Anderson Monarchs by Eric Mencher

Anderson Monarchs

Sports, first prize stories

1997

For ten scorching days the Anderson Monarchs, a Little League baseball team of African American 10- and 11-year-olds from South Philadelphia, toured the eastern United States. In an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the Negro Leagues' barnstorming tours of the 1930s and '40s, they traveled over 3,000km in a cramped old bus. Between games and long bus rides, the boys played in motel pools and visited Minor League ball parks.

Commissioned by: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Photo Credit: Eric Mencher

Eric Mencher is a documentary photographer concentrating on long term projects and everyday street photography. Recent projects include life along the Lincoln Highway (the first cross-country road in the United States), contemporary life in the Maya villages of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, religious traditions in Guatemala, and life around San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. And a lot of other things that happen to happen in front of him.

In another life, Mencher was a photojournalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he covered assignments all around the world, including the post-apartheid era in South Africa, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, life under Fidel Castro in Cuba and the civil war in Chechnya. Eric also photographed a lot of stories in the arts, including the 100th anniversary of James Joyce's Ulysses, Cezanne in Provence, and a series illustrating Cervantes' masterpiece, Don Quixote. The arts are important to him.

The photographer says, “Photography at its best communicates and informs, enrages and engages, educates and entertains. If we truly pay attention, we will witness the most fascinating theater imaginable-real-life performances by some pretty crazy characters creating stories that reveal life with all its warts and all its beauty, once in awhile I hope, in front of my camera!”