F. Chance Chi. on shirt

Frank Leroy Chance (1876–1924) appears here on the T206 White Border tobacco set in the variation collectors identify by the legible "Chi" lettering on his Chicago Cubs jersey — distinguishing this card from the other Chance T206 pose where the team identifier is obscured. The right-handed hitter and thrower was the player-manager first baseman of the Cubs and the third name in baseball's most quoted infield incantation: Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance. By the 1909 T206 cycle, the Cubs had just come off back-to-back World Series titles in 1907 and 1908 and Chance was at the height of his "Peerless Leader" reputation as the toughest dugout boss in the National League. He was a notoriously aggressive tactician and a plate-blocking first baseman whose head had absorbed enough beanballs over his career to leave him with chronic problems that ultimately ended his playing days. T206 produced multiple Chance variations, with the "Chi on shirt" pose being the more commercially identifiable of the studio shots. He went on to manage the Yankees and Boston Red Sox briefly after his Cubs tenure ended. He died September 15, 1924 in Los Angeles at age 47, his health undone by the cumulative effect of years of head injuries. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Old Timers Committee, enshrined the same year as double-play partners Tinker and Evers — the trio entering Cooperstown together as the inseparable Cubs infield Franklin P. Adams' verse had immortalized.