Gambo and T_Wil1 Photopack

[baseball-birthdays.com]

This image is a scan of a slide that was part of a large lot that I bought some months back. The slide frame is stamped MAR 85, but the player is not IDed, and I'm terrible at recognizing many/most players.

1985 Blue Jays catchers were-
Ernie Whitt (it ain't him);
Buck Martinez, don't think it's him;
Gary Allenson (it ain't him);
Steve Nicosia, no;
and Jeff Hearron, maybe...

does anyone recognize this player?

[FatJack]

Originally Posted by baseball-birthdays.com

This image is a scan of a slide that was part of a large lot that I bought some months back. The slide frame is stamped MAR 85, but the player is not IDed, and I'm terrible at recognizing many/most players.

1985 Blue Jays catchers were-
Ernie Whitt (it ain't him);
Buck Martinez, don't think it's him;
Gary Allenson (it ain't him);
Steve Nicosia, no;
and Jeff Hearron, maybe...

does anyone recognize this player?

While I don't recognize him, per se, there is a name on his glove. Without messing with the photography myself, the closest match to the piece of the name I can make out is Dave Stenhouse, who was a minor league catcher in the Blue Jays system for several years (never made the show). I've attached a minor league card of his.

Its worth remembering that there are ALWAYS multiple non-roster catchers in spring training for every club. Lots of pitchers means lots of catchers.

[Merkle923]

Saw the same clue and was composing as Jack posted.

Confirmed in the organizational page for the 1985 Jays at Baseball-Reference 1985 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Affiliations | Baseball-Reference.com This is the son of the '60s Senators pitcher and brother of the '80s Expos product Mike Stenhouse.

[rico43]

Worth mentioning that Toronto's Class AA team in Knoxville also went by the Blue Jays and used same insignia and hand-me-down jerseys. Stenhouse played for Knoxville in 1985.
But this card looks most like the man in the photo, I think.

[baseball-birthdays.com]

thanks to all!

[Cusick]

Here's some evidence that Dave Stenhouse was a non-roster invitee to the Blue Jays' spring camp in 1985. This is from the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle of February 3, 1985.

[Terry D]

Bob Porter was an outfield prospect in the Braves chain in the late 70s and early 80s, a third round high school draft pick from Napa California. Bob made slow progress in the minors, finally reaching AAA in 1981, his fifth year as a pro. He posted an OPS of .738 at Richmond that year, and this earned him a cup with the big club. Bob appeared in 17 big league games in the 81 strike year, hitting .286 in 16 plate appearances. Unfortunately, Bob had several things against him. His minor league defensive stats were poor, and he had no speed. What was worse, the Braves system at that time was chock a block with young outfield prospects: Brett Butler, Rufino Linares, Terry Harper, Larry Whisenton, Eddie Miller, Brad Komminsk, Gary Cooper, Albert Hall. To stand out in that crowd you really had to have more than one skill to offer, and Bob didn't. His defensive limitations were obvious from the start: the Braves did not let him play the field during his 1981 call up. They seem to have viewed him as a pinch hitter only, and that is a very, very difficult role for a young player to succeed at. Bob posted an .803 OPS at Richmond in 1982 and got another call to Atlanta. This time he hit just .111 in 24 games. Bob went back to AAA in 1983, had a bad year, and was gone. He returned to Napa, where he made a career in the jewelry business. Not long ago a pair of teenage jewel thieves assaulted Bob and beat him so badly that he was in a coma for a while. The thugs were caught and tried but I don't know how the trial came out. Bob was reported to have recovered. This shot came from a California TV station and it shows Bob with the No. 22, which he wore for the Braves in 1981. I don't think big league photos of him are very common, so if anyone has him with the No. 7 he wore in '82 I'd be glad to see it.

[redsfan1940]

That also looks like Mike Matheny to me

[redsfan1940]

I am referring to the Blue Jays catcher

[rico43]

With respect, an open question to Baseball-Birthdays, whose wonderful site is now but a memory...
The One Drive file you established to keep the Topps Vault folders accessable for a few months more, the following folders, all of which contained baseball images, are missing:
FG, FM, FP, FS, FY, FZ, GC (lower #s), GK, GL, GM, GN, HS, HT, HU, HV, HW, HX, HY, HZ, JA, JB, JC
Can you restore these? Do you need our assistance to restore them? I have all these saved, but I wonder how many people are saving these thinking that's all there is.

Thank you for all you've done,
rico43

[baseball-birthdays.com]

Originally Posted by rico43

With respect, an open question to Baseball-Birthdays...
The One Drive file you established to keep the Topps Vault folders accessable for a few months more, the following folders, all of which contained baseball images, are missing:
FG, FM, FP, FS, FY, FZ, GC (lower #s), GK, GL, GM, GN, HS, HT, HU, HV, HW, HX, HY, HZ, JA, JB, JC
Can you restore these? Do you need our assistance to restore them? I have all these saved, but I wonder how many people are saving these thinking that's all there is.

Hi Rico...

For whatever reason (usually small image size combined with the obliterating watermark) I never saved those folders. I'm happy to add them to the One Drive files, though, if you have them collected.

[hobbs11]

Hey all,

I was curious if anyone has a color pic of any of these three players, in these specific style Royals jerseys (circa 1981-82).

Did a find on the TV folder document as well as the usual internet searches, and didn't find a match.

We know at least Topps took their pics that year....just don't know if the images have been released to the universe yet. Help!

[baseball-birthdays.com]

Here's Motley, ebay seller credits per the watermarks...

[hobbs11]

Originally Posted by baseball-birthdays.com

Here's Motley, ebay seller credits per the watermarks...

Yup - saw these last two on the Vault folder as it looks like KC went to 'Royals' on the light blue unis in '83 so that misses it by a year. But...... the dr teeee one might work. Thx!

[Merkle923]

Kind of a mystery that this is only the second color image released publicly of the long-time National League outfielder, and progenitor of a three-generation MLB family, in a Mets' uniform.

Bell started 24 of the first 31 games in franchise history before being dished off to the Braves on May 21. Topps, for instance, shot at least once at the Polo Grounds in late April or early May, capturing no fewer than six Mets (Demerit, Hillman, Marshall, Moford, Smith, Zimmer) who left the team before Bell did - yet clearly the company did not photograph Gus Bell.

So here he is from an early spring training game:

[oldtimers]

Can anyone post some images of Charlie Silvera with the Yankees?Thanks

[FatJack]

Originally Posted by Merkle923

Kind of a mystery that this is only the second color image released publicly of the long-time National League outfielder, and progenitor of a three-generation MLB family, in a Mets' uniform.

Bell started 24 of the first 31 games in franchise history before being dished off to the Braves on May 21. Topps, for instance, shot at least once at the Polo Grounds in late April or early May, capturing no fewer than six Mets (Demerit, Hillman, Marshall, Moford, Smith, Zimmer) who left the team before Bell did - yet clearly the company did not photograph Gus Bell.

So here he is from an early spring training game:

Stupid question. As you have more knowledge of such things than the rest of us put together... I've heard that Sy Berger, back in the day, used to give some of these transparencies to the players, themselves. You know, some former player and he would meet at some function or other and the player would lament that he'd kept no images of himself from his playing days. And then, zingo, Sy would send them one or more of the Topps transparencies. Could this be the case with some of the more "mysteriously" missing players, such as Bell? I realize the simpler likelihood is that the player(s) just didn't feel like posing on whatever day the Topps photogs were there. But it was Sy's candy store at the time and I doubt he was thinking about selling the pictures as memorabilia on eBay 50 years in the future (other than your Mantle and Mays type players).

[baseball-birthdays.com]

Charlie Silvera, image from eBay seller hyee_auctions.

[FatJack]

Can't figure out how to delete this post entirely. Tried

[Merkle923]

It's entirely plausible that some of the vast Topps transparency archives wound up in player hands. As I recall, there was a letter from former National League infielder Dick Gray asking for exactly that - and it was included in his file to explain the fact that the volume of images was smaller than what would be expected.

But it seems highly unlikely that even Sy would give away an entire shoot's worth of images to a player. Firstly, why would you want six or seven nearly identical pictures of yourself? Secondly, those images were not archived just for the hell of it. The out-of-date negatives were kept in case a baseball figure returned to his old team. That, for instance, is how Topps happened to have a picture of Gil Hodges in a Mets uniform, at their St. Petersburg spring training site, ready to be used in the first series of their 1968 cards, production of which had begun in October, 1967, in time to be released just as camps opened that year. Topps had shot Hodges with the Mets in 1963 - and kept at least one negative in the file.