The St. Louis Maroons were a big league franchise for just three seasons. After winning the inaugural (and only) Union Association championship in 1884, the team was absorbed into the National League and was a dismal 36-72 in 1885, and 43-79 in 1886.
The club disbanded after the ’86 season and throughout the winter there was speculation about whether the franchise would end up in Kansas City (where local businessmen were looking to replace the Cowboys, who also went broke after the ’86 season) and Indianapolis.
The deal was finalized on March 8 when the franchise and nine players were sold to Indianapolis. The Indianapolis News announced on the front page:
The Base Ball Deal
It Is Finally Completed
The story said:
“There is general rejoicing about the city over the certainty of having a league baseball club here.”
The team would be called the Hoosiers, and play at the Seventh Street Grounds, a ballpark owned by local businessman John Tomlinson Brush.
John T. Brush
Brush was the driving financial force behind the deal and had been involved in local baseball in Indianapolis for several years, first having financed and organized a local amateur league in the city in order to promote his business—the When Store, and later the When Clothing Company—he was also an investor in the short-lived 1884 incarnation of the Hoosiers who struggled through one twelfth-place (29-78) season in the American Association.
The Hoosiers first year was unsuccessful and chaotic.
The first manager was George Walter “Watch” Burnham, who had been a National League umpire for 41 games in 1883 and one in 1886. His role in the effort to acquire the franchise, his selection as manager, and the manner in which he acquired his nickname, gave some pause about the seriousness of the Indianapolis operation.
“Watch” Burnham
The Chicago Tribune said:
“The promoter of the Indianapolis movement is George W. Burnham, known as “Watch” Burnham. At Cleveland, in 1883, while acting as a league umpire, he endeavored to establish himself in the public esteem by buying a watch, having ‘Presented to George W. Burnham by his friend and admirers’ inscribed on it, then having it sent out to him on the field during the progress of the game. It is not surprising that some of the league people are suspicious of the Hoosier effort.”
Brush was not the team’s original president, that duty fell to a local attorney named Louis Newberger who spent his entire two-month tenure in the position complaining that he had no time to run the team; Brush took over as president in late May.
The Hoosiers limped to a 6-22 start—no doubt aided by 22 straight road games from May 5 through May 30. Burnham resigned once, just five games into the season, but returned a few days later. By mid May, as the team struggled through their endless road trip, The Chicago Tribune said a mutiny was expected:
“The dissatisfaction on the part of the players with Burnham, the manager, amounts almost to insubordination and there is a constant fear that someday the men will decline to go on the field.”
The Tribune said Burnham had fined “the entire team,” and Captain Jack Glasscock “said he would be black-listed before he would play again under the management of Burnham, but was finally prevailed upon to do so.”
Jack Glasscock
Upon the team’s return to Indianapolis Burnham was replaced with team secretary Fred Thomas. Thomas, like Burnham, had no professional experience as a player or manager, and his tenure was not much more successful. The club lost 18 of 29 games with him at the helm.
The team’s third manager also had no previous professional experience. Horace Fogel was a sportswriter for The Philadelphia Press when he was tapped to be the third manager. The Indianapolis News said hopefully:
“Mr. Horace Fogel, the new manager, is a good-looking young man, and makes a favorable impression on a stranger. He is evidently very anxious to make the club a winner.”
The same July day The News opined on Fogel the paper also noted that maintenance of the ballpark had also angered some fans:
“Very unwisely the management had the chairs in the gallery varnished recently and yesterday several ladies had their dresses ruined.”
Things were no better under Fogel. The Hoosiers went 20-49 under their third manager, and finished their inaugural season in eighth place with a 37-89 record.
The News said:
“Staring out under unfavorable circumstances…with inefficient management throughout the season, and many more defeats than victories, the club nevertheless, was accorded a generous support.”
The 1888 season became a matter of civic pride for the team’s ownership, local businesses and the newspaper.
In January it was announced that the Hoosiers would have a manager with at least some experience. Harrison “Harry” Spence had played and managed in, among others, the Eastern, Northwestern and New England Leagues. The News said of the new manager:
“A number of ball players of various clubs, who know Harry Spence…speak very highly of him. Sam Thompson says he is a thorough gentleman, well liked by the players, and a fine manager.”
The News said the success of the Hoosiers was necessary for the future Indianapolis:
“Business and professional men are all interested in it, for, aside from the pleasure they derive from witnessing the games, they recognize the fact that the club is of great benefit in advertising the enterprise and prosperity of the city.”
The paper organized a campaign called “Boom for Baseball.” Sixty-eight local businessmen “representing the leading establishments in the city,” donated their advertising space back to the newspaper “for the purpose of setting forth the advantages that will accrue to the city, from the maintenance of a National League Baseball Club here.”
Brush told the paper:
“We want at least five hundred subscribers for season tickets, and with this as a guarantee, we can get the money we want. If any such player as (Fred) Pfeffer or (Larry) Twitchell can be bought we can and will buy him, and we can get the club in first-class shape for opening the season.”
Season tickets were sold for $25 each, and Brush said “We will have a grandstand that will be a beauty, with all the latest improvements, so that there will not be one uncomfortable seat in it. Then we will have a space set aside for carriages and a special department for ladies and their escorts.”
Some of the advertisements from The Indianapolis’ News’ “Baseball Boom” campaign
Most importantly, Brush assured the people of Indianapolis that they “would have a ballclub here that nobody would be ashamed of.”
He was wrong.
While not as bad as 1887, the Hoosiers got off to a 2-11 start, and struggled to a 50-85 seventh place finish, 36 games behind the champion New York Giants.
By 1889 Indianapolis had all but given up. The team nearly went under before the season started. In January a headline in The News said:
The Ball Club Gone
With debts of more than $5,000, the paper said Brush would “surrender the franchise” to the league. Brush was able to raise enough capital to keep the club operating for one more sub .500 season (59-75), and another seventh place finish. The only highlights for Indianapolis in 1889 was the arrival of 18-year-old Indiana native Amos Rusie, who posted a 12-10 record, and Jack Glasscock who hit .352, for the Hoosiers.
The team was dropped after the 1889 season, but not because of money. The National League bought out Brush’s Hoosiers and the Washington Nationals. Brush received a reported $67,000 for the team, he also received stock in the New York Giants as payment for former Hoosier players. One year earlier when The News reported that Brush was on the verge of losing the team, the paper claimed “the franchise is now worth $15,500 cash.” While that figure might have been low there was no doubt that Brush did well on the deal. A year later he was president and majority stock holder of the Cincinnati Reds.
Indianapolis would only be a major league city one more time; in 1914 the Hoosiers were champions of the Federal League, but were relocated the following season, becoming the Newark Peppers.
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