Matt Mervis – Picture by Rikk Carlson
One of the features that we wanted to focus on with our site when we first began talking about putting this together a year and a half ago was to really showcase some photographers that we had built relationships with over the past 10 years or so. Whether that’s Rich Biesterfeld in Arizona or Stephanie Lynn in the Carolina League or Dylan Heuer in Iowa, we wanted their work to be front and center as lead images. We also wanted to include some new guys that came along like Micah Manuel who took pictures this year for Tennessee. There are other people who you will see down below that we include from time to time. And, who could forget Rikk up above who has been a wonderful friend to me for the past 8 summers.
This collection of photographs are ones that we really liked and used as often we could. Some of them are from earlier in the year while a couple are more recent but will get plenty of use this off-season. I divided the pictures into two groups, the ones that I took in my 20+ games covering South Bend in the Midwest League and then everybody else’s.
Enjoy, and if you don’t follow the photographers on Twitter, please do so immediately!
Let’s get started with other people’s pics.
What I love most about this picture is that the bat just sawed off. As well, the Palmetto State jersey never takes a bad photograph.
I have known Stephanie for quite a while now and I have been using her pics with her permission to make baseball cards. This one, as great as the picture is, I just couldn’t do it because I want to remember this image as it is.
In seeing Pete play for the better part of three months up close, he rarely signed for adults, but he never turned down doing something for kids. Never. What a good heart!
After missing most of 2021, it was good to see Cole playing again and in a different uni. I would see him a week later in Appleton where I told him, “Your Dad said to say hello.” Because he did!
This is still pinned to the top of Rich’s Twitter feed and it shows off the athleticism of one Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Riley Thompson is the best big game pitcher in the system and I missed him throwing in 2021. To see him back on the bump and going five innings by the end of the year was pretty exciting!
The dude just raked and this sunlight shot of a home run trot in the new lit jerseys was almost too much!
The action, the color, the contrast, the pitch grip…what’s not to like?
With Rikk Carlson’s title pic, we have a snapshot of Mervis at every level with the inclusion of the pic below. It is hard to go wrong with the Smokies home whites. They never go out of style.
The following section’s pics were all taken by Todd Johnson.
I love this guy! Nice as can be, doesn’t need to yell and scram to get his point across, laser focused, and well organized. Could big things be in his future? I think so.
Jordan Wicks and a Ferris Wheel in Davenport make a winning combination.
This is one of my guys. He is always happy, the life of the party, and, above all else, he loves to win!
A nice setting sun make the perfect lighting for my first game snapshot of Porter.
Sometimes, even a blind squirrel finds a good nut every now and then. This is my mine.
I took a lot of pics of Daniel throughout the course of the year and was fun watching him get stretched out over the year.
This seems to my standard pic in the Quad Cities every year. In 2019, it was Cam Balego. Last year, Bryce Ball. This year, Owen looks very big with the bridge in back of him
This was my favorite pic I took this year. These two talked about the game non-stop and they were both very nice to me throughout the summer. But when I see this pic, I see the future.
