A New Nebraska Indians Find

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I picked this up off ebay last week and just got it in the mail today. It is a postcard of Dan Tobey. Tobey wrote the card to Louis (Luke) Wagner, Honus's older brother. Tobey was offering a contract to Wagner - I have never seen anything about Louis Wagner playing for the Nebraska Indians in anything I've ever read, but it's possible he did play for them. The very best thing about this card though is that it is signed by Tobey. Dan Tobey pitched for the Nebraska Indians for many years and after his baseball days he moved to Los Angeles and became a ring announcer for boxing matches. He is enshrined in the World Boxing Hall of Fame. This is the first signature I have ever found of him and I think it's probably a very rare sig.







Tobey had one at bat in the Pacific Coast League for the Los Angeles Angels in 1926. He would have been 48 years old at the time, so I'm guessing it was a publicity stunt of some kind. As well as being a great athlete he was also a great entertainer and often dressed in a clown outfit while pitching for the Nebraska Indians.



Here he is in later years circa 1940 in the ring as an announcer


He also appeared in many movies the most famous of which were "The Champ" and "Body and Soul".

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Posted By: barrysloate

Dan- one day you need to write the definitive history of the Nebraska Indians.

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Posted By: dstudeba

Very nice Dan! I saw that postcard and really liked it, but once I saw it was from Nebraska I didn't even try to bid.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Thanks Dan. I've been seeing a lot more Nebraska Indian postcards on ebay lately, but there are still two out there I don't have (that I know of) that are eluding me.