Bannon played minor-league ball for the Lynn, Massachusetts, team in 1891 and the Portland, Maine, team in 1892. (Both teams were in the New England League.) In 1893 Bannon pitched for the College of the Holy Cross baseball team, which finished the season with an 11-5 record.1

Bannon also played in 1892 and 1893 for the independent Northampton (Massachusetts) team, which played exhibition games against the Boston Beaneaters before large crowds at the Driving Park, as well as against the Louisville Colonels and St. Louis Browns.2

Bannon’s play as an outfielder and shortstop at Holy Cross had brought him to the attention of the Browns, and they signed him to a contract for the 1893 season. In his major-league debut, on June 15, 1893, he played right field in a 5-1 loss to the Boston Beaneaters. He played in 26 games for the Browns in 1893 and batted .336, with three doubles, four triples, and eight stolen bases. He also started one game on the mound for the Browns, pitching four innings in a loss in which he allowed 18 runs (10 earned).

Bannon played two games at shortstop early in his rookie season, committing seven errors in just two games, so manager Bill Watkins moved him permanently to the outfield. But he didn’t improve his defensive skills there; he made eight more errors in 24 games. Yet the New York Clipper said Bannon “became popular with the Mound City [St. Louis] enthusiasts on account of his hard and timely batting. When [St. Louis Browns] President Chris] Von der Ahe released him near the end of the season there was a storm of indignation, and his release was recalled, but it was finally decided to let him go for good, as Mr. Von der Ahe considered [Duff] Cooley, who was on his club’s pay rolls, to be as good, if not a better player.”3

According to the New York Clipper, several teams sent telegrams to Bannon expressing interest in him, “but somehow they did not reach him.”4 He learned of this upon returning to Boston, where he joined the Beaneaters for the 1894 season. He played in the outfield with future Hall of Famers Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy. Bannon continued to hit well. He batted .336 with 130 runs scored and 114 runs batted in for the powerful Boston offense. But Bannon continued to struggle defensively. Although he led all National League outfielders with 43 assists, he was second in the league with 41 errors. (He did help turn 12 double plays, which was the NL record for most double plays by an outfielder in a season until Jimmy Sheckard of the Baltimore had 14 in 1899.)

One of the highlights of the season for Bannon came when he hit grand slams in consecutive games.5 The first came on August 6 in a 15-7 win against the Washington Nationals. The next day he hit another in the Beaneaters’ 19-8 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

On May 15, 1894, the Beaneaters were playing the Baltimore Orioles at the South End Grounds, which Sporting Life had described as the “handsomest in the country.” The structure had been repaired in the offseason, and workers had left sawdust and debris behind, under the right-field seats.6

After the end of the third inning, Bannon saw flames coming up through the right-field bleachers stands as he headed to the outfield and he ran to put it out. Wind caused the fire to flare up and Bannon tried without success to extinguish the fire with his feet. Soon, the right-field bleachers caught fire and eventually the outfield fence as well as the left-field bleachers went up in flames.

Quickly the fire spread from the ballpark to neighboring buildings. At least 12 acres were destroyed in the surrounding area and more than 1,900 people were made homeless by the fire,7 which became known as the the Great Roxbury Fire of 1894.8 The homeless Beaneaters moved to Boston’s Congress Street Grounds, which had hosted Boston Players’ League and American Association teams earlier in the decade.

After the season Bannon was offered a salary of $1,200 for 1895 by Beaneaters manager Frank Selee. Bannon initially refused to sign, claiming that he had earlier been offered a raise for the 1895 season.9 He eventually signed on the condition that he receive the raise or be released from his contract.10 The team signed him, raised his salary on June 1 and Bannon played the entire season with the Beaneaters.

Bannon continued to be a productive hitter in 1895, batting a career-high .347 with 74 RBIs. Several times during the season, he led the Beaneaters to victory. Sporting Life described one series where Bannon played a key role in consecutive wins for the Boston team: “If any one player owned a town, Bannon owns Boston. Few batting feats will compare with those of his last week. On Tuesday he made three hits. On Thursday he went to bat nine times and made eight hits, besides making a timely sacrifice. Friday morning, with Lowe on first base and St. Louis one ahead, he sent the ball over the left field fence, there being two out at the time and one man on base and the game was won. In the afternoon he made a home run again and hit safely every times [sic] he came to bat. On Saturday Cincinnati led in the seventh inning until he came to the rescue with another home run. Naturally he led the team in batting at the close of the week, both in singles and in totals. He made 13 hits in the four games.”11 During the season, Bannon was credited with hitting safely in 21 straight games.12

Bannon slumped badly in 1896. His batting average dropped to .253 and he had only 87 hits before the Beaneaters dropped him in August. His poor fielding may have also led the team to consider Bannon a liability. The Boston Globe commented that “good base running and line throwing do not altogether offset miserable fielding.”13 Playing in in the outfield as well as around the infield, he had 29 errors when he was released on August 18. Sporting Life wrote that the Pittsburgh team was interested in him but Boston did not immediately release their claim on Bannon. He never signed with another major-league team.14

In four years, Bannon played in 367 major-league games and batted .320. His fielding percentage was a meager .877 and he had made 98 errors as both an infielder and outfielder.

After being released by the Beaneaters, Bannon became a journeyman minor leaguer. He moved to a new team almost every year through 1910. He split the 1897 season between the Kansas City Blues (Western League) and Springfield Ponies/Maroons (Eastern League), and batted a combined .327 with 41 doubles and 66 stolen bases. Bannon started the 1898 season with Springfield, but later moved to the Montreal Royals in the same league. He was dropped near the end of the season, according to Sporting Life. There was speculation that the club didn’t want to pay him since he was a “high priced man” due to his prior major-league experience.15

In February 1898 Bannon married Mary Elizabeth O’Brien in Lynn, Massachusetts. The couple had two children, Lucas and Lauretta.16

Bannon played for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern League from 1899 to 1902. He batted a career-high .341 in 1899 and stole 44 bases. He batted over .300 the next two seasons, too. But Sporting Life noted in May 1902 that Bannon was batting left-handed and that he had made the change on “account of the poor luck he had” at the plate during the prior season.17

Bannon played for the Columbus Senators in the American Association in 1903 but returned to the Eastern League in 1904, playing for a different team in the league every year until 1907. Bannon’s stops included the Newark Sailors, Montreal Royals, and Rochester Bronchos (two separate years). He never had the same hitting success that he experienced earlier in his career.

By 1908 Bannon’s skills as a player had begun to decline severely. He spent the next three years playing in the Class-B New York State and New England Leagues. Each year saw Bannon playing in fewer games as he continued to see his batting average slide lower and lower.

Bannon managed teams in five different seasons before he quit professional baseball. His first job was managing the Columbus (Ohio) Senators in 1903. Bannon also spent two years as player-manager for the Montreal Royals as well as the Binghamton (New York) Bingoes of the New York State League. His greatest success as a player-manager came in 1908 when he managed the Bingoes to a second-place finish. He managed the Lawrence (Massachusetts) Colts of the New England League in 1910; his final stint as a manager was in 1911 with the Haverhill (Massachusetts) Hustlers, also of the New England League.

By the time Bannon finished his playing career, he had earned the nickname of Foxy Grandpa. As early as 1902, he was referred to by Sporting Life as the “white haired” Jimmy Bannon.18 The Wilkes-Barre Record wrote on February 8, 1906, that “the gray haired youngster, known from coast to coast as Foxy Grandpa, will manage the Montreal club in the Eastern League. Bannon isn’t as old as he looks by twenty years because his hair is prematurely gray.”19

After he left baseball, Bannon bought the Rochester, one of the largest hotels in Rochester, New Hampshire.20 He ran the hotel for many years before selling it and moving to New Jersey. Bannon was elected to the New Hampshire legislature in 1912. Sporting Life described his election as follows: “Coming from a progressive family whose members cannot be kept down because of dash, and energy, Jimmy goes to the legislature to learn new fields and new duties. His friends say that no one was more surprised than Bannon.”21

Bannon died in March 24, 1948, at the age of 76. He was living in Glen Rock, New Jersey, at the time. He was buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also utilized the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for box scores, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other material pertinent to this biography.

Notes

1 “2015 Holy Cross Baseball Record Book,” goholycross.com/fls/33100/import_content/sports/m-basebl/archive_files/Record_Book/2015_Record_Book_w-out_All-Time_Results.pdf, accessed March 8, 2017.

2 “Northampton Baseball III: 1890’s – Independent Baseball in Northampton,”

historic-northampton.org/highlights/baseball3.html.

3 “James Bannon,” New York Clipper, November 16, 1895: 587.

4 Ibid.

5 John C. Tattersall, “The Grand Slam Story,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, 1975, accessed March 9, 2017.

6 Bob Ruzzo, “Baseball Is Back: An Unexpected Farewell: The South End Grounds, August 1914,” https://bostonbaseballhistory.com/an-unexpected-farewell-the-south-end-grounds-august-1914/, April 4, 2014.

7 Ibid.

8 “The Great Roxbury Fire of 1894,” GoodOldBoston.Blogspot.com, May 12, 2013.

9 “Merry Montreal Will Not Lose Her Franchise in Eastern League,” Sporting Life, March 23, 1895: 8.

10 “Hub Happenings: The Boston Team Work So Far Satisfactory,” Sporting Life, May 4, 1895: 5.

11 “Hub Happenings: The Ex-Champions are Now Playing and Drawing Well,” Sporting Life, June 8, 1895: 5.

12 “James Bannon.”

13 “Baseball News and Comment,” Sporting Life, May 16, 1896: 5.

14 “League Bulletin,” Sporting Life, August 29, 1896: 5.

15 “Pittsburg Points,” Sporting Life, September 17, 1898: 9.

16 The spelling may or may not have been the idiosyncratic rendering of Loretta by the census enumerator.

17 “The Populous East,” Sporting Life, May 13, 1902: 8.

18 “Roused a Tartar,” Sporting Life, November 22, 1902: 13.

19 Wilkes-Barre Record, February 8, 1906.

20 Albert Spink, The National Game (St. Louis: National Game Publishing Company, 1910), 27.

21 “Bannon’s Rise,” Sporting Life, November 23, 1912: 15.

Charles Wesley Bennett was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, on November 21, 1854. New Castle at that time was a town of just over 1,600 inhabitants and a stop on the Western Pennsylvania canal system. He was the eighth of 11 children born to Silas and Catherine (Nickols) Bennett. Silas, a native of Connecticut, was a tinner and operated a hardware store in New Castle. When not playing baseball, Charlie helped his father in his shop.

Bennett began his career in Organized Baseball with the Neshannock team in the Pennsylvania League. He played with the team from 1874 to 1876. It was said he “broke the directors because of the number of balls knocked into the river.”2 Originally an infielder who divided his time between second, third, and shortstop before becoming a catcher, Bennett recalled the genesis of this transition in a 1908 interview with sportswriter George R. Pulford.

“When we played Beaver I noticed that their catcher stood up close behind the bat. You know in those days the catcher used to stand back and take the ball on the bound. But this fellow stood up there and grabbed the ball barehanded, and our fellows didn’t steal many bases.

“Well, we were playing one day after this, and our opponents stole bases right along. I told our catcher to go up behind the batter but he refused. ‘Not me,’ he replied. ‘If you want to try it, go ahead. I think too much of my hands.’

“Well, I went behind the bat and caught out the game and no more bases were stolen. I like the position, because it kept me doing something all the time, and from then on I caught.”3

At the end of the 1876 season, the 22-year-old Bennett, along with Nashannock teammates George Creamer and Ned Williamson, signed with the Detroit Aetnas.4 Though originally an amateur club, the Aetnas began dipping into the professional ranks in the summer of 1876, bringing an end to one of the strongest strictly amateur clubs Detroit had known.5

The next two seasons Bennett played for the Milwaukee Grays. The Grays were part of the League Alliance before joining the National League in 1878.

Bennett made his major-league debut on May 1, 1878, against the Cincinnati Reds at Avenue Grounds in Cincinnati. He went 2-for-4 and scored a run in the Grays’ 6-4 Opening Day loss. The next day the Reds best the Grays again as Bennett attempted to catch back-to-back games. However in the fourth inning, Bennett’s hands gave out and he moved to center field.6 Injuries hampered Bennett throughout the season.

The 23-year-old Bennett was still learning the position and was not the defensive standout he later became. On June 12 the Grays dropped a 1-0 10-inning decision to the Chicago White Stockings in a game during which Bennett made seven errors.7 After the game, Bennett was released. At the beginning of July, before the Grays series with Boston, “Bennett was re-engaged” and spent the rest of the season with the team.8

Bennett played in 49 games, 35 as a catcher, and batted.245 with one home run and 12 RBIs. The home run came on July 25 off 18-year-old rookie right-hander John Montgomery Ward in Milwaukee’s 7-1 win over the Providence Grays. The top of the ninth home run helped end Milwaukee’s 14-game losing streak that extended more than a month. Milwaukee finished the season in last place with a dismal 15-45 record and disbanded early in 1879.

In late February of 1879 Bennett and Bill Holbert, a fellow catcher who had most recently played with the Louisville Grays, attempted to organize a new professional club in Milwaukee. The pair set out to raise $1,000 in capital from investors but within two weeks the club fell through and the money was returned to the backers. Bennett dropped the attempt, concluding that the baseball business in Milwaukee was a thankless job: “If you ever catch me undertaking such a task again here, you can just lift my head from my shoulders and use it for a football.”9

With no prospects for baseball in Milwaukee, Bennett joined the Worcester Grays of the minor National Association, a team organized and managed by vagabond manager Frank Bancroft. With the additions of Bennett and backstop Doc Bushong, the Grays had two outstanding catchers. This was an asset during an era when catchers lacked the protective equipment and needed time to recuperate after catching a game. Bennett played in 42 games for Worcester and hit .328. Bushong played in 46 games and hit .290.

On June 2, 1879, Bennett played a key role in in the no-hit professional debut of left-hander Lee Richmond.10 The last-place Worcester club sent Richmond, a 22-year-old star pitcher on the Brown University team, to the mound to face the National League-leading Chicago White Stockings. The White Stockings were 14-1 at the time. Bennett played first base and went 1-for-2 with a triple, scored two runs, and made what was described as “a remarkably fine foul catch” in support of Richmond.11 The Grays shellacked the White Stockings, 11-0.

During the winter of 1879-80, Bancroft persuaded Bennett and some of his teammates to barnstorm through the Southern United States and Cuba. In late November the group, which included Bushong, George Wood, Lon Knight, Art Whitney, Chub Sullivan, Curry Foley, Arthur Irwin, and Tricky Nichols, made its way to Cuba. Calling themselves the Hop Bitters, the club became the first American professional team to visit Cuba.12 The trip was a flop, both financially and otherwise. Only a few games were played and the Americans dominated their Cuban hosts. Bennett and the Hop Bitters arrived back in New Orleans at the end of December and continued barnstorming.

In 1880 Worcester was admitted to the National League and became known as the Ruby Legs. That season, Bennett played in 51 games, 46 as a catcher, and hit .228 with 18 RBIs. The team finished in fifth place with a record of 40-43, its highest finish in its three years of existence. The Ruby Legs’ season included one notable highlight.

On June 12, 1880, Bennett’s name was etched into the annals of baseball history when he caught major-league baseball’s first perfect game. Richmond, who had tossed two National Association no-hitters in 1879, retired all 27 Cleveland Blues he faced in a 1-0 Ruby Legs victory at Worcester’s Agricultural Fair Grounds. Years later Richmond, who left baseball for a career in education, said that Bennett was his favorite catcher to work with and “the best backstop that ever lived.”13

While playing in Worcester, Bennett met Alice Spears, a young woman from Vermont. The couple married in 1882 and Alice would later play a key role in the development of the chest protector worn by catchers. According to Bennett, his wife was constantly worried about his safety as she watched him catch fastballs, block curves and fend off foul balls, all without the modern tools of ignorance. So the two set out to design something that would protect his rib cage and chest area. Bennett and his wife designed and made a “crude but very substantial shield … made by sewing strips of cork of a good thickness in between heavy bedticking material” that faintly resembled the modern catcher’s chest protector.14

Fearful of being taunted by spectators for wearing such a cowardly apparatus, Bennett wore the protective device under his jersey. After testing his new invention, Bennett wore the chest protector in a regular game, and with the eyes of thousands of spectators gazing upon him he would let a fast one hit him square on the chest, the ball would rebound back almost to the pitcher much to the amazement of the fans and players who weren’t onto the hidden cause.15

Years after his playing career ended, Bennett reflected on the evolution of the equipment and how it affected the position: “I remember the first gloves we had were padded across the palm, and the fingers were cut off at the second joint. Later on we used the big mitts, mask and breast protector, and catching became a cinch.”16 Indeed, mutilated hands, broken fingers, and cracked ribs were common injuries suffered by catchers during Bennett’s era.

At the end of the 1880 season, Bancroft was hired to manage the new National League franchise in Detroit and took several Worcester players with him, including Bennett, third baseman Art Whitney, and outfielders George Wood and Lon Knight.17 While the Wolverines finished above .500 only once in their first five years, the popular 26-year-old was entering his prime. He enjoyed the best years of his career in Detroit and soon became recognized as one of the game’s early stars.

In his first season with the Wolverines, Bennett established himself as one of the best players in the National League with a MVP-caliber season. He played in 76 games, 70 as the catcher, and hit .301 with a team-leading 7 home runs, 64 RBIs, and a .476 slugging percentage. His home-run and RBI totals were the second highest in the National League. Defensively he was even better, leading all catchers with 418 putouts and a range factor of 7.19. He also established a major-league record for catchers with a .962 fielding percentage. Bennett’s WAR rating for position players was 4.3, the second highest, as the Wolverines finished their inaugural season with a respectable record of 41-43.

According to baseball historian Peter Morris, Bennett took the first recorded “curtain call” in baseball on Opening Day of 1881. After hitting a home run off Buffalo’s Jack Lynch, Bennett was “loudly applauded, and the crowd would not desist until he bowed in acknowledgment.”18 While the home run had little impact on the outcome of the game, the Wolverines lost 6-5, the fans’ tribute to Bennett was a foreshadowing of the special relationship he would have with Detroit and its baseball fans.

Despite the team’s surprising fourth-place finish and Bennett’s immense popularity with Detroit fans, the Wolverines’ star catcher was quickly growing disenchanted. Bennett, who wanted to play for a winner, later said that he was unhappy playing for the Wolverines during the franchise’s early years. “During the next four years I wished many times I was out of Detroit, or rather out of that team,” he said. “It was awful.”19

Bennett continued to lead the Wolverines offense and enjoyed another fine season in 1882. In 84 games, 65 behind the plate, he again hit .301. He hit 10 triples and 5 home runs, drove in 51 runs, and had a .450 slugging percentage. Behind the plate, he led National League catchers in putouts (446) and range factor (7.94). Again, he was among the league leaders in WAR among position players (4.2) and helped the Wolverines finish above .500 for the first time.

Despite the team’s modest improvement, Bennett contemplated leaving the Wolverines at the end of the 1882 season.

Toward the end of the 1882 season, Bennett signed a preliminary agreement with the [Pittsburgh] Alleghenys of the American Association for his personal services for the next year. But then he had a change of heart, chose to stay in Detroit, and refused to sign the 1883 contract. The Alleghenys’ principal owner, Harmar Denny McKnight, sued, seeking a federal court injunction compelling Bennett to sign a formal contract and restraining him from playing for Detroit. The court dismissed the charge, deciding in Bennett’s favor that a preliminary arrangement did not amount to a final agreement; and, furthermore the contract that was presented for signature lacked mutually equitable terms between club ownership and the ballplayer.20

Perhaps Bennett’s change of heart was related to the realization that the grass might not have been greener on the other side of the fence. The Alleghenys finished the 1883 season in seventh place in the American Association with a record of 31-67. Regardless of the reason why, Bennett’s case was “baseball’s first real case of contract litigation.”21

The Wolverines were unable to build upon their first winning season and finished with a 40-58 record in 1883, dropping to seventh place. But it may have been Bennett’s best all-around season. He played in a career-high 92 games and established career highs in average (.305), hits (113), and OPS (.825). He hit five home runs, the sixth most in the National League, and drove in 55 runs. In 72 games behind the plate, he led National League catchers with 11 double plays and a .944 fielding percentage. His career-high WAR of 4.9 ranked third among all position players.

Bennett’s three-year performance between 1881 and 1883 (.302, 170 RBIs, .811 OPS) is impressive when one considers how grueling catching was in the early 1880s and the evolving nature of the game, which resulted in vast differences in players’ performance.

Bennett experienced an offensive falloff in 1884 as the Wolverines continued their downward spiral. He caught a career-high 80 games and appeared in 90 overall. He finished the year with a .264 average, 3 home runs and 40 RBIs. The Wolverines finished a dismal 28-84, 56 games behind the National League champion Providence Grays. Bennett recalled, “I thought sometimes we were lucky to finish last. Every week I caught a new pitcher.”22 The revolving door of Wolverines pitchers may have contributed to Bennett’s decline in fielding percentage and career-high passed balls.

After a decade-long absence from the game, bunting began to re-emerge in 1884, with Arthur Irwin and Cliff Carroll of Providence among the more adept practitioners of the art.23 Not everyone was pleased about the bunt’s return. Bennett was among those displeased. In a 1906 interview published in the Detroit News Tribune, Bennett said, “Bunting has destroyed baserunning. There is no necessity for a runner to take chances like they did before the bunt came into general use. As a result, one of the finer points of the great game has become almost a lost art.”24

Things hit rock bottom for the Wolverines at the start of the 1885 season. After opening with three straight wins against the Buffalo Bisons, Bennett and his teammates won only two of their next 28 and were buried deep in the National League cellar by the end of May. The team’s fortunes began to turn in June after they acquired Sam Thompson and eight other players from the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Western League.25 From July 1, the team went 33-34 to finish the season in fourth place.

Bennett appeared in 91 games in 1885 and compiled a WAR of 4.5, the second highest of his career and fifth highest among position players, on the strength of his 42 extra-base hits and stellar defensive play. He finished the season with a .269 batting average, 5 home runs, and 60 RBIs.

In September of 1885, the Wolverines acquired the entire Buffalo roster when the Bisons disbanded. Among those acquired were Dan Brouthers, Hardy Richardson, Jack Rowe, and Deacon White. With a strong nucleus in place, Bennett was soon to realize his dream of playing on a winning team. The Wolverines’ record improved dramatically in 1886. The team finished with an 87-36 record, 46 wins more than the previous year and good enough for a second-place finish, 2½ games behind the first-place Chicago White Stockings.

Bennett’s offensive production dropped noticeably that year. However, he may have enjoyed the best defensive season of his career. In 72 games Bennett hit .243, his lowest average during his eight years with the Wolverines, with 4 home runs and 34 RBIs. Defensively, he played in 69 games behind the plate and compiled a defensive WAR rating of 2.0. He led all league catchers with a .955 fielding percentage and 13 double plays.

The 1887 season was the high point in the Wolverines’ history as they captured their first and only National League pennant with a record of 79-45. Bennett, however, was limited to only 46 games as the toll of catching for more than a decade began to take its toll. He finished the season with a .244 average with 3 home runs and 20 RBIs.

Bennett’s ability to play through pain was on full display during the Wolverines’ 1887 World Series against the American Association champion St. Louis Browns. Initially ruled out of the series by a doctor who feared he would be in danger of having his thumb amputated if he caught another game, Bennett was determined to play. Playing with “a pair of hands that could hardly grip the bludgeon,” Bennett performed admirably.26 In 42 at-bats, he hit .262, had two doubles, a triple, five stolen bases, and a team-leading 9 RBIs. Behind the plate, he held Arlie Latham and the other Browns basestealers in check as the Wolverines won the series 10 games to 5.

In 1888, the 33-year-old Bennett snapped back and enjoyed one of his better all-around seasons. In 74 games he hit .264 with 5 home runs and 29 RBIs. However, it was on defense that he shined brightest. Despite being the eighth oldest player in the National League, Bennett complied the highest defensive WAR rating of his career (2.2), as he broke his own single-season major-league record with a .966 fielding percentage. The Wolverines were unable to repeat the success they enjoyed the previous year, despite bringing back the most feared lineup in baseball. The team finished in fifth place with a 68-63 record.

With high salaries owed the team’s star-studded roster, gate receipts declining markedly, and debt mounting, the Wolverines folded in October 1888. On October 16, in an effort to recoup what cash they could, the club sold Bennett, Brouthers, Richardson, White, and Charlie Ganzel to the Boston Beaneaters for $26,000.27

Bennett was reported to have received a salary of $3,500 with the Beaneaters during the 1889 season, an enormous sum for that period, in part because of his ability to handle a pitching staff. During his five years with the Beaneaters, Bennett worked with legendary pitchers John Clarkson, Old Hoss Radbourn, and Kid Nichols. Bennett and Nichols were particularly close and remained friends for the remainder of their lives.

In his inaugural year in Boston, Bennett played in 82 games, all behind the plate, and hit a modest .231 with 4 home runs and 28 RBIs. He continued to pace National League catchers in fielding percentage with a .955 mark, 45 points higher than the league average for catchers and 18 points higher than Buck Ewing, who was considered the second-best defensive catcher of the era.

One thing that separated Bennett from most of his contemporaries was his ability to play through pain and injuries, especially to his hands. Jim Hart, the Beaneaters manager in 1889, said of Bennett’s ability to play through pain:

“He had more grit than any catcher I ever knew. A score of times when his hands were badly injured he would continue to catch, and the only way we would find out that he was hurt was to discover blood on the ball. I remember a game in Pittsburgh, the last one of the season in 1889 for the Boston club, when he refused to go out of the game until I simply refused to let him play any longer. Clarkson was pitching, and in the third inning he showed me the ball covered with blood. I called Bennett to the bench and asked to see his hands, and he refused to show them. Mike Kelly was playing right field, and I called him in to catch. Bennett wanted to catch the game out so much that he wouldn’t give Kelly the mask or the pad. I sent him home after the game, and two weeks later Bennett’s hands were so sore that he could hardly feed himself.”28

Another account of Bennett’s grit was cited by Peter Morris in his book Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero:

“Bennett declared that only a sissy would use a padded glove with the fingers and thumb cut off. During one of the games in which he figured a foul ball split the left thumb of Bennett’s hand from the tip right down to the palm. The flesh was laid open right to the bone. A doctor who examined it immediately told Bennett that it would be necessary for him to quit the game until such time as the thumb healed sufficiently. The physician pointed out … that blood poisoning might set in which would cause him the loss not only of the thumb but perhaps a hand or an arm. But despite all the doctor’s caution Bennett remained in the game catching day after day with his horribly mangled finger. He kept a bottle of antiseptic and a wad of cotton batting on the bench and between innings would devote his time to washing out the wound.”29

Despite Bennett’s decreased offensive production, the catcher remained in high demand after the 1889 season. After being offered a contract by the Boston Reds of the new Players’ League, Bennett was able to leverage the offer to sign a three-year contract to remain with the Beaneaters. The contract called for Bennett to receive a $6,000 signing bonus and a salary of $4,000 a year.30

News of Bennett’s shrewd deal with the Beaneaters was applauded by the Detroit Free Press, which praised him for his consistent work ethic and ability to handle pitchers:

“That Detroiters will rejoice in his good fortune goes without saying. No matter whether we had a tail end club or the world’s champions, there was no difference in the quality of his work. Young and nervous pitchers under his wise counsel and steady influence became valuable men. Detroit is more his house than any other place and it matters not how far away he goes, we shall always regard him as ‘our catcher.’”31

This was not a surprising commentary, given Bennett’s popularity in Detroit and the fact that he played with the Wolverines for all eight of the team’s seasons. He was one of only two players (the other was Ned Hanlon) to play for the Wolverines every season the franchise existed.

In 1890 Bennett played in 85 games and hit .214 with 3 home runs and 40 RBIs while leading all National League catchers in fielding for the third straight year with a .959 percentage. The Beaneaters, who were beaten out by the New York Giants by a single game in 1889, dropped to fifth place under first-year manager Frank Selee.

On August 12, Bennett hit a 12th-inning walk-off home run off Philadelphia left-hander Phenomenal Smith at Boston’s South End Grounds. The home run gave the Beaneaters a 1-0 victory. At the time, it was only the third time in National League history that a 1-0 game ended with a walk-off home run.32

Bennett’s 1891 season was nearly a carbon copy of the previous year, with one major exception. He hit .215 with 5 home runs and 39 RBIs, and for the fourth straight year led the league’s catchers with a .960 fielding percentage. The difference this season was that the Beaneaters finally won the National League championship. Boston finished 87-51, 3½ games ahead of the White Stockings.

By 1892 the wear and tear of catching had taken a tremendous physical toll on Bennett. King Kelly, who took over as the team’s number-one backstop that season, later commented on the effect catching had on Bennett’s hands. Kelly said, “If I had hands such as Charlie Bennett, I wouldn’t catch a game of ball for a whole church full of millionaires with their entire wealth stuffed in their pockets.”33 As a backup, Bennett played in only 35 games and hit .202 (13 points higher than Kelly) with one home run and 16 RBIs. The Beaneaters won 102 games on the way to their second consecutive pennant.

The 1892 season had a unique split-season arrangement, with Boston winning the first half and Cleveland the second. In the championship series against the Cleveland Spiders, Bennett went 2-for-7 with one RBI as the Beaneaters took the series, five games to none.34

Bennett shared the team’s catching duties with Ganzel and Bill Merritt in 1893, appearing in 60 games behind the plate. Still one of the better defensive catchers, the 38-year-old veteran of 15 major-league seasons hit only .209 with 4 home runs and 27 RBIs as the Beaneaters rolled to their third consecutive title.

Bennett’s baseball career came to a tragic end on January 10, 1894. He was on his way to a hunting trip with former Beaneaters teammate John Clarkson when his legs were crushed by a passenger train at a stop near Ottawa, Kansas. The accident occurred when Bennett stepped off the train to talk with an old friend who lived in the area. When the two friends said goodbye and the train started moving, Bennett turned to catch the railing of the train, but his foot slipped and went over the rail. Bennett pushed his right leg against the rail to push himself back, but it also slipped and went over the track.35 The train’s wheels ran over his left foot and right leg at the knee.

That evening, doctors at the North Ottawa Hospital amputated the 39-year-old Bennett’s left foot just above the ankle and his right leg just above the knee.36 Bennett’s nephew, George Porter, whom he was particularly close to, recounted the tragic tale in a 1934 Detroit Free Press interview:

“Five doctors worked on him. It was the blackest day of my life. His physical condition was so good that ten days later they were able to move him the 18 miles through zero degree weather to our home where we nursed him back to health.”37

Amazingly, just three months after the accident, Bennett had regained much of his strength and began the process of learning to walk with prosthetic legs.

After a few months of convalescing, Bennett and his wife returned to Detroit and, along with a partner, opened a cigar store on Woodward Avenue. According to the Detroit Free Press, after his intentions were announced publicly, “Charlie received over 100 letters from a friend asking if the report be true. One lady wrote to Mrs. Bennett: If Charlie Bennett opens a cigar store in Detroit, all the ladies will commence smoking.”38 For some time the cigar store was profitable, but increased competition from large tobacco manufacturers eventually forced him to sell the business.

The loss of Bennett was a shock to Boston fans and provided a terrible blow to the psyche of the Beaneaters. Following three consecutive National League pennants, they finished the 1894 season in third place with a record of 83-49, eight games behind the pennant-winning Baltimore Orioles and five behind the second-place New York Giants. According to some newspaper accounts, the absence of Bennett was one of the reasons given for the team failing to win a fourth consecutive pennant.39

On August 26, 1894, the team held a benefit to help Bennett pay his medical bills. At one point bowed to the crowd and stood speechless and legless at home plate. The benefit was attended by the heavyweight boxing champion, Gentleman Jim Corbett, who briefly played in the contest. A crowd of 9,000 fans attended and Bennett was given the $6,000 gate.40

Never one to complain, Bennett handled his fate in the most optimistic and dignified manner possible. After all, he was fortunate to have survived such a horrible accident. He continued to hunt (from his buggy) and fish. In fact, he was doing so well getting around that during his visit to Boston for a benefit game the Beaneaters were hosting, former teammate and fellow catcher Charlie Ganzel proposed a race between the two. Bennett, known for his good sense of humor, said he was willing if he could have a 98⅓-yard head start.41

On April 28, 1896, the Detroit Tigers of the Western League opened their new ballpark, named Bennett Park in tribute to Bennett. A cannon brought from nearby Fort Wayne was fired to signal the start of the season and Bennett himself caught the ceremonial first pitch from Wayne County treasurer Alex McLeod.42 Bennett caught the ceremonial first pitch for every Tigers home opener through 1926.43

In later years Bennett took up the hobby of painting china dishes. It was hard with his mangled fingers from catching, but “the perseverance that made him the greatest catcher base ball ever saw made it possible to master the art.”44 The former catcher’s intricate creations eventually commanded “a ready market and good price.”45

Bennett’s 15-year major-league career ended with modest offensive numbers: a .256 batting average, 55 home runs, and 533 RBIs. During his eight-year stint in Detroit, Bennett hit .278 with 37 home runs and 353 RBIs. It wasn’t until the long-term effects of catching with limited protection hampered his ability to grip the bat that his offensive numbers began to decline. Still, it was Bennett’s defensive prowess that differentiated him from his catching peers.

When Bennett began his major-league career, the National League record for games caught in a season stood at 63. He eclipsed that mark in 10 different seasons. Altogether he played in 1,062 games, 954 as a catcher, which at the time of his accident was a major-league record that stood until 1897. He led in fielding percentage seven times and retired with a fielding percentage of .942, a major-league record for catchers that stood until 1896. His career total of 114 double plays and 5,123 putouts also stood as major-league records until 1900 and 1901, respectively. In 1983 Bennett was recognized by SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee as the best nineteenth-century catcher not in the Hall of Fame.46 In 2021, he was honored again as SABR’s Overlooked 19th Century Legend of the year.

Bennett’s health began to deteriorate in early 1926 and in November he underwent surgery to remove a “superorbital abscess of the face.”47 He never fully recovered from the surgery. He died at his home in Detroit on February 24, 1927. Bennett was 72 years old. He was survived by his wife, Alice, who died in 1931. The couple had no children but always considered his nephew George and George’s wife, Sarah, as their own children. He was buried at Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Richard Bak, “The Bittersweet Story behind Charlie Bennett’s Park.” Retrieved from https://detroitathletic.com/blog/2012/09/03/the-bittersweet-story-behind-charlie-bennetts-park/.

2 “The Boys Who Catch: Pen and Ink Portraits of the Receivers of the Country,” The Sporting News, November 10, 1888: 5.

3 George R. Pulford, “Winter Journeys to the Homes of Celebrated Ball Players – Peerless Charlie Bennett,” Seattle Star, January 4, 1908: 2.

4 George Creamer was a light-hitting (.215) second baseman who played seven seasons (1878-1884) for the Milwaukee, Syracuse, and Worcester teams in the National League and the Alleghenys of Pittsburgh in the American Association. Ned Williamson had a 13-year major-league career, including 11 seasons with the National League’s Chicago White Stockings. The stocky third baseman and shortstop established the single-season major-league record of 27 home runs. The record stood until 1919 when Babe Ruth hit 29.

5 “Record of the Aetnas: The Four Years’ Career of the Club was a Brilliant One,” Detroit Free Press, February 24, 1889: 7.

6 Dennis Pajot, The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball: The Cream City from Midwestern Outpost to the Major Leagues, 1850-1901 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishing, 2009), 62.

7 Pajot, 66.

8 Ibid.

9 Evening Wisconsin (Milwaukee), as cited by Pajot, 70.

10 Left fielder Abner Dalrymple was the only Chicago batter to reach base, on a first-inning leadoff walk. Richmond pitched a second no-hitter later that year.

11 John R. Husman, “Lee Richmond’s No-Hit Debut,” in Bill Felber, ed., Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the Nineteenth Century (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2013), 114.

12 Brian McKenna, “Doc Bushong,” SABR BioProject. Retrieved from https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/5d4b5fe8.

13 E. Bates, “Improved Game: J. Lee Richmond, Once a Great Pitcher, Is One of the Few Veterans Who Concedes Advance Base Ball,” Sporting Life, March 19, 1910: 12.

14 Maclean Kennedy, “Charlie Bennett, Former Detroit Catcher, Inventor of Chest Pad: Old-Time Star and Mrs. Bennett Made First One Out of Cork Sewed Between Bed-Ticking Strips,” Detroit Free Press, August 2, 1914: 19.

15 Ibid.

16 Pulford.

17 John R. Husman, “Roger Connor’s Grand Slam,” in Inventing Baseball, 133.

18 Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010), 414.

19 “Poor Charley Bennett: The Afflicted Catcher Recites His Baseball Career,” Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1894: 4.

20 James K. Flack, “Becoming a Contract Jumper: Deacon Jim McGuire’s 1902 Decision,” Baseball Research Journal, (Phoenix: SABR, Fall 2018): 113.

21 Patrick K. Thornton, Legal Decisions, 33; Allegheny Base Ball Club v. Bennett, 14 F.257 (W.D. Pa., 1882), https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F/0014/0014.f.0257.pdf, cited by Flack.

22 “Poor Charley Bennett: The Afflicted Catcher Recites His Baseball Career.”

23 Morris, 55.

24 “Stories of Early Base Ball Days Told by Charlie Bennett, King of the Olden Catchers,” Detroit News Tribune, March 11, 1906, cited in Morris, A Game of Inches, 56.

25 On June 15, 1885, the Wolverines acquired Thompson, Chub Collins, Jim Donnelly, Jim Keenan, Larry McKeon, Gene Moriarty, Dan Casey, Sam Crane, and Deacon McGuire from the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Western League for $4,000 (only $2,000 was paid due to dispute).

26 “C.W. Bennett, Veteran Baseball Star Dies,” Detroit Free Press, February 25, 1927: 2.

27 Ibid.

28 “Charlie Bennett: ‘Our Catcher,’” Retrieved from Bless You Boys, https://blessyouboys.com/2018/3/8/17097104/charlie-bennett-our-catcher.

29 Peter Morris, Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2009), 208-209.

30 “Sporting Matters: Some Facts in Relation to Bennett’s League Contract Signature,” Detroit Free Press, February 16, 1890: 6.

31 Ibid.

32 Lyle Spatz, ed., The SABR Baseball List & Record Book (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2007), 55.

33 “Charlie Bennett: ‘Our Catcher.’”

34 The series lasted six games with one game ending in a tie. Officially, the Beaneaters beat the Spiders 5-0-1.

35 “Poor Charley Bennett: The Afflicted Catcher Recites His Baseball Career.”

36 “A Tragic Close to a Brilliant and Long Career on the Diamond: Details of the Horrible Accident Which Cut Off Bennett’s Legs and Livelihood – A Tribute to the Suffering Player – Sketch of His Career,” Sporting Life, January 20, 1894: 3.

37 “Old Catcher Was Iron Man: Train Mishap Ended Bennett’s Career,” Detroit Free Press, September 30, 1934: 30.

38 “Charlie Bennett: ‘Our Catcher.’”

39 Ibid.

40 “Nearly $6000: Benefit to Bennett Was a Grand Success; Catcher Bowed to 9000 Friends; Walked Out to Home Plate to Do It; Champion Corbett in the Left Field,” Boston Globe, August 28, 1894: 1.

41 “Charlie Bennett in Town,” Boston Post, August 26, 1894: 3.

42 Bak.

43 Jeffrey M. Samoray, “Tigers Celebrate Centennial at Same Site,” Detroit News, April 28, 1996: 5E.

44 Pulford.

45 Ibid.

46 J.R. Husman, “Charles Wesley Bennett,” in R.L. Tiemann and M. Rucker, eds., Nineteenth Century Stars (Manhattan, Kansas: Society for American Baseball Research, 1989).

47 “C.W. Bennett, Veteran Baseball Star Dies,” Detroit Free Press, February 25, 1927: 1. An orbital abscess is an inflammation of eye tissues behind the orbital septum. It is most commonly caused by an acute spread of infection into the eye socket from either the adjacent sinuses or through the blood.

Over the course of his short baseball career, Bergen became increasingly despondent and irrational, continually accusing his teammates of plotting against him and of doing things to harm him. There were numerous verbal altercations and even some physical ones between the catcher and the rest of the team. At times he jumped his club and returned home to the comfort of his family. Naturally, this didn’t sit well with management and his teammates. He exasperated more than one manager. In April 1899, after Bergen’s oldest son died, the ballplayer’s mind started to stray from reality. By the end of the season, he was accusing his teammates of using his son’s death against him. Bergen more than once threatened his teammates’ lives and they were at their wits’ ends in dealing with their unstable catcher. The players feared for their safety and hoped that he wouldn’t return the following spring. As it turned out, they were right to be concerned. Bergen slaughtered his entire family that January and then killed himself.

Martin Bergen was born on October 25, 1871, in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, to Michael and Ann, nee Delaney, Bergen. Michael and Ann were both born in Ireland, immigrating to the United States in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. Michael supported his wife and six children working in a shoe factory. The Bergens’ third child, Martin was the first son. His brother William (Bill) was the sixth child and only other boy. Like Marty, who was seven years older, Bill was a catcher, learning the trade from his elder brother. Although he was one of the poorest hitters in major league history, Bill caught for Cincinnati and Brooklyn from 1901 to 1911, and both Bergen brothers were regarded as among the finest catchers of their time.

Marty grew up in North Brookfield, a small town in Worcester County about 75 miles from Boston. He played on his local independent club, known as the Brookfields. One of his teammates was Connie Mack, also a North Brookfield resident. In 1892 the twenty-year-old Bergen joined Salem in the New England League, his first professional club. In 59 games at catcher he batted .247. After the regular season for several years to come, Bergen rejoined the Brookfields during the late fall. In 1893 he joined Northampton, Massachusetts, an independent club, and played three games for Wilkes-Barre in the Eastern League. At the end of that season, he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, managed by his neighbor Mack.

In 1892 Harriet (Hattie) Gaines moved to North Brookfield from New York State after securing a position at a local mill. She soon met Bergen, and they were married on July 11, 1893. A few years later they purchased a small farm, called Snowball Farm, on Boynton Street. The couple had three children: Martin, born circa 1894; Florence born a year later; and Joseph a year or two after his sister.

In 1894 the Pirates assigned Bergen to Lewiston in the New England League for seasoning. The practice of farming wasn’t legal at that time in baseball history, thus the transfer became an issue and Bergen’s contract with Pittsburgh was voided. He hit .321 in 97 games for Lewiston. At the end of the year he was drafted by both the National League’s Washington Senators and the Western League’s Kansas City Cowboys. Baseball officials assigned Bergen to Kansas City. However, club president and field manager Jimmy Manning soon became exasperated with his new catcher. Bergen was a moody sort who constantly expressed his displeasure. At one point in mid-season, Bergen walked away from the club for a week over some supposed slight while the team was in Minneapolis. In 113 games he batted a strong .372 with 188 hits and 118 runs scored. At the end of the year Marty was drafted by the Boston Beaneaters of the National League. He had been recommended to manager Frank Selee by pitcher Kid Nichols, a Kansas City native. Nichols had seen the catcher in a game during the 1895 season when he stopped at home during a western trip.

Before Bergen would join Boston, team owner Arthur Soden had to make a trip to North Brookfield to convince the sensitive player that he was valued and would be treated well by his new club. He played for Boston from 1896-99, catching 63, 85, 117 and 72 games during those four years. He gained a reputation as one of the finest catchers in the league. One Sporting News article described him as “the greatest throwing catcher that the game ever produced.” Connie Mack, a catcher himself, stated that Bergen was the only catcher he’d seen gun down a base stealer at second from his knees. From the get-go though, Bergen had trouble with his teammates. As one reporter explained in May 1896, “Martin Bergen, the young backstop…is unpopular with his fellow players on the Boston team. Bergen is a sullen, sarcastic chap, never associates with the players, and always nurses a fancied grievance. His disposition handicaps his playing talents.”

Boston was one of the top teams in the league during Bergen’s stint behind the plate. They finished fourth in his rookie season. The next two years they copped the pennant, before finishing second by eight games in 1899. Kid Nichols, Boston’s ace, explained how important the catcher was to the team, “Baltimore beat us the next three years, after we lost (catcher Charlie) Bennett. Then we got Marty Bergen from Kansas City and won the pennants again in 1897 and 1898.” Despite his catching abilities and the team’s success, Bergen was often the topic of trade rumors because of his moodiness, melancholy, inability to mesh with teammates, and penchant for sulking and leaving the club. However, not all the trade rumors originated that way. New York Giants owner Andrew Freedman tried to work a trade for the catcher on more than a few occasions. At the time of Bergen’s death, most within the game assumed that he would be playing for the Giants in 1900.

Even as a teenager, Bergen had showed signs of anxiety and stress. He would become moody, pout, and storm off if he felt that he wasn’t getting his fair share of applause. In 1891, his first professional season, he engaged in a brutal fistfight with one of his teammates. During his time in Boston, Bergen had several run-ins with teammates and opponents. Newspapers commonly referred to his erratic behavior, describing him as “sullen and silent” and highlighting his moodiness, aloofness, and inaccessibility.

Near the end of the 1898 season, Bergen threatened his teammates after an altercation on the bench. He declared that he would “club them to death” at the end of the season. He slapped teammate Vic Willis in a St. Louis hotel dining room. As the Nebraska State Journal noted via wire reports, “Martin Bergen, the eccentric catcher of the Boston team, is in trouble again…Bergen, always surly, often lets his temper get away from him, and makes breaks from which there is no provocation. He hit pitcher Willis in the face because he sat down at the same table in the dining room. The incident was hushed up at the time, but it is likely that Bergen will be traded before the opening of next season, as Selee says he has stood Bergen’s crankiness as long as he can.” On July 20, 1899, the Boston team was traveling by train to Cincinnati. The men were having a good time playing cards, but Bergen sat withdrawn from his teammates. When the train stopped in Washington, D.C., Bergen hopped off, jumping the club and returning home to North Brookfield. Another wire article described Bergen as, “the hardest man in the National League to manage.” The writer described Bergen as “the erratic catcher of the Boston club, who has deserted the club annually since his connection with it and always at a time when his services were most needed. His grievances are fanciful. Of a moody disposition he imagines that his fellow players are leagued against him and are intent on bringing about his downfall. The contrary is the case. Manager Selee and his players have treated the great backstop with unusual consideration.”

Boston Globe reporter Tim Murnane rode out to the Bergen farm to assess the problem and to coax the moody catcher into rejoining the Beaneaters. Bergen lamented that his teammates were hounding him and that at least four of them shouted, “Strike him out!” when he was at bat. He claimed his teammates and team owner Soden were avoiding him, and he was upset because manager Frank Selee wouldn’t give him a day off to visit his family. He was also dismayed by the $300 fine he received for jumping the club. Furthermore, he didn’t like the tone of a telegram he had received from Soden during his absence. Bergen then claimed he was injured and had to return home because only his lifelong friend and hometown physician, Dr. Louis Dionne, could care for him. He finally rejoined the club a week and a half later.

Bergen registered numerous complaints about his teammates throughout the years. From the other perspective, Bergen’s bizarre actions took a toll on his teammates. According to The Boston Braves: 1871-1953, by the end of 1899 some did not want him to return to the club, plus several were seriously concerned about their safety around the disgruntled player. As the Sandusky Star noted, “It is now conceded that the Boston nine dropped out as a champion factor largely because of the trouble between the players and Martin Bergen, the catcher. Ever since Bergen’s first desertion of the nine there has been a feeling of bitterness, intensified by the cordial reception that Bergen received when he returned to the team. The public did not understand the facts as well as the players, and the players felt aggravated that the misunderstanding had arisen.” As the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier put it, “Marty Bergen is accused of creating dissention in the Boston team, which is the cause of the champions’ recent defeats.”

When the team was at home in Boston, Bergen always spent the night at his farm. Neighbors said he would play with his children all day, rarely associating with others. Throughout the 1899 season Bergen pestered Selee for time off to return to his family. He would play a few games and then ask to go home. On April 24, 1899, Bergen’s son Martin, 5, passed away from diphtheria while his father was out of town. After two weeks at home with his family, he rejoined the club, but he quickly descended into a downward spiral. Toward the end of the season he was estranged from his teammates. He claimed that they continuously and maliciously reminded him of his son, causing him a great deal of stress. Unhappy, Bergen jumped the club yet again at the end of September without a word and went home for a few days complaining of a sore hand.

Several sources report that Bergen suffered a broken hip at the end of the 1899 season. The story goes that this injury threatened his career and sent him into a depression, which spiraled into the tragedy of January 1900. However, this doesn’t match the evidence. Bergen was bothered by hip problems throughout his career and he had an operation for an abscess on his right hip on January 28, 1899, the result of sliding into home near the end of the 1898 season, but that didn’t stop him from playing the entire year. Nor were there stories about any excessive lingering effects during the 1899 season. Furthermore, he played the entire game on October 13, the next-to-last day of the season, and he was not injured and didn’t play in the season finale. Bergen visited his doctor after the season ended without mentioning any significant hip troubles. The catcher was the subject of numerous trade rumors and that winter even hosted a sportswriter or two at his house. An injury was never mentioned by any of those parties. Surely an injured hip would have been at the center of any trade article about a catcher.

The hip surgery in January 1899 required him to be under anesthesia for four hours. His doctor and family noted that he never seemed to recover mentally from the operation. Most important to Bergen’s frail state was the death of his five-year-old son. This was compounded by guilt over the fact that he was away from home at the time, on the road with the ball club.

Immediately after the 1899 season, Bergen talked with his physician and confidant, Dr. Dionne, who later told reporters that all seemed fine, but the doctor soon heard from family, friends, and neighbors that Bergen was acting “wild.” When the doctor visited, he found Bergen pacing in front of his house. It didn’t take much prodding for the ballplayer to “open his heart” in a tearful rant. He confessed to Dionne that he had “strange ideas” and said he was afraid that he was “not right in the head.” Bergen admitted that he couldn’t remember much about the past baseball season. All he remembered was that a man came up to him after his last game and congratulated him on a fine performance and gave him a cigar. Bergen was afraid to smoke the cigar because he believed it was poisoned. He was also concerned that Dionne and his wife were trying to poison him. He refused to take any medicine they gave him if he didn’t first mix it himself.

Bergen believed the National League had found out that Dionne was his doctor and had paid Dionne to kill him. He described being frightened of his teammates, feeling that they were out to kill him. Bergen said he always sat sideways on the bench, in the clubhouse, and on trains in case his teammates decided to attack. He wished he had quit baseball so he could find some peace. He also believed that people in general, including the Boston team and other National League players, were plotting against him.

The doctor gave Bergen a bromide and told him to repeat the dosage in three hours. However, the doctor did give him some advice that seemed to work. Bergen chewed and sucked on tobacco constantly. The doctor suggested that he quit the habit as it was contributing to his nervousness and anxiety. Bergen did so and felt better for a time. Later Dionne had what he described as a nice, pleasant conversation with Bergen, who got up to leave the office and said, “This has been a pleasant talk, and it is strange how it has rattled me.” Bergen also confided in his pastor that he believed himself to be insane and feared his own actions. He asked for help, but none was forthcoming from his doctor, priest, family, or community.

On the night of January 18, 1900, a Thursday, the Bergen family ate a hearty meal and turned in. When Bergen’s father found the bodies the following morning, the beds had been slept in. Some time in the early morning, Bergen arose and started preparing for the day. He removed the ashes from the stove, the home’s primary heat source, indicating that the stove had cooled overnight. Bergen then placed paper in the stove for lighting though he hadn’t yet retrieved wood from outside, as the inside pile was depleted.

Then, for some unknown reason, he snapped. Stressed and delusional, Bergen slaughtered his family. First he attacked his wife in the bedroom, hitting her multiple times in the head with the blunt side of an axe. She fell, dying on one of the beds. Bergen then whacked his son once with the sharp side of the axe. The boy died in the other bed. In the kitchen Bergen killed his daughter, smashing her multiple times in the head with the blunt end of the axe. Bergen then retrieved a razor and stood in front of a mirror in the kitchen. He sliced his own throat, nearly severing his head, and fell beside his daughter.

On January 20 the entire family was laid out in the Bergen home for family and friends to view. They were transported to St. Joseph’s Church for the funeral ceremonies and interred North Brookfield’s St. Joseph’s cemetery.

After Bergen’s deeds on January 19, 1900, Dr. Dionne repeatedly made comments that Bergen was “insane” and a “maniac.” The doctor believed that the situation was out of his control and out of his purview. Finally acknowledging Bergen’s mental illness, the Boston Globe’s Tim Murnane wrote that Bergen “was entitled to the undivided sympathy of the baseball public, as well as players and directors.” In the wake of the tragedy, North Brookfield made efforts to better educate professionals and the community about mental health issues.

An updated version of this biography appeared in “The Glorious Beaneaters of the 1890s” (SABR, 2019), edited by Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin

Sources

Minor league statistics provided by Ray Nemec

Ancestry.com

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, Maine

Boston Daily Advertiser

Boston Globe

Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette

Chicago Tribune

Daily Iowa State Press, Iowa City

Daily Review, Decatur, Illinois

Fort Wayne News

Fort Wayne Sentinel

Kaese, Harold. The Boston Braves: 1871-1953. University Press of New England, 2004.

Nack, William, “Collision at Home,” Sports Illustrated, June 4, 2001, p. 74

Nebraska State Journal

New York Times

Smith, Sam, “Nichols: “We Stayed in and Pitched,” Baseball Digest, June 1951, p. 75

Sporting Life

Sporting News

Washington Post

James Bartlett Billings was born on February 21, 1837, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the oldest of three children of John and Adeline Billings.1 His mother died in 1848, and several months later his father married Elizabeth Fifield, who became stepmother to Billings and his two sisters.2 In the textile-dominated economy of Lowell, his father worked for a variety of businesses as a clerk, an apprentice businessman in the parlance of that era. By 1847 his father was the proprietor of his own business, a livery stable, which he soon expanded into an express company that shipped goods via the Boston & Lowell Railroad.3 Billings witnessed the ups and downs of business ownership, as his father’s enterprise failed by 1853 and he returned to being an employee for other business owners.4

Following in the business footsteps of his father, 18-year-old Billings worked as a clerk at the Franklin Bookstore in Lowell.5 In 1856 he moved to Boston, where he worked as a bookkeeper for shoe companies with offices in the central business district.6 He married Maria Braman on October 27, 1860, in nearby Cambridge.7 They had one child, George B. Billings, born in 1864.8 After seeing demand for footwear soar during the Civil War, Billings ventured out on his own in 1863 to start his own shoe company, Billings & Baldwin, in partnership with David Baldwin.9

In 1864 Billings dissolved the partnership with Baldwin and formed a new partnership with George B. Clapp.10 For the next 17 years they operated Clapp & Billings, a shoe manufacturer with its main office in Boston and factories located in the outlying towns of Marlborough and Rockland.11 The 1864 formation of Clapp & Billings was very timely. The demand for mass-produced footwear accelerated after the Civil War, which led to the movement to replace the disjointed system of small shops, staffed by artisans who made shoes by hand, with the centralized factory system in which industrial machines, manned by less-skilled workers, did the bulk of the work to build shoes.12 Clapp & Billings took advantage of the first mechanical advancement in the nascent shoe industry, the McKay sole-sewing machine, which “did in one hour what a journeyman [shoemaker] did in 80 hours.”13 Billings and Clapp were soon rich men.

By 1870 Billings almost universally went by the initials “J.B.” rather than his given name James, to signify that he was a prosperous businessman. He also moved his family into a home at 19 Hancock Street in the fashionable Beacon Hill neighborhood, where wealthy men typically resided in Boston.14 After his successful investment in the emerging shoe industry, Billings became an investor in professional baseball. By 1876 he had purchased several shares of stock in the Boston Base Ball Association, the formal name of the corporation that operated the Boston ballclub.15 It was a good time to invest in baseball, since share prices were depressed. Similar to the shoe industry a decade earlier, professional baseball in the nascent National League of 1876 faced an uncertain environment as control was shifting from ballplayers to club ownership. Billings believed “that a baseball investment would prove profitable” if the ballclub could be operated with sound business practices.16

As a member of an ad hoc committee of stockholders in December 1876, Billings participated in an audit of the Boston ballclub’s financial situation.17 The dismal fiscal performance during the 1876 season resulted in the dismissal of club President Nicholas Apollonio and the subsequent election of Arthur Soden, who went on to serve as president for three decades. Billings was also a member of an audit committee to review the financials of the 1877 season.18

In 1880 the Clapp & Billings partnership was dissolved, with “both men going out of business with handsome fortunes” after selling the Rockland factory.19 While Clapp retired to a life of leisure, Billings remained in the shoe business by continuing to operate the Marlborough factory.20 Billings soon purchased an opulent brownstone home at 362 Marlborough Street in the elite Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, which had recently been created via landfill of the Charles River tidal basin to be the nouveau place for wealthy Bostonians to reside.21

Billings now decided to devote more time to the business affairs of the Boston ballclub, where his financial skills and shoe-industry experience with industrialized labor could enhance the value of his investment in the ballclub. Over the four-year period from 1881 to 1884, Billings gradually changed from a passive investor in the Boston ballclub to an active management role, as the ownership structure evolved to consolidate power for the 1885 baseball season into the hands of three individuals: Soden, Billings, and Bill Conant.

At the annual stockholder meeting in December 1880, Billings was elected to be one of three new directors for the 1881 baseball season, as there was a wholesale shakeup of the five-man board, with Soden and Allan J. Chase the only holdovers.22 One casualty was Fred Long, who was replaced as treasurer by Chase. Billings exerted his influence to limit the ballclub’s disclosure of financial information. The last public disclosure of the club’s profitability occurred at the December 1881 stockholder meeting.23 Only gate-receipt information was provided at the December 1882 stockholder meeting.24

Between 1880 and 1883, Billings increased his stock holdings in the ballclub through purchases from men who held just one or two shares, which he bought at low prices since there was little demand for these shares. He did so in concert with Soden, as the two men “set about securing a controlling interest in the club.”25 Conant, who was elected a director for the 1882 season, accumulated stock on his own.

By the time of the annual stockholder meeting in December 1883, Billings was one of a four-man combine that controlled a majority of the shares of stock, along with Soden, Conant, and an unidentified man, who most likely was Chase.26 No financial information at all was released at the 1883 meeting. “A call was made for the report of the treasurer, but, as attested by the certificate of a physician, that gentleman was sick,” the New York Clipper reported on the absence of Chase, adding that “four gentlemen control the stock, and it is their desire to keep the financial condition secret.”27

During 1884 the fourth man in the 1883 majority combine sold out to the threesome of Billings, Soden, and Conant to effectuate their takeover of the Boston ballclub. The final straw was no doubt the squabble over pricing of season tickets, as pressure increased for business practices to trump caring for dedicated fans (who paid higher prices) and minority stockholders (who no longer received them free).28 There is no public indication what Billings and his two compatriots promised the fourth stockholder of the combine (likely Chase), but he probably was handsomely rewarded for selling, since it allowed the threesome to control all decisions related to the ballclub.29

By the December 1884 stockholder meeting, the trio of Billings, Soden, and Conant collectively controlled the majority of stock and thus rendered the minority stockholders powerless to stop the trio from executing their ideas.30 They elected themselves to be the only officers of the ballclub, as Billings became treasurer to replace Chase, and downsized the directorate from five members to just the three officers. The new three-man board of directors immediately approved a $2,500 stipend for each officer and authorized the spending of up to $100,000 to purchase the land underneath the South End Grounds.31

The trio of Billings, Soden, and Conant became known as the triumvirs, the Roman Empire terminology for members of a three-man authority that shared power. Each of the three triumvirs owned roughly one-third of the ballclub.32 However, when it came to big decisions, not even Soden as president had unilateral authority, since “the triumvirs have an iron-clad rule that when two of the trio agree that settles any question under discussion.”33 In one example from 1889, reportedly “Soden actually shed tears when the other two, Billings and Conant, outvoted him and released [John] Morrill,” who was the longtime field manager of the team.34

As the treasurer, Billings handled the finances of the ballclub. One of the first big expenditures he faced was how to pay the $100,000 to purchase the land underneath the South End Grounds. The decision was to pay $35,000 in cash and borrow the remaining $65,000 through a mortgage on the property.35 This was one of the last numbers publicly revealed from the ballclub’s financial ledgers, since Billings strongly believed the finances of the ballclub should remain private. “We don’t want the affairs of the association spread before the world. That would not be a business way of doing things,” Billings told the Boston Globe in 1887. “The financial standing of a concern is its own business and not for the public.”36 Billings didn’t bother to attend the annual stockholder meetings until the last public one in 1887, when they were discontinued after a judge dismissed the minority-stockholder suit to obtain an accounting.37

Billings, though, was not bashful about spending money in his early years as treasurer, when he would often open up his “famous checkbook,” as the sportswriters termed his spending habit. “Landing big stars was fun for J.B. Billings a few years ago when he roamed the country loaded with his famous checkbook,” Tim Murnane reminisced in 1905. “Mr. Billings loved a winner and was willing to pay the price.”38 Today, his business perspective would be called the need to spend money to make money.

The first exorbitant use of the famous checkbook came in February 1887 when Billings instigated the acquisition from the Chicago club of Mike Kelly, who was one of baseball’s most talented players of that era. “When I went to see Soden and Conant and told them about [the idea], it seemed like a good joke to them, for they rather laughed at it. They didn’t believe anybody could get Kelly away from Chicago,” Billings told the Boston Globe.39 It took $10,000 to convince Chicago to release Kelly. After arriving at a mutually agreeable salary with Kelly, Billings said, “Good things come high, but we must have them.”40

The $10,000 investment to acquire Kelly was initially successful, as attendance at the South End Grounds nearly doubled to more than a quarter of a million spectators during the 1887 season. When the triumvirs decided to build an opulent new grandstand to attract even more paying customers, Billings faced his next big financial challenge as treasurer, when the actual construction costs nearly tripled the $25,000 initial projected cost.41 The solution advocated by Billings was to spend even more money by purchasing another star ballplayer to make sure the new grandstand was filled for all games. In April 1888 Billings paid another $10,000 to the Chicago ballclub to secure the release of pitcher John Clarkson.42

In his quest to sign star players from other teams, Billings operated more like a general manager in the modern-day free-agent era than the prevailing nineteenth-century model of owner-operator who searched for promising young talent.43 Technically, Billings did sign free agents, most often by paying a steep price to a club owner to release the desired player (not directly overpaying the player as done today) and a few times on the open market when players were freely available after a team disbanded. As for grooming younger talent, Billings said in 1887: “This raising of colts is an expensive business. I prefer to buy them all ready for the track.”44

Billings also negotiated the salaries of existing ballplayers to play with Boston the following season. He had his strongest relationships with the players during the 1880s. “The players on the nine all like him,” the Boston Globe wrote about Billings in 1888, “but I do hear it rumored occasionally that they love to visit him for the purpose of getting his autograph to a little check.”45 However, there was no doubt that “the signing of the star players is now left almost wholly in his hands.”46

Despite the good intentions of Billings, the $20,000 spent to acquire Kelly and Clarkson failed to generate a championship for Boston in either 1888 or 1889. Even worse, attendance did not increase at the ballpark in those two years. “Treasurer Billings was found seated in his office with a friend. The reflex of the year could be seen easily. Straws best show how the wind blows,” the Boston Globe reported in July 1888. “The $20,000 bid for players, the $70,000 [grand] stand, the bad ball playing and diminished gate receipts could all be seen in the cigar which the genial holder of the finances was smoking. It was supported by a toothpick to insure its being burned to the last shred.”47 Frustrations exploded during the 1889 season, when Billings, disgusted at a string of losses on the road, dashed off a telegram to the club’s field manager: “You are disgracing Boston. You are being hissed in Music Hall [at the telegraphic recreation of games]. … Your work is costing us thousands of dollars.”48 The demoralization that this telegram caused among the ballplayers cost the team the pennant, as they finished one game behind the champion New York Giants.

The timing of this telegram could not have been worse, since, unbeknownst to the triumvirs, most of their ballplayers were contemplating leaving the team to play in 1890 for the Boston team in the new Players’ League. Billings could not hold the team together after the 1889 season, as most of the players bolted to the Players’ League team. After publicly failing to induce several players “to bid goodbye to the brotherhood and return to their old love,” Billings could only convince two players to stay, Clarkson and catcher Charlie Bennett.49 To bail out Billings, the other triumvirs brought in Frank Selee to be the manager of the team for 1890. Selee rebuilt the team with replacement players (including Kid Nichols) whom he had observed when he was a minor-league manager. While the Players’ League disbanded after just one season, its Boston team transferred to the American Association for the 1891 season, before going out of business when that league merged into the National League for the 1892 season.

The two years of intense competition for baseball fans in Boston severely impacted the finances of the National League ballclub. The free-spending Billings lost the confidence of his fellow triumvirs as Selee used the cheaper, younger players to win three consecutive National League championships from 1891 to 1893. Billings maintained a low public profile, as his son, George, now handled many of the lower-level financial tasks, such as distributing paychecks to the ballplayers.50 Billings also needed to devote much more of his time to his shoe business, which began a downturn in 1891 and struggled in 1893 due to the national economic depression.

In March 1894 Billings went bankrupt when his shoe business failed due to “poor collections, losses in the manufacturing department and shrinkage in profits during the past three years.”51 The company’s $99,000 in liabilities greatly exceeded its $66,000 in assets and “there appears to be no equity in the debtor’s residence nor in his baseball stock.”52 Billings had no equity in his Marlborough Street home because he had sold it to Soden for $25,000 in June 1893 to raise money to keep his business afloat.53 Hoping to be repaid with a business upturn, Soden did not register the deed until four days before the public announcement of the business failure.54 Billings had no equity in his baseball stock because he had used it as collateral for a loan made by Soden and Conant to provide additional funds to try to salvage his shoe business.55 The business failure was quickly settled, as the creditors accepted 55 cents on the dollar.56 Billings was now a minority owner of the Boston ballclub, since “instead of owning an equal portion of the stock, he now owns only one share, enough to entitle him to hold the office of treasurer.”57

Although Soden now owned the house at 362 Marlborough Street, Billings and his wife continued to live there until Soden sold the property in July 1897.58 This timing correlates with when Billings paid off his remaining debt to Soden and Conant, since Billings had borrowed more money from them to try to save his shoe business than the value of his loan collateral, his stock in the ballclub. Billings worked as the treasurer for the ballclub to repay this debt, when in 1897 “the profits of the club have been so great that Billings was able to pay back all he owed.”59

As a minority owner, Billings was still considered a triumvir, but he now had little influence in the future direction of the Boston ballclub. The triumvirs kept their 2-out-of-3-votes rule for business decisions, to access the knowledge and opinion of Billings, but in practice Soden and Conant functioned as a veto-proof, two-man alliance. In general during the 1890s, the ballclub pursued a policy of fiscal restraint, with no more big-money player acquisitions like the ones Billings had engineered in the 1880s. He did do some bird-dogging for young players, but his larger role with the triumvirs was to vet manager Selee’s proposed player signings, such as third baseman Jimmy Collins in the fall of 1894.

Billings continued to add value to the ballclub through his relationships with the ballplayers. For example, “Director J.B. Billings made an effort to convince Tommy Tucker that his work was appreciated by the owners of the club,” when the first baseman had complained to sportswriters about club management.60 However, there was little for Billings to do in salary negotiations, since many Boston players made the $2,400 salary limit that the National League strictly enforced during the 1890s. His treasurer responsibilities were also diminished, since William Rogers was brought in as assistant treasurer in the mid-1890s.61

When Billings was now mentioned in the sports pages, it often was about his reaction to the outcome of a game, such as “Director Billings was the most disappointed man in town last night, and what he thought would not look well in print.”62 In contrast to his fellow triumvirs, Billings faithfully attended most games at the South End Grounds and he often attended the telegraphic recreation of road games at the Music Hall.63 However, Billings maintained such a low profile after his 1894 bankruptcy that George Tuohey, in his 1897 book about the Boston ballclub, wrote just a five-line biography of Billings, which was one-tenth the size of the biography of the club’s groundskeeper.64

After Boston won consecutive pennants in 1897 and 1898 with the low-budget approach, Soden and Conant quashed all proposals by Billings to bring in big stars as a money-making opportunity. “Mr. Billings is in favor of putting out good money for one or more catchers,” one writer noted in 1899, adding that Billings believed “it pays to have one or two stars each season.”65 Reflecting the waning influence of Billings, however, Selee “found Messrs. Soden and Conant in no hurry about going after star players … [since] the triumvirs, with the exception of director Billings, are for taking plenty of time.”66

The beginning of the end for Billings was the botched salary negotiation with Jimmy Collins for the 1901 season. When he learned that Collins was rumored to be jumping to the Boston team in the new American League, Billings traveled to Buffalo, New York, to meet with Collins at his home. Billings was said to have offered Collins a $5,000 annual salary (twice his pay in 1900), but he wasted his time, because he misjudged why Collins was considering an American League offer. Collins signed a three-year guaranteed contract with an annual salary of $3,500 to be not only the third baseman but also field manager and part-owner (with a few shares of stock in the club), with no ties to the team following the third year.67 Billings and the triumvirs completely misjudged the leadership potential of Collins (they passed him over as team captain for 1901) as well as the impact Collins would have with the American League team, which immediately captured the allegiance of most Boston baseball fans.

After the phenomenal success of the Boston Americans in 1901, Soden began to actively search for a buyer of the stock in the Boston ballclub.68 Since most of the value of the stock in the ballclub was in the real estate it owned, Soden transferred ownership of the South End Grounds in 1902 to the Columbus Avenue Trust, whose trustees were Charles Soden, George Billings, and Conant.69 In this manner Soden sought to maximize the value of the baseball team and its franchise in the National League, which were now the only items tied to the shares of stock in the ballclub. Secondarily, this transaction effectively transferred the ballpark asset to the next generation of two of the three triumvirs. Although no longer a significant stockholder in the ballclub, Billings was compensated for a share of the ownership of the South End Grounds, since his son was a trustee of the Columbus Avenue Trust.70

In 1904, when no realistic buyer for the ballclub surfaced, Soden forced Billings out of the ownership group, presumably by purchasing his one remaining share of stock.71 Initially, there was no official announcement of his “retirement,” just the conspicuous absence of his signature on the paychecks of the ballplayers. Only when Billings failed to attend the game on July 5 was there an official announcement that Soden would now be treasurer.

When the ballclub was finally sold in November 1906, Billings received nothing from the $75,000 payment by the Dovey brothers to acquire its stock; his son George did benefit from this sale, through the $200,000 mortgage that the Columbus Avenue Trust granted to the Dovey brothers when they acquired the South End Grounds in a no-cash transaction.72 With the club under new ownership, the National League granted an honorary life membership to both Soden and Conant, but not to Billings, whom the League did not consider to be one of the owners at the time of the sale.73

Billings and his wife spent their retirement years living with their son George and his family in George’s house in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.74 Billings died there on March 15, 1913, and is buried at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.75

Notes

1 “Death Takes J.B. Billings,” Boston Globe, March 16, 1913: 14. No birth record can be located for Billings. His birth was not recorded in Vital Records of Lowell, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Salem, Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1930).

2 Death records for Lowell in 1848 in the Massachusetts State Archives (Volume 38, Page 62); marriage records for Lowell in 1848 in the Massachusetts State Archives (Volume 38, Page 51).

3 Lowell City Directory, 1847: 65 and 1851: 27; federal census records for 1850 for John Billings, Lowell, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

4 Lowell City Directory, 1853: 53, 1855: 32, and 1859: 42.

5 Lowell City Directory, 1855: 32.

6 Boston City Directory, 1856: 37, 1860: 51, and 1862: 42.

7 Marriage records for Cambridge in 1864 in the Massachusetts State Archives (Volume 136, Page 56).

8 “George B. Billings Dies at Home Here,” Boston Globe, January 29, 1935: 19.

9 Boston City Directory, 1864: 39.

10 “Business Changes,” Boston Daily Advertiser, May 30, 1864: 1; Boston City Directory, 1865: 39.

11 Obituary of George B. Clapp, Boot and Shoe Recorder, November 28, 1894: 69; John Galluzzo and Donald Cann, Rockland Through Time (Charleston, South Carolina: Fonthill Media, 2014), 3, 74-75; Susan Alatalo, Marlborough (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia, 2003), 7, 54-56.

12 Mary Blewett, Men, Women, and Work: Class, Gender, and Protest in the New England Shoe Industry, 1780-1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 146-147; John Commons, “American Shoeworkers, 1648-1895: A Sketch of Industrial Evolution,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1909: 64.

13 Commons, “American Shoeworkers”: 73.

14 Boston City Directory, 1870: 91.

15 “The Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1876: 5.

16 George Tuohey, A History of the Boston Base Ball Club (Boston: M.F. Quinn, 1897), 176.

17 “The Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1876: 5.

18 “Base Ball,” Boston Globe, January 7, 1878: 8.

19 Obituary of George B. Clapp, Boot and Shoe Recorder, November 28, 1894: 69.

20 Marlborough Directory, 1885: 22 and 1887: 31.

21 Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, Book 1596, Page 323, cited in “362 Marlborough,” Back Bay Houses, website providing genealogies of houses sponsored by Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, accessed February 11, 2017, backbayhouses.org.

22 “Sporting News,” Boston Globe, December 16, 1880: 1; “The Boston Baseball Association,” New York Clipper, December 25, 1880: 317.

23 “Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 22, 1881: 6; “The Annual Meeting,” New York Clipper, December 31, 1881: 676.

24 “The Boston Club,” New York Clipper, December 30, 1882: 661.

25 Tuohey, A History of the Boston Base Ball Club, 174.

26 “The Annual Meeting of the Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 20, 1883: 2.

27 “Boston Baseball Gossip,” New York Clipper, December 29, 1883: 693.

28 “The Boston Association and the Sale of Season Tickets,” Boston Globe, February 17, 1884: 6; “The Base Ball Season Ticket Scheme Modified,” Boston Globe, March 12, 1884: 4.

29 Silence was likely also part of the deal. No newspaper account can be located about Chase discussing his four years as ballclub treasurer, let alone the takeover of the ballclub by the triumvirs. At his death in 1933, Chase’s obituary noted only that “Mr. Chase had been an ardent devotee of baseball.” (“Allan J. Chase,” Cambridge Chronicle, December 15, 1933: 6).

30 “Boston’s Baseball Club,” New York Times, December 18, 1884: 3; “Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, evening edition, December 17, 1884: 1; “From the Hub,” New York Clipper, December 27, 1884: 651.

31 Ibid.

32 A shareholder accounting published in 1887 indicated that Billings and Conant each owned 23 shares and Soden owned 22 shares, out of 78 total shares (“Again the Triumvirs,” Boston Globe, December 22, 1887: 8).

33 “One Team Enough,” Boston Globe, December 12, 1887: 8.

34 “What Is It?” Boston Globe, August 10, 1902: 33.

35 “Diamond Dust,” Boston Globe, February 8, 1885: 6.

36 “Against the Triumvirs,” Boston Globe, November 13, 1887: 3.

37 “Again the Triumvirs,” Boston Globe, December 22, 1887: 8.

38 “Murnane’s Baseball,” Boston Globe, October 29, 1905: 36.

39 “Kelly, the King, Coming to Boston to Play Ball This Season,” Boston Globe, February 15, 1887: 1.

40 Ibid.

41 “Diamond Points,” Boston Globe, August 19, 1887: 8; “New Players Needed,” Boston Globe, December 14, 1887: 9.

42 “He Is Ours; Pitcher John Clarkson Signs with Boston,” Boston Globe, April 4, 1888: 1.

43 Mark Armour and Daniel Levitt, In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 3-14, 279-280, 389-390.

44 “One Team Enough,” Boston Globe, December 12, 1887: 8.

45 “Soden, Billings and Conant Working for Players,” Boston Globe, April 1, 1888: 6.

46 “Triumvirs Are Hustling,” Boston Globe, January 15, 1890: 8.

47 “Will Talk It Over,” Boston Globe, July 26, 1888: 5.

48 “The Billings Telegrams,” Boston Globe, August 10, 1889: 5.

49 “Triumvirs Are Hustling,” Boston Globe, January 15, 1890: 8.

50 “Joy Turned to Grief,” Boston Globe, April 23, 1892: 5; “Col. George Billings Well Known to the Ball Tossers,” Boston Globe, December 10, 1893: 9.

51 “Business Embarrassments,” Boston Daily Advertiser, March 9, 1894: 8.

52 “Business Failures,” Boston Globe, March 22, 1894: 7.

53 “Real Estate,” Boston Globe, March 11, 1894: 12.

54 Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, Book 2183, Page 569, cited in “362 Marlborough.”

55 “Treasurer Billings Fails in Business,” The Sporting News, March 17, 1894: 1.

56 “Accepted 55 Percent,” Boston Globe, April 1, 1894: 23.

57 “Broken at Last: The Famous Boston Triumvirate Now Dissolved,” Sporting Life, March 17, 1894: 4.

58 Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, Book 2453, Page 228, cited in “362 Marlborough.”

59 “Is a Klondike: Boston’s Triumvirs’ Profits in 1897 $125,000,” The Sporting News, February 26, 1898: 5. Apparently by 1894 the triumvirs were distributing the ballclub profits to themselves, rather than let them accumulate in the treasury, as was the original 1885 arrangement.

60 “Look Well and Strong,” Boston Globe, April 3, 1894: 5.

61 “William Rogers Passes Away in New York,” Boston Globe, April 22, 1905: 8.

62 “Baseball Notes,” Boston Globe, September 29, 1895: 5.

63 “Hub Happenings,” Sporting Life, July 17, 1897: 10.

64 Tuohey, A History of the Boston Base Ball Club, 175.

65 “League Magnates,” Boston Globe, February 26, 1899: 29.

66 “Not Very Bright,” Boston Globe, January 14, 1900: 21.

67 Charlie Bevis, Jimmy Collins: A Baseball Biography (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012), 85-86.

68 “Soden Ready to Sell Out,” Boston Globe, January 11, 1902: 1; “Boston Club For Sale,” New York Times, January 12, 1902: 10.

69 “Boston National Baseball Grounds Transferred,” Boston Globe, April 8, 1902: 11; “Ball Ground Transfer,” Boston Post, April 8, 1902: 3; “Realty of Boston National Club Valued at $205,000,” Boston Globe, April 22, 1905: 3.

70 The percentage of ownership in the South End Grounds that was allocated to Billings was not publicly reported.

71 “Triumvirate Broken: Director J.B. Billings of Boston Club Out,” Boston Globe, July 7, 1904: 7.

72 “Deal for Boston National League Club Completed,” Boston Globe, November 29, 1906: 9.

73 “Honored by League: Diplomas Presented Messrs Soden and Conant,” Boston Globe, August 21, 1907: 9.

74 Federal census records for 1910 for 22 Burroughs Street, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.

75 Death records for Boston, Massachusetts, in 1913, page 461. Mount Auburn Cemetery records show Billings is buried on Eagle Avenue, Lot 5861.

William Henry Conant – in later years Uncle Bill Conant – was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, on March 15, 1834, to Ira and Lucy Conant.6 Ira was a farmer. Although William may have worked on the family farm when he was younger, in 1855, when he was 21, he was living in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, with his older brother, Ira, and working as a clerk in Ira’s “country store.”7 By 1860, William had started a hoop–skirt manufacturing and sales business.8

On May 2, 1860, William married Isadora “Dora” Shepardson in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Dora was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on January 13, 1839, to George W. and Juliette Richards Shepardson. The newlyweds lived in Attleboro at the time of their marriage but by 1868 had established a home in Boston at 16 Rollins Street in the South End. They moved twice within Boston, finally moving to adjacent Brookline in 1904. William and Dora had three children,  William A., Fannie Dora, and Charles H. Conant.

By 1865, William’s hoop–skirt business was located on Washington Street in Boston. His brother Ira joined him in the business, which they operated under the name Conant Bros. from 1867 through 1872 and as A.K. Young & Conant Manufacturing Co. in 1873 and 1874. A.K. Young had operated a separate hoop–skirt manufacturing business in Boston, and his addition to the Conant business name suggests that he first became a part–owner of the Conant Bros. business and then acquired the business when William and Ira started a different business.

The hoop–skirt business provided a living for William and Dora for about 14 years. When women’s fashions changed, they started a new business initially known as the Gossamer Rubber Clothing Co. Over the years, the business had several locations in Boston and one in Framingham, about 30 miles west of Boston, Their partnership continued until Ira’s death in 1895. Thereafter, William was the sole owner of the business, known as W.H. Conant Gossamer Rubber Co., until his oldest child, William A. Conant, became first an employee and then a co–owner of this business. Exactly when this business ended is not clear, although the Boston Globe listed ads for the sale of the business in June and July 1914.9 The 1910 US Census lists William H. and William A. Conant as rubber manufacturers. The 1920 Census lists William A. Conant as a real–estate manager and William H. Conant as having no occupation. In 1914 the Boston City Directory lists father and son as owners of W.H. Conant Gossamer Rubber Co. but the1916 edition contains no business listing for either father or son, suggesting that they either ended or sold the business between 1914 and 1916.

Although there are no public financial records for the gossamer–rubber clothing business, that business provided William and his family with a very comfortable living.10 Dora traveled in Europe in 1889 with their younger son, Charles. William owned at least three horses, a pair named Right Fielder and Left Fielder, and an iron–gray gelding.11 From 1900 onward, William and Dora had domestic help living with them.

When the National League was formed in 1876, the Boston entry organized as a Massachusetts business corporation named Boston Base Ball Association.12 The corporation was what now would be called a close corporation, meaning that a relatively small number of shares were issued,13 and those shares did not trade on any established market. Soden initially bought 15 shares for $15 a share at the urging of his friend George B. Appleton. “Before the 1877 season started, Soden and his friend James B. Billings, a shoe and leather man, owned a majority of the stock,” Harold Kaese wrote in his history of the Braves.14 Conant initially became involved by employing an agent, identified by two sources as Captain Jones, to acquire single shares of stock from individual shareholders. Kaese refers to “an emissary named Captain Jones.”15 George V. Tuohey refers to “Captain Jones, who has followed the game since its opening in this city” and notes that “[i]n the [1870s] the stock went begging. It could be bought for as low as $15 a share, and some shares went for even less than that.”16 The identity of “Captain Jones,” although apparently known to both Kaese and Tuohey, is a mystery today.

From 1876, when Soden was first elected a director at the corporation’s annual meeting, through the 1880 annual meeting, when Billings become a director, to the 1881 annual meeting, when Conant became a director,17 these three men accumulated stock ownership and power in the corporation. At the 1884 annual meeting, when Billings, Soden, and Conant owned the majority of the stock, the shareholders voted to reduce the board of directors from five members to three and elected Billings, Conant, and Soden as the directors, Soden as president, Billings as treasurer, and Conant as general manager.18 At that point, these three essentially controlled the corporation and the team.

Why would successful businesspeople like Billings, Conant, and Soden invest in professional baseball? All three had a strong interest in game and Conant and Billings enjoyed generally good relations with the players.19 Nonetheless, the 1876 Boston Nationals were not a success on the field, finishing the 1876 season in fourth place at 39 wins and 31 losses. Neither was the Boston team a financial success, losing, according to David Quentin Voigt, $777.22 in 1876.20 Although the Boston team finished first in 1877 and 1878, the $2,230.85 loss for 1877 more than tripled the 1876 loss and the $1,433.31 loss in 1878 was more than double the 1876 loss.21 The losses increased in 1879 ($3,346.90) and 1880 ($3,315.90).22 National economic problems – a depression at its worst in 1878 – did not help, nor did the League’s problems with drinking, gambling, and brawling.23 Notwithstanding these financial issues, Billings, Conant, and Soden believed that they could put their experience as successful business owners to work making professional baseball in Boston profitable as well as entertaining for the public.24 The application of what they considered good business practices, however, often generated controversy.

Their drive to improve the financial health of the team began with cuts in player salaries, advertising, clubroom upkeep, and travel expenses.25 These cuts were not popular with the players, and manager Harry Wright’s inability to deal with the problems caused by cuts in the travel budget may have caused his dismissal.26

In 1882 the directors announced that shareholders would no longer receive complimentary tickets to all home games. Many of the minority shareholders signed a petition objecting to the decision and stating that they had purchased their stock with an understanding that they would be entitled to the tickets.27 After the directors refused to change their decision, a detailed letter to the editor of the Boston Globe appeared on April 16, 1882, stating the arguments for complimentary tickets.28 Although the letter did not present very persuasive legal arguments, the anger of the shareholders was understandable even if the decision made financial sense.29

In 1884, after Boston had won the 1883 National League pennant, the directors raised the price of a season ticket from $20 to $30. A petition signed by 33 shareholders and former season–ticket holders asked the directors to reconsider the increase, to no avail. The directors decided to have two types of season tickets. The first, selling for $30, would entitle the holder to a specific grandstand seat. The second, selling for $20, would entitle the holder to general admission but not to the grandstand, although the holder could pay an extra fee for admission to the grandstand.30

The directors were notorious for severely limiting player salaries, and Conant was perhaps the toughest of the three on this issue. For example, Michael “Kid” Madden, a star pitcher originally acquired by Conant, visited Conant in early 1888 to discuss his contract for that year. During the 1887 season, Conant gave Madden $25 each time he won a game and $100 for winning the final two games with New York.31 Thus, Madden likely assumed Conant would agree to a favorable contract for 1888. When Madden named his figure, “[i]t nearly knocked the solid Conant off his feet. When he had sufficiently recovered his breath to allow him to talk, he gasped: ‘What is the size of your hat? Mike, you must be crazy. We have talked it over, and we have decided just what we will pay you. We will pay you just for next season, and when you get ready to sign let me know.’”32 Madden signed for $2,000, the salary offered by Conant, but jumped to the Boston Players’ League team in 1890.

Although the directors were usually tightfisted with player salaries, they nevertheless spent very large amounts of money to purchase the rights to players. Kaese credits Billings, Conant, and Soden with starting the practice of buying players. The purchases of Mike “King” Kelly in 1887 and pitcher John Clarkson in 1888, both from Chicago, are the two most prominent examples. Chicago received $10,000 each for these players. Billings apparently pushed for the acquisition of Kelly, but all three directors agreed on the acquisition of Clarkson.33 Despite being willing to pay $10,000 to purchase the rights to Kelly, the team paid him only a $2,000 salary, the League maximum. Kelly had made it clear that he expected $5,000 to play for Boston, and extracted an additional $3,000, ostensibly for his portrait.34 Later, in response to raids by the Players’ League, Conant rebuilt the team by purchasing rights to players. When it came to attempts by other teams to purchase players reserved by Boston, however, Conant was generally unreceptive.35 Further, once the challenge of the Players’ League had ended, Conant decided that paying for players’ releases was a bad practice, which the National League should prohibit.36

The Boston Nationals finished first in 1891, 1892, and 1893. This success, which suggested that the team was very profitable, prompted the players in 1894 to grumble about their salaries. Instead of quietly investigating this problem, Conant demanded that star left fielder Tommy McCarthy tell him if he had been spreading information about the team finances.37 McCarthy reportedly affirmed to Conant that “he had, as had every other player on the team.”38 As Sporting Life noted, “[a] little diplomacy [from the owners] would set things right, but this is a business to which Director Conant would be very, very new.”39

In the midst of the turmoil over salaries, a terrible fire destroyed virtually all of the South End Grounds.40 The team temporarily moved to the Congress Street Grounds, where the Players’ League and American Association teams had played. Although some argued that the Nationals should remain there, the team rebuilt the South End Grounds, but in smaller and less expensive form. The new grandstand did not include an upper deck because, Conant pointed out, the old upper deck “was only patronized on great occasions.”41

The Boston press tried to link a tragic event to alleged reputed stinginess of the Conant and his partners. Martin Bergen, the Boston catcher from 1897 to 1899, apparently suffered from a mental illness.42 On January 21, 1900, he killed his wife and two children before taking his own life. A Sporting Life article argued that the directors drove Bergen to kill because his meager salary made it impossible to provide for his family.43 Tim Murnane responded that “[t]he Boston magnates did everything for him that they did for the other men, and, in fact, a great deal more, and are in no way to blame for any misfortune that overtook the player.”44

Relations between the directors and the minority shareholders were also difficult. Lack of financial transparency proved a problem for the Boston Base Ball Association almost from its formation in 1876. At the first annual meeting, in 1876, the shareholders raised questions about finances and appointed a three–person committee that included J.B. Billings to audit the treasurer’s accounts.45 Ironically, as treasurer, Billings, supported by Conant and Soden, limited the release of financial information. At the 1883 annual meeting of the association, the bylaws were amended to require the treasurer to report to the directors and not to the shareholders,46 a practice acceptable under Massachusetts law at the time.

At the 1885 annual meeting, the directors obtained approval to amend the bylaws to permit payment of compensation to the corporate officers (Billings, Conant, and Soden), prompting minority shareholder George H. Lloyd to request a treasurer’s report from President Soden. Soden responded that he knew of no such report and that the treasurer (Billings) was in New York. Lloyd then sought to force disclosure of the 1883, 1884, and 1885 treasurer’s reports, as well as other financial information, but the directors refused.47

In 1887 shareholders John C. Haynes, Charles C. Carey, Julian B. Hart, and Frederick E. Long asked a court to compel Billings, Conant, and Soden to provide a financial accounting.48 Billings, no doubt expressing the feelings of Conant and Soden, stated: “We don’t want the affairs of the association spread before the world. That would not be the business way of doing things. The financial standing of a concern is its own business and not for the public.”49 Because the minority shareholders did not (and likely could not) allege fraud by Billings, Conant, and Soden, the court concluded that “it was a hard situation, but there was no opportunity for the court to act unless there was an allegation of fraud.”50

In addition to the problems caused by a lack of financial transparency, the directors faced three challenges from competing baseball teams placed in Boston prior to 1901. Conant played a significant role in two:

(1) Players’ League – The Brotherhood (1890). Although some National League owners thought the Brotherhood revolt would come to nothing, Conant realized that the players were serious.51 The Boston Nationals lost multi–position player Kelly, left fielder Hardie Richardson, and first baseman Dan Brouthers, as well as third baseman Billy Nash, second baseman Joe Quinn, outfielder Dickie Johnston, pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourne, center fielder Tom Brown, pitcher Bill Daley, and pitcher Mike “Kid” Madden.52 Conant took the lead in buying a replacement team that brought Boston success in 1891, 1892, and 1893.53 He bought first baseman Tommy Tucker from Baltimore for $3,000, utility player Bobby Lowe from Milwaukee for $700, shortstop Herman Long from Kansas City for $6,300, and pitcher Kid Nichols for $3,500 from Omaha.54 Conant had personally scouted Nichols, who became the backbone of the pitching staff of the Nationals’ pennant–winning teams in 1891, 1892, and 1893. Conant was also instrumental in persuading pitcher John Clarkson to remain with the Nationals by offering a large salary increase (reportedly $7,000 a year). Clarkson in turn persuaded catcher–outfielder Charlie Ganzel to stay.55 In the end, although the Boston Players’ League team, managed by Kelly, finished first, the league disbanded after the 1890 season.56

(2) American Association (1891). The Association placed a new team in Boston in 1891. The team, the Boston Reds, played at the Congress Street Grounds. Mike Kelly, unsigned by either the Nationals57 or the Boston Reds, agreed to manage and serve as captain of Cincinnati’s American Association team. After the Cincinnati team decided to move to Milwaukee, Kelly requested and obtained his release.58 Kelly then signed a contract with the Reds but Conant, who always thought very highly of him, induced Kelly to jump back to the Boston Nationals, despite Soden’s opposition.59 Both the Nationals and the Reds won their league championships, but the 1891 season proved the end of the American Association.

After offyears in 1894, 1895, and 1896, the Nationals won their fourth and fifth pennants of the decade in 1897 and 1898. But the glorious finish to the 1890s did not foreshadow success at the beginning of the twentieth century. After withstanding challenges from Boston teams in the Union Association, Players’ League, and American Association, the directors of the Boston Nationals were unable to meet the challenge posed by the Boston Americans of the new American League.

Conant badly miscalculated the success the new league would have in signing players. He expected to keep pitcher Bill Dinneen, third baseman Jimmy Collins, left fielder Chick Stahl, and pitcher Kid Nichols for the 1901 season, regardless of whoever else he might lose to the American League.60 Although Nichols and Dinneen remained with the Nationals, two key players, Collins and Stahl, did not. The first Boston defector was outfielder Hugh Duffy, who jumped to Milwaukee. Conant made no effort to persuade Duffy to stay: “He’s about through as a player. We’ll let him go in peace.”61 The devastating loss was Collins, who had promised to stay with the Nationals, but signed with the Boston Americans as player–manager for $4,000. Conant attempted to prevent the defection, sending Billings and manager Frank Selee to persuade Collins not to jump. Conant claimed he had authorized payment of up to $5,000 to Collins, but not only did Collins sign with the Americans for $4,000, he also persuaded Stahl, right fielder Buck Freeman, and pitcher Ted Lewis to go with him. Unable to replace the talent that had defected to the Americans, the Nationals did the best they could with the players they had left – which is to say a fifth–place finish. The Boston Americans battled for the American League pennant, finishing second to the Chicago White Sox by four games. Kaese argued that “[i]f they had been offered enough money, Collins, Lewis, Stahl, and Freeman would have remained with the Beaneaters. In Collins, the Triumvirs surrendered all the assets they had for this fight. Their one chance as to make the newcomers look like minor leaguers by comparison. Instead, the newcomers made the Beaneaters look like minor leaguers. …”62

In April 1902, in a move likely intended to facilitate the ultimate sale of the team, the Boston Base Ball Association sold the South End Grounds and associated land to a real–estate trust called the Columbus Avenue Trust. The trustees of the trust were Charles A.R. Soden (son of Arthur Soden), George Billings (son of J.B. Billings), and Conant.63 After the transfer, the Association became a tenant of the trust and paid rent for the use of the grounds.

In July 1904 Billings sold his remaining stock interest to Conant and Soden. “On July 4, an order was issued to the effect that [Arthur] Soden would act as treasurer of the club and that [William J.] Rogers would be his assistant.”64 Although Conant denied that Billings had retired (or been forced out),65 from that point onward, Soden and Conant controlled the team.

After rumors of their interest in selling the team had circulated for several years, on November 28, 1906, Conant and Soden sold their stock in the Association to George B. Dovey. The real–estate trust sold the South End Grounds property to Dovey at the same time. Conant and Soden received $75,000 in cash and the trust accepted a promissory note for $200,000, secured by a mortgage on the South End Grounds, bearing a 3 percent interest rate.66 Sporting Life summed the outcome of the sale for Conant and Soden: “One can see, therefore, that both the former owners need have no apprehension at all about their financial future. Each is rated at near the million mark.”67

At its 1906 winter meeting, the National League feted Conant and Soden. They were the guests of honor at a gourmet dinner in the Waldorf–Astoria in New York City on December 12, 1906. League President Harry Pulliam, New York Giants President John T. Brush, and sportswriter Francis C. Richter spoke, giving Conant and Soden effusive praise for their long service to the League and the game. At the conclusion of the dinner, Conant and Soden received silver loving cups and honorary lifetime League memberships. Not long after the gathering The Sporting News carried a biting response to this praise: “Wasn’t it the selfish management, the refusal to treat public and press with decent courtesy, the unwillingness to spend a few dollars for repairs to the dilapidated South End Grounds, to say nothing of the persistence with which they refused to strengthen their team when the American League came into Boston, that caused the public to go over to the Huntington avenue grounds by the thousands while the Triumvirs’ lot was deserted?”68 The author asserted that Conant and Soden did not provide free tickets for players’ wives, reneged on a promise to pay an injured player’s medical bills, and refused to allow the manager to disburse cash to the players while the team was playing away from home. He concluded: “When Soden and Conant stepped down, it was the best thing that ever happened for the old organization . …”69

After the sale, Conant maintained an active interest in baseball. He attended both Boston National and Boston American League home games.70 When he wintered in Florida, he attended spring–training games in St. Petersburg. On May 8, 1925, the Nationals, by then known as the Braves, played the golden jubilee game that celebrated the founding of the National League. Although Soden remained at home following his doctor’s advice, Conant, despite bad weather, attended the game with his son, William.71

Soden’s death on August 14, 1925, upset Conant. “[Conant’s] decline dated from that time and his condition became such that the Winter trip to Florida was abandoned,” the Boston Globe said.72 Conant died at the Hotel Brunswick, in Copley Square in Boston, where he had been living for several years, on October 23, 1926, at age 92.73 He had been widowed since Dora died on March 28, 1912. Both are buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.

Conant left $250,000 to his hometown of Bridgewater for the purpose of establishing a hospital. Conant made the gift by an Indenture of Trust dated June 4, 1925, as amended, between himself and Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company as trustee. The William H. Conant Hospital Trust continues to this day as a nonprofit charitable foundation. The trust’s primary purpose is to support the William H. Conant Community Health Center in Bridgewater.

Notes

1 Referred to in this chapter as the Boston Nationals, but also known during this period as the Red Stockings, Reds, and Beaneaters.

2 “Billings was not a bad guy, but those other two, Conant and Arthur Soden, were the type of blackguards that even Charles Dickens would have rejected as character models for his novels as too one–dimensionally bad.” Donald J. Hubbard, The Heavenly Twins of Boston Baseball – A Dual Biography of Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2008), 87.

3 Harold Kaese, The Boston Braves (New York: Putnam, 1948), 23.

4 For example, spending thousands of dollars to buy the rights to rebuild the Boston Nationals during the battle with the Players Union.

5 A batter “fouled ten in succession over the back wall at Boston, and not one of them came back. As each ball went over, Conant … moaned in agony. After seven had gone, he wept aloud, and the tenth found him in spasms, his hands contracted nervously over a wad of dollars. Two more balls, at $15 the dozen … would have killed him then and there.” “One on Conant,” Sporting Life, May 18, 1900: 5.

6 Ira Conant died on February 19, 1871, at age 71, in Bridgewater. Massachusetts. Lucy Conant died on August 6, 1889, at age 87, in Bridgewater. Boston Globe, August 7, 1889: 8. Ira Conant and Lucy Leonard were married in Bridgewater on November 24, 1822. Vital Records of Bridgewater, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Volume II –Marriages. The 1840 US Census stated that two members of the Conant household were employed in agriculture. The 1850 and 1860 US Censuses stated that Ira Conant was a farmer.

7 That census lists Ira M. Conant, age 28, as head of the household that included Mary P. Conant, Ira’s spouse, their son George, age 3, and William H. Conant, 21.

8 See victoriana.com/Victorian–Fashion/crinoline.htm.

9 Boston Globe, June 28, 1914: 30; July 1, 1914: 13; and July 8, 1914: 13.

10 “When [hoop skirts] went out of fashion, [William H. Conant] manufactured rubber goods, from which he made a fortune.” Kaese, 23. As with the hoop–skirt business, we have no information about how Conant treated the workers involved in producing the garments.

11 “Slipping Over the Road, Fast Trotters, Many Men, Few Women Face the Cold Winds Upon the Brighton Sleighing Ground,” Boston Globe, January 4, 1887: 6.

12 “The Boston Baseball Association,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1876: 5; “Boston’s Club Unsold,” Sporting Life November 11, 1905: 5.

13 Images of some stock certificates can be found on the internet. See, e.g.,  worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1883–boston–base–ball–association–25179879 (Certificate 124, J. B. Billings, 1 share, dated June 4, 1884); sterlingsportsauctions.com/1888_boston_base_ball_association_stock_certificat–lot45904.aspx (Certificate 140, Arthur H. Soden, 1 share, dated  March 16, 1888); and scripophily.net/bobabaasbore4.html (Certificate 91, W.H. Conant, 1 share, dated December 16, 1881). Billings confirmed that the Association originally issued 150 shares of stock. “Against the Triumvirs,” Boston Globe, November 13, 1887: 3. “[T]here are only 78 shares today – the 64 we [Billings, Conant, and Soden] own and the 14 scattering ones. …  When the 150 shares were originally issued there was an assessment of 50 cents on $1. Later there was a second assessment of 20 cents on a dollar. When the third and last assessment of 30 cents was made it was paid on 78. The holders of the other 72 shares preferred to forfeit them rather than pay the assessment.” Ibid.

14 Kaese, 22.

15 Ibid.

16 George V. Tuohey, A History of the Boston Base Ball Club (Boston: M.F. Quinn & Co., 1897), 176.

17 “The Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1876: 5; “Boston Base Ball Association – Annual Meeting,” Boston Globe, December 16, 1880: 1; “Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 22, 1881: 2.

18 “Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 17, 1884: 1. At the same meeting, the shareholders voted to purchase the South End Grounds property from the Estate of Barnabas Hammett “for a price not exceeding $100,000.” Ibid.

19 Kaese, 23: “[Conant] was closer to the players than Soden, but not as close to them as Billings. Conant frequently travelled with the club, and often scouted the minor leagues.”

20 David Quentin Voigt, American Baseball: From the Gentleman’s Sport to the Commissioner System Volume 1 (University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 1983), 76. “Most clubs lost money for the first year; probably only Chicago showed a profit.” Harold Seymour, Baseball The Early Years (New York: Oxford University, 1960, reprint 1989), 86.

21 Voigt, 76.

22 Ibid.

23 Voigt, 79–81.

24 At the 1881 annual meeting of the Boston Base Ball Association, the report of the board of directors closed “with the opinion that the corporation ought to be run on business principles to make it a success.” “Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 22, 1881: 2.

25 For details, see Voigt, 77.

26 Ibid.

27 “Dissatisfied Boston Stockholders,” Boston Globe, April 2, 1882: 2.

28 “No Season Tickets for the Stockholders of the Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, April 5, 1882: 4; “Those Season Tickets,” Boston Globe, April 16, 1882: 8. The letter was signed “Justice.”

29 The author asserts an oral promise of season tickets in perpetuity, and states: “The claim that nothing can be found in the articles of association or constitution and by–laws of the corporation giving the right the shareholders demand, may possibly be true, but do they find anything there denying that right?” The fact that the articles, constitution, and bylaws say nothing about the right to tickets does not help an argument based on an oral promise. The writer argues that the directors could be liable for denying the stockholders access to the home games, at best a legally dubious proposition. The letter also speaks of “antagonizing so large a majority of [the Association’s] shareholders,” but the writer must mean number of shareholders, not number of shares. By 1882, Billings, Conant, and Soden collectively owned a majority of the shares.

30 “The Base Ball Season Ticket Scheme Modified,” Boston Globe, March 12, 1884: 4.

31 “‘The Kid’ Signs a Contract,” Sporting Life, January 11, 1888: 3.

32 Ibid.

33 Kaese, 46–47, 49.

34 Kaese, 47.

35 “Mr. Conant said it was amusing to hear of the clubs that expected to get Stivetts, Long, Lowe, and other men under reserve to Boston, when they knew it was simply impossible to get them at any price.” “Conant Not Worried,” Boston Globe, January 5, 1894: 2.

36 “The League Getting in Line Against the Sales System,” Sporting Life, January 31, 1891: 1.

37 “The Boston Row,” Boston Globe, March 19, 1894: 3.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 “Boston’s Ill Luck,” Boston Globe, May 19, 1894: 1.

41  “The Boston Fire,” Boston Globe, May 26, 1894: 3. “It will not be nearly as costly as the old structure. In this connection it may be said that only last year Director Billings was anxious to have the insurance increased $10,000, but this was not only opposed by Director Conant, but the latter was willing to allow as much of the insurance to drop, but it was, luckily, not done.”

42 “Bergen’s Insane Deed,” Boston Globe, January 20, 1900: 1, 3 (referring to his aberrant behavior during the 1899 season).

43 “Bergen’s Crime,” Sporting Life, February 17, 1900: 2.

44 Ibid.

45 “The Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1876: 5.

46 “The Annual Meeting of the Boston Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 20, 1883: 2.

47 “Boston Base Ball Association,” Boston Globe, December 17, 1885: 1. Soden, Billings, and Conant voted themselves each a $2,500 salary for the year.         

48 “Against the Triumvirs,” Boston Globe, November 13, 1887: 3. Details of the claims asserted by the plaintiffs appear in “A Pooh–Bah Trio – Calling the Triumvirs to Account,” Boston Globe, October 6, 1888: 1.

49 “Against the Triumvirs,” Boston Globe, November 13, 1887: 3.

50 Ibid. Modern corporation law would grant minority shareholders reasonable access to the type of financial information the plaintiff sought.

51 “Bound to Fight,” Boston Globe, November 1, 1889: 2 (“I was not surprised because I was under the impression … that the men were up to something.”). When asked if the National League would fight, Conant responded: “Why certainly. We have nearly $50,000 lying idle with [National League President] Nick Young at Washington and that will help the weak clubs out. Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia have the pluck to stick it out, and we must help the other clubs.” Ibid. The earliest challenge came in the form of the Union Association in 1884. Although the Boston Unions had several popular former Boston Nationals players – including pitcher Tom Bond, catcher Lew Brown, shortstop Walter Hackett, and first baseman Tim Murnane – their on–field performance (a lackluster fourth–place finish) was not sufficient to win fans from the Boston Nationals. Kaese, 38. Kaese states that Merton Hackett played for the Boston Unions, but it was Walter Henry Hackett, brother of Merton Hackett, who played for the Unions.

52 Kaese, 56.

53 The Boston Nationals finished fifth in 1890, in large part because of a series of accidents to key players John Clarkson, Herman Long, Bobby Lowe, and Patsy Donovan.

54 Kaese, 57.

55 “Where Was That Bomb?” Boston Globe, December 18, 1889: 3.

56 Robert R. Ross, The Great Baseball Revolt – The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players League (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2016), 197.

57 The Boston Nationals did not claim Kelly on their reserved list. Marty Appel speculates that the Triumvirs may have concluded that Kelly’s best days as a player were behind him. Marty Appel, Slide, Kelly, Slide – The Wild Life and Times of Mike “King” Kelly Baseball’s First Superstar (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1999 reprint), 156.

58 Appel, 162.

59 “They Are After Kelly,” Boston Globe, June 10, 1891: 3; “War of Pitchers,” Boston Globe, July 3, 1891: 5; Appel, 163–164.

60 “Conant’s Ideas,” Sporting Life, December15, 1900: 8. Conant’s omission of shortstop Hermann Long from this list struck one writer as a mistake. Ibid. Long, however, did not jump to the American League and played for the Nationals in 1901.

61 Kaese,100. Conant’s judgment appears sound, at least in hindsight – Duffy played in 79 games as player–manager for Milwaukee in 1901, batting .308. Thereafter, he played 18 games in 1904, 15 games in 1905, and one game in 1906, all for Philadelphia in the National League.

62 Ibid.

63 “Boston National Baseball Grounds Transferred,” Boston Globe, April 8, 1902: 11.

64 William J. Rogers died suddenly, at age 45, on February 16, 1905. He had been the team’s assistant treasurer for many years and became treasurer in the fall of 1904. “End Came Suddenly,” Boston Globe, April 22, 1905: 7. His death was a shock to Conant and Soden and may have contributed to their decision to sell their interests in the team. See also “Triumvirate Broken: Director J.B. Billings of Boston Club Out,” Boston Globe, July 7, 1904: 7.

65 Ibid.

66 When James Gaffney built Braves Field in the Allston section of Boston in 1915, the note and mortgage were paid so that the old South End Grounds could be sold. “To Retain Pre–Eminence in Ball Parks,” Sporting Life, January 9, 1915: 2.

67 Francis C. Richter, “Dovey’s Doings,” Sporting Life, October 20, 1906: 3.

68 The Sporting News, February 2, 1907: 1.

69 Ibid.

70 See, e.g., Boston Herald, September 25, 1919: 14 (Conant attended a doubleheader at Braves Field between the Braves and the Giants).

71 “Veterans of Boston Teams of 70’s at Golden Jubilee Celebration,” Boston Globe, May 8, 1925: 8.

72 “Soden Funeral to Be Held Sunday,” Boston Globe, August 15, 1925: 8;

 “‘Uncle Bill’ Conant Dead, Funeral Tomorrow,” Boston Globe, October 25, 1926: 22.

73 Ibid.

Hugh Fullerton, in American Magazine, reported on the errant–ball incident. In a game at St. Louis, Carroll charged a ball hit to the outfield by Brooklyn’s Darby O’Brien, seeking to field it on the first bounce. The ball took a bad bounce and hit Carroll in the chest. He grabbed the ball and inadvertently shoved it into the handkerchief pocket on the front of his uniform shirt. The runner, noticing this, just kept on running and advanced to second base. At this point, Carroll ran toward the infield and fielder and runner raced toward third base. Try as he would, Carroll couldn’t dislodge the ball and the runner scored. Team owner Chris Von der Ahe had pockets removed from his team’s uniforms, and the rest of the National League followed suit.1

The game was not particularly close, with Brooklyn winning 11–3 and the Browns making 12 errors. Both George Gore and Bill Moran had committed errors early in the game and before Carroll’s muff the score was already 6–0. The St. Louis Post Dispatch wrote, “Yesterday’s exhibition baffles description. If the Browns had the jaundice, they couldn’t have played yellower ball. It was an absolute burlesque on the game. The spectators jeered the players and managed to extract fun out of their attempts at playing.” After the game, Von der Ahe fined Carroll and Moran $50 each for “general indifference and rotten playing.”2 At season’s end, Carroll was made available in trade to Boston.

Carroll played in the National League for parts of 11 seasons between 1882 and 1893. Although not known as a power hitter, in 1890 and 1891 with the Chicago Colts he had seven home runs each year and finished in the top 10 in the league. He also has the rare distinction of homering at the same ballpark in the minors and majors. While with Providence in 1885, he hit a home run at Buffalo’s Olympic Park on October 7 off Pete Conway in the opener of the last series at that venue. Of his 31 major–league homers, that was his only blast at Olympic Park. Carroll’s career was temporarily on the downturn in 1888 and he wound up in the minor leagues, playing with Buffalo in the International Association. On June 23, 1888, he homered at Olympic Park in a 10–2 shellacking of Albany. Each of his two minor–league homers that season was at Olympic Park. He thus became the fifth player in Organized Baseball to homer at the same ballpark in the majors and minors. 

Samuel Clifford Carroll was born on October 15, 1859, in Clay Grove, Iowa. He grew up in Bloomington, Illinois. His parents, John M. and L. Marie Carroll, had five children. Three sons came along before Cliff and his twin sister, Katy, were born. It was in 1867 that the family relocated to Bloomington.

John M. Carroll, who had been born in Baltimore on April 12, 1821, was a pillar of the community in Bloomington, operating a grocery store. But he suffered financial losses during the banking crisis of the early 1870s. He spent the last decades of his life in darkness as he went blind on December 25, 1876. He died on July 6, 1909, at the age of 88. Cliff’s mother, who survived her husband, was born in Butler County, Ohio, on November 5, 1823. She was called Maria.3 She lived to the ripe old age of 95, dying on November 18, 1918.

By 1877, Cliff had established his baseball credentials to the point where he became a member of Bloomington’s semipro club. The New York Clipper tells us, “The members consider the nine the strongest they have ever had and would be pleased to hear from all Eastern clubs going West. They say they have splendid inclosed grounds and promise good terms.” Among the team’s directors was pitcher Charles Radbourn.4 In 1878, he entered the professional ranks and made his way to Oakland, California, where his team won the California State championship. He continued to play in California through 1880, when he was suspended on one occasion for overdrawing his account with the team by $60.5 He then made his way to the Nevada silver mines, but an old friend from his Bloomington days brought him to the attention of Providence Grays manager Harry Wright.

Carroll made his major–league debut with Providence in August 1882. He was the second player from Bloomington to be signed by Providence. Radbourn, his old teammate, had also become a major leaguer. The right fielder got into 10 games at the end of the season. Although he went only 5–for–41, he received plaudits for his fielding. After his first League game on August 3 against Cleveland, it was said that “Cliff Carroll, the new right fielder, showed up famously in the field.”6 An article in his hometown Bloomington newspaper noted, “(Carroll) has played his first three games without making an error, but for some reason, he does not loom up in his batting as of old.”7 In one of those games, on August 17, Carroll was in the outfield alongside his old pal Radbourn. Monte Ward was pitching and hurled an 18–inning shutout. Radbourn provided the only offense his team would need with an 18th–inning home run. It was the first career homer for Radbourn, who went on to hit nine homers to go along with his 309 wins on the mound. The win kept the Providence lead at three games. They took that lead into September but lost it when they were swept by Chicago in a three–game series. The Grays wound up finishing in second place. Carroll did not make an error in the field until October 11 in a postseason exhibition game against first–place Chicago.8 

Carroll first gained unpleasant notoriety in 1883 while playing with Providence. During practice before the game, he picked up a hose and sprayed water onto a spectator named James Murphy. Mr. Murphy was not amused by this, went home, and came back carrying a gun. He took a shot at Carroll and missed, but struck Carroll’s teammate Joe Mulvey.9 Playing in 58 of his team’s 98 games (he missed some time in May and June with a sprained ankle), Carroll batted .265 as the Grays finished in third place with a 58–40 record.

In 1884, Providence won the National League pennant with an 84–28 record and Carroll played in 113 games batting .261 with 23 extra–base hits and 54 RBIs. After the season, Providence accepted a challenge from the American Association champion Metropolitans of New York. The three–game championship was held at the Polo Grounds. In the first game, Carroll reached first base after being hit by a pitch, and came around to score as Providence won 6–0. He went 1–for–10 with two runs scored and an RBI in the three games. Radbourn, who had won 59 games during the regular season, was the only pitcher Providence needed. He pitched every inning and won each game as Providence swept the Mets for the championship. 

It is for one deed during that 1884 season that Carroll is also remembered. Per teammate Arthur Irwin, Providence was playing at Boston. In the fifth inning of the game, Carroll reportedly came up with the idea of bunting the ball and laid down the first bunt. Of course, since it was the first (per Irvin), it had yet to be named. In the Boston Herald, per Irvin, the reporter said that Carroll “punted” the ball. Eventually, of course, “punt” became “bunt.”10 By the time the teams played on August 9, with Providence winning 1–0, the term “bunt” was being used. In the game of that date Carroll laid down a bunt in the eighth inning.11 Actually the bunt had been part of the game since the 1860s and into the early years of the National Association, with Dickey Pearce and Tommy Barlow credited for its invention. However, the bunt had been not utilized for a decade when Carroll and Irwin brought it back into the game.12

The 1885 season was Carroll’s last with Providence. He batted .232 while playing in 104 of his team’s 110 games as the Grays finished in fourth place, Chicago and New York running away from the pack. Providence, with its 53–57 record, finished 33 games out of first place.

Carroll signed on with Washington in 1886 and spent two years in the nation’s capital. But they were not without controversy. During the 1886 season, Carroll was fined $100, a hefty sum in those days, for his objections to team management using amateur pitchers.13 He balked at re–signing for the following season unless the fine was rescinded by team President Walter Hewitt. Hewitt agreed, and cut a check to Carroll. However, before Carroll could cash the check, Hewitt stopped payment. This only made things worse. At the winter meetings, other owners prevailed on Hewitt to remedy the situation and he did.14 In Carroll’s first year with Washington, his batting average dropped to .229, but he did finish in the top 10 in stolen bases with 31 for a team that finished last with a 28–92 record.   

According to an inaccurate accounting in Fred Lieb’s The Pittsburgh Pirates, in 1887 Carroll was with the Pittsburgh Alleghenies, and was positioned at first base for a few games after first baseman Alex McKinnon became ill and died. Carroll was described by Lieb as a “good hit, no field outfielder.” However, Carroll spent the entire 1887 season with Washington, batting .248 while appearing in 103 of his team’s 126 games. But he was no longer the quality player he had been in his Providence days. The author may have confused Cliff Carroll with Fred Carroll who in 1887 batted .328 with Pittsburgh and made 62 errors, including 14 in 17 games at first base. He also made 27 as a catcher and 21 as an outfielder.

At the end of the 1887 season, in which Carroll lifted his batting average to .248 and had a career–high 40 stolen bases, he was released by Washington after the team finished the season in seventh place with a 46–76 record. By that time, “for lack of care of himself, he became almost valueless to the club, and was released.”15 The release was motivated by Carroll’s drinking. While in Washington he owned a saloon for a time, and was his own best customer. The team thought Carroll was attending to business too closely, staying up late at night, and therefore released him.16 He moved on to Pittsburgh in May 1888, as a replacement for John Coleman, who was ill.17 He was with Pittsburgh for less than a month and got into only five games before overstaying his welcome. Carroll was released on June 4, 1888. His once highly regarded fielding skills had eroded. In his five games, all in the outfield, he made three errors in nine chances.

In 1888, after six seasons in the National League, Carroll went back to the minor leagues, playing with Buffalo in the International Association. Although he batted .282 with 22 extra–base hits and 27 stolen bases, his talents were no longer in demand. He spent the 1889 season out of baseball entirely, getting married to Addella Wood of Bloomington and tending to his farm.18 A daughter, Bernice, came along on December 28, 1889. She was their only child. According to data in the 1920 Federal census, she married Thomas Armentrout, and they had four children.

At the urging of Old Hoss Radbourn in 1890, several teams in the newly formed Players League contacted Carroll about returning to baseball, but it was Cap Anson of the National League’s Chicago Colts who signed Carroll to play for his team.19 Carroll had accompanied Anson and the team in a world tour after the 1888 season.20 In 1890, he signed with Anson’s Colts and had the two most productive seasons of his career. Early in the 1890 season, it was reported that “Cliff Carroll, the fleet–footed left–fielder of the Chicago club, is under a pledge not to touch intoxicating liquors this season. This was his greatest failing as a ballplayer, and caused his retirement for a time from the diamond. But for the Brotherhood (as the Players League was also known), he would probably have never been given an opportunity to return to the profession. His brief retirement seems to have done him much good as he is playing splendid ball for the Chicagos. He is one of the finest fielders in the country, a good batter and a clever base–runner.”21

Chicago, then called the White Stockings, had finished in third place in 1889 with a 67–65 record, 19 games behind the pennant– winning New York Giants. There were numerous changes in 1890. The team’s name was changed to Colts. More importantly, there was a team overhaul. Anson brought on Carroll along with young pitchers Pat Luby (21) and Ed Stein (20). He also added second baseman Bob Glenalvin, shortstop Jimmy Cooney, and slugging outfielder Walt Wilmot. The changes worked.

In 1890, the Colts finished in second place with an 83–53 record. The team did not lack for offense, scoring 10 or more runs on 26 occasions. They went 23–6 in September but were unable to catch Brooklyn, finishing 6½ games behind the league champions. At the insistence of Anson, Carroll gave up switch–hitting and hit exclusively from the left side.22 He batted a career–high .285 with seven home runs (fifth best in the league) and 65 RBIs. He stole 34 bases. On his own team, only Anson (.312) posted a higher batting average. Carroll had a team–leading 134 runs scored, second in the league, and he finished fourth in the league with 166 base hits. He led the league with 137 singles. His 215 total bases were ninth best in the league. He also flashed his glove in 1890, finishing fourth in outfield assists with 28.

Carroll also got on pitchers’ nerves during games by switching sides of the plate while the pitcher was warming up. The rule restricting this practice did not go into effect until 1914.23

After returning to the major leagues in 1890 and enjoying his best season, Carroll played in the National League through 1893, finishing his career with the Boston Beaneaters, who won the National League pennant in 1893. 

In 1891, he once again put up good numbers with the Colts, although some were not as good as those in 1890. His power numbers were on the ascendant as his extra–base hits increased from 29 to 35 and his 80 RBIs were second best on the team. However, his batting average slipped to .256. Carroll was 31 years old and did not fit into Anson’s plans, as Carroll and Anson grew further apart as the season progressed.

In 1892, Carroll signed with the St. Louis Browns. His season was going well and he was on his way to a .273 batting average when his fielding mishap on August 17 placed him on the outs with team ownership.

Boston manager Frank Selee traded for Carroll before the 1893 season, sending Joe Quinn to St. Louis in exchange. He played the outfield for Boston as Bobby Lowe was moved to second base. Although Carroll’s overall statistics for the season were not good, (he batted a disappointing .224, the worst average in the league of any hitter with 400 or more at–bats24), he was a key factor in his team’s success. The 33–year–old patrolled left field in 120 of his team’s 131 games. One of Old Cliff’s best performances came on June 14, in the field and at the plate. Boston was playing St. Louis and in the second inning Carroll, playing in left field, made a spectacular catch. The Boston Journal mentioned:

“The pleasing feature of the game was ‘Cliff’ Carroll’s rejuvenation. To him must be given the glory of making the best catch seen on the grounds this season. Lew] Whistler hit the ball to the farthest corner of left field, but Carroll caught it while on the dead run toward the seats, though he fell after his great effort.”25

Carroll’s day was not complete. The Beaneaters trailed by two runs as they came to bat in the ninth inning. With none out and Billy Nash and Tommy Tucker on base, Carroll came up to bat. The Boston Globe tells us that:

“Carroll now had a chance to pay back an old grudge he owed Mr. Von der Ahe. First he fouled one [pitch] trying to sacrifice. Turning to Hugh] Duffy, he nodded as much to say, ‘Will I cut loose?’ Duff answered, ‘As you like.’ The next instant, the ball was going on a line to center over (Steve) Brodie’s head, two runs coming in and the score tied.” After the double, Carroll advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored, with two outs, on a single by Tommy McCarthy.26 Boston had an 11–10 win and remained tied for first place. The Beaneaters went on to win the pennant by five games. Carroll did not play in the major leagues after 1893. For his career, he batted .251 in 991 games, with 203 extra–base hits and 423 RBIs.

The hit–by–pitch statistic was not kept in the National League until 1887, but records indicate that Carroll was quite proficient at taking one for the team. On three occasions between 1887 and 1892, he finished in the top five in the league. In 1891 Sporting Life noted, “Cliff Carroll is winning games for Anson by letting pitched balls hit him. Cliff is too old and tough to feel anything short of a rifle ball.”27 In August 1897, Carroll remembered a few things while speaking with Sporting Life. “I think I have one distinction that no player of the present time is anxious to earn. I have been hit oftener by Amos Rusie than any other man. And even to earn a base, it’s no joke to be hit by Rusie. When another pitcher hits a man, the man rubs himself; when Rusie hits anyone, the man usually goes to bed.”28 In addition to his farming interests, Carroll also operated a meat market in Bloomington, but sold the business prior to the 1892 baseball season.

In 1894, Carroll finished his career with Detroit of the Western League.29

After his playing days, Carroll farmed in Hoopeston, Illinois, before relocating to Linn, Oregon, in 1910, where he tended to a 280–acre fruit farm. While in Hoopeston, he was, according to an account in Sporting Life, “Regent and Ruling Monarch” and manager of a ballclub in the area.30

Carroll died in Portland, Oregon, on June 12, 1923, and is buried at Lincoln Memorial Park. He was survived by his wife and daughter. Largely forgotten to the baseball world at the time of his passing, he was eulogized in print. The following was printed in the Oregonian:

“Carroll was the most wonderful fielder whoever trod a diamond. He had Ty Cobb faded as a base stealer and run getter. He and Charley Radbourne [sic] were inseparable. Carroll was almost as much the vogue as a fielder as Radbourne was as a pitcher. He will be remembered by old timers as one who helped to give the game of baseball impetus in its infancy and his feats of that long–passed day imparted much of the glamour that has since made baseball the most popular sport in America.”31

And the following (perhaps a bit overstating the case) appeared in his hometown Bloomington Daily Pantagraph.

“He owned a large collection of souvenirs and mementoes. Carroll, in addition to being a wonderful hitter and fielder ranked with the fastest men on the bases. One remembrance consisted of a pin representing a foot with two miniature wings to represent fleetness. The foot is of gold and the wings were set with diamonds. He was the greatest of his day and generation.”32 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used Baseball–Reference.com, Ancestry.com, and:

Balinger, Ed F. “Cliff Carroll Claimed by Death: Was Pirate Star of Bygone Days,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, June 22, 1923: 13.

Notes

1 Hugh S. Fullerton, “Freak Plays That Decide Baseball Championships,” American Magazine, May 1912: 118, reprinted in Warren County (Illinois) Democrat, May 23, 1912: 20.

2 “Comedy of Errors: The Browns Give a Fearful Exhibition of Poor Ball Playing,” St. Louis Post–Dispatch, August 18, 1892: 12.

3 “John Carroll Obituary,” Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois), July 9, 1909: 6.

4 “Shortstops,” New York Clipper, May 26, 1877: 67.

5 “The Game in California,” New York Clipper, July 10, 1880: 125.

6 “Sic Semper M’Ginnis,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, August 4, 1882: 8.

7 “Amusements,” Bloomington Daily Leader, August 12, 1882.

8 “Another Defeat for the Chicago Nine at Providence,” Boston Herald, October 12, 1882: 3.

9 Don Doxsie, Iowa Greats: Sixteen Major Leaguers Who Were in the Game for Life (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishers, 2015), 182–183.

10 Frank G. Menke, “Cliff Carroll First Player to Bunt Ball: Member of Providence Grays, in 1884, Paralyses Opponents and Fans with Unexpected Action,” Idaho Statesman (Boise), February 19, 1921: 6.

11 “T’was a Good Game: And Providence Won It in the 11th Inning,” Boston Herald, August 10, 1884: 2.

12 Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball (Chicago: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010), 53–55.

13  “From the Capitol: Harsh Treatment of Players – Cliff Carroll’s Suspension – Barr’s Release, etc.,” Sporting Life, August 11, 1886: 1.

14 “The Washington Club,” The Sporting News, December 31, 1886: 1.

15 “They Play With Anson,” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 1890: 28.

16 “Diamond Notes,” Cleveland Leader and Herald, May 10, 1888: 3.

17 “On Tour With the Bostons: Some Observations of a Clipper Correspondent on Absurdities in the Rules,” New York Clipper, May 19, 1888: 157.

18 “Player Carroll Married,” Daily Inter–Ocean (Chicago), February 28, 1889: 2.

19 “Carroll to Play Again,” Kalamazoo Gazette, February 9, 1890: 8.

20 Obituary, Oregonian (Portland), June 25, 1923: 11.

21 “Sporting Gossip,” Anaconda (Montana) Standard. May 8, 1890: 6 (originally appeared in Cincinnati Commercial–Gazette).

22 “Winter Ball Talk,” Kansas State Journal (Topeka), March 7, 1890: 7.

23 David Nemec, The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Baseball (New York: Donald Fine Books, 1997), 340.

24 Nemec, 499.

25 “A Close Call: Boston Won the Game Because the Umpire Did Not See a Trick by Glasscock,” Boston Journal, June 15, 1893: 3.

26 “Pretty Finish – Boston Makes a Spurt in the Ninth Inning,” Boston Globe, June 15, 1893: 9.

27 “News, Gossip, and Comment,” Sporting Life, August 15, 1891: 2.

28 W.A. Phelon Jr., “Chicago Gleanings,” Sporting Life, August 28, 1897: 11.

29 George V. Toohey, A History of the Boston Base Ball Club (Boston: M.F. Quinn, 1897), 226–227.

30 W.A. Phelon Jr. “Chicago Gleanings,” Sporting Life, February 8, 1896: 5.

31 James H. McCool, “Blue Mountain League to Close Down for Harvest,” Oregonian, June 25, 1923: 11.

32 “‘Cliff’ Carroll,” Obituary in Bloomington (Illinois) Daily Pantagraph, June 18, 1923: 10.

William Jones Clarke was born to John and Mary Clarke on October 18, 1868, in New York City. His father moved the family of 10 to St. Louis by 1880 and to Santa Fe by 1885 to help build an Indian school.2 Census records listed Clarke’s father as either a mason or a carpenter.

Clarke entered Brothers College in Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design), a Catholic school, sometime between 1886 and 1889. “I used to play ball with the priests there. … They told me I had a natural gift for the game,” he recalled many years later. “It’s a funny thing, though – there was never any thought in my mind that I would ever play for pay. I just wanted to play.”3 He joined the Aspen and Pueblo baseball teams of the Colorado State League in 1889. According to an interviewer, Clarke’s “most prominent blurb used throughout interviews [was] ‘it’s not a matter of where you’re going to play but how much you get to play. If you were getting $25 a month then, you were getting real money.”4 This can explain the road by which many Deadball Era players like Clarke took to the major leagues. After a season in Colorado, Clarke played for the Ottumwa club of the Illinois–Iowa League in 1890, went west and played for the San Francisco Metropolitans in 1891 and the San Jose Dukes in 1892. “I caught every day,” he said.5 It was in California that Clarke’s door to the major leagues opened.

A San Francisco acquaintance suggested that Clarke look into playing for the Baltimore Orioles of the National League in 1893. He had telegram offers from Louisville, Chicago, and Philadelphia as well but decided to sign with the Orioles. Clarke said, “It was a very fortunate move on my part because the Orioles (then in eighth place in a 12–team league) turned out to be a championship ballclub.”6 Clarke said he didn’t care whether or not he played in Baltimore or California because any team would have signed him. “As I walked into the hotel when I arrived in Baltimore I remember seeing Mike Kelly, Bill Brown, and Ed Gunther sitting in the lobby.” He said, “I thought my chances were practically nil” and told Heinie Reitz, “It doesn’t look like we’ll have much opportunity with all these big leaguers here.”7 Major–league clubs scoured America trying to find any talent that would help them win the pennant. Signing players from obscure minor leagues was typically cheap and worth a tryout during spring training or the season.

By February 1893, Baltimore’s acquisition of Clarke was made public in the Baltimore Sun. “Clarke is a catcher of great promise,” the Sun wrote. “He played 84 games last season in the California League. He ranked second in fielding, went to the bat 335 times, made 93 base hits, 24 sacrifice hits, 48 runs, stole 27 bases, and had a batting average of .277.”8 The 1892 Orioles finished in eighth place but manager Ned Hanlon began to make wholesale changes to the roster for the 1893 and 1894 seasons. He traded veteran Tim O’Rourke for Harry Taylor and a young shortstop named Hughie Jennings. Harry Stovey was released. Dan Brouthers and Willie Keeler were acquired. Only four players who were on the 1892 Orioles were still on the team in 1894: catcher Wilbert Robinson, infielder John McGraw, outfielder Joe Kelly, and pitcher Sadie McMahon. The Orioles went from consecutive eighth–place finishes in 1892 and 1893 to champions of the National League in 1894. From 1894 to 1898, the Orioles finished first in the National League three times and second twice, and won the Temple Cup twice.

While Clarke was in Baltimore he met and married Isabelle Taylor Thomas. Census records show that the couple were listed as living in Baltimore through at least 1920 despite Clarke’s playing in Boston and coaching Princeton University’s baseball team. While a member of the Beaneaters, Clarke opened a café and bowling alley with his brother, Stanton, on Fayette Street in Baltimore.9 The Clarkes had two sons: Oscar Taylor Clarke, born March 21, 1899, and William Jones Clarke II, born in 1902, died in 1905. In 1922 the couple moved to Princeton full time and remained there until Clarke died in 1959.10

In 1897 Clarke and Robinson split catching duties but both missed about two weeks with injuries. Clarke, while idle, helped to coach the Princeton baseball team for their game with Yale. Evidently his tutelage helped as the Tigers defeated Yale 22–7. Sporting Life wrote in 1898 that Clarke considered coaching the Tigers in the spring, which the paper said “would benefit him as well as them, as he could get into fine throwing and batting trim by practice in the Princeton cage.”11

Clarke served primarily as a backup to Wilbert Robinson in his six seasons with the Orioles (1893–1898) and slashed .259/.321/.330 with 349 hits, 50 doubles, 5 home runs, and 214 RBIs. He and Robinson virtually split catching duties in 1898. In 1899 Clarke signed with the Beaneaters. “The news that Boston had secured Baltimore’s tried and true backstop was a decided surprise to the base ball world,” commented Sporting Life.12 Clarke was considered a coach on the field at the time. Manager Frank Selee said, “Clarke will give us a taste of his old time Baltimore coaching, of course, and it will doubtless prove as popular to the local cranks as it was unpopular when he was with Baltimore.”13

Clarke proved to be popular with the Boston fans in his two seasons with the Beaneaters. He was a capable backstop who handled the pitchers well, called a good game, and played hard. “His throwing has been magnificent,” wrote Sporting Life. “Clarke keeps the men going in good style, steadies his pitcher and never gives up when there is a chance in sight.”14 He suffered a broken hand late in the 1899 season against Chicago but hadn’t realized the injury until he returned to Boston after the road trip. Sporting Life commented, “Bill was sadly missed by the patrons (in Boston). He certainly could not be charged with any lack of ginger.”15

Clarke’s first season in Boston was subpar even by backup–catcher standards. He played in 60 of the team’s 152 games in 1899 and slashed .224/.270/.283 with only two home runs and 32 RBIs. Clarke had his best major–league season at age 31 when he slashed .315/.344/.359 with one home run and 30 RBIs. (His batting average was 59 points higher than his career average.) Sporting Life exclaimed in late June, “Catcher Bill Clarke has struck his gait and is putting up the finest kind of ball imaginable. … Boston made a better investment than was at first imagined when it secured this man. Bill has put to blush the critics that hinted he was not the real thing. He is strawberries and cream with a vengeance.”16

On June 11, 1900, at the Sturtevant House in New York City, a new baseball union was formed, the Protective Association of Professional Base Ball Players, or Players’ Protective Association. Clarke was one of the three Boston delegates to the meeting, indicating the degree of respect other players had for him.17 The purpose of the union was to “counteract the despotic policies and grasping methods of the little coterie of ancient fossils who are gradually running the League and even the national game to death,” Sporting Life said. “The players have at last learned that the only way to meet the League trust is with counter organization.”18

At the meeting the players were addressed by Daniel Harris of the American Federation of Labor. Harris told them that their grievances, if handled properly, could be rectified without much trouble from the League. He said the union did not have to affiliate with the AFL immediately, or at all, but would receive the support of the AFL regardless. The delegates elected not to affiliate with the AFL at that time because they did not want to antagonize the League. This softer approach differed from that taken by the previous players’ brotherhood and Players’ League of 1885–1890. Officers were elected but not made public and a committee on bylaws was established. Each club chose one delegate to act as a representative of their club.

The Association reconvened on July 30 at the Sturtevant House. Clarke was elected treasurer.19 In December Clarke told Sporting Life, “I hope … every player will stick and refuse to sign until the League gives us a proper recognition. The men have all pledged themselves to stand together, and I believe they will. We would look ridiculous indeed if we gave in at the very first clash. The magnates may think we are bluffing, but they will find out their mistake.” He said that the organization was healthy financially because of its $5 initiation fee and $2–a–month dues during the season.20

In 1890 three major leagues totaling 24 teams competed against one another in a terrific baseball war. But the Players’ League collapsed after the 1890 season and the American Association folded the following year, leaving the National League with a major–league monopoly. Baseball suffered. After the 1899 season the National League dropped the least profitable teams, Baltimore, Louisville, Cleveland, and Washington. In 1901 when organizer Harry D. Quinn seemed to have the league prepared to actually play ball that year.

Clarke was listed as a catcher on the Boston reserve list after the 1900 season but in early 1901 Sporting Life reported that he became part–owner and manager of the Baltimore Association club. “Clarke professes to be in the brightest hopes, says he will get his release from Boston for nothing,” the paper said.21 He told Sporting Life that a Baltimore resident had the necessary capital to establish a club in Baltimore but that he could not sign players because the Players’ Protective Association forbade players to sign contracts at that time.22 Unfortunately for Clarke and others involved, the league dissolved before ever taking the field, thanks in part to the newly organized American League. Clarke’s career as a big–league owner and manager lasted a few weeks.

Tim Murnane of the Boston Globe reported in Sporting Life that the Beaneaters had planned to release Clarke before the 1901 season. He jumped to the upstart American League instead. Beaneaters director J.B. Billings made light of the move, saying, “I was wondering what we would do with him if we kept him.”23 Clarke played with Washington for four years, batting .251 over the period as a platoon catcher. Washington released him in 1905 and he signed with the New York Giants, joining former Baltimore teammate John McGraw. Clarke slashed .180/.241/.240 in 31 games. The 1905 season was Clarke’s last in the major leagues; his contract was sold to Toledo of the minor–league American Association. He played for Toledo in 1906 and1907, Minneapolis in 1908, and Albany in 1909 before retiring as a player. He acted as player–manager for Albany in 1909 and manager in 1910 but abruptly tendered his resignation to club president Charles M. Winchester in April 1911. Winchester said of Clarke, “His resignation came to me as a big surprise. … I always considered Bill Clarke to be one of the most competent and capable managers in the country. His judgment of baseball players was excellent and he was always given a free rein to build up a team. … Clarke in my estimation was a conscientious, honest ballplayer. He knew every department of the game and added prestige to the team.”24 Sporting Life wrote that Clarke was well liked and “his sterling qualities of manhood placed him high in the estimation of the fans. … His famous ‘W–e–o–o–w’ while on the coaching line at first base will live long in the hearts of fans in this city.”25 Hence the nicknames Roaring Bill and Boileryard.

Throughout his career, Clarke was lauded for his baseball intelligence and ability to be a manager on the field. Since his time in Baltimore, Clarke helped train and coach the Princeton baseball team before going to spring training. He is listed as the manager in Princeton’s records beginning in 1900 and served in that capacity in three stints: 1900–1917, 1919–1927, and 1936–1944.26 In 1910 Clarke became Princeton’s first paid coach.27 Sporting Life noted in its April 29, 1911, issue that Princeton was anxious to sign him to a three–year contract worth $9,000. Clarke also worked as a scout for the Detroit Tigers in 1911 in addition to his duties as Princeton coach.28 Clarke managed a group of YMCA baseball players in Europe in 1918 during World War I which would explain why 1918 was the only year between 1900 and 1927 that he did not coach the Princeton team.29

In 1915 Clarke co–wrote Baseball: Individual Play and Team Play in Detail with Fredrick T. Dawson.30 The book’s focus was baseball theory from the perspective of coaches and players. The authors wrote: “Although it is a sport which is widely followed, yet comparatively few players, and fewer spectators really understand it thoroughly. … In the present work, the authors, after careful study based on personal experience, injury, and comparison, have formulated for the general public, including the amateur and professional player, the whole subject of baseball as it is played in the most advanced circles, namely, in the major leagues.”31

Clarke and his wife moved to Princeton in 1922 and lived in the basement of their antique shop at 76 Nassau Street.32 He retired as coach in 1927, but was rehired in 1936. He retired for good in 1944. Overall, Clarke’s record at Princeton was 564–322–10 and only six of his teams failed to post winning records. He led the Tigers to Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League championships in 1941 and 1942. On May 17, 1939, the Tigers played Columbia at Columbia’s Baker Field in the first televised baseball game, won by Princeton 2–1. Clarke coached two future major leaguers, Moe Berg and Charlie Caldwell. During his last coaching stint with Princeton, in 1939, the university created the William J. Clarke Award, presented annually to the Princeton team’s best player.33 Princeton’s baseball diamond, Clarke Field, is named after him.

The university honored Clarke with gala parties, for his 80th and 90th birthdays. Friends, alumni, former players, and former opponents joined in the festivities. Clinton W. Blume, a former player for the Colgate baseball team, told Clarke in a letter on his 90th birthday, “Besides having the admiration and respect of the men that played for you, you also had the respect and admiration of the opposing players.”34 In an article by Asa Bushnell in the October 1958 Princeton Alumni Weekly, Clarke reminisced on his 90 years and his time at Princeton. “Ninety years old today, still–spry Bill Clarke honestly believes his first baseball–induced fractured thumb was his ‘luckiest break,’” Bushnell wrote. “That injury, suffered in the spring of 1897, brought him to Old Nassau.”35 Clarke remembered, “We’d been on a road trip. … When we got back to Baltimore, the manager said I couldn’t do anything to help our club for a while because of my thumb. He said Princeton University needed someone to straighten out its team – they were having a terrible time with the infield. I didn’t even know where Princeton was … but I agreed to give it a try.”36

Princeton alumnus George H. Sibley in a letter to Clarke on his retirement, said, “I don’t suppose that a man who has endeared himself as you have to the hearts of so many young men, an affection which abides with them always, realizes fully the lasting contribution you have made to the development of their characters.”37

Notes

1 Super Sports Feature on Bill Clarke, William J. Clarke, Faculty and Professional Staff files, Box 101, Princeton University Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

2 Ancestry.com and Super Sports Feature on Bill Clarke, William J. Clarke, Faculty and Professional Staff files, Box 101, Princeton University Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

3 Asa Bushnell, “Bill Clarke’s 90th Birthday,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. 59, No. 7, October 31, 1958: 5.

4 Super Sports Feature on Bill Clarke.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 “Sporting News: Baltimore Base–Ball Players,” Baltimore Sun, February 4, 1893: 6.

9 “Baltimore Bulletin,” Sporting Life, July 15, 1899: 10.

10 Super Sports Feature on Bill Clarke.

11 “Oriole Perquisites,” Sporting Life, January 15, 1898: 3.

12 “Hub Happenings,” Sporting Life, March 11, 1899: 8.

13 Ibid.

14 “Hub Happenings,” Sporting Life, May 7, 1900: 5.

15 “Boston Blue,” Sporting Life, September 16, 1899: 10.

16 “Hub Happenings,” Sporting Life, June 23, 1900: 4.

17 “Players Organize,” Sporting Life, June 16, 1900: 4.

18 Ibid.

19 “Finely Shaped Up,” Sporting Life, August 4, 1900: 5.

20 “Players’ Points,” Sporting Life, December 29, 1900: 2.

21 “Clarke Cheerful,” Sporting Life, January 27, 1901: 5.

22 “Baltimore Bulletin,” Sporting Life, March 2, 1901: 5.

23 “News and Comment,” Sporting Life, March 23, 1901: 3

24 “New York News,” Sporting Life, April 29, 1911: 19.

25 Ibid.

26 “Baseball 2016 Record Book,” goprincetontigers.com/documents/2017/3/2/BASE_Record_Book_2016.pdf.

27 “150 Years – Baseball,” goprincetontigers.com/news/2014/11/22/209777562.aspx?path=baseball.

28 “Eastern League Events,” Sporting Life, September 23, 1911: 13.

29 “Baseball History Up–to–Date,” Baseball Magazine, July 1918: 279; “A Letter from Aix–les–Bains,” Baltimore Sun, May 19, 1918: 15; Biographical Questionnaire for Princeton Coaches, Princeton University Library.

30 William J. Clarke and Fredrick T. Dawson, Baseball: Individual Play and Team Play in Detail (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915). books.google.com/books?id=BrRHAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PR3&ots=jbajYtmJBM&dq=Baseball%2C%20individual%20play%20and%20team%20play%20in%20detail%2C%20by%20W.%20J.%20Clarke%20…%20and%20Fredrick%20T.%20Dawson%20…%20with%20illustrations%20and%20diagrams.&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=true.

31 Clarke and Dawson, v, viii.

32 Super Sports Feature on Bill Clarke.

33 “Baseball 2016 Record Book,” goprincetontigers.com/documents/2017/3/2/BASE_Record_Book_2016.pdf.

34 Clinton W. Blume to William J. Clarke, March 24, 1958, William J. Clarke, Faculty and Professional Staff files, Princeton University Library.

35 Bushnell, “Bill Clarke’s 90th Birthday.”

36 Ibid.

37 George H. Sibley to William J. Clarke, August 3, 1944, William J. Clarke, Faculty and Professional Staff files.

John Gibson Clarkson was born on July 1, 1861, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a Scottish-born father, Thomas G. Clarkson, and an Irish-born mother, Ellen M. (Hackett) Clarkson. John had two younger sisters, Isabella and Helena, and four younger brothers, Arthur, Thomas, Walter, and Frederick. Arthur and Walter, also pitchers, followed John into the majors, as did two cousins from his mother’s side of the family, Mert and Walter Hackett.

In contrast to most big leaguers of the era, John was born into a family of means. His father owned a prospering jewelry and watchmaking business in Boston. John attended local schools and trained in the jewelry business as a teenager. He was also attracted to baseball, perhaps influenced by a watchmaking co-worker of his father’s and one of professional baseball’s founding fathers, Harry Wright. At his high school, the Webster School, John made the baseball team as a catcher in 1878. During the season, he also made his debut in the pitcher’s box. After high school he worked in the family trade and attended the local Comer’s Business School. Because Clarkson hailed from the Harvard University area, false reports throughout his career said he was a graduate of the university. He was not, but his brothers Walter and Frederick did, and played baseball there.

Starting in 1880, John played amateur ball for the Beacons of Boston for a little over two years. He also played for the Hyde Park club at times. Clarkson was one of the Beacons’ star hitters and eventually developed into the club’s leading pitcher. The team played all comers, including major-league clubs, and Clarkson soon gained a reputation as one of the area’s leading hurlers. During his Beacon days he received some pitching tips from Boston Red Stockings pitcher Tommy Bond. In late April 1882, the Beacons played the Worcester Ruby Legs of the National League in an exhibition contest. Worcester manager Freeman Brown signed Clarkson soon after the game to help solidify his rotation, which had been a little shaky against some college squads that April.

A few days later, on May 2, 1882, 20-year-old Clarkson made his major-league debut, in a home game against Boston. It was the second game of the season, on a very cold and windy day that kept the crowd to only 400. Though he was hit hard, Clarkson pulled out an 11-10 victory, helped by a couple of doubles of his own. He started again three days later but lost to Hoss Radbourn and the Providence Grays, 17-2. The reviews after the contest were stinging, for example: “With Clarkson as pitcher today, the Worcesters were beaten by the Providence team with the utmost ease, they batting Clarkson for fourteen singles and two two-baggers in the sixth and seventh innings.”1 On the 11th, he pitched better but lost again, 4-0, to Tim Keefe of the Troy Trojans. The rebound was noticed: “Clarkson pitched for the Worcesters and was quite effective, no earned runs being scored off his pitching.”2 In three games he pitched, opposite three of the toughest hurlers of the early professional era, Bobby Mathews (Boston), Radbourn, and Keefe, he fared adequately if unspectacularly. Unfortunately, his shoulder was ailing and he was released before the end of the month, within a week or so of his final game. It appears that he sat idle the rest of the season.

After the 1882 season, Arthur Whitney, a Boston-Worcester area player, took over the Saginaw, Michigan, club of the Northwestern League. Whitney contacted Clarkson over the winter and signed him to a contract. At first Clarkson filled a utility role, playing every position but catcher. The club directors were unimpressed and soon discussed releasing the young player. Whitney then installed him on the mound and those thoughts dissipated. The move proved a success. Clarkson appeared in 21 games as pitcher for the club; his record is unknown, but the team challenged for the championship all season, falling just two games short of the title. Clarkson credited Whitney with turning his career around and solidifying his spot in professional baseball. Specifically, Whitney helped convert Clarkson to an overhand pitcher, spending hours working on his motion behind the team’s hotel and at the ballpark. The overhand style was just about to become legal in the National League.

Clarkson returned to Saginaw in ’84, posting a season that earned him accolades throughout the industry. In 45 games and nearly 400 innings pitched he accrued a 34-9 record with nine shutouts and a stunning 388 strikeouts and a 0.64 ERA — all by the middle of August. He hit .306 as well. He was regularly fanning upward of 10, 15 and even 19 batters a game. In five games pitched between June 30 and July 14, Clarkson racked up 73 strikeouts. This caught the eye of major-league managers. In early August, pitchers Jim McCormick and Jack Glasscock, along with catcher Fatty Briody, jumped the Cleveland National League club for Cincinnati of the Union Association. Manager Charlie Hackett tried to sign Clarkson to fill the void but the deal fizzled. Then, on August 14, the Northwestern League ousted the Saginaw club for nonpayment of dues and the club disbanded.

Now a free agent, Clarkson fielded offers from Boston, Chicago, and Cincinnati but signed with Cap Anson of the White Stockings around August 24. His first game with the club took place three days later, a 5-3 loss to Hoss Radbourn. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat wrote of Clarkson after the game, “His pitching is very effective . . . He is a good fielder and his playing today showed him to be a valuable addition to the nine.”3 Clarkson appeared in 14 games for the White Stockings, posting a 10-3 record. On September 30, he struck out seven straight New York Gothams batters, and 13 in all.

Clarkson, a 5-foot-10, 155-pound right hander, threw the three basic pitches, fastball, curve, and changeup. He relied heavily on curves, especially his drop curve, one that fell sharply, from a 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock angle. He could throw a sweeping rising curve as well. Billy Sunday said that Clarkson “could put more turns and twists into a ball than any pitcher I ever saw.”4 Teammates said he could put so much English on a billiard ball with his big hands that it would circle the entire table. Clarkson’s fastball was a riser, generally sailing up through the zone. He liked to keep the batter off-balance, delivering the ball from a variety of arm angles, most often from sidearm, and trying to work the element of surprise. The Brooklyn Eagle wrote of his delivery, “Clarkson, of Boston, faces second base first, then quickly whirls around and throws the ball over the plate, startling the batter.”5 He wore a large, shiny belt buckle that he tried to shine in the batter’s eyes. Umpires routinely had him remove it. Excellent fielding complemented his pitching talents. Sporting Life wrote, “Clarkson fields his position better than any other League pitcher.”6

Clarkson possessed a good deal of pitching speed, but that wasn’t his dominant weapon. Wrote the Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, “Clarkson is able to pitch every other day for the reason that instead of adopting (Amos) Rusie’s method of firing the ball at the catcher with cannonball speed, he depends entirely upon head work, change of pace, and the fielders back of him. In this way Clarkson saves his arm, and is still ready for the finish.”7 Clarkson did in fact strike out a great many batters, but that wasn’t his goal. He much preferred to cut down on his pitch count by having the batter put the ball in play for his fielders to do their job. Moreover, he was a master at working to a batter’s weakness and at keeping him guessing. Sam Thompson, an outfielder with Detroit and Philadelphia, said, “I faced him in scores of games and I can truthfully say that never in all that time did I get a pitch that came where I expected it or in the way in which I guessed it was coming.”8 Cap Anson said, “In knowing exactly what kind of a ball a batter could not hit and in his ability to serve up just that kind of ball, I don’t think I have ever seen the equal of Clarkson.”9

Clarkson’s forte was his control; he put the ball where he wanted. Teammate Fred Pfeffer, an infielder, defined this ability: “I stood behind him day in and day out, and watched his magnificent control, as confident of success, especially in tight places, as I would have been with the United States army behind me. There was Clarkson’s long suit — he was master of control. I believe he could put a ball where he wanted it nine times out of ten. He had everything any pitcher ever had as well. His speed was something terrific, and he could throw any curve. However, his favorite ball was a drop something like the spitball of today, although he delivered it without the ointment necessary nowadays.”10 The Chicago Tribune noted more reasons for his success: “John Clarkson was a great pitcher, because he was a student of the game and relied upon his strategy and control rather than his physical strength, which never was great. He was naturally an athlete, possessed of plenty of speed, but used it in moderation and was of the style of pitchers represented in later years by (Clark) Griffith. Clarkson was one of the first to develop the ‘jump’ ball and as the pitching distance then was shorter than it is today he was able to use it with deadly effect. That, in connection with the drop curve which Clarkson also had perfectly under control, made him the best of his day.”11

Part of Clarkson’s strategy was to regularly pitch around the best hitters in the game. . One such example was against New York in 1885: “Clarkson pitched for us and showed more good judgment and foresight than I have ever seen any pitcher display in a ballgame. In the first inning, for instance, with (Orator) O’Rourke and (Roger) Connor — the heaviest batters in the League — … Clarkson sent them to first on called balls, and as a result caught O’Rourke napping at second, while Connor and (Buck) Ewing went out a moment later in a double play. … In taking no chances against the heavy-hitting abilities of Connor and O’Rourke, Clarkson proved his ability to use his head as well as his hands in his work.”12

Clarkson was also fortunate to work with some of the best catchers of the day. With Chicago, Silver Flint caught 148 of his games. King Kelly worked as the backstop in 73 of Clarkson’s games with both Chicago and Boston. Charlie Bennett (119 games) and Charlie Ganzel (43) worked behind the plate in the bulk of his outings with Boston. Chief Zimmer (57 games) did the same with Cleveland. Years later Zimmer called Clarkson the greatest of all pitchers — and Zimmer caught Cy Young for nearly a decade.

Chicago White Stockings manager Cap Anson said that Clarkson “was peculiar in some things, however, and in order to get his best work you had to keep spurring him along, otherwise he was apt to let up, this being especially the case when the club was ahead and he saw what he thought was a chance to save himself.”13 Anson added, “Many regard him as the greatest, but not many know of his peculiar temperament and the amount of encouragement needed to keep him going. Scold him, find fault with him, and he could not pitch at all. Praise him and he was unbeatable.”14 Anson suggested that Clarkson was deeply affected by razzing and would falter on the mound amid abuse. Some of these broad accusations, though, don’t seem to match up with the record books or day-in/day-out contemporary accounts.

Clarkson started 1885 coaching the pitchers at Dartmouth. He continued to train college squads throughout his baseball career and into retirement. It was a part of his winter conditioning. The only year he took off from coaching was 1886 and that was because of his impending marriage. He coached Harvard pitchers from 1887 to 1892. In 1890 he also worked with the hurlers at the Boston Athletic Association. In 1893 and ’94 he worked out the staff at Yale. In ’94 he also trained the Union College pitchers in Schenectady, New York. The following year he worked for the University of Michigan.

His talents went beyond baseball. In March 1885, Clarkson refereed a boxing match in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was a championship bout between a minor leaguer named Harmon and a Professor Craig. On train trips and in hotels throughout spring training and during the season starting in ’85, Clarkson and King Kelly entertained their teammates with song.

By any measure Clarkson was the National League’s most valuable player in 1885. He started 70 games, finishing all but two, and posted a 53-16 record in 623 innings. Those 53 victories are the most in a season after Hoss Radbourn’s 59 the previous year. Clarkson tossed 10 shutouts and struck out 308 batters. All the numbers mentioned other than the loss total led the league.

From June 1 to 24, 1885, Clarkson won 13 consecutive games. On June 20, he shut out Buffalo, 5-0, on a one-hitter. It was one of his 10 straight victories over Buffalo that season. Clarkson pitched a no-hitter on July 27, a 4-0 win over Providence and Radbourn. The Sporting Life wrote, “Clarkson’s work in the box last week was really remarkable. In one game he disposed of the Providence club without a hit…In another but four hits were made on him in fourteen innings and in the Philadelphia game also but four hits were made off him — a total of but eight hits in thirty-two innings. Wonderful.”15

Chicago took the pennant by two games over New York that season; the rest of the league was at least 30 games behind the White Stockings. In the postseason championship series, the White Stockings tied the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, 3-3-1. Many modern researchers consider the postseason series that began in 1884 to be the first World Series, but the tie that year goes a long way at viewing the 19th-century postseason contests as mere exhibitions.

After the season, Clarkson barnstormed in St. Louis before returning to Chicago for the winter. He stayed in Chicago to split the distance with his girlfriend, Ella Moorhead McKenna. Ella, from Detroit, was born in May 1860. They met when he was with Saginaw. On March 4, 1886, the couple married. She traveled with the club that spring to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and back. Over the years she attended many games. It’s probably good that she did since Clarkson attracted more than his share of women to the park. He was a good-looking Irishman with dark hair and bluish-gray eyes. And he was a bit of a dandy when it came to his attire, as the Sporting Life noticed: “All of the Chicago players dress well off the field but Clarkson is the bright particular dude of the team. He is very scrupulous about his dress, and there is considerable of the English in his style.”16 The Detroit Free Press said, “His uniform was always immaculate, his linen always possessed the fresh-from-the-laundry touch, he was always smoothly shaved, his manners were always faultless.”17 He also wore a silk handkerchief on the outside of his uniform.

In 1886, Clarkson won 36 games in 55 starts, striking out 313. On August 14 he defeated St. Louis, 5-2, for the 17th consecutive time, a record that still stands. Four days later, he fanned 16 Kansas City batters to set the club record. On August 23, Clarkson tossed a one-hitter over Detroit, losing a no-hitter in the eighth inning on a controversial hit by Deacon White. Chicago won the pennant by 2½ games over Detroit. Again, the White Stockings faced the St. Louis Browns of the American Association in the postseason. This time St. Louis won, four games to two. Clarkson was 2-2 in four starts, winning Games One and Three. The series is memorable for the sixth and final game, a contest regarded as one of the finest of the era. Clarkson took the mound with his club down three games to two and took a 3-0 lead into the eighth inning, hoping to tie the series. However, the Browns pushed across three runs to even the score. In the 10th, St. Louis outfielder Curt Welch tried to steal home. He was seemingly caught but Clarkson’s pitch to King Kelly went astray and Welch scored the winning run. Clarkson had apparently crossed up his catcher. It was known as the “$15,000 Slide” because of the winner-take-all agreement between the clubs. The Chicago players were drinking heavily during the series, some showing signs of drunkenness while on the field. Clarkson may not have been drinking during the day, but he was tearing it up at night. It was said that he was slotted to start Game Five but couldn’t because of a hangover. It was the only time in seven tries that an American Association club won the postseason series between the two leagues.

Over the winter, Clarkson worked out daily with fellow Cambridge native Tim Keefe. The two pitchers were concerned about the new rules in 1887 that shrank the pitcher’s box and lengthened the pitching distance to 55 feet 6 inches. It had been 50 feet when Clarkson debuted in 1882. Clarkson was also concerned about the loss of his catcher, King Kelly, who had been sold to Boston for $10,000. These matters didn’t deter Clarkson, though; he led the league in most pitching categories again in 1887, amassing a 38-21 record in 59 starts. Detroit won the pennant, however. Clarkson defeated the Wolverines nine times, the most by one pitcher over an eventual pennant winner. As the end of the season neared, Clarkson negotiated a $200 bonus if the club finished in second place; but the White Stockings fell to third. After another fine year, he wanted a significant boost in income; he also wanted out of Chicago; more specifically, he wanted to play near his home. He declared, “My home is in Boston, and all the domesticities I have center there. I am anxious to have a house of my own, and to fit it up as a permanent residence.”18 As the season ended he met with club president Al Spalding and told him so, asking for a trade to Boston, and later sending follow-up letters reaffirming his desire. Clarkson’s family was also pushing him to leave baseball and join the family jewelry business. (Another rumor, neither proved nor disproved, claimed that Clarkson and the White Stockings’ shortstop, Ned Williamson, had had a falling-out and Clarkson vowed to never play with him again.)

Spalding had his own plans; he was having a fire sale. After getting the cash for Kelly, he was offering any of his men for the right price. He set the menu: $10,000 for Clarkson; $7,500 for Ned Williamson; $5,000 for Fred Pfeffer; $2,500 each for Mark Baldwin, Jimmy Ryan, and Dell Darling. The owner declared: “There is no player so good but that his equal can be found.”19

Clarkson wanted a salary close to that of Bob Caruthers, a pitcher for St. Louis, who was making a reported $4,500. The Sporting Life took the pitcher’s side: “Clarkson has pitched more games in the last two years than any other pitcher in the country. No wonder he feels sore when he considers that he is not paid as much as many players who are playing with weaker clubs and only pitch once a week or once in two weeks.”20 Clarkson also cited Henry Boyle, a pitcher for Indianapolis, who made $500 more than he did with a weaker team in a smaller market, with a lighter workload and less success.

Clarkson, or more likely some friends, approached Boston Beaneaters president Arthur Soden and asked him to work a trade. Soden offered the White Stockings $7,500 as early as September 1887. It wasn’t enough; Spalding was holding out for more. Part of Spalding’s negotiating stance was to declare that the club would rely on Gus Krock and George Van Haltren on the mound for the coming season if Clarkson chose to hold out. Clarkson was equally as adamant, in fact more so. In December he declared, “You can depend upon it that I will not play in the Chicago club next year under any circumstances. … I think it is about time that I should have something to say where I shall play. I will remain in Boston and work at my trade. I mean just what I say. I will not play in Chicago under any circumstances.”21 He threatened to sit out the season and join the family business if not traded. Spalding shot back that he would simply blacklist the player if he didn’t report in the spring.

By February 1888, the entire White Stockings squad had signed except for their disgruntled ace. The deal was finally brokered on April 3, just before the exhibition season began. The Boston Globe headlined, “HE IS OURS: Ten Thousand Dollars for Another Beauty.”22 Clarkson was reunited with his backstop King Kelly; the pair was now known as the “$20,000 Battery.” Two days later, on the 5th, 4,500 Boston fans showed up to see the battery in action, a high turnout for a blustery spring-training game in New England. The high dollar sales for the two players led in part to mounting dissatisfaction among players. A lot of money was being thrown around between the owners, but the reserve clause was helping to hold down salaries and personal freedoms as well. The prevailing players union, the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, was busy solidifying its ranks in response to the disgruntlement. Clarkson joined his colleagues, pledged his support to the Brotherhood in early 1889, and paid his dues. Oddly, he did so at the urging of Boston Beaneaters director William Conant, who believed that the other men would play better behind him during the season if he did. According to Boston Globe sportswriter Tim Murnane, “The pitcher promised at the time that he would never hurt the Boston club.”23

Clarkson started on Opening Day 1888, not ceding a hit until the sixth inning, and Boston won its first nine games, five of which were credited to their new ace. In all, he went 33-20 with a league-leading innings total (483 1/3) again. The club, though, finished in fourth place, 15½ games out.

Clarkson was appointed temporary captain in April 1889 amid fighting between the club directors, on the one hand, and player-manager John Morrill and King Kelly, who presented separate issues, most involving his alcoholism. Morrill was sold to Washington, where he became manager, and Jim Hart was brought in to manage the Beaneaters. It looked to be a bright year indeed. After spending all that money for Kelly and Clarkson, Boston tapped the failing Detroit Wolverines for Charlie Bennett, Dan Brouthers, Charlie Ganzel, and Hardy Richardson. The club went 18-4 in May to take a 3½ game lead in the standings. Clarkson didn’t lose his second game until June 10, by which point he was 15-2. In the first game of a doubleheader on June 22 in Pittsburgh, Clarkson shut out the Alleghenys 5-0, allowing only five hits and striking out 12. In the seventh inning of the second game he was ejected while sitting on the bench. Pittsburgh manager Fred Dunlap noticed that Clarkson was signaling to his teammate, pitcher Bill Sowders, and informed the umpire. On July 12, Clarkson was pulled for some extra rest in the fifth inning despite leading 10-0 and tossing a no-hitter. Reliever Sowders gave up just one hit the rest of the way in the 13-1 defeat of Pittsburgh. On September 16, the Beaneaters started a 15-game road trip to finish the season. They stood a half-game behind the New York Giants in the standings. Clarkson and the club directors agreed that he’d pitch every game down the stretch for some extra compensation. Clarkson actually started 13 of those games, taking two games off, but that was done in consultation with club officials. It was a tactical error; the pennant slipped out of Boston’s hands.

For the first time in major-league history, the pennant came down to the final day of the season (October 5). The Beaneaters were facing Pittsburgh, and the Giants were playing the Cleveland Spiders. Clarkson and Boston manager Jim Hart made waves by offering the Cleveland battery $1,000 if they defeated New York. The money would come from a previous promise by the Boston Globe to reward the local club if it copped the pennant. New York in turn offered a suit of clothes to the Pittsburgh players if they stopped the Beaneaters. Henry Chadwick, for one, found this all distasteful. Clarkson lost to Pittsburgh, 6-1, and New York defeated Cleveland to take the championship by one game over the Beaneaters. As would be the case for decades to come, the contenders played an uneven number of games: New York finished at 83-43; Boston, at 83-45. Drinking may have cost the club the pennant, as more than a few of the men imbibed heavily as the season and summer moved to a close. Clarkson won the pitching Triple Crown, leading the league in wins (49), strikeouts (284), and earned run average (2.73). He tossed eight shutouts. The 49 wins are the fourth highest total in major-league history. In the five seasons from 1885 to 1889, Clarkson posted a 209-93 record with 295 complete games, 2,716 innings pitched, and 1,365 strikeouts. For all this work and success Clarkson wasn’t even listed among the top 20 earners of 1889 according to the Spalding Guide. He wanted his big payday.

With the growing unrest among players, 1889 was a contentious year. As the summer wore on, the players firmed up plans to organize a league of their own. The new league, the Players League, would operate in 1890 as a third major league, pulling most of the top players from the National League. The two leagues would compete head-to-head in virtually every National League city. Clarkson was hedging his bets on the new league, though. He was listed as a member of its Boston entry and had signed an agreement to sign a contract, though not an actual contract. He was also one of the first to purchase stock in the new Boston club. However, he soon started backtracking. After an interview with him, the Chicago Tribune called Clarkson “a shining mark in his profession, a Brotherhood man, and a signer with the rest of the Boston team to the agreement which now binds the players to the National Players’ League.”24 But Clarkson added: “I shall also consult my own interests, do the best I can, and do not consider the agreement which I signed binding on me other than a promise that I would go with the other men if such a step is consistent and legal. … I am with the boys, and if it is for my best interests to go with them I shall do so. But I am not bound. The League people are entitled to a good deal of consideration at our hands.”25 His Brotherhood colleagues didn’t see it the same way. Like the other ballplayers, Clarkson had agreed with and supported the union, attended meetings and voted. He even nominated King Kelly for an office. However, as the plans actually came into fruition, he needed to reevaluate his commitment. He was concerned that the new league wasn’t well funded or organized and that it would fail, leaving the men to “scramble for old positions and loss of the best part of a season’s earnings.”26

Soon after the Brotherhood solidified its plans at a meeting on November 4 in New York, Clarkson departed with many of his teammates on a California barnstorming trip. In late November, Kelly headed to San Francisco to meet the Boston players and gain their signatures for the coming season. He was worried about some of the comments made by Clarkson and Hoss Radbourn; they seemed to be pulling away from the union. “Mike Kelly, who is deputed by the Brotherhood to sign players, arrived in the city yesterday,” a press service report said. “He is rather disappointed at not being able to secure John Clarkson. Clarkson has been offered by the Brotherhood the same salary as he was getting from the League and Kelly offered to give him $500 out of his own pocket, but it wasn’t enough.”27 Clarkson wanted more money, stating that he “must in justice to myself and family earn my money while I can.”28 Certainly this additional quote didn’t win any friends: “I am looking out for myself as usual, and ain’t bothering myself a great deal about anyone else.”29

In secret, Clarkson started trading telegrams with Beaneaters owner Arthur Soden, and a deal was worked out. Soden said, “We paid John Clarkson $25,000 for three years. For simply signing his name to a contract we paid him $10,000. This is the largest salary that has ever been paid to a baseball player.”30 It was in fact a lot of money; no one had been guaranteed $25,000 before. Clarkson made the best deal possible, financially speaking. The pitcher also agreed to act as an agent for the Boston club. Soden gave him carte blanche to re-sign as many men as possible. He talked Pop Smith and Charlie Ganzel into re-signing with the club and approached several others, including Hardy Richardson and even Kelly. Clarkson also sent telegrams to and later visited Charlie Bennett’s residence and signed him up as well.

Naturally this was in violation of the agreement Clarkson had made with the Brotherhood and most of his teammates and friends around the league. It wasn’t received well, many believing that he previously sat in on their meetings solely to report back to Soden and the League. Fred Pfeffer recalled, “I never saw such a change in a man in my life. When I last saw him before that he was as strong a Brotherhood man as could be found and dwelt at length on the prospects of the Players League. Then he became an icicle. It chilled me through to hear him talk and I walked away from him.”31 Someone discovered that Clarkson was working as an agent for the League and sent a telegram to John Morrill, a secretary of the Brotherhood, in San Francisco. It read: “Clarkson is a traitor and is working for Soden. Show this to the boys and watch Clarkson.”32 He wasn’t treated well after that and had a strained relationship with many for months to come, even years. For the rest of the barnstorming trip, many shunned Clarkson, blasting him for his duplicity. Kelly, once a good friend, apparently was among them. Their friendship never recovered.

On December 18, the Brotherhood met again to firm up the new league. The members expelled Clarkson and 14 others, officially blacklisting them. On January 11, 1890, the men returned to Chicago from San Francisco. The Chicago Tribune wrote, “The Brotherhood sentiment was strong in all excepting Clarkson, who did not move about with the others.”33 Hardy Richardson took the opportunity to publicly blast the pitcher, calling him out for his double-agent activities and disloyalty to his colleagues. The two didn’t speak for many months. (One story during this period was that Ella Clarkson talked her husband into staying in the National League because the Boston directors offered her free tickets to games for herself and any friends.)

Boston dropped to fifth place in 1890 despite 26 wins from Clarkson. On April 19, he won 15-9 over Brooklyn even though he himself committed 10 errors, which were actually wild pitches. Sloppily, there were a total of 35 errors in the contest. The Players League folded after only one season and the men funneled back to their old teams. During the negotiations Monte Ward declared, “The talk of refusing to play with (Jack) Glasscock, (Jerry) Denny, Clarkson, or any of the deserters from our ranks is all bosh. Of course it is a bitter pill, but for the sake of peace and harmony we will swallow it.”34 That was merely the face of the union speaking publicly; the friction did not go away. Many of the men had issues with Clarkson and he was treated rudely and shunned by some for the rest of his career. Some observers claimed that a few of his teammates slacked off while Clarkson was on the mound, the very thing Conant, the Beaneaters director, feared previously. King Kelly for one refused to return to Boston, instead jumping to the American Association, in part because he didn’t want to play with Clarkson and Charlie Bennett.

Both Clarkson and Kid Nichols won at least 30 games for the Red Stockings in 1891 and the club captured the pennant by 3½ games over Chicago. Clarkson presented a new look for 1892, shaving off his trademark mustache for a season or so. He started off shakily, posting an 8-6 record through 16 games. On May 6, he went toe-to-toe with Cincinnati and opposing pitcher Elton “Icebox” Chamberlain for 14 scoreless innings, giving up only four hits but walking six. Chamberlain surrendered only three hits and a walk. “Six times during the game for Boston and four for Cincinnati would a base hit have decided the contest,” the Boston Globe wrote the next day.35 The game was called at the beginning of the 15th inning “on account of the sun,” as the umpire Jack Sheridan declared that it was beating in the batters’ and pitchers’ eyes. A sore arm kept Clarkson off the mound from May 15 to 25. On the 26th, he defeated Louisville 7-0 but lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth when Hughie Jennings placed a single. With a young Kid Nichols developing into an ace, Arthur Soden was looking to shed the expensive Clarkson but was a little hesitant to do so since he was still under the three-year contract for which the club had given him a significant signing bonus. Regardless, on June 30, 1892, Clarkson, whose record was 8-6 at the time, was given his unconditional release. The dismissal had as much to do with cutting costs as it did with Clarkson’s shaky start and questions about the health of his arm. With the merger of the National League and American Association, only one major league operated in 1892. The owners were thus in a position to tighten their belt. They would soon implement system wide payroll cuts and institute a salary cap.

Cleveland owner Frank Robison wanted Clarkson, but his co-owners didn’t. Robison pressed and got his way. It added to a rift among them though, which wasn’t resolved until Robison bought the others out later in the summer. The Spiders signed the free agent on July 5. The payroll cuts hit just as Clarkson joined the Spiders; every man was required to sign a new contract at a lower rate. Clarkson’s days of being the staff ace were over in Cleveland; that distinction belonged to the speedballer Cy Young. Clarkson did well, winning 17 games for the club and proving that his arm was holding up by pitching a total of 389 innings. He won his first game for the Spiders on July 9, an 8-2 victory over Tim Keefe. On September 21, he claimed his 300th major-league win, a five-hitter over Pittsburgh that the Spiders pulled out in the ninth inning, 3-2. Cleveland finished in second place, 8½ games behind Boston. Since there was only one major league, the top two teams faced off in a championship series. Boston won the series, five games to none, with one tie. Clarkson lost both of his starts. In Game Five, he blew a six-run lead and lost, 12-7.

Before the 1893 season, the pitching rubber was pushed back another five feet to the current distance of 60 feet 6 inches. It signaled the beginning of the end of Clarkson’s effectiveness. Though only 31 years old, he couldn’t adjust adequately and won only 24 more games in 53 starts. He did, however, log the innings once again, a total of 445 2/3. Cleveland gave Clarkson a contract for $2,500, which was actually $100 over the salary cap. It was also $200 more than Cy Young was making. That didn’t sit well with Young, and the club had to renegotiate with its ace. The next season, 1894, couldn’t have started any worse for Clarkson. He planned a camping trip near Kansas City with his good friend and former batterymate Charlie Bennett. On the trip in early January, Bennett carelessly hopped off the train to speak with a friend. He slipped, fell under the wheels and lost parts of both legs.36 The scene was bloody and horrifying. Clarkson was dramatically affected. He was already drinking heavily toward the end of his career, and the incident didn’t help matters. Clarkson stayed with his friend for over a month, returning home on February 19 to take over the Yale pitching staff. He helped organize a benefit for the catcher later in the year.

Throughout his time in Cleveland, Clarkson clashed with his teammates and was said to be unhappy. Many of them were staunch Brotherhood supporters. A cynic might claim that some didn’t play their best when he was on the mound. Cy Young, who wasn’t a part of the Brotherhood struggle, later acknowledged Clarkson’s help in refining his game. According to Young’s biographer Reed Browning, “Clarkson showed Young how to improve his curve ball, advised him on ways to sharpen control, and prodded him to think about pitching strategy.”37 All these were lessons he had been imparting to college pitchers for years. Moreover, “Young declared unequivocally that Clarkson had helped him become a better pitcher.”38

On July 12, 1894, Clarkson made his final major-league appearance, in a 20-10 shellacking by Philadelphia. The next day he was traded to Baltimore for another aging pitcher, Tony Mullane. Orioles manager Ned Hanlon was happy to make the trade for the pennant run, declaring, “Clarkson has not been satisfied in Cleveland and will show his appreciation of the change of base by demonstrating that he is still one of the best pitchers in the business. He has, beyond doubt, the easiest delivery of all the pitchers. His coolness in trying circumstances is proverbial. I have made many deals in my effort to build up a team, but none which gave me more satisfaction that when I traded Mullane even up for Clarkson.”39 The Washington Post was a little less enthusiastic about the repercussions of the trade: “It is an open secret that Clarkson has been dissatisfied in Cleveland and anxious to get away, while Mullane is never satisfied anywhere, so neither team has much the worst of the bargain.”40 The Boston Globe saw little for the Orioles to gain: “Perhaps John Clarkson may do better in Baltimore than Cleveland. But that remains to be seen. His work this season is decidedly of the passé order.”41 To Hanlon’s dismay, Clarkson refused to join the Orioles, returned home to Bay City, Michigan, and retired. Mullane appeared in four games for Cleveland and was done as well.

For his career, Clarkson inserted a 328-178 win-loss record into the books and nearly 2,000 strikeouts. Before the mound was pushed back to 60 feet 6 inches in 1893, he fanned the second most batters, behind Tim Keefe. Clarkson failed to complete only 33 of his 518 starts. He also knocked 24 home runs, a number by far the most of any 19th century pitcher and a record that lasted for decades.

In September 1894, John and Ella Clarkson purchased a cigar store and manufactory at 103 Center Avenue in Bay City. They later opened a wholesale business on Fifth Avenue and a retail establishment in the Phoenix area. In 1904 they opened another cigar enterprise at Sixth and South Sherman Streets in Chicago. The latter three businesses proved unsuccessful. The decade after leaving baseball was for the most part spent managing his four business enterprises. John’s brother Arthur moved to Bay City to help run the businesses after his professional baseball career ended. He initially worked as a clerk in the cigar store and then took over operations at the Phoenix location. Later, he opened a clothing store a few doors down from the cigar shop. During this time, John made infrequent trips to Boston to visit friends and family and to Detroit to check in with Charlie Bennett and Ella’s family.

On the baseball end, Clarkson established, organized, managed, and occasionally pitched for an independent, amateur Bay City club in 1895. He tried to place a Bay City franchise in the Interstate League for 1897, but it was a no-go. Also in ’97, Ban Johnson, president of the Western League, wired Clarkson offering the ex-pitcher a job as an umpire. Clarkson had actually worked four games during his major-league career, three of them behind the plate. However, he replied, “Many thanks, but I am out of baseball for good.”42 Through the rest of the decade, though, Clarkson teased reporters about a possible return to the majors but it was ultimately in jest. As late as 1904, a Chicago Journal writer wrote that Clarkson “looks as strong and agile today as he did fifteen years ago.”43

In March 1905, Clarkson, then in his early 40s, was listed as the vice president of the Michigan State League and was set to manage the Bay City franchise. In May, Ella and Arthur summoned John’s father to Bay City for a family conference. John had been in a “bad way for several months.”44 They decided to confine him to the Oak Grove Sanitarium in Flint, Michigan, for the “treatment of mental disorders,” a nervous breakdown combined with depression and possibly paranoia which was certainly exacerbated by his excessive drinking.45 He was said to live in the past more than the present, often recalling his baseball days as if they were yesterday. As the Sporting Life noted at the time of his death, “He seemed to have no memory at all for things of today, but talked clearly and lucidly of matters connected with the past.”46 King Kelly would have been surprised. He once described Clarkson as “a quiet, modest gentleman, and does less talking about baseball than any player in the country.”47 Clarkson returned home briefly in December 1905 but was soon transferred to the Eastern Michigan Asylum in Pontiac. At the time reports declared, “There are no hopes that his condition will improve.” He had “completely broken down mentally and physically.”48

After three months in Pontiac, his father brought him to the McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Waverly, Massachusetts, near the family home in Cambridge in March 1906. At the time Thomas Clarkson told reporters, “John is in a bad way, and he has been for the last two years. . . . Physically he is as well as he ever has been and this, of course, gives us encouragement. His mind wanders back to the old baseball days. His wife … came on with him and is now at our home. When he became sick she ran his business for some time, but is now closed out.”49

Ella moved in with her in-laws. Clarkson remained, for the most part, at McLean except for occasional furloughs during holidays and such. His family visited often. Eventually he lived with his wife and parents for stretches at a time. A report from Cambridge in February 1908 claimed that Clarkson “is looking well.”50 He was living with his family and often visited friends in Boston. He was even seen as a spectator at a ballgame that October. John was supposedly doing well at the end of the year. Ella visited Bay City and told reporters that her husband was improving and perhaps might leave McLean. That was perhaps wishful thinking. The truth is that the doctors saw little long-term hope for her husband.

In January 1909, Clarkson was living with his parents at their home on Wave Way Avenue in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He became ill with pneumonia and was readmitted to McLean. Both lungs were overtaken by the illness; Clarkson lapsed into a coma and died on February 4 at the age of 47. The death certificate listed the cause of death as lobar pneumonia of six days’ duration. It also noted that Clarkson had suffered from a general paralysis for the past several years. John Clarkson was buried in the family plot at Cambridge Cemetery. He rests not far from Tim Keefe.

Unfounded rumors persist that Clarkson killed his wife. The fact is that after his death, she returned to Bay City and helped Arthur Clarkson in business. Bay City erected a ballfield soon after John’s death and named it in his honor. In 1963 one of the top pitchers of the 19th century was finally inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Too often reviewers have projected Clarkson’s psychological problems at the end of his life back into his playing career. There may indeed have been some clues, but a lot has been read into little things, and too much has been interjected into the story long after the fact. Too many have taken liberties with supposed clues of mental instability during his playing career. There are no hints of significant mental difficulties in contemporary accounts before his entering a sanitarium, which, by the way, was more than a decade after his retirement from the game. Later claims that he was a loner, high-strung, moody, and depressed both on and off the mound were exaggerated in an effort to signify underlying troubles. Clarkson was calm and collected on the mound; he was noted as so time and again. He may have disliked being singled out for razzing at times but that is not abnormal. He may have needed coaxing at times but isn’t baseball history littered with stories of catchers and managers giving pitchers pep talks? It’s amazing how a pitcher can be so successful year in and year out, month-in and month-out and some claim he was still prone to “wilt” or “wither” on the mound.

Cap Anson made several comments about Clarkson’s temperament at or near the end of the pitcher’s life that some have used to trace his mental difficulties back as far as two decades before he actually was institutionalized. It’s perhaps telling that these quotes don’t show up in Anson’s book A Ball Player’s Career, which was published in 1900 before Clarkson had his breakdown. Anson chose to add these characterizations only after Clarkson’s difficulties became known publicly. In the book, Anson talks about Clarkson needing encouragement throughout the game to keep him focused, but nowhere does he mention anything about the pitcher’s fragile temperament.

It is clear, though, that Clarkson was a heavy drinker throughout his career. If it didn’t start with the White Stockings, it certainly blossomed then. Quite a few of his teammates were heavy drinkers, including close friends George Gore, Billy Sunday, Jim McCormick, King Kelly, and Ned Williamson. There were also plenty of men to drink with on the Boston nine, Hoss Radbourn for one. Certainly, whatever trials Clarkson had in his later life, he exacerbated them with two decades of alcohol abuse. Billy Sunday, who left baseball in part to escape the drinking influence, attributed Clarkson’s health problems to smoking: “Cigarettes broke down his health. I have known him to smoke eight to ten boxes of them in a day. I used to room with John. The water would be stained with nicotine when he’d take a bath.”51

A version of this biography appeared in “20-Game Losers” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Emmet R. Nowlin.

Author’s note

There is no relation between the author and Mrs. John Clarkson, the former Ella McKenna.

There is a persistent story that John Clarkson threw a lemon to the plate during one game to demonstrate to umpire Jack Kerins that it was too dark to continue play. The story suggests that Kerins called the pitch a strike, thus proving Clarkson’s point. No date or even year is ever identified in the claim, suggesting that it has never been verified. Kerins was a substitute umpire for only one game in the National League, on September 6, 1888. At the time, Kerins was living in Indianapolis, his birthplace. The game he umpired pitted Pittsburgh against Indianapolis and didn’t involve Clarkson. The story was introduced into lore by John McGraw at the time of the publication of his book My Thirty Years in Baseball. In an accompanying piece distributed by the Christy Walsh Syndicate in January 1923, McGraw claimed that the pitcher was “Clarkson, I think.” In the story the catcher was Wilbert Robinson. While it’s not impossible that those two were batterymates at some point during some postseason or preseason, it’s more likely that the pitcher was merely misidentified 30 years later. If the lemon story in fact has merit and Kerins and Clarkson were participants, it surely would have taken place during an exhibition contest.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted numerous newspapers and databases, and the following publications:

Egan, James M. Jr. Baseball on the Western Reserve: The Early Game in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, Year by Year and Town by Town 1865-1900 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2008).

Fleitz, David L. Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2005).

Ivor-Campbell, Frederick, Robert L. Tiemann, and Mark Rucker, eds. Baseball’s First Stars (Cleveland: The Society for American Baseball Research, 1996).

James, Bill, and Rob Neyer. The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Kusmierz, Marvin, “John Gibson Clarkson (1861-1909),” Bay City Journal website, September 2002.

Morris, Peter. A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball, The Game on the Field (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006).

Pearson, Daniel Merle. Baseball in 1889: Players vs. Owners (Wisconsin: Popular Press, 1993).

Notes

1 “Providence-Worcester,” Inter-Ocean (Chicago), May 6, 1882: 4.

2 “Troy 4, Worcester 0,” Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1882: 6.

3 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 28, 1884: 8.

4 Elijah P. Brown, The Real Billy Sunday: The Life and Work of Rev. William Ashley Sunday, D.D. The Baseball Evangelist (Dayton, Ohio: Otterbein Press, 1914), 41.

5 “Base Ball Players Busy,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 25, 1888: 10.

6 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, October 21, 1885: 3.

7 “Sporting Odds and Ends,” Inter-Ocean, July 22, 1891: 3.

8 John Clarkson, National Baseball Hall of Fame, baseballhall.org/hof/clarkson-john Date accessed January 4, 2017.

9 Jonathan Fraser Light. Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball 2nd Ed. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2005), 198.

10 “Current Gossip of the Sporting World,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Daily Independent, February 9, 1909: 2.

11 ”Clarkson, $10,000 Pitcher, Is Dead,” Chicago Tribune, February 5, 1909: 10.

12 Harry Clay Palmer [Remlap], “From Chicago,” Sporting Life, October 7, 1885: 5.

13 Adrian Constantine Anson, A Ballplayer’s Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscences of Adrian C. Anson (Chicago: Era Pub Co, 1900), 130.

14 Harvey Frommer Old Time Baseball: America’s Pastime in the Gilded Age (Lanham: Maryland: Taylor Trade Pub, 2005), 125.

15 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, August 5, 1885: 5.

16 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, July 14, 1886: 5.

17 Quoted in Fleitz, David L. Ghosts in the Gallery at Cooperstown: Sixteen Little-Known Members of the Hall of Fame (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2004), 112.

18 Chicago Herald story which ran in the Freeport Journal-Standard (Freeport, Illinois), October 14, 1887: 4.

19 “Doings on the Diamond,” Wilkes-Barre Sunday Morning Leader, September 11, 1887: 6.

20 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, October 11, 1887: 3.

21 “Clarkson Dead Set Against Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1887: 2.

22 “He is Ours,” Boston Globe, April 4, 1888: 1.

23 Tim Murnane, “Conant After Omaha,” Boston Globe, September 24, 1889: 5.  

24 “Warring Baseballists,” Chicago Tribune, November 12, 1889: 3.

25 Ibid.

26 “Nothing But a Name,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), November 8, 1889: 7.

27 “Kelly in San Francisco,” Omaha Daily Bee, December 4, 1889: 1.

28 “Chicago’s Backers,” Sporting Life, November 20, 1889:5.

29 Quotation found in unidentifiable newspaper clipping.

30 Philip E. Shirley, “Alas, Poor Yorick!” Sporting Life, April 14, 1906: 9.

31 “Out-Door Sports,” Lawrence Daily Journal (Lawrence, Kansas), February 12, 1890: 4.

32 “Triumvir of Traitors,” Saint Paul Globe, (Minnesota) December 10, 1889: 5.

33 “Brotherhood Men Here,” Chicago Tribune, January 12, 1890: 7.

34 “All In favor of Peace,” New York Times, October 10, 1890: 3.

35 “Not a Run Scored,” Boston Globe, May 7, 1892: 5.

36 “Bennett’s Recovery Assured,” Boston Globe, January 19, 1894:2; “Cut a Hot Pace,” Boston Globe, February 20, 1894: 2.

37 Reed Browning, Cy Young: A Baseball Life (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 29.

38 Ibid.

39 “Clarkson Will Join the Baltimores,” New York Times, July 16, 1894: 8.

40 “Sporting News and Comment,” Washington Post, July 16, 1894: 6.

41 “Base Ball Notes,” Boston Globe, July 17, 1894: 2.

42 “Clarkson Would Not an Umpire Be,” Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1897: 4.

43 Cited in the Denver Post article “May Still Be a Good One,” March 17, 1904: 7.

44 “Base Ball Notes,” Washington Post, May 12, 1905: 4.

45 “Needs A Rest,” Boston Globe, May 7, 1905: 25.

46 “Clarkson’s Passing,” Sporting Life, February 13, 1909: 6.

47 Mike “King” Kelly, Michael J. Kelly, Gary Mitchem, and Mark Durr, Play Ball: Stories of the Diamond Field and Other Historical Writings about the 19th Century Hall of Famer (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2006), 62

48 “John Clarkson Failing,” Boston Globe, December 12, 1905: 7.

49 “Alas, Poor Yorick!” Sporting Life, April 14, 1906: 9.

50 “National League News,” Sporting Life, February 29, 1908: 3.

51 Homer A. Rodeheaver, Twenty Years with Billy Sunday (Nashville, Tennessee: Cokesbury Press, 1936), 50. Cited in “A Short History of Baseball and Tobacco,” in Peter Carino, ed., Baseball/ Literature/Culture: Essays 2004-2005 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006), 128.

Collins was a businessman in a baseball uniform. In an interview with the Buffalo Evening News just a few weeks before his death, he gave writer Cy Kritzer an encyclopedic recall of his salary levels as a ballplayer, practically gloating about once earning $18,000 in one year, but yet, as Kritzer related, “he couldn’t recall once during the interview the size of his batting average in any one season.”1 It wasn’t just about acquiring money, though. Collins used his baseball income to develop a real-estate business by building multifamily rental housing, which provided his income after his playing days.

James Joseph Collins was born on January 16, 1870, in the village of Suspension Bridge in Niagara Falls, New York, the second of four children of Irish immigrants Anthony and Alice Collins. The family moved in 1872 to Buffalo, where Anthony Collins worked as a policeman for three decades, rising to the rank of captain.

The Collins family first lived in Buffalo’s Irish-American neighborhoods in the southern section of the city. Irish-Americans were then the distinct minority in Buffalo, as they tussled for economic and political power with the dominant German-Americans on the East Side and the native-born Americans on the West Side. Collins’s father tutored him well in how to work effectively within the three ethnic groups that controlled life in Buffalo.

After receiving his early education in Catholic parochial schools, Collins attended St. Joseph’s College in downtown Buffalo. Despite the use of “college” in its name, St. Joseph’s was more like an advanced high school, more akin to a prep school today; its successor is a high school, St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute. Collins graduated from St. Joseph’s in 1888 with a diploma in commercial studies, acquiring a business education that he put to good use in the coming years. After graduation Collins worked as a clerk in the Black Rock station of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, just a few blocks north of his parents’ new residence on Niagara Street in Buffalo’s native-born-American-dominated West Side.

The teenaged Collins honed his baseball skills by playing for amateur teams organized by the social clubs in Buffalo. In 1889 and 1890 he played outfield for the Socials, a team made up of Irish-Americans, which helped maintain ties to his old neighborhood. For the 1891 and 1892 seasons, though, Collins played third base for the North Buffalo team, based in the Black Rock section of the city, where he made the difficult decision to forsake his Irish-American ties with the Socials and forge new relationships with the men in his new neighborhood. Soon baseball changed his perspective on life and Collins abandoned his father’s traditional Irish-American value that deified job security.

When Jack Chapman, the manager of the Buffalo minor-league team in the Eastern League, offered Collins the chance to play professional baseball in May 1893, he left his secure job with the railroad for the uncertain life of a ballplayer and what he hoped would be greater income potential in the future. After starting out at third base, Collins played mostly shortstop for Buffalo during the 1893 season, finishing with a respectable .286 batting average, but an erratic .863 fielding average. When Chapman put Collins in the outfield for the 1894 season to minimize his fielding lapses, his batting average improved to .352 (among the league’s top 10 hitters) and he led the league with 198 hits.

In November 1894 the Boston ballclub in the National League paid $500 to obtain the services of the 5-foot-9, 178-pound Collins from the Buffalo ballclub as insurance should one of its outfielders stage a lengthy holdout in salary negotiations. Jimmy Bannon did hold out, so Boston manager Frank Selee put Collins in right field on Opening Day. After 11 games, though, the right-handed hitting Collins was clearly a less than adequate substitute for Bannon, as he was hitting barely .200 and had committed four errors. When Boston finally signed Bannon, Collins was expendable, so he was sold to the last-place Louisville team for $500 in a transaction characterized as a “loan” that was really a recall option.

Collins played in the outfield during his first few games with Louisville, before manager John McCloskey suddenly pressed him into service at third base midway through the May 31 game at Baltimore after the Louisville third baseman had committed four errors. The legend of Collins’s first major-league game at third base, like so many baseball legends, grew over time so that the more recent retellings – that he told Baltimore’s Hugh Jennings, “Bunt ’em down to me and I’ll show you something,” and then threw out four bunters in a row – bear only a partial resemblance to the 1895 facts.2 The bunters Collins threw out were fewer than four and occurred two months later (on July 28) after he became the regular third baseman in mid-June.

Since Collins flourished at third base in Louisville, Boston decided to exercise its recall option in August to have him temporarily fill in for an injured infielder. Collins, however, balked at returning to Boston. The brash Collins looked to leverage the situation and get a better deal from Boston, telling baseball writers that if he couldn’t stay with Louisville he’d retire from baseball and return to his railroad job in Buffalo. Boston relented and instead recalled Collins for the 1896 season.

After Boston traded its incumbent third baseman, Billy Nash, to Philadelphia in November 1895 to make room for Collins in the Boston infield, Collins showed tremendous chutzpah in his salary negotiation with Arthur Soden, the principal owner of the Boston ballclub. The strong-willed Collins thought the Nash trade gave him a negotiation advantage, so he held out for a higher salary until April 1896. Since the National League was a monopoly and the reserve clause in the player contract bound the player to a team until released, ownership had the upper hand in player negotiations. Collins learned a hard lesson that he had little leverage over ownership and finally agreed to a salary of $1,800 for the 1896 season. After performing well as the Boston third baseman in 1896, Collins was offered a salary increase to $2,100 for the 1897 season. Collins, however, felt he should be paid the unofficial salary maximum of $2,400. As he had been the year before, he was a holdout, but he eventually accepted Soden’s offer, which was four times the $500 average pay of an American worker.

Continual disagreements over money soured Collins’s relationship with the Boston ballclub and led to his highly publicized departure from the National League after the 1900 season. Collins had an easier time negotiating back home in Buffalo and in Louisville, where there was a more ethnically tolerant climate among the Irish-Americans, German-Americans, and native-born populations than the environment he found in Boston. There was a fundamental difference in ethnic relations in Boston, where the Irish didn’t just clash with the native-born Brahmin aristocracy over political, religious, and economic issues but indeed were the underbelly of society. In the 1890s the Brahmins (Soden included) controlled virtually everything in Boston, and considered Irish-Americans like Collins as simply pawns in their world.

In 1897 during Boston’s drive to the National League pennant, Collins matured into a graceful fielder and a consistent line-drive hitter who could find the outfield gaps. He became a fan favorite among the changing nature of the spectators at the South End Grounds, dubbed the Royal Rooters, who were middle-class businessmen that were displacing the gentlemanly crowd as ballpark spectators. In late September, more than 100 Rooters traveled to Baltimore to watch the Boston team play a crucial series there, where Collins, with a leech on his face to heal a swollen eye, led the team to victory in the series. Three days later Boston clinched the pennant.

While Collins finished the 1897 season with a .346 batting average, his real value was his ability to produce runs. Although the RBI statistic hadn’t yet been invented, a retrospective determination indicates that Collins would have had 132 RBIs in 1897, second among all National League batters. With the regular season over, Collins moved on to the supplemental income opportunities of the postseason. After the anticlimactic rematch with Baltimore in the Temple Cup series, Collins played for the All-America Baseball Team in a cross-country tour with the Baltimore team, where he observed Boston manager Frank Selee as businessman turn a profit on the itinerant baseball venture.

Collins quietly negotiated a contract with Soden to be paid the $2,400 salary maximum for the 1898 season. After three years as a National League ballplayer, the 28-year-old Collins had reached the pinnacle of his profession. However, because the National League owners lengthened the baseball season by 22 games to play 154 games in 1898, Collins felt duped by Soden, since Collins actually received just a minimal pay increase on a per-game basis.

Boston went on to capture a second consecutive National League pennant in 1898, as Collins compiled a .328 batting average, seventh highest in the league, and led the league with 15 home runs. Collins, who didn’t take kindly to having a boss, responded well to manager Selee’s approach to leave the ballplayers alone to play the game, a managerial style Collins adopted in the future. By now Collins had developed a stellar reputation as baseball’s best fielding third baseman, because he had a quick eye, good dexterity, extensive range, and a strong throwing arm. Collins covered a lot of territory at third base, not just bunts and groundballs but also snagging many pop flies in foul territory and in short left field.

At a team testimonial in October 1898, Selee received a $2,500 check from Soden to share with the players, as a “gratuity” for winning the pennant. It must have galled Collins to receive a “tip” as if he were a Pullman Car porter. It was one more signal to Collins that his income potential was very limited by working for the Boston ballclub. Indeed, he had no success in securing a salary increase for the 1899 and 1900 seasons.

During the winter of 1900 Collins made an investment to take advantage of the explosive future growth he saw in the nascent South Buffalo neighborhood, to which Irish-Americans had begun moving from the inner city. Collins purchased a house lot and made plans to construct a rental unit on it. This was the first of many properties Collins purchased as he planned to live off the rental income as a self-employed person during his post-baseball years.

Collins doubtless saw no benefits in a future with the Boston National League ballclub. Given the penurious ways of the Boston owners, he was likely to face a decrease in salary as age took its inevitable toll on his playing skills. He had no chance to succeed Selee as manager and had been passed over as captain. One ray of hope for Collins to get an increased salary was the formation of the Players Protective Association in 1900. Collins was one of Boston’s player representatives in the fledgling players union, but he was also looking out for his own interests. After attending two union meetings that summer and seeing no action on the compensation front, Collins took matters into his own hands.

In March 1901 Collins became the manager, captain, and third baseman of the Boston team in the new American League, which Ban Johnson had established as a second major league to compete against the monopolistic National League. Collins justified jumping leagues at the time by saying, “I have given the National league people my best efforts for several years past and often asked them for more money, knowing that I was worth it, but until now they have turned a deaf ear to all my requests. …I saw a chance to better myself and took it.”3

Since Collins was motivated by money and displeased with his history of salary negotiations with the Boston Nationals, he was willing to take the risk of switching over to the Boston Americans. The possible failure of the new baseball enterprise and of being blackballed by the National League were not big risks to the 31-year-old Collins; he could simply fall back on his real-estate venture and connections in Buffalo. Collins was not only pleased that he could be a manager in the American League, but he was also intrigued that former ballplayers could also be part-owners, as exemplified by Connie Mack in Philadelphia.

Collins was handsomely compensated for jumping leagues. His contract with the Boston Americans called for a $3,500 annual salary for three years, nearly a 50 percent increase over his $2,400 salary for the 1900 season, with no reserve clause to restrict his freedom to negotiate with other teams thereafter. This $10,500 package was a key aspect of the deal for Collins, so that he’d have additional capital to invest in his real-estate business. Charles Somers, the owner of the Boston club, agreed to add a personal guarantee concerning the salary payments, to negate Collins’s risk if Soden took legal action to try to enforce the reserve clause that he thought legally bound Collins to the National League ballclub. Collins was also a nominal owner of the Boston Americans, being awarded a few shares of stock in the club.

The timing of Collins’s switch to the American League was impeccable from a cultural perspective, coinciding with the rise of Irish-American political power in Boston. John Fitzgerald, a member of the Royal Rooters, was a congressman in Washington (and soon would be mayor of Boston), while Patrick Collins became the second Irish-American mayor of Boston. From 1902 to 1905, two men named Collins were the toast of Boston among the city’s Irish-American citizens: the mayor and the baseball manager.

Collins piloted Boston to a second-place finish in 1901 and to third place in 1902, while producing .332 and .322 batting averages, respectively, as the team’s third baseman. Because the Royal Rooters followed Collins and transferred their loyalty, the Americans outdrew their rival Nationals at the ballpark, becoming the more popular team in Boston. Collins seized the opportunity to renegotiate his contract each year, nearly doubling his 1901 salary by the beginning of the 1903 season.

Collins was successful as a baseball manager because he extended to the baseball diamond his general contracting skills from his house-building activities in Buffalo, where he had to depend on highly skilled, motivated workers to build well-constructed houses for him. In this fashion, Collins adopted the same philosophy that his former manager, Frank Selee, had used during his five years with the Boston Nationals: find good ballplayers and let them do their jobs without interference. Because he was able to motivate his players through his on-the-field activities as a third baseman, Collins was more of a leader “among” men than a leader “of” men. It was the “we’re all in this together” attitude that enabled Collins to win two American League pennants as player-manager and lead his team to victory in the first modern-day World Series.

Offsetting these positive attributes as manager, Collins had several flaws, primarily that he stayed too long with veteran players and failed to adequately mix in younger players to prepare the team for the future. His problem with handling aging ballplayers was compounded by his weakness in talent evaluation, which stemmed in large part from his inability to build an effective network of contacts to acquire new talent in that pre-farm-system era.

While he continued to perform as a third baseman in Boston for five more seasons, Collins focused more on the leadership functions of his job and his activities to improve the stature of the American League and its president, Ban Johnson. Two developments in 1903 elevated Johnson’s gratitude to Collins for making the new league a success: the peace conference between the two leagues in January 1903 and the first modern-day World Series in October 1903. Both developments solidified Johnson’s stature as an influential baseball executive, and they enabled Collins to enjoy several more years of financial prosperity as well as indulgence by Johnson as his reward for jumping leagues in 1901.

When the Boston Americans secured the American League pennant in September 1903, new Boston owner Henry Killileaand Pittsburgh owner Barney Dreyfuss agreed to play an interleague postseason series in October. The agreement provided for the owners to share revenue from the games, but did not include a provision to pay the ballplayers. Since the contracts of the Boston players expired at the end of September, Killilea had foolishly entered into a contract to play a postseason series without securing the services of the Boston ballplayers. Collins exploited Killilea’s poor business judgment to negotiate a great deal for the ballplayers. They got not just 75 percent of Boston’s portion of the shared revenue under the World Series agreement, but 75 percent of all of Boston’s net revenue from the series.4

After Boston lost three of the first four games of the best-of-nine-games postseason series, Collins led the team, accentuated by the Royal Rooters’ incessant singing of the song “Tessie,” in a comeback to win the next four games to become the World Series champion. In the eyes of the sporting public, the victory over the National League established the legitimacy of the American League. At the time Collins believed these postseason games to be merely meaningless exhibitions to generate additional income, based on his experience in 1897 with the Temple Cup series and the All-America tour. However, he took advantage of the national belief that the 1903 World Series determined baseball supremacy. Indeed, the vast majority of his wealth garnered from major-league baseball between 1904 and 1908 was the direct result of his national acclaim from Boston’s 1903 World Series victory.

After the World Series victory, Collins negotiated a new three-year guaranteed contract with Killilea, who was seeking to retain his services so he could sell the ballclub, which paid Collins a $10,000 annual salary and had a profit-sharing arrangement equal to 10 percent of the club’s profits over $25,000.5 In April 1904 John I. Taylor, the son of Boston Globe publisher Charles Taylor, became the new owner of the Americans. Collins’s clash with the inexperienced Taylor led to a testy feud that eventually led to Collins’s departure from the Boston Americans three years later.

Collins led an aging Boston team to a second consecutive pennant in 1904, in a neck-and-neck battle with the New York Highlanders in the first installment of the longstanding rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Unlike 1903, when Boston participated in the first modern-day World Series, the 1904 championship had no similar culminating event, as the National League champion New York Giants refused to play such a series. Although Taylor honored the profit-sharing provision in Collins’s contract, the $8,000 payment on top of Collins’ $10,000 salary stuck in the owner’s craw.

An article in the Boston Globe Magazine in January 1905 portrayed Collins as an up-and-coming businessman. Accompanying the article was a portrait of Collins dressed in a suit, white shirt with raised collar, cravat loosely knotted at the neck, with a watch fob draped across his breast. He looked like any well-to-do Boston Brahmin, not a baseball player. Three photos of his rental properties in Buffalo were also included. “For several winters he devoted his time to looking after the new buildings he was erecting,” writer Tim Murnane wrote of Collins’s dedication to this business venture, “and even now with several fine pieces of real estate, he has planned for two more new houses.”6 Collins was now more businessman than ballplayer, which accelerated Taylor’s dislike for him.

Collins also displayed more hubris during the 1905 baseball season, indicating that he believed the Boston Americans were his team, not Taylor’s. Collins had run the baseball operation for three years without any direct oversight by the ballclub’s absentee out-of-town owners before Taylor became the owner, and had successfully engineered a second straight pennant-winning season in 1904 without Taylor’s assistance. This was the dark side to the soft-spoken but ambitious Collins.

Taylor took a more active role in the team for the 1905 season, seeking to remedy the team’s injury and age issues, not by providing the resources to Collins so that he could fix the situation, but rather by fancying himself as a recruiter of baseball talent to rescue the team on his own. Not only did Taylor’s signings do nothing to improve Boston’s chances for victory on the baseball field (the team finished in fourth place), they intensified Collins’s smoldering animosity for Taylor. While hidden from the public during the baseball season, the feud spilled onto the sports pages in December.

In a late December meeting in Buffalo with Ban Johnson, Collins leveraged his favorable relationship with the American League president to push him to honor the verbal commitment made back in 1901 for Collins to eventually obtain an ownership interest in an American League ballclub. Johnson then exiled Taylor to Europe for a six-month vacation. The timing was perfect to take advantage of John Fitzgerald’s becoming mayor of Boston in January 1906 as the city’s first American-born Irish Catholic mayor, to increase the influence of the Royal Rooters among Irish-Americans and take advantage of transportation improvements (train connections and automobiles) that would bring suburban spectators to the Americans’ Huntington Avenue Grounds.

Although Johnson temporarily assumed the role of Boston owner, Collins was the acting president of the Boston ballclub. To reflect his new duties, Collins extended his guaranteed contract for two more years, through the 1908 season. At the same time, he made his first investment in a baseball organization when he became a one-third owner of the minor-league Worcester, Massachusetts, club in the New England League.

With Taylor out of the way for the 1906 season, Johnson gave Collins a tryout as president. However, just when he was on the cusp on moving from the baseball diamond to the executive suite, three factors combined to derail Collins from achieving his ultimate goal in professional baseball. First, Collins discovered that he just wasn’t good at the job of being an executive, which changed his relationship with the ballplayers. Second, the early success of his investment in the Worcester ballclub nudged him to modify his goal to be a minor-league owner rather than one at the major-league level. Third, Collins, a 36-year-old bachelor, looked to marry his longtime girlfriend.

Over a two-year span following consecutive American League pennants, Collins plummeted from revered hero to reviled bum. A 20-game losing streak in May 1906 sank the team into last place, where it stayed for the remainder of the season. On July 1 Collins abruptly left the team and made his fateful decision to stop performing all his duties for the Boston ballclub to focus on his personal future. He made just two brief returns to the team during the summer. On August 29 the front-page headline in the Boston Globe told the whole story: “Capt. Jimmy Collins No Longer at Helm: Indefinitely Suspended by Boston American League Club.” After Collins’ several absences without leave, Johnson used the term “desertion” in the press announcement.

Collins’s decision to desert the Boston Americans was a disaster. He struck out at buying into ownership in the Buffalo and Providence ballclubs of the Eastern League, believing the asking prices to be too inflated to justify the investment. By December Collins was negotiating to return to Boston as its third baseman for the 1907 season, since he had a guaranteed contract to play through 1908 with the Boston Americans. Because Taylor, now back from his extended European vacation, was legally obligated to pay Collins whether or not he played, he agreed to take Collins back as a player, but not as manager.

During the winter of 1907 Collins secretly married Sarah E. “Sadie” Murphy before he left for spring training. The news of the marriage wasn’t reported in the Boston newspapers until after he was traded on June 7 to the Philadelphia Athletics, when old friend Connie Mack agreed to take on Collins and his contract to bolster the A’s infield to make a run at the pennant. By August Philadelphia had climbed from fourth place to first place, but then lost the pennant after a late September swoon. In August 1908 Mack excused Collins from the team’s season-ending road trip so he could try out some minor-leaguers at third base to replace Collins in 1909, which gave Collins some time to contemplate his next step in baseball and enjoy some family time with his newborn daughter, Agnes.

For the 1909 season, Collins had to settle for being player-manager of the Minneapolis Millers in the American Association. Early in the season, however, Collins suffered an off-the-field tragedy when 8-month-old Agnes died in Buffalo. Collins returned to Buffalo to console his distraught wife, who was now four months pregnant, and made arrangements for Sadie to return to Boston so that she could be with her family for the next five months of her pregnancy. In early July Minneapolis moved into first place, but faded down the stretch to a third-place finish. Just before the season ended, Collins received word from Boston that his daughter Kathlyn had been born.

Now living with his family in Boston, not Buffalo, Collins sought a position near Boston. In October 1909 he was hired as the manager of the Providence team in the Eastern League, which was owned by Charlie Lavis, a former Royal Rooter. He lasted only a season and a half at Providence, being fired in June 1911; his passive managerial style didn’t produce results in an era dominated by intimidating managers. Collins’s hope to become the majority owner of a minor-league ballclub was dashed, as prices continued to skyrocket at what turned out to be a height of popularity of minor-league baseball. In January 1912 his daughter Claire was born and Collins sold his one-third interest in the Worcester ballclub and left Organized Baseball.

Settling into Boston was challenging for Collins. During his days as a popular player-manager, he had managed to navigate the ethnic stratification between Boston’s Brahmin society and its Irish-American underclass. Now, as just another former ballplayer, he couldn’t establish himself in business in the city. Collins was even rebuffed when he tried to become the baseball coach at an Irish-American institution, Boston College. In 1914 the family moved back to Buffalo, where Collins purchased a house in South Buffalo near his rental properties and settled into a quiet life as a real-estate mogul.

In 1922 Collins was appointed president of the Buffalo Municipal Baseball Association, in the wake of a corruption scandal in the Buffalo Parks Department, which sent to prison the former head of the city’s amateur baseball leagues. Collins served 22 consecutive terms as president of the muni-league, during which he helped to expand the opportunity for thousands of youngsters to develop their baseball talents in the city-run amateur leagues, a vast improvement over the former system of social-club leagues in which Collins had played that could accommodate only a few hundred players.

As muni-league president, Collins’s reputation as a great major-league ballplayer spread among a new generation of baseball fans and sportswriters in western New York. John Meahl, the commissioner of the Buffalo Parks Department, was not bashful about profusely praising Collins as baseball’s “greatest third baseman of all time.”7 As a result of Meahl’s promotional efforts, Collins’s baseball reputation soon spread beyond regional newspapers into national publications. During the 1920s his name regularly surfaced as the third baseman picked for the various all-time teams selected by famous ballplayers and sportswriters. When The Sporting News published a long biographical sketch of Collins in 1933, the baseball weekly reinvigorated the fabled 1895 story about his exceptional fielding of bunts by the infamous Baltimore Orioles.8 Ten years later this legend became the centerpiece of a campaign to put Collins in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Collins’s real-estate business reached its zenith of prosperity during World War I, before suburban flight in the 1920s changed the neighborhood, real estate prices peaked in 1926, and then mortgage defaults during the Great Depression resulted in property foreclosures. In 1927 Collins sold his home; he and his wife began renting apartments, before they moved in with their oldest daughter, Kathlyn. By 1935 Collins’s real-estate business had imploded and he earned an income as an employee in the Buffalo Parks Department. Despite his financial reversals, Collins continued to gracefully serve as an ambassador for Buffalo athletics in his unpaid role as muni-league president.

Collins died on March 6, 1943, in Buffalo and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery. Two months before Collins passed away, Buffalo Evening News sports editor Bob Stedler began a press campaign to have Collins elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame at the next BBWAA election in January 1945. Even with a heavy dose of electioneering by Stedler, Collins polled only 49 percent of the vote, far short of the required 75 percent. But that spring the Old-Timers Committee unanimously selected Collins for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Collins’s legacy in baseball is much more than his batting and fielding exploits during the Deadball Era. As a star player, first manager, and the public face of the nascent Boston Americans, Collins put the franchise, valued by Forbes in 2012 at $1 billion, on a solid foundation. He delivered two pennants in the team’s first four years and victory in the 1903 World Series, and thus should be remembered as the patron saint of today’s Red Sox Nation.

An updated version of this biography appeared in “The Glorious Beaneaters of the 1890s” (SABR, 2019), edited by Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin. This biography also appeared in “New Century, New Team: The 1901 Boston Americans” (SABR, 2013), edited by Bill Nowlin.

Sources

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

O’Connell, Fred. “Boston’s Baseball Idol: Jimmy Collins, Manager and Captain of the World’s Champion Club.” Washington Post, September 11, 1904.

Stedler, Bob. “Jimmy Collins, Buffalo’s Baseball Immortal, Dies,” Buffalo Evening News, March 6, 1943.

Notes

1 Cy Kritzer, “Late Jimmy Collins, the ‘King of Third Sackers,’ Became Hot Corner Star by Ability to Handle Bunts,” The Sporting News, March 11, 1943.

2 Charlie Bevis, Jimmy Collins: A Baseball Biography (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012), 33-35.

3 Boston Globe, March 10, 1901.

4 Bevis, Jimmy Collins, 113, 120-121.

5 Ibid., 7.

6 Tim Murnane, “His Winter Pastime Collecting Rents,” Boston Globe Magazine section. January 15, 1905.

7 Buffalo Express, December 6, 1922.

8 “Daguerreotypes: James J. (Jimmy) Collins,” The Sporting News, July 27, 1933.

On December 10, 1889, the directors of the Boston club in the newly formed Players League signed a lease to play the team’s games at a new ball grounds to be built on Congress Street extension, across the Fort Point Channel from downtown Boston. In 1889, Congress Street was the only thoroughfare that spanned the Fort Point Channel to connect downtown Boston with the relatively undeveloped South Boston section of the Boston waterfront. Today, office buildings at 368 and 374 Congress Street, adjacent to Thompson Place, stand on the land once occupied by the ball grounds, and are surrounded by numerous other buildings (many with markers indicating they were built in the mid-to-late 1890s). In 1889, though, this area of the Boston waterfront was sparsely occupied save for a railroad yard and a few buildings. The Boston Wharf Company, which owned the land and sought to develop it, used the Congress Street Grounds as a promotional device to attract businessmen from downtown Boston to view the area and consider locating a warehouse or manufacturing facility there.

Boston Wharf Company built the Congress Street Grounds and leased it to the Boston Players League club. This approach was consistent with the firm’s general business philosophy, as espoused by company treasurer Joseph B. Russell, son of company president Charles T. Russell. “We prefer by far to make long ground leases,” the younger Russell said in 1887. “It has been our custom to erect buildings for any reliable tenants, and also to sell land at reasonable terms on time.” Boston Wharf Company had its company architect, Morton Safford, design an ornate pavilion for the grandstand at the grounds. In the Classical Revival style that he’d use for many Boston Wharf Company buildings, Safford designed a double-decker facility, 200 feet long and 62 feet wide, with four entrances and two towers, each topped by a flag pole.

The grounds were designed to seat 4,000 people in the grandstand, with bleachers along the left and right field foul lines to hold another 6,000 people. After a reported 20,000 people tried to gain entrance to a pre-season game on the Fast Day holiday on April 3, bleacher seating was expanded to accommodate another 4,000 people, to bring the total seating capacity of the Congress Street Grounds to 14,000.

Since the grounds were half a mile (and a 15-minute walk) from the central business district in downtown Boston, and no public transportation served the area near the grounds, private firms operated land barges from the business district to the ball grounds. Tickets to the games could also be purchased downtown at two sporting goods stores, John F. Morrill on Bromfield Street and John P. Lovell Arms Company on Cornhill Street. Businessmen could tell if a game was to be played by looking across the channel to see if flags were flying atop the grounds.

The leased grounds covered 200,000 square feet of land in a rectangle 640 feet in length (north toward the harbor) and 350 feet wide (east-west along Congress Street). Home plate was located on the Congress Street side, with batters facing north toward the waterfront. The center field fence was 385 feet from home plate, according to a February 23, 1890, Boston Globe report, which didn’t specify the distance to the left and right field fences. A diagram of the grounds in the December 11, 1889, edition of the Globe and a sketch in the February 23, 1890, edition both indicate a short distance to the end of the bleachers at the east and west property lines. Within the 350-feet total width of the grounds, the baseball diamond spanned 128 feet between first and third bases, leaving just 111 feet on either side (assuming the diamond was situated perfectly equidistant from the property lines). Using basic geometry, one can then determine that the left and right field foul lines extended just 156 feet beyond first and third bases, for a total distance from home plate to the outfield fence on the foul lines of just under 250 feet.

The first regular-season game at the Congress Street Grounds was played on April 19, 1890. Boston defeated Brooklyn 3-2 before a reported crowd of 10,000. The Boston team, led by the popular Mike “King” Kelly, proved to be quite an attraction, regularly outdrawing the cross-town rival National League club (if newspaper accounts can be believed). Boston captured first place in the Players League and raised the league pennant at the Congress Street Grounds on October 11, 1890, at an exhibition game with the New York club of the Players League.

After the Players League dissolved following its sole season in 1890, the directors of the Boston club acquired a franchise in the American Association for the 1891 season. Boston finished in first place in that league as well, and raised the pennant during its last home game of the season on October 3, 1891. When the American Association merged with the National League before the 1892 season, the existing Boston club in the National League bought out the owners of the Boston Association club to regain its monopoly position in the Boston baseball market and ended major-league baseball at the Congress Street Grounds.

For the Boston Wharf Company and the Russell family, the two seasons of major-league baseball at the Congress Street Grounds served the business purpose. Demand rose to locate manufacturing and warehouses in the area around Congress Street, so Boston Wharf Company could line up tenants to lease the new buildings on the drawing board. While Safford designed, and Boston Wharf Company constructed, several buildings on Congress Street between 1892 and 1895, Massachusetts politicians debated where to locate a publicly owned central train terminal near downtown to replace the crazy-quilt system of privately owned terminals scattered throughout the city.

The main athletic events staged at the Congress Street Grounds in 1892 were Gaelic football and hurling matches played by the local young men that lived in the predominantly Irish neighborhood of South Boston. The New England AAU track and field championship also took place at the Congress Street Grounds on June 11. One of the few baseball games at the grounds reported by the Globe was played on September 8, when amateur teams representing the Boston and New York shoe and leather trades squared off in a 5-5 tie, the game ending when the visiting team had to leave to catch a 7:00 train back to New York.

Professional baseball returned briefly to the Congress Street Grounds in 1893 when the Manchester, New Hampshire, club in the minor-league New England League transferred to Boston. The club’s first game in Boston was on July 17, when the last-place Boston Reds lost to Lewiston, Maine, 15-6 before a crowd of 1,019 spectators. “The grounds were in horrible condition,” the Globe reported, likely due to their new primary uses as a Gaelic football pitch and running track. The New England League games only attracted crowds of 400 to 600 people. When just 500 attended the August 4 game with Brockton, the club gave up playing home games and became strictly a road club for the remainder of the season.

In 1894, the Boston club in the National League became a temporary resident of the Congress Street Grounds when the club’s South End Grounds burned down on May 15. Boston’s groundkeeper John Haggerty worked all night to get the Congress Street Grounds in reasonable shape for the scheduled game the next day, May 16, with Baltimore. There were no seats at the grounds, however, so Haggerty had to borrow hundreds of chairs from other organizations.

Home runs became an immediate attraction at the grounds, which Richard Tourangeau called “a long ball valhalla [sic] in its phoenix month of glory in 1894.” During the 27 games played at the Congress Street Grounds in 1894, 86 home runs were stroked; the league hit only 629 homers in 400 games during the entire season. Bobby Lowe smacked 12 homers at the Congress Street Grounds, tops among the Boston hitters. Lowe hit four homers in one game, the second game of a Decoration Day doubleheader on May 30, to enter the record books as the first major leaguer to hit four homers in one game.

Haggerty, in his effort to remake the Congress Street Grounds into an acceptable playing field, may have reoriented the field more to the west to shorten even more the distance from home plate to the left field fence. One of his considerations may have been relocating the pitcher’s box for the 60′ 6″ distance used in 1894 from the 50′ length in the original construction of the diamond in 1890. Tourangeau cites a Baltimore Sun description of the Congress Street Grounds that says: “The left field fence in Boston is so short that any long fly to left field sails over it … the centre and right field fences are as far away as they are in almost any of the League grounds and the ball is very seldom hit over them.”

“Patrons of the game will not be at all sorry when the return is made to the South End Grounds,” Jake Morse wrote in Sporting Life that June. “The Congress Street Grounds have not been put into anything like suitable preparation for League contests.”

The last professional baseball game at the Congress Street Grounds was played on June 20, 1894, when Boston defeated Baltimore 13-12. On the final play of the game, Hugh Duffy stroked a home run over the short left field fence with two men on base in the bottom of the ninth inning.

After Boston returned to the rebuilt South End Grounds, Gaelic football returned as the main event at the Congress Street Grounds. One of the last baseball games played on the grounds was on the Bunker Hill Day holiday, June 17, 1895, when Holy Cross College defeated South Boston 21-3.

Charles and Joseph Russell of the Boston Wharf Company were very politically connected (Joseph’s brother William was Governor of Massachusetts 1891-1893). The Russells were able to influence the location of the new central train terminal to be at the intersection of Summer Street and Atlantic Avenue, right across Fort Point Channel from the company’s land. In 1896, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law establishing Southern Union Station (now known simply as South Station) at that location and also authorized the extension of Summer Street across the channel, which conveniently connected the train station to the undeveloped land owned by Boston Wharf Company.

The completion of the new train terminal in 1898 and extension of Summer Street in 1900 dramatically increased the value of Boston Wharf Company’s land south of Congress Street. After Charles Russell died in February 1896, Boston Wharf Company’s new president Edwin Atkins focused the company’s attention on developing the area around Summer Street extension. The Congress Street Grounds were now expendable. Boston Wharf Company dismantled the grounds in the fall of 1896 when the company built an extension of A Street (now Thomson Place) and built warehouses on the land where the ball grounds had been located.

One of the last athletic events at the Congress Street Grounds was a Gaelic football game on June 17, 1896, when the O’Connells of Boston defeated the Quinsigamonds of Worcester. The New England Firemen’s Union Muster on September 23 may have been the last event held at the grounds before they were torn down. On May 23, the grounds were leased to a group seeking to demonstrate a hot-air balloon ascension, which attracted 3,000 people. “The old grand stand from which so many exciting ball games have been seen was awakened by the shouts and tramping of legions of small boys, who swarmed over it like ants over the dome of their dwelling.”

A century later, those 100-year-old warehouses on the former site of the Congress Street Grounds are being remodeled into luxury condominiums as part of the redevelopment of the Fort Point Channel area. Baseball will be viewed once again on the site, but only through cable TV wire rather than an in-the-flesh game.

Sources

Boston Globe. “Congress Street Front of New Brotherhood Grand Stand,” February 23, 1890.

——–. “Growth of the Boston Wharf Company,” June 19, 1887.

——–. “New Grounds of Players’ League Club,” December 11, 1889.

——–. “Rebuilding the Past: Transforming Old Warehouses into Luxury Condos Is More Than Cosmetics,” June 18, 2007.

——–. 1890-1896.

Boston Landmark Commission. “The Fort Point Channel Landmark District,” 2004.

Boston Public Library. “Congress Street Grounds,” Sports Temples of Boston,

Morse, Jake. Sporting Life, June 16, 1894.

Tourangeau, Richard. “Remembering the Congress Street Grounds,” The National Pastime, 2004.