A piece of sports history rests within this unassuming photo of the 1905 Ohio Wesleyan University baseball team. Pictured in the bottom right is Charles Thomas, an African American baseball player who laid the groundwork for Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier. Branch Rickey, the manager of the OWU ball club, said that the struggles Thomas had to deal with as a black baseball player motivated him in his quest to sign Robinson 40 years later when Rickey was an executive with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The 8.5x14" photo is pasted to a 13.5x18" thick board and comes with original typewritten pages with the a game-by-game breakdown of the team's season and the names of all payers. Holes are in the corners of the backing board but this is an otherwise perfect image and EX+ overall.