The Collection

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:

• Playing Statistics
• Photos
• Baseball Cards
• Book Excerpts & Magazine Articles

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 recently acquired items:  

• The Gene Handley Hughes Frozen card from 1940,
• Two game-used Lee Handley bats, from the Lousiville Slugger bat factory archive inventory.  One bat has excellent heritage, dating from Lee's best season, 1939.  The other one is a little harder to figure out, as it is dated from 1928.  This doesn't make sense at first blush, as that would put Lee at only 15 years old.  This one will require an extensive research effort.
• A store model Lee Handley bat, undated
• 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.  
• A new Gene Handley signature on a postcard that I recently acquired with the compliments of a prominent collector on the West Coast.

4) 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.

6) The Handley photos from the George Burke collection.  Mr. Burke was Brace's predecessor and mentor.