1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers Original Photo

[RUKen]

Originally Posted by EVAJOY91

Here's the back of this photo with the identity of this team.

Now I'm really skeptical. It says "Baseball team coached by Wilder Stoddard Buffam". Wilder Stoddard Buffam was not the manager/captain of the 1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers; they were managed by Frank Bancroft and Jack Glasscock. Someone by the name of Wilder Stoddard Buffam did live in the United States from 1853 to 1933, but I cannot find information about any connection to baseball. A second man by this name died in 1948; according to his obituary he had graduated from Amherst College in 1884 and was a lawyer and a farmer.

Someone else wrote "(Front Right)(Young Amos Rouse [sic])(to N.Y. Giants and H.O.F.)". Rusie was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977, so this inscription could not have been made before then.

In the same hand, it is also written "Famous Coach of Indianapolis Team Satchel Paige. Later coached N.Y. Giants, 1908." Satchel Paige was born in 1906, so this is hard to understand. The Giants in 1908 were managed by John McGraw, and it would be another year before McGraw hired Arlie Latham and Wilbert Robinson to be coaches; before then, a player who was not in the lineup served as the first base coach and McGraw himself usually coached at third base when the Giants batted.

Anyway, it is a nice photo of a 19th Century (or perhaps early 20th Century) baseball team in a carriage, and the photo has value that can be appraised by others, but I do not see evidence that it is the 1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers.

(Your Pirates composite is undeniably the real deal.)