Original glass plate negative of Brooklyn Superbas outfielder Zack Wheat taken by noted Chicago photographer Francis Burke. Wheat is pictured warming up on the sideline prior to a game at Chicago's West Side Grounds. If this image looks familiar to card collectors it is with good reason, because it is almost identical to that used on Wheat's 1914/1915 Cracker Jack card. All the Cracker Jack card images are artist's renditions based upon photographs. This is almost certainly the very photo used by the artist to create Wheat's card, however, he or she took the liberty of slightly straightening Wheat's throwing arm. If not for that one tiny difference, the poses are identical. Cracker Jack cards were produced by the Chicago firm Rueckheim Brothers & Eckstein, so it was only natural that the company turned to hometown photographer Francis Burke when it needed images for its now iconic card set. Wheat was one of many player images supplied by Burke for the set, including such stars as Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and Napoleon Lajoie. This is one of several Francis Burke Cracker Jack negatives featured in this auction, all of which, of course, are one of a kind. Based upon the uniform style, this negative dates to 1910, which was Wheat's first full season in the Majors, making it one of the earliest Major League images of the Hall of Fame outfielder. The negative (7x5") displays minor flaws, mainly along the periphery, common to nearly all early 1900s glass negatives. Additionally, there is a small stain to the left of Wheat's image and a small white label is affixed in the upper right corner of the reverse. The notation "Z. D. Wheat Brooklyn Nat" is etched along the side border. VG. 

Francis P. Burke (1871-1949) was a prominent Chicago newspaper photographer whose work ranged far beyond baseball. He took thousands of images of immigrant life in Chicago and, in 1912, opened a photo studio with Henry A. Atwell (1879-1949), known as Burke & Atwell, that specialized in theatrical, magazine, and newspaper images. Sometime prior to 1929, Burke severed his partnership with Atwell and opened another studio known as Burke & Koretke. Burke had been the Cubs official photographer in the early 1900s but was later replaced by George Burke (in a story that has been told many times, and which may be apocryphal, Burke lost his job as Cubs photographer simply because a Cubs employee couldn't remember his first name and mistakenly confused him with George Burke). Nevertheless, he was still a frequent visitor to the ballpark and between the approximate years 1909 to 1916, Burke earned extra income by selling his baseball images to various Chicago-based businesses, including Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein (Cracker Jack), Max Stein, Novelty Cutlery, Crystal Pure Candy Co., Carl Joseph & Co. (tailors), Royal Tailors, and Irwin Howe's Baseball Correspondence League of America, which published a "Pitching Course." To baseball collectors, Burke’s images are ubiquitous and instantly recognizable. Despite the range and relative scarcity of his work, his baseball images are arguably among the best of the deadball era.