While writing for The New York Herald in 1895 Oliver Perry “OP” Caylor had the hands of several members of the New York Giants photographed. The Chicago Inter Ocean said, “The result is interesting. Incidentally, also, repulsive.”
Caylor said:
“It is hard to say who has had the most marvelously disfigured hand among the catchers since the game became professional, but the award lies between the late (Frank) “Silver” Flint and Tony Suck.”
Flint had died three years earlier, and Suck (born Zuck) had died earlier that year.
Of the Giants, Caylor said backup catcher William “Pop” Schriver “takes first prize in a display of distorted joints His right hand, as it is seen in the photographic view, has lost much of its resemblance to the natural member.”
Schriver
Caylor said starting catcher Charles “Duke” Farrell and the team’s other catcher, Parke Wilson, had hands that were in good shape in comparison to Schriver:
“Farrell, for a man who has done so much catching and has faced so many swift and wild pitchers, possesses remarkably well preserved and shapely fingers.”
Farrell
Wilson
Caylor said third baseman George Davis “has what’s known as a ‘daisy.’ The first joint of the little finger on his right hand is crooked like the elbow of a stove pipe.” Captain and first baseman Jack Doyle “has several angles and curves on his hands.”
Davis
Doyle
Rightfielder Mike Tiernan ‘has escaped very luckily,” and among pitchers Amos Rusie, William “Dad” Clarke and Jouett Meekin “disfigured fingers are scarce.”
Tiernan
Rusie
Clarke
Meekin
Caylor said:
“Baseball players as a rule, are not proud of their unshapely hands. Yet a close examination of the hands of the men of New York City under 40 years of age will disclose the fact that more than half of them have one or two ‘baseball joints’ apiece to remind them of the time when a foul tip went wrong or a high fly took a sudden shoot out of its natural course…The non-professional invariably is proud of this reminder of the day or days when he played.
Baseball History Daily 