Recently on ebay there was a seller selling a few different lots that were from the David Creagan estate. They were mostly postcards sent to and from Creagan from/to friends and family members. Creagan played one year of professional baseball with Rocky Mount in the E. Carolina League and luckily for him found his way onto two different card sets (T210-7 & T209-2), I would still very much like to see those two cards if anyone has them to share...
Anyways among the different lots was one that was a bit more interesting to me as it had some random ticket stubs, telegrams, pamphlets, and two RPPC's which I assumed featured Creagan himself. I didn't care too much about the one where he is seated w/ another gentleman but the one that featured him on the field was of interest to me so I threw out a fairly sizable snipe and forgot all about the auction altogether and ended up winning the lot for only a small fraction of my snipe (I also picked up one of the lots of greeting PC's as well).
Ebay scans:
Anyways I paid the guy and they arrived yesterday and it turned out to be a pretty cool little collection with several items from his time in NC and later from Troy, NY (where he was from). As I was getting done looking at the small pieces of ephemera I began looking at the PC's and they were mostly from female fans but it also included a few from Creagan himself signed simply "Dave" that may never have made their way into the mail as there was no postmarks on them. I saved the baseball PC for last and really liked the image and the girl "Molly" that had sent it to him had some neat notes on the front written about the image of Creagan. Then I got to the PC where the person I had assumed was Creagan sitting beside an aquaintance. Anyways my jaw just about dropped to the floor...
It took me about a milliseond to realize who it was that was sitting next to the guy I had assumed was Creagan (Jim Thorpe). I was pretty shocked and thought maybe I was just imagining things as I was aware when I purchased them that Jim Thorpe had also played on the 1910 Rocky Mount, NC team. Historically this is incredibly significant as it was Thorpe's time with the Rocky Mount team that was the cause of his 1912 Olympic Medals being stripped as he was deemed no longer an "amateur" athlete. So, I turned over the pc and again couldn't believe what I was seeing...
Anyways, this is the "find" that I was referencing in my earlier post and was really looking for an image of Dussault to confirm that it was him sitting next to Thorpe on the postcard and a board member was kind enough to send me the following scan and it couldn't bee more clear that A. J. Dussault is the man seated with Thorpe in the image...
Anyways, I am still on cloud nine right now as this appears to be a 1910 image of Thorpe with teammate A.J. Dussault that was given to their teammate David Creagan as a keepsake (a trifecta connection to the 1910 Rocky Mount baseball team). I honestly don't know if I have ever seen any true images of Thorpe that can 100% be attributed to his time with the professional baseball team that caused such a ruckus after the Stckholm Olympics in 1912.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!
-Rhett