TRAVERSE CITY -- When Bill Anderson's father took him to his first Detroit Tigers game in 1950, he bought him a team photo as a souvenir.
That snapshot set in motion an ambitious pursuit for Anderson.
"That was the first photo that went into my collection," said Anderson, now 70 and the director of the Department of History, Arts and Libraries for the State of Michigan. "That got me going. I've spent my whole life not only as a fan, but as a researcher, a collector and a writer."
Today, Anderson has procured more than 15,000 Tigers' images; a private collection that Mike Litaker, a photographer for Topps Chewing Gum, calls spectacular.
Anderson recently authored his fourth edition of "The Detroit Tigers: A Pictorial Celebration of the Greatest Players and Moments in Tiger History."
The new edition picks up where his previous book left off -- covering the historic final season at Tiger Stadium, the opening of Comerica Park, the 2006 run to the World Series and Justin Verlander's no-hitter in 2007.
Anderson also incorporates vintage photos of yesteryear in the book. Altogether, more than 500 photos are presented, along with a narrative.
"What I try to do every time is give the book a fresh face," said Anderson, a former president of Carl Sandburg College in Illinois and West Shore Community College near Ludington. "More than 70 percent of the photos in the new edition were not in any previous edition."
Included in the latest book is a rare 1886 photo of Charles "Lady" Baldwin, a left-hander who won 42 games for Detroit, then known as the Wolverines and playing in the National League.
Anderson bought that "cabinet photo" -- photographs mounted on cardboard -- at auction.
"I knew he was a famous pitcher in that era," Anderson said. "I literally searched the country for his photo. I went to the Baseball Hall of Fame; to the Sporting News in St. Louis, which has a huge collection; to the Library of Congress. I could not find a photo of Charles 'Lady' Baldwin."
But there was one in the archives of Baseball Magazine, a periodical that documented the game from 1908 to 1957.
"When I saw that (auction) I thought this has to be the only image of him in a Detroit uniform," Anderson said. "I was ready to mortgage the house. I wanted that photo. It's that unique."
Anderson also won at auction a photo "taken in the teens of the 20th century" of five Tigers sitting in a Studebaker convertible with manager Hughie Jennings at the wheel. The picture was taken in front a Detroit landmark.
"I'm absolutely positive it's one-of-a-kind, and that's the original," Anderson said.
He also has a shot of shortstop Donie Bush taken in 1912.
"It's actually an action picture and back then they didn't really have the equipment to capture a game action photo so it's pretty rare," Anderson said.
As a historian, Anderson admits he "tends to gravitate towards photos that are really vintage." So he's traveled the country in search of interesting pictures to add to his collection.
"Whenever I see an opportunity to acquire a new photo that has some real quality I try to acquire it," he said. "Of course, there are other people competing with me so sometimes I get outbid. I'm not a person of wealth. I can't spend whatever it takes. I have to be judicious."
Anderson, who's also a Civil War historian and author, has purchased several photos from the Baseball Magazine archives.
"All historians will say it was the finest baseball periodical that's ever been published," Anderson said. "A number of years ago I learned they had 17,000 vintage images that had been in storage for almost 50 years."
Anderson acquired approximately 300 Detroit Tigers photos from the Baseball Magazine archives in a Sotheby's auction.
"The chief photographer for Baseball Magazine was a guy named Charles Conlon," Anderson said. "Baseball historians will say he was the finest photographer we've ever had. And there were more than 70 Charles Conlon originals in the group of 300 I bought."
For more present day photos, Anderson's developed friendships with photographers, who have helped him with his collection.
"If you didn't have the support from other people, you couldn't do it," Anderson said. "You've got to build relationships with photographers who are willing to work with you, and help you, because that's how you gain access to great shots."
Litaker's relationship with Anderson dates back to 1975.
"What you see in Bill's books are just a tiny fraction of the photographic archive he has," Litaker said. "It's a spectacular, comprehensive collection.
"One of the reasons that Bill gets people to trust him and turn over things is because of his incredible integrity and honesty," Litaker added. "Bill Anderson has never tried to make a windfall out of this. What he does is historically motivated to preservation. It's not a get rich quick scheme. He's not getting rich off these projects. They are not New York Times best sellers. They're not in the supermarkets. But if you're a baseball fan, a Tigers fan, they are great books to have.
"I know it's a cliché to say if we don't understand our history we're doomed to repeat it. But to Bill it's important to understand where we're from and where we're going. He's taken it upon himself to preserve things that would have fallen through the cracks if he hadn't purchased them or found them."
One of Anderson's greatest thrills was discovering the diaries of former New York Yankee Red Rolfe, who was the Tigers' manager in 1950, the year Anderson attended his first game.
"As a writer and historian of the Civil War, I've used many diaries and journals in my research," Anderson said. "I jumped out of my skin when I heard (Rolfe) kept a journal because ballplayers and managers didn't do that."
When Anderson originally contacted the family, he was told they knew nothing about the journals, and if there were journals they were now gone.
After Rolfe's widow passed away in 1998, Anderson received a call from a nephew who he had talked to previously.
"He said, 'We went through the home and in the closet we found that journal you were talking about,' " Anderson recalled.
The discovery led to another book as Anderson edited, "The View from the Dugout, The Journals of Red Rolfe."
It's Anderson's ability to unearth material and preserve it that impresses Litaker.
"Today we take photography for granted," he said. "It's cheap and we can get it done whenever we want. Back in the 19th century, deciding to have a picture taken was a real commitment. It was expensive and people had no money. A number were still being done on tin types, still one of a kind. A lot of that didn't survive. As people die off, these things get discarded or put in boxes. Heirs or relatives when they find this stuff, look at it and say, 'What the heck is this crap? It's going to the curb.' It's sad to say, but that happens a lot. It goes in dumpsters because people don't understand what it is they're looking at. It doesn't always have to have top dollar value, but the historical value can be priceless."
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