No longer Anonymous - A Professional BaseBall Player? Yes Indeed!

You can tell a real ball player from a pretender in a photograph. You can also tell a professional from an amateur just from the way they wear their uniform. One look at our anonymous subject, now identified, thanks to Bob Mayer,  as Edwin Dikeman, one of the founders of the Goshen (NY) Monitors. There was no photographer's imprint or any writing on the carte whatsoever but we could tell based on the design of the carte, the date is roughly between 1865 and 1869. According to Bob, "The team was started in 1863, and this photo is from the same year.  I've had a copy of the photo for several years along with one of the team which was named for the fire department, now know as the Dikeman Hose Co."Mr. Dikeman is a serious and handsome young man. He is comfortable in his uniform, he is slim, trim and confident. He holds his bat like an old friend, as he poses in an unknown studio. He was dressed in the best summer wear of the day, still wearing the dark wool pants of military style. His entire outfit looks much like ones displayed in the fabulous Frank Leslie's Weekly 1865 woodcut. Most of those uniformed players were from New York vicinity clubs. I think our anonymous player comes from one of those teams. He knew how to play.Please add your comments to augment other Baseball Blog posts and educate our visitors.The Rucker Archive has more than 200,000 historical baseball images yet to be posted on the website; we invite you to check out our first offering in the Baseball Category.