Like Kyle Avery, 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.
–Double Play