The first time Charlie Brown is shown playing baseball in a daily comic strip was on March 6, 1951. And you might be surprised to see what position he initially played.

Yep – Charles M. Schulz had him behind the plate.

While this is the first strip in which he is a player, an earlier strip actually hinted that Good Ol’ Charlie Brown was a catcher. Here’s the strip from March 1, 1951.

You can tell he has the catcher’s mitt if you compare it with his friend’s glove.

Andy Finch is a huge Peanuts fan. As part of a baseball weekend to San Francisco, we made the trek up to Santa Rosa to visit the Schulz Museum. As museums go, it was worth the visit – plenty of history and displays. Across the way, there is an ice rink Schulz built to play hockey with his friends (and he shared it with Santa Rosa). We stopped in and got lunch at the Warm Puppy Cafe inside the rink.

SABR has a biography of Charlie Brown – essentially a brief walk down Brown’s baseball life – written by Frederick C. Bush. It’s both scholarly and cheeky, as it should be.

Comic Strip Source: https://www.gocomics.com/