[prewinter]

There is a player from the 1913 Covington Blue Sox identified in box scores and articles simply as Exeter. He is pictured and identified in the team photo for the club taken early in the season. The name is clearly an alias, as there is no other record of anyone by that name playing anywhere in the same time frame, not even as an amateur, nor do articles about the club provide any history for him, while they do provide backgrounds on other players.

I have a possibly identity - William O'Connell, a minor leaguer who was passed around between clubs in the spring of 1913, playing a few games with Waterbury in early May, before refusing to join the Columbus club. He drops out of the news right around the time Exeter debuts with Covington.

At the end of the season, several members of the Kansas City Federal League club (to which city the Covington club transferred in season) were identified playing in a game against the club from Kokomo (IN). The players were identified as Hogue, Hicks, Badel and O'Connell at shortstop, the position Exeter played for Covington/Kansas City.

Here is the photo of Exeter (on the left) compared with two photos of O'Connell from 1912. Any opinion as to whether they are the same person?

Also, I've found the Covington photo printed in two different newspapers (one contemporary, one many years later), as well as being shown in a documentary about the club, and connected to a bar in Covington that celebrates the club. Does anyone have a more clear version of the photo than what I have shown here?