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 with his teammates prior to a game at Chicago's West Side Grounds.  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, but the central image area remains largely unaffected. The notation "Wheat Bklyn" is etched along the side border, while the name "Wheat" is written in blue marker above the etching. A small white label is affixed in the upper right corner of the reverse. 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.