C46 O'Hara vs. M116 O'Hara

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Posted By: Richard

Afternoon Folks,

Just received an M116 Bill O'Hara in the mail today and was comparing it to his C46. Unless I am missing something, there is no way these two cards depict the same person.

At this point, my belief is that the C46 depicts the 'real' Bill O'Hara (based on a 1912 Team Photo that has the players named, although to be fair, the photo is in a book that was published in 1977), but if that's the case, who is the player depicted on the M116?



Anyone know the answer to this?

Richard.

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

The O'Hara photo in the T204 set is the same as his M116 (Horner photo), so it's probably the right guy. Maybe they're 2 different O'Hara's?

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Posted By: Richard

Bill,

Valid point -- I did swing by your site prior to my initial post to compare the T204 to the M116. I did not realize it was a Horner photo.

What has me leaning towards the C46 was that the other O'Hara cards I looked at (T206, E92/E101) look more like the C46 O'Hara than the M116 O'Hara. The 1912 team photo, which I will post later, also looks much more like the C46. Since that makes up four different poses (potentially from different sources), I figured it was more likely that the T204 was labeled in error (and then used by Sporting Life 'in error'), than for every other O'Hara to be incorrect.

Of course, it's all speculation -- and maybe you're on to something with suggesting that they are just different O'Hara's.

We'll see what I can dig up.

Thanks!

Richard.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Fascinating discussion.
Just to add some visual information:

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Posted By: Richard

Thanks for the visuals.

That said, I think I have to retract my statement about the T206 'likeness'. Maybe it was the image I was looking at (I don't own the T206), but the image posted above is much more clear, and as crude as this analysis may be, the eyes & nose on the T206 above look a lot more like "M116 O'Hara" than C46.

I realize this is an artist's rendering, it'd be awfully coincidental if somebody was trying to paint O'Hara based on a photo that looked like the C46 O'Hara and ended up with one that looked like the M116 O'Hara.

Anyone know if the T216 or E105 O'Hara cards offer different poses?

Regards,

Richard.

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

Richard -

They look like 2 different guys to me, too. It's certainly plausible that the T204/M116 O'Hara is the wrong guy (either another O'Hara or someone else altogether). A lot of the Horner photos used in these sets can be dated from as far back as 1903, several years before the sets were issued. Maybe someone grabbed the wrong photo thinking it was Bill O'Hara.

For a guy who only played one full season (1909), he certainly shows up in a lot of sets...



Bill

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Posted By: Richard

Bill,

This post may be a bit long-winded, so I apologize in advance. However, here is what I've dug up.

1. Baseball card images. According to http://www.oldjudge.com/auction/256/ and http://www.caramel-cards.com/e105.html, the E105 and T216 images are identical to the E92/E101 image. According to http://www.cardpricer.com/priceguide/player/william-a-ohara/19674, there were 9 Bill O'Hara cards released during his playing days. Of those 9, there are 4 images: T204/M116, E92/E101/E105/T216, T206(s), C46. Assuming everything post 1983 matches the T206 image, that leaves the 1972 Classic Cards pose, a card that I forgot I even owned. To round out the baseball card images, here it is (cropped to show only the image):

.


2. Non-card images. Per my earlier post, I am posting an image of the 1912 Toronto team that has the players labeled (written on the picture). While going through the book, I also found other images that show/name O'Hara.

In order (all with Toronto), 1912 Team Photo, 1926 as team secretary, 1928 as manager:




3. Last, but not least, statistics. I searched baseball-reference.com, the online SABR minor league database (incredible resource!) and MLB.com's historical player search to try and find another O'Hara. I didn't find any other O'Hara that has played for Toronto, nor did I find another that played for the Giants, but all three listed an additional two O'Hara's with major league experience during the time that the Horner photos were being shot:

Kid O'Hara was active in 1904 with Boston
Tom O'Hara was active in 1906 and 1907 with St. Louis.

Both players were also outfielders. I suppose there is a chance the T204 image is one of them -- but that would mean that not only was the player misidentified, but so was the team. I have no idea what the odds of that happening are.


Anyway, that about rounds out my efforts thus far.

Anybody have any photos of Kid or Tom O'Hara?

Regards,

Richard.

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Posted By: George Dreher

Aren't the M116 and T204 images actually Tom O'Hara of the St. Louis Cardinals? Anyone have an enlargement of the 1907 National League Team Composite or the W601 Cardinals?

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Posted By: Ben Gehler

Yes George, I believe you are correct; here's a link to Boston Public Library's example of referenced 1907 National League composite:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/2349895247/

Followed by a lousy zoom-job on my part of Tom #7 image (bottom-right):
If it didn't turn out, sorry, I'm an image insert rookie.

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Posted By: Richard

Very impressive!

Excellent work folks, and thanks for your help. My next step was going to be to try to find pictures of Tom and Kid and just hope one was a dead-ringer.

It's a good thing that you guys were able to do the 'leg work' for me, though, as I was not aware of that National League composite and can say with some certainty that I would have run out of steam long before I stumbled across it.

Thanks again, that was fun.

Regards,

Richard.

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

I agree - good collective effort! There are now 4 Ramlys known to show the wrong player: Roy Hartzell (actually Topsy Hartsel), Jack Powell and Harry Howell (images swapped), and Bill O'Hara (Tom O'Hara).


Bill