[prewinter]

Thomas Fred Walden appeared in one game for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1912. According to the article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat the next day, manager George Stovall was so hard up for catchers he started Lou Criger, "who has not caught in a game for months." In the eight inning, Stovall pinch hit for Criger, and "Tom Walden, a local amateur, had to go behind the bat."

Tom Walden was Thomas Fred Walden. Given that all the references I found for him were either Tom or Tommy, I'm not sure who decided he should be referred to as Fred, but whatever. Walden signed with Dallas in the Texas League before the season started, but was sold to Fort Worth prior to the season starting. I have found at least one box score with his name in it playing for Fort Worth in the St. Louis papers. Once he came back to St. Louis, he played for the St. Louis Typos, a club of newspaper printers, which competed in a local league, but also annually in a national tournament of printers clubs. The won that tournament at least once in the 1910s, and Walden was on that club (I think).

In 1913, Tom played for the St. Louis Federals for a stretch, where again it was noted he played for the Typos. He worked as a printer for the Post-Dispatch and played for the Typos for many years after his brief excursion into professional baseball. In 1927, he managed the club.

He is pictured in a photo of the team in the August 8, 1926 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, back row, third from the left. I'm trying to determine if Benny Mertens is in fact Jack Mertens, another member of the 1913 St. Louis Federal club, who played for the club under the name Jack Collins.

Perhaps someone can run the image through the magic program. (One day I'll download it and figure out how to use it.) But this is an improvement over his image on Baseball-Reference, that's for sure.

Addendum: There is a slightly better version of this photo in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from August 22, 1926 (pg. 19).