A few items from 1888 to 1890:
Largest bat
Jonah William “Quiet Joe” Knight appeared in the National League as a pitcher for six games with the Philadelphia Quakers in 1884, posting a 2-4 record, and returned in 1890 as a left fielder with the Cincinnati Reds, hitting .312 in 127 games. He also spent 16 seasons in the minor leagues and was one of the premier hitters in the Eastern League.
When Knight joined the Reds in 1890 The Cincinnati Post said he “uses a larger bat than any other professional.” Reds shortstop Ollie Beard said:
“I can hardly swing the bat Knight uses let alone hit a ball with it.”
It was said Knight had his bats made to order in his home town St. Catherine’s Ontario, Canada.
“Quiet Joe” Knight
Baseball in German
The Boston Herald reported in 1890 that New York’s German language paper Staats-Zeitung hired a baseball editor and would be recapping National League and American Association games:
“Naturally he has been obliged to invent words to describe the technical plays and points and how well he’s succeeded will be seen from the following:”
Harry Wright’s Team Unimpressive
After the 1887 season Hall of Famer and baseball pioneer Harry Wright took his Philadelphia Quakers on a tour of West Coast along with the Chicago White Stockings, New York Giants and St. Louis Browns; playing exhibition games against each other and with California League teams.
After seeing Philadelphia play The San Francisco Call was unimpressed with the National League’s second place team:
“The ‘Phillies’ will have to improve wonderfully to make their games at all interesting. They may plead excuses, but they cannot disguise the fact that they played rank ball, and very rank at that. Their initial effort stamps them as about fourth class, and it will require a brilliant rally to convince people in this section that they are ball-players. There is not a team in the California League that will not give them a hard game and perchance defeat them.”
Unfortunately there is no record of how Philadelphia fared on the rest of the tour.
Harry Wright, center, with his 1887 Philadelphia Quakers
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