Enoch Edward Bakley was born on April 17, 1864, in what was then called Blackwoodtown, New Jersey. Now called simply Blackwood, the community lies south-southeast of Philadelphia, across the Delaware river and about eight miles into New Jersey. (Hence his nickname, Jersey.) Enoch’s father, Henry, fought in the Civil War as a private in Company D of the New Jersey Volunteer 25th Regiment.2 Little is recorded about Enoch’s early life, but according to the 1880 US Census, he and his father were both ironworkers in a local mill.3 The work was hazardous but provided a living wage, and on July 16, 1882, Enoch married Barbara Carolyn Krantz, a daughter of German immigrants, in Gloucester City, New Jersey.4 In 1883 their first child, Edward Jr., was born, and he was joined by sister Barbara in 1888 and brother John in 1890. The marriage did not last, and at some point between 1890 and 1896 (when Barbara remarried), the couple divorced.5 Of note, Bakley’s name was often spelled Bakely in newspaper accounts of his baseball activity.

In 1883, with a family, Enoch accepted a chance to pitch for the Pottsville Anthracites of the Interstate Association, about 85 miles northwest of Philadelphia. At 5-feet-8 and 170 pounds, Bakley pitched and played the outfield, although Pottsville used him primarily in the pitching box. The team was not very good, and finished 1883 with a 15-50 record under three different managers.6 Bakley is credited with a 2-5 record during his short stint but posted an ERA of 2.95. The talent level was clear, and in May, the American Association’s Philadelphia Athletics signed him to fill the void created by an injury to Bobby Mathews, who sprained his ankle trying to steal second base.7 He made his major-league debut on May 11, 1883, in a 4-3 win over the Tim Keefe-led New York Metropolitans. Philadelphia scored four runs in the top of the first inning, giving the 19-year-old pitcher a cushion before he threw his first pitch. Bakley pitched well for four innings before giving up two runs in the bottom of the fifth and another in the sixth, but he held on for the win.8

Led by Harry Stovey, among others, the 1883 Athletics finished first in the league with a 66-32 record. The 19-year-old won five games before finishing with a 5-3 mark for the season, but spent much of the season on loan to both Pottsville and Harrisburg.9

Bakley jumped to the upstart, and short-lived, Union Association in 1884. Playing with the Philadelphia Keystones, Wilmington Quicksteps, and Kansas City Cowboys, he lost a league-leading 30 games while winning 16.10 SABR historian Justin McKinney discovered that in 1884 Bakley originally signed a contract with the Littlestown, Pennsylvania, club of the Keystone Association in addition to his deal with the Philadelphia Keystones of the Union Association. Since the teenager had already taken money from Littlestown prior to signing with Philadelphia, he tried to feign illness in an attempt to void the Littlestown obligation.11 The effort failed. Blacklisted under the National Agreement, Bakley tried to sign with Providence when the Keystones folded in August, but was denied reinstatement.12 He played out the season in two brief stops in Wilmington and Kansas City.

After the Union Association dissolved, Bakley moved on to Portland (Maine) in the independent Eastern New England League, and the Albany Senators and Oswego Sweegs of the New York State League for 1885. In 1886, and again in 1887, the pitcher signed with the Rochester Maroons of the International League. (Some sources refer to it as the International Association.)13

In Rochester Bakley began to gain the attention of the news media for reasons beyond the baseball diamond. While gambling was neither sanctioned nor excluded from baseball at the time, the perception of players possibly throwing games was intolerable. At one point, there were rumors that Bakley was involved. In July 1886, in response to one reporter, Maroons manager Frank Bancroft said, “The statement that Bakley had been released or suspended on account of selling the game was wholly without foundation. He has only been temporarily suspended. He had been intemperate and was used up physically. … The club, as a whole, are total abstainers. No man can drink whiskey and play ball. …”14

With that single declaration, Bancroft both exonerated Bakley of any gambling charges, and identified what became the root of the pitcher’s demise: alcohol. Throughout his career, certainly going forward from his time with Rochester, Bakley suffered from a drinking problem. In 1887 he and teammate Fred Lewis were arrested and fined $50 for public drunkenness, and the antics began to wear on his manager. For every game in which he homered and starred defensively, it seemed there were several games in which he appeared lost.15 Rob Neyer, in the 1992 edition of The Baseball Book, encapsulated the pitcher’s career in a precis of his tenure: “Bakely [sic] pitched six seasons in the major leagues for nine different teams. … The reasons for his transcience weren’t much of a mystery. Bakely was a drunk, and not that great a pitcher besides. …”16

Yet Bakley did have a modicum of talent. In 1888 he began the first of three consecutive seasons in Cleveland –with different teams and each in a different league. The moribund Cleveland Blues, a team that had posted a 39-92 record in the American Association in 1887 and finished 54 games out of first, signed Bakley. The now 24-year-old won 25 games (against 33 losses) with a 2.97 ERA. In 1889 Bakley played for the Cleveland Spiders of the National League and lowered his ERA to 2.96, but won only 12 games. In 1890 he jumped to the Cleveland Infants of the new Players’ League, but the demise of the latter, and his release by the Spiders, led him to Washington and then Baltimore in 1891.

Perhaps underscoring the athletic talent that Bakley squandered, The Sporting News reported that he was “once matched to fight Jack Dempsey, the Nonpareil [not the Jack Dempsey of twentieth-century renown]. Frank Bancroft called the fight off, and it is probably lucky for Bakley that he did, as he would not have escaped from a go with the redoubtable Jack without carrying some marks of the encounter.”17

Several interesting events occurred during the 1890 season. On July 9 Bakley was an emergency substitute umpire for Harry Leach, who’d been knocked unconscious by a foul tip the day before.18 Bakley had performed the task once before, in August 1888 in a game versus Kansas City,19 and the 1890 game proved to be his final appearance as an umpire. Then, on September 3, in a makeup of a May rainout against Boston, Bakley gave up Harry Stovey’s 100th career home run. That feat by Stovey made him the first member of baseball’s figurative “100 Homer” club and earned Bakley a mention in the game’s annals.20

In 1891, after losing 10 of his first 12 decisions, Bakley was released by Washington. Baltimore signed him almost immediately, and the pitcher enjoyed a renaissance of sorts with his new team, winning four of his first six starts. Unable to control his alcohol use, he was suspended without pay for disobeying club rules.21 Within a week after his final appearance in an August 20 loss to Washington, Baltimore gave Bakley his last big-league release. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Bakely is said to have broken several promises made to the management of the club, and for this reason he was allowed to go.”22

He remained in Baltimore and in 1895 joined the Allentown Goobers of the Pennsylvania State League. He pitched well initially, earning newspaper praise: “Bakely pitched the better game. He was steady, displayed considerable headwork and never allowed himself to get rattled by the loud coaching.”23 But the Goobers released him in late July, with a local correspondent for The Sporting News reporting, “Considerable regret is felt here over the release of Bakely. ‘Jersey’ was quite popular and he won more games for Allentown than any of the other pitchers. His jaunty step as he walked up to the pitcher’s box was especially pleasing to the ladies, many of them attending games when they knew Bakely was going to pitch. He had such a bewitching smile also and it is to be regretted that his fondness for ‘smiles’ led to his release.”24

In August, after a stint with Pottstown and now pitching for Reading, Pennsylvania, the tone changed, one paper reporting, “Jersey Bakely was the sweetest kind of tapioca, the locals batting him terrifically. In every inning Lancaster hit safely one or more times, their total hits being twenty-four.”25 In short, after 13 years, Bakley’s baseball career was over.

Out of baseball, uneducated, no longer married, likely an alcoholic, and still only 31, Bakley took jobs as a carpenter and rigger in the southern New Jersey/Philadelphia region over the next two decades.26 On February 17, 1915, not quite 51 years old, Jersey Bakley died at his residence in Philadelphia. The death certificate cited chronic endocarditis as the primary cause, although there is no record of an autopsy being performed. He was buried at Greenmount Cemetery in Philadelphia on February 20.

On the diamond, Bakley had some terrific seasons, despite his career losing record. He finished second in National League ERA in 1889 (2.96), seventh in American Association wins in 1888 (25), twice in the top 10 in strikeouts in his respective leagues (sixth, with 226, in the 1884 Union Association, and fourth, with 212, in the 1888 American Association), and was still in the top 200 list for career complete games (with 191), as of 2020. His career, and his life, ended in ignominy, but Jersey Bakley certainly enjoyed a few afternoons in the sun, as well.

Sources

Much of the fundamental work on this biography was crafted by David Nemec and Steve Behnke, both members of the Society for American Baseball Research. The statistical information is taken from Baseball-reference.com, unless otherwise noted. Additionally, Justin McKinney provided information regarding Bakley’s contractual issues in the Union Association in 1884.

Notes

1 Jersey Bakley’s page on Baseball-Reference.com: baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=bakely001jer. Accessed October 16, 2020.

2 Henry H. Bakley, Find-a-Grave. findagrave.com/memorial/31137786/henry-h-bakley. Accessed October 16, 2020.

3 US Census: 1880. ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6742/images/4244461-00771?pId=179390. Accessed October 15, 2020.

4 New Jersey, Marriage Records, 1670-1965. search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=61376&h=552813&queryId=9a49b24880ffec1563e2033053232425&usePUB=true&_phsrc=vSy19&_phstart=successSource&requr=2550866976735232&ur=0&lang=en-US. Accessed October 16, 2020.

5 This conclusion comes from the 1900 US Census, in which Barbara is married to a different man and having additional siblings for the three Bakley children. ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4120424_00267?pId=31400663. Accessed October 16, 2020.

6 Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Third edition (Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America, 2007), 141.

7 Edward Achorn, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey (New York: Public Affairs, 2013), 169-170.

8 The game description is from an unpublished biography of Jersey Bakley, and draws the news citation from “Another Close Contest,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 12, 1883: 2.

9 David Nemec, “Jersey Bakley,” in Major League Baseball Profiles: 1871-1900, vol. 1 (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 2011), 244.

10 Union Association Pitching Leaders, Baseball-Reference.com: baseball-reference.com/register/leader.cgi?type=pitch&id=4b1eb341. Accessed October 16, 2020.

11 “Base Ball Notes,” Franklin Repository (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, April 30, 1884.

12 Justin McKinney, in a pending history of the Union Association; provided to the author on October 21, 2020.

13 “The Official Record,” The Sporting News, December 4, 1886: 5.

14 “Five Runs and All Earned,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 3, 1886: 6.

15 Bakley’s home runs were infrequent, and they merited special notice when they occurred, such as on August 26, 1887. See “Hamilton Easily Beaten,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, August 26, 1887: 7. The less glorious results, such as those reported in “Two Games to Toronto,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 6, 1887: 6, with fielding gaffes and hitless afternoons, became more common as the years passed.

16 Rob Neyer, “Jersey Bakely,” in Bill James’ The Baseball Book (New York: Villard Books, 1992), 360-361.

17 The Sporting News, November 17, 1888: 5.

18 “Cleveland, 9; Boston, 7,” New York World, July 9, 1890: 7.

19 Jersey Bakley, Retrosheet.org: retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B/Pbakej102.htm. Accessed October 17, 2020.

20 Baseball-Reference.com’s listing of players hitting at least 100 home runs: baseball-reference.com/bullpen/100_Home_Run_Club. Accessed October 17, 2020.

21 “Bakely Turns Up Again,” Baltimore Sun, July 15, 1891: 6.

22 “Wise and Bakely Released,” Baltimore Sun, August 27, 1891: 6.

23 “The Season Opened,” Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call, May 2, 1895: 1.

24 “Fired All His Pitchers,” The Sporting News, July 27, 1895: 7.

25 “Crawling Up Nicely,” Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), August 28, 1895: 1.

26 US City Directories, 1822-1995: Newark, New Jersey, City Directory, 1909, 321.

Adoniram Judson Birchall was born on September 12, 1855, in Germantown to Elias Birchall, an immigrant from England, and Sarah (Lutz) Birchall, the daughter of a shoemaker of German extraction. Jud, as he would be known, was the 10th of 15 children born to the Birchalls between 1843 and 1863.1 Of the 15 children, only eight survived to adulthood, including his older brother Edward, who was also a baseball player of local renown in Philadelphia. The elder of the baseball-playing Birchall brothers played left field for the Girard club of Philadelphia before embarking on a career as a civil engineer.

The well-documented business successes and philanthropic activities of Jud’s father, as well as the wealth of information available about the family’s history, gives us a glimpse into circumstances into which Jud was born.

Elias Birchall came to the United States with his parents when he was 6 years old. In early adulthood he became involved in manufacturing hosiery in Germantown. On December 8, 1842, he married Sarah Lutz, the daughter of Abraham and Elizabeth (Conver) Lutz, who were said to be “staid and fervent Christians.”2 The senior Birchall enjoyed great success in the textile industry and, over time, acquired a sizable fortune. His prominent position in Germantown’s commercial and social circles are an indication that Jud probably grew up in what would have been considered an upper-class family in late nineteenth-century Germantown. It is certain that young Jud’s material needs were met and education, including religious instruction, was stressed in the home.

Jud, or A.J., was named after Adoniram Judson, an early American Baptist missionary, lexicographer, and Bible translator, best known for his missionary work in Burma.3 The Birchalls were active members of the Milestone Baptist Church. Elias served the church as a deacon, trustee, and choir leader, giving liberally of his time and financial resources – to his own detriment in his later years – for the advancement and support of the church.4 Jud was raised with traditional nineteenth-century evangelical Protestant tenets that emphasized individual conversion, personal piety, Bible study, and public morality. Whether these were values he carried with him into adulthood is unclear.

Jud attended Rittenhouse Grammar School, a public school that served rich and poor families alike in the Germantown, Mt. Airy, Chestnut Hill, and Rittenhouse Town sections of Philadelphia.5 His first amateur baseball experience came in 1869 as a member of the Americus Club.6 This team was made up of members of the first senior class of Rittenhouse. Jud was one of only two players who were not members of the graduating class. Unlike his brothers, he never attended college and it is unknown how many years of formal education he completed. However, given his family’s commercial interests, he was identified as having the offseason vocation of weaver.7

It is unknown if Birchall threw right- or left-handed or from which side of the plate he batted. However, we do know that by the spring of 1870 the 14-year-old boy had set out to pursue a career in baseball, which always seemed to bring him back to his hometown of Philadelphia. Birchall played for three different organizations that used the name Athletic Club of Philadelphia.

The early years of Birchall’s baseball life were spent as an infielder, primarily at third base. He spent parts of 1870 with both the Athletics Jr. and United, one of the best amateur clubs in Philadelphia at the time. When the United disbanded, he joined the Germantown Alert and stayed with them until the end of the 1874 season.8 In 1875 he went to Wilmington and played third base for the Delaware Quicksteps. That year, the Quicksteps barnstormed across the Midwest and played against the Chicago White Stockings and Cincinnati Red Stockings. Although the Quicksteps were considered an amateur club, they were a commercial venture and had a roster that included paid players playing alongside true amateurs. The Quicksteps were on the edge of professionalism and by every account were one of the finest amateur nines in the region. The experience of playing for the Quicksteps proved invaluable to the young infielder, providing him with his first taste of professional competition.

Jud remained with the Quicksteps during the 1876 season before returning to Philadelphia in 1877 to join the Fergy Malone-led Athletics of the League Alliance. This version of the Athletics was reborn as a semipro team after the club was expelled from the National League for failing to complete its entire schedule during the 1876 season. Birchall also began the 1878 season with the Athletics, which again played independently. However, a late May tailspin, which included defeats at the hands of local amateurs, necessitated a shake-up that resulted in Birchall being drafted by the International Association’s New Bedford franchise, co-managed by Frank Bancroft.9

Bancroft, who honed his entrepreneurial skills in the theater industry, saw the moneymaking potential in baseball, and acquired Birchall in June. The 22-year-old third baseman joined future major-league stars George Gore, Roger Connor, and Harry Stovey on the New Bedford roster. While Birchall was with the club for just under a month, there was no shortage of baseball played. Bancroft treated his club like a theatrical group and reportedly scheduled 130 games that year. On the Fourth of July holiday, Bancroft scheduled a tripleheader for New Bedford and Hartford: an 8 A.M. game in New Bedford, an 11 A.M. game in Taunton, and a 4 P.M. game in Providence.10 Four days later, Birchall left the New Bedford team. Where he played during the remainder of the 1878 season is unknown. Birchall once again played for the hometown Athletics in 1879.

In 1880 Birchall joined future Hall of Famer Dan Brouthers on the Baltimore club of the loosely organized National Association. Birchall, beginning his transition from third base to left field, divided the third-base and left-field duties with utilityman Joe Ellick. The Baltimore team disbanded on June 29 and Birchall once again returned to Philadelphia, finishing the season with the Globe club.

In February 1881 Birchall signed with the Athletics and began his third and final stint with the team. The Athletics were now part of the Eastern Championship Association (ECAS) and boasted a roster that included Jack O’Brien, Cub Stricker, and Charlie Mason – all of whom played a prominent role on the 1883 American Association championship team. Unlike his previous associations with the club, Birchall stuck with the Athletics for the next three seasons, becoming an integral part of a lineup that later included established major-league stars like first baseman Harry Stovey and ace right-handed pitcher Bobby Mathews.11

The Athletics joined the American Association in the fall of 1881 and on May 2, 1882, the 26-year-old Birchall made his major-league debut, patrolling left field and batting cleanup for the Athletics in Oakdale Park, located on Eleventh and Cumberland Streets.12 Birchall went 2-for-4 with a walk and a run scored as the Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles 10-7 in the first-ever American Association game. Birchall batted in the cleanup spot during the early part of season before moving to the leadoff spot he customarily occupied for the next year and a half.

During his rookie season, Birchall earned a reputation as a steady left fielder with a flair for making incredible catches. One such instance was during a game against the Cincinnati Red Stockings on June 1, when he made a spectacular game-saving catch that the Philadelphia Inquirer described as “the most wonderful ever witnessed on the ball field.” With Philadelphia leading 3-0 in the top of the ninth, Cincinnati was threatening with runners on second and third and two down. Red Stockings first baseman Henry Luff sent a rocket to left field. The Inquirer recounted the play as follows:

“Luff hit a ball that traveled like a shot out of a cannon directly over Birchal’s [sic] head. The later jumped fully three feet from the ground, and the ball struck his right wrist, bounded in the air, fell into his hand and then dropped, but before it reached the ground Birchal [sic] cleverly caught it with one hand, and the Cincinnatis were ‘Chicagoed.’”13

Birchall enjoyed a fine rookie campaign. He appeared in all 75 of the Athletics’ games that season, 74 in left field and one at second base. He finished the season with career highs in batting average, .263, and RBIs, 27, both fourth-best among the team’s regulars. He also led the team in plate appearances, at-bats, and runs scored, while finishing second on the club in both hits and doubles. More importantly, he established himself as the Athletics’ everyday left fielder and a reliable leadoff hitter.

Following his steady performance during his rookie year, much was expected of Birchall and the Athletics in 1883. In its annual Baseball Preview, Sporting Life tabbed the Athletics as the American Association favorites and highlighted Birchall’s steady left-field play and excellent baserunning: “He is credited with some remarkable catches in his position, his running catches bring noteworthy. His great forte, however, is in base running, in which he leads the players of the country, and which has made him famous.”14

Stolen bases did not become an official statistic until 1886, so Birchall’s baserunning skills are difficult to assess in comparison with his contemporaries.

The 1883 season marked the Athletics’ return to the newly renovated Jefferson Street Grounds, which the New York Times hailed as the prettiest ballpark in America. It was reported that landscape gardeners made the playing field as “level as a billiard table.”15 The Athletics’ return to Jefferson Street Grounds presented a unique challenge to Birchall and the other Athletic outfielders. The ballpark, formerly known as Athletics Park, featured tight narrow corners in left and right fields and deep power alleys that met a cavernous 500 feet away in dead center field. The oddly-shaped ballpark tested outfielders’ awareness of where they were at on the field and their range to cover the vast power alleys.

In addition to having the finest ballpark in America, Philadelphia also had a brand-new entry in the National League. For the first time Philadelphia was a two-team major-league city, marking the beginning of a period of unprecedented growth in the popularity of baseball in the city.

Birchall and his Athletics teammates were so well received by the city of Philadelphia, that by early June their NL counterparts received permission from the League to reduce admission from 50 cents to 25 cents to allow them to compete with their popular crosstown rivals. Amazingly, the Athletics drew more than 300,000 fans16 to the Jefferson Street Grounds that season, including more than 45,000 for an early September four-game series with the second-place St. Louis Browns.

For Birchall the 1883 season marked the zenith of his major-league career. Although his batting average dipped 22 points from the previous year to .241, Birchall led the Association in both plate appearances and at-bats, establishing major-league records of 468 and 448, respectively.17 He also ranked fifth in the Association in runs scored with 95. Batting in the leadoff position, Birchall often set the table for Lon Knight, O’Brien, and Stovey, who batted .304 and smacked 14 home runs that year.

Despite charging out of the gate to an 18-3 mark in May, the Athletics were later locked in a tight three-way pennant race with the St. Louis Browns and Cincinnati Red Stockings. On August 10, in the midst of a three-game series in New York with the Metropolitans, the Athletics clung to a slim two-game lead over the Browns and were facing future Hall of Famer and Metropolitans ace Tim Keefe. Trailing 3-1 in the eighth inning, Birchall, in his customary role as a table-setter, ignited a two-run rally with a base hit off Keefe and heads-up baserunning. With the game tied 3-3 in the 10th, Birchall smacked a long triple to right field and scored on Stovey’s game-winning single, helping the Athletics maintain their slim lead over the Browns,

Not known for his power, Birchall hit only one home run in his major-league career. Fittingly, it came during the Athletics championship season and in the midst of the pennant race. On September 13, 1883, at Recreation Park in Columbus, Ohio, Birchall led off the game with an inside-the-park home run off right-hander Frank Mountain. The Athletics went on to win the game, 11-5, and opened up a seemingly safe 3½-game lead over the Browns, who dropped a 3-0 decision to the Baltimore Orioles the same day.

As the 1884 season opened, the Athletics and their fans anticipated another American Association pennant run. Birchall began the season in left field and batted in his customary leadoff spot, the catalyst of the returning offensive juggernaut. However, the Athletics quickly faltered and Birchall’s playing time witnessed a dramatic fall-off. Birchall appeared in only 54 of the team’s 107 contests, and by mid-May was dropped to the sixth and seventh slots in the Athletics batting order for the remainder of the season. Although he batted .258, his power numbers had declined significantly – he recorded only four extra-base hits – and his fielding was nowhere near what it had been two seasons before. By the end of the season, Birchall rarely appeared in the Athletics lineup, replaced by Henry Larkin, and the Athletics had fallen to seventh place in the Association. At the end of the season, Birchall’s major-league career came to a quiet end.

On January 1, 1885, Birchall married Emma Jane Pinkerton. Emma Jane was the daughter of John and Margaret Pinkerton, also of Germantown. The Pinkerton men were typically employed as blacksmiths while the women worked in the hosiery business. It is unclear when the romance between the two began, but it is hard to imagine the two hadn’t known each other nearly their entire lives.

Despite not being offered a contract by the Athletics in 1885, Jud felt he still had some baseball left in him. So in the spring of that year, he left his then-pregnant wife in Philadelphia and headed to New Jersey, where he joined the minor-league Newark Domestics. Reunited with former Athletics teammate “California” Bob Blakiston, Birchall primarily played left field for the Domestics, who finished 42-49, good enough for fourth place in the financially struggling Eastern League. After the season Birchall returned to Philadelphia and prepared for the birth of his first child. On November 25, 1885, Jud and Emma Jean Birchall became the parents of a son, Judson Elias.

Jud Birchall appeared in 225 major-league games, compiling 254 hits in 1,007 at-bats for a .252 batting average. Although his major-league totals are modest and his career described as undistinguished by some baseball historians, the official statistics probably don’t provide us with an accurate picture of the important role Birchall played in the Athletics’ pennant-winning season of 1883. According to David Nemec, author of The Beer and Whiskey League, there was a distinct difference in philosophy between NL and AA official scorers, and the fact that Birchall played in the American Association “probably deducted 5-10 points from his batting average.”18 AA official scorers were typically stingy in awarding hits, while NL scorers tended to be more liberal in their scoring decisions.

In addition to the discrepancies and inaccuracies associated with statistics from this era (and the American Association in particular), stolen bases were not an official statistic until 1886. Consequently it is difficult, in any reliable manner, to quantify or compare Birchall’s baserunning abilities. Yet, at the time of his death, his baserunning and “wonderful slides into second were still talked about in baseball circles.”19

When compared to his contemporaries, Birchall’s career fielding statistics would indicate that he was a slightly below average left fielder. His statistical plunge in fielding percentage following his outstanding rookie season of 1882, when he was one of the better left fielders in the Association, raises many questions.

Was this drop-off the result of the early signs of consumption that would eventually take his life? At least two independent sources suggest that Birchall’s playing career was cut short due to failing health. However, the fact that he died more than three years after the end of his major-league career would indicate that the pulmonary trouble that led to his demise may not have been contracted or progressed far enough to begin impacting his playing ability. Therefore, baseball historians are left to search for other clues that may have contributed to his fall-off during a time when he should have been entering his prime.

It’s possible that Birchall’s off-field activities contributed to his fall-off. As with many teams during the 1880s, there were numerous reports of heavy drinking among the Athletics. In fact, the Athletics management expressed concerns about almost all of their players during the 1883 season, which resulted in management establishing a set of club rules that among other things addressed the primary vices of hard living associated with the Athletics and ballplayers of this era. However, no one player or group of players was mentioned by name, so it is difficult to know if this may have contributed to Birchall’s decline.

His playing career complete and health beginning to fail, Birchall spent the next two summers umpiring in amateur leagues in and around Philadelphia.

On December 22, 1887, Jud Birchall succumbed to consumption (tuberculosis). He died quietly at his home on Main Street in Philadelphia and was buried in the Milestone Baptist Church Cemetery. The cemetery was later destroyed for construction and Birchall was reinterred in a common mass grave in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

After Birchall’s death, Emma worked as a dressmaker. She and Judson moved in with her sister, Sarah Pinkerton. Judson grew up to be a haberdasher and died in 1911 at the age of 25. In 1916 Emma married William Parsons, who worked for an electric storage company. The couple were married for at least 34 years, as the 1940 census shows them residing in Philadelphia.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Willoughby H. Reed. History and Genealogy of the Reed Family (Norristown, Pennsylvania: Norristown Press, 1929), 206.

2 Reed, 205.

3 Fred Barlow, “Adoniram Judson, Worldwide Missions.” Retrieved from wholesomewords.org/missions/bjudson1.html.

4 Reed, 207.

5 The school was named after David Rittenhouse (1732-1796), a noted American clockmaker, mathematician, astronomer, educator, and state politician. As an astronomer he is credited with calculating the transit of Venus as well as making a successful observation of the planet. In later years he was a vice provost and professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the first director of the United States Mint.

6 “A.J. Birchal [sic],” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 23, 1887: 1.

7 “The Base Ball Parade,” Times (Philadelphia), October 2, 1883: 1.

8 “A.J. Birchal [sic].”

9 “General Notes and News,” Chicago Tribune, June 16, 1878: 7.

10 “Base Ball,” Buffalo Courier, July 4, 1878: 2.

11 Harry Stovey was the greatest power hitter in American Association. Bobby Mathews won 30 games in three consecutive seasons for the Athletics (1883-1885).

12 Jerrold Casway, “Jefferson Street Grounds,” National Pastime, 2013: 14.

13 “Chicagoed” was the nineteenth-century term to describe a team that had been shut out. Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2, 1882.

14 The Athletics Club; the Men Who Will Strive for the American Association Championship,” Sporting Life, April 15, 1883: 2.

15 M. Benson, Ballparks of North America: A Comprehensive Historical Reference to Baseball Grounds, Yards and Stadiums, 1845 to Present (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Publishers, Inc., 1989), 296.

16 Edward Achorn, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 243.

17 Birchall’s major-league record for plate appearances and at-bats was broken in 1884.

18 David Nemec, personal correspondence, July 30, 2004.

19 “‘Jud’ Birchal [sic] Dead: The Famous Left Fielder of the Athletic Base Ball Club,” Times (Philadelphia), December 24, 1887: 1.

While being the architect of the National League’s inaugural no-hitter is Bradley’s most noted accomplishment, during that same 1876 season besides shutting out the Dark Blues, he did the same to 15 other teams – a total of 16 shutouts in the season: a record that was matched only by Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1916 (it must be those presidential names). Referring to Bradley as the “Chicago King,” baseball historian David Nemec suggested that the term may have arisen because Bradley’s first shutout victim that season was the Chicago White Stockings, who succumbed 1-0 on May 5.3 The unlikelihood that this record will ever be surpassed is underscored by the fact that since Juan Marichal threw 10 shutouts in 1965, only three pitchers have reached double figures: Bob Gibson with 13 in 1968, Jim Palmer with 10 in 1975, and John Tudor with 10 in 1985.

Bradley’s professional career extended over 15 years, including 11 seasons with nine different teams in four different major leagues – in many ways mirroring Organized Baseball’s state of flux at the time. Appearing in 347 games as a pitcher, Bradley compiled 171 victories. He played in 269 other games as a position player – mostly at third base, where his fielding skills were quite accomplished. In addition to his major-league travels, Bradley played for eight minor-league teams.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 1852, to George and Margaret Bradley,4 George was the first native of the city to play in the major leagues. Although references to Bradley in Reading newspapers during his career occasionally mentioned his having been “born and raised in Reading,” there is otherwise little information available about his life before he started playing in Philadelphia in 1872, the same year in which he married Philadelphia native Charlotte Heavener.

Early in the 1874 season, while playing for Philadelphia’s Modoc club (described as a “third-rate amateur club”5) against an independent team from Easton, Pennsylvania, Bradley showed skills that caught the eye of Easton’s manager, Jack Smith, who signed him as an infielder who would also pitch batting practice. When Smith observed that Bradley’s new teammates couldn’t handle his pitches during batting practice, he tried him out as a starting pitcher. That experiment went so well that that Smith, who had been the starting pitcher, benched himself in favor of Bradley. Bradley and catcher Tom Miller developed a fine relationship, which would lead to their both playing for the St. Louis Brown Stockings the next season. The chemistry between the two was noted by the Easton Daily Express after a 14-0 Easton victory over the Collins Club of Philadelphia in August. “Bradley and Miller worked together like a charm, many people remarking that it was their best game this year,” the paper said, also describing Bradley’s pitches in the game as “lightning bolts.”6

Later that month Bradley returned to his hometown of Reading when Easton came to play the semipro Reading Actives. Before a crowd of about 4,000, Easton won the game, 11-6, in what the Reading Eagle described as “one of the most closely contested (games) that either club has ever played.” With the score tied, 4-4, Easton broke the game open with five runs in the eighth inning. (The Reading Times account attributed the rally to Easton “doing some heavy batting,”7 while the Eagle found Easton’s runs to be the product of “bad luck, overthrows and a general demoralization”8 on the part of the home team.) Although no statistics on the 1874 Actives or its players can be found, must have been a good one; the game account in the Eagle was headlined “Actives’ First Defeat.”9 The account related that Bradley’s “balls came in very swiftly and during the first part of the game were not hit.”10

The Eagle said the Easton club was “regarded by knowing professional players to be the very best club in the country not on the professional lists,”11 and said Easton clearly came to town as “enemy” in the eyes of the Reading locals. The Easton Daily Express complained that followers of the Actives “were in danger of life and limb from the blackguards and roughs of Reading, (unable) to praise the Eastons without being insulted and threatened.”12

In a return match a few weeks later, Easton again won, 34-18, with the Express declaring that Reading did not appear “to get the hang of Bradley until the ninth inning.”13

In early August Easton lost at home in front of a crowd of 2,000 to the National Association Brooklyn Atlantics by 30-11 in a game in which Bradley gave up 19 hits but was victimized by 16 Easton errors that resulted in only 4 of the Atlantics’ 30 runs counting as earned runs.14 At the end of the season Easton achieved consecutive exhibition victories over three National Association teams: the Atlantics in a rematch, then the Philadelphia Whites and finally the Philadelphia Athletics. As a result, Bradley was invited to pitch for the Athletics in an October exhibition against the Boston Red Stockings. In the game he impressed enough that St. Louis signed him after the season.

The 1875 Brown Stockings were managed by 39-year-old shortstop Dickey Pearce, and its roster included a number of players besides Bradley with Easton connections, starting with his batterymate Tom Miller, who had played four games with the Athletics near the end of the 1874 season. Also signed from the 1874 Easton team were third baseman Bill Hague, a light hitter known for his strong throwing arm and light-hitting outfielder Charlie Waitt. Browns second baseman Joe Battin played for Easton in 1873 before signing with the Philadelphia Athletics, where he spent the 1874 season.

Bradley’s major-league debut was as the Opening Day pitcher on May 4, 1875, pitching the team to a 15-9 victory over the St. Louis Red Stockings. Two days later, on May 6, Bradley became an instant St. Louis fan favorite, shutting out the hated Chicago White Stockings, 10-0, in front of 8,000 fans at Grand Avenue Park in St. Louis, with another 2,000 peeking through knotholes or perched in trees outside the park.15

On June 2 Bradley suffered his first loss of the season, 10-3 to a Boston Red Stockings team that went an amazing 71-8 that season. Boston’s lineup featured future Hall of Famers Harry and George Wright, Al Spalding, Orator Jim O’Rourke, and Deacon White, who would hit a league-leading.367. Also in the Boston lineup were White’s closest competitors in the batting race, Ross Barnes (.364) and Cal McVey (.355). The Red Stockings’ victory boosted their record so far to 25-0.

Three days later Bradley avenged the loss by handing the Red Stockings their first defeat as he pitched St. Louis to a 5-4 win. The Boston Globe said that Bradley and “the ‘Brown Sox’ were carried off the field on the shoulders of their friends.”16

On June 7, with St. Louis in a frenzy over “Brown Stocking fever,” a crowd described by the Globe as “the largest ever seen on a ball field in this city, about 8,000” 17 saw the Red Stockings pound Bradley for 24 hits (he was said to be suffering from an attack of vertigo), with Spalding holding the home team to six hits as the visitors won, 15-2.

Just as was the case during their season in Easton, Bradley worked well with Miller, the duo being credited for much of the Browns’ success. A contemporary commentator wrote that the two constituted “the main strength of the club,” adding, “They are not supported by a first class field but, if their work of to-day is a criterion, they do not need one. The field(ers) were called upon to do but the easiest kind of play… and scarcely a ball was struck that would bother an ordinary player.”18 The leading hitter on the team was outfielder Lip Pike, while outfielder Jack Chapman exhibited such skill in the field that he earned the nickname of “Death To Flying Things.”

A number of factors contributed to Bradley’s success on the mound. At 5-feet-10 and 175 pounds, he was a big man for the times (in 1876 he was the fourth-tallest pitcher in the National League) and he used his size to power his delivery. Equally imposing from a psychological standpoint was the “smile” Bradley showed batters. In his analysis of Bradley’s pitching technique, baseball historian Neil MacDonald declared the rather innocuous moniker of “Grin” to be a nickname that “belied a serious, savagely determined … man who wanted to play and win as much as any man alive.”19

MacDonald wrote that Bradley combined the abilities of a “straight pitcher like Al Spalding, considered to be the best in the game, with the ingenuity of a breaking ball specialist like Candy Cummings, the consummate chucker of curves.”20 An additional factor contributing to Bradley’s success during the 1876 season involved a new tactic learned from Browns teammate Mike McGeary: crushing game balls in a vise.

On October 26, 1875, Bradley returned to Reading with the Browns for an exhibition game against the semipro Reading Actives. Bradley and catcher Tom Miller were featured in ads in the Times and the Eagle referring to him as “The famous Bradley” and proclaiming, “The old foes are coming. Bradley and Miller – St. Louis professionals versus Actives.” 21 Upon Bradley’s arrival in Reading the day before the game, the Eagle described him as “the best looking ballplayer in the profession.”22

The next day the Browns defeated the Actives 18-11 in a sloppy game in which the Actives committed 20 errors and the Browns 12. Bradley entered the game in relief of the Browns backup pitcher, Pud Galvin, who surrendered eight runs in five innings, allowing the Actives to pull ahead at one point, 8-7. Bradley quieted the Actives’ bats and the Browns erupted for 11 runs in the final four innings. (The Eagle headlined its game story “One of the Worst Games Yet,”23 but failed to provide the score. Without the Reading Times’s game account, posterity would never have known the score.)

The 18-year-old Galvin had been signed at the start of the season to back up Bradley after he had pitched impressively for the Niagara amateur team of St. Louis in a preseason game against the Browns.24 Galvin pitched in three games in a row in late May, winning two, when Bradley was sidelined with health problems. Bradley returned the lineup on May 29, after which Galvin made only four more pitching starts. On his way to becoming baseball’s first 300-game winner, over the next 17 years Galvin won another 361 games en route to his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The National Association of 1875 suffered from a great disparity between the haves and have-nots, The Browns finished in fourth place with a record of 39-29, a distant 26½ games behind the Red Stockings. As the winning pitcher in all but six of the Browns’ victories, Bradley finished his rookie season with a record of 33-26, starting 60 games and finishing 57, with 5 shutouts. In 535⅔ innings pitched, Bradley struck out 60 and gave up a remarkably low 17 walks.

During the tumultuous offseason that followed, the National League was created, the National Association dissolved, a number of former National Association teams (the Browns among them) joining the new league, and a multitude of players moving to new teams. Although Bradley remained with the Browns, his surrounding cast underwent changes, the most dramatic being catcher Tommy Miller contracting a disabling illness over the winter from which he died on May 29, 1876.25 Miller’s replacement, Honest John Clapp, was signed away from the Philadelphia Athletics in the offseason and is viewed as one of the most talented catchers in baseball at the time. Despite the success Bradley enjoyed over the two seasons Miller was his batterymate, at least one commentator credited Clapp for helping Bradley go from very good in 1875 to superlative in 1876.26

Other changes to the Browns lineup included Bill Hague and “Death To Flying Things” Chapman both signing with Louisville, and 40-year-old Dicky Pearce being replaced as shortstop by Denny Mack. Pearce and as manager by Mase Graffen. (With superior fielding skills, Pearce returned as the starting shortstop later in the season even though he was 14 years older than Mack.)

Also moving on was Pud Galvin, leaving his role as Bradley’s understudy to become the primary pitcher with the St. Louis Red Stockings, an unaffiliated team made up mostly of members of the team’s 1875 National Association entry. Galvin was not replaced as Bradley’s backup, or change pitcher; during the 1876 season Bradley threw every inning for the Browns except for four innings of relief pitched by Joe Blong.

On April 25, 1876, just before the start of the season, the Louisville Courier-Journal declared that Bradley was the hardest man in the profession to bat against.27 This did not appear to be the case at the season’s outset, as the Browns and Bradley lost the first two games of the season to a bad Cincinnati Reds club that won only seven more games that season. As the season progressed, Bradley did his best to confirm the Courier-Journal’s analysis. During a series in late May against the New York Mutuals, he threw only 24 balls in 27 innings.28 A 17-0 shutout of the Athletics on June 1 was his sixth of the year. He pitched two more shutouts in June, four in July, three in August, and one in September on his way to setting the record of 16 in a season.

In early July Bradley signed a contract with the Philadelphia Athletics for the following year. When word of this came out, the St. Louis press criticized him for “treachery,” and the Chicago Tribune speculated that he would not try to win games in a coming series against the Hartford Blues. Bradley’s response to this was to shut out Hartford three times in five days, culminating with the 2-0 victory on July 15 in which the Dark Blues failed to get a hit. The Tribune ran a retraction.29

Appreciation of no-hitters was in its nascent state at the time, and most accounts of the game focused on Hartford’s poor hitting, with little attention given to the fact that Bradley had not allowed a hit, with some accounts not even mentioning that it was a no-hitter.30

On May 23 Boston’s Joe Borden had shut out the Cincinnati Reds, giving up only two walks, which were recorded as hits consistent with scoring rules at that time. Bradley’s gem has been considered the first no-hitter in the National League. (The previous season Borden, pitching for the Philadelphia Pearls in the National Association, threw the first major-league no-hitter, 4-0 against the Chicago White Stockings. As for his 1876 shutout of Cincinnati, sportswriters and league officials disagreed over categorizing as walks as hits, but, as Neil W. McDonald wrote, “Enough doubt has been cast on Borden’s efforts against Cincinnati to erase his honor of tossing the first National League no-hitter. Only God and the ghosts of ’76 know if Borden was sinned against.”31

Three days later against Cincinnati, Bradley took another no-hitter into the ninth before Charley “Baby” Jones broke it up with a two-out double. Bradley’s scoreless streak of 37 innings remained the NL record until Christy Mathewson surpassed it at 39 in 1901.

Along with Bradley’s range of pitches, pinpoint control, having the best catcher in the league, and having a withering grin, an unseemly side to his success in 1876 involved gamesmanship (or cheating, depending upon one’s view). According to Bradley’s former manager Frank Bancroft, the pitcher learned from teammate Mike McGeary how to steam open the sealed box containing the new ball to be used for the game, put the ball in a vise to crush it, and then reseal the box, creating a new mushy ball.32Aside from the process enhancing Bradley’s curve, the ball usually lost its shape over the course of the game, allowing a crafty pitcher like Bradley to alter its plateward course with more trickery.33

With the Browns in third place for much of the season behind Chicago and Hartford, on August 17 Bradley shut out the visiting White Stockings, 3-0, culminating a stretch in which the team went 14-3 and moved past Hartford into second place, six games behind Chicago. The Browns took another game from Chicago and moved within five games of first, the closest they would get that season. (They finished in second place also with a record of 45-19, six games behind the White Stockings.) Bradley pitched 573 innings, all but four innings of the St. Louis season, and every decision was his. In addition to his record-setting 16 shutouts, he had a league-low 1.23 earned-run average. He also led the league with 34 wild pitches.

Although Bradley had signed with Philadelphia for the 1877 season, the A’s were expelled from the National League for failing to complete their full schedule, and Bradley was able to nullify the contract. Instead he signed with Chicago, but tried to avoid burning bridges in St. Louis, sending the following letter to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (published October 18, 1876), expressing his sentiments to St. Louis fans:

To the Editor of the Globe-Democrat:

Dear Sir: In leaving St. Louis I think it due to myself to make a few remarks in explanation of contracting in Chicago when I did so. I had a private misunderstanding with some of the officers of the St. Louis Club, this being the prime cause of my signing in Chicago.

I desire to say that my relations in St. Louis have been of the most pleasant character and to the hosts of warm friends I have acquired I desire to leave the most sincere expression of gratitude for the kind appreciation of my poor services. I shall always remember St. Louis with the liveliest feelings of respect and can never readily forget the generous treatment I have received in this city, where my professional reputation has to a great extent been made

Yours, etc. G.W. Bradley34

The plan with the White Stockings was that Bradley would succeed Al Spalding as the pitcher, with Spalding moving to first base. The plan didn’t work out well. Bradley finished the season with a disappointing 18-23 record, with Chicago making no attempt to keep him for the next season. Reasons advanced for the falloff in Bradley’s performance were that his former teammate McGeary, who had taught him the crushed-ball ploy, warned other teams of the trick,35 and that the White Stockings made the mistake of not signing John Clapp to catch Bradley.36

After his season with the White Stockings, Bradley set out on an odyssey that would see him switch teams 16 times over the next 12 seasons, playing in 16 cities in various major and minor leagues. Bradley began the 1878 season with New Bedford of the fledgling International Association (which was meant to rival the National League but never did), signed by its manager, Frank Bancroft. When things didn’t work out with the league to Bancroft’s satisfaction, after just three games he pulled the club from the league and instead played an independent schedule for the season.37 The team played 130 games against teams on the East Coast, with Bradley logging in more than 760 innings.38

The next season (1879) Bradley pitched for the last-place Troy Trojans of the National League, posting 13 wins to go with a league-leading 40 losses. In 1880 he moved to the Providence Grays of the National League, where he alternated playing third base and pitching with John Montgomery Ward. After signing with the Detroit Wolverines of the National League for 1880, he was released because of health issues after playing one game at shortstop. He then signed with the Cleveland Blues, but negotiated a release that resulted in his being sold for $50039 to the Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association (Bradley’s third major league) in June of 1883. 40

With the A’s Bradley won 16 games as the team’s primary backup pitcher to Bobby Mathews; when not pitching he played third base. In September, when Mathews was out with arm problems, Bradley and Jumping Jack Jones put together a string of pitching performances that enabled the A’s to win seven in a row on their way to the pennant. Despite his heroics, Bradley was released after the season, telling one interviewer, “They sent me adrift, just as you would a broken down horse. But that was strictly business, you know.41

The next year Bradley signed with the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the ill-fated Union Association, which existed only in 1884 (Bradley’s fourth and final major league). His record was 25-15 as the team’s primary pitcher. After the dissolution of the UA, for his playing in that league and jumping his contract with the Philadelphia, Bradley found himself blacklisted from other major-league teams for the 1885 season. Adding financial insult to career injury, Bradley never received what the Cincinnati team agreed to pay him, leading him to sue the defunct team. He eventually settled for $1,500 in cash, considerably less than what he was owed, since the team had gone bankrupt.

In 1886 Bradley signed with the Philadelphia Athletics again, as a shortstop, but was released after 13 games with an average of .083. Despite letting him go, Athletics manager Bill Sharsig called him “the hardest working and most conscientious player for his club that we ever had.”42 Despite these fine intangibles, Sharsig said, Bradley’s hitting was too weak to keep him on the team.

Over the remainder of 1886 and the next four seasons Bradley played for seven minor-league teams, beginning with Nashville of the Southern League. At the outset of the next season he not only played for Nashville, but managed the team as well, where he played third base, and also envisioned making a pitching comeback.43 Replaced as manager at the end of May,44 he moved on to play with the New Orleans Pelicans of the same league, then appeared briefly with the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association before finishing the season with Danville in a league in Illinois.45 In 1888 he played third base and first base for the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern League. When the league disbanded in July, New Orleans joined the independent Texas League. Bradley moved north for the 1889 season, playing third base (and pitching one inning) for the Sioux City Corn Huskers of the Western Association. In 1890 he went full circle and finished his career in Easton of the Eastern Interstate League, playing 21 games at third base and batting .299.

With his baseball career over, Bradley first worked as a night watchman and then joined the Philadelphia police force. His son George W. Jr. apparently showed some baseball talent, and in 1907 Bradley talked of his son’s growing abilities, referring to him as a, “keeper” (who) …will make good either at third-base or behind the bat.46 No records could be found relating to a baseball career for George Jr.

In 1915 Bradley made an appearance at a revival in Philadelphia conducted by the former major leaguer Billy Sunday, whose career overlapped Bradley’s. Seeing Bradley, on duty and in uniform, Sunday encouraged him to come forward, calling out to him, “Brad, God bless you, old scout.”47 An account of the event described how Bradley “gulped hard as he transferred his mace to his left hand and reached up to grip the reaching hand of his former rival. Then … said simply, ‘Bill, I feel better now. Thanks.’” 48

Bradley retired from the police in 1930.49 He died of liver cancer on October 2, 1931, and was buried in Northwood Cemetery in Philadelphia. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte; his daughter, Lottie Crouse; and three sons, George W. Jr., John, and Morris. His obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer called him “a close friend of many prominent men connected with big-league baseball today.”50 His hometown Reading Eagle ran a brief item noting that he pitched the first no-hitter in the National League, with no mention of his local connection.51

An updated version of this biography appears in SABR’s No-Hitters book (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in Notes, the author accessed Bradley’s player file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Some of the material in this article was also used were used in “Days of Grin and Heck: Berks County’s First Two Major Leaguers,” which appeared in The Historical Review of Berks County, Summer, 2014, Volume 79, Number 5.

Thanks to David Nemec for information and guidance in correspondence with the author, April 21, 2014.

Notes

In his seven seasons in the major leagues, Frederick Harrison Corey played every position on the diamond, appearing in 237 games at third base, 93 as the pitcher, 46 in right field, 38 at shortstop, 29 in center field, 11 at second base, 8 in left field, 7 at first base, and one at catcher. Before his career was cut short by a gunshot injury to his eye, Corey played a total of 432 games, batting .246 with seven home runs. As a pitcher, he made 74 starts, completing 59, for 656⅓ innings, and producing a 27-46 won-lost record and an ERA of 3.32. It was said that Corey was “one of the first to use a curve ball successfully.”1

Corey was born in Coventry, Rhode Island, in 1855; the exact date of his birth is unrecorded. He was the fifth of eight children of Job Corey, a railroad-track layer, and Elizabeth (Tourgee) Corey. The family moved to Providence before 1865, where young Fred took up amateur baseball, playing for the local Olympics and Dexters. In 1876 the 21-year-old right-hander was invited to join the semipro Rhode Islands of the New England Association. Playing alongside future major leaguers Tom “Oyster” Burns and Ned Hanlon, Corey impressed enough in a 10-game stint as pitcher and utilityman to be invited back the following season.

Although individual records for the New England Association are scant, Corey was considered a valuable addition to the club in 1877. Sharing pitching duties with future major leaguer Hugh “One Arm” Daily, Corey “puzzled” hitters with his “peculiar curve.”2 It was remarked that “there was hardly a club that visited Providence last summer that got over six base hits off his delivery in a game.”3 Perhaps his finest pitching effort of the year came in a nonleague game on September 20, when he held a Boston amateur nine scoreless on two hits and struck out seven, winning 10-0. Typically playing center field when not pitching, Corey “was the heaviest and surest batter of the nine.”4 Despite this, the Rhode Islands finished with a record in league games of 11-29.

The two-year-old National League, dropping the Brooklyn-Hartford franchise after the 1877 season, awarded a replacement franchise to Providence, and Corey jumped the Rhode Islands to play in the major leagues with the Grays. In a preseason warmup in Providence on April 22, Corey, pitching against an aggregation of top local amateurs and Brown University players, including future major-league pitcher Lee Richmond, tossed a one-hitter, striking out nine and winning 7-0.

Before the start of the season on May 1, 1878, the Boston Globe declared that Corey’s “arms are said to be quite lame from over practice.”5 If so, it wasn’t apparent as the Grays debuted at home against the defending NL champion Boston Red Caps. Despite losing 1-0, Corey appeared to be in good form, holding Boston hitless until the fifth inning and scoreless until the seventh.6

Corey benefited from significantly better run support in his second start, when the Grays hammered Boston, 24-5, but in his third start, on May 25, after pitching a scoreless first inning, he was removed from the game for reasons of a “lame arm.”7 When he started again three days later, Corey’s arm “gave out at the end of the third inning.”8 It was a month before Corey started again, on June 27 in Milwaukee; this time he failed to get past the first inning.9 In July it was reported that Corey had resigned from the team due to a sore arm, “a ligatural sprain of the elbow caused by over-practice in the gymnasium.”10 Box scores, however, show Corey in the lineup at second base for the Grays as late as August 15.11

The Providence Grays finished in third place in their initial season in the NL, posting a 33-27 record, eight games behind pennant-winning Boston, but Corey’s first major-league season was a lost one. He played in only seven games for Providence, five of them as the starting pitcher, posting a won-lost record of 1-2, with a 2.35 ERA over 23 innings. He showed his versatility by playing in one game at first base and two at second, but contributed little at the plate, batting only .143 in 21 plate appearances.

But the season wasn’t over for Corey. In September it was reported that “Cory [sic], late pitcher for the Providence club,”12 had joined the New Bedford Clam-Eaters of the New England League to fill in for first baseman and future Athletics teammate Harry Stovey. Stovey had injured his leg in a game on August 17 and was disabled for a month; when he returned to the lineup, manager Frank Bancroft kept Corey in the lineup at second base.13 In postseason exhibitions, Corey played second base for the International Association’s Providence club.

During the offseason, it was reported that Corey “made a peculiar play last summer, and this winter was married to a young girl belonging to an adjoining town. … The babe is expected before the ball season opens.”14 The young woman’s name was Annie; their son, Harrison, was born in February 1879.

Corey signed for 1879 with the Capital Citys of the National Association. He pitched – and completed – the opening game of the season, giving up eight hits in a 3-0 loss. Less than a month into the campaign, the financially troubled club shifted from Albany to Rochester, becoming the Hop Bitters. Corey pitched regularly for Rochester until July, when they dropped out of the league and embarked on a five-month cross-country barnstorming tour. Accounts of the games show Corey most often in the lineup playing second base.

Corey returned to the majors in 1880, joining Stovey on the first-year Worcester Ruby Legs of the National League. Employed as the “change pitcher” for the club’s primary hurler, former Brown University star Lee Richmond, Corey started 17 games, and relieved in eight. In 148⅓ innings, Corey compiled a 2.43 ERA, ninth best in the NL among those with at least 105 innings pitched, but won only eight games. He played an additional 29 games in the outfield, and divided five others among first base, third base, and shortstop. In all, Corey appeared in 41 games for fifth-place Worcester, batting .174 in 142 plate appearances.

The highlight of the club’s season, and perhaps the National League’s, came on June 12, 1880, when Richmond tossed the first perfect game in major-league history, retiring 27 consecutive Cleveland Blues in a 1-0 masterpiece. Corey was in the lineup that day, playing in center field and making a putout on one of only two batted balls Richmond permitted out of the infield.

On September 23, against Boston, Corey hit his first major-league home run – sort of. Failing to touch third base as he scrambled around the bases on the inside-the-park drive, Corey was called out at third and credited with only a double.15 Despite the gaffe, Worcester won the game, 9-4, behind the tandem pitching of Corey and Richmond.

Back with the Ruby Legs in 1881, Corey started 21 games as pitcher and entered twice more in relief. He pitched poorly, however, posting a dismal 6-15 won-lost record and an ERA of 3.72. Playing 24 games in right field, 7 at shortstop, and one in left field, Corey appeared in a total of 51 games, batting .222.

For the second time in as many years, Corey lost what would have been his first major-league home run, when batting in the ninth against Cleveland on September 17. Again, he failed to touch third while rounding the bases on a bid for an inside-the-park home run, was called out, and credited with a two-base-hit.16 Worcester nevertheless won, 7-2.

Overall, Worcester struggled in 1881, finishing in last place with a 32-50 record. The Ruby Legs were worse in 1882, winning only 18 of 84 games. Splitting shortstop duties with Arthur Irwin, Corey appeared in 64 games, hitting .247, the third-highest average on a weak-hitting squad, and finished tied for second on the team in runs scored (33) and runs batted in (29). Among his 63 hits were a surprising 12 triples, tied for the second-highest in the NL. As a pitcher, Corey was a hard-luck case, coupling a club-best 3.56 ERA with a 1-13 won-lost record. He amassed 139 innings in his 21 turns in the pitcher’s box.

Worcester’s attendance figures were no better than their on-field performance and the franchise was dropped from the NL after the season. Corey secured a spot on the Philadelphia Athletics, second-place finishers in the inaugural season of the new NL rival American Association. Pre-season accounts suggested Corey would pitch on days when veteran Bobby Mathews was rested, citing Corey’s “puzzling delivery” and “perfect command of the ball.”17 His all-around versatility was noted, the Times of Philadelphia describing him as a “hard hitter and a good base runner, [who] in a pinch can acceptably fill any position on the infield.”18

Pitching in a preseason warm-up against a champion amateur team, Corey was sharp, posting a three-hit, 18-0 shutout. In his next exhibition start, he pitched well as the Athletics battered a minor-league nine from Trenton, 19-2. When the season started, however, Corey was at second base as Mathews shut out the Alleghenys, 4-0. Corey did pitch the following day, again in Pittsburgh, scattering 11 hits to win, 8-1.

The Athletics were quick out of the gate, winning 18 of 21 in the month of May, but eventually settled into a nip-and-tuck pennant race. Corey delivered what may have been his most valuable performance of the season on June 21 in Cincinnati. After the Athletics lost three games in a row to the Red Stockings to fall from first place, Philadelphia manager Lon Knight called upon Corey to pitch. Corey surrendered four runs in the first inning on a pair of hits and two errors by George Bradley at third, then was virtually unhittable the rest of the way, finishing with a four-hit, 14-5 victory. “The Cincinnatis could do nothing with him,” it was observed.19 The win snapped Philadelphia’s losing streak and elevated them back into first place.

Playing second base against the Alleghenys on July 30, Corey excelled in the field, playing “a great game … making three spectacular catches and accepting every chance offered.”20 Corey’s fielding was, in the words of one observer, “the finest ever seen in the city.”21 His achievement included a ninth-inning, rally-killing double play, spearing a line drive and throwing to first to catch a runner off the bag. Corey also made an impact with his bat, collecting three hits and driving in three runs.

After the two near-misses in 1880 and 1881, Corey hit a third-inning solo shot for his first major-league home run, off Cincinnati right-hander Will White, on September 16, being sure to touch all the bases in a 10-inning, 13-12 win at Cincinnati.

The Athletics nipped St. Louis by a single game to take the 1883 American Association pennant. As a pitcher, Corey started only 16 times, hurling twice more in relief, but did well enough with his opportunities, winning 10 of 17 decisions with an ERA of 3.40 in 148⅓ innings. As a measure of his utility, he played 34 games at third base, 14 in the outfield, 9 at second, and one each at catcher and shortstop. At bat, he hit .258 with 16 doubles. In a postseason exhibition against their crosstown rivals, the NL’s Philadelphia Quakers, the Athletics won handily, 13-3, with Corey playing third base while scoring three runs and driving in two.

Corey’s best season came in 1884. Pitching not at all that year, he hit third or fourth in the lineup as the Athletics’ regular third baseman. His .276 average looks better when the league’s average of .240 is taken into consideration, and his 16 triples tied for sixth-best in the American Association. Five of Corey’s seven career home runs came in 1884, the second-highest total on the Athletics and tied for 10th in the league. Among the five was a line drive grand slam over the left-field wall off Washington’s John Hamill in a 12-0 win at Philadelphia. The Athletics played well that year, but so did half the American Association, and the club’s 61-46 record was only enough for seventh place in the 13-team league.

A newspaper article reporting on the winter activities of the Athletics players, identified Corey as working at “heeling shoes in Lynn [Massachusetts.]”22

The Athletics’ record fell to 55-57 in 1885 as they finished fourth in the slimmed-down eight-team AA. Corey was again the club’s regular third baseman, playing a career-high 94 games but batting only .245. He did pitch in one game, starting against the New York Metropolitans on June 30 and giving up 18 hits and 7 earned runs, but coming away with a complete-game 15-9 victory. Corey missed several weeks in August with a wrist injury suffered when a pitch from Cincinnati’s Bill Mountjoy struck him and splintered a bone.23

In November 1885 it was reported that Corey had married for the second time, to a Philadelphia woman; whether he was previously widowed or divorced is unknown.24

While hunting on his honeymoon near Westerly, Rhode Island, Corey was accidentally shot by a companion, receiving about a dozen grains of shot in his cheek and one in his left eye, damaging his vision.25 Although he recovered his vision, at a trial with the Athletics at the start of the following season, he “played miserably,”26 and was released. “In the five years in which we have been at the head of the Athletic club,” owner Bill Sharsig said in a statement, “we have never been called upon to perform such a painful act. Corey has been with us for four years, and in all that time he has been one of the hardest workers we ever had. … Fred was not only a natural ballplayer, but he was a thorough gentleman as well. I know that I feel a great deal worse over his release than he does himself. …”27 Corey’s teammates raised $100 in donations28 and organized a pair of exhibition games on July 5 for his benefit. Despite Sharsig’s glowing testimonial, the club charged Corey $100 for the use of the grounds.29

In February1887 the Hastings (Nebraska) Hustlers of the Western League signed Corey to manage the team. One month into the season, however, Corey resigned, his vision “very bad.”30 It was reported in August that “Fred Corey, the invincible third baseman of the Athletics … is in Philadelphia, partially paralyzed.”31

A 1889 newspaper article stated that Corey “was entirely recovered, but will never rejoin the professional ranks.”32 In the account, Corey was said to be working as a clerk in Providence.

On July 9, 1892, Corey was given another benefit in the form of an exhibition game in Philadelphia between former professionals and old-time amateurs. On the side of the professionals were Corey’s former Athletic teammates Bobby Mathews, who pitched the game, and receiver Jack O’Brien, along with old American Association opponents Fred Dunlap, Joe Mulvey, Hardie Henderson, and Matt Kilroy.

Nothing is heard of Corey thereafter. The 1910 US Census shows Corey widowed, living in Cranston, Rhode Island, and working as a lather.

In 1912 he moved back to Providence, taking up residence in a lodging house. On the evening of November 27, 1912, Corey lit the gas lamp in his room and settled into bed with a book. He apparently nodded off while reading, a draft extinguished the flame, and he died of asphyxiation in his sleep.33 Corey was 57 years old. He was buried at the North Burial Ground in Providence.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the following was used:

Soos, Troy. Before the Curse: The Glory Days of New England Baseball, 1858-1918, Rev. Ed. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006).

Notes

1 “Westerly Gets 17 Licenses,” Norwich (Connecticut) Bulletin, November 30, 1912: 6.

2 “The Rhode Islands Capture the Fall Rivers in a 10-Inning Game,” Boston Globe, June 23, 1877: 5.

3 “Base Ball for ’78,” Rhode Island Press (Providence), December 29, 1877: 2.

4 “Base Ball for ’78.”

5 “An 11-0 Game at Providence,” Boston Globe, April 19, 1878: 2.

6 “The Bostons Win the Game at Providence Yesterday,” Boston Globe, May 2, 1878: 2.

7 “The Boston Reds Defeat the Providence Grays,” Boston Globe, May 26, 1878: 5.

8 “Milwaukee 12, Providence 4,” Boston Globe, May 29, 1878: 1.

9 “A Good Game: The Milwaukees Defeated, Seven to Six,” Milwaukee Daily News, June 28, 1878: 4.

10 “Notes and News,” Fall River (Massachusetts) Daily Herald, July 27, 1878: 1.

11 “The Providence People Delighted,” St. Louis Post-Democrat, August 15, 1878: 5.

12 “Odds and Ends,” Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1878: 7.

13 “Base Ball Notes,” Fall River Daily Herald, September 26, 1878: 1.

14 “Providence Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 10, 1879: 8.

15 “Skill and Speed,” Boston Globe, September 24, 1880: 2.

16 “Worcester vs. Cleveland,” Chicago Tribune, September 18, 1881: 6.

17 “The Ball Season,” Philadelphia Times, March 11, 1883: 3.

18 “The Ball Season.”

19 “Sporting News,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 22, 1883: 3.

20 “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 31, 1883: 2.

21 “Heavy Work at the Bat,” Philadelphia Times, July 31, 1883: 4.

22 “What Players Do in Winter,” Philadelphia Times, November 16, 1884: 7.

23 “Around the Bases,” Boston Herald, August 18, 1885: 5.

24 “Base Ball Notes,” Cleveland Leader, November 9, 1886: 3.

25 “Accidental Shooting of Fred Corey,” Delaware Gazette and State Journal (Wilmington), November 12, 1886: 6.

26 “The Athletics Releasing Players,” New York Herald, May 10, 1886: 9.

27 “Bradley and Corey,” The Sporting News, June 7, 1886: 5.

28 “Hits and Tips,” Boston Globe, May 18, 1886: 2.

29 “Base Ball Notes,” Boston Globe, July 5, 1886: 3.

30 “Base Ball Notes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 20, 1887: 6.

31 “Doings on the Diamond,” Wilkes-Barre Sunday Leader, August 21, 1887: 6.

32 “Ball Gossip,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 1889: 8.

33 “Westerly Gets 17 Licenses.”

Crowley’s career was marked by inconsistency, owing in large part to troubles with his throwing arm and his alcoholism, which got him banned from the National League in 1881, and kicked off a minor-league club in Toledo later in the decade. When Crowley was at his best, though, precious few outfielders could combine his fielding ability with his strong and accurate throwing arm. His peak lasted from 1879 to 1884, primarily playing with the National League’s Buffalo and Boston clubs. Modern metrics suggest that he was 11 percent better than the average hitter in his leagues during this span (via OPS+), which when coupled with his proficient defense, made him one of his era’s most well-rounded ballplayers. His only league championship came with the 1883 Philadelphia Athletics, but Crowley was released in the thick of the pennant race and thus could not celebrate with his hometown team.

William Michael Crowley was born in Philadelphia on April 8, 1857. The son of Irish immigrants, he worked in a print factory in his hometown of Gloucester, New Jersey, and in a mill in Washington, New Jersey, before signing with the National Association’s Philadelphia White Stockings in 1875. Census records of the time do not give the identity of Crowley’s father, but his mother, Mary, worked as a housekeeper. His older brother, Francis, and his younger brother, Joseph, also worked in the print factory. His sister, Sarah, worked in the cotton mill. Eight days shy of his 18th birthday, The Times of Philadelphia described Crowley as of “fine physique” and “remarkable judgment.”3 Crowley, 18 years old, was the Association’s youngest player, and served primarily in a utility role, splitting time between third base and center field. He struggled at the plate, batting .081 (3-for-37) in his rookie campaign, but was praised for his “fine catches” in center field.4 His third-base defense was considered weak,5 and Crowley shifted permanently to the outfield for the majority of his career.

After missing the 1876 season, Crowley was signed by the Louisville Grays of the National League for the 1877 campaign. That season he had his first brush with the less than savory elements of the game: Four of his teammates – shortstop Bill Craver, left fielder George Hall, third baseman Al Nichols, and star pitcher Jim Devlin – were banned from baseball after the season for throwing games. The 20-year-old Crowley acquitted himself well in Louisville, batting .282 in a league-leading 61 games played.

Crowley slipped out of the major leagues after 1877, and linked up with Buffalo of the International Association in 1878. He played a handful of games behind the plate, forming a battery with baseball’s first 300-game winner, Pud Galvin.6 More often, though, Crowley played in the outfield and continued to establish himself as a reliable hitter. Buffalo joined the National League in 1879, and Crowley settled into an everyday right-field role. His steady play during his two years with the Bisons was quite the change of pace for the Buffalo club, which had a 46-32 record in 1879 but slipped to 24-58 in 1880. Despite the poor showing from his club, Crowley again was an above-average hitter, and his 23 outfield assists ranked fourth in the league.

In Buffalo Crowley met one of his lifelong best friends, third baseman Hardy Richardson. Richardson became one of the game’s early superstars, batting over .300 seven times and leading his league in home runs twice.

As 1880 drew to a close, Crowley received a $1,000 offer from the Boston Red Stockings, and jumped at the chance to play for future Hall of Famer Harry Wright, who carried six pennants to his name as the skipper of both the National Association and National League’s Boston clubs.7 Unfortunately for Crowley and Boston, the 1881 team fared poorly, and weathered three separate six-plus-game losing streaks. Crowley’s offense took a bit of a downturn; he batted .254 with eight fewer extra-base hits than the year prior.

The 1881 season was pivotal in Crowley’s career, and not to his benefit. He was banned from the National League for what was labeled “general dissipation and insubordination” by League President William Hulbert. In all, Crowley and eight others, including Lip Pike, were barred, likely due to drunkenness and suspected game fixing.8 The newly formed American Association respected the ban; Crowley lost an appeal in March and did not play in professional baseball in 1882.9

The ban was lifted in 1883 and Crowley signed with his hometown American Association team, the Philadelphia Athletic Club. Philadelphia sportswriters were protective of their favorite son, declaring that his blacklisting was for “no known cause.”10 Crowley’s first appearance with his new team came on April 7, when he helped the team christen its new grounds at Twenty-Sixth and Jefferson Streets in an exhibition game against Yale. Crowley wasted no time making an impression, rapping a pair of doubles from the number-three position in the lineup, and making a spectacular catch, complete with a pair of somersaults.11

This would be one of few bright spots for Crowley in the early part of 1883; he was hitless his other four games in April, ending the month with an .087 batting average (2-for-23).12 Crowley’s performance reached a low point on April 25, when he went 0-for-5 against a minor-league nine from Camden, New Jersey, that folded by July.13

May treated the 26-year-old a bit better, as he batted .279 with several clutch hits and turned in stellar fielding. However, as the month drew to a close, Crowley had a rare lapse in fielding proficiency when he muffed a key fly ball in a May 30 tangle with Cincinnati, leading to the Reds taking the victory in extra innings in front of a “howling mass of humanity.”14 This game was dubbed “one of the greatest struggles for supremacy that has ever taken place on the ball field,” and was played before an estimated 15,000 fans, so many, in fact, that they could not help but interfere with several foul balls.15

The spotlight would continue to betray Crowley in 1883, when the surehanded outfielder made four errors in front of 12,000 fans during a July 1 tilt with the St. Louis Browns.16 Crowley played infrequently during the summer, with young catcher Jack O’Brien and backup outfielder Bob Blakiston getting playing time in center field.17

A couple of days into September, Crowley was no longer a member of the Athletics, having been released while the team was in the thick of a pennant race. The Athletics must have had its issues with Crowley, as they decided that they would rather have center field patrolled by out-of-position players or weak bench options, all while tied with the Browns. It appeared that the club made the correct call: The Athletics rattled off eight wins in their next nine contests, including a series victory over the impressive Browns. But the Athletics wound up winning the American Association crown.

Crowley soon found another home, playing the remainder of the 1883 season with the Cleveland Blues of the National League. There he found his stride quickly, notching seven hits in his first three games.18 Crowley was likely aided by batting sixth in the lineup, with stars Fred Dunlap and Jack Glasscock helping to take the pressure off the beleaguered outfielder.19 While his bat was lively, his once powerful arm began feeling the brunt of long throws from center field (ballparks of the day typically exceeded 450 feet in dead center), and he was pulled from a September 20 game.20

In October the Beaneaters once again came calling, having apparently forgiven Crowley for his past indiscretions and offering him an $1,800 contract, which Crowley spurned.21 A month later the Beaneaters upped the offer to $1,900 and Crowley was Boston-bound.22 The Times-Democrat in New Orleans reported in February 1884 that “Bill Crowley says his arm is well, and he threatens to play great ball for the Bostons this season.”23

Great ball he did play, posting his best batting season to date, belting six home runs and tying for the team lead with 61 runs batted in.24 Two of those home runs came in the span of a week against Old Hoss Radbourn of the Providence Grays, who was in the midst of his historic 60-win season, one baseball historians consider a prime candidate for the greatest pitching season of all time. On the negative side, on June 7 Crowley struck out to end Charlie Sweeney’s 19-strikeout game, a record that stood for 102 years until it was broken by Roger Clemens in 1986.25

Crowley primarily played right field for the Beaneaters, and was considered to be one of the finest fielders to ever grace the South End Grounds. This was no small feat, as the right-field foul pole at the Grounds was 255 feet from home plate, with 440 feet to the fence in right-center. Two years after his death, the Boston Globe claimed that “Jack Manning, Bill Crowley and Tom McCarthy are the only players that ever mastered the trick of playing right field on the Boston grounds.”26

Boston held the league lead as late as August 6, with a 50-20 record, a half-game ahead of Providence, but middling performance from the Beaneaters (23-18) and dynamic play from the Grays (35-8) down the stretch gave the National League crown to Boston’s close rival.

In November the Boston Globe reported that Crowley had signed with Buffalo, a decision that he claimed was due to being under the influence of alcohol and one he apparently regretted.27 Crowley shifted from right to left field, likely due to the arm issues that continued to plague him. The move failed to fully keep Crowley healthy, as he reportedly missed time due to the “old complaint” in the summer of 1885.28 With his arm deteriorating, and his bat going quiet – his .241 average in 1885 was the worst full-season mark of his career –  Crowley (and the Buffalo Bisons for that matter) never played in the major leagues again.

Buffalo was bought out by the Detroit Wolverines, who now owned the rights to Crowley. His defense a far cry from where it was when he graced the South End Grounds, he was released by Detroit so he could negotiate with other clubs.29 A club from Macon, Georgia, showed interest, but Crowley was not keen on going south and believed he could find a better contract offer.

Nothing north of the Mason-Dixon line materialized, and Crowley indeed headed south to play for the Charleston (South Carolina) Seagulls of the Southern Association. He occasionally dazzled fans with phenomenal defensive plays,30 but his batting continued to decline and he was released in a cost-cutting measure by the end of July after batting .236 in 83 games.31

Crowley returned home to Gloucester, New Jersey, and did not receive an offer until April of the following year, when he was offered contracts by the Mobile Swamp Angels of the Southern League, and the Eastern League’s New Haven Blues.32 Crowley, familiar with New England and bearing an aversion to the South, opted to join the Blues, where he was named team captain.33

Crowley batted .350 for New Haven but reportedly was plagued by his reliance on alcohol. After the season a local paper reported that he was currently working in the oyster business, but “would like to sign again in some good town where intoxicating liquors are not sold.”34

Ten years after last playing in the International Association, Crowley was back, this time playing for the London (Ontario) Tecumsehs.35 The 1888 London club was made up of a few misfit parts, including diminutive hurler Larry Corcoran, who, like Crowley, had his best days behind him and a taste for liquor. By June 11 both were suspended for drunkenness, which assuredly hampered their play (Crowley batted .196 in 24 games, Corcoran posted a team-worst 5.36 ERA in 42 innings).36 The next week, the pair were sent packing.37

Within two weeks, Crowley had caught on with the Toledo Maumees of the Tri-State League where he played left field.38 His stay with Toledo did not last long, as he fell ill in mid-August, and returned home to New Jersey.39 His stint with Toledo was the last of his baseball-playing career, although he did manage and occasionally play in exhibition games with the Gloucester club, playing for one last time in April of 1890 against the Philadelphia Players League squad.40 A report from the time called Crowley “quite a sick man”41 and his name was rarely printed again until his death.

Much like former teammate Larry Corcoran, Crowley’s heavy drinking caught up with him, and he died of Bright’s disease (now commonly known as nephritis) at the age of 34 on July 14, 1891, at his home in Gloucester. Crowley was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Bellmawr, New Jersey. He was never married and fathered no children. He was eulogized in the Philadelphia Inquirer as “a favorite with all ballplayers and managers,” and his funeral was said to be well-attended.42 The Buffalo Courier stated that “Crowley was a fine batsman, superior outfielder, a good catcher, and one of the best long and line throwers in the profession.”43

Sources

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

Notes

1 “Gloucester City Gleanings,” Courier-Post (Camden, New Jersey), July 15, 1891: 4.

2 “Catcher Crowley Dead,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 1891: 3.

3 “Base Hits,” The Times (Philadelphia), April 10, 1875: 4.

4 “The Baseball Field,” The Times, May 20, 1875: 4.

5 “Philadelphia vs. Boston,” The Times, May 12, 1875: 1.

6 “Base-Ball,”Buffalo Morning Express, May 6, 1878: 4.

7 “Sporting Notes,” Buffalo Commercial, November 17, 1880: 3.

8 Hal Bock, Banned: Baseball’s Blacklist of All-Stars and Also-Rans (New York: Diversion Books, 2017), https://books.google.com/books/about/Banned.html?id=78sBDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1#v=onepage&q=crowley&f=false 

9 “Convention at Philadelphia,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 14, 1882: 2.

10 “The Athletic Nine: The Other Players,” The Times, March 11, 1883: 3.

11 ”The Athletic Club wins a game over Yale,” The Times April 8, 1883: 2

12 “Athletic Averages,” The Times, May 6, 1883: 2.

13 “The Athletics Win,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 26, 1883: 2.

14 “Beaten by the Cincinnatis,” The Times, May 31, 1883: 4.

15 “Cincinnati vs. Athletic,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 31, 1883: 3.

16 “The Athletics Lose,” The Times, July 2, 1883: 1.

17 1883 Philadelphia Athletics, Baseball-Reference.com.

18 “Games To Be Played,” The Times, September 16, 1883: 2.

19 “The Morning Games,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 15, 1883: 2

20 “Forty-Four Victories,” The Times, September 21, 1883: 3.

21 “Gloucester’s Latest,” Camden Courier-Post, October 2, 1883: 1.     

22 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, November 14, 1883: 3.

23 “Base Ball,” New Orleans Times-Democrat, February 4, 1884: 2.

24 Bill Crowley, Baseball-Reference.com.

25 Ed Achorn, “June 7, 1884: Charlie Sweeney Strikes Out 19 for Providence,” https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-7-1884-charlie-sweeney-strikes-out-19-for-providence/

26 “Baseball Notes,” Boston Globe, September 3, 1893: 7.

27 “Sporting Gossip,” Boston Globe, November 7, 1884: 5.

28 “Around the Bases,” Boston Globe, July 7, 1885: 2.

29 “Baseball Gossip,” Macon Telegraph, April 8, 1886: 3.

30 “The National Game,” Abbeville Press and Banner (Abbeville County, South Carolina), June 30, 1886: 2.

31 “One Base Hits,” Leavenworth (Kansas) Times, July 31, 1886: 4.

32 “Diamond Dust,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 14, 1887: 5.

33 “Sports in Season,” Sunday Truth (Buffalo, New York), June 5, 1887: 7. 

34 “Will There Be a League?” Morning Journal-Courier (New Haven, Connecticut), December 13, 1887: 4.

35 “Local News Items,” Camden Courier-Post, February 1, 1888: 1.

36 “Close Decisions,” Boston Globe, June 11, 1888: 8.

37 “Base Ball,” New Haven Morning Journal-Courier, June 18, 1888: 4.

38 “Tri-State League Notes,” The Sun (New York), July 1, 1888: 6.

39 “Notes from Toledo,” Detroit Free Press, September 1, 1888: 8.

40 “Sporting Notes,” Camden Courier-Post, April 4, 1890; 1.

41 “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Dispatch, March 18, 1890: 6.

42 “Gloucester City Gleanings,” Camden Courier-Post, July 17, 1891: 3. The “favorite” quote comes from Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 1891: 3.

43 “Diamond Glints,” Buffalo Courier, July 24, 1891: 8.

When the president of the United States is in your golf foursome because you led your university to a baseball championship a quarter of a century earlier, things are going your way. That sums up a highpoint in the life of Al Hubbard,1 who played in just two major-league games two days apart toward the end of the 1883 season. His very short professional career wasn’t due to any misfortune after his collegiate championship, however. It was mostly his choice to minimize his professional sports career. After all, in contrast to so many ballplayers then, he had more lucrative options as an Ivy League graduate.2

Allen Hubbard was born in Westfield, Massachusetts, on December 9, 1860, to farmer George Hubbard and Clarissa Maria (Edy) Hubbard, who was sometimes called Clara. He was the second of their four children. His sister Leora was the oldest, and their two younger siblings were Agnes and George. Al was a graduate of Westfield’s high school.3

His high school had a baseball team, at least during the spring of 1879, and Al was its captain that season.4 He became a freshman at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut, during the 1880-1881 school year. His first appearance in the school newspaper may have been in March of 1881, as the catcher in a box score of a baseball game between Yale’s freshmen team and “the Consolidated nine,” which possibly comprised other students. He didn’t exactly impress. Though he had eight putouts and two assists, he also allowed four passed balls and committed an error while going hitless at bat (as did all his freshmen teammates but one).5 He fared better in a rematch about a month later, with only one passed ball and one error to offset 15 putouts and an assist, plus a double and two runs scored on offense.6 His fourth appearance in a box score was in mid-May, when the Yale News devoted most of two pages to a game in which the Yale Freshmen trounced Amherst’s, 14-3. That same month they similarly pounded their Harvard counterparts, 15-3.7

Hubbard was enrolled in Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School, which had only three “classes” (freshman, junior, and senior, skipping sophomores) and thus typically awarded degrees after three years. As a freshman, Hubbard wasn’t solely consumed by baseball, because he was also a member of Sheffield’s Eating Club.8

During his second spring at Yale, in 1882, Hubbard played on the varsity team. His first action was in games on April 7 and 8 in New York against the Metropolitans, an independent team that joined the American Association in 1883. On the first date, 2,000 to 3,000 spectators went to the Polo Grounds to see the defending collegiate champions, but Yale ended up on the wrong end of a lopsided 11-5 game. The rematch was close, 8-7, but Yale lost again. Hubbard caught in both games and batted eighth. He went hitless in both games, but committed no errors (though box scores made no mention of passed balls). He did, however, figure in the second game’s decisive inning. The Metropolitans trailed 7-5 after seven innings. “When the Metropolitans came to the bat Hubbard took a foul bound neatly near the ground, but the umpire did not allow it. A base on balls, a single hit, and an attempt to catch the man on third filled the bases,” reported the Yale News. “The only wild pitch of the game, passing through a narrow passage to the rear of the grand stand was lost in the crowd, and three men scored giving the game to the Metropolitans as no further runs were made.”9

Yale followed up those losses with games against other independent teams,10 and finished April hosting three major-league teams. On April 22 Hubbard and Yale faced Providence of the National League, which went on to finish second in the standings that season. Hubbard batted last and went hitless against future Hall of Famer Old Hoss Radbourn, beginning with a fly or popout to short to end the third inning. On defense, the Yale News said, he supported pitcher Jack Jones “very well,” and he logged six putouts, four assists, one error, and no passed balls. Providence won easily, 13-2.11

Yale then lost to the NL’s Worcester team, 8-2, on April 26. Hubbard again batted last, and went hitless against Lee Richmond, who had hurled the NL’s first perfect game on June 12, 1880. Behind home plate Hubbard accepted five chances without an error as such, though in the box score he was charged with a “wild throw” in addition to two passed balls.12

During his two years on the varsity team, Hubbard played against more than half of the National League’s teams, three of which were based in New England. The American Association was the NL’s brand-new rival in 1882, and though it had no New England teams, on April 29 Hubbard did get to play against the AA’s Philadelphia Athletics, his future employer. Yale didn’t score, but held the professionals to just two runs. Hubbard had one of Yale’s five singles in three at-bats off Sam Weaver, who had a record of 26-15 by year’s end. Hubbard was flawless in the field, with five putouts and three assists. He made a solid first impression in the very first inning. Philadelphia had a runner on first with one out when their third batter fouled out to Hubbard. The runner tagged up and tried for second base but “a beautiful throw of Hubbard” turned a double play, according to the Yale News. The game drew 500 fans, and took approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes.13

Yale began its collegiate league season on May 10 with a victory at home over Brown, 4-2. It ultimately won eight games and lost three against American College Base Ball Association opponents, a record good enough to win its second consecutive championship. That league was formed by Amherst, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton – all later considered Ivy League institutions except the first – during the winter of 1879-1880, and Yale joined for the 1881 season (with Dartmouth not participating in 1883).14

On June 8 and 13, Yale had rematches against Worcester and Providence, respectively. Hubbard, who played in center field, had a single (his first hit against an NL hurler) and an RBI in three at-bats off Fred Corey in a 9-3 loss.15 Yale’s margin of defeat was a little wider against Providence: 11-3. Hubbard was back behind home plate but as a batter he was hitless off a different Hall of Famer, John Montgomery Ward.16

On July 11 Hubbard had a second opportunity to audition for the Athletics, in Philadelphia before more than 700 fans. This time he had two hits in four at-bats against Bill Sweeney, who went on to lead the Union Association with 40 victories in 1884. The Athletics barely won, 6-5.17

Hubbard was soon back home in Westfield, playing for a local team, the Firemen.18 The captain of the Firemen was Frank Cox, who played in the NL for Detroit in 1884. On August 1 he reportedly received a telegram from Worcester manager Jack Chapman offering a job with that NL team but “Hubbard of course declined the offer as it would debar him from future playing in the college nine,” reported a local newspaper.19 Hubbard and the Firemen proceeded to play Worcester twice during the first half of August.

The first game was in Westfield on August 8, and represented the first time an NL team visited that community. Pitching for the Firemen was Hubbard’s Yale teammate Jack Jones. Corey was the starting pitcher for the visitors, who won 7-4. Hubbard went 0-for-4 at bat but he was robbed by Richmond on a one-handed running catch in right field, of a likely two-run triple in what a local paper called “the special feature of the game.”20 On August 14, 500 people in Westfield saw Corey shut out the locals in a laugher, 14-0. Hubbard at least had one of his team’s four hits, in three at-bats. He apparently moved from catcher to second base by the eighth inning, and on third strike in that frame, the Firemen turned a triple play that went from the substitute catcher to the third, then to Hubbard, and on to the first baseman.21

Hubbard was soon back at Yale, and by mid-September he was already preparing for the next baseball season, at least mentally. “It was with pleasure that men enjoying their vacation in different parts of the world received the news that Mr. Allen Hubbard, S. [Sheffield] ’83 had been elected to succeed Mr. Walter I. Badger, ’82, as captain of our triumphant ball nine,” effused the Yale News. “From the time this gentleman began to play, he has won the applause of the college, not only for his superior playing, but for his even disposition, gentlemanly bearing and everlasting willingness to work for Yale.”22 About four weeks later, the paper summarized some basic American College Base Ball Association stats, noting that in the intercollegiate “games the past season, Brown had the best batting average, .295, and Princeton the best fielding, .831.” It then listed (without percentages) the best fielders by position, and Hubbard was first among catchers.23

Early in 1883 the Yale News printed an announcement for Hubbard. “All gentlemen in the university wishing to try for the University Base Ball Nine are requested to be present at 212 Durfee, Tuesday morning at 9.45,” he wrote. “Everyone will be welcomed; there is an unusual number of vacant places.”24 That may have been a bit of an understatement. When the paper reported on early workouts in February, it noted that only three other players were returning from the 1882 squad, so Hubbard needed to find starters for two of the outfield spots and all of the infield positions except second baseman. In addition to Jones, one of the other returning players was Walter Camp,25 who would become known as “the father of American football.”26

Hubbard’s squad played against six different NL teams in 1883 plus the Athletics twice. They started with the latter team on April 7 in Philadelphia and squeezed four NL teams into the second half of the month. More than 4,000 turned out for the game versus the Athletics, and Yale kept it close for seven innings, at 3-0. Philadelphia’s Bobby Mathews, who won close to 300 games in the majors, eventually completed the shutout, 12-0. Captain Hubbard, who put himself in center field, managed one of Yale’s four singles in his four at-bats.27

On April 14 Yale’s second game of the spring was against Cleveland of the NL. Though they were shut out again, this time it was close, 3-0. Hubbard had one of Yale’s three singles off Hugh “One-Arm” Daily.28

The NL’s new team in New York victimized Yale twice, in New Haven on April 18 and at the Polo Grounds on April 21. In the first game he faced John Montgomery Ward for the second time in his career and this time singled against him in four at-bats. The final score was 11-4.29 Pitching the rematch for New York was Tip O’Neill in front of about 3,000 spectators. The final score differed little, 14-3, and in four at-bats Hubbard again singled, driving in a run.30

Yale played a close game against Providence of the NL on April 28. The score was 2-2 after five innings, and Providence won by a whisker, 5-4. Hubbard had a hit in five at-bats off Edgar Smith and scored twice. “Hubbard fully sustained his reputation as a catcher, taking two foul tips and throwing out several men at the bases in fine style,” said the Yale News.31

In May Yale’s team started shifting its focus to collegiate competition. In a key game on May 12, Hubbard’s charges hosted Harvard. Beautiful weather coaxed more than 2,000 fans to the game. Hubbard put himself in the leadoff spot. A coin toss resulted in Yale batting first, and Hubbard reached on an error, then stole second base. He soon scored Yale’s first run, and they added two more in the inning. There was no more scoring by either side after that, and Yale had a thrilling 3-0 shutout over its big rivals.32

By early June, Yale had played 16 games, and Hubbard was inactive only against Boston. In those games he tied for second-most hits on his team, with 21, and was third in total bases, with 25. He played in all six college games to that point and tied for the most hits on the Yale squad, nine. Yale outscored its collegiate opponents by a wide margin, 30 runs to 10.33

On June 6 Yale played the Philadelphia Athletics for the fourth time in Hubbard’s two years on the varsity. “About 700 people gathered at the park and occupied the grand stand and the benches,” the Yale News reported. “A few carriages were drawn up about the north end of the field.” Hubbard had one hit in four at-bats in his third game against Corey, and over the four games he thus had a .333 batting average. The time of that single was surely far more important to Hubbard than any statistics. Though Yale was the home team, it batted first. Neither team scored in the first inning. In the second, Yale had already scored twice when Hubbard went to bat with two outs and two men on base. His hit drove in the runners to give Yale a 4-0 lead. Yale didn’t score again that day, but Jones limited the Athletics to a lone run in the third inning, and the collegians pulled off the upset.34

Yale almost did likewise at home again the next day, against Buffalo’s NL team. Yale scored five times in the top of the first inning and Buffalo countered with two. After neither team scored in the second inning, there was a rain delay of an hour. The ball’s slipperiness became an issue by the fifth inning, and Buffalo took advantage of that more than Yale did. In the end, the pro team won, 13-12. Hubbard, who played center field, contributed three runs and had a hit in four at-bats.35

On June 13 Hubbard’s team had clinched another American College Base Ball Association pennant by beating Amherst for its seventh victory without a loss.36 About a week later they played one more NL team, Chicago, which finished 1883 in second place. Yale lost, 7-1. Chicago used two pitchers, Larry Corcoran (who had the NL’s best winning percentage and earned-run average the previous year) and Fred Goldsmith (who had the NL’s best winning percentage in 1880). Hubbard had one hit in four at-bats; his late double off Goldsmith helped prevent a shutout.37

On June 22 the New Haven Register ran a long article, drawn from the Boston Herald, in which it was announced that Jones and Hubbard were joining the NL’s Detroit team. The very next day, the Register reported that C.H. Yates, president of the Yale Base Ball association, said Hubbard denied that he and Jones had simultaneously negotiated in bad faith with the NL’s relatively new Philadelphia club. “He said Jones and Hubbard agreed to accept [Philadelphia’s] proposition, but before the contract was signed Hubbard backed out, owing to the opposition of his parents,” wrote the Register.38

In early July it was Baltimore’s turn to be rejected by Hubbard. William Gittinger, secretary and treasurer of that AA team, said he offered Hubbard a salary of $600 per month and a $1,000 cash advance. “Hubbard said it was the largest offer he had received, but that he could not accept it, as his family objected to his becoming a professional ball player,” reported the Baltimore Sun.39 Jones eventually signed with Detroit, and made his debut on July 9, but Hubbard didn’t join him on that club.

Hubbard’s baseball career at Yale concluded with an exhibition game against Harvard in Philadelphia on Independence Day. His nine won a slugfest, 23-9.40 In the eight official American College Base Ball Association games, he batted .314 (11-for-35), with a .963 fielding percentage.41

In less than a week, Hubbard was playing with the Stock Exchange team, also called the Staten Islands.42 He also played at least twice back home, with the Westfield Firemen.43 He kept busy with two other teams, the Cottage Citys of Martha’s Vineyard, and the Company K’s of Hartford, Connecticut.44

Jack Jones was released by Detroit after going 6-5 in 12 games, and on September 4 he won his first game for the Philadelphia Athletics, 11-1 over St. Louis.45

Philadelphia and Hubbard were secretive about his also joining the club, but they weren’t particularly good at it. On September 11, two days before Hubbard’s major-league debut, the Philadelphia Record reported on its front page that “Hubbard, the Yale college catcher, has been engaged by the Athletic club to support Jones.” Back at Yale, on the day of his first game the campus paper quoted the Record’s announcement. In between those two disclosures, a Cincinnati newspaper, looking forward to the Athletics visiting on September 15, noted that Philadelphia had “a new catcher, who plays under the name of West, and whom will catch Jumping Jack Jones.” With that dubious phrasing, the paper may as well have just inserted “fake” before “name.”46

Hubbard made his major-league debut in Columbus on September 13, 1883. “West, the new catcher for the Athletics, played short-stop and did some very brilliant work in the field and also at the bat,” the Times of Philadelphia reported. He batted ninth against Frank Mountain, who was 26-33 for Columbus that year. “West” had two hits in three at-bats and scored twice as his new team won easily, 11-5.47

The next day was an open date, and on September 15 the Athletics were in Cincinnati. Jones started, and “West” was his catcher, but soon all pretense was off. “The Athletic catcher, playing under the name of ‘West,’ was recognized by Yale College men who were present as Hubbard, the Yale College catcher,” noted one Philadelphia daily. “His success behind the bat was not very good – four balls got past him and he missed a third strike.”48 In fact, nobody on his team had a good day, because they were shut out, 11-0, by Will White, a 40-game winner that season and the prior one. Hubbard was hitless in three at-bats. Four of his teammates managed one hit apiece. The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette complimented Hubbard and Jones: “They are without a doubt the strongest college battery ever turned out.”49

Hubbard never played in another major-league game. It might be supposed that the Athletics didn’t want to retain him because of that one awful game. However, the day before that loss, a Philadelphia paper reported that the team had already signed a new catcher for the next season, Jocko Milligan, who ended up as their primary catcher in 1884.50

At some point in 1883, Hubbard worked briefly for J.H. Lounsbury’s machine shop in Providence, and during the winter of 1883-1884 he worked as a draftsman for the Riverside & Oswego Woolen Manufacturing Company in Schenectady, New York.51 Not surprisingly, at the age of 23 baseball was still in his blood – and the baseball world was still interested in him. For example, in February of 1884 it was projected that Jones would join the Minneapolis team in the Northwestern League after his graduation in June, and that he had already agreed to catch. In March he was noticed at the annual meeting of the Intercollegiate Base Ball Convention. In the spring, he reportedly did some coaching for Amherst.52

During the warmer months of 1884, Hubbard ended up splitting time among three teams. One was near his hometown, the Springfield team in a new professional league, the Massachusetts State Association. He played for Springfield at least three times during the first half of May. At home before about 1,000 fans on May 2 he helped Springfield defeat one of the seven other MSA teams, the Boston Reserves, 8-5.53 He caught against the same team three days later in another win, 19-5, though the Springfield paper made it clear the contest wasn’t official, but was merely “an exhibition game.”54 On May 10 Hubbard helped beat another MSA team, the Holyokes, at their ballpark. That contest, won 7-5, by the Springfields, drew about 1,200 spectators.55

In the meantime, Hubbard had been assembling a new team of his own in Westfield. On May 17 it hosted the Holyoke Reserves and won easily, 14-3. “Hubbard captained the team from center field,” the Springfield Republican noted.56 He played with his Westfields off and on at least through late September.57

During the second half of May, Hubbard started playing with another professional team, Meriden of the new Connecticut State League, which played twice weekly.58 Jones had been recruited to pitch regularly for the team, and it was announced that Hubbard would alternate with Connie Mack and Bob Pettit as the catcher. From May 21 through June 27 Hubbard played in at least four games, all wins. The first was against Waterbury. He doubled in two runs in the second inning, and by the ninth inning Meriden led, 6-3. With one out, Waterbury had men on second and third with the tying run at bat, but on the back end of a double play, Hubbard made the game-ending putout. He then missed at least one game due to “a lame arm,” as a local paper reported.59

Hubbard played again on June 6, at Waterbury, and contributed two hits in four at-bats toward a second win, 6-1. In a win against Willimantic on June 11, he split his finger open in the sixth inning. In the seventh he was replaced by Mack and went to right field. His final game for Meriden was a win against Hartford. All told, he had two doubles and two singles in 16 at-bats in the four games.60 At least one paper announced the day before his finale that he and Jones had left the Meriden team, bound for Minneapolis.61 That didn’t happen.

Hubbard simply returned to his amateur team in Westfield. He caught a young local named Wilson, who struck out 22 batters of the MSA’s Holyoke team in a 10-3 victory.62 He caught or played second base for the Westfields until at least October 1, when his nine won a road game against the Amherst College team, 11-6. One of his two hits that day was a home run.63

From 1884 to 1888, Hubbard worked for a longtime Westfield business, the H.B. Smith Company, in its Providence branch. Late in the summer of 1887 he won the Providence tennis championship. After that, he lived and worked primarily in or near Boston.64

On September 23, 1896, Allen married Edna Woodruff, a musician, in her hometown of Winsted, Connecticut. Among the guests were Mr. and Mrs. D.A. “Jack” Jones.65

Agnes’s health had been declining for a few months before her brother’s wedding, and she died in October.66 On July 27, 1897, Allen and Edna welcomed the first of their two children, Allen Jr. Their other son, Gilbert, was born on December 1, 1901.67

Hubbard’s longest continuous service in a sporting capacity was on a committee of the Boston Athletic Club from 1895 to 1910. He became active in the club at least two years earlier, when he was player-manager of the club’s baseball team.68 His “last hurrah” as a baseball player came in 1908 among some very distinguished company. An old-timers game was organized in Boston on September 24. Hubbard was on the team of old stars from New England colleges, who were led by his old Yale teammate, Walter I. Badger. On the other team were former Boston pros. The latter team’s lineup included three future Hall of Famers, Albert G. Spalding, Jim O’Rourke, and Tommy McCarthy. After the game a banquet was held, and the Boston Herald, for one, devoted much ink to the day. Hubbard had a single in two at-bats, plus three putouts.69

Not quite a year later Hubbard found himself in even more famous company, playing a sport other than baseball. At a Yale field day on September 7, 1909, one of the attendees was President William Howard Taft, six months into his term. Taft had graduated from Yale in 1878. The day include a baseball game, and one of its stars was “Rev Charles F. Carter, ’78, who pitched a no-hit, no-run game against Harvard back in the ‘70s,” noted the Springfield Republican. Badger also played, as did Hubbard, who “only had some 18 or 19 passed balls.” Taft was asked to serve as umpire but declined, saying, “I value my life too much for such a job as that.” After the first inning a group photograph was taken, with Taft in the center. Much more noteworthy was the golfing. “Mr Taft was matched with Rev Mr Carter against Samuel J. Elder, the noted Boston lawyer, and Allen Hubbard,” the Republican reported. “The game was stopped at the 11th hole in order not to delay luncheon, and at that time the president and Mr Carter were 4 up.”70

Hubbard died rather suddenly on December 9, 1930, at the age of 70. He was survived by his wife, two sons, sister Leora, and brother George. A large number of Yale alumni attended his funeral.71

In 2006 baseball historian David Nemec asserted that Hubbard and Jones were “the first college battery to perform together in a major league game.” In the summer of 2012, the duo received renewed attention when Craig Breslow of the Red Sox pitched to Ryan Lavarnway. Both are Yale graduates. That hadn’t happened in the majors in well over a century, since Jones and Hubbard.72 That’s a decent legacy for someone like Allen Hubbard, who could count the number of his games as a professional ballplayer with just the bruised and battered fingers of his two hands.

Notes

1 “Taft at Yale Field Day,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, September 8, 1909: 9.

2 Bulletin of Yale University: Obituary Record of Graduates Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1931, December 1, 1931: 205.

3 Bulletin of Yale University: Obituary Record of Graduates Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1931, December 1, 1931: 205; also see federal census and Massachusetts birth records.

4 “Sporting Matters,” Springfield Republican, May 9, 1879: 5.

5 “Base Ball,” Yale News, March 24, 1881: 2.

6 “Consolidated vs. ’84,” Yale News, April 26, 1881: 2.

7 Yale News, May 17, 1881: 2-3. “Yale ’84 vs. Harvard ’84,” Yale News Supplement, May 23, 1881: 1-2. The newspaper’s coverage of the Amherst game lacked a headline; it provided an inning-by-inning account and detailed box score. In early June the Yale Freshmen won a rematch against Harvard, 21-2; see “Yale ’84 vs. Harvard ’84,” Yale News, June 6, 1881: 2-3, and “College Base Ball Games,” New Haven (Connecticut) Daily Morning Journal and Courier, June 6, 1881: 4. His third inclusion in a box score was against the same team; see “Consolidated vs. ’84,” Yale News, May 5, 1881: 3.

8 The Yale Pot-pourri, Volume XVI, 1880-81: 135. On pages 39-42 were listed freshman, junior, and senior classes without a sophomore class.

9 “Metropolitans vs. Yale,” New York Times, April 8, 1882: 8. Yale News, April 13, 1882: 1-2. For a roster of the Metropolitans that identified players’ prior National League experience, see Yale News, February 23, 1882: 1.

10 Yale’s first home game was a 7-5 win on April 15 against a team called the Alaskas, according to the Yale News, April 17, 1882: 1-2. They then beat the Atlantics on April 19, 9-6, as reported by the Yale News, April 20, 1882: 1-2.

11 “An Exciting Contest Between the Providence and Yale Teams – Providence the Winner,” New York Herald, April 23, 1882: 16. See also Yale News, April 24, 1882: 1-2. Hubbard was listed in the Yale newspaper’s box score as playing left field, but the article made it clear that he caught at least part of the game. That box score reported how many balls and strikes each pitcher threw, and even distinguished between called and swinging strikes. The box scores later in April did likewise.

12 Yale News, April 27, 1882: 1-2.

13 “Athletic, 2; Yale, 0,” The Times (Philadelphia), April 30, 1882: 2. See also “Athletics vs. Yale,” Yale News, May 1, 1882: 2.

14 Richard Melancthon Hurd, A History of Yale Athletics, 1840-1888 (New Haven, Connecticut: R.M. Hurd, Yale University, 1888), 95, 100; Frank Presbrey and James Hugh Moffatt, Athletics at Princeton: A History (New York: Frank Presbrey Company, 1901), 35. The league was called two other names, the shortened American College Association but also the Inter-Collegiate Association on the same page of Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1882 (Chicago: A.G. Spalding & Bros., 1882): 47. However, on an unnumbered page before the Guide’s preface, it was called the American College Base Ball Association in an official endorsement of the Guide.

15 “Yales vs. Worcesters,” New Haven Register, June 9, 1882: 4; “Yale vs. Worcester,” Yale News, June 9, 1882: 2.

16 “Providence 11, Yale 3,” Springfield Republican, June 14, 1882: 5; “Yale vs. Providence,” Yale News, June 14, 1882: 1-2.

17 “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 1882: 2.

18 For example, at home on July 15 he played second base in a loss to a team from nearby Holyoke.

19 “Sporting Matters,” Springfield Republican, August 3, 1882: 8. Chapman made “a flattering offer,” according to “Base Ball,” Wheeling (West Virginia) Sunday Register, August 20, 1882: 7.

20 “Sporting Matters,” Springfield Republican, August 8, 1882: 8; “Worcesters 7, Westfield Firemen 4,” Springfield Republican, August 9, 1882: 8. As in several Yale News box scores, this one likewise reported pitch counts.

21 “The Ball Field,” Worcester (Massachusetts) Daily Spy, August 15, 1882: 4; “Sporting Matters,” Springfield Republican, August 8, 1882: 8; “Sporting Matters,” Springfield Republican, August 15, 1882: 5.

22 Yale News, September 14, 1882: 1.

23 Yale News, October 11, 1882: 4.

24 “Notices,” Yale News, January 15, 1883: 2.

25 “The Ball Nine,” Yale News, February 8, 1883: 1.

26 Warren Goldstein, “Walter Camp’s Off-Side: A Tarnished Football Legacy,” Hartford Courant, March 14, 2014, accessible at courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-commentary-goldstein-yales-walter-camp-bent–20140314-story.html.

27 “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 9, 1883: 2; “Yale vs. Athletics,” Yale News, April 9, 1883: 1.

28 “Yale vs. Cleveland,” Yale News, April 16, 1883: 1.

29 “New Yorks, 11; Yales, 4,” Boston Globe, April 19, 1883: 1; “Base Ball,” New Haven Register, April 19, 1883: 3.

30 “New York 14 – Yale 3,” Commercial Gazette (Cincinnati), April 22, 1883: 3; “Yale vs. New York,” Yale News, April 23, 1883: 1. The latter account mentions hits by Yale’s leadoff man and Hubbard combining for one of Yale’s three runs, but both hits were omitted from the box score, thus showing Yale with three hits instead of five. The Cincinnati paper’s box score shows both of those batters with hits and Yale with a total of five.

31 “Providences, 5; Yales, 4,” Boston Globe, April 29, 1883: 3; “Yale vs. Providence,” Yale News, April 30, 1883: 1-2.

32 “Yale vs. Harvard,” Yale News, May 14, 1883: 1.

33 Yale News, June 5, 1883: 1.

34 “Yale vs. Athletic,” Yale News, June 7, 1883: 1; “Base Ball Games. The Yale College Nine Defeat the Athletics,” New Haven Register, June 7, 1883: 2.

35 “Yale vs. Buffalo,” Yale News, June 8, 1883: 1; “A Close Game,” New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier, June 8, 1883: 2. Buffalo used at least two pitchers in the game, but box scores in these and other newspapers were inconsistent about who exactly pitched, and descriptions of the game generally didn’t mention the visitors’ hurlers except in passing.

36 Hurd. In late June, Princeton beat Yale and thus Hubbard’s team ended with a 7-1 record.

37 “Yale vs. Chicago,” Yale News, June 20, 1883: 1. “Base Ball – Yale vs. Chicago,” New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier, June 20, 1883: 3.

38 “To Join the Detroits. Jones and Hubbard of Yale,” New Haven Register, June 22, 1883: 1; “Yale’s Battery. The Charge of Bad Faith by Jones and Hubbard Denied,” New Haven Register, June 23, 1883: 2.

39 “Base-Ball,” Baltimore Sun, July 4, 1883: 4. One New Haven paper printed a similar account a few days later but added, “Although he is reported to have declined, members of the Yale nine say he told them not to be surprised if he went.” See “Hubbard, Yale’s Catcher,” New Haven Register, July 9, 1883: 2.

40 “Harvard Beaten by Yale,” The Times (Philadelphia), July 5, 1883: 3; “Harvard Badly Defeated,” New Haven Register, July 5, 1883: 4.

41 J.S. Harlan, “The Record of Averages of the Members of the Ball Nines,” Yale News, October 18, 1883: 2.

42 “On the Diamond,” Boston Journal, July 10, 1883: 4; “The Staten Islands Victorious,” Truth (New York), July 17, 1883: 3; “Westfield,” Springfield Republican, August 14, 1883; “Baseball News,” New York Tribune, August 15, 1883: 2.

43 “Holyokes 4, Westfield Firemen 3,” Springfield Republican, August 16, 1883: 5; “Diamond Drift,” Boston Globe, September 12, 1883: 5. The latter mentioned that Hubbard played for Westfield in a win versus the Newtons, but two paragraphs above that the paper asked, incredulously, “How many clubs does Hubbard belong to?”

44 “Diamond Drift,” Boston Globe, September 14, 1883: 4.

45 “A Great Day for Jones,” New Haven Register, September 5, 1883: 1.

46 “Sporting Notes,” Philadelphia Record, September 11, 1883: 1; “Yale Log,” Yale News, September 13, 1883: 3; “Columbus Club Matters,” Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. September 12, 1883; An announcement similar to the Record’s appeared in Boston the day before Hubbard’s second game as West. See “Base Ball Notes,” Boston Globe, September 14, 1883: 4.

47 “The Association Games,” The Times (Philadelphia), September 14, 1883: 3; the paper’s box score didn’t have a column for at-bats, but see “Athletics Win at Columbus,” Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, September 14, 1883: 3.

48 “The Athletics Shut Out,” The Times (Philadelphia), September 16, 1883: 2; “Jumping on Jumping Jack,” Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, September 16, 1883: 7.

49 “The Athletics Shut Out,” The Times (Philadelphia), September 16, 1883: 2.

50 “Notes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 14, 1883: 2.

51 Bulletin of Yale University: Obituary Record of Graduates Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1931, December 1, 1931: 205.

52 “Tea Table Chat,” Evening Press (Bay City, Michigan), February 4, 1884. Bay City had one of the other franchises in the Northwestern League. “Base Ball among Students,” Boston Herald, March 15, 1884: 8; “Hampshire County,” Springfield Republican, May 30, 1884: 6.

53 “The State Championship,” Boston Journal, May 3, 1884: 6. His identity was confirmed when the paper asserted that “Hubbard, of last year’s Yale nine, caught a good game for the home nine.” The fact that the teams had played a “championship game,” i.e., that it counted in the standings, was noted in “Base-Ball,” Springfield Republican, May 3, 1884: 5.

54 “Sporting Matters,” Springfield Republican, May 6, 1884: 5.

55 “Springfields 7; Holyokes 5,” Boston Globe, May 11, 1884: 5. The attendance figure came from “Springfields 7; Holyokes 5,” Worcester Daily Spy, May 12, 1884: 1. For additional information about the MSA, see baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Massachusetts_State_Association.

56 “Westfields 14, Holyoke Reserves 3,” Springfield Republican, May 18, 1884: 1.

57 For an example not long into the team’s second month, see “Westfields 16, Rockets 9,” Springfield Republican, June 8, 1884: 1.

58 The league played on Wednesdays and Saturdays, according to baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Connecticut_League#1884, but the first and third dates on which Hubbard played in June were Fridays.

59 “Jones and Hubbard,” Meriden (Connecticut) Daily Republican, May 20, 1884: 3; “Meriden Has the Honor,” Meriden Daily Republican, May 22, 1884: 3; “Base Ball Notes,” Meriden Daily Republican, May 24, 1994: 3.

60 “Six to One,” Meriden Daily Republican, June 7, 1884: 3; “Beaten in One Inning,” Meriden Daily Republican, June 12, 1884: 3; “In Second Place,” Meriden Daily Republican, June 28, 1884: 3.

61 “Base Hits,” Cleveland Leader, June 26, 1884: 7.

62 “Westfields 10, Holyokes 3,” Springfield Republican, June 29, 1884: 1.

63 “Westfields 11, Amherst College 6,” Springfield Republican, October 1, 1884: 5.

64 Bulletin of Yale University: Obituary Record of Graduates Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1931, December 1, 1931: 205; “Hampden County,” Springfield Republican, September 1, 1887: 6.

65 “Woodruff-Hubbard,” New Haven Register, September 9, 1896: 1. “News Jottings,” Morning Journal and Courier, September 25, 1896: 7; “Social Life,” Boston Herald, September 27, 1896: 27. In the seventh column of the latter is a long paragraph that identified the Woodruff-Hubbard wedding party and mentioned Edna’s musicianship.

66 “Hampden County,” Springfield Republican, October 29, 1896: 8.

67 The dates are from Massachusetts birth records accessible online. According to the 1910 Census, Allen’s sister Leora never had children.

68 “Interclub Base Ball,” Boston Journal, March 28, 1893: 3; “BAA, 4; MIT, ’96, 3,” Boston Herald, April 30, 1893: 4. By 1897 he’d switched his baseball allegiance to the Newton Athletic Association, to the west of Boston in Newton Centre. See “Newton AA, 13; Tufts, 5,” Boston Journal, April 20, 1897: 3. For a pencil sketch of his likeness in Newton AA attire, see “Newton’s Fine Ball Team,” Boston Herald, March 11, 1898: 12.

69 “Old Pros Put One Over Collegians,” Boston Herald, September 25, 1908: 1, 4. Most of the latter page was reprinted in Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide, 1909 (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1909), 135-139. This annual also printed a detailed box score and two pages of photos. Accounts from other Boston papers were later used by the biggest star of the day – see Albert Goodwill Spalding, America’s National Game: Historic Facts Concerning the Beginning, Evolution, Development and Popularity of Base Ball (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1911), 353, 356. About five years after the game, a very large group photo of participants was printed in the New York Times, October 12, 1913: 36.

70 “Taft at Yale Field Day,” Springfield Republican, September 8, 1909: 9.

71 “Death of Mrs. George Hubbard,” Springfield Republican, January 21, 1915: 11; “Allen Hubbard Dies at Home at Newton,” Springfield Republican, December 15, 1930: 4; “Allen Hubbard’s Funeral at Newton,” Springfield Republican, December 17, 1930: 4.

72 David Nemec, The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Major League Baseball, Second Edition (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 251. Gordon Edes, “Bulldog Battery Helps Sox Stop Yanks,” ESPN.com, August 19, 2012, accessible at espn.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8281934/yale-bulldogs-alumni-craig-breslow-ryan-lavarnway-induce-key-double-play-boston-red-sox-beat-new-york-yankees. Edes expressed some doubt that both Jones and Hubbard were Yale graduates, but that is far from debatable.

The Jefferson Street Neighborhood in 1860. From 24th Street to where Turner’s Lane ends is the ballpark site.

The Philadelphia ballparks situated at Jefferson and Master Streets, between 27th and 25th Streets, have a significant historic importance for our national pastime. Originally, this plot of land was known as the Jefferson Parade Grounds. It was used as a bivouac and training site in the years leading up to the Civil War.1

In the antebellum era, the major Philadelphia teams – the Athletics, Olympics, Mercantiles, and Keystones – found it difficult to secure suitable playing grounds in the city. Because of the community’s opposition to recreational sports, Philadelphia ball clubs were forced to play in Camden, New Jersey or across the Schuylkill River above the Fairmount Avenue Bridge near Harding’s Inn and Tavern. With baseball’s growing popularity, playing grounds soon encroached the outskirts of the city at 32nd and Hamilton and 11th and Wharton. It was not until the early war years that playing fields appeared at more accessible sites such as 10th and Camac Lane and 18th and Master Street. Eventually residential pressures compelled the Olympic and Mercantile ball clubs in 1864 to lease from the city “a handsome piece of ground at the north side of the Spring Garden Market” at 25th and Jefferson.2

Each club had two days a week for their practice. For a cost of about $1,500, the Olympics immediately built a clubhouse along Master Street and made substantial improvements by leveling and re-sodding the playing surface. The first game was played on Wednesday, May 24, 1864, between picked nines from Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the benefit of the United States Sanitary Commission. Without an enclosing fence, 2,000 spectators, paying 25 cents for admission, established the field’s boundaries. The only field-sitting was for ladies who sat behind the players’ bench.3 This ballpark was marked by certain features. Along the third-base/Master Street side was the grass embankment of the old Spring Garden Reservoir. Trees also disrupted the playing site, and until the grounds were enclosed, neighborhood animals wandered onto the field of play. Parking for horse carriages was in the left field foul territory, and no elevated reporters’ seating box existed until 1871.4 Visible behind the 27th and Master home plate intersection on the Girard College campus was the towering Greek-styled Founders Hall with its Corinthian columns.5

The Jefferson Grounds experienced a significant overhaul when the city’s best team, the Athletics, relocated there for the inaugural 1871 National Association of Professional Base Ball Players season. The Athletics had previously prospered at a popular site at 17th Street between Columbia and Montgomery Avenues before a housing development forced them to move to the Jefferson Grounds. Almost immediately, the Athletics tore down the old wooden grandstand and the encircling fence that had been erected in 1866. The new tenants re-sodded and leveled the playing surface, erected a 10-foot vertical slatted fence, and built a pair of tiered pavilions that abutted near the original home plate area on the corner of 25th and Master. Bleacher benches extended along the outfield lines. This rebuilt ball field held over 5,000 fans. This figure doubled during major ball games, when spectators lined up in front of the outfield fences and stood on wooden boxes that supported unstable raised wood planks. Those attendees who could not gain admission purchased 25-cent roof-top seats on neighboring houses, or sat on the branches of overhanging trees. These fans were termed “tree frogs,” and were likened to “living fruit.”6

Initially, the ball park was popular with women, but they eventually were turned off by the cursing, drinking, and the tobacco juice splashes on their dresses. Management tried to curb this rowdy behavior and attempted to attract fans with a music bandstand.7 There was even talk in the off-season about having football games at Jefferson Grounds.8 For the 1872 season, the champion Athletics resurfaced the infield, particularly the irregularly graded shortstop area. If these modifications were not completed in time for the new season the Athletics intended to schedule early-season games across the Delaware River in Gloucester, New Jersey.9

During the Athletics’ third season at the Jefferson Grounds, alarms were raised over the possibility that the site would be sold to housing developers. The Athletics’ directors were upset because they claimed to have invested over $7,000 on the ball field. After much debate and lobbying the politicians relented and the sale did not go through.10 A subsequent concern was the building of additional cheap seats in the outfield. In 1874 this need intensified when the grounds welcomed a new tenant, the Philadelphia Centennials (also known as the Quakers or Fillies). The new club had the field every Monday and Thursday. The Athletics took the site on Wednesdays and Saturdays.11 Prints of the playing grounds from a home plate perspective portrayed a wooden porch-styled construction.12

Near the 24th and Masters intersection, circa 1865–1866. Behind the clubhouse is the reservoir.

In spite of the clubs’ successes the ball park was losing money. The tenant teams compensated by raising ticket prices and erecting a new interior fence that could be plastered with paying advertisements. But the prevalence of gambling and drinking at the ball field kept people away.13 Eventually, the expenses of park maintenance and renovation exceeded revenues. They could not even afford a tarpaulin to cover the infield.14 It was hoped that the Athletics’ affiliation with the new National League in 1876 might save the old ball field. But the well-worn Jefferson Park did not appeal to fans and with low income and poor attendance the Athletics could not afford to remain in the new League. The unaffiliated and homeless Centennials now shifted their games to 24th Street and Ridge Avenue, Recreation Park, and the expelled Athletics’ rump team in 1877 played unsanctioned games wherever they could find a ball field. It was obvious that more revenue could be made by turning part of the Jefferson Grounds over to residential developers. It took the creation of the American Association in 1882 to revive the Athletics and the old Jefferson Park ball field.

The Athletics initially played their inaugural Association season at Oakdale Park at 11th and Cumberland. This leisure recreation site had a large lake and an adjoining playing field, used early on for cricket. Some distance from the Jefferson/Columbia ball-playing corridor, the Oakdale grounds had been in use since 1866.15 After nearly a decade the ball field became downtrodden until the displaced Olympics revived the grounds [1877-1881]. It was thus an ideal place for the revitalized Athletics to re-establish themselves.

Once the contracts had been signed, the Athletics razed the “old and unsightly” existing structure and replaced it with an upgraded wooden grandstand that held 2,000 spectators. The grounds were re-sodded and enlarged and open outfield benches were re-built for another 2,000 fans. A new fence was also erected for the start of the 1882 season.16 Despite these renovations the ball field could not accommodate the large crowds that embraced the new Athletics. As a result, the Athletics decided to relocate back to the Jefferson Street ball field. Unfortunately, the original two-block 25th Street square site no longer existed. The city had committed the eastern portion to a new high school and 26th Street was cut through the original ball grounds. But the Athletics, recognizing the transportation convenience of the site, negotiated an initial lease for $1,000 for the remaining 27th Street remnant. As a result, the former center-field space became the new home plate area for the Association’s Jefferson Street ball field.17

On the corner of 27th and Jefferson, the Athletics constructed “the handsomest ball grounds in the country.”18 The corner was backed up by a semi-circular two-tiered grandstand. Painted white and adorned in “ornamental … fancy cornice work,” the pavilions’ occupants enjoyed arm-chair seating behind a wire-mesh screen. The structure eventually was topped by 32 private season boxes, each holding five people, and a 22-person press box. The grandstand sat 2,200 people and open benches bordering the outfield held more than 3000 fans.19

After a successful 1883 championship season, the ballpark’s capacity was increased to 15,000. Special features abounded. The Oakdale flagstaff was planted at the 27th and Master Street corner20, a private external staircase for box ticket holders was erected, a ladies room, with a female attendant, was set up and a bandstand, linking the third-base pavilion and outfield seats, was erected. The outfield benches were fronted by a horizontal slatted barrier and the left-field fence held a scoreboard and advertisements. Towering over the left-field benches was the Jefferson Street Mission Church. In the distance, beyond center field, was the still-visible Founders Hall on the Girard College campus.21

The new Athletics and their renovated ball field were overseen by a popular local triumvirate, Charles “Pop” Mason, Lew Simmons, and Billy Sharsig. They raised funds to finance the franchise and redesigned the grounds to suit their needs and limited budget. Each served a term as team manager, but Sharsig managed the ball club for five out of the eight years at Jefferson Street. The Athletics’ record for these years was 519-464 for a .528 percentage. For most of their tenure at Jefferson Street the team was competitive and held their own attendance-wise against the National League Phillies. Their popularity was due to ballplayers like Bobby Mathews, Henry Larkin, Harry Stovey, and Louis Bierbauer. But Mason and Simmons recognized that the financial well-being of the franchise would be enhanced by Sunday ball playing. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania “Blue laws” forbade games on the Christian Sabbath. To counter this restriction Mason and his partners revived an old practice of scheduling games in Gloucester, New Jersey. Fans would assemble early on a Sunday morning at the South Street ferry and take a 45-minute crossing to Gloucester. Games were contested at a site next to the centrally-located race track that was served by horse trolleys. Radiating from this sporting juncture were saloons, betting parlors, fishcake stands, and other hostelries. One editorial called Gloucester “a nineteenth-century Sodom.”22

1883 ballgame at the new 27th and Jefferson Street field, looking north towards Jefferson street. Home plate is at 27th Street. The big building on the right is the Mission Church at 26th and Jefferson.

The Athletics began the 1886 season with an advertisement claiming to be the “oldest playing organization in the United States.” They asserted how they gave the Jefferson Street patrons “honest ball playing” when they posted the opening season schedule of games. These contests began at 4:00 P.M. and admission remained at 25 cents. Even the train schedule from Broad Street was publicized.23 Despite this confidence, the ball field was again threatened by city officials. These ambitious politicians were deterred when they were reminded that no one except the Athletics was willing to pay the $2,000 lease for the grounds.24 Once this issue was settled the Athletics re-dedicated their resources to repairing the grounds. They raised the infield, put in new cinder paths and purchased “an immense canvas to cover the entire infield.”25 Two years later, Mason and Simmons, looking for revenue, changed the ticket prices. General admission became 50 cents, and for an extra quarter women and their escorts could sit on cushioned seats in parts of the grandstand.26 This new revenue was intended to cover the expenses of erecting a new fence, replacing old floorboards and re-painting the pavilions.27 In spite of these changes, the growing threat of a players’ strike put the Athletics and their ball park in jeopardy.

In 1890, the players’ Brotherhood union brought a player strike team to Philadelphia. This anticipated rivalry moved the Pennsylvania Railroad to offer the Athletics a new ball field at a more competitive location with easy access from the Broad Street Station. It was rumored that the club was offered a five-year free lease if they moved to a site in West Philadelphia on the other side of the river below the Fortieth Street Bridge.28 Rather than lose or alienate their existing fan base, the Athletics turned down this speculative offer. Instead the Athletics, in grounds which had been updated in a number of seasons, prepared for the 1890 strike season, competing against two Philadelphia ball clubs in different leagues. The season, as expected, was a hardship for the American Association Athletics. Attendance waned and expenses mounted. By the end of the year the Athletics had new management and the Jefferson Street grounds were on the verge of being eclipsed.

By the middle of the strike season the Athletics were plagued by pre-existing financial woes. In 1888, this condition moved Mason, Simmons, and Sharsig to seek new investors, like H.C. Pennypacker and his partner William Whitaker. But during the strike season of 1890 the club’s problems mounted. In one instance, a suit for almost $300 was brought against the franchise in the Court of Common Pleas by carpenters who were not fully paid for their work on the pavilions.29 The ball club also owed $1200 in back rent and $1435 for lumber purchases. To pay these outstanding debts the grandstand, inside fence, seats, flagstaff, ticket boxes and office furniture , appraised at $765 were sold at the end of the season for $600.30 Sometime during these dealings, the Wagner brothers, J. Earle and George, wholesale meat distributers, took over the defunct franchise. Previously, the Wagners were stockholders in the city’s Player League team. After the Jefferson Street field’s sheriff sale, the Wagners shifted players from the three city ball clubs and set up their reconvene team at the Players League ball field, Forepaugh Park and Broad and Dauphin Streets.

Contemporary picture of the playground and softball field at the corner of 27th and Jefferson.

The Athletics played one more season in Philadelphia before merging with the new National League Washington ballclub that previously played in the American Association. It was a better end than what was in store for the Jefferson ball field. Vacant and partially denuded during the 1891 season, the ballpark was set ablaze by neighborhood youngsters in November. A good deal of lumber, stored for carpenters repairing the surviving outside fence, fed the flames.31 A month latter the Wagners’ offices on Vine Street burned down. Fortunately, the office safe, with the club’s records, tickets, and contracts, survived the fire.32 By the following summer the old Jefferson Street grounds, behind a new “substantial fence” were converted into an enclosed “pleasure park” and playground.33

By the mid-1890s there was speculation that a new baseball association would take over the Jefferson Street site.34 The future owners of the American League Athletics, Ben Shibe and Connie Mack, pondered the advantages of revisiting the old 27th Street ball field.35 They investigated the options of a new annual lease, but investors did not want to commit $30,000, necessary for preparing the ball park, to a short-term lease. Nor were neighboring residents and the new 25th Street School happy with the prospect of a new ball park and its anticipated crowds.36 As a result, the inaugural American League Athletics located to 29th and Columbia while the Jefferson Street site hosted leisure activities and an occasional Buffalo Bill Wild West Show.37

Today a memorial plaque to Billy Sharsig is mounted at the 26th Street recreation center and kids play on a softball field set on the grass and dirt of one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most important ball playing sites.

DR. JERROLD CASWAY is the Dean of Social Sciences at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland. He is the author of “Ed Delahanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball” and has completed, “The ‘Olde’ Ball Game: The Culture and Ethnicity of Nineteenth-Century Baseball.” He has written many articles on the early game and has frequently spoken at the Hall of Fame’s Nineteenth-Century Symposiums. He at work on a history of baseball in Philadelphia from 1832 to the building of Shibe Park.

Notes

1 Sunday Dispatch, March 27, 1859.

2 Sunday Mercury, May 16, 1866 and March 3, 1872.

3 Sunday Mercury, May 22, 1864; Philadelphia Inquirer, May 25, 1864. Olympics club house, c. 1866. Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Olympics Folder: B 13.55.

4 Evening City Item, May 15, 1871.

5 Painting by A. Kollner, 1865 in Logan Library, Philadelphia. See also T. Eakins painting, 1875, “Baseball Players,” at Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.

6 Sunday Dispatch, September 15, 1872 and June 11, 1871; Philadelphia Inquirer, April 11, 1871.

7 Sunday Dispatch, April 7, 1873.

8 Sunday Dispatch, November 21, 1871.

9 Sunday Dispatch, April 7, 1872 and April 28, 1872.

10 All Day City Item, May 23, 1873.

11 Sunday Dispatch, January 25, 1874.

12 The Daily Graphic, April 30, 1873 and April 18, 1874.

13 All Day City Item, February 10, 1875; February 28, 1875; May 3, 1875.

14 All Day City Item, July 30, 1875.

15 Sunday Mercury, November 4, 1866.

16 Sunday Item, March 26, 1882.

17 By the end of the first year the Committee on City Property gave the Athletics a three-year renewable lease at $2000 a year. This agreement stood unless the new high school was built. In that case the city had to give the ball club a three-month notice of the forfeiture. Sunday Dispatch, December 9, 1883; Philadelphia Press, January 17, 1883; Sunday Dispatch, February 4, 1883,

18 Sunday Item, April 8, 1883 and April 1, 1883.

19 Sunday Item, April 8, 1883; Sunday Dispatch, January 14, 1883; Philadelphia Record, April 1, 1883.

20 Philadelphia Record, March 29, 1883.

21 Frank Leslie Illustrated Newspaper, October 6, 1883 and Gilbert & Bacon picture, 1884, Baseball Hall of Fame, B. 164.65. See also Philadelphia Record, March 29, 1883 and March 31, 1883. The late Larry Zuckerman calculated that the ball park’s dimensions were 288-440-352. Zuckerman to J. Casway, August 7, 1999.

22 North American, August 28, 1899; May 5, 1893; Philadelphia Inquirer, October 10, 1898.

23 Sporting Life, March 31, 1886.

24 Sporting Life, May 5, 1886.

25 Sporting Life, November 17, 1886.

26 Sporting Life, April 25, 1888.

27 Sporting Life, February 20, 1889.

28 Sporting Life, October 16, 1889; The Sporting News, October 19, 1889,

29 North American, June 26, 1890; Sporting Life, June 28, 1890.

30 North American, October 18, 1890; The Sporting News, October 18, 1890; Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 15, 1890.

31 Sporting Life, November 28, 1891.

32 Sporting Life, December 12, 1891.

33 Sporting Life, June 18, 1892; Sunday Item, June 19, 1892; The Sporting News, October 27, 1894.

34 Sporting Life, October 27, 1894.

35 The Sporting News, September 23, 1900 and November 24, 1900.

36 Philadelphia Press, December 20, 1900.

37 Philadelphia Press, May 13, 1901; Sunday Item, May 11, 1902.

For a player who appeared in only 19 games during part of a nineteenth-century season, Daniel Albion Jones Jr. received an inordinate amount of notoriety. Among the many cameo players who flitted briefly across the major-league scene, Jones was perhaps the most unique. He was a Yale man who sang in the college’s glee club. He later graduated from both medical and dental school and maintained a dentistry practice for many years after his brief baseball career. 

There were other Yale graduates and other future dentists who played major-league baseball, many of whom were more talented than Jones. What made D.A. Jones famous was his bizarre pitching motion, during which he leapt high in the air, with both feet well off the ground, like a mechanical jumping jack. What made his situation even more exceptional was that the young pitcher and his crazy jumping delivery were thrust into one of the most exciting pennant races of the nineteenth century. During the frantic month of September 1883, virtually every baseball crank in America knew about Jumping Jack Jones.  

Daniel Jones was born on October 23, 1860, in Litchfield County, Connecticut to Daniel Jones Sr. and Emeline Jones. The Jones family had come to America in 1660, in the person of William Jones, a London attorney. William became a leading figure in the New Haven colony, serving as a magistrate from 1662 through 1692 and as deputy governor until 1706.1

By the time Daniel Jr. was born, dentistry had replaced government as the Jones family business. Daniel Sr. had his own practice and Emeline took a great interest in what her husband was doing. Being a woman, she had to pursue her interest in secret, but eventually Emeline convinced Daniel that she had sufficient knowledge and skill to work with him, and became America’s first known female dentist. After Daniel Sr. died in 1864, Emeline established her own practice in order to support her two young children. For a few years she traveled through Connecticut and Rhode Island with a portable dentist chair before opening a permanent office on Chapel Street in New Haven, Connecticut.2

Daniel Jones Jr. attended New Haven’s prestigious Hopkins Grammar School, playing for its baseball team in 1878, and then matriculated at nearby Yale College (now Yale University), where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, one of the oldest and most prominent social fraternities in the United States.

The Yale College nine played its first game in 1865 and over the next two decades the school, along with Harvard, fielded strong clubs, often playing exhibitions against major-league and other professional teams. One of Jones’s Yale teammates was Walter Camp, better known for another sport and often referred to as the “Father of American Football.”

Jones played baseball during each of his four years at Yale, leading the Bulldogs to Intercollegiate Baseball Association championships in 1882 and 1883. The 1882 team had a record of 14-11 against all teams and 9-3 against college teams. The following year Yale was 21-12 overall and 11-1 against college nines, losing only to Princeton in 10 innings.

During the summer Jones pitched for the Westfield Firemen in Westfield, Massachusetts. Eligibility for intercollegiate athletics was a hazy subject in the nineteenth century. The common use of aliases (or administrators simply looking the other way) allowed college players to play professionally without compromising their amateur status. Graduate students also played on the varsity nine and there were frequent disputes as to whether star athletes were actually students in good standing. Controversy and scandal in college sports are not twenty-first-century phenomena.

By the spring of 1883, Jones was one of the best college pitchers in America. En route to the IBA championship, he pitched a three-hit shutout against Harvard and yielded just a single run to Amherst in a 3-1 victory.

Meanwhile, near the shores of Lake Huron, the National League’s Detroit Wolverines were having pitching problems. During the first part of the season, George “Stump” Weidman was their only reliable hurler, and they used him far too often. During May he started 14 of Detroit’s 20 games, including five games in a row at one point and four in a row at another. Since backup pitcher Dick Burns was 2-12, manager Jack Chapman used Weidman whenever the latter was capable of dragging himself to the box. As Weidman predictably wore down, the Wolverines faded. After an 11-5 start, they lost 17 of their next 22 games and from June 6 through July 4 they lost 19 of 21.

As the Wolverines searched for a backup for Weidman, perhaps they recalled that in an 1881 exhibition, Jones had pitched effectively against them, although Yale lost by a respectable 4-2 score. As soon as Jones’s 1883 Yale season was over, Detroit signed him for a rather lofty salary of $625 per month.

Apparently the munificent salary enabled the handsome, mustachioed Jones to dress in a style commensurate with his Ivy League background, for Sporting Life noted that the youngster was “said to be the best-dressed man in the league. He probably does not follow the practices of some of his colleagues, a number of whom have found it utterly impossible to support a saloon and buy anything more than jean clothes.“3

Jones made his first start for Detroit on July 9; it was inauspicious, as he was driven from the pitcher’s box after four innings, trailing 5-0. He bounced back and beat Boston in his second game, and after two more losses, reeled off four wins in a row. After a tie with Cleveland on July 28, Jones had a record of 6-5 in 12 starts, with a respectable 3.50 ERA. But Detroit President William Thompson didn’t think that was a sufficient return for $625 a month. The Wolverines were far out of contention and when they acquired talented left-hander Fred “Dupee” Shaw, Thompson decided Jones was an expensive luxury and gave him his release.

While Detroit was staggering to a seventh-place finish and looking to cut expenses, there was a red-hot race in the American Association and one of the teams fighting for the pennant had serious pitching problems. The Philadelphia Athletics were neck-and-neck with the St. Louis Browns, and at the end of August led the Browns by four percentage points. Their top pitcher was 31-year-old veteran Bobby Mathews, who’d been pitching in the major leagues since 1871. Mathews would finish the season with an excellent 30-13 record, but when August ended, he was suffering from a sore arm, a bad back, and a badly injured ankle. 

The Athletics’ other pitcher was George Bradley, who’d been one of the best in the National League at one time but was nearing the end of his career. In 1883 most of his time was spent playing third base, but when Mathews was injured, Bradley found himself doing more of the pitching. The Athletics desperately needed another pitcher and offered Jones $500 for the final month of the season.4

Jones jumped right into the fire, starting the second game of a four-game series with the Browns on September 4 before a crowd estimated at 10,000. The Athletics were a half-game behind and a win would put them in first place.

When Jones went to the box to face the Browns, it was the first time Philadelphia fans had seen him pitch5 and they were astonished by his famous jump. The first batter Jones faced was St. Louis shortstop Bill Gleason. The first three pitches were balls. Then Jones started jumping. He jumped three straight times, Gleason took three strikes and trudged back to the bench.

The Browns had never seen anything like it. As he released the ball, Jones leapt into the air and the pitch sailed toward the batter through a mass of arms and legs. “You don’t know whether Jones or the ball is coming at you,” said one of the Browns.6 Jones didn’t jump on every pitch; he did it three or four times an inning, generally when he had two strikes on a batter.

Sporting Life described Jones’s unusual style as follows. “He has a great variety of deliveries, hardly ever standing in the same position or manner twice. He delivers the ball without any unnecessary delay, from the centre or any corner of the box, just where he happens to stand when the ball is returned to him. Another act, which is confusing to the batsman, is a peculiar jump of about a foot in height, in delivering the ball.”7 “He has a half dozen different styles of delivery,” added the Philadelphia Times. “His jumping act astonishes the batsmen and they forget to aim at the ball.”8

Jumping in the air wouldn’t seem to be the best way to get leverage behind a pitch, but at first it was so distracting to the batters that it didn’t matter. The Browns couldn’t hit Jones, and the Athletics pounded St. Louis pitcher Tony Mullane en route to an 11-1 win. If not for an error, the Athletics’ new pitcher would have had a shutout.

Jones not only excelled in the box; he also contributed at the plate, collecting a single in a fourth-inning rally and running wild on the bases in the sixth. He singled in the latter inning and set out for a steal of second. On a sloppy play that included a passed ball and two wild throws, Jones came all the way around to score.

After pitching his new club into first place, Jones was carried off the field in triumph. “He … won his way into the good graces of the audience,” reported Sporting Life, “and when the game was over was the most popular player who ever occupied the box.”9

Mathews was still ailing and Bradley was needed in the infield so the Athletics started Jones again the following day, before another crowd of 10,000. Jones wasn’t as good as he’d been in his debut, but the Athletics survived a ninth-inning Browns rally to win 5-4. Their lead was now 1½ games.

Browns owner Chris Von der Ahe was not a man who took defeat lightly. He was also a man who spoke English with a heavy German accent, and reporters loved to quote him phonetically, and often apocryphally. After the second defeat, the Philadelphia Times claimed that Von der Ahe exclaimed, “Oh, it was that tam ‘Jumping Jack’ pitcher, that settles it. Dot was all right, but by tam, Von der Ahe will have two ‘Jumping Jack’ pitchers ven he gets back mit Cent Lewis.”10

Bradley won the final game of the series, and the Athletics then swept four games from Columbus, giving them a seven-game winning streak and a 3½-game lead over the Browns.  Jones won two of the victories in Columbus, giving him a record of 4-0. Then the magic seemed to disappear, as Cincinnati pummeled him in an 11-0 loss. In that game, Jones’s catcher was his former Yale batterymate Al Hubbard, who had been signed by the Athletics to give Jones a familiar face and hands to pitch to. Apparently it didn’t work.

With Mathews healthy enough to play, it was a full week before Jones pitched again, taking the box for the second game of another critical series against the Browns. Although he suffered his second straight loss, the Athletics took two of the three games to maintain the 3½-game lead. Strangely, Jones didn’t jump at all during his loss to the Browns.

Jones’s next start, his last in the major leagues, was on the 28th against fifth-place Louisville. The Athletics had a 1½-game lead with two to play, and a win would clinch the title. Mathews and Bradley had lost the two previous games, and it was up to Jones to bring the Athletics home. The fall semester at Yale had started, but senior Daniel Albion Jones Jr. was not in New Haven. He had another engagement.

Jones, who was relatively fresh, was opposed by Louisville’s Guy Hecker, who by the end of the season had logged 469 innings. The Athletics pounced on the weary hurler and took a 5-2 lead. But Jones, who was jumping again, couldn’t hold it, giving up four runs in the seventh, which put Louisville in front, 6-5. The Athletics tied the game in the eighth and it went to extra innings.

Jones retired the Eclipse in the top of the 10th and the Athletics scored in the bottom half of the inning, bringing Philadelphia its first championship since the old Athletics sat atop the National Association standings at the end of the 1871 season. The improbable hero was a rookie pitcher from Yale with a very strange delivery.11 Jones finished his one-month stint with the Athletics with a record of 5-2 and a 2.63 ERA.  

Jones rode in the gala victory parade, and many along the route waved toy jumping jacks. The jumping jack is little remembered today other than as a nickname, but it was a very popular nineteenth-century toy, defined in the World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts as follows: “The jumping jack is an articulated, flat or sometimes three-dimensional puppet. Its limbs are manipulated using strings. These are grouped and attached to a single string, situated below the figure and the basic movement of the jumping jack is produced by pulling on this string which causes the arms and legs to move up and down. It is also possible to have jumping jacks operated by one or more strings located above or to the side.”12 A human jumping jack named Jones had made the toy one of the most popular in Philadelphia.

Jones returned to Yale to complete the fall semester, and during the winter there was a great deal of speculation as to where he might pitch the following season. First, despite the fact that he had played professionally, he said he wanted to pitch for Yale. Jones said that if his eligibility was questioned, he would expose other college athletes who had played professionally.

During the winter, while Jones was deciding where to play in 1884, he sang second tenor for the Yale glee club, and was also one of their champion whistlers. In January, while the club was touring a number of Midwestern cities, the train on which they were traveling was involved in a horrific crash. Jones was not injured, but a couple of his fellow students were, one so seriously that his leg had to be amputated. The remainder of the tour was canceled.

There were rumors that Jones would play with the Minneapolis club, but finally he decided to play for a professional team in Meriden, Connecticut, which was only about 20 miles from New Haven. Jones played with Meriden for only about three weeks, but made the acquaintance of the team’s catcher, a tall, skinny youngster from East Brookfield, Massachusetts, who played under the name of Connie Mack. Jones stayed in touch with Mack for many years thereafter.

In 1885 Jones made the final four appearances of his professional baseball career, posting a 1-3 record for Waterbury of the Southern New England League. He earned a degree in dentistry from Harvard (1889) and a medical degree from Yale (1892) and opened a dental practice in East Haven, Connecticut, in 1889, the same year he married Emma Aurelia Beadle, a 32-year-old New Jersey woman. Jones served as secretary and treasurer of the State Dental Society and continued to practice until his health failed in 1935. (Emma died in 1908.) He moved to the Masonic Home in Wallingford, Connecticut, where he died on October 19, 1936, just four days short of his 76th birthday. He is buried in East Lawn Cemetery in East Haven, while his wife is buried in Quinnipiac Cemetery in Southington, Connecticut.

Sources

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

Achorn, Edward. The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game (New York: Public Affairs, 2013).

findagrave.com

New York Clipper

Retrosheet.org

Notes

1 Biography of Daniel A. Jones, from “A History of the Class of Eighty-Four, Yale College, 1890-1914,” edited by Leonard M. Daggett, class secretary, published for the Class of 1884 by the Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor Company. Thanks to Sam Rubin of Yale for providing the information. 

2 A good summary of the career of Dr. Emeline Jones can be found on the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame website cwhf.org/inductees/science-health/emeline-roberts-jones#.XTTQtfJKiUk and at dailynutmeg.com/2018/03/20/emeline-roberts-jones-oral-history/.

3 Sporting Life, August 27, 1883: 3.

4 Jones’s salary was reported at $650 a month or greater in some sources, including the Boston Globe, September 6, 1883.

5 Jones had pitched for Detroit against Philadelphia’s National League club, but the game was in Detroit.

6 “Won by the New Pitcher,”  Philadelphia Times, September 5, 1883: 4.

7 “Games Played, Tuesday, September 4,” Sporting Life, September 10, 1883: 5.

8 “Won by the New Pitcher.”  

9 Sporting Life, September 10, 1883: 5.

10 “St. Louis Beaten Again,” Philadelphia Times, September 6, 1883: 4.

11 Jones was also a decent hitter for a pitcher, stroking six hits in 25 at-bats for the Athletics and batting .209 for the season, including his time with Detroit

12 World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts, wepa.unima.org/en/jumping-jack/.

Lon Knight’s career was one of firsts. He threw the first pitch in National League history, was likely the first player of Italian descent to play professional baseball, and was the first to hit for a natural cycle in major-league history. So who better to lead the Athletics into the 1883 season than the Philadelphia native and veteran of prior Athletics teams from both their National Association and early National League days? A homecoming to the Quaker City was welcome for Knight and the Athletics, and he was a key cog in leading the melting pot of talent that captured the 1883 American Association pennant.

Alonzo P. Leti (also spelled as Letti, Lettie, Lette) was born in Philadelphia on June 16, 1853. He was the second of three sons born to Amos and Maria Leti. His father was a boilermaker who made metal tanks for converting water to steam, and his mother was a dressmaker. The family lived in the northern section of Philadelphia. When Alonzo was 9 years old, his father died of typhoid fever. That same year, his younger brother, William, died of rubella. Undoubtedly, the work ethic that Knight learned growing up in nineteenth-century Philadelphia, as well as the challenges that he and his family faced, helped produce the man who would lead the Athletics later in life. Soon after the passing of his brother, he was sent to study at Girard College. It was at Girard that he took the last name of Knight.  

Girard College was formed by an unprecedented act of philanthropy shown by French immigrant and merchant, Stephen Girard. At his death in 1831, Stephen Girard was the richest man in America and his endowment for Girard College was, up to that point, the largest private charitable donation in American history. In his will, Girard directed the city of Philadelphia to use his money to build a boarding school for poor, orphaned, or fatherless white boys so that they might be prepared for the trades and professions of their era. Girard College opened its doors in 1848.1

According to SABR biographer Ralph Berger, Lon was a below-average student, with just a 6.64 out of 10 academic average. His conduct was an appalling 2.64. Perhaps that could be attributed to the atmosphere at Girard in the 1860s, which was said to be a “dreary station for a young boy.”2 At that time, there was a housemaster, a former military man who meted out harsh punishment to the inmates, as they were identified in census records. There was a punishment room for those who were considered out of line. It was a dark and foreboding place, and Lon at one point found himself sequestered there. One trip to the punishment room was apparently enough, as Knight learned to watch his behavior carefully and graduated from Girard without further incident.3

Baseball was a saving grace for many young men at Girard, and the school established a tradition of having solid baseball teams. Lon, like many of his classmates, found baseball to be an outlet from an otherwise difficult experience at Girard and developed into a quality ballplayer. By the mid-1870s, Girard had produced an abundance of professional and semiprofessional players, but Knight was the first Girard product to play at the major-league level.4  

Knight did not go straight from Girard to the ball field, though. After graduation from Girard in 1870, he became apprenticed to an accountant. To maintain his baseball skills, after working hours he would practice pitching. The practice must have kept him sharp enough, because in 1875 he pitched for the Shibe Club, the amateur champion of the city of Philadelphia.

It was apparent to Knight that it was time to move his full-time work to the baseball diamond.  Signing with the Philadelphia Athletics of the National Association, Knight debuted with that team on September 4, 1875. For the season he started and completed 13 games with a 6-5 slate and a 2.27 ERA; his hitting was less than impressive, just 6 hits in 47 at-bats for a meager .128 average.

Knight found his way into the record books only a year later. The first game in National League history took place on April 22, 1876, at the Philadelphia Athletics’ Jefferson Street Grounds. Knight, who was the starting pitcher for the Athletics, had the distinction of throwing the first pitch in the NL. After retiring the game’s first two hitters, he gave up the first hit in NL history when Jim O’Rourke singled. He was opposed by Boston right-hander Joe Borden, author of major-league baseball’s first no-hitter a year earlier. The crowd of 3,000 was treated to a competitive, albeit sloppy, inaugural contest. With the game tied, 4-4, Boston pushed across two runs in the top of the ninth to take a 6-4 lead. Knight, who was the victim of 16 Athletics errors, led off the ninth with a double that reached the left-field wall, stole third, and came home on a fly ball by shortstop Davy Force.5 That was all the offense the Athletics could muster in the ninth and the Red Caps hung on for a 6-5 victory. Knight thus added the first loss in NL history to his growing collection of firsts.

Knight, splitting the pitching duties with veteran right-hander George Zettlein – winner of 125 games in the National Association – finished the season with a record of 10-22 and a 2.62 ERA. While his won-lost record was certainly disappointing, it is more impressive when considering that the Athletics were just 14-45 before the team refused to finish the season by making a late-season road trip. The Athletics’ failure to finish the 1876 season led to their expulsion from the National League. Forced to find another employer, Knight caught on with the Lowell (Massachusetts) club, which competed in the League Alliance in 1877 and then moved to the International Association in 1878. In Lowell, Knight moved away from the mound and was instead used primarily as an outfielder (mostly right field) and infielder.

In 1879 Knight was recruited by Frank Bancroft, who most recently had operated a team in New Bedford (Massachusetts), to come to Worcester and play with the Grays in the National Association. Bancroft was a successful entrepreneur who had capitalized on the increased demand for hotel accommodations and theater entertainment and now saw the money-making potential in running a baseball team.6

Knight appeared in a team-high 50 games for the Grays and hit .367, the second highest on the team behind ace pitcher Lee Richmond’s .369. Other notable teammates in Worcester included Charlie Bennett, Doc Bushong, and Arthur Irwin.

In December, Bancroft organized a team named the Hop Bitters, which included Knight and many of his Worcester teammates. The team headed south and eventually made its way to Cuba, the first known American professional team to visit the Island. While the trip was cut short because of the lack of profitability of the games, the Hop Bitters enjoyed their brief stay with some sightseeing and passed the evenings with impromptu concerts that featured “[Curry] Foley’s Irish eccentricities, Bushong’s ballads, and a quartet composed of Knight, (Art) Whitney, Irwin, and Bushong.”7 After leaving Cuba, the team went to New Orleans and began what would amount to an extended spring training before heading north for Worcester. Meanwhile, early in 1880, the National League Board of Governors voted unanimously to admit Worcester into the league. The team changed its name to the Ruby Legs and Knight found himself back in major-league baseball, this time as a right fielder.

Knight’s name became etched in the nineteenth-century baseball folklore in May 1880. Visiting Troy for a three-game set with the Trojans, the Ruby Legs traveled to nearby Albany during an open day on May 21 and played an exhibition game against that city’s National Association team at Albany’s Riverside Park. The story is told that Lipman Pike hit a ball over the right-field fence and into the river. Knight, who was playing right field for the Ruby Legs, is said to have gone after the ball in a boat before giving up. While there is undoubtedly some fictitious element to the story, it does illustrate the fact that few parks had ground rules about giving the batter an automatic home run on a ball that cleared the fence.8

On June 12 Knight once again became a footnote to history when he factored prominently into left-hander Lee Richmond’s perfect game, the major leagues’ first. “Leading off the fifth inning, Cleveland first baseman Bill Phillips slapped a Richmond left-handed delivery into right field for an apparent base hit.”9 Knight, who was playing shallow in right field, fielded the sharply hit ball and fired to Chub Sullivan at first for a 9-3 putout. Richmond went on to retire the final 14 Blues hitters to complete the gem. Such individual exploits notwithstanding, the Ruby Legs finished in a disappointing fifth place with a record of 40-43, a distant 26½ games behind the runaway National League champion Chicago White Stockings. Knight, for his part, batted .239 with 21 RBIs.

The 1881 season took Knight to yet another location; he donned the uniform of the Detroit Wolverines. On July 30 Knight hit his first major-league home run, a first-inning, two-run shot to left off future Hall of Famer Pud Galvin at Detroit’s Recreation Park. Buffalo beat the Wolverines that day, 7-6. Overall, Knight appeared in 83 games with the Wolverines, 82 of them in right field, and batted .271 while driving in 52 runs, second on the team to Charlie Bennett’s 64. The right-handed-hitting Knight slumped in 1882. In 86 games, primarily as the Wolverines’ right fielder, he hit.207 with 24 RBIs.

Knight returned to his hometown in 1883 when he signed on as player-manager of the revamped Philadelphia Athletics. The Athletics also added veteran National League performers Harry Stovey, George Bradley, and Bobby Mathews to become one of the favorites for the American Association title. In its 1883 season preview, which profiled each member of the team, Sporting Life described Knight as follows:

“This gentlemanly and popular player will be the general manager for the club this year, a position for which his intelligence and varied experiences in base ball affairs peculiarily [sic] fits him.” Sporting Life went on to say, “Knight is considered one of the very best right fielders in the profession and is also a good batsman and fine base runner.”10

On July 30, 1883, Knight had the most productive offensive day of his career. In a game against the Pittsburgh Allegheny, he went 5-for-5, hitting for a natural cycle in the process. Knight started off with a single, then added a double and a triple in his next two at-bats. He completed the cycle with an inside-the-park home run, but also added a double for good measure in his final at-bat. The Athletics won, 17-4. July 30 proved to be an auspicious day for Knight. A year later to the day, Knight went 6-for-6 with five singles and a triple to lead the Athletics to a 19-11 win over Washington. Overall, Knight hit .252 in 97 games during the Athletics’ championship season.

The Athletics could not repeat their success of 1883. They finished the 1884 season in seventh place in the expanded 13-team American Association with a record of 61-46, 14 games behind the pennant-winning New York Metropolitans. For Knight, though, it was perhaps his finest offensive year. He led the Athletics in games played, plate appearances, and at-bats, matching his career-high .271 average with 94 runs scored. The end of the season also marked the end of Knight’s major-league managerial career. In two seasons at the helm of the Athletics, he finished with a record of 127-78, a .620 winning percentage. 

In 1885 Knight was replaced as the Athletics manager by Harry Stovey, but remained as a player. With a revamped roster that included only six members of the 1883 championship team, the Athletics fell to 55-57 and finished in fourth place. Knight, who turned 32 during the season, saw his playing time diminish. He was hitting just .210 with two extra-base hits and 14 RBIs when he was released by the club.

In late August Knight was reunited with Frank Bancroft when he signed with the Providence Grays, who were visiting Philadelphia for a three-game set against Philadelphia’s National League entry. Knight played in 25 games with the Grays and hit .160 with 8 RBIs. 

After the 1885 season, it was rumored that Knight was headed to Troy to manage a minor-league team.11 However, this did not come to fruition. Knight followed Bancroft and spent the 1886 season with the Rochester Maroons of the International League. For at least part of the season, he was the player-manager. He played in 92 games with the Maroons and batted .259.  

In 1887 Knight played for the Binghamton Crickets of the International Association. Again he was the player-manager for part of the season, after replacing Henry Ormsbee. While no statistics exist for that season, it was Knight’s last as a player in Organized Baseball.

After the 1887 season, Knight was hired as an umpire by the American Association. The Brooklyn Eagle opined, “Mr. Knight is not only a veteran ball player and captain, but he has shown himself eminently fitted for the important position to which he has been assigned.”12 By all accounts, Knight was a fairly opinionated and influential umpire.

For example, the American Association held a conference in Cleveland in the spring of 1888 in which rules-related instruction was provided for the coming season. Hot topics included the stance a pitcher could take before delivering a pitch, the balk rule, and whether or not a batter hit by a ball would take his base. Outspoken on many of the umpires’ interpretations of the rules, Knight’s explanations of the outcomes of the meeting to a Boston Herald reporter are evidence of his rising stock as an umpire and the evolving nature of the game.

In regard to a pitcher’s stance and delivery of the ball, Knight provided a detailed explanation of what he believed was a legal delivery, stating, “Now in the case of a right-handed pitcher, he will stand with his right foot on the rear line of his position. This, you will observe, will enable him to stand in a three-quarter position and yet show the umpire and bats­men his whole front. This is what the umpire will exact. The ball, too, must be in plain sight all the time. It cannot be hidden behind the back or upon the hip. Of course, the pitcher will wing his arm back before the last motion is made to deliver the ball. This will be allowable, but when the ball is delivered both feet must be upon the ground. The pitcher can step forward one step in delivering the ball, and he can even be out of his box after the ball has finally left his hand and his delivery is completed without incurring a penalty.”13

Knight also opined on changes to the balk rule, which at the time awarded the batter first base as well as permitting baserunners to advance.14 He said such calls would be “the hardest for the umpire to decide, and the balk question is where our greatest difficulty will come in.”15 Finally, Knight (albeit in a roundabout way) clarified the misunderstanding surrounding the dropped fourth strike rule. “I will give you a simple rule that will cover all cases: A man will be declared out on four strikes if the catcher does not hold the fourth strike in all cases where there is a chance to force out. For instance, with men on first base, first and second, first, second and third base, the batsman will be declared out should the catcher fail to hold the fourth strike: but if the fourth strike does pass the catcher in any of these instances, the base-runners will be entitled to as many bases as they can get. With none on bases, or men on second, or third, or on second and third the catcher will have to hold the fourth strike.

“Suppose a batsman has four balls and the pitcher wants to save a hit by hitting the batsman with a pitched ball, we have been instructed to defeat the scheme and call the balls ball five.”16     

Knight also umpired in the National League during the 1889 season and in the Players League in 1890. It is unclear when he retired from umpiring, but he was doing it through 1890.

After retiring from baseball, Knight returned to Philadelphia. In addition to working as an umpire he worked various jobs including hanging wallpaper and working as an inspector. There is no record of his ever being married.  

Knight died in Philadelphia on April 23, 1932, of toxic asphyxiation after inhaling gas while preparing breakfast in his home.17 He was 78 years old. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

While Knight’s career statistics would not place him in the company of some of the game’s better-known stars, there is no doubt that he left an indelible mark on baseball, and Philadelphia baseball in particular. His ability to find success at baseball’s highest level as a player, manager, and umpire demonstrated his unique blend of fortitude and ability. And in the city that raised him and had a front-row seat to many of his professional successes, Knight will forever be a champion along with the rest of his 1883 Athletics.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the authors relied on Baseball-reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 “Girard College: History, Our Founding,” Retrieved from girardcollege.edu/about/history/.

2 David Nemec, “Sam Kimber,” in Bill Nowlin (ed.), No-Hitters (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2017), 52.

3 Ralph Berger, “Lon Knight,” Retrieved from web.archive.org/web/20070202211957/http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=715&pid=7644.

4 Eight Girard alumni played in the majors, including Harry Davis and Jocko Milligan.

5 “Base Ball: The First Championship Game of the Season – Boston and Athletic,” The Times (Philadelphia), April 24, 1875: 4.

6 Charlie Bevis, “Frank Bancroft.” SABR BioProject. sabr.org/bioproj/person/frank-bancroft/.

7 ‘The American Nine in Cuba,” New York Clipper, January 3, 1880. Retrieved from agatetype.typepad.com/agate_type/2007/12/the-first-ameri.html.

8 “Charlton’s Baseball Chronology – 1880,” BaseballLibrary.com.

9 John R. Husman, “Baseball Perfection,” In Bill Felber (ed.), Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the Nineteenth Century (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research) 2013, 120.

10 “The Home Clubs: Sketch of the Men who Constitute the Local Teams,” Sporting Life (Philadelphia), April 15, 1883: 2.

11 “Assists and Putouts,” Boston Globe, September 29, 1885: 2.

12 “Byrne’s Goal: The Championship of the American Association,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 31, 1887: 1.

13 “An Umpire’s Interpretation: Lon Knight Tells How the Association Umpires Are Instructed,” Sporting Life (Philadelphia), April 6, 1887: 1.

14 Berger.

15 “An Umpire’s Interpretation.”

16 “An Umpire’s Interpretation.”

17 “Alonzo Knight,” Hartford Courant, April 24, 1932: 8.

Charles Edward Mason was born on June 25, 1853, in New Orleans. It’s difficult to confirm his parents’ names or at what point in his childhood he moved from Louisiana to the Northeast. “Little is known of Mason’s early life,” is how one author phrased it.1

Mason attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in the early 1870s and played for baseball teams in nearby Adams and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, while there.2 He was primarily a first baseman and outfielder and he hit and threw right-handed. His professional debut came in 1875 with the short-lived Philadelphia Centennials of the National Association, who folded on May 24 after a home loss in front of only 100 fans. Mason batted .234 with three RBIs as the Centennials went 2-12 in their only major-league season.

The Centennials’ demise left Mason seeking a new team to play for. He and teammate Sam Field joined the National Association’s Washington Nationals, another bumbling club that folded at midseason with a 5-23 record. Mason batted .091 (3-for-33) with the Nationals, but he remained persistent and played for a third team in 1875, finishing the season with the Ludlows in Kentucky.3

Mason’s offensive and defensive skills earned him additional playing opportunities. One appraisal said he could “do good execution with the bat, being especially effective at critical junctures, and also a very clever baserunner. He, however, more particularly excels at first base, where he has few if any superiors, pluckily facing and holding the swiftest and wildest throwing, some of his catches and stops being extraordinary.”4

He signed a one-year, $700 contract with the National Association’s Philadelphia White Stockings on December 3, 1875, but was left without a job when the league disbanded on February 2, 1876.5 Mason ended up splitting the 1876 season with the independent Philadelphia Pearls and a club in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

It was also in 1876 that Mason umpired his only major-league game.6 He was behind the plate for the Louisville-Philadelphia contest at the Jefferson Street Grounds on May 26, and the box score referred to him as “Mr. Mason.”7

Mason played for two International Association teams in 1877, the Lynn Live Oaks and Rochester. While with Lynn, Mason was a teammate of curveball pioneer and future Hall of Famer Candy Cummings.

In 1878 Mason played for the Philadelphia Athletics when they weren’t a major-league team.8 He traveled west in 1879 to play for the Northwestern League’s Davenport (Iowa) Brown Stockings, a team that included another future Hall of Famer, gloveless defensive virtuoso Bid McPhee. In 1880 and 1881, Mason was back in Philadelphia playing outfield for the Athletics.

By 1882, Mason was “the owner of a saloon and bookie joint”9 and was ready to expand his portfolio. He partnered with sporting-goods salesman Billy Sharsig and minstrel show performer Lew Simmons to secure a ballpark lease and put up the money required to enter the major-league American Association. The three owners became known as “The Triumvirate” and brought major-league baseball back to Philadelphia for the first time since 1876.

Mason’s primary job at first was acquiring players. He “scoured the states himself and brought some of the best players obtainable to the A’s.”10 Nineteenth-century scouting required negotiating with minor-league clubs to purchase desired players, a process illustrated in this newspaper description: “Mr. Mason came from the East. He visited Haverhill and tried to purchase the services of (Chippy) McGarr, the noted short stop. The Haverhill management refused to deal, however, but Mr. Mason has every promise that McGarr will sign with the Athletics for next season.”11

On the Fourth of July in 1883, Mason was the central figure in a scene that would be inconceivable in modern major-league baseball. The Athletics were in Louisville for a doubleheader and Philadelphia catcher Jack O’Brien passed out from sunstroke in the sixth inning of the first game. Cub Stricker moved from second base to fill in at catcher and other Athletics repositioned, leaving Philadelphia without a right fielder or any bench players.

Mason was in the stands watching the situation unfold and he decided to volunteer his services. He rolled up his pants, walked through the gate and went to right field “doffing his plug hat and striped coat.”12 He caught a fly ball barehanded and got two late-game at-bats, going 1-for-2 with an RBI single.

With a roster partially constructed by Mason, the Athletics went 66-32 in 1883 and led the American Association in hits and runs. They competed in a tight pennant race down the stretch and edged the second-place St. Louis Browns by one game, clinching the title at Louisville on September 28 in their next to last game of the season. It was an especially memorable day for Mason, who married Kate Bayne Cook in Philadelphia on the same day the Athletics secured the pennant in Louisville.13

The team returned to Philadelphia and received a torchlight parade with celebratory flags flying.14 Players attended a banquet and received personalized gold badges to commemorate their championship. Mason gave star player Harry Stovey a gold watch and chain because Stovey’s “extraordinary grace and drive had sustained the club during its crucial final six weeks.”15

The league championship was good for business. Mason and his partners made a $50,000 profit in 1883. “Fans flocked to Athletics’ park, and, playing in a league still in its early stages, the triumvirate balanced very large revenues against small player payrolls and benefited from the (Association’s) lack of a percentage system for determining visiting teams’ gate shares, which would have enabled other clubs to share in the Philadelphia gravy,” one historian observed.16

“Back in 1883 we did our own accounting,” Mason explained. “With my partners, Simmons and Sharzig [sic], I sat in our dingy little ticket office down at the old Athletics Park, 26th and Jefferson streets, and there we counted the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies — yes there were ‘coppers’ in our receipts — and the money was placed in three equal piles. When the three partners were satisfied the count was correct, each pocketed his third of the day’s receipts.”17

Mason continued working as an Athletics executive before moving to the dugout in 1887 for the only major-league managing assignment of his career. The Athletics were 26-29 and in fifth place on June 29 when manager Frank Bancroft was fired and replaced by Mason. Philadelphia went 38-40 for the remainder of the season under Mason, who was not brought back to manage in 1888. Sharsig replaced him and became the Athletics’ fourth manager in four years.

The Triumvirate wasn’t thriving financially as it had in 1883 and “by the fall of 1887 they had to reorganize to take in new investors from among the Philadelphia business community.”18 Mason’s role with the Athletics faded in 1888 and he moved on to a new, ambitious plan — indoor baseball.

Mason booked the main building on the state fairgrounds in Philadelphia and arranged a full-size infield there. The indoor outfield was much smaller than ballpark outfields, but Mason counterbalanced the small dimensions by using deadened baseballs with cork centers. There were ground rules specific to the indoor facility, like batters receiving automatic doubles on balls hit into the stands.

The first Mason-organized indoor game was held on Christmas Day in 1888 and players from the two major-league teams in Philadelphia participated. The game was a disappointment; only 2,000 people came to the arena with a capacity of 5,000. “The number of posts and braces in the building also acted as a drawback, and the bad light rendered the catching of a swiftly thrown ball difficult and hazardous business,” the Boston Globe noted.19

Mason returned to outdoor baseball in the spring of 1889, managing the minor-league Philadelphia Giants of the Middle States League while simultaneously serving as the league’s president.20 In 1890 he managed the Eastern Interstate League team in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where future Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings was one of his players.

Mason also showed honesty in Allentown on days he had to leave the dugout to be a fill-in umpire. A hometown sports reporter wrote, “Charley [sic] Mason is one of the few managers in the country who can go in and umpire a thoroughly impartial, first-class game, in which his team is one of the contestants. Some managers would seize upon this golden opportunity to help his team out, but Charley Mason is not built that way.”21

His disposition was also praised in an article of unknown provenance found in his National Baseball Hall of Fame Library player file: “His coolness in critical emergencies, and his judgement in availing himself of every point of play offered may also be mentioned as marked characteristics. In all of his professional career he has maintained the reputation of a hard-working and reliable player.”22

Late in his life, Mason worked as a clerk,23 a superintendent of a ballclub,24 and a ballpark cashier.25 He died at his home in Germantown, Pennsylvania on October 21, 1936, at age 83. He was survived by his second wife, Sarah A. MacGregor, daughters Anna and Margaret, and sons Charles and William. William was “the star pitcher of the Wildwood, N.J. independent team” as a teenager.26

Obituaries credited Mason with multiple noteworthy innovations. “‘Ladies’ Day’ was conceived by Mason when he noticed that women didn’t attend ballgames,” one of his obituaries noted. “They were invited by the Athletics management, so they came in large numbers and evinced interest.”27

Mason certainly could have come up with the Athletics’ ladies day promotion on his own, but at least one SABR historian pointed out that other clubs offered women free admission in the mid-1860s, long before Mason worked in Philadelphia.28

The Philadelphia Inquirer credited Mason with another significant development: “The ruling, still in force today, that a batter hit by a pitched ball should take first base, was suggested by Mr. Mason.”29 Other summaries were more skeptical. One author described Mason as “claiming to have suggested the hit by pitch rule.”30

It’s hard to determine if the hit-by-pitch rule was exclusively Mason’s brainchild. The concept was discussed at the American Association’s annual convention at Cincinnati’s Grand Hotel on December 12-13, 1883, but Mason wasn’t there; the Athletics were represented by Simmons and Sharsig. Those same two delegates represented the club, without Mason, at the American Association’s next meetings, March 4-5, 1884, in Baltimore, where the concept was revisited.31 The hit-by-pitch rule was approved and officially added to the American Association’s constitution on July 23, 1884, in Columbus, Ohio.32

So Mason wasn’t present for the key league meetings that decided the hit-by-pitch rule, but he was considered the baseball expert among the Triumvirate, so it’s possible he pushed the idea to Sharsig, Simmons, or other colleagues leading up to the decisive meetings.

Rulebook innovator or not, Charlie Mason made his mark on nineteenth-century baseball, especially the 1883 American Association champions.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 David Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 2: The Hall of Famers and Memorable Personalities Who Shaped the Game (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 2011), 171.

2 John M. Flynn, “Connie’s Classy Combination Completely Curbs the Cardinals,” Berkshire County Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), October 2, 1930.

3 Nemec, 171.

4 “Charles E. Mason,” unidentified clipping in Mason’s Baseball Hall of Fame Library player file.

5 “1875 Charles Mason Philadelphia White Stockings National Association Player’s Contract,” robertedwardauctions.com, December 3, 1875, 2012 auction.

6 “Charlie Mason,” Retrosheet.org player page.

7 “That Drawn Game,” The Times (Philadelphia), May 27, 1876.

8 “Ball and Bat,” The Times (Philadelphia), August 10, 1878.

9 Nemec, The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Major League Baseball (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 219.

10 “‘Pop’ Mason Dies; Gave A’s First Title,” Atlanta Constitution, October 23, 1936.

11 “No New Players for the Athletic,” The Times (Philadelphia), July 2, 1886.

12 “A Sudden Change,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 5, 1883.

13 Marriage certificate, Pennsylvania Marriages, 1709-1940, FamilySearch.org.

14 John Thorn, “A Pictorial Chronology of Baseball in the 19th Century, Part 10: 1883,” Our Game, June 17, 2019.

15 Edward Achorn, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2006), 240.

16 Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, 180-181.

17 Stoney McLinn, “Charley Mason Responsible for Hit Batsman Receiving Free Ticket to Initial Sack,” unidentified publication, article found in Mason’s Baseball Hall of Fame Library player file.

18 Nemec, Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, 181.

19 “Base Ball Indoors,” Boston Globe, December 26, 1888.

20 Paul Browne, The Coal Barons Played Cuban Giants: A History of Early Professional Baseball in Pennsylvania, 1886-1896 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013), 78.

21 “Grand Stand Chat,” Harrisburg Telegraph, June 28, 1890.

22 “Charles E. Mason,” unidentified clipping in Mason’s Baseball Hall of Fame Library player file.

23 US Census Bureau, 1900 US Census.

24 US Census Bureau, 1910 US Census.

25 US Census Bureau, 1930 US Census.

26 Unidentified clipping in Mason’s Baseball Hall of Fame Library player file, August 21, 1915.

27 “Mason, Old A’s Manager, Dies,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 22, 1936.

28 Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010), 426.

29 “Charles E. Mason,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 24, 1936.

30 Browne, 79.

31 “The American Base-Ball Association at Baltimore,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 5, 1884.

32 “That Star Chamber Session,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 24, 1884.