T213 Joe Kelley who?

[Kawika]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Kelley was a scout for the Yankees in 1915 and 16.

Every time I see a Joe Kelley card I think it's Bill Murray in a previous life. Whilst perusing the New York Times archives I saw mention that Kelley represented Toronto in some type of executive capacity in discussions with MLB in forming an association of teams to counter the upstart Federal league in 1914. That was the only reference I could find. Kelley finished his playing career with Toronto in 1910 and it's a long stretch as to why he would be on a 1914 Coupon in his T206 Toronto duds. Another Joe Kelley played for Pittsburgh in the latter part of the 1910's and may be the guy on the 1919 card although I haven't seen the card and don't know what it looks like.

[FrankWakefield]

Lots of the T213s have images depicting teams inconsistent with the caption. The captions were updated a bit, not so much so for the images. That's why Kelley's in Toronto garb.

This may well be the first card issued for a scout. Anyone aware of a prior card that would have been issued when the person depicted was only a scout?

[martyogelvie]

So this is THE Joe Kelley... and his association with the Yankees as a SCOUT got him on a card...

[FrankWakefield]

Yes, Kelley; scout no.

I think the card exists because 'they' were trying to issue cards with Coupon backs. 'They' had the old fronts from the white border cards (T206), so from those images they picked out those for whom they could issue cards. Kelley was a well liked, capable player in his day. So putting out a card of him was an easy choice, even if he was only a scout at the time. After all, he makes it into T206 not because of what he was doing in Toronto, but for what he'd done years before. If you study the type 3 Coupon cards, I don't think you'll see many cards for the new stars of the day. It was the availability of the 'Kelley' front that got him into Coupons.

[martyogelvie]

thanks Frank..
makes sense.

[rhettyeakley]

T213-2's basically were trying to use images they already had in stock (from T206's) and tried to update them to some degree to make them more current (usually only the caption though as they tended not to care if there was a team insignia/name/etc. on the front that may clash with the team identified on the bottom.) In some cases they got mixed up--the classic example is the "Chappelle" card in the set.

Initially they (correctly) made a card using Bill Chappelle's T206 image to depict him for the 1914 Brooklyn Fed's but then they reissued the image of "Bill" but this time with Cleveland--which was a mistake as that was Laverne "Larry" Chappell that played w/ Cleve in 1916. So, their intention may have been to issue a card of the Cleveland Chappelle/Chappell and mistakenly thought they were the same guy--but they weren't.

Interesting tid-bit on Larry Chappell is that he died in S.F. after having played w/ the Salt Lake team of the PCL in 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic that plagued the country that year. Here is (I believe) the only card of Chappell ever produced that actually used his own image...


-Rhett

[cdn_collector]

I'm digging this thread up from the second page, but on the topic of Joe Kelley and T213 Coupons, can anyone tell me who Joe Kelley's T213-3 lists him with? I assume it's the same picture as the T206, T213-2, T214 and T215, but am curious if he's listed with Toronto, New York or another club.

Regards,

Richard.