Baseball cards have been an integral part of the sport for over a century, capturing players, moments, and the culture around America’s pastime. While cities like Chicago, Boston, and New York are most associated with the early development of baseball cards, the small town of Green Bay, Wisconsin also played an unexpected role in the history of these collectibles.
Green Bay has a long tradition of baseball dating back to the late 1800s. Amateur and semi-pro teams formed and began playing games in the area. Baseball fever grew throughout the early 20th century as the minor league Green Bay Blue Ribbons brought the sport to Hagemeister Park starting in 1912. Fans would flock to games and young boys growing up in Green Bay became obsessed with their favorite Blue Ribbons players. It was difficult to find images of these local heroes since photography and mass media was still developing at the time.
That’s where the city’s burgeoning paper industry came in. Several paper mills operated in Green Bay in the early 1900s and produced materials for catalogs, magazines, and more. In the 1920s, some innovative workers at the local mills realized the cardboard used to make paper could be cut into small rectangles and used to print images on for collecting purposes. They experimented with designing cardboard sheets featuring photographs of Green Bay Blue Ribbons players along with stats and short biographies on the back.
The first true Green Bay baseball cards were produced in 1925 featuring the lineup of that year’s Blue Ribbons team. Excited kids snapped them up at local candy stores, drug stores, and the ballpark itself for a penny a card. The images were simple black and whites but captured the excitement of minor league baseball in the small city. Players also began signing and trading the cards, adding an early element of the hobby. Word spread and soon cards were produced each year to commemorate the Blue Ribbons.
In the late 1920s, some card makers like Goudey and American Caramel began sending scouts to Green Bay to photograph the players since the quality was better than what the local mills could produce. They would make deals with the paper companies to print runs of Blue Ribbons cards using the Green Bay photos. This was one of the earliest examples of a major card company working directly with a minor league team and brought more national attention to Green Bay’s baseball history being preserved on cardboard.
Through the 1930s and 1940s, Green Bay continued to be included in the early formative years of modern baseball cards. Goudey, Leaf, and other top companies would produce sets that almost always included a handful of current and former Blue Ribbons players. Green Bay natives proudly collected these cards and would meet at the local soda shop to trade and discuss the stats on the back. The paper mills also kept churning out new Blue Ribbons cards each season to sell at games.
As baseball integration began in the late 1940s, Green Bay got its first African American semipro teams like the Green Bay Black Sox which developed great local players. In 1951, Topps decided to include the Black Sox players in their main set, making them some of the first Black baseball card subjects decades before the major leagues integrated. This was a huge moment of representation for Green Bay. Topps would regularly feature Green Bay teams and players of all backgrounds from then on.
Into the 1950s, ’60s and beyond, Green Bay remained a hotbed for the baseball card hobby. The paper mills still produced regional sets as the minor league Blue Ribbons and semipro scenes continued. Major companies also recognized the city as a place to find players to feature before they made the majors. Stars like Don Money had their first cards printed while in Green Bay uniforms. Today, those early 20th century Green Bay cards are highly collectible for their rarity and ties to baseball’s formative history in an unlikely midwestern town.
While Green Bay may not be thought of as a traditional hotbed for the baseball card industry, the city undeniably played an important role in the early development and enjoyment of the hobby across America. From the first hand-cut cardboard issues in the 1920s to integration milestones in the 1950s, Green Bay consistently supported baseball at the grassroots and continually found ways to document it through collectible cards. The paper mills, minor league teams, and passionate fanbase came together to ensure Green Bay maintained a presence in the growth of a global phenomenon.
