Wrong catalog year on the Obak T212-1's?

[Steve D]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

Those four players that split their 1909 season between two teams:

Mickey LaLonge - card shows Oakland, records show he played for Oakland and Sacramento

Jim Byrnes - card shows Sacramento, records show he played for Sacramento and Vernon

Anson Mott - card shows Vernon, records show he played for Vernon and Sacramento

Roy Willett - card shows Vernon, records show he played for Portland and Vernon


The order of the teams of the four players above are in the same order as seen on their statistical records on the Baseball Reference website. I am not positive if this is the team order that each player played during the season, but I would guess it is. LaLonge, Byrnes and Mott have the teams that are designated on their cards which are teams that are listed first in their statistical record, while the designated team on the Willett card is the second team as shown in his statistical record.

Although I did not locate any biographical career info on LaLonge, Byrnes and Mott, I did find that Roy Willett was released from Portland on June 8th, 1909, and that the earliest record of him playing for Vernon was June 13th, 1909.

So it appears likely that the earliest that this first series of Obak cards (1909) could have been in pre-production is the second half of June 1909.

Brian

I just did some research on Newspapers.com, and found the following:

LaLonge/Byrnes - The Aug 16, 1909 San Francisco Examiner has a headline saying "Oakland Trades Mickey LaLonge for Jim Byrnes and Heine Jansing.
It says the trade occurred on Aug 15th.

Mott - Listed in the following boxscores (all games were the previous day):

3 Apr 1909 Fresno Morning Republican, with Vernon
3 Jun 1909 LA Evening Express, with Vernon
1 Sep 1909 LA Times, with Vernon
2 Oct 1909 LA Herald, with Vernon

I also looked in Oregon newspapers, and there are none that list him with Portland. All the boxscores I found in both California and Oregon, have him in only Vernon boxscores.

So, based on the following:

Willett going from Portland to Vernon in mid-June (card shows Vernon)

LaLonge going from Oakland to Sacramento in mid-Aug (card shows Oakland)

Byrnes going from Sacramento to Oakland mid-Aug (card shows Sacramento)

The 1909 Obaks were finalized between mid-June and mid-Aug, 1909.

Steve