Charles M. Conlon

Charles Martin Conlon (November, 1868 – 1945) was an American photographer born in Albany, New York in 1868 who grew up in neighboring city of Troy.

Conlon started his career working for New York City newspapers in the early 1900s, as a proof-reader, and took up landscape photography as a hobby. New York Evening Telegram editor John B. Foster, who also produced the annual "Spalding Base Ball Guide", asked Conlon to take photographs of the players for the well known annual. Conlon later wrote in The Sporting News that “'[Foster] came to know about my hobby—taking pictures. He said to me one day, ‘Charley, they need pictures of ball players for the Guide, and there is no reason why you can’t take pictures of the players, as well as landscapes. It will be a good pickup for you, and it will be something for a day off.’”

Conlon used a Graflex View camera and large format glass plate negatives before switching to film, in all he created at least 30,000 images over his career that spanned 1904-1941. Most of his archive consisted of thousands of portraits of major league baseball players, however his most famous photo is a fortunate action shot of Ty Cobb sliding into third base at Hilltop Park in 1910, upending the fielder, Jimmy Austin. This photo, and many of his images, of baseball's early stars are instantly recognizable, due to having been frequently reprinted over the years and the subject of several books, trading cards and documentaries. The Cobb photo is considered the first "action" sports photo.

On July 23, 1910, Conlon snapped an action photo of Cobb sliding into third base. For publication, the original photo was cropped on the right, taking away almost half of the image. That is the version everyone saw until Baseball's Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon was published in 1993. The excised portion is included and shows more of the right-side bleachers, as well as the left arm of the third base coach.

Conlon was actually on the field, a common practice of the day, "behind third base, under the hood of a large, tripod-supported Graflex camera". He was positioned to the outfield side of the third base coach's box, in foul territory. Cobb was on second. New York third baseman Jimmy Austin was playing in for a possible sacrifice bunt. Cobb took off for third, directly toward Conlon, but the batter did not get the bunt down. Austin backpedaled to take the throw from the catcher. Cobb tripped Austin over and the catcher's throw sailed into left field. Presumably Cobb could have gotten up and scored, but the book does not elaborate.

...
Wikipedia