History of Sporting Life

Sporting Life was an American weekly periodical, published from 1883 to 1917 and from 1922 to 1924 that provided national coverage on sports with a particular focus on baseball and trap shooting. The masthead on the front page of newspaper displayed the motto (shown in image at right): "Devoted to Base Ball, Trap Shooting and General Sports" It was founded in Philadelphia in 1883 by Francis Richter, Thomas Sotesbury Dando, and August Rudolph. Richter was the newspaper's publisher until 1917. He hired correspondents to report from locales across the United States and continued to publish and edit the Sporting Life until 1917.

Throughout most of its existence, it was in competition with The Sporting News, which was founded in 1886 and published by the Spink brothers in St. Louis. The Sporting Life also published several early series of baseball cards that were offered to subscribers. The pre-World War I baseball cards published by the Sporting Life are very popular in the baseball collectible business and . The series issued by Sporting Life include the M116 series issued in 1910 and 1911 and the W600 series issued from 1902 to 1911.

This collection featured on this website consists of 650 complete issues that were bound into 22 volumes spanning from1899 to 1911.