(Entry No. 7)

Can You Name This Week’s Mystery Player?

How well you do know your old-time players?

My goal with this feature is to shine our baseball spotlight on some very good players from days gone by who have been overshadowed by the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, Speaker, Hornsby, Grove, Greenberg, Robinson, Paige, Gibson, and Williams, among many other superstars the game has produced. Hopefully, we can give them a little exposure before they are totally lost over the passage of time. 

As always on Baseball History Comes Alive, we can have some fun while enhancing our baseball history learning experience. Each entry will include a short description of the player and highlights from his career. Some of the entries might require you to do a little research on your own. I might even add a personal comment or two about him.

Player Identity: Danny MacFayden

So as to give everyone a chance to guess without the player’s identity being immediately revealed, send me your answer via e-mail instead of leaving your answer in the comments section. Send your answers to me at: Livac2@aol.com.

This week’s mystery player (from Wikipedia): 

This week’ Mystery Player was an American starting and  in Major League Baseball. From 1926 through 1943, this well-traveled player pitched for the Red Sox, Yankees, Reds, Boston Braves, Pirates, and Senators. In a 17-season career, he posted a 132–159 record with 797 strikeouts and a 3.96 earned run average in 2706 innings pitched. His best season was 1936, when he earned 17 victories with 86 strikeouts and a 2.87 ERA, all career bests.

This week’s Mystery Player might be a little harder to identify, but I have a lot of confidence in you guys!  I know I’m dealing with some very informed students of baseball history.

I’ve always had a bit of a fondness for this week’s Mystery Player, so that’s why I selected him. In many years of identifying players in old photos, especially when I helped identify the nearly 3000 photos from the Leslie Jones Boston Public Libray collection, he was always easy to pick out for the obvious reason that he wore glasses, or “spectacles” as they were called back then. The photo on the right is one I worked on from the Leslie Jones collection. We see him with teammate Shanty Hogan. I had to work hard to identify Shanty, a very obscure player, but there was never any doubt who the other player was.

As a matter of fact, off-hand, I can only think of a couple others who wore glasses: Dom DiMaggio, “Specs” Torporcer and Chick Hafey come to mind. You guys can probably come up with others. Anyway, give it your best shot! 

This week’s bonus questions:

1. What was his nickname?
2. The featured photo a the top of the post is part of the collection of which famous baseball photographer?
3. He played on one World Series championship team. What team was it and what year?

If you’d like to take a stab at identifying this player, please send me your answer via email. But feel free to add any thoughts or personal reflections you might have about him in the comments section below.

Send your answers to me at: Livac2@aol.com

AT THE END OF THE WEEK, I’LL POST THE NAMES OF EVERYONE WHO GOT THE CORRECT ANSWER, INCLUDING THE WINNER (THE FIRST ONE TO GET IT RIGHT).

Last Week’s Winners:

Congratulations to Ed Cassidy who was the first to correctly identify last week’s Mystery Player as:

Riggs Stephenson

Answers to bonus questions:

His nicknames were “Old Hoss” and “Warhorse.” On Sept. 14, 1923, he was one of the baserunners tagged out in an unassisted triple play by Red Sox first baseman George Burns. The outfield trio of Riggs Stephenson, Hack Wilson, and Kiki Cuyler is the only one in National League history to each drive in over 100 runs in one season.

Congratulations to the following who all identified the Mystery Player correctly. You guys really know your old-time baseball!:

Ed Cassidy, Robert Rambo, Pete Aman, Everett Shockley, Mark Kolier, Al Citro, Fred Holbrook, Thomas Marshall, John Fitzpatrick, Mike Bresina, David Anthony Denny, Micahel Keedy, Paul Doyle

The following identified the Mystery Player correctly and also correctly answered the bonus questions:

Ed Cassidy, Pete Aman, Mark Kolier, David Anthony Denny, Michael Keedy

Do you have a favorite player in mins you’d like to see featured as the Mystery Player?

If so, just drop me a line. I’ll even credit you as the one who suggested him. Feel free to add any personal thoughts about him or why you would like to see him featured. I’m looking for guys who are not obvious, but are not impossible to identify either.  Livac2@aol.com.

Click here to see previous Mystery Player entries