Thread for player identification in team photos

[cinemaodyssey]

Originally Posted by RUKen

The player standing second from the left in the back is the tallest player in the photo (or at least in the back row).

Are you including in the back row the seated player with his hands on another player's shoulders?

Yes I am, sorry for the confusion.

[paul.m.w.]

U

[cinemaodyssey]

A pretty amazing photo of the 1896 Detroit Tigers is up on Robert Edwards Auctions currently. Unique poses have proved a bit tough for some of the identifications but I have so far:

Top Row, L-R:?, ?, Art Twineham, Tom Thomas, George Stallings, Al McCauley, Sam Gillen, ?, ?
Bottom Row, L-R: George Darby, Mike Trost, Lew Whistler, ?, Robert Gayle, Sam Dungan, Parson Nicholson

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

A pretty amazing photo of the 1896 Detroit Tigers is up on Robert Edwards Auctions currently. Unique poses have proved a bit tough for some of the identifications but I have so far:

Top Row, L-R:?, ?, Art Twineham, Tom Thomas, George Stallings, Al McCauley, Sam Gillen, ?, ?
Bottom Row, L-R: George Darby, Mike Trost, Lew Whistler, ?, Robert Gayle, Sam Dungan, Parson Nicholson

According to the Detroit Free Press, McCauley was released around May 27, 1896. Thomas was not signed until July 10, 1896.

Here are sketches of Egan, Knoll, Gayle and Mayer (four of the five non-major league players from the 1896 season) from the pre-season, working under the assumption that the photo may have been taken at the start of the season. Mayer's release was reported at the same time as McCauley's.

The Ely photo is from much later (1905).

[cinemaodyssey]

Thanks for the info on McCauley. I like Ely in the front row next to Whistler. I've attached one more photo for John Corcoran who was also on the team. Baseball Reference doesn't seem to have a photo of him.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

Thanks for the info on McCauley. I like Ely in the front row next to Whistler. I've attached one more photo for John Corcoran who was also on the team. Baseball Reference doesn't seem to have a photo of him.

Here's another sketch of Corcoran, from the Detroit Press in March 1896, possibly from the same source photo as the previous sketch, looking at the poses.

[prewinter]

This 1887 team photo of the Philadelphia club is posted on Wikipedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...hillies%29.jpg), and it includes a handwritten identification of players below it. The problem is it only identifies 8 players in each row, and there are 9 in each row. I recall seeing a discussion of this somewhere, but I don't recall where.

Lyons was signed on August 24, and Devlin was released on September 5, so it is a very narrow window for the photo.

Back row (l to r): Jim Devlin, Whitey Gibson, George Wood, Charlie Bastian, Charles Buffington, Al Maul, Charlie Ferguson, Joe Mulvey, Ed Andrews
Front row: Tom Gunning, Sid Farrar, Barney McLaughlin, Deacon McGuire, Harry Wright, Jack Clements, Harry Lyons, Jim Fogarty, Arthur Irwin.

Update: The missing players are Whitey Gibson (the illegible name), Charlie Bastian, and Deacon McGuire, located in red in the listing above.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

A pretty amazing photo of the 1896 Detroit Tigers is up on Robert Edwards Auctions currently.

A sketch of that photo was printed in the the Detroit Free Press on Sept 13, 1896 (pg. 7) with the players identified. A blurb in the paper on the Sept 15 (pg. 2) noted the photo was taken by C.M. Hayes.

[cinemaodyssey]

I literally just came across that searching through the papers too! Looks like Fisher got "photoshopped"

[prewinter]

It was noted on the Gambo and T_Wil1 Photopack thread that a team photo of the 1913 St. Louis Terriers, a minor league in the league's first season, is up for sale on Heritage Auctions. The players are identified in the photo from left to right:

Reis, Jones, Miller, Kempin, Walden, Hohnhorst, Green, Collins, Pfyl, O'Connor, Rehmer, Mullin, Gwinn, Stis, Prout, Carmen, Murphy, and Barton.

The photo looks to have been taken in late May or early June of 1913; pretty much that entire group played in the game on May 28 for the Terriers in St. Louis, and Carmen made his lone appearance with the club a few days later.

Jones was the alias for Leo Witterstaetter.
Mullin was the alias for Jack Ridgway.
Collins was the alias for Jack Mertens.

My question is about Carmen. He is identified on Baseball Reference as George T. Carmen (carmen002---). After doing some research, I concluded he was likely George Carmen (carmen001geo), a left-handed pitcher with London, Saginaw and Hamilton in the Michigan-Ontario League from 1920-1925. That George Carmen was from the St. Louis area originally (Manchester, MO per an article from 1916), and the Carmen for the Terriers later played with a club from Festus MO (right next to Manchester west of St. Louis) in 1913. However, suspecting is not proving.

Now there is a photo of Carmen with the Terriers, and there is a photo of Carmen with London in 1920. Are they the same person? I think so, but then I want it to be so. Can I get an objective opinion?

(I'm trying to get a better blow-up of the Terriers photo...)

[cinemaodyssey]

I'd have to see a clearer comparison, but as it stand right now they look similar to me.

[cinemaodyssey]

I had been working on an unidentified version of this photograph for several years but finally found out who the bulk of the players are (thanks to the 5/21/1905 edition of the Decatur Herald and Review):

Top Row, L-R: Jim Burns, Charlie Reising, Harry Metcalf, Floyd Lauman, Pizarro Douthett, Frank Carlin
Middle Row, L-R: Charles Clark, Al Morgan (Mgr.), Ed Flynn
Bottom Row, L-R: Pacer Smith, Happy Callender, Bobby Mitchell

This is the first non-woodcut photo I've seen of Flynn, and only the 2nd photo of Reising and Mitchell. The caption misspells some names, but the 7/28/1886 edition of the paper confirms who exactly is pictured as well as when it was taken (late July).

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

This is the first non-woodcut photo I've seen of Flynn, and only the 2nd photo of Reising and Mitchell. The caption misspells some names, but the 7/28/1886 edition of the paper confirms who exactly is pictured as well as when it was taken (late July).

Reising should be in the cabinet photo of Davenport that is not identified. Maybe this photo will provide a better point of comparison.

Why do you have Charles Clark in the middle row whn the caption reads "Kahill"?

[cinemaodyssey]

The newspaper on July 28th clearly names each player in the photo they had just received of the Decatur team. There is no Kahill or Carlisle, but there is a Clark (obtained from St. Paul) and a Carlin named. I assume the caption was reading cursive names off the back of the cabinet photo and just got it wrong.

[cinemaodyssey]

This was on Leland's Auctions earlier last year and they seem to think it depicts the 1890 Fort Wayne team. It does appear to feature Frank Bowerman in the front row, 2nd from the right. He played for them in 1890 and 1891. I don't recognize anyone else for now.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

I'd have to see a clearer comparison, but as it stand right now they look similar to me.

When I go to the original at Heritage Auctions, it looks like I can get a clearer shot of Carmen, but when I save it to my computer, it ends up looking blurrier. I did just upload a smaller version that is a maybe little less fuzzy.

[cinemaodyssey]

Well...we were wondering where Mountjoy was and he happened to be staring at us in plain sight the whole time. This comes from The Rocky Mountain News, 2/11/1923.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

Well...we were wondering where Mountjoy was and he happened to be staring at us in plain sight the whole time. This comes from The Rocky Mountain News, 2/11/1923.

Cool find!

I've got a similar problem with this caption as I had with the caption for this photo published in the book on the history of the Western League: How do you track the caption to the players are listed in the photo?

Comparing the caption to how I've numbered the players in the photo, 1) O'Neil 2) McAndries 3) Ryan are clear. 13) O'Brien and 14) Tebeau are also clear. 4) Straub fits with other examples of Straub. Is Mountjoy 5) in the suit, with McClintock 6) next to him in the suit? (The book suggests the second person in the suit is the club president, George Higgins.) I can see the comparison between Player 5 and Mountjoy.

10) is unambiguously Phillips, while 8) matches Meinke from the sketch.

I'm not sure how the others match up.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

This was on Leland's Auctions earlier last year and they seem to think it depicts the 1890 Fort Wayne team. It does appear to feature Frank Bowerman in the front row, 2nd from the right. He played for them in 1890 and 1891. I don't recognize anyone else for now.

Did some digging on the club in the Fort Wayne paper. As best I can tell, Allen, Gallagher, Quirk, Bruton, and Scott were with the club all season. Ferris was with the club most of the season. The team disbanded on July 26 when the league collapsed. Other players on the club at that time were Bamberger, Brandenburg, Dunning and Ogden.

Tebeau was with the club about two weeks, from June 16 or so, when he signed from Muskegon after that club folded, until June 29, when he left to join Akron. There is a note about Springer signing on June 12 from Lansing, but I couldn't even find a game he played in, let alone how long he was with the club.

Bowerman was around about two weeks as well, from June 5 to June 14.

Downing, Ellery, McCarty (McCarthy) and a catcher named Malone were with the club from the start of the season until various points in June.

Andy Dunning was signed in mid-July, so he was only around a few weeks before the club folded.

There are a lot of players listed on the roster for the club on Baseball Reference. It's going to take a little time to sort out who was on the club with whom when.

Update: Ferris was Volney W. Ferris (1868-1953) from Hastings MI, identified in the Fort Wayne Sentinel on May 3, 1890. An obituary was published in the Holland (MI) Evening Sentinel on October 8, 1953 (pg. 10).

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

This was on Leland's Auctions earlier last year and they seem to think it depicts the 1890 Fort Wayne team. It does appear to feature Frank Bowerman in the front row, 2nd from the right. He played for them in 1890 and 1891. I don't recognize anyone else for now.

Here are details on players from the early season roster of the club.

Allen was Edward Allen (allen-004edw), who played for Utica with Milt Scott in 1889, per the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette April 6, 1890 (pg. 2).