Quote:
Originally Posted by bmarlowe1
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.
In very hi-res, some of those hats are clearly not straw - even Corey now agrees to that (I won't waste space posting hat photos, and whether it's 2 or 3 is beside the point) However the hats do illustrate an important point. In a 1997 article in VCBC in which he argued that the HPD was the first baseball photo, Corey states, “First, all the individuals in the image are wearing straw hats.” Corey had maintained that view until recently. Well, they aren’t. Apparently he never noticed something that was plainly obvious when you have the photo in hand (or have a super hi-res scan) until I pointed it out, even though he has owned the HPD for about 20 years. I believe that he sincerely saw 6 straw hats when some were clearly cloth hats because that’s what he wanted to see. Anyway - who are these guys?:
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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.