chicago union giants, 1911

Check out this amazing panoramic postcard from Brian Campf:

This was taken in the town of Daggett, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on September 6, 1911, the day of a game between W. S. Peters’s Chicago Union Giants and the local Daggett team. The Union Giants are the ten players on the right.

Thanks to some detective work by Brian, Todd Peterson, Larry Lester, and myself, we’ve identified six of the ten Union Giants. Here’s the box score for the Daggett game, which Brian obtained from the Menominee County Library:

This gives us nine of the Union Giants players. What about the tenth? The Union Giants played a doubleheader in Escanaba, Michigan, two days earlier, on Labor Day (September 4, 1911). Here are the box scores (courtesy of Todd):

 

(Escanaba Morning Press, September 6, 1911, p.8)

Here we have the same nine players as in Daggett, plus a tenth: the pitcher Hub Alexander. To return to Brian’s postcard:

 

In order, from left to right:

1) Robert Gilkerson, the Union Giants’ captain and second baseman

2) Sam Gordon, the Union Giants’ manager and catcher

3) Horace Jenkins, outfielder/pitcher

4) (unknown)

5) (unknown)

6) (unknown)

7) Haywood “Kissing Bug” Rose, catcher / first baseman

8) (unknown)

9) Albert Toney, shortstop

10) Lefty Harvey, pitcher/outfielder

There remain four players whose faces we can’t match to names (4, 5, 6, and 8): Ed Lee (outfielder), Guy Jackson (third baseman), Mack Ramsey (outfielder), and (possibly) Hub Alexander (pitcher). If anybody has any ideas about which is which, let me know.

Comments

[Caleb Hardwick]

I was just very saddened to learn of Brian's death. He had an incredible collection.