Confused, this is one for the sleuths.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

So I'm in the process of listing a handful of 1927 E126's on ebay right now (subtle plug, right?) One of them makes no sense. ET Cox is Ernie Cox who pitched one inning in his Major League career, for the White Sox. That in and of itself makes it pretty weird that he has a card. In fact I would guess it would put him pretty heavily into the running for shortest Major league career represented on a pre-war Major league card. But that's NOT the weird part.

The aforementioned inning was in 1922!!!, and he has no stats, major or minor league, after that. At least not on baseballreference.com. So, is the collecting world 100% on the date of the e127 set? I see no other evidence of uncertainty. Why on earth, in a 60 card set, did they honor a guy who pitched 1 inning, five years earlier???!!!

[philliesfan]

Wow. Very Interesting Scott.

[philliesfan]

I have an autograph of Jim Marquis who played with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth for 4 days but only 2 games in 1925. I may need to see if he has a card issued anywhere.
Robert

[Spike]

Net54 did discuss E.T. Cox (and if he was someone else) earlier, though with largely the same conclusions: it could well show E.T. Cox five years after his single game and the 1927 date is correct based on Cobb and Speaker's team changes.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=65105

Many E126s use photos from the early 1920s, when E.T. Cox played his one game. The Chicago White Sox used lots of pitchers that year (relative to the rest of the league) and many of their pitchers made a handful of appearances. I think Chicago tried to save money on their pitching contracts or travel budget by signing several spot-duty pitchers that year, which led to E.T. Cox getting a relief opportunity and an in-uniform photo. My guess: his photo was re-used years later in E126 without recognition that he'd long since disappeared from the game.