jmk59:
I'm also glad that the photo ID topic on this board took a different twist. While I respect Mark's knowledge, I sometimes get frustrated by what I think is a dismissive tone any time the Magic Ear Rule isn't met. I didn't read early posts as "gosh, there just isn't really enough to go on here to say it's JJ for sure". To me the tone is more like "Well we don't have a Super Duper Really Colossal Perfect High Res scans so don't say that this is JJ because you can't. Topic over."
me:
I don't agree with your reading. Early on in the thread I and others said that what was needed was to find the photo - probably in a newspaper. That is exactly what Greg did (at least nearly so). That is why so large a proportion of posters accept the image as JJ.
jmk59:
So I'm glad that this thread shows that there are other ways to try to determine photo subject,
me:
This is not something new for me or net54. See for example the West Side Grounds photo analysis in the thread:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=122362
No ears were compared. We have a number of board members besides myself who are quite good at this sort of thing, at least including Tim, Paul and Greg as exemplified in the current thread, and Rhett.
jmk:
..and that not being able to have the perfect photo evidence does not automatically kill the theory.
me:
Near perfect photo evidence was found - that's why the ID has so much support.
jmk:
Full disclosure: Awhile ago I posted two photos of female teams from the 1890's. One had players labeled and the other did not. Uniforms were similar, and I asked if anyone thought that any of the players might be the same between photos.........Mark posted early in the thread that it was, of course, impossible to say because I hadn't posted a Super Duper Really Colossal Perfect High Res scan.....So I am likely a bit touchy when I see an early post with a tone that I read as dismissive finality
me:
Yes - that's what I said and it was correct based on what you posted. Since these were not major league players - the kind of research and analysis done here courtesy of Greg et. al. was extremely unlikely to happen. The "dismissive finality" as you put it, was clearly justified, though I don't think I was at all nasty about it. That's why there were no further posts.
Barry - did I spell et. al. correctly?