Congressional pages at the Washington Monument

Depicts a group of eight pages gathered in a cluster around a baseball bat on The Mall in Washington D.C. as the team captains engage in a traditional method of choosing up sides for a baseball game. The captains "climb" the bat, placing hand over hand until one of the boys reaches the very top of the bat, leaving no room for his competitor to place his hand above. The children wear street clothes primarily consisting of shirts, ties, knickers and caps. The base of the Washington Monument is visible in the background.

Reproduced in Baseball as America : Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game. (Washington, D.C. : National Geographical Society, 2002), pg. 15 with the caption: "Congressional pages choosing up sides, sometimes known as 'bucking up,' in the shadow of the Washington Monument, 1922."

Forms part of the New York World-Telegram collection at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.