James Peter Archer was born in Dublin, Ireland, on May 13, 1883. His family moved to Montreal when he was an infant, and by the time he was three the Archers had settled in Toronto. Jimmy played baseball at St. Michael’s College and in the Toronto City League. During the winter of 1902, the 19-year-old Archer was working as a barrel maker at a cooperage in Toronto when he fell into a vat of boiling oak sap, scalding his right arm and leg so badly that he was hospitalized for three months. Jimmy was in so much pain during his hospitalization that he begged for his arm to be amputated. As a result of the accident, the tendon in his right arm shrunk and made his right arm shorter than his left. Jimmy was left with a unique strength; he always claimed that the accident was what gave him his unique ability to throw quickly and accurately from a squatting position.

Archer’s career in professional baseball began when a friend, Tom Reynolds, invited him to join the team from Fargo, North Dakota, that he was managing in 1903. Under no contract and making little money, Jimmy batted .225 in 20 games before jumping to an independent team in Manitoba that offered more money. The following year he played in the Iowa State League with Boone, where he met his future wife, Lillian Stark. His season was briefly interrupted when he broke his collarbone by crashing into a hitching post while chasing a pop fly, but he returned in time to hit .299 in 72 games. Near the end of 1904 Archer received a September trial with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Making his major-league debut on Labor Day, he appeared in seven games, all of them second games of doubleheaders, and managed three singles in 20 at-bats.

The Pirates optioned Archer to Atlanta of the Southern Association in 1905, where he cracked his kneecap when Bugs Raymond crossed him up with a curve after he had signaled for a fastball (they sewed it back together with two silver threads). He spent two seasons with the Crackers, hitting .254 and .224, and in 1907 he received a second chance at the majors with Detroit. Serving as third-string catcher behind Boss Schmidt and Freddie Payne, Archer batted a paltry .119 and caught only 17 games during the regular season, but he got the start in Game Five of that year’s World Series because the Cub base runners were having a field day at the expense of the other two Tiger catchers. The Cubs stole three bases off of Jimmy, but two came on a “walking” double steal in which no throw was made. Though hitless in his three at-bats against Mordecai Brown, who pitched a shutout, Archer did manage to cut down Jimmy Slagle, Chicago’s leader in stolen bases with six during the Series, at second base in the seventh inning.

In 1908 Detroit manager Hughie Jennings tried to teach Archer to take a step towards the base when he throws, the way most catchers do, but Jimmy preferred his natural “flat-footed” method. Concluding that the young catcher was uncoachable—and also not much of a hitter—Jennings decided to release him, though he later admitted that it was the only player-release decision he ever regretted. Clark Griffith, then managing the New York Highlanders, said that he never would have permitted Archer to leave the American League if he hadn’t been at his ranch in Montana when Detroit requested waivers. “If I had that fellow I’d work him every day just to watch him peg,” said Griffith. “There is not another man in his class when it comes to shooting the ball. He is faster than chained lightning, and he never has to take a step to get the ball to any of the bases. Kling isn’t in it when it comes to keeping the runners glued to the bags.”

Alas, Griffith was in Montana and Archer did clear waivers, so Jennings sent him to Buffalo where he batted just .208 in 82 games in 1908. One of those games occurred on an off-day for the Chicago Cubs as they were traveling east, and manager Frank Chance stopped off in Buffalo to scout George McConnell, a spitball pitcher who was tearing up the Eastern League. Around the fourth inning a friend who was with the Peerless Leader asked, “Well, what do you think of the pitcher?” “Pitcher!” exclaimed Chance. “It’s the catcher I’ve been watching.” Months later the Cubs manager learned that Archer had risen from a sickbed that day because the other Buffalo backstops had refused to catch McConnell’s spitter. When star catcher Johnny Kling elected to hold out, Chance remembered the gritty Buffalo backstop and purchased him to share the catching duties with Pat Moran.

Archer caught 80 games in 1909 and improved his batting average to .231, but Kling returned in 1910 and reclaimed the starting position. Archer caught 49 games that season and spelled Frank Chance at first base in another 40, raising his batting average to .259 and showing some power (30% of his hits were for extra bases). In the 1910 World Series, Kling started at catcher for the first three games, with Archer seeing action at first base in Game Three after Chance was ejected. Archer started at catcher for the final two games, as Kling was criticized for calling too many fastballs with men on base. Jimmy played well in Game Four, the only Cubs victory, scoring the winning run after doubling in the 10th inning, but in the decisive Game Five he allowed four stolen bases and the A’s won easily.

Archer supplanted Kling as the first-string catcher in 1911, prompting the Cubs to trade the popular Kling to Boston in June. Jimmy remained the primary Cubs backstop through 1916, putting together his best season in 1912 when he batted a career-high .283 and led the National League in assists. He remained the NL’s premier catcher through 1914, when he broke his arm crashing into a concrete wall in Brooklyn and was arrested in October for assaulting a fan he thought was annoying his wife (charges were dropped a week later). He shared the catching duties with player-manager Roger Bresnahan in 1915 and three other catchers in 1916. In 1917 the Cubs released the 34-year-old Archer when he refused to take a pay cut. He was the last remaining player from the Frank Chance era.

Jimmy agreed to help out the Pirates during spring training in 1918, but he quickly earned first-string status and started on Opening Day. Pittsburgh released him after he hit only .155 in 24 games. Brooklyn picked up Archer for nine games and then sold him to Cincinnati, where he closed out his career by appearing in nine more games. After suffering 14 broken fingers, Jimmy felt that his hands could no longer take the punishment.

After his baseball career, Archer returned to the Chicago area and worked for Armour and Company, buying hogs. In 1931 he received a medal for reviving two workers who had fallen unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning. An outstanding bowler, Jimmy served as the promotional director for the Congress of Professional Bowling Alleys. He also was the commissioner of the Chicago softball league and remained active in the Old-Timer’s Baseball Association. Archer died from a coronary occlusion on March 29, 1958, in a Milwaukee hospital where he was being treated for tuberculosis of the spine. He is interred in his wife’s hometown of Boone, Iowa, where he played in 1904. In 1990 Jimmy Archer was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

NOTE: An earlier version of this biography appeared in Tom Simon, ed., Deadball Stars of the National League (Washington, D. C.: Brassey’s Inc., 2004).

Sources

Ethan Allen. Major League Technique and Tactics. MacMillan, 1938.

Lawrence Ritter. Glory of Their Times. MacMillan, 1966.

New York World, 10/15/1914, 10/23/1914, 1/10/1917, 2/22/1917, 5/31/1917, 7/11/1917.

New York Evening Telegram, 5/29/1909, 7/15/1913.

New York Herald, 9/17/1912.

Baseball Magazine, Dec. 1912, Feb.1913, Dec.1913, Oct. 1917

Baseball Digest, Feb.1944

Letter to J.C. Simoni from Mrs. Walter Stark

1930 U.S. Census

Wisconsin State Board of Health Death Certificate

New York Times, 3/31/1958

Jimmy Archer file at the Baseball Hall of Fame library

The Sporting News, miscellaneous clippings.

Thomas Henry Bond was born on April 2, 1856 in Granard, Ireland. His father, William, was English and his mother, Alicia, Irish. According to Naturalization records, the family came to the United States in June, 1862 and settled in Brooklyn.2 Like most boys of the time, Bond played sandlot baseball and was talented enough to draw attention from the better teams. In 1873 he was listed in the spring as captain of the semipro Washington Nine, but did not appear in the team’s box scores. He did play for the Brooklyn Athletics, a more prominent semipro team, in 1873.

Bond’s professional career began in 1874 with the Brooklyn Atlantics in the National Association. He got off to a triumphant start on May 5 when the Atlantics drubbed Baltimore 24-3. Bond not only pitched brilliantly, but he had two hits and scored three times. He saved his finest effort for late in the season. On October 20 he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the New York Mutuals. With two outs, first baseman Joe Start doubled to break up what would have been the first-ever major-league no-hitter.

The Atlantics played a 55-game schedule. Bond was the pitcher of record in every game except on July 18. The teenager toiled 497 innings to earn his 22-32 record. The squad finished in sixth place. At bat Bond hit .220, better than three position players, and his 10 doubles were tied for the team lead.

Manager Bob Ferguson moved on to the Hartford Dark Blues in 1875. Bond joined the team and shared pitching duties with Candy Cummings. Hartford finished in third place. In the box, Bond pitched in 40 games tossing 37 complete games. He had a 19-16 record with a sizzling .878 WHIP and 1.41 ERA, both the best for any pitcher with over 100 innings. In addition to his pitching duties the teenager played outfield and some infield. He took the field in 72 games and batted 289 times with a .266 average and was fifth on the team in extra-base hits.

The National Association dissolved in 1875 and was replaced by the National League. Hartford joined the new circuit and posted a 47-21 record, good for second place behind Chicago. Bond took over as the number one hurler, with Cummings acting as the change pitcher. Bond made 45 starts, all complete games, and pitched 408 innings with a .902 WHIP and 1.68 ERA. He was 31-13 with one tie. At the plate he hit .275 tying him with Jack Remsen for second on the squad.

His won-loss mark might have been more impressive had he not run into St. Louis hurler George Bradley in mid- July. Over a three-game stretch, Bradley shutout the Dark Blues and Bond three times. He furthered the insult by authoring a no-hitter in the third game on July 15. Bradley’s gem was the first no-hitter in the major leagues.

Bond might have piled up 500 innings of work had he not gotten into a disagreement with Ferguson and club management. Bond accused Ferguson of throwing a game against Boston. Director Morgan G. Bulkeley sided with Ferguson and offered $1,300 for proof that Ferguson had thrown the game. Unable to provide proof, Bond was suspended by the team. Bond issued a retraction, but the suspension was not lifted.3 Cummings, who had only worked four games through August, pitched the remaining 20 games starting September 5.

The Boston Red Stockings took advantage of the situation and signed Bond for the 1877 season. Bond was now in his physical prime and, though he stood only 5-foot-7 and weighed 160 pounds, had an excellent curveball to go with his speed. In later life he also claimed to have thrown his own version of a spitball. He claimed that he kept a wet sponge to moisten his fingers. Catcher Charley Snyder, a teammate in Boston, confirmed that with wet fingers Bond could get “a peculiar shoot on his ball.”4

Bond joined a Boston roster that included four future Hall of Famers: George and Harry Wright, Deacon White, and Jim O’Rourke. Bond pitched all but three games that season; Will White, Deacon’s brother, pitched the other three. The team took the pennant with a 42-18 mark while Bond sported a 40-17 record. Bond threw 521 innings on his way to the pitcher’s Triple Crown. He had a 2.11 ERA and 170 strikeouts. He also led the league in winning percentage and WHIP.

The 1878 season was nearly a carbon copy. Boston won the pennant with a 41-19 record. Bond pitched 532 2/3 innings, leaving a mere 11 1/3 for Jack Manning. Bond was 40-19 and led the league in strikeouts again. After batting .228 in 1877 he dropped off to .212. In both years he saw a few innings of action in the outfield. In the offseason he worked in a grocery store in Boston and quite likely started courting Louise Siebert.

The National League expanded the schedule by 40% in 1879. Boston posted a 54-30 record, but finished in second-place behind the Providence Grays. Left-hander Curry Foley was brought in to serve as change pitcher for Bond and tossed 16 complete games. This help did nothing to lighten Bond’s load. He hurled 555 1/3 innings and completed 59 of his 64 starts. This performance gave him a mind-blowing 1609 innings of work in three seasons. He also made a few appearances in the outfield and at first base, batting .241 in 70 games.

Bond wed Louise on December 12, 1879. The Sieberts were of German descent and Fred Siebert, her father, was a leather merchant in Boston. The couple moved in with her family and Bond was welcomed into the family business.

Rookie catcher Phil Powers was matched with Bond in 1880. Powers was not as skilled as Bond’s previous batterymates and it affected his performance. More importantly Bond’s arm began to give out. Manager Harry Wright slightly lessened his workload to a mere 493 innings. However Bond saw more action in the field than ever before getting 282 at-bats and hitting .220. In the box he posted a 26-29 record.

The National League lengthened the pitching distance from 45 to 50 feet in 1881. Bond’s arm was getting weaker and the added distance made for a greater struggle. After a 9-0 bludgeoning by Detroit where he surrendered 19 hits, he retired. The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune reported “that the fifty-foot rule has shelved Tommy Bond as a pitcher.”5 He joined a brother in New York in business in June, but by November had returned to Boston where he would reside until his death.

Bond worked out with the Harvard baseball team in the March, 1882. He tutored the pitchers and worked on a new delivery of his own. Encouraged by what he felt was a “new life” he signed with the Worchester Ruby Legs in the National League. Bond’s optimism proved ill-advised and he was able to throw in only two games. Unwilling to give up the dream, he played some outfield and even served as manager for six games. In June, he and first baseman Ed Cogswell both retired with lame arms. In August there were press reports that Bond would join the Louisville Eclipse of the American Association. These proved unfounded, but he did play with the Memphis Eckfords, a semipro team.

The following year Bond did not play professionally. That did not keep him off the diamond. In September umpire W.E. Furlong resigned and Bond was hired to work the last weeks of the season. His first appearance came September 3 when he worked the Boston-Providence game in Providence. For the most part, reviews of his work the rest of the season were favorable.

In 1884, Bond was approached by Harry Wright and Tim Murnane to join the Boston franchise in the new Union Association. Now 28, Bond took the box again with a new shoulder-level delivery that gave him speed and sharpened his curve. His demeanor was an early issue, the press reporting that he complained too much about trivial issues. He started 21 games and posted a 13-9 record. He also played 14 games in the field and posted a career-best .296 average with eight doubles in 162 at-bats. Bond and Boston parted ways in July and he signed with the American Association Indianapolis Hoosiers. He took the field on July 19 and dropped his first game to Toledo, 8-4. He pitched five complete games, losing them all and posting a 5.65 ERA. He wisely called an end to his career and returned to Boston.

Bond applied to be an umpire in National League in 1885 and did work games. In August, Sporting Life noted that he called more men out for failing to touch a base than any other umpire.6 The rest of his work must have been sub-par because he was replaced by John Gaffney later that month. In 1886 he returned to the field and pitched for Brockton, Massachusetts in the New England League. Sporting Life reported he won his first three games, but he was released soon after. He was a substitute umpire for the International League late that season. In the coming years he worked as an umpire in the New England leagues and on the college circuit.

At home, he and Louise would welcome three children – Helen, Edward and Fred. He worked in the Siebert family business before taking a job in the Boston Assessor’s Office. The city job lasted for 35 years until he retired. Bond became a prominent member of the Masons and the Odd Fellows.

Louise passed away in 1933. Bond later moved into his daughter’s home. His last baseball appearance was a 1936 Old-Timers gathering where, at age 80, he still played catch with teammates. On January 24, 1941 he passed away in Helen’s home. He was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.

Notes

In his later years, Cleary was sanguine about his one-third of an inning pitched in the major leagues. “You know, in the neighborhood bars they kid me,” Cleary told author Brent Kelley. “I take an awful needlin’ about that, that one appearance. The main thing I get kidded about is the earned run average; it’s the highest in major league history, you know. [laughs] But I always say to them, ‘I was there.'”

Joseph Christopher Cleary was born on December 3, 1918, in Cork, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1928. His family settled on the West Side of New York City, where Cleary attended the High School of Commerce. One of the school’s most famous alumni was Lou Gehrig, who led Commerce to the New York City high school baseball championship in 1920. Commerce was renamed in 1965 as Louis D. Brandeis High School.

In Cleary’s senior year, in the spring of 1938, he led Commerce to a tie for the Manhattan-Bronx Public School Athletic League title. In the process he earned a headline in the New York Times: “Commerce Scores to Tie for Crown: Cleary Holds Seward to Pair of Hits for 12-1 Victory in Manhattan-Bronx Game.” The opening paragraph of the game story extolled Cleary’s exploits that day: “With its star twirler Joe Cleary, permitting only two hits and striking out ten, the High School of Commerce nine beat Seward Park, 12-1, at Washington Stadium yesterday, and went into a tie with Morris High for the Manhattan-Bronx P.S.A.L. title. Cleary also excelled at the plate, contributing a triple, double and single.” Commerce, however, lost the playoff for the title to Morris High, 2-1. “Joe Cleary’s wildness lost the game for Commerce,” the Times reported on June 8. “Although he allowed only one hit he walked seven batters. Four of these passes came in the fifth inning and forced in what turned out to be the winning tally.”

Cleary’s arm may have been tired in that playoff game, since at the time he was pitching not only for Commerce High but also under an assumed name for local semipro ballclubs. Cleary helped to support his family with the cash he got pitching for Bay Parkway and the Puerto Rican Stars in the Metropolitan Baseball Association. “It was during the Depression and my dad was out of work and a dollar was hard to come by,” Cleary told author Richard Tellis. “When I played for the Puerto Rican Stars, I had to play under the name of Jose Hernandez ’cause I was also pitching for Commerce High. One night at Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey, I was warming up on the sidelines to pitch against the Union City Reds, and the public address announcer says, ‘And pitching for the Puerto Rican Stars, number such-and-such, Jose Hernandez.’ Now the Union City manager was standing right next to me on the field. And here I am, red-haired, blue-eyed, you know Irish all over, and he looks at me in disbelief and says, ‘Jose Hernandez!'”

After graduating from the High School of Commerce, Cleary says, he passed up college scholarships to play baseball in order to earn money playing semipro ball. He also got good exposure as a pitcher, as the Metropolitan Baseball Association clubs not only drew large crowds to their night games in the New York City area, they also played against Negro League teams and barnstorming teams like the House of David. In the summer of 1940, Cleary, pitching for a Danbury, Connecticut, semipro team, caught the attention of Joe Cambria, who signed him to a contract with the Springfield, Massachusetts, team in the Class A Eastern League. Cleary pitched in a few games for Springfield at the end of the 1940 season.

Cleary’s performance with Springfield was enough for the Washington Nationals of the American League to invite the 22-year-old pitcher to spring training in 1941. He was one of 39 players invited to train with the Nationals in Orlando, Florida, including 16 pitchers, as Washington manager Bucky Harris sought to improve upon the club’s next-to-last-place finish in the American League in 1940. “The lightest [candidate] is 160-pound Joe Cleary,” The Sporting News reported in January 1941, “who won none and lost one game for Springfield of the Eastern League in 1940.” Washington didn’t keep Cleary on the roster for the regular season, cutting him after an intrasquad game in March.

Washington left Cleary in Orlando to pitch for its farm club in the Florida State League during the 1941 season. After the United States entered World War II in late 1941, Cleary joined the Army and served a two-year stint, missing the 1942 baseball season. After his discharge from the Army, Cleary returned to the Washington organization and pitched the 1942 season for Buffalo and the next year  for Chattanooga in the Class A Southern Association. Still with Chattanooga in 1945, Cleary, with a 10-5 record, was selected to play in the league’s all-star game, which was canceled due to wartime travel restrictions. Cleary left the team in a huff. “I was upset,” Cleary recalled, “because [Washington] told me if I did good, they’d call me up, but they didn’t.”

Short on pitching, Washington owner Clark Griffith contacted Cleary and asked him to join the Nationals. That July, the Nats were in second place and fighting for the American League pennant, but, because of rainouts, faced a string of doubleheaders. Washington played its fifth consecutive doubleheader on Saturday, August 4, at Griffith Stadium. After the Nationals won the opening game over the Boston Red Sox, Cleary got his major league opportunity in the second game.

In the fourth inning of the second game, with the score tied 2-2, starting pitcher Sandy Ullrich surrendered four runs to the Red Sox; the last batter Ullrich faced was Tom McBride, who hit a bases-loaded triple to make the score 6-2. Cleary relieved Ullrich and proceeded to face nine batters, but retired only one, striking out Boston pitcher Dave Ferriss. Cleary walked three batters and gave up five base hits, including a bases-loaded double to McBride, the last batter he faced. McBride tied a major league record with six RBIs in one inning. As described by Washington Post writer Shirley Povich, this is how the fourth inning progressed for Cleary: “Metkovich singled, Camilli walked. Fox singled, Newsome walked, Garbark singled, Ferriss fanned. Lake singled, LaForest walked. McBride doubled, Shepard relieved Cleary.” When Cleary left the game, Boston had scored 12 runs in the fourth inning, seven of which were charged to Cleary, to go ahead 14-2. Bert Shepard, who had an artificial leg, struck out Metkovich to end the inning and went on the pitch the remainder of the game, chalking up 5 1/3 innings in his only major league appearance.

The way Cleary was replaced in the game really irked him, and his reaction to it contributed to his never again pitching in the major leagues. “Someone threw me the ball and I’m standing on the mound rubbing it up,” Cleary recalled the incident to author Richard Tellis. “I look over at the dugout and I see [Washington manager Ossie] Bluege waving at me. He’s got one leg on the step of the dugout and he’s waving at me to come out. I thought, he’s got to be kidding. What the hell can he be thinking? No manager takes his pitcher out that way. You go to the mound. You don’t embarrass him. So I stood there rubbing the ball and waiting. [First baseman] Joe Kuhel came over and he said he never saw anything like that and he’d been around a long time. He called it bush league. I told Kuhel, ‘I’m not leaving.’ Finally, the umpire came over and said, ‘Son, I think you better go,’ so I left.” Only after Shepard reached the mound, though, to take his place. “Anyone can have a bad day, but imagine being replaced by a guy with one leg,” Cleary lamented to New York Times writer Richard Margolick in 1999. “I took 30-mile hikes in the Army that weren’t as long [as that walk to the dugout].” Cleary said Bluege then yelled an expletive at him after he sat down in the dugout. When Cleary swore back at Bluege, the Washington players had to separate the two from a fist fight. The next day Cleary’s contract was transferred to Buffalo of the International League, where Bucky Harris, the Nats’ skipper in 1941, was the manager.

Cleary attributed his ineffective pitching on August 4 to having warmed up several times in the opening game of the doubleheader, as well as early in the second game. “I already pitched the equivalent of nine or ten innings while warming up,” Cleary told author Tellis. Then there was bad luck. Cleary said his 3-2 pitch to Camilli could have been called strike three rather than ball four. And one hit, if not for a bad bounce, would have ended the inning. “He hit a beautiful double-play ball to second base, and I thought, ‘Hey, I’m out of this inning.’ But the ball takes a big hop right over the second baseman [Myatt] and goes into the outfield for a hit.” Cleary did conclude, “Well, I don’t have any excuses for what happened after that. I just got bombed.”

Because Buffalo was not a Washington farm club, Cleary was returned to the Washington organization for the 1946 season after the commissioner’s office ruled that his transfer to Buffalo for the remainder of the 1945 season had violated major league rules. Washington assigned Cleary to its Charlotte farm club in the Class B Tri-State League for the 1946 season and offered him a contract at half his 1945 salary. When Cleary balked, Washington released him to be a free agent. Cleary caught on with Jersey City of the International League. After his release from Jersey City, Cleary abandoned hopes of returning to the big leagues and focused on pitching in the minor leagues simply to earn a living.

His pitching skills, guts, and determination allowed Cleary to stay in professional baseball for several more years. “I had a great curveball,” Cleary remembered, “even though my hands were small. Even when my curve hung, they couldn’t hit it because it dropped so fast.” As for other pitches, he told author Kelley, “I had a great change of pace, but my pride would never let me throw it much. At times I was conveniently wild. You got a hit off me, look out. You went down the next time up. And I mean knockdown pitches; I don’t mean brushbacks. Now they throw a ball a little inside, they want to fight. In my time, you went down!”

In 1947, Cleary returned to the Class D Florida State League to pitch for Palatka and Gainesville. Over the next few years he also pitched for Anniston, Alabama, in the Class B Southeastern League and Augusta, Georgia, in the Class A South Atlantic League. Cleary retired from baseball after the 1950 season and returned to his home in New York City and his wife, Mary. “She was tired of me being away so much and was expecting our second child and she said, ‘That is it.’ So that was it, and I just packed it in.”

Cleary worked on Wall Street for a few years before he purchased a bar on the West Side of New York City, which he operated for more than 20 years. Cleary sold the bar and worked as a bartender before retiring at age 62 in 1982. In retirement in his neighborhood dominated by baseball-loving Dominican immigrants, “[Cleary] is a minor celebrity, who is still ribbed about his baseball career and his bloated earned run average. But he can handle it,” Margolick wrote. “‘The only answer I give them is, ‘Hey I was there. Only 14,000 guys have made it.'”

Cleary died on June 3, 2004, in Yonkers, New York, and is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. Nearly 14 years after his death, he was back in the news when P.J. Conlon of the New York Mets — born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1993 — made his major-league debut. 
 
 
Sources

Bevis, Charlie. “Major League Short Stories,” Baseball Quarterly Reviews, Vol. 2 No. 4 (1987).

Eklof, Cormac. “Irish-born Players in Major League Baseball: In Memory of Joe Cleary,”

Hurwitz, Hy. “McBride Bats in 6 Runs in One Inning to Equal Record as Sox Split With Nats,” Boston Globe, August 5, 1945.

Kelley, Brent. The Pastime in Turbulence: Interviews with Baseball Players of the 1940s, McFarland, 2001.

Margolick, David. “New Season for Stars and One-Game Wonders,” New York Times, April 4, 1999.

New York Times. “Commerce Scores to Tie for Crown: Cleary Holds Seward to Pair of Hits for 12-1 Victory in Manhattan-Bronx Game,” June 3, 1938.

Povich, Shirley. “Nats Win 7th Straight, 4 to 0; Then Bow, 15-5,” Washington Post, August 5, 1945.

The Sporting News. “’41 Senators-Elect Average 25 Years,” January 23, 1941.

Tellis, Richard. Once Around the Bases: Bittersweet Memories of Only One Game in the Majors, Triumph Books, 1998.

This profile focuses upon the last and least accomplished of the Fall River five: catcher-utilityman Andy Cusick. A teenage Irish Catholic immigrant, Cusick got a much later start on the game than the others, and his four-season major league career was a modest one. A decent receiver but weak batsman, he gave minor league umpiring a shot after his playing days were over. Thereafter, Cusick spent most of his working life as a Chicago police officer, eventually rising to the rank of district sergeant. Otherwise, he lived quietly with his wife, children, and extended family until his death in 1929. His story follows.

Andrew J. Cusick1 was born on an undetermined date in December 1857 in the centuries-old city of Limerick, a commercial hub situated in the middle-southwest of Ireland. He was one of at least four children born to common laborer John A. Cusick (1839-1913) and his wife Elizabeth (née Connor, 1840-1916). Nothing is known of our subject’s youth until mid-1875, when 17-year-old Andy emigrated with his parents and siblings to America. In time, the Cusick family settled in Fall River, a bustling mill town located about 30 miles south of Boston. There, Andy found employment as a plumber.

Fall River was also the place where Cusick was introduced to his new country’s emerging national pastime. The town hosted League Alliance and New England Association teams in 1877 and was a hotbed of 19th century amateur baseball. As such, it was a fertile spawning ground for talent, with prospects progressing from sandlot play to a highly competitive city league.2

Cusick (who batted and threw righthanded) was well-built (5-foot-9½; 190 pounds)3 and tough-minded. These attributes helped make up for his belated initiation into the game – he gravitated toward catcher, the most physically taxing position on the diamond. Protected by only a primitive face mask and receiving barehanded, Cusick would be beset by finger and thumb injuries as well as the other debilities that came with playing behind the bat in the 1880s. Natural athleticism, however, made Cusick versatile, allowing him to fill in at any position (except pitcher) when he needed time off from catching duties.

Cusick’s name first made newsprint in August 1881 when his defensive work, and that of shortstop Frank Fennelly, was cited as the highlight of Fall River’s play in an 8-1 defeat at the hands of the Flints and its battery of Charlie Buffinton and Tom Gunning.4 The following summer, second baseman Cusick, catcher Gunning, and shortstop Jimmy Manning supplied most of the Fall River offense in a 7-6 triumph over Taunton.5

Cusick entered the professional ranks over the winter, signing with the Wilmington (Delaware) Quicksteps of the independent Inter-State Association.6 In addition to contests against ISA rivals, the Quicksteps played a steady diet of games against National League, American Association, unaffiliated professional, and semipro clubs, and thus required an ample complement of backstops. Cusick, however, was the receiver usually paired with staff ace Charley Dorr. He also played the outfield on occasion.

Wilmington struggled out of the gate in ISA play, and by mid-June strife between manager Charlie Waitt and his charges was out in the open. Waitt proposed to remedy the problem by releasing Cusick, Dorr, and three others who clashed with him.7 But soon thereafter it was Waitt who got the gate. As the season continued, Cusick suffered finger and hand injuries on a regular basis; he was also put out of action briefly by a foul tip that creased his mask and put a nasty gash in his forehead. Notwithstanding the battering, his defensive work was regularly complimented in the local press. “Cusick played an excellent game behind the bat” during an 8-2 win over Trenton, observed the Wilmington Republican in early July.8 The following day, the Wilmington Gazette informed readers that catcher “Cusick played a splendid game” in a 4-3 loss to the Pottsville (Pennsylvania) Anthracites.9 And he played “a faultless game” behind the plate in a 12-0 drubbing of the Ross club of Chester, Pennsylvania, in September.10

His batting, alas, was another matter. In 47 ISA contests, Cusick posted a feeble (31-for-200) .155 batting average, with but two extra-base hits. And despite the glowing praise for his defensive work in the local press, his .860 fielding percentage placed him toward the bottom of the rankings for ISA catchers.11 Still, at season’s end Wilmington (24-49, .329) was quick to re-engage Cusick, signing him for the upcoming season.12 Sporting Life approved his retention, stating that “Andy Cusick … is no doubt one of the pluckiest catchers in the profession … [but] is only fair at the bat. Andy is a great favorite here [in Wilmington].”13 Cusick then returned to Fall River to resume his winter job as a plumber.

At this point, Cusick’s hometown mates were further along in their ballplaying careers, and all would be major leaguers in 1884. Charlie Buffington had won 25 games for the National League’s Boston Beaneaters during the 1883 campaign, and would be joined for the new season in Boston by Fall River friends Jimmy Manning and, in mid-July, Tom Gunning. Meanwhile, Frank Fennelly, the ISA leader in base hits, runs scored, and home runs, had signed with the Washington Statesmen of the major league American Association and would go on to have a standout rookie season.

Cusick’s route to the majors was more circuitous. While he was home in Fall River, the Quicksteps were being courted by the Union Association, an upstart major league in the making bankrolled by the well-heeled Henry V. Lucas of St. Louis.14 For the time being, however, Wilmington opted for a berth in a newly formed minor loop, the Eastern League. The star of the 1884 Quicksteps (and at $325/month its highest-salaried player) was right-handed pitcher Ed “The Only” Nolan. His regular batterymate was Andy Cusick ($150/month).15 Behind the pair, the Quicksteps dominated the competition, posting a scintillating 50-12 (.806) record into mid-August. Splitting his time between catching (31 games) and various infield-outfield positions (parts of 33 games), Cusick did his share, batting a respectable .242, with 10 extra-base hits and 66 runs scored, with excellent defensive work behind the plate.16

Unhappily for club backers, Eastern League games did not attract much attendance to the Wilmington ballpark. On August 12, the Quicksteps quit the circuit – but did not disband. Rather, a week later the club assumed major league status, entering the Union Association as a replacement for the recently defunct Philadelphia Keystones.17At first, it was reported that the Nolan-Cusick battery had abandoned Wilmington to sign with the Philadelphia Quakers of the National League.18 But after several anxious days in Wilmington, the two were induced to stay with the Quicksteps.19 Little good it did the club. That Wilmington was out of its depth in the Union Association was reflected in the 12-1 trouncing administered by the Washington Nationals on August 21, 1884 – Andy Cusick’s major league debut. He went 0-for-3 at the plate. Thereafter, he managed but five singles in his next 10 games, and was batting a paltry (5-for-34) .147 when Wilmington (2-16, .125) gave up play in mid-September.20

Although he had posted only a 1-4 record, Nolan had pitched well during his brief UA stint and was now a widely coveted free agent. But the willful hurler was not disposed to breaking in a new catcher; Nolan and Cusick had to be taken as a package. That was agreeable to Harry Wright, manager of the NL Quakers, who signed the two for his struggling Philadelphia club.21 Cusick hit National League pitching no better than he had UA offerings, registering only four singles in 29 at-bats for the Quakers. But his .930 fielding percentage was the best of the nine Philadelphia backstops who caught more than a single game, and Philadelphia reserved Cusick for the following season.22

The Quakers’ 56-54-1 (.509) record in 1885 represented a 27-game improvement in the win column over the previous season. But little of that advancement was attributable to the work of the Nolan-Cusick battery. The former, plagued by arm miseries, posted a disappointing 1-5 record in only seven appearances and was released at season’s end.23 Cusick, meanwhile, registered lackluster numbers on both offense and defense. His.177 batting average in 39 games (25-for-141) was about on par with that of fellow Philadelphia catchers Jack Clements (.191 BA in 52 games) and Charlie Ganzel (.168 BA in 34 games). But only one of his base hits took him past first base, and he struck out 24 times while drawing but one walk. And his backstopping – a whopping 57 errors against 180 putouts and 60 assists, with 34 passed balls – was decidedly inferior to that of the Quakers’ other receivers. In fact, on the basis of fielding percentage Cusick was the worst defensive catcher in the National League in 1885.24

Statistics, however, may not present the same picture of Cusick as that seen in person by his contemporaries. He evidently called a good game, and rookie right-hander Ed Daily (26-23, with a 2.21 ERA) blossomed with Cusick as his primary receiver. Whatever the basis, Philadelphia wanted Cusick back and reserved him for the 1886 season. Over the winter, however, it was reported that he would be released prior to spring training.25 As he awaited his fate, the year’s bright moment for Cusick occurred on October 21, 1885: marriage to Mary Callahan of Chicago, like himself an Irish Catholic immigrant. For much of the ensuing 44 years, the couple would make their home in the Windy City.

In March 1886, Philadelphia had an overabundance of catchers under contract, and Cusick’s roster prospects looked grim. But he reported to manager Wright in such excellent physical condition that the Philadelphia skipper decided to bring him south for an audition. Given the chance, Cusick impressed. He demonstrated “such good work and has shown such marked improvement, both in batting and fielding, over last season that he will be kept as a regular member of the team.”26

Once the regular season began, Philadelphia, by then more often called the Phillies, continued on the upswing, eventually finishing 71-43-5 (.623). But that handsome mark was good only for fourth place, well behind the NL champion Chicago White Stockings (90-34, 726). For most of the season, Cusick was the third man in a catching troika behind Clements (.205 in 54 games) and Deacon McGuire (.198 in 50 games). Cusick outhit the other two (.221 in 29 games) but showed little power, with only six extra-base hits and four RBIs in 104 at-bats. His receiving stats (120-35-19 = .891 FA, with 21 passed balls) were comparable to those of Clements and McGuire and much improved over his previous season’s work.27 As a result, this time it came as no great surprise when Philadelphia reserved Cusick for the 1887 season.28

From the previous year’s experience, Cusick knew that being on the club’s reserve list did not guarantee him a roster spot. He was also prone to in-season weight gain. Thus, to enhance his chances, after the season ended he “lost 30 pounds of flesh”29 via winter workouts with Charlie Buffinton and Tom Gunning at the Fall River ice skating rink.30 Cusick, however, was not the only beneficiary of these sessions. Plagued by shoulder problems, Buffinton had pitched poorly (7-10, 4.59 ERA) in Boston the previous year. (He had also antagonized Beaneaters club boss Arthur Soden with union activism.) Largely based on assurances by Cusick that Buffinton’s arm was sound, Philadelphia purchased the contract of his available Fall River friend at the bargain price of $500.31 The inclusion of catcher Gunning in the deal, however, created a new threat to Cusick’s own future with the Phillies.32

Sure enough, Gunning quickly supplanted Cusick as Philadelphia’s third catcher. But for the time being, his versatility – veteran infielder Arthur Irwin considered “the portly Andy as good a first baseman as there is in the business”33 – secured Cusick a roster spot. He saw little game action, however, and was advertised as available for purchase by other clubs, but without takers.34 In the meantime, Cusick was put to use as emergency umpire in a late-May Detroit vs. Philadelphia contest and “gave universal satisfaction.”35 Thus, a new career avenue was opened.

Disaffected by his lack of playing time, Cusick went AWOL in mid-July and was promptly suspended by the club.36 But he was just as quickly reinstated when hand injuries left Jack Clements and Tom Gunning unable to catch.37 Whether rusty or out of shape, Cusick’s performance behind the plate was atrocious. In four games, he committed 10 errors and permitted six passed balls. As a three-game fill-in at first base, however, he handled 28 chances without a miscue.38 And in limited at-bats, Cusick even hit a bit (7-for-24, .292). Nevertheless, the Phillies had little need of Cusick and gave him notice of his release in late August.39 Before he took his leave, Cusick was again pressed into service as a game arbiter and “umpired very satisfactorily” during a 4-1 Philadelphia win over Pittsburgh.40 Whether a direct result of this performance or not, it was reported that Phillies manager Wright had recommended that Cusick be chosen to fill the first vacancy in National League umpiring ranks.41

His release by Philadelphia brought the major league playing career of Andy Cusick to an end. Over four seasons, he appeared in 95 games, batting a tepid .193 (64-for-332), with little extra-base power (one triple, no home runs, .220 slugging percentage). Except for first base, his defense had also been substandard, with 100 errors and 95 passed balls in only 82 games behind the plate, and five misplays in six games as an infielder.

Still, there remained interest in Cusick’s services, albeit confined to the minor league level. Over the winter, he was signed as a first baseman by the Milwaukee Brewers of the Western Association.42 In spring 1888, however, Cusick reported to Milwaukee “in poor condition.”43 He was released in mid-July after having hit .260 in 48 games.44

Almost immediately thereafter, he was hired as an umpire by the Western Association and finished out the season wearing blue. Of interest, the WA crown was captured by the Kansas City Blues, a club captained, managed, and owned by another of Cusick’s Fall River friends, Jimmy Manning.45

Although his umpiring had not been well received in certain league venues – it was even feared that Sioux City would refuse to play if Cusick were assigned to umpire its games – the Western Association reengaged him for the 1889 season.46 This time, the censure of his work was near universal, with the Omaha Bee denouncing Cusick’s umpiring of a Omaha-Denver game in late May as “the vilest ever seen on the home grounds.”47 Days later, the Milwaukee Journal took a critical, but more measured, view of Cusick’s work. “Andy Cusick, who umpired, gave some very doubtful decisions on both sides and was especially incorrect on calling balls and strikes,” the newspaper opined after Omaha defeated Milwaukee, 8-7.48 In mid-June, he was a no-show for a game in St. Paul.49 Thereafter, Cusick’s name disappeared from WA box scores.

During the ensuing winter, it was reported that Cusick was “working at his old trade, plumbing,” in Omaha and lending his support to the Players League movement.50 He was also said to be trying to get back into the game as either a first baseman or umpire in the Texas League.51 A month later, the Omaha Bee reported that “Andy Cusick … a ballplayer” had been arrested for brawling at a local saloon.52 But follow-up reportage suggests that our subject had been confused with a former ballplayer named Dan Cusick.53 In any event, Andy was re-hired when the Western Association needed replacement umpires that June.54 But his work was no better received around the circuit than it had been the season before. He was sacked in August, supposedly because “he looked upon the wine while it was red during his last visit to Kansas City.”55 If credible, it is the only discovered news report of Cusick having an alcohol-related problem during his baseball years. Whether true or not, Cusick was back in harness and umpiring WA games at season’s end.56

From this point on, our subject’s whereabouts and activities become commingled with those of others with the surname Cusick. It is, for example, difficult to reconcile a January 1891 Sporting News report that “Andy Cusick is now a deputy constable in St. Louis”57 with government records that make him a resident of Chicago at that time.58 Likewise, the December 1892 birth of a son in Chicago, the first of Andy and Mary Cusick’s five children, makes it improbable that our subject was the “Dan Cusick” arrested for rigging downstate boxing matches in February 189359 or getting into further scrapes with the law in St. Louis.60

Sometime during the 1890s, Andy Cusick became a member of the Chicago Police Department. By the time of the 1900 US Census, he was the head of a household that included a wife, three young children, both his parents, and various in-laws. The Cusick brood had grown to five by 1910.61 By the time of his retirement from the force in the early 1920s, he had risen to the rank of district sergeant.62 His beat, however, must have been a quiet one, for a newspaper search for mention of Sergeant Cusick’s exploits came up empty.

Andrew J. Cusick died in Chicago on August 6, 1929. He was 71. Following a Funeral Mass said at St. Felicitas Church, his remains were interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Chicago. He was survived by his widow Mary; children Daniel, Elizabeth, Andrew, Kathlyn, and Charles; and three siblings.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Darren Gibson and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Terry Bohn.

Sources

Sources for the biographical info imparted above include the Andy Cusick file at the Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York; the Cusick profile in Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Vol. 1: The Ballplayers Who Built the Game, David Nemec, ed. (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2011); US Census and other government records accessed vis Ancestry.com; and certain of the newspaper articles cited in the endnotes. Unless otherwise specified, stats have been taken from Baseball-Reference.

Notes

1 Andrew J. Cusick is the birth name given to our subject by modern baseball authority. Find-A-Grave and other general reference works sometimes give his birth name as Andrew Daniel Cusick. So does David Nemec’s The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball (New York: David I. Fine, 1997). No original source for either birth name was discovered by the writer during research for this profile. Rather, Cusick’s name in contemporaneously published newsprint and government records appeared without middle name or initial. The putative nickname Tony sometimes listed for Cusick is specious. During his lifetime, he was always known as Andy Cusick.

2 As with previous profiles of Charlie Buffinton, Tom Gunning, Frank Fennelly, and Jimmy Manning, the writer is indebted to Fall River historian Philip J. Silvia for generously supplying background information and archival material regarding 19th century baseball in Fall River.

3 Per Sporting Life, February 15, 1888: 5. Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet list Cusick as one-half inch shorter.

4 See “Sporting Summary,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Herald, August 8, 1881: 4.

5 See “Sporting News,” Fall River Herald, August 21, 1882: 4.

6 As reported in the Fall River (Massachusetts) Evening News, December 26, 1882: 2.

7 As reported in “Quickstep Troubles,” Wilmington (Delaware) Gazette, June 25, 1883: 1.

8 “Base Ball,” Wilmington (Delaware) Republican, July 5, 1883: 1.

9 “The Anthracite Game,” Wilmington Republican, July 6, 1883: 1.

10 See “Chester Pets Laid Out,” Wilmington Republican, September 11, 1883: 3.

11 Per ISA defensive stats published in Sporting Life, November 14, 1883: 2. Cusick’s fielding average ranked 15th among ISA receivers.

12 Per “Notes,” Wilmington Gazette, October 22, 1883: 1. See also, “Players of the New Quicksteps,” (Wilmington) Morning News, November 15, 1883: 4.

13 “Wilmington’s Pets,” Sporting Life, January 1, 1884: 2.

14 See again, “Players of the New Quicksteps,” above.

15 Per Wilmington Quicksteps player salaries published in the Wilmington Republican, September 16, 1884: 1.

16 After the season, the Nolan-Cusick combo was named the Eastern League’s best fielding battery by Sporting Life, December 3, 1884: 3. Cusick also played third base, shortstop, and the outfield for the EL edition of the Wilmington club.

17 See “Gone to the Unions,” Morning News, August 19, 1884: 4.

18 Same as above.

19 As reported in “From Wilmington,” Sporting Life, August 27, 1884: 3; “The Cleveland Here,” Trenton Evening Times, August 25, 1884: 1. See also, the Washington (DC) National Republican, August 23, 1884: 3, and Wilmington Republican, August 23, 1884: 4.

20 See “One Ball Club Less,” Morning News, September 16, 1884: 1; “At Last! At Last!” Wilmington Republican, September 16, 1884: 1.

21 As reported in “Diamond Siftings,” Boston Herald, September 19, 1884: 2; and elsewhere.

22 Per “The League Reserves,” Boston Herald, October 22, 1884: 1.

23 As reported in “Base Ball Notes,” Cleveland Leader, October 27, 1885: 3.

24 As expressly noted in the Cleveland Leader, October 27, 1885: 3; and (Springfield) Illinois State Journal, October 18, 1885: 2. Cusick’s 57 errors were the most committed by a National League catcher in 1885.

25 See e.g., “The Ball Players,” Philadelphia Times, March 14, 1886: 6.

26 “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Times, April 3, 1886: 2.

27 Baseball-Reference lists Cusick as also playing for the Milwaukee Brewers of the Northwestern League during the 1886 season. This is mistaken, perhaps resulting from confusion of our subject for Milwaukee’s Opening Day pitcher. Milwaukee baseball historian Dennis Pajot identifies the pitcher as John Cusick, a local product. See The Sporting News, May 17, 1886: 3. In any case, Andy Cusick spent the entire 1886 season as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies.

28 As reported in the Evansville (Indiana) Courier, October 14, 1886: 1; St. Paul Globe, October 14, 1886: 2; and elsewhere.

29 Per “Sporting Splints,” Saginaw (Michigan) News, January 15, 1887: 3.

30 Per Sporting Life, April 6, 1887: 1. See also, “City Briefs,” Fall River Herald, February 28, 1887: 4.

31 As reported in “Buffinton and Gunning Go to Philadelphia,” Sporting Life, April 6, 1887: 1; “Philadelphia’s New Battery,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 5, 1887: 4; and elsewhere.

32 See “Base Ball,” Fall River Evening News, April 14, 1887: 2, citing the Philadelphia Record.

33 “Local Jottings,” Sporting Life, June 1, 1887: 4.

34 See e.g., “Base-Ball Notes,” Indianapolis Journal, June 24, 1887: 4, revealing Pittsburgh’s rejection of a Philadelphia sale proposal involving Cusick. A report that Cusick had been released to Washington proved unfounded.

35 Per the Saginaw News, May 20, 1887: 3, reporting on a 16-5 Detroit triumph.

36 See “Base-Ball Notes,” Indianapolis Journal, July 20, 1887: 4.

37 Per “Good for the Phillies,” Philadelphia Times, July 19, 1887: 4; “Dust from the Diamond,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Patriot, July 18, 1887: 1.

38 Spelling injured first sacker Sid Farrar, “big, fat Cusick played first base in brilliant style” during an 8-0 Phillies win over Washington. See “Washington Shut Out,” Philadelphia Times, August 15, 1886: 2.

39 As reported in the Boston Herald, August 26, 1887: 5; Indianapolis Journal, August 23, 1887: 4; and elsewhere.

40 Per the Worcester Spy, August 31, 1887: 4.

41 Per “Base Ball,” Fall River Evening News, August 29, 1887: 2.

42 As reported in the St. Paul Globe, December 30, 1887: 6; Sporting Life, December 21, 1887: 1; and elsewhere.

43 According to Milwaukee “Manager Hart Writes about His Players,” Sporting Life, May 2, 1888: 1.

44 Per “Blakely Does ‘Em,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 19, 1888: 4.

45 Manning also led the Western Association in runs scored (123) and stolen bases (101).

46 Per St. Paul Globe, May 10, 1889: 2.

47 See “Took Two Out of Three,” Omaha Bee, May 28, 1889: 3. Days later Omaha club president J.C. McCormick informed Western Association officials that Cusick would no longer be permitted to “umpire any more games on Omaha grounds,” per “Cusick Goes,” (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, June 1, 1889: 3.

48 “General Sporting Notes,” Milwaukee Journal, June 3, 1889: 1.

49 See “Won in the Seventh,” St. Paul Globe, June 17, 1889: 2.

50 See “Gate City Gossip,” Sporting Life, January 22, 1890: 1.

51 Per “Texas League,” Sporting Life, January 29, 1890: 7.

52 See “Jailed for Fighting,” Omaha Bee, February 19, 1890: 1.

53 See e.g., “Dan Cusick Charged with Larceny,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 16, 1891: 9. See also, “Notes and Siftings,” Sporting Life, January 16, 1892: 3.

54 See “Notes and Gossip,” Sporting Life, June 21, 1890: 4; “Leach and Blogg Released,” Omaha World-Herald, June 13, 1890: 2.

55 See “The Selection of Umpires,” Bode (Iowa) Republican, August 29, 1890: 1; “Sporting Gossip,” Kansas City Times, August 16, 1890: 2.

56 As reflected in September 1890 Western Association box scores published in Sporting Life and elsewhere. His work during a late-season doubleheader between Omaha and Kansas City was described as “impartially bad.” See “They Won the Game Twice,” Omaha World-Herald, September 1, 1890: 2.

57 See “Notes and Comment,” Sporting Life, January 10, 1891: 2. See also, “News, Gossip, and Editorial Comment,” Sporting Life, December 27, 1890: 5.

58 The 1890 US Census has been lost, but State of Illinois voting records accessible on-line list Cusick as a Chicago resident since November 1890.

59 See “Arrests in the Madison Prize Fight,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 11, 1893: 7. Although the charge is preferred against Andy by 19th century baseball scholar David Nemec in Volume 1 of Major League Player Profiles, 1871-1900, 228, the accused in this matter was identified as one Daniel Cusick in contemporaneous newsprint. See “Prize Fighters Under Arrest,” Edwardsville (Illinois) Intelligencer, February 15, 1893: 1.

60 See e.g., “Dan Cusick Discharged,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 30, 1892: 6; “Minor Mention,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 27, 1892: 3.

61 Per the 1910 US Census.

62 As noted years later in the obituary of his wife. See “Mrs. Mary Cusick,” Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1945: 24.

Of course, this was not the handicap Daily was known for. Around 1861, it was said, the 13-year-old Irish immigrant was shot through the left wrist with a loaded musket in backstage horseplay at Baltimore’s Front Street Theater, a Union armory during the Civil War. “One Arm” Daily was in fact one-handed, a condition serious enough to have kept the 25-year-old off Baltimore National Association franchises in 1872 and 1873. Relegated to 10 years of sandlot and semi-pro play, Daily made a name for himself in Baltimore by 1875. The family resided at 1300 Valley Street from the 1870’s if not earlier. Parents Thomas and Rose brought Hugh, brother Thomas, and sisters Bridget and Rose from Ireland around 1851. Father Thomas, a common laborer, escaped the potato famine and worked this tough life well into his seventies.

Daily saw action each year on a variety of teams playing second base, right field, or pitching. When no team was available, he organized his own team – often called the Acmes – and captained it batting lead off. A typical year for Daily saw play into November. In the second half of 1876 Daily went 20-3 for the Baltimore Quickstep and loaned himself to the Philadelphia Arctic for an occasional start. In the Spring of 1877, four Quicksteps – “the champion team of the South” – traveled North with veteran Charlie Sweasy and joined the roster of a rebuilt independent team in Providence, Rhode Island. Among these Quicksteps was Daily.

For a small city team scratched together by the donations and subscriptions of about 200 citizens, Providence’s year was terrific. They finished with a 33-35 overall Record that included a win hosting champion Chicago and two hosting Boston and impressed enough to earn a 1878 National League spot. But Daily shared in none of the spoils. In 12 season-opening starts he won four of 10, beating only the lowliest opponents: Brown University, Holy Cross, and two traveling teenager teams from Boston. Against nationally rated opponents Daily was winless and wild. On June 6th, losing 0-4 in three innings to Syracuse’s Harry McCormick, Daily was yanked and switched places with the right fielder. He robbed Pete Hotaling of a triple with a backpedaling one-handed stab, but would be given only one more chance to impress. Two weeks later Daily got that chance against Boston’s “Our Boys” teenagers. He didn’t get past the third inning and was unceremoniously released.

The experience brought to the forefront the Daily dilemma. Daily was in that last generation of pitchers who could only be “relieved” by switching positions with someone else on the team, usually the right fielder. Free substitutions from the bench or bullpen would not come until 1890. Yanking Daily from a poor start meant putting a gloveless, one-handed, fielding liability somewhere on defense. For example, on June 15, 1887, Daily pitched a nine-inning complete- game loss after giving up nine runs in the first inning. Managers resisted relieving Daily throughout his career no matter how hard he was being hit. As a result, Daily holds the national league record for percentage of career starts completed (96%).

By adapting to his one-handedness early, Daily honed his fielding skill to a remarkable degree using a unique style. He played with a protective leather “stud” strapped to his left stump and trapped most throws and grounders against it. A certain area of the harness – which he referred to as “the hollow” – could stop hard hit balls pain free. For pop ups and flies he preferred to use a stab of his good right hand, a low percentage, strategy that failed pitifully if the ball had any spin.

After being released by Providence, Daily spent the early part of the summer pitching in Washington for the young Astoria team and led them to a surprising victory over the older and more professional Washington Nationals. He also gave the first on-field demonstration of a curve ball that citizens of Washington had ever seen. “High arm pitching” – release point still below the hip – was in full swing and umpires could do little to check the fan-approved fad. With each passing year Daily’s arm was creeping up.

One month later he was back in Baltimore, organizing teenagers into his very own “Amri” team. After his catcher, 19-year-old Pennsylvanian Charlie Delphy, drowned taking a swim in Baltimore’s inner harbor, the “Amris” vanished and Daily pitched and played middle infield for the “Baltimores”. Then he appeared with the “Marylands” and the “Excelsiors” in October. Switching teams for a buck was second nature to Daily and Baseball was booming in Baltimore. The city opened many new ball fields during this time, including a state-of-the-art field in Johnson Square, right across from the Daily residence.

In 1878 it looked like the end for Daily. He pitched with the Baltimore Waverly along with 42-year-old Dickey Pearce, whom he had met in Providence, and little Bobby Mathews, a fellow Baltimorean oft-suspended by the Worcester team. Five years younger and nine inches shorter than Daily, Mathews also seemed washed up after 131 National Association wins. That’s when fate came into play. Perhaps because the theater was the scene of Daily’s childhood accident, it was a theater manager, Ormond Butler, whose actions paved the way for Daily’s return to professional ball. Thinking there would be little difference managing baseball as opposed to the theater, Butler reorganized the independent Washington National franchise, stocked it with the best available talent, and coaxed some of the better teams in the country to travel south for games. On the way, nearly all of these teams played games in Baltimore.

Against Pittsfield, New Bedford, Utica, Syracuse, and others Daily was winless in his first 14 starts before finishing the year with a 5-20 record. That same year East Coast free agents Bill Shettsline, Fergy Malone and Tug Arundel began gravitating to Baltimore. The buzz of activity continued into 1879 as Washington signed more stars and joined the National Association. Daily stayed a workhorse for the Baltimore “Independents” but loaned himself out to Philadelphia teams whenever the chance came up. In Mid-August he lost two 1-0 games to Rochester on consecutive days. On September 23, pitching for the traveling “Philadelphia’s,” Daily had a no-hitter spoiled by Joe Battin. Tension on the Independents in August, because Daily alienated his own teammates with public criticism after they made errors, led to a revolving door of players on the club. On August 19 a new Independent team hit the field “keeping only Daily from the old club,” and Daily found himself with the greatest gift a pitcher could have: a star catcher.

Like Daily, Tom Deasley was from Ireland and had a temper. With back and forth swearing the two started a love-hate relationship that would see them win games for four different franchises. Deasley’s athleticism allowed Daily to push the envelope for pitch speed. Daily was no longer described as a pitcher but a thrower, a description which implied he would not have been allowed to pitch in the National League where pitches released from “over the hip” were prohibited.

Late in 1879, Baltimore attracted a former National League manager to take the reins of the club. “Hustling” Horace Phillips was a fast talker who had previously managed the Troy Nationals. For 1880, Phillips entered Baltimore into the National Association, along with Albany and Washington, and set about to make Baltimore top ranked. He brought a distinctive Troy flavor to the club with outfielder Jake Evans and first baseman Dan Brouthers. Lou Say, Lew Dickerson, Bill Smiley, and John Richmond were among others who brought along National League or National Association experience.

Phillips billed Daily as the star and flooded Baltimore with flyers that featured a woodcut of “America’s only one-armed pitcher.” But Daily continued his old ways, cursing out his new teammates after they made errors. He was effective using a “regular overhand throw which could not be allowed in a league game.” He beat Providence and their ace Monte Ward 5-1 three days before their National League opener. On May 10, Baltimore opened their National Association season hosting Albany at Newington Park before a packed house including many ladies. Baltimore made errors – 23 in all – behind the seething Daily, but entering the bottom of the ninth still clung to an ugly 16-11 lead. It got uglier. A final wave of misplays inthe last frame allowed six runs to score for a loss, 16-17. During this collapse Daily let loose a booming fusillade of cuss-laden epithets that stunned the fans into a shocked silence. Team directors assembled an emergency meeting and suspended Daily one month: ostensibly for “crookedness”; in reality for cursing.

For the duration of Daily’s suspension, Baltimore signed big Morrie Critchley who had a 17-game winning streak for Albany the previous year. But Critchley’s arm was shot. When Daily returned, Baltimore had sunk to third place in the three-team league, seven players signed a petition to oust the one-armer, and Phillips had quit: angry at the meddling Baltimore directors. Back in the pitcher’s box Daily was dispirited. Surrounded by players who despised him, he could win but three of 10 starts despite a 1.11 ERA. He also lost to the Yale University nine. Daily’s future, once again, looked bleak.

While Daily was losing Phillips hustled himself into the management of the moribund Rochester “Hop Bitter” franchise. He revamped the lineup and entered the team as a fourth member of the National Association. On June 9th the “Hop Bitters” debuted with an eclectic lineup of available talent which included infielders Levi Meyerle and Steve Brady, and utility men Jackie Hayes and Bill McGunnigle. Most impressive was Phillips’s decision to go with a two-man pitching rotation – a strategy made popular that year by the Chicago White Stockings. Within 24 hours Phillips signed pitchers Stump Wiedman off the campus of the University of Rochester and veteran left-hander Bobby Mitchell off a Cincinnati semi-pro team. Phillips also signed their catchers: Tommy Kearns and Buck Ewing: two unknown, baby-faced, 20-year-olds.

When Rochester played at Baltimore on June 25 Phillips had revenge on his mind. He made deals with four of his old Baltimore players to jump ship and sign with the “Hop Bitters”. Before the National Association could rule against Rochester on Monday, Baltimore ownership immediately “threw up the sponge” and disbanded the team. Dan Brouthers, Billy Hawes, John Richmond, and Aaron Clapp became Rochester property. Two weeks later Mitchell was released for being wild, and Daily and Deasley joined the club.

In eight weeks with Baltimore, Daily went 7-16 in 23 starts with 189 innings pitched. He allowed 180 hits, 45 walks, and struck out 70. In championship games his record was 3-6. He had a shining 2.04 ERA overall, but his total runs per game allowed, including runs scored on errors, was 6.61, about two and one-half runs higher than would be expected. Poor grounds keeping or having a weak fielding team could explain such a difference. Daily seemed to be improving with each start.

In eight weeks with Rochester, alternating with Wiedman, Daily’s numbers got even better. In 17 starts he logged 145 innings with 110 hits, 28 walks, and 40 strikeouts. His ERA dropped to 1.09, and his total runs-allowed was a more reasonable 3.66. His record was 7-8. The problem wasn’t Daily’s team anymore, it was his league. Three weeks after Baltimore disbanded, Albany did the same. Rochester and Washington, the only two teams left in the Association, played each other 15 times by Labor Day to diminishing fan interest. Both managers, Phillips and Washington’s Jim Gifford, quit their teams. In July a three game series was moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and in August they moved their “pennant race” exclusively to Brooklyn. A six game round-robin tournament between Rochester, Washington, and a new Brooklyn team was won by Rochester, August 24, and they were awarded a set of silverware.

Washington was the superior team, and Daily matched up nine times against their ace, George Derby. Daily won five straight games in Brooklyn, but any harmony between Daily and Deasley became strained when Deasley broke Daily’s sawed-off toothpick bat beating back a rowdy fan. Phillips used Buck Ewing to catch Daily in spots before Troy stole Ewing and Brouthers, August 25. Forced to play together, Daily and Deasley’s animosity erupted in Washington, September 1st. Holding a 1-0 lead in the top of the eighth inning, Daily gave up an opposite field single to weak hitting Jack Lynch, which set up first and third and nobody out. Deasley fired the ball back
to Daily, hard.

“Arch ’em Tom! Arch ’em!” Daily yelled, “They crack against me stump and give me a twitch!”

But Deasley continued returning the ball hard and Daily motioned for his catcher to jog out to the pitcher’s box. As Deasley leaned into Daily for a whisper, Daily swung his stump around cracking Deasley square on the jaw. Deasley dropped his fielding gloves and stormed toward the clubhouse in center field, where playing manager Billy Hawes calmed him down. Play resumed, but two quick Deasley passed balls allowedboth runners to score, and the game was lost.

Two days later the Rochester team traveled north toward an uncertain end-of-season exhibition home stand. At Jersey City the train was met by a short, fast-talking, man in a derby hat named Jimmy Mutrie. The ex-utility player had spent most of August folding cardboard in a Manhattan box factory. He had managed the failed Brockton, Massachusetts team earlier in the year. He told them about an idea he had for a new New York team which would go onto the Union grounds to challenge Billy Barnie’s new Brooklyn squad and National League teams in October when the NL schedule ended. Five Rochester players got off the train.

Daily, Deasley, Kennedy, Brady, and Hawes, joined Oscar Walker, Joe Farrell, Tom Esterbrook, and veteran Candy Nelson on a New York team dubbed the “Metropolitans.” Bobby Mathews, back from California, was originally slated to be the team’s pitcher, with Hugh Daily the regular shortstop. But Mathews spent time unsuccessfully negotiating a contract with Troy and passed on the New York offer. On Wednesday, September 15, Jim Mutrie’s vision of a strong New York team, backed by the dollars of John B. Day, took the field with Hugh Daily the starting pitcher. They beat Billy Barnie’s Brooklyn squad 12-0.

New York rolled to a 9-1 record, outscoring opponents 92-25. Barnie, conceding New York territory to the Mets, quickly moved his Brooklyn team to Jersey City. Fans, who had not seen a New York team with a national reputation since 1876, swamped Brooklyn’s Union grounds in Williamsburg and ferried it to Henderson Street in Jersey City to cheer them on. On September 20, the Mets played Barnie’s team on Hoboken’s Elysian Fields and Daily tagged Tip O’Neill – the future slugger — for an eighth-inning home run. Mutrie wanted a city field to call his own. Barnie recommended a parcel of land at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street used exclusively by the New York Polo Club, at that time away in Rhode Island competing for a national championship.

On Wednesday, September 29, 1880, the Metropolitans hosted the Washington National Association team at the hastily converted Polo Grounds, the first professional baseball game ever played on Manhattan Island. Hugh Daily spun a six-inning four hitter over Jack Lynch winning 8-3 in front of 2,500 baseball-mad citizens. Daily’s single in the fifth inning snapped the tie and became the game-winning hit. Behind Daily, New York swept three packed games in three days while bleacher construction moved along at a fever pitch.

On October 1st, the National League schedule ended and just as Mutrie and Barnie had predicted, all the major league teams wanted to play post-season, exhibitions in New York. New York won five of 16 games and a carnival atmosphere dominated. When Daily’s arm got tired, opposition NL pitchers loaned themselves to the Mets including Curry Foley from Boston and John Ward from Providence. Big money games continued until October 23, but they did so without Daily. On October 11, in the middle of New York’s big splash, Daily walked off the mound in the second inning of a game against Troy, boarded a train for Baltimore, and was lost for the year. A fan had insulted him. The real reason might have been a week-long city fair in hometown Baltimore celebrating that city’s 250th birthday.

All told Daily finished 1880 with a 24-29 record, 53 complete games, 460 innings, And a 1.29 ERA. He gave up 395 hits, 85 walks, and struck out 170. Despite the increasing level of competition, Daily got better by the month. When New York opened the 1881 season with a practice game against Manhattan College; Daily was in the box.

The record profit for any baseball team in a single season was set by the 1881 New York Metropolitans who, it was estimated, cleared $30,000. As an independent professional team, New York was able to schedule only the opponents they wanted to play. Most of the Mets games were at home, and the sale of alcohol was permitted on the grounds, adding to the profit potential. For days when no National League opponent could be scheduled, the Mets created their own league: the Eastern Championship Association from which teams came and went. Variously, it was a five or seven team “league” that acted as a clearing house for the pool of players unsigned by the dissolution of the National Association. Albany and Paterson fielded teams. John Kelly, who made a name for himself as a playing manager for Manchester in 1878, formed a second New York team. A third New York team, the Quickstep, debuted June 14 and lasted nine games.

The Mets were the darlings of New York and the one-armed Hugh Daily was the star attraction. The record for games played in a single season – 138 by Harry Wright’s 1877 Boston Nationals – was shattered by the Mets who played 150 games. Daily started nearly half. In 73 starts he went 35-35 with 68 complete games and a whopping 614 innings. He allowed 564 hits, walked 95, and struck out 346. His ERA was a spectacular 1.57. Without pitching restriction he threw as hard as he could from any angle he wanted and visiting National League hurlers followed suit. Daily’s
new weapon was the strikeout.

Hugh’s first career 10-strikeout game – against a strong opponent – came April 23 against Providence when he beat Monte Ward 5-4. On May 9 he had a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Athletics broken up by Jud Birchall in the ninth inning. The next day he had another no-hitter going against them after four innings but switched to right field when the score became too lopsided. His season high for strikeouts was 16, on August 6, also against the Athletics, a team that would go on to join the American Association the following year. Thirty-five of his starts were against National League teams against whom he logged 280 innings with an ERA of 2.54. He beat each NL opponent at least once and was especially effective against Buffalo and Worcester. His overall record against NL teams was 10-23. It was reported that Daily was one of the best pitchers at holding base runners on. He had one of the shortest motions of the era with a planted back foot – other pitchers took steps – and he used to lie flat on the ground when his catcher threw to second base.

Daily had his troubles and missed about 10 starts due to sickness. With a third inning 8-1 lead over the Detroit Nationals, June 3, Daily got soaked and sick as a rainstorm canceled the game and confined him to his bed for three weeks. He also had to learn to pitch to a new catcher: Jerry Dorgan. On October 7 of the previous year Harry Wright snatched up Deasley for Boston. On April 4, 1881, a throw by Dorgan on a stolen base attempt nailed the prostrate Daily right in the ribs. Trapping balls with his bare hand against his stump, Daily was effective catching grounders and flies. Little pop ups with spin were a huge problem. In the 11th inning of one Boston game, April 30, Daily jumped in front of first baseman Dude Esterbrook and botched a Jack Burdock pop up with an attempted back hand stab. Burdock later scored and the game was lost.

Daily covered his stump with leather and secured it with straps. He leaned in to each batter menacingly: cussing in his Irish accent, rolling the ball along his stump. Prickly muttonchops concealed his lips and small, beady, dead eyes came out atop his slender six-foot-two frame. He used a momentum building double motion – like a windmill – the second arm swing becoming the pitch which coincided with a quick stride to the plate without taking steps. When “back foot planted” became a pitching requirement for good in 1886, Daily was one of the few pitchers who didn’t need to adapt. At any moment, even after he started his delivery, he could whip a throw to a base to catch a baserunner. He signaled his own pitches to his catchers but lost to Yale again, on May 11, when he mixed up his own signs. The winning run scored in the ninth inning on
a wild pitch.

It seemed, in 1881, that Daily had a twentieth-century fastball and a twentieth-century curve: unfortunately, he had nineteenth-century catchers. Many, if not all, suffered hand injuries catching the one-armer. Only Deasley ever lasted 50 games for him. Often players from the field would volunteer to squat behind the plate for a stretch of games just to give their regular catcher a break. Daily ran through seven catchers in 1881 including John Kelly, loaned to the team for a game, and future big leaguer Jackie Hayes and veteran John Farrow.

Daily’s nasty disposition did not improve. A crotchety figure in nearly every start, he had to be switched to right field against Washington, on May 26, when he lost his composure with the umpire’s calls. The ump was Ormond Butler, the old Washington manager. In late June, Butler reportedly intentionally took a game from Daily just to spite him. But Daily lashed out at more than just umpires. On August 4, Daily lost to Albany when he cut in front of shortstop Lou Say and muffed a ball in the ninth inning. In the clubhouse he threatened to kill the a baseball reporter if the play was harshly reported.

The New York Herald called Daily “The inveterate growler”. For the rest of the year he received cold press in New York and was no longer mentioned as “the famous one-armed pitcher”. He received a rare accolade after a 7-4 win hosting Chicago, October 1, when he was so dominant that Chicago president Bill Hulbert ran on the field mid-game to lecture Cap Anson. “Masterful” the New York Clipper wrote of Daily. But such performances could not save him. As September turned to October New York openly searched for an 1882 pitcher, settling finally on Jack Lynch who owned a bar near the grounds. Daily returned to Baltimore unsigned but he had reason to be hopeful: six American Association teams were to be created from scratch that winter. Alas, all six passed on Daily, even the team from Baltimore.

Once again, it could have been the end for Daily. His talent had never been great enough to offset demeanor both disgraceful and uncouth. Yet once again, the planets lined up and an opportunity presented itself to the one-armed pitcher.

The advent of the two-man pitching “rotation” was a “bottom up” strategy. The teams with the weak armed pitchers were the first to adopt the strategy; the teams with the strongest pitchers were the last to adopt the strategy. Second place Buffalo with Pud Galvin, the strongest pitcher known to baseball, tried to win the 1881 pennant down the stretch by pitching him alone. But after beating Chicago on September 8, and pulling Buffalo to five and one-half games back with 14 to play, Galvin’s arm became useless. He could win but one game of his final eight, and left fielder Blondie Purcell had to pitch the last four games of the year. When Buffalo realized their roster needed a second pitcher, the pool of available talent had evaporated.

Daily, pitching for minor teams, had beaten the Buffalo Nationals three times. Buffalo captain Jim O’Rourke signed him and announced, “I have batted against Daily, and he is the most perplexing pitcher I ever saw. His delivery is rapid and his curves intricate and peculiar.” The only Buffalo victory against Daily came late in 1881, on two seventh-inning runs that scored on shortstop Lou Say’s errors. Buffalo signed Daily, and for the third time in his career Daily joined a team on which Dan Brouthers starred.

Daily’s April exhibition starts were not impressive. In his first two efforts in Pittsburgh he was moved to shortstop mid-game when NL umps disallowed his high release point. He lost his composure, and the Pittsburg Post called him a “baby of the most colicky kind.” Nevertheless, O’Rourke used Daily opening day hosting Chicago in front of 1,500 fans, a number that included several ladies on a dark and drizzly day. With a new catcher named Tom Dolan, Daily walked three in the first inning and each runner scored. But Buffalo slugged back with Daily cracking a well-received rbi single in the third inning for a 6-3 lead and an eventual 7-5 win.

Daily opened the season 8-4, Galvin 2-6. Unfortunately, on June 3 Daily complained of a sore arm. After that O’Rourke could never count on Daily to pitch a given game. In Troy, June 10, Buffalo had to borrow pitcher James Burke from the Attleboro “Meteor” team. Burke would later star with the Boston Unions, but in this debut he was slaughtered, and Buffalo dropped to seventh place. The team was reeling with catcher Jack Rowe and outfielder Hardy Richardson at shortstop and second base, respectively, in a failed O’Rourke experiment to bring more power to the starting lineup. Buffalo was under .500 till August.

On May 15 Dolan begged off Daily duty, and third base veteran Deacon White volunteered to catch the one-armer. In their first two games together they beat the Chicagos 6-2 and 9-4 on a Wednesday and a Thursday, shutting down Chicago’s running game. Jack Rowe started catching Daily in July when Daily stopped the Chicagos again twice in a row, 5-4 and 4-3. Chicago center fielder George Gore used to play the shallowest when Daily batted: right behind second base. In the first July win over Chicago Daily cracked a ninth inning double over his head and scored the winning run. Jim White’s run scoring triple – also in the ninth inning – four days later secured Daily’s fifth straight win against the champions. Weak armed and pitching .500 ball, Daily nearly broke the ring finger of his only hand and mashed other fingers swinging at an inside Wiedman pitch, July 24. Not being able to feed himself, Detroit fans passed the hat and gave him a collection of $65. Daily made four more starts winning only one: a Worcester game, 13-9, two weeks later. That’s when the Buffalo Courier reported that a clique of players were laying down behind Daily to get him released. From then on O’Rourke only used him primarily in exhibition games. He lost to his old New York Mets, on August 22, 9-10, when Candy Nelson scored in the bottom of the ninth on a play in which he had been obviously tagged out by Dolan. He also lost the next day, batted out of position in the first inning at Philadelphia. When Buffalo went north to Providence, Daily went south to Baltimore. The Courier did not mention the clique against Daily when it reported his sore arm in late August: “It is doubtful he will ever play ball again.”

The oldest pitcher in the majors, Daily would easily have been considered the NL’s rookie pitcher of the year if such an award existed. The book on him was that he was a curve ball pitcher – his curve called a “drop” – and that you could hit him early in a game, before he warmed up, or late in a game when his arm got tired. He was a high arm thrower in the days when such a description was offered despairingly. But in this regard he was ahead of his time. Very soon all of baseball would allow such a style. In fact, in 1878 Bobby Mathews copied Daily’s throw, double motion and all, as the two played together in Baltimore. Late in 1882, Pud Galvin did the same in August, and his curve ball exploded using Daily’s “shoulder throw.” Both pitchers benefited from copying Daily’s style.

Swarthy and dirty-looking scowling and menacing, and with a greatness both untested and unproven, Daily was signed by Cleveland the day before Christmas, to alternate in a two man rotation with another Irishman: the big, blonde, horse-gambler Jimmy McCormick who was the winningest pitcher in the National League’s short history. The two would lead Cleveland to a charmed season of a near championship. After shaking hands with Chester Arthur in the White House, the team traveled north in April running up a 14-0 Spring training record along the way. They opened the championship season with an 18-9 record, bumping Chicago from first place, June 11.

With a new superstition of never speaking on game day before his first at-bat, a quieter Daily reveled in the mix. Fans and management seemed to adore him, and no player rebellion against him was reported. Team treasurer George Howe designed and built a special wire protector for Daily’s stump and Daily became “a favorite with the spectators who are generous in applauding his good work.” Daily refined his delivery with “more showy tricks than anybody who stands in the box.” On the downside, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that when Daily pitched “a large sized hole in the Cleveland field was disclosed.” Daily tried hard to make up for this one deficiency. He covered first base on hits to the right side, and waved his fielders to the right and left. He liked his catcher “close behind the bat” for steadiness yet was hurt by being assigned a poor catcher in this regard: Cal Broughton. Broughton was signed specifically for Daily but caught only three games before begging off.

Doc Bushong was the next in a line of terrific catchers for Daily. A practicing dentist, Bushong was an innovative “thinking man’s catcher” who put his hands first. He insisted on one day off between starts and doted on his collection of catching gloves. Most importantly, he gave the signals to Daily, a controversial idea at that time. Bushong was considered the greatest catcher in the history of the game – until Buck Ewing hit his prime. With Bushong, Daily was at his career best. On May 24 Daily beat New York and Mickey Welch 1-0 on a two-hitter. The next day he beat Monte Ward 4-3 in 14 innings, picking Ward off base twice.

He beat Chicago all three times he faced them early in the year. He shut them out 3-0 on June 23, against Larry Corcoran, and struck out 14. Chicago got the leadoff batter on base in each of the first six innings but nobody could steal. “Williamson, the most daring baserunner of them all” the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, “was kept rolling on the ground getting back to bases… until his uniform was covered with dirt.” Williamson made it to second base but was picked off with sand filling “half a peck into his shirt bosom.”

Accolades for this game make it the zenith of Daily’s career. “Daily pitching on Saturday,” the Plain Dealer wrote, “was the most effective ever seen here and we question whether it was ever exceeded and if indeed equaled anywhere.” The Chicago Tribune wrote: “No pitcher but Daily could have held such base-runners as are the Chicagos.” Daily beat the White Stockings again on the Fourth of July, to raise his lifetime record against them to 7-0. In his next start two days later Daily’s win streak continued and he won 3-2 over Fred Goldsmith. A controversial call by umpire Bill Burnham went a long way toward stopping a fifth inning offensive spurt by Chicago. Gore stole second base as Bushong’s throw sailed wide pulling Dunlap off the bag towards first base. Dunlap spun around however with the ball in an attempt to touch Gore on the back as he passed. It seemed an obvious missed tag, but Burnham called the out. As the fans hissed, Chicago’s big captain Adrian Anson argued the play insisting that Dunlap himself was ready to admit the missed tag. But Burnham wouldn’t hear it. He turned to the crowd and announced: “Nobody is infallible. I’m liable to mistakes. I’m human.” The governor of Illinois, John Marshall Hamilton, who was scoring the game for himself in the owner’s box, turned to Chicago president Al Spalding and badmouthed the ump.

On July 21, 1883, the Cleveland Nationals were 38-16 and, after holding first place for eight days, were one game ahead of Providence. Hosting New York with two outs in the seventh inning, and losing 0-2, McCormick suddenly walked off the mound holding his elbow. Given the strain of pitching in a pennant race, the two man staff would eventually give way to the three-man staff. But for Cleveland, first place was in Daily’s hand, and virtually Daily’s hand alone, with 44 games remaining.

In a head-to-head series, Providence took possession of first when Charley Radbourn no-hit Cleveland. Then Daily beat Radbourn and the teams traded the top spot five times in five days. With pitching arms straining, both teams went on four game losing streaks opening the door for Boston and Chicago to get back in the race. Finally, Daily walked off the field on August 1, in the sixth inning against Boston complaining of a sore arm. Pitching his third game in three days, Boston wasn’t having it. They claimed Daily was faking the injury and, under the rules, wouldn’t permit a player substitution. Both teams claimed a forfeit win but after the season the league ruled against Cleveland. For the next week the only pitcher Cleveland had was lefty Will Sawyer, a 19 year-old engineering student from Amherst College whose parents wouldn’t let him take road trips with the team. McCormick rushed himself back into action for nine starts in 19 days and then he too was completely done for the year. It was August 25. Cleveland had a two-game lead with 20 to play.

Daily came back in time to face Chicago in a huge five-game series and made his winning streak against them 10 games. He pitched the first and third games of the series winning by 5-4 and 4-3 when Bill Phillips delivered late inning run scoring hits. Before game five Chicago players spent the night in a wild celebration with Cleveland fans in a new high-rise apartment building on Stapleton Street. King Kelly tipped out a top floor window trying to smash Pfeffer’s bad-luck, yellow stove-pipe hat. His life was saved, reportedly, by Gore who grabbed him and pulled him in. Although hung over, Chicago pounded Daily 8-2 the next day to end the win streak.

Daily started six of the next nine road games while Sawyer, apparently with parental permission, and Charlie Cady were ineffective. On September 5, Daily pitched Cleveland back into a first place tie with a neat 6-1 win at Buffalo. Thanks to two rain-outs, Daily went into Philadelphia eight days later with six days of rest. Four teams, Boston, Providence, Chicago, and Cleveland, were now all within two games of each other with about 11 to play. Daily responded with a no-hitter, winning 1-0 when Bill Crowley’s seventh inning single rolled between left fielder Blondie Purcell’s legs. Daily won a four-hitter the next day and a five-hitter three days later in New York. Cleveland was now in second place, two games behind with eight to play.

But that was it. Daily’s arm was gone, and he lost his final three starts of the year with a bitter disposition. Just before Labor Day he had the fight of his career with Fred Dunlap, Jack Glasscock, and rookie Lem Hunter, on the train, with the Police Gazette running a full illustration of the brawl. When Daily complained of being pitched too much, Cleveland management threatened to withhold his salary. Many blamed Daily for losing the pennant.

On the final day of the season George Gore asked Daily to go south and pitch for a team of traveling all-stars he was organizing. Daily signed. He still had to make October exhibition starts for Cleveland and pitched well against American Association teams Louisville and St. Louis. What followed was a two-month vacation with well attended weekend games, mostly in New Orleans. Gore also signed Hick Carpenter, King Kelly, Ned Williamson, and Sam Wise. Wise would run over from the shortstop’s position and catch every return throw from the catcher for Daily.

As the lazy weeks passed, news from the North came about a rich man with a baseball hobby named Henry Lucas. Lucas wanted to resurrect the St. Louis team for the National League. Ignored by that body, Lucas founded the Union Association on December 18, 1883, as a major league and new Union franchises started signing up stars. Daily held out. Cleveland had always announced that it was against the reserve rule; a rule that allowed teams to protect up to five players for the following season. But just before the Union Association meeting, the National League announced in clear language that all players who had signed NL contracts were reserved upon the threat of blacklisting. Cleveland started threatening expulsions to its players.

In January 1884 Daily folded up his Cleveland contract and put it in his pocket. He shopped himself around for more money, earning a curt refusal from St. Louis Union manager Ted Sullivan mid-month. Then, on January 22, Larry Corcoran, who had agreed to pitch for the Chicago Union team, backed out of his deal and returned a one-thousand-dollar advance to Chicago owner Al Henderson. Daily showed Henderson (the same man who funded the Horace Phillips’ 1879 Baltimores) the Cleveland offer. Henderson beat it and Daily went to Chicago signing with the Unions, January 30. The offer was said to be just shy of $3,000 for seven months’ work. But as he signed, John Day, the New York owner Daily had also toiled for, drafted a resolution that permanently blacklisted all who went with the Union.

The Chicago Unions were the flagship team of the Union Association – until St. Louis assembled their juggernaut. A bonafide, railroad funded, Chicago semi-pro squad who played a fifty game schedule in 1883; they were so popular on a national level that Henry Lucas used their team name as the name of the new league. Unfortunately, manager Ed Hengle’s off-season strategy was inertia. Hugh Daily was the only star they signed and Hengle, whose 140 pound little brother played second base, decided to open the season with Daily as the one-man pitching staff.

Daily started the season slowly. He lost Chicago’s opener in St. Louis before six thousand fans but struck out nine in six rain shortened innings and impressed with his stump-arm’s “harness” and one-handed play. Later, he lost the home opener hosting Cincinnati, on shortstop Charlie Briggs’ ninth inning error. He was 3-6 with a 2.58 ERA and two 10-strikeout games pitching nine of the club’s first 13. Then against Washington, on May 14 and May 18, he became the first pitcher in major league history to throw back-to-back one-hitters. Washington’s captain Phil Baker spoiled the first game while pitcher Bill Wise, filling in at third base, spoiled the second. The Chicago Tribune called the May 14 effort a “perfect game.”

The one-hitters began a dominating stretch of games which raised Daily’s record to 14-8. Six of the first seven games in this run were 10-strikeout affairs. On June 1, he beat St. Louis, 5-4, when he walked and scored the winning run himself in the 10th inning. On June 9, he pitched in the first series of major league games ever played west of St. Louis, beating Kansas City, 12-3. Hengle pitched Daily more and more. On Memorial Day, Daily beat Boston 7-1 with 13 strikeouts; he also beat Boston the previous day with 12 strikeouts. In six other games he pitched with one day’s rest or on back-to-back days. His record in those starts: 4-and-2.

The heavy workload soon affected Daily’s performance. He won on June 15, giving up 12 hits, and on June 17 despite giving up 13 hits. Having reached second place for the first time all year, Chicago traveled to meet first place St. Louis, a team with a 31-4 record. On a Friday, and on two days of rest, Daily pitched a six-hitter in the opener with 13 strikeouts. He lost. He said he should have won and asked to pitch the next day. He struck out 13 again but lost to the sluggers in late innings. Despite having little left, he insisted on pitching the Sunday game as well, a third straight game in three days against the “coming” champions. He was pounded. The following series in Baltimore should have been a triumphant homecoming. Proud Baltimoreans came out for Daily only to see the pitcher hammered for 31 runs in three starts. Hengle moved Daily to the outfield in the seventh inning of the Baltimore opener snapping Daily’s streak of 33 consecutive complete games. Daily had another incomplete game against last-place Philadelphia on the Fourth of July, his losing streak seven long, he walked off the field in the fifth inning cursing at the umpire. Chicago’s losing streak was now 11 long. The team slid from second place to fifth place, well below .500, in 18 days. But there would be no rest for Daily. Chicago traveled to Boston and Daily pitched in his regular turn.

On two days’ rest, on the current site of what is now a Turner Fisheries restaurant east of Fenway Park, Hugh Daily spun his third one-hitter of the season: a one-hit, 20-strikeout, no-walk performance for a Bill James game score of 105, the highest ever attained by a major-league pitcher. Daily’s delivery was flirting with an illegal height, and ump Pat Dutton’s repeated warnings of “Watch it, please” echoed in the early part of the game. Daily struck out seven in a row, many on beautiful curves. Finally, with two outs in the fourth inning, Boston had their first baserunner when shortstop Walt Hackett was awarded his base on a pitch released by Daily way over the hip. Boston’s big slugging catcher Ed Crane got the only hit of the game – a triple to left-center – with two outs in the sixth inning. Two other batters reached First on errors.

Unfortunately, the game was logged as a 19-strikeout performance: game score 10-4. With two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning, Krieg dropped a third strike and threw wild to first base allowing Pat Scanlon to reach. The rule book was clear for dropped third strikes whether or not the batter reached base – Daily would get his 20th strikeout. But the rule book was not clear on errors on dropped third strikes. Daily was not awarded an assist or a strikeout and Scanlon reached first on an error. The Boston Morning Journal, among other newspapers, reported the game as a 20-strikeout performance, unofficially breaking the 19-strikeout record set by Charlie Sweeney exactly one month earlier. Daily threw another one-hitter three days later giving him back to back one-hitters twice in the same season.

For the month of July 1884, Hugh Daily logged 94 innings, allowed 50 hits, struck out 108 and walked seven, with a minuscule 1.04 ERA. His record was 5-5. Good news came on July 23 when Chicago induced promising rookie Al Atkinson to jump from the Philadelphia Association club to alternate with Daily as part of a two-man staff. Chicago also signed Gid Gardner of the Baltimore Association. These signings could explain the team’s eviction from the Union Grounds on August 1st for non-payment of rent. A weekend against Cincinnati became two exhibition contests at an unspecified field. Daily’s 1-0 win on that Saturday is often incorrectly counted as his fifth shutout of the year. With the schedule showing Chicago on the road until August 25, Henderson pulled a neat trick. He leased a field in Pittsburgh, rechristened the Chicago club as “Pittsburgh,” and, keeping their maroon uniforms and old gold caps, hosted St. Louis there for five games before hitting the road again.

Daily went 4-6 in August primarily because he pitched most of the games against St. Louis, a team that seemed to be improving after their 31-4 start with an eight week stretch of .947 ball. Daily handed St. Louis one of their two losses in that period, an 11-inning 3-2 squeaker before three thousand fans in the Pittsburgh opener. This raised his record for the year to 23-23. In his other five August starts against St. Louis, he was winless. He lost in 11 innings August 17, when veteran Harry Wheeler dropped a fly ball, and he lost in 11 innings two weeks later when Orator Shaffer led of the bottom of that inning with a home run. A fourth extra-inning complete game for the month came August 19, at Cincinnati, when he bested his old Cleveland teammate Jim McCormick. Harry Wheeler made amends for his muff by helping Daily with a game-winning triple.

In all, Daily made 10 starts for “Pittsburgh” as the team played in the east. He won five and lost four, with a complete game tie in Washington, finishing with a neat shutout at Baltimore. Tony Suck had to catch him as Krieg had his hand split by Daily’s speed. But Daily busted up Suck’s hand in the seventh inning of his shutout. The game might have become a forfeit loss until Kid Baldwin, an idle Kansas City player watching the game, offered to jump in to catch the final eight outs. Pittsburgh had only to play Wilmington before heading back west to their tentative home field. But Wilmington disbanded, September 15. The Henderson brothers, owners of both Pittsburgh and Baltimore, had their two teams play an exhibition game, on September 19, for the purposes of picking the best talent for one club. The next day, Pittsburgh was disbanded, and Daily was one of 10 players released. Despite inferior stats, Atkinson was picked to alternate for Baltimore with Bill Sweeney.

Hot-headed Mike Scanlon, a long-time investor in Washington baseball clubs who figured he knew enough to manage, gave Daily two starts to impress and make the Washington squad for their final Western swing. Daily did beat Boston, September 25, relying on curves, but was blown out by Cincinnati 15-0 and Washington dropped him. Because of darkness, Cincinnati’s six-run eighth inning was taken away and the final score is logged today as 9-0. Daily’s monster season was over. He reached 483 strikeouts despite being released with nearly one month to play. He didn’t know it, but at the age of 37, he would win just seven more major league games.

No team knew that, either. As 1885 unfolded, contract offers for Daily poured in -even though he was on the official blacklist per the Day resolution. In mid April Daily was accepted back into organized ball per his payment of $500. He held out for a month and then signed the best offer he could; with the ex-Union now National League St. Louis team the evening of June 2. St. Louis was desperate after opening with an 8-14 record, a far cry from their 1884 dominance. Henry Boyle’s arm was useless and Lucas had given a four start trial to a pitcher he scouted himself in
Prospect Park: Billy Palmer.

Daily joined just in time for the biggest series: in Chicago. The White Stockings unveiled a brand new ballpark, West Side Park, June 6, the current site of the Jackson Academy School. In front of over 10,000 fans, the largest crowd of his career, he walked eight, struck out none, and was losing 9-0 by the sixth inning. Chicago ace John Clarkson took himself out at that point and second baseman Fred Pfeffer pitched the final three innings. The final score was 9-2 with old pal George Gore going 4-for-4 with two home runs. Despite the fact that Daily’s effort could be attributed to a want of practice, he did not take the loss well. “The usual exhibition of temper,” the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. Daily’s next start came in the final game of that series and was even worse. He walked five and struck out none absorbing a 1-13 loss. The Chicago Tribune reported that Daily was “utterly bewildered at the manner in which he was pounded.”

But the magic wasn’t gone yet. Nine days later Daily made his home debut and started against Detroit. He won a 3-0 one-hitter, scored two of the three runs, and helped the other run score when he faked a steal of second base. He lost to Boston pitching a five-hitter in his next start due to a little umpire controversy. In the second inning, Boston’s Jim Manning, the runner on third, bumped third baseman Ed Caskin trying to catch Daisy Davis’ popup. Ump Stew Decker stunned everybody ruling a “do over,” and Davis batted again, extending a game tilting three run rally. Harshly criticized, Decker resigned as an umpire after the game.

Daily beat Philadelphia twice in the week before the Fourth of July, the second game a gift when first baseman Sid Farrar made a wild throw in late innings. Then the one-armed hurler lost to Providence in the bottom of the ninth when third base coach Jerry Denny ran down the line to home plate, blocking Fatty Briody from tagging the real runner, Arthur Irwin. Ump Charlie Cushman allowed the block claiming, to the disgust of many, that Denny never touched Briody. Daily didn’t come close to winning again. Reports started circulating that the St. Louis players were trying to lose when Daily pitched. That’s when on July 23, at the Polo Grounds, five players made 10 errors behind him for 11 unearned runs. St. Louis lost 15-3, and Lucas released Daily right away.

As Daily’s skill decreased with age, teams tolerated less and less of his divisive vulgarity. In 1886 Mike Scanlon, the manager who cut Daily near the end of 1884, signed him to alternate with Dupee Shaw when pitcher Bob Barr was holding out. Daily’s catcher was Ed Crane, the Boston Union slugger who tripled in his 20-strikeout game. In six complete game starts Daily was wild, vocal, hit hard, and ineffective. Allegations that Daily was a drinker surfaced, and he lost every game he appeared in. Washington absorbed an early season 12-game losing streak and quickly gave in to Barr’s demands, making Daily expendable. In his first loss, hosting Boston before the Washington crowd, he was tagged for four runs in the first inning. King Kelly threw Daily’s little bat to Tim Murnane in the press box as a “pencil.” His last five losses came on the road. Tim Keefe beat him with a four-hit shutout in New York, and Henry Boyle beat him with a four-hitter in St. Louis. Boyle himself got five hits and two home runs off Daily. Cap Anson, of all people, stole a base in the four-run first inning of the Chicago home opener, May 18. Then Daily’s last two starts came on one day of rest each. He lost an 8-10 game in the ninth inning to Chicago, and got blown out in his last game by Detroit during their 19-3 start. Detroit led 9-1 in the fourth inning and the large Saturday crowd contented themselves the last five innings watching a drunk down the left field line pick fights.

In his fall from the ladder of fame Daily hit every rung. He returned to Baltimore, where he pitched for small teams for small dollars before signing with New Castle, Pennsylvania, a club that needed a pitcher for an Ohio road trip. Then his first big offer came from Ted Sullivan, manager of the Milwaukee, Northwest League team. He signed on July 19, and Sullivan immediately advertised Daily as Milwaukee’s new ace. But Daily dilly-dallied and pitched one last game for New Castle in Wooster, Ohio, 10 days later against amateurs while Sullivan threatened expulsion. Daily lost.

Daily finally reached Milwaukee on July 24, and bested first place Duluth’s young ace, Mark Baldwin, with a three-hitter. Daily made 15 starts in far-off Minnesota and Wisconsin, going 9-6 with a 1.10 ERA. He claimed soreness on a few occasions, once forcing manager Sullivan to pitch a game, August 6, against Eau Claire. Daily beat Baldwin again, September 8, as Milwaukee struggled to get to .500, and then jumped to John Barnes’ St. Paul team. Sullivan wouldn’t expel Daily, saying “Daily’s loss is a gain. He was continually making discord.” Daily did sad work in St. Paul, winning only once, with an ERA of 2.63. After six starts the minor league players refused to take the field behind Daily and he was released. In one loss at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, September 19, fans chanted “Cripple, cripple, cripple!”

Claiming he was “Anxious to redeem himself” and having “entirely discarded the use of stimulants,” Daily begged for a tryout with Billy Barnie’s 1887 Baltimore team. Barnie was well stocked on pitchers, but recommended Daily to Jimmy Williams, manager of the new Cleveland American Association team, while that team was losing in the East. Daily signed on June 13, and lost big in Philly in his debut two days later, giving up 18 runs. He won three out of his next four but lost eight in a row – the last three despite leading in late innings. He was tired, slow, lacked command of the ball, and couldn’t watch the bases. On August 13 he lost his ninth in a row when Cincinnati’s sub Heinie Kappel hit a two-run double in the top of the ninth inning. Kappel had been hit by a pitch to load up the bases, but ump Wes Curry wouldn’t allow it, claiming Kappel intentionally leaned into the pitch.

Daily’s last major league start came on August 21, 1887, in the first Sunday game in Cleveland history. Although team owner Frank Robison pushed a law allowing Sunday baseball through the city council three weeks earlier, puritan civic organizations effectively blocked the game at League Park citing state statutes. At the last minute, Robison selected a well-known site five miles east: the Cedar Avenue Driving Park, currently the football field of Cleveland Heights High School. Daily battled against speedy left-hander Ed Cushman in a rain-shortened eight-inning game, losing 5-7. Daily gave up five unearned runs in the second inning after a 30-minute rain delay.

Daily caught a stiffness pitching in the rain and begged off his next start, August 26. He was day-to-day with “rheumatism” and sent home to Baltimore to recover. When Cleveland arrived in Baltimore on September 1, Daily was given two more chances to pitch but said he couldn’t. Williams released Daily on September 3.

Daily spent the next six years jumping between semi-pro teams and earning about fifty dollars a month. He worked as a nail maker and umpired some games in Western Indiana in 1899. September 7 of that year Daily called a forfeit loss against Danville in a game at Terre Haute when Danville catcher Fred Abbot turned around and punched him. Daily flipped his stop watch to a bystander and popped Abbott with his good hand.

He seems to have lived in Philadelphia and Baltimore after that. In Baltimore, Daily lived with his two unmarried sisters, Hugh working odd jobs and Bridget the head of the household. He’s listed as a night watchman on Maryland census records and last appears in the Baltimore phone book in 1922. The circumstances of the death of Hugh Daily, the one-armed pitcher, remain as mysterious as his origins.

Sources

Baltimore Sun, 1884: 6/24.

Boston Globe, 1882: 7/25, 8/18; 1887: 4/10; 1906: 11/25.

Boston Morning Journal, 1884: 7/8, 10/8; 1886: 5/3, 5/21.

Brooklyn Daily Times, 1880: 8/24.

Brooklyn Eagle, 1887: 8/3.

Buffalo Courier, 1881: 9/23; 1882: 3/6, 3/31, 4/2, 4/16, 4/19, 4/23, 4/29, 5/2, 5/21, 5/24, 5/30, 6/6, 6/13, 7/2, 7/14, 7/16, 7/25, 7/27, 8/2, 8/5, 8/31, 9/1, 10/1.

California Spirit of the Times and Underwriters Journal, 1887: 9/17.

Chicago Inter-Ocean, 1884: 6/20, 7/5.

Chicago Tribune, 1881: 8/14; 1882: 5/16, 5/17; 1899: 9/7; 1906: 4/8.

Cincinnati Enquirer, 1884: 4/26, 4/28, 5/15, 5/19, 6/5, 6/11, 6/26.

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1882: 5/25; 1883: 4/4, 4/10, 4/27, 5/13, 5/18, 5/24, 5/25, 6/22, 6/24, 7/11, 7/14, 7/21, 7/26, 8/2, 8/20, 8/22, 8/27, 8/28, 9/1, 9/4, 10/23; 1887: 6/12, 6/15, 6/16, 6/17, 6/27, 7/10, 7/15, 8/7, 8/14, 8/19, 8/21.

Kansas City Evening Star, 1884: 6/16.

Los Angeles Times, 1892: 7/18.

Milwaukee Daily Journal, 1886: 7/20, 7/23, 7/25, 7/30, 8/7, 8/9, 9/6; 1892: 7/13.

National Police Gazette, 1906: 5/19.

New Orleans Times Picayune, 1882: 11/9, 11/14, 12/26; 1883: 9/26, 10/1, 10/22, 10/29, 10/31, 11/3.

New York Clipper, 1876: 5/13, 9/18, 9/30, 11/4; 1877: 4/20, 7/29, 8/25, 9/1, 9/8, 10/6, 10/13, 10/20; 1879: 8/30; 1880: 4/17, 4/24, 5/1, 5/22, 7/3, 7/24, 8/28, 9/12, 10/3, 10/10; 1881: 5/12, 8/20, 8/27; 1882: 5/20, 8/5, 8/12, 8/19; 1884: 8/30, 9/27; 1885: 4/25; 1887: 7/13, 9/17.

New York Daily Tribune, 1880: 10/3.

New York Herald, 1880: 10/12; 1881: 4/5, 5/5, 5/16, 8/5, 8/18.

New York Sun, 1881: 6/18, 9/22, 10/2.

New York Times, 1880: 8/13, 8/15, 8/17, 8/18, 8/22, 9/3, 9/16; 1883: 6/15; 1885: 4/19; 1887: 8/22.

Providence Daily Journal, 1877: 6/4.

Rochester Morning Herald, 1880: 6/19.

St. Louis Post Dispatch, 1883: 10/26, 10/30, 11/17, 12/27; 1884: 1/23, 1/29, 1/31, 4/22; 1885: 6/6, 6/8, 7/17, 7/31.

St. Paul-Minneapolis Pioneer Press, 1886: 9/5, 9/14, 9/20, 9/23, 9/28.

St. Paul Post Dispatch, 1886: 9/5.

Peter J. Daniels was born in Ireland on April 8, 1864. A few years later his parents, Edward and Mary, left Ireland for the United States and first settled in Virginia. Like so many Irishman before him, Edward found work as a railroad laborer. In 1870 the family lived near Moundsville, West Virginia but soon moved from there to Louisville, Kentucky. Edward became a stonecutter and raised the six children in Kentucky. Pete had minimal schooling and by 1880 he was working as a laborer; later he learned the stone cutter’s trade from his father.

Louisville supported numerous semi-pro and amateur baseball teams and in 1882 the American Association placed a franchise in the city. Anchored initially by Pete Browning and Guy Hecker, the city would be represented by a major league squad until 1900. Daniels took advantage of all the ballplaying opportunities and rose through the ranks of the semipro teams as a pitcher and outfielder. In 1887 he was signed and joined St. Joseph in the Western League. He began the exhibition season as a first baseman, but was playing outfield when the regular season began. Despite being left-handed he occasionally played the middle infield. He finally took the pitcher’s box on July 9. He found pitching much tougher in the Western League than on the Louisville sandlots dropping games by scores of 18-3, 19-6, and 17-6. The franchise disbanded in early August and Daniels was added to the Wichita Eagles roster. His first appearance was at third base on August 8 in a 46-7 shellacking by Lincoln. He was starting pitcher versus Lincoln the next day and held them to 24 runs. He split his time between pitching, outfield, and second base until the franchise disbanded. Newspaper reports suggested that he was picked up by Kansas City, but he never appeared with the team. For the season he made 16 pitching appearances and gave up 156 runs in 124 innings. He hit well driving out 22 extra base hits, including three triples in an April win over Kansas City. He ended the year with a .285 average.

Daniels was recruited by the Louisville Colonels and saw action in exhibition games in April, 1888. He shutout a local semi-pro team on April 3 and then beat Milwaukee 9-4 giving up 9 hits. The Louisville team had Toad Ramsey, Guy Hecker, Icebox Chamberlain coming back from the year before with 73 wins and 1155 innings. Management must have sensed that overwork was an issue because they also brought in Scott Stratton and John Ewing, Buck’s brother. The big three had a horrible year and Stratton and Ewing were used extensively. Daniels waited in the wings hoping for a chance to pitch, but never did. Finally he was released in late June and signed with the Danville Browns in the Central Interstate League. His first appearance was June 30 when he beat Lafayette 5-2. The franchise folded the next week and Daniels returned to semi-pro ball in Louisville.

The Dallas Tigers in the Texas League beckoned in 1889 and Daniels went south to play for Doug Crothers. The pair formed the backbone of the pitching staff. With 17 games of professional experience (not counting exhibitions) the stocky3 southpaw was in for a season of extensive work. He would bat either second or fifth in the lineup and occasionally saw action in the field because of a limited roster. Early in the season when third baseman Jack Barry was going poorly, Daniels went to the hot corner. He blasted a triple and four singles, but also made seven errors. Crothers finally sent him to pitch and he hurled five scoreless innings in a 15-15 tie. That was one of 41 pitching appearances that earned him a 20-20 record for a team that finished out of the race. He had a tendency to be wild early in the game before settling down and let opposing batters put the ball in play. He eventually overcame the early inning jitters, but always relied on his fielders to back him up. His five hit day was an anomaly; he ended the season hitting .208 in 53 games.

After a fifth-place finish in 1889, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys cleaned house. Guy Hecker was brought in from Louisville to be the new player-manager and he brought Daniels with him. The team played exhibition games in early April and Daniels performed nicely. He earned the opening day start against Cleveland. Sporting Life reported that “young Daniels pitched like a verteran” in the 3-2 victory on April 19.4 His next three starts saw him pounded for eight, nine and ten runs respectively and he took losses in the last two. The Alleghenys went on to post a dismal .169 win percentage and finished 66.5 games behind Brooklyn. Daniels was released in mid-May “because of the way he talked about Manager Hecker.”5 He hooked on with the Washington Senators in the Atlantic League making his first appearance on May 30. He compiled a 6-10 record before the team stopped play.6 Many of the players were recruited for the New York-Pennsylvania League and Daniels joined Olean. He lost to Jamestown on September 2, but beat Bradford on the fifth. The season ended soon after. Daniels went back to the family home and spent the next months hunting and fishing. He made his biggest catch in January when he eloped with Minnie Sweeny, the Louisville miss he had been courting. They slipped across the Ohio River and were wed by a judge in Seymour, Indiana.7 The surprise nuptials circumvented Sweeny’s parents, but it was reported they later “forgave the young people.”8

1891 found Daniels with the Quincy Ravens in the Illinois-Iowa League. Now in his fifth season and a family bread-winner he came into his prime. His fastball was not overpowering, but when paired with a tantalizing slow-curve that “stopped to nod to an acquaintance on the way to the batter and looked as big as a prize pumpkin”9, he was able to keep batters off balance. He also developed his gamesmanship and took to grinning at the opposition, earning the nickname “Smiling Pete”. The Ravens had a strong array of talent including five pitchers who would see action in the majors. They took the lead early in the season and never relinquished the top spot. Daniels played outfield on occasion and posted a .194 average in 66 games. On the hill he was 29-20 in 44 games with a sparkling 0.79 ERA, courtesy of 102 unearned runs.

Daniels moved up to the Southern Association the next two seasons with the Class B Mobile Blackbirds. He became the ace of the staff and even earned the nickname “The Czar” from Sporting Life.10 The Blackbirds finished off the pace in both halves of the season, but Daniels was 24-12 in 46 games with six shutouts. The shutout total is significant because the final statistics from the league showed only 25 shutouts for the entire season. He also played some outfield and finished the season batting .217.

As the season wound down a Mobile businessman named John E. Hooper made plans for a trip to Cuba with an all-star team. Dubbed the All-Americans the squad was mainly players from the Southern Association including its star pitcher, Daniels. Daniels tossed a shutout in the first game on November 27 and a 10-3 win in the third game. The team stayed for five or six weeks because the Cuban teams only played on Sundays.11 Daniels returned to the Blackbirds the next season but was not as dominant, posting an 18-16 record and batting .182. The season ended early with the owners squabbling and finances in disarray.

Daniels joined Kansas City in the Western League for 1894. He reported to camp in poor shape, but an injury to his moundmate George Darby forced Daniels to carry the load of work for six weeks. He rose to the challenge “winning during that time 24 out of 28 games.”12 Even when not pitching he contributed with ninth inning pinch hits that won games twice. The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times dropped the nickname “Smiling Pete” and called him “Lucky” instead. One area where Daniels did not have any luck was playing the outfield. In 12 chances he made 4 errors; in future seasons he seldom took a position besides pitcher. His exploits reached mythical levels with one east coast paper declaring he “won 40 out of 48 games.”13 In actuality he was 37-14 for a team that went 68-59 and finished third. He tossed 444 innings with an ERA of 3.53. His .265 batting average looks impressive, but pales compared to the 87 league players who hit over .300. The Sporting Life reported interest from Pittsburgh and Boston, but no contract was ever offered

Manager James Manning was excited about the 1895 season. He had Daniels returning along with a young Joe McGinnity who pitched 20 games in 1894, George Darby, and an addition from Boston, George Stultz. He thought his pitching staff was tops of the league. Daniels was also excited for the new season. He and Minnie were the first to arrive and took a home near the ballpark. He announced “I am feeling as fine as silk…I weigh six pounds less than at the end of the season and was never in better condition.”14 Manning’s enthusiasm was short lived. McGinnity returned home to tend bar, Darby was unable to play, and Stultz was ineffective. Daniels tried his best, but when Minnie was stricken with an illness and returned to Louisville in June he lost his swagger and smile. Minnie passed away on August 3. His grief was obvious as a pout replaced the smile and he no longer engaged the crowd. Nevertheless he recorded a 20-17 record in 331 innings. When the season ended he did a little barnstorming before heading west to the California Winter League with San Jose.

Daniels returned to the Blues in 1896. He struggled until finally in June he put together a three-game winning streak. But that bubble burst when he was manhandled by St. Paul by a 34-21 score on June 21. His next start saw him surrender six doubles, a triple, and two homers while hitting three batters. After a 14-6 loss on June 30 he was released. Three weeks later he joined the Columbus Buckeyes. They tried him in the outfield in a couple of games, but abandoned the idea after he made errors in each game. He joined the rotation on July 22 and made 16 starts for the seventh place team. For the season he posted a 14-18 record and Columbus signed him for the following season.15

League owners decided to cut contracts over the winter. Daniels reluctantly signed the initial offer from Tom Loftus. Daniel’s 1897season got started in a rocky fashion when he allowed nine hits to an amateur team in six innings. Then he surrendered six first inning runs to Cincinnati. Fans feared that he had lost his passion and mastery. Nevertheless, Daniels was given the honor of pitching the home opener before 4000 fans. He was in fine form, beating Detroit 7-3. Daniels became the staff workhorse, appearing in six of the first ten games. The performances were not always pretty, he beat Grand Rapids 11-10, but he had rekindled that competitive fire lost since his wife’s death. Manager Tom Loftus had assembled a pitching staff of castoffs- Daniels, Bumpus Jones, George Rettger, and Harry Keener- but they performed admirably and had the team in first place with a 36-15 record on June 25. Daniels was 12-2 at that point with 22 appearances, his only losses coming in games where the opponents were aided by five Columbus errors.

On the verge of a season like he had in 1894, Daniels and Loftus got into a salary dispute. Daniels asked for a raise based upon his performance. Loftus offered an olive branch of a raise depending upon how the season played out. Loftus then left town on business and Daniels “had a high jinks of a time, dallying with the cup that cheers.”16 Daniels made a final start, a loss to Grand Rapids where he was yanked in the third inning, then packed his bags and headed to Louisville. Columbus went into a losing streak and fell out of the lead. Loftus took a hardline stance and the issue was never resolved. There were suggestions that Louisville was tampering with Daniels, but nothing came of them. In mid-July it appeared that the two sides had reached an agreement, but Daniels did not return.17 Feelings were mixed around the country; some newspapers sided with Daniels. The Kansas City Journal offered “ a magnate who breaks faith with his players should not expect his players to keep faith with him.”18 In early October newspapers around the country reported that St. Louis had purchased Jack Crooks, Frank Genins and Daniels. In November, it was reported that St. Louis actually traded Bill Hallman and pitcher Percy Coleman for Crooks and Daniels.19 Whatever the case, Daniels was free of Loftus and back in the major leagues.

The St. Louis Browns lost 102 games in 1897;Daniels was just one of a myriad of roster changes for 1898. At age 34 he was the elder statesman on the pitching staff. He pitched well in exhibition play and started the season in the bullpen. He picked up his only win by toiling three scoreless innings against Cincinnati on May 9. That performance earned him five starts all of which he lost. The Browns released him in June. Omaha of the Western League picked him up and he started on July 4, but lost 9-1 to Kansas City. He was released shortly after that.

Daniels had learned the marble cutting trade growing up in Louisville, but he still had a thirst for baseball. He would hang on for another four seasons pitching in the Midwest. In 1899 he played with Rockford in the Western Association. The following season he was back in Columbus with the Interstate League franchise. That team was moved to Anderson, Indiana in late August and Daniels was released and joined the Marion, Indiana team in the same league. He hooked on with the Ft. Wayne Railroaders in the Western Association for 1901and pitched in 35 games. Even a headline like “Made 9 runs off ancient Pete Daniels.”20 did not persuade him to give up the game he loved. He joined the Decatur Commodores in 1902 and hurled 26 games before retiring. In his final season he was 12-13 and hit .247 according to The Reach Guide. Although wins totals are missing for some teams it is certain that Daniels posted over 200 wins in the minor leagues in a 16-year career.

After he hung up his spikes, Daniels returned to Louisville and lived in the family home. There are no indications that he ever remarried. After his mother passed away he moved to Indianapolis and lived with his youngest brother James, his only surviving sibling. He died at home on February 13, 1928. Following a funeral mass he was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Indianapolis.

Sources

Atlanta Constitution

Boston Herald

Bradford Era (Bradford, Pennsylvania)

Daily Herald (Delphos, Ohio)

Denver Post

Denver Rocky Mountain News

Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette

Ft. Wayne News

Indianapolis News

Inter Ocean ( Chicago, Illinois)

Kansas City Times

Logansport Chronicle (Logansport, Indiana)

Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska)

Olean Democrat (Olean, New York)

Omaha World Herald

St. Paul Globe

Notes

The second oldest of seven children of Jeremiah and Nora Donovan, Patrick Joseph Donovan was born in County Cork, Ireland, making him one of 10 Deadball Era players born on the Emerald Isle. Most sources list March 16, 1865, as his date of birth, but it appears probable that he later falsified his birth date to make himself appear younger to scouts— — census records from his childhood place his birth in 1863. Patrick immigrated with his family to Lawrence, Massachusetts, when he was only three years old. After completing elementary school, Donovan, like many of the Irish immigrants in his neighborhood, went to work in Lawrence’s cotton mills, a career choice that promised little more than long hours and low wages, but he soon escaped that bleak future through baseball.

A gifted athlete, Donovan got his start in professional baseball in 1886 as an outfielder with the Lawrence club of the New England League. From there he gradually ascended the rungs of the minor-league ladder, playing with Salem in 1887 and London, Ontario, of the International Association in 1888-89. In Patsy’s first year in London his .359 batting average paced the circuit. Making his big-league debut with the Boston Beaneaters on April 19, 1890, Donovan spent his first two seasons in the majors bouncing around the National League and the American Association with Boston, Brooklyn, Louisville, and Washington. Halfway into the 1892 campaign he was shipped to Pittsburgh, where he spent the next seven seasons patrolling right field and consistently batting around .300.

That wasn’t as impressive as it sounds; the NL of the late 1890s offered one of the most offense-friendly environments in baseball history. A scattering of press accounts from the era label Donovan as a “hard hitter,” but clearly he wasn’t. Standing 5’11” and weighing 175 lbs., Patsy was strictly a singles hitter, connecting for only 16 home runs over his 17-year career and typically posting no more than 30 extra-base hits in a season.

His greatest asset was his speed. Swiping 518 bases in his career, good for (as of 2022) 31st on the all-time list, Donovan placed in the top ten in that category five times and led the NL once. His fleetness afoot, coupled with a strong, accurate throwing arm, made him a fine right fielder. He led NL outfielders with eight double plays in 1901 and 30 assists in 1902.

In a decade that was infamous for rough play and rowdyism, Donovan was most admired for his quiet dignity and work ethic. Recognizing his leadership potential, the Pirates installed him as manager for the 1897 season. But in a theme that would be repeated throughout his managerial career, Patsy was given little to work with and the club slumped to a 60-71 record, good enough only for an eighth-place finish in the 12-team NL. Replaced at season’s end, he was reinstated midway through 1899 and piloted Pittsburgh to a 69-58 record. Despite that improvement, Donovan once again was shown the door. Prior to the 1900 campaign, new Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss installed Fred Clarke as player-manager. Soon after his hiring, Clarke orchestrated Donovan’s sale to the St. Louis Cardinals in a move probably designed to cement his authority with his new club.

The Cardinals already had St. Louis native Patsy Tebeau handling the managerial duties, allowing Donovan to concentrate initially on his on-field performance. The new century witnessed the emergence of a new style of play, and Donovan’s reliance on speed over brute strength translated well. From 1900 to 1903 he batted over .300 every season while placing even less emphasis on the extra-base hit than he had in the 1890s. In 1900, for example, he connected for only 11 doubles and one triple but batted .316 and led the NL with 45 stolen bases. As a team, however, the Cardinals slumped to a second-division finish, a disappointing result that led to Tebeau’s firing and Donovan’s installation as manager in 1901.

Under Donovan the club instantaneously improved to a 76-64 record and fourth-place finish. The new manager received much of the credit for the turnaround, earning a reputation for treating his players honestly and fairly. As one writer later noted, Donovan “teaches his men, and then expects them to retain their lessons. He understands his men and shows every confidence in them.” But any hope for prolonged success in St. Louis was lost following the 1901 season, when the Cardinals’ best players, including Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace, Dan McGann, Emmet Heidrick, Jack Powell, Jack Harper, and Willie Sudhoff, jumped to the American League. The mass defection caused Donovan’s Cardinals to plummet to 56-78 and a sixth-place finish in 1902. They fell even further the following year, when Patsy’s $8,800 salary made him the NL’s highest-paid player. St. Louis finished last with a nightmarish 43-94 record, 46½ games out of first place.

Let go by the Cardinals, Donovan spent the rest of the decade managing some of the worst teams of the Deadball Era. After his 1904 Washington Senators managed to win only 38 games (the lowest total in the history of that unfortunate franchise), Donovan took a year off before accepting the manager’s job with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1906. Over three seasons in Brooklyn, Donovan failed to lift the team out of the second division and was let go after a 53-101, seventh-place finish in 1908. “I did as well as could be expected of any manager with the material at hand,” he explained to Reds President Garry Herrmann in a November 1908 letter inquiring about a managerial opening with that club. “Before leaving baseball I would like to have the opportunity of handling a club where I would have free rein and financial backing to secure talent.”

Donovan got his opportunity when he was appointed manager of the Boston Red Sox prior to the 1910 season. Taking over a young, promising outfit that had finished in third place with 88 wins in 1909, Donovan didn’t lift the club into contention during his two-year stewardship and was replaced by Jake Stahl, who led Boston to a World’s Championship in his first year. His days as a player having long since passed, Donovan agreed to continue in the Boston organization as a scout. It was in that capacity in 1914 that he made his most important contribution to the success (and later sorrow) of the franchise by convincing owner Joseph Lannin to purchase Babe Ruth, Ben Egan, and Ernie Shore from the minor-league Baltimore Orioles. Donovan never claimed to have discovered Ruth— — the young lefthander was too talented for his exploits to go unnoticed — —but after watching the pitcher belt a grand slam against the Montreal Royals, Patsy immediately rushed back to Boston to recommend Ruth’s purchase “at any price.”

Saddled with a lifetime .438 winning percentage, Donovan never received another opportunity to manage in the big leagues, but over the next 13 years he accepted several minor-league offers. In 1915-16 he skippered the Buffalo Bisons, which included future major leaguers Charlie Jamieson and Joe Judge, and future big league manager Joe McCarthy, to back-to-back International League pennants. After three years in Buffalo, Donovan went on to manage Syracuse, Newark, Jersey City, Springfield, and Providence without ever finishing higher than fourth. His last managing job came in 1928 when he led Attleboro of the New England League to a second-place finish. In his later years Donovan worked as a scout for the New York Yankees before he finally retired in 1950, ending a 64-year career in Organized Baseball.

Throughout his travels Donovan continued to call Lawrence home. In 1910 he married Teresa Mahoney, and the couple had three sons and one daughter. Though not a particularly successful manager, Donovan cultivated a reputation as a savvy, principled baseball man who aided the careers of many young players. He coached at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where one of his players was future US President George Herbert Walker Bush. In a letter written in 2001 supporting Donovan’s nomination for the Hall of Fame, Bush described himself as “an admirer of Patrick J. Donovan” and characterized his old coach as a man “of the highest character.”

Donovan died at age 88 (or 90) on Christmas Day, 1953, after a long illness. He was buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Lawrence.

An earlier version of this biography appeared in SABR’s “Deadball Stars of the National League” (Brassey’s, 2004), edited by Tom Simon.

Sources

For this biography, the author used a number of contemporary sources, especially those found in the subject’s file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Doyle, one of the game’s most colorful players in one of its most colorful eras, was born October 25, 1869, in Killorgin, County Kerry, Ireland. When he was still a boy, his parents immigrated to the United States, settling in Holyoke, Massachusetts, the city he was to call home for the rest of his life. After attending St. Jerome Parochial School through the ninth grade, Doyle played a few years of semi-pro baseball in the mill towns around New England. He made his professional debut in 1888 as a 19-year-old catcher for the Lynn, Massachusetts, Lions of the New England League.

The following year, he signed with Canton, Ohio, of the Tri-State League, where his batting, base running and catching skills made him the team’s most popular player with the local fans. Later that season Doyle reached the majors with the Columbus Solons of the American Association, receiving a $1,000 signing bonus and an annual salary of $2,500. After making his big league debut on August 27, 1889, he would go on to play 17 seasons in the majors, manage two big league teams and three minor league teams, play a few more seasons in the minor leagues, umpire in both the minors and the majors, and spend the last 38 years of his life in various scouting capacities for the Chicago Cubs. His career in baseball lasted 70 years, rivaling in length those of Connie Mack and Clark Griffith.

In all, Doyle played for ten different major league teams, but his greatest success came with the Giants and the Orioles. A steady hitter, he batted over .300 six times, while compiling a lifetime batting average of .299. His career-best was .368 in 1894, and that fall, in the first Temple Cup series, Doyle batted a prodigious .588 to lead the Giants to a four-game sweep over the pennant-winning Baltimore Orioles. He led all players in the series in hits (10), RBI’s (6) and stolen bases (6).

Several of the Orioles’ players were said to hold grudges against Doyle dating back to that series. However, that didn’t prevent Baltimore manager Ned Hanlon from trading an aging Kid Gleason to the Giants in exchange for the feisty Irishman in time for the 1896 season. The deal had other National League managers complaining about its one-sidedness, but, as Hanlon suspected, Doyle proved to be the final ingredient in turning the Orioles from a very good team into a great team.

Most of the Orioles’ enmity toward Doyle faded once they realized how much his addition would help them. The major exception was Doyle’s particular bete noir, John McGraw, a feisty Irishman like himself. McGraw resented Doyle, and publicly blamed him for any signs of dissension on the team. Of course, many people close to the Orioles said it was McGraw, not Doyle, who was the culprit in any dissension. Yet McGraw was correct in one of his charges against his new teammate. He claimed that Doyle didn’t really want to be in Baltimore, that his “heart” was still in New York. It was, and after a brief stopover in Washington, he was traded back to the Giants in 1898.

Leaving Baltimore certainly did not end Doyle’s problems with McGraw, a man with whom he would have a lifelong feud. The two tangled several times with the worst incident occurring on June 9, 1900, when Doyle, in his second tour with the Giants, deliberately ran into, knocked down, and spiked McGraw (now with St. Louis) in a play at third base.

Always a fierce competitor, Doyle engaged in brawls and fistfights with umpires, fans, opposing players, and even his own teammates. Two of his more notorious assaults were on umpires Tom Lynch in August 1897 and Bob Emslie on the 4th of July 1900. On several occasions he went into the stands to battle fans, including a spring training game in Norfolk in 1896. He made another foray into the stands in 1901 on his first visit to the Polo Grounds after having been traded from the Giants to the Cubs. More than once these battles led to his being arrested.

Despite this seeming lack of self-control, Doyle was a natural leader. Three different clubs, New York, Brooklyn and Chicago selected him as their team captain, and twice he served as an interim manager, for the Giants in 1895 and for Washington in 1898. And ironically, considering his arrests, he spent the only two years of his adult life outside of baseball as Holyoke’s police commissioner.

Although the 5’9″, 155-pound Doyle began as a catcher, he would in his career play every position except pitcher. He was mostly a first baseman, but would play in more than 100 games at four different positions, and more than 50 at the other two. Catching was actually his preference, but he was converted to a first baseman by the Giants in 1894 to take advantage of his speed. He used that speed to accumulate 518 stolen bases, including 73 and 62 respectively in 1896-97 for the Orioles. At his retirement, he ranked eleventh on the all-time list of base-stealers.

Doyle played his final big league game on July 13, 1905. His career had ostensibly ended the year before, after he batted .221 in a combined 74 games for Brooklyn and Philadelphia of the National League. But a series of injuries, including a broken nose suffered by first baseman Hal Chase, left the American League Yankees desperate for players. Manager Clark Griffith signed the thirty-five-year-old Doyle and played him at first base the following day in Detroit. The Yanks lost, 6-3, a loss Doyle helped cause by dropping two throws. It was his only game as a Yankee, but it did allow him to become the second player, behind Willie Keeler, to have played for all three New York teams.

His big league days at an end, Doyle returned to the minor leagues. He was with Toledo of the American Association in 1905, the player-manager at Des Moines in 1906, leading them to the Western League pennant, and then back in the American Association in 1907, where he managed Milwaukee to a seventh-place finish.

Following a stint as Holyoke’s Police Commissioner, in 1908-09, the longtime nemesis of the men in blue became an umpire himself. Doyle umpired in several minor leagues, including the Eastern League, the New England League, the American Association, and the Pacific Coast League, and also served one season (1911) in the National League. When his umpiring days ended, he began scouting for the Chicago Cubs, a job he would retain in one form or another for the rest of his life. Among the players he helped bring to Chicago were Gabby Hartnett, Charlie Root, Pat Malone, Billy Herman, Stan Hack, and Phil Cavaretta. No doubt he took particular pleasure in having recommended the drafting of future Hall of Famer Hack Wilson, when Wilson, as a young player, was left unprotected by McGraw’s Giants.

Jack Doyle always believed that he was the major leagues’ first pinch-hitter, and would often cite the game of June 7, 1892, to prove it. Playing for Cleveland that day, Doyle was called upon by manager Patsy Tebeau in the ninth inning of a game at Brooklyn to bat in place of pitcher George Davies. He responded by hitting a single, which Doyle would later claim won the game. It didn’t: Brooklyn won, 2-1. Nonetheless, for many years this was indeed thought to be the first instance of a pinch-hitter being used in a major league game. Doyle surely thought so, and he was fond of recreating all the details. After his death, however, researchers verified a pinch-hitting appearance for Charlie Reilly of Philadelphia (NL) on April 29, 1892, and more recently other pinch hitting appearances also have been uncovered.

On September 29, 1957, the Giants, playing their final game at the Polo Grounds before absconding to San Francisco, paid tribute to Doyle as the oldest living ex-Giant. Fifteen months later, on New Year’s Eve 1958, Doyle died of a heart attack at age 89 in his beloved Holyoke. A lifelong bachelor, he was survived by his sister, Nora E. Doyle, and several nieces. His death marked the end of an era, as Doyle had been the last living link to the legendary Orioles of the 1890s.

Read more:

• “Scouting Jack Doyle,” by Neal Mackertich

Sources

“Jack Doyle’s Greatest Success As Cubs’ Scout Rewarded Club With Great Teams In Early 30s”. The Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, January 3, 1959.

“Doyle Assaults Emslie” New York Sun, July 5, 1900.

“Pinch-Hitting Role Celebrates Its Centennial” by John G. Leyden in Baseball Weekly, April 29- May 5, 1992.

James H. Bready, Baseball in Baltimore: The First 100 Years, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Baseball America, 1997.

Charles C. Alexander, John McGraw, Viking, 1988.

Various items and clippings from the Jack Doyle file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Obituary. Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, January 2, 1959.

Obituary. The Sporting News, January 14, 1959.

Obituary. New York Times, January 2, 1959.

Though largely forgotten today, Jocko Fields played for some of the earliest professional teams in major-league baseball. He played alongside future Hall of Famer Pud Galvin and made a name for himself as a clown of the diamond.3 Fields had a penchant for smoking throughout the game4 and showing up tipsy.5 Yet he is best remembered for his above-average offensive production in the 1889 and 1890 seasons, when he hit .311 and .282.

John Joseph “Jocko” Fields was born in Cork, Ireland on October 20, 1864. Details about his pre-baseball life are hard to come by. As with many players from baseball’s earliest era, records are scanty and no living person(s) can corroborate or fill in details. There are no surviving records of his early years on the Emerald Isle. Nor are there many details about his youth once he reached the United States. There is an 1870 census record that lists a Charles Fields (31) along with his wife Margaret (30) and three children; John (5), Johanna (3), and Mary (age unlisted) living in Ward 2 of Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey.6 All five are listed as being born in Ireland, with Charles’ occupation listed as “pedler” (sic) and Margaret’s as “keeping house.” John’s year of birth on the census is listed as “abt 1865,”7 but this is just estimation. Though it cannot be stated with 100% certainty that this is Jocko, the evidence does lean in favor of this being the correct person. There is even a Charles Fields who died in 1887 buried in Holy Name Cemetery,8 not far from Jocko’s final resting place.

What can be said for certain is that Jocko Fields enters the historical record in the year 1885. He got his start in professional baseball with the Jersey City Skeeters, a minor-league team, at the age of 20. Looking the part of a late 19th-century ball player, Fields oscillated between being clean-shaven and sporting a long moustache, a style that was favored among young men of that era. He stood 5-feet-10, weighed 160 pounds, batted right, and threw right. He split his time between center field and catching, a foreshadowing of his career to come. While no contemporary commentary can be located about day-to-day time on the team, he is mentioned in an article published in 1926 about Mike Mattimore that listed the two as getting their start on the Jersey City team.9 Fields batted .232 in 26 games for Jersey City that season.

The year 1886 saw Jocko playing for three different New York minor-league teams: the Long Island A’s, Buffalo Bisons, and Utica Pent Ups.10 Again, we find a lack of contemporary newspaper articles detailing his day-to-day appearances with these teams, apart from Fields being mentioned in a newspaper article calling him a “battery of note on the second,” though the exact meaning of this phrase is lost to time.11. However, his stats indicate a respectable showing across the three teams: 56 runs scored and a combined .312 batting average. This was Jocko’s last year in the minors before reaching the top level.

In 1887, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys moved from the American Association to the National League, “when they acquired the franchise surrendered by Kansas City.”12 That same year, Fields joined the roster alongside Pud Galvin, Ed Morris, Pop Smith, Fred Carroll, and others. All told, he played 43 games that season for the Alleghenys, batting .268 and splitting his defensive time between catching and outfield. That year also featured Fields in six different poses for Old Judge Cigarette cards.13

In 1888, Fields started making the sports pages. The earliest mention of him comes on May 17, 1888, when in the sixth inning “Jocko opened the inning with a single to center field.”14 Later in December, he made the papers again as his salary for the following season was listed at $1,500.15 In that same year, Jocko married Mary Fitzsimmons. The couple never had any children.16

In 1889, Fields saw action in 75 games for Pittsburgh and posted his major-league career-best numbers for batting average (.311), on-base percentage (.376), and slugging average (.443). But trouble was on the horizon for the National League. Players were no longer satisfied with the control held over them by the club owners. Fields was no exception. On November 6 at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, players from around the league met to work out a contract. Fields is listed in attendance along with Mike Kelly, Buck Ewing, Dan Brouthers, and a host of others.17 The end result of this meeting was the public unveiling of the Players League that would take to the diamond in 1890. An article published on December 20, 1889 states that “Jocko Fields has definitively cast his lot with the new league and will play in this city.”18

The Pittsburgh Burghers were the Smoky City’s Players League team, managed by Ned Hanlon, and playing out of the third incarnation of Exposition Park. Fields – along with players such as Galvin, Morris, Jake Beckley, and others – competed against the NL’s Pittsburgh Innocents for the hearts and minds of local fans. Early in the year, the papers reported that Fields was “in fine condition.”19 At the beginning of the season, he got off to a good start, though he did make some blunders. On May 2, he tried stealing second and was tagged out.20 What made this noteworthy was that “two more runs after his were required to tie the score so that without good hits his base steallug (sic) was useless.”21 He redeemed himself on June 5 when he hit two home runs off Frank Dwyer in Chicago.22 Fields finished the season with solid offensive numbers: a .282 batting average, with 48 extra-base hits, 103 runs scored, 88 RBIs, and 25 stolen bases for a sixth-place (60-68-3, .469) club.

By the close of the season it was clear that the Players League would not continue. In December of the same year, with talks underway about reinstating players who had jumped to the rebel league, Jocko approached J. Palmer O’Neil, club president of the renamed Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. After Fields inquired about the following season, O’Neil asked if he was ready to sign and what he wanted. Fields said that Hanlon offered him $3,000 for the 1891 season but that he wanted $3,800. O’Neil said, “I will give you $1,200” and walked away.23 Fields was shocked.

For the first three months of 1891, it wasn’t clear whether Fields would sign on to play for the Pirates.24 However, by March 26, he was heading down to Florida for spring training with the club.25 The 1891 season wasn’t shaping up to be Jocko’s year. By May, there was talk of cutting him.26 O’Neil rethought that when he learned the Giants were interested.27 But Fields’ time with the Pirates was running out. On July 13, he was released from the team.28 The exact reason(s) are murky, but one source stated that he was “cut in July after hurting his hand in a wrestling match with pitcher Mark Baldwin, or so he claimed, but an informant told Hanlon the injury had actually occurred when Fields attended a dog fight and ‘got too close to one of the combatants.’”29 The press was not sympathetic to Fields after he was released. One paper asked why he wasn’t released long ago, stating that he “was continually bringing the club into disrepute through his low associates.”30

In August, Fields resurfaced in the Western Association, playing for the Omaha (Nebraska) Lambs.31 But by mid-September the WA campaign was completed.32 Fields finished the year playing back in the majors with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Drinking has always been one of the vices that ruins a sports career. Jocko Fields, unfortunately, was one of those who couldn’t abstain or control himself. In 1892 he was signed by the New York Giants and an ongoing stay in the majors looked hopeful. In April, a Pittsburgh newspaper stated that Fields had “forgotten even the smell of the hard stuff, and manager [Pat] Powers is the boy to keep him straight.”33 By all accounts, things looked to be on the upswing. Through the end of April, Fields led the league in batting, having batted .421 while playing in his six of his team’s first 12 games.34 However, he failed to maintain that pace. On June 11, 1892, Fields played his last game in the majors. He finished up the season with a .273 batting average in 21 games played. He posted a .272 career average in the majors in 344 games from 1887 through 1892.

Fields was signed by the Eastern League’s Buffalo Bisons in late June, but by late July was already being let go.35 Though the sources are silent as to what role, if any, alcohol played in this stage of his career, one may conjecture that he fell off the wagon. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Fields was with Somerville West End in the Central New Jersey League during the 1892 season. While information about the season is limited, what is known is that Jocko caught during the final game against Plainfield, who would end up taking the CNJL Pennant.

The following year, Fields found himself in the Southern Association catching for the Macon (Georgia) Center City/Hornets.36 He had a successful year with the Hornets. Fans embraced him as one of their own and even defended him in print when the papers had less than flattering things to say about his playing ability.37 He also played with the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Senators in the Pennsylvania State League for four games.

In 1894, Fields signed with the Charleston (South Carolina) Seagulls, another club in the Southern Association.38 His ability to delight the crowd was documented in an article about how he made the grandstands laugh with his singing before the start of a game.39 In another article from June, Fields was called the most comical of catchers.40 The “clown of the diamond”41 was thriving on his new team and earned praise as one of the two best catchers in the Southern Association.42 During his time with Charleston he batted .351. In late June, Fields signed with the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Brewers of the Western League.43 He left in late August.44

In an article published in Baseball Digest in 1952, the author A.T. Harvin states that Fields had one of the more unusual contracts in baseball history.45 When he was signed by the Evansville (Indiana) Blackbirds in 1895, his contract gave him two dollars per diem to be spent only on beer and not hard liquor. The article stated that Fields was “never at his best unless he was at least tolerably well ‘tea’d up.’”46 It added that he had another distinction as the only player to that date to be allowed to smoke on the bench.47 Fields was known to be a heavy smoker and would leave the bench between innings to indulge his habit. To stop him from being absent, manager Claude McFarland allowed him to light up when he wanted. Jocko’s time on the Blackbirds was short, but while he was there, he lit up the crowd with laughter though his comedic antics.48

In 1896, Fields returned to the Southern Association, this time playing for the Atlanta (Georgia) Crackers. An article in 1896 called him the “cigarette smoking catcher” and stated that “he was never known to miss a ball when he could see it through a cloud of cigarette smoke.”49 Through June of that year, the papers reported that he played well and entertained the fans.50 By July he was playing on the Norfolk (Virginia) Braves in the Virginia League.51 He finished out the season but was unsure of what he was going to do the following year.52 However, that was the end of his professional baseball career.

After retiring from baseball, Fields worked for Railway Express until 1933, though his exact position with the company is unknown.53 Another source stated that in addition to working for Railway Express, he was a “county employee,”54 though it doesn’t state what county. He also made appearances in various parades,55 at a premiere of the now lost silent film, Play Ball!,56 at a lunch with kids at the Dodgers School,57 and finally at the 100th anniversary of baseball when the historic marker was placed in Hoboken in 1946.58 That would be Jocko’s last public appearance.

On October 14, 1950, John Joseph “Jocko” Fields passed away at his home at 340 Fairmount Ave in Jersey City.59 He outlived his wife and was mourned by nieces and nephews.60 His final resting place is an unmarked grave at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City.61

Last revised: September 13, 2021 (zp)

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Lamb and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Terry Bohn.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and the following.

Baseball Digest

Baseball Hall of Fame Library, player file for Jocko Fields.

findagrave.com

Gonsowski, Joe, Masson, Richard, and Miller, Jay. The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin & Company 1886-1890 (‎Self-published, 2008).

Koszarek, Ed. The Players League: History, Clubs, Ballplayers and Statistics. (Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006).

Nemec, David. Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 1: The Ball Players Who Built the Game. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2011).

US Census Bureau, 1870 US Census

Notes

1 “Baseball Celebs at Bayonne Point,” (Hackensack) Record, June 19, 1946: 18.

2 “It’s an Old, Old Game,” (New York) News, June 20, 1946: 122.

3 “Eleven Games Won Out of Twelve Played,” (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, June 04, 1894: 6.

4 A.H., Tarvin, “Club Saw to It He Hit with His Foot in the Bucket,” Baseball Digest, January 1952: pages 65-66

5 Tarvin, 65.

6 US Census Bureau, 1870 US Census.

7 US Census Bureau, 1870 US Census.

8 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/209249991/charles-fields

9 John H .Gruber, “Mike Mattimore Baseball Pioneer Pitched and Held Down First Base Also Playing Cleverly in Outfield,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, November 28, 1926: 29.

10 “Buffalo Wins Again,” Buffalo Times, July 20, 1886: 5.

11 “Rochester and Syracuse, Two Pioneers of the Wheel, Entering Loop in 1885,” (Rochester) Democrat and Chronical, April 15, 1927: 40.

12 Harry Keck, “A History of the Bucs, Dating Back to the Good Old Days,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, September 22, 1938: 30.

13 Joe Gonsowski, Richard Masson, and Jay Miller. The Photographic Baseball Cards of Goodwin & Company 1886-1890 (‎Self-published, 2008), 230.

14 “It was Even Up,” (New York) Evening World, May 17, 1888: 1.

15 “Sporting Notes,” Buffalo Courier, December 21, 1888: 2.

16 Baseball Hall of Fame Library, player file for Jocko Fields.

17 “Working on a Contract,” Boston Globe, November 7, 1889: 5.

18 “Fields for the Players,” Pittsburg Dispatch, December 20, 1889: 6.

19 “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburg Dispatch, February 28, 1890: 6.

20 “Baseball Notes,” Pittsburg Dispatch, May 3, 1890: 6.

21 “Baseball Notes,” above.

22 Ernest J. Lanigan, “The Day in Baseball: June 5,” Buffalo Times, June 5, 1911: 6.

23 “Barnie and Wagner,” Pittsburg Dispatch, December 2, 1890: 6

24 “Among the Ball-Tossers,” Topeka (Kansas) State Journal, January 31, 1891: 7; “Manager Hanlon Goes East and Signs Albert Mani and Jocko Fields for Local Club,” Pittsburg Dispatch, February 22, 1891: 6; and.

“Sporting Notes,” Pittsburg Dispatch, March 17, 1891: 6.

25 “The Old Man Signs,” Pittsburg Dispatch, March 26, 1891: 6.

26 “Baseball Notes,” Pittsburg Dispatch, May 19, 1891: 6.

27 “Baseball Notes,” above.

28 “General Sporting Notes,” Pittsburg Dispatch, July 14, 1891: 6.

29 David Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 1: The Ball Players Who Built the Game. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 537.

30 “The National Game,” Pittsburg Press, July 14, 1891: 5.

31 “Baseball Matters,” (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, August 02, 1891: 7, and “Will Win Today,” Omaha (Nebraska) Bee, August 12, 1891: 2.

32 “Western Cracks,” (Racine) Journal Times, September 05, 1891: 5.

33 “Baseball Talk,” Brooklyn Citizen, April 04, 1892: 3.

34 “Base-Ball Averages,” (Chicago) Inter Ocean, May 08, 1892: 22.

35 “Shuffled Out,” Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express, July 21, 1892: 8.

36 “Whoopee! What A Game!” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, May 11, 1893: 5.

37 “An Off Day Once in A While,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, July 25, 1893: 6, and “Corner Talk,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, July 25, 1893: 4.

38 “Around the Bases,” (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, May 20, 1894: 9.

39 “With Solemn Funeral Rites,” Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial, May 24, 1894: 3.

40 “Baseball,” (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, June 02, 1894: 6.

41 “Eleven Games Won Out of Twelve Played,” (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, June 04, 1894: 6.

42 “A Great Deal,” Atlanta Constitution, June 26, 1894: 5.

43 “Western League Matters,” Indianapolis Journal, June 29, 1894: 3

44 “Baseball,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Herald, August 27, 1894: 7.

45 A.H. Tarvin, “Club Saw to It He Hit with His Foot in the Bucket,” Baseball Digest, January 1952: pages 65-66.

46 Tarvin: pages 65-66.

47 Tarvin: pages 65-66.

48 “New Orleans Gets a Dose of Defeat,” (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, July 28, 1895: 9.

49 “Sporting Miscellany,” Detroit Free Press, April 03, 1896: 6.

50 “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburg Daily Post, April 23, 1896: 6; “Some Pick-Ups,” Chattanooga (Tennessee) Daily Times, May 03, 1896: 7; and “Won in The First,” (New Orleans) Times-Democrat, June 20, 1896: 8.

51 “It Was All Over,” Norfolk Virginian, July 19, 1896: 6.

52 “The Baseball Muddle,” Norfolk Virginian, September 24, 1896: 3.

53 Nemec, 537.

54 Ed Koszarek, The Players League: History, Clubs, Ballplayers and Statistics. (Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006), 127.

55 “Notes of the Game,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 15, 1925: 13. and McCullough, Bill. “Here’s Field Day Lineup,” (Brooklyn) Times Union, May 12, 1933: 13.

56 “Casino Today,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, October 19, 1925: 10.

57 “School Begins at Sullivan PL,” (Brooklyn) Times Union, August 24, 1936: 11.

58 “Baseball Celebs at Bayonne Point,” (Hackensack) Record, June 19, 1946: 18.

59 Baseball Hall of Fame Library, player file for Jocko Fields, and “Jacko Fields Dies; Was Ex-Major Leaguer,” Scranton (Pennsylvania) Tribune, October 15, 1950: 49.

60 Baseball Hall of Fame Library, player file for Jocko Fields.

61 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12910974/john-joseph-fields

A quiet but ambitious man who was stubborn, stern, and demanding, Finn said, “I choose my players with as much an eye to their gentlemanly qualities as to their ability in baseball.” He was also superstitious, choosing to sit in the grandstand rather than on the bench, conspicuous because he always wore a brown derby and had a perpetually present cigar and unsmiling demeanor. A wealthy businessman who ran several enterprises, Finn, said the Tribune, “made as much money out of baseball in this state as anybody.” He liked the grandstand because it enabled him to keep an eye on gate receipts as well as the game.

A native of Craughwell, County Galway, Ireland, Michael Edward Finn was born on September 29, 1856. He was the older of two children born to Patrick and Mary Jane (Kane) Finn. Michael’s sister, Winnifred, was born just 12 days after Patrick died in September 1858. Their mother married Michael Finnegan in 1860 and had another son and two daughters.

Little is known about Mike Finn’s early life; it was something he did not talk about with family and friends. What is known is that he was determined to become a successful businessman. With that in mind, he left Ireland for Liverpool, England, at the age of 14 and booked passage on the ship City of Brooklyn, which arrived in New York on July 19, 1871. Finn told the San Francisco Chronicle that he did not linger long in New York and soon wended his way to San Francisco. By 1880 he was living at 397 Eighth St. and working as a boot cutter for S.W. Levy.

Finn started playing baseball in 1876. According to the Chronicle, “Mike’s stamping grounds were around the vacant squares in the vicinity of Eighth and Harrison streets, where the south of Market street brigade were strong contenders in many a sand lot engagement.” California baseball historian John E. Spalding has written that a group of cricket players organized the city’s first baseball team late in 1859. The sport’s popularity soared in 1868 when San Francisco’s first baseball ground was built near Potrero Hill. A year later, with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Cincinnati Red Stockings toured California, sparking more interest.

The Pacific Base Ball League formed in January 1878, comprised of four teams, the Eagles, Renos, Californias, and Athletics. Most of the players were from working and lower middle class backgrounds. Finn first appeared in a box score on July 29, 1878. Playing for the Renos, he started in center field in a 27-13 loss to the Californias. The Chronicle wrote that the game featured “bad playing … many errors [resulting from] utter carelessness and a disinclination to step out of their positions to stop the ball.” With the Renos trailing 4-2 in the fourth inning, “Irwin’s position as pitcher was taken by Finn. This was not a desirable change, for in that inning the Californias made ten runs.”

Finn’s first amateur championship came on October 13, 1878, when he played shortstop for Young Union in a 7-4 victory over Fremont. Another championship followed a week later when his Buckingham and Hecht club defeated West Coast Furniture, 14-9. Finn was a member of the National Guard of California in 1879 and was elected Captain of the Company B Second Infantry Regiment team. According to the San Francisco Morning Call, Finn was “considered one of the best amateur catchers in the business” during his time with the club. 

In 1880, as San Francisco baseball was making slow progress toward professional status, Finn played third base for the Pacific League’s Renos, a circuit of three teams that did not last beyond July. It was much the same in 1881 as the California League featured five teams that played what Spalding called “loosely organized competition [with] no standings.” And no contracts; Finn occasionally appeared at catcher for another club, the Athletics.

On March 21, 1881, Finn married 18-year-old Mary Ann Dullea in San Francisco. She was a fringe maker and a native of Boston. They had 13 children between 1882 and 1906, of whom nine (five girls, four boys) survived.

The 1882 California League, again loosely organized, consisted of four teams (Californias, Nationals, Niantics, and Renos) that played games on Sundays. Finn was a member of the Niantics and played catcher, second base, and third base. He had a fine outing on June 11, going 3-for-6 with a double, triple, and three runs in a 15-13 loss to the Renos. Mike also did well at catcher in a 23-5 rout of the Renos on July 30. The Chronicle said that Finn “handles pitcher [Charley] Sweeney’s hot shot like a veteran.” Sweeney would move on to pitch for Providence of the National League in 1884, setting a major-league record by striking out 19 Boston batters. Finn made one of his first career pitching appearances in a 14-11 loss to the Renos on October 29.

In 1883 San Francisco baseball was boosted by the construction of Central Park in the Civic Center area. California League competition became tougher with the entry of a top-notch team sponsored by Haverly’s California Theater. Finn again played for the Niantics. A third baseman early in the season, Finn was 3-for-4 with two runs in a 7-3 win over the Californias on April 29. 

Two weeks later Haverly scored ten runs off pitcher Charley Sweeney, prompting the insubordinate hurler to walk off the field and disappear from the ballpark. League President and Niantics founder John Mone was so embarrassed that he withdrew the team from the league. It was replaced by Woonsocket, a club that kept most of the Niantic players. 

Finn replaced Sweeney in the pitcher’s box, at the time only 50 feet from home plate. Box scores show a 1-2 pitching record between May 28 and June 25. He pitched two games for San Francisco against Sacramento on July 29 and August 5, winning the first and losing the second. He lost two more games in September and October, bringing his season record to 2-5. Haverly (6-1) won the 1883 championship. The rest of the league, according to Spalding, did not win “as many as half their games.”

Finn managed and pitched for the San Francisco club in 1884; he also served as the California League treasurer. According to Spalding, the four team circuit was still “a primitive organization” until 1886. The seven-game season started in late July. San Francisco played other opponents beforehand; with pitchers now permitted to throw overhand, Finn’s serves were pounded by the Eurekas 13-1 in Sacramento on June 1. He hurled for the Schilling Nine 30 days later, defeating Enterprise, 14-9. He didn’t fare well in San Francisco’s July 27 opener against Haverly, a 9-8 loss, surrendering six hits and striking out eight. His best game was a 16-3 two-hitter against the Stars on September 28. 

San Francisco played several nonleague games in 1885. On May 10 the Altas of Sacramento came to San Francisco and lost 7-4. Finn was 2-for-5 and was the winning pitcher, striking out ten. The team disbanded during the summer and was reorganized by Finn as the Pioneers, with many of the same players. Another game with the Altas on August 30 resulted in an 18-9 Pioneer victory. Finn was 3-for-5 with a run scored and was again the winning pitcher. The Sacramento Daily Record-Union reported that “Finn and [catcher] Carroll work well together, and are effective, but Finn is not as good a pitcher as such a nine should have.”

The Pioneers’ nine-game California League season began on August 16. Finn secured the services of two former Haverly players, brothers Hugh and John J. “Big” Smith, the league’s top two hitters. The heavy artillery wasn’t enough; Haverly (20-5 overall), led by pitcher Billy Incell (11-3), won the championship, with the Pioneers (6-3) finishing second. 

Playing professionally didn’t pay much. Finn told the Chronicle in 1920, “When I started the Pioneers, we once cut up 10 cents each among the players for the game. I pitched and won the game and my cut was 10 cents. But we stayed with it and we once got a cut of $400 each out of a game. That was our biggest gate. … It looked mighty big to us.” 

Finn’s club continued to play nonleague contests in November, losing to the Altas 10-8 on November 1. The Daily Record-Union noted that “Finn, who occupied the box for the Pioneers, struck out 11 of the Altas.”

In November 1885 Finn was appointed to a temporary position at the US Custom House Appraiser’s store at a salary of $840 a year. The job was made permanent two months later.

A three-team San Francisco Winter League began play in January 1886. Finn’s Pioneers steamrolled the Stars and Haverlys, winning six of seven games. In a 16-10 win over Haverly on January 11, Finn walked nine of the Haverlys. Sporting Life reported on a February 1 game: “The clever occupancy of the points by Finn were the main causes of the [9-3] defeat of the Stars.” A week later, before “an immense crowd,” Sporting Life noted that “Both Finn and Incell were badly pounded. The Haverlys fielded badly and went all to pieces [in an 11-4 loss].”

A feisty man with a barrel chest and handlebar mustache, Mike was approximately 5-feet-9-inches tall and weighed about 180 pounds. No stranger to fisticuffs, he tangled with teammate Charles Gagus on March 28 after hearing that Gagus was jumping to another team. The Daily Record-Union called it “one of the hardest-fought battles witnessed in this city for many years.” The combatants fought three rounds at Central Park and, according to the Chronicle, “The men punished each other not a little and there were several knock-downs, Gagus scoring the greater number. Their faces disfigured when the third round was called. … Gagus finally hit him with tremendous force on the chin and [Finn] tumbled over on the sawdust just as time was called. The fight was conceded to Gagus.” In October Finn tangled with an insubordinate outfielder, Henry Moore, who was making disparaging remarks about him. Finn won the bout and Moore was blacklisted by league President Mone for the duration of the season.

April 4, 1886, was Opening Day for the new California League, a five-team circuit that expanded beyond San Francisco and was a member of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which administered the National Agreement. Players were under contract for the first time and league officials took steps to control unruly players by prohibiting the sale of alcohol to them at the ballparks. 

The Pioneers journeyed to Sacramento and defeated the Altas, 4-3, behind Finn’s three-hit, ten-strikeout pitching. The Sacramento Daily Union said that “Finn and Carroll … played a strong game.” Eight days later Finn and Stars pitcher Jimmy Mullee both threw a no-hitter, with the Pioneers prevailing by a 4-1 count. Mullee’s seven walks and the Stars’ seven errors were the difference. 

In early May Mullee and the Stars (1-3) were expelled from the league. The Chronicle said Mullee “presented himself in a condition totally unfit to occupy the box and had no command of the ball whatever. …” The Pioneers (12-20), Altas (17-14), and Greenhood & Moran (13-13) finished the season behind Haverly (18-11). Billy Incell (14-5) was the league’s top pitcher. Finn was 4-8. The Chronicle, in assessing the league’s players, concluded that there were “comparatively few all-around ball players. Finn and [Andrew] Piercy of the Pioneers and [George] Van Haltren of the Oaklands [Greenhood & Moran] play all positions. … Incell is doubtless the best pitcher out here. Finn is probably next. Last season Finn pitched some games which would rank him above Incell.” 

Mike Finn had become a wealthy man by the late 1880s. After more than a year at the Custom House, he moved to the US Mint by March 1887 to work as a revenue officer. He also started a contracting business at some point during the decade and, according to Spalding, “owned many pieces of real estate.” His contracting business was doing so well that in March 1888 the Chronicle reported that “Finn has been absent from the city for the past week up in the wilds of Mendocino county buying timber land, on which he proposes to erect a sawmill.” In addition, Finn once held a position as a deputy US marshal. 

Working in public service and having side enterprises didn’t escape press notice. In March 1887 a tongue-in cheek Chronicle broadside, “Driven To Death: Overworked Officials in San Francisco – A Medical Commission a Distressing and Immediate Necessity,” wrote that “Finn, a ball-tosser before he went into the Mint, could run the bases like a jack-rabbit and dispose of Fourth-street beefsteaks as easily as an ostrich can eat cobblestones. Mr. Finn is now an altered man. His shattered health requires that he be allowed to attend all the open meetings of the California League. Even with these concessions of leisure during office hours, he is failing, and the commission had better look into his case promptly.”

The 1887 California League season featured a new ballpark, Haight Street Grounds, on the eastern end of Golden Gate Park. Finn and other league officials formed an association to finance its construction and the park routinely held 15,000 fans. In the Park’s first contest, Finn’s Pioneers defeated Haverly, 5-4, on April 3.

A rival circuit, the financially distressed Pacific Coast League, collapsed on May 29 and Finn bolstered his Pioneers with out-of-work players. New recruits included the Smith brothers, Nick and John, who became the heart of his offense, and pitcher Eddie Lorrigan, who, according to Spalding, “dominat[ed] the league from the time he pitched his first game. …”

Now focused on managing, Finn ended his playing career after 1887. Lorrigan anchored the Pioneers’ pitching staff, but Finn experimented with other pitchers (with little success) and put himself in the box on July 9 against Haverly. This choice, said the Chronicle, “seemed to tickle the Haverlys, for they all wore a broad grin and winked very knowingly to each other, which seemed to convey the idea they were going to a picnic with his pitching.” To everyone’s surprise, “the old war-horse fooled them, and fooled them badly, holding them down to five scattering hits and retiring five on strikes [in a 13-9 victory]. His clever work astonished not only the Haverlys but every one present.” Pitching himself didn’t always work; in a 5-4 loss to the Altas on August 21, Finn was “batted quite freely,” according to the Daily Alta California.

No longer a playing manager, Finn changed his managerial approach. The Chronicle reported in August that he “has at last thrown friendship aside and become a strict disciplinarian, and the result is he has now nine large, well-built, energetic and hard working players.” He was unafraid of trying unconventional approaches to problems. Noting that his players were poor baserunners, he put everyone in the care of a chiropodist, who removed the corns from their feet in order to facilitate their sliding.

One player who wasn’t hard-working was Henry Moore, who made a farce of a Pioneer-Haverly game on October 22. Playing center field in the second inning, Moore, in the Chronicle’s estimation, “deliberately shirked a fly ball, which he could easily have caught, but folded his arms and stood stone still and allowed the ball to drop to the ground, three men scoring on the play.” Finn promptly ordered him off the field at the end of the inning to loud hisses and groans from the crowd. Moore was then blacklisted by league President Mone and was fined $25. 

Three days later Finn and Moore ran into each other near a saloon on O’Farrell Street. Mike heard that Moore was making disparaging remarks about him, which Moore denied. Soon thereafter, blows were exchanged and a lively fight started, which was eventually broken up by the crowd. Reporters speculated that Moore’s behavior resulted because he had bet heavily on his team to win and was upset when they fell behind. Others thought Moore wanted to see his pitcher, Joseph Purcell, dropped from the team. (Finn reinstated Moore for the 1888 season but released him in late April because Moore could not abstain from drinking.) 

By the end of October 1887 it looked as though Haverly, 2½ games ahead of the Pioneers, would win the pennant. But two straight Haverly losses and three straight Pioneer wins later found them tied for the lead, and a 6-4 Pioneer win over Haverly on November 19 gave them a one-game lead. Both teams lost on the final day of the season, giving the Pioneers (24-21) their first California League championship. Nick Smith (.307) and his brother John (.305) were the league’s leading batters. Eddie Lorrigan (15-2) was the top pitcher.

Major-league teams often toured California to earn extra money during the winter. At one time or another, Finn’s clubs faced such teams as St. Louis, Chicago, and New York, usually on the short end of the score. One of the more memorable contests took place on November 27, 1887, when the Pioneers’ Lorrigan limited the New York Giants to five hits in a 1-0 loss. John Smith had two of the Pioneers’ six hits.   

Finn’s hope for a second Pioneer championship depended on bringing back Lorrigan in 1888. By the end of February the hurler had signed contracts with both the Pioneers and the league’s new franchise in Stockton. After protracted negotiations, Stockton bought his release for $350, dealing Finn and the Pioneers what the Chronicle called a “severe blow,” since Lorrigan, “more than anyone else, won the pennant for them last season.” Finn had a good offensive lineup with the three Smiths, John, Hugh, and Nick, but pitching proved to be a problem throughout the year. Joe Purcell (17-15) was Finn’s top man in the box. In May the Chronicle suggested that Finn, “a clever boxman … will have to doff his elegant managerial robes, put on a ‘rig,’ steady his boys, and save them from utter annihilation.”

The loss of Lorrigan was acutely felt on July 14 when he no-hit the Pioneers 8-0 in Stockton. Shortly thereafter, Lorrigan became ill, never recovered, and died in 1889. George Harper replaced Lorrigan in the box and Stockton (41-24) won the California League pennant. The Pioneers (30-37) finished third behind Stockton and Haverly, with Oakland’s Greenhood & Moran in last place. Nick Smith (.243) was the Pioneers’ leading hitter.

In December 1888 Finn sold his interest in the California League to Haverly manager Henry Harris, giving Harris the sole right to manage a team in San Francisco. Finn sold the Pioneers to James L. Gillis, who moved the franchise to Sacramento. After the transactions Sporting Life noted that the longtime triumvirate of managers Henry Harris, Tom Robinson, and Finn would be broken up: “Of the three [Finn] was the only one who had ever won distinction on the diamond. He is greatly esteemed by our public.”

Finn wasn’t out of baseball for long. According to Spalding, “Henry Harris shocked the league by selling his San Francisco team to Finn in June 1889 for $2,200 and took the Stockton manager’s job for $250 a month.” First-place San Francisco struggled with the managerial change and lost 11 straight, still clinging to the lead but fighting with Tom Robinson’s Oakland club for an advantage. The race was close for weeks, with Oakland pulling ahead in late October. San Francisco put pressure on Oakland by winning three straight from them in the season’s final week, setting up a tiebreaking final game between the two clubs on November 24.

Haight Street Grounds overflowed with a record 28,000 fans. With San Francisco in the field awaiting the first pitch, Robinson sent George Van Haltren to the plate to start the game. Finn immediately withdrew his team from the field in protest; Van Haltren, William Brown, and Fred Carroll, all major leaguers, were in the Oakland lineup. “We refuse to play this game with these Eastern men against us,” Finn told umpire Jack Sheridan, who gave him five minutes to field his team or forfeit the game. When the deadline passed with Finn’s squad still on the sideline, Sheridan awarded the game to Oakland.

Finn, who was livid, protested to President Mone, who threatened him with a $300 fine if his team failed to take the field. Much debate followed, with Finn agreeing to play the contest, which Robinson then called an exhibition. With the three major leaguers out of the lineup, Oakland won, 5-4. Five days later, Finn’s protest was considered by league officials, who set aside Sheridan’s forfeit and ruled that the latter game was official, giving Oakland (56-38) its first championship. San Francisco (55-39) was led by Len Stockwell (.301) and George “Blockers” Hanley (.295). A trio of pitchers, Bill Clarke (10-4), Pete Meegan (28-15), and Romeo Barry (15-11), pitched well throughout the season.

In 1890 Finn told the San Francisco Morning Call, “I propose to win the championship this year and will spare neither time, trouble nor expense to do so. My team was beat out of it last year by a fluke and I don’t intend to have a similar trick played on me.” Finn added Charley Sweeney and Buck Ebright for offense and Nick Lookabaugh for mound presence; he would need all the help he could get for the league’s expanded 139-game season.

As the league headed into July, San Francisco was in the middle of a hot pennant race. Off the field, Finn was the subject of concern. According to the Oakland Tribune, “Some of the league directors are not happy with the way Finn has been managing his team and assert that he fails to look out for tomorrow.” According to Spalding, “Finn was spending so much time overseeing his properties and trying to get a political career started in the Democratic Party” that league President Mone tried to persuade Henry Harris to return to manage San Francisco, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento were in a close race for the pennant. A key moment came in late August when Sacramento released former major-league pitcher Roscoe Coughlin, who was then signed by Finn. On October 6 Oakland’s Kid Carsay pitched a 2-0 no-hitter against San Francisco at Haight Street; both teams had 64-49 records at the end of the day. 

In the season’s final weeks, league officials admitted they hadn’t kept won-lost records and were unsure of the final totals; newspapers also reported different standings. An investigation found that San Francisco and Sacramento had identical season-ending records – a playoff would be needed. 

League directors, after heated discussions, scheduled three games in a neutral site, Stockton. Sacramento manager Thomas Enright protested and threatened to boycott the games, perhaps because his players had been paid through the end of the regular season and wanted extra money for the playoffs. Enright refused to pay and wired officials that the game couldn’t be played in Stockton. Finn, knowing that his club would win if Sacramento failed to show, took his team to Stockton, where it was awarded two forfeit victories and the California League championship. Nick Lookabaugh (33-28) and Roscoe Coughlin (20-10) pitched well for San Francisco (81-58). Buck Ebright (.295) and Blockers Hanley (.269) paced the offense.

On December 6, 1890, Finn sold the San Francisco franchise to Henry Harris, who became the team’s sole owner; Finn also disposed of his interest in the Haight Street Grounds. He then revealed that he’d signed a two-year contract to manage the fledgling San Jose franchise, which would replace Stockton. The San Francisco Morning Call wrote that Finn, his wife, and his children had been sick for two years with an unspecified illness and were constantly under a doctor’s care; he hoped that selling the club would improve his health and that of his family. Perhaps San Jose’s warm climate was the attraction; Mike relocated his family to a home there by the end of February. In March he attempted to raise money by selling his contracting business and a dozen thoroughbreds he housed in Palo Alto. A prospective buyer for both was found but died three days before the deal was to be consummated. 

Owned by a group of seven bankers and businessmen, the San Jose club was led by trolley magnate James H. Henry, who put up $5,000 to operate the team and build a ballpark. Finn supervised its design and construction. He also kept busy signing players during the winter. He brought Ebright (a former major leaguer with Washington in 1889), Lookabaugh, Hanley, and shortstop “Wild Bill” Everitt with him from San Francisco, added pitcher George Harper, and solidified the defense with first baseman Charles Dooley and outfielders Art Sunday and Joe McGuckin. Another stellar addition was outfielder-catcher George T. Stallings, who had had 91 games of minor-league experience (1887-1890) plus four games with Brooklyn of the National League the previous year. He later became famous as the manager of the 1914 “Miracle” Boston Braves, which won the World Series championship over the Philadelphia Athletics.

San Jose opened the season on March 22 with a 5-0 loss to San Francisco at Haight Street. Stallings had two of San Jose’s four hits; the Chronicle wrote that Finn took the defeat “very philosophically.” Six days later San Jose entertained the San Franciscans at the team’s new Agricultural Park field, winning 6-5 in front of 3,000 spectators. Thereafter, it wasn’t long before San Jose was in first place, where it stayed for most of the season. By June newspapers were calling Finn the Duke of Santa Clara County for popularizing baseball there, a title that Sporting Life said “promises to stick to him as long as he remains at the head of the San Jose team.” His team soon became known as the Dukes.

Spalding called Finn a “stickler for training rules,” adding, “He wanted his players to refrain from drinking alcohol or gambling during the season … and fined them [if they did].” A fan from that era told the Chronicle that players of the late 1880s usually wound up at a saloon at Ellis and Steiner Streets on Saturday nights, either to drink to their afternoon victory or to drown their chagrin over a defeat.   “Many a Saturday night,” the fan recalled, “I used to see Mike Finn … collar his players at the bar and take them home to sober up so they could play their Sunday game.”

During a game in April, Finn unexpectedly let out a loud yell and was seen, to the astonishment of fans and players alike, doing a war dance on the grass, hardly behavior one would expect from the staid skipper. It seems that Joe McGuckin had a pet white rat that he left in Finn’s care on the bench. According to The Sporting News, “During the excitement of the game Finn thrust the animal into one of the pockets of his trousers. Fifteen minutes later … the rat had eaten a hole through his pocket and was chasing up and down his leg.” It was the last time Finn cared for the critter.

In July 1891 San Jose fans were in a froth over Finn’s release of team captain Buck Ebright; Mike caught him playing poker at 1 A.M. in the back of a cigar store and fined him $10. Ebright told him he’d quit before paying and was subsequently given his release. Ebright then signed with Oakland, where he played eight games before the San Jose directors got nervous during a losing streak; Duke promptly re-signed the outfielder.

Finn could also be superstitious, and losing sometimes prompted creative solutions to remove a perceived “jinx.” At one point during the summer, Spalding noted, Finn and his club “piled up old uniforms and bats and set them on fire. … The results were mixed and players thought there still might be a hoodoo on their team.” With three weeks left in the season and with San Jose holding a one-game lead over San Francisco, Finn and Ebright shaved off their mustaches in an effort to turn things around. 

The change in fortunes was stunning – the Dukes didn’t lose another game during the November stretch drive, winning 13 straight to finish 90-57, 5½ games in front of San Francisco. George Harper (47-32) and Nick Lookabaugh (43-25) pitched San Jose to the pennant; Harper completed all of his 79 starts and had a 0.96 ERA. Lookabaugh threw 577 innings with an ERA of 1.74. Buck Ebright (.284), Charles Dooley (.258), and Bill Everitt (.254) supplied a big slice of offense. Some called George Stallings the fastest player in the circuit; he stole a league-leading 86 bases. Harper moved on to the majors in 1894 and 1896, posting a 10-14 record in 28 games with Philadelphia and Brooklyn. Everitt hit .317 as a major leaguer for Chicago and Washington (1895-1901). 

Hoping to make more money, San Jose challenged Portland, winner of the Pacific Northwest League, for the championship of the Pacific Coast. A 19-game series was set with all but two scheduled in San Francisco. The series opened on November 26 (Thanksgiving Day) and was evenly matched throughout, with neither team able to build more than a two-game lead. With the series knotted at nine games apiece, the second game of a Sunday doubleheader on January 10, 1892, determined the champion. With the score tied at 3-3 in the eighth and Everitt on third base, Ebright was called safe at second in a close play. The Portland manager and second baseman, Bob Glenalvin, and several of his players challenged the umpire’s decision, but no one called time. With everyone from Portland focused on the dispute, Everitt stole home and was called safe, prompting Glenalvin to pull his team off the field. The game was then forfeited to San Jose and the Dukes became champions of the West.

With the offseason lasting only ten weeks, Mike Finn signed most of his 1891 players to new contracts. One exception was Blockers Hanley. On March 21 the Morning Call reported that Hanley would not be retained, writing, “[Hanley] and Finn fell out on a question of total abstinence and Blockers got the worst of it.” Another Dukes player who sparked controversy was third baseman Jerry Denny, a major leaguer who played third base in spectacular fashion without a glove. Spalding said Denny’s presence on the Dukes was “distinctly illegal.” The property of Pittsburgh, Denny refused to go east and preferred to stay near his family in Oakland. Finn’s position was clear: “If Pittsburgh wants him they will have to fight for him.”  

The California League of 1892 featured one new team, Los Angeles (which replaced Sacramento) and a schedule of approximately 170 games. San Jose and Los Angeles were in a tight race in the early going, but a disturbing trend affected all clubs – dwindling attendance. By late July Finn was considering the possibility of shifting the franchise to Stockton. Another matter also occupied his time. According to Spalding, “He was busy with politics as well and moved back to San Francisco for three months in the middle of the summer while he ran an unsuccessful campaign to gain the Democratic Party’s nomination for superintendent of streets in the city.”

Finn also had another personal enterprise – the Home Plate cigar store on West Santa Clara Street in San Jose, in partnership with George Stallings, an establishment that also sold ballgame tickets. The store didn’t last long – it was gutted by fire in the early morning hours of August 1. The damage was estimated at $2,500, which was covered by insurance.

In an effort to counteract sagging attendance, the league accepted a proposal by Los Angeles manager G.A. Vanderbeck to split the schedule into two halves, ending the first season on July 26, with the two first-place teams meeting in a playoff at season’s end. San Jose played Los Angeles five times in the final week of the first half, winning the last game 4-3 on a home run by George Harper. The triumph by San Jose (49-36) was the third straight championship for the Dukes and the fourth consecutive title for Finn.

San Jose managed to sell 500 season tickets, enough to keep the team in town, but didn’t play well in the second half (35-49); disappointed fans stayed away in droves. Although Los Angeles (51-35) won the second season, Finn objected to any playoff games there; his relationship with Vanderbeck had been strained since the end of the first half. Finn declined Vanderbeck’s offer to pay San Jose’s expenses, but a split-the-gate agreement was accepted by all but two of San Jose’s players, who deserted Finn and jumped their contracts by arranging a series on their own. Los Angeles won the subsequent playoff (5-0-1) in early December but the result was nullified at the annual league meeting, which awarded San Jose the first-half championship and Los Angeles the second half. Los Angeles was then kicked out of the league and Vanderbeck’s license was revoked.

By early January 1893, Mike Finn wasn’t sure whether he wanted to continue in baseball or look for a political appointment. In February, he decided to move his club to Stockton, a city that had failed to support a team in 1890. According to Sporting Life, Finn said, “Stockton was infested by ball players who were dishonest enough to forget to pay their debts. … But I’ll not stand for such practices from my players. Temperance will also be another feature of the team or I’ll quickly dismiss all offenders.”

Money problems surfaced elsewhere; Tom Robinson was unable to pay his Oakland players, prompting Finn to note that Robinson’s gate receipts were adequate but that Robinson used the money to buy diamonds and then told everyone his ladies bought them for him. Soon thereafter, new owners assumed control of the club. Oakland captain Norris “Tip” O’Neill, who was released by the new regime, was hired by Finn to serve in the same capacity in Stockton; his players immediately threatened to strike. Finn countered by vowing to suspend and fine any strikers. With few of the players on good terms with O’Neill and a fear that Robinson would somehow take control of the team and move it to Sacramento, the players didn’t show up for a May 26 game, which was forfeited to Los Angeles. Finn sold the club the next day to John W. Moore of Spokane.

The ownership changes resulted in the election of a new league president in early June. Finn, outgoing President Mone, Henry Harris, and Tom Robinson were seen as contributing to the league’s decline; new Los Angeles manager Al Lindley said the public had lost confidence in their operation. The Chronicle noted that owners Harris, Finn, and Robinson had lost a reported $60,000 in the disastrous seasons of 1892-93. By mid-August, the California League had collapsed and wouldn’t resurface for another four years.

On June 7, 1893, Finn’s two-story residence on San Francisco’s Page Street was destroyed by a fast-moving fire that consumed a city block; three firefighters died fighting the blaze. Three days later the Chronicle reported that Finn had applied for a pitching job with a Petaluma team managed by Blockers Hanley. Perhaps recalling his ouster by Finn a year earlier, Blockers said, “You might want to get up in the night and eat clam chowder, and you know that kind of conduct will not do on my team. I’ve had some trouble with you before, and you must look elsewhere for a job.” 

Finn continued to look for other baseball opportunities and went back to San Jose in November 1893 with the hope of working up enthusiasm for a team, but left in what the Evening News called “a very disconsolate spirit.” In September 1895, at the age of 39, he again announced his desire to get back into managing, but nothing came of it. Thereafter, Mike’s participation was limited to the occasional neighborhood diamond challenge or benefit/charity game. He managed a team of Customs House employees in February 1896 that lost to the Mint, 17-6, hitting a triple in the contest. There were also annual charity contests in the Hayes Valley area between Finn’s “Gallagherites” and the “Mahoneyites.”

Out of the game, Finn still maintained a keen interest in baseball, sometimes taking in a Pacific Coast League game; he also managed the Haight Street Grounds for a time. He had, however, lost his desire to get back into the game, primarily because of the high salaries demanded by the players. As he told the Chronicle in 1913, “The old style was better, when the aim was to hit the ball a mighty clip, which insured more activity on the part of the players. … The pitchers have too much of a handicap with the foul-strike rule in vogue. … The game will have no limit to its popularity no matter how the moguls construct the rules.” Only one of Finn’s four sons played baseball; Charlie was captain of a team called the Micks in 1907. (Charlie died in August 1926 when he was hit in the chest by a baseball.)  

A stalwart in the Democratic Party, Mike Finn was involved in San Francisco politics well into the 1920s. At a party convention in September 1894, several backers, including Blockers Hanley and Charles Gagus, touted him as a potential candidate for Twelfth Ward supervisor (councilman), but he declined to enter the contest. In August 1899 he announced his candidacy for recorder, but wasn’t elected. The well-connected Finn, however, had influence. During an influenza epidemic (probably in 1918) everyone on San Francisco public transportation was obligated by law to wear a mask. Mike took his off while on a streetcar and was arrested when he got off. When the arresting officer brought Mike to the police station, the sergeant in charge said, “Are you nuts? Do you know who that is?” Mike was promptly released and the officer was in big trouble.

On April 18, 1906, the San Francisco Earthquake destroyed Mike Finn’s rebuilt home on Page Street. The family, like thousands of others, ended up living in a tent in Golden Gate Park until the home could again be rebuilt. Finn’s wealth and construction expertise no doubt hastened the process. 

Finn was a man who loved to host parties, affairs that relegated his children to the top of a grand, winding staircase where they watched guests arrive. His servants would offer guests only the best booze; if they refused but attended later parties, Mike would never offer them a drink again. The gaiety was also fueled by ragtime piano music played by his daughter Ruth, who played professionally at department stores and movie houses. Her brother Eddie, also a musician, sometimes accompanied her. 

One of Finn’s gala events was held on October 18, 1920, when he hosted a reception for Ty Cobb. Posing for a Chronicle photographer, Cobb insisted on standing to Finn’s left, saying “He is my superior officer and I should really stand one pace to the rear of him.” Of the meeting, Mike said, “Ty Cobb is so different from the man I expected to see that I couldn’t get my breath for a while, and after he had left I thought of a lot of things I might have said to him. He is a champion hitter and somehow I had pictured him as a big roughneck with bulging muscles. Instead of that I was greeted by a boyish looking fellow who looked as if he had to shave once a week. … He has class sticking out all over him, and I am mighty proud to have made his acquaintance.”

Finn retired from a job with the US Internal Revenue Service in the mid-1920s. He and Mary Ann then spent about ten years on a farm in the Concord area of Contra Costa County. It became a focal point for family gatherings; by 1930, the home on Page Street was occupied by Mike’s son Frank, a firefighter, and his daughter Georgiana, a saleswoman. The Finns’ daughter Alice and her husband lived on the farm until 1956.

When they could no longer care for the farm, Mike and Mary Ann lived with their daughter Ruth and her husband. Mike died from chronic arteriosclerosis on February 10, 1935, after a long illness. A service was held at Gantner-Felder-Kenny Funeral home and a high Mass was celebrated at St. Agnes Church on February 13. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California. 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Deborah Shepherd Hayes, Duke Finn’s great-great-granddaughter, for initiating this project and providing invaluable biographical information, photos, and encouragement. Two great-granddaughters, Laurrana Leigon and Nancy Gazzano, made significant contributions with genealogical information, old scrapbooks, and stories about Duke as related to them by the oldest living Finn descendant, Arthur “Bud” Rodgers. It’s an honor to have them call me an “honorary Finn.”

Sources

Spalding, John. Always on Sunday: California Baseball League 1886 to 1915. Manhattan, Kansas: Ag Press, 1992.

Zingg, Paul J., and Mark D. Medeiros. Runs, Hits, and an Era: The Pacific Coast League, 1903-58. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Sporting Life, 1885-1893

San Francisco Chronicle, 1878-1956

San Francisco Morning Call, 1890-1893

San Francisco Call, 1895, 1898, 1899, 1907-1909

Sacramento Daily Record-Union, 1884-1890

San Francisco Bulletin, 1886-1890

Daily Alta California, 1886-1889

San Jose Evening News, 1890-1947

Oakland Tribune, 1891-1912

Los Angeles Times, 1892

San Jose Mercury News, 1913

San Francisco Examiner, 1936

Seattle Daily Times, 1935

Ancestry.com

The Library of Congress Chronicling America: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

California Digital Newspaper Collection: http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc/

Genealogybank.com

San Francisco Public Library