Old Judge label question

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by Fred

Dang Rob, can't see anything in that pic... yeah, it's a B. 8, I think it meant he was a fisherman or something like that.... ok, I think I did recall hearing it was his position in the batting order... gotta bigger scan?

Can’t let a great response about being a fisherman go unnoticed and unappreciated by at least 1 person.

[prewinter]

Nicholson batted leadoff in all of the Whites games, so it can't be batting order.

Besides the Whites players listed as B5 through B15 (excepting B11), the following players were with the Whites that spring:
Tug Arundel (who got into town late in April after being released from Indianapolis, with whom he is pictured in the set), Jake Beckley, Jack Crooks, Tom Dolan (photographed in a Whites uniform, but identified with the Browns - he went with the Browns on their road trip to Memphis and New Orleans in April, but was always intended to be with the Whites once the season started), Joe Herr, and Jerry McCormick. Five players, five 'missing' numbers (ignoring Arundel, who likely was signed after the photos were taken).

One other note about the timing of the photos. There was a player in camp that spring with the Whites named F.B Weikart. He played in a couple of games and then was released by April 6, when he signed with Houston. He is not included in the set at all, which makes me think he was never photographed. That would set the date for the photos in April of 1888. Also, there is some suggestions in the local papers that Sproat was late to camp because of illness. He didn't pitch at all until the Whites second game of the season, on May 1. This would be another indication that the photos weren't taken until the middle of April. Arundel didn't arrive in St. Louis until late April, and Somers and McCormick were released on May 4. I would say the photos were taken sometime in the two or so weeks between April 6 and about April 24, when Arundel was signed.

The Old Judge set got me really interested in the Whites and the Western Association of 1888. I wish I could afford some of their cards.

[oldjudge]

Good detective work Paul. Very interesting.

[ramram]

Great info Paul.

Do you know who their photographer was?

Rob M

Edited to add - Never mind, Joe G already covered it - Gray Studios

[oldjudge]

I don’t believe Gray Studios did the Whites. I think Joe was just using Gray as an example. Gray did all the 1887 NL teams except the Giants, who were done by Carroll.

[prewinter]

I don't know who did the photography. I've been reading newspapers from the various cities of the Western Association from 1888 to learn about that season and the players. It clearly wasn't a major league, but it does seem to have gotten wider recognition that season than a lot of other minor leagues. The inclusion in the Old Judge set is part of that.

[oldjudge]

The Western Association was a solid League. At that time there was not a lot of difference between salaries in the majors and those in other leagues, especially for non-stars. There were a lot of great players in the Western Association, and the California League for that matter. However, the Whites and the Maroons were basically minor league teams for the Browns and the Chicago Nationals.

[oldjudge]

I checked my notes and Scholten did the 1888 Whites. They also did the '88 Browns and the Louisville and Cincinnati teams. Here is a Scholten cabinet of Jake Kenyon pose 260-2.

[prewinter]

I would dispute that the Whites were a minor league club for the Browns. It is true that they were owned by Chris Von der Ahe, who also owned the Browns. And when he sought to put a club into the Western Association in the fall of 1887, he was initially rejected because he wanted to use the club as a place to hold players for the Browns, and the rest of the league objected to that premise. Ultimately, after he was given a club in the league (under Manager Tom Loftus), that is not how it worked at all. Only one player moved from the Whites to the Browns - Joe Herr - after Chippy McGarr got hurt in early June. As the Whites flushed down the drain, he sold the two best players from the club (Harry Staley and future HoF Jake Beckley) to Pittsburgh instead of transferring them to the Browns. And due to the rules of the time, he was unable to transfer Jim Devlin to the Whites as he wanted to at the start of the season. Finally, after selling Staley and Beckley to Pittsburgh, and Jack Crooks to Omaha, he tried to use Devlin in a game with the Whites twice, and the Whites were forced to forfeit both games, because Devlin was ruled ineligible. The club folded at that point.

(It is unclear to me if Kenyon was formally a member of the Browns at the time he played for the Whites in April of 1888, filling in for an injured Hines. There was a transaction in the spring at some point indicating he signed with the Browns. There are also is a pair of transactions reported in late March/early April formally releasing Parson Nicholson from the Browns and signing him by the Whites.)

Jeff Kittel suggested that Von der Ahe wanted a club in the Western Association in case the American Association collapsed during the offseason of 1887-1888. The Maroons may have been in a similar boat, as there were rumors at that time that the eastern clubs were going to form a major league that offseason excluding the western clubs. Had that happened, the Western Association may have tried to claim major league status, and Von der Ahe wanted in on that.

What does this have to do with Old Judge set? I think that Goodwin saw the possibilities that the Western Association could become more than just a minor league, and so included them in their set for that reason. Otherwise, why else include a brand new, completely unestablished league?