Tag Archives: Indianapolis Hoosiers

“Suspend him Again, Brother Petit”

7 Apr

Edward “the Only” Nolan, the 22-year-old rookie pitcher for the Indianapolis Blues was scheduled to pitch against the Providence Grays on June 20, 1878, but just over a month after his major league debut, “The Only” was already mired in controversy.

The Cincinnati Enquirer said:

“Nolan did not pitch today—cause why, he was suspended, and is at present under a very dark cloud of suspicion.”

The paper said W.B. Petit, president of the Indianapolis club had received, “telegraphic information” from Indiana that it was “generally understood in the pool-rooms” that the Grays would win the game if Nolan started, and alluded to, “several decidedly loose plays” made by Nolan during his two previous starts.

On June 15, Nolan and Indianapolis lost 7 to 4 to the Boston Red Stockings; Nolan committed three errors—“inexcusable muffs” according to The Boston Globe. The day before the suspension, Nolan gave up nine runs and committed five errors in a loss to the Grays.

The Hoosiers play in recent days, just a month and a half into the season led The St. Louis Globe-Democrat to predict that the team, “stands a much better chance of disbanding than of winning the championship.”

The Enquirer said the pitcher had been suspended based on the charges:

“Nolan seems quite indifferent, while the rest of the nine show discontent and disgust with his conduct.”

Petit met with the team before the game in Providence, and during the game:

“(Catcher Silver) Flint appeared to be broken up about something and was quite morose…The Nolan business seems to have demoralized the whole party.”

The Indianapolis People pronounced the pitcher guilty and yawned at the news:

“It was discovered that (Nolan) was selling out the games to the gamblers. As if this was anything new in base ball literature!”

The Indianapolis Journal said of Nolan, who had played for Indianapolis the previous season when the team was a member of League Alliance:

“It is known to many that he was picked up in that sort of rascality last fall, and in the judgment of the elect he should never have been given his place again. He was only retained through the clemency of the directors, and his play all through the season thus far indicates that the confidence of the directory in his reformation was misplaced”

The Journal addressed the team’s directors directly:

“If they didn’t know it before, The Journal will hasten to inform them that the only way to make a club successful is to preserve its integrity.”

The paper was not waiting for an investigation and said Nolan, “should never be permitted to pitch another game for the Indianapolis club.”

Five days later the Indianapolis directors issued a letter reinstating Nolan, which said in part:

“The charges against you of crooked ballplaying have been carefully investigated and we fail to find proof of an irregularity on your part in this respect.”

The People noted:

“We believe the Scotch used to return the verdict ‘not proven,’ declining to take the responsibility of saying the accused was ‘Not guilty.’”

“The Only” beat Cincinnati in his first game back. A 9 to 5 victory: he committed one error and gave up just one earned run.  The Indianapolis News said he was, “Quite effective.”

The suspicions never completely dissipated. When Nolan was “batted out of his position” by Boston in 12 to 4 loss on July 14, O.P. Caylor in The Enquirer said:

“Suspend him again, Brother Petit.”

The Journal also questioned Nolan’s performance in the game with Boston:

“(He) acted in a very disagreeable manner and threw the game away from the start.”

Nolan’s relative honesty on the field was overshadowed in August by his general lack of honesty when, days after leaving the team for the funeral of his brother “William” in Paterson, New Jersey, The Chicago Tribune said:

“(He) has been acting strangely of late, and Thursday refused duty on the ground that his brother was daed…It appears from the best evidence at hand, that no brother was dead, or ill.”

He was su a pended by the club.

The Indianapolis News, in reporting Nolan’s expulsion acknowledged that “his habits have utterly ruined him,” but defended his integrity and used the occasion to take a shot at Caylor:

“Nolan’s expulsion is believed by the stockholders of the club to be caused by his bad habits ad not from crookedness. Last spring, in the knowledge of one of the stockholders, the gamblers of Cincinnati made several attempts to buy him and failed. That they did not succeed has prejudiced the reporter of The Cincinnati Enquirer against him to the full extent of his ability and from that time forward that paper has studiously abused and misrepresented not only Nolan but the entire Indianapolis club.”

Nolan was not reinstated until 1881 and had four more brief major league stints in the National League, American Association, and Union Association. He finished his career 23-52 record in 79 games with five different clubs.

Nolan’s hometown newspaper, The Patterson Morning Call said he gave up baseball in 1887—he was just 30—after signing a contract to play in the Eastern League:

“He was met by Mayor C.D. Beckwith of this city. The mayor offered him to name him to the police force.”

Sgt. Nolan

Nolan spent 16 years on the force, rising to the rank of sergeant; he died in Patterson in 1913.

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“He has Always Been a Lazy, Unmanageable Fellow”

3 Apr

Mert Hackett—contemporary newspapers generally referred to him as Myrtie–caught 241 games over five National League seasons from 1883 to 1887.  In 1902, he was asked by The Boston Post to assess the modern game:

“People who never used to miss a game do not go at all now. At the time when the Brotherhood League was formed 12 years ago and during the troubles that followed, many people lost all sympathy for those who are now in National ownership. As a member of the Cambridge police force, I meet many old friends who used to be regular attendants at the games but who never go now. They have lost their interest and are disgusted with the questionable tactics in vogue now among players and managers.”

hackett

Hackett

The Post claimed that Hackett’s career came to an end in 1887, when he was “Practically blacklisted” by Indianapolis Hoosiers manager Horace Fogel:

“Hackett received a letter from his sister in Boston stating that her three children were sick and requesting him to come at once. The old catcher left immediately and arrived only to be present at the death of two of the children.”

The paper claimed, “For some reason” Fogel later said Hackett did not have permission to leave the team and “wrote a letter to the other clubs” saying Hackett had been fined and suspended.

Contemporaneous accounts in The Indianapolis News and The Indianapolis Journal tell a different story.

In July of 1887, The News said that Fogel, having just taken over as manager, had granted Hackett leave (to “visit his friends”) before discovering that the team’s other catchers Tug Arundel and George Myers were injured.

“(Fogel) told him that, by reason of the crippled condition of the nine, he would have to catch the game with the Cuban Giants in Trenton. Hackett was greatly enraged, and with the threat he would be ‘—— if he played against n——.’ He left the club and for this reason he was suspended.”

Horace_fogel

Sporting Life said Hackett was, “Playing off all season,” and “he has always been a lazy, unmanageable fellow, and the players all claim that he is the only troublesome, disorganizing man in the team.”

In whatever case, he never played in the major leagues again after the close of the 1887 season.  When he was released by the Hoosiers before the 1888 season, The Journal said:

“Strange that a player of his ability could not be sold for a small sum at least.”

He managed and played for the Troy Trojans in the International Association—his brother Walter was the team’s shortstop–briefly in 1888.

hackett2

Hackett, 1935

Hackett’s career in law enforcement lasted much longer, he was with the Cambridge police force for 42 years, retiring in 1935 at age 75. He died in 1938

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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.”

ren-mulford

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.

fogel2

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.”

dreyfuss

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.”

vanhaltren15683011790852769907.jpg

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

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“In Chicago, the Baseball Slump is what the Crank would call Disgusting”

8 Jun

Oliver Perry (OP) Caylor of The New York Herald came to a conclusion in August of 1892 that many have shared before and since:  baseball‘s best days were behind it.

O.P. Caylor

O.P. Caylor

Earlier,  National League President Nick Young had declared 1892—featuring an expanded twelve team circuit after the collapse of the American Association and just weeks into the only scheduled split-season in major league history—an unqualified success.

But now, into what Caylor called “A Dog Days Depression,” reality had set in.

“Much has been said since the League’s second championship season opened (the second half began July 15) about the renewed interest which was alleged to have sprung up and was keeping pace with the new season.  It has taken no more than a month to prove that this so-called revival was an illusion.”

Caylor noted that there was brief uptick in attendance in games played in Eastern cities during the first three weeks of the second half:

“(B)ut before the teams started west the same old rut of passing indifference seemed to be struck.  And nowhere in the west thus far has there been a sign of a promising revival.”

Caylor pointed to two cities as evidence of baseball’s bleak state;

“In Chicago, the baseball slump is what the crank would call disgusting.  People of that progressive center have use for nothing but the best, and Uncle (Cap) Anson this year has not succeeded in giving them such an article in baseball.  The great general has done the best possible, handicapped as he was in the beginning of the season by the poor allotment of players from the Indianapolis (Hoosiers, the defunct American Association franchise) consolidation pool.”

Cap Anson, 50 errors in 1876

Cap Anson

Caylor blamed most of Anson’s problems on a weak middle infield:

“(Jimmy) Cooney, his shortstop, turned out a sudden complete failure and he has never been able to successfully fill (Fred) Pfeffer’s vacant shoes on the nine.  Any team which is weak at short field and second base is bound to be weak all over, and that is the condition of the Chicagos.

“The old man has been experimenting on new material with more or less success and less success than more.  But by the time he gets his men into what he is pleased to consider championship form, the season will be so far spent that he will have no chance to arouse the chilled pride of the army of Chicago baseball ‘rooters.’”

Caylor said Anson had some optimism for “next season.”

“Maybe the Chicago club can well afford to waste this year whipping together a winning team for 1893.  For next year, the World’s Fair (The World Columbian Exhibition) should be bring a small fortune to the treasury of the Chicago club if they can get a winning team together by that time.  Yet there are those who will argue that the World’s Fair is bound to be a financial injury than a benefit to the Chicago club under any circumstance, and the argument is based upon baseball experience in Philadelphia during the year of the Centennial (1876).”

World's Colombian Exhibition

World’s Colombian Exhibition

 

Caylor said even, A. G. Spalding, former White Stockings president, felt the fair “will be a financial burden” on the team.

Spalding believed:

“(T)hat for every visiting stranger who will be attracted to the ball grounds three resident patrons will be kept away by the unusual demand upon their time by excessive business.”

But Caylor said, his former home was in even more distress than Chicago:

 “Cincinnati, the best-paying city of the circuit during the first half of the year, has become financially alarming.”

Cincinnati had suffered as a result of the National League’s cost cutting measure agreed upon in late June, which resulted in rosters being reduced from 15 to 13 players and across-the-board pay cuts of 30-40 percent for all players.  The Reds best pitcher, Tony Mullane, quit as a result of the cuts.

Tony Mullane

Tony Mullane

“The sorry slump in baseball interest at Cincinnati is another exemplification of that old moral taught by the fable of the ‘Hen Which Laid the Golden Egg.’ I know it is modern usage to speak of the golden egg producer as a goose, but my Latin book called it a hen.  As applied to the Cincinnati case it makes little difference whether we call it a hen or a goose…The Cincinnati club’s hen was laying golden eggs regularly through the first season.  The newspapers put the club down as a sure winner financially.  Then came the greed mentioned in the fable.  The officials thought they saw a way to squeeze  the old hen into more active and valuable work, and on the squeezing they killed her.”

As a result of the pay cuts:

“Cincinnati patrons became disgusted.  For the sake of saving a few thousand dollars in salaries while working at a profit, this club had thrown away its chances to win the second championship.  Nobody who understands human nature need wonder the result.”

Cleveland, home of the second half champion Spiders, was the only town where Caylor said the “national game is appreciated.”   But even that, he said was temporary and favorable financial conditions were “a question of considerable doubt.”

The 1892 season was a disaster for Chicago—on and off the field—they finished 70-76, in seventh place, and attendance dropped by more than 72,000 from the previous season.

While Cincinnati led the National League in attendance, the club lost money.

But, contrary to Caylor’s gloomy outlook, the league—after dropping the spilt-season format—bounced back well in 1893.

In Chicago, where Anson put an even worse product on the field—the Colts were 56-71—predictions that the Columbian Exhibition would destroy attendance were wrong.  Aided by the opening of a new ballpark in May, the club drew the fourth-largest attendance in the league—223,500—more than doubling their 1892 numbers.

Cincinnati’s attendance dropped by just 2200 fans despite a disappointing season where the team hovered near .500 all year and finished sixth.

National league attendance increased by nearly half a million from 1892 to 1893.

While baseball was not on a long-term decline, Tony Mullane was.

He returned to the Reds in 1893, but the 34-year-old was never the same–259-187 with a career ERA below 3.00 before his departure, he was 25-33 with a 5.74 ERA after.

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Tug Arundel

16 Nov

Twenty-one years before catcher Gabby Street caught a baseball dropped. From the Washington Monument, another catcher attempted it with less success.

When news of Street’s feat was reported in 1908, Oliver Romeo Johnson, who had been a sportswriter for The Indianapolis News in 1887, recalled the circumstances:

“On one of our eastern trips we followed the Chicagos in Washington, and while there the catching of a ball dropped from the monument was much talked of, because one of the Chicago players was said to have done it a few days before.  My impression is that it was (Cap) Anson himself, although it might have been Silver Flint.

“One of our team, John Thomas ‘Tug’ Arundel, a catcher, said it was ‘dead easy’ to catch a ball dropped from the monument, and a bet was made on it.  A crowd of us went out to see the attempt.  Arundel wore catcher’s gloves—which were not so thick as they now are—on both hands and put layers of cotton under them. He tried eight or ten times to catch the ball…but failed every time, and after he had battered up his hands so he could not play for some days he gave it up.”

Tug Arundel

Tug Arundel

Several days after Johnson’s recollection appeared in The News, Horace Fogel, who had been Arundel’s manager with the Hoosiers and dropped the balls from the monument, weighed in.  Fogel, then sports editor of The Philadelphia Telegraph, disputed the claim that Anson or Flint had caught a ball and said of his catcher’s attempt:

“Arundel, if I remember alright, only succeeded in getting his hands on one ball and it almost tore them off at the wrists. Tug explained afterward that he had not figured on ‘A ball weighing a ton coming from that distance.’ The other balls, a dozen or more, I tossed out to him, Arundel missed, some by fifty feet, he misjudged them that badly.”

Horace Fogel

Horace Fogel

Bad judgment was a staple of Arundel’s career which was marred by arrests for drinking and fighting.    He appeared in just 76 major league games over four seasons from 1882 to 1888 and played for at least 16 different professional clubs during his 10 seasons in professional ball, often quickly wearing out his welcome.

The Memphis Appeal said he was:

“(T)he handsomest player in the profession, who would sooner fight than eat.”

The Washington Critic summed up the opinion many had of Arundel when he was acquired by the Nationals in 1888:

“’Tug’ Arundel has been secured by the Washington management, as last week’s reports indicated he would be.  He is not popular here.  However, it is to be hoped that Manager (Ted) Sullivan can keep him muzzled.”

After his release, when it was rumored he might join the Detroit wolverines, The Detroit Free Press told readers:

“Detroit wouldn’t have Tug Arundel under any circumstances.”

After every incident, Arundel pledged to change his ways.

After an 1887 drunken melee in Indianapolis, which resulted in the arrests of Arundel along with teammates Jerry Denny and John (Patsy) Cahill, he told The Indianapolis News he took “a total abstinence pledge for six months.”

In the spring of 1889, he was arrested in his hometown, Auburn, New York twice. First for assaulting a police officer and then for a bar fight with another former major leaguer, and Auburn native, Mike Mansell.  The Auburn Bulletin said Arundel “Got the worst of it.” A month after the fight, The Sporting Life said Arundel “writes he is in fine shape and looking for an engagement.”

In 1890, the 28-year-old Arundel was nearing the end of the line.  He signed with the Saginaw-Bay City (Michigan) club in the International Association and told The Detroit Free Press that he was serious about sobriety this time:

“I lost splendid situations and almost ruined my reputation through liquor, but, sir, I realize the baneful effects of over-indulgence in intoxicating liquors and I have resolved never to touch another drop.  I have kept aloof from it for the past three months and am now in as good condition as I ever was in my life.”

It is unclear whether, or for how long, Arundel kept his last public pledge.  He appeared to have played fairly well behind the plate for Saginaw-Bay City.  Although he hit just .152, The Free Press, which three years earlier assured readers that Arundel was not wanted on the city’s National League club, was pleased when he signed with the Detroit Wolverines of the Northwestern League:

“(Arundel) has faced the greatest pitchers on the field and held them all.  Arundel is a good trainer for young ones, and did good work while with the Hyphens in 1890.”

Whether because of drinking or injuries (The Free Press and The Detroit News said he suffered from “Split fingers” several times throughout the season) Arundel was finished after the 1891 season, at age 29.

Arundel returned to Auburn and was eventually committed to the Willard State Hospital for the Chronic Insane in New York where he died in 1912.

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The Pursuit of Elmer Foster

9 Sep

Elmer Ellsworth Foster was the talk of the Northwestern League in 1887.

His career as a pitcher had lasted just one season; in 1884, while pitching for the St. Paul Apostles, he snapped a bone in his arm while throwing a pitch.

Elmer Foster, 1887

            Elmer Foster, 1887

After he recovered, he returned the following year as an outfielder and second baseman with Haverhill in the Eastern New England League and hit .309.

The following spring, The Sporting Life’s Haverhill correspondent said the New York Metropolitans “have taken Elmer Foster from us.”

Hitting just .184 and, as The Sporting Life put it “reckless at the bat,” Foster went back to Haverhill in August.

In 1887, he returned to Minnesota, this time as centerfielder for the Minneapolis Millers.  The club was owned by his brother Robert Owen Foster, a successful dealer of musical instruments, who with his partner J. E. Whitcomb, had taken over operations of the Millers in January.

The Northwestern League of 1887 was a hitter’s paradise owing mostly to the single-season experiments with the four-strike rule and walks counted as hits—nineteen players with at least 350 at-bats hit better than .350—and Foster led with a .415 average and 17 home runs.   While his performance with the bat was noted, he received an equal amount of publicity for his great fielding.

Throughout the season, Minnesota newspapers reported that Foster’s contract would be sold to a major league team—the Indianapolis Hoosiers were the most frequently mentioned—but the deal never materialized.

When the season ended, The Philadelphia Times said Foster was in high demand:

“During the past week agents from nearly every League and Association (club) have been to Minneapolis to secure (Foster) for next season.  (Horace) Phillips of Pittsburgh; (Gus) Schmelz of Cincinnati; Ted Sullivan, agent for Washington; (Emery “Moxie”) Hengel agent for Detroit; (Charlie Hazen) Morton, agent for (A.G.) Spalding, and agents for the Brooklyn, Metropolitan, and Baltimore Clubs have tried to get him.

“(John) Day, of New York, sent him this message:  ‘Multrie on the way to Minneapolis.  Make no promise until you see him.’  Boston also wired him for his terms.  (Horace) Fogel of Indianapolis arrived one night and had Foster in tow all the next day.  The bidding of all these clubs has been going on briskly, until now he is offered exorbitant figures by all the clubs.”

Foster called the fight for services a “circus;” it also turned into a controversy, with two teams claiming to have signed him.  The Saint Paul Globe said:

“The circus he speaks of is a curious one, but he is sublimely unmindful of the part he took in it.  The rules of the baseball covenant prohibit the signing of players until Oct. 20…Manager Fogel of Indianapolis approached Foster before that time and made a verbal contract with him, but Manager (Jim) Mutrie, of New York, took him out to Delano (Minnesota), and after midnight  (on the 20th) got his signature.”

Jim Mutrie

                       Jim Mutrie

Years later, Ted Sullivan, who was perusing Foster on behalf of his Washington Nationals, described Mutrie’s method to sign Foster as a kidnapping:

“Jim Mutrie of New York (Giants) grabbed the great fielder Foster on the streets of Minneapolis…bound and gagged him, threw him into a cab and brought him ten minutes out of the city, held him there and dined and wined him until midnight…then compelled him to take $1000 advance money and a contract of $4500 (various other sources put Foster’s salary at $2400, and $4000).”

Foster, it turned out, didn’t simply have a “verbal contract” with Fogel and Indianapolis when he disappeared with Mutrie, but had, as The Sporting News said, accepted “a draft for $100,” from Fogel at the time the two agreed to terms.  Fogel and Indianapolis owner John T. Brush told The Indianapolis News and The Indianapolis Times that there was “a written agreement” between Foster and the club.

Foster’s wife gave birth to a daughter during the height of the controversy.  He told The Globe:

“If she had been a boy I would have named him Mutrie Fogel, in memory of the baseball managers I have been having a circus with.”

In the end, Indianapolis acknowledged that the agreement with Foster, whether written or verbal, was entered into three days before the legal signing date of October 20 and National League President Nick Young awarded Foster to the Giants.

Foster never had success at the plate during his brief major league career; he hit just .187 in 386 at-bats over parts of five seasons.  But Mutrie called him “(O)ne of the best fielders in the country,” and Sullivan said of Foster’s time in the National League, “(H)e was a wonderful fielder in that league.”

Elmer Foster

      Elmer Foster

After he was released by the Giants, he played 31 games with the Chicago Colts in 1890 and ’91, but his brief stay with the club allowed his name to live on with fans long after his career ended.  One of the favorite subjects of Chicago sportswriter Hugh Fullerton, who called him “The rowdy of the rowdies,” Foster’s name was a staple of Fullerton’s stories for three decades after his career ended.

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Stewart Strader

11 Aug

Stewart W. Strader was the son of a prominent business leader in two of Kentucky’s signature businesses.  His father, Colonel Robert Stuart Strader operated a distillery and was a prominent breeder of Standardbred Trotters.  In 1875, the elder Strader moved the family from Boone County, Kentucky to Lexington where he was involved in the founding and management of The Red Mile—the world’s second oldest harness racing track.

Advertisement for R.S. Strader and Son Distillery. The "Son" was Stewart's older brother Wilson.

Advertisement for R.S. Strader and Son Distillery. The “Son” was Stewart’s older brother Wilson.

Stewart Strader was born in Lexington in 1882, one of seven sons.  By the age of 20 he had become an important figure in baseball circles in and around Lexington, as owner, manager and one of the best players on Lexington’s local semi-pro team.

Before the 1903 season The Lexington Leader said Strader was attempting to get his team accepted into the Central League and “Lexington’s application for a franchise is looked upon quite favorably,” but days later The Lexington Herald said Strader “decided most of the cities composing the Central League were too far to enable his club to play them with profit.”  He instead entered his team in Cincinnati’s Sunday League and played against other independent teams during the week.

Stewart Strader 1903

Stewart Strader 1903

His reputation quickly spread, and while there were rumors in the press that he would be signed by the Cincinnati Reds, they did not materialize, but he did receive a letter from William Henry “Bill” Watkins, president and manager of the Indianapolis Indians of the American Association.  Watkins wrote:

“I thought I would write you and see if you had any idea of going into the professional end of the game next season.  If you will consider a trial with us, I would like to hear from you.”

Strader accepted the offer, but by the time he reported to Indianapolis in late March, Watkins had left Indianapolis to manage the Minneapolis Millers.  In his first game with the Hoosiers, an exhibition against Purdue University, Strader played right field and was 3 for 3 with a triple.  The Indianapolis News said, “Strader is a hitter of merit and with a little more work should develop into a strong fielder.”

Two days before the beginning of the regular season Indianapolis purchased left fielder Ed “Pinky” Swander from the St. Louis Browns, and right fielder George Hogriever, who had refused to sign after hitting .330 the previous season, agreed to terms with the Hoosiers.   Strader was released to the Greenville Cotton Pickers in the Cotton States League.  His hometown paper, The Herald, said he “had been holding down right field with due credit,” but Indianapolis Manager Bill Phillips felt “he was too young for the fast company.”

Strader 1904

Strader 1904

After hitting .309 for Greenville in 81 at bats, he was sold to the Macon Highlanders in the South Atlantic League where he hit just .200 in 130 at bats.

Strader spent the next five years making brief stops with seven different minor league teams, buying and selling the independent Lexington club at least twice, and tending a saloon he opened in 1905.

 

Stewart Srader

Stewart Srader

In 1908, Lexington became part of the newly formed Blue Grass League.  It was the city’s first team in organized ball in more than a decade, and Strader may, or may not, have been involved in an attempt to wrest control of the team from owner and manager Thomas Sheets.

Strader opened the season in the Virginia State League, where he appeared in 10 games for the Richmond Colts and Danville Red Sox.  In late May, he returned to Kentucky and signed a contract with Sheets’ Lexington Colts.  On May 31 he played center field for the Colts and was 0 for 3.  The following day he was released.

The Herald speculated that another player, Warren Fieber (who had purchased the independent Lexington team from Strader two years earlier and later sold it back to him) would also be released:

“Sheets admitted that an effort had been made to undermine him in the last two days, but would make no further statement.”

Fieber, who was hitting .320 on June 1, remained with the team, but his batting average plummeted to .222 by the season’s end.  Strader stayed in the Bluegrass League and signed with the Shelbyville Grays; he had the best season of his pro career, hitting .324.

Strader played his final season of pro ball the next year with the Frankfort Statesmen.  In June The Herald said:

 “Lexington fans have noted with considerable satisfaction that Stewart Strader a Lexington boy now with Frankfort is leading the Blue Grass League in batting.”

Strader was hitting .410 as late as June 23, but slumped badly in the second half of the season and finished with a .264 average.  At the end of the 1909 season Strader and Patrick Downing, a former minor league player, were appointed deputies by the Fayette County Sheriff.  The Leader said the two deputies they replaced “apparently would not play ball.”

Strader signed with the Davenport Prodigals in the Three-I League in the spring of 1910 but was released before the season began.

During the last several years of career, and the first decade after he left the diamond, the Strader family was regularly mentioned in the local press for things other than baseball.

Two brothers died tragically, one, according to The Leader, by his own hand after shooting a woman in Lexington’s “Tenderloin District.” The other was murdered during a dispute while hunting.

Strader began operating taverns and restaurants in Lexington in 1905, and the family spent the better part of a decade bringing various lawsuits against each other involving the failure of the distillery after their father’s death and other business disputes.  During one dispute Strader’s older brother W.P. had him arrested claiming Stewart Strader “would do bodily harm or injury to him.”

Despite the family drama, Strader remained a successful businessman and prominent member of Lexington society.  He owned the Berlin Café—which he originally purchased with one of his brothers in 1905–until 1940 and for seven years in the 1920s operated Third Avenue Motor Company in Louisville, which sold the Anderson Six—produced by the Anderson Motor Car Company in South Carolina.

Strader died in Lexington on August 9, 1948.

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“There is a Constant fear that Someday the Men will Decline to go on the field.”

31 Mar

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

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

“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

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.”

88indy4 88indy2

Some of the advertisements from Indianapolis' "Baseball Boom" campaign

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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“By-By, Baby Anson”

26 Dec

On August 20, 1888 Adrian Constantine “Cap” Anson and his Chicago White Stockings were set to begin a three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Chicago was in second place, six and a half games behind the New York Giants.

Anson’s club had been in first place for most of the season, but  relinquished the lead to the Giants after dropping eight of nine games at the end of July.

After sweeping two games from the Giants in New York earlier that week, Anson said he had just improved his team by signing pitcher John Tener, who was playing for the East End Athletic Club in Pittsburgh, for a reported $2500 for the remainder of the season.   He also spoke to a reporter from The New York Times:

“Mr. Anson is inclined to think that New York will ‘take a tumble,’ and if it occurs soon the Giants’ chances of closing the season at the top of the pile are woefully thin.”

Another New York paper, The World, was determined to not let Anson forget his prediction.

Three days after he made the comment, The World said Anson and Giants Manager Jim Mutrie had bet a $100 suit on the National League race, and:

“(Anson) has been busily engaged in predicting a tumble for the Giants. Jim says that tumble is not coming.”

Within a week the White Stockings had dropped to eight games behind the Giants.  The World said:

“Anson’s prophecies much resemble the boomerang.  He swore Mutrie’s men would take a tumble, and his own men are fast getting there themselves.”

The paper also taunted Anson with a front-page cartoon:

 anson18880

The taunting continued.  After Chicago lost 14 to 0 to the Indianapolis Hoosiers on August 31:

“Did Brother Anson notice anything falling in Indianapolis yesterday?”

Another front-page cartoon on September 6:

anson18881

A week later, after the Colts took three straight from the Giants in Chicago, and cut the New York lead to five and a half games, The World attributed it to “Two new men for Anson’s team;” umpires Phil Powers and Charles Daniels.   The Giants managed win the fourth game of the series 7 to 3; the paper said Giant pitcher Tim Keefe was “too much for Anson and the umpires.”

Chicago never got within six and a half games again.  On September 27 the Giants shut out the Washington Nationals, putting New York nine games ahead of the idle White Stockings.  The World declared the race over on the next day’s front page:

anson1888

All was finally forgiven on October 10.  The Giants had won the pennant, and Anson, on an off day before his club’s final two games of the season in Philadelphia, came to the Polo Grounds and met with Mutrie:

“(Anson) gave Mutrie a check for $100, in payment for the suit of clothes won by the latter.  The two then clasped hands over a similar bet for the next season—that is, each betting his club would beat the other out..  Anson then cordially congratulated his successful rival upon the winning of the pennant, and stated his belief that New York would surely win the World’s Championship.”

The Giants beat Charlie Comiskey’s American Association champion St. Louis Browns six games to four.

Anson’s White Stockings won five National League championships between 1880 and 1886, he managed Chicago for another decade after the 1888 season; he never won another pennant.

Tener, the pitcher signed by Chicago in August posted a 7-5 record with a 2.74 ERA.  He played one more season in Chicago and finished his career in 1890 with the Pittsburgh Burghers in the Player’s League.  Tener later became a member of the United States Congress (1909-1911) and Governor of Pennsylvania (1911-1915), and served as President of the National League.

Mutrie’s Giants repeated as champions in 1889 (and he presumably claimed another $100 suit from Anson), he managed the team through the 1891 season.

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Adventures in Barnstorming—“Their Conduct was Disgraceful”

30 Oct

After the 1887 season John Montgomery Ward was celebrating his marriage to one of the most popular actresses of the era, Helen Dauvray, by touring the South playing exhibition games with the New York Giants–primarily made up of New York players but also included Mike “King” Kelly (who also brought his wife Agnes) of the Boston Beaneaters and Jerry Denny of Indianapolis Hoosiers.

John Montgomery Ward

John Montgomery Ward

The team arrived in New Orleans on October 29 and was greeted with a reception at the St. Charles Hotel.

The first game against the Southern League’s New Orleans Pelicans was played the next day at Sportsmen’s Park in front of 6000 fans.  New York’s Tim Keefe held the Pelicans to just two ninth-inning runs, in a 7-2 victory.   Ward had three hits.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune said:

“It was far from an ideal day for ball playing, for the weather was almost freezing and the wind blew in cutting blasts.  But those who admire baseball in this city were undeterred.”

The following day the Pelicans managed an 8-inning 4-4 tie:

“(The Pelicans) put up a game that would have done credit to any aggregation, and the only excuse for their not having bounced the Giants, was the fact that (Bill) Geiss and (Ed) Cartwright made inexcusable errors at the commencement that let in two runs.”

The Times-Picayune left out a large part of what happened that day.

Two days later the whole story appeared in papers across the country, The New York Times said:

“(S)everal members of the New York Baseball club were intoxicated when they entered the grounds to play with the New Orleans nine on Monday last.  Their conduct was disgraceful, and (Pelicans) Secretary (Maurice) Kaufman called on a police officer to eject them from the grounds.”

A wire report from New Orleans, that appeared in The Chicago Daily News said:

“There are several men in the New Yorks who have been drinking freely ever since they arrived in the city, and were not of course, in condition to play ball.”

Giants’ catcher William “Buck” Ewing, and Jerry Denny were identified as drunken players, but it was King Kelly who was most often singled out.  The wire report said when police attempted to arrest a drunken fan who had accompanied the players to the ballpark:

“Kelly jumped into the stand and tried to prevent the arrest, claiming the man was a friend of his…During the entire game the unseemly exhibition was kept up.  At one time Kelly climbed into the stand and drank beer with his friends, while the other men of the nine had already taken positions in the field to begin an inning.”

King Kelly

King Kelly

During the game Ward “took his wife from the grounds, and placing her in a carriage, sent her to the St. Charles Hotel, because of the disgraceful exhibition of some of the players.”

The game scheduled for November 2 was cancelled and The New York Times said the tour would be disbanded.

By the end of the week all parties were trying to downplay the incident.  Ward said members of the club “misbehaved in no way,” and instead said the cancellation was because it was discovered that Pelicans players had received $5 each for the games, and the Giants players only received $3.  The Pelicans and The Times-Picayune had a revised version of the events:

“The whole story is that a couple of the members met too many friends with tempting ways and reached the field in no condition to play ball.  The majority of the visitors were all right and were heartily ashamed of the conduct of their comrades.”

The paper said that the “New Yorks are in good trim again, however and at their own request a game was arranged for (November 4).”

The Giants won that game 5 to 3—New York catcher Buck Ewing pitched a complete game for the Giants (he pitched 47 innings during his major league career, with a 2-3 record and 3.45 ERA), beating the Pelicans best pitcher John Ewing.  Only 500 fans attended the game.

The series ended on November 6 with the Giants winning two games; a 3-1 morning game with “a very small crowd,” and an evening game in front of more than 6000 won by the Giants 5-4.

While the rest of the Giants continued on to Texas, Ward returned to New York for meetings to negotiate the recognition of the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players by the National League.  He rejoined the team on the West Coast later that month for a six-week barnstorming tour.

The Ward/ Dauvray marriage went about as well as the honeymoon in New Orleans—their divorce just six-years later was a very public, scandalous affair.  Ward, who was accused of being a serial philanderer, was actually barred from ever remarrying during Dauvray’s lifetime as part of the divorce decree.  He was able to get the ruling reversed in 1903 and remarried.

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