Mark Rucker

American

Mark Rucker completed his master’s degree at University at Albany, and work for his thesis explored the visual language of baseball. Since graduating in 1975, Rucker has gone on to become the foremost collector and historian on the pictorial history of baseball. He has collected thousands of pieces of ephemera spanning the history of the sport. His expertise has garnered him numerous awards in the sports ephemera world and he was even brought on as the visual consultant for Ken Burn’s Baseball documentary. Within Angel Hermosa’s Double Play, Rucker has the viewer relive a controversial slide or barrel roll by Don Baylor into Angel “Remy” Hermosa. While sliding into second base, Baylor knocked out Hermosa, which caused him first to miss the rest of the season and then to rarely play again in Major League Baseball. Along with the story, Rucker also employs a geometric pattern on top of the baseball players that seems to mimic a concussion-like state. Rucker’s work is an unfriendly reminder of the dangers of contact sports, concussions, and CTE, which are all now playing out forty years later.