Talk:Tim Murnane

Did Tim Murnane Attend Holy Cross?

DonnaHalper (talk) 07:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)I have seen this on several internet sites and am very curious about its origin. For one thing, there is a Timothy F. Murnane of Fitchburg MA who attended Holy Cross Prep School (I called the Archivist at Holy Cross to verify), but there's not a lot of evidence that Timothy H. Murnane attended. The years he was said to have attended or graduated, he was playing baseball. His own writings only mention school in Naugatuck CT and he began playing baseball at age 18. Before I remove the assertion that he attended Holy Cross from his Wikipedia page, I am trying to find out where it came from and whether there are facts to support it.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, he attended "College of The Holy Cross". This site is considered a reliable resource for baseball purposes anyway. Much of the information obtained by this site is from SABR, who conduct in-depth research on all baseball players, especially 19th century players. Baseball-Almanac.com list him among ballplayers who played at "College of The Holy Cross", the "Crusaders", and the years in which he played for them (1868-1870). List of College of the Holy Cross alumni have listed under the writer section, with a graduation year of 1872. No reference is listed however. This fits somewhat with the timeline of his professional baseball career, beginning in 1872 in Mansfield, Ct. Hope this helps.Neonblak ^talk - 14:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

DonnaHalper (talk) 18:20, 24 December 2011 (UTC) First, thanks for the reply. Baseball-reference.com may indeed be reliable (as we all try to be),and I have queried them too. (I am also a SABR member, although a newer member than some.) But with no offense intended to others who know the topic better than I, it seems likely that somebody way back when made an error and then others just repeated it, since the claim is unsourced and the Archivist for Holy Cross (whom I called) does not find any record of a Timothy Murnane from Connecticut-- he finds one from Fitchburg (who seems to be a different Timothy Murnane, with a different middle name) who attended Holy Cross's prep school during those years, not Holy Cross college. Newspaper articles, and our Tim Murnane's own recollections, place him in Connecticut playing for Stratford, Norwalk and several other local teams in 1869-70, and all he ever mentions is going to school in Naugatuck in a one-room country school. I find no evidence he was in Massachusetts at that time, and he only mentions Massachusetts as a place he visited later, when he was playing baseball. THAT is why I am puzzled. So how do we address this? I certainly do not want to question anyone's research, and as much as I am known for being accurate, I know I too make mistakes sometimes. Suggested actions for clearing this up? Or do we just leave it alone for now?