Turtledove

I find myself rereading THTGB tonight to cheer myself up about my team's dismal home stretch run by reminding myself that baseball is forever. Came to Carroll Wilson Rasin here. Googled him. The first two links lead back here. The rest of the first page shows genealogy records, which is extremely common for "historical"-sounding names. (A few of them do insist that he was born in Maryland in 1881, and one further insists that he married Kate Sewell Dangerfield in 1911.) The second page has a passing reference to Baltimore's Federal League team. An image search reveals nothing.

I'm satisfied he's a historical figure based on those, but I really am at a loss as to why so little info should be available about him. The lives of comparably prominent citizens of American cities of that era are usually pretty well documented. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:32, September 10, 2012 (UTC)

Most of what I found came from various books about the history of Baltimore and the history of baseball using the look inside feature at Amazon. I remember being puzzled as to why he was so poorly documented, since much what I could find suggested he was a big wheel in his day. TR (talk) 06:46, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
Also strange is that some geneologist couldn't find his date of death but could find the names of fourteen family members. All of them had DOBs down to the day and not one had a DOD. Turtle Fan (talk) 14:20, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and census records indicate he was still alive in 1930. Who can find that but can't find a death certificate or obituary? Turtle Fan (talk) 14:23, September 10, 2012 (UTC)
Three years later, I search for him, and am surprised at the lack of information, since he seems to have been big in society. Apparently he spent the late 1920s in prison for embezzling funds for whatever company he worked for, and on his release left Baltimore for New York. http://www.waltergrutchfield.net/beacongarage.htm https://casetext.com/case/rasin-v-state It's as if there's some kind of Men In Black conspiracy going on to keep knowledge of him out of everyone's grasp.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:06, December 18, 2015 (UTC)
It still puzzles me that his picture is unavailable, as Rasins continue to do something prominent in Baltimore every now and then. There is even a readily available picture of his father.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 10:33, April 9, 2019 (UTC)