Old Baseball Team Photo

[Smileyman9]

It's unfortunate that you find things out once the people with the answers have died....alas.

While cleaning out my grandmothers townhouse my parents came across a bunch of pictures which they brought home...one of which peaked my interest as it's of my great grandfather (age most likely in his 20s) in a baseball team photo (or at least partial team photo). Would anyone here happen to know where I could research old teams/leagues?

The photo itself is rather interesting, I know my great grandfather came to America from I believe Czechoslovakia (they changed names quite often then, but he came from that region) around 1911 or so when he was 14. When this photo was taken, I'm pretty sure he was between the ages of 18-25, giving it the general time frame of the 1920s.

I can pretty much presume that the team was based out of CT (most likely near Glastonbury as that's where he ended up starting his farm, not to mention that's where the photographer was based out of according to the very faded stamp on the back). Now the fun part, the uniforms have the letters SP HN across the chest area (with buttons going down between the SP and the HN portion).

Eight guys have that uniform on....the other two in the photo (one being my great grandfather) have very different outfits on. It's kind of tough to describe so please bare with me... My great grandfather has on what a solid black suit jacket, buttoned down the middle that goes to about mid thigh, with a white button down shirt that has a strange collar on it...almost like a tuxedo collar. The other guys outfit looks like a cardigan sweater (complete with two front pockets). The shirt he has underneath looks like a uniform, but can barely be seen...other then the letter W on it.

I know that's a lot of info, but if anyone has any ideas as to where I could look I'd be most appreciative...

On a sidenote, if anyone would like to see it...I can attempt to scan it in...

Thanks -

[hwiggen]

No help here, unfortunately, but that's a great post.
It sounds like something out of a novel or a movie.

[stejaycubs]

Any chance you could scan the photo onto the site, then maybe it would be easier to help.

[Smileyman9]

I'll scan it in, as for posting online, any ideas of where a good place to upload it might be?

[BitterDodgerFan]

I'll scan it in, as for posting online, any ideas of where a good place to upload it might be?

http://imageshack.us/

[Smileyman9]

Alright, so the cardboard that it's mounted on is a major pain as it takes up the entire bed of my scanner, thus meaning light doesn't reflect off the screen for a clear scan, upped the resolution, played with the brighten option and this is the best I can do for the moment. What I may try doing later on is taking a picture of it with a digital camera (maybe get some better quality from that then from the scanner).

This should be the link to it.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1143 ... eamgz6.jpg



**Just a quick warning, clicking to enlarge it crashed my Firefox, could just be me. Regardless, the high DPI is a tad excessive, but unfortunately necessary for the clarity of the picture**

[stevethumb]

very interesting..could the H N stand for hebrew nation ? was your grandfather jewish ? just brainstorming here..maybe the S P is a town like south plymouth .. please keep us updated if you stumble across any clues

[WharfRat]

I bet if you were to get in touch with someone at SABR, they'll have someone who could help. Here's a list of chapters; they have a couple in Connecticut it seems. They also have a Research Services Manager listed on the main office staff list, so he might be someone worth contacting. (I'm just getting this off the Web site).

What a neat story & photo. Definitely keep us updated if SABR or anyone else can help.

[Smileyman9]

Thanks for the responses and info; I'll shoot an e-mail over to SABR to see if they could give me any information.

To my knowledge he was not Jewish...although the one thing that my father had theorized was that the S in the SP HN stood for Slovak or Slovakian. Thus meaning that the team was made up of immigrants of Slovakian descent.