Help needed in identifing players in photo

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Posted By: <b>Louis Despres</b><p>Just picked this up. Do any of you have any idea who the players might be in this Vitagraph photo with John Bunny from the movie short <br />"Hearts and Diamonds" (1914)? I believe some of the shirt fronts read "Brooklyn". Also if anyone can ID the field I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance. Louis<br /><br /><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/robertpollard/bunny.jpg">

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Posted By: <b>Dan Bretta</b><p>I see a Ward's Tip Tops bread sign on the fence so I think this is probably Washington Park in Brooklyn. And since it's 1914 I think you have some Brooklyn Tip Tops (Federal League) players in the photo.<br /><br />That's a great photo...where did you pick it up at?

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Posted By: <b>Louis Despres</b><p>E-bay

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Posted By: <b>Dan Bretta</b><p>Nice score...It looks like the players on the right are Brooklyn players - maybe the guy in the catcher's gear is an actor?...he's wearing a bow tie. Looks like maybe three Tip Tops players and the rest are probably actors judging by their uniforms.

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Posted By: <b>Zinn</b><p>Big guy is Wilbert Robinson?<br /><br />Guy we think is a catcher with bow tie maybe an umpire?

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>They look like actors in a silent movie!<br /><br />Edited to add you mentioned in the title is was from a movie. One of these days I will learn to read everything!

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Posted By: <b>Bob Pomilla</b><p>The "big guy" is the forgotten silent film comedian John Bunny, <br />the biggest comic name in his day. There is an actor in the film that calls himself<br />"Matty Christheson" <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2356547/" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2356547/</a><br /><br />Great pic, by the way!

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Posted By: <b>Dave Weisner</b><p> Great picture. You can actually buy the entire short as part<br />of a DVD called Reel Baseball (available at Amazon among other<br />places) which is a collection of silent films and shorts about<br />baseball. Maybe the credits will tell you who the players are,<br />but I kind of doubt that there are any real players, just actors.<br />- Dave<br /><br />p.s. I saw one review of the movie that said it was partly<br /> filmed at the newly opened Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. This<br /> makes sense because John Bunny lived in Brooklyn and the film<br /> was made in 1914 and Ebbets opened in 1913.

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Posted By: <b>Anonymous</b><p>Could the guy in the photo who actually looks like an athlete (far right) be Casey Stengel? I think it looks something like him and he played for Brooklyn at that time.

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Posted By: <b>Dan Bretta</b><p>The reason why I think this is Washington Park in Brooklyn is because of the Tip Top advertising...Would the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) allow Tip Top advertising in their park when the owner of that company also owned the Brooklyn Federal League team? I doubt it, especially when you consider the bad blood between the two leagues. <br /><br />The uniform of the Brooklyn player matches the Federal League team and is not even close to what a Robins uniform looked like.

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Posted By: <b>Richard J Koloda</b><p>OK I've seen the movie --I always thought it was the Superbas as there was a reference to Wheat. <br />ON the other hand the uniform resembles the Brookyln Feds --because of the blue tops and the cap style, and the multicolored leggings, involving a non-white color which the Superbas wore (see Marc Okkonen's The Federa lLeague of 1914-1915, published by SABR)<br />One can compare contemporary Superbas uniforms by looking at Tom Simon's Deadball stars of the National League (also published by SABR). <br />John Bunny was a tremendous baseball fan as there is a photo of him in a book of vintage baseball photos that came out in the 1990s. He died of Bright's disease in 1915.