Ever since I was little and counted down the days to my community's annual village-wide garage sale day, I've been obsessed with tracking down trinkets and treasures at any thrift shop, estate sale, yard sale, and antique shop that I happen upon. It's gotten to the point that I immediately Google what such retail establishments are nearest by when I am travelling, just because I'm curious as to what people in other communities and locales are willing to part with and that I may become the beneficiary. What can I say? The alluring adventure and the mystery of not knowing what I might find at a swap meet or flea market is absolutely intoxicating.
Of course, when I am bored and have some spare time, I have some local haunts that I stake out fairly regularly. Besides the nearby Goodwill, Savers, and St. Vincent's, one of my favorite such locations is Three Sisters Antiques in suburban Blue Island, Illinois. The working class neighborhood dates back to the mid-19th century and has a rich cultural heritage, which has stocked the shelves of this 20+ year old antique boutique quite well. The two-floor building is always stuffed to the gills with fascinating knick-knacks from throughout the last two centuries for me to gawk at.
The last time I was there, I posted here on Wrigley Roster Jenga about a mystery that stemmed from a one such scrap of ephemera:
This here is a photograph of a 1940's journeyman pitcher by the name of Nick Strincevich. Born in closeby Gary, IN and continually a resident of Northwest Indiana, he was a local hero who plied his trade in the Major Leagues from 1940-48 with the Braves, Pirates, and Phillies. However, none of this information was made apparent by the card-sized picture in question.
At the time, I was completely unaware of who this man was; however, I couldn't help but grab this 2.5" x 3.5" portrait off of a shelf when I came across it. The mystery Bucco caused my mind to wander and I needed answers. Unable to find the identity myself, I took to crowd sourcing on Twitter to solve the riddle and, thankfully, was not disappointed. The Snorting Bull, blogger and baseball sleuth extraordinaire, quickly directed me to Nick's Baseball Reference entry, which uses the very same headshot in his profile.
That's the basic outline of my last experience at Three Sisters. If you would like a more detailed account, I encourage you to read the original post, especially because it ties into what I'm about to discuss today. Without any further ado, let's dive into Mysteries of the Three Sisters, Pt. II.
One of my favorite things to look at in these antique malls are collections of antique photographs. While it is depressing that so many family pictures have been discarded like last week's newspaper, I am fascinated by looking at the profiles and glamour shots of people, and getting glimpses into their lives, who have long since passed on. I'll never tire of pouring over the facial details and expressions of Victorian and Great Depression men and women and silently pondering to myself, "I wonder what was going on in their lives and the flash went off... I wonder what they were like." Maybe it's slightly twisted or morbid, but I like to think that it keeps these people from completely fading into the ages.
Furthermore, it's a pipe dream of mine to come across an honest to goodness cabinet card of a baseball player in these stacks and bins. Sure, anyone who digs such a thing up from his or her crawlspace would probably try to hawk any such piece with a sports connection, but you simply never know. Not to mention, I've stumbled upon plenty exemplary photographic portraitures of regular joes from the time period - maybe a ballplayer got lost in the stacks?
Anyway, a few days ago, while I was silently wandering through the aisles of the basement floor at Three Sisters, I happened upon a wicker basket absolutely overflowing with antique photographs of all shapes and sizes. Lord knows there was no way I was moving onto the next booth without pouring over each and every print.
Here's a quick snapshot of the snapshots and you can even see one of those aged cabinet curiosities that I alluded to right up front. All in all, I spent a good 45 minutes crouched on the floor, sifting through my newfound basket of goodies with all the eagle-eyed attention to detail of a miner forty-niner. While most such photographic archaeological digs turn up nothing of true notability, it did not take long for this excavation to change the narrative:
"Hey - that's the same picture that I found elsewhere in the shop last time that I was here!" What a strange coincidence. That jived with my previous theory that someone had printed these baseball card-sized photos for an autograph appearance or a TTM attempt or other such endeavor. However, after a few more minutes of flipping through Kodaks, I found something - or, rather, a pair of somethings - of much more interest than a duplicate of a previous treasure:
Hot damn - more trading card-sized prints! At this point, my mind was spinning from the potent fumes of mystery that were emanating from these exposures.
Of course, my first thought was, "who are these two hurlers?" Heck, I couldn't even make it out of the store before I again took to Twitter to ask for assistance in identifying these ballplayers from an era so long ago.
Hey Twitter, can anyone help me identify these players? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! pic.twitter.com/ua07Z2YPE1— Tony Burbs (@RosterJenga) June 28, 2019
Unfortunately, as of yet, no one has been able to definitively slap a name on these faces. Admittedly, these "cards" are a much more difficult ask than the previous, due to their not being up close portraits - the details are somewhat hazy, especially in the instance of the shadowy-faced Pirates pitcher. Not all hope is lost, as I have a theory, but I'll save that for the end of the post. Before we get to that, I have a few more details to share.
First, considering the price point of these confusing artifacts was just a buck a pop and the vendor in question was having a 60% off sale, there was no way I was leaving these behind and potentially missing out on a good story. Maybe these moundsmen were Cubs at other points in their careers and these prints could prove useful in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection endeavor? Maybe pictures of them in these uniforms were not often seen, or maybe even just capturing these men on film was a rare treat? The potential was certainly worth the pocket change.
On the other hand, it should be pointed out that while the pictures in question depict baseballists from the middle of the 20th century, there's little chance that these prints are even close to that old. First of all, while the Kodak paper that they are printed on had yellowed slightly, the degradation does not seem consistent with such exposures of a similar age. Maybe someone is more of an expert on photography can chime in here, but the watermark on the back which reads "This paper manufactured by Kodak" seems to indicate a much more modern origin.
Nevertheless, with as spotty as the coverage was for bubblegum baseball cards of the World War II time period, were these proven to show players who had also suited up on the North Side of Chicago, I would strongly consider them for inclusion in my CATRC. If you have any ideas as to who these, as of yet, identified Braves and Pirates hurlers from the golden years of baseball, I encourage you to share your theories below. Any assistance would be infinitely appreciated, as my searches have turned up no concrete information.
Although, as I stated earlier, this hasn't stopped me from coming up with a hypothesis.
I have a sneaking suspicion that our mystery friends are actually familiar faces... or, actually, one familiar face. That is to say, I think that it's quite possible that all three pieces of my Three Sisters trio of trinkets depict Nick Strincevich. Now, you might be wondering what has lead me to that conclusion, seeing as I can find no trace of these images online - please allow me to elaborate.
Firstly, I mentioned earlier that I thought the original piece may have been created as an autograph platform for the local hero. It stands to reason that if one image was whipped up for such a task, perhaps the intrepid baseball enthusiast created a few more custom "cards" for which to be graced with Nick's John Hancock. After all, don't many TTM seekers often send more than one pasteboard with their requests, for variety's sake? To me, this seems parallel to that collecting method.
Secondly, I mentioned that Nick played for both the Braves and the Pirates (and Phillies, but that's not important right now) during his nearly decade-long stay in the Majors. Correspondingly, the mystery moundsmen just so happen to be donning the laundry of those same two clubs. Could that just be a coincidence? Of course, but it's definitely a common feature worth noting for my theory.
Lastly, in the still on the left, you can get a glimpse of the uniform number being sported by this person, a number which ends in five. As it turns out, the digits most commonly sported by Nick during his tenure with the Buccos just so happen to be 25. While you cannot get a look at the jersey number adorned on the back of the Bravo pitcher, his face sure does look similar enough to Strincevich's portrait that it could be the same man. Again, it would be foolish to say for certain without more identifying features, but the possibility that these people are all one and the same is there.
Anywho, that's all I got for this mystery right now. Searches for these photos in online databases turn up nothing, though they do seem strikingly similar to those taken by the storied George Brace during the same time period. If you have any information or thoughts that might prove helpful in solving this case, please, please, please share your thoughts in the comment section below. I'll be able to sleep better tonight if I can put this question to bed.
In the end, though this currently unsolved mystery has proven somewhat frustrating, it is for this very same reason that I am absolutely enthralled with secondhand shopping. Like I said, you just never know what you are going to find when venture into a thrift store, flea market, or antique shop and this trip to Blue Island's Three Sisters emphatically proved this point! I'll definitely be going back there again someday soon.
You may very well see a Mysteries of the Three Sisters, Pt. III on Wrigley Roster Jenga.
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