Help Dating Older prewar Baseball Photo St. Marks?

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Posted By: Keith

Hello,

I recently came accross like 6 older sports photos at an estate auction. 4 are football, 2 are baesball. I believe they are all from Saint Marks, but I don't know what type of team that is, a high school or college? I think it is some sort of military school.

Anyway, below is one of the baseball photos. I believe the photos date to about 1907 from what I have seen of the football photos. Actually in the same estate auction, I won a really neat vintage trophy football with '07 painted on one side.

Does 1907 seem about right according to the uniform etc? Anyone heard of a St. Marks Military College?
Sorry for the poor quality, the photo has some minor damage

KJ

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Posted By: davidcycleback

From the uniform the player is wearing, the photo could be 1907. It was in vogue for the Major League players to wear their collars up like that around the time. One rule of thumb for baseball uniforms is that players had almost entirely quit wearing high top cletes by the 1910s-20s-- so a player wearing high top black shoes will date 1880s-early 1900s. White high top cletes usually indicates 1870s (though sometimes wore 1860s and early 1880s as well).

All I know about military schools is that I had a childhook friend who's parents threatened to send him to St. Joseph's Military Academy whenever he did something bad.

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Posted By: Keith

Here is a scan of the football photo as well as the trophy ball itself.

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Posted By: davidcyclebackl

The baseball guy looks like the football guy on the far left
of the top row. The placement of that football player would
suggest he was a back, probably a running back. In general,
most running backs would have been good athletes. Running back
isn't the proverbial left field.

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Posted By: Keith

Actually the name on the back of the baseball photo reads:

Cruger
White, Right Field

Was White a common first name back then?

And you are right, they do look to be the same person upon second look

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Posted By: Keith

I did some research and came up with following:

The photos are from St Marks School in Southborough Massachussetts. It is a boarding college prep school, not a military college.

I found an old postcard dated 1905 and addressed to a Alfred A Biddle of St Marks School in one of the box lots I won.
Alfred Biddle is actually a member of the well known wealthy Biddle family of Philadelphia. They are Mayflower descendants.

I misinterpreted what the football had written on it.
I thought it said St Marks Military C.
What it actually says is: St. Marks (score unreadable) Milton 0
Milton Academy was another local school, so this was a trophy ball from one of their games.
Alfred Biddle was the captain of the football team and went on to play for Yale.