J. Evers Portrait

Johnny Joseph Evers (1881–1947) appears on the T206 White Border tobacco set in his portrait pose — a head-and-shoulders studio composition of the wiry Chicago Cubs second baseman, the middle name in baseball's most quoted double-play incantation. The left-handed hitting, right-throwing Evers was the brains of the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance infield that anchored the Cubs to four pennants and two World Series titles between 1906 and 1910, and the 1909 T206 cycle caught him at the absolute apex of that run. Evers was the rules savant of the trio: he was the player who kept his head during the famous Merkle's-Boner game in September 1908, retrieving the ball and tagging second base to enforce the force-out that ultimately decided the National League pennant in the Cubs' favor. T206 issued him in multiple variations, of which the portrait is the most readily identifiable thanks to its plain studio backdrop. He went on to manage in both leagues and even returned briefly as an active player for the 1929 Boston Braves at age 47. He died March 28, 1947 in Albany, New York. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 by the Old Timers Committee, alongside Tinker and Chance — the three of them enshrined together as the inseparable infield trio that Franklin P. Adams' verse had immortalized for posterity.