Complete Universe Facegen Pack

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

In 1910, Elmer Koestner went 5-10 for Cleveland with a below league average 3.04 ERA with 63 walks, 44 strikeouts and 7 wild pitches. The next year he was in the Pacific Coast League where he pitched for the PCL champion Portland Beavers. He returned to the majors in 1914 splitting time between the Cubs and Reds.

I made the facegen from the wider-looking face on the far right but most of the pictures out there show him much more gaunt so I split the difference, thinning the face to better align with all the other photos out there.

Nickname "Bob". Ahhh they just don't make 'em like they used to...

[LansdowneSt]

While playing in the Western Association in 1906, Harry Cheek was reportedly “one of the best catchers in the league notwithstanding that he is one of the smallest in stature. He is always full of pepper and is fast in chasing fouls. He knows how to handle a pitcher and pegs to second with the best of them. Outside of his hitting, which is not as good as it might be, he is as good as any man in the league.” The next year Sporting Life declared him “one of the lightest weight catchers in the league. He is also one of the best. But, Harry’s only weakness is his hitting.”

These assessments accurately summed up Harry’s career. The diminutive catcher stood 5’8” and most seasons struggled to hit his weight of 160 pounds. None of his minor league season batting averages — .174, .178 twice, .189, and .195 — broke the Mendoza line. However, his superior defensive abilities enabled him to carve out a career in professional baseball spanning more than 20 years, including a two-game trial with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1910. Remarkably, he hit far better in the big leagues, rapping two hits in four at-bats, than in any season he played in the minors. - SABR

Same facegen but retouched. Couldn't get the lips to look like the picture so settled for a closed mouth. I don't think his face would be as wide as the "before" pic if he was turned toward the camera so thinned his head a bit too.

[LansdowneSt]

A journeyman who spent parts of seven seasons in the American League, Wally Mayer joined the Red Sox in 1917 and spent two campaigns as a reserve catcher. Although he did not appear in the 1918 World Series, “Kid” Mayer did help Boston get there by smacking a pair of 12th-inning game-winning hits against AL runner-up Cleveland.

A light hitting, fine fielding backup backstop, the 5-foot-11, 168-pound right-hander batted .193 in 132 big league games in a career that also included stints with the White Sox and Browns, in addition to several successful minor league stops. Although he saw scant action in the major leagues, Mayer was a durable and capable catcher, and a solid hitter with an ability to draw walks in the minor leagues.

Redid the facegen.

[The Game]

Why does it seem sometimes when i load my game or a FG that it reverts to an older FG? I do have several FG's in my FG folder. ll of this set. Lands updates, which overwrite any other ones and the last_first naming convention. So has Mel Ott been updated and it's just loading the ottMe01?

[LansdowneSt]

I haven't posted a Mel Ott. I've had fg's overwritten but as I dug into it the ones being overwritten, they were only the current MLB'ers that OOTP 22 ships with the game - not the historic ones.

Checking the last CU facepack from August both the minor league ID and the bRef major league one are the same orange Mel Ott face. I don't see a First_Last name convention for Mel in the last pack.

[LansdowneSt]

Infielder Marty Berghammer had a cup of coffee with the 1911 Chicago White Sox and then played for the Cincinnati Reds in 1913 and 1914. He jumped to the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League in 1915 when they offered him $6,000 a year plus a $5,000 signing bonus (he had been making $3,500 a year with the Reds). After the Federal League folded, he played for the St. Paul Saints for a decade, teaming with shortstop Lute Boone as the Saints double play combination from 1919 to 1925.

I found a matchbook on ebay with his face and used that instead of the bRef pictures.

[LansdowneSt]

"Experts who have watched him work say he shows signs of being a great pitcher. He has a fine assortment and a side arm delivery that he occasionally works to great advantage." - Sporting Life's assessment of Brad Hogg in the September 16, 1911 issue

In 1911, when Bradley Hogg began his major-league pitching career for the National League's Boston Rustlers, baseball was a different game. Hogg played during a time known as the Dead Ball Era, when a pitcher could spit on, shine up, or even roughen a ball to secure an advantage over a hitter. In Spitting on Diamonds, Clyde Hogg details the life of baseball's everyman, including excerpts from newspapers throughout the country to bring to life the times in which Bradley Hogg played. The author shows how Hogg's career is representative of the thousands of men who have played major-league baseball since its inception more than 125 years ago, men who didn't make it into the Hall of Fame or win awards but made it possible for millions of fans to enjoy the game. These players were the flannelled hosts of America's favorite pastime and the ones who made the game what it was and is today. The author uses Hogg's career as a spitball pitcher in leagues from coast to coast from the majors to the minors to show the rapid change and growth of our nation between 1910 and 1920. With enough baseball statistics to satisfy even the most hard core fan, this time capsule of early twentieth-century America will appeal to sports enthusiasts and readers of general historical nonfiction alike. They will find in its pages an America now visible only in faded photographs, along with a version of the national pastime that no longer exists.

- Book Summary of "Spitting on Diamonds : a spitball pitcher's journey to the major leagues, 1911-1919", by Clyde Hogg Jr (his half-nephew, father's side), University of Missouri Press, 2005

The CU Facepack has that "Bickford" or generic face that someone put on a bunch of players (with the incorrect, old -bra suffix, no correctly named file). There is admittedly no good photos straight on but I found one of him as an older man with his family on ancestry.com that gave me his facial points and then I used it and the other available photos to get something as close as I could.

[LansdowneSt]

Big Bill James’s involvement, if any, in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal remains curiously unexplored by most baseball historians. Yet the tall right-handed pitcher from Michigan pops up in three different game-fixing incidents during the Deadball Era. As a member of the Chicago White Sox for just two months in 1919, James saw little action in the infamous fixed World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. But when the scandal broke a year later, Billy Maharg, one of the gamblers involved, mentioned his name in an explosive interview with a Philadelphia newspaper. Maharg, an old ballplayer and boxer who was also one of James’s hunting buddies in the offseason, never accused James of any wrongdoing, but Maharg and Sleepy Bill Burns, another former major leaguer turned oilman, were two of the conspirators who helped organize the World Series fix.

James was also identified as having knowledge of a disputed game late in the 1919 regular season between the Detroit Tigers, his former team, and the Cleveland Indians. While he was with the Tigers in 1917, James reportedly told White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil that he and his teammates would take it easy on them during a four-game series scheduled for Labor Day weekend. At the time, the White Sox were in a fierce fight for the American League pennant with the Boston Red Sox. Chicago swept the series, and about three weeks later, after the White Sox had clinched the pennant, money changed hands. Although James was still a productive pitcher in 1919 at the age of 32, perhaps the stigma of his proximity to the Black Sox Scandal hurt his chances to continue pitching in the big leagues. After the season he was dispatched prematurely to the minor leagues, never to return to the majors.

Redid the facegen.

[LansdowneSt]

When S.C. Thompson and Hy Turkin were putting together the first edition of The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball, they had trouble identifying a “Frank Betcher” who was a utility fielder for the 1910 St. Louis Cardinals. Little did they know that all they had to do was look to a list of best-selling books to find Betcher (aka Bettger).

The problem was that Frank Betcher was an assumed name. He was really Frank Bettger, author of How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling, a 1949 book that was still in print in the 21st century. It has been translated into at least 17 languages and sold countless copies. The book became a bible for salesmen in the 1950s and ’60s. Norman Vincent Peale said he read it cover to cover every year. In the book, Bettger expounded on life lessons, including some from his baseball playing days, to explain how he became an expert salesman that allowed him to retire at the age of 51. - SABR

The tale (no doubt embellished) as told by Wikipedia:

Frank Betcher started out his career playing for Johnstown, Pennsylvania in the Tri-State League, making US$175 a month in 1907 (equivalent to $4,861 in 2020). While there, he was demoted. Disappointed, he asked the manager why he was demoted. The manager responded that he lacked enthusiasm. Bettger told the manager: "I'm just trying to hide my nervousness." The manager advised: "Try something else. That's not working."

From that moment on, he played with vigorous enthusiasm. Two years later, in 1910, he had worked his way up to the majors with St. Louis, but his baseball career was cut short by an arm injury. After his brief baseball career, Bettger returned to his native Philadelphia, where he started collecting accounts for a furniture store on a bike. He then started selling life insurance for the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania but was not initially successful, and considered quitting after 10 months. During a moment of reflection, he remembered what his baseball manager told him about his lack of enthusiasm. So he made a commitment to himself to start acting enthusiastically in his insurance presentations and using a Socratic method of asking "key" questions to prospective customers to help sell policies. It worked, and Bettger began to perfect his technique becoming incredibly successful. His method formed the basis of his book.

Redid the facegen. I realize now I put him on the Reds for the "before" screenshot. Oh well. He was a Cardinal.

[luckymann]

OK bud, nearly caught up, so here are the next 3 years. Been very selective to keep it manageable.

Hugh High BOS 1915-18
Joe Connolly BRO 1915-16
Ray Keating CHC 1912-19
Del Paddock CIN 1912
Henri Rondeau NYY 1915-16
Zinn Beck SLA 1915-18
Fred Kommers STL 1915-14
Jim Shaw WAS 1915-21
Frank Betcher CHW 1910
Ernie Walker CHW 1913-15
Joe Tinker CHC 1902-16 finally got tired of his orange-ness
Johnny Johnston CIN 1913
Erskine Mayer DET 1912-19
Charlie Snell DET 1912
Doug Baird DET 1915-20
Art Phelan NYY 1910-15
Tom Daly NYY 1913-21
Paul Strand SLA 1913-24
Bill “Rawmeat Bill” Rogers BSN 1915-16
Jim Thorpe CLE 1913-19
Red McKee PHA 1913-16
Bill James (the other one jamesbi02) BRO 1913-19

Cheers

G

[LansdowneSt]

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon
By Franklin Pierce Adams

These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double —
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

On September 14, 1902, the scorer of the game between the Chicago and Cincinnati team wrote the results of a double play as Tinker and Evers and Chance. The following day, another double play turned by the trio was written "Tinker to Evers to Chance". Those were the first and second times a scorer entered in the scorebook a double-play combination that in the history books is the most memorable of all time. - SABR

Wow. He was orange. Mine was made a year ago and it looks like it might be from the same picture. I tweaked it slightly before posting.

[luckymann]

The one and only time I have ever seen the word "gonfalon" used. Therefore it has stuck with me since first reading this poem so many years ago.

Thanks bud

G

[LansdowneSt]

Del Paddock played one season in the major leagues but his professional baseball career lasted over a decade. He started in semi-pro ball in Seattle, WA, and then pitched in 1908 and 1909 for the Vancouver Beavers of the Northwest League, pitching two no-hitters. In 1911 he played for the Dubuque Hustlers. The Chicago White Sox purchased the now-third baseman, tried him for one game in 1912, and then returned him. He was sold again that same year to the New York Highlanders. Paddock showed that he could use the bat, hitting .288 and also adding 23 walks for a .393 on-base percentage in 186 PA. However, in the field at third base, he made 14 errors in 41 games.

Used the same facegen but colorized it and cleaned it up based on the available photos.

[LansdowneSt]

Signed out of Reading PA High School, catcher Charlie Snell was in the major leagues at age 18, and given his age, didn't do too badly. He hit .211/.348/.263 for the St. Louis Browns in 1912 (in 8 games). He also played three years in the minors, 1913-1915. He lived to be 94 years ago, and died in his hometown of Reading. - bRef Bullpen wiki

I found a picture of him on the Photopack thread and used that to set the facial points, then cleaned it up. The "before" fg was clearly done from the photo of the older Charlie. Best I could do with what was available...

[LansdowneSt]

Erskine Mayer had a most interesting background, one that was very different from that of most players of the early 20th century. Mayer’s paternal grandparents were Jews who came from Germany. His great-grandfather (his grandmother’s father) had been a buyer for Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian statesman who unified Germany. He disappeared one day, and it wasn’t until years later that his body was discovered buried in a stable. Both of his grandparents were musicians, a talent they passed on to Erskine’s father, Isaac, who composed an opera written in Hebrew.

That lineage was poles apart from Mayer’s family on his mother’s side. His mother, born Henrietta Frankel, traced her ancestry back to the Mayflower. Her family owned tracts of land in what was then Virginia Territory and today is the state of Kentucky. His maternal grandmother’s brother, James Allen, captained a riverboat that ran from Hannibal, Missouri, to New Orleans. It was from marking twain on Captain Allen’s boat that young Samuel Clemens chose the nom de plume of Mark Twain.

Mayer had his best season as a big leaguer in 1915. He again won 21 games (21-15), and lowered his ERA to 2.36. Always a fine hitter, he batted .239 (in a season when the Philadelphia team as a whole had a batting average of .247), with four extra-base hits (one a homer). But once again Mayer was overshadowed by his pitching partner and roommate, Alexander, who led the league in wins (31-10), ERA (1.22), and several other pitching categories. “Every time I pitched well, Alexander topped me,” Mayer later remembered. A mid-season trade acquisition by the 1919 White Sox, the 29-year old pitched one scoreless inning in the Series. Mayer’s revulsion when the details of the Black Sox Scandal surfaced probably contributed to his decision to retire. “Erk loved baseball for the true sport it afforded,” Mayer’s wife, Grace, said, “and he felt if a game had been thrown he was through with baseball.” - SABR

I tried recoloring the existing facegen.

[LansdowneSt]

Zinn Beck was the regular third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1914. In 1915, he lost his regular job and became a backup. In 1916, at age 30, he backed up the 20-year-old Rogers Hornsby at third base. Beck hit .223 while Hornsby hit .313. Beck was later the general manager of the Chattanooga Lookouts and scouted for the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins from 1948 until his passing at 95 in 1981. - bRef Bullpen wiki

Redid the facegen.

[luckymann]

Hey bud, just when you get a chance, I've got a new add to my CAG team in the AtHoL save who needs your TLC.

Eddie Fusselback 1882-88

Thanks

G

[LansdowneSt]

Primarily a catcher, Eddie Fusselback was the first pitcher to record a save in the American Association. His save recorded for the St. Louis Brown Stockings in one of only four pitching appearances, was the only one of the AA's inaugural 1882 season. - bRef Bullpen wiki

Redid the facegen.

[LansdowneSt]

Hugh "Bunny" High played six seasons in the outfield during the deadball era for the Detroit Tigers and the New York Yankees. After the 1912 season, High signed a major league deal with the Detroit Tigers as insurance in the event that Ty Cobb held out due to a salary dispute. Cobb did hold out during the early weeks of the 1913 season, and High stepped in as the Tigers' starting center fielder. Once Cobb returned and throughout 1914, he was the fourth outfielder to the Tigers' regular outfield of Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, and Bobby Veach. Purchased by the Yankees before the 1915 season along with Wally Pipp, he became a regular with them. Between 1915 and 1918, High appeared in 345 games for the Yankees, served as the team's starting left fielder in 1916 and 1917, and compiled a .250 batting average and .343 on-base percentage. He also led all American League outfielders with a .981 fielding percentage in 1915. - Wikipedia & bRef Bullpen wiki

Redid the facegen.

[LansdowneSt]

Tom Daly played eight years in the majors but then went on to a long minor league career which lasted to age 40. He began pro ball in 1913 in the minors with the Lowell Grays, and came up to the majors for one game with the Chicago White Sox at the end of that year. After some years in the American League, he spent 1917 with the Buffalo Bisons and then came to the Chicago Cubs for several seasons. In 1920, presidential candidate Warren Harding invited the Cubs to his hometown and an exhibition game was played against the semi-pro Kerrigan Tailors. To even out the teams a bit, the Cubs let Sweetbreads Bailey, Speed Martin and Daly play for the Tailors that day. After his playing career ended, Daly was a longtime Boston Red Sox coach from 1933 to 1946. - bRef Bullpen wiki

Redid the facegen.