postcard ID help - Grover C. Alexander?
 

I was looking through some postcards I've had for a while and tried to narrow down which Elba this pc came from. A name written on the reverse (Holger Holm) narrowed it down to Elba, Nebraska.

Usually I kind of laugh at attempts to ID players in old photos -- but Alexander is from Elba, and played with "the local team" (http://www.netnebraska.org/extras/ne...egends_02.html) before his pro career. It's a real photo postcard with an AZO back that dates to 1905-1918. It'd have to be at the earliest end of that range for this to be Alexander -- and/but this also feels like the photo could be a little earlier than that (1900?), and printed later (but before 1918). It's got a bit of the flatness of a copy print.

Couldn't find any pre-Phillies photos of Alexander; anyone have images of him in his real youth? The eyebrows and ears and big chin are what make me feel like there's a teensy chance. Teensy, teensy chance.

Doesn't look like him to me. Nose and ears are different among other factors. Nose on your Elba guy is upturned. Grover's is down.

Let's see the back of the postcard. More than likely it is a divided back which will put it after 1908 and there you go.

Doesn't look like him at all to me.

Agree that it doesn't look like him... distance between the eyes is vastly different.

Here's a fairly early picture of him. He's pretty unmistakeable. As is the case with most of these ID's, if you have to question it...

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...alexander1.jpghttp://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...achment-10.jpg

Gotta say when I first saw your photo I scrolled down and thought the guy in the back center looked the most like Alexander--can you blow up his pic?

Agree with Todd, probably not GCA but closer than the player shown in the enlarged scan.

I thought the same thing, but the nose didn't feel right. I know this is all wishful thinking-- there was something about the eyebrows, though, that made me want to believe. He was already 24 when he got to the Phillies, I think...

I'd bet money that those two Elba guys are brothers but neither is related to Alexander.