George Van Haltren didn’t instantly live up to his billing.
The 21-year-old, then pitcher, had finally decided to leave California in June, after the death of his mother—he had refused to come East for more than a year while his mother was ill. His refusal to come to Chicago had resulted in threats of being blacklisted from White Stockings’ owner A. G. Spaulding.
The Oakland Tribune said Van Haltren’s current club, the Greenhood and Morans had offered him $300 a month to stay in California.
Van Haltren
The impending arrival of Van Haltren was big new in the Chicago papers. With the team struggling in fourth place, The Chicago Daily Journal said Van Haltren was “depended upon to help (John) Clarkson and (Mark) Baldwin boost the club.’ The paper left readers with high expectations:
“Two years ago he commenced playing ball as a catcher, but after a year at the receiving end of the battery, he decided it was better to give than to receive…In his first four games he struck out 55 men; in a game a little later he struck out three consecutive batters on nine pitched balls, and in another game he made a record of 19 strike outs in a nine inning game.”
Van Haltren’s arrival for his start, against Boston, was greeted with fanfare and received as much coverage in West Coast newspapers as in Chicago. The scene, described by The Oakland Tribune:
“Eight thousand people witnessed the game. The Chicagos marched on the diamond with Van Haltren and Captain Anson in the lead, then followed by the band and th other players of the club. When they arrived at the home plate Anson and Van Haltren took off their caps, and the latter was loudly cheered.”
The Chicago Tribune said Van Haltren was sharp for four innings, striking out the first batter he faced:
“(He) retired Joe Hornung on strikes and the crowd manifested its pleasure.”
The Beaneaters scored two unearned runs in the first, but the White Stockings responded with five in the first and scored two more runs in the third. Through four innings Van Haltren allowed just one hit.
Van Haltren
The Boston Globe said what came next:
“Spalding’s wonder, the famous left-handed pitcher Van Haltren, the terror of the Pacific slope, made his debut as a league pitcher and for four innings he was a king with the crowd. After that he lost all control of the ball and all the Bostons had to do to get to first was to wait for five balls.”
Beginning in the fifth, Van Haltren “sent 14 men to first on balls, besides hitting four with the ball, and (Tom) Daly, who caught him for the first time, saved him about 10 wild pitches.”
The Chicago and California papers saw Van Haltren’s implosion differently—they blamed umpire Herm Doscher. The Chicago Tribune said:
“Not only was his judgment on balls and strikes miserable, but he lacks a knowledge of the rules of the game.”
The Chicago Inter Ocean (which estimated the crowd at 7,000, not 8,000) said fans “witnessed the rankest case of robbery by an umpire that has ever taken place in the city. President Spalding should never permit a Chicago audience to be so insulted again.”
Doescher
The Oakland Tribune called Doscher “Incredibly unfair and incorrect,” and The San Francisco Examiner claimed Doscher was confused by Van Haltern’s curve ball:
“Doescher’s [sic] decisions of balls were drawn from the direction of the ball when at least three feet away from the plate, losing all sight of the ultimate course of the curves at the vital spot.”
Even The Boston Post agreed that Doscher’s umpiring was “erratic” and that he participated in “bad discrimination against Van Haltren.”
Despite his meltdown—or Doscher’s incompetence—Van Haltren entered the ninth with the game tied at 11.
The Beaneaters scored six runs in the ninth after three walks—The Chicago Daily News said, “fully one-half the balls called on Van Haltren should have been strikes.” Van Haltren was also rattled by second baseman Fred Pfeffer’s second error of the game and two hits—or as The Chicago Tribune put it:
“(Edward ‘Pop’) Tate got his base on balls after Van Haltren had struck him out fairly; (Michael ‘Kid’) Madden was hit by the ball and given his base; Pfeffer’s error gave (King) Kelly first and filled the bases. Then (Bobby) Wheelock was given his base on balls after about six strikes.”
Having given up the lead, Van Haltren then gave up a triple to Boston’s Bill Nash, Nash scored on a single by Ezra Sutton and the Chicago went down in order in the ninth.
The phenom left-hander from California lost his first game 17-11, walked 16 and hit three batters.
The Oakland Tribune said:
“A correspondent saw Captain Anson and was informed the management of the White Stockings were perfectly satisfied with the new pitcher, who, considering all circumstances, made a good showing as a National League player.”
Anson started Van Haltren in right field the following day and thought enough of him to use him in relief of John Clarkson in the seventh inning, The Chicago Daily News said of his second stint on the mound:
“(He) did remarkably well, staking out such batsmen as Hornung, Nash and Johnson. The general opinion here is that when he becomes used to Eastern ways, he will prove the best pitcher of the year.”
Van Haltren did not prove to be “pitcher of the year,” he finished 11-7 with a 3.86 ERA, but walked just 50 batters in 152 innings after walking 16 in his first nine.
But he was treated like the “pitcher of the year” when he returned home.
Van Haltren
The San Francisco Examiner said:
“George Van Haltren is, beyond all question entitles to rank as the premier pitcher of California, and the most invidious of our Eastern friends will not begrudge us the right to boast a little about the stalwart young fellow who has done so much in the East to puzzle the crack batsmen beyond the Rockies, and at the same time prove to the older but not more progressive East what kind of products we raise here in California…It is believed that The Examiner’s readers will agree that a finer specimen of young America, of Californian or any other growth, than George Van Haltren would be hard to find.”
Van Haltren never excelled as a pitcher but became one of the best leadoff men of the 19th Century.
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