Obaks on Ebay First Mormon

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Posted By: Shannon

Just a heads to everyone who collects Obaks, Ive listed a Roy Castleton card who is the first mormon to play professional baseball, the card is in excellent condition, no wrinkles, creases or paper loss the back is clean with the slogan"They please" any questions email me @heyazzjack@aol.com thanks Shannon

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8753746520

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Posted By: James Feagin

Dangit! I was hoping no one else would see. Getting prepped for a bidding war

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Posted By: Rhys

Funny how this information has leaked out. The only concrete proof Castleton was a Mormon is an article I found from an obscure 1905 Newspaper, which I have never made public or scanned. I did this on purpose until I could finish an article and research I was working on for the Mormon Church about him. It is amazing how information like this can leak from one or two people in the hobby who were asked to keep it quiet until the article was published, to becomming mass knowledge in such a limited amount of time. I am not upset, just really pretty funny. Hopefully the "discovery" and subsequent article which should be published later in the year will not be Old News by the time it hits the press with pictoral evidence.

Rhys

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Posted By: jamie

rhys,
roy is listed as the first mormon on baseball-reference.com as well as a host of other sites. it's not a closely guarded secret

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Posted By: Rhys

Do you want to know why it is listed? Because I told about 2-3 people, asked them to keep it quiet who THEN went and added this information to the websites and made it public. Even Mormon Sports historians had no idea who Castleton was until I found the article. Dont believe me? Ask the person who sponsors the page on Baseball Reference where they got the info. It all stems from the article I found about 3 years ago. Even his family members who remain (whom I have been in contact with) had no idea he was a baseball player.

I am not trying to be a jerk, but it WAS a secret until those who were told to keep it a secret decided not to do so and took it upon themselves to make it public. It is not a big deal, I wanted it to be public, but it sort of killed three years of research and genology and hard work to have people who were asked to keep it quiet decided not to do so.

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Posted By: Rhys

The person who hosts the Baseball Reference site (nice guy and I am not bad mouthing him) is one of the people that was told by me. The other sites you refer to all use the same information from that site which is wrong anyways because I have NEVER scanned the article or released all the information. I mentioned to one guy that he once threw a perfect game. This then evolved into him throwing Perfect Games (plural), and then into him throwing one in the PCL. This is not the case, it was a completely different league. When I found the information I spent a year researching him and found that NOBODY knew who he was, including the man who spent years researching his book, "Mormons in the Major Leagues" until I made the mistake of letting a few people know before the article was finished.

Once again, I am not rying to be a jerk and I wanted everyone to know this information, but this is exactly why I wanted to keep it secret for a while and publish an article. Now he is not being given the credit he is due and all of the information out there is heresay from me and as such is incorrect. He deserved to have a formally written article to honor his acheivements and not an incorrect blurb on a baseball website as his lasting memory.

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Posted By: James Feagin

I am the one who sponsors the Baseball Reference sports page. Coincidentally (and aside from the point) I went to high school with one of the above posters. Regardless, no one ever asked me to keep anything secret or wait for publication. How I found out that Castleton is LDS was through a website called www.prewarsports.com. I was researching Mormon baseball history, saw an old advertisement for a Castleton Obak which clearly states his religious affiliation, I sought more information, and it went from there. Kudo's for diggining up that info.

James

aka the amateur card collector and Columbia 2nd Ward stiff.

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Posted By: rhys

It is not worth arguing over, and like I said, I REALLY WANTED everyone to know about this anyways. I did not mind telling people, and I know my brother told a few people (probably a total of 5 people) and as far as I know all were asked to keep it under wraps. Since my brother is the one that told James, I can not say that I told him not to say anything. Regardless, it does not matter, but I wanted to make sure 100% that it was NOT knowledge to ANYONE until I found the article and started doing research. I will continue with the article and publish it and the correct information will be made.

I have learned my personal lesson and in the future if there is something I do not want people to know for whatever reason, I just wont tell anyone or write it anywhere. It is my own fault and I am not blaming anyone.

It is sort of like working on a Masters Thesis for 2-3 years and putting a lot of time into it and finding out something great with your research, only to find out that becuase you told a few people about it that the work and information you garnered is obsolete and worthless by the time you actually publish your findings. Not a bad thing because you wanted everyone to know anyways, just dissapointing because it makes you feel like the hard work was for nothing.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

James, I do remember telling you about the information on Roy Castleton, and I may have forgotten to tell you to keep it on the down low for a while, that is may bad. Also, just to further my brothers point a little... www.prewarsports.com is the website that my brother Rhys and I first set up several years ago- so indirectly we were the first to release the information.
-Rhett Yeakley

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Posted By: James Feagin

Everything being equal then, I still think your paper is extremely valuable. Most of us only know that Castleton is the first Mormon, threw a perfect game, and played in the bigs for a time. Nothing else though! I would love a copy of your findings when released! Until then, I won't blab about it anymore.

James