WG2 mystery?

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Posted By: Butch7999 & Co.

Greetings all! By way of introduction, we run a tangentially-related website/forum (URLs below sig) and we've been lurking silently here on this amazing forum for a couple of years. What an education and encyclopedia of factoids you guys have provided for us in that time! Many thanks for all the expertise and information. We'll also add -- positioning ourselves "politically" -- that we were tempted to finally chime in to side with the majority opinion on the "Greatest Card Ever?" thread, but were certain our sentiments on the subject wouldn't conform to this forum's guidelines for civil discourse...

At any rate, to the question that at last prompts us to speak up here. A member of our group was recently inquiring as to details in the WG2 Fan Craze AL "Art Series," which he plans to sell fairly soon. As we're sure you're all aware, there are quite a number of errors and inconsistencies in the names attached to the player portraits on the cards in that set. The most troubling -- and here's where we're hoping for your assistance -- is the "Billy Owen" card, which apparently is presumed (or has been unequivocally determined) in the card hobby to actually represent Frank Owens (Frank Walter "Yip" Owens, and not Frank Malcolm "Yip" Owen). Perhaps -- probably -- sufficient research has long since been done on this to establish that as the case. But lacking that information ourselves, and given the magnitude of the errors on other names in the set, and given Owens' career record, it seems to us highly unlikely Owens is the guy labelled "Billy Owen." Billy O'Neill, in fact, strikes us as a much more likely candidate, but we can't find any other photographic examples of "Owen," Owens, or O'Neill with which to compare the WG2 portrait.

Any information, photo evidence, random thoughts, or casual guesses on this from you fellers would be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes --
Butch & Co.
Baseball Games
http://members.aol.com/Butch7999/Baseball.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baseballgames/