August 22, 1886: Abner Powell’s canine calamity aids Chicken Wolf’s game-winning home run for Louisville

On August 22, 1886—a Sunday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky—fans were treated to one of the most exciting games of the American Association season. What happened that day involving Abner Powell of the Cincinnati Reds and Jimmy “Chicken” Wolf of the Louisville Colonels is immortalized in baseball history on such twenty-first century sites as Baseball Almanac.1

A crowd of 6,000 filled the stands at Eclipse Park to see their hometown Colonels square off against the Reds2 in the finale of a four-game series. The Colonels, 59-40-1, were chasing the first-place St. Louis Browns, who were ahead by eight games with a 67-32 record. Louisville captured two wins over the Reds after losing the first one, at Cincinnati, on August 18. The Reds stood in fifth place in the eight-team league at 51-50.

Louisville’s skipper Jim Hart had his star 30-year-old right-hander Guy Hecker in the box. Just one week before, on August 15, Hecker had a brilliant game in which he hit three home runs, three singles, scored seven runs, and pitched a complete-game victory over Baltimore.3 Hecker was the loser in the August 18 game to the Reds, 9-4.4 Cincinnati manager O. P. “Opie” Caylor lined up 24-year-old right-hander George Pechiney . The second-year prospect was coming off a loss to the Colonels on Thursday, 6-3.5 Sunday’s game turned out to be a close, low-scoring duel.

In the 1880s home teams often chose to bat first, as Louisville did in this game.6 The scoring began in the top of the second inning when Louisville’s native son, right fielder Wolf, “knocked a splendid fly over the right-field fence, making the circuit of the bases amid tremendous applause,” according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.7 The game reporter went on to write that this was only the second time in the 1886 season that a batter had hit a home run over the right-field fence at Eclipse Park.8

The Cincinnati club tied the score in the bottom of the third. With one out, catcher Clarence “Kid” Baldwin singled, and Pechiney batted next. There were five balls called—in 1886 six balls were required for a walk in the American Association9—and the next delivery by Hecker was described as a “dewdrop,”10 which Pechiney launched over Lou Sylvester in center field for a triple. Baldwin scored.

The tight game continued with no more scoring until the 10th inning. Newspaper reports described dazzling fielding plays: “(Cincinnati’s (Bid) McPhee covered second base in grand style,” “(Louisville third baseman Joe) Werrick made a splendid catch of Powell’s hot drive in the fourth inning”, and “Sylvester cut off (Frank) Fennelly’s long drive past centerfield and made a side catch” in the sixth inning. Others “captured fly balls by almost superhuman efforts.”11 There were also several errors and eight safe hits by the teams through nine innings, but the pitching was strong and stingy.

In the 10th, Louisville scored twice. Sylvester hit a fly ball toward the right-field fence for a double. Leadoff hitter and first baseman Jack Kerins came up and grounded one to McPhee. The Reds second baseman threw to third baseman Hick Carpenter, who muffed the ball when Sylvester, per the Cincinnati Enquirer, “came up like a cannon-shot and the ball was knocked out of Carpenter’s hands.”12 Sylvester was ruled safe by umpire John Kelly, and amid “hostilities” Kerins made it to second. While Hecker was up at bat, catcher Baldwin tried to throw to third to catch Sylvester off the base, but the ball struck the tip of Hecker’s bat and bounced away, allowing both runners to score. The crowd erupted with cheers and “crazy shouting.”13 Louisville was ahead, 3-1.

Cincinnati began the bottom half of the 10th with singles by Pop Corkhill and Carpenter. John Reilly walked to load the bases with none out, and Louisville’s lead was in jeopardy. After Baldwin popped up to Werrick for the first out, Pechiney followed with a hit over second base, scoring Corkhill and Carpenter to even the score. Shortstop Fennelly hit into a fielder’s choice at second and Reilly moved to third. McPhee grounded out shortstop to first, stranding Reilly. Louisville fans were relieved, and after 10 innings it was tied, 3-3.

In the top of the 11th, Wolf led off. He again struck a long one, this time over center fielder Powell and to the fence. Powell gave chase, and a small dog spending time near the outfield fence decided to scamper after Powell.

Here are three newspaper accounts of what happened:

• “Powell, who dashed after it, was considerably annoyed by a small dog which also chased after the ball and several times got in the way of the fielder;”14
• “A small dog caught Powell by the leg and held him several seconds, while Wolf crossed the plate amid tremendous cheering;”15
• “When the eleventh inning began the crowd was howling with excitement like lunatics, and when Jimmy Wolf punched another home run into center field pandemonium broke loose. The ball went clear over Powell to the fence, and when the fielder went after it a pug-dog took him by the left leg of his pantaloons, but Powell did not even pause in his mad career. Jimmy Wolf got home ahead of the ball, however.”16

This hilarious inside-the-park home run thrilled onlookers and has been indelibly etched into baseball annals.

The inning was not over, and Louisville shortstop Bill White followed with a three-bagger over Charley Jones’ head in left. Reddy Mack, actually a native Irishman named Joseph McNamara, popped out to McPhee. Sylvester hit one to first baseman Reilly, who while trying to stop it fell sprawling on the ground. Reilly had the ball knocked out of his hand when trying to tag Sylvester.

White scored on the play to make it 5-3 midway through the 11th inning. Cincinnati had a last chance in its half, but was held scoreless by Guy Hecker, who yielded seven hits in his complete-game victory.

This game featured many stars of the American Association, and the league was a worthy adversary competing for players with the established National League for several years of its existence from 1882 to 1891. Bid McPhee, Jimmy Wolf, Pete Browning, and Guy Hecker were all prominent players for the AA. McPhee is in the Hall of Fame, and Wolf played in all 10 years of the AA, holding the record for games played, total bases and hits.17 Hecker led the Association in wins, ERA and strikeouts in 1884. He was awarded the lone batting title ever won by a pitcher when his .341 batting average topped the .340 of teammate Browning in 1886.18 As of 2026, he’s the only player besides Babe Ruth to win both an ERA title and a batting title.

In 1886 Louisville slumped toward the end, finishing 66-70-2 and in fourth place. Their win on August 22 gave them one more than Cincinnati, who finished 65-73-3. The dominant Browns won 93 games and the title, then on October 23 beat the Chicago White Stockings of the National League, 4-3, clinching the 1886 World Championship Series four games to two.

Abner Powell joined the New Orleans club of the Southern League in 1887 at the age of 26, and became an important figure in baseball, helping form the Southern Association in 1900, which lasted for 61 years. He played for, managed, and owned several minor league teams in his 22-year professional career and was responsible for the innovation of the detachable rain check ticket stub in the late 1890s while with the New Orleans Pelicans.19

Jimmy “Chicken” Wolf won the batting title in 1890 with a .363 average and led Louisville to the AA championship. He had a total of three homers in 1886, and 18 in his 10-year career in the AA. Not many home runs in baseball history are as memorable or unusual as his game-winner in 1886.

Author’s Note 

The author is a great-grandson of Charles “Abner” Powell, and appreciates the conversations he had with his father, Eugene J. Gomes Jr., about Abner Powell.

Photo: 2025 Topps Allen & Ginter Abner Powell card (#251) in the author’s collection.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information.

Notes

1 “Baseball History on August 22,” Baseball-Almanac.com, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/history/today.php?d=08-22, accessed July 26, 2026.

2 David Nemec, The Beer & Whiskey League: The Illustrated History of the American Association-Baseball’s Renegade Major League (Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2004), 61. The Cincinnati club was known as the Red Stockings at the outset of the American Association, owing to their history dating back to 1876. When they were ousted from the National League prior to the 1881 season, they nevertheless kept the Red Stockings name after joining the AA in 1882. By 1884 they were being called the Reds. Cincinnati rejoined the National League in 1890, and so the present-day Cincinnati franchise can trace its uninterrupted history to 1882.

3 “Enough For One Day: The Louisvilles Win a Game From Kilroy and Another Off Conway. Hecker Breaks the Batting Record With Three Home Runs and Three Singles,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 16, 1886:2.

4 “Couldn’t Bat Mullane: The Home Team Defeated at Cincinnati, the Score Being 9 to 4,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 19, 1886: 6. The teams played the first game at Cincinnati, then the next three at Louisville.

5 “Ramsey’s Curves: Cincinnati Defeated Yesterday in a Fine Game at Eclipse Park,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 20, 1886:6

6 Gary Belleville, “The Death and Rebirth of the Home Team Batting First,” SABR Spring 2023 Baseball Research Journal, Volume 52, Number 1: 7. The practice of home teams choosing to bat first drastically decreased by 1901. Formal rules changes in 1950 and 2007 specified situations when home teams would bat first, but only in extenuating circumstances.

7 “Its Sixtieth Victory: The Louisville Club Defeats the Cincinnatis in a Great Eleven-Inning Contest,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 23, 1886: 2.

8 “Its Sixtieth Victory”.

9  Stew Thornley, “Baseball Playing Rules Changes Year by Year before 1950,” https://retrosheet.org/rules/PlayingRulesYearbyYearPre1950.pdf. In 1886 the AA specified six balls for a walk, -Rule 45(1) in the AA rule book. In 1884 and 1885 it was seven. In 1887 both the National League and the AA both specified five balls for a walk, -Rule 48(2) of the common rule book for the NL and AA.

10 “Its Sixtieth Victory”.

11 “Its Sixtieth Victory”.

12 “An Exciting Game. Between the Cincinnatis and Louisvilles. Wolf’s Home Run Wins the Game for Hecker’s Team,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 23, 1886: 2.

13 “An Exciting Game”; The report in the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper described the throw from catcher Baldwin hitting Hecker “plump in the back, and the ball bounded away to the left.”

14 “Its Sixtieth Victory”.

15 “An Eleven-Inning Game at Louisville,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, August 23, 1886: 4.

16 “An Exciting Game”.

17 Nemec, 245.    

18 Bob Bailey, “August 15, 1886: Guy Hecker: hitting pitcher,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-15-1886-guy-hecker-hitting-pitcher/, accessed July 16, 2026.  

19 Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations that Shaped Baseball: The Game Behind the Scenes, Volume 2 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, 411-412; Gene Gomes, “Abner Powell,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/abner-powell/, accessed July 16, 2026. The author was able to contact an official of the ticket company in 2019 to get more accurate specifics on the date.