This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 5/11/2001.
The mutual relationship of baseball and booze was established very early in the game's history, when liquor companies realized that the image of clean-living young men engaged in friendly competition was the perfect means to make people thirsty for some good old hootch. In 1878, the Kessler Distilling Company sought to sell its Private Blend Whiskey ("Smooth as Silk") in this illustrated color ad depicting a smiling player sliding into home plate under the catcher's tag, with images so innocent that the players seem like choir boys at a country fair. Ads of this sort were so effective that they soon appeared in ballparks -- where eventually liquored-up fans became so rowdy that the hard stuff would be banned from the grandstand. The artwork used in the ad is titled "Safe At Home –1878" and according to the ad copy was from the private collection of the company's owner, Julius Kessler. It measures 14" x 18 ½" and while the colors have faded a bit, the poster is preserved handsomely under glass in a good-condition 16" x 20" brown wood frame on which there is some chipping and damage on the back.