[prewinter]

I've seen this photo around for years without any player identification. There is a set of proposed identifications at Threads of Our Game (https://www.threadsofourgame.com/1883-st-louis/). Recently, I came across an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch written by Benjamin Hochman on March 15, 2016 (https://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...1ff6e58d4.html), including the photo below, with player identifications. The photo is beaten up far more than any version I've seen previously, so I'm guessing it is not the 'standard' print that shows up all over the web.

After finding this article, I dug around some more and found that the photo was previously printed by the Post-Dispatch on October 26, 1931 (pg 4B/19), with the same player identification, except that Chris Von der Ahe is listed in place of Ted Sullivan.

There are obviously some problems with the caption. The photo is most likely from 1883, not 1884, because of the 8 clubs listed on the score board. (The American Association had 12 teams in 1884.) Tip O'Neill did not play for the Browns in 1883, and Mullane didn't play for the Browns in 1884. With mistakes like that, I might be inclined to think these were names written well after the fact by someone who didn't quite remember things clearly.

But then there is the most interesting name, from the original 1931 caption: Nat Evans. I've done a lot of reading about the St. Louis Browns of the 1880s, and I've never heard of a Nat Evans. So I did some digging. There is a Nat Evans in Baseball-Reference, born in 1876 in Russia, died in New York in 1935, but with no record of ever playing baseball. It turns out, he was a gambler connected with the Black Sox scandal (https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/nat-evans/). Even more interesting, his family moved to St. Louis in 1883. Why would someone in 1931 put that name with a photo of the Browns? That makes me suspect these names came from the photo itself, perhaps written on the back close to the time of the photo.

Based on box scores from the games against Louisville in May, the Browns roster at the time consisted of Bill Gleason, Latham, Nicol, Comiskey, Mullane, Strief, Dolan, Cuthbert, McGinnis, Deasley, and Overbeck. That's 11 players.

Jack Gleason was released to Louisville right before the series stated (he played for Louisville all three games). Overbeck arrived from Peoria in time for the first game, and Cuthbert showed up in time to play in games two and three. Mullane and McGinnis were the pitchers.

I could see Overbeck being misread as O'Neill in 1931, and Strief as Street. The 1883 Browns had Ted Sullivan as the manager and Tom Sullivan as a utility player in May of 1883. Those two names side-by-side could cause confusion (resulting in the photo caption missing a name). Two Sullivan's brings the total to 13, and Nat Evans makes 14, the number of people in the photo.

So, now I'm setting out to understand this photo better. Based on known photos of the Browns from that time (and there are plenty of them!), the published caption is probably right about Comiskey, Deasley, Bill Gleason, McGinnis, Mullane (unambiguously setting the date in 1883), Nicol, and Latham. All of these players were with the Browns all season. The time frame for the photo is probably during a series between Louisville and the Browns in St. Louis in late May, although the clubs played again in St. Louis in July. The gentleman in the coat is most likely Chris Von der Ahe (the club owner) or Ted Sullivan (the club manager - more likely IMO).

This leaves the second and fourth players standing in on the the back row (numbered from left to right), the third player sitting (between McGinnis and Mullane), the last player sitting (who probably is George Streif, who was also with the Browns all season), the second player on the left in the front row (Cuthbert and Dolan look fairly similar), and Mr. Nat Evans. I'll post exemplars tomorrow.