©Leslie Jones. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND).

Detroit Tigers’ Hank Greenberg’s home run on August 1 of 1937 puts him at home plate with the Boston Red Sox’s mysterious Spycatcher Moe Berg at Fenway Park! Umpire Charles Johnston looks on, but just who is the Tigers’ batboy? Can anyone identify him and solve this mystery? Steve Mandel has written in to say it could be Willie “Shorty” Ash, a comedian, who the Tigers signed as a publicity stunt

Baseball writer Tom Stanton suggests it could be Joey Roggin (Roginski), the team’s batboy and Greenberg’s personal good luck charm! (but also notes he looks much older) Tom recently published Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression-Era Detroit. A New York Times Bestseller which takes place in mid-1930’s Detroit. It’s described as “a stunning tale of history, crime, and sports. Richly portraying 1930s America, Terror in the City of Champions features a pageant of colorful figures: iconic athletes, sanctimonious criminals, scheming industrial titans, a bigoted radio priest, a love-smitten celebrity couple, J. Edgar Hoover, and two future presidents, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. It is a rollicking true story set at the confluence of hard luck, hope, victory, and violence.” Tom’s other novels include The Final Season and Ty and The Babe. He’s a journalist and teaches at the University of Detroit Mercy. His book is available at Politics and Prose or Amazon.