History's Lens

In his 23 years as a photographer for Topps baseball cards, Doug McWilliams figures he shot portraits of more than 1,400 big league players.

Here’s another way to look at it: McWilliams photographed more than eight percent of all men who ever played Major League Baseball.

Now, McWilliams’ award-winning personal photography library – taken for various teams and players throughout the 1970s and 1980s – is preserved in Cooperstown at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

“I want those negatives to be kept where they should be: At the Hall of Fame,” said McWilliams, who had made plans as early as 1976 to deed his collection over to the Hall of Fame. “I don’t want them out there selling somewhere for a buck-and-a-half. I want them preserved so that people can enjoy them years from now.”

The donation will provide an important look into time for the Hall of Fame photo archive, which features more than 250,000 images.

“It is very exciting to receive a collection from a highly skilled professional photographer,” said Pat Kelly, the Hall of Fame’s former photo archivist. “This donation fills a serious gap in our collection from 1970 through the 1990's. Adding a donation of this caliber and size to our permanent collection will enhance our ability and the ability of our researchers to better interpret this period of baseball history.

For McWilliams, the donation marks the culmination of a career spent documenting the game he loves. His collections of negatives and oversize prints – more than 20,000 images – will become a part of the Hall of Fame’s photo library of more than half a million pictures.

“In 1948, I remember getting a pack of baseball cards at a birthday party,” said McWilliams, who was born and raised in Berkeley, Calif. “And that kind of started it. From there, I started shooting baseball players – right on the field – as a kid at Pacific Coast League games. And by the time Sports Illustrated started in 1954, I had my sights set on a job there.”

But before he went to work shooting baseball, McWilliams followed a different career path. After studying at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., McWilliams worked in studio photography before talking a job with the University of California at Berkeley – where he worked for 31 years – as an industrial scientific photographer.

But while at Berkley, McWilliams’ passion for baseball resurfaced. And when Jim “Mudcat” Grant recommended McWilliams for some publicity shots on Grant’s return to the A’s in 1971, McWilliams’ future was forever altered.

“Based on the work with Mudcat Grant, I did some color fan postcards for Vida Blue of the A’s – and every one of the 16,000 of them had my name and address on the back,” McWilliams said. “Then one day, I got a call from Topps. They said they loved my shots and would I go down to Arizona for Spring Training to take some test shots.”

The rest was history. McWilliams became the third photographer working for Topps when he started in 1972, making the rounds in Arizona for 10 years as the only baseball card photographer among the Cactus League teams. By the time McWilliams retired in 1994, Topps had more than a dozen different photographers in Arizona alone – and more than two dozen more were working for other card companies.

“I made some wonderful friendships with guys like Vida Blue, Kenny Brett, Ted Kubiak, Wes Stock, Dick Williams,” McWilliams said. “Topps is still printing my pictures, and now to have them at the Hall of Fame is unbelievable. It’s been a wonderful ride.”

Craig Muder is the director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum