Stanley Ketchel Original Photo

[tjb1952tjb]

A very good fighter, and ultimately a tragic figure. He did fight three times in San Francisco (1907/1908).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Ketchel

[bmarlowe1]

There is another minor tragedy here in that the photo does not depict Ketchel.

Really it's simple. The ears clearly do not match so it can't be him. The back edge of Ketchel's ear (below left) is very straight (red arrow). There are many other photos of Ketchel that support this. The back of the ear in the photo in question (below right) is distinctly curved.

Also Ketchel has an attached earlobe (blue arrow). Again this is supported in other easily found profile photos of Ketchel. The earlobe in the photo in question is clearly detached.

In addition, the overall size and shapes of the respective ears are markedly different. That is enough to preclude the possibility that this is Ketchel.

Of course there are other distinct disqualifying differences, like the overall shape and proportions of the face and the width of the forehead which is tied to underlying skull structure. There is more but it isn't needed to support the conclusion.

[D. Bergin]

I was hoping Mark might chime in. There's a definite resemblance, but I had a funny feeling about it.

Question would be, who added the Joe O'Connor inscription to try to make it appear as if it was Ketchel?

Don't know of any O'Connor signatures myself, so was it old Joe himself, fooled by the image when he gave it away to some fan, or did it happen later on down the line?

[bmarlowe1]

Dave - I don't know what happened in this particular case, but in general anyone with an old photo and a pencil can write whatever they want. It's even easier still if the writing is not claimed to be that of the person claimed to be depicted.

It seems that nearly all misidentified 19thC and early 20thC baseball photos have the name written on the photo. That has been enough to fool a lot of people. I would guess it is the same for boxing.

[D. Bergin]

Good lord. Just stumbled across this:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=...9080829.2.82.7


When I looked at the inscription, and then looked at the photo stamp, I noticed they both said Joe O'Connor.

Put O'Connor and Ketchel into Google and this popped right up.

Ketchel's manager for a bit, but also a photographer by trade. The photo is actually of O'Connor according to the newspaper article I linked to.

Amazing that fighter and manager looked so much alike.

It was all actually right there in the photo. I was mistaking the inscription. I thought it said "My Stanley Ketchel". It actually says "Mg (manager) Stanley Ketchel.

[bmarlowe1]

Nice find!

[ramram]

Boom. Nice work Dave.