[molenick]

I cannot comment on the reliability of facial recognition but one thing I think is not meaningful (in either direction) is that there are six people in the photo.

The "pro" side has to come up with something about it being a reasonable number for executives and directors. The Knickerbockers had three officers to start (president, vice president, secretary-treasurer). I am not sure what happened later on but four (splitting secretary and treasurer) would be pretty standard. Six seems arbitrary. Why not five or seven? Sure, it could be a mixture of current and former officers…in which case, there could be any number of people in the photo. While it is possible to make up a story to fit the narrative that these six people were all associated with the Knickerbockers, it is also true that there are many, many other reasons that six people would be in a photo. I don't think six has any significance without some other information coming to light.

The "con" side wants it to be ten (I guess for the starters plus a manager or substitute) but I don't think that is necessary for it to be the Knickerbockers (or any team). Maybe it was a reunion and only six people showed up. An undocumented reunion of the most famous team of early baseball who are essentially now known because they liked to document things.

Here is a photo of what are clearly baseball players on the same team (or at least people dressed as baseball players on the same team) plus the manager or proud father or owner of the photo studio or top hat salesman. Why are there four? I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean they are not baseball players on the same team. It doesn’t mean anything except that four people in baseball uniforms (plus a guy in a suit) posed for a photo 130-140 years ago.