I want to say THANKS again to everyone who helped me put the final pieces together for this photo - this is what makes Net54 a great place!
I have updated the text to include the new info. I decided to leave the original post so that the info people added makes sense, so the final story is below.
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This photo was discussed on Net54 a long time ago:
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=64899
Scan_20200408 edit.jpg
Cubs Lundgren Tintype 3 edit.jpg
Summary of that thread:
• The players on the bottom row are Del Howard, George Moriarty, and Carl Lundgren. The guy on the top right is Davy Jones
• The names on the top are left is illegible.
• The guy in the middle says “Guide who took us through Chinatown tonight”
• This is pretty late for a tin type to have been made and not many feature major leaguers.
• This was initially sold in a Gaynor Auction of some items that came from a player’s estate (Scoot told me he recalls it being Lundgren’s estate) and that it was identified as being the 1904 Brooklyn Bridegrooms.
The things that still don't add up:
• These guys were not on the Brooklyn Bridegrooms together. There is a Chicago Cubs connection, but Howard didn’t join that team until well after 1904.
• There isn’t a Chinatown in Brooklyn, though there is one nearby in Manhattan.
So, we are left with several questions:
1. When was this photo taken?
2. Who is the guy on the left?
3. Where were these guys?
4. Why were they together?
I like a mystery, so I started digging.
WHEN WAS THIS PHOTO TAKEN
The first thing I did was to try to figure out the year as this might go far in helping to ID the mystery player. If the Bridegrooms connection might be wrong, then perhaps the 1904 date is off as well.
I created a table of their teams by year from 1901-1906:
Table 1.jpg
This shows that it is highly unlikely that this photo dates from 1901 as Lundgren and Howard weren’t even in the minors yet. 1902 is a bit more likely, but still not terrific as Howard is still two years away from organized ball.
1903 is possible, 1904 looks pretty good, but then by 1905 these guys are pretty spread out again. So, I settled on this probably being 1903 or 1904 – and 1904 matches the original description, so that seems like a good bet.
It also turns out that Howard was in camp with the Cubs in 1904. From the February 6, 1904, edition of Sporting Life: “Selee has signed a kid named Dell (sic) Howard, from a little Illinois town. Bob Wicker recommended him, and says that for a beginner Howard is a wonder. He is an outfielder, and is touted as the goods. According to Jim Hart, the lad will be given a fair chance, and may make the team as a utility outfielder.”
WHO IS THE GUY ON THE LEFT?
This one is a bit tougher. The 2004 Net54 post suggests that it might be Bobby Lowe. However, this face clearly is not a match for Lowe.
Bobby_Lowe.jpg
What the 2004 post missed is that it does not say Lowe, but appears to say “Mahon” with an M matching the M used to write Moriarty on the photo.
Scan_20200408 enhanced - crop to text.jpg
According to Baseball Reference, there was one guy active in the majors and minors in 1903-1904, Eugene Mahon:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/r...d=mahon-001eug
A comparison from the 1907 Aberdeen team photo with Mahon looks pretty good:
Mahon Comparison.jpg
WHERE WERE THESE GUYS?
The 2004 thread guessed Chinatown in Brooklyn, but there are other Chinatowns. And this one is not Brooklyn, but San Francisco. The image in the background is a painted background of The Cliff House, a San Francisco landmark that burned down in 1907.
I started looking into the Cliff House and came across a site I almost cannot believe exists:
http://www.cliffhouseproject.com/introduction.htm
In addition to a ton of history, they have also compiled photos of Cliff House and of studio photos with Cliff House backgrounds.
My photo is not in their gallery of tintype images, but scrolling through there are clearly a number of different painted Cliff House backgrounds that were in use by different studios.
A single one of these backgrounds is a perfect match for what is in the photo:
Mounted photo with exact background.jpg
And fortunately is mounted with the studio name and address. This backdrop was found at CH Vitalini Foto. 271 Montgomery Ave, SF Cal. The studio is found in, you guessed it, San Francisco’s Chinatown (red X is the location of the studio):
Chinatown Map - Photographer Marked.jpg
So, we know where they were, but….
WHY WERE THEY THERE?
The Chicago Cubs held their spring training in California several times in this era:
• 1903-1904: Los Angeles, CA
• 1905: Santa Monica, CA
The Daily Californian newspaper on March 2, 1904 ran the following story:
March 2 1904 Daily Californian mentioning games.jpg
All of the guys in the photo appear in the article, apart from Eugene Mahon, but the Cubs played exhibition games against Portland, the team that employed Mahon for a portion of 1904. So the photo was likely taken during a night out on the town after a game the weekend of March 18-20, 1904.
WHAT ABOUT THE GUIDE?
I contacted the San Francisco Historical Society and they had some interesting info to add, including (from two different people):
“There is one guy specifically that you see pictured on tour photos of group tours taken out at the Cliff House. Maybe it’s him? I think he was a bit of a well-known personality in his day. There was also a guy who did “underground” tours of Chinatown complete with Opium Dens and such, that I have seen a photo of.”
“The tour of Chinatown was a big deal, and usually the tour guide promoted that as another tourist package available during the day tour of San Francisco’s highlights. So until we can see an image of the tintype, I can only tell the usual way those tours worked. The Chinatown tour, usually twice a night, was the twilight tour at 6:30 and the night tour at about 7:30, to add to the mystique of being escorted though this exotic labyrinth of alleys, often by a man who identified himself as an ex-police officer from the Chinatown Squad. In 1904, we assume the guide met his group outside one of the Market Street hotels and the group walked about 3-4 blocks up Grant or more likely Kearny Street to the heart of Chinatown. The idea was to maximize the allure of the danger as well as exploit the exotic stereotypes of the tourists of being in the midst of the local Asian residents, selling the idea you saw the real Orient without leaving the United States. ”
Given that the guide has a large fake badge on, he lines up pretty well with the ex-police officer guide mentioned. The location of the photo studio in Chinatown also fits with this having been a tour of Chinatown, as does the handwritten note on the photo.
WHAT IS THE FINAL STORY?
In spring 1904 the Cubs headed out to California for spring training and some exhibitions games, including Del Howard who managed to get an invitation to camp thanks to Bob Wicker, who was in the majors from 1901-1906. On the way back home, they played a game or two in San Francisco, apparently against Portland given the presence of Eugene Mahon (Gene Mahon). That weekend, the guys got all dressed up for a night on the town, hired a guide, and snapped this photo at the edge of Chinatown on the way into/back from their night on the town.