Tag Archives: Boston Beaneaters

“A Trick Which is as Ancient as Baseball”

27 Sep

James Kennedy, the editor of The Alliance (OH) Daily Leader, in 1906, “contributed another to the growing fund of yarns about Mike ‘King’ Kelly.”

Unlike most Kelly stories of tricks sprung on the field, he was on the wrong end of this one.

Kelly

“It was a Fourth of July, back in the later 80s. Boston was playing in Cleveland, with the $20,000 pair, Clarkson and Kelly, in full bloom.”

Cleveland pounded Old Hoss Radbourn and held an 11-4 lead:

“Along about the seventh inning Kel smashed a double to left, just making second. (Cleveland second baseman) Cub (Stricker) held the ball a minute, after it was thrown in, then deliberately walked it up to the Cleveland pitcher and reached out the ball at arm’s length. The pitcher seemed to take it, walked back to the box, and began the usual series of contortions which preceded his delivery.

“Kelly took a good lead off second, Cub bringing a laugh to the fans by lock-stepping him until they were almost halfway to third. Then the little, diminutive, red-headed second baseman lifted his arm and dealt Kelly a resounding whack between the should with the ball.”

Kennedy said it took Kelly:

Cub Stricker

“(A)bout five minutes to realize that Cub had caught him on a trick which is as ancient as baseball.”

Kennedy said Kelly then, “went clear down to second to shake hands with Cub and admit that the horse was on him.”

Unlike so many stories told nearly three decades after the fact, Kennedy was right on nearly every detail.

The game did take place on the fourth of July, in 1889. The second game of a double header—Clarkson and Boston had shut out the Spiders in the first game.

In the bottom of the seventh, down seven runs, Kelly doubled, driving in Dick Johnston to make the score 11 to 5.

The Boston Globe described what happened next:

“While Mike was loafing off second, Stricker stole up to second and put his man out. The crowd yelled for a minute and Kelly then ran to the bench with his head down.”

 The Beaneaters lost the game 11 to 7.

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“Nearly Every fan one Meets has a Grievance”

12 Apr

“Baseball, on the whole, isn’t a profitable game to magnates,” wrote Frederic Patrick O’Connell in The Boston Post in 1906.

“More men have been ruined by baseball than one can imagine.  Only a few clubs make money. Every season several minor league clubs go to the wall.

Frederic O’Connell

While many more minor league clubs were organized with the understanding that the team would lose money:

“In the smaller towns, men can always be found who will take a chance, and who, for the sake of the sport are willing to lose money. Most of the minor league teams have the backing of the street railroads. The railroads make big money out of baseball and are willing to help out some.”

O’Connell asked his readers to, “think of the money made” by the Boston Elevated Railroad “in this city,” the previous season:

“At the very lowest the L Road received around $25,000 from the fans who witnessed the big league games…The L Road owns the Huntington Avenue park. (Americans owner) John I. Taylor pays around $7500 rental.”

Further complicating the finances of teams, O’Connell said, was that, “There isn’t one club in the two big leagues” that didn’t exaggerate attendance numbers:

“They do it at the South End (home of the National League Beaneaters) and they do it at Huntington Avenue, but at Huntington Avenue they pad the figures less perhaps than any other city. In Chicago and St. Louis, the figures given are farcical.”

Why they insisted on padding attendance was, “hard to explain” because it caused harm to the magnates who padded figures:

O’Connell said how can players be blamed “for kicking” about salaries when “Daily he reads the attendance figures.”

But despite “how ruinous baseball has been” to many owners, “You will always find men willing to take a chance.”

O’Connell warned that anyone wanting “to hold public office had better leave baseball alone,” because the rabid fan “seldom forgives and never forgets.”

He said, he was stopped on the street the previous week by a fan angry for an error O’Connell, as official scorer, charged Freddy Parent in a game three years earlier.

“It took me off my feet, and while the game had long ago been forgotten by me, my new friend went into every detail, telling me just how it was played and who scored the runs.

“It is now some time since (Boston) Mayor (John F. ) Fitzgerald desired to buy the local American club. Does anyone for a moment suppose he would now be mayor if he happened to own the Collins team last summer?”

The Americans, under manager Jimmy Collins, were never in the race and finished in fourth place, 16 games behind the Philadelphia Athletics.

Jimmy Collins

Had the mayor owned the club:

“Not a single fan would have forgiven him because he didn’t make Collins take out (Norwood) Gibson one day last August, because he didn’t order Collins to send someone to bat for (George) Winter another day…Mayor Fitzgerald has no doubt congratulated himself for this. He is now mayor of the city, and as owner of a losing team he would have surely been beaten, for nearly every voter in Boston is a fan, and nearly every fan one meets has a grievance.”

The ire that Fitzgerald avoided by not buying the team was visited upon the manager, said McConnell:

“When Jimmy Collins won the world’s series from Pittsburg he was hailed as the greatest ever by fandom…How different now.”

Collins lasted until August 25 in the 1906 season, he was let go with a 35-79 record. 

McConnell came from a prominent Massachusetts family; his brother Joseph helped organize the first football team at Boston College and served two terms in Congress.

He became baseball editor at The Post at the age of 23 but died just three years later.

He was with the Americans in the spring of 1907 in West Baden, Indiana when he contracted pneumonia and died after a three-week illness.

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“A New Era in the Sport”

6 Jan

“The baseball world is beginning to roll itself into its usual spring prominence, and while managers are busy signing the players assigned to them, the public is awaiting patiently the beginning of what is predicted will be a new era in the sport.”

O.P. Caylor’s prediction in The New York Herald was made before the National League began the 1892 season as 12-team league playing a split season after the collapse of the American Association, and Caylor sought out the opinions of several players, managers, and executives about the coming season; they shared their “sanguine feeling on their part in the success,” of the game.

O.P. Caylor

Brooklyn’s Dave Foutz said:

“I don’t believe it will be necessary to make any changes in the rules. We have got our hands pretty full with testing the policy of a twelve-club league and a double season without trying any new rules to perplex the public.”

Foutz said the league was now composed of “the twelve best cities in the country to play in, and the best players will be put in the field.”

Chris von der Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns said:

“While I opposed the twelve-club league when the idea was first broached, I feel now that the interests of baseball are best subserved by the new agreement.”

He said the dissolution of the Association benefitted his team:

“The St. Louis club is stronger than it ever was, and we will show the patrons of baseball all over the country a championship form.”

Harry Wright, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies said:

“Never in the history of baseball has the prospect for a successful season been brighter; never has there been such a perfect harmony among the baseball powers in this country. This fact, in my opinion, leads to the hope that the game of baseball will be revived to all its pristine glory.”

Harry Wright

Wright said he felt the distribution of American Association refuges had been “fair and equitable” and said:

“As far as the two-season idea is concerned I believe it will be a success, and I think that the public generally will watch the finish each time with the same intense interest that has marked the great and close finishes of the past.”

New York Giants manager Pat Powers said:

“This twelve-club league, it strikes me, will be a decided success. Coming, as it does, in a presidential year is very fortunate.”

His rationale was that during every other presidential year “interest in baseball would decrease” as the election drew closer, and the new league format would mitigate that loss of interest.

Powers said the “twelve most representative cities “ were included and “the different clubs are composed of the very best players of the baseball profession.”

Powers said the split season would “keep the public interested,’ the larger league would be successful, and “the game will boom.”

Charles Byrne, the President of the Brooklyn club said the split season would allow fans to “witness the most exciting finish es baseball has yet known.”

The Boston Beaneaters won the first half, the Cleveland Spiders the second; Boston beat Cleveland five games to none for the championship.

Foutz and Byrnes’ Brooklyn Grooms finished third, Wrights’ Philadelphia Phillies fourth, Powers’ New York Giants eighth, and von der Ahe’s Browns 11th.

The split season was dropped before the 1893 season.

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Wagner’s Glove

30 Apr

A Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicated article in 1920 told the story of the glove Honus Wagner refused to replace:

“Many another would be ashamed of it, but not the only Honus Wagner. Wagner would not part with it for love or money. There is a history to the glove.”

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Honus Wagner

Wagner could not recall exactly when he received the glove, but guessed it was 1902:

“Honus knows that Herman Long, once the greatest of all shortstops, then playing with the Boston team, gave him the glove. It is a fact that Long always used a glove with a big hole in the center of it. He would buy a new glove and at once cut it to pieces, leaving an open spot in the center about twice the size of a baseball.”

Eight years later:

“The glove is now a worn-out relic, but Hans hangs onto it like grim death. He figures it would be the worst luck in the world for him to lose it.

“Fans have time and again watched Wagner take that glove off his big left hand and throw it down towards third base. And they can always see the hole in it, for it is too big not to be noticed.”

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Wagner’s glove

Wagner was often asked about replacing the glove:

“(H)e will only say that he has no money to pay for one. But back of that there is the one fact that remains always prominent—Wagner is just as superstitious or sentimental as any other ballplayer, and he has always felt that the Herman Long glove has brought him luck. That’s why he hangs on to it, It is worn to a frazzle. There is nothing to it but the bare edges. The center is all worn away, and Wagner grabs those hard line drives really with the bare hand.”

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Ticket Scalping Tricks, 1897

28 Apr

The Beaneaters were just a half game ahead of the Orioles when they began a three game series in Baltimore on September 24 1897; Boston took two out three games and left town up a game and a half with just three to play, and held on to win the pennant.

Boston won the first and third games by scores of 6 to 4 and 19 to 10; the Orioles won the second game 6 to 3; The Baltimore Sun said:

“It has been a fair and square fight, and they have lost to the Bostons, not through luck, but because they have been outplayed. If Captain (Hugh) Duffy’s men win the pennant they will have won it fairly, squarely, and deservedly, and Baltimore will congratulate them on their great achievement in beating her own great Orioles.”

Hughie Jennings told The Baltimore American:

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Hughie Jennings

“A few more games like those with Boston in the last series at Baltimore would drive me to an asylum.”

The Sun said there was so much interest in the series that:

“Never perhaps in the history of baseball was there such a vast amount of telegraphic matter sent out from Union Park (during the first game of the series) Fifteen skilled operators were required to send off the great mass of written matter.”

Both The American and The Sun estimated that nearly 65,000 fans attended the series, which made it a boon to the local ticket scalpers, who had to think creatively

The Chicago Inter Ocean said:

“The Baltimore ticket scalpers played a very neat trick at the downtown headquarters, where tickets were on sale during the closing series between the Bostons and Orioles. While a long line of purchasers were in line at the counter, half a dozen fashionably dressed ladies came in and the crowd courteously gave way to them. It was later learned that the women were in the employ of speculators.”

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Things I Learned on the way to Looking up Other Things #41

21 Apr

King Kelly, ‘Conceited Ass,’ 1891

When King Kelly Jumped from the Boston Reds to the Boston Beaneaters in 1891, The Baltimore World was not pleased:

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King Kelly

“Kelly, in his jump from the Association to the League, has but proven conclusively that he is just as contemptible as the people had about decided him to be. He may be a great ballplayer, but his record this season doesn’t show it. He is a loud-mouthed, conceited ass. That’s about the build of Kelly, and the Association will not die over the loss of him.”

Annoying Vendors, 1891

After spending five seasons in the major leagues from 1881 to 1885, Dasher Troy was a fixture at the Polo Grounds—he had a liquor concession on and off from 1891 through 1900. During his first season at the ballpark, The New York Sun did not approve:

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Dasher Troy

“The refreshment privilege at the Polo Grounds is held by John Troy, an ex-ballplayer. He maintains a bar under the grandstand and also one in the rear of the men’s stand. The only part of the grounds in which waiters are permitted to peddle beer is on the bleachers. Some weeks ago one of the directors of the club compelled Troy to close the bar in the men’s stand and cease peddling beer in the bleachers.

“By some means he managed to resume and is now working in full blast. In the covered stands, a score of sandwich, peanut, and soft drink men are constantly at work, and annoying spectators by their continuous bawling. It is strongly asserted that the management can not afford to maintain these nuisances to the annoyance of its patrons.”

Clarkson’s Scouting Report, 1887

A reporter for The Detroit Free Press briefly eavesdropped on John Clarkson providing fellow pitcher Mark Baldwin with a scouting report on the Wolverines while the White Stockings were in Detroit for three game series in July of 1887:

clarkson

“Clarkson was overheard giving Baldwin some private lessons: ‘Now,’ said Clarkson, ‘there’s Hardy Richardson. Just send ‘em shoulder high at the outside corner of the plate, or a little beyond, and he’ll go after ‘em every time.’ Baldwin made a careful note of this. ‘Then there’s Dan Brouthers,’ continued the craft instructor: ‘Never give him a low ball.’ ‘Will he hit a low one?’ inquired Baldwin. ‘Will he hit it?’ said Clarkson: he’ll kill it.’

“This way of foreshadowing the fate of a regulation league ball unwisely delivered to the bat seemed to impress Baldwin powerfully, and he then and there resolved never to give big Dan any low ones. At this point the teacher and his pupil carried on the lesson in softer tomes, and the remainder of the interesting kindergarten session was lost to the world.”

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Things I Learned on the way to Looking up Other Things #40

1 Apr

Minor League Salaries, 1897

In 1897, Ren Mulford of The Cincinnati Times-Star compiled a list of the average monthly salaries in some of the minor leagues:

“Eastern League–$100 to $180 for youngsters, $200 to $250 for stars.

“Western League–$75 to $150 for young men, nominal–$200 limit—real limit, about $300.

“Western Association–$65 to $115.

“Southern League–$70 to $100.

“Texas League–$60 to $100

“New England League–$75 to $125.”

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Ren Mulford

Mulford said:

“Most of the minor league contracts are from four and one-half months. While they are in force the players have their boards and traveling expenses paid when away from home. Seven months in the year these players can earn money doing other work. And yet they are down-trodden! There are many business and professional men who would be willing to be as down-trodden as are ball players.”

Small Market Woes, 1887

Horace Fogel was the third manager of the Indianapolis Hoosiers in 1887; the last place club finished the season 37-89; 20-49 under Fogel.

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Horace Fogel

After the season Fogel told The Indianapolis News:

“(I)t is a fact that it is impossible for a weaker League club to compete against such clubs as New York, Chicago, Detroit, or Boston when one of these begins to negotiate with the players. There is no use trying to get him by the offer of more money, for it will do no good. The young players would rather play on the big clubs for $500 less than they would get in the Indianapolis club. They do not recognize they would have a chance for improvement in a weaker club, while in one of the big clubs they must be on an equality with the best or they cannot stay. Young ball players will learn that they will have to begin at the foot of the ladder.”

Indianapolis, under manager Harry Spence finished 50-85 in seventh place in 1888.

Barney’s Favorite Scout, 1910

Barney Dreyfuss told The Pittsburgh Press in 1910 that the “best scout in the country” worked for him despite having “never secured a ballplayer.”

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Barney Dreyfuss

Dreyfuss said, “And as long as he wants to stay on my payroll, he can do it.”

The scout was Pittsburgh’s man on the West Coast, George Van Haltren. Dreyfuss said:

“He is an excellent judge of ballplayers, When we are tipped off to some player who is said to be a wonder, George hikes out and takes a look at him.”

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Van Haltren never signed a prospect for the Pirates but remained Dreyfuss’ favorite scout.

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“The Great American Public is with us”

25 Mar

In 1890, The New York Star provided a dramatic version of how Mike “King” Kelly let National League officials—meeting in New York–that he planned to join the Players League, beginning with one of the best descriptions to be found of Kelly’s sartorial splendor:

“King Kelly was in high feathers Thursday afternoon. He sauntered down Broadway with a yard-wide smile on his face. His box topcoat was open in front, revealing a perfect-fitting Prince Albert, a pair of English check trousers, a beautiful fancy vest of brown silk, cut low, and exposing to view an immaculate shirt front, in the center of which was a Kohinoor of wonderful brilliancy. He swung a heavy gold-headed cane with the careless abandon of a man thoroughly pleased with himself.”

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Mike “King” Kelly

Kelly then entered the meeting:

“He turned into the Fifth Avenue Hotel and acknowledged the salutations he received on all sides by raising his shining beaver. The Boston magnates soon surrounded their late captain and so did some other delegates.  They got very little comfort out of the ‘King.’

“‘You are all pretty good fellows, but you won’t do. The great American public is with us, and it’s pretty hard to beat them. We will play the greatest ball ever seen on this earth. Every man is a star—not a ham in the lot. Whenever you fellows want to borrow, come around an see me. Good day.’”

Kelly’s Boston Reds won the first and only Players League pennant, and the King hit .325 and stole 51 bases appearing in 90 games.

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“I was in Sort of a Trembling Condition”

19 Jul

When George Van Haltren joined the Chicago White Stockings as a pitcher in June of 1887, California newspapers followed his progress closely.

After a disastrous first start on June 27, Van Haltren was used in relief and in right field until July 5, when he started for Chicago against the New York Giants.

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Van Haltren

The Chicago Tribune said that likely “not one of each hundred of the 7000” fans in attendance thought the White Stockings would win with the rookie on the mound:

“(T)here were many who feared that the Giants would ‘get into’ the young man and hammer out a victory.”

Van Haltren beat the Giants 15-3, allowing just one earned run in the ninth inning when he experienced a bout of the wildness that plagued his first start, and walked three batters.

The Sacramento Daily Record-Union sent a reporter to Chicago who provided West Coast fans with the first interview of “The California Wonder” since he headed East:

“George Van Haltren, hot, tired, and dusty, but with a most excusable look of triumph on his face, walked into the White Stockings clubhouse at close of today’s ‘toying’ with the New York Giants and seated himself in a chair. The crowning test of his ability as a pitcher had come and been triumphantly met.”

The reporter asked “the well-tried young pitcher,” about to embark on his first road trip with the club, how he was being accepted in Chicago:

“I’ve been treated like a prince and feel sorry that we are going away even for three weeks. Talk about Southern hospitality, if it’s anything better than what I’ve experienced here, I want to go South.”

Van Haltren was asked to compare baseball on the West Coast to the National League:

“Oh, players are very much more finished, of course, and in some respects the game is almost a new one to me. There is fielding, for instance; why, if my old partners in San Francisco could see the way the ball comes into the diamond from the field in Chicago, it would make their hair stand on end.”

But, said Van Haltren, he wasn’t necessarily having a harder time in Chicago:

“On the contrary, I’ve been most agreeably surprised in that respect. You see, there I was almost expected to strike three out of every five men who faced me, and when I came here, of course, I expected that against famous sluggers of the National League I should have to get down to just so much harder playing. Shortly after my arrival here, however, Captain Anson told me that I was not expected to do anything of the sort. There are outfielders in the Chicago nine, he said, and it was part of their business to look after balls that were knocked into the field. All I was expected to do was play good ball, and if batsmen knocked me hard, men on the outside of the diamond were to attend to the rest.”

He said he was treated well by his teammates:

“I was a stranger, and they took me in and treated me in such a way that now I feel perfectly at home. They are gentlemen from way back, and I would not ask for better company.”

Anson then interjected:

“The satisfaction is mutual my boy, and don’t let it slip your memory.”

Van Haltren was then asked about his disastrous first start—after four strong innings, the rookie walked 14 batter and hit four, although most sources said umpire Herm Doescher did the pitcher no favors:

 “Well, that was a bitter dose. When I went on the ground that day my heart was in my throat and stayed there until I had struck out the first Boston batsman to face me (Joe Hornung), the it went down nearer its natural place, but all through the game I was in sort of a trembling condition. It might not have been so bad if Doescher had given me a fair show.”

He said by the end of the game:

“I wished that I had never come East of the Rocky Mountains. That was an awful roast.

‘”Should say it was,’ growled big Edward Williamson, the Chicago shortstop, who was gravely killing flies on the wall, smashing them with his baseball pants. ‘It is a wonder the colt didn’t break down entirely,’ and the speaker made a vicious lunge at an unusually big bluebottle fly.”

He said he had just one regret; he had been informed that day that Tom Daly would no longer be his catcher for his starts. The Tribune said of his performance during the game with the Giants that, “Daly’s work behind the bat was little short of phenomenal and was best ever seen on the grounds.”

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Daly

Van Haltren told the California reporter:

“I am only sorry I am going to lose Daly, who has been catching for me. He is the greatest man behind the bat I ever saw, and I think that he’s the only man can hold (Mark) Baldwin’s terrific delivery, and so I am to have (Dell) Darling. He of course is a first-class man, too, but Daly caught first for me and I am sorry to lose him.”

In closing he asked the reporter to:

“Be sure to tell my California friends that I am enjoying myself.”

Van Haltren was 11-7 with a 3.86 ERA as the White Stocking’s third starter; he also played 27 games in the outfield and hit .206 for the third place White Stockings.

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“A Perfect Infield Machine”

8 Jul

In his column in Collier’s Magazine, Grantland Rice said their was a “heated argument” among experts as to whether the current infield of the Philadelphia Athletics—Stuffy McInnes, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, and Frank Baker—or the recently broken up infield of the Chicago Cubs—Frank Chance, Johnny Evers, Joe Tinker, and Harry Steinfeldt—was  “the greatest infield that ever played.”

Rice took the question to Dan Brouthers, who:

“(H)as been a good bit closer to ringside and who should know.

“Daniel has been on some fair infields himself…He has played on the best and has seen the others pass in parade before him year after year.”

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Brouthers

Brouthers told Rice:

“Why, a choice between Cubs and Athletics for greatest infield? They were both good and the Athletics are still in business. But neither ranks as the best—not for me when I think of that Boston infield of 1897, with Fred Tenney at first, Bobby Lowe at second, Herman Long at short, and Jimmy Collins at third.”

Brouthers said the Beaneaters infield was:

“(T)he best combination of batting and fielding power, brains, speed, and smoothness. It has them all beaten, and I doubt if its equal will ever be gathered together again. There wasn’t an angle of the game at which they were not stars. They may have no more power than the Athletics four and but little more smoothness than the Cubs, but in the combination of all things that go to make up a perfect infield machine they must be set out in front of the others with something to spare.”

Brouthers said of the question of whether the Chicago or Philadelphia infield was better:

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Steinfeldt, Tinker, Evers, and Chance

“As between the old Cub infield, now scattered to the eternal winds, and the Athletics quartet, the former was a smoother-running machine, but it lacked the crushing wallop which has always graced the Mackian avalanche. One had the edge in alertness, the other leads with the punch. Between these rival qualities the competition in the way of supremacy is still a matter for open debate.”

 

 

 

 

 

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