors today.
In the 1920s, the growth of gum and candy companies using sports cards as incentives to buy their products took off. Brands like Bazooka, Goudey, and Caramel began issuing high quality, colorful baseball cards that featured both major and minor leaguers. The Joplin team, then called the Joplin Miners, was still competing in the Western League and its players continued being included in regional Midwest-focused sets from these companies. Stars of the 1920s Joplin Miners like George Watkins, Harry Rice, and Bob Motter had their likenesses spread even further to collectors across the country in these early 20th century gum and candy issues.
The Great Depression took its toll on minor league baseball and Joplin’s team folded in 1931. The hobby of baseball card collecting remained popular through the 1930s. Gum and candy companies kept the tradition of including cards in their products alive. Isolated from major league cities, Joplin-area kids grew up collecting and swapping cards featuring the heroes and history of their local minor league teams from the early 20th century glory years. Stores in Joplin continued stocking the regional baseball card issues that kept the memory of the city’s baseball past alive for young fans.
In the post-World War II era as the country entered an economic boom, the modern minor leagues were reestablished. Joplin was granted a new team, the Joplin Giants, in the Class D Midwest League in 1946. Topps gained dominance over the baseball card market in the 1950s with its colorful, high quality cardboard issues. Joplin Giants players from this era like pitcher Jim O’Toole, who went on to win a World Series with the Cincinnati Reds, had their rookie card issues highly sought after by local collectors. This helped renewed interest in the city’s minor league heritage among a new generation of fans.
In later decades, Joplin’s minor league team shifted leagues and identities several times, branded as the Joplin Braves, Jets, and finally the Joplin Cubs in the late 1960s before folding. Through it all, dedicated collectors in Joplin continued their hobby, trading and collecting cards not just of the local players, but stars from across the eras of baseball history. The tradition of baseball card collecting and remembering Joplin’s rich minor league legacy carried on strongly into modern times. Today, vintage Joplin Miners, Giants, and other local team cards remain some of the most prized possessions of collectors in the Four States region.
Over its history, baseball cards helped spread the popularity of the sport across America while also preserving the legacy of teams and players in small town America. In Joplin, cards kept the memory of the city’s rich minor league traditions alive for generations of fans after the teams were gone. The story of baseball cards is deeply intertwined with Joplin’s local baseball history and culture, cementing the hobby as an important part of the community’s sports heritage.
