Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Created by Alexander T. Haimann, National Postal Museum
29c Skiing stamp (1992-01-11) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
Contents
- Introduction: Playing To Win
- Youth Sports: Where It All Begins
- America's Baseball Heroes
- Baseball's Home Run Record
- "Take Me Out To The Ball Game"
- American Football
- The Super Bowl: America's Most Popular Sports Event
- Basketball's Origins & Creator
- American Golf
- American Tennis
- American Boxing: From Dempsey To Marciano
- Cycling
- Thoroughbred Horse Racing
- The Olympics: All Americans On The Same Team
- 1896-1908 Olympic Games
- 1912 Olympic Games
- 1920 & 1932 Olympic Games
- 1932 Summer Olympic Games
- Jesse Owens At The 1936 Summer Olympics
- 1960 Summer Olympic Games
- 1972 Olympic Summer and Winter Games
- 1980 Olympic Summer Games
- Miracle On Ice At The 1980 Winter Olympics
- 1980, 1992, & 1994 Olympic Winter Games
- Special Olympics
- Physical Fitness
- Extreme Sports
- World Cup Soccer
- Credits
Introduction: Playing To Win
The opening of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece on August 6, 1896, marked the beginning of a new era in international sports. Even though these first Olympic Games took place thousands of miles from the shores of the United States, competitive sports and athletic activities have dominated American life ever since. The continuing importance of athletic activities in American culture and daily life makes numerous facets of professional and amateur sports perfect subjects for U.S. postage stamps.
Introduction (cont.)
This virtual exhibit highlights dozens of different sports, professional and amateur athletes, and monumental moments in American athletics as depicted on U.S. postage stamps.
3c Baseball Centennial sandlot baseball game stamp (1939-06-12)Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Youth Sports: Where It All Begins
Greatly outnumbering professional athletes, millions of non-professional youth athletes participate in thousands of different sports leagues and teams around the nation. The passion and dedication demonstrated by young athletes every day while practicing and playing their chosen sports illustrates the true origins of America’s fascination with professional sports. Fittingly, the first American postage stamp to depict a team oriented athletic event in action featured kids playing a sandlot game of baseball. This stamp, the 3-cent Baseball Centennial Issue, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the creation of baseball by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.” ~Actor James Earl Jones, as Terrence Mann in the 1989 film Field of Dreams
Youth Sports: Where It All Begins
The 33-cent Youth Basketball stamp was issued May 27, 2000.
Youth Sports: Where It All Begins
The 33-cent Youth Football stamp was issued May 27, 2000.
Youth Sports: Where It All Begins
The 33-cent Youth Soccer stamp was issued May 27, 2000.
Youth Sports: Where It All Begins
The 33-cent Youth Baseball stamp was issued May 27, 2000.
33c Roberto Clemente stamp (2000-07-06) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
America's Baseball Heroes
America’s long lasting connection to the game of baseball is demonstrated through the range and scope of United States postage stamps dedicated to this great sport. Since the first U.S. postage stamp highlighting baseball was released in 1939, forty-eight different U.S. postage stamps featuring famous players, stadiums and important moments in professional baseball have been issued.
The first four professional players to be honored with their own postage stamp are undoubtedly among the most monumental players to have ever stepped onto a baseball field. Cumulatively George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson, Henry Louis “Lou” Gehrig and Roberto Clemente Walker have played on thirteen winning World Series teams, slammed 1,584 homeruns, achieved over 10,000 hits and maintained a .328 batting average. The conduct and accomplishments of these legendary players cemented baseball in the American consciousness unlike any sport before it.
The 33-cent Roberto Clemente stamp was issued July 6, 2006 as part of the Legends of Baseball issue.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 20-cent Jackie Robinson stamp was issued August 2, 1982.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 20-cent Babe Ruth stamp was issued July 6, 1983.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 20-cent Roberto Clemente stamp was issued August 17, 1984.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 25-cent Lou Gehrig stamp was issued June 10, 1989.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 33-cent Ty Cobb stamp was issued July 6, 2006 as part of the Legends of Baseball issue.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 39-cent Roy Campanella stamp is one of the four Baseball Sluggers stamps issued July 15, 2006.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 39-cent Mickey Mantle stamp is one of the four Baseball Sluggers stamps issued July 15, 2006.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 39-cent Mel Ott stamp is one of the four Baseball Sluggers stamps issued July 15, 2006.
America's Baseball Heroes
The 39-cent Hank Greenberg stamp is one of the four Baseball Sluggers stamps issued July 15, 2006.
Baseball's Home Run Record
One of the most coveted records in professional sports revolves around home runs in the game of baseball. New York Yankees player Babe Ruth embodied the roaring 1920’s as he lead the Yankees to six American League Pennants and three World Series Championships. During the 1927 season, Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs, the most of any player during a single season to that point in professional Baseball history.
Baseball's Home Run Record
In 1961, another New York Yankee named Roger Maris eclipsed Ruth’s single season home run record by a single home run. Maris’s sixty-one home run record would remain in place longer than Ruth’s, lasting until St. Louis Cardinals player Mark McGwire hit seventy home runs during the 1998 season. The race between McGwire and Chicago Cubs player Sammy Sosa to beat Maris’s single season home run record in 1998 captured the attention of the American public. In 2001, San Francisco Giants player Barry Bonds broke McGwire's record with seventy-three home runs in a single season.
Baseball's Home Run Record
The 32-cent New Baseball Records stamp was issued May 2, 2000 as part of the Celebrate The Century: 1990s issue.
34c Fenway Park stamp (2001-06-27) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
"Take Me Out To The Ball Game"
"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."
The home stadium or arena where a particular team plays in any professional sport becomes a part of the personality, experience and history of that team. Baseball stadiums were the first large athletic structures built in the United States for continuous use by a single professional sports team.
34c Yankee Stadium stamp (2001-06-27) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
Legendary Playing Fields
The US Postal Service issued ten 34-cent commemorative stamps with images of Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields, on June 27, 2001, in the cities where these legendary fields once existed.
42c Baseball Players stamp (2008-07-16) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
"Take Me Out To The Ballgame"
The 42-cent "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" stamp was issued July 16, 2008.
33c Green Bay Packers stamp (1999-09-17) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
American Football
“We are inclined to think that if we watch a football game or baseball game, we have taken part in it.” ~President John F. Kennedy
American Football
In addition to baseball, the game of football gained popularity at all levels of competition from youth to professional leagues throughout the twentieth century. One of American football’s most famous coaches at any level, Knute Rockne, achieved greatness as the head coach of the University of Notre Dame’s football team between 1918 and 1930. Rockne’s innovation and coaching skills combined with the athleticism of his players including the legendary offensive quartet, the Four Horsemen, led Notre Dame to six national championships and five undefeated seasons.
As football gained popularity in the United States from the 1930s onward, Rockne and his team set an example of hard work, focus and desire for victory that has inspired generations of Football players and coaches ever since.
American Football
The 32-cent Four Horsemen of Notre Dame stamp was issued May 28, 1998 as part of the Celebrate The Century Series.
American Football
The 33-cent Monday Night Football stamp was issued November 18, 1999 as part of the Celebrate The Century: 1970s issue.
32c Vince Lombardi stamp (1997-08-05) by United States Postal ServiceSmithsonian's National Postal Museum
The Super Bowl: America's Most Popular Sports Event
The championship game in professional football, the Super Bowl, has in recent years become the most watched event in American sports. Since the first Super Bowl matchup in 1967 between the American Football League's Kansas City Chiefs and the National Football League's Green Bay Packers (coached by Vince Lombardi), the Super Bowl games have forever since crowned season champions, crushed teams’ final hopes and affirmed team dynasties.
The Super Bowl: America's Most Popular Sports Event
The 33-cent Super Bowl I stamp was issued September 17, 1999 as part of the Celebrate The Century Series.
4c James Naismith - Basketball stamp (1961-11-06)Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Basketball's Origins & Creator
James A. Naismith, a native of Ontario, left Canada in 1890 for a position as a physical education teacher at the YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts. While there, Naismith was asked to invent a new sport for young men that could be played in the winter off-season between the end of football and the beginning of baseball in the spring. The game that Naismith invented in 1891 was basketball.
Naismith's basketball was based on aspects of a favorite childhood game known as “Duck on a Rock,” as well as elements of soccer, lacrosse, and football. The result was a skillful, less aggressive game suitable for play indoors. In explaining the process of inventing the game, he said, “We simply recombined the factors of the old and made the new.”
Basketball soon exploded in popularity and Naismith received great acclaim for his work.
Basketball's Origins & Creator (cont.)
As the new sport rapidly spread to every YMCA in the country, the landscape of sports in America was changed forever. But Naismith continued to refine the game and to teach its play to both young men and women. In 1898, he was hired as the first basketball coach for the University of Kansas. It was here that he tutored some of the most important names in basketball lore, including Forrest “Phog” Allen. As a disciple of Naismith, Allen would pass the torch as standard-bearer for the game to legendary coaches Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith, who in turn mentored coaches Pat Riley and Larry Brown, guaranteeing basketball’s place in American culture.
Naismith, after serving in the US military, became a naturalized American citizen in 1925. The Basketball Hall of Fame, which was dedicated in 1959, was named in his honor. Today, Naismith’s legacy lives on through the game of basketball, which is played in almost every country of the world.