Thread for player identification in team photos

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There are 31 players listed on Baseball-Reference for Portland in 1890. Three of them (Edwin Breckenridge, John Cahill and George McVey) didn't play their first game with Portland until September, after Harris was gone from the club. Eleven of were gone from the club before Hassamaer joined. (Bray, Dwyer, Smith, McCormick, Bays, Schoenmaker, Crotty, Barry, McCarthy, Perrier and Marsh.)

Cooney overlapped by just a couple of days, while Howard was gone just a couple of weeks after Hassamaer came onto the club. David Levy played in five games, spread over a month or so, after Hassamaer arrived. I consider it unlikely that Cooney is in the photo.

Three players are unambigously in the photo: Frank Buchtel, Jiggs Parrott and Tom Parrott. They were with Portland all season. Several other players were around for all of almost of the interval between Hassamaer joining and Harris leaving: Munday, Rhue, Whitaker, Land, and Schachern. Munday had a long stretch of more than a month during which he pitched just once.

Frank Cahill and George Borchers left the club about the same time that Harry Hulin and Harry O'Day joined, and well before Whitrock started pitching for them. I think it unlikely that there is an overlap between those players.

The players I am certain are in the photo (in addition to Harris) are: Buchtel, J. Parrott, Hassamaer, Rhue, Land and Schachern. If Frank Cahill and Borchers are in the photo, Hulin, O'Day and Whitrock are not (and vice versa). Either way that covers eight of the twelve players (or nine with Whitrock).

Things get complicated at this point. Whitaker missed two weeks in August (injured maybe?) and T. Parrott was suspended for a stretch in August. At the same time, Whitrock came on board and Munday started pitching with the club again. If we include all four of those pitchers (along with Hulin and O'Day over Cahill and Borchers), that is the target twelve players. I think Hulin is the first player on the left in the back row, so that is my theory.

Photos to follow.

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Comparison for Hulin as first player on the left, back row. The photo of Hulin is from an 1889 composite of the Stockton baseball club, which he appears in under the name "Howard". (The use of the name Howard while with Sacramento is verified in a clipping in the San Francisco Call on Nov. 2, 1890, pg 8).

To go with the match for Hulin is one for O'Day. The presence of these two players eliminates Frank Cahill and George Borchers from the photo.

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The front row appears to be Buchtel on the left and Whitaker on the right. Buchtel is from a photo of the Willamettes baseball club of the late 1880s (from which many of the early members of the Portland club came, including both Parrotts), published in the Oregon Daily Journal on December 8, 1912. Whitaker comes from a team photo of the 1888 Dallas Hams.

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The Parrott brothers are fairly distinct looking. The thinking from the previous discussion was that Tom was seated next to Harris, while Jiggs was standing in the back row, second from the right.

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A couple more proposed matches, based on the player list above. This leaves three unidentified players, and four possible players to match to:
Munday, Land, Schachern and Levy. A photo of Levy is attached, along with a photo of Joe Schachern's son.

Jack G. Munday was hired as a coach for the Lewiston (Idaho) state normal school in April 1902 (Spokane-Review, April 4, 1902 pg 4). Joe Schachern developed an extensive record as a minor league manager in the Texas League, and was well known in Pennsylvania in the 1890s. So far I have not found photos of either of them. Land also has an extensive minor league record, but no photo of him has turned up yet.

[cinemaodyssey]

I think you can proceed with confidence that the manager pictured is Henry Harris. The additional exemplar attached pictures him with the 1885 San Francisco Haverlys and looks dead-on.

[cinemaodyssey]

I never really tried to compare O'Day, but I really like the match (without a mustache) that you have there. Looks like a winner to me.

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This is the 1884 Terre Haute Team Photo. Manager Al Buckenberger is identified in the suit. There are just nine players shown, which is odd in that by late March the club was reported to have signed at least 12 players, and most of them appeared with the club at some point in the season. These players were: Albert Stump, Ed Harbriter, Harry Murphy, James Donnelly, George Mappes, Bert Grether, Bill Van Dyke, Mike Dorsey, Tony Hellman, William (Mox) McQuery, Abe Litz, and J.H. Campbell.

As best I can tell, Abe Litz never played for the club; he is reported to have returned to his home in Chattanooga in late April. Baseball-Reference lists Ben Lotz, but maybe that was Litz? No Campbell is listed for Terre Haute. George Carr and Jack Leary appear in boxscores with Terre Haute in the St. Paul Globe in late May, but may not have been with the club at the start of the season. Grether is identified as a new pitcher from St. Louis in early June. I also found a reference to his playing for the St. Louis Reserves, so he may have signed with Terre Haute, the gone to St. Louis instead early on.

Assuming then that the photo was taken very early in the season, the list of players above can be narrowed to:
Albert Stump, Ed Harbriter, Harry Murphy, James Donnelly, George Mappes, Bill Van Dyke, Mike Dorsey, Tony Hellman, William (Mox) McQuery.

Major leaguers in bold.

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Some possible matches:
James Donnelly, from an 1886 Kansas City Blues team photo
Mike Dorsey, from the 1889 Terre Haute photo. This is not the Dorsey listed with the 1884 club in Baseball-Reference; they list Jerry Dorsey. But I'm thinking this Mike played for Terre Haute both seasons.
Tony Hellman, using a photo I found on this site as a comparison.

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George Mappes - The sketch was posted on this site previously.
Mox McQuery, from Baseball-Reference. I believe the original image is the same Kansas City team photo as Donnelly.
Some other suspects. Van Dyke and Halbriter are almost certainly in this photo, based on their presence on the club early on and into June. Litz probably isn't, but I know he spent time with the club in March and April.
(Again I'm assuming the photo was taken very early in the season.)

[cinemaodyssey]

The SABR pictorial committee has tried to tackle this team several different times over the years and have not really been able to pinpoint what year it represents. Admittedly it has been awhile since the last go-round with it, specifically the January 2010 newsletter. In that, they proposed that it may be an 1882 semi-pro team.

As to the IDs, I have problems with the ears on Donnelly, McQueary and Hellman so I'm not sure they are correct.

Lastly, I have attached the best exemplar we have of Mappes (from the 1885 Atlanta team photo) for future reference.

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Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

The SABR pictorial committee has tried to tackle this team several different times over the years and have not really been able to pinpoint what year it represents. Admittedly it has been awhile since the last go-round with it, specifically the January 2010 newsletter. In that, they proposed that it may be an 1882 semi-pro team.

As to the IDs, I have problems with the ears on Donnelly, McQueary and Hellman so I'm not sure they are correct.

Lastly, I have attached the best exemplar we have of Mappes (from the 1885 Atlanta team photo) for future reference.

I can't access that newsletter online, unfortunately. It doesn't appear as a link on their newsletter listing.

[tnfoto]

Originally Posted by prewinter

I can't access that newsletter online, unfortunately. It doesn't appear as a link on their newsletter listing.

The discussion about the photo appears on page 9 of the newsletter supplement, which can be viewed here.

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Originally Posted by tnfoto

The discussion about the photo appears on page 9 of the newsletter supplement, which can be viewed here.

Thanks for the link. Going to the interview the article references (http://www.vigo.lib.in.us/archives/O...risz/frisz.php), the only players that Paul Frisz mentions for the 1882 club are brothers William and Albert Myers (https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...yersal01.shtml), and Andy Gallagher. (There is an Andy Gallagher in Baseball-Reference, but as he was born in 1874 I doubt he was on the club in 1882.) There are a couple of players in that photo I could see as being Al Myers, based on the photo on Baseball-Reference.

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Originally Posted by prewinter

Back row, left to right. Thomas Flood is identified through elimination, as there are known photos of everyone else that can be matched to someone else. According to a blurb in the Galveston Daily News (February 12, 1888) he was 21 years old that year and was 6 feet in height.

Turns out Flood had an Old Judge card. I moved the comparison up to where the other Green Bay comps are presented.

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This 1889 Kansas City team photo was taken during a series between Kansas City and Philadelphia that took place between September 2 and September 4, 1889. The players in the photo are identified at Threads of Our Game (https://www.threadsofourgame.com/1889-kansas-city/), although they say three of the players (McCarty, Hoover and Sowders) are not confirmed. I can state that McCarty is definitely wrong, as he was released from Kansas City in July and was pitching for St. Joesph in the Western Association in September. Hoover is also uncertain, IMO. The Kansas City Times reported on September 7 that Hoover left the club in Philadelphia and returned to Kansas City; he had an injured finger and was not going to be able to catch for a few weeks. The player identified as Hoover was elsewhere identified as Dan Stearns.

Kansas City played 5 games in Philadelphia in those three days, using a total of 13 players, including Mike Mattimore, who joined Kansas City from Philadelphia for the game on September 3. He is one of the players identified in the photo, confirming the September time frame given below the photo.
Correction 9/18/2021: Only 12 players used, not 13 as stated above.

The players who played in those five games (based on box scores in the Kansas City Times) are:
Herman Long, Billy Hamilton, Jim Burns, Jim Donohue, Mike Mattimore, Dan Stearns, Jim Manning, Billy Alvord, Jim Conway, Park Swartzel, John Sowders, and Joe Gunson. Bill Watkins was the manager. Of those players, all but Donohue and Swartzel were previously identified in the team photo. Notably, Hoover did not appear in the series; assuming he was with the club in Philadelphia, it is unclear when he would have left the club.

Below are the confirmed matches first, followed by the unknown player (previously thought to be McCarty) and possible matched for that player based on the list above.

Update 9/23/2021: The consensus identification seems to be:
Back row: Jim Burns, Dan Stearns, Bill Alvord, Jim Donahue, Park Swartzel
Front row: Herman Long, Jim Conway, Joe Gunson, Bill Watkins, Jim Manning, John Sowders, Billy Hamilton
(For those keeping track at home, that's four Jims, two Bills and a Billy.)

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Here are matches.

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More matches:

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More matches:

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Here are the last three. Hoover is presented with Stearns for comparison. The final photo is the unknown player.