Incredibly rare and attractive 1901 team composite cabinet photo of the Terre Haute Hottentots of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa league. A Class D franchise the team nonetheless boasted several future major leaguers including Jim Hackett Bill Krieg Bill Richardson and George Starnagle. The key subject on the card however is Mordecai Brown then a 24-year-old phenom recruited to play in the fledgling league his 25-8 record leading the Hottentots to the Three-I league's first-ever championship. Within a year Brown had been picked up by the Omaha team of the Western League where reporters began calling him "Three Finger." The extremely rare "pre-rookie" card of Brown depicted in his first professional season is his earliest image as a professional. This is the only example of this card to be graded by SGC as well as the only one we have ever seen. While we are always hesitant to make claims about an item being the only one in existence it would certainly not surprise us if that were the case with this particular piece as the likelihood of additional examples of such a low-level team photo having been produced in any great quantity and saved seems low. What's more the cabinet is in outstanding condition graded VG/EX 50 by SGC due only to age-related wear and some minor surface abrasions. Simply an outstanding piece the earliest baseball image of one of the greatest pitchers of all time in his very first professional season.