Help Identifying Chicago player

[Bridwell]

Any idea who this player is, or what year?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1844-Tokyo-B...vip=true&rt=nc

I'm not sure the seller is correct on this!

[bmarlowe1]

That has to be the smallest image I've ever seen posted here. When posted in a visible by humans size next to a photo of Red Faber from the 1913 tour - it looks like a uniform match to me. The postcard seems too washed out for player ID.

[Bridwell]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your help. I couldn't figure out how to grab the ebay image and enlarge it. Glad you were able to.

Maybe with a list of Tour Players and a better scan, someone can figure out who it is. Or maybe there's a board member who reads Japanese??? I was the buyer so I'll have the original postcard soon.

Ron

[bmarlowe1]

When you have it, a good scan might make it possible to ID the player.

[Bridwell]

I received the item, finally. Here's some better scans.

[edjs]

I'm guessing Jim "Death Valley Jim" Scott. Is this a contest? What do I win?

[milkit1]

Im thinking its Dick Egan. Here is a list of the "chicago" players from that series:

"Death Valley" Jim Scott, Tris Speaker, Jack Bliss, Joe Benz, "Nixey" Callahan, Germany Schaefer, Buck Weaver, Sam Crawford, Dick Egan, Walter Leverenz, Tommy Daly, Andy Slight, Steve Evans

[milkit1]

Heres an interesting little write up on it:
http://id.mind.net/~truwe/tina/giantsox.html

[bmarlowe1]

This likely depicts one of the tour games played in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Shanghai.

Unfortunately I think it's almost impossible to tell the ID of the batter.

[pitchernut]

The writing just says something to the effect of "souvenir of the third meeting of great baseball players in the city of ----- (Shanghai?)". Nothing about the depicted players.

[bmarlowe1]

I very knowledgeable board member and postcard collector contacted me because he thought this may be a photo of the University of Chicago team playing Waseda University in Japan. This happened a number of time - you can read about it here:

http://lib.typepad.com/scrc/

Though Faber's uniform (below left) is very similar to that of the guy in the postcard (below center) - the font is actually different. This is most easily seen when comparing the cross-bars in the respective letter H's. For Faber - it is clearly at an angle, for the postcard guy, it is straight across.

Below right is a photo of a U of Chicago player (Glen Roberts). The lettering on his jersey does seem to match that of the postcard guy. While he has a collar and the postcard guy does not, we found other U of Chicago player photos from the 1910 tour with that same lettering font and no collars. A translation of the Japanese writing may confirm this is U of Chicago vs. Waseda.

[Dto7]

1911 University of Chicago yearbook with 1910 baseball team in Japan.

https://archive.org/stream/capgown19...e/n15/mode/1up

[Bridwell]

Thanks Mark and Don,

I had the Japanese inscription translated as "in commemoration of the 3rd Keio University vs. Chicago University baseball match".
The 2 schools played each other 3 times in 1910, with Chicago winning all 3. They were 16 wins 3 losses on that international trip. Perhaps my postcard is a picture of one of these players, from Don's weblink: