Former Cleveland Browns great Jim Brown poses for a portrait outdoors in "the Jungle" in Los Angeles, California in 1991. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

I just finished another large update to my online archive, uploading 510 new captioned scans form old slides last week. I have a very short attention span, so I hire my good friend Dave Bonilla to make me awesome scans. He sent me this last batch on multiple DVD’s back in May, and I just did not have time to caption the stuff during the baseball season. Being able to add these beautiful 50 megabyte TIFF files to my online archive (powered by PhotoShelter) makes me very proud. I am doing all I can to take control of my images. I ain’t messing around.

One of my favorite subjects that I have had the chance to photograph over the years is now well-represented in my archive. This is a man who NEVER messed around. Today I want to share with you some pictures I shot of legendary NFL Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown 20 years ago.

Former Cleveland Browns great Jim Brown plays chess in his home in Los Angeles, California in 1991. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

One of the great things about being a photojournalist is all the cool people you get to meet and photograph. The best staff job I ever had was during 1990-1991 when I was the Bay Area staffer for The National Sports Daily. Before we went out of business in 18 months I shot the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, and World Series all in one year. I was 25-years-old and living the dream. I also shot several feature stories for the glorious daily paper edited by Frank Deford, and one of my favorites involved spending a day with the greatest running back who ever lived, Jim Brown.

Former Cleveland Browns great Jim Brown poses for a portrait outdoors with former gang members in "the jungle" in Los Angeles, California in 1991. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

Our Los Angeles-based staffer Chris Covatta was on vacation, so I went down south to shoot this awesome assignment. We were doing a big feature on Brown because he had started a new program in 1988 to work with former gang members to improve the quality of their lives by equipping them with life management skills to confidently and successfully contribute to society. Amer-I-Can was an organization that Brown was very proud of and I had a chance to experience a meeting at his house in the Hollywood Hills that included many former Crips and Bloods. Even though Brown’s living room was full of former gang members, the 54-year-old Brown was the baddest cat in the joint. This is why he could relate so well with the young men he invited into his home.

This is the cover of The National Sports Daily featuring our story on Jim Brown on April 26, 1991. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

After spending several hours in his home I wanted to take him somewhere in order to shoot some portraits for the story. Of course this was when we were shooting beautiful Fujichrome RDP and the late-afternoon light was gorgeous on the clear Saturday in February. We hustled down the hill in Brown’s spectacular 1966 Mercedes convertible and headed for “the Jungle” in the Crenshaw district. This was a very sketchy area, but I felt very safe with Brown and his friends as we tried to capture the last of the golden sunshine setting into the Pacific Ocean.

Brown, the former actor, was an amazing subject. He knew how to look the part and donned his signature hat and Delta Force jacket for me. How could I miss? After a few quick images of Brown by himself we did a group photo (see above) with him and some of his most trusted peace makers. All the guys were super cool, and one of them was named “Fruity.”

By the time my day was over I was so excited about my experience. I could not wait to see the film! As I drove down the hill from Brown’s house in my Hertz red Thunderbird (Covatta taught me to always rent a red T-Bird) headed towards my plush hotel room with an ocean view I knew this was an experience that I would never forget. Now, thanks to my archive this day 20 years ago seems like it just happened. The power is in my archive!

This picture of Giants base runner Aubrey Huff being tagged out at home plate by Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz was published as a "Leading Off" two-page spread in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

I shoot a bunch of baseball games each year, close to 100. Out of all of those games I get a very small amount of pictures that I really, really like. Last Sunday, August 7, 2011 was one of those games. I actually got a picture I liked. I was on assignment for Sports Illustrated shooting the Phillies and Giants in San Francisco. We were not working on a story, but trying to get good action involving both of these playoff-caliber teams. I sent my editor Nate Gordon a text a few hours before the game asking is he was looking for anything specific. “A Leading Off,” he said at 11:19am. At 11:29am Nate followed up with this text: “Your team sucks.” Gee, thanks Nate!

It was a beautiful overcast day, and I was set up in the outside third base well. In the 4th inning Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum was at the plate with the bases loaded. I was focused on Timmy with my 400mm lens as he dropped a suicide squeeze bunt in front of home plate. Showing amazing cat-like quickness Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz jumped in front of the plate, grabbed the ball siting in the grass, and raced back to home plate making a head-long dive to try and tag out Giants base runner Aubrey Huff. The action moved so fast. As I tried to follow the play with my long lens I realized I was pretty screwed. I had a hard time keeping everyone in the frame, and as the play hit its peak moment I hit the buffer in my Canon Mark IV and ran out of bullets. When the dust settled I realized that the picture sucked from my angle anyway. It was all backs with no faces. This was a terrific play that would undoubtedly make a great picture- just not from my angle.

When I got to the park around 10:30am I set up my remote camera on the backstop, just to the first base side of home plate. I always put a 70-200mm zoom on this Canon Mark III body, and focus it around the home plate area hoping for a play at the plate. This is an angle that is usually blocked by the ump, bat boys, and on-deck hitters. It is super low-percentage. However, when the camera is not blocked and the action is good there is always a chance of getting a cool and unique frame.

After this play ended I looked toward me remote camera- that I had fired with a PocketWizard, and saw that no one appeared to be blocking the angle. I wondered to myself if the camera had fired, or had it been stopped dead in it’s tracks by the evil buffer. I would wait till after the game to find out.

At 2:56pm Nate texted me. “How did play at plate look?” Let me tell you- those editors at the magazine are on top of everything! At 3:10pm I responded with this: “Bad from here but remote might be cool.” Man was I hoping! The game finally ended, and as I made my way to the remote camera, dodging little kids running around the bases, I was pretty nervous. What I found on the back of the camera as I chimped was one frame. It was loose and would really need some cropping, but the moment was there. I had to wait till I got home and looked at the RAW file on my 30 inch monitor to be sure. Yes. It looked like it was sharp enough to work. I quickly sent a low-res jpeg to many of the editors and they seemed to like it. By the time the magazine closed on Monday I was very excited to hear that the picture would be published as a Leading Off, just like I had hoped.

My baseball editor Nate likes to assign grades to my pictures. He is tough. I usually get a B or a B+. This morning I emailed him asking what grade he would give to this picture. “I’ll give that one an A,” he said. That might be the first “A” he has ever given me! This is a report card I would gladly hang on my refrigerator.

My picture of A's base runner Mark Ellis sliding home safely past Giants catcher Buster Posey ran as a Leading Off in the May 30, 2011 issue of Sports Illustrated.

The baseball season is a long one. 162 games will take any fan on a roller coaster each and every day for six months. Some days you feel like your team is unstoppable, and the next day you think your team sucks out loud and will never win another game. This has been very true lately for Giants fans like me all over the Bay Area. Ten days ago the Giants completed a three game sweep of the A’s at home in exciting fashion, causing me to write this blog about the final game: What a Great Game. What a Great Day. A few days later fans like me were crying in our beer when Buster Posey was injured in a collision at home plate. Ensuing surgery and medical updates determined that Posey will be out for the entire 2011 season, and many fans felt like the season was over.

It was ironic that the day my May 30 issue of Sports Illustrated arrived in my mailbox (last Thursday) the 2010 Rookie of the Year was pictured in a two page spread trying to tag out Mark Ellis of the A’s with a sweep tag. Posey did not hold onto the ball in this play- and Ellis was safe, but then again so was Posey. He would not be so lucky a few nights later against the Marlins.

Yes, I was very happy to have my picture featured as a leading Off in the magazine. But the feeling was very bittersweet knowing that I would not have the chance to photograph my favorite catcher until 2012. The season still has four months to go, and I still think the Giants have what it takes to sneak past their division rivals to win the National league West. It will not be as fun or easy without Posey, and many of the games will make me want to throw my old Panasonic transistor radio through the wall. But it will never be boring.

The Major League Baseball Opus book can be yours for $3,000. The book is white and the slip case is blue.

Over the years I have had many photographs published in books. Some of the books have been cool, others have been crappy. Sometimes the pictures are used well with nice on-page photo credits, and other times the pictures are run small with all the photo credits buried in the back. Recently I had the chance to get some of my favorite baseball pictures published in the biggest and most expensive baseball book ever published: The Official Major League Baseball Opus. This 790 page monster weighs in at 75 pounds. The book is a gigantic 20 inches by 20 inches square with over 1,000 photographs, each of them spot varnished. This hand-bound leather book comes in a silk-covered clamshell case, and it could be yours for a mere $3,000. That’s right sports fans, if you want to see some of my pictures, as well as some other amazing work you will need to really bribe Santa this year, mow a few extra lawns, or rob a bank.

Wooden seats bask in the late-afternoon sun at Fenway Park in Boston before Game 2 of the 2007 World Series. This picture is published across two full pages in the MLB Opus book. When the book is opened this image is over three feet wide. (Photo by Brad Mangin/MLB Photos)

Major League Baseball started working on this project over three years ago, and that is when I made my first submission for the book to former picture editor Paul Cunningham. I was excited to be a part of this book back then, especially after I saw the NFL Super Bowl Opus Book in Michael Zagaris’s living room. I had never seen a book so big and heavy before. The paper was so thick the pictures looked amazing. We photographers love to see our pictures used well, and Opus books seemed to be the ultimate in book publishing.

This picture is published across one full page in the MLB Opus Book. Matt Brown of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim jumps in the air for a high pick off throw as Kansas City Royals base runner Alberto Callaspo dives back into first base during their spring training at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona on March 1, 2009. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

This project took several years to put together, and even after I made a second submission of pictures in January of 2010 I was wondering if this book would ever be published. Thanks to the hard work of MLB Photos picture editor Jessica Foster, and other hard workers in the MLB Publications department, the book finally came together and met their deadline. They wanted to have a few preview copies available for the press and fans to see at the All-Star FanFest in Anaheim during the All-Star Game festivities in the middle of July, 2010. I was going to be in Anaheim that week to cover the game, so I was both excited and scared to see the book. I went to the FanFest in search of the Opus as soon as I arrived in town on the Sunday before the game. I was hoping I would see some great pictures that I had never seen before. I did! I was also hoping that some of my pictures would make it in the book. Much to my surprise I recognized many of my pictures in the Opus as I went through the entire book, all 790 pages, one page at a time.

This is a two-pge spread in the MLB Opus book, with my image of Johnny Damon taking up one full page. This spread is over three feet wide. Johnny Damon celebrates in Red Sox clubhouse with the World Series trophy after Game 4 of the 2004 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox in St. Louis, MO on October 27, 2004. (Brad Mangin/MLB Photos)

I ended up having over 20 of my pictures published in the Opus. I was very proud to have so many images in the book, but I wondered if I would ever have the chance to show anyone. A few days later I took Zagaris by the Opus booth at the FanFest to look at the book. Zagaris usually hates everything. For him to like a book it has to be great. He has been known to pick up books that have treated his photographs badly and throw them across the room in a Barnes and Noble. I joked with him on the way over that it would be difficult for him to toss the 75 pound Opus across the FanFest floor. Luckily Z loved the book, and was happy to see that they did a very nice job with some of his pictures. I breathed a sigh of relief that there would be no book-tossing that day.

This picture is published across one full page, the last page, in the MLB Opus book. An official Major League Baseball sits in the grass behind home plate during the game between the San Francisco Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, July 29, 2009. The Giants defeated the Pirates 1-0. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

It is now December and the Opus has yet to appear at any of my neighborhood book stores on the remainder table. It doesn’t look like I will be able to pick one up cheap. Looks like I will have to settle with these cool PDF files in this blog post that Jessica sent me. I hope to someday have this book in my house. Of course, I might have to buy a bigger house to fit the book!

Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants takes batting practice before Game 4 of the NLCS against the Philadelphia Phillies at AT&T Park on October 20, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

The Giants were ahead in the Series 2 games to 1 heading into the 4:57 pm first pitch on a pretty Wednesday night in the Bay Area. I was on assignment to shoot the games in San Francisco for Sports Illustrated with a terrific crew of photographers: Robert Beck, Kohjiro Kinno, and Jed Jacobsohn. As a team we rotated shooting positions each game, and Game 4 was my turn to shoot overhead. I love shooting overhead, but I also hate shooting from the same up position as everyone else. The Giants home ballpark has really nice baskets above first and third bases for television and still photographers to shoot from, but they were super crowded, and everyone was getting the same stuff. Since I knew that Roberto, Kojo and Jed would nail everything that happened on the field with their hand held and remote cameras I thought it would be fun to shoot from high above McCovey Cove in the right field corner near the “Splash Cam” that shows the beautiful shots of home run balls landing in the water on television.

San Francisco Giants fans wearing "Fuck Yeah" t-shirts in support of Tim Lincecum sit on the other side of McCovey Cove during the game against the Philadelphia Phillies during the Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park on October 20, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

I first shot from this angle, in Luxury Suite #1 back in 2000. I was assigned by former Sports Illustrated baseball picture editor Matt Ginella to find a place where I could shoot both Barry Bonds hitting a home run, and the ball landing in the water amongst the boats. I eventually settled into this amazing suite overlooking the entire ballpark and the Cove owned my a former Miss Tennessee and her dot-com rich boyfriend. I shot up there for several years and made some nice pictures. Needless to say they do not own the suite anymore, so I was left to fend off the fans and shoot near the television camera as we approached game time.

The one weapon I had in my arsenal for Game 4 that was not around a decade ago when I shot chrome from Suite #1 was the Canon 800mm 5.6 lens. This awesome lens has helped me so much this season, and it was the perfect choice for me to try and get something cool and different during this game. There is nothing like playing with a super telephoto lens and spying on people with it from a long ways away. In the beginning of the game when there was still plenty of available light I played around and shot some pictures of the fans way across the Cove, hanging out and enjoying the vibe of post season ball in The City. I was especially intrigued by a group of four young guys sitting down wearing bright orange “Fuck Yeah” t-shirts in honor of Tim Lincecum. I loved the clothes they were wearing, the shoes, the hats, the Tecate in a can they were swilling, whatever they were smoking, and their body language (see above). Heck, one guy was missing an arm!

It was not until a few days later that I realized these guys were extras in the sensational new music video by Frankie Boots that was filmed that night, the “Lincecum Fuck Yeah Song.” I love this song, and I hear Lincecum does too. Check it out- but beware of the fun, foul language that might not be safe for your workplace. It plays fine in MY workplace!

Carlos Ruiz of the Philadelphia Phillies is tagged out at home plate by San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey during Game 4 of the NLCS at AT&T Park on October 20, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

Once I got over the awesome shirts those guys were wearing (I want one!) my attention turned back to this tense, scary, tortuous game. The lead changed hands many times, and we actually got a little bit of action to shoot. The best chance for a picture came when Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz was tagged out at home plate by Giants catcher Buster Posey. Ruiz was trying to score from second base on a single to center field and was gunned down on a terrific throw from Aaron Rowand. As this play was unfolding I followed Ruiz to the plate with the 800, which is not as easy as it sounds. The lens is so light weight that sometimes it is hard to keep the subject in the frame- especially when a base runner is moving fast. In this case I panned with Ruiz going right to left as he tried to slide past Posey. Shooting at 1/800th of a second wide open at 5.6 at 3200 ISO I was bound to have some movement in the pictures, but the action was good enough to get a few good frames, one of which was published in the magazine as a Leading Off double truck the following week (see above).

General overall interior stadium view AT&T Park showing the Giants win as Aubrey Huff slides home with the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning during Game 4 of the NLCS between the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on October 20, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

The game boiled down to a white-knuckle tie in the bottom of the 9th inning, and when Giants batter Juan Uribe hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score base runner Aubrey Huff from third base with the winning run the place went nuts. By this time all the fans were cheering on their feet, and there was no way I could see any of the action, so I did some Hail Mary’s with my wide angle lens and came up with a nutty frame that I liked of Huff sliding home (see above).

This game was so exhausting. It took forever and left me a drained, emotional dishrag by the time it was over. The post-game beers and food with our crew at Palomino were so good. Little did I know that the fun was going to continue for another two weeks!

Freddy Sanchez of the San Francisco Giants leaps to make a catch to end the second inning of Game Four of the 2010 World Series against the Texas Rangers at Rangers Ballpark on Sunday, October 31, 2010 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Brad Mangin/MLB Photos)

Many of you know what a huge San Francisco Giants fan I am, so it will come as no great surprise to you that I am still in a stunned state of mind as their first week as 2010 World Series Champions comes to an end. My week was made even better on Wednesday afternoon when I pulled the new issue of Sports Illustrated out of my mailbox. The great Al Tielemans nailed a great cover of the Giants celebrating their Series clinching win in Texas,  and Robert Beck managed to clean up with almost every other picture from the Series in the magazine. However, the best part for me was seeing my picture of Giants second baseman Freddy Sanchez leaping in the air to snag Jeff Francoeur’s line drive in Game 4 published as a vertical Leading Off double truck in the front of the magazine.

My picture of Freddy Sanchez from Game 4 of the 2010 World Series was published as a Leading Off double truck in Sports Illustrated this week. (Photo by Brad Mangin/MLB Photos)

I was on assignment for Major League Baseball Photos shooting the World Series and was lucky to be focused on Sanchez at second base when he leaped in the air to snag Francoeur’s line drive. I was shooting from outside third base and could not see the left side of the infield too well due to the umpire and third base coach being in my way, so I decided to focus on the second sacker. Who needs a picture of Jeff Francoeur swinging a bat anyway? I thought I had a pretty decent frame, and I am glad the folks at the magazine agreed.

It means so much to me to have this picture published in Sports Illustrated. Sports Illustrated is the weekly sports news magazine of record in this country, and so many Giants fans will be buying and saving this issue to help them remember the orange and black’s first world title since they moved to San Francisco in 1958. Knowing that my picture of a little second baseman becoming a Giant in front of everyone in the world on a Sunday night in Texas will forever be preserved in the memories of fans all over the Bay Area is cool. It makes be feel like I documented a little bit of history.

I still can’t believe they won!

Buster Posey #28 of the San Francisco Giants chases a foul ball against the Florida Marlins during the game at AT&T Park on July 29, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

This has been a great season for the San Francisco Giants and a fun one for me to photograph. I have mentioned many times how fun their rookie Catcher Buster Posey is to shoot. I wrote about him a few weeks ago, and I wrote about him at the end of July. When I wrote about him a few months ago he was coming off an incredible month that saw him with the National League Player of the Month Award for the July. He was well on his way to a terrific rookie season, leading his club to the playoffs with his skills behind the plate, and his bat.

I have had the chance to get several nice pictures of Posey this season and one of my favorites was of him chasing a foul ball in a day game against the Florida Marlins on July 29 at AT&T Park. I was in one of my favorite photo positions, low inside first base. From this spot I shot many pictures with my 70-200 zoom so I can shoot a little loose and capture the scene of the wonderful ballpark and try to get some pretty blue sky into my pictures. I was able to do this when Posey darted out from behind the plate and ripped off his mask, so I could see his face.

My picture editor at Sports Illustrated, Nate Gordon, told me that they were putting together a small piece on Posey for the weekly baseball column and they needed a column opener to run with the story. These pictures always run as a square spread across one and a third pages. As soon as he told me this I knew I had the perfect picture. Sure we could have used a picture of Posey swinging the bat and showing off his beautiful stroke, but it is not often that we have a chance to run a good picture of a catcher in action.

I was thrilled when the magazine came out a few weeks ago featuring my big picture of Posey chasing the foul ball, as well as a tiny picture of him batting. To top it all off, the pictures were accompanied by a nice story written by terrific Bay Area scribe Ann Killion. Pretty cool company for me to be in!

I will be back out at the ballpark tonight shooting Posey in Game 2 of the NLDS between the Giants and Braves. With any luck I will be able to shoot another Giants victory for the magazine.

This picture was published in the September 6, 2010 iPad edition of Sports Illustrated. Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants tags out Cincinnati Reds base runner Paul Janish at home plate during the game at AT&T Park on August 25, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

I was an early user of the Internet back in 1994. I had my first website promoting my sports photography in 1998. I helped launch SportsShooter.com in 2002. You can’t say I am a complete dinosaur. However, when it comes to having my photographs published there is nothing like opening up Sports Illustrated when it gets delivered to mailbox every week and seeing one of my pictures published as a double truck over two pages. All photographers love seeing their pictures in print real big, and I am no exception.

Here we are now in 2010 and the world is changing. The Internet is not a fad anymore and everyone in the publishing business is trying to make money online. The latest vehicle that print publications are looking towards to save their magazines or newspapers from going out of business is the iPad. Apple’s newest tablet reader has sold millions of units to consumers world wide. Many of the users are reading their favorite print publications on their iPads, and canceling their print copy subscriptions. Photographers like me are going to have to get used to seeing our pictures published electronically instead of the old school way of ink on paper.

Sports Illustrated started publishing an iPad edition of the magazine a few months ago featuring extra content that you can’t get in the print edition. This includes video and photographs. Because of the iPad edition I was able to have a photographed published this week that would have otherwise never seen the light of day (see above).

I shot a Reds at Giants game last Wednesday on assignment for the magazine trying to get good pictures of both pennant contending teams. I feel like I have been in a slump lately and have not made any real good pictures this baseball season. I was due to get something, wasn’t I? This game was played on a gorgeous afternoon, but after the Reds jumped out to a 10-1 lead it looked like all that was left for me were a few hours of bad garbage-time baseball that would not yield any good pictures. That is the great thing about baseball, just when you think it is over, the Giants came back with 10 runs to take an 11-10 lead before they lost 12-11 in 12 innings. What did this mean for me? A long game with great light that just kept getting better, and a nice play at the plate in the top of the 12th inning!

I had a nice sequence of Giants catcher Buster Posey blocking off the plate and withstanding a collision to tag out Reds base runner Paul Janish. I immediately chimped the frames on the back of my camera from the inside first base photo well and was both happy and surprised that the frames were sharp and I had something good. It might even be worth getting published as a Leading Off double truck in Sports Illustrated, I hoped.

Close, but no cigar. Sports Illustrated picture editor and Leading Off Czar Jimmy Colton told me on Monday that the picture did not make it into the print magazine, but it DID make it into the iPad edition. Nice! I finally got a nice picture published. My friend Grover Sanschagrin, always good at giving me a hard time and raining on my parade, told me via instant messenger from Tlaquepaque, Mexico, “Looks like your picture wasn’t good enough to get published in the print edition!” Geez. Thanks Grover!

Grover is correct. The best three pictures that Jimmy sees all week make it into the print version, but because of the iPad version the pictures like mine that ALMOST made it now have a home so readers can enjoy them. I am really grateful for that, and hope that the iPad edition of the magazine is successful so more and more of our pictures can be seen. This might be the vehicle that keeps publications like Sports Illustrated hiring photographers like me so they can get some cool original and exclusive content that can’t be seen anywhere else. I hope so!

Of course, I do not have an iPad yet and have not seen the picture as it was published, but I did get a cool PDF file of it so I can share it with everyone here in my blog. Do YOU have an iPad? If you do check me out in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated!

My photographs of Tim Lincecum and Adrian Gonzalez were published on regional covers of the 2010 All-Star Game programs.

Many people know that I have been a baseball freak dating back to my childhood days growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I rooted for the Giants, hated the A’s, collected baseball cards and 7-11 baseball Slurpee trading cups, and fought with my sister. OK, I really didn’t fight with my older sister Paula much, but I did pull her hair on occasion when she would make fun of me, which seemed like a daily occurrence while growing up in Fremont.

Ever since I attended my first Giants game in 1973 I became hooked on baseball programs and team yearbooks. I loved reading about the ball players and memorizing the middle names of my favorite Giants. What other third graders at John G. Mattos Elementary School knew the full names of Garry Lee Maddox, Bobby Lee Bonds, and Gary Leah Thomasson? Besides reading the bios and pouring over the stats I loved looking at the color photographs of my heroes in action on the lime-green Astroturf at Candlestick Park. Back then no home games were televised in the Bay Area, so it was rare that I had the chance to see what my favorite players looked like in their glistening white home uniforms. Team photographer Dennis Desprois was an artist with his Nikons, and little did I know back then how much his beautiful photographs of Bobby Bonds, Ed Halicki, and John Montefusco would influence me.

The one that got away. I never acquired this 1975 All-Star Game program because I could not write fast enough when they put the address on the screen during the game in Milwaukee. This made me cry and it made my sister Paula laugh.

Pretty soon I branched out and tried to acquire my first All-Star Game program. The 1975 game was played in Milwaukee, and while watching the game on our Zenith color television with my sister they ran a commercial, a very short commercial, telling all of us viewers how we could own a keepsake from the Mid-Summer Classic by purchasing a copy of the All-Star Game program. All we had to do was send a small check to the address on the screen and we would get our own souvenir copy in six weeks. At age 10 I was not fast enough to copy all the information down and I choked under the pressure. The commercial ended and I was shit out of luck. I started to cry. My sister started to laugh. Not a good memory for me.

Being the resourceful honors student that I was I bounced back in 1976 with a nice plan of attack. The bicentennial All-Star Game was in Philadelphia and there was no way I was going to miss out in getting my hands on the official program from Veteran’s Stadium. I would outsmart the fast-talking salesman on TV. I had my cassette tape recorder with me in the family room near the television ready to get an audio recording of the address so I would not miss it. Sure enough, the commercial came on in the middle of the game and I was ready to get the magical P.O. Box that would deliver me my first All-Star Game program. After my successful plan I was able to enjoy the rest of the game, especially when Montefusco came into the game in his white cleats to throw two scoreless innings. How proud I was to see my favorite player look so good on the national stage!

My first All-Star Game program from the 1976 game in Philadephia.

I went on to collect every All-Star Game program since 1976 and I still have them, somewhere, in pages in binders in a box under my stairs. However, the recent programs have taken on a whole new meaning to me, since I became a contributing photographer to Major League Baseball Photos 16 years ago. Over the years I have had numerous photographs featured in the programs, but this year’s edition of the program was much more special for me. MLB recently started featuring local ballplayers on the cover of regional editions of the All-Star Game program to sell at ballparks around the country. This year my picture editor at MLB, Jessica Foster, selected a few of my pictures to be featured on the cover. I landed regional covers in San Francisco, San Diego and Arizona (see top). Not too bad for the kid from Fremont with the mean sister. These days she is much nicer to me, and I have stopped pulling her hair.

Andy Marte #25 (left), Niuman Romero #4 and Carlos Carrasco #59 of the Cleveland Indians joke around in the dugout before the game against the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on September 20, 2009 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

The best part of shooting Major League Baseball games for me during the 2009 season was spending time before the games shooting candid photographs of players getting ready for the game in the dugout with a wide angle lens. Over the years I ave always shot pre-game, either batting practice or guys by the bat rack, but always with a long lens- my 400mm. This is great for clean head shots, but I thought it would be more fun to go right inside the dugouts (usually the visiting side) and see what I could get before games in Oakland and San Francisco.

Miguel Cabrera #24 and coach Andy Van Slyke #18 of the Detroit Tigers joke around in the dugout before the game against the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

Each team is different before the game and each club gives off a different vibe. Most of the teams seemed to enjoy being photographed and many of them hammed it up for my camera (Canon Mark III with a 16-35 zoom). Some of the best clubs to shoot this year included the Angels, Rangers, Tigers, Twins, Royals and Indians. Often times I found myself so excited after shooting in the dugout that I did not care about the game! The best part of every game was getting home to edit the take. The funnest stuff to look at was always the pre-game in the dugout.

Andruw Jones of the Texas Rangers sits in the dugout before the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California on Saturday, June 20, 2009. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

I continued to shoot this stuff all season and my editors loved it. Both my editor at Sports Illustrated Nate Gordon and my editor at Major League Baseball Jessica Foster were very encouraging all season about my work. I was just hoping that some day some of these images would actually be published! My dreams were finally realized this week when the annual League Championship Series program was published by Major League Baseball for the LCS games between the Yankees and Angles and the Dodgers and Phillies. This year’s LCS program contains a photo essay entitled “Scenes From The Dugout” which includes five of my photographs, all of which are presented here.

Bat boy Darren Baker #12 of the Cincinnati Reds eats sunflower seeds in the dugout before the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on August 8, 2009 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

Each year as a contributing photographer to MLB Photos I submit my favorite photographs of the season for consideration to be published in end of the season photo essays that they publish in the LCS and World Series programs. They usually run a nice assortment of action pictures and it is always fun to get something published in the essay, but they have never done anything different like publish these dugout images.

Alberto Callaspo #13 and Yuniesky Betancourt #3 of the Kansas City Royals joke around in the dugout before the game against the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on September 2, 2009 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

Luckily for me they decided to do something cool this year, thanks to our new photo editor Jessica. Jessica has taken a very strong editing role this year with our publications department and has worked really well with the art department. The results- especially in this case- have been terrific. Especially for me! I just got my hands on these PDF files and have not seen the program in person. I can’t wait to see it soon! Of course any of you out there can see the photo essay immediately by picking up a program this week in Anaheim, Philadelphia, Los Angeles (maybe) or New York (maybe).