Nellie Fox
Source: I found this image on Pinterest which I traced back to the website “Through No Fault Of Their Own”. One goal of the TNFOTO website is to capture photographs of all Major League players, managers, coaches and umpires – quite an ambitious goal. I am unsure of the actual source of this image, but believe it is in the public domain.
Photo Subject: Nellie Fox posing before a bat rack at Yankee Stadium. Notice the trademark bulge in his cheek from a wad chewing tobacco. I am not sure of the date of this image, but I am reasonably sure it was in the 1950’s.
Fun Fact: While in school, young Nellie would hide baseball magazines in his school books, pretending he was studying, while dreaming of playing ball for the nearby Philadelphia Athletics. In 1944, Foxes’ parent took him to the A’s spring camp to try out for the team, hoping the A’s would tell him he was better off staying in school. Instead, owner/manager Connie Mack was so impressed with the sixteen-year-old, he offered him a contract to join their minor league team.
In 1948, Fox moved up to the majors, and was the backup for second baseman Pete Suder who had a lock on the position. In 1950, Fox was traded to the Chicago White Sox where he was the first of a wave of great Sox players that formed the Go-Go White Sox. Key members of 1959 Go-Go White Sox included: Sherm Lollar (c), Nellie Fox (2b), Luis Aparicio (ss), Jim Landis (cf) Early Wynn (p).
Interesting side story . . . When the 1959 White Sox clinched the American League pennant, Chicago Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn ordered air-raid sirens be sounded around the city. It was bad enough that the siren was sounded late at night, but the United States was in the middle of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Many Chicagoans scrambled to their basements fearing the worst.
Painting Detail: Printed on 13 ” x 19” canvas and painted using Schmincke Mussini and Marshall’s oil paints. Finer details were made using Prismacolor pencils.
Acknowledgement: David Gough and Jim Bard, Little Nel: The Nellie Fox Story