It's nice to see all those 1930's Giants autographs. I was friends with a few of the Giants from that era and also had some interesting missed opportunities with a few who signed that card.
Hal Schumacher lived close to Cooperstown in a tiny place called Dolgeville. in a nice old house right on the main street. I was passing through in the summer of 1993 and called him up. There was no answer. Driving through the village, I stopped and knocked on the open screen door. Still no answer. Unfortunately, he had passed in April and I was unaware.
Francis Healy (who, as can be seen in the above, sometimes spelled his surname with an "e") was an odd case. I believe he was scouted by none other than Mickey Welch. McGraw had high hopes for him which never panned out. He was unmarried and lived with his spinster sister in Holyoke & Springfield, MA. They never had a telephone. As with Schumacher, I tried my luck at simply knocking on the door. The sister answered the door and tried to tell me there were no Healys living there, citing the name of the owner of the duplex. Funny, because her name and Francis' name were written on a piece of paper affixed to the mailbox she was standing beside while denying her identity! Then, her nephew came from out of nowhere and immediately understood what I was requesting. He told her, "He wants to speak to Uncle Francis". "We don't accept visitors" was her reply, and that was the end of that! It was well worth a try. His was a very interesting story which I learned later on. Unfortunately, I don't feel it would be right to expand upon it publicly or privately.
Eddie "Doc" Marshall and I had an ongoing correspondence for some time. He was a very nice man whose career was ended by a near-fatal beanball from Van Lingle Mungo. I had sent him am oversized enlargement of a color team photo from the 1934 Milwaukee Brewers (it appeared to be a newspaper supplement). I had managed to befriend every living MLB alumnus on the photo, of which there were still seven as of the late 1990's. Marshall was one of the last I had sent the photo to so that he could sign it. He never returned it, which was odd, as he was accommodating in every way and seemed to be in decent health for a man of his age. A few months later I found myself in California, which is thousands of miles away from my home. I looked Marshall up in the White Pages and was surprised that there was no longer a listing. Again, I chanced to knock on the door of the last address I wrote to. A petite, somewhat frail lady answered. It was Mrs. Marshall. She explained that Eddie had passed away just a few weeks prior. I told her who I was, and right away her face beamed. She said, "Stay there just a minute!" and walked to a nearby desk with a large drawer. Inside was the envelope I had sent Eddie with the photo, which he had in fact signed before he passed. She knew me by name, which was quite flattering! She was also proud to say that they had gone to a Kinko's to have more copies of my photo made up for the family. If I had known, I would have made even more extras for them. (None of the living players or their families had ever seen the photo until I sent it. Each one had more copies made on their own! They, like me, were so taken by the fact it was a true color photo as opposed to simply colorized.) Mrs. Marhsall was also kind to furnish me with a copy of a newspaper article from when Eddie was beaned. They had this printed for me at the same time and Eddie had meant to send it all back. Mrs. Marshall turned out to be a very talented artist and showed me some of her landscapes. Aside from if Eddie had still been alive, I couldn't have asked for a nicer outcome!
|