Nap Lajoie Cleveland 8/19/09

Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie (1874–1959) is preserved on a Sporting News supplement dated August 19, 1909, photographed in his Cleveland Naps uniform in the middle of his eighth season with the franchise that had renamed itself in his honor. The right-handed second baseman was player-managing the Naps that summer, captaining a club that had been officially renamed from the Bronchos to the Naps in 1903 because Lajoie's name was simply the most marketable thing the Cleveland franchise had to its name. By the date of this supplement, his 1901 American League batting average of over .420 was already eight years in the rearview mirror but unchallenged on the AL record book — and would remain so. The Sporting News supplements of 1909–1913 were the era's premium photographic insert: full-page sepia images distributed with the weekly trade paper, dated to the issue, and prized today for the precise mid-season timestamp they preserve. The August 1909 date catches Lajoie deep into his player-manager experiment, a dual role he would step out of after the 1909 season ended to focus solely on playing. He finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1916. He died February 7, 1959 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 in the second Cooperstown class, alongside Cy Young, Tris Speaker, and the rest of that year's intake.