need help identifying early 1900's Pittsburgh Pirate
 

So, a friend of mine's mother passed away last year. While going through her things she found an intersting postcard. She sent me a pic of the postcard as she was trying to figure out who the player was. Knowing that I have dealt with vintage Pirates items in the past she came to me. HOWEVER, I must say, I have been unable to definitively conclude who the player is. To me, it does not appear to be any of the "names" from the team, but I may be wrong.

After scouring many photos that I have obtained over the years, my initial thoughts were that it may be Eddie Abbaticchio, since he has roots from where her mom was from, but I am not positive by any means.

Any help??

No idea who it is, but from a quick search it looks the first year with "Pirates" on the front of the uniform was 1933, but they had single color hats, not two colored. Also by that time the collar style had changed.

Uniforms

DJ

Good eye. I had assumed it to be early 1900's specifically because of the collar.

On the other hand I have seen photos of early 1900's Pirates with either Pittsburgh or Pirates on the front.

Early 1900s Pit NL never had Pirates on the front of the uni. As your guy is wearing an early 1900s uniform, he is therefore not wearing a Pit NL uniform. It is at least highly unlikely that he is a major leaguer, and he is certainly not Abbaticchio

There were also a lot of town teams called the 'Pirates'

http://www.belltownvintagecards.com/...01103101-2.jpg

That explains a lot. Thank you very much.

Mike, if you are into vintage sports memorabilia, I recommend gradually acquiring a library of reference books - even though I only access each book once every month or two, they have been invaluable over the years. There is a book on baseball uniforms that is a great resource, despite having some errors.

Thank you. That is a great tip. Do you have any recommendations?

I'll look at titles when I get home, but basically any reference books that cover your areas of interest.

Marc Okkonen's "Baseball Uniforms of the Twentieth Century" is a good resource, and is probably the uniform book that Scott was referring to. Okkonen also wrote books on the Federal League and the 1900-1909 NL and AL that has info about uniforms, ballparks, and lots of other stuff.

The Hall of Fame website for which I provided the link is based on Okkonen's book -- and it includes a lot of corrections.

That's awesome. Thank you guys, that will certainly be a good resource in identifying photos! At least provide period so that I can go from there.

Anything else outside of uniforms that I need to know??