Could this possibly be Christy Mathewson?
 

I'm always amused by the many "Is this Shoeless Joe?" or "Is this Honus Wagner?" threads. Yet when I first looked at this cabinet that just closed on eBay, I was struck by how much one of the players resembled Christy Mathewson. The fact that the approximate date (c.1900) and region of the country (a small town in Eastern Pennsylvania) matched only enhanced my interest. I never did bid on the item, but I can't shake my curiosity. I won't even bother pointing out who looks like Matty. At the very least, he would have made a great stunt double. What do you guys think? Did someone strike gold? For the price, it's a cool item anyway ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ht_2973wt_1259

Chris:

Back row, left, looks very much like him, need to do the research to see if he ever played on that team. If so, I would say that it is him.

You can see just enough in the magnified images to know that none of them has Matty's ears. He is not there.

Matty compared to the guy back row left shown below. The rest are similar.

Evening gents. I have to confess to being the underbidder on this cabinet. I think the image is really quite nice. In regards to the player depicted being Mathewson, I'm not too confident.

My understanding is that Christy played for his rival Mill City team only a handful of times; 7-8 times I believe. The photographer was from a Pennsylvania town called Harleysville which is over 100 miles away from Mill City.

The sheer distance between the cities and the sporadic appearance in games for the Mill City team was enough to convince me not to pursue this outside of its obvious appeal.

I've been wrong in the past though. Certainly a cool piece.

Agreed.

Mark, thanks to your past observations, I applied the ears test, and as a result, decided to pass on the photo when I had a chance to bid on it. There's certainly a resemblance, though ...

I live pretty close to Harleysville. It is still a small town. There is no local legend of Christy playing here. But that doesn't mean the photographer from Harleysville couldn't travel somewhere else to take the photo...

Looks like Johnny Evers in the front row, second from right.

Chris - I think most people can learn to do this to a reasonable degree. Glad you didn't win it.

I think I can see Mickey Mantles dad