1895 KC Blues Team Photo
 

Acquired today from the estate of George Darby, who played all of 1 game with KC in 1895. The relative (great-niece) had no idea why he only played 1.

No HOFers on the team but almost all on the roster had some MLB time. Now comes the fun of identifying players. Marty Bergen was on this team before he quit in a fit and went to Boston (winning 2 pennants) - but he's famous for something else.

Anyone have other identified pieces that might help in ID'ing some of these players? The photo has no markings on it other than a "G.W. Darby" on Darby's arm. No idea if he signed it or someone was just id'ing him.

http://imgur.com/K1wNL

thanks, Alan

oh yeah, it is approximately 19" x 15", image better than the phone snap I took.

"...No HOFers on the team.."

Actually, there is. It appears to be the '94 team. There is at least one copy of this photo with the names on the back. The major league faces present all have all been confirmed. The ID's are:

back row:
Henry Howe - Tim Donohue - Jim Manning - Bill Niles - Pete Daniels - Sam Nicholl

sitting:
George Darby - Tommy Hernon - Peck Sharp - Billy Klusman - Joe McGinnity - George Ulrich

You are my new best friend, never expected it to be that easy!

Thanks so much.

Regards,

Alan

It's always nice to be able to tell someone that their photo is better than they think it is.

Very cool, and worth a bump over a few of the autograph threads.

I posted my 1912-13 Kansas City photos over in the card forum, but it fared even poorer. If you really want to generate some discussion, you're going to need to forge McGinnity's name.

I would probably spell it incorrectly :)

I'm not sure that matters. The autographites were saying that a Lajoie signature with too many 'r's (I think that was the letter) was invalid simply for that reason. I can't tell you how many times I have signed my last name with an extra partial 'r', and as I get older it happens more often.

You have a great photo there!

Interestingly enough found a copy of the photo that was sold in late 2010 by SCP auctions.
http://www.scpauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=13964

Looks like it was a snap that was taken of the original. The "G.W. Darby" that's in pencil on the big one I have is visible in the smaller photo (on the arm). The good thing is it had annotations of all player names (on back) and numbers (on front).

Probably 1920's vintage copy sold in the auction but neat because it had all of the firsthand annotations (and signature) on the back. Would be good to get the pair together.

Alan

Scott - send me a hi-res and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for your offer, Mark. I'm re-doing the 'cabinets' page of my web-site - will archive what's out there now and replace with hi-res scans from my current collection.