One more Babe Ruth vs. Rube Waddell 1917 Sports Companion thread

[frankh8147]

Hello all,

NOTE: I meant Marquard, not Waddell... pretty much agree with most of the revelations and documentations on this site but I wanted to bring up an old topic just one more time.

I'm still not sold that the 1917 Sports Companion stamp isn't Babe Ruth rather than Wadell although that photograph of Waddell looks too close to be coincidental and also, full disclosure, I own this stamp.

-The face. It's looks exactly like a young Babe Ruth and nothing like Rube Wadell. The eyes are wider, the mouth is bigger and the nose looks way wider. Rube had a slimmer, more muscular face and this, to me, just doesn't resemble him at all. I can't look at this image and look at pictures of Wadell and see any recognition whatsoever.
-The glove is placed completely differently.
-The pitching arm is shadowed on the Youth Companion card but not on the photograph but not on the photograph.
-The socks are different
-the shading on the cap is different
-the background is completely different

It just still looks like Babe Ruth to me... can someone put some facial recognition software to this and see what it comes up with haha!

[frankh8147]

..

[Rhotchkiss]

I know nothing about this stamp and I was unaware of the debate. Just two quick takes: (1) Rube Waddell was dead by 1917 (not sure if that matters), and (2) kind of looks like Rube Marquard to me. Note also the thing on the sleeve, which could have been a NY symbol?

[BobC]

I also thought this had been determined to be Rube Marquard (not Wadell) as well. For a while the SCD catalogs even stated that the image on the stamp was taken from and identical to a known photo of Marquard, more or less definitively assuring the identification. The same photo Frank was showing in his post.

[frankh8147]

Sorry all, I meant Marquard in the original post.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by frankh8147

Sorry all, I meant Marquard in the original post.

No problem Frank, easy mistake. LOL

And I also have one of these stamps, and wish it was Ruth as well. I noticed that though close, if that photo you originally posted an image of is the same photo referenced and mentioned by others as being the source and an identical match to the image on the stamp, it is not exactly identical and the same after all. And as you said, there is a somewhat similar type of resemblance to a young Ruth's face in that stamp's image. I can also see a bit of a resemblance to Marquard's face as well, when comparing it to the photo Ryan had in post #3. That stamp's facial image alone is just too obscure and unclear to make a definitive identification match though. I had never seen a copy of the photo that was claimed to be used for the stamp's image, and if that one you posted is it, it does leave room for doubt after all that maybe the stamp was supposed to be a depiction of Ruth, someone else, or even no one in particular and just truly a generic figure after all. Sadly, with no other confirming information, evidence, and/or provenance about the image used on the stamp, I think we're stuck with the current thinking and opinion that it is not Ruth after all, or at best, just a generic image. Still a very neat item.