[Merkle923]

Relax. He is NOT in this photo.

I post this here just to illustrate that there will always remain some white whales. The elusive 1969 Phillies' first baseman only spent six weeks not with their Reading affiliate in the AA Eastern League. Yet it was during that span that Reading took its team picture, which I had never seen until this week. No Stone.

So we don't have anything from the only option for a possible upgrade from the tiny Philly team picture in which he's sitting next to the trainer or the game action photo, presumably also from Reading. It is still tantalizing to me that there was a "Stone, Gene" file at Topps which showed only more shots of Ron Stone.

As a consolation prize there are two future major league managers in this picture: the late John Vukovich (1986 Cubs, 1988 Phils) and Carl "Stump" Merrill (1990-1991 Yankees, and rather amazingly, just four Yankees' managers ago), and a few other curious names, like Tug McGraw's catcher brother Hank and Dick Allen's brother Ron.