Vintage Dodger Photos

Every sports collector has their own niche. Some folks like modern cards with its thick card-stock and shiny gloss or vintage cards of players we read about in books. Others, however, prefer memorabilia like bats (such as Dodger collector Mark in Washington who I interviewed a few weeks ago here), pennants or autographs.

The most unusual type of collectible to recently become popular are vintage Baseball snapshots taken by everyday regular fans. This is a niche collector Dan Bretta enjoys. Check out his photoalbum here featuring Dodger snapshots from 1937 to 1941. Below is a photo from Spring Training in Florida in 1937.
As I was going through his online album I came across numerous photos featuring a Peterman and Claassen. (See the pic above) Who are those guys? I searched various databases and could not find any reference to players with those names being connected to the Dodgers or Baseball. Sure, I know who Manush is. That's Heinie Manush the Hall of Famer who had his last great year with the Dodgers in 1937. To the right in the picture above is Luke Hamlin who played in Brooklyn for five years- winning a career high 20 games for the Dodgers in 1939. The mystery still remains though. Who are Peterman and Claassen? Well, Dan helpfully put up a snippet of a news article that solves it all. Check it out below.
Wow. How great is that? Peterman and most likely Claassen are hardcore fans. They were able to follow the team to Florida (or Cuba as some of the pics suggest) to hang out and work out with the team. How great would it be to be able to do that.

Hat Tip: VBCF: