The HoF and Walter Corson

[brian1961]

Well, I think you must remember the time these pioneers lived in. There was a certain maturity and kindness that was taught in our upbringing, and the press by and large also followed this tenet, not to expose someone's half-truth or out and out lie, and then embarrass them to the point where they couldn't go anywhere without feeling shame and humiliated. That is what people today typically do to each other.

I think the kindness and forbearance instilled in me and the pioneers of yore goes back to the Golden Rule that Jesus Christ taught, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

----Brian Powell

[trdcrdkid]

I don't see why we have to assume that Barker, Brooks, or Carter would have known the truth, assuming that Corson did make up the stuff about going to spring training with the Yankees. How were they going to check something like that back in the 1950s? The only baseball encyclopedia available was the crappy Turkin-Thompson one, which only gave year-by-year batting averages or win-loss records for major league players, and was riddled with errors in any case. These guys would have probably had to travel to Florida and spend days looking through microfilms of old newspapers, and what reason would they have to go to all that trouble? Corson mentioned the Yankee stuff in one article he wrote for the Sport Hobbyist in September 1956, and then very briefly in passing at the end of an article in the April-May 1957 Sport Hobbyist; it's not like his whole identity as a collector was based on that.

[Orioles1954]

I've probably met 10-15 people who claimed they played professional baseball but never did. Who knows why people do what they do? In my faith, one of our noted theologians not only lied about playing for the St. Louis Cardinals but also told some whoppers when it came to World War 2 service. It's probably hard for someone who eats, drinks and sleeps baseball to say "Yep, I played ball but wasn't good enough."

[trdcrdkid]

I see that the new REA auction has a run of Yankees spring training rosters/itineraries from 1933 to 1954, missing only 1949. If we could get a picture of the 1934 spring training roster, that would at least settle the question of whether Corson was at spring training with the Yankees that year, as he claimed.

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...e?itemid=47830

[topcat61]

I sent in a request to REA Auctions regarding their 1934 New York Yankees spring training roster, and check if Corson's name is there. I'll be interested to hear back and post what they say, if anything

Cheers -Ryan

[topcat61]

I received a reply from REA informing me that his name isn't listed in the 1934 Spring Training Roster. Here's the photo of that roster: