Complete Universe Facegen Pack

[luckymann]

A few more randoms from the Footnote League:

Ernie Koy (1938-42)
Alan Storke (1906-09)
Marv Breuer (1939-43)

Thanks bud

G

[LansdowneSt]

"Alan Storke, the Amherst boy secured by Pittsburg, is showing great form. Dreyfus says he's the find of the season." - Sporting Life, April 20, 1907, referencing Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss

Storke slashed .261/.300/.319 in his four years in the majors.

During the winter of 1909-10 he was "working hard at his studies" at Harvard when he was traded in February 1910 to the Reds, but tragically, he died in March 1910, at age 25 following a lung operation.

"Ten days ago he wasn't anywhere in sight. The Dark Man with the bundle has arrived. . . The loss of a man like Alan Storke is like a body blow. . . Death landed on a man that had been hailed as a bright possibility . . . It was a shock to Redland to learn of Storke's death. No one in the old town knew the boy was ill." - the writing of Ren Mulford in Sporting Life, April 2, 1910

facegen is the same image but colorized, the nose less pointed in the air, the nose recentered and lips thinned a bit...

[LansdowneSt]

"Manager Donovan tried young Murphy, of Lawrence, at third for the St. Louis in Boston. The young man made good with the stick, and in the field handled himself well." Sporting Life, September 20, 1902 issue, about John Murphy's one game in the 1902 National League.

John Murphy went 6-24 and slashed .240/.269/.320 in his 6 game cup of coffee. My starting facegen was okay - just de-aged him a bit and cleaned up the file. Still an orange-ness I couldn't quite shake but I think it's slightly better.

[LansdowneSt]

Owen Shannon played 13 games in the majors and 14 seasons in the minors.

He was part of the fastest game ever - a 32-minute game played by the 1910 Mobile Sea Gulls and the Atlanta Crackers. Owen caught for Mobile and batted eighth. He also participated in a triple play. Rob Manfred is reviewing press reports of the game for ideas on pace-of-play...

Same facegen just colorized and tweaked...

[LansdowneSt]

Lou Polchow appeared in one game in the majors in 1902. His minor league career ran over a decade. In his one game in the majors, Lou gave up five runs during eight innings of work. However, the runs all occurred in the first two innings - thereafter he settled down and allowed no runs.

I like how the bRef Bullpen wiki tries to find the bright side of his 1-game 5.63 ERA.

Same facegen but colorized with minor tweaks...

[Amazin69]

I don't know if Quenton Dale Holman is related to Gary Holman, the Washington Senators OF/1B of the early 1970s. I do know that he was the Dodgers' 6th Round pick (Louisana Tech) in 1979, put in a good half-season at Lodi, and the next year, Dale was tearing through the Texas League, hitting .344 at San Antonio.

But…he couldn't carry that success up to the next level. Holman claimed that a hand injury "took away my power", but he hit 12, 14, and 11 HRs in his three seasons at San Antonio. It seems more likely that his lack of power for AAA Albuquerque in 1982 was about sophisticated pitching than any hand issues. Although he was still productive (.847 in a cup of coffee for the Dukes in 1983, before getting shipped back to San Antone), he clearly wasn't what the Blue Team was looking for…and so they traded him to the Blue Jays in 1984.

Syracuse was a struggle, and by 1986 he was mostly a spare outfielder. He did make it into one game against Richmond that got suspended…and then he was sent TO Richmond, so when the game resumed, he played for the R-Braves, thus becoming the first professional player ever to play for both teams in the same game. But that's all the history he made.



In my game, Holman was sitting on the Dodgers' bench, watching them try to finish off a sweep of Montreal in the NLCS. David Palmer (18-8 on the season) failed to hold a 5-1 lead, and soon it was 6-6 in the bottom of the 9th, when Holman was called on to pinch-hit. Doing his best Rick Monday impression, he hit a walkoff homer, and sent Les Expos home for l'hiver. Go, Dale!

So, just as in OTL, it's Yankees-Dodgers in the 1981 World Series. (At least we didn't get swept this time; Matlack threw 9 scoreless innings in Game 3 and Keith Hernandez singled in the winner in the 9th. But Guidry out-dueled Fergie Jenkins, 2-0 in Game 4, and so we lost the series 3-1, despite only yielding 7 runs total. Sigh.) No word yet on George Steinbrenner having any elevator fights, though.

[LansdowneSt]

Elmer Bliss went seven innings without giving up an earned run for the Highlanders in 1903. He got the win but that was Elmer's total major league pitching career. Oddly enough, while that did not earn him another chance to pitch, he did come back the next year with the Highlanders for one more game... as an outfielder.

I love the old turtlenecks. I've seen entire team pics with these. I colorized, smoothed out and did some chin restoration on Bliss' previous facegen...

[LansdowneSt]

Here's Dale Holeman. Un bourreau des coeurs in Montreal. Surely already being eyed up for a big Yankee contract in the off-season. LA & NY in '81 sounds familiar. Tough go for Texas...

[LansdowneSt]

Marv Breuer spent ten seasons in professional baseball from 1934 to 1943. He spent six years (1934-1939) in the minors before getting his chance at the bigs. His best year was 1942 when he compiled an 8-9 record, 3.07 ERA and 2.76 FIP. Marv, after baseball, worked for the United States Geological Survey for 31 years, retiring in 1976.

Facegen was fine, just needed some color and minor tweaks...

[LansdowneSt]

"Hugh Hill, the new outfielder . . . stands up to the plate well and has a peculiar style of cocking his head to one side while watching the pitcher. Hill is average In size and loosely put up." - Sporting Life, October 1, 1904

Hugh Hill played most of his major league games for the 1904 St. Louis Cardinals. The regular left fielder, George "Dearfoot" Barclay, hit .200 for the Cardinals that year and was traded by the Cardinals in September. Hugh played the 23 games left in that year.

The original facegen looks to be made from the photo on the left, I tried a new one based on the one on the right...

[LansdowneSt]

Mike Golden, a two-way player, played in the National Association in 1875 and in the National League in 1878. He was in 66 games in the outfield, 49 at pitcher and one at first base.

With the 1878 Milwaukee Grays he was one of the regular outfielders and also the # 2 pitcher. The team almost went broke around July 1, and was sold to a new owner. At the end of August the players nearly went out on strike, and Golden was one of several players who brought the team up on charges with the league, claiming they were not paid in full for their services.

When I tried remaking the facegen, the program was undecided if he had a mustache but given he's from the 1870s and after a closer inspection of the image, I believe there is a mustache so I went with that...

[LansdowneSt]

"Silent" Joe Martin played infield and outfield for the 1903 Senators and Browns, "slashing" .219/.252/.315 in 79 career Major League games.

Kept the same facegen file but cleaned it up, making him younger and less angry.

[LansdowneSt]

Upon acquiring Topsy Hartsel in 1902, Connie Mack immediately installed him at the top of his batting order and in left field. Hartsel did his job, leading all league batsmen in bases on balls (87), stolen bases (47) and runs scored (109, tied) as the A’s led the majors in scoring and won Mack’s first pennant. Hartsel and the A’s played solid, winning baseball the next two seasons and Topsy established himself as the best leadoff hitter in the game.

After his professional baseball days were finally over, Hartsel resided in Toledo and tried his hand as a machinist, and, for a short time, entered into business. He and another ex-Mud Hen, Harry S. Hinchman, opened a downtown Toledo business that dealt in “automatic baseball.” His SABR bio doesn't clarify what this "automatic baseball" endeavor was - but I like to think he'd love playing OOTP - the ultimate "automatic baseball" - and would be thrilled what a great player the game regards him as.

As for the facegen, luckymann, looking at the one you have, it appears to be based on the picture from bRef (lefthand side pic). I've tried using that one myself but you end up with an older, bug-eyed result. It's easier to use a photo of a younger Topsy (I used the one on the far right) and while it results in a less "unique" face, it does look sufficiently like him. No before pic for this one since I redid it a while ago...

[LansdowneSt]

Harry Gleason was the younger brother of major league player and manager Kid Gleason. On the surface, Harry Gleason’s career wasn’t noteworthy. He played a total of 274 major-league games over five seasons with a career batting average of .218. He was an everyday starter in only one of those seasons. But there’s so much more to Gleason’s story.

Gleason was almost killed by a beanball thrown by future Hall of Famer Rube Waddell. He fought with his team’s hometown fans during one game and was arrested after another game for defying New York’s Blue Laws. Despite his minuscule offensive output, he perpetually fought with ownership over pay, getting placed on Organized Baseball’s suspended list several times.

[LansdowneSt]

The son of Herm Doscher, Jack Doscher pitched 27 games in the majors during 1903-1906 and 1908. As a result, he was the first second-generation major leaguer.

He first played with the Chicago Cubs in 1903 for only one year, then moved on to the Brooklyn Superbas (1903-1906) and Cincinnati Reds in 1908. Overall, he was 2-10 with an ERA of 2.84 - just below average in those days of the Dead-ball era. Doscher was at St. John's College, which later became Fordham University, at the same time as a number of future major leaguers, most notably Ed Walsh.

No before picture as it was a missing face in my files...

[LansdowneSt]

"Croft, late change catcher of the Louisvilles, played second base in excellent style." - Sporting Life, August 5, 1899, about the game Croft played for the Philadelphia Phillies on July 26, after having been released earlier that month by the Louisville Colonels

Harry Croft played outfield and second base in seven games in the National League in 1899 and 1901. Although the quote above refers to him being a "change catcher", and while he did play some catcher in the minors, he never actually caught during his limited time in the majors.

No "before" pic as it was a new one for me. Just the bRef picture to work with...

[LansdowneSt]

"The news that Frank Bonner has been signed by the Toronto Club was hailed with the greatest enthusiasm by the base ball lovers yesterday as he is 'considered' to be by long odds the best all-round second baseman in the league." - from Sporting Life of March 16, 1901

Frank Bonner, a member of the pennant winning 1894 Baltimore Orioles, died from complications of tonsillitis in a Kansas City hospital at age 36. He had been playing for the Kansas City Blues the previous two seasons; his obituary in the New York Times described him as one of the best second basemen in the American Association. Frank's minor league career stretched from 1893 to 1905.

Kept the same facegen but fixed the color and smoothed out some of the rough patches...

[LansdowneSt]

Slender and boyish-looking early in his early 20s, in later years the 5-feet-11 and 155-pound John Malarkey was depicted as “lean and Cassius-like” by The Sporting News and said only to need more weight and, according to the paper’s November 2, 1901, issue, a change of pace to accompany his “high drop curve” in order to become a winning pitcher in the majors. Yet the Washington Post, which had the clearest view of him early in his career, on April 6, 1895, in the spring of his lone full season with the local club, deemed him “erratic and flighty” and the possessor of “a $10,000 arm and a ten cent noodle.” The Post’s denigrating opinion of him evidently was shared by many others in the business of evaluating major-league talent, for Malarkey had to play for pay nearly 10 years before he was able to win a regular job in top company and then he lost it through no fault of his own. - SABR bio

The face gen is the same just colorized and thinned a bit to better align with the photos and contemporaneous descriptions.

[LansdowneSt]

As far as footnotes go, Tom W Walker was pretty good in his brief Major League run. In 1904 with the Reds he went 15-8 with a 2.24 ERA, even in the context of the time that was good for a 131 ERA+.

Redid the facegen, as the old one needed more than tweaks...

[Amazin69]

So the Yankees won the Series, 4 games to 2…

My owner only gave me a "Fair" grade, since he wanted more than the LCS…

The Cubs canned Preston Gomez and the Mets sacked Torre (thank heavens!)…

…but somehow, Jerry Coleman appears to be keeping his job in San Diego, despite "leading" the Padres to a 65-97 mark.

Such a putrid offense (last in Runs, BA, and HR). Frank Tanana put up a marvelous 1.99 ERA, but weak run-support held him to 11-7 for the year. The other big FA signing, Dennis Leonard, fared even worse: 6-15 despite a 2.81 ERA. The career-ending injury must have almost seemed a mercy.

At least they upgraded at 3B: Jerry DeSimone posted a .761 OPS, easily bettering the .650 Luis Salazar struggled to last year. In OTL, DeSimone put in decent AAA work across 3+ seasons, but never got a chance. Congrats, Jerry!





(Yes, the second pic is worthless; I'm aware. Just being a completist.)