Finger

January 15th, 2013 by Erik Loomis

The first known photograph of someone flipping off a camera in history. None other than legendary baseball pitcher and general rounder, Old Hoss Radbourn, Opening Day, 1886.

@oldhossradbourn could not be reached for comment at this time.

Posted in General | 18 comments

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18 comments on this post.

  1. The prophet Nostradumbass:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:02 pm

    Why am I not shocked that it was a baseball player?

  2. sparks:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:11 pm

    In the canonically correct upward position, too! I am assuming this wasn’t photoshopped.

    They seem to be somewhat rare in early cinema. I’ve seen few.

  3. Vance Maverick:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:32 pm

    This is great. Strangely, when I google “old hoss radbourn”, the first result is

    42 (1854-1897)
    Charles Radbourn, Age at death

    “elvis presley” doesn’t do the same.

  4. prufrock:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:36 pm

    That pic is in the companion book to Ken Burn’s Baseball. No Photoshop.

  5. UserGoogol:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:41 pm

    No, but “old Elvis Presley” does. It looks like the phrasing “old ” automatically looks up the age (or age at death) of people.

    Also, I guess that means Old Hoss didn’t live to be especially old. Apparently he died of syphilis.

  6. UserGoogol:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:41 pm

    This software eats angle brackets, I meant “old [name of person]“

  7. Vance Maverick:

    January 15th, 2013 at 7:43 pm

    Good detective work, o aptly-named fellow commenter. “Young John Keats” doesn’t work the same.

  8. sparks:

    January 15th, 2013 at 8:01 pm

    I assumed so, but nowadays where they even have how-to You Tube videos of things which are physically impossible to do, one can’t be too careful.

  9. Vance Maverick:

    January 15th, 2013 at 8:20 pm

    @OldHoss himself has commented, wearily.

  10. Leeds man:

    January 15th, 2013 at 8:23 pm

    Boston Beaneaters. You’d think a sport like baseball would eschew the obvious, and embrace whimsy. Boston Banshees would at least combine both.

  11. Erik Loomis:

    January 15th, 2013 at 8:34 pm

    His weariness could have just been a bit too much laudnaum tonight.

  12. rea:

    January 15th, 2013 at 8:50 pm

    And somehow, “Atlanta Beaneaters” just doesn’t cut it–they’d rather call themselves the “Racist Logos” or some such name nowdays . . .

  13. Uncle Ebeneezer:

    January 15th, 2013 at 9:13 pm

    And fittingly, from Boston!

  14. rea:

    January 15th, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    He had a 60-12 year. Of cocurse he was weary.

  15. rea:

    January 15th, 2013 at 10:28 pm

    Boston NL, though–not a Red Sox, but a proto-Brave

  16. UberMitch:

    January 15th, 2013 at 10:56 pm

    pure awesome-sauce, the standardize bio-info block on Radbourn’s Baseball-Reference page includes a link to the Twitter feed

  17. BigHank53:

    January 16th, 2013 at 8:33 am

    I know I posted this before, but it was down at the bottom of one of the Wayne LaPierre threads.

    History/baseball mash-up t-shirts.

    I’ve no connection; it just seems like this is pretty much their target audience.

  18. NonyNony:

    January 16th, 2013 at 11:52 am

    You can also use “[name of person] age”. Works for living people too.

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