Jimmy Phelan

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Posted By: Jason Carota

The man, the myth, the legend...to my knowledge, at least. Since I began piecing together as much of the T206 set as possible, I have gathered bits of information for each player I have acquired. Recently, I picked up Jimmy Phelan (Providence.) Using all of my usual sources (SABR, Wiki, Baseball Reference, etc.,) I have not been able to find any information on Jimmy. Are there any other sites that may contain a bio of his?

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Posted By: brian

was he any relation to Art Phelan? brother maybe? You might have to do geneology research to find anything on a minor league player.

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Posted By: Tom Hufford

This is a tough one. Every T206 checklist that I've seen that tries to list first names, lists him as James Phelan. This probably comes from the writeup on the back of Phelan's T205 gold border card, which lists him as "Jimmy" Phelan, and says that he came to the (Providence) Grays from Montreal in 1907.

I have a copy of a list that Buck Barker put together in the late 1950's, in which he tried to identify the T206 minor leaguers. Buck lived in St. Louis, and in the narrative that accompanies this list, he describes having access to the card files and guides at The Sporting News office. The card files he refers to are the player transaction cards maintained by the paper (note: these cards are now in storage in St. Louis, and are no longer available for research - SABR and TSN are now trying to work an agreement for SABR to digitize these cards and make them available to the public on the SABR and/or TSN website). Many members of this board are familiar with Buck's research in these files - and his notes on the back of many, many of the cards he had in his collection.

Anyway, as far as the Phelan in T206 and with Montreal/Providence, the TSN files identified him as John F. (Jimmy, Jack) Phelan, born in 1883.

I've been unable to find a James Phelan born in 1883 that looks like our man. I did find a John Francis Phelan b. June 30, 1883 in Harrison, NJ, d. June 1968 in Ocean Grove, Monmouth Co., NJ, who seems to fit, but I can't tie him to baseball. This man's listings in the census and draft registration files list him as a driver or chauffer. The only census during his playing career was 1910, and this John F. Phelan is shown in Newark, NJ when the census was taken on May 4, 1910 - when the ballplayer should have been with the Providence team somewhere. Of course maybe he was the player, was out of town, and the info was provided by his wife. None of the Phelans listed in the 1910 Providence, RI census are the ballplayer.

So, no definite proof of what Phelan's name was .... yet.

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Posted By: Jason Carota

I found a picture of Jimmy's/James' T205. There was enough info there for me to jot down, especially the part concerning him turning 2/3 of his hits in to runs. I don't know why I never considered looking at the backs of other issues. Thanks again.