Tag Archives: Cleveland Forest Citys

Things I Learned on the Way to Looking up other Things–Sunday Baseball Edition

4 Feb

What type of Sunday Ball? 1863

In 1863, The Brooklyn Eagle—there was no byline on the story, but it was likely written by Henry Chadwick—wanted the police department to make a clarification:

“We see by the police records that a party of forty or fifty persons was arrested for playing ball in Sunday, at the ‘ball alley’ corner of Green Lane and York Street.”

Henry Chadwick

Henry Chadwick

The paper’s complaint was that the notice from the police lacked “any description…of the character of ball playing indulged in,” which left a mistaken impression.

“We beg to state, for the benefit of ignorant outsiders, that any base ball club belonging to the National Association is yet to be disgraced by the stigma of playing base ball on the Sabbath.  Not a club in the community can be charged with such a things and this fact should be understood.

“The game the parties were engaged in who were arrested is that known as ‘house ball,’ where the players knock the ball up against the side of a wall with their hands.  No responsible base ball player engages in a game on Sunday, and we trust the police reporters will in future bear this fact in mind and state the kind of game those arrested were engaged in.”

John L. Sullivan and Sunday Baseball, 1885

Heavyweight Champion John L. Sullivan, arrived in Cleveland, Ohio on Friday, September 11, 1885.  The Cleveland Press said he would be pitching on Sunday for a local semi-pro club, the Forest Cities—the Western League team of the same name had folded in June–in an exhibition game against a team from Sandusky.  The scheduling of a game on Sunday had raised the ire of the local “Law and Order League,” who the paper said “were up in arms,’ and attempted to get the game canceled.

John L. Sullivan

John L. Sullivan

Despite the protests, the game, at Cleveland’s Brooklyn Park, went ahead as scheduled.  Sullivan was paid $900 for his appearance and pitched well—he gave up just five hits in nine innings, a fifth inning error allowed Sandusky to score two runs, and Sullivan and the Forest Cities lost 2 to 0.

The Press said as soon as the game ended Sullivan was placed under arrest by “a meek constable” named Jones, who “feared to arrest (him) during the game.”

The move was roundly criticized as simply a publicity stunt, given that the Law and Order League failed to swear out warrants against the other seventeen players or the game’s organizers.

Bond was posted for Sullivan and the fighter left town that evening.  The following day an attorney pleaded guilty on Sullivan’s behalf that he had “engaged in a game of ball on Sunday.”

The attorney for the “Law and Order League” asked the judge to “uphold the sacred day of rest by assessing a fine of such proportions as would teach the law-breakers and Sabbath-desecrators a wholesome lesson.”

The judge fined Sullivan $1 plus costs “amounting in all to $15.90”

Sunday Baseball in Chicago, 1894

During the spring of 1894 a man named William W. Clark met with Chicago Mayor John Patrick Hopkins.

The Chicago Inter Ocean said Clark was “Secretary of the International Sunday Observance League,” The Chicago Eagle called him as “a blue-nosed individual in clerical garb.”

Chicago Mayor John P. Hopkins

Chicago Mayor John P. Hopkins

Clark presented the mayor with a resolution requesting a ban on Sunday games in Chicago.

The Eagle described the meeting:

“He was accorded a courteous hearing, in the course of which the clerical gentleman expatiated upon the enormity of ‘catching men out,’ of making ‘home runs’ on Sunday.  Such practices he said were wrong and highly immoral.  Mayor Hopkins listened in mild surprise.  When the gentleman got through His Honor announced that he used to play ball on Sunday’s himself, and sometimes attended a game even yet, and saw nothing immoral about it.

“The cleric was unable to specify any particular enormities growing out of the game, but proceeded to hold out threats.  Then Mayor Hopkins announced that he had been elected by the liberal-minded people of Chicago, and as they appeared to be in the majority here, he, Mr. Hopkins, intended to be governed by their wishes.”

The Eagle editorialized that the mayor had “made another of his famous home run strikes on the particular occasion.”  And, “As for the clerical visitor, the poor man struck out.”

The International Sunday Observance League abandoned their effort to make Sunday baseball illegal in Chicago.

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“In the Sixth Inning the Fun Began”

27 Aug

Samuel Jewett Kelly came from a prominent Cleveland family, his grandfather started one of the most prestigious law firms in the city and his father served as a judge and member of the city council.  Samuel, born in 1866, became a well-known journalist, and for more than a decade before his death in 1948 he wrote articles for The Cleveland Plain Dealer chronicling Cleveland in the 19th Century.

In 1937 he wrote about Cleveland’s first professional league baseball game on May 11, 1871—The Forest Citys versus the Chicago White Stockings.

The Forest Citys of Cleveland participated in the first game of the newly formed National Association on May 4 in Indiana, shut out 2 to 0 by Bobby Matthews of the  Fort Wayne Kekiongas,  followed by two road games in Illinois versus the Forest Citys of Rockford (a 12-4 win) and the Chicago White Stockings (a 14-12 loss).  Now they were taking the field in front of a crowd of about 2,500 for Cleveland’s first home game.

Kelly described the scene:

“White shirts trimmed in blue, blue hose and belt, high russet leather shoes, big monogram (a crossed “C” and “F”) on the shirt.

“When they walked out on the field and took their places, wearing neatly shaped white cloth caps and blue band and the rim bound with ribbon of the same color, they looked fine pictures of old-time ball players. Many of them wore quite fluffy side-whiskers while some had goatees with mustache.”

When Jimmy Wood and the White Stockings arrived in Cleveland they brought with them James Henry Haynie, a reporter for The Chicago Times and the National Associations recording secretary.  Haynie would serve as umpire for the game.   (Kelly incorrectly gives his middle initial as “L”)

Some reports said the arrival of Haynie with the Chicago team was a surprise, and a different umpire was expected, others (including Kelly’s recollection 65 years later) said Haynie was one of five potential umpires that forest City manager Charlie Pabor approved.  Regardless of the circumstances by which he arrived, Haynie, like many other umpires of the 1870s took a lead role in the game’s outcome.

Charlie Pabor

Charlie Pabor

According to Kelly:

“That first professional game in Cleveland ended unexpectedly in a furor of excitement in the eighth inning, almost a riot.”

The game was tied 6 to 6 through five innings.  Kelly said “in the sixth inning the fun began.”

With one out and Chicago at bat Ed Pinkham and George Zettlein walked:

 “(Michael ’Bub’) McAtee hit a grounder to (Ezra) Sutton at third (Jim) Carleton at first, cutting McAtee off for the third out, as everybody said.  But umpire Haynie said different and Chicago piled up five runs that inning.”

The Forest Citys came to bat in the eighth inning down 18 to 10.  According to Kelly:

“There had been five decisions against Cleveland.  In the eighth there was one more.  It was the last straw.  Pabor was declared out at third and after consulting with the officers of the club the Forest Citys agreed to surrender the game as it stood and appeal …Everybody swarmed on the field and talked to their heart’s content”

The game was awarded to the White Stockings–the first forfeited game in the National Association.

Many histories of Cleveland baseball implied that Haynie (universally misidentified with the wrong middle initial—an indication that all relied entirely on Kelly’s 1937 account) was a one-time “plant” intended to steal the game from the Forest Citys.  In reality he served as an umpire for several games throughout the season, including Chicago’s game with Fort Wayne two games later, without incident or charges of favoritism.

A “Dispatch” to The Pittsburgh Commercial after the Fort Wayne game, a 14-5 Chicago victory, said:

“There were some doubts about taking (Haynie), owing to his reported partiality shown the Whites at Cleveland, but since the game has closed both clubs have expressed themselves satisfied by his decisions, which were all made promptly.”

The first National Association game in Cleveland was an appropriate beginning for the team.  The Forest Citys finished in eighth place in the nine team league with a 10-19 record, and folded after posting a 6-16 record in 1872.  There was no big league baseball in Cleveland again until the Blues joined National League in 1879.

James Henry Haynie

James Henry Haynie

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A postscript:

James Henry Haynie served in the 19th Illinois Volunteer Regiment in the Army of the Cumberland during the Civil War.  After the war he went to work for The Chicago Times where he remained until 1875 when he became foreign editor of The New York Times.  He later served as a Paris-based correspondent for several newspapers.  He returned to the United States in 1895 and died in Boston in 1912.

Haynie covered the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 for The Times.  Twenty years after the fire a reporter for The Chicago Republican named Michael Ahern claimed that he, Haynie and John English, a reporter for The Chicago Tribune had together created the story that the fire was the result of a cow belonging to Catherine O’Leary kicking over a lantern.

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