The effect of “hoodoos” were the frequent subject of baseball stories in the 19th Century—but rarely was one chronicled from beginning to end during a single game. On August 26, 1885, on an unseasonably cold day and in front of a crowd of just 1200, the first place Chicago White Stockings were hosting the last place Detroit Wolverines. The Chicago Tribune marked the moment when the “Hoodoo” arrived:
“When (The White Stockings’) players took their positions on the diamond with (Ned) Hanlon at the bat for the visitors; a half-starved, miserable-looking little dog with a coat of hair like that of a hyena and the air of a coyote, shambled out from among the carriage wheels and took up his position close to (George) Gore. The centerfielder evidently looked upon the wretched animal as a ‘Hoodoo,’ for he threw a clod of dirt at it, and the forsaken little brute weakly trotted off to the shelter of the brick wall.”
Gore
The dog made its way to the Chicago bench, where:
“(Ned) Williamson and (John) Clarkson tried in vain to make friends with him, but he would have none of it, and trotted off to the grass plot near the grandstand railing, where seated on his haunches he watched the game.”
The White Stockings scored two runs in the first inning when Anson and Fred Pfeffer scored on a Williamson double, and, according to the paper “Anson whispered to Gore that the dog was a ‘mascot.’”
The dog remained near the Chicago bench and when the team failed to score through the sixth inning, and the score remained 2 to 0:
“(T)he boys began to cast threatening looks in the direction of the miserable-looking canine mutter something about a ‘hoodoo.”
Each team added a run in seventh. In the eighth, Chicago allowed a run when Hanlon was attempting to steal second and scored after a wild throw by catcher Silver Flint and a poor throw by Gore.
“Hanlon had crossed the home plate. The coyote uttered a plaintive howl a Hanlon scored, and deliberately trotted over to the Detroit players’ bench, where he took his seat.”
The dog having switched sides, “(Chicago) knew they could not make another run and they did not, but fortunately for the prospective pennant-winners, (Detroit’s Charlie) Bennett’s two-bagger in the ninth inning was productive of no good,” when Jim McCormick retired the next three Detroit batters to end the game.
Jim McCormick
The Chicago Inter Ocean noted:
“The dog then left the field in disgust and saved the game for Chicago.”
The White Stockings went on to win the pennant by two games. The dog was not heard from again.
Baseball History Daily 
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