Cubs historical sleuthing: A 1970s moment in time

Raymond Ade Here we have a Cubs action photo, clearly from the 1970s or 1980s. A Cubs catcher is picking up a ball near the first base dugout.

When? What play was this?

My (and your) first clue is that this was sent to me by reader Raymond Ade, who also sent me the photos of the San Diego Chicken that I posted here last month. Those photos were from July 8, 1979, so I began with the assumption that they might be from the same season.

Interestingly, no one from the team the Cubs were playing that afternoon is visible in this photo. So I sent it to Mike Bojanowski to see if he could figure out what date this was from the teams on the scoreboard. The clock reads (approximately) 3:25 p.m. There’s…