The Pecan Park Eagle

Who Dat Brown?

Most days, I wake up with questions. Seldom do I wake up with answers. Hardly ever do I arise with nothing on my mind, but I look forward to the day that I do. Maybe tomorrow. I’m not looking for all the answers. I’m now too old to believe in that possibility among humans nor do I see being a know-it-all as the currency I would want to cash in my relations with others. People who have to know it all are not free to get it wrong nor to learn from egregious error.

Big “E”s are my specialty. And they are great teachers. Back in 1998, for example, I thought that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were hitting all those insanely gargantuan homers in record numbers simply because they were two strongest gods to ever play the game of baseball. Was I ever wrong? But so what? So were so many others – including Time Magazine. Time just about canonized St. Mark and St. Sammy for saving baseball from the wake of that dispiriting strike cancellation of the World Series in 1994.

Today’s question is only pushing on the little “e” scale, if it’s even doing that much. I’d just like to know who the guy in the picture is. As an old Browns fan (there are no young ones), by the way), I probably should know who he is, but I don’t – and that’s OK. Only Mr. Know-It-All is tied to that requirement. – I will settle for some kind of documentable answer, or failing that much, a sufficient light memory jogger.

I found the photo featured here in an unmarked photo file. So there’s a reasonable possibility that I may once have known this player’s identity and could know it again with just the blurted out name. Got any ideas?

Who dat?

LATE NIGHT/SAME DAY REFLECTION: It’s not Andy Anderson, as suggested below – nor is it Vern Stephens or Bobo Newsom, as suggested by e-mail.

The following is still a question, but not a firm answer. – Do you think it may be Sherman Lollar?

Is it Lollar?

Riddled Solved by Bill Hickman of SABR on 2/19/2012:

It’s NOT Sherm Lollar!

It’s Hank Helf of the 1946 Browns!!!

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/helfha01.shtml

Also, check out my column of 2/20/12 on Hank Helf and what he was really famous for doing in his brief MLB career.

Thank you, Bill Hickman, for both solving the mystery – and for putting us on the trail of why native Texan Helf is worthy of a baseball memory that goes way beyond the ordinary.