Mark- I was one of the people who said that the burden of proof rests with you. Here is my reasoning. Corey bought this photo in good faith and put it in his safe deposit box, where it has been for the last twenty years. He had no obligation to deal with this issue if he didn't want to. If he were putting the dag up for sale, say in a public auction, and you challenged the identity, then I believe he would either have to prove it's Cartwright or remove it from the marketplace. But he has no other obligation once it is in his collection. He had the choice to ignore this whole issue if he wanted, since even if it is misidentified he was harming no one. He had no obligation to defend his belief it is Cartwright; he is free to say it's Abe Lincoln if that makes him happy. When the day comes that he or his descendents decide to sell it, then the burden shifts to him/them. Does that make sense?

It doesn't to me. This should not be about Corey or Corey's feelings (or mine). I understand that he did not have to cooperate with me in this endeavor and I appreciate that he did and what he has at stake. However, if he did not, I still could have made a very credible presentation - certainly not nearly as good, but it still would have raised doubts about the HPD and raised questions as to why he did not want to have this discussion.

What historians and collectors should be primarily interested in is what is true (or probably true if that's the best we can do). If a persons reads the newsletter and decides that subject C is probably not Cartwright - that is a completely valid assessment. If that person is a baseball writer and he thus decides to not use the HPD in his book - are you saying that is not valid given what I have presented? I fully believe I have more than met what ever justifiable burden I had.

I agree Mark that the truth is the most important thing. I'm just saying Corey had no obligation to respond if he didn't want to. No ethical boundary would have been breached if he chose to not get involved in the debate. It's to his credit that he engaged in it, but he didn't have to. That is what I meant.

With that I absolutely agree.

"There is no logical reason that I should have the burden of proof. This is not a criminal case where we want to bend over backwards to protect a defendant from a wrongful conviction. We are trying to determine what is true, or at least what is probably true - that is very different."

Mark, I believe there is a very logical reason you should have the burden of proof. The provenance has shifted it to you. Yes, you will argue that the provenance is not as strong as I opine. And others point out the risk associated with family members one or two generations removed from identifying ancestors. But bear in mind what we are dealing with here. This is a c. 1846 half plate daguerreotype. Half-plate-size dags from that period constituted a very small percentage of total dags, and almost always they were used when the image had particular importance to the subjects. In addition, the Cartwright family did not in the 1930s, as the HOF was coming into being, suddenly take note of its ancestorial baseball connection. AJC's importance to the origins of the game was known to his family for many years. It is the most tortured rational conceivable to say that (i) for a dag this rare, (ii) a dag that purportedly represents to the family that which their ancestor was most proud of and which gave the family great prominence, (iii) a dag likely on the family's radar for many years as they as they sought to achieve their long-standing goal of having AJC's contributions to the game appropriately recognized, would, when the HOF finally came calling, blow it by giving them an incorrect image of their ancestor. Is it theoretically possible? Yes. As a practical matter is it possible? IMO no.

As to your point in an earlier post of my failure "to produce known photos of the same early ballplayers that exhibit multiple feature differences as do Cartwright and subject C", that was not my role. That was Jerry Richard's role, which by agreement between you and I both of us were to be prohibited from continually going back to our experts. He and I discussed the issue you now raise at length and he could not have been more emphatic in saying he has seen many instances of such "mismatches" coming from the same individual, and he in particular said your experience must be very limited to not know this.

Mark, I do not question your good faith. Nor do I in any way want to come across as being disrespectful. But with respect I say that while you clearly know more than the average person, your knowledge cannot compare to an expert such as Mr. Richards. That was why I hired him. As you and I developed this newsletter supplement together over the past number of months you know darn well that I was prohibited from going back to Jerry Richards to have him answer with his own words and illustrations points you had raised in your subsequent redrafts. So I do very much take exception to your criticism now of my "failure" to provide such illustrations.

Whether or not the hats are straw is irrelevant - if this were the style of straw hat that the Knickerbockers wore as a team, then it would be more relevant, but still not too important, as they aren't wearing their uniforms, so whatever hats they are wearing for the picture have nothing to do with baseball.

I could see how six friends could get together for a photo and arrange in advance to all be wearing nice dark dress clothing and their best light-colored wide-brim hats, just so that the picture would look good. If this picture had been taken in the deep south, all of them would have had such hats. If taken elsewhere, it would have taken minutes for any of them who didn't have one, to get such a hat at a hat shop.

Scott- I'm not so sure the Knickerbockers actually had uniforms. I think they took off their jackets, rolled up their sleeves, and played baseball. I never saw a reference that said the team had uniforms.

Corey and Mark: there is something here about this whole project that I do not understand. Why did the two of you have ground rules? Why did you both have to agree not to keep going back to your experts? Why did you both have to set the rules regarding who was allowed to amend his findings, and who would have the last word? I never understood that. If the point of this exercise is to determine the truth, what relevance do these ground rules have? I'm lost.

The only team 'picture' I've seen is this one, and it seems to show a 'team' belt and shirt design:

http://verdun2.files.wordpress.com/2...9knicks400.jpg

>>But with respect I say that while you clearly know more than the average person, your knowledge cannot compare to an expert such as Mr. Richards.

That’s why I obtained the services of Stephen Mancusi. That said, I think my response to Mr. Richards holds up very well.

>>As to your point in an earlier post of my failure "to produce known photos of the same early ballplayers that exhibit multiple feature differences as do Cartwright and subject C", that was not my role. That was Jerry Richard's role..

I honestly never considered that this would require an expert. It doesn’t seem very difficult to me to point out such differences if they exist. I can tell you that I cannot easily find such examples – as explained I have certainly tried and I can’t find any. That tells me that such a case would be at least extremely uncommon. This speaks to the likelihood of C being AJC. Of course the question is out there on this forum and through the newsletter. Let’s see what others may come up with. (see last paragraph p. 29)

Barry-You are exactly right. This dag has been widely used and accepted by the hobby and the sports community alike. Now doubt has been cast upon it and all that matters is whether it is Cartwright or not. A very strong arguement has been made that it is not and now I believe that, if it is to believed that it is, then Mark's arguement must be proved incorrect. Otherwise, as I said before, a cloud of doubt will always hang over this piece.