[brianp-beme]

Interesting stuff Pat, Greg and Lobo. I went through the records of each of the 76 players issued in the (1909) Obak set, and each of the 76 players were a member of their respective teams in 1909 as seen on their 1909 Obak card. Four of these players split their season between two PCL teams - more on that later.

Only 46 of these 76 players were on the designated teams on their cards for the 1910 season. So it definitely seems like the card designations were based upon the 1909 rosters.

PCL records are a less than ideal, at least for the 1909 season that I was able to research on the internet, as those four players that spent time on two teams do not have the stats broken down for each team, just their season totals. Those four players that split their 1909 season between two teams:


Mickey LaLonge - card shows Oakland, records show he played for Oakland and Sacramento

Jim Byrnes - card shows Sacramento, records show he played for Sacramento and Oakland

Anson Mott - card shows Vernon, records show he played for Vernon and Sacramento

Roy Willett - card shows Vernon, records show he played for Portland and Vernon


The order of the teams of the four players above are in the same order as seen on their statistical records on the Baseball Reference website. I am not positive if this is the team order that each player played during the season, but I would guess it is. LaLonge, Byrnes and Mott have the teams that are designated on their cards which are teams that are listed first in their statistical record, while the designated team on the Willett card is the second team as shown in his statistical record.

Although I did not locate any biographical career info on LaLonge, Byrnes and Mott, I did find that Roy Willett was released from Portland on June 8th, 1909, and that the earliest record of him playing for Vernon was June 13th, 1909.

So it appears likely that the earliest that this first series of Obak cards (1909) could have been in pre-production is the second half of June 1909.


For a visual, here is an uncut 1909 Obak sheet of 76 cards that has all four players on it. It is shown on two scans, because the image of the full sheet I found was awfully small.

LaLonge - top row, 1st card on left

Byrnes - top row, 7th card from left

Mott - 3rd row, 11th card from left

Willett - 3rd row, 12th card from left


Brian