Help identifying player Phila A's c. 1930

[Darner]

I'm trying to identify this Philadelphia Athletics player. It has a 1930 date stamp and the player is identified as "Henry Supplee". Problem is there is no player named Henry Supplee listed on the 1930 A's roster (nor could I find any record of any Henry Supplee playing major or minor league baseball ever).

If the name is a mistake and I've seen some mistakes on press photo captions before, I'm hoping this player is Al Mahon, a pitcher whose major league career was 3 games for the A's in 1930. Googling Mahon only comes up with one picture and I don't know where that comes from (another picture on Baseball Prospectus mistakenly shows Art Mahan). It's not a lot to go on but if anyone has a picture of Al Mahon, I'd love to see it. Thanks for any help.

[nolemmings]

Doesn't look anything like Al Mahon's pic at baseball reference:


Actually I see the confusion though--Baseball Reference uses the same photo for Art Mahan, who as you noted is the proper subject for that photo.

[tnfoto]

Originally Posted by Darner

I'm trying to identify this Philadelphia Athletics player. It has a 1930 date stamp and the player is identified as "Henry Supplee". Problem is there is no player named Henry Supplee listed on the 1930 A's roster (nor could I find any record of any Henry Supplee playing major or minor league baseball ever).

If the name is a mistake and I've seen some mistakes on press photo captions before, I'm hoping this player is Al Mahon, a pitcher whose major league career was 3 games for the A's in 1930. Googling Mahon only comes up with one picture and I don't know where that comes from (another picture on Baseball Prospectus mistakenly shows Art Mahan). It's not a lot to go on but if anyone has a picture of Al Mahon, I'd love to see it. Thanks for any help.

Henry Supplee was an amateur (or maybe semi-pro) pitcher in the Trenton, NJ area in the early 1930s. He had a tryout with the A's in 1930 but I can't find any records that indicate he played at any level of organized ball. Supplee's brother Al likewise pitched in the Trenton amateur leagues.

As for the Mahon photo, I found that several years ago and can't remember the source but I think it was part of an A's mixed lot from Mears. I've attached the full photo below. The only other Mahon I have is a tiny thumbnail clipped from a low-quality team image, also shown below.

[Darner]

Thanks for that information, tnfoto.

I've seen other press photos of players that tried out but didn't make the team during this era so this certainly could be one of those. Usually the caption noted the player was trying out or with the team in spring training, but captions aren't always so accurate. It's curious why the photo was printed and distributed so late in the year when neither of the players in question would still be on the team.

Oh well, my quest for an Al Mahon photo continues. It's been one of my projects to collect a period photo of every Athletics player on the 1929, '30, and '31 rosters and mostly the few I'm missing are similarly obscure.

[Darner]

For the record I'm still looking for photos of Bud Morse, Bevo Lebourveau, Cloy Mattox, Rudy Miller from the 1929 team, Spencer Harris, Jim Keesey, Al Mahon from 1930, Phil Todt, Sol Carter from 1931. I've seen photos of most of these players so I should be able to get some of them eventually (preferably in A's uniform). If anyone can help me out, I'd be extremely grateful.

[Dto7]

Henry Supplee 1932 and 1930

[Dto7]

He's in the photo somewhere

[Darner]

Great info, Don. Thank you, I appreciate all the help.