This is a photograph of one of the most talented and renowned of the soldier baseball teams organized during World War I. The team was assembled at Camp Funston to represent the 342d Field Artillery unit of the army's 89th Division. The team's headliner was Grover Cleveland Alexander, the Chicago Cubs pitcher and future hall-of-famer. Other major league players were featured on the team, as were standout players from the college and semipro ranks. A cropped version of this photograph was published in The Sporting News in September 1918. From the caption accompanying the published photo, the players are identified as follows (from left to right): unknown; George "Potsy" Clark; Brown; Monroe "Poge" Lewis; Ad Lindsey; Win Noyes; Malcolm Andruss; Colonel George Nugent (regimental commander); Grover Alexander; Clarence Mitchell; Otis Lambeth; Chuck Ward; Lloyd Waite; Franklin "Dutch" Wetzel; Balingal; and, unknown. One of the team's major league players--Otis Lambeth--was a native of Allen County, Kansas and was a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians at the time of his induction into the army. Ad Lindsey had been a star on the University of Kansas football team, and would become the university's head football coach in the 1930s. Another of the team's players, Potsy Clark, coached both football and baseball at the University of Kansas in the early 1920s. A stamp on the reverse of the image states that it was "released" on June 10, 1918. However, the photograph was probably taken in May 1918.
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