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Posted By: runscott

Brainard died in 1888 at the age of 47 and spent his last years operating a pool room in Denver. The cdv in question is not "in uniform" and it's not hard to imagine Brainard having his picture taken after baseball life - plenty of photographers in Denver. He could easily have been in his late '30s or early '40s in this picture. I just read the Brainard article in issue #19 of VCBC (reprinted from SABR) - it has a photo of Brainard which closely resembles the two I posted, none of which look anything like Harry Wright.

Additional note: Albert Spalding, who id'd several Brainard and Wright images in his 1911 book, also inherited Harry Wright's entire library of baseball publications, along with Wright's request that Spalding write a book on the history of baseball. I doubt Harry Wright would have made such a request of his friend if he thought Spalding had forgotten what he looked like. I checked all the images that Spalding had labeled as "himself" and he seemed to be correct in all of them, so senility had not yet set in completely. It's really a very interesting book to read and is available in a reprinted paperback, but the language is quite flowery.