Archive | May, 2013

Luke Easter, Sausage King

31 May

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Between the 1952 and ’53 season, Cleveland Indians first baseman Luke Easter (r) went into the sausage business with his brother-in-law Raymond Cash (l).  The business, Ray’s Sausage still operates in Cleveland.  In a Jet Magazine article  Easter said they only managed to sell 20 pounds their first week, but by January of 1953 they were selling 2,300 pounds a day.  The article said Easter had “taken out a license to place his sausage on sale” at Indians games.  He said:

“I can make this business go by hitting lots of home runs (but) even if our sausage makes a million dollars I won’t quit baseball, I’ll stay in baseball as long as I can walk.”

During the fourth game of the 1953 season Easter was hit by a pitch, breaking a bone in his foot, as a result the 37-year-old, who had hit 31 home runs with 97 RBIs in 127 games the previous season, dropped to 7 and 31 in 68 games;  his career with the Indians ended after only 6 games in 1954.  But while Easter didn’t hit “lots of home runs” in Cleveland after starting the company, he did stay in baseball for almost “as long as (he could) walk.”

Playing primarily in the International League with the Buffalo Bisons and Rochester Red Wings, Easter remained in baseball until 1964, hitting more than 235 homes runs.

Easter was killed in a hold up in Cleveland in 1979.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer editorialized the day after his death:

“For all of his huge size and great strength, Luke Easter was a gentle man.  It is a contradiction to the way in which he lived that his life should be ended violently.

“He had courage.  He played first base for the Cleveland Indians from 1949 to 1954, a time when it was far from easy to be a black athlete in the major leagues…He was shot dead yesterday at age 63, victim of a cowardly attack from ambush outside a bank office .

“It is a wound to the community.  Luke Easter, athlete and gentleman, will be missed.”

Luke Easter, 1949

Luke Easter, 1949

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“The Speed of Rusie”

30 May

Hall of Famer Amos Rusie “The Hoosier Thunderbolt,” was famous for his fastball; it’s been estimated that he threw in the high 90s.  In only nine full seasons he led National League pitchers in strikeouts five times.

Amos Rusie

Amos Rusie

Sports writer William A. Phelon contended that Rusie was the fastest pitcher he had seen, and in 1913 he told a story by James Tilford Jones who played for the Louisville Colonels in 1897, and was still a fairly well-known minor league player.

The likely apocryphal story (Jones only had one at bat as a pinch hitter that season, and did not strike out)  appeared in The Cincinnati Times Star, and according to Phelon, Jones said:

“ Don’t tell me that Walter Johnson, or any other pitcher of the present time, is faster than Rusie, or even that any man has the speed that Rusie used to throw…That man was unique and individual –there was never one like him before his time, and none since.  I don’t think there ever will be.

“My first experience with Rusie happened a long, long time ago, when he was in full swing and I was playing with Louisville, then a member of the big circuit.  I was warming the bench that particular afternoon, and wasn’t specially noticing the work of the other side, when our manager (Fred Clarke) beckoned me.  ‘Joensey’ said he, ‘you go up and bat for the pitcher.  Two on, two down—we just gotta have this game.  Go up there and lay the bat against the leather.’

“’All right sir’ I assented.  I’ll pickle one outside the lot if he puts it over.’  And up I strode, with a fat bat in my hands.  I saw a very large, red-faced man standing out there on the pitching line and I saw him raise his right arm.  I was wondering why on earth he didn’t throw it, when heard something go POW, just like that, behind me.  I looked around.  It was the thud of the ball ramming into the big mitt, and the umpire said, ‘One strike.’

“I watched the big man keenly, and again he raised his arm while I set myself to annihilate the ball.  An instant later I saw a ball going by me, and swung at it.  It was the ball being returned by the catcher, and I thought it was coming up instead of going away.

“By this time I was furious, also desperately determined.  So I set myself almost upon the plate, with the bat jutting out, and watched the big man very closely.  Then something crashed into my bat, ripped it from my hands, and drove it round against the back of my neck—and I knew no more.

“Two or three days later, the situation was exactly the same—Rusie pitching, our pitcher up, and dire need of a pinch hitter.  Again the manager beckoned me. ‘Go up and hit him, Jonesey’ growled he.

“I marched up to the plate, but went up empty-handed— didn’t even pick up my bat—and calmly stood there in the batter’s box, with nothing but my bare hands.  ‘Hey you,’ yelled the manager, ‘where’s your bat.’

“’Don’t need it,’ I shouted back.  ‘I can’t see them anyway, and it is a whole lot safer with nothing in my hands than be up here with a chunk of timber that he might drive clear through my head!’

“Oh, yes, yes.  Rusie had some speed when he wanted to use it, and I never remember seeing him any time when he wasn’t inclined to use it, either.”

Jones only appeared in two games during the 1897 season; in his first game he pitched 6 2/3 innings in relief in a 36-7 loss to the Chicago Colts, giving up 22 runs, 14 earned—the Colts’ 36 runs are still the Major League record.

Jimmy Jones

Jimmy Jones

Jones became a full-time outfielder in 1900 and returned to the National league with the New York Giants in 1901; he appeared in 88 games for the 1901-02 Giants, hitting .209 and .237.

He returned to the minor leagues and continued playing until 1914, and finished his career managing the Maysville (KY) Burley Cubs in the Ohio State League in 1916.  He served as Laurel County Clerk for twenty years, and died in London, Kentucky in 1953.

Rusie retired with a 245-174 record, striking out 1,934 and walking 1.704.  He died in 1942 and was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1977.

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“A Man Can’t Play Ball When He ain’t Getting no Money for it”

29 May

In January of 1890 Louis Rogers Browning, Pete, “the Gladiator,” the biggest star, even if no longer the best player, of the 27-111 Louisville Colonels of the American Association, jumped to the Cleveland Infants in the Players League.

Browning, illiterate, alcoholic, superstitious, and nearly deaf as a result of an untreatable ear condition, had quickly become popular among his hometown fans—despite being called out for on-field drunkenness as early as 1882 by The Louisville Courier-Journal.

Browning had won two American Association batting titles (1882, 1885), but had slipped to .313 in 1888 and .256 in 1889 playing in 99 and 83 games.

The New York Sun said the signing caused a “sensation” in Louisville despite that:

“(I)t has been said for two years that he had lost his usefulness by reason of his  defective eyesight and intemperate habits.”

Browning’s “defective eyesight” was said to be the result of his belief that stating into the sun would improve his “lamps.”

Pete Browning

Pete Browning

The Sun said Browning provided a “funny explanation” (all grammar errors are from the original text) for leaving his hometown to sign with Cleveland:

“I have been waiting for this chance for four years.  They ain’t treated me right here since 1886.  I used to play great ball for ‘em till they put the screws on me so hard, then I just quit.  I don’t mean that I didn’t play honest ball, but I just got discouraged and couldn’t do it.  A man can’t play ball when he ain’t getting no money for it.  I tell yer they have been socking it to me ever since 1886.  I’ve been fined so heavy that my salary ain’t ever been over $1,000, when I could have been making $2,000 and $3,000 from other clubs.  Newspapers have done me up so that people in the East have thought I was no more good.”

Browning said that after financially troubled owner Mordecai Davidson turned the Louisville franchise over to the American Association in July of 1889, and the league secured new, local ownership, he thought his situation would improve.

“They said my peeps was out of condition and I couldn’t hit a balloon.  Well, you ought to a ‘seed me line ‘em out.  They couldn’t put the ball nowhere I couldn’t get ‘em.  I played the game of my life.  I knocked the cover off the ball right along.  When I come home (from a road trip in August) I thought they would meet with a brass band.  Well I got a letter from (the Colonels new management) sayin’ I was laid off.  The papers said I had been drinkin’ when I hadn’t touched a drop for months.  They wouldn’t give old Pete a chance.”

In the fall of 1889 Browning played for a team in Knoxville, Tennessee, The Sporting Life’s “Louisville correspondent” said he had stayed out of trouble:

 “I understand that Pete’s conduct while recently with the Knoxville Club was quite exemplary, and tat be drank nothing but water.  Since his return to Louisville he has behaved himself in the same manner. Pete, however, always had a strange way of keeping sober during the winter and getting drunk in the spring when it was time to play ball.”

Browning told The Sun that his performance in Knoxville had earned him several offers from other teams, that he was in great shape, and that Louisville management was to blame for a lot of his problems:

“I give you my word of honor I haven’t touched a drop of anything for seven months.  I know that I have gone wrong sometimes, but if they had come to me an’ talked to me like gentlemen, I’d a done anything for ‘em: but they don’t do it, an’ they run off to the papers with another story of old Pete bein’s on a tear.  That just made me worse.  Do you think I’ve got no feelin’s left?

“Well I’m goin’ away, an’ you just watch me.  Talk about my peeps, there was never nothin’ the matter ‘em.  It was my nerve that was weak…Pete knows his biz, and he’ll get a chance someday.  An’ he has.  Keep an eye on me this season.”

Presumably Browning’s “peeps” were not completely ruined yet by his staring into the sun; he hit .373 and won the Players League’s only batting championship.

He would play through the 1894 season, compiling a lifetime .341 average.  The sad story of Browning’s post-baseball life and his death in Louisville in 1905 are well documented elsewhere.

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Jim Lillie

28 May

The Sporting Life described Jim Lillie as “one of the most sensational of right fielders,” and “the rival of Mike (King) Kelly in the position.”  The New Haven Register said he earned his nickname “grasshopper”  as a result of his “agility in the outfield.”

His career was brief, and his short post-baseball life was tragic.

The 21-year-old Connecticut native was said to have been discovered by “Orator Jim” O’Rourke “on the lots and commons of New Haven.”  He played his first professional game on May 17, 1883 with the Buffalo Bisons in the National League.  Lillie appeared in 50 games, hitting .234. In November his hometown newspaper, The New Haven Register, got his position wrong (saying he was used primarily as a catcher—he caught in two games), but said “his record was highly credible,” and that he had already signed for the 1884 season.

Jim Lillie

Jim Lillie

Lillie spent two more seasons in Buffalo; leading the team in games played both seasons.  In 1884 he led National League outfielders with 41 assists; his 40 errors also led the league.  He committed 33 errors the following season; he hit .223 and .249 for the Bisons.  When the team disbanded after the 1885 season, his contract was assigned by the National League to the Kansas City Cowboys, who had been admitted to the league on a trial basis.

He had, for him, a typical season in the field: 30 errors (third in league), 30 assists (second) and 199 putouts (third).  He also had one of the all-time worst performances at the plate; hitting .175 in 426 at bats, with only nine extra base hits (all doubles), he finished the season with 82 total bases—for identical .197 on base and slugging percentages.

The 30-91 Cowboys were dissolved in February of 1887, with the players being sold to the league.

Lillie remained in Kansas City, and had the best season of his career with the Cowboys, now in the Western League.  He also met an 18-year-old woman named Nellie O’Shea, the daughter of a wealthy Kansas City contractor and said The Kansas City Star, “a young lady highly spoken of.”

Lillie, playing primarily in left field, hit .369; a hitter’s haven, the Western League leader, Jimmy Macullar hit .464, and Lillie’s average was good for 34th best in the league.

On December 29, 1887 Lillie married Nellie O’Shea.

He joined the Fort Worth Panthers in the Texas League around June 1 of 1888, but left the team in less than two weeks.  The Dallas Morning News said he was released, The New Haven Register said he left Texas to be with his wife and go to work for his father-in-law, “(Lillie) promised her to settle down,” and planned on returning to baseball for the 1889 season.

He never had the chance to return to the game.  On September 10, 1888, the Lillie’s child was stillborn.  Two days later, a fire broke out in their home.  The Associated Press said:

“(Nellie) was making preparations for supper when the accident occurred…She had moved the gasoline stove too near the cooking stove and in filling the reservoir with gasoline some of it became ignited.  The flames at once enveloped her…(Lillie) entered at that moment or (she) would have been burned to death…Lillie did not notice his own condition until after he had summoned  a physician.”

Mrs. Lillie lingered for nearly three weeks before dying of her injuries on October 4.  Lillie, who had attempted to remove his wife’s burning clothes, had his hands burned “down to the bone,” and initial reports said he’d have to have some of his fingers amputated.  There’s no record of how well his hands recovered, but he never played baseball again.

He stayed in Kansas City and according to The Kansas City Star “managed (Nellie’s) estate.”  Within two years he would contract typhoid fever, and he died November 9, 1890.  The Star said his last words were to a friend at his bedside:

“I am afraid, Charlie, it is three strikes and out.”

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Memorial Day—Major League Baseball’s First World War Casualty

27 May

By the time he enlisted in the United States Army in July of 1917, Edward Leslie “Harvard Eddie” Grant had retired from baseball to practice law in Boston.

He attended Harvard, but only played baseball as a freshman; he was declared ineligible after being paid for playing with a semi-pro team.  After that Grant played intramural baseball at Harvard and played with Northeastern outlaw teams during the summer.

In 1905 Grant made his Major League debut when the visiting Cleveland Naps recruited him to fill in for two games at second base for Hall of Famer Napoleon Lajoie against the Boston Americans—he was 3 for 8 and made one error.

He was with the Jersey City Skeeters in the Eastern League in 1906, hitting .322, which earned him a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies.  He would spend the next nine seasons in the National League, also playing for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants.  Grant was never a star, but he was popular with fans and the press.  The New York Times said:

“He was a handy utility player and could fill in any position on the infield.  While never a heavy batsman, he was skillful fielder and a smart baserunner.”

1910 Advertisement for the Vetterlein Brothers Cigar Company; the Saboroso Cup mentioned in the ad was presented to the phillies or Athletics player with the highest batting average.

1910 Advertisement for the Vetterlein Brothers Cigar Company; the Saboroso Cup mentioned in the ad was presented to the Phillies or Athletics player with the highest batting average.

Grant was among the first wave of prominent athletes to join the military, making his enlistment news.  A wire service article under the headline “Eddie Grant Joins Uncle Sam’s League” appeared in numerous papers across the country.

On October 5 1918, he would become the first Major League player to be killed during World War I, The Associated Press said:

“Captain Edward Grant, former third baseman of the New York National League Club, and attached to the 307th Infantry, was killed by a shell when leading a unit to the aid of the famous ‘Lost Battalion.’

“The battalion was surrounded for five days in the Argonne Forest and Captain Grant was killed in one of the attempts to reach it.”

Grant was originally buried in the Argonne Forest, and his body was later moved to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery.

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“Manager McGraw makes Flight in Army Airplane”

24 May

mcgrawplane

 

In 1918, the new York Giants traveled to Marlin, Texas for spring training.  In April, the team from the Air-Service Pilot Training Center at Richfield Aviation Camp came from Waco to Marlin to play an exhibition game with the Giants.  After the game Giants, Manager John McGraw took up Colonel Archibald Miller on his offer of a flight.  That’s McGraw in the forward seat of a Curtiss biplane, with Miller on the wing.  Newspaper reports said McGraw thought the 20-minute flight was “one experience he needed.”

McGraw, and most of the Giants, flew again with Miller and his colleagues two-years later, when after a game with the aviators’ team, The New York Times said, “McGraw and most of his regulars, most of the rookies, Dr. Birs, the club dentist, and three of the newspaper men accompanying the club made flights.”

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Chicago’s Lakefront Park 1878–The First Game

23 May

The Chicago White Stockings left Twenty-Third Street Park and relocated to Lake Front Park near the corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street.  The old Union Baseball Grounds had stood at the same spot, but was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871.

Lakefront Park

Lakefront Park

The ballpark opened on May 14, 1878 with a 3:45 pm “game between the Indianapolis nine (Blues) and the home nine.”  The Chicago Inter Ocean said:

“Although the day was very chilly and exceedingly unpleasant for out-door sports, fully 2,500 people assembled to witness the game and listen to a very ‘queer’ band, provided by President (William) Hulbert to officiate at the opening and funeral services of his white-hosed boys.”

——

“The game was not particularly interesting except from the fact that from the first inning until the twenty-seventh man had been retired it was extremely doubtful which club would win.  The play of (Joe) Quest of the Indianapolis (sic) was by far the most brilliant of the game.  He covered the position of second base with greater ease and accuracy than any player that has been seen for many a day.  He won the game for his club by a very clever double play in the ninth inning.  The game stood 3 to 5 in favor of Indianapolis with one man out and all the bases full.  (Jimmy) Hallinan came to the bat and hit a high ball to the right of second base which Quest succeeded in catching, and by very fast running reached the base before (Terry) Larkin”

Edward “The Only” Nolan got the victory for Indianapolis but “did not particularly distinguish himself in the field,” making three errors.

Of the White Stockings, The Inter Ocean said:

“(Frank) Hankinson played third without an error, and received very (sic) deserved applause for a number of excellent plays.  Hallinan was brilliant in the left field, and (Cap) Anson was remarkably stupid at second.”

None of the newspaper accounts of the game elaborated on Anson’s play at second.

The Inter Ocean did elaborate on Hulbert’s band:

“(T)he dismal music furnished by the band appeared to affect almost to tears the Chicago ball-players.  Another game will be played tomorrow afternoon at the same hour, and a far different result is expected.  There will be no band.”

The Box Score

The Box Score

The White Stockings would go on to win three straight National League Championships 1880-82) at Lakefront Park (sometimes referred to as Lakeshore Park).  The ballpark was expanded after the 1882 season and remained the White Stockings’ home until they moved to West Side Park in 1885.

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Things I Learned on the Way to Looking Up Other Things #4

22 May

A Ballplayers Hands

Joe Ardner played second base in the National League for the Cleveland Blues in 1884 and the Cleveland Spiders in 1890; he played another 12 years in the minors.  In 1888 he was with the Kansas City Blues in Western League and provided the following explanation of the care and maintenance of an infielder’s hands:

“A ballplayer’s hands should not be hard, they should be soft.  When my hands are in perfect condition they are almost as soft as a lady’s.  Hard hands on a ballplayer will crack and get sore, but when the skin is pliable and tough there is little danger of the hands bruising, cracking or puffing.  Some folks imagine a ballplayer’s hands to be as hard as a board, but they are wrong.”

Joe Ardner

Joe Ardner

They have realized that the Umpire is Almost Human

National League President Harry Clay Pulliam was very pleased with how civilized his league had become by 1908.  In an interview with The Chicago Tribune he said:

“The game is getting cleaner all the time.  Why, I’ve only suspended about half a dozen men this year, to about forty last year, and I want to say that the players are trying harder to keep the game clean…They have realized that the umpires are almost human.  It’s business with the player now, and they’re banking instead of boozing…It’s a grand game, clean, wholesome, and it’s the spirit of contest that gives it its virility.  Civic pride is another vital adjunct to it.  Every town likes to have its own team a winner.  Sort of local pride or another form of patriotism, I call it.”

Harry Pulliam--National League President

Harry Pulliam–National League President

Soo League Night Games

The Copper Country Soo League was recognized as a league for the first time by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues in 1905; its last season in operation.  The four-team league located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was made up of mining towns along the Soo Line Railroad: the Calumet Aristocrats, the Sault Ste. Marie Soos, the Hancock Infants and the Lake Linden Lakers.

Nearly no records or roster information survives, other than that three future Major Leaguers played in the league: Donie Bush and Fred Luderus played for Sault Ste. Marie and Pat Paige played for Calumet.

In an effort to boost sagging attendance in June, the league first  attempted to merge with the Northern League, and when that effort failed announced a scheduling change.

The Duluth News-Tribune said:

“An innovation…will be introduced by managers of the clubs comprising the Copper Country Soo League.  Owing to the peculiar conditions which exist in some of the cities, it has been decided to play some of the games after supper as an experiment as it is believed the attendance will be larger.”

The Chicago Tribune‘s Hugh Fullerton said:

“(I)n the copper country baseball depends on miners for support…the plan proved quite a success…The miners would come out of their shift at 6 o’clock, the games were called at 6:30 and finished about 8:30 at twilight.  There were few games called by darkness.”

While the move helped three of the teams at the gate, the Sault Ste. Marie Soos failed to draw fans and disbanded late in August.

Calumet won the championship, and along with Hancock and Lake Linden  merged with the Northern league to form the Northern-Copper Country League–Calumet won the league’s first championship in 1906, playing a schedule of day games.

 

Future Phillies star Fred Luderus was a 19-year-old rookie with the Sault Ste. Marie Soos

Future Phillies star Fred Luderus was a 19-year-old rookie with the Sault Ste. Marie Soos

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“Begged the Crowd for God’s Sake not to Kill Him”

21 May

Edward Siegfried Hengel (often misspelled Hengle during his career) was a well-known umpire and manager in the 1880s.

Born in 1855, Hengel managed the Union Association franchise that began the season in Chicago, and relocated to Pittsburgh in August, 1884.  His career is occasionally confused with Emery “Moxie” Hengel (also often misspelled Hengle) who played second base for 1884 Chicago/Pittsburgh club, and had a long minor league career.  (The two were born two years apart in Chicago, but there is no indication they were related).

Emery "Moxie" Hengel

Emery “Moxie” Hengel

In 1886 Ed Hengel was an umpire in the Southern Association.  On August 5 he was working a game between Savannah and the Charleston Seagulls.  The Macon (GA) Telegraph said, in the sixth inning:

“”At this point of the game it became apparent to the audience, as well as to the players of the local team, that Hengle (sic), the umpire, had sold the game to Savannah; but notwithstanding his adverse decisions, the locals kept the Savannah team down to one run till the end of the ninth inning.  During the latter half of this inning (Hengel) gave the visitor three runs, letting them score in the following manner:  (John “Tug”) Arundel was at the bat. There were two out.  He hit a grounder to (Henry “Heinie”) Kappel who stopped it and threw it to first.  Arundel had stopped running and left the line when (first baseman Jim) Powell   failed to catch the ball”

Arundel then came back onto the field and ran to first, Hengel declared Arundel safe and a  run scored; the next hitter, Joe Miller, drove in two more runs, to win the game for Charleston, 4 to 3

The Telegraph said:

“As soon as the crowd caught on to the steal the grand stand and bleaching boards emptied their male contents on the ground, and for five minutes (the umpire) was in danger of getting very badly hurt, if not killed, by the infuriated crowd.”

The management of the Charleston team helped keep the fans at bay until police arrived:

“It were (sic) best for (Hengel) to get transferred immediately as another disgraceful piece of umpiring will cost him some inconvenience.  The people of Charleston will not stand another robbery.

“(Hengel) was scared nearly to death; he was as white as a sheet, and it is said begged the crowd, for God’s sake, not to kill him.  He did not deny having sold the game when charged with it by a director of the baseball club after he was safe.”

Hengel did not work another game in Charleston that season.

In October of 1887 The Aurora (IL) Daily Express credited Hengel with signing “(Charlie) Hoover crack-backstop of the Western League” for the Chicago White Stockings—within weeks Hoover’s long series of troubles would begin.

HOOVER_LG

Charlie Hoover

Hengel continued as an umpire, including stints in the Tri-State and Pacific Northwest Leagues,  and minor league manager for the next decade.  While managing the Hamilton (OH) club in the Tri-State League, Hengel saved a young girl from drowning, and “her grateful parents presented him a pair of diamond sleeve buttons.”

Hengel disappears from the newspapers after 1892;  he died in Great Britain in 1927; presumably not at the hands of angry Charleston fans.

Note:  Henry “Heinie” Kappel does not appear on surviving rosters for the 1886 Charleston Seagulls, but contemporaneous accounts in The Sporting Life and other newspapers confirm he was with the team.

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Erastus Wiman’s Trophy

20 May

A trophy presented to the 1886 American Association Champions was created as a peace-offering to heal bitter feelings in the wake of one of professional baseball’s early controversies.

Erastus Wiman was a former Canadian journalist who had become a railroad, ferry and entertainment magnate on Staten Island.  Wiman, who promoted Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and a circus at his Staten Island Amusement Company, wanted to add baseball, at the adjacent St. George Cricket Grounds, to the entertainment offerings on the island in order to increase commuter traffic.

 

The St. George Cricket Grounds--home of the 1886-87 Metropolitans. The Giants would play a handful of home games there in 1889.

The St. George Cricket Grounds–home of the 1886-87 Metropolitans. The Giants would play a handful of home games there in 1889.

In December of 1885 he purchased the American Association New York Metropolitans from John Day for $25,000; Day also owned the New York Giants in the National League.

The other American Association owners claimed the sale was merely a scheme to take the Mets out of Manhattan and thus weaken the Association, and immediately expelled the team and began making arrangements to assign the team’s players to other organizations.

Erasmus Wiman

Erasmus Wiman

Wiman went to court in Philadelphia and was granted an injunction.  His new players stood with him and agreed not to seek contracts with other teams until the issue was resolved, and George F. Williams, the general manager of his company, accused American Association owners of being the schemers, telling The New York Times:

“The real motive was a scheme on the part of Charles Byrne, of the Brooklyn club.  He knew that a strong club on Staten Island would lessen the attendance at Washington Park, in Brooklyn, and besides this he was anxious to secure two of players (first baseman Dave) Orr and (outfielder James “Chief”) Roseman…the only way in which to gain his point was to act in concert with others who are also anxious to get the services of some of our men.”

Later in the month, Judge Martin Russell Thayer ruled that there was no merit to the American  Associations’ expulsion of the Mets, The Times said:

“(Thayer) sent the ‘Mets’ all the way around the bases, and landed them safely home in the association, there to stay as long as the organization holds together as an aggregation of baseball clubs.”

Despite the victory in court, bad feelings between Wiman and the other owners remained throughout the winter and spring.

In April Wiman announced that he had ordered a trophy, described by The Sporting Life as “solid silver, 26 inches high, representing a batsman in position to bat a pitched ball. The whole will be enclosed in plate glass case.”

Newspaper drawing of Wiman's Trophy

Newspaper drawing of Wiman’s Trophy

Various reports put the trophy’s value between $1,000 and $2,000.

According to a wire service article that ran in several papers across the country, Wiman ordered the trophy for two reasons:

“(F)irst, to show that he had no ill feelings towards the members of the association because of the bitter legal fight which he encountered on entering it, and second, as a stimulant to extraordinary exertion by the various clubs in order that they might possess so valuable a work of art.”

Wiman’s Metropolitans would never have any hope of winning his trophy.  They finished in 7th place in 1886 and 1887, never drew well on Staten Island, and disbanded at the end of the ’87 season.

Brooklyn’s Charles Byrne got the last laugh; he purchased the team’s remaining assets to protect his territorial control and acquired seven Mets players, including Orr, Darby O’Brien and Paul Radford, who helped lead the team to a second place finish in 1888.  O’Brien, Brooklyn’s captain, would lead the team to a championship in 1889

Wiman would quickly fall upon hard times.  By 1893, the man who was reputed to have been worth between $2 and $3 million, was nearly broke.  In 1894, he was arrested for forgery and embezzlement, and according to The Times “was locked up in the tombs (NYC’s House of Detention).”  Wiman was found guilty, but the conviction was reversed.

The Times said that despite attempts to start businesses “He never recovered his ability to engage successfully in business after these reverses…and he died a poor man”

There are no references to the trophy after an 1886 mention in The Sporting Life that it was presented to the St. Louis Browns.

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