Malatzky: Biographical archeology
From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game on July 14, 2016:
My friend Richard Malatzky–SABR’s supersleuth in genealogical research–wrote to me the other day:
John, here is something you may want to share online. I know that you put in a great effort to identify obscure players for Total Baseball so here is a reversal of something Peter Morris, Bill Carle, and I did several years ago regarding Sterling of the infamous game of October 12, 1890.
Early in September 1890, the Athletics of Philadelphia of the American Association went bankrupt. Rather than following the path of minor league clubs and folding, they started letting go of their more well-known players and signed several local minor leaguers … plus some whom we still cannot identify.
I noticed on a research trip to the Hall of Fame Library in 1979 that the Heilbroner books which listed the addresses of all of the umpires had a John F. McBride living in Phillipsburg, NJ but it later turned out that he would have been around 10 years old in 1890 when he is thought to have played in his one game on October 12, 1890. I checked the other missing players from the box score on that game who were listed in the I.C.I. (Macmillan) Baseball Encycopedia of 1969: George Crawford, Sweigert, James (“General”) Stafford, and John Sterling.
Years later I discussed this topic with Morris and Carle and we decided to delete the first names of the four players for whom the Baseball Encyclopedia had supplied them.
Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2016/07/13/biographical-archeology/
Originally published: July 14, 2016. Last Updated: July 14, 2016.