Take me out to the ball game with the Strahan team

I was scanning vintage photo postcards at the museum yesterday afternoon and decided to take a closer look at these two images, donated by Mary Stierwalt back in 2020.

That took me back, briefly, to a time when many Lucas County towns, villages and neighborhoods formed baseball teams and amused themselves and their neighbors during the summer by competing with each other.

This is the Strahan Team, fielded by young men who lived in the neighborhood of Strahan School, located west of Newbern in the northeast corner of Liberty Township --- right on the county line. The area also was known as Oak Ridge.

The year probably was about 1913. The Chariton Herald-Patriot of June 19, 1913, reported that "The Strahan ball team came to Oakley Saturday and played ball with the Oakley team, with a score of 13 to 1 in favor of Oakley."

Only the three Stierwalt brothers are identified on these two postcards --- on the back of the top image John (fifth from right), Guy (fourth from right) and Fred (first from right).

And as follows, on the image below --- John (third from right in back row), Fred (second from left in back row) and Guy (bottom far right).

At first, I thought the two images might have been taken on the same day. But there are 11 men in the top image and 12 in the bottom image. The gentleman in the checkered cap, white shirt and tie seems to have stepped into the second photograph.