St. Paul Gophers & Minneapolis Keystones, 1908

Brian Campf sent along his latest acquisitions, two great postcards. The first one shows an unknown white player batting, with two black players in the background.

 

 Here’s a detail of the two players in the background:

 

Todd Peterson has identified them as (on the left) either Clarence “Dude” Lytle or Will Horn, both pitchers, and on the right (holding the bat) catcher/infielder Will McMurray, all of the 1908 St. Paul Gophers.

Here are pictures of Lytle, Horn, and McMurray for comparison:

 

The reverse of the postcard has handwriting at the top mistakenly identifying the team as St. Louis, rather than St. Paul.

Here’s Brian’s second postcard, with handwriting at the bottom that reads “Jhonson [sic] at bat”:

And a detail of the players:

Todd  has identified the two players in the background as members of the 1908 Minneapolis Keystones, George Hopkins and Alex Irwin. Here are pics of them for comparison:

The catcher remains unidentified, but Todd thinks that the player at bat, “Jhonson,” blurred in the act of swinging, is Topeka Jack Johnson, also of the 1908 Keystones.

With respect to the first postcard above, Hake’s put a postcard up for auction a couple of years ago that was taken at the same game, and evidently formed part of a set at one time. This one showed Chappie Johnson, also of the St. Paul Gophers:

 

And the reverse side has the same handwriting at the top, again mistakenly identifying the team as St. Louis instead of St. Paul.

Comments

[james brunson]

Nice.

[Dwayne Isgrig]

I think it is interesting that the team is identified as "St Louis" in the handwriting on the back of the postcards. McMurray was from St Louis, as was Hopkins. I wonder if the person who wrote "St Louis" thought the team was from St Louis since a couple of the players were from St Louis.