Thread for player identification in team photos

[UKBaseballfan]

4 players who were members of the early season 1888 team played for Columbus in 1887. These were Charlie Pike, Buck West, Jack Handiboe and Pat Welsh. In 1887 Pike appeared for Columbus in 33 games, Handiboe in 25, West in 30 and Welsh in 12. The player in the lower row seated right appears to have a ball in his hand suggesting a pitcher. Eighteen year old, Jack Handiboe lead the club in wins that season. The 1887 team photo image also reveals a potential match with the player top left wearing a dark uniform in the 1888 team photo.

Separating the 1887 team photo into 2 rows of 5, the player 2nd from left in the lower row, to Manager Jim Gifford's right, appears to match with the player top left in the 88 image, strongly suggesting that he can be identified as Charlie Pike.

Almost certainly in the image is Ed Hutchinson (71 games played) , who could well be located in the top row second from left, image attached. Similarly Bill Schwartz (65 games played) should be present, final image attached. Is that him, bottom row second from right?

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by UKBaseballfan

4 players who were members of the early season 1888 team played for Columbus in 1887. These were Charlie Pike, Buck West, Jack Handiboe and Pat Welsh. In 1887 Pike appeared for Columbus in 33 games, Handiboe in 25, West in 30 and Welsh in 12. The player in the lower row seated right appears to have a ball in his hand suggesting a pitcher. Eighteen year old, Jack Handiboe lead the club in wins that season. The 1887 team photo image also reveals a potential match with the player top left wearing a dark uniform in the 1888 team photo.

Separating the 1887 team photo into 2 rows of 5, the player 2nd from left in the lower row, to Manager Jim Gifford's right, appears to match with the player top left in the 88 image, strongly suggesting that he can be identified as Charlie Pike.

Almost certainly in the image is Ed Hutchinson (71 games played) , who could well be located in the top row second from left, image attached. Similarly Bill Schwartz (65 games played) should be present, final image attached. Is that him, bottom row second from right?

Higgins was with the club from early July through early August. The Columbus Dispatch reported on August 3 he was suspended the previous day.

On August first the Dispatch published a letter of support for manager Jim Gifford signed by the following players:
William Schwartz, Ed Hutchinson, Charles Pike, William Baker, George Nulton, William Dale, Ben Stephens, J. Higgins, James Behan, Matt Keogan, Jack Handiboe, Moses Kingsley, John Murphy, and Albert Miller. Of these, all but two (Miller and Kingsley) were with the club the entire time Higgins was with the club. Miller and Kingsley overlapped by about a week before Higgins was suspended.

Four others (William Allen, John Cahill, Jack Niehoff and Louis Porter) overlapped significantly with the start of Higgins' stint with the club (2-3 weeks).

The photo has nine players plus the manager. Given the number of players in the photo, it seems like this could have been just the starting lineup for a specific game and not the full roster at the time.

Buck West arrived just after Higgins was suspended. Welsh didn't show up until September.

I buy the placement of Hutchinson and Schwartz.

[prewinter]

The photo itself came from the Columbus Library. Here is the original in their collection. The manager certainly looks like Gifford, but the photograph itself doesn't state it is the 1887 Buckeyes.

[UKBaseballfan]

Originally Posted by prewinter

This photo was posted on net54baseball with a collection of other photos, which reportedly belonged to Ice Box Chamberlain. (He is in all of them, which tracks.) It is of the 1887 Louisville club, probably taken in the spring. Identifications were make by RUKen. I'm posting it here so I can find it in the future. All of the players were identified as on the club in the Louisville Courier-Journal in April.

(I think there is some distortion in the scan, as some of the players' heads seem too wide. There are zoomed in scans in the thread on net54baseball.)

The photos posted there also include one of the Hamilton Clippers of 1885 and the Crandall club (of Buffalo, NY) of 1889.

Identifications courtesy of RUKen:
Top Row (L-R): Amos Cross, Jimmy "Chicken" Wolf, Paul Cook, John Kerins, Lave Cross, Hub Collins, Elton Chamberlain.
Middle Row (L-R): Pete Browning, William Veach, Guy Hecker, John Kelly, Tom "Toad" Ramsey, Bill White, Joe Werrick.
Bottom Row (L-R): Reddy Mack, Joe Neale, Phil Reccius (ID added by prewinter; RUKen left this as unknown).

I am confident that Bill White is located on the ground right not in the middle row. If Reccius is in the image then it opens up the placement second from right in the middle row.

Attachments show the player located bottom row, right and images of Bill EWhite from 85 and 86.

[UKBaseballfan]

2 Images of Reccius and the player second from right middle row..

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by UKBaseballfan

I am confident that Bill White is located on the ground right not in the middle row. If Reccius is in the image then it opens up the placement second from right in the middle row.

Attachments show the player located bottom row, right and images of Bill EWhite from 85 and 86.

Your examples of Bill White are a much better match for the player in the front row right than the one from Baseball-Reference that I was using. And I can see Reccius in the player that was previously identified as Bill White. Given when White showed up in Louisville (the day after the first game of the season), I think Reccius has to be in the photo, and this resolves that issue.

[RUKen]

Originally Posted by prewinter

Your examples of Bill White are a much better match for the player in the front row right than the one from Baseball-Reference that I was using. And I can see Reccius in the player that was previously identified as Bill White. Given when White showed up in Louisville (the day after the first game of the season), I think Reccius has to be in the photo, and this resolves that issue.

Craig Brown at Threads of Our Game has posted a description of this photo. Using input from several contributors, he has Reccius in the top row, far right; Chamberlain in the middle row, second from the right; and White in the bottom row, far right. After reviewing some images received in emails from him, I agree with all of these placements.

https://www.threadsofourgame.com/1887-louisville/

[Ilove_Telin54]

Originally Posted by prewinter

The photo itself came from the Columbus Library. Here is the original in their collection. The manager certainly looks like Gifford, but the photograph itself doesn't state it is the 1887 Buckeyes.

i notice it have player is African-American

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by Ilove_Telin54

i notice it have player is African-American

That player is believed to be J. Higgins, who played for Columbus for about a month in the middle of the season. No other information is known about him. Assuming this is the 1887 Buckeyes, his presence puts a well-defined time frame for the photo, with a well-defined set of players who could been the photo.

Robert Higgins, from Memphis, was an African American pitcher with Syracuse in the 1887 season. As far as I can find, there is no connection between the two players.

[Ilove_Telin54]

Originally Posted by prewinter

That player is believed to be J. Higgins, who played for Columbus for about a month in the middle of the season. No other information is known about him. Assuming this is the 1887 Buckeyes, his presence puts a well-defined time frame for the photo, with a well-defined set of players who could been the photo.

Robert Higgins, from Memphis, was an African American pitcher with Syracuse in the 1887 season. As far as I can find, there is no connection between the two players.

how old this J. Higgins have in photo?

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by Ilove_Telin54

how old this J. Higgins have in photo?

No one knows anything about him beyond the photo (assuming that is the 1887 Buckeyes) and the name J. Higgins. He joined the club in early July, and he was suspended in early August. There are no records of such a player before or after that point (or at least none I know of).

[cinemaodyssey]

Though this isn't a mystery as to who is pictured, I thought I'd post this photo of the 1891 Portland team to piggypack on the work we've done on the 1890 squad. It's obviously taken in the exact same spot as the 1890 team and with some of the same players. It was found in the 1/12/1908 edition of The Oregon Daily Journal.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

I was able to locate a photo (probably the only one according to the article) of the 1883 Terre Haute team. It was in the possession of player Ed Halbriter who had moved to Los Angeles. The Terre Haute Saturday Spectator of 10/16/1915 printed it and my hope is it may provide some clues as to the identities of a few of the 1884 players. Sadly the image is not as pristine as I'd want but beggars can't be choosers.

On newspaperarchives.com, when you search for this photo, it looks like it was reprinted again on September 22, 1917. From the preview in the search results (bleow) it looks like the 1917 reprint is much better quality than the 1915 version. Unfortunately, when you go to the full size view, the photo is missing from the scan. This begs the question: Is the microfilm from which the preview scan made still available. If so, maybe a much higher quality scan of the photo could be obtained.

[cinemaodyssey]

I believe this is the one that is the best quality I found for the 1883 Terre Haute team. It is likely the one that wouldn't fully load on Newspaperarchive.com.

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by cinemaodyssey

I believe this is the one that is the best quality I found for the 1883 Terre Haute team. It is likely the one that wouldn't fully load on Newspaperarchive.com.

That is definitely better than the one I have from the 1915 paper. And that's a better photo of Charlie Kreheyer (back row, second from right) than I have seen. Thanks!

[prewinter]

This photo was reprinted in the St. Louis Star and Times on July 25, 1922 (pg 12), with the players identified as (l to r) Cuthbert, Battin, Waite, Cordell, Pike, Bradley, Graffen (manager), Chapman (on the ground in front), Dehlman, Miller, Pierce, Hague and Seward. All of these players are known except Cordell, and it is thought that this is actually Frank Fleet, who was with the club at the time.

I was recently looking at a book at the St. Louis Public Library by William Kelsoe, a sportwriter in St. Louis in the 1870s. The book has the long title "A Newspaper Man's Motion-picture of the City When We Got Our First Bridge, and of Many Later Happenings of Local Note," and consists of the history of St. Louis as told through the newspapers from July 1874 through July 1875. He discusses month-by-month the major stories in the local papers of the day, adding anectodotes about the people involved. (Random note: one of the stories he discussed is the murder of young Ida Buckley. The person put on trial in the spring of 1875 was John McNeary, brother of Thomas McNeary, owner and manager of the St. Louis Red Stockings in 1875. The jury split, and McNeary was released.) There is a lot of name dropping (like about when he met Edison), and it was written in 1927, so while he is working from local newspaper archives, there is also his memory involved. But he discusses the 1875 Brown Stockings.

He says "... the St. Louis Browns opened the season of 1875 with one of the strongest teams in the country: Geowrge W. Bradley, pitcher; Thomas Miller, catcher; Hernam T. Dehlman, first base; Joseph Battin, second; Richard (Dickie) Pierce, short; William Hague, third; Ed Cuthbert, left field; Lipman Pike, center and Jack Chapman, right field and captain. The extras, some of whom were used in a good many games before the season was over, were Joe Blong, Cordell, and Chester Waite.

Now Blong was with the Reds in 1875, and didn't join the Browns until 1876. But there is Cordell, fifty years later, associated with the Browns. Just a little earlier in the book, he discusses the St. Louis Unions, one of the prominent local amateur clubs, and he lists one of the members as Tom McCordell.

There is a Thomas Cordell in the 1872 and 1875 St. Louis street guides, so such a person exists. What his connection might be with the St. Louis Browns, I have no clue.

The Browns wore their uniforms for the first time on April 15, 1875 for a practice game against the St. Louis Empire. Fleet was in town well before then, and he played in their game on April 13. The team left on a trip for Louisville on April 16; Fleet was on the trip.

Is the player in the photo Fleet or Cordell? I can't say, but I did find it interesting that 50 years later, a sportswriter from the time associated Cordell with the club in the spring of 1875. Maybe he was looking at the very photo reprinted in 1922, and the name came from there?

[cinemaodyssey]

I found this nice photo that features a late 1880's or early 1890's Homestead, PA team. My hope is that some faces are familiar to someone.

[UKBaseballfan]

Does anyone have the identifications of the players shown in this 1903 image of the New York Giants?

[tnfoto]

Originally Posted by UKBaseballfan

Does anyone have the identifications of the players shown in this 1903 image of the New York Giants?

I have these IDs from 2013 accompanying this version of the image. The format indicates that the IDs may have come from the late BSmile on another forum.

Top, L-R: Roger Breshnahan (C), Dan McGann (1B), Billy Lauder (3B), Christy Mathewson (P), Unknown, Dummy Taylor (P), Joe McGinnity (P), Unknown.

Front Row, L-R: George Browne (OF), Frank Bowerman (C), Charlie Babb, Billy Gilbert (2B), John McGraw (Mgr./UT), Jack Cronin (P), Sam Mertes(OF), George Van Haltren (OF).

The unknowns might be Jack Warner, Jack Dunn, or Roscoe Miller.

[UKBaseballfan]

Originally Posted by tnfoto

I have these IDs from 2013 accompanying this version of the image. The format indicates that the IDs may have come from the late BSmile on another forum.

Top, L-R: Roger Breshnahan (C), Dan McGann (1B), Billy Lauder (3B), Christy Mathewson (P), Unknown, Dummy Taylor (P), Joe McGinnity (P), Unknown.

Front Row, L-R: George Browne (OF), Frank Bowerman (C), Charlie Babb, Billy Gilbert (2B), John McGraw (Mgr./UT), Jack Cronin (P), Sam Mertes(OF), George Van Haltren (OF).

The unknowns might be Jack Warner, Jack Dunn, or Roscoe Miller.

Thank you, I would suggest that the 2 missing players are Roscoe Miller in the back row and Jack Warner extreme back row. Only puzzling omission is George Davis do you have any suggestion for his absence.