Folk Art Renditions of Baseball Players/ Who Are They?

[TaxMechanick]

THANK-YOU very much Butch7999! This is EXTREMELY helpful!

My take is that the (2) I have, which are different from the (6) presented in that thread, are part of a larger set, I believe likely 10 in total?

My take as far as the one's I have is that, although unnamed, they were intended on depicting "long" John Riley (which I am more confident on) and John Monte Ward (which I am less confident on, but still believe if not him, I cannot determine a better match).

Regardless, I love them!

For all reading this thread, any additional observations and/or analysis or thoughts?

Please stay safe and well.

Thanks & Best,
Glenn Mechanick

[perezfan]

I would've bid higher on that lot, but could not even begin to identify them. I figured they were generic images that would be impossible to attribute to any specific players of the era.

Of course, you could be right... it's not out of the realm of possibility that they could represent those players. But it was too much "leaping" and not enough "faith" for me to come to that conclusion.

A beautiful pair, regardless... Awesome pickup, and please keep us posted if you locate any images that enable you to make the attribution!

[TaxMechanick]

Mark,

Well, for personal reasons, obviously I am really glad you did not bid higher. I'm really happy to have them.

As I said above, while bidding, I too assumed they were generic representations, rather then specific intended players. It was only after receiving them, and studying them in more detail, that my curiosity was piqued and this become a project for me.

I have not as of yet affirmed their identification, but I will keep working on it. Given other shared information from Butch7999, which I was able to easily locate online (funny, while previously searching, I was not able to locate such information; I guess I did not use the appropriate magic words), I am feeling confident that these are specific intended player representations, rather than generic depictions of baseball players... as I said I am feeling good that the one is intended to represent long John Riley; I'm not as confident on the other representing John Monte Ward, but, at least for now, it is what I have come up with....

In the meantime, if anyone else has any ideas or any positive affirmation on these, please do share...

Thanks & Best,
Glenn Mechanick

[Butch7999]

Well, here's something that seems to only add to the mystery...
we knew Mark Cooper had a set of these or something similar, so we took a look
at his 1994 Home Games book and scanned the photo there of his set...

As you can see, the wooden pins themselves are significantly different than those in your set,
but the painted or decal images of the players -- to which Mark added his worthy but arguable
identifications -- appear identical to those on your set.

[perezfan]

The players on that second set don’t look identical to me. The images have significant differences from the first set, so perhaps I’m misunderstanding something?

[TaxMechanick]

I agree.. Its funny, the Cooper one's (6 of them) that Butch7999 posted (from Cooper's book) are fairly similar images as the (6) posted also posted by Butch7999 above in this thread, relating to a link previously posted from about 10 years ago, yet they are on different types of wooden, I'll call them bowling pins, although, I suppose the Cooper one's could be Indian Clubs. As Mark, says there are some slight differences, i.e. in the player squatting.

The fact that the (2) (I'll call them) sets are reasonably but not exactly identical, I'm not sure whether this gives more credence to them being produced or folk art? I would think the fact that they are somewhat close to being identical, but not exact, might initially infer that the images at least were produced and then perhaps painted over individually (in folk art manner), but then again.....

Also funny is that each (set) has a similar number (6) and is relatively identical, which infers each is a set... however, logic, if they are on bowling pins, is that there may be more to compose a set... likely (10) in total. Adding credence to this is that the (2) I have as illustrated above are totally different images than the (6) commonly in each set.

I have not seen those sets in person to be able to compare the images and details and color differences of the painted renditions, perhaps over initial transfer images (other than I recollect seeing the Cooper ones about 30 years or so ago, while he was set up at the old Atlantic City Convention Center on the boardwalk... and I do not remember them well enough, except to this day still remembering how cool they were).

I wonder regarding the (2) (sets) of (6), whether one was done first as "folk art" and the other one was done, perhaps even by the same person, or by another person (only having in hand those 6 of the original ones were done, from a larger original population, i.e. of 10), similarly as folk art renditions, thus explaining relatively small differences. From the original link provided above, there was a similar group also on different pins , and I believe larger in size (although I'm not sure of a comparison of the size of the images themselves), also perhaps done "as folk art" from the original or secondary group.

As discussed above, perhaps these were transfers hand painted over, but, then why the small differences in the images themselves (without regard to colors from paintings over) of sets?

The other issue, of course, is whether they were originally intended as renditions of specific players (as Cooper identified, exclusive of the (2) I have), or just intended as generic? I give more credence to being specific player renditions. As I discussed above, I am fairly confident on one of mine being a depiction of long John Riley; the other I'm less confident, but reasonably believe to be John Monte Ward.

I understand at this point, we may be going around in circles, but, if anyone finds anything additional or has an additional thoughts... please share?

Thanks & Best,
Glenn

[perezfan]

Pretty good likeness of Reilly... particularly with regard to the uniform color, tall/thin stature, style of mustache, posture and positioning of the feet (splayed out, as opposed to parallel). But then again, the other player has the same mustache, body type and foot positioning .... ugh!

Definitely involves some speculation, and we may never have a conclusive answer. But the subject image certainly "could have" been modeled after Reilly (see pics below...)