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Old 12-28-2016, 07:41 PM   #29796
SDL
Minors (Triple A)
 
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 257
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merkle923 View Post
Never pitched in the major leagues, but merits a post here because his uploading by Topps as images KE 341 and 342 can be used to illustrate how to avoid things like the above train wreck.

Suter was primarily a Red Sox farmhand who went to the Phillies in the off-season of 1979-80. William Suter Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com His identification was not the result of great detective work, just an effort more restrained than a wild guess.

From the two images we know the following facts: he was a righthand pitcher (remembering to check this will often protect the researcher from mistaking a left-hander - say, Seth Morehead - for a right-hander - say, Dick Drott), he was shown in spring training with the Phillies, and he's wearing uniform number 54.

There are a couple of other details we can stipulate are not facts, but likelihoods. The photography elements: uniform design, colors, location, sky conditions, etc., are consistent with Topps photography of Phillies from the 1972-1986. If you've seen enough of them on cards or just online the individual years begin to look familiar to you, and these images look to be in that late '70s early '80s cusp. Additionally, while the latest upload from Topps is all over the place alphabetically, the adjoining players are named Schroll and Shanahan, meaning there's a decent chance the player in question has a last name also beginning with "S."

So you should start your search looking for a right-handed pitcher who was in camp with the Phillies in the 1977-83 era, wore uniform number 54, and probably has a last name starting with "S." The Baseball-Reference.com site provides an annual list of all players in an organization in a given year, and you can rapidly advance from year to year and find possible candidates. If a fellow is a returned Rule V draftee or otherwise a transient within one franchise's farm system, you're stuck, but there are actually very few of them.

Just using that cold-search method, you're likely to produce less than ten candidates. If you do a google image search for each name you will, soon or late, come across a couple of TCMA cards of minor leaguer Burke Suter (misidentified as "Bill" on one; he was William Burke Suter) and you've found your man.

If you have greater resources available to you, like a collection of Street & Smith Annuals with their full 40-man spring training rosters, the process is a little quicker. You just look through them until you find a pitcher wearing 54 in the Phillies' roster. Wouldn't have worked if he had been a non-roster invitee, but there he is in the 1980 roster, so it's simple.

Either way, the process takes less time than does writing it up.
I had thought he looked a bit familiar. I'd occasionally hit some PawSox games (I'm from the Boston area originally; Pawtucket was about an hour's drive or so from my house) and I DO remember seeing him pitch a few times.in '78 and '79. I'm surprised he wasn't called up to Fenway.

Now the $64,000 Question is....are there any TV shots of him still unreleased and in a Red Sox jersey?

Last edited by SDL; 12-28-2016 at 07:43 PM.
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