At the time of his recruitment by under-financed club founders in 1883, Abell was a professional gambler and Manhattan casino proprietor with no known interest or expertise in baseball. But he was an acquaintance of Brooklyn franchise backer Joe Doyle, also a Manhattan casino operator and Byrne’s brother-in-law. More important, Abell had grown quite wealthy and, once persuaded to invest in an enterprise, believed in spending money in order to make it profitable. Once Doyle coaxed Abell into joining the ball club’s ownership group, Brooklyn’s baseball future brightened.

For years thereafter, the partnership arrangement was a congenial one for Abell, who was content to let the capable Byrne run the franchise while he confined himself to financing club improvements. Championships in the minor Inter-State Association (1883), and major league American Association (1889) and National League (1890) ensued. Byrne’s death in early 1898 and the syndication (mutual ownership) of the National League teams in Brooklyn and Baltimore the following winter changed things, introducing new and forceful actors into the club’s management. For a time, Abell’s endorsement of strategies promoted by Baltimorean Ned Hanlon maintained franchise equilibrium. And the Brooklyn club returned to winning form, capturing National League pennants in 1899 and 1900.

But soon fallout from the divisive National League presidential election of 1901 – Abell was a vocal supporter of the ultimately defeated A.G. Spalding – and disagreements with emerging franchise chieftain Ebbets led Abell to disengage from club activities. He later joined the similarly disaffected Hanlon in litigation against the Ebbets regime. In November 1907, the elderly and wearied Abell sold his interest in the Brooklyn club and retired from the game. Six years later, Gus Abell died at his villa on Cape Cod at age 80. A profile of this underappreciated early benefactor of major league baseball in Brooklyn follows.

Ferdinand Augustus Abell was born on June 8, 1833 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, then a small mill town bordering the state capital of Providence. The extended Abell clan was prominent in both business and social settings,1 and traced its forebears to English colonists who settled in New England in the 1630s. Our subject’s immediate origins were more modest. Gus (short for middle name Augustus) was the seventh of eight children born to Pawtucket hotel proprietor Robert Abell (1804-1849) and his wife Aseneth (née Staples, 1806-1871), herself of old Yankee stock as well. Little is known of Gus’s upbringing. The only discovered newsprint mention of family matters arises from the simultaneous marriage of three Abell sisters (Elona, Rebecca, and Mary) at the same Philadelphia church ceremony in August 1848.2 Less than six months later, their father Robert was prematurely deceased at age 44.

Sometime in the early 1850s, Gus left home. But his immediate whereabouts and activities are lost, as is what attracted young Abell to pursue gambling as a profession. All that has been uncovered is that by the time that he registered for Civil War military service in 1863, Abell had relocated to midtown Manhattan and acquired a wife, Almira Helena Hawkins (born 1838 in Providence).

Abell saw no Civil War duty, and by the late 1860s he was listing his occupation as a “broker” in Manhattan city directories. In time, however, his true calling found its way into newsprint. In August 1864, one John Moran sued New York sportsman/politico John Morrissey and Abell “to recover a large sum of money said to have been lost in a gambling house owned by defendants.”3 Happily for the accused, the suit was dismissed for deficiencies in the plaintiff’s pleadings. Two years later, a disgruntled Charles Patterson sued “Ferdinand A. Abell, late of Pawtucket,” and Albert Stokes, proprietors of a gambling establishment located at 818 Broadway, to recover $30,000 lost playing faro against the house.4 When not before the court himself, Abell often posted bond for fellow gamblers who were.5

In April 1876, Abell expanded the scope of his gambling operations, partnering with William R. McKim to purchase acreage in Newport, Rhode Island, the summer playground of the country’s Gilded Age millionaires.6 In time, a notorious gaming palace called The Clubhouse occupied the location. Abell also maintained a summer “cottage” at the ritzy seaside enclave,7 while continuing his gaming operations in Manhattan. When charged with maintaining a gambling house by the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime in January 1880, Abell blandly denied any connection to the premises, informing the court that “I have no business now [but] I have been in the sporting line.”8

The genesis of the major league club that eventually became the Brooklyn Dodgers dates to fall 1882 and was spawned by the ill health of young New York Herald night editor George Taylor. His physicians advised Taylor that he needed to leave newspaper work and find a less stressful occupation. As an ardent baseball fan, he decided to form a professional baseball team. Lacking the necessary capital, he enlisted Brooklyn real estate agent and baseball enthusiast Charles H. Byrne in the venture. Byrne, in turn, recruited his brother-in-law Joseph J. Doyle, a lower Manhattan gambling house proprietor. Plans for the new club moved forward, but none of the three possessed the wherewithal needed to finance construction of a ballpark for their Brooklyn nine.9

Enter Gus Abell, a gambling house and Tammany Hall confrere of Doyle and a man with the necessary bankroll, but no experience nor interest in baseball. His passions were horseracing and games of chance.10 He had shrewd business instincts and a penchant for risk-taking. In early March 1883, Abell capitulated to Doyle’s blandishments and joined him, Taylor, Byrne, and gambler John M. Kelley in incorporating the Brooklyn Base Ball Association, capitalized at $20,000 (most of which was likely Abell’s money).11 The group then set about erecting the original Washington Park as the home grounds for the Brooklyn Grays of the newly-organized minor Inter-State Association.

The Camden (New Jersey) Merritts were the class of the Inter-State Association but drew poorly. When the club failed financially and disbanded in late July, access to Abell’s checkbook allowed the Grays to scoop up the five best free agent Merritt players.12 So fortified, manager Taylor guided Brooklyn (44-28, .611) to the association pennant. Off the field, club president Byrne oversaw franchise operations, assisted by new front office subordinate Charles Ebbets. Gus Abell, meanwhile, spent most of the summer attending to his non-baseball interests and vacationing.

For the helter-skelter 1884 season, the Brooklyn club, renamed the Atlantics, ascended to major league status, joining the American Association, which expanded to 12 clubs.13 Abell, by then 52 years old, retained his interest in the franchise, initiating a 23-season run with major league baseball in the City of Churches. The club made a lackluster debut, finishing a non-competitive ninth (40-64, .385). Over the winter, co-founder/manager Taylor departed the club, replaced the following year at the managerial helm by Charlie Hackett and thereafter by club president Byrne. Covering operating deficits, meanwhile, was the domain of Abell and, to a lesser extent, Joe Doyle. Although he was in for the long haul, Abell never developed much affection for baseball. He rarely visited the ballpark and left day-to-day governance of the club to Byrne. To Abell, the again-named Brooklyn Grays were a business investment (and a losing one, at that). But to safeguard his financial stake in the club, he attended the winter meetings of club owners religiously and in time developed keen insight into the financial and organizational nuances of professional baseball.

Abell cut a singular figure in ball club owner ranks. Heavyset, bearded, and comfortably wealthy, he was a well-mannered, unpretentious man whose intellect and business acumen were quickly recognized by fellow owners. And his accessibility, affability, and candor were prized by the baseball press, particularly when news was hard to come by.14 In his lively history of the turn-of-the-century Baltimore Orioles, author Burt Solomon described Abell as “urbane and bewhiskered, a perfect Chesterfield in his bearing, a courtly man who carried himself lightly … [but] could take on an air of seriousness when he needed to. … There was a rumpledness about Gus Abell that was easy to be near. Abell was as pleasant to a hotel porter as to a prince of Wall Street.”15 Unusual for the time, Abell was almost universally liked and respected by his NL peers, with the Philadelphia Inquirer later declaring that “there is no baseball magnate who enjoys the confidence of everybody as does Mr. Abell.”16 But Abell was no fool, and appreciated that his fellow magnates were not above seeking to take advantage of him, once observing wryly, “Whenever I go to a baseball meeting, I never forget to check my money and valuables at the hotel office before entering the session.”17

The fifth-place (53-59, .473) 1885 finish was an improvement. The Grays’ fortunes were bolstered by the infusion of playing talent signed after the NL Cleveland Blues went bust. The estimated $10,000 that went into signing the ex-Blues players was supplied by Abell. The same held true with Brooklyn’s acquisition of slugger Dave Orr, outfielder Darby O’Brien, and pitcher Al Mays after the New York Mets of the American Association disbanded at the close of the 1887 campaign. Abell left the targeting of desired players and their signing to the baseball-astute Byrne; his role was simply to underwrite such moves. Although he would sometimes accompany the club to spring training, once the regular season began Abell was little in evidence, rarely taking in more than a game or two per season. Like other wealthy New Yorkers seeking respite from the summer heat, Gus and his wife vacated their Manhattan mansion and spent most of the baseball season at New England seashore resorts.

In 1888, Byrne relinquished the managerial reins to concentrate on running the Brooklyn franchise. Prior to the season’s start, the Grays’ prospects were greatly enhanced by the purchase of star pitcher-outfielders Bob Caruthers and Dave Foutz, plus capable backstop Doc Bushong, from the American Association champion St. Louis Browns. As per usual, the hefty $18,500 combined player purchase price was shouldered by Abell.18 The investment paid immediate dividends. Under new manager Bill “Gunner” McGunnigle, the rechristened Brooklyn Bridegrooms surged to second (88-52, .629) in final AA standings. The following season, the 93-44 Brooklyns were the AA champs. More important to the bottom-line-minded Abell, the club’s home gate mushroomed to 353,690, far surpassing the then-record attendance for a major league team.19 The only damper on the campaign came during the postseason, when Brooklyn was bested in a nine-game World Series by the NL New York Giants.

Despite success on the diamond, all was not well. Club president Byrne had become thoroughly disenchanted with the American Association. Meanwhile, the approach of the newly formed Players League had Organized Baseball on tenterhooks. With the game’s landscape in turmoil, Brooklyn withdrew from the AA and affiliated with the National League for the 1890 season.20 In furtherance of the move, the franchise was reincorporated as the Brooklyn Base Ball Club, with Charles H. Byrne, Joseph J. Doyle, and Ferdinand A. Abell listed as incorporators of record.21 When the offseason dust settled, three different major league ball clubs called Brooklyn home: the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the National League; the Players League Brooklyn Ward Wonders (captained by PL visionary John Montgomery Ward); and the Brooklyn Gladiators, a hapless American Association replacement club. The Gladiators failed in August, and the franchise was relocated to Baltimore. In the meantime, the Grooms and Wonders battled for hometown fan affection, and both lost. Attendance at Washington Park plummeted to approximately 120,000, barely one-third the home gate of the previous year.22 Fan disinterest was particularly galling to Abell, as the club had swallowed the steep salary increases needed to keep its player roster intact and capture the National League pennant. Nor was the campaign’s sea of red ink assuaged in the postseason, as the 1890 World Series against the AA champion Louisville Cyclones ended in a 3-3-1 stalemate that was a disappointment at the gate.23

Brooklyn was not alone when it came to losing money that year. The 1890 season was a financial disaster for all concerned. Indeed, the plight of NL New York Giants owner John B. Day grew so desperate that only a clandestine infusion of cash orchestrated by Chicago club boss A.G. Spalding saved the National League’s cornerstone franchise from bankruptcy that August. Among those coming to New York’s rescue was Gus Abell, who contributed $6,250 to the pot.24

With the upstart Players League headed for imminent dissolution at the end of the 1890 campaign, the owners of the NL and PL Brooklyn clubs emulated their counterparts in New York and entered negotiations to consolidate the two teams into a National League entry for the 1891 season. The deal eventually reached by the parties left Byrne as club president and gave the Byrne/Doyle/Abell triumvirate a majority 50.4% interest in the franchise.25 The remaining stock was allotted to former PL magnates Wendell Goodwin, George Chauncey, Edward Linton, and their allies.26 In no time, the arrangement proved an unsatisfactory one for Byrne and company. Their new partners shorted them on the franchise buy-in, tendering only $22,000 of the $30,000 cash owed. Nor were the PL partners attentive to their ensuing financial obligations to the club, preferring to “cede stock to Abell rather than come up with the unpaid balance.”27 Worse yet, the PL forces prevailed on having their newly constructed Eastern Park – situated inconveniently in the East New York section of Brooklyn – supersede Washington Park as the team’s home grounds.28 Attendance would never approach the throngs once drawn to the club’s former home. The club lost money again in 1891,29 and would continue to do so in coming years.

Rather than cut his losses, Gus Abell increased his investment in the franchise. In addition to absorbing portions of the club stock held by the PL partners, he bought out founding partner Doyle’s interest in the club and became the franchise’s largest shareholder.30 Following the demise of the American Association at the end of 1891, Abell and Byrne differed on expansion of the National League to a 12-club circuit for the 1892 season; Abell was opposed. Still, the two remained on friendly terms, and Byrne continued to steer franchise operations while Gus spent most of the summer in Newport.31

Abell spent early1893 in Hot Springs, the Arkansas gambling and horseracing mecca, before finally returning home in July. In September, the Abell mansion in midtown Manhattan was the scene of private NL negotiations regarding the transfer of Brooklyn manager John Montgomery War, who had succeeded Gunner McGunnigle at the Grooms helm in 1892, to the New York Giants.32 In lieu of cash, which the financially strapped New York club did not have, “Czar Abell, [who] held control of all the Brooklyns,” agreed to accept a percentage of the Giants’ home gate instead.33 The move proved a smart one as attendance at the Polo Grounds surged to 290,000 (up from 130,566 in 1892), yielding Abell and his Brooklyn cohorts a handsome sum.

In early 1894, Abell, fed up with the failure of the club’s former PL ownership contingent to meet its financial commitments, publicly expressed a desire to sell his stock in the franchise and retire from the game.34 Rather than air his grievances, however, he merely stated that “my reasons are wholly personal. Base ball takes up too much of my time.” And he insisted that his relations with the other stockholders had been “most friendly and satisfactory.”35 Subsequently, he was induced to remain on board for another year by promises made by his ownership partners (which were not kept as “the ‘dead wood’ among the stockholders remained dead.”36) He then spent the summer in a newly purchased villa on Cape Cod, leaving Byrne to deal with the situation. Fortuitously for Abell, Brooklyn posted a first-division finish under new manager Dave Foutz and managed to turn a profit in 1894 as well, its first in four seasons.37

Apart from attending the winter meetings of NL club owners, Abell remained largely incognito during the next three years. He was instrumental, however, in removal of Brooklyn home games from Eastern Park – in which he had not set foot for two years38 – and their return to Washington Park at the conclusion of the 1897 season.39 Still, for the most part Abell (by then past 60) devoted his time to overseeing his casino operations in Rhode Island and relaxing on Cape Cod.40 But in late summer 1897, the suddenly failing health of club president Byrne obliged him to become more involved in baseball.

In early January 1898, Byrne died of complications from Bright’s (kidney) disease. He was succeeded as club president by longtime official and minority stakeholder Charles Ebbets. Under the new administration, Abell retained his post as secretary-treasurer, but the front office working environment changed. Although the two had occasional differences, Abell and Byrne had enjoyed a cordial business and personal relationship – even as Abell was “said to have crossed the $100,000 line in his losses.”41 According to Brooklyn baseball historian Ronald G. Shafer, one reason Abell, Byrne, and erstwhile partner Joe Doyle “work[ed] so well together was that they all loved a good laugh, even if the laugh was on them.”42 In the coming years, Gus would share few laughs with Ebbets.

Despite the relocation to more accessible Washington Park, the Grooms drew poorly in 1898, with coverage of the club’s $15,000 operating deficit falling primarily “upon one man, Ferdinand A. Abell.”43 Disheartened, Abell declined to continue serving as club secretary-treasurer. While he would “remain a stockholder in the club,” reported Sporting Life Brooklyn correspondent John B. Foster, Abell would “no longer associate himself prominently with the game.”44 But as it turned out, he soon found himself more deeply involved in club affairs than ever. The occasion: the National League club owners meeting of December 1898.

With Ebbets confined to his bed by a severe case of grippe, Brooklyn’s interests at the meeting were represented by majority stockholder Abell.45 Seizing the initiative, he approached Baltimore Orioles co-owners Harry Von der Horst and Ned Hanlon about the syndication (joint ownership) of their respective franchises. In short order, agreement was reached whereby Von der Horst and Hanlon acquired a half-ownership in the Brooklyn club. In return, the Baltimore men agreed to the downgrading of the Orioles and the transfer of the crème of the club roster – including future Hall of Famers Hughie Jennings, Joe Kelley, Willie Keeler, and Joe McGinnity – into Brooklyn uniforms. Ebbets would retain his club president post, while the Baltimoreans filled subordinate club offices.46 Under the direction of player-manager John McGraw, the remnant Baltimore Orioles continued in operation, finishing a respectable fourth in 1899. The ensuing winter, however, Baltimore was one of four National League clubs liquidated when the circuit contracted to eight teams for the 1900 season.47

Under the direction of manager Hanlon, the renamed Brooklyn Superbas48 were an immediate success, cruising to National League pennants in 1899 and 1900. But relations among the ball club’s new ownership group were often fractious. Disgusted that the 1900 championship club had drawn almost 100,000 fewer patrons than the previous season’s pennant winners,49 Abell refused to bankroll the player salary increases needed to ward off looming predation by the newly arrived major American League. Instead, Abell was reportedly “again anxious to sell his holdings in baseball.”50 As Brooklyn players jumped to the AL and club fortunes regressed during the following seasons, Von der Horst and Hanlon had a falling out. That in time afforded Ebbets the opportunity to acquire virtually all of Von der Horst’s stock in the Brooklyn franchise.51

Events at the tumultuous winter NL meetings of 1901-1902 again drew Abell back into baseball. In the divisive battle to elect a new National League president, he was vocal and resolute in his support of A.G. Spalding in the battle against incumbent Nick Young. As the balloting stalemated at 4-4, Abell declared, “We are with Spalding to the finish.”52 But when Spalding later abandoned the fight, Abell felt betrayed, believing that he had been “used as a catspaw” by the Spalding side.53 In the aftermath of Young’s reelection, Abell vowed that he would have “nothing further to do with the Brooklyn club … and he stuck by his word.”54

Once the 1902 season began, Abell did his customary disappearing act, retiring to Cape Cod for the summer. And he was conspicuous by his absence from the ensuing winter’s club owners meeting.55 But it was Abell’s non-attendance again the following winter that was troubling to observers, prompting “rumors of dissension in the Brooklyn camp.”56 Soon, internal feuding between Ebbets, now the majority owner, and Hanlon was out in the open, Reportedly “in permanent retirement from baseball,” Abell’s interest in the club settled at approximately 40 percent in the new regime.57 More important, he withdrew his indispensable support of club expenditures to make the struggling Superbas competitive again.58 Instead, the aging magnate stayed “quietly in his New England retreat tending to his turnips and cabbages and game fishing,” groused hometown scribe Foster.59

Following a last-place (48-104, .316) finish in 1905, Hanlon doffed Brooklyn livery to take the reins of the Cincinnati Reds. But he retained his stock in the Brooklyn ball club. In November 1906, Hanlon filed suit to compel Ebbets and franchise factotum Henry W. Medicus to refund salaries drawn in excess of those allowed by the club’s certificate of organization.60 Joining in the Hanlon lawsuit was another unhappy Brooklyn stockholder: Gus Abell. In February 1907, Hanlon filed a second lawsuit against Ebbets, seeking to recoup funds lent to financially distressed Brooklyn club leaders by their Baltimore Orioles counterparts pursuant to the syndication of their two ball clubs in 1899.61 Damages of $40,000 were sought.62

After months of judicial skirmishing, the parties settled their differences out of court in late 1907. Terms were not publicly disclosed, but it was later reported that Abell virtually gave away his interest in the Brooklyn franchise, selling out to Ebbets for a mere $20,000, with just $500 to be supplied in cash, the balance taking the form of promissory notes to be satisfied on undemanding terms.63 Soon thereafter, Hanlon settled as well, also on terms advantageous to Ebbets.64 The concomitant dismissal of the Hanlon/Abell lawsuits finalized Ebbets’s control of the Brooklyn franchise.

In July 1908, Almira Abell died of stomach cancer, bringing the Abells’ five-decade marriage to a close. For the remainder of his life, Gus lived quietly at his Cape Cod villa in West Yarmouth, his needs tended to by a housekeeper. He died there from uremia on November 8, 1913. Ferdinand Augustus “Gus” Abell was 80. His remains were subsequently returned to his native Rhode Island and interred beside those of his wife in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence. Childless, he left the bulk of his considerable estate to a niece and nephew.65 In its obituary, the Brooklyn Eagle aptly summed up Gus Abell as the man who “furnished the financial sinews for the sensational deals that put the City of Brooklyn on the baseball map.”66

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Norman Macht and checked for accuracy by SABR’s fact-checking team.

Sources

Sources for the information contained herein are cited in the endnotes.

Notes

1 Our subject’s uncle Arundale S. Abell was the founder of the Baltimore Sun and reportedly “one of the wealthiest newspapermen in the nation” at the time of his death in 1888 (Brooklyn Times Union, April 19, 1888: 1), leaving an estate estimated at $10 to $20 million, according to “Rich Baltimoreans,” Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call, April 20, 1888. See also, “Death of A.S. Abell, New York Times, April 20, 1888: 5.

2 As reported in “Married,” (Warren, Rhode Island) Northern Star, August 24, 1848: 3.

3 Per “Law Reports,” New York Times, August 31, 1864: 3.

4 See “$30,000 Lost at Faro,” New York World, December 25, 1866:1. See also, “Local Intelligence,” New York Times, December 25, 1866: 2; “Gamblers in Court,” New York Tribune, December 25, 1866: 3. Abell and Stokes responded by suing Patterson for libel, but the outcome of the litigation went undiscovered by the writer.

5 See e.g., “Home News,” New York Tribune, February 12, 1868: 8; “The Examination in Court,” New York Tribune, April 7, 1877: 2.

6 As reported in “Real Estate Sales,” Newport (Rhode Island) News, April 11, 1876: 2. See also, “American Monte Carlo,” Boston Journal, January 17, 1895: 2, and “Live Sporting Notes,” Kansas City Journal, January 28, 1895: 3.

7 See “The Newport Cottages,” New York Times, March 26, 1882: 3. These summer “cottages” were among the most sumptuous residences in the country.

8 As reported in “Interdicted Pleasures,” New York Herald, January 22, 1880: 9. See also, “Gamblers Held for Trial,” New York Tribune, January 22, 1880: 8, and “The Gambling-House Case,” New York Times, February 3, 1880: 3. The 1880 US Census records Abell’s occupation as “retired merchant.”

9 The origins of the Brooklyn Dodgers are traced in various publications. An excellent ready reference is Andy McCue’s succinct Los Angeles/Brooklyn Dodgers team ownership history, accessible on the SABR website.

10 Per Ronald G. Shafer, When the Dodgers Were Bridegrooms: Gunner McGunnigle and Brooklyn’s Back-to-Back Pennants of 1889 and 1890 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2011), 10.

11 See “Brooklyn Base Ball Association,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 9, 1883: 9. See also, “Brooklyn’s New Diamond Field,” New York Herald, March 10, 1883: 9, and “Enter Ferdinand A. Abell,” Brooklyn Eagle, January 18, 1913: 23.

12 The ex-Merritts signing with Brooklyn were shortstop Frank Fennelly, pitcher/outfielder Sam Kimber, first baseman Charlie Householder, infielder Bill Greenwood, and catcher Jack Corcoran.

13 Including replacement clubs, the arrival on scene of the upstart Union Association and the expansion of the American Association resulted in no fewer than 34 teams claiming major league status at some point during 1884.

14 As recounted by Abe Yager in his remembrance of Abell. See “Former Magnate Dead,” Sporting Life, November 15, 1913: 8. Some years earlier, Boston sportswriter Jake Morse observed that “No magnate was ever more popular with newspapermen than Mr. Abell and no one ever took greater pains to put himself out for their benefit.” See “Boston Briefs,” Sporting Life, May 18, 1907: 4. See also, Wm. F.H. Koelsch, “New York Nuggets,” Sporting Life, December 8, 1900: 3: “Gus Abell is popular with the [newspaper] boys because of his frank and open manner.”

15 Burt Solomon, Where They Ain’t: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 145-146.

16 “In the Sporting Boiler,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 6, 1899: 6.

17 Per Shafer, 11.

18 According to Retrosheet, Caruthers cost $8,250, Foutz, $5,500, and Bushong $4,500.

19 Per Robert L. Tiemann, “Major League Attendance,” Total Baseball (Kingston, New York: Total Sports Publishing, 7th ed., 2001), 74. The previous attendance high had been the 305,455 drawn to the Polo Grounds by the NL NY Giants in 1888.

20 See “Why Brooklyn Got Out,” Brooklyn Eagle, November 17, 1889.

21 As reported in “The Brooklyn Club Incorporated,” New York Tribune, November 8, 1889: 3; “The Association Meeting,” Sporting Life, November 20, 1889: 2; “The Sporting World,” Brooklyn Citizen, November 23, 1889: 3.

22 Per John G. Zinn, “The Brooklyn Players League Team Ownership, accessible via the SABR website. Tiemann places the Brooklyn NL attendance at an astonishingly paltry 37,000.

23 Game Seven in Louisville drew a pitiful 300 fans and prompted discontinuation of the Series without a winner being crowned.

24 In addition to Spalding, the principal saviors of Day’s Giants were fellow NL club owners Arthur Soden (Boston) and John T. Brush (late of Indianapolis), while Al Reach (Philadelphia) matched the Abell contribution. With the exception of Spalding, these club owners would retain their quiet interest in the New York franchise for years.

25 Per “The Brooklyn Situation,” Sporting Life, December 6, 1890: 3. For more detail, see Andy McCue, “A History of Dodger Ownership,” The National Pastime, Vol. 13 (1993), 35-36.

26 Zinn, “The Brooklyn Players League Team Ownership History.”

27 McCue, “A History of Dodger Ownership,” 36.

28 As reported in “Brooklyn Still Unsettled,” Sporting Life, January 3, 1891: 3. Eastern Park was located in an underpopulated part of Brooklyn being developed by PL partner Edward Linton.

29 See “Report of Brooklyn Baseball Club,” New York Tribune, January 16, 1892: 12. See also, Brooklyn Citizen, January 25, 1892: 3.

30 “New York News,” Sporting Life, January 16, 1892: 2.

31 See “In Shoots,” Sporting Life, August 22, 1892: 2.

32 Among those meeting at the Abell residence were club owners Soden (Boston), Brush (now Cincinnati), Frank DeHaas Robison (Cleveland), and Harry Von der Horst (Baltimore).

33 As reported in “The Money Paid for Johnny Ward,” New York Herald, September 17, 1893: 6. See also, “He Comes High,” Sporting Life, September 23, 1893: 1.

34 Per “The Ball Players,” Boston Herald, February 8, 1894: 2.

35 “Out of Baseball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 8, 1894: 3, which also stated that “most of the money” spent on club improvements over the past three years had been by Abell, “so that the club is quite a little indebted to him.” See also, J.F. Donnelly, “Abell to Retire,” Sporting Life, February 10, 1894: 2.

36 “Brooklyn Budget,” Sporting Life, December 12, 1894: 11.

37 Sporting Life

38 According to O.P. Caylor, “The Big Four,” The Sporting News, January 23, 1897: 1.

39 See “Favors Washington Park,” New York Sun, February 2, 1897: 4. Washington Park III, the Brooklyn club’s new home, was located across the street from Washington Parks I and II in Red Hook.

40 Following the death of gaming partner McKim, Abell acquired complete title to The Clubhouse in Newport. He also operated The Nautilus Club, another Newport casino.

41 “Two Splendid Moves by the Brooklyn Club,” Sporting Life, January 2, 1897: 2.

42 Shafer, 11.

43 According to “Review of Season and Teams,” Sporting Life, October 22, 1898: 3. Brooklyn sportswriter John B. Foster pegged the club’s losses at $25,000. See “Brooklyn Budget,” Sporting Life, November 19, 1898: 7.

44 Foster, “Brooklyn Budget,” Sporting Life, November 19, 1898: 7.

45 Like Abell, Ebbets had expanded his stock holdings in the Brooklyn club, initially quite small, by snapping up available shares of Goodwin, Chauncey, Linton, and the other Players League-connected club stockholders. Going into the 1899 winter meetings, Abell held 72% of the Brooklyn club stock, Ebbets 15%. The remainder was held by the Byrne estate. See “Still in Abeyance,” Sporting Life, January 28, 1899: 5.

46 For a more detailed account of the Brooklyn-Baltimore club syndication, see Solomon, 144-147. Hall of Famers McGraw and Wilbert Robinson refused to be separated from their business interests in Baltimore. As a result, the pair remained with the remnant Orioles of 1899.

47 The National League also dropped its clubs in Cleveland, Washington, and Louisville.

48 The new-look Brooklyn club was re-dubbed in homage to skipper Ned Hanlon, the allusion being to a renowned theatrical troupe called Hanlon’s Superbas.

49 Tiemann places the club attendance for 1900 at 170,000, down from the 269,641 patrons who attended a Brooklyn home game in 1899. McCue posits the 1900 Brooklyn home attendance at 183,000.

50 Foster, “Brooklyn Budget,” Sporting Life, October 27, 1900: 8.

51 Ebbets biographer John Zinn relates that bowling buddy Henry Medicus purchased the Von der Horst stock at Ebbets’ behest. See John G. Zinn, Charles Ebbets: The Man Behind the Dodgers and Brooklyn’s Beloved Ballpark (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019), 85-88.

52 “Brooklyn’s Stand,” Sporting Life, February 22, 1902: 2.

53 As revealed in “Brooklyn Shift,” Sporting Life, April 1, 1905: 16.

54 Foster, “Brooklyn Budget,” Sporting Life, January 12, 1907: 9.

55 As noted in “Peace Procedural, Disruption Averted,” Sporting Life, January 31, 1903: 4.

56 Sporting Life, December 19, 1903: 5.

57 Per “A Brooklyn Buyer,” Sporting Life, March 25, 1905: 7.

58 Foster, “Brooklyn Future,” Sporting Life, September 16, 1905: 11. See also, “Men Who Owned Baseball Clubs,” Paterson Morning Call, March 29, 1906: 3: “Abell has withdrawn all financial and moral support” from the Brooklyn club.

59 Foster, “Brooklyn Future,” above.

60 As reported in “Row in Baseball Club,” New York Tribune, November 13, 1906: 11; “Brooklyn Club Involved in Suit,” Providence Evening Bulletin, November 13, 1906: 16; “Row Over Brooklyn Nationals,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, November 13, 1906: 3.

61 See “Hanlon Starts Another Suit,” Brooklyn Citizen, February 20, 1907: 5; “Howard C. Griffiths in Baseball Suit,” Jersey (Jersey City) Journal, February 20, 1907: 9; “More Trouble for Brooklyn Club,” Washington (DC) Evening Star, February 20, 1907: 22.

62 “Brooklyn’s Fight,” Sporting Life, March 2, 1907: 3.

63 According to “His Faith in Baseball Patrons Has Carried Him to the Top of the Heap,” New York Times, January 12, 1912: C5. See also, Zinn, Charles Ebbets, 96.

64 Ebbets biographer Zinn places the Hanlon settlement at $10,000.

65 Per State of Massachusetts probate records, accessible on-line.

66 “Death of ‘Gus’ Abell Removes Pioneer of Brooklyn Baseball,” Brooklyn Eagle, November 10, 1913: 20.

Let’s look at the delicate condition of baseball’s paternity.

Earlier histories of baseball, from those published annually by Henry Chadwick in the Beadle, DeWitt, and Spalding Guides to book-length histories such as Charles Peverelly’s Book of American Pastimes (1866) and Jacob Morse’s Sphere and Ash (1888), gave credit to the Knickerbockers for the eventual ascendance of the New York Game of baseball over the competing Massachusetts Game, but did not single out Cartwright as the sole creator. In 1860, in the premier edition of the Beadle Dime Base Ball Player, Chadwick acknowledged the existence of the New York Base Ball Club prior to the organization of the Knicks, but stated, “we shall not be far wrong if we award to the Knickerbocker the honor of being the pioneers of the present game of base ball.”

Still, he never swerved from his assertion in that same essay that it was rounders, the English childhood game, “from which base ball is derived.” Only in the next century did Cartwright become, no less than Doubleday, a tool of those who wished to establish baseball as the product of an identifiable spark of American ingenuity, without foreign or Darwinian taint.

Cartwright did much to formulate rules that codified the game that the Knicks were already playing: laying out baseball on a “diamond” rather than a square, introducing the concept of foul territory, and eliminating the rounders and town-ball practice of retiring a runner by throwing the ball at him. But Cartwright assuredly did not do any of the three central things credited to him on his plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame: “Set bases 90 feet apart. Established 9 innings as a game and 9 players as a team.” He also did not create the 45-foot pitching distance, nor the requirement that a ball be caught on the fly to register an out, nor a system for calling balls and strikes.

The truth of the paternity question? Eighty-year-old Henry Chadwick had it right when he said in 1904, only one year before the formation of the Mills Commission, “Like Topsy, baseball never had no ‘fadder’; it jest growed.” In fact, until Papa Doubleday was pulled out of the hat, it was Chadwick himself who had most frequently been honored with the sobriquet “Father of Baseball,” not for any powers of invention but for his role in popularizing and shaping the game. Others to have been accorded patriarchal honors were Harry Wright, who organized the first openly professional team; Albert Spalding, the tireless player, magnate, and tour promoter; William Hulbert, founder of the National League in 1876; and Daniel L. Adams, whose name today is scarcely known.

Daniel Lucius Adams was born on November 1, 1814, in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, the younger of two sons of Dr. Daniel Adams (born in 1773; graduated from Dartmouth College, 1797, and received his medical degree from the school in 1799) and Nancy Mulliken Adams. Both parents were born in Townsend, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In addition to being a doctor of medicine, the father was a noted orator and author, whose mathematics textbook The Scholar’s Arithmetic, Or, Federal Accountant was in constant use under varying titles and editions from 1806 to the Civil War. In his biographical record for Yale University, Daniel Lucius Adams was to write of his father, “He was deeply interested in common schools; an active promoter of improvement in agriculture; an earnest advocate of the temperance cause, and was frequently called upon in public in the advancement of these objects. He was an early decided, abolitionist. …”

The younger Adams received his early education at the Mt. Pleasant Classical Institution in Amherst, Massachusetts, going on to spend his first two years of college at Amherst after entering in 1831. He graduated from Yale in 1835, progressing to a medical degree from Harvard in 1838 and then a general practice first with his father back in Mont Vernon, then in Boston, and ultimately in New York City, coupled with an active involvement with treating the poor at the New York Dispensaries. He first resided and practiced at 511 Broadway, moving to 45 White Street in 1843; ultimately he settled in at 14 Bond Street in the 1850s.

Adams, known to all as “Doc,” began to play baseball in 1839. “I was always interested in athletics while in college and afterward,” he told an interviewer at the age of eighty-one, “and soon after going to New York I began to play base ball just for exercise, with a number of other young medical men. Before that there had been a club called the New York Base Ball Club, but it had no very definite organization and did not last long. Some of the younger members of that club got together and formed the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, September 24, 1845 [actually September 23]. The players included merchants, lawyers, Union Bank clerks [like Cartwright], insurance clerks and others who were at liberty after 3 o’clock in the afternoon. They went into it just for exercise and enjoyment, and I think they used to get a good deal more solid fun out of it than the players in the big games do nowadays.

“About a month after the organization of this club, several of us medical fellows joined it, myself among the number. The following year I was made President and served as long as I was willing to retain the office.”

What’s new here? Plenty. According to Adams, the New York Base Ball Club not only preceded the Knickerbocker, but formed it; for example, such early New York Base Ball Club (NYBBC) members as James Lee, Abraham Tucker, and William Wheaton all became Knickerbockers in 1845-1846. As early as 1840, Adams played a game in New York that he understood to be baseball, no matter what it was called: with a handful of participants, it was compelled to be a version of cat; with as many as seven or eight, however, it was likely to be baseball — just as it was played by members of the NYBBC or Gotham Ball Club, the ancestor of both the Knicks and the New Yorks.

This game, called “base ball” and not “rounders” or “town ball,” had been played in New York City as early as 1832 by two clubs, one composed of residents of the first ward (the lower part of the city), the other of residents of the ninth and fifteenth wards (the upper part of the city). By 1843, when the Knicks were still playing at their original site in Madison Square, the sides had been reduced to eight, which included a “pitch,” a “behind,” three basemen, and three in the field, and the playing field had been changed from a square to a diamond, as in rounders. According to Alphonse Martin, a prominent pitcher in the 1860s who left an unpublished manuscript “History of Base Ball,” it was Cartwright who prompted this move. In later years, when asked how the game of baseball originated, Doc Adams declined to identify a distinct starting point; he believed it grew from rounders.

Actually, baseball as played by the Knicks in the years 1845-1849 (Cartwright left for California in the gold-rush spring of 1849) was almost never a nine-man game; eight, ten, and eleven men to the side were all more frequently employed. (As late as 1855, an unsigned columnist for the New York Clipper wrote: “Base Ball can be played by any number from five upwards; nine, however, being the usual number of each side.”) Play was conducted in accord with Cartwright’s model of only three basemen, and on the rare occasions when nine or more fielding positions were created by a surfeit of players, the “extras” were put into the outfield or held in reserve. In a game in late May 1847, for example, when eleven men were available to each side, the Knickerbockers’ response was to play with nine, including four outfielders, and hold two men out as substitutes.

The advent of the short fielder, or shortstop — the position created in 1849 or 1850 by Adams — was a crucial break with rounders. “I used to play shortstop,” he reminisced, “and I believe I was the first one to occupy that place, as it had formerly been left uncovered.” But when Adams first went out to short, it was not to bolster the infield but to assist in relays from the outfield. The early Knickerbocker ball was so light that it could not be thrown even two hundred feet, thus the need for a short fielder to send the ball in to the pitcher’s point.

“We had a great deal of trouble in getting balls made,” Adams recalled, “and for six or seven years I made all the balls myself, not only for our club but also for other clubs when they were organized. [He also supervised the turning of the bats during this period.] I went all over New York to find someone who would undertake this work, but no one could be induced to try it for love or money. Finally I found a Scotch saddler who was able to show me a good way to cover the balls with horsehide, such as was used for whip lashes. I used to make the stuffing out of three or four ounces of rubber cuttings, wound with yarn and then covered with the leather. Those balls were, of course, a great deal softer than the balls now [1896] in use.”

When the ball was wound tighter, gaining more hardness and resilience, it could be hit farther and, crucially, thrown farther. This permitted the shortstop to come into the infield, which Adams did. Even more important, the introduction of the hard ball permitted a change in the dimensions of the playing field. The Knickerbocker rules of 1845 had specified no pitching distance and no baseline length; all that was indicated was “from ‘home’ to second base, forty-two paces; from first to third base, forty-two paces, equidistant.” It has been presumed by scholars that when a three-foot pace is plugged in, the resulting baselines of eighty-nine feet are close enough to the present ninety so that we can proclaim Cartwright’s genius. In fact, the pace in 1845 was either an imprecise and variable measure, to gauge distances by “stepping off”; or it was precisely two and a half feet, in which case the distance from home to second would have been 105 feet and the Cartwright basepaths would have been 74.25 feet.

The pace of 1845 could not have been interpreted as the precise equivalent of three feet. This alternate definition of a pace as a three-foot measure did not come into practice until much later in the century. (Here is the definition of a pace from An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828: “1. A step. 2. The space between the two feet in walking, estimated at two feet and a half. But the geometrical pace is five feet, or the whole space passed over by the same foot from one step to another.” This definition was not changed for Webster’s 1853 revised edition.)

Personal research indicates that 75-foot basepaths were the norm well into the mid-1850s, when the distance between home and second base and between first and third bases was first prescribed as “42 paces or yards,” and were the standard for youth play well into the next decade.

In 1848 Adams, as Knickerbocker president, headed the Committee to Revise the Constitution and By-Laws; Alexander Cartwright served under him. Adams’s interest in refining the rules of the game, already evident, was further piqued by the formation of additional clubs, beginning with the Washington Base Ball Club in 1850, which like the Knickerbockers was constructed around several former New York Base Ball Club members. In 1852 the Washingtons were renamed the Gothams and took in additional players, and the Eagle Club, which had been organized to play town ball in 1840, reconstituted itself to become the Eagle Base Ball Club.

“The playing rules remained very crude up to this time,” Adams said, “but in 1853 the three clubs united in a revision of the rules and regulations. At the close of 1856 there were twelve clubs in existence, and it was decided to hold a convention of delegates from all of these for the purpose of establishing a permanent code of rules by which all should be governed. A call was therefore issued, signed by the officers of the Knickerbocker Club as the senior organization, and the result was the assembling of the first convention of baseball players in May 1857. I was elected presiding officer.”

Laws of Baseball, KBBC to Convention, January 22, 1857, page 1 (COURTESY OF JOHN THORN)

It was at this meeting, eight years after Cartwright’s western expedition, that the winner of a game was defined as the team that was ahead at the conclusion of nine innings, rather than the first team to score twenty-one runs. “In March of the next year the second convention was held, and at this meeting the annual convention was declared a permanent organization, and with the requisite constitution and by-laws became the ‘National Association of [Base] Ball Players.’

“I was chairman of the Committee on Rules and Regulations from the start and so long as I retained membership. I presented the first draft of rules, prepared after much careful study of the matter, and it was in the main adopted. The distance between bases I fixed at 30 yards, the only previous determination of distance being ‘the bases shall be from home to second base 42 paces, from first to third base 42 paces equidistant,’ which was rather vague. In every meeting of the National Association while a member, I advocated the fly-game, that is, not to allow first-bound catches, but I was always defeated on the vote. The change was made, however, soon after I left, as I predicted in my last speech on the subject before the convention.

“The distance from home to pitcher’s base I made 45 feet. Many of the old rules, such as those defining a foul, remain substantially the same today,” he concluded in 1896, “while others are changed and, of course, many new ones added. I resigned in 1862, but not before thousands were present to witness matches, and any number of outside players standing ready to take a hand on regular playing days.” In the 1840s players could not be relied upon to show up for practice. Adams recalled that the Knickerbockers frequently went to Hoboken to find only two or three members present and were often obliged to take their exercise “in the form of ‘old cat,’ ‘one’ or ‘two’ as the case might be.” (Bat-and-ball games of cat, or catapult ball, could be played by as many players as were on hand, with the number of bases or holes expanding with the cast of characters-the game was really one ol’ (hole) cat, and had nothing to do with superannuated felines.) But, he summed up in 1896, “we pioneers never expected to see the game so universal as it has now become.”

On May 7, 1861, Adams married Cornelia A. Cook. As he would later write, “My marriage was the crowning achievement of my life.” Less than a year later he resigned from the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, which awarded him an honorary membership and passed a resolution naming him the “Nestor of Ball Players.” In 1865 he retired from his medical practice in New York for reasons of health, moving to Ridgefield, Connecticut. There he lived on Main Street in the former home of Revolutionary War hero Colonel Philip Burr Bradley.

Soon becoming a prominent citizen of his new hometown, Adams served in the State House of Representatives for the legislative session of 1870 and, in the following year, was elected the first president of the Ridgefield Savings Bank. Adams remained in that position for eight years and then, after a five-year hiatus, resumed the post for another two, serving until July 1, 1886. Between terms as president of the bank, he was elected the first treasurer of the Ridgefield Library.

“The current of my life,” he wrote in 1880 or so, “has been very quiet and uniform, neither distinguished by any great successes, [n]or disturbed by serious reverses. I have been content to consider myself one of the ordinary, every-day workers of the world, with no ambition to fill its high positions, and have no reason to complain of the results of my labor. The condition of my health has prevented active employment for several years past, but life has passed very pleasantly in the midst of a thoroughly united and happy domestic circle.”

Although Adams had played his last formal game of baseball on September 27, 1875, in an old-timers’ contest arranged by longtime Knickerbocker comrade James Whyte Davis, he continued to play backyard ball with his two sons well into the 1880s. In 1888 he moved his family to New Haven, where the boys attended Sheffield Scientific School. After suffering five days from influenza that developed into pneumonia, on January 3, 1899, Daniel Lucius Adams died in his home at 146 Edwards Street.

For his role in making baseball the success it is, Doc Adams may be counted as first among the Fathers of Baseball. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, and two sons. Catherine, born May 3, 1866, married Dr. William L. Elkin, but they had no children. Mary W., born October 15, 1868, never married. Francis M. Adams, a son born June 7, 1871, drifted away from his family, and nothing is known of his later life. It is through Roger C. Adams, born May 1, 1874, that the family lineage persists. Additionally, in 1939 R. C. Adams wrote a memoir of his father. Unpublished in his day, it was printed in the New York Times on April 13, 1980, along with a letter to the editor by R. C. Adams’s great-grandson Nathan Adams Downey.

• Related link: “The Making of Baseball’s Magna Carta,” by John Thorn (Our Game)

Sources

This essay is adapted from one that originally ran in Elysian Fields Quarterly in 1992 and was subsequently published in several editions of Total Baseball and online at totalbaseball.com. The research underlying the original version commenced ten years earlier, at the New York Public Library’s (NYPL) Spalding Collection, which housed not only the invaluable Knickerbocker Base Ball Club scorebooks, game books, and minutes of the club’s meetings, but also the multivolume scrapbook collection of Henry Chadwick. The key find, however, took place at Cooperstown’s National Baseball Library (NBL), where in a file unrelated to either Adams (of whom no one, including myself, had any knowledge) or Cartwright, I came upon a Sporting News article of February 29, 1896, headed, “Dr. D. L. ADAMS; Memoirs of the Father of Base Ball; He Resides in New Haven and Retains an Interest in the Game.”

Additional research took me to editions of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828, 1853, et seq.) and club constitutions of the Eagle, Olympic, and other early ball clubs. Dick and Fitzgerald’s The American Boy’s Book of Sports and Games of 1864 states that boys’ baseball was played to that time on seventy-five-foot basepaths. William Wood’s Manual of Physical Exercises (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1867, pp. 189-190) bears a key citation of New York baseball in 1832. For color and flavor, a description of the Elysian Fields in the Ladies Companion of May 1836 was helpful. Also useful were Yale University’s Obituary Record, 1890-1900; Alphonse Martin’s unpublished History of Baseball in the NBL; and Will Rankin’s dyspeptic columns in The Sporting News in the first decade of the last century. Years of nondirected rummaging at the New-York Historical Society, the Cleveland Public Library, the NBL, and the NYPL yielded nuggets about the hotels and taverns surrounding Madison Square, the refreshments served in Hoboken, the cricket matches at the Red House Grounds, and other delightfully unexpected finds.

Alexander Cartwright’s letter to former teammate Charles DeBost of April 6, 1865, a letterpress copy of which was obtained from the Archives of the State of Hawaii, was also atmospherically rich. The Amherst College Alumni Archives, the Harvard Medical School Library, the Yale Alumni Records, and the Connecticut State Library’s History & Genealogy Unit proved to be of little help, though the archivists were uniformly professional. In 1996, John R. Husman located an Adams descendant who provided a photo of D. L. Adams that enabled us to confirm his presence in two notable photographs of the Knickerbockers: the daguerreotype plate of 1849, in which Cartwright and Adams are joined by four other Knickerbockers, and the 1859 panoramic view of the Knickerbockers and Excelsiors, in which Adams stands fourth from the left … and Harry Wright stands sixth from the left. In 1997 Jeffrey H. Orleans kindly provided me with some fine autobiographical bits that Adams had provided for the Biographical and Historical Record of the Class of 1835 in Yale College for the Fifty Years from the Admission of the Class to College, New Haven, 1881.

In 2008 I became convinced that a view offered in my original essay, going back to its first incarnation in 1992, was almost certainly wrong, and I have altered it in the text above. I had written that in 1840 Adams and the men who would become Knickerbockers were playing baseball “on a square, at first with eleven men on a side, as in cricket and perhaps the Massachusetts Game. This game, called “base ball” and not “rounders” or “town ball,” was played in New York City as early as 1832 by two clubs, one composed of residents of the first ward (the lower part of the city), the other of residents of the ninth and fifteenth wards (the upper part of the city).” I had only one bit of evidence for what New York baseball looked like in 1840, Henry Chadwick’s diagram, drawn in later years, of baseball on an irregular pentagonal field. It this configuration — with multiple scouts or behinds — that has been reproduced in Menke and Orem. However, the accumulated recent finds of William R. Wheaton’s 1887 interview recalling the Gothams of the 1830s, and then the image of the Magnolia Ball Club arrayed on a diamond in 1843, have persuaded me that with multiple pointers to a Knick-like game prior to 1845, the weight of evidence lies with the 1840-45 game having been played on a diamond. Live and learn.

(Top photo courtesy of DocAdamsBaseball.org.)

Ivers Whitney Adams was born on May 20, 1838, in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, the oldest of six children of Walter and Sarah (Whitney) Adams.1 His father worked as a carpenter in rural Ashburnham, 50 miles northwest of Boston. Adams was educated in the Ashburnham public schools, but never attended college. Although Adams came from humble origins, he became a wealthy man in the city of Boston.

Adams left Ashburnham in 1857 to pursue a business career in Boston. Initially, he was a clerk at Houghton, Sawyer & Company, a dry-goods firm. In the mid-19th century, a clerk was an apprentice businessman, who worked for very low pay to learn the business in hopes of eventually becoming a highly compensated partner in the business. Adams left Houghton, Sawyer in 1860 to be a clerk at John H. Pray, Sons & Company, which specialized in carpets.2 In the mid-1860s, Adams, still single, lived in a boarding house on Cambridge Street in downtown Boston near his work.3 Since the main office of John H. Pray, Sons & Company was at 192 Washington Street, Adams was an occasional spectator at the afternoon baseball games played on the nearby Boston Common ball field by the Lowell Base Ball Club, one of the three top amateur teams in the city.

On October 4, 1866, Adams married Sarah Shepard.4 They lived in a large house with several live-in domestic servants at 2 Delle Avenue in suburban Roxbury, which had recently been annexed to the city of Boston and renamed the Boston Highlands neighborhood.5 Adams was still a clerk at John H. Pray, Sons & Company, but he was part of the emerging white-collar middle class that filled the void between the rich and the poor social classes.6 Adams still watched a few ballgames played on the Boston Common on his way home from work, since he commuted to work from the Roxbury Crossing station on the Boston & Providence railroad line, whose Boston train terminal was adjacent to the Boston Common.

Before 2,000 spectators on the Boston Common on June 10, 1869, the all-professional Cincinnati Red Stockings, led by Harry Wright, trounced the amateur Lowell club, 29-9.7 With such a large attendance, Adams saw a bright future for professional baseball in Boston and began to plot how to establish a professional team in the city.8 Adams was not just an avid sportsman, but also a savvy businessman. He realized the potential that a professional baseball team could do for Boston’s business community, to elevate Boston into the same realm as New York City and Philadelphia as one of America’s leading cities that local businessmen, including Adams himself, could leverage for economic gain. It took Adams nearly two years to realize this goal and form a company to sponsor a professional baseball team.9

Adams had to first locate a new playing ground for Boston baseball teams. The Boston Common, once marginalized land next to the Charles River, was now valuable public land as a landfill project, begun in 1866, filled in the Charles River basin to create an elite neighborhood now known as the Back Bay. The city was issuing fewer permits to play baseball on the Common, to reduce the noise and activity that might impede the sale of house lots in the Back Bay. On June 24, 1869, the Lowell club began to play its games at the new Union Grounds, located two miles from the Boston Common on a five-acre parcel in Roxbury along the Boston & Providence railroad line.10

In 1870, when the Cincinnati team returned, 5,000 spectators jammed the Union Grounds on June 4 to watch Harry Wright’s team crush the Harvard College team, 46-15.11 Adams then seriously pressed forward to establish the first professional team in Boston. In November 1870, when the Cincinnati team was being disbanded, Adams recruited Wright and his brother George to form the nucleus of the new Boston team.12 After Adams made Harry Wright the captain of the team, Wright recruited several other highly skilled ballplayers to complete the team by the time of the ballclub’s first organizing meeting, on January 20, 1871, at the Parker House.

Adams was the leader of a band of five men, all in their 30s, who served as the officers and directors of that first professional baseball club in Boston. Adams, 32, was the president; Wright, 36, was the secretary; John Conkey, 31, a broker, was the vice president; Harrison Gardner, 30, a dry-goods merchant, was the treasurer; George Burditt, 38, an accountant, was the fifth director, in addition to the aforementioned four officers.13

At that founding meeting of the ballclub, Adams initiated a number of policies that were the foundation of Boston professional baseball for a quarter-century. First, he established the club as a corporation, which required that he marshal a bill through the state legislature.14 Importantly, the new baseball club was called Boston, after its city location, not by a nickname that most other teams of the era used, such as the Mutual club in New York or the Athletic club in Philadelphia. Adams used his business connections to raise $15,000 in capital by selling shares in the new corporation, convincing prominent local merchants such as Eben Jordan (founder of the department store Jordan Marsh), Charles Pierce (owner of the Baker’s Chocolate factory and future mayor of Boston), and John F. Mills (proprietor of the Parker House hotel).15 The capital enabled Adams and Wright to immediately field a championship-caliber team.

Adams also established the strategy of attracting spectators to watch the baseball games: “shareholders, members of the club and those of our friends who may take sufficient interest in the success of this enterprise.”16 The operative word in the strategy was “friends,” who were businessmen in the same emerging upper middle-class social status as the club’s officers and members (200 people who purchased season tickets). The laboring class was not part of the target audience. Adams bought into Wright’s philosophy that the admission price to ballgames should be 50 cents, not the 25-cent fee that the Lowell club had been charging.17 Patrons could purchase game tickets at the Wright & Gould sporting goods store, co-owned by George Wright.18

The strategy for the ballgrounds was also devised by Adams. He decided to rent the land where the Union Grounds were located and build “a covered building capable of seating about a thousand people,” with reserved seats for the shareholders, members, and friends.19 Bleacher seating along the baselines would come a few years later. This location later was known as the South End Grounds, where the Boston Braves franchise played its games until 1914.

Behind the capable leadership of Harry Wright, the Boston team finished the 1871 season in second place in the National Association standings, runner-up to the champion Athletic club of Philadelphia. Adams was re-elected president for the 1872 season; however, after serving as the club president for just ten months, he declined a second term since “his business engagements would not permit of his giving the proper time to the duties of the office.”20 Three weeks after stepping down as club president, Adams resigned from his position at John H. Pray, Sons & Company to start his own firm.21 His role in establishing the ballclub had helped Adams achieve the next step in his business career; cynics would say he used the ballclub for personal gain.

However, after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed the buildings and inventory of the John H. Pray, Sons & Company, Adams returned to the carpet firm to rebuild its business. He was now part of ownership, the only nonfamily partner in the management team that had been exclusively John A. and William H. Pray.22 His promotion from clerk to partner was lucrative because the demand for floor coverings escalated in Boston during the 1870s. Carpets were needed by residents in the new upper-class Back Bay neighborhood, but the rise of middle-class “streetcar suburbs” within five miles of downtown Boston stimulated carpet demand even more. The middle class sought to emulate the “trappings of gentility” of upper-class household furnishings, as “the carpet, the sofa, and the piano [were] all artifacts of the new middle-class way of life” in the late 19th century.23

While Adams was making money selling carpets, the Boston baseball team captured four consecutive National Association championships, from 1872 through 1875, and then two National League pennants in 1877 and 1878. Business was booming in Boston, as the baseball success had indeed helped turn Boston into one of America’s leading cities, Adams’s original goal. By the time the Boston team had won its sixth title in seven years, Adams was well on his way to becoming a millionaire as a partner at John H. Pray, Sons & Company.

In 1882 Adams retired from John H. Pray, Sons & Company as a wealthy man.24 At age 44, he never had to work another day in his life; he, his wife, Sarah, and their five children (Alfred, Clara, Ivers S., Walter, and Mary) could live a life of leisure.25 They moved from their home on Delle Avenue to a more upscale neighborhood in the Grove Hall section of Dorchester, building a huge house at the corner of Washington Street and Columbia Road.26 Adams also purchased a fishing ground on the shores of the Nepisiguit River in New Brunswick, Canada.27 He continued to dabble in the business world as a member of the board of directors at the American Net and Twine Company, the firm his father-in-law, James S. Shepard, had founded to manufacture cotton-twine fish netting to displace hemp twine.28

Adams rarely was in the baseball spotlight after 1871, but he did occasionally attend get-togethers. On June 21, 1897, he was a guest at a dinner given by George Wright for a touring baseball team from Australia.29 On September 24, 1908, he spoke at a postgame dinner following an old-timer’s game played at the Huntington Avenue Grounds.30

In his later years, Adams donated funds to his hometown of Ashburnham, to establish a water system and to erect a statue that depicts a young boy walking to school.31

Adams died on October 10, 1914, in Boston.32 He is buried at New Cemetery in Ashburnham.

This biography is included in “Boston’s First Nine: The 1871-75 Boston Red Stockings” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bob LeMoine and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

Books

Blumin, Stuart, The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760-1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Devine, Christopher, Harry Wright: The Father of Professional Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003).

Sterns, Ezra, “Ivers W. Adams,” in History of Ashburnham, Massachusetts (Town of Ashburnham, 1887), 592-594.

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

Newspapers

“The Boston Base-Ball Club,” Boston Daily Advertiser, January 21, 1871.

“Ivers W. Adams Dead,” Boston Globe, October 11, 1914.

“John H. Pray, Sons & Company,” Boston Congregationalist, April 17, 1873.

“Organization of the Boston Club as a Corporate Company,” Boston Daily Advertiser, December 8, 1871.

Boston Daily Advertiser, 1869-1872.

Boston Herald, 1869-1870.

Archival Material

Boston Public Library, Boston City Directory from 1860 to 1914.

Massachusetts State Archives, marriage records prior to 1910.

US Census Bureau, federal census records for decennial years from 1860 to 1910.

Notes

Allen, who began play with Philadelphia in 1890, sat out the next two years until he was coaxed back into playing for pennant-contending Boston. That season was followed by three years as a manager in the minors and majors. He left baseball after the 1900 season to concentrate on business and family before returning to the game in 1915 as a minor league owner. He was owner/president of the Knoxville Smokies of the Southern Association when he passed away in 1943.

Robert Gilman Allen was born in Marion, Ohio, on July 10, 1867. His grandparents had been the first settlers of Marion, constructing their home using a broad ax to hew the logs. His father, Elisha Allen, ran a bank in Marion and later in Paulding, Ohio. His mother was the former Maryanna Baker, whose father had built that first home.1

Bob Allen — often known as R. G. in his later business dealings — was the third of four children (three boys and a girl) born to Elisha and Maryanna. His education went through high school in Marion and he was working for his father in the banking business before his professional baseball career took off.

Central Ohio was a baseball hotbed with teams in almost every town. Allen’s older brother Herbert played baseball and no doubt guided Bob into the sport. Marion had a town team and starting in 1885 there was also an independent team known as the Mohawks. Bob Allen, who stood 5-feet-11 and weighed 175 pounds, played second base and Herbert the outfield for the Mohawks in 1885.2

The season opened in July and ran into early October with one or two games per week. The only victory found in a search of Marion newspapers was over Galion.3 The roster changed often, and they used at least 16 different players to fill in when teammates defected to rival clubs.

In 1886 the Mohawks took the field again with better results. Allen, who threw and batted right-handed, pitched frequently. Baseball historian David Nemec reported that Allen also spent time that summer with an independent team in Shamokin, Pennsylvania.4

Allen began his professional career in 1887 with Mansfield, Ohio, in the Ohio State League. Also simply called the Ohio League, there were entries from three states. The championship went to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Just before the season began on May 2, the Mansfield board of directors asked Allen to take over as manager. He was still short of his 20th birthday. The team opened the season with three wins, but when they faced the tougher competition it was obvious they were outclassed. On June 10 Allen submitted his resignation as manager (he continued to play shortstop) and was replaced by former league umpire Frank O’Brien.5

The team featured a teenage Ed Delahanty, who started the season at catcher, then moved to second base. Allen and Delahanty became close friends. Another noteworthy teammate was pitcher George England, a one-armed pitcher from Pittsburgh.6 Allen batted .326 but in a hitter’s league that relegated him to 35th place in the hitting ranks. Delahanty hit .351. The league began to unravel in August before disbanding in September with Mansfield at the bottom of the standings.

Columbus, Ohio liked what they saw in Allen and reached an unwritten agreement for the 1888 season.7 In February they decided they no longer needed him, and Bob returned to Mansfield, which was now in the 10-team Tri-State League. One of just two returning regulars from the 1887 team, Allen played shortstop and batted lead-off to open the year. He started the campaign with a hot bat, hitting .400 (26-65) in mid-May, but the team was struggling.8

Allen’s hitting cooled considerably and the “0-fers” began to appear more often. On July 4 Mansfield swept Toledo in a doubleheader, but he went just 1-for-9. The next week on Friday the 13th, he collided with Sandusky’s first baseman while legging out an infield hit and fractured his left leg just above the ankle.9 He was done for the season. Despite the injury he was signed by Pittsburgh for the next season.

He fondly remembered his time in spring training with the Alleghenys. He was most impressed with veteran teammates Billy Sunday and Deacon White. Unfortunately, he struggled with an illness and never got into playing shape. Pittsburgh let him go on April 27, noting he was a good fielder but weak with the bat.10

After his release, Allen made his way west to Davenport, Iowa, where he joined the Hawkeyes of the Central Interstate League. Playing shortstop and batting clean-up much of the season, Allen impressed fans and writers with his range and hands but left a lot to be desired at bat. He hit a mere.207 with a .282 slugging percentage — hardly the ideal man for the middle of the order.

In June manager Charles Holacher resigned and Allen was appointed manager and team captain.11 The Hawkeyes season came to a bizarre ending in mid-September. Despite leading the league with 59 victories, the stockholders met and opted to disband the team. They were reacting to a conspiracy theory that an umpire named Hunt had been assigned to work their next 12 games and that he had declared they would not win a single one.12 Supposedly this would assure Quincy the pennant, which eventually went to Springfield.

Harry Wright, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, had suffered through the latter part of 1889 with Al Myers at second base and Bill Hallman at shortstop. They both hit adequately but they piled up errors faster than anyone else in the league; Myers with 99 and Hallman 78. The astute Wright realized a slick-fielding shortstop would be the solution and signed Allen.

In Florida for spring training, the Phillies wasted little time before starting exhibition play on February 21. Allen was installed at shortstop and Myers returned to second base where he would raise his fielding percentage from .843 to .958. Any hitting Allen provided from the eighth spot in the lineup would be a luxury.

Allen could handle the bat: in an April 7 exhibition against the Philadelphia Athletics he went 3-for-4 with two walks in a 24-6 rout. In the season opener against Brooklyn, he doubled for one of just three Phillies’ hits but more importantly did “phenomenal work… of the Ward–Glasscock stripe and… ‘ate up about five base hits.’”13

The Phillies went into first place on May 2 and stayed there until mid-June when Wright was felled by a mysterious case of blindness. President A. J. Reach managed the team for 11 games, dropping out of first before turning the reins over to Allen. Suddenly a 22-year-old rookie was at the helm of a pennant contender.

Just two weeks into his tenure a Philadelphia paper was theorizing that he might become a “great manager.”14 The team had just returned from a swing through the three “C’s” — Chicago, Cleveland, and Cincinnati — with an 8-5 record. Allen’s best results were still to come. The Phillies dropped the first game of a home stand to Cincinnati, then reeled off 14 straight home wins to regain first place. The Phillies’ bats were on fire; they outscored their opponents by over 100 runs in that stretch. Allen’s managerial record stood at 25-10 on July 23.

Most sources list Allen’s record as 25-10 for the year, suggesting he did not manage beyond July 23. It should be noted that there are numerous mentions in the Philadelphia papers as late as August 8 where he is labeled as “manager Allen.”15 Wright eventually returned, and the Phillies finished in third place.

Allen played in 133 games and batted .226. He hit two home runs. The first came in the morning game on the Fourth of July, a three-run blast against former Mansfield teammate Frank Foreman. The other was an August grand slam off Bob Caruthers. When future evangelist Billy Sunday joined the team in August he roomed with Allen.16

Allen’s 1891-92 seasons were remarkably similar. His hitting was in the .220s with occasional power. His fielding was always held in high regard. Modern statistics show him with a range factor above that of the league each year. His fielding average dropped to .896 in 1891 but bounced back to .919 in 1892. His 945 chances accepted that season were surpassed only by Hughie Jennings.

The pitching distance was stretched to the present day setting for the 1893 season. The National League hit .245 in 1892 before batting averages soared in 1893 (.280) and again in 1894 (.309). Not surprisingly Allen’s numbers look much better in 1893 than before. His stat line of .268/.369/.410 was a major improvement over his first three seasons. From 1890 through 1892 he had always finished in the bottom 10 percnt of “qualifiers” for the batting crown. (Qualifier is a twentieth century manifestation that awards the batting crown only if the player had 3.1 at-bats per team game.)17

After three seasons at the bottom of the hitting rankings, Allen found himself ranked 59 of 79 batters for average. More impressive was his slugging percentage, which placed him above the league average in 34th place and ahead of four teammates who met the qualifiers standard. Coupled with his tremendous glove work, and still just 25, the future was bright.

Arthur Irwin took the helm of the Phillies in 1894. On paper the Phillies looked to be loaded, but they were hit hard by the injury bug. Outfielders Sam Thompson and Delahanty missed time, opening the gate for Tuck Turner to get over 300 at-bats and hit a team-high .418. Catcher Jack Clements was held to just 48 games by a variety of maladies. The most serious injury was Allen’s beaning on June 15. It came in the ninth inning of a 21-8 blowout of Cincinnati. Until then, he had escaped injury, starting the first 41 games

Allen was hospitalized and there were fears that he might die or be left blind. Blessedly, he pulled through and returned to his parents’ home in Marion to recuperate. The injury would heal but Allen was concerned that the memory of the beaning would affect his confidence as a hitter.18 Once the headaches subsided, Allen went to work in his father’s bank in Paulding, Ohio.

Allen had married Estelle Cunningham Blizard in late October 1890 in her hometown of Paulding. She was a “highly educated and accomplished young lady” from one of the “best families” in Paulding. The nuptials were held in the Presbyterian Church, after which the couple honeymooned on the East Coast.19 After the beaning there were a few reports that Mrs. Allen did not want Bob to return to the game.20 This might have been true in 1895 but as time went on it did not seem to be an issue.

Teams made offers to Allen in 1895 and 1896 but he did not accept any of them. He did however schedule a banking trip to Chicago in the fall of 1896 that coincided with the league baseball meeting. Speculation had him in the running for the Philadelphia managerial position.

In early January 1897, Allen signed at “the highest salary in the league” to manage and play shortstop for Detroit of the Western League.21 He arranged to bring the team to Marion for an exhibition on June 18 against a team of locals. Marion selected their best pitcher, Jack Harper, who was playing semipro ball and working in an oil field. The game went 13 innings with Marion winning, 5-3. Harper only allowed six hits, one of them an Allen double.22 Harper’s performance brought him fame that culminated with eight seasons in the majors.

The Western League in 1897 was an example of the “haves” and the “have nots.” In early July Detroit was definitely a “have not” as they were below .500 in fifth place, looking up at Milwaukee in fourth but playing over .600 ball.23 Detroit ownership kept press and fans wondering what moves might be made when suddenly Frank Graves took over as manager and Hunky Hines moved from second base to shortstop. Allen had been fired.24

Allen was unemployed for about a week until he accepted an offer from the Boston Beaneaters. Boston had started the season slowly but had taken over first in June and were in a spirted race with Baltimore for the pennant. Their shortstop, Herman Long, was nursing a hand injury and Allen was added as insurance.

Boston spent their money wisely because Long was forced to the bench with Allen taking over for 32 games at shortstop. His fielding percentage and range factor were better than Long’s and he hit .319 with a career-high .409 OBP. Captain Hugh Duffy praised him: “Our pitchers put us in the race and Bob Allen kept us there.”25 Boston finished in first place with a 93-39 record. Despite playing just 32 games, Allen was voted a half share of the Temple Cup money.26

Allen had negotiated a deal with Boston that did not include a reserve clause, so he was a free agent when the season ended.27 He took the position of player/manager with the Indianapolis Hoosiers (aka Reds) in the Western League. Allen assembled a strong pitching staff with holdovers Foreman and Bill Phillips joined by Ed Scott and Marvin Hawley. Indianapolis was not expected to be a contender, but a fast start and Allen’s guidance kept them in the race.28

The race was a heated one with five teams holding the top spot after the fourth of July. Kansas City and Indianapolis battled it out in the final two weeks, with Kansas City winning by 6 percentage points (.633 to.627).29 In 1899 Phillips left the team and was replaced by young left-hander Doc Newton. Indianapolis played tight defense and team ball to squeeze into the title, beating out the Minneapolis Millers .615 to .603.30

Allen’s efforts earned him the manager’s job in Cincinnati for 1900, but his appointment was not without controversy. There were fans and sportswriters who favored shortstop Tommy Corcoran as the successor to Buck Ewing. These same individuals bristled at the thought that Allen might choose to play in the field instead of Corcoran.31

The 1899 Reds under Ewing had won 83 games but finished sixth. The lineup underwent changes under Allen, but he did not supplant Corcoran. Sam Crawford, Harry Steinfeldt, and Jimmy Barrett all gained more prominent roles. Former Hoosiers Scott and Newton joined the pitching staff.

The season started well for the Reds, who were in second place before an eight-game winless stretch in May dropped them off the pace. The team was dealt an even bigger loss on May 28 when the grandstand caught fire and was almost completely destroyed. One game was postponed before the team departed for a scheduled Eastern swing. Because of the fire they added an extra week on the road (a total of 23 games).

The Reds finally returned for a series with Boston on June 28. Fans had no roof over their heads and the field had no grass, but the Reds finished out the season without further interruptions,32 finishing seventh at 62-77.

When the season concluded, the Reds’ management dragged their feet about selecting a manager for 1901. Allen’s fate was sealed in late October when the Cincinnati Enquirer ran an account that reported discontent by an anonymous player as well as negative reviews from Phillips, catcher Mike Kahoe, and pitcher Noodles Hahn, who had rebelled against Bob Wood as his catcher.33 The Reds eventually hired Bid McPhee who guided the team to a last-place finish in 1901 with just 52 wins.

Allen’s managerial style was more like a businessman than a friend. Some players complained that he did not pal around with them. He acted like a father or financial advisor whenever a player came to him asking for an advance or a loan. Allen was often heard to say, “How do you ever expect to save money if you spend it so recklessly?”34

Allen left the game and eventually entered the lumber business in the South which took him to Little Rock, Arkansas. The family had grown with the birth of Robert Jr. in Philadelphia in 1893 and Edgar Cunningham Allen in Paulding in 1902.

Late in 1914, Allen returned to baseball by buying the Montgomery, Alabama, franchise in the Class A Southern Association and moving the team to Little Rock.. The name Travelers, which had been used with previous franchises, was brought back. That first spring was spent looking for a manager and filling out the roster because the only regular retained from 1914 was Heinie Jantzen.

Allen opened the season as manager before turning the reins over to Charlie Starr in mid-May. Appointing Starr, the starting second baseman, was a shrewd financial move because Allen would only have to count half of Starr’s salary towards the league salary limit. Allen left with the team in seventh place with a 10-18 record; they finished last at 65-87, an 11-game improvement over 1914 Montgomery.

Allen would retain the franchise through the 1930 season. He was his own general manager and his son, Robert Jr., was the secretary until 1920, when he left for a lucrative position with a cotton business on the East Coast.

The franchise’s best years came from 1918 through 1922. Kid Elberfeld served as manager and ably guided the team to five consecutive winning seasons, including two second=place finishes and the championship in 1920.

The 1920 squad featured league batting champ Harry Harper and the circuit’s home run leader, Bing Miller. The pitching staff was anchored by righty Chief Yellow Horse with 21 wins and lefty Hank “Rube” Robinson. who won 26. Robinson, from Floyd, Arkansas, was in the midst of a 13-year career with Little Rock.

Allen was regarded as an astute judge of talent. While in Arkansas he was able to sign many top prospects from the neighboring states. The most notable players who spent some or all of their first professional season with the Travelers were shortstop Travis Jackson, pitcher Firpo Marberry, and catcher Bill Dickey.

Allen believed in running his baseball operation like a bank. While some owners relied on giveaways and promotions to attract fans, Allen felt that the product on the field should be the main attraction.35 Little Rock was a small market compared to Nashville, Birmingham and Atlanta, yet he was able to outdraw them with a winning team.

After some initial success with finding top talent, Allen found it increasingly difficult to acquire top young players. From 1923 to 1927 the team finished last. In 1930, led by pitcher Leo Moon, the team won 81 games but still finished in fifth place.

Allen sold the Little Rock franchise and purchased the Nashville Volunteers in January 1931. He paid $50,000 for 90 percent control of the team’s stock and assumed a stadium mortgage.36 Despite the addition of eventual league batting and home run champion Moose Clabaugh, the team fell into last place. In mid-June, cash-strapped Allen offered the club to local businessman Fay Murray, who agreed to the sale.37 The transfer of the team emboldened the press to critique Allen harshly. Nashville sports columnist Claude “Blinky” Horn was especially pointed, stating that “Bob Allen left baseball here prostrated.”38 In another column Horn blamed low attendance on the “menace of Bob Allen.”39 Oddly just month’s earlier the same writer had praised Allen for the increase in turnstile use over the previous season.40

Shortly after he left Nashville,rumors circulated that Allen was after another franchise in the Southern Association. He purchased the Mobile franchise in December 1931 and shifted it permanently to Knoxville for the 1932 season.41 At his side in this venture was his younger son, Edgar, who was appointed secretary-treasurer of the team.

Edgar Allen had been a star baseball player at the University of Pennsylvania and developed a friendship with Walter O’Malley while there. He joined his father after his graduation in 1925. After working in different baseball capacities from batboy at age 12 to vendor and grounds crew, he was ready for a more important role.42 In 1943 when his father died, he took control of the team alongside his brother.

Battling the effects of the Depression in another small market, the Allens were able to bring only one winning season, 1939, to Knoxville. Good young talent was hard to afford, and the team roster listed many more players in their late thirties than early twenties. The most notable youngster he auditioned was a big slugger out of Alabama, Rudy York. After just a three-day trial, York was sent back to his home with a .100 batting average. York went on to a 13-year ML career and led the AL in home runs and RBIs in 1943.

While R.G. Allen was not prone to give-a-ways and special nights, he was a fan of the increased attendance at night games. He had introduced night baseball in Little Rock in 1930 and did the same in Nashville the following year. It seems odd then that night baseball did not come to Knoxville until after Allen’s death. In the two previous cities he owned or controlled the stadiums. He did not have that luxury in Knoxville, having signed only short-term leases. He was loath to install lighting for fear of losing his investment.43

In the 1940s, Allen’s health began to deteriorate. Bob Jr. left Boston and came home to assist Edgar with running the club in April 1943.44 Allen was hospitalized in Little Rock in the spring of 1943 and died there on May 14. He was buried in the Roselawn Memorial Park in Little Rock. The Park is the resting place of numerous Arkansas governors and congressmen as well as the Dickey brothers, Bill and George.

Estelle passed away in 1960 and is buried alongside her husband. Edgar stayed in baseball and was a supervisor of Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, when he died in 1960. Bob Jr. resided in Boston when he died in 1975.

Allen was interviewed in the Marion newspaper in 1939. He mentioned his two injuries as being days he would always remember. He had few regrets but did mention two. The first was not doing better when managing Cincinnati. His biggest regret was turning down an offer to buy the Western League Detroit franchise in 1897 for $12,500.45 That franchise became the Detroit Tigers of the AL.

Upon his death Allen received praises for his dozen seasons as a player and 28 years as an owner in the Southern Association. Billy Evans was president of the league at the time of Allen’s death and eulogized him: “Baseball loses one of the pioneers who helped make the game and the Southern League loses a man who helped greatly in the making of baseball in the South.”46

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Bill Nowlin and Norman Mact. It was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin.

Sources

In addition to the items cited in the notes, minor league records from the 1900s are taken from the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball. Statistics are from Baseball Reference unless otherwise noted.

Notes

1 “Death Takes “Bob” Allen Marion’s No. 1 in Baseball,” Marion (Ohio) Star, May 15, 1943: 1.

2 President Warren G. Harding ran a newspaper in Marion. He was reputed to have played first base for the town team. This writer did not uncover any box scores containing Harding’s name. Harding did not appear in any game stories with the Mohawks suggesting he was not one of the better players in the area.

3 Marion Star, September 19, 1885: 4.

4 David Nemec, ed., Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 445.

5 “Mansfield Club Changes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 11, 1887: 5.

6 “Mansfield 2—Picked Nine 0,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 27, 1887: 5.

7 East Liverpool (Ohio) Evening Review, December 3, 1887: 4.

8 Sporting Life carried the box scores for the Tri State League.

9 “Base Ball Briefs,” Wheeling (West Virginia) Daily Intelligencer, July 16, 1888: 4.

10 “No Game at Pittsburg,” Boston Globe, April 27, 1889: 5.

11 “Davenport Club Changes,” Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois), June 4, 1889: 6.

12 “Out of the League,” Democrat Gazette (Davenport, Iowa), September 17, 1889: 3.

13 “National League,” The Times (Philadelphia), April 29, 1890: 2.

14 “Baseball Comment,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 1890: 5.

15 “Will There be a Shake-up,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1890: 3. If you extend his managerial time to August 8 then his record would be 30-16.

16 Bob Allen’s Career with Major Leaguers,” Marion Star, October 2, 1919: 8.

17 In 1890 he was 42nd of 48, in 1891 it was 49 of 53 and in 1892 he was 62 of 69. Courtesy of Baseball-Reference.

18 “Sporting Notes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 12, 1894: 24.

19 “R.G. Allen’s Marriage,” Marion Star, October 31, 1890: 3.

20 “Chat of the Diamond,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 28, 1895: 5.

21 “Will Not Sell,” Detroit Free Press, July 14, 1897: 6. Terms of Allen’s deal were not revealed but $2500 has been suggested. The “highest salary” comment came from his disgruntled owner so it may well have been sour grapes.

22 “Marion Beat Detroit in 13 Innings,” Detroit Free Press, June 19, 1897: 6.

23 “Western League Standings,” Detroit Free Press, July 4, 1897: 6.

24 “How Will it End?,” Detroit Free Press, July 4, 1897: 6.

25 “The City in Brief,” Marion Star, September 23, 1897: 3.

26 “Base Ball Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1897: 5.

27 “Robert G. Allen,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1943: 12.

28 “Was an Exciting Race,” Kansas City (Missouri) Journal, September 22, 1898: 5.

29 W.C. Madden and Patrick J. Stewart, The Western League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2002), 50-51.

30 Madden & Stewart, The Western League.

31 “About Finished,” The Sporting News, February 10, 1900: 5.

32 “Willis Too Much for Reds,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 29, 1900: 4.

33 “All Sports,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 28, 1900: 31.

34 “Notes of the Diamond,” News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), April 11, 1903: 11.

35 “Bob Allen, Dean of Southern Club Heads, Called by Death,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1943: 12.

36 “R.G.Allen Buys Nashville Club,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), January 20, 1931: 13.

37 Blinky Horn, “From Bunker to Bleacher,” Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee), June 23, 1931: 8.

38 Blinky Horn, “From Bunker to Bleacher,” Tennessean, July 8, 1931: 6.

39 Blinky Horn, “From Bunker to Bleacher,” Tennessean, September 17, 1931: 13.

40 Blinky Horn, “From Bunker to Bleacher,” Tennessean, May 15, 1931: 15.

41 The franchise had played in both Mobile and Knoxville in 1931. When a purchase by a Knoxville group could not be finalized, the franchise was set to return to Mobile. The team was owned by Byrd Douglas of Nashville.

42 Online Arkansas Baseball Encyclopedia, https://arkbaseball.com/tiki-index.php?page=Edgar+Allen, last accessed March 29, 2020. Also Carl T. Felker, “Front Office Families,” The Sporting News, March 27, 1941: 1.

43 “Knoxville Comes Out of the Dark with Meridian’s Park Lights,” The Sporting News, July 29, 1943: 6.

44 Knoxville (Tennessee) News- Sentinel, April 18, 1943: 11.

45 “Death Takes “Bob” Allen Marion’s No. 1 in Baseball”

46 “Evans in Tribute to R.G.Allen,” Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, Arkansas), May 17, 1943: 6.

That was Ruben Amaro Jr. in 2011, on being a third-generation Latino baseball man. Yet he has often spoken the same way about his maternal side. Altogether, his background is unique in major-league history: Cuban-Mexican/Jewish-American.

From this start, a unique career path has also unfolded. The switch-hitting outfielder played in the majors from 1991 through 1998, but he had to struggle to stay there. His only full seasons in “The Show” were his last two. After his playing career ended, Amaro stepped directly into the front office. He spent 10 years as assistant general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, and he then served as their GM from November 2008 through early September 2015. After that he made an unusual transition back to the field, joining the Boston Red Sox as a coach in October 2015. Three years later, with the New York Mets, he doubled back to an executive role.

Ruben Amaro Jr. has another distinction. He has been to the World Series as a batboy (with the Phillies in 1980), as a player (with the Cleveland Indians in 1995), and as an executive (with the Phillies in 2008 and 2009).

As an Amaro family motto says, “Baseball is our way of life.”2 It started with Santos Amaro (1908-2001), who had a long and distinguished career in Cuba and Mexico. Except for racial barriers, the Amaros could have been the first family to send three generations of players to the big leagues.3 Ruben Amaro Sr. (1936-2017), a smooth-fielding shortstop, played in the majors from 1958 through 1969. He went on to serve the Phillies and other organizations for decades in many capacities.

Santos Amaro’s father came to Cuba from Portugal and his mother was the child of Abencerraje Moors from Africa. Like many Cubans, Santos was a coffee-colored man. While playing in Mexico in 1929, he met a fair-skinned Mexican woman of Spanish descent named Josefina Mora, who was a baseball player too. They married in 1930, and Ruben Sr. was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in 1936.

While he was playing with the Phillies, Ruben Sr. met Judith Herman at the gourmet cheese shop that Judy’s mother ran in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market.4 In 2008 Judy also said, “My sister Marlene taught English to Pancho Herrera and Tony Taylor [two other members of the Phillies then]. Ruben would drive them to our house for the lessons.”5

Ruben Sr. and Judy married in December 1961. They had one other child. David Amaro, born in 1962, was drafted in the 24th round by the Chicago Cubs in 1984. He played that summer in short-season Class-A ball and eight games in the Mexican League in 1985, but an injured wrist curtailed his career. Ruben Jr. was born in Philadelphia on February 12, 1965.

Ruben Amaro Sr.’s pro career lasted until 1971, when Ruben Jr. was 6. “I can’t remember seeing my father play,” he said in 1992, “and that’s too bad.”6 However, age 6 did provide his earliest memories of the regal and quiet Santos Amaro. The family took Christmas vacations in Veracruz, Mexico, where Santos and Josefina lived. “Buelo” (short for Abuelo, Spanish for grandfather) was then in his 60s, but he still had the habit of taking 10-mile walks. “As a six-year-old, that was astonishing to me,” said Ruben Jr. in 2013. “I asked my father, ‘What does he do on those walks?’ And my dad said, ‘He thinks.’”7 That influence was deep.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor or veterinarian,” Amaro said in 2010. “Soccer was actually my first love.”8 He was good enough to get an offer to attend high school in Germany for a year and a half, to be assessed as a pro soccer prospect there. However, that nation still held unhappy associations for his Jewish mother, so he did not go.9

On the other side of Amaro’s religious heritage, Ruben Sr. was a devout Catholic. Ruben Jr. said, “We had a very diversified family. We did Passover, Yom Kippur, Chanukah. We were exposed to both faiths pretty equally.” Though he never had a bar mitzvah, he recalled, “I had a lot of friends who were bar mitzvahed and went to a lot of them.”10

Education was extremely important to both Ruben Sr. (something that came from Santos) and Judy Amaro. They sent Ruben Jr. to Frankford Friends, a small private elementary school where his mother later taught Spanish, and then William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, a private academy founded in 1689. A couple of years ahead of him at Penn Charter was pitcher Mark Gubicza, who went on to a 14-year career in the majors.

In 1980 the Phillies became World Series champions. Ruben Sr. was the team’s first-base coach, and Ruben Jr. was one of the batboys. It was an important formative experience. He later said, “Baseball is such an intricate game, a thinking game. I was 15, and I was watching Pete Rose, Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa, Manny Trillo, Bob Boone. Did I say Mike Schmidt? Most of them are Hall of Famers, or close to it. I learned from all of them.”11

Amaro remained a Phillies batboy through 1983, though he missed the World Series that fall because he had started at Stanford University. After winning All-City honors in both baseball (first-team second baseman) and soccer (second team), and doing well academically, he had offers from other high-quality schools, including Duke, Vanderbilt, and Princeton. He chose Stanford because the school’s respected baseball coach, Mark Marquess, knew the Amaro family history and thought Ruben could help his team, although the young man was still undersized then. Amaro accepted the offer, even though there was neither a scholarship nor guaranteed playing time.12

Amaro became a four-year letter winner with Stanford. Marquess moved him from the infield to the outfield as a sophomore. During his senior year, as the leadoff man, he hit .344 with 38 stolen bases.13 The team also had star pitcher Jack McDowell, another major leaguer to be in Ed Sprague Jr., and future NFL defensive back Toi Cook. Stanford won the College World Series for the first time in its history in June 1987.

Just a few days before, the California Angels had made Amaro their 11th-round pick in the amateur draft. A couple of weeks later, after graduating from college with a degree in human biology, he signed and began his minor-league career. The bonus the Angels offered was small — just $1,500 — and he turned to his father for advice. Ruben Sr. said, “It’s not going to get any better. Sign it, get in your car and start driving.”14

It took Amaro four years to climb the ladder to the majors. He didn’t have power — he never had more than nine home runs in a season at any level — but he did hit for high average in the minors. In 1989, which he spent in Class-A and Double-A ball, he hit .368 overall. He followed that up with a mark of .317 in 1990, earning promotion to Triple-A.

During the winter of 1989-90, Amaro played winter ball for the first time. He went to Venezuela, joining Águilas del Zulia, a team that his father served in various roles for more than 20 years. He went back for six more winter seasons, as late as 1997-98, all but one of them with Zulia. For much of that time, Ruben Sr. was the manager. Overall, in 219 games in the Venezuelan league, Ruben Jr. hit .281 with 5 homers and 83 RBIs.

Amaro also met his first wife, Virginia Machado, in Venezuela. They married on December 6, 1996, and had two daughters, Andrea and Sophia (the union ended in divorce). In another interesting twist, Virginia’s aunt is Lilia Machado, who became Ruben Amaro Sr.’s second wife. The Machado family owns and operates the Zulia club. Ruben Sr. and Lilia’s two sons, Luis Alfredo and Rubén Andrés, also became ballplayers. Luis played short-season Class-A ball for the Phillies in 2011. Before marrying Lilia and after separating from Judy, Ruben Sr. had a daughter named Alayna from a relationship with Mary Beth Allio. Ruben Jr. is close with all three of his half-siblings.

Amaro remained at Edmonton in 1991 and hit .326. He got his first brief call-up to the majors in June 1991, after Junior Felix went on the 15-day disabled list. He made his debut on June 8 at Anaheim Stadium, pinch-running for designated hitter Dave Parker. Amaro represented the tying run with nobody out, but after advancing on a sacrifice, he had to stop at third base after freezing instinctively on a liner back through the box. Tigers closer Mike Henneman then got out of the jam with a double-play ball. A few days later, Amaro was sent back to Edmonton.

The Angels recalled him that September, and he appeared in nine more games, starting three in left field and two at second base. The 1991 season was the only time he ever played the latter position in the majors. Aside from two very brief appearances at first base in 1996 and 1997, he was exclusively an outfielder. (He also got 11 at-bats as a DH during his two years with the Indians.)

On December 8, 1991, California traded pitcher Kyle Abbott and Amaro to the Phillies in return for Von Hayes. The Sporting News called the deal “The Steal of the Winter.” Hayes was washed up — “Wow, I didn’t think we could even get one player for Von,” said Lenny Dykstra15 — and was finished after 1992. However, Abbott, who was viewed as a top pitching prospect, was awful with Philadelphia in 1992. He got back to the majors just briefly in 1995 and 1996. Modest as it was, Amaro’s career lasted the longest of the three players involved.

Amaro was stunned by the news of the trade. He said, “I thought, ‘Wow, some of those fans are difficult.’ But then I realized these are knowledgeable fans. They love players who bust their butts, like Len Dykstra and John Kruk. I’m very competitive. I fit in that mold.”16

As it turned out, though, Dykstra, Kruk, et al. gave the college boy a hard time. “Some of that I brought on myself,” Amaro later admitted. “Just by being an arrogant little toad. Oh yeah. I think I was limited enough talentwise that I had to fake myself into thinking I was better than I was. I kind of rubbed some of the guys the wrong way, but I got straightened out. They made sure of that.”17

Amaro spent most of the 1992 season with the Phillies. In the season’s second game, at Veterans Stadium, he sparked an 11-3 rout of the Chicago Cubs. He was filling in for Dykstra, whose wrist had been broken by a Greg Maddux pitch on Opening Day. The new leadoff man was 3-for-4 with two doubles and his first of 16 home runs in the majors. It drew a standing ovation from the crowd. “In my wildest dreams, I didn’t think of this,” Amaro said. “Not in a million years. One thing just fell in place after the other. I’m in shock.”18

In fact, Amaro went deep three times in just five days from April 8-12. His modest response was, “Mistake pitches. I’ve never tried to hit a home run in my life. I was as surprised as anybody.”19 As the Philadelphia Inquirer later put it, though, that one spectacular week was followed by long periods of frustration.20 He suffered some severe slumps, and in late July — hitting just .199 — he was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. “After some early success, I just took myself out of my game,” he said. “I started to try to outthink the pitchers instead of just going up there and swinging the bat. They gave me five or six opportunities to earn a starting job, and I didn’t. I don’t have anybody to blame but myself.”21

The demotion lasted just a few weeks, though. Overall in Philadelphia that year, Amaro got into 126 games, starting 87 of them, and made 427 plate appearances. All were major-league career highs for him. He was the team’s primary right fielder that year, though he also got plenty of action in left and center. By season’s end his average had picked up a bit, to .219.The substantial playing time was also a big reason why he reached big-league bests in homers (seven) and RBIs (34).

In reality, however, manager Jim Fregosi “liked Amaro as a fifth outfielder, [but] instead was forced to play him as a regular for much of that last-place season.”22 That winter the Phillies loaded up with three free-agent outfielders: Pete Incaviglia, Milt Thompson, and Jim Eisenreich.

Amaro played just 25 games for the Phillies in 1993. He was with the big club for roughly a month, from mid-June through mid-July; he returned in September. Philadelphia won the National League pennant that season, but Amaro was left off the postseason roster in favor of Tony Longmire. He wasn’t even allowed to dress for the playoffs and World Series.23 On November 2 he was traded to Cleveland for reliever Heathcliff Slocumb.

He’d hoped for more from the change of scenery, but Amaro didn’t play much as an Indian either. In 1994 he was called up from Triple-A Charlotte in late May but got just 25 plate appearances in 26 games before the players’ strike ended the season in August. In 1995 he shuttled between the new top affiliate, Buffalo, and Cleveland. In fact, he was sent outright to Buffalo in May; his contract was purchased once more when Eddie Murray went on the DL in July. In his scattered stints with the Indians that year, Amaro got into 28 games and hit .200-1-7 in 68 plate appearances.

Nonetheless, after Cleveland won the AL Central Division, Amaro stayed with the team in the postseason. He and Dave Winfield were the two position players “on the bubble” as the roster was determined. Both were eligible because they had been on the disabled list at the end of August. Winfield was nearly 44 by then and exclusively a DH. He’d been bothered by a sore shoulder for much of the year and was not swinging the bat well. Amaro, who could run and play defense, was the more useful man to have on the bench.

Amaro did not appear against Boston as Cleveland swept the AL Division Series. In the AL Championship Series, against Seattle, he appeared in three games as a pinch-runner. As the Indians clinched the pennant in Game Six, he contributed. It was a tight 1-0 game starting the top of the eighth, but catcher Tony Peña hit a leadoff double. Amaro ran for Peña and got a good jump on Kenny Lofton’s well-placed bunt. A few pitches later, he scored on a passed ball; right behind him, boldly exploiting the same misplay, was Lofton. Cleveland added another run to ice a 4-0 win.

As the Tribe advanced to the World Series, it was significant for the Amaro family. Ruben Sr. had been a member of the 1964 Phillies, infamous for their collapse down the stretch, and even being a coach for the 1980 champions did not make up for that lost opportunity to play in the fall classic. Ruben Jr. hadn’t been born yet — in fact, his mother was expecting him at the time — but he certainly knew what had happened. The memory of his own missed opportunity in 1993 was also not distant.

In the Series itself, Amaro made two brief appearances. In Game Two at Atlanta, he batted for Julian Tavarez to lead off the top of the ninth, but Mark Wohlers struck him out and went on to close out the Braves’ 4-3 win. In the concluding Game Six, Amaro entered in the seventh inning, replacing right fielder Manny Ramirez in a double switch — a strategy on which manager Mike Hargrove was second-guessed.24 Amaro grounded out against Tom Glavine to end the top of the eighth, and again no balls were hit his way when Atlanta batted. Wohlers then nailed down the 1-0 win — and the title — for the Braves.

Not long after the Series ended, on November 9, Cleveland waived Amaro. He signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays in January 1996. To start the 1996 season, Amaro was with Syracuse, the Jays’ top farm club. In early May, however, he was released.

As he said later that year, Amaro then made his own break. He called Phillies general manager Lee Thomas and asked if Thomas had anything for him. Thomas said he’d have to get back to Amaro, but fortune smiled when outfielder Lee Tinsley went on the DL with a strained rib cage. Thomas and assistant GM Ed Wade called Amaro and said they had a job — not just at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but in the majors. Amaro said, “Oh, that’s great. I’ll have my agent call you.” Thomas responded that if the agent had to call, then not to come. Amaro said, “I’ll be there in three hours.”25

Although he was sent down to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after several days, he returned in early July and never played another day in the minors. He spent the remainder of his career, which lasted through 1998, as a reserve with the Phillies. He got into 270 games, starting 49 of them, and made 447 plate appearances. He was used a lot as a pinch-hitter and performed pretty well in that role, going 35-for-134 (.261) with two homers and 22 RBIs.

At the age of 33, though, Amaro decided to retire as a player. He then moved into the Phillies’ front office. Wade, who had succeeded Lee Thomas as the team’s general manager in 1997, had actually first approached Amaro about his plans in spring training 1998. Wade offered a job as assistant GM right then, but Amaro wanted to see how he did during the season to come. During the summer, after discussing things with Ruben Sr. and his brother David, Amaro decided to take Wade’s offer.26

The deal was actually announced on September 18.27 Nine days later, in his final big-league game, Amaro drove in the go-ahead run with a single as Philadelphia beat the Florida Marlins to end the season. “It was pretty emotional for me,” Amaro said. “The last three or four innings, I was fighting back the tears.”28

“I’m actually glad that I was as bad as I was that year,” Amaro later said. “It helped solidify that I absolutely made the right choice. I mean, I was done.” As Wade recalled, a lot of people in the industry were surprised by his choice, and some frankly questioned it, because others had been serving their apprenticeship. Wade said that he just felt it was the right thing for the organization.29

Amaro worked as assistant GM for seven seasons under Wade and for three more under Pat Gillick. It bothered him at first to realize that he was no longer one of the players; his relationship with them had changed. He also still had a lot to learn on the job.30 But he absorbed much from a Phillies institution, former GM Paul “The Pope” Owens, who was still with the franchise as a senior adviser. Amaro interviewed for the GM job after Wade was fired, but in retrospect, he realized he wasn’t ready.31

While Amaro continued to learn, he was part of the Phillies’ rise to success. Among other things, he helped obtain an important cog, Shane Victorino, and helped get Victorino into the lineup too. On November 3, 2008 — a week after the team completed its victory in the World Series — Amaro succeeded the retiring Gillick, signing a three-year contract. At the news conference, Amaro told Gillick that he was a tough act to follow.32

For at least the term of that contract, though, Amaro was riding high. The Phillies repeated as NL pennant-winners in 2009. They won the NL East in both 2010 and 2011 as well. Amaro enjoyed positive press and won praise for making bold deals in search of another title, such as the trades for star pitchers Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. In March 2011, he got a four-year contract extension.

After that, however, the team’s fortunes declined. They played .500 ball in 2012 but won just 73 games in both 2013 and 2014. The notoriously harsh Philly fans gave him a scathing nickname — “Ruin Tomorrow” — and the voices grew louder that he had to go. He drew fire for everything: letting the team get old, handing out bad contracts, making shortsighted deals, eschewing analytics, the long drought in the draft, and not acting soon enough to rebuild. Yet by 2018, the Phillies (despite fading from early August) had rebounded in the standings, thanks largely to players acquired during Amaro’s tenure. More time is needed for his legacy to be fully assessed.

In November 2014 Amaro got married for the second time. Jami Schnell, a children’s reading specialist, had been his significant other for some time. But on the job, things got worse for the Phillies in 2015. The team won just 63 games, its worst showing since 1972. Amaro didn’t last the full year — new president Andy MacPhail fired him on September 10.

After he was ousted as GM, Amaro expressed an interest in a different role: field manager. The story surfaced in the Boston Globe in early October that he was working with agent Bob LaMonte to remake himself, and that LaMonte was close to Tony La Russa, Walt Jocketty, and Gillick, all of whom had endorsed Amaro’s new pursuit.33

Red Sox manager John Farrell, who had been Amaro’s teammate in the Cleveland organization, saw this. Farrell asked Amaro whether he’d be interested in joining the Boston staff. Ruben thought it over and consulted with family, as well as Gillick, Wade, and Terry Francona (the Phillies’ manager from 1997 through 2000). In October 2015 Amaro took the job in Boston as first base/baserunning/outfield coach.

“I guess it is unusual,” he said. “But for me, I’ve always had kind of an itch to be back on the field … [but] had it not been the Red Sox, frankly I probably would not be doing this.” He added, “I’m gonna do my best to teach what I’ve learned over the years. … I’m laser-focused on being the best coach I can be.”34

After two seasons in Boston, Amaro joined Mickey Callaway’s staff as the first base coach for the New York Mets in November 2017. His duties also included coaching baserunning and outfield defense.

Following the 2018 season, the Mets hired agent Brodie Van Wagenen (who’d also played baseball for Stanford) as their new GM. Amaro, who’d negotiated with Van Wagenen while in Philly, was named a front-office adviser. His duties included scouting. Near the end of August 2019, however, the Mets announced that Amaro would not be returning.

Amaro worked in 2020 and 2021 as an analyst on Phillies games for NBC Sports Philadelphia. His name came up in relation to a couple of open GM positions: the Angels (November 2020) and the Colorado Rockies (May 2021). In March 2022, he joined the MLB Network. Aged just 57 heading into the 2022 season, Ruben Amaro Jr. was still a baseball story in progress.

Last revised: March 17, 2022

This biography was published in 1995 Cleveland Indians: The Sleeping Giant Awakes (SABR, 2019), edited by Joseph Wancho.

Acknowledgments

Continued thanks to Alayna Amaro.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author relied on a number of Internet resources and purapelota.com (Venezuelan statistics).

Notes

1 Adry Torres, “Ruben Amaro Jr. Looks to Bring Another Phillies Title to His Hometown,” Fox News Latino, October 5, 2011.

2 Telephone interview, Ruben Amaro Sr. with Rory Costello, October 18, 2012.

3 As of 2023, there have been four grandfather-father-son families in the majors: the Boones, the Bells, the Hairstons, and the Colemans. Also notable are Dick Schofield Sr. and Jr., plus Jayson Werth, nephew of Schofield Jr.

4 Mike Jensen, “Family Pick: Phillies Choose Amaro as GM,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 4, 2008.

5 Stan Hochman, “Phillies GM Amaro Always Will Have His Mother in His Corner,” Fox Sports, December 2, 2008.

6 George Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching,” New York Times, April 15, 1992.

7 Adam Berry, “Amaro’s Grandfather Inducted Into Latino HOF,” MLB.com, February 12, 2013.

8 Rob Charry, “Phillies’ Amaro Has Rest of League Saying ‘Roy Vey,’” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 5, 2010.

9 Nick DiUlio, “Ruben Amaro Jr.: Arms Dealer,” Philadelphia Magazine, April 7, 2011.

10 Charry, “Phillies’ Amaro Has Rest of League Saying ‘Roy Vey.’”

11 Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching.”

12 Jorge Arangure Jr., “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader,” ESPN.com, October 3, 2011.

13 “Former Stanford Great Ruben Amaro, Jr. Named Phillies GM,” Stanford Athletics press release, November 4, 2008.

14 Stan Isle, “Judging Talent May Be Herzog’s Greatest Gift,” The Sporting News, August 3, 1987: 10.

15 Bob Nightengale, “Steal of the Winter,” The Sporting News, December 23, 1991: 22.

16 Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching.”

17 Gwen Knapp, “Rookie GM Amaro’s Long History With Phillies,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2009.

18 “Amaro Leads Phillies’ Romp Over Cubs,” Reading Eagle, April 9, 1992: D1.

19 Vecsey, “The Batboy Learned by Watching”

20 Frank Fitzpatrick, “Phils Deal Amaro to Cleveland in a Bullpen-Rebuilding Move”, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 3, 1993.

21 Frank Fitzpatrick, “Amaro Shipped to Minors,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 25, 1992.

22 Fitzpatrick, “Phils Deal Amaro to Cleveland in a Bullpen-Rebuilding Move.”

23 Ibid.

24 Bob Smizik, “Series Awards for Good, Bad,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 1, 1995.

25 Associated Press, “Amaro, Magee Save Phils,” August 21, 1996; Arangure, “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader.”

26 Arangure, “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader.”

27 As may be seen from wire service reports of transactions.

28 “Emotional Ending for Amaro,” Reading Eagle, September 28, 1998: D4.

29 Arangure, “Ruben Amaro Jr. a Confident Leader.”

30 Tony Zonca, “New Job a Good Fit for Amaro,” Reading Eagle, June 2, 1999: C1.

31 DiUlio, Ruben Amaro Jr.: Arms Dealer.”

32 Associated Press, “Amaro Signs Three-Year Deal to Become New Phillies GM,” November 4, 2008.

33 Nick Cafardo, “Apropos of Nothing,” Boston Globe, October 4, 2015.

34 Corey Seidman, “Ruben Amaro Explains ‘Unusual’ Transition From GM to 1B coach,” CSNPhilly.com, October 27, 2015.

Nicholas Taylor Apollonio was born on April 9, 1843 in New York City, the son of Connecticut-born Nicholas Alessandro Apollonio and English-born Sarah Gibbs.1 The family soon relocated to Boston, where Apollonio’s father served as the Boston city registrar from 1854 to 1891.2 Apollonio married Georgianna Pingree in Boston on May 5, 1864.3 He supported their growing family by working as a bookkeeper for Thomas Flint & Company, a hardware broker.4

In 1872 Apollonio participated in meetings of interested followers of the Boston baseball team fielded by Boston Base Ball Association (aka the Boston Base Ball Club, not to be confused with the stock-company Boston Base Ball Association that ran the team) to help seek out new season-ticket holders (aka members) as one way to “devise means of relieving the Boston Base Ball Association from its present financial embarrassment and place it on a secure footing for the ensuing year.”5 Apollonio was elected treasurer of the member group, “but he positively declined serving,” according to the Boston Globe account of the meeting.6 Apollonio must have been instrumental in recruiting new members, since he was elected president of the Boston Base Ball Association for the 1874 season.7

Apollonio served three years as Association president, overseeing the organization through some turbulent times. Although the baseball team’s trip to England in 1874 caused a financial shortfall, Apollonio was re-elected as president for the 1875 season.8 While the team won a fourth consecutive pennant in 1875, its ace pitcher, Al Spalding, and three other ballplayers announced in July that they had contracted to play with Chicago in 1876 rather than remain with the Boston team. Despite the embarrassment, Apollonio was re-elected president for the 1876 season, since the Association directors didn’t hold him accountable for the defections, as Spalding acknowledged that his departure was “a foregone conclusion which no action of the directors could have prevented.”9

However, the Association directors were not so forgiving when Apollonio signed Joe Borden, an alleged “phenomenon” as a pitcher, to replace Spalding.10 In the inaugural year of the National League in 1876, the Boston team, with Borden as a flop in the pitcher’s box, stumbled to a fourth-place finish behind pennant-winning Chicago, which had Spalding in the box. The directors held Apollonio responsible for “the hiring of incompetent players,” especially “the mistake made by securing Borden as pitcher, who had contributed more to the defeat of the nine during the past season than any other player.”11 Apollonio was deposed as president in December 1876, when, while he was absent from Boston to attend the National League meeting in Cleveland, the directors of the Boston Base Ball Association did not re-elect him as president.12 Later that month Arthur Soden was elected president, a post he held for the next three decades.

Apollonio settled into life beyond professional baseball. By 1880, his family, which included six children, lived in a large house on Albion Street in then-suburban Dorchester.13 For more 30 years, Apollonio worked as the accountant for the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, whose corporate office was in Boston and its textile mills in Somersworth, New Hampshire.14 By 1900 he and his wife were living in an opulent house in the upper-middle-class suburb of Winchester.15 Apollonio died in Winchester on April 1, 1911, and his remains were interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.16

Notes

Appleton was one of the minor casualties of the Players League War of 1890, squeezed out of National League club ownership ranks during the takeover of the Giants franchise by those who had operated New York’s rival PL club. Thereafter he lived out of the limelight with only the misadventures of an extravagant ex-wife keeping Appleton’s name in occasional newsprint. He spent his final years living quietly in Europe with his well-to-do second spouse, dying in France in August 1917. To the extent that the surviving record permits, Appleton’s life story follows.

The passage of time and only intermittent newspaper interest in his activities leave unfillable holes in the biography of our subject. But US Census and other government records establish that Walter Stone Appleton was born in Philadelphia on August 7, 1850. He was the second of five children born to prominent publisher George Swett Appleton (1821-1878) and his wife Caroline (née Osgood, 1825-1893).3 At the time, the Appletons were a family of wealth and social position. Grandfather Daniel Sidney Appleton (1785-1849) founded the book and magazine publishing firm D. Appleton & Company in 1831. The venture prospered, particularly from publication of the New American Cyclopedia, the widely circulated mid-to-late-19th century reference work. The company remained in existence under variations of the Appleton name for over 160 years. After an extensive education that included several years of study in present-day Germany, father George set up an independent book selling business in Philadelphia in 1850. Ten years later, he joined the family publishing firm, subsequently relocating to Manhattan.4

Among the unknowns in Walter Appleton’s life is the extent of his education, although there is some evidence that suggests that he attended the French and English Institute for Young Gentlemen in Manhattan as a teenager.5 He became a married man at age 19, taking Anna Elizabeth Porter Beach as his bride in an Episcopal Church ceremony conducted in September 1869.6 The marriage would prove a tumultuous one; eventually, Annie Appleton’s profligacy nearly bankrupted her husband. In the short term, however, the couple settled in Manhattan, where Walter entered the family business.

In retrospect, the 1870s may have been the most stable decade of Walter Appleton’s life. On behalf of D. Appleton & Company, he regularly represented firm interests at Manhattan book fairs and trade shows.7 Also frequently in attendance at these gatherings was local bookseller Charles T. Dillingham, also destined to hold a minority stake in the MEC. In February 1875, Appleton and Dillingham were appointed to the executive committee of the Publishers’ Central Association, a trade organization composed of the leading book publishers in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.8 At the time, Appleton and his wife were in residence with his relations on Staten Island.9 Later the childless couple moved to lower Manhattan.10

The effect that the untimely death of George Swett Appleton in July 1878 had on his son’s situation is unclear.11 Upon George’s passing, control of firm affairs reposed in George’s three surviving Appleton brothers, and Walter’s name no longer appeared in newsprint coverage of firm activities. Instead, and over time, he began to attract periodic mention in reportage on baseball. Short in stature (5-foot-5) and slightly built,12 there is no evidence that Walter Appleton played ball himself. But like his bookselling competitor/friend Dillingham, he was an avid fan of the game.

A history of the original New York Mets is beyond the scope of this profile.13 Suffice it to say that in late 1880, Appleton and Dillingham became minority shareholders in the MEC, the closely held corporation established by John B. Day for operation of his Metropolitan Base Ball Club of New York. Although Day, Appleton, and Dillingham were all Manhattan businessmen in their 30s and baseball enthusiasts, it is unclear whether Day knew his junior partners beforehand. According to infielder-turned-sportswriter Sam Crane, Appleton and Dillingham were induced to make their MEC investments by Mets manager Jim Mutrie, rather than Day.14 Another source opined that Mutrie’s friend, pitcher Jack Lynch, suggested that Mutrie seek funding from prominent book publishers Appleton and Dillingham, as he knew them to be “lovers of baseball and liberally inclined.”15 Regardless, the two book publishers soon became Day confidants, regularly accompanying him or representing MEC interests in his stead at baseball gatherings.

In 1881 the Mets took the field as an independent professional nine, playing a mixed Eastern Championship Association (ECA)/freelance schedule of 151 games. Location in the nation’s largest city, plus a tolerable 18-41 (.305) record in head-to-head competition with National League teams,16 made the Mets an attractive prospect to those intent upon forming a rival major league for the 1882 season. On November 2, !881, Appleton represented the Mets at the American Association’s organizational meeting in Cincinnati. Mutrie was also on hand but declined to participate in the meeting.  Acting on Day’s instructions, the pair declined to commit their club to the fledgling circuit.17 Having played roughly 60 games against NL teams in 1881, the Mets were reluctant to risk alienating the NL.18 Days later, they informed National League President William Hulbert of the decision to keep the Mets out of the AA – at least for the time being.19

The Mets encored as an independent club in 1882, again holding their own against major league (NL and AA) competition while running roughshod over ECA teams and lesser clubs on the way to posting a 101-58-3 (.633) record, overall. After the season MEC boss Day confounded expectations by declining an invitation to place the Mets in the NL. Instead, the Mets joined the upstart AA. Likely in gratitude, MEC junior partner Walter Appleton, nominally the New York Mets club president, was appointed an AA director at the circuit’s annual meeting in November 1882. Simultaneously, Mets manager Jim Mutrie was tabbed for the AA schedule committee.20

Later that offseason, John B. Day’s grander plan came into view. In addition to putting the Mets in the AA, Day was intent on placement of an entirely different MEC ball club in the National League. The necessary vacancy in league ranks was promptly created by jettisoning the NL’s weakling club in Troy (while Worcester was axed to accommodate Philadelphia). Troy also furnished the player nucleus for New York’s new NL club: Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, Mickey Welch, and Padney Gillespie. That the NL team, soon to be known as the Giants, was the MEC’s favored club was reflected in not only the allocation of playing talent, but also by Day’s appointing himself club president.21

During the Mets’ first season as an AA member, MEC partiality for its National League club prompted recurring reports that the Mets would be disbanded at season’s end, with its best players reassigned to the Giants. But “the president of the Metropolitan club, Mr. Appleton, takes exception” to these claims, reported Sporting Life in early August. “The club has been successful, financially, this year … and whether it wins the pennant or not, it will represent New York in the AA in 1884. The management has not entertained so much as a thought of its discontinuance,” Appleton declared.22 Two months later, this assurance was reiterated, as “President Appleton and Manager Mutrie say the Metropolitans will remain in the Association next year with new [playing] grounds in New York.”23

Unease about MEC ownership of franchises in both major leagues surfaced at the AA winter meeting where Association secretary Jimmy Williams “was instructed to notify the Metropolitans that they must cut loose from their National League connection or forfeit their membership in the American Association.”24 Mets club president Appleton was also removed from the AA board of directors.25 Thereafter, the cosmopolitan and seemingly unconcerned Appleton sailed for Europe.26

In March 1884, Appleton and Mutrie served as Mets delegates to the preseason AA convention held in St. Louis.27 Weeks later, “the Metropolitan Exhibition Company announced the disposal of all their right, title and interest in the Metropolitan baseball club. Frank Rhoner, a wealthy furniture dealer, was [installed] as president of the new [Mets] club.”28 Other shareholders in the revamped Mets organization, reputedly capitalized at $50,000, were Jim Mutrie and one W.H. Kipp.29 Meanwhile, former club president Appleton was transferred to the Giants board of directors,30 a post that he retained for the remainder of the decade. All of this, however, was widely perceived as a sham, designed to assuage AA club owner complaint about John B. Day’s influence over Mets operations but effecting no real change. Rhoner was merely another Day factotum. Behind the scenes the MEC boss remained in charge.31

Contrary to Day’s expectation, it was the Mets that provided the MEC with a pennant in 1884, not the Giants. Behind the yeoman pitching of Tim Keefe (37-17) and Jack Lynch (37-15), the slugging of burly first baseman Dave Orr (.354, with 112 RBIs), the all-around play of third baseman Dude Esterbrook (.314), and the leadership of manager Mutrie, the Mets posted a superb 75-32-5 (.701) record and cruised to the American Association championship. Being swept in a three-game postseason match against the NL champion Providence Grays, and a reported loss of $15,000 on the corporation books,32 however, dampened management enthusiasm for the Mets. Meanwhile, the Giants and their stacked lineup did no better than 62-50 (.554) for a fourth-place tie in final National League standings. But with higher ticket prices and much better home-game attendance, the Giants reported a profit of $35,000.33

During the offseason the MEC transferred manager Mutrie to the Giants. Subsequently, and via some rule-bending chicanery, Mets stars Tim Keefe and Dude Esterbrook were allocated to the Giants as well. Left in the dark about these moves,34 club president Rhoner resigned in a huff, selling his interest in the Mets to Joseph Gordon, a Manhattan coal dealer and Tammany Hall comrade of John B. Day.35 Gordon then assumed the Mets club presidency.36

The following April brought a report that Walter Appleton had purchased $500 worth of stock in the Washington Nationals of the minor Eastern League “and wanted more but could not obtain it.”37 Apart from that, our subject’s name was not often in newsprint during the 1885 season. But as the campaign neared a close, he was dispatched to Cincinnati to assay whether that city might be a suitable site for placement of a National League franchise by the MEC.38 And late that year Appleton received his share of the proceeds when ownership of the Mets was sold to Staten Island entrepreneur Erastus Wiman for a reported $25,000.39

During the ensuing seasons, New York Giants club director Appleton regularly accompanied Day to NL meetings. Despite not having played himself, Appleton was deemed a capable judge of talent and often signed prospects for the ball club.40 He also served as manager of a Giants-laden nine that played in the California League during the winter of 1887-1888 (although Tim Keefe handled the lineup and game-related decisions).41 Unpretentious, good-humored, and friendly with his charges – traits he shared with MEC boss Day – Appleton was generally well-liked by both Giants players and the New York sporting press. On the personal front, there is little evidence that he remained on the payroll of the family publishing business during the 1880s. In the short term, however, earning a living may not have been a particular concern. In early 1886 George S. Appleton, Jr., passed away leaving “a snug fortune to his brother Walter.”42 On top of that, Appleton’s slice of Giants club ownership afforded him a tidy annual income.43

Ensuing seasons brought the MEC to the pinnacle of its existence. With the roster featuring six future Hall of Famers,44 the Giants went 84-47 (.641) and cruised to the National League pennant in 1888. Along the way, 305,455 paid admissions to the Polo Grounds set a new major league home attendance record. Defeating the AA champion St. Louis Browns then allowed the Giants to lay claim to the title of world champions. The club repeated as NL pennant and World Series winners in 1889, but the path to those triumphs was strewn with obstacles. The city’s condemnation and razing of the Polo Grounds left the Giants without a suitable home field until a new ballpark opened in far north Manhattan in July. Compounding the toll of stadium construction and leasing the underlying real estate was the loss of revenue caused by the 100,000 fewer patrons who took in Giants home games that season.45 But far more ominous was the November 1889 announcement that a new competitor would be taking the field in 1890: the Players League.

Accounts of the cutthroat battle between the NL New York Giants (the Real Giants) and its PL counterpart, also called the New York Giants (the Big Giants), are available elsewhere.46 For the most part, Walter Appleton’s assignment during the conflict was to accompany John B. Day to courthouse proceedings and to assist in keeping rebellious Giants players in the club fold. Unhappily for Appleton, the latter task resulted in embarrassment and censure. Returning from a visit with Danny Richardson, Appleton gave Giants manager Mutrie and a press assemblage the impression that he had rescued the club’s coveted second baseman from Players League clutches, signing him to a new contract. Hours later, celebration of Appleton’s accomplishment was quashed by publication of a telegram from Richardson reaffirming his commitment to the PL’s Big Giants.47

The reaction to this turn of events was harsh. Sportswriter A. G. Ovens called Appleton “an egregious ass … trying to impress the assembled crowd that he was a great man, not a blockhead. He couldn’t do that, however, as the disguise was too thin and the newspapers lost no time in publishing the particulars of the whole business.”48 Elsewhere, “the effervescent director” was criticized as “an actor of consummate skill, but a dire failure as a league advocate.”49 A more forgiving attitude, however, was displayed by another unrequited target of Appleton’s advances: future Hall of Famer Mike (King) Kelly. “Walter is a good fellow, and he hated to see the league people so blue,” said Kelly. “He never thought of the stir such talk would make and I suppose he wanted to cheer the boys up a little, so he pretended to have Richardson and myself fixed for the league. Of course, it is all bosh.”50

A month later Appleton was besieged on another front. He was sued for an unpaid $1,350 bill by his ex-wife’s dressmaker.51 The date of the dissolution of Walter and Annie Appleton’s marriage could not be determined, but the couple had been separated for about two years when the suit was filed.52 No immediate satisfaction was obtained by the plaintiff, but the suit served as a harbinger of litigation over Annie’s debts that lay in Appleton’s future.

Meanwhile, back on the frontlines of the Players League War, the NL Real Giants were being overshadowed by their PL rival at Brotherhood Park, separated from the New Polo Grounds by no more than a 10-foot-wide alley and the ballpark walls. By mid-July, the MEC was hemorrhaging red ink. Only the transfusion of emergency funds from fellow club owners saved the NL’s flagship franchise from bankruptcy. But the introduction of outsiders into ownership ranks would have fateful consequences, in time driving the founders of the New York Real Giants out of the game.

As before, Appleton’s personal finances were enhanced by the death of a relative. He was left a $10,000 bequest in the will of his Aunt Elisa Osgood, a daughter of Commodore Vanderbilt.53 Shortly after Appleton came into the money, the unpaid dressmaker renewed her lawsuit.54 Months thereafter, Mme. Josephine Coggeshall, a prominent Fifth Avenue clothier, hauled Appleton into court over an unpaid $4,325 dress bill.55 Courtroom proceedings thereupon exposed Annie Appleton’s spendthrift history and the depleted state of her ex-husband’s exchequer. In defense of the suit, “Mr. Appleton testified that in the course of the first year of their married life, Mrs. Appleton spent $75,000 for dresses, millinery and trifles. She was so extravagant that his fortune was soon exhausted.” Presently, he lived on borrowed money, with the $100-a-month alimony due his ex-wife supplied by others, as Appleton “has no business.”56 Benefactors also covered his frequent travel expenses. As for the judgment sought by the Coggeshall suit – which had mounted to $6,000 with interest – Appleton “was absolutely unable to pay it.”57

With the demise of the PL in late 1890, John B. Day and PL Big Giants honcho Edward B. Talcott merged operations, forming a new corporation entitled the National Exhibition Company.58 An October 1891 analysis of New York Giants ownership showed Talcott and his allies in control with a combined 44.5% of the club stock. The shares of MEC alumni (Day, Dillingham, and Gordon, plus Jim Mutrie) constituted a mere 16%, while other NL club owners and random parties held the remainder.59 Notably absent from the ownership roll was insolvent Walter S. Appleton.60 Still, Appleton was “not dead to baseball, as has been stated.” Rather, he was busy helping erstwhile MEC comrade Dillingham wind up his own failing business affairs. As Sporting Life observed, Appleton “discusses the national game with all the fervor of a man who has dropped a bundle trying to squeeze a fortune from it.”61

Ultimately Appleton escaped his financial plight in a time-tested manner: he married money. The new Mrs. Appleton was Marion Klein, spinster daughter of an upstate New York copper magnate. The date of the couple’s betrothal is unknown,62 but by late 1893 the activities of Mr. and Mrs. Walter S. Appleton were appearing on the social pages of Buffalo newspapers.63 Such recognition, however, did not spare Walter from being mentioned in reportage of ex-wife Annie’s misadventures. In March 1893, her dalliance with much younger suitors prompted disapproval from blue noses in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey.64 Early the following year Annie was arrested for obtaining goods by fraudulently representing herself as the wife of a New York City judge.65 Shortly thereafter she came into an inheritance and died quietly only months later.66

Back in Buffalo, Appleton became a stockholder in a local wheel manufacturing concern. He was later sued by the accountant he retained to audit the corporate books for failure to satisfy the accountant’s $400 bill.67 Meanwhile, newspaper social pages kept readers abreast of the vacation travels of the Appletons.68 In April 1909 the couple relocated to Europe, wintering in Switzerland, and otherwise taking up residence in Nice, France.69 By July 1917 the Appletons were ready to return home but were instructed to wait out World War I in place. Walter never made it. He died from a heart attack suffered at the Hotel des Beaux-Arts in Lyon on August 15, 1917, age 67.70 Until cessation of hostilities, his remains had to be entombed in France.71 In addition to his second wife, the deceased was survived by his sisters Elina Fraser and Emma Anderson. His days of note long behind him, Walter Stone Appleton’s passing rated no more than a one-sentence death notice in the American press.72

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Rick Zucker and fact-checked by Terry Bohn.

Sources

Sources for the biographical information recited above include US and New York State census data, as well as other governmental records accessed via Ancestry.com. Other sources are cited in the endnotes, below.

Notes

1 Previously, the New York Mutuals and other Gotham baseball clubs had played their games in Brooklyn, then a municipality separate and distinct from New York City and the third largest city in the country. The Mets played their inaugural game on what became known as the Polo Grounds on September 29, 1880, defeating the Nationals of Washington, DC, 4-2.

2 The nickname Giants was originally coined by New York Evening World sportswriter P.J. Donahue in April 1885 and quickly gained currency. Previously the club had sometimes been called the Gothams or Maroons, or more typically the New-Yorks. For purposes of clarity New York’s National League club will be referred to as the Giants throughout this bio.

3 The other Appleton children were Elina (born 1848), Emma (1852), George (1854), and Francis (1857).

4 Per the obituary of George Swett Appleton published in the Boston Evening Transcript, July 9, 1878: 4. Following Daniel Appleton’s retirement in 1848, control of firm affairs was assumed by George’s brothers John, William, and Sidney. A scholar and art connoisseur, George became the partner who handled literary assessment and press relations when he joined the family business.  

5 Per a roster of former students accessed on-line via Ancestry.com.

6 According to New York State marriage records, the couple was married on September 16, 1869 in Troy, New York.

7 See e.g., “The American Book Fair,” New York Herald, March 21, 1876: 11; “A Book Fair,” New York Herald, July 20, 1875: 5; “Book Trade Sale,” New York Herald, March 26, 1874: 3.  

8 “Publishers’ Central Association,” New York Herald, February 10, 1875: 11.

9 The 1875 New York State Census lists Walter and Annie Appleton as residing at the Staten Island home of his maternal uncle William Osgood and wife.

10 The 1876 New York City directory lists Walter’s occupation as book publisher.

11 On July 8, 1878, George Swett Appleton died of spinal meningitis at age 57.

12 According to a late-life passport application and photo.

13 Details on the founding of the Metropolitans can be found in the writer’s essay “Meet the 19th Century Mets,” published in The New York Mets in Popular Culture, David Krell, ed. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2020), 116-128.  

14 “Base Ball: How Mutrie Boomed the Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 5, 1893: 14. See also, “A Bit of History,” Sporting Life, February 11, 1893: 3. Crane, later a longtime sportswriter for the New York Evening Journal, played second base for the New York Metropolitans during the 1882 and 1883 seasons.

15 Edward Achorn, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey (Philadelphia: PublicAffairs, 2013), 174.

16 Woody Eckard, “Henry Chadwick and the National League’s Performance vs. ‘Outsiders’: 1876-81,” Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 52, No. 2, Fall 2023, 73. Other sources place the Mets record against NL competition at 18-42 (.300). See e.g., the BioProject profile of Mets manager Jim Mutrie.

17 David Nemec, The Beer and Whisky League: The Illustrated History of the American Association – Baseball’s Renegade Major League (New York: Lyons & Burford, 1994), 21.

18 Edward Achorn, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey, 26.

19 “Sporting Events,” Chicago Tribune, November 6, 1881: 7; “Adheres to the Old League,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 6, 1881: 7. Hulbert had ample reason for concern about American Association overtures toward the Mets. New York and Philadelphia, the nation’s two largest cities, had been bereft of a major league team since 1876 when Hulbert orchestrated the expulsion of the New York Mutuals and Philadelphia Athletics from the National League for failure to complete their playing schedules. Placement of an American Association club in either venue would greatly enhance the nascent circuit’s stature and chances for survival against the NL.

20 Per Cliff Blau’s New York Mets chronology for the American Association project, accessible on-line via the SABR research collection website. Appleton is also identified as a member of the American Association board of directors in “Miller Reinstated,” Sporting Life, August 13, 1883: 3.

21 In a talent evaluation blunder, Day consigned another Troy refugee, future Hall of Famer Tim Keefe, to the Mets rather than retaining him for the MEC’s National League club.

22 “The ‘Mets’ All Right,” Sporting Life, August 6, 1883: 3.

23 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, October 1, 1883: 6.

24 Preston D. Orem, Baseball from the Newspaper Accounts, 1882-1891 (Altadena, California: Self-published, 1966-1967), 75; accessed via the SABR research collection website.

25 Blau, Mets chronology, above. Appleton’s removal coincided with reduction of the AA board to five members.

26 “Notes and Comments,” Sporting Life, December 26, 1883: 3.

27 “Baseball News,” New York Tribune, March 12, 1884: 5. In his capacity as a member of the three-man NL Board of Arbitration, New York Giants club president John B. Day also attended the AA conclave.

28 Orem, 104; “Gotham Gleanings,” Chicago Tribune, April 17, 1884: 3.

29 “A Base Ball Muddle,” Sporting Life, December 16, 1885: 4.

30 Orem, 104.

31 See again, Orem, 104, and “A Base Ball Muddle,” above.

32 Orem, 125, “which undoubtedly included the cost of fitting up” Metropolitan Park, the uninviting, ill-conceived ballpark erected along the Harlem River for the Mets. At midseason, the Mets returned to the Polo Grounds, only using “The Dump” when the Polo Grounds was unavailable.

33 Orem, 138.

34 Shortly before the Keefe/Esterbrook moves were publicly announced, Rhoner pooh-poohed reports that the two Mets stars were headed for the Giants. “Still Rampant,” Sporting Life, May 20, 1885: 6.

35 As reported in the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and elsewhere, May 12, 1885. The events caused Sporting Life’s New York correspondent to remark, “Did anyone ever charge or suppose for a moment that Rhoner ever knew anything about these matters? How quickly though … he washed his hands of the whole thing when he found out what little account he was.” “Harlem Echoes,” Sporting Life, May 27, 1885: 6.

36 “Notes,” Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1885: 2; “The New Yorks Leading,” New York Times, May 12, 1885: 3. See also, “A Base Ball Muddle,” and Blau, above.

37 “From the Capital,” Sporting Life, April 15, 1885: 6.

38 “Another Guess,” Sporting Life, September 30, 1885: 5.

39 “The Metropolitan Club Deal,” New York Clipper, December 12, 1885: 616; “Mr. Wiman’s Baseball Club,” New York Times, December 5, 1885: 8.

40 “Broadway Jottings,” New York Evening World, January 7, 1888: 2; “The Newark Battery,” The Sporting News, October 30, 1886: 6; “Appleton in Syracuse,” The Sporting News, September 27, 1886: 1.

41 “Gossip of the Ball Field,” New York Sun, October 2, 1887: 10.

42 “Obituary,” Sporting Life, February 3, 1886: 3. Unmarried and only 32, the late George S. Jr., had been an ardent New York baseball fan.

43 In September 1889 it was reported that the MEC had netted a $750,000 profit in less than ten years. “An Offer for the Giants,” New York Times, September 6, 1889: 3. This figure, however, seems wildly inflated, as no MEC club is known to have reported a single-season profit greater than $35,000. Even so, baseball provided a handsome and reliable income stream for MEC shareholders through 1889.

44 In addition to original Giants Ewing, Connor, and Welch, plus 1885 transfer Keefe, the club had added John Montgomery Ward and Orator Jim O’Rourke to the lineup.

45 Still, the club reported a $30,300 profit in 1889. “What! No Profit?” Sporting Life, December 25, 1889: 2.

46 Robert B. Ross, The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players League (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

47 “Claim Richardson Will Sign,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 14, 1890: 1; “The Sporting Record,” Dallas Morning News,” February 14, 1890: 2.

48 “Excited Hoosiers,” Sporting Life, February 26, 1890: 1. See also, “The Sporting World,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 17, 1890: 7, wherein Cleveland club secretary Davis Hawley stated that “Mr. Appleton was to blame” for the Richardson signing subterfuge, and that rebuke should be directed toward him “and not the New York club.”

49 “Appleton’s Smile,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 14, 1890: 2; “A Full-Sized Joke,” (Memphis) Public Ledger, February 14, 1890: 1; “Richardson Will Stick,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 14, 1890: 8.

50 “Claim Richardson Will Sign” and “The Sporting Record,” above.

51 “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Post, March 17, 1890: 6.

52 “Says He Will Not Pay for His Wife’s Dresses,” New York Sun, November 4, 1890: 1.

53 “Vanderbilt’s Daughter’s Will,” San Francisco Examiner, October 24, 1890: 6: “Mrs. E.S. Osgood’s Will,” New York Tribune, October 17, 1890: 7.

54 “Says He Will Not Pay,” above.

55 “$75,000 for Dresses in a Year,” New York Evening World, May 20, 1891: 1.

56 “Mrs. Appleton’s Finery,” Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1891: 8; “Mrs. W.S. Appleton Made the Money Fly,” New York Tribune, May 20, 1891: 6; “A Dressmaker’s Bill,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 20, 1891: 4. See also, “New York Letter,” (Nashville) Daily American, May 23, 1891: 13.

57 “Mrs. Appleton’s Finery,” above. Whether Mme. Coggeshall ever got her money is unknown.

58 “New York Club Affairs,” Sporting Life, January 31, 1891: 3. The new organization was incorporated under the laws of New Jersey.

59 George H. Dickinson, “New York Comment,” Sporting Life, October 17, 1891: 3.

60 Beset by business reversals and stripped of power in club affairs, John B. Day resigned as New York Giants president in February 1893. Charles T. Dillingham, the other original member of the MEC, lost his bookselling business to bankruptcy in the early 1890s but hung onto his Giants stock until 1896.

61 “Personal Mention,” Sporting Life, February 20, 1892: 2.

62 According to the 1900 US Census, Walter and Marion Appleton had been married for 14 years. But that was plainly untrue. The census notation that the couple was childless, however, was accurate.

63 “Personal Mention,” Buffalo Courier, December 11, 1893: 6.

64 “Bergen County White Caps,” New York Evening World, March 31, 1893: 3.

65 “Annie Beach Appleton Arrested,” New York Sun, January 19, 1894: 1; “Creditors of ‘Mrs. Beach,’” New York Evening World, January 19, 1894: 2. The jurist, New York State Supreme Court Justice Miles Beach, was actually Annie’s older brother and had long previously refused to cover her debts.

66 Annie Beach Appleton died at age 48 in November 1894.

67 “Accountant’s Suit,” Buffalo Morning News, August 26, 1899: 7; “Suit for Service,” Buffalo Commercial, August 25, 1899: 9.

68 “Whereabouts of People We Know,” Buffalo Times, January 8, 1901: 3; “Social Register,” Buffalo Commercial, March 16, 1900: 8; “Very Latest News,” Buffalo Evening News, May 26, 1898: 1. 

69 As recounted by Walter and Marion Appleton in their respective Affidavit to Explain Protracted Foreign Residence and to Overcome the Presumption of Expatriation, dated July 12, 1917 and accessed via Ancestry.com. The affiants averred that they came to Europe to further the education of their (non-existent) son and for Walter’s health.

70 Per Report of Death of American Citizen, dated August 16, 1917 and accessed via Ancestry.com. Cirrhosis of the liver was listed as a factor contributing to Walter Appleton’s death.

71 The present resting place of Appleton’s remains is unknown.

72 “Obituary Notes,” New York Evening World, August 29, 1917: 7.

Before his call to the ministry in 1955, Armstrong was a rising star in professional baseball administration. After a brief minor-league career as a pitcher/infielder (1947), he became business manager of the Portsmouth (Ohio) A’s of the Ohio-Indiana League in 1948. He then became the first public relations director for the Philadelphia Athletics, working for and with the legendary Connie Mack from the end of 1949 through the end of the 1952 major-league season.

After taking a year to work for an advertising agency, Armstrong answered the call of his hometown Baltimore Orioles, new to the American League in 1954, by becoming their first public relations director. Besides helping establish major-league baseball in the Baltimore market, Armstrong displayed vision with many of the innovations he introduced at the major-league level. This included the first comprehensive in-stadium fan survey ever done in the major leagues, the results of which gained national attention and had lasting influence in the way major-league clubs viewed their fan bases.

By 1955, Armstrong’s growing reputation among major-league executives indicated a long, successful baseball front-office career ahead. However, the time with the Orioles would not be the last calling that he would fulfill.

Even though this biography focuses on Armstrong’s baseball career, the entirety of his life story cannot be ignored. He started a song ad service for the W.W. Orr Advertising Agency, adding to their already unique offering to clients. Late in life, he expressed his hope that his voluminous store of unpublished poetry will eventually be made public. Indeed, if his story were to have a title, it could be “The Poet of the Press Box and the Pulpit.”

Richard Stoll “Dick” Armstrong was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 29, 1924, the son of Herbert Eustace Armstrong and Elsie Davis Stoll Armstrong.1 Calling his childhood “an idyllic life,”2 Dick attended the McDonogh School in Baltimore for 11 years. He credited this private, semi-military academy for the development of his values later in life. Dick’s lifelong passion for sports began at McDonogh under his father Herb, who was head of the math department and athletic department, also serving as head coach of the varsity football, hockey, and basketball teams. A gifted athlete, Herb had been a three-year All-American for the Tufts College baseball team. The shortstop went on to play professionally from 1917 through 1925, rising as high as the International League, while also pursuing a teaching career.3

At McDonogh, Dick excelled in baseball, basketball, and football while winning awards for excellence in studies.4 He led his class 10 out of 11 years, he received the Childs’ Cup for the highest three-year scholarship average in the upper school, he served as secretary of his class, was editor of the yearbook, captain of the baseball team and co-captain of the basketball team as well as the starting left end on McDonogh’s football team. Armstrong’s academic success and prowess on the pitching mound earned him the Maryland Regional Scholarship to Princeton University in 1942.

The United States was already fighting the Axis powers in World War II when Armstrong entered Princeton as a freshman in the spring of 1942. He began as a member of Princeton’s ROTC unit and then decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy on December 20, 1942. He was assigned to the Navy V-12 unit at Princeton, so he was able to continue his studies, now as a Navy plebe, in preparation for Midshipmen Officers’ Candidacy School. He immediately excelled in athletics, spending one season on the varsity basketball team while winning the Underclassman Cup for baseball in 1943.5 He lettered in varsity baseball in 1944.

From the outset of the war, colleges and universities in America experienced a decline in enrollment. Men were either being drafted into the military or enlisting voluntarily. The U.S. Navy also had a critical need for commissioned officers. To address both areas, on July 1, 1943, “The Navy V-12 program was created to generate a large number of officers as well as to offset the dropping number of enrollees at colleges.”6 Armstrong qualified for Harvard University’s Midshipmen School, earning a commission as an ensign after four months. He then spent the next eight months in the Naval Supply Corps School at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. After completing training at Harvard in the spring of 1945, Armstrong was assigned as the disbursing officer on the U.S.S. Chandeleur (AV 10) in the Pacific theater. He was later promoted to supply officer and remained on sea duty until his honorable discharge on August 31, 1946.7

Armstrong noted fondly that he pitched for Princeton both before and after the war. He returned to college determined to spend his senior year “as a regular student.”8 Besides earning his undergraduate degree in economics, he was a starting outfielder and pitcher on the varsity baseball team during the 1947 season. In 1990, Armstrong was awarded the Robert L. Peters. Jr. ’42 Award, by the Friends of Princeton Baseball, honoring “an alumnus…for significant contributions to the athletic community and later-life accomplishments.”9

As he contemplated graduation, Armstrong wanted to play professional baseball. A fellow Baltimorean, Arthur Ehlers, was farm director of the Philadelphia A’s. Traveling to Shibe Park in Philadelphia after graduating, Armstrong introduced himself to Ehlers. An astute executive with an eye for talent, Ehlers became one of the most important acquaintances in Armstrong’s baseball life. Beyond Armstrong’s on-field talent, Ehlers spotted a business sense and leadership qualities in the young man. He offered Armstrong a job with the A’s, first as a pitcher and utility infielder in their minor-league system in 1947.

After a short stay at Martinsville (Virginia) in the Carolina League, Armstrong was sent to the Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Red Roses of the Interstate League. As an infielder, Dick found himself backing up future Hall of Famer Nellie Fox. “I didn’t get to play much,” Armstrong told the Germantown Courier in April 1962.10 Late in the season, he was given a start on the mound against Wilmington. He was relieved after six innings with the score tied at 3 to 3. He was also scheduled to pitch the final home game of the season, but it was rained out. Armstrong recalled what happened next. “The A’s were just starting a farm system, and at the end of my first season he (Ehlers) called me into his office and said, ‘Look, you’re getting married soon, and you’ll have a family to support. How long do you want to bang around in the minor leagues wondering if you’ll make it to the majors?’ He suggested that I should consider the front office, which I thought was the best news I’d ever heard. I was thrilled!”11 Ehlers then offered Armstrong a position in the A’s minor-league business operation, and he jumped at the chance.

In autumn 1947, Ehlers sent his young protégé to a business manager’s conference in Columbus, Ohio. He then named Armstrong as the first business manager of the Class-D Portsmouth A’s. Armstrong had to build the new club’s operations from scratch on a low budget. According to J.G. Taylor Spink, “Armstrong had to do everything except sell peanuts. He put in lights, erected a new scoreboard, dressed up the park, made contacts here and there, built a new diamond.”12 Spink also referenced special events created by Armstrong.

As business manager, Armstrong was responsible for 29 different financial accounts. Figuring that total attendance of 75,000 was needed to break even, he developed a detailed marketing and promotional strategy, which included printed pocket schedules, newspaper ads, media relations, signage, and community goodwill. His plan, in a harbinger of things to come, also included a detailed, 37-question survey that shed light on the wants and needs of the Portsmouth fan base. Armstrong reached out to numerous community groups, including youth, business, and fraternal organizations. He organized special nightly promotions. One such promotion was a “Sweetheart of the A’s” contest that the local newspaper quickly dubbed as the “Pretty Girls in Bathing Suits Night.”13 According to Armstrong, the A’s players were commissioned to judge the winning contestants on the field. However, they came to him the morning of the event with other plans. They intended to award the “sweetheart” prize to Mrs. Margie Armstrong, a favorite of theirs. “You can’t do that!” Dick told them, and the players reverted to the original plans.14 Armstrong and Margaret Frances Childs of Princeton met while Dick attended the Harvard Business School during the war and Margie attended nearby Wellesley. They married in January 1948, and she assisted Dick very ably as a goodwill ambassador in Portsmouth during those early days.

Total paid attendance for the 1948 Portsmouth A’s was 73,533, which led the Ohio-Indiana League. Armstrong described his business manager duties as “entertainment, exhibition and sport all at once.” His stated objective of “reviving interest in professional baseball and getting people in the habit of coming out to the park” worked thanks to his vision and goodwill. Portsmouth’s Central Labor Council, in The Labor Review, said, “He came here as a total stranger. Because of his fine personality, his recent adherence to his duties, his fine cooperation with the fans and genuineness and straight forwardness, he won the respect of all.”15

Armstrong returned to Portsmouth in 1949 and organized a “Connie Mack Day” in July, giving residents a chance to glimpse of the “Grand Old Man of Baseball” who brought the game back to Portsmouth. The event drew a sellout crowd to the ballpark that evening. Despite a serious bus accident that injured 11 players, the 1949 A’s won the Ohio-Indiana League championship and were a success both on the field and at the box office.16 Art Ehlers sensed he had a rising front-office star on his hands.

The major leagues evolved into a big business after the down years of the Great Depression and World War II. By the late 1940s, public relations became increasingly important — clubs realized that it took more than a good team on the field to put people in the seats. They formed agreements with outside advertising and PR firms to assist in their promotional efforts. Mack’s A’s were at the end of a two-year contract with the Adelphia Associates and sought proposals for a new contract for the 1950 season and beyond.17 Industry heavyweights like Robert G. Wilder and Co., the John LaCerda Agency, Gray and Rodgers Advertising, and W. Wallace Orr, Inc. all bid for the A’s business. Ehlers, thinking that the 25-year old Armstrong was more than up to the task of running publicity for the A’s, suggested that Dick submit a proposal of his own. In October 1949, Armstrong submitted his “Suggested Public Relations and Publicity Program for the American Baseball Club of Philadelphia,” focusing on an elaborate, year-long celebration of Connie Mack’s 50th anniversary as manager of the A’s. He also submitted a separate “Source of Attendance” study.18 His was the only proposal that focused on Mack’s Golden Jubilee; only one other bidder even mentioned it.19

Liking what they saw and seeing an opportunity to move the function in-house at a fraction of the cost, Connie Mack and his sons Roy and Earle brought Armstrong into the A’s front office to run public relations, with the part-time assistance of Eddie Hogan, who worked publicity for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League.

Armstrong wasted no time in getting right to work before the beginning of the 1950 season. Calling Dick “a young man with ideas,” J.G. Taylor Spink of The Sporting News took notice of what Armstrong was doing and described it thus:

“He set out to discover what the public and the press thought about the Athletics. He toured the city for three months without disclosing his identity, asking questions of taxi drivers, salesmen, bankers, businessmen…inviting complaints, accepting the good points. He jotted down his findings and explorations in a 30-page report for future reference. Hoping that the A’s would have a good club in 1950, he went to work and his anniversary campaign for Mr. Mack’s fiftieth year…was tremendously well-handled.20

The plans for Mack included the establishment of the Golden Jubilee Committee of Philadelphia, consisting of prominent business and community leaders as well as luminaries from throughout the major leagues. Many radio and television appearances for Mack, national magazine and newspaper publicity, and celebrations at all American League stadiums were scheduled, as well as a gala dinner in Philadelphia in April 1950. Armstrong collaborated with Ed Hogan and local Philadelphia newspapermen in publishing the “50th Anniversary Golden Jubilee” Philadelphia A’s yearbook. For the jubilee, Armstrong composed “The Connie Mack Swing,” a musical score featured in the yearbook and performed by the Philadelphia Police and Fireman’s Band at Mack’s Shibe Park celebration in 1950.21 Armstrong also wrote “The A’s Song,” the score of which appeared in the 1951 team yearbook.

Besides his musical compositions, Armstrong also worked his passion for poetry into his public relations toolkit. In 1949, the A’s set a still-standing major-league record by turning 217 double plays. They went on to accumulate a three-year total of 629 DPs, a record that stands even today with the longer playing seasons. Most of these involved their keystone combination of shortstop Eddie Joost and second baseman Pete Suder, along with first baseman Ferris Fain. Armstrong quickly took notice. Using the meter of Franklin Pierce Adams’ famous “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” he composed a tribute to the A’s record-setters, which was published as a press release after the 1951 season. Armstrong also posted “Joost to Suder to Fain” on his blog in 2012.

If only the 1950 A’s could have cooperated on the field. Instead, the club finished last at 52-102, six games behind the seventh-place St. Louis Browns and a full 46 games behind the pennant-winning New York Yankees. To rub salt in the wound, the Philadelphia Phillies “Whiz Kids,” who shared Shibe Park with the A’s, made an unexpected run to the NL pennant, further diverting attention from the A’s. Attendance fell and Connie Mack’s health began to fail, causing him to miss some late-season games. He retired as manager at the end of that season.

Despite the disappointment from Mack’s decline and the team’s performance, Armstrong had already taken steps to modernize the fan experience both in and outside of Shibe Park. His energetic plan caught the attention of veteran observers. Calling Armstrong “a young man with ideas,” J.G. Taylor Spink summarized the innovations that October:

“The results of his suggestions, energy and experience are already evident in: 1) The establishment of a Connie Mack Shrine at Shibe Park, a room which will house all the trophies, souvenirs and mementos presented to Mr. Mack — starting from the original glove used by the famed manager, 2) The formation of an Athletic Club patterned after Larry MacPhail’s Stadium Club at the Yankee Stadium and limited to holders of season ticket plans — with space for refreshments and meals, 3) The setting up of a bureau of information which will work hand-in-hand with the manager and general manager so that news is given out according to plan, 4) The organization of a department which will plan added entertainment to games, 5) The formation of a policy of courtesy education for all club employees in their dealing with the public, and 6) The establishment of a sound ticket sale plan.”22

Fan publications became a staple of Armstrong’s publicity efforts. He and Eddie Hogan had early on established The Elephant Trail, a monthly newsletter highlighting player profiles as well as current and future events. In 1951, Armstrong established a relationship with Jay Jackson, producing an A’s yearbook that served as a model for all major-league clubs. Jackson’s firm, Jay Publishing Company, through its subsidiary Big League Books, quickly received the contract to produce all major league yearbooks. It did so, along with photo packs and other publications, through the mid-1960s.23

By 1952, the Mack family was engaged in an internal fight for ownership of the club as it struggled to stay solvent. Rent collected from the Eagles and the Phillies, who shared Shibe Park, kept the club afloat.24 Undeterred, Armstrong continued his quest to bring fans to the ballpark by holding creative promotions and unusual events. One involved pitcher Bobby Shantz, the little lefthander whose 24-7 record for the A’s earned him the American League MVP award in 1952. Shantz always was the subject of good-natured controversy about his slight stature and weight, with many trying to guess just how much below 5 feet 10 inches he stood. Armstrong saw an opportunity to end the debate, and with Shantz’s cooperation, staged a ballyhooed “weigh-in” at Shibe Park. On July 18, 1952, representatives from the Philadelphia Bureau of Weights and Measures, Shantz, and A’s manager Jimmy Dykes gathered at home plate. Shantz stepped up to the scale, and his “tale of the tape” officially came in at 5 feet 6 ¼ inches tall with a weight of 139 ¾ pounds. Shantz’s size obviously had no effect on his pitching, but the coverage of the event in the Philadelphia Inquirer was a publicity coup for Armstrong and the club.25

Powered by the stellar pitching of Shantz and the offense of Ferris Fain, the A’s rebounded to fourth place in 1952, finishing 79-75. Attendance rose to 627,100. It was the last time A’s attendance in Philadelphia broke 600,000, and after dismal 1953 and 1954 seasons, the club was sold and moved to Kansas City in 1955.

By 1952, Dick and Margie had two small children. Being a baseball executive was a grueling job requiring long hours away from home. Armstrong was unsure if he wanted to spend the coming years away from his family for those many hours while the kids were growing up. He also felt that he would enjoy the creative challenges of branching out into the advertising field. At the end of the 1952 season, the W. Wallace Orr Agency offered Armstrong an irrefusable opportunity to become their copy and plans director. Eager to explore new opportunities and to settle down to more regular hours, he left the A’s. Upon the announcement of his departure, a writer from the Baltimore Sun stated, “The rise of young Dick Armstrong…in the public relations forces of the Philadelphia Athletics, was as rapid as his tenure was short…(he) gives off evidence of being headed into quite a career. He even made the A’s sound really good”26

Even though Armstrong technically left the game, he never strayed far from it or the sports world. The Orr Agency entered into an agreement with the A’s to provide designs for promotional and advertising materials, with Armstrong as the account executive. Also, the Milwaukee Braves, freshly moved from Boston during spring training in 1953, urgently needed marketing materials and turned to the Orr Agency for help. Edward D. Barker, Orr’s Vice-President, described Armstrong’s contribution to the project. “(Teaming with Art Director, Dick Andrews) a major project for the Andrews-Armstrong team was the preparation of a two-color ticket brochure, which was designed, written, proofed, printed, and en route to Milwaukee in a span of five days…Considering the immense amount of creative material that had to be turned out…this was indeed a remarkable promotional job…it was a little short of amazing.”27

Dedicated sports telecasting was in its infancy in 1953, and Wallace Orr was at the forefront with its subsidiary Tel Ra Productions, which produced unique and original sports magazine-type programming and possessed one of the largest collections of sports filmography in the world.28 Tel Ra’s “TeleSports Digest,” a weekly show, was an original forerunner of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” format. Armstrong settled in to the TV end, producing plans and proposals for sports programming for Tel Ra’s “A Salute to Baseball” and “Major League Preview” as well as the first “Eagles’ Nest” television program for the Philadelphia Eagles.29 Once again, Armstrong easily acclimated to the business end of the new sports broadcasting production field. Thus, a long career beckoned, especially as an industry pioneer.

Then came the announcements from St. Louis and Baltimore of the second major-league franchise shift in as many years.

The Browns had long played “second fiddle” to the Cardinals in the Gateway City, struggling both on the field and financially. After the Anheuser-Busch brewing company purchased the Cardinals, their hold on the city was solidified, making the Browns expendable. In 1953, Browns owner Bill Veeck reached an agreement with a Maryland group led by attorney Clarence W. Miles to sell the franchise. Miles then purchased the Baltimore Orioles of the International League from Jack Dunn III. Under Dunn and business manager Herb Armstrong — Dick’s father — the O’s were one of the most successful minor-league operations. Strong attendance in Baltimore caught the attention of the major leagues. Baltimore was awarded a franchise in the American League and Richmond, Virginia, won an IL franchise. With Dunn III and Herb Armstrong each assuming roles in Miles’ new front office, the club continued its tradition. It kept the Baltimore Orioles name and began play in 1954. The O’s brought in Jimmy Dykes and Art Ehlers from the Philadelphia A’s as manager and general manager respectively. In a forerunner of the expansion era, it fell to Dykes and Ehlers to take the patchwork roster and make it major league in all respects, which included selling it to the Baltimore community. Ehlers immediately knew who he wanted to lead the public relations effort.

Upon reading the announcements out of Baltimore, Armstrong immediately sensed what would happen next. Before ever receiving a call from Ehlers, he and Margie discussed the possibility of joining the Orioles’ front office. They were torn because the Orr Agency was providing exciting work with a more relaxed schedule. They decided to keep an open mind, since an opportunity to be on the ground floor of building major-league baseball in Armstrong’s hometown was certainly appealing. Ehlers called the very next day, informing Armstrong that he had already recommending him to the owners as the Orioles’ first PR director. Armstrong said he was interested, as long as the salary met his and Margie’s expectations.30 He had one other reservation about the job, a personal one. He was concerned that some would perceive nepotism because his father was in the front office, even though it was Ehlers’ idea. After talking it over with his dad, they both agreed that it would become common knowledge that the two Armstrong men came to the Orioles under separate circumstances.31 Clarence Miles agreed to Dick’s salary request, paving the way for his return to the majors.

There was much work to be done in very little time. Promotional materials, advertising strategies, and ticket plans had to be created. Media outlets had to be prepared to carry the new club’s message to the region’s residents. Excitement gripped Baltimore, and on April 15, 1954, led by Vice President Richard Nixon, hundreds of thousands lined the city’s streets in a mammoth welcoming parade. Lavish floats and marching bands were joined by baseball dignitaries and Orioles players in what was described as the largest parade in Baltimore’s history.32 Later that afternoon, more than 46,000 fans jammed the still unfinished Memorial Stadium to see the O’s defeat the Chicago White Sox, 3 to 1. Even with this auspicious start, Armstrong knew that he had to understand the pulse of the Baltimore fan base to assure long-term success at the box office. He set out to conduct the largest comprehensive, in-stadium fan survey ever attempted by a major-league baseball team.

Armstrong was no stranger to public opinion polling and survey methods. He’d worked for the Gallup organization during the 1948 presidential election campaign.33 He’d also taken smaller fan samplings during his time with both Portsmouth and Philadelphia. Armstrong sought to gather useful information with “a cross-section of opinion about various phases of (the club’s) operation…(and) hoped to obtain some vital information about the people who attend games.”34

The survey was taken inside Memorial Stadium during 20 games in July and August 1954. Approximately 100 to 150 questionnaires were handed out at the beginning of each game, and all were collected by the end of the third inning so that the game score wouldn’t influence responses. Fans participated eagerly, with 97% of the surveys completed and returned. Information was sought on seat pricing and ticket sales as well as game starting times. Fan experience, the average cost of attending a game, stadium appearance, and between-inning music tastes were queried. Opinions on transportation, parking, and radio and television coverage were also sought. In all, the fan survey was designed to draw conclusions about the “average Baltimore fan” of 1954.35

After Armstrong and his staff meticulously tabulated the results during the off-season, a comprehensive report was submitted to the club ownership and the press. The concept of a baseball club polling the needs and wants of its fan base drew national attention. Baseball press and management, from the commissioner on down, took notice. The Sporting News, in its January 19, 1955 editorial, opined as follows:

“Baltimore is a relative newcomer to modern major league baseball, but the Orioles front office has already made a lasting impression on the men who run the game…Latest evidence of the Orioles’ wide-awake approach is the poll conducted by publicist Dick Armstrong and printed in these pages last week. The young tom-tom beater is by no means the first to sample fan opinion, but the comprehensive nature of his questionnaire and the useful information produced by it seldom have been matched by similar endeavors…Both majors and minors profitably can emulate the Baltimore survey…There is no sounder way to good public relations, no surer method of attracting more fans to the ticket windows.”36

A United Press article from May 17, 1955 stated, “Commissioner Ford Frick announced today his office has employed Steven Fitzgerald and Co. of New York, an independent research organization, to make a study of all the problems facing baseball.” Bernie Lit, in his “Baltimore Nite-Life” column, wrote to his readers, “Dick Armstrong, the fabulous pubbie great for our beloved Baltimore Orioles, rated a mention in most of the dailies around the country on how Baltimore fans are so sports-minded. And just like the fans and our Birds, Dick Armstrong, YOU, too, are Big League.”37

Armstrong further demonstrated his creativity by introducing “Mr. Oriole,” the first on-field, in-costume mascot in the major leagues. Early in 1954, he ran a contest for local artists to submit Oriole caricatures as a logo and symbol of the team. Armstrong remembered, “I was looking for a jaunty but likeable bird, one with plenty of personality…one stood out above all the rest…submitted by Jim Hartzell, a cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun. We named our new mascot ‘Mr. Oriole’ and his perky bird face was quickly popularized.”38

Armstrong had an additional idea for Mr. Oriole that ultimately led to the prevalence of future mascots. He wondered “if it would be possible to create a costume that would replicate the expression and appearance of Mr. Oriole so that a three-dimensional version of the bird could cavort on the field and in the stands during the games.”39 Armstrong’s long-time friend and high school teammate, Johnny Myers, knew a costume designer who happened to be related to Hall of Famer Joe Tinker. Using the cartoon Mr. Oriole as a model, (the designer) Tinker produced an excellent costume likeness of the bird. Myers was an accomplished trumpeter and a natural performer. Armstrong convinced him to dress in the suit and take his act to the ballpark. “When the strikingly colorful bird made his first public appearance at Memorial Stadium following a proper introduction over the public address system, the fans went wild,” explained Armstrong, “but the pièce de resistance was when he whipped out from beneath one of his feathered wings a trumpet, which he could play through his beak…the effect was sensational! We had the only trumpet-playing bird in captivity!”40

Although the 1954 Orioles finished seventh at 54-100 record, the team drew more than 1 million fans, a testament to the awareness created by Armstrong’s PR office, as well as baseball’s appeal to the people of Baltimore. Paul Richards was brought in as both manager and general manager, ushering in an era of player development that would lead to a strong contender by 1960.

Meanwhile, the Armstrong family had received a stunning blow in the late spring of 1954. Their three-year-old son Ricky was diagnosed with leukemia, which then had no known cure. Dick and Margie dedicated themselves to fighting Ricky’s disease with all available treatments. When Armstrong originally took the Orioles job, he agreed to a two-year contract because he was still unsure whether he wanted baseball to be his life’s work. This changed after long conversations with Margie and with friends and co-workers Jack Dunn III and Orioles broadcaster Ernie Harwell. Armstrong decided that his best future path was in baseball, including the goal of eventually becoming a general manager.41 He approached the 1955 season with increased resolve and purpose. As he and his family arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida for spring training, their baseball future appeared to be well defined.

Non-baseball people have the romantic notion of spring training as being a relaxing time spent in the sun and away from the cold winters up north. For baseball front office personnel and the press, the exact opposite is true. For Dick Armstrong, spring training in 1955 presented some challenges. The first was adjusting to the working style of Paul Richards to assure that the official press announcements from Armstrong’s office mirrored what Richards was informally conveying to the writers. Second, Richards had already reshaped the Orioles roster in the off-season, which included a record 17-player trade with the New York Yankees in November 1954. Biographical information of all the new players had to be written and, most importantly, publicized to the fan base through the baseball writers.

Armstrong’s days started early and ran late. He could spend time with his two older children, Ellen and Ricky, only in the early mornings (the famiily also included a small boy named Andy by then). Dinner with Margie was normally accompanied by associates of the club or members of the press. Private moments were few and far between, but Armstrong enjoyed the pace and the challenges of the job.

One evening, he and Margie decided to dine by themselves to catch up on family chatter. They were driving back from the restaurant after an enjoyable evening when an event occurred that altered their lives forever. Armstrong explained it this way:

“Margie and I were calmly chatting, when — without warning — something strange and wonderful happened. I was suddenly seized by an overpowering feeling that God was speaking to me! So irresistible was the sensation that I immediately pulled over on the wide shoulder of the road and stopped the car. I sat there tensely gripping the wheel, with what must have been a stunned expression on my face, staring at nothing. Margie was startled. She was afraid I was having a heart attack. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, worriedly…I turned toward her and said in a tone that reflected my bewilderment, ‘I have the strangest feeling that God is telling me that I must become a minister!’”42

Armstrong was a self-professed “biblically illiterate Episcopalian.”43 Though he believed in God, he did not read the Bible, never went to Sunday School, and attended church only once in a while. Yet, convinced that what he felt in the car was genuine, he spent the night discussing it with Margie. They both agreed that he had to pursue this calling.

Armstrong later came to call this moment his “Damascus Road” experience, drawing from the Book of Acts (Chapter 22, verses 10-11 in the Revised Standard Version). “And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’ And when I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus.”

He decided not to share it with the Orioles front office right away. He first consulted with a local church pastor in Daytona Beach, who assured him that what he felt was indeed possible and a work of God.

Armstrong did not know how to pursue being a minister, and he could not disrupt his duties with the Orioles until he better understood the plan he needed to put in place. He had a lot of work to do, both in the press box and on the road to the pulpit. At times he questioned what happened to him that evening in Daytona Beach, because it was such a radical departure. “Throughout my years in baseball and advertising I had toyed with many interesting ideas, but never had I had the slightest inkling about being a minister, nor had anyone ever suggested the ministry to me. It was not a matter of ruling out the possibility; the thought had never occurred to me,” he recalled years later.44

After spring training, Armstrong shuttled between his front office duties and various appointments with family to discuss what his next moves would be. He received strong guidance from his cousin Maurice Armstrong, a Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia. Maurice suggested meeting with Dr. John Mackay, president of Princeton Theological Seminary and a noted Presbyterian. When Dick later mentioned this to Margie, she excitedly reported attending high school in Princeton with the Mackay children and that her parents had developed a deep friendship with the Mackays during those years. Margie’s parents supported their plans and made the call, setting up an appointment for Dick to visit with Dr. Mackay.

Not all of the feedback that Armstrong received from family and others was completely supportive and understanding of the abrupt career change that he planned. First, there was the immense responsibility of having the means to support Ricky’s ongoing treatments; a move to seminary would certainly cause financial struggle. The Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, Dr. John Bodo, felt that Dick’s calling might be better served in the lay community, given the high visibility of his position in baseball. Inevitably, there was also a suggestion that perhaps Armstrong’s decision was solely a reaction to Ricky’s illness. He strongly denied that, recalling, “Had I for one moment suspected that my desire to become a minister was the result of Ricky’s illness, either as an attempt to bargain with God for Ricky’s life or to atone for whatever I may have done to cause God’s disfavor, I would still be in baseball, because I would have suspected my motives.”45 In his heart, Armstrong believed that God wanted him to become a minister. The road then became more defined.

At his meeting with Dr. Mackay, Armstrong related his Damascus Road experience and his belief that God wanted him to serve a congregation, hence his desire to enter seminary. He also told Dr. Mackay that he “knew very little about these things” because he was, after all, “a public relations man, not a theologian.”46 What might have been a throw-away line turned into one of the most important things that Dick could have said to Mackay. “Oh Boys! Oh Boys! This is providential!” he (Mackay) exclaimed with great enthusiasm. “The trustees have just authorized me to hire a public relations person for the seminary and now God has sent one into my office! If you would be interested in working for us part-time while going to seminary, I think we could work something out.”47 Providential indeed — Armstrong got not only a boost for his seminary application but also an opportunity to earn income while studying. His acceptance letter arrived shortly thereafter.

In the summer of 1955, Armstrong redoubled his work for the Orioles, wanting to leave the public relations office in good shape for his successor. After notifying the Orioles in May of his decision to leave at the end of the season, he immediately set out to compile and write a comprehensive report, entitled “Public Relations Report for the Baltimore Baseball Club, Inc.” It was a “how to” manual for any public relations department and director as well as a program specific to the Orioles’ unique operation.48 It was a hectic summer because he and Margie not only handled work with the Orioles but also relocated the family to Princeton while dealing with Ricky’s illness. Ricky’s periods of remission were becoming shorter, and Armstrong recalled, “In between his temporary recovery would be days of terrible suffering, usually involving hospitalization, blood transfusions and painful treatments.”49

The baseball season was winding down, and the new seminary semester was approaching. Armstrong was traveling frequently between Baltimore and Princeton. September 16 was “Firemen’s Oriole Appreciation Night” between games of a doubleheader with the Washington Senators. The event was sponsored by the firefighters of metropolitan Baltimore. In a tribute, the firemen renamed the night “Dick Armstrong Night,” during which he received gifts and was able to say goodbye to the fans at Memorial Stadium.50 On September 26, Clarence Miles hosted a dinner in Baltimore for the club owners, key fans, the press, and other dignitaries. He asked Dick and Margie to attend as guests of honor in one last tribute. Ricky had taken a turn for the worse, so Margie decided to stay behind. As Armstrong set out for the train to Baltimore, God once again signaled, telling him to return home because he was needed there for Margie and Ricky. Ricky died in Dick’s arms at 4 o’clock the next morning.51

Armstrong spent the next three years as a Masters of Divinity student at Princeton Seminary. He brought the same zeal to his studies for the ministry as he did to his baseball front office duties, winning the Grier Prize for Speech and Homiletics, serving as an assistant to the vice president for public relations, and becoming seminary student body president.52 Another son, William (“Woody”) was born in 1956. Upon Armstrong’s graduation in 1958, he, Margie, Ellen, and sons Andy (then five) and Woody (two) awaited the next stop in their journey.

Leaving baseball did create a particular void for Armstrong. “Whatever sadness I felt about leaving baseball had to do not with its material benefits but with the severing of ties with the game I had loved all my life and the friends I had made along the way,” he remembered. “Anyone who loves sports can understand that feeling.”53 However, he still remained connected to the sports community. In May 1955, he had received an unexpected phone call from Don McClanen, former basketball coach at Eastern Oklahoma A&M. McClanen was starting an organization called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. As Armstrong recalled, “Along came something relating sports to Christ.”54 The FCA, which involves athletes young and old, of all races and Christian denominations, both men and women, became a big part of his life.

Armstrong joined a group of sports luminaries in the original organization of the FCA. They included baseball executive Branch Rickey, former member of the Phillies “Whiz Kids” and future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts, Cleveland Browns quarterback Otto Graham, Cleveland Indians Hall of Famer Bob Feller, and Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine, among many others. Don McClanen recalled, “He (Armstrong) became a vital partner and indispensable colleague in shaping and enabling the mission of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In the early days…he served as a most needed interpreter of the unfolding vital relationship being forged between religion and sports.”55 Besides founding local FCA chapters in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Princeton among other cities, Armstrong served for many years on the Fellowship’s National Board of Trustees. He was the first recipient of the FCA’s Distinguished Service Award in 1965, received the Branch Rickey Memorial Award in 1974 and was elected Life Trustee in 1979.

The accomplishments of Dick Armstrong’s ministerial career are almost too numerous to list. After ordination to the Presbyterian ministry in 1958, he served for ten years as Pastor of the Oak Lane Presbyterian Church, an urban church in Philadelphia. His highly successful program, “Operation Black and White,” which focused on evangelism in the neighborhood, revitalized a parish whose membership was in decline.56

After Oak Lane, Armstrong returned to Princeton Seminary, becoming director and then vice president of development from 1968 to 1974. He then accepted the call as Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He served there from 1974 to 1980, establishing a “Church in Community” ministry, stressing leadership and volunteerism in the larger community. Armstrong became a vital presence in Indianapolis, which included being chosen as a voting board member of the Indianapolis Indians Triple-A baseball club. He also received, among many other recognitions, the Distinguished Service Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (Indiana Region).

In 1979, Armstrong was elected as an Alumni Trustee at Princeton Seminary. In 1980, he returned to the seminary as the first Ashenfelter Professor of Ministry and Evangelism. He retired with Professor Emeritus status in 1990, but continued his activity in various ministries throughout the world. He served in South Africa as a member of the advisory committee for the Centre for Contextual Ministry, University of Pretoria. There he was deeply involved in a program providing educational opportunities at various levels, primarily for black ministers whose education had been stunted by the apartheid system57

Armstrong also served as vice president and then president of the Academy for Evangelism and Theological Education (1987-1991), as well as editor of the academy’s journal (1991-1997). He was the first recipient of the Charles Grandison Finney Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Evangelism.

Love of writing, music, poetry and humor was an ongoing theme in Armstrong’s life, and he was prolific in each area. His many book credits include The Oak Lane Story (1971), Service Evangelism (1979), The Pastor as Evangelist (1984), The Pastor-Evangelist in Worship (1986), The Pastor Evangelist in the Parish (1990), Are You Really Free? Reflections on Christian Freedom (2002), Help! I’m a Pastor (2005), and A Sense of Being Called (2011).

In 1946, while a performing member of the Princeton (University) Nassoons, Armstrong wrote the music, words and arrangement for “The Tigertown Blues,” a song whose tradition continues to this day. The original arrangement appeared in the University’s centennial songbook, Carmina Princetonia, in 1986. A portion of it can be heard being performed by the Nassoons in the 2013 movie Admission.58 Armstrong’s other musical credits, besides the aforementioned “Connie Mack Swing” and “The A’s Song” include “Princeton! Princeton! Princeton!” which he wrote in connection with the University’s 250th anniversary celebration and the 50th reunion of the Class of 1946. The hymn “For Christian Homes, O Lord, We Pray,” to which he contributed verses 1 and 3-5, appears in the Armed Forces Hymnal.

Armstrong authored volumes of both published and unpublished poetry. Humor is often sprinkled into his verse, as evidenced by Enough Already! And Other Church Rhymes (1993). He also wrote two poetic reflections on faith and life: Now That’s a Miracle (1996) and If I Do Say So Myself (1997). Awaiting publication are approximately 3,000 pages of his poetic reflections on books of the Bible.59

“If you live long enough, you soon become the last person to talk about it.”60 That is, nearing the end of his 95th year, Armstrong fondly noted that his longevity made him a surviving witness to particular moments in baseball history. He was, indeed, the last living person from both the front offices of Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s as well as the 1954 Baltimore Orioles, and he enjoys circling back to his baseball years by attending events that commemorate this era.

On September 14-15, 2012, the town of East Brookfield, Massachusetts held a 150th birthday celebration of its most famous native son, Connie Mack. It was attended by Mack biographer Norman Macht and Dick Rosen, chair of the Philadelphia A’s Historical Society (both SABR members). Dick Armstrong shared his many memories of Connie Mack, recited “Joost to Suder to Fain,” and played “The Connie Mack Swing” on piano. (A video of this event is available on YouTube.)61

Armstrong’s beloved Orioles commemorated their 60th anniversary with a gala ceremony at Camden Yards on August 8, 2014. As the last survivor of the 1954 club’s front office, he received the distinction of throwing out the first pitch before the game against the St. Louis Cardinals. “After being anxious not to embarrass myself by throwing an errant pitch, I somehow managed to get the ball over the plate,” he recalled.62 He then enjoyed the game with family, friends and ex-Oriole players.

Armstrong continued to live in Princeton. His family included sons Woody and Andy and daughter Elsie, along with seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His wife Margie died in 2013 and daughter Ellen died on Thanksgiving Day in 2018.

The Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame houses Armstrong’s baseball-related papers, which are available to researchers, historians and writers. Jim Gates, the Head Librarian at the Hall, said of Armstrong, “I had the chance to spend many hours in conversation with Dick and learned so much about baseball from his stories. I think we could have gone on for weeks, as his tales were both educational and entertaining.”63

Quite fittingly, Armstrong’s younger daughter, the Reverend Elsie Armstrong Rhodes, followed her father into the Presbyterian ministry. She became the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Cooperstown, within sight of the Baseball Hall of Fame. When asked to sum up her father in a nutshell, the Rev. Rhodes responded this way:

“I can’t think of a person I admire more than my father: for his integrity; his perspicacity and wisdom; for his gifts as a pastor, professor, preacher, prophet, parent — and yes, pitcher, as well; for his creativity, compassion, conscientiousness; and his commitment to social justice and his faithful witness to the ways of Christ.”64

Well said, Pastor Rhodes. No doubt the Poet of the Press Box and the Pulpit is fond of his daughter’s use of alliteration in describing her Dad!

Postscript

Dick Armstrong passed away on March 11, 2019. He would have turned 95 on March 29. Somewhere up above, the Lord’s baseball team now has a PR Director and a chaplain to lead Sunday services.

Last revised: March 13, 2019

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and fact-checked by Warren Corbett. Photo credit: CentralJersey.com.

Sources

Armstrong Collection. National Baseball Hall Library, Cooperstown, New York. BA MSS 110.

Armstrong, Richard Stoll. A Sense of Being Called. Eugene. Oregon: Cascade Books, 2011.

Armstrong, Richard Stoll. Minding What Matters (blog). https://rsarm.blogspot.com/p/sports.html.

Baseball Reference.com. “Art Ehlers.” Accessed November 12, 2018. https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/art_ehlers.

Corbett, Warren. “Connie Mack’s Less Than Graceful Exit.” The Hardball Times. Accessed November 27, 2018. https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/connie-macks-less-than-graceful-exit.

Hobart and William Smith College Archives, Geneva, New York. Accessed October 25, 2018. https://hwsarchives.omeka.net/exhibits/show/navy-v-12/wwii-and-the-navy-v-12-program

Princeton University Office of Athletic Communications, press release. “Peters Award Presented to Richard Armstrong ’46 Award Presented at Annual Princeton Baseball Banquet.” May 17, 1990.

Princeton Windrows web page. “Princeton Resident Richard Armstrong’s Song Performed in Hit Movie.” Accessed December 26, 2018. http://www.princetonwindrows.com/news/princeton-resident-richard-armstrongs-song-performed-in-hit-movie.

Photos courtesy of Bob Golon.

Notes

1 Marquis Who’s Who. “Profile Detail — Richard Stoll Armstrong.” Accessed November 5, 2018, via Ocean County (NJ) Library online resources at www.theoceancountylibrary.org.

2 Richard Stoll Armstrong, interviewed by Bob Golon. Princeton, NJ. March — June 2016. (Unpublished oral history interview recorded at the Princeton Theological Seminary)

3 J.G. Taylor Spink, “He’s Giving Young Ideas to Athletics,” The Sporting News, October 1950, article accessed from the Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York. BA MSS 110, October 1, 2018.

4 Ibid.

5 Princeton Office of Athletic Communications. “Peters Award Presented to Richard Armstrong ’46 Award Presented at Annual Princeton Baseball Banquet.” May 17, 1990.

6 “WW II and the Navy V-12 Program.” Hobart and William Smith College Archives, online exhibits at https://hwsarchives.omeka.net. Accessed October 25, 2018.

7 Spink, “He’s Giving Young Ideas to Athletics.”

8 Dick Armstrong, interviewed by Bob Golon, 2016.

9 “Peters Award Presented to Richard Armstrong ’46 …” May 17, 1990.

10 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 4 Folder 10.

11 Paul Lukas, “From Connie Mack to Mr. Oriole: A Conversation with Dick Armstrong,” Uni-Watch.com, accessed at https://uni-watch.com/2019/01/15/from-connie-mack-to-mr-oriole-a-conversation-with-dick-armstrong/ on January 18, 2019.

12 Spink, “He’s Giving Young Ideas to Athletics.”

13 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 1 Folders 1-6.

14 Dick Armstrong, conversation with Bob Golon, October 5, 2018.

15 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 1 Folders 7-8.

16 Richard Stoll Armstrong, A Sense of Being Called, Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2011, 39-40.

17 Spink, “He’s Giving Young Ideas to Athletics.”

18 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 2 Folders 2-4.

19 Dick Armstrong, conversation with Bob Golon, November 16, 2018.

20 Spink, “He’s Giving Young Ideas to Athletics.”

21 Richard Stoll Armstrong, “Meeting of Philadelphia SABR Chapter,” Minding What Matters (blog). ca. January 2013. http://rsarm.blogspot.com.

22 Spink, “He’s Giving Young Ideas to Athletics.”

23 Dick Armstrong, conversation with Bob Golon, November 16, 2018.

24 Warren Corbett, “Connie Mack’s Less Than Graceful Exit,” The Hardball Times, February 20, 2014. Article accessed at https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/connie-macks-less-than-graceful-exit on November 27, 2018.

25 Photo caption, author unknown. Philadelphia Inquirer. July 19, 1952, p. 14.

26 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 3 Folder 9.

27 Letter from Edward D. Barker, Vice-President, W. Wallace Orr, Inc. Advertising, April 3, 1953.

28 Richard Stoll Armstrong, interviewed by Bob Golon. Princeton, NJ. March — June 2016.

29 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 2 Folder 13.

30 Armstrong, A Sense of Being Called, pp. 8-9.

31 Ibid., 10-11.

32 Ibid., 13.

33 Herb Heft, “Orioles’ Out-of-Town Fans Spent $5,500,000,” The Sporting News, January 12, 1955. (Article accessed from the Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110, October 1, 2018.)

34Dick Armstrong, Baltimore Baseball Club Survey, 1954. Accessed from the Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110, October 1, 2018.)

35 Ibid., 10-23.

36 “Game’s $ Value to Community Shown,” The Sporting News, January 19, 1955.

37 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 4 Folder 4.

38 Richard Stoll Armstrong, Minding What Matters blog, “Mr. Met Was Not the First M.L. Mascot!” May 4, 2012. Accessed at http://rsarm.blogspot.com.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Armstrong, A Sense of Being Called, pp. 16-17.

42 Ibid., 19.

43 Ibid., 26.

44 Ibid., 20.

45 Ibid., 69-70.

46 Ibid., 49.

47 Ibid., 50.

48 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 4 Folder 6.

49 Armstrong, A Sense of Being Called, p. 75.

50 Ibid., 83-87.

51 Ibid., 108.

52 Armstrong Collection, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY. BA MSS 110. Box 3 Folder 10.

53 Armstrong, A Sense of Being Called, p. 77.

54 Richard Stoll Armstrong, interviewed by Bob Golon. Princeton, NJ. March — June 2016.

55 Armstrong, A Sense of Being Called. (book jacket endorsement)

56 Richard Stoll Armstrong, interviewed by Bob Golon. Princeton, NJ. March — June 2016.

57 Ibid.

58 “Princeton Resident Richard Armstrong’s song performed in hit movie.” From the Princeton Windrows web page accessed at http://www.princetonwindrows.com/news/princeton-resident-richard-armstrongs-song-performed-in-hit-movie/ on December 26, 2018.

59 Richard Stoll Armstrong, interviewed by Bob Golon. Princeton, NJ. March — June 2016.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Richard Stoll Armstrong, Minding What Matters blog, “My First and Last Pitch,” August 12, 2014. Accessed at http://rsarm.blogspot.com.

63 Gates, Jim. ‘Dick Armstrong.’ Email. November 13, 2018.

64 Rev. Elsie Armstrong Rhodes, interviewed by Bob Golon. Cooperstown, New York, October 1, 2018.

In these accounts of the Black Sox affair, Comiskey is aided and abetted by Alfred S. Austrian, legal counsel for the White Sox corporation. Via the powers of artistic invention which pervade his 1963 book Eight Men Out,1 Asinof presents vivid scenes of Austrian’s scheming. But his portrayal of the attorney tends toward the schizophrenic. First, Asinof depicts Austrian as a Black Sox nemesis, wheedling confessions of fix complicity out of cowed, uncounseled ballplayers, and then immediately handing these unfortunates over to the government for criminal prosecution. Pages later, however, Austrian is operating behind the scenes to thwart the prosecution that he has just set in motion, teaming with Arnold Rothstein to orchestrate the disappearance of crucial documentary evidence, and secretly arranging for the accused players to be represented by the cream of the Chicago criminal defense bar.

Not to be outdone in the fantasy department, Sayles embellishes his 1988 film version of Eight Men Out with make-believe of its own.2 Here, the erudite and patrician Austrian is presented as a glib shyster, smooth-talking innocent Buck Weaver out of retaining his own lawyer, and devising the remain-silent strategy that the Black Sox will deploy at trial. While Carney knows better than to accept the fabricated events of the Asinof book and Sayles movie at face value, his 2006 examination of then-available scandal evidence also places Austrian in the dock.3 But the judgment Carney strikes on Austrian is speculative, largely premised on guesswork about Comiskey-Austrian interaction,4 and likely colored by the peculiar Carney notion that the fix cover-up was an offense graver than the corruption of the Series itself (which is sort of like thinking concealment of a murder victim’s body is a crime worse than the killing).

This profile will attempt to extricate Alfred Austrian from the nonsense concocted by Eliot Asinof and John Sayles, and the postulates of Gene Carney, and to present a portrait of Austrian grounded in the historical record. It underscores that Austrian was one of Chicago’s most distinguished attorneys, with a roster of high-profile clients that kept his name in newsprint for almost 40 years. His services to Comiskey, moreover, far exceeded his role in the Black Sox affair. Austrian’s tenure as corporate counsel for the White Sox lasted more than three decades, and included a lengthy stint as a club vice president as well. He also served as counsel to the Chicago Cubs, and personal attorney for Cubs boss William Wrigley. In addition, Austrian was likely the draftsman of the Lasker Plan, the controversial initiative to restructure the governance of major-league baseball introduced during the waning years of the National Commission. The eruption of the Black Sox scandal shelved the Lasker Plan, with club owners opting instead for the appointment of an all-powerful baseball commissioner. Still, Alfred Austrian played a significant, mostly behind-the-scenes part in the baseball affairs of his time — even though he was not a baseball fan and had little nonclient interest in the game.

• Learn more: Click here to view SABR’s Eight Myths Out project on common misconceptions about the Black Sox Scandal

Alfred Solomon Austrian was born in Chicago on June 15, 1870, the second of five children born to Solomon Austrian (1836-1889), a recent Jewish immigrant from Bavaria, and his Mississippi-born wife, the former Julia Rebecca Mann (1848-1933).5 Shortly after Alfred’s birth, the Austrian family relocated to Cleveland, where Rebecca’s kin operated a large wool mill and ran a thriving clothing wholesale business. In short order, Solomon rose to name partner in Mann, Austrian & Company (a firm that manufactured textiles and clothing), allowing him to raise his children in comfort. While in Cleveland, Alfred attended local schools; upon high-school graduation, he matriculated to Harvard University. While there, according to Black Sox author Charles Fountain, Austrian played third base for his class team.6 If this is so, Austrian soon lost interest in the game — for during the many years that he served as legal counsel for the White Sox and the Cubs, Austrian rarely, if ever, attended a ballgame.7 Aside from family, Austrian’s interests were scholarly: savoring classical literary verse and collecting original book manuscripts and rare first editions.8

Shortly before his death in late 1889, Solomon Austrian returned the family to Chicago. That is where Alfred began his working life upon receiving his A.B. degree from Harvard in June 1891. Although a lifelong scholar, Alfred Austrian did not attend law school. Rather, he prepared for entry into the legal profession by clerking and reading law at the offices of the eminent Chicago law firm Kraus, Mayer, and Stein. Austrian was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1893, and quickly became a courthouse luminary. His gifts included formidable presence (a shade under 6 feet tall, lean, and impeccably tailored), a first-class intellect, and a quick, often acerbic, tongue. In time, Austrian also became a master of legal precedent and statutory construction, and a skillful out-of-court negotiator. All the while, Austrian benefited from the guidance and friendship of senior firm partner Levy Mayer, a powerhouse attorney with prominent clients and a close connection to Chicago’s Democratic Party.

In May 1895 young attorney Austrian was in the news as counsel for a consortium of whiskey distilleries, exchanging public insults with the ousted president of the concern.9 Less than two months later, he was identified as one of three incorporators of a reconstituted “Whisky Trust,” a venture designed to corner the country’s manufacture and distribution of bourbon and rye.10 Other Austrian clients included Chicago saloonkeepers, jewelers, theater owners, and politicians. Nor did he neglect social life. He was active in various civic and fraternal organizations, and in October 1901, Austrian took a bride, marrying 22-year-old Mamie Rothschild in a society wedding at Chicago’s Hotel Metropole. The birth of daughter Margaret in 1904 would complete Austrian’s small, exceptionally tight-knit family.

While Alfred Austrian was making a name for himself in Chicago legal circles, Charles Comiskey was scouting out a new home for his Western League baseball club, the St. Paul Saints. In 1900 Comiskey’s relocation of the club to Chicago spearheaded the efforts of league President Ban Johnson to upgrade the WL from a regional circuit to a national one, with its major-league aspirations reflected in Johnson’s renaming of the circuit the American League for the 1900 season. The circumstances that brought club owner Comiskey and attorney Austrian together have not been discovered, but politics may have figured in. Comiskey, while not politically active himself, was the son of a local Democratic politician, one-time city alderman Honest John Comiskey. Austrian, meanwhile, regularly represented Chicago Democrats. Whatever its origins, the Comiskey-Austrian relationship dates from the 1900 incorporation of the American League Base Ball Club of Chicago, or shortly thereafter.11 Austrian was inarguably White Sox corporation counsel by July 1903, appearing in court to obtain a court order restraining star shortstop George Davis from jumping the club to play for the New York Giants.12 Once the Davis kerfuffle was resolved, however, Austrian’s name disappeared from the sports pages for almost 15 years.

But that is not to say that Alfred Austrian became invisible. To the contrary, his fortunes continued to rise with well-paying clients and newsworthy cases burnishing a growing reputation as one of Chicago’s ablest lawyers. In fact, only months after Austrian got George Davis safely back inside the White Sox fold, he took up perhaps the highest-profile assignment of his long career: that of co-defense counsel in the Iroquois Theatre fire case.

On the afternoon of December 30, 1903, Chicago’s newly opened Iroquois Theatre was packed well beyond its 1,602 seating capacity for a matinee performance of the musical Mr. Bluebeard. During the second act, a spark from an arc light set a muslin curtain ablaze. Within minutes, the theatre became a raging inferno in which some 600 perished, many of them children.13 Public outrage led to charges of criminal neglect and involuntary manslaughter being leveled against theater manager Will Davis. Retained to defend Davis was Levy Mayer, assisted by firm associate Austrian. Whether a reflection of devotion to his mentor Mayer, professional ambition, or cold-bloodedness, Austrian was not deterred from defending Davis by the toll the tragedy had taken within his own clan. Among the fire’s victims was cousin Joseph Austrian, a 17-year-old Yale undergraduate home for the holidays. After legal maneuvers kept the proceedings at bay for three years, Mayer and Austrian persuaded the trial judge to dismiss the charges against Davis on highly technical grounds, an outcome deplored by the public but one that only increased Austrian’s professional stock.

While the proceedings in the Iroquois Theatre case plodded on, Austrian was elevated to full partnership in the firm, now called Mayer, Meyer, Austrian, and Platt. During the ensuing decade, the Austrian stable of prominent clients expanded to include the Chicago Tribune, chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley, the Chicago sanitary committee, a Kentucky racetrack, the Cook County Democratic Committee, and advertising pioneer Albert D. Lasker. And it was the connection to client Lasker that returned the Austrian name to newspaper sports pages.

In January 1917, cash-strapped Chicago Cubs owner Charles Weeghman offered the wealthy Lasker a significant stake in franchise stock. Among Lasker’s purchase conditions agreed to by Weeghman was the Cubs’ retaining of Lasker lawyer Alfred Austrian as franchise corporate counsel.14 Lasker also maneuvered William Wrigley onto the Cubs board of directors. The following year, the two bought Weeghman out and assumed joint stewardship of the club. Meanwhile, another Austrian client, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, had grown estranged from one-time friend Ban Johnson, and joined the new owners of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in public remonstrance against Johnson’s leadership of the American League.

Tensions came to a boil in mid-September 1919 when an insurrection-minded AL board of directors authorized a probe of Johnson’s expenditures. The inquiry was to be conducted by White Sox counsel Alfred Austrian.15

While the board awaited Austrian’s report, the infamous 1919 World Series — which Austrian did not attend — was played by Comiskey’s White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, and won in eight games by the National League champions. Report that members of his team had agreed to dump the Series in return for a gamblers’ payoff reached Comiskey by the end of Game One, if not before. Yet, he did nothing visible in the immediate aftermath of the White Sox defeat. Instead, Comiskey directed manager Kid Gleason and front-office functionary Norris O’Neill to make discreet inquiries into fix rumors emanating from St. Louis.16 Comiskey was disturbed by the scuttlebutt that Gleason and Norris brought back, but publicly dismissed insinuations about the integrity of White Sox play, offering a $10,000 reward for credible information about Series wrongdoing by his players.

Taking up the reward offer were East St. Louis theater owner-gambler Harry Redmon and St. Louis pool hall operator-bookmaker Joe Pesch, who journeyed together to Chicago in late December. During a face-to-face meeting with Comiskey conducted in the Austrian law office, the two men related what they knew about Series corruption, including a Sherman Hotel meeting in Chicago organized by St. Louis gamblers Carl Zork and Ben Franklin to revive the fix after the corrupted players went off-script and won Game Three. Word of the Austrian office parley promptly leaked to the press, but White Sox club secretary Harry Grabiner downplayed the encounter, declaring that Redmon and Pesch “could give no direct evidence or any new information concerning the alleged [Series] scandal.”17 Happily for White Sox brass, Grabiner’s statement was accepted at face value by the sports press and public, taking the pressure to act off — at least for the time being.

The extent to which Comiskey’s post-Series conduct was influenced by club counsel Austrian is unknowable, but Comiskey biographer Tim Hornbaker asserts that the Old Roman, ailing and distraught, left management of the simmering scandal mostly in the hands of Austrian and Grabiner.18 And increased Austrian involvement in club affairs is undeniable, embodied in his designation as a Chicago White Sox vice president (while retaining his position as corporation counsel) in club reports filed in early 1920. It was Austrian, for example, who quietly retained the J.R. Hunter Detective Agency to shadow suspected White Sox players and prowl around for evidence of fix payoff spoils. But the reports submitted to Austrian by detectives were pretty much a dud.19 Holding the view that unsubstantiated allegations of player corruption did not justify retributive action by the club — or so Comiskey testified during post-scandal civil litigation in 1924 — Austrian recommended the new contracts, with handsome salary increases, extended to suspected fix participants Joe Jackson, Lefty Williams, Happy Felsch, and Swede Risberg during the offseason. However self-serving and duplicitous the Comiskey/Austrian maneuvers appear today, as a strategy they worked, at least temporarily. Series corruption rumors died out, and the throngs attending Comiskey Park to watch the White Sox battle the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees for the 1920 AL pennant shattered club attendance records.

The scandal dam cracked in September when a Cook County (Chicago) grand jury was empaneled to investigate allegations that a recent game between the Cubs and Phillies had been fixed by gamblers. Itching for revenge against insurrectionist Charles Comiskey, AL President Johnson then prevailed upon his longtime acquaintance Judge Charles McDonald, the jurist presiding over the grand jury, to widen the panel’s probe to include inquiry into the integrity of the 1919 World Series. Unseemly revelations about baseball corruption presented to the grand jury quickly found their way into newsprint, but concrete evidence of 1919 World Series corruption was sparse. That abruptly changed, however, when fix insider Billy Maharg went public with claims that grand-jury targets like Eddie Cicotte, Joe Jackson, and Lefty Williams had dumped Games One, Two, and Eight in return for a gamblers payoff.20

Austrian immediately realized that club boss Comiskey had to be placed on the right side of now-cascading allegations of Series corruption and acted with dispatch. Summoned to the Austrian office on the morning of September 28, a stressed-out and seemingly remorseful Cicotte quickly broke down under questioning by Austrian, admitting his complicity in the Series fix and naming seven teammates as co-conspirators. Austrian thereupon marched Cicotte over to the Cook County Courthouse and delivered him to lead grand-jury prosecutor Hartley Replogle. Decades later, Eight Men Out author Eliot Asinof would maintain that Austrian was the one who induced Cicotte to sign a pre-testimony waiver of immunity from prosecution, but this claim is belied by the record. The waiver was presented to Cicotte within the grand-jury room by Replogle and signed by Cicotte before the grand jurors.21 Not as easily refuted is Asinof’s charge that Austrian’s conduct toward the White Sox players was adversarial and betrayed a conflict of interest. Strictly speaking, the conflict charge is unfounded, as nothing in the canons of professional ethics conferred upon Austrian any duty to individual White Sox players. His professional obligation was to safeguard the best interests of his client: Charles Comiskey and his corporate alter ego, the White Sox corporation.22 That said, some modern Black Sox commentators (but not the writer) deem Austrian’s procurement of the player confessions to be morally indefensible, if not ethically so.

As scandal events rapidly unfolded in late September 1920, nothing suggests that Austrian devoted attention to parsing modern-day ethical questions about conflicts of interest. Rather, he continued to focus on protecting Comiskey and the ballclub. To that end, Joe Jackson (and thereafter Lefty Williams) was summoned to Austrian’s office, admitted Series fix complicity under questioning by Austrian,23 and then was delivered to prosecutors to repeat admissions of fix guilt to the grand jurors. On September 29 the eight White Sox players reportedly indicted by the grand jury were immediately placed on suspension by Comiskey pending the disposition of any charges officially preferred against them. A day later, Austrian rescued those charges from being undone by lame-duck Cook County State’s Attorney Maclay Hoyne, who publicly questioned the validity of grand-jury investigation of what he deemed to be non-indictable offenses.24 A widely published Austrian tutorial on the applicability of conspiracy law and other Illinois felony statutes embarrassed Hoyne,25 and he quickly backed off. There would be no further interference by Hoyne with the grand jury’s work.

In the short term, Austrian’s strategy of preemptive action served Comiskey well, with press commentary portraying the club boss as selflessly sacrificing his own interests in the effort to purge the game of corruption. And while his press notices were still good, Comiskey struck back at Ban Johnson. He threw his support behind Albert Lasker’s plan to reconstitute the National Commission, the three-member governing body of Organized Baseball largely perceived as under Johnson’s thumb, filling its posts with new members unconnected to the game’s establishment.26 Although he had no great personal interest in baseball, business formation and corporate restructuring were right in Alfred Austrian’s professional wheelhouse, and he was widely reputed to be the draftsman of the Lasker Plan. Comiskey and his allies then doubled down, threatening to transfer the White Sox, Yankees, and Red Sox to the National League if the Lasker Plan was not adopted, their secession warning buttressed by an Austrian legal opinion that player contracts were the exclusive property of the players’ respective clubs, not the American League. The teams, not the AL, controlled where the players played.27 For the time being, however, further hostilities were deferred pending the outcome of the criminal trial of the Black Sox.

Despite his pivotal role in procuring the confession evidence, Austrian was only a minor witness at the July 1921 Black Sox proceedings. He did not testify about the out-of-court admissions of fix complicity made in his office by Eddie Cicotte, Joe Jackson, and Lefty Williams. Nor was he called as a witness during the midtrial hearing on the admissibility of the Cicotte, Jackson, and Williams grand-jury testimony. Austrian only appeared in court briefly as a prosecution rebuttal witness, denying that he had ever called gambler-informant Harry Redmon a blackmailer or otherwise denigrated Redmon.28 But Austrian was hardly idle. At the time the Black Sox were being tried and ultimately acquitted, Austrian was in court battling attorneys for Peggy Hopkins Joyce, a photogenic gold-digger and actress wannabe whose serial acquisition and discard of millionaire husbands had made her a tabloid sensation. In the end, Austrian was able to procure the divorce decree sought by lumber baron W. Stanley Joyce, while Peggy obtained an alimony settlement sufficient to tide her over until another wealthy husband could be snared.29

In the aftermath of the Black Sox criminal trial, Austrian coordinated the White Sox defense against the civil suits instituted by Joe Jackson and several other banished White Sox players. Of critical importance in the Jackson case, the only one of these suits that ever went to trial, Austrian obtained the grand-jury transcript of Jackson’s testimony from disappointed Cook County prosecutors only too happy to oblige. Devastating use of that transcript on cross-examination of Jackson led to vacation of the monetary judgment awarded him by a Milwaukee jury, and a perjury citation being slapped on Jackson by the trial judge.30 Called as a defense witness late in the trial, Austrian recounted the events that attended the statements given in his office by Cicotte, Jackson, and Williams; outlined his dealing with Arnold Rothstein and Rothstein attorney Hyman Turchin prior to Rothstein’s grand-jury appearance; and explained the basis for the salary increases given players suspected of fix participation. According to Austrian, he and club owner Comiskey lacked the concrete proof of fix complicity that would only emerge later and declined to punish the players based solely on suspicion and then-unsubstantiated allegations.31

Although White Sox vice president Austrian and/or club secretary Harry Grabiner sometimes attended club owners’ meetings in place of an ailing Comiskey,32 the Black Sox-connected litigation concluded Austrian’s baseball-related court appearances. But he did institute a $50,000 libel suit on behalf of client William Wrigley after a weekly magazine called Tolerance accused the Cubs boss of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.33 Austrian also represented meat-packing giant Armour & Company in high-stakes proceedings conducted before the US Department of Agriculture. And there were the constant legal difficulties of Chicago politicians to keep Austrian busy. In his precious spare time, Austrian puttered around posh Lake Shore Country Club. In 1929, a nationally published AP wire story regaled readers with the improbable tale that Austrian, for years a high-handicap hacker who rarely broke 100, had whittled his score down into the 70s by taking a year’s worth of expensive lessons from the Lake Shore golf pro. The objective of the reported $10,000 that Austrian paid for his lessons was “to win a $5 bet” with cronies.34

Sadly, Austrian would have little time to enjoy his new-found golfing prowess. In September 1930 he underwent surgery of an undisclosed nature, and was thereafter prescribed extended rest as post-operative treatment.35 He never fully recovered and spent most of his final months confined to bed. Alfred Solomon Austrian died in his Chicago home from a gastrointestinal malady (probably stomach cancer) on January 26, 1932. He was 61. During funeral services at Rosehill Cemetery attended by Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and a host of other dignitaries, Rabbi Solomon Freehof eulogized Austrian as “a joyous warrior, a leader in civic affairs, and an intellectual force in the community.”36

Postscript: Although hardly beyond criticism, Alfred Austrian led a life of distinction. But with those having living memory of Austrian’s accomplishments now long gone, what lingers in today’s consciousness are the unflattering decades-after-the-fact Austrian portrayals of Eight Men Out novelist Eliot Asinof and filmmaker John Sayles. To this, add The Fix, a recently debuted Black Sox-themed opera that casts Shoeless Joe Jackson as tragic hero and White Sox counsel Austrian (not club owner Comiskey) as the villainous heavy of the piece.37 Cruel, indeed, is the fate that supplants an estimable true life story with the caricatures of modern pop culture.

Acknowledgments

This biography is adapted from an article published in the June 2019 issue of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee newsletter. It was reviewed by Rory Costello and Len Levin and examined for accuracy by SABR’s fact-checking team.

Sources

The sources of information for this bio are set forth in the Notes.

Notes

1 The work’s full title is Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. The book was published in New York by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, and originally released in hardcover in 1963.

2 The movie version Eight Men Out was released by Orion Pictures in 1988.

3 See Gene Carney, Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball’s Coverup of the Fix of the 1919 World Series Almost Succeeded (Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2006).

4 Much of the Comiskey-Austrian relationship was shrouded by the attorney-client privilege.

5 Alfred’s siblings were Bertha (born 1868), twins Delia and Celia (1874), and Harvey (1879).

6 According to Charles Fountain in The Betrayal: The 1919 World Series and the Birth of Modern Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 124.

7 According to author Harvey Frommer, “Alfred Austrian never read the sports pages, cared very little for baseball, and looked at the [White Sox and Cubs] teams he represented merely as corporate clients.” Frommer, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Ragtime Baseball (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1992), 137. As of 1924, it was reported that Austrian had attended exactly one major-league baseball game in his entire life. See the Milwaukee Sentinel, February 8, 1924.

8 As noted in the Austrian obituaries published in the Chicago Tribune and New York Times, January 27, 1932. His library of several thousand volumes included first editions of Milton, Yeats, and Conrad. See “Library of Rare Volumes Left by A.S. Austrian,” Chicago Tribune, September 2, 1932.

9 See “Greenhut Squelched Again,” Chicago Inter-Ocean; “Some Hot Word,” Cleveland Plain Dealer; and “Filed a New Suit,” Omaha World Herald, all published May 9, 1895.

10 See “Whisky Trust Takes New Name,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, and “Rectified Budge: The Old Whisky Trust Is Re-Incorporated, “Grand Forks (North Dakota) Herald, both published July 2, 1895.  

11 The club was incorporated under the laws of the State of Wisconsin on March 5, 1900, per Tim Hornbaker, Turning the Black Sox White: The Misunderstood Legacy of Charles A. Comiskey (New York: Sports Publishing, 2014), 132, n8.  

12 As reported in “Davis Is Enjoined; Is He in Hiding?” Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1903.

13 To this day, the Iroquois Theatre tragedy remains the deadliest single fire in American history.

14 Per Jeffrey Cruickshank and Arthur W. Schultz, The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2010), 159.

15 See “Directors to Probe Rule of Ban Johnson,” Bridgeport (Connecticut) Evening Farmer, and “Will Investigate Ban’s Activities,” Washington Times, both published September 17, 1919.

16 At his own expense, Chicago filmmaker and ardent White Sox fan Clyde Elliott accompanied Gleason and O’Neill on the St. Louis trip.

17 As per “Gamblers Unable to Prove Charges Made After Games for World Title,” Salt Lake City Telegram, December 30, 1919. See also, “Comiskey Calls Bribery Bluff,” Chattanooga News, and “$10,000 Bribe Offer of Comiskey Stands,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, also December 30, 1919.

18 Hornbaker, 288-289.

19 For more detail, see Gene Carney, “Comiskey’s Detectives,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 38, No. 2, Fall 2009.

20 The Maharg revelations were published in the Philadelphia North American on September 27, 1920, and republished in newspapers nationwide the following day.

21 The transcript of Eddie Cicotte’s grand-jury testimony has not survived intact, but parts of it were embedded in a deposition subsequently given by Cicotte in connection with a civil suit against the White Sox instituted by Joe Jackson. The record, furthermore, inarguably documents that Replogle (not Austrian) elicited the waivers of Jackson and Williams. See transcript of Jackson grand-jury testimony at JGJ1-5 to 22. For Williams, see WGJ23-10 to WGJ24-8.

22 By 1903 Comiskey had bought out the minority shareholders in the White Sox corporation. From then on, Comiskey would exercise complete and unilateral control of the franchise until his death in October 1931.

23 The extent to which Jackson revealed his fix complicity in Austrian’s office is unclear. The record establishes only that the telephone calls Jackson made to Judge McDonald to arrange his appearance before the grand jury were placed from the office. Once in chambers, Jackson admitted his involvement in the fix to Judge McDonald. He thereafter repeated those admissions under oath before the grand jury.

24 Hoyne had lost his bid for renomination to the State’s Attorney’s post in the October 1920 Democratic Party primary, and left the office in a huff to vacation out the remainder of his term in New York City.

25 See e.g., “Baseball Probe Goes to Grand Jury,” Kansas City Star, and “No Loophole for Indicted,” Seattle Star, September 30, 1920, and “Baseball Inquiry Will Go Through to End, Says Judge,” New York Tribune, October 1, 1920. Judge McDonald and grand-jury foreman Henry Brigham also publicly rebuffed Hoyne, and resolved to continue the proceedings.

26 As reported in “League Magnates Favor Lasker Tribunal Plan,” Omaha World Herald; “Baseball Magnates Talk Over Reorganization Plan,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 6, 1920, and elsewhere.

27 See “Owners Prepare for Bitter Legal Battle,” Evansville (Indiana) Courier, and “AL Hold on Men Denied,” The Oregonian (Portland), November 10, 1920.

28 See “Confessions of Ball Players Go to Jury,” The Sporting News, July 28, 1921.

29 See “Joyce Wins; To Pay Peggy,” Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1921.

30 For more detail on the Jackson perjury citation and the civil proceedings from which it emanated, see William F. Lamb, Black Sox in the Courtroom: The Grand Jury, Criminal Trial, and Civil Litigation (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013), 149-198. The scene in Eight Men Out where the Jackson grand-jury transcript mysteriously emerges from the briefcase of White Sox defense attorney George Hudnall is just one of the many Asinof fabrications that hamper enjoyment of his book.

31 See generally, Transcript of Jackson civil trial, 889-958; 1028-1035. See also, “Lawyer Says Jackson Admitted Part in Plot,” Milwaukee Journal, February 6, 1924.

32 See e.g., “American and National League Club Owners Assembled in New York,” The Sporting News, December 19, 1929. Published with the article is a photograph showing Austrian and Grabiner among AL magnates.

33 See “Chewing Gum Man Files Suit Against Anti-Klan Weekly,” Baton Rouge State-Times, February 3, 1923, and “Wrigley Sues Anti-Klan,” Rockford (Illinois) Republic, February 6, 1923. The accusation was untrue, and the institution of the Wrigley lawsuit led to the publication’s closing shortly thereafter.

34 See e.g., “It Costs $10,000 to Win $5 Bet,” Benton Harbor (Michigan) News-Palladium, June 22, 1929, and “Lawyer Pays $10,000 to Pro Who Helps Him Break 80,” Danville (West Virginia) Bee, July 21, 1929.

35 “A.S. Austrian in Hospital; Recovering after Surgery,” Chicago Tribune, September 27, 1930.

36 “Leaders of Bar and Business Honor Austrian,” Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1932.

37 A plot summary of the historically maladroit opera is provided in Dan Levitt’s review published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee newsletter, The Inside Game, Vol. XIX, No. 3, June 2019.

Gene Autry was the kind of man who paid the bills for old friends in their old age, rode in the front seat beside his chauffeur, and showed up in the bar of his resort hotel to lead guests in a sing-along. During his heyday as a singing cowboy, his fans ranged from the obvious ­— Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson — to the improbable ­— Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ringo Starr. Thirty years after he quit performing, his theme song, “Back in the Saddle Again,” returned to the pop charts on the movie soundtrack for Sleepless in Seattle.

He once described himself as “a frustrated ballplayer,” and delighted in his second career as a baseball owner.1 The Angels were his passion for the last four decades of his life. A portly, perpetually smiling man decked out in a western suit and a big Stetson — white, of course — Autry often traveled with his team and spent lavishly on free agents in futile pursuit of a championship. The Angels retired number 26 in honor of their 26th man.

Autry never was a cowboy, but he played one on TV and radio and in movies. “I was the first of the singing cowboys,” he said. “I’m not sure I was the best. But when you’re first it doesn’t matter. No one can ever be first again.”2

He introduced two of the most popular Christmas songs, and invested his Hollywood earnings to build a fortune that landed him on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans for 10 years. His television sidekick, Pat Buttram, said, “Gene Autry used to ride off into the sunset. Now he owns it.”3

Orvon Grover Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, on September 29, 1907, the first child of Delbert Autry and the former Elnora Ozment. He seldom spoke of his childhood because he wanted to forget most of it. His father was generally worthless, absent more often than present, and his mother and her four children had to depend on the charity of relatives in Texas and Oklahoma. Orvon dropped out of high school to help support the family as a railroad telegrapher.4

When he was 12, he had saved $8 from farm chores to buy a guitar out of the Sears Roebuck catalog. He liked to tell of the night that the world’s most famous Oklahoma native, Will Rogers, walked into a railroad depot, heard him picking and singing, and encouraged his dream of a music career. The tale may be a press agent’s invention; its first documented appearance didn’t come until after Rogers’ death.

At 20, Orvon traveled to New York in search of a recording contract, but was turned away. He came home with a new name, Gene Autry, probably borrowed from a popular crooner, Gene Austin, whom he met on the trip.

In his first radio gig, at KVOO in Tulsa, he was billed as Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy and imitated country star Jimmie Rodgers. His first hit record, “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine,” propelled him to the big time on Chicago’s WLS Barn Dance, the model for Nashville’s enduring Grand Ole Opry.

During a trip home to Oklahoma, Autry met Ina Mae Spivey and married her four months later, on April 1, 1932. The wedding was so sudden that some friends thought it was an April Fool’s prank, but the marriage lasted 48 years. After Gene’s mother died that spring, his two sisters and brother moved in with the newlyweds. Ina, just 21, became their surrogate mother. The Autrys never had children.

On July 4, 1934, he, Ina, and his comic sidekick, Smiley Burnette, left Chicago for Hollywood in Gene’s Buick. He thought movies would help sell his records. His debut was a singing cameo in In Old Santa Fe, starring a leading cowboy actor, Ken Maynard. The greenhorn appeared stiff and awkward on screen. Embarrassed, he decided to go back to radio. But Maynard was supportive and gave him a small part in a serial, Mystery Mountain. Autry was more singer than cowboy; a stunt man had to step in when he couldn’t handle a galloping horse.

Autry’s big break came when Maynard was fired for his drunken tantrums. The newcomer took over the lead role in a bizarre 12-part serial, The Phantom Empire, where he played a singing cowboy battling robots and mad scientists. (Years later, when Maynard was living in a trailer park, Autry sent him monthly checks. He made donations to several other early benefactors who were needy in their declining years.)

Three years after Autry arrived in Hollywood, a trade publication named him the #1 star of action melodramas in 1937. His movies for Republic Pictures followed a simple formula for wholesome, if bland, family entertainment: Good guy defeats bad guy, but never shoots first and never kills anybody. Hero gets girl, but never kisses her. Kissing was allowed in the early films, but the clinches disappeared when the studio realized that Autry’s core audience was pre-teen boys, who didn’t go for that mushy stuff. They preferred to see him with his horse, Champion.

While Autry made action movies, they were unconventional westerns. Before signing him to his first contract, a studio executive had complained that he lacked “virility.”5 At 5-feet-9, he was not tall, muscular, or imposing. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther described him as a “medium-height, sandy-haired, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, baby-faced fellow.”6 Nor was he an acrobatic horseman like Maynard and the king of silent-screen cowboys, Tom Mix. Songs took on a larger role in Autry films than gunplay or fistfights.

By 1937 he was making $6,000 per picture, equivalent to around $100,000 in 2017, but was still ridiculously underpaid given his popularity.7 He went on strike.

During his holdout, Republic brass created a replacement singing “cowboy” they named Roy Rogers. Born Leonard Slye in Cincinnati, he had had bit parts in several Autry films.8 The two became rivals, but friendly ones.

From his earliest days, Autry used every avenue to turn his fame into money. The Sears catalog sold Gene Autry Roundup guitars, and he was said to be the first Hollywood star to put his name on comic books, school lunchboxes, jeans, and more than 100 other products, though he refused to endorse cigarettes.9 With records, songbooks, and personal appearances, his outside income exceeded his film earnings.

Autry took his stage show to England and Ireland in 1939. It was a triumph; his biographer, Holly George-Warren, likened it to the Beatles’ first American tour.10 A reported 250,000 people jammed the streets of Dublin for a look at the cowboy. In the crowd was another American tourist, P.K. Wrigley, the owner of the chewing-gum company. When Wrigley returned home, he ordered his ad agency to sign Autry for a weekly CBS radio show sponsored by Doublemint gum. That added a new profit center to Autry’s empire, giving him a foothold in all entertainment media.

His career reached its pinnacle when theater owners voted him the #4 male box-office attraction of 1940, behind Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy. It was a stunning achievement for a B-movie actor whose greatest appeal was in small towns rather than big-city film palaces. His income in 1941 approached half a million dollars.

Autry’s reign as the #1 western star ended while he was serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. When he sued Republic trying to get out of his contract, the studio retaliated by promoting Roy Rogers, who was found unfit for military service because of a bad back. In 1943 Rogers climbed to #1, a pedestal Autry never regained. Life magazine headlined a cover story on Rogers, “King of the Cowboys.”11

Seeing harsh evidence that stardom was temporary, Autry turned his energy toward business after the war. He bought radio and television stations and hotels, and invested in oil wells and real estate. When the California Supreme Court finally freed him from his Republic contract, he formed his own production company to make movies in partnership with Columbia, one of the major studios. The arrangement gave him control of his work as well as a tax shelter.

He also resumed his radio show and personal appearance tours, and enjoyed six top-10 records in 1947. In the fall he released “Here Comes Santa Claus,” a song he co-wrote after he heard a child’s exuberant shout at a Christmas parade.12 It became a holiday standard, but nothing compared to his next Christmas song.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” carried Autry to the top of Billboard’s country and pop charts for the first time and sold two million copies in 1949, with millions more to follow. It is often said to be the second best-selling Christmas record in history, after Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” but the Guinness Book of World Records lists it in third place behind another Crosby hit, “Silent Night.”

In 1950 Autry was the first major movie star to jump into television. William Boyd, whom he dismissed as a third-rate actor, had become a TV cowboy sensation by recycling cut-down versions of his old Hopalong Cassidy movies, igniting a children’s craze for “Hoppy” merchandise.

Autry began starring in weekly original half-hour films on CBS-TV. His company produced three more western series for the network. One was Annie Oakley, the first TV western with a female star, his sometime girlfriend Gail Davis.

But Autry’s career was sliding downhill, and so was he. His new records weren’t selling. Television killed many of the small-town theaters that had showcased his movies. So-called adult westerns, such as High Noon and TV’s Gunsmoke, made the singing cowboys seem campy. He released his last feature film in 1953.

His heavy drinking, which began during the war, was interfering with his work. After he missed a number of shows, his longtime sponsor, Wrigley, canceled his radio and TV series in 1956. His live performances became unreliable. Although his loyal staff tried to cover for him, fans saw him fall off his horse and appear too drunk to mount up.

As Autry’s entertainment career fizzled out, his business portfolio continued to expand. One of his biggest money-makers was Los Angeles radio station KMPC. The station aired Dodgers games after the team moved west in 1958, but its signal was too weak to reach club owner Walter O’Malley’s home at Lake Arrowhead. O’Malley moved the broadcasts to a more powerful outlet, one he could hear.

KMPC, billed as Southern California’s sports station, needed a new anchor for its summer schedule. Autry thought he had found one when Hank Greenberg came calling in November 1960. The home run slugger turned baseball executive had secretly won the American League’s blessing to put an expansion team in Los Angeles in 1961. Autry was negotiating for broadcast rights when Greenberg’s plans blew up.

O’Malley didn’t want to share the LA market. He leaned on Commissioner Ford Frick, and the commissioner decreed that O’Malley deserved compensation for allowing a competing team into “his” territory. Hearing that, Greenberg walked away, throwing the AL expansion blueprint into “frightful chaos,” as the writer Frank Finch put it.13 With a franchise already awarded to Washington, the league had to have a tenth club to balance the schedule, and time was slipping away.

The familiar story is that Autry went to the AL meeting hoping to secure radio rights for the new franchise, and wound up owning the team. In fact, published reports identified him as a bidder for the team before the meeting, and he said he became interested as soon as Greenberg dropped out: “I thought it was all Greenberg. When it appeared it wasn’t, the thought occurred to me that I’d like that franchise.”14 When he went to the league meeting, Autry brought along his choice for general manager: Fred Haney, an LA resident who had managed the Milwaukee Braves to two pennants.

AL owners were facing ridicule over their bungled expansion when they met in St. Louis on December 5. Just as in the movies, the hero in the white hat came riding to the rescue. The league welcomed him as a savior, and why not? He was a famous, popular — and rich ­— man who wanted to own a ball club.

But O’Malley exacted a stiff price. The new team would have to pay him $350,000 for a ticket of admission to enter Los Angeles. Instead of sharing the 90,000-seat LA Coliseum with the Dodgers, the American League club would play its first season in the city’s minor-league ballpark, Wrigley Field, with room for about 22,000. That ensured that the team would lose money. Beginning in 1962, it would be O’Malley’s tenant in his new park, under construction at Chavez Ravine, paying a minimum $200,000 in rent, or 7.5 percent of gate receipts. O’Malley would keep all parking revenue and some of the take from concessions.

In addition, O’Malley didn’t want competition from television. He televised only 11 Dodger games ­— those in San Francisco against the archrival Giants ­— and the new club was limited to the same number.

All told, Autry estimated the deal was worth $750,000 a year to the Dodgers. After a meeting with O’Malley that lasted nearly all night, he agreed to pay. It was the price of doing business.15

“For me, it’s the realization of a lifetime dream,” Autry said.16 He had played semipro ball in his youth and claimed to have been invited to a Cardinals tryout camp. While filming his movies, he had organized pickup games during breaks, and had once owned a share of the Pacific Coast League’s Hollywood Stars.

The new team adopted the name of LA’s other PCL entry, the Angels. Casey Stengel, recently fired by the Yankees, turned down an offer to be the manager. Haney talked to Leo Durocher, but Durocher’s price was apparently too high. The club hired Bill Rigney, who had succeeded Durocher as manager of the Giants.

Because of the delay in awarding the franchise, Haney had only a week to prepare for the player draft that would stock the Angels’ roster. Stengel gave him a rundown on the available players, who were mostly benchwarmers and over-age veterans. AL teams were permitted to keep their front-line talent and top prospects.

Haney went for well-known names in the draft, hoping to convince LA fans that the castoffs were a real big league team. But Ted Kluszewski, Eddie Yost, Ned Garver, and Bob Cerv had to look backward to see their 34th birthdays. Haney did grab a pair of young minor leaguers who became franchise cornerstones, shortstop Jim Fregosi and catcher Buck Rodgers. After the draft he acquired pitching prospect Dean Chance.

During spring training Autry put the players up at his hotel in Palm Springs, California, and mounted a bicycle to lead them in a parade to the ballpark. The Angels opened their inaugural season with eight games on the road. They lost seven of them. The home opener produced defeat number 8 before an embarrassing turnout of just 11,931. The club rallied to a 70-91 record, still the most victories by a first-year expansion team, finishing eighth in the standings but ninth in attendance, drawing barely 600,000.

In their second season, the Angels startled the league by charging into the pennant race. They held first place on the Fourth of July and finished third, with 86 victories. Attendance nearly doubled in their first year in O’Malley’s new ballpark. Its formal name was Dodger Stadium, but the Angels called it Chavez Ravine.

Autry soon began looking for a way to climb out of the ravine. He vented his complaints in uncharacteristically blunt language: “Chavez Ravine is an expensive stadium to operate, Walter O’Malley is a difficult landlord, the Angels are treated as a stepchild by the Dodgers, … we are playing in the shadow of the Dodgers and we must build our own fan following elsewhere.”17 On August 31, 1964, he broke ground for a new stadium in Anaheim, 30 miles south, to be paid for by the city.

Renamed the California Angels, the team moved into its new home in 1966. But attendance continued to lag far behind the Dodgers, who were setting records and piling up giant profits. The Angels were Southern California’s stepchild team. They settled into mediocrity, usually in the bottom half of the standings.

Autry yearned for a championship, but he was a hands-off owner. “I’ve tried hard not to interfere with the men on the firing line,” he said. “I have wondered often why a manager did this or that, but I have tried to restrain my second-guessing.”18 Some critics thought that was why the Angels didn’t win: The owner didn’t demand it. “Gene is a fan,” a former general manager, Dick Walsh, said. “The team is a plaything, a fun thing.”19

Instead of getting tough during losing seasons, Autry treated players and managers as friends. “He knew every player and knew everything about his players … their kids’ names, their wives’ names,” pitcher Clyde Wright said. Autry went along on many road trips and made the rounds in the clubhouse before home games asking, “Anything you need?”20

Fireballer Nolan Ryan was one of the team’s few stars in the 1970s. He set the single-season strikeout record and pitched four of his seven no-hitters for the Angels. Ryan was as big a Gene Autry fan as any 9-year-old boy: “I can honestly say he is among the greatest men I have ever had the pleasure to know.”21

When free agency arrived after the 1976 season, Autry saw a chance to lift his club out of mediocrity. All it took was money, and he and his minority partner, Signal Companies, had plenty. The Angels signed three of the top-ranked free agents ­— outfielders Joe Rudi and Don Baylor and second baseman Bobby Grich — to long-term contracts totaling $5.25 million, equivalent to $22 million in 2017.

That doesn’t sound like much in the context of 21st century salaries, but in 1976 it was an unprecedented splurge that outraged many of Autry’s fellow owners. “I still don’t think all this is good for baseball,” he said. “But this is the way it is now, and there are certain facts of life we’re going to have to live with.”22

While he was counting on the pricey players to win games, Autry was also counting on an axiom of the entertainment business: Stars sell tickets. Attendance more than doubled in the next three years. After adding seven-time batting champion Rod Carew to their collection of free agents, the Angels won their first American League West title in 1979, then won again in 1982 and 1986. Each time they lost the league championship series.

Ina Autry died of cancer in 1980. Although they were outwardly devoted, her husband had spent large chunks of their 48-year marriage on the road or on location for his films, and had affairs with several of his leading ladies and uncounted groupies. Friends said Ina shut her eyes to all that. Most important, she had nurtured him through periods of uncontrolled drinking and unsuccessful attempts to quit.

Autry’s family life was always a pain. He supported his ex-convict father and his father’s second family for decades. His brother, Dudley, was an unfortunate chip off the old block, a wastrel and an alcoholic who tried and failed to ride the family name to a singing career and often ended up on Gene’s payroll. Dudley’s ex-wife, a trick-rope artist, also exploited the Autry name to help her career.

Eighteen months after Ina’s death, the 73-year-old Autry married Jacqueline Ellam, who was 34 years younger. A former bank executive, Jackie took over management of his businesses as he aged.

In his last years, Autry became a leading philanthropist in Southern California. He spent about $100 million to establish the Autry Museum of the American West, now known as the Autry National Center. (He had lost his first collection of western artifacts in a house fire in 1941.) He gave $5 million to build a wing of the Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs, where he and Jackie had a home.

Autry spent more years of his life as a baseball owner than as a singing cowboy, but the World Series eluded him. “For sure, baseball has been the most exciting and frustrating experience of my life,” he said. “In the movies, I never lost a fight. In baseball I hardly ever won one.”23

He turned over control of the Angels to his wife in 1990. In May 1995 Autry announced an agreement in principle to sell operating control of the team to the Walt Disney Company. Soon afterward the Angels climbed into first place and adopted the rallying cry “Win one for the cowboy,” but they blew an 11-game lead and lost the Western Division title to Seattle in a one-game playoff.

The Disney deal closed in early 1996, ending Autry’s active involvement. The company acquired 25 percent of the franchise with an option to buy the rest after his death. Autry continued to attend Angels games when he was able. He contracted lymphoma and died at 91 on October 2, 1998. He was mourned as a good man, an American success story, and, for many, a reminder of happy childhood.

Autry called himself a personality, not a singer or actor. “When I started, they said I couldn’t act,” he once recalled. “Other people said I couldn’t sing, but I sure as hell could count.”24

Four years after Autry’s death, the Angels won the 2002 pennant and defeated the Giants in the World Series to claim their first championship. In the joyful clubhouse after Game Seven, manager Mike Scioscia hoisted a bottle of champagne to toast the cowboy.

An earlier version of this biography appeared in “From Spring Training to Screen Test: Baseball Players Turned Actors” (SABR, 2018), edited by Rob Edelman and Bill Nowlin.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Jan Finkel and fact-checked by Stephen Glotfelty.

Notes

1 Myrna Oliver, “Gene Autry Dies,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1998: 24.

2 Al Martinez, “2 Old-Time Cowboy Stars Reflect a Heroic Age,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1977: II-6.

3 Bruce Fessier, “Autry was sunshine in lots of lives,” Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California), October 3, 1998: 3.

4 If not otherwise credited, information about Autry’s personal life and Hollywood career comes from Holly George-Warren, Public Cowboy no. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

5 George-Warren, 138.

6 Bosley Crowther, “A Cowboy Without a Lament,” New York Times, August 6, 1939: X3.

7 Inflation calculator at https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl.

8 The apartment building where Slye was born stood on the future site of Riverfront Stadium, home of the Big Red Machine. He liked to say he was born on second base. Laurence Zewisohn, “Happy Trails: The Life of Roy Rogers,” http://www.royrogers.com/roy_rogers_bio.html, accessed May 19, 2017.

9 Some Gene Autry cowboy suits were made of flammable fabric. Two children died from fires and others were hurt. Autry was the target of several lawsuits over the product.

10 George-Warren, 182.

11 Life, July 12, 1943.

12 Autry is credited as co-writer on more than 300 songs, but many of those are “star credits.” Singing stars often took writing credit on songs they popularized, and some songwriters didn’t mind because the famous name made the song more salable.

13 Frank Finch, “Rumors have AL expanding,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1960: H5.

14 Jeanne Hoffman, “Autry Set to Build Angels in 120 Days,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1960: IV-5. The first mention of Autry as one of the bidders was before the AL meetings of November 22 and December 5: Paul Zimmerman, “Greenberg Out, L.A. Team Up for Bids” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1960: II-1.

15 Finch, “It’s Official! Angels to Play in 1961,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1960: IV-1; Andy McCue, Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 292-293.

16 Hoffman.

17 Al Carr, “When and Will Angels Move?” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1964: 14

18 Ross Newhan, “No. 26 on the Wall, No. 1 in their Hearts,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1998: C6.

19 Ron Rapaport, “Angels Haven’t Had a Sweet 16,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1976: III-1.

20 Tom Singer, “Tribute precedes Autry’s induction to Hall,” mlb.com, July 19, 2011, http://m.mlb.com/news/article/21960212/, accessed May 22, 2017.

21 Ibid.

22 Dick Miller, “Rudi, Baylor Give Angels Case of Flag Fever,” The Sporting News, December 4, 1976: 65.

23 Oliver.

24 Richard Simon and Susan King, “Friends and fans recall an American icon,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1998: 25.