“So, great Buck Ewing is dead.”
That was Sam Thompson’s reaction when told by The Detroit News that Ewing had died at age 47.
Ewing was less than five months older than Thompson, who had come out of retirement to play in eight games for the Tigers just two months earlier.
“They’re slipping away, aren’t they, those fine old fellows who by their head work and lovable natures made the game what it is today! It was such men as Ewing, (Tim) Keefe, (Roger) Connor and a score of others who inspired me.”
Ewing
Although roughly the same age, Ewing was in the major leagues for five seasons before Thompson made his debut:
“As a boy I used to read of the great Ewing, and I set him up as my ideal. He and Connor were always my idols. Later, when I began to play in the big leagues and (later) went to Philadelphia, I roomed with Roger (in 1892), my acquaintance with—while it in no way lessened my regard for him—sort of pulled him from the pedestal. Ewing, however, I never became so closely attached to, and there was always the baseball idol worship about the man for me.”
Thompson
Thompson said when he did interact with Ewing, it added “to this setting him higher as the ideal” of a baseball player:
“He was such a whole-souled, lovable chap. His wonderful work on the diamond in no way affected his disposition. He was always modest and retiring.”
And he said:
“There never lived a greater catcher or all -around ballplayer.
“Mike Kelly? Well, Kelly was a grand ballplayer all right, but he was the cunning player, the fellow with startling tricks. Ewing, on the other hand, was the thinker, the deep student of the game. His was the inside game. No player ever lived who could play the same kind of game that Kelly put up, but Ewing was of the different type. He was the more consistent thinker.”
Thompson said he believed Ewing was “the first catcher to get the infield signaling down t anything like a system,” and:
“He was the pioneer of present-day headwork behind the bat. He always had us hugging the bases. He devised tricks that are now common in baseball. They were figured out long before the game started. Kelly’s greatness, on the other hand, lay in his marvelous ability to grasp a situation quicker than lightning.”
He said when he played “with the old Detroit team we used to anxiously await who going to catch,” for the Giants:
“If it was (William ‘California’) Brown there was a sigh of relief. Not that we were belittling the work of Brown; it was simply that Ewing was so much better. He dazzled us. He had the infield under his control all the time. He had tricks of pulling us off the sacks that were new and we did not know what to do. That old Detroit bunch could win with Brown catching almost any day in the week, but with Ewing it was different.”
One man was responsible for New York’s success:
“It was Buck Ewing who won all those championships for the old Giants.
“Tim Keefe stood out as a wonderful pitcher. It was Keefe and Ewing. That old battery was the talk of the country.
“And yet Tim Keefe told me time and again, when they were at their best, that without Buck Ewing he would be no better than any other fairly good pitcher.
“’It’s all Buck,’ he would say, ‘he’s the boy who steadies me and gets the work done.”
Thompson’s first major league game—July 2, 1885–was against the Giants, with Keefe on the mound (although he misremembered Ewing being behind the plate that day—it was Pat Deasley):
“I don’t recall whether I did anything in the game (Thompson replaced Gene Moriarty in right field after the latter was in the 5th inning, he was 1 for 2 and scored a run) but I do remember we won. We beat the Giants 4 to 0.
“That victory did more for me among the players than any one thing. They called me their mascot. New York had been beating them right along.”
Thompson said when he left the Phillies in 1898, he nearly played for Ewing:
“I had left Philadelphia and had decided to give up the game. Ewing was then managing the Reds and wrote me asking if I would come to Cincinnati. He said he thought he could put through a deal whereby I could sign up all right.
“I was sorely tempted, as I had always wanted to play in Cincinnati. I had always been given a good reception there and had played some of my best games there.
“I didn’t accept, however. I thought that I might not do as well as I had, and I didn’t want to show poorly after all the good work I had done in that city.”
Baseball History Daily 
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