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Here's Hiram Kohli in his classic baseball catcher's position. Paul Diller took this photo with the series of Main Street business men. Here's some observations from Charles Hilty about this photo:
Hiram Kohli was an excellent baseball player. He was Ziggy Burcky's catcher in college days and played later on good sand lot teams. I think that A. C. and Hiram used to have a nostalgic game of pitch and catch every spring down on the old college baseball diamond.
The site of this photo is the old BC diamond. If you look past his left hip you'll see the old, rough, worn foot path that led down through the woods from the side of the library and College Hall. It came out between the backstop and the Beavers dark green wooden dugout on the third base side of the field.
I'd say that this was taken during a May Day weekend at BC. I think that alumni teams still played the BC varsity on May Day. His uniform suggests that. His catching equipment, while in good shape, doesn't have shin guards. The chest protector, mask and catcher's mitt are all of 1930s vintage at the latest. This could have been personal catching gear retained from his college days and still used occasionally for adult team games in the 1920s and 1930s. Notice also that he's not wearing baseball spikes. It looks like an ordinary work shoe......not the "clodhopper" used for field work.....but a slightly high topped, flat soled work shoe.
As I look at this more and more I'd place this photo in the 1940s, perhaps as late as 1946-47. We see here a man who is in his late 40s, perhaps even 50, starting to lose his hair, still in good physical shape. If he was one of A.C.'s catchers when A.C. pitched while in college in the late teens/early 20s, he'd have to be no younger than 45 when this photo was taken.........say 25 or 26 years since this photo was taken.
