The city of Joliet, Illinois has a long history with baseball cards that stretches back over a century. Some of the earliest baseball cards produced in the late 19th century featured players from Joliet’s minor league teams. The tradition of baseball cards in Joliet continued to grow throughout the 20th century as the city became a hotbed for card collectors and traders.

One of the first Joliet players to be featured on a baseball card was Jack “Smoke” McAtee, an outfielder who played for the Joliet Babies minor league team in the late 1880s. McAtee appeared on an early tobacco card series produced by Goodwin & Company in 1888. While the Babies only lasted a few seasons, McAtee went on to have a successful career in the major leagues and his rare tobacco card is one of the most valuable from the late 19th century.

In the early 1900s, Joliet was home to multiple minor league teams that competed in the Three-I League and other lower minor circuits. Players like Gus Dottolo, Art Reinhart, and Frank Shugart all hailed from Joliet teams in the early 20th century and had their likenesses reproduced on regional baseball cards. Sets from Allen & Ginter, T206 White Border, and Sweet Caporal are some examples that featured Joliet minor leaguers from this era.

As baseball cards grew in popularity through the 1930s-1950s, Joliet developed a strong culture of avid collectors. Local drug stores and hobby shops stocked the latest cardboard and it wasn’t uncommon to see kids trading and discussing players on street corners or in neighborhood sandlots. Legendary players like Dizzy Dean, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams all had their iconic cards show up in the collections of Joliet youth during this golden age of the hobby.

Two brothers from Joliet, Jim and Tom Collins, were particularly notable figures in the city’s early card collecting scene. Starting in the late 1940s, the Collins brothers amassed huge collections by trading with others and frequently scouring local shops. Their prized 1951 Bowman color set became the envy of other collectors in town. In the 1960s, Jim Collins went on to open Joliet’s first dedicated sports card shop called “Jim’s Baseball Cards.”

Located downtown on Collins Street, Jim’s Baseball Cards became the epicenter of the hobby for both casual collectors and serious investors throughout the region. In the 1970s, the rise of the Joliet JackHammers minor league team also helped fuel interest in cards locally. Players like Dave Kingman, Ron Cey, and Joe Charboneau had their rookie cards show up in collections around Joliet as fans followed their minor league careers.

During the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s, no city in Illinois had more avid collectors per capita than Joliet. Local card shows routinely drew hundreds of attendees and shops like Jim’s Baseball Cards were bustling on weekends. The rise of the internet also allowed Joliet collectors to connect with others worldwide through early message boards and auctions sites. Local stars like the famed “Cardboard Connection” website were launched by Joliet residents like Jeff Shepard.

In the 2000s, Joliet saw the opening of larger national chains like Sportscards Plus and Hall of Fame Cards & Collectibles that catered to both casual fans and serious investors. The growth of online sales also led to the decline of many smaller local shops. However, Joliet’s strong baseball card culture has remained an integral part of the city’s identity into the 21st century.

Major stars like Bryce Harper and Kris Bryant had legions of young Joliet fans chasing their rookie cards in recent decades. Meanwhile, the city’s long-standing collectors’ groups like the Joliet Sportscard Club continue to foster connections between enthusiasts of all ages. Vintage local shops like Jim’s Baseball Cards may be gone, but their legacy lives on through the countless collections started in Joliet that now span generations. Few midwestern cities can match Joliet’s rich baseball card history and culture that has developed over more than a century.

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.