Gambo and T_Wil1 Photopack

[Merkle923]

Below is a detail from my scan of the "Ken Nixon" 1966 Braves' photo shoot that we now know was Don Johnson.

Look at the loose stitching around his uniform number, especially compared to the stitching on the "Braves" letters! They must have sewed that on, that morning - or presumably right after they cut the guy listed in all the records as having worn number 50 that spring, outfielder (and pitcher-to-be) Carl Morton.

[Buccos]

>> Donald Lloyd Johnson

Wow. Good catch Rico.

[rico43]

Solving the Mystery Brave took less time than I thought, so I thought it only fair to close out a few more stubborn folders. I have this creeping feeling we have ID'd several of these people before. But I am at a loss to rediscover them. But no one else has named them either!

This is BN214


BN591 The last of them


No b.s., this is BS116


BS414 Closes this out


The last and only BW808 ... please say this isn't Hal Smith!!!


You folks rock!

[Merkle923]

From the top:
No idea on the Rockie
Doug Camilli circa 1964
Jim Piersall (although something bothers me about the image - he looks way too serious)
Mack Payne 1971
Carl Sawatski 1962

[hobbs11]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

From the top:
No idea on the Rockie
Doug Camilli circa 1964
Jim Piersall (although something bothers me about the image - he looks way too serious)
Mack Payne 1971
Carl Sawatski 1962

BN214 = Matt Holliday for the win.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

From the top:
No idea on the Rockie
Doug Camilli circa 1964
Jim Piersall (although something bothers me about the image - he looks way too serious)
Mack Payne 1971
Carl Sawatski 1962

No, not Mack. Here are BS414 and Mack, side-by-side.



Note also the absence of the shoulder patch, so BS414 isn't from 1971, he's from 1969. It's Willie Sanders, as already ID'd by Braves70 in this post.

[Merkle923]

Right. Good catch. Could've been worse, I could've called him Ollie Drew (an outfielder).

Confirmation from one of his former minor league teammates that Don Johnson was indeed Tom Seaver's catcher during the latter's one season at USC in 1965. Also that despite the baby face he once cleaned up the floor with a bunch of locals at a bar fight in the Southern League.

[rico43]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

Right. Good catch. Could've been worse, I could've called him Ollie Drew (an outfielder).

Confirmation from one of his former minor league teammates that Don Johnson was indeed Tom Seaver's catcher during the latter's one season at USC in 1965. Also that despite the baby face he once cleaned up the floor with a bunch of locals at a bar fight in the Southern League.

I'm not sure there's any way to be sure of the timing, but I also wonder if Johnson was drafted before the Braves signed and/or lost Seaver. The time line struck me because the Braves drafted batterymates out of a California high school just this past June. This time, they got to keep both.

[Merkle923]

Not likely. It was the Dodgers who drafted Seaver in June '65 as the Braves were drafting Johnson. The Braves didn't draft Seaver until the old January draft in 1966.

[Merkle923]

From Topps Vault, something I've never seen before - perennial Reds' pitching prospect Osteen in the red-based uniforms the team adopted in 1967.

[Merkle923]

This is also new. Plenty of Topps spring training shots of Osteen with Oakland - first I've ever seen in a big league ballpark. He only appeared in three games with the A's.

[Merkle923]

Another scarce image - nine game first baseman with the '73 Royals.

[SDL]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

This is also new. Plenty of Topps spring training shots of Osteen with Oakland - first I've ever seen in a big league ballpark. He only appeared in three games with the A's.

And I was actually at his final ML appearnce vs the Red Sox...

[Ctrane]

Joe Sewell - 1920 - ca-1931

[Merkle923]

A friend of mine who pitched briefly for the Brewers and is the center of an informal group of ex-Brewers/Pilots minor and major leaguers has spent some time analyzing team photos featuring his old friends.

Among other things, he's found something that'd be interesting to us in the 1971 Brewers shot: Al Yates - the career minor leaguer brought up to Milwaukee late that season. He's a) in color, b) in a Brewer uniform, c) not in a Brace batting pose in which you can barely see his face.

We'll need an original of this (happily one was distributed by a Meat company in 1971; I know where I can get hold of one) to get anything resembling a usable image of Yates but there he is, in the middle of the back row right next to Marcelino Lopez, wearing number 9.

[Ctrane]

Johnny Vergez - 1931

[Merkle923]

My friend's other research - and he's into this enough that he's determined this image was taken between July 24 and July 27, 1969 - identifies everybody in this first of two team photos for the Seattle Pilots.

Remarkably, two of the handful of Pilots for whom no color posed shot is known, are in this shot. Garry Roggenburk - who quit baseball within hours or days of this picture being taken - is in the back row, third from the left, in uniform 39 (the guy at the far left of the back row is Steve Whitaker, who has nothing but mediocre color images of himself in a Seattle uniform).

And at the far left of the middle row is Gordon Lund, who spent a month as a Pilots' utilityman.

Lord knows where an original higher-quality copy of this image might be found but I'm looking.

(For the record, the player/coaches ID's are, Front Row: Plaza, Crosetti, Schultz, Maglie, O'Brien, Donaldson, Harper. Middle Row: Lund, Gil, Bouton, Oyler, Pattin, Talbot, Segui, Locker, Simpson, Gelnar, Ranew, Davis, Hovley, Clark. Back Row: Whitaker, Barber, Roggenburk, Goossen, Brabender, Pagliaroni, Mincher, O'Donoghue, McNertney).

[Merkle923]

When a shot of O'Brien in camp with the '80 Mariners popped up, somebody wished for a Topps Vault image of him with the Cardinals. Haven't seen one but if this will suffice, have fun.

I took this on September 23, 1979. Neither the photographer nor the player could have known that O'Brien's career had exactly two more games to go before its end.

[FatJack]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

My friend's other research - and he's into this enough that he's determined this image was taken between July 24 and July 27, 1969 - identifies everybody in this first of two team photos for the Seattle Pilots.

Remarkably, two of the handful of Pilots for whom no color posed shot is known, are in this shot. Garry Roggenburk - who quit baseball within hours or days of this picture being taken - is in the back row, third from the left, in uniform 39 (the guy at the far left of the back row is Steve Whitaker, who has nothing but mediocre color images of himself in a Seattle uniform).

And at the far left of the middle row is Gordon Lund, who spent a month as a Pilots' utilityman.

Lord knows where an original higher-quality copy of this image might be found but I'm looking.

(For the record, the player/coaches ID's are, Front Row: Plaza, Crosetti, Schultz, Maglie, O'Brien, Donaldson, Harper. Middle Row: Lund, Gil, Bouton, Oyler, Pattin, Talbot, Segui, Locker, Simpson, Gelnar, Ranew, Davis, Hovley, Clark. Back Row: Whitaker, Barber, Roggenburk, Goossen, Brabender, Pagliaroni, Mincher, O'Donoghue, McNertney).

The color image I have is slightly larger than that. Full sized Black and White copies are readily available, though I can't speak to how far removed they may be from "original". And here is Mr. Roggenburk isolated from the B&W.

Gordy Lund at least has one of the team issued B&Ws in circulation. My guess is Garry wasn't around long enough to get one of those.

Interestingly, as I pointed out on Baseball-Birthdays, is that the color shot is NOT the same as the B&W. Same shoot, yes; same picture, no. The color image is actually one of the photog's outtakes as you can see Eddie O'Brien facing off to the side, as though telling someone to pipe down (in the B&W, he faces forward). The expressions for some of the others is different as well (notice Gus Gil's arms at his side in color and clasped in front of him in B&W).

PS--If anyone cares, the batboy (in the very front) is Stan Price.

[Amazin69]

I'm surprised that the Pilots team picture is considered a novelty; Bouton's had the black & white version in the back of Ball Four for generations, and I wouldn't have thought the color version was hard to find.

Bouton: "You may notice that most of the faces are in shadow. This is because a cameraman with lights cost extra. You may also notice that the manager and coaches are seated left of center. We even had trouble taking pictures."