Attempt to i.d. 1800's black catcher

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Posted By: runscott 

I know this isn't very high quality, but it's from a tintype of a team with 8 white players and a black catcher. He is wearing a fingerless glove on his right hand, not the hand holding the mask (image is reversed), meaning he's a left-handed black catcher, same as Fleetwood Walker.

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Posted By: ramram

I think the fingerless glove was often worn on the catcher's throwing hand so they could still grip the ball when throwing. The full glove was then worn on the non-throwing hand.?.?.

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Posted By: runscott

but all the photos I've seen of catchers with fingerless gloves did not include an additional glove.

Besides the photo above, here's another example:

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Posted By: ramram

Oberlin images from 1881 he also has some receeding hairline by then. Don't think it's him but that doesn't diminish what a great image it is. I've seen that one around but from the available scans I never could tell for sure if that player was actually black. No doubt about it now. Extremely rare for a tintype!

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Posted By: Hankron

I don't beleive it's Walker. Having seen the whole thing, it's one of the finest baseball tintypes out there. Even without a black catcher, it would be worth a few hundred dollars. With a black catcher, it's unique.

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Posted By: Hankron

I may be mistaken, but I beleive that some catchers wore these gloves on both hands. Meaning that, if not always desirable, a catcher could throw with a gloved hand.

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Posted By: Julie

I couldn't even see his features in the original; I thought the color might be a shadow. He's definitely a black catcher, but it's not Walker--I'd bet my Walker on it!

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Posted By: runscott

but I found it interesting that another black left-handed catcher (I think he's left-handed) is catching on an otherwise white team during the same period that Walker played. I scoured the web for photos of 19th century black players as soon as I saw this item, but no luck id'ing the player.

My collection of multi-player 19th century photos of catchers wearing fingerless gloves has now grown to two (I'm very particular).