1896 Boston Beaneaters: Another Pennant From a Birds-Eye View

The Boston Beaneaters dominated the beginning of the 1890s, winning three straight pennants from 1891 to 1893. The Baltimore Orioles, continual also-rans in the second division, came out of nowhere to win the 1894 pennant, and then followed that up with another title in 1895. Both clubs could boast of being the dynasty of the decade, and except for Brooklyn (1890, 1899), these two powerhouses would continue to dominate the decade. The Orioles matched the Boston three-peat with one of their own, as 1896 would be another strong year for the Birds.

Baltimore traded away two role players who had helped their pennant run in 1895. Rookie Scoops Carey had done a solid job at first base for Ned Hanlon’s crew, but he was sold. Kid Gleason, one-time pitching ace who had reinvented himself as a second baseman and batted .309, was traded away for the much more experienced, and appropriately dubbed, “Dirty Jack” Doyle. Doyle manned first base and batted .339 for the season with a steady .400 OBP and 73 stolen bases. Reserve man Heinie Reitz took over at second base and batted a solid .287, yet was the worst-hitting starter on the team. Steve Brodie (.297) was the only other starter who batted under .300, understandable when you are surrounded by future Hall of Famers like outfielders Joe Kelley (.364) and Wee Willie Keeler (.386), catcher Wilbert Robinson (.347), and shortstop Hughie Jennings (.401), and a non-Hall of Famer who nevertheless batted .328 that year, third baseman Jim Donnelly. Donnelly, a longtime minor leaguer, was actually only on the field because another future Hall of Famer, John McGraw, was limited to 23 games after contracting typhoid fever in spring training. No surprise that the Orioles batted .328 as a team and blew everybody away with 441 stolen bases, a .393 OBP, and 995 runs.

On the mound the Orioles tied for second in ERA (3.67) and were third in defensive efficiency (.666).1 Bill Hoffer was the ace of the staff (25-7, 3.38), but was backed up with solid starters Arlie Pond (16-8, 3.49), George Hemming (15-6, 4.19), and Duke Esper (14-5, 3.58). In modern sports lingo, one might say this team was stacked.

The Boston Beaneaters were not able to compete with the Baltimore greatness for the long haul, yet still hung around close to first place through the end of June. Boston made some key offseason moves that would pay dividends in the future. Veteran team captain Billy Nash was traded to Philadelphia for the blazing speed of outfielder Billy Hamilton. Sliding Billy hit the ground running from day one. His .478 OBP led the league, and in a nod to baseball statistical gurus over a century later, his league-best 110 walks with a .366 batting average gave headaches to opposing pitchers. Nash’s third-base spot was filled by young Jimmy Collins, who had spent much of 1895 in the minors and would one day find himself in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Tommy McCarthy was sold to Brooklyn, opening the outfield spot for Hamilton. Rookie Marty Bergen began his colorful yet tragic career as Boston’s catcher, while the Beaneaters had their reliable four veterans who hit .300 or better: 1B Tommy Tucker (.304), 2B Bobby Lowe (.320), SS Herman Long (.345), and outfielder Hugh Duffy (.300). The pitching staff was led by the ever-dependable Kid Nichols, who reached 30 wins again (30-14, 2.83), and veteran Jack Stivetts, who threw in another 22 victories. Two other pitchers were signed during the season and would pay dividends in later Beaneaters championships. Ted Lewis was fresh out of college and Fred Klobedanz had been in the minors.

“Over 23,000 Overlook the Calamity” was the headline of the Philadelphia Inquirer as Boston came in on Opening Day, April 16, and beat the home club, which lost “because the other fellows play better ball.”2 Nichols allowed only seven hits in the 7-3 victory. But the Beaneaters lost the next two in Philadelphia before coming home.

Boston’s home opener drew 18,033, reported by Tim Murnane in the Boston Globe as the third highest attendance in Boston’s baseball history. Thousands more were left outside when the gates were closed. “If all who wanted to get in had been admitted,” Murnane speculated, “the crowd would have been by far the largest ever known in this city.”3 The Beaneaters sliced up 27 hits while putting up some crooked numbers on the scoreboard for a 21-6 whitewash. A 7-4 April had the Beaneaters just 1½ games behind surprising Pittsburgh.

A surge in May saw the Beaneaters sweep at Louisville, outscoring the Colonels 31-11 in three games, then beating Pittsburgh and St. Louis amid a four-game winning streak in which they were tied for first with Cincinnati and Cleveland on May 18, with Baltimore one game back. The two-time defending champions had played mediocre ball to begin the year and were 3½ games back on May 22. That was when they went on a 10-game winning streak, sweeping home games against St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh to put themselves 1½ games in front. Boston had a 14-8 June; Baltimore went 15-6, but both were superseded by the surprising Cincinnati Reds, who went 18-8 in the month and tied with Baltimore, a half-game ahead of Cleveland.

If this were a horse race, we would say other teams were sprinting to the finish in July: Baltimore (18-8 in the month), Cincinnati (21-7), and Cleveland (20-12), while Boston fell behind with a 10-17 month. The Globe headline simply stated the obvious: “Not Coming Here” – in regard to the pennant.4 The Beaneaters pulled out a 3-2 win over the Orioles on July 28. It meant little to Boston, which was 14½ games behind. The loss knocked Baltimore back five games from Cincinnati, but fortunes would change from that day on. The Orioles began a 10-game winning streak, which ended on August 12. At that point, the Orioles were in a virtual tie with Cincinnati, with Baltimore 63-28 and Cincinnati 65-30.

Who were these Reds and how did they surprise the baseball world? Buck Ewing, at the end of his long career as a player, also led this group of overachievers as manager. They had finished eighth in 1895. Ewing had three speedy outfielders who could hit and steal: Eddie Burke (.340, 53 SB), Dusty Miller (.321, 76), and Dummy Hoy (.298, 50), while Hoy also led the team in on-base percentage (.403). The Reds were second in stolen bases and ERA. Frank Dwyer and Red Ehretwon 24 and 18 games, respectively. The Reds were a half-game up on the Orioles after winning, 9-7, in Boston on August 19. It was the beginning of a 21-game road trip, and it was off to a good start. But then the bottom fell out, as the Reds lost their next 11 in a row to fall 6½ back on September 1. It was indicative of the Reds’ season, as they went 51-15 at home but only 26-35 on the road. The Orioles streaked to 38-12 overall to finish the season, while Cincinnati, the oldest team in the league, flopped at 16-24.

The Cleveland Spiders were a much more balanced team than the Reds were. The Spiders had time for a few cups of coffee while in first place, falling no more than four games out of first but never leading by more than a half-game through June. With Cy Young (28-15, 3.24) and Nig Cuppy (25-14, 3.12) anchoring the pitching staff, Cleveland had the best ERA in the NL, allowed the fewest walks, and had the best strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.20). Unlike Cincinnati, the Spiders were built not on legs but on bats; their .301 batting average was tied for second with Boston behind Baltimore’s .328. Their hits (1,463) were also second to Baltimore, led by Jesse Burkett’s league-best .410 batting with a .461 OBP and 1.002 OPS. Cupid Childs batted a forceful .355, while Ed McKean chipped in a .338 BA. After a 2-0 victory over Philadelphia on July 23, the Spiders trailed the Reds by a mere game. They lost their next five in a row, however, with three of them to the Reds, then slumped to 10-12 in August. A few wins here and there could have paid dividends, as the Spiders had one of their best months in September at 15-6, but the race had been decided by that point.

Neither Cincinnati nor Cleveland would have a season like this again in this era. The Spiders would become one of worst clubs in baseball history, going 20-134 in 1899 before folding from existence. While not matching that extreme futility, Cincinnati wouldn’t have a better team until the Black Sox season in 1919.

Baltimore started slowly, to everyone’s surprise. The Orioles were 5-7 at the end of April, and traveling logistics contributed to their frustrations, the Baltimore Sun reported. A game with Boston ran long so that the team missed its boat to New York. They caught the midnight train, getting into the city in the early morning. The players waited four hours for a train to Baltimore. Home just a few hours, they then caught a train for Pittsburgh.5 They found the energy to jump over .500, finishing 17-7 in May and 15-6 in June. The champion Orioles were back, and they hung within a few games of first place through July, falling no further than five games back. One amazing victory at Philadelphia on August 17 saw the Orioles score eight runs in the ninth to come from behind, 16-15. “Not a man could be found on either team or among the spectators so sanguine as to suppose such a consummation possible,” the Baltimore Sun wrote, “but the Orioles went to work with a will nevertheless.”6

Baltimore won the pennant by 9½ games over Cleveland and again played the Spiders in the Temple Cup postseason series. Public perception was such that, despite winning three pennants, Baltimore had yet to win a Temple Cup, so those titles were tainted, even though the tournament was mere exhibition.7 Diminished by poor attendance (fewer than 13,000 turned out for the entire series), the Orioles finally got the monkey off their back as they proved without a doubt who the superior team was. In Game One, Hoffer shut down the Spiders and the Orioles battered Cy Young in the 7-1 win. In Game Two, Baltimore jumped out to a 6-0 lead and cruised for the 7-2 win. In Game Three, it was Hoffer beating Cuppy, 6-2. Only 1,200 turned out for what would be Cleveland’s only home game, and they had little to cheer about as 20-year-old Joe Corbett was the pitching hero of the day with a 5-0 shutout.

“The Orioles have made an exceptionally brilliant finish this year,” wrote the Baltimore Sun, “carrying off the pennant and the Temple Cup with an ease that is astonishing when the discouraging way in which they began the season seemed to indicate that they were not in the contest for either honor.”8 This championship club was their best of the decade, based on their season-best .698 winning percentage and the fact that they won the 1896 pennant by 9½ games. But the legacy the Orioles are remembered for today ended in 1896.

Frank Selee’s crew went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for spring training in 1897, the first such trip for the Beaneaters. They did so with a few new faces who would be key members of their next championship run.

“I discovered,” wrote baseball historian Robert Creamer, “that the Old Orioles were not a dynasty at all but a nova, a sudden manifestation in the baseball skies that flared brilliantly for a very short time and then disappeared.”9

The Orioles’ reign may have ended in 1896, but it ended in a blaze of glory.

 

Sources

Baseball-reference.com.

Lansche, Jerry. Glory Fades Away: The Nineteenth-Century World Series Rediscovered (Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 1991).

Nemec, David. The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball (New York: David I. Fine, 1997).

 

Notes

1 The defensive efficiency ratio is a statistic seeking to evaluate team defense by determining the rate of times a team allows batters to reach base on balls put in play.

2 “We’ve Met the Enemy and We’re Therein,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 17, 1896: 1.

3 T.H. Murnane, “Out in Batting Togs,” Boston Globe, April 21, 1896: 1.

4 Boston Globe, July 11, 1896: 2.

5 “Orioles Stop in Baltimore,” Baltimore Sun, May 4, 1896: 7.

6 “Two Great Finishes,” Baltimore Sun, August 18, 1896: 6.

7 “Baltimore Is Used to it,” Boston Globe, September 19, 1896: 3.

8 “The Temple Cup With the Pennant,” Baltimore Sun, October 9, 1896: 4.

9 Robert W. Creamer, “Team: The Old Orioles,” in Daniel Okrent and Harris Lewine, eds., The Ultimate Baseball Book (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), 34.