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Butch & Co.Hello again fellers -- pardon our delay in replying to the most recent responses. They're greatly appreciated.
First, Dennis, thanks heaps for the pic of Frank Owen. The notion of correlating "Billy Owen's" dark (black? navy?) shirt to a particular team hadn't occurred to us. Were Chicago in fact the only major-league team to wear dark in the 1904-06 timeframe? Only thing is -- hey, please don't take this the wrong way, the Frank Owen photo is a huge contribution to this little investigation, really the only photographic evidence we've got so far -- but to our eyes, the two Owens look nothing alike. Now granted, we're the bifocals-&-cataracts set, but aside from the dark hair, dark shirt, and approximate age, we don't see a resemblance. Shape of the head, set of the ears, angle of the eyebrows, size and shape of the chin... anybody else think they're the same guy?
Second, Gil, thanks for following us back to our own forum -- as we said there, we were glad to read that you're not irritated! Hope you took no offense -- we just thought we heard some exasperation in your voice in your much appreciated posting here. We don't think we nor anyone else said the "Billy Owen" label was "obviously" mistaken -- you make an excellent point is suggesting that "Billy Owen" may indeed be some guy in fact named Billy Owen, who never made it into a major-league game even at the Moonlight Graham level. For the moment, it's as valid a guess as any that's so far been put forth.
You are correct, though, in that we are trying to "force an identification" of Owen, but not as this guy or that. We kind of wish Dennis' pic of Frank Owen really looked like "Billy Owen," but it actually tends to persuade us that "Billy Owen" isn't Frank Owen. We'd be perfectly happy to know for certain that "Billy Owen" is indeed Billy Owen -- or Frank Owen, or Frank Owens, or Billy O'Neill, or somebody else -- as long as we know for certain. That's all. He's driving us nuts! It's hard to believe (possible, but hard to believe) that a guy good enough to be included among the spiffy Carl Horner portraits was never captured on film at any other time. Somewhere, so our childlike faith tells us, there has to be another shot of him, maybe not an individual portrait for a card set or anything, but posed (and identified) with his teammates in a photo of the White Stockings, or the Boston Pilgrims, or the Zanesville Flood Sufferers or some other club. And when we find it, we can jump up and go "Hey! It's that guy!" And our wizened hearts will be content.