Jim Clinton

Nineteenth-century journeyman Jim Clinton logged 400-plus games in baseball’s three major professional leagues between 1872 and 1886 and, in the midst of that (1877-1881), probably an equal number in various leagues and associations we would now categorize as “minor.” He served with seven different clubs over the course of 10 seasons in the National Association, the National League, and the American Association, and with several more in the minor leagues. While the bulk of his diamond time was spent in the outfield, he played at every position. He made 19 major-league appearances as a pitcher, winning a single game. Remembered best for his fielding skills as an outfielder, he was popular wherever he went, well-respected as a gentleman and an honest player.

James Lawrence Clinton was born on August 10, 1850, in New York City, the second child of 31-year-old Lawrence Joseph Clinton and 20-year-old Mary (McLaughlin) Clinton. Both parents emigrated to the United States from Ireland, and at the time of James’s birth, Mary’s 60-year-old mother, Ann McLaughlin, also lived with the family at their home in New York’s 17th Ward. The elder Clinton was a butcher, and census reports for at least the next 20 years listed his occupation as such. When he was born, James had a 1-year-old sister, Margaret, and Lawrence and Mary would eventually give him an additional seven siblings, the last being born in 1872.  

Jim Clinton’s earliest forays into the New York baseball scene came in the summer and fall of 1869, his first known appearance being on August 19, when he subbed for the Mutuals’ regular right fielder in a game against Ross, a Harlem-based club, and made four safe hits and scored six runs in a lopsided 49-5 Mutuals victory.1 

When the Mutuals opened their 1870 season on April 19, Clinton was at third base for an opposing picked nine.2 He showed up with the Oriental Club on April 27, when, it was reported, he “handsomely whitewashed the Eckfords by the good stops he made at short field, and his accurate throwing.”3 His first known pitching effort came on May 3, in the Orientals’ 29-5 loss to the Mutuals. Despite the overwhelming deficit, he was singled out as a “young player pitching with considerable judgement.”4 By September, he had upgraded to Brooklyn’s Eckfords, taking turns in both infield and outfield.

Clinton was with the Eckfords again at the beginning of the 1871 season, but by June 7 had taken up with another venerable Brooklyn club, the Atlantics, playing second, third, and the outfield in a dozen or so games through late September.

Clinton’s “big league” debut came in 1872. He was back with the Eckfords, who, along with the Atlantics, had paid the nominal $10 entry fee and officially joined the National Association. Clinton quickly became an Eckford regular, hitting safely in his first five games and demonstrating his versatility, appearing at second base, shortstop, third, catcher, and outfield.

His best offensive day came on June 21, versus the Mansfields of Middletown, Connecticut, when he stroked three hits in five trips to the plate, scored three runs, and knocked in one run. The next day, against these same Mansfields, Clinton made his first pitching start, going the full nine innings and suffering a 36-6 loss in which only seven of the Mansfield runs were earned. He spent most of the season at third base, playing in 25 games overall, the most on the club. The Eckfords had a miserable year, finishing 3-26, but, unlike five other weak NA franchises, they at least completed their schedule. 

In 1873 Clinton departed Brooklyn and joined the Resolutes of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a new co-op club in the National Association, making his first appearance on May 6. Referring to him as “Clinton of the old Eckfords,” the New York Clipper noted the improvement he provided at third base, praising his “sharp fielding.”5 The Resolutes never made it to the 1873 finish line, folding in early August with a 2-21 record. Clinton played in nine games, all at third base, including the August 7 finale in Brooklyn against the Mutuals. In its review of National Association third basemen, the Clipper stated, “Clinton did some good third-base play for the Resolute Club, but he was not kept in the position long enough. He is a very good and quite reliable player.”6 

With the Resolutes out of the NA, Clinton returned to the Atlantics for 1874. In their first official contest of the season, on May 5, Clinton played second base and notched two hits, two RBIs, and three runs as the Brooklynites crushed Baltimore, 24-3. Despite the impressive start, Clinton played only one more game with the Atlantics, on June 1, and then spent the remainder of 1874 with Reliance, a strong Brooklyn amateur club, playing mostly at shortstop but also appearing behind the plate and in the outfield. 

The Atlantics brought Clinton back into the fold at the start of the 1875 season, and on May 11 he made his first pitching appearance in nearly three years, facing the Athletics of Philadelphia on Brooklyn’s Union Grounds, the result being a 5-0 Atlantics loss, though only one of the five Athletic runs was earned. “Clinton threw the ball in by a plain underhand throw,” said the New York Clipper, and “he had speed and tolerable command of the ball; but he should avoid all the preliminary motions in delivery that he can; for the moment he makes one of these movements, and fails to follow it up by delivering the ball, he commits a balk.”7 The New York World noted that he pitched “very swiftly” and that his “pace bothered the Athletics so much that they appealed as to its legality and it was tested, and the delivery being found to be below the hip the umpire very properly ruled it as legal.”8 

The next to last in a string of nine consecutive pitching starts by Clinton resulted in the single win of his big-league career. On May 26, before a crowd of only about 100 at the Union Grounds, he faced off against Harry Luff of the New Haven club and, in what turned out to be the longest Atlantics game of the season (3 hours and 10 minutes), came out on the winning end of a 14-4 score. The two teams combined for 30 errors, and the Brooklyn Times Union drily summarized: “[T]he game was not over brilliantly played,” but also said that Clinton “pitched well.”9

On August 6, Clinton made his final start for the Atlantics, losing 13-0 to Hartford’s Tommy Bond. It was his worst defeat of the season, though only three of his opponents’ runs were earned. At this point, the Atlantics were 2-30, and would eventually finish 2-42. In light of the team’s performance, Clinton’s 1-13 record seems not so much an embarrassment as an inevitability. His 104 runs allowed in 123 innings look incongruous alongside his 2.41 ERA, but this was an era when gloveless fielders were still the norm and earned runs were typically outnumbered by unearned ones. He did complete nine of his 14 starts, and allowed no home runs.

Shortly after his final start, Clinton was released by the Atlantics,10 but was quickly picked up by the semipro Eagle Club of Louisville, Kentucky, debuting at third base in the club’s game of August 16. Two days later, the Eagles tested his pitching skills, sending him in to hurl the final three innings against the NA champion Boston Reds. “The Eagles would improve their nine by putting Clinton as regular pitcher,” opined the Clipper,11 and the team did just that. Clinton pitched consistently for the Eagles into early October, notching several wins.

On the day after Christmas, 1875, 25-year-old James Clinton married Lillian A. McKay, age 19. Lillie was born in New Jersey, to Richard and Frances McKay, the third youngest of their 10 children. Jim and Lillie eventually had three sons and one daughter of their own: James, Francis, Joseph, and Mary, born between 1877 and 1889. 

In March 1876 Clinton returned south, signing with a Memphis semipro team. He was named captain of the club. “In Jimmy Clinton the Olympic Club has secured the services of an excellent pitcher and as nice a gentleman, quiet and unobtrusive in his manners, as ever stepped on the ball field,” a newspaper observed.12 

The National League opened play in April 1876, and one of its eight entries was a club in Louisville, known as the Grays. The Grays visited Memphis the first week of April for a series of practice games with the Memphis club and must have been impressed by what they saw in Clinton, for they signed him to a contract later in the season.13 Although Clinton was tapped for pitching duty in a few exhibition games against amateurs and semipros, he quickly became the Grays’ regular right fielder. He made his only pitching start on the last day of Louisville’s season, October 5, an 11-2 complete-game loss to Candy Cummings and the Hartfords.   

His 16 games with Louisville would prove to be Clinton’s last major-league work for five years. In 1877 he landed with the Syracuse Stars, a club in the League Alliance.14 The Stars featured once and future major-league notables such as Pete Hotaling, Hick Carpenter, and Dick Higham. Frequently playing NL teams, they proved they could hold their own against the big leaguers. On May 4 they lost a 1-0 contest to the Anson- and Spalding-led Chicago White Stockings. Only three days earlier, they had participated in one of the most astonishing matches of the era: a 15-inning scoreless tie with the St. Louis Brown Stockings.15 On July 2 they shut out the Bostons 2-0, and they took revenge on Chicago with a 5-2 victory on August 31. Clinton played mostly outfield with the Stars but was occasionally used as the change pitcher, including on August 28, when he notched a 4-1 win against fellow Alliance club Indianapolis.

The 1878 season was a busy one for Clinton. His first engagement was with the New Haven club, a member of the International Association. The IA at the time was a sprawling organization that welcomed any and all professional teams, covering a wide swath of geography from Pennsylvania and upstate New York to New England and even into Canada. With the NL fielding a mere half-dozen teams in 1878, the IA was a force to be reckoned with, both in drawing power and on-field talent.  

Clinton played a handful of games with New Haven but was released in early May, then quickly hooked up with another IA club, the Alleghenys of Pittsburgh. Playing mostly outfield, but with a couple of relief pitching appearances, he was a regular with Allegheny until the team disbanded on June 8. He latched on with the Erie IA club shortly thereafter but it disbanded as well, in early July.

After umpiring a game between IA Hartford and the Brooklyn Witokas on July 9, Clinton was engaged as first baseman by Hartford, but made only three games with them before the club was expelled from the Association for failing to pay guaranteed gate receipts to a visiting team. He continued to umpire Brooklyn area games through mid-September, and then joined the co-op New York Club of the seven-team Metropolitan organization. His first game with the New Yorks was September 28. In his next outing, September 30, he racked up 10 putouts in left field. The Clipper said, “Clinton’s play in left field was the chief charm of the contest.”16 In all, he was with the New Yorks for probably fewer than 10 games, with a couple of pitching turns, before landing in late October on another local co-op, the Flyaways, with whom he finished the season.

In the early weeks of play in 1879, Clinton showed up in various picked nines and as a substitute for missing or injured players. He played one game for the reorganized Atlantics (still professional but no longer “major league”) in May, and then signed on as left fielder for the Jersey City Browns of the National Association (as the IA was now known after the disbandment of the Tecumsehs of Ontario). The Browns fielded a strong team that featured future big leaguers Dude Esterbrook, Dasher Troy, and Tom Poorman. One of Clinton’s best games came on August 19, when he connected for two triples in a 6-0 win over Springfield. In mid-October the Browns split a pair of games with the NL champion Providence Grays.

The Clipper lauded Clinton’s outfield work: “Clinton, who … played left field last season for the Jersey City Browns, had about the best fielding record in that position of all the professional players in the country, having missed but three catches, and those difficult ones, in seventy games; while he assisted the unusually large number of twenty-five times in retiring players on good throws from the outfield.”17 

Clinton’s first action in 1880 was in early May with the Albany NA club, which also included Lip Pike and Tim Keefe. After being released by the Albanys, he moved on to a new Brooklyn professional nine but he, along with the team, seemed to disappear from the arena after a May 31 game against Clinton’s ex-mates, the Jersey Citys. In August he played outfield on an ad hoc nine of local pros organized to participate in a three-team tourney with two top NA clubs, Washington and Rochester. Clinton made five hits in the series and drew praise for his fielding. 

The Clipper honored Clinton with a short bio and woodcut portrait in the edition of September 11, 1880, saying he was “at one time well known as a pitcher” and calling him “a faithful and earnest worker … quiet and gentlemanly.”18 

September and October proved to be the busiest months of the baseball season for Clinton, as he rejoined the Jersey City Browns for a half-dozen games and then moved on to the newly formed Metropolitan club of New York. On September 29 the Mets opened up New York’s first professional ball field, the Polo Grounds. Two days later, Clinton powered the Mets to a 7-3 victory over the Washington Nationals, blasting a two-run triple in the Mets’ four-run ninth inning. 

In October the Mets played several exhibition games against NL teams. In a series with the Worcesters, Clinton hit a home run off one of the League’s top pitchers, Lee Richmond. The Mets dropped the first three of a series with Troy, but won the final three, with Clinton tagging future Hall of Famer Mickey Welch for two hits, including a triple in the closer. 

Clinton was back with the Metropolitans as regular center fielder in 1881. Among his teammates were Dude Esterbrook, Mike Dorgan, and the “one-armed” pitcher, Hugh Daily. Over the course of their April-to-October schedule, the Mets surpassed all previous marks by playing 151 games. Clinton participated in nearly 100 games, the most by far for him in any season. After a loss to the Atlantic club on September 5, however, Clinton disappeared from the Mets lineup, Tom Mansell replacing him in center field for the remainder of the month. Clinton briefly renewed his membership with the Atlantics, joining the club on a Western tour to St. Louis and Louisville.

In early October, the Mets called him back to sub at first base for Esterbrook for four games, all against League clubs, but by the 11th, Esterbrook had returned and Clinton was relegated to umpiring duties for a Mets match with Troy. He bounced back to the Atlantics in mid-October, just in time for a series of games against the Mets, ostensibly for the “local championship.”19 His final appearances of the season came in the last week of October, playing center field for the Olympic Club of Paterson, New Jersey, in a couple of matches with – once again – the Metropolitans. The Clipper’s year-end review of the outfielding of 1881 hailed Clinton, Kennedy, and Roseman (all of the Mets), saying they had “borne off the palm by the splendid running catches each of them made.”20 

Clinton began the 1882 season at first base for the Atlantics, but when NL Worcester lost its first baseman to injury21 and moved left fielder Harry Stovey in to fill that position, Clinton was signed to fill the outfield vacancy. He joined the Central Massachusetts club in time for a series with the Chicago White Stockings, making three hits and scoring three runs to help the Worcesters take the first two games of the series. From there, however, the team nosedived, winning only one of their next 20 games. After a long rough patch – only 10 hits in 17 games through July 4 – Clinton went missing from the Worcester lineup for most of July. He finally returned in games versus Providence and Boston in the final week of the month, his season highlight coming July 28 with two hits and two runs in a wild 12-11 win over Boston. After playing left field in a loss to the Detroit Wolverines on August 7, Clinton was released by Worcester. Within a week, he was back with the Metropolitans as they began a series of exhibition games with visiting NL teams that included wins over Detroit, Buffalo, Troy, and Providence. 

In 1883 the sophomore campaign of the American Association, Clinton signed with the Baltimore Orioles, and it turned out to be his career year – the best he ever enjoyed at the plate. He led the Orioles in nearly every offensive category, and finished in the AA’s top 10 in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging average, hits, singles, and walks. He played in 94 of the Orioles’ 96 games, almost all in left field. 

The month of July was especially hot for Clinton, including a 4-for-4 day against Columbus and 4-for-6 with three runs against Pittsburgh. In a July 19 tilt with the Athletics, he went 4-for-5 with five runs, including a single to start a three-run ninth-inning rally that gave the Baltimores a 10-9 victory. The highlight of the Orioles’ season was a four-game sweep of Louisville in late August. After drawing a blank in the first match, Clinton went 8-for-15 the rest of the way, with three doubles, a triple, and seven runs scored. 

Clinton’s numbers fell off in 1884, but he remained one of the Orioles’ best hitters, leading the regulars with a .270 batting average and a .334 on-base percentage, and hitting the only four home runs of his career. Alternating between left field and center field, he appeared in 104 of 108 games. His five double plays ranked second among AA outfielders.

By early November 1884, word was out that Clinton’s days in Baltimore were numbered. In a letter dated November 3 and printed in the Clipper, he set the record straight about his move:

“Dear Sir: Please allow me to contradict through your paper a statement regarding

myself, made by the Baltimore correspondent of a Philadelphia paper, in which he

assigns my main object in choosing Cincinnati in preference to Baltimore as a city to play

in to be the size of the salary. It has never been a question of money between Manager

Barnie and myself. I asked for my release simply on account of the continued ill-health of

my wife, for whom a change of air was recommended as being highly beneficial. But

some people seem to know more about my business than I do myself.”22  

The pundits in Porkopolis approved, writing, “In Clinton the home nine have secured a daisy”23 and “In Clinton and Baldwin the club have two good batters, the former being the equal of such men as Carpenter, McPhee and Corkhill.”24  

While Clinton struggled at the plate for the first month of 1885, his fielding prowess left an immediate mark, as in the Reds’ 2-1 win over St. Louis on April 21: 

“The king of the occasion, however, was Clinton. His center field work today has never

been excelled even by Corkhill. Such fly catches as he made off three balls are seldom

seen in a season. … In the ninth inning their first two batters hit safe; the next flied out 

to Jones. Then Clinton made the greatest fly catch of the day, two inches from the 

ground on the dead run. A double play was easy, as both base runners were almost 

home.”25  

Sadly, 1885 was to bring personal tragedy to Jim Clinton, and the first hint of something amiss came in early July when he missed four consecutive games. The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette explained: “Clinton’s wife and children are sick at their home in Baltimore. He left last night for that place on a leave of absence.”26 Within a month, he fell ill himself, but continued playing, the Gazette noting: “Clinton and McPhee have been suffering from malaria for three weeks past, yet both manage to play excellent ball.”27 

Two weeks later, the Reds hosted league-leading St. Louis for a three-game series. Clinton played the opener on August 22, but the next day “was at home anxiously watching by the bedside of a very sick child.”28 Four-year-old Frankie Clinton died on the evening of August 25. In the series finale, “in token of their sorrow for their comrade’s loss the Cincinnati players wore crape on their left arms.”29 Clinton returned to the diamond on August 28. The Gazette said: “Jimmy showed that he was not feeling well, but he did the best he could. The warm sympathy of the crowd was expressed for him by a general yet quiet applause, which arose when he went to bat for the first time.”30 

Released at his own request31 at the end of October, Clinton was a 35-year-old free agent as the 1886 season opened. He was appointed in early May to replace a resigning Association umpire, and through the third week of the month worked almost daily. But a match at Washington Park, Brooklyn, between visiting St. Louis and the Dodgers may well have been the low point of Clinton’s career on the diamond. Making a bad call or two early in the game, he became so rattled by the crowd’s backlash that he allowed his judgment to be clouded, leading to further mistakes.32 The local gamblers, seeing their team jump to an early lead, had “invested at odds on the success of the Brooklyns” but then grew ever more agitated as the bad play of the Dodgers and Clinton’s shaky work doomed their chances.33 As the last out of the 7-4 St. Louis victory was tallied, the mob was ready to pounce. The Brooklyn players, along with club President Byrne and a contingent of police, shielded Clinton and escorted him to safety.34 After umpiring games in Philadelphia and New York the next two days, Clinton tendered his resignation and returned home to Baltimore.35 

Two weeks after doffing his arbiter’s attire, Clinton was patrolling center field again in an Orioles uniform. He made a good start, with a couple of multihit games in his first few outings, but a return to 1883 batting form was not in the offing. In mid-July, after a disastrous 3-13 Western road trip, manager Billy Barnie released three players, including Clinton. He had fielded reputably, as always, but batted a mere .181. Even on a team with a collective .204 batting average, it had been a disappointing 23-game stint. He finished the season with another of his former teams, the Jersey Citys of the Eastern League.36  

Though he had taken his final bow as a major leaguer, Clinton was not yet finished in professional ball. He was engaged by Nashville of the Southern League in early 1887 as its left fielder37 and, beginning in May, added managerial duties.38 Before financial instability forced the club to disband on August 2, Clinton played 49 games with Nashville, topping all regulars with a .389 batting average and stealing 25 bases. He went home to Brooklyn at this point,39 but before month’s end was headed back to the Southern League, engaged this time by the Birmingham Club.40 Once again he was called upon to carry out dual duties as manager and outfielder. Still performing at a high level with the bat, he completed the season with Birmingham batting .336.

Signing on as player-manager of the Manchester (New Hampshire) Club of the New England League, Clinton had high hopes for 1888. At a benefit for the club in March, he proclaimed: “We don’t want the earth; only a small portion of it; we want the championship of the New England League.”41 Calling Clinton “one of the very old-timers,” the Boston Globe noted that he “can still hit the ball and field with the best of them.”42 

The good feelings were not to last, however, and Clinton batting .315 was not enough to lift his team out of its doldrums. By late June, the Manchesters’ record was 18-21 and the club was at the bottom of the NEL standings. An uncharacteristically angry Clinton even drew a $10 fine for using bad language to an umpire.43 He was released by the Manchesters in early July. The Boston Globe opined that he had “made a bad mistake” going to the team in the first place.44   

Although rumors of offers from Charleston and Atlanta of the Southern League floated about in early 1889,45 there would be no return trip south. Instead, on March 19, Clinton was appointed an umpire in the Atlantic Association, one of the minor leagues governed by the National Agreement.46 This stint lasted only about two months and ended with Clinton being “removed” from the Atlantic Association’s umpiring crew in mid-June. The exact cause of removal is not known, but the report of an early season Boston-Jersey City match hints at problems: “Jim Clinton, formerly of the Manchesters, umpired, and his work, in the main, was pretty bad. He made some very telling decisions and the clubs suffered about alike. … Kelly was hit by a pitched ball, but the umpire did not see it. … Clinton made an outrageous decision in calling Kelly out at second. …”47 

The Clipper reported in July, “The veteran James L. Clinton says that he has given up umpiring, and wants to get an engagement again as a player with one of the minor league teams.”48 There is no evidence he ever made any inroads on this wish, though speculation persisted as late as 1896 that he could return to the umpiring ranks.49 

Though no longer directly involved in organized ball, Clinton kept up with current happenings. He was among the “prominent persons” at the February 1894 NL-AA meeting,50 one of the “interested persons” at the Eastern League meeting in December 1895,51 and among “the baseball men seen around the corridors” at the annual NL spring meeting in February 1896.52 

Clinton’s eldest son, James Jr., for a time sought to follow in his father’s footsteps. He had a tryout with New Haven of the Connecticut State League in 1899, then moved on to Norwich, also of the Connecticut league, and Newark of the Atlantic League, playing a total of about 30 games for the season.53 The next year he joined Petersburg of the Virginia League, batting .259 in 36 games, until the team disbanded in June. His baseball career was brief and, more sadly, so was his life. James Jr. became the second of Jim and Lillie’s children to predecease his parents, dying on May 6, 1901, of scarlet fever, at the age of 23. His obituary referred to his father as “one of the best known old-time ball players in this section of the country.”54 

A December 1896 notice in the Brooklyn Times Union proclaimed: “Good News For Mr. Clinton,” explaining that Clinton, “who is identified with the management of a Thirteenth ward hotel,” had just received word from a law firm in Oakland that land he and a fellow Atlantics player bought on a Western tour in 1874 had increased in value to $20,000. The surprised Clinton asserted that either he or his friend would “go on to Oakland to investigate,” hoping that an even “better price might be secured.”55 It is not known what came of this venture.

Clinton was a bartender in multiple New York establishments from at least 1900 onward. A brief note in the Daily Eagle said he was “in business in the Eastern District” in 1897.56 A 1907 newspaper blurb about a friend of Clinton’s, a welterweight boxer named Kid Williams, discloses that Clinton was then bartending at J.P. Stanton’s Cafe at the Lincoln Hotel in Queens.57 

At the time of the 1905 New York State Census, the two youngest Clinton children, Joseph and Mary, were still living with their parents in Brooklyn. By 1910, Mary was the last child still at home, age 20, employed as a stenographer. Wife Lillian died on January 16, 1914, at the age of 57. 

Finally, the Brooklyn Standard Union of Tuesday, September 6, 1921, carried the following obituary notice for the old-time ballplayer who had died the preceding Saturday, September 3, at the age of 71: 

“Funeral services are being held today for James L. Clinton, former member of the

Baltimore Orioles, who died Saturday at his home, 768 Grand street. Interment will be 

made this afternoon at Calvary Cemetery.”58 

Jim Clinton’s obituary oddly singled out his time with the Baltimore club, to the exclusion even of the many Brooklyn teams for whom he toiled. His connection to the City of Monuments was also evident in the wistful poetic exercise of a Baltimore Sun reader who, in 1912, versified a vision of his youth in Baltimore, surveying a myriad of people and places he remembered there from the “eighties”:

I tell you, folks, this dream took me to every part of town.

I even saw a baseball game out on the York road lot –

Bob Emslie in the pitcher’s box, with Henderson and Trott.

I saw old Traffley, Fulmer, York and Jimmy Clinton, too;

This bunch looked good to all the fans ’round eighteen eighty-two.59

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted 

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

Familysearch.org

StatsCrew.com/minorbaseball

Nemec, David. Major League Baseball Profiles: 1871-1900, Volume 1 (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 2011).

Notes 

1 He is also very likely the third baseman identified as “Clayton” and “Cloton” “playing for the amateur Orientals of New York on September 30 and October 16.

2 New York Clipper, April 30, 1870: 29.

3 New York Clipper, May 7, 1870: 36.

4 New York Clipper, May 14, 1870: 45.

5 New York Clipper, May 17, 1873: 53. 

6 New York Clipper, March 14, 1874: 397.

7 New York Clipper, May 22, 1875: 61.

8 New York World, May 12, 1875: 8.

9 Brooklyn Times Union, May 27, 1875: 3.

10 New York Clipper, August 28, 1875: 170.

11 New York Clipper, August 28, 1875: 173.

12 Louisville Courier-Journal, March 17, 1876: 4.

13 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 26, 1876: 8.

14 New York Clipper, November 10, 1883: 559, and Chicago Daily Tribune, March 4, 1877: 8. The League Alliance consisted of about a dozen “minor” professional and semipro clubs in different sections of the country, affiliated through an agreement with the NL meant to protect players (and teams) from contract raiding.

15 New York Clipper, May 12, 1877: 50. “For the first time in the history of the national game fifteen innings had been played without a run being credited to either side.” 

16 New York Clipper, October 12, 1878: 229.

17 New York Clipper, November 29, 1879: 282.

18 New York Clipper, September 11, 1880: 197. 

19 New York Herald, October 17, 1881: 11.

20 New York Clipper, December 31, 1881: 676.

21 New York Clipper, June 10, 1882: 191.

22 New York Clipper, November 8, 1884: 540.

23 Cincinnati Post, November13, 1884: 3.

24 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 13, 1885: 8.

25 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 22, 1885: 6.

26 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, July 8, 1885: 3.

27 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 11, 1885: 3.

28 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 24, 1885: 2.

29 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 27, 1885: 3.

30 Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, August 29, 1885: 6.

31 New York Clipper, October 31, 1885: 522.

32 Sporting Life, May 26, 1886: 5; New York Clipper, May 29, 1886: 164.

33 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 20, 1886: 2.

34 New York Tribune, May 20, 1886: 2.

35 Baltimore Sun, May 28, 1886: 2, Supplement.

36 Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 14, 1886: 5.

37 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 20, 1887: 7.

38 The Sporting News, May 21, 1887: 4.

39 The Sporting News, August13, 1887: 1.

40 The Sporting News, August 27, 1887: 4.

41 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 18, 1888: 6.

42 Boston Globe, May 11, 1888: 11.

43 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 27, 1888: 6.

44 Boston Globe, July 10, 1888: 5.

45 Philadelphia Times, March 17, 1889: 16; The Sporting News, March 30, 1889: 5.

46 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 20, 1889: 4, and April 19, 1889: 1.

47 Boston Herald, April 19, 1889: 4.

48 New York Clipper, July 6, 1889: 277.

49 St. Louis Republic, December 18, 1889: 6; Kentucky Post, December 20, 1895: 7; New York Clipper, January 4, 1896: 699.

50 New York Clipper, March 10, 1894: 9.

51 New York Clipper, December 21, 1895: 668.

52 Boston Globe, February 25, 1896: 2.

53 His obituary in the Brooklyn Times Union says he played in the Virginia League in 1900 and with Newark the year before (1899). StatsCrew.com lists “James Clinton” with New Haven in 1899 and with Petersburg, Virginia, in 1900. But it also lists a “Henry Clinton” with Norwich and Newark in 1899. It would appear that he played under the second name for parts of 1899, and that James and Henry must be the same person.

54 Brooklyn Times Union, May 7, 1901: 8.

55 Brooklyn Times Union, December 11, 1896: 1.

56 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 12, 1897: 9.

57 Middletown Orange County Times Press, July 19, 1907: 2.

58 Brooklyn Standard Union, September 6, 1921: 4.

59 Baltimore Sun, February 25, 1912: 26. The poem, “A Child Just for a Night,” was signed “Peter A. Fahey, Cleveland, Ohio, 1912.” The author was slightly off in assigning the date of 1882 to the players named in the poem. Clinton, Henderson, and Emslie didn’t join the Orioles until 1883; Trott, York, and Traffley, not until 1884; Fulmer, not until 1886. All but Fulmer did play together in Baltimore in 1884.