The Handley Project
One large branch of my family tree has some significant baseball history. The Handley side, from what I have learned, has had during the course of the last 100 years, at least 4 men with some experience in high-amateur and/or professional baseball leagues! I had two cousins that played minor and major league baseball in the 1930s through the 1950s. Their names were Lee Handley and Gene Handley, and they were brothers from Peoria, Illinois. This page is my attempt to assemble all of my research on the brothers' careers, and offer a retrospective of sorts. I have come across articles, cards, photos, contracts, and mentions in books, and I will continue to add and attempt to categorize and present all of the information here in a meaningful manner.
Please select from this menu of Handley pages:
More information and material coming soon, including:
1) Scans of excerpts from Baseball Magazine (articles and photos)
2) Scans and information from The Baseball Hall of Fame. I have purchased copies of their player files for each of the brothers, and I will be scanning and posting that information here. Lots of exciting new information was obtained from the Hall !!!
3) Scans of a recently acquired item: A souvenir Louisville Slugger mini bat with Lee Handley's facsimile signature in gold lettering on the bat barrel. This was supposedly a ballpark giveaway, circa late 1930s. I do not know much more than this and more research will be required.
4) A scan of a new Gene Handley signature on a postcard that I recently acquired with the compliments of a prominent collector on the West Coast.
5) The Handley photos from the George Brace collection. Mr. Brace was a professional photographer in Chicago that captured on film nearly every ball player to ever pass through Chicago's Wrigely Field or Comiskey Park. I have all ten of The Brace Collection's Handley images on order.
