Americana & the U.S.

In 1964, before I’d traded for it, I’d asked Tim Arte whose great uncle Harry Arte had taken the photo of the first night game in pro baseball at Cincinnati in 1935, if Harry had been a Reds fan? “Nah, he’d hated sports!” “So he was just a photographer?” I’d asked a iittle confused. “Nah, the camera wasn’t even his, he’d ‘borrowed’ it.”

Tim Arte whom I met in 1964 at sports collector’s show in Detroit, Mich., explained origin of the historic 1935 photograph. “My great uncle Harry was career criminal, who’d started as pickpocket in Columbus, Ohio. When things got hot for him in Ohio he’d gone to Michigan to work his trade, where made the mistake finding home vault key in wallet, to break into house and got arrested, sent to the Michigan prison he’d escaped from and snuck back to Ohio. When Harry heard about Reds planning night games, he got idea posing as photographer as selected wealthiest-looking fans to pickpocket. Harry took historic photo only as part of criminal ruse to pick pockets of baseball fans full of excitement and beer in dankness of Crosley Field!”

After Harry Arte’s death in the Ohio Pen. in Columbus, the family was sent his meager belongings, which included the rare, historic original baseball photograph!