Two years before he made the New York Giants out of spring training, young pitcher Carl Hubbell showed up at spring training with the Detroit Tigers and failed to make the team. Not a single image of this short tryout has surfaced, until now. Dated 1937 and published after Hubbell had become a star, this possibly unique image was pulled from a Detroit archive and is stamped on the back. Hubbell's easily recognizable face has a bit more youth to it than other images we have seen, but he was no spring chicken at 23 years old. He had failed at several levels until he met a veteran named Claude Thomas who taught him how to throw a screwball and his career was resurrected. Despite some wear and some flaws in the negative from storage at the Detroit News for ten years before this print was made, the image is quite nice and it remains the only image of Hubbell in uniform with Detroit we know of in the hobby!
Size: 8x10
Designation: Vintage 2
Condition: 4/5
Quality: 4.5/5
Overall Grade: 8.5/10