Harvard Baseball Tin Typ......Help

[bigfish]

Hello:

Picked up this Harvard tin type. Appears to be baseball. Wondering if anyone can help me date this? 1870's? Sam Baker was written on the inside of the tin type. Might be the players name? Any help would be appreciated.

[barrysloate]

Toby- I just went completely through my H Book of Harvard Athletics, which has numerous photos of baseball, football, hockey, and track teams. None of the athletes pictured wore a sweater/jersey like that. It does look like he is an athlete but there is simply no way to confirm it's a baseball player. It does look 1880's, however.

[Kawika]

Krap the rac in dravrah dray.

[bigfish]

Barry, thank you again for the help. Where can I get a copy of that book you have?

[barrysloate]

Toby- it's from 1922, so you would need to get it through a book dealer, maybe on ebay...wherever fine books are sold.

[prewarsports]

Baker was Harvard class of 1884 but still managed to play on the Harvard Varsity through the 1885 season (common back then). I have photos of him on the 1882, 83, 84, 85 Varsity teams. The uniform style is different than those in my team photos (Harvard usually just wore the letter H) which makes me think it might be 1881 as a freshman but who knows. I can at least confirm his presence on the 82-85 Varsity teams as I have photos of all those and he is in each one.

Hope that helps

Rhys

[barrysloate]

There is a resemblance to a player named Baker in the 1882 and 1883 team photos in the book, so there is a good chance it is him. But the sweater threw me off. As Rhys pointed out, none of the baseball images shows a player wearing that style jersey. Likewise, the caps don't match either.