A McCreachery Card Theory

[Joe_G.]

As for the McCreachery card rarity, it is not alone within the N172 set. There are a good number of poses with only single copies known. The obvious starting point would be the California League cards for which many have only one known copy. This extends will into the "Significant Rarities" and beyond. Some of the toughest players in the set are only catalogued as having one, two, or three poses when they were likely issued 5. There are undoubtedly many neat poses that have long been lost to time (what a shame).

As for the McCreachery card, I do believe it was distributed in packages of cigarettes. The where-a-bouts of the copy shown earlier in this thread are known. I don't believe we will be seeing it hit the market anytime soon.

[tonyo]

The thing I most appreciate about this thread is learning more about Deacon White and they way the game was played and the leagues were run back in the 19th. Mostly thru the sabr article linked by David, but some tidbits here and there thru the posts as well.

I'm still trying to wrap my imagination around a catcher with no glove. Tough as nails?

[cyseymour]

Joe,

I feel that you are way off base. As new information arises, I am willing to integrate it. Many people had different ideas on the card. It was a collaborative effort by the board. Sure, some posters delivered ideas that were later disproven, i.e. the drinking or the downfall of the Wolverines comments, but that is part of the process to find the truth as other posters chime in with new information. You drum up a bunch of old posts from the thread, but it doesn't disprove anything I'm saying now about the name McCreachery or the answer to the riddle.

If I stuck rigidly to old, disproven ideas of the card as new information became available, would you consider that more commendable? You ask me, is my final answer ready? Well, my final answer is ready. It was a riddle - the name was a double-entendre based on McCrea/Chery and Chreach, "Mc" meaning son, Crea being "God" and "Chery" meaning dear/sweet , making McCree/Chery mean Dear Son of God/Sweet Jesus, and then "Creach" a reference to aging as a fall from the Grace of God. It is very clever and fits perfectly within the context of the joke on the card seeing that he is presented as being a manager.

I realized the double-entendre on the second page of this thread and have stuck with it as the answer, for good reason. You disproved the notion posted by David N. that it was in reference to the downfall of the Detroit Wolverines, and I accepted that. As I demonstrated in my post #71 at 12:10PM yesterday, the type of downfall suggested by the term creach refers to a fall from grace via aging. It fits perfectly with your own suggestion in the OJ book regarding White being tabbed the Indy Mgr as a joke on his age.

I have outlined a tremendous amount of historical, social and etymological evidence to support my theory. Not only has no one been able to disprove it, nor present a credible alternate theory, but it is clear that "Dear Son of God/Fall from Grace" is highly logical and humorous, and it fits directly within the context of the card and the social and historical backdrop of the era. Can you find any legitimate reason why the riddle would not be true?

If you do revise the book, and mention therein that it's a riddle, which I feel you have an obligation to do, then please be sure to also explain it was a double-entendre based on the root words McCrea/Chery and Creach, meaning "Dear Son of God/Fall from Grace" so that people can understand it. It's only fair, and I feel you owe that to me as the discoverer of the riddle. Without an decent explanation, it pays short shrift to the discovery, as well as to the card itself.

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As for your little quip about the Delahanty card, I'm not sure why you would want to come on and take a shot at my card. It clearly has nothing to do with the thread. I probably shouldn't have gotten drawn into it, but I do consider Buck Ewing and King Kelly to be the greatest catchers of the 19th Century, and the statistics bear that out. White wasn't quite on that level, but he was very good. Many 19th cent. catchers suffered from dementia (there was a recent article in the NYTimes on that), and that may have been the source of some of White's strange ideas later on, which is sad. As for Delahanty, he led the league in OPS four times and posted an OPS above 1.000 six times, and was the greatest field player of his era.

Just a personal point - I am not out here trying to be your nemesis. From everything I can tell, you seem to be a pretty good guy. But if someone sends a zinger my way, whether about a Delahanty card, Rodney Dangerfield line, etc., then they should expect to receive a zinger right back. Within the lines of civility and decency, of course. It's only fair and part of a lively exchange. But hopefully we can all work together to share information and ideas as part of an online community of collectors, and conversation doesn't have to be restricted to the intellectual realm of solely a few book authors.

[Matthew H]

Cy, I like the idea that the name could possibly have something to do with his religious beliefs. People already knew him as "Deacon", and I'd like to believe people were clever enough to create something with similar meaning. I still believe it was a jab at his appearance, so with the fictitious name actually having meaning... That would be pretty cool.

If you look closer at pg87 of the OJ book, you'll notice it says "...the oldest player in the league, was apparently better suited to manage..."

No need for etymology, see the standard definition. It seems to me this was left open to interpretation.

Also, I'm pretty sure Joe was complementing your beautiful Delahanty card, offering to trade one of his Deacon White cards for it. I'm surprised you weren't able to decipher that one. Personally, I'd hold him to that statement, but that's just me.

[cyseymour]

Let me chime in with one more etymological observation:

"Chreacher" is probably also the Gaelic for the English word "creature".

Definition of CREATURE

1
: something created either animate or inanimate: as
a : a lower animal; especially : a farm animal
b : a human being
c : a being of anomalous or uncertain aspect or nature
2
: one that is the servile dependent or tool of another :

So the word "creature" is really something that intends certain animalistic, earthly characterics, as opposed to the pure and divine. This lends even more creedence to that the idea that the McCreachery double-entendre is a study of opposites between the Divine and Earthly.

McCrea/Chery: Dear Son of God - Divine
Chreach: Fall from Grace - Earthly

This is completely consistent with the style humor that Old Judge displayed in many of their other joke cards, from the Whitney with Dog (loyal/disloyal) card to the Nicol and Reilly (tall/short) card. One could also argue that by putting the biggest superstars of their respective teams, Ewing and Williamson, in photos with their mascots is a study of opposites, at least in some degree.

They have also previously shown a penchant for wordplay, exhibit the Poor Man card.

This demonstrates that the double-entendre fits perfectly not only with the rest of the card, as well as the personality of Deacon White, but also with the comedic styled tendencies of the Old Judge producers.

[Troy Kirk]

Here is what the card is:

1) Portrait photo of Deacon White
2) 1888 Old Judge card
3) Wrong team name – Indianapolis instead of Detroit
4) Wrong position – Manager instead of 3rd base
5) Wrong player name – McGreachery instead of White

There are three errors on the card, team name, position, and player name.
Old Judge made errors in team names at times (Lady Baldwin with Cincinnati, Kid Baldwin with Detroit are examples). Offhand, I don’t know of any other examples of wrong positions for players, but there probably were some (Jay and Joe would know better than me on this). There were plenty of misspelled player names in the Old Judge set.

OK, let’s sum up the possibilities for this card.

1) Traditional theory – the card is an unintentional error card, explained as follows:

a. Picture was taken in Indianapolis, so wrong team name of Indianapolis was put on the card by mistake.
b. Picture is a portrait, which were usually (not always) reserved for managers, thus the manager designation.
c. Name was intended to be a real Indianapolis player name of McGeachy, which is close to McGreachery.

Pros for traditional theory:

• Each error is possible, based on other errors within the Old Judge set.

Cons for traditional theory:

• Hard to believe all of these errors were accidentally applied to the same card.

2) CySeymour’s theory – the card is an intentional error card, explained as follows:

a. The name is meant to be a riddle about Deacon White – CySeymour’s current breakdown of the riddle is that it was a double-entendre based on the root words McCrea/Chery and Creach, meaning "Dear Son of God/Fall from Grace".
b. The manager part was intended to be a joke, based on White’s old age.
c. No explanation for the team name of Indianapolis.

Pros for the riddle theory:

• Because there are so many errors on this card, maybe the made-up name was done intentionally and included some hidden meaning (whether CySeymour is right or not in his interpretation is still open to conjecture).

Cons for the riddle theory:

• There are no other riddles in the Old Judge set, so why would they do this for this card.

To me, the interesting part of CySeymour’s theory is that the card may have been an intentionally created error card. That is still a possibility.

I don’t think it was, and I don’t think his hidden meaning is correct even if it was (I think the card is spelled with a “G” and not a “C” after the Mc, which would throw off his hidden meanings), plus I really don’t believe someone would have thought White had fallen from grace at that point in time or any other for that matter. He was a Hall of Fame-calibre player, which is why he is finally in now.

All this riddle stuff sounds more like trying to turn an unusual Old Judge card into a Da Vinci Code or National Treasure riddle. Those made for good fiction, but I don’t see any basis of this in reality with this card.

[cyseymour]

I can't respond to every post of everyone who chooses to believe or disbelieve my theory, but let me just say that the idea it would be coincidence that the root words of a fake, created name used as a substitute for someone named "Deacon" - that those root words would randomly mean "Dear Son of Jesus" - is highly implausible. It almost must have been intentional.

Let me also add that Deacon White's extreme religiosity was far outside of the lock-step for what was the fashionable thinking at the time regarding Philosophy and Religion. Prior to the mid-19th century, philosophical thought stemmed mainly from the Greeks, with Socrates and Aristotle, who believed in a cool, dispassionate understanding of the world. They chose to believe in God, and used the Pythagorean Theorem as prove against skeptics that there was indeed an ultimate truth (God) that could remain constant, and that it portrayed itself in mathematics.

That all changed in the mid/late 19th century with the advent of the aetheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who sided with the pre-Socratic philosophers and dramatists that passion, fire and emotion were valuable Dionysian traits and should not be discarded for the Apollonian traits or cool, calm and reason. Regard the following quote:

"In his first notable work, The Birth and Tragedy and the Spirit of Music (1872), Nietzsche contrasted the Apollonian and the Dionysian, these two faces of the Greek world... the Dionysian element means to give the fullest expression of pent-up emotions, passions, dread and madness... the Apollonian framework is of story, plot and coherence. Nietzsche said it was the fault of Socrates and Greek academic philosophers to give too much to the Apollonian at the expense of the Dionysian."

-Paraphrased quote of Daniel N. Robinson, Oxford University

Nietzsche was not only an atheist, but a philosophical rock star of the late 19th Century. France was known as "a country of 50 million atheists." Nietzsche had proclaimed "God is Dead". There are stories of what a huge deal it would be if he showed up to a cocktail party. He was the ultimate dinner guest, and his work was well-read around the world.

Since that was the fashionable thinking of the time, imagine just how far out of lock-step someone like Deacon White was, who still believed the world was flat. That's why he was so subject to ridicule. But it also supports the theory of "Dear Son of God/Fallen from Grace" as taking a jab at Deacon for his religiosity. It is as if to say, "Deacon, you think you are above us like Apollo, but really you are just another Dionysian creature of sin like the everyone else".

No one knows for certain whether the producers of the card read Nietzsche, but considering his fame, it would not be far-fetched to think they had, especially since they possessed the intellectual sophistication to create a riddle of this magnitude. Nevertheless, it shows just how far out of step the ideas of Deacon White were with the prevailing attitudes and ideas of his era.

[Matthew H]

Wow, its like the last two posts aren't even on he same planet. This is a cool thread