Can anyone ID this Cubbie for me?

thekingofclout · #1 03-24-2010, 12:27 AM

Would appreciate it very much. Thanks in advance guys.

Best, Jimmy

georgeburkephoto.jpg

Kawika · #2 03-24-2010, 06:09 AM

Looks like a 1938 Cub uniform. Looking over their roster I can tell you for sure who it isn't. I am guessing it may be a smiling, squinting and non-chawing Bob Garbark but can be persuaded otherwise.

GKreindler · #3 03-24-2010, 07:27 AM

Good call, David!

Definitely Garbark. I wonder how much playing time he got in '38, considering he was a backup for one of the best catchers of all time in Mr. Hartnett...

Kawika · #4 03-24-2010, 08:28 PM

I actually spent about three hours last night trying to come up with a name for this player. It's a great photo and that punim had to belong to somebody. According to the Dressed to the Nines website this would be the 1938 home uniform so the next step was to go to Baseball Reference dot com to look up the '38 Cubs roster. Then it was a process of elimination. It obviously was not a lot of the guys like Tony Lazzeri or Charley Root or Dizzy Dean, but some of the guys like O'Dea and French and Marty I needed to look up to see what they looked like. Despite umpteen Google searches and a very long perusal of the marvelous The Game That Was: The George Brace Baseball Photo Collection (whence much of the three hours) I was unable to find decent photos of some of the guys including Garbark. Next step was to thumb through the '90's Conlon Collection cards, all 1320 of them, and I found Garbark's mug. The whole time I had the spectre of bmarlowe hovering in my head with notions of earlobes and philtra and pupil distance per fortnight so I tried to be careful to qualify my conclusions. Garbark's ears and nose look about right to me; I have a problem with his eyes, specifically his lower lids, and with his jaw, Jimmy's picture looks more square-jawed than my card. There is the tendency to make the facts fit the desired outcome; I still am not convinced it is indeed Garbark. By elimination of the 1938 Cubs roster he is the only one left standing but I am not 100% certain that it couldn't have been a '37 player or even some guy up for a cup of coffee on the way to the Three-I League. I am waiting for someone to weigh in with more certainty that it is Garbark. The Brace family might have other photos, perhaps even some of the Burkes, which would nail it down better. Anyway, I got to look at a lot of baseball pictures in the course of my sleuthing (the Brace book has some fantastic photos, and not just ballplayers but their wives and fans and hot dog vendors etc; highly recommended) so it was lotsa fun.

bmarlowe1 · #5 03-24-2010, 10:40 PM

OK David - it is Garbark.

Graig is not the first artist I have encountered who is very good at this - especially those who do portraits.

>> Next step was to thumb through the '90's Conlon Collection cards, all 1320 of them, and I found Garbark's mug.

Yikes - I'll send you the checklist - just search on the name. Of course it only saves time if you keep your cards in numerical order.

BTW - I don't have the Brace book. What range of years does it cover?

thekingofclout · #6 03-24-2010, 11:29 PM

Oh, wait. I never wrote a term paper...

Thanks to all who chipped in guys, much appreciated.

Best, Jimmy

Kawika · #7 03-25-2010, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmarlowe1

I don't have the Brace book. What range of years does it cover?

Mark: It covers the years from 1929 when he began assisting George Burke up until 1960 when Brace switched to color photography.

whitehse · #8 03-25-2010, 09:13 AM

I remember meeting George Brace on many occasions when I worked at Wrigley Field in the early to mid 80's. A great guy who came to the ballpark to do what he had to do and was gone before the batting cage left the field. I just wish I knew what I know about him now back then. I knew he had been around a long time and had a chance to talk to him about some past greats but I just didnt realize his important on the history of the game until years later.

Sorry, I didnt mean to hijack this thread...MOve along now...nothing to see here!!

JasonL · #9 03-25-2010, 10:00 AM

I think it is more likely than not, but there does appear to be a difference in the squareness of the chin between the card and the photo...can that be explained away by the fact that he is similing in one and not the other?

howard38 · #10 03-25-2010, 05:20 PM

He didn't play much that year or any other year as he was pretty much a non-entity at the plate:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...arbabo01.shtml