John Day

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2012 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.

In the early 1880s prosperous tobacco merchant John B. Day re-established the national pastime in New York – operating teams in both major-league circuits with great success. In 1884 Day’s New York Metropolitans were American Association pennant winners while his National League New York Giants were baseball world champions in 1888 and 1889. Sadly, Day’s success was short-lived. By 1893, reversals in both his baseball and business fortunes had put Day on the brink of bankruptcy. For the remainder of his life, Day lived in reduced circumstances, eking out a livelihood on the margins of sport and commerce.

The ill-starred magnate was born John Bailey Day in Colchester, Connecticut, on September 23, 1847.[1]  His father, Isaac Henry Day, was a substantial local farmer while his mother, Sarah, (nee Williams) tended to the children, of whom John B. (as he was invariably called) was the third of five.[2]    After graduating from the Golden Hill Institute in Bridgeport, Day went into the cigar-manufacturing business with brother-in-law Charles P. Abbey.[3]  The firm, Abbey & Day, flourished, with production and wholesale outlets placed in Hartford and Middletown and a warehouse erected in Gildersleeve, Connecticut. In time the business expanded to New York, opening a large tobacco-processing plant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Resident proprietor Day took up offices near the financial district at 123 Maiden Lane while relocating himself and his wife, the former Ella Davis of Portland, Connecticut, to a brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue. As befitted his station in life, Day soon adopted the mien and trappings (frock coat, top hat, cane, carriage) of Gilded Age gentry. He also became a member in good standing of Tammany Hall, the corrupt political machine that controlled the Democratic Party in New York City.

From an early age, Day had been a baseball enthusiast, fancying himself a pitcher. Once in New York, he organized and played on amateur nines in and around the city. This led to a fateful encounter with Jim Mutrie, an unaccomplished shortstop in assorted New England leagues then at loose ends in Manhattan. Mutrie, who had energy, a keen eye for playing talent, and considerable organizational skill, was in attendance when pitcher Day was battered from the mound in a meaningless midsummer 1880 game. According to popular lore, Mutrie then approached the deflated hurler with a proposition: Mutrie would scout, sign and manage a top-flight baseball team for Day if the well-heeled merchant would foot the bill.[4] Day was game and in short order Mutrie stocked the roster of the new team – formally named the Metropolitan of New York – with first-rate talent, much of it coming from the Unions of Brooklyn and the recently disbanded Rochester Hop-Bitters.

On September 16, 1880, the Mets made a successful debut, defeating the Unions 15-3 on the grounds of the Brooklyn club. Two weeks later the Mets took their home opener, beating the Nationals of Washington on a converted polo field just north of Central Park leased from James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the socialite-sportsman publisher of the New York Herald.[5] By the time its abbreviated first season ended, the Mets had compiled a creditable 16-7-1 log, which included a 15-6 victory over Manhattan College in which team owner Day pitched a complete game.[6]

To underwrite his ambitions for the team, Day incorporated the Metropolitan Exhibition Company (MEC), with himself as president. Tammany Hall cohorts Joseph Gordon[7], Charles T. Dillingham, and Walter Appleton were the minority stockholders. Again piloted by Mutrie, the 1881 Mets played a mixed Eastern Championship League/freelance schedule of 151 games, including 60 contests against National League competition.[8] At the end of the campaign, the team’s respectable (18-42) performance against such formidable opposition prompted the organizers of the fledgling American Association to offer Day a place in their new major league. But for the time being, Day declined. The 1882 Mets’ schedule again consisted of a mix of games between major-league teams and local nines. And again, the Mets played the big leaguers tough, winning 29 of 74 contests against NL foes while taking all but one game against AA teams.[9]

In 1883 Day entered the ranks of major-league team owners – and in a big way. To some surprise, he declined an invitation to place the Mets in the National League, the longer established and more prestigious of the two majors. Rather, the Mets would play in the American Association for the 1883 season, with Mutrie remaining as manager and MEC stockholder Gordon appointed team president. Thereafter, Day boldly announced that an entirely new franchise would be placed in the National League by the MEC. The nucleus of this team, originally called the Gothams or, simply, the New-Yorks, consisted of budding stars like Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, and Mickey Welch, plucked from the roster of the defunct National League Troy Trojans. Standout Providence pitcher-infielder John Montgomery Ward would also wear a Gothams uniform while the remainder of the squad was be formed from free agents, castoffs, and nonentities. Veteran backstop/manager John Clapp was to do the managing while Day himself would serve as team president.

To accommodate the two major-league teams that would use the Polo Grounds, a second diamond with a grandstand was erected on the property. As accorded with its preferred status, the NL Gothams were given the established field on the southeast corner of the Polo Grounds while the Mets were consigned to a new landfill-based playing field constructed on the southwest quadrant.[10] Differences in standing between the two teams were reflected in the gate as well. The carriage trade sought by Day for the Gothams was charged 50 cents general admission while the working classes cultivated for the Mets would get in for a quarter. Potent liquid refreshment, however, was available at each venue, Day defying the league ban on alcohol sales at NL games.

The aspirations of the MEC braintrust were confounded in 1883. Behind the stellar pitching of Tim Keefe, a Troy refugee deemed unworthy of the Gothams by management , and the astute generalship of manager Mutrie, the Mets finished a commendable fourth (54-42) in the American Association race while the Gothams fared no better than sixth place (46-50) in the National League standings. This disconcerting situation continued in 1884 when an improved Gothams squad rose no higher than fourth place and had to suffer the embarrassment that accompanied the late-season dismissal of manager James Price, caught for a second time embezzling club funds. Meanwhile the Mets, banished for most of the season to an ill-conceived new ballpark erected along the East River[11], rode the hitting of infielders Dave Orr (.354) and Dude Esterbrook (.314), superb pitching by Keefe (37-17) and Jack Lynch (37-15), and the leadership of Mutrie to capture of the American Association flag. The Mets balloon, however, was quickly punctured in the postseason. In the precursor of the modern World Series, the Mets were swept by the National League Providence Grays in three noncompetitive and poorly attended championship games played at the Polo Grounds.[12]

Events during the offseason manifested Day’s intention to make a champion of the Gothams. And to that end, the Mets would be sacrificed. First, manager Mutrie was transferred to the NL team. Then he and Day engaged in some rule-bending chicanery to bring Mets stars Keefe and Esterbrook over. Shortly before the start of the 1885 campaign, Mutrie chaperoned the two on a vacation voyage to Day’s onion farm in Bermuda, the trip ostensibly a reward for sterling work during the previous season. Once Keefe and Esterbrook were safely at sea, the MEC released them from the Mets roster. While Keefe and Esterbrook were incommunicado somewhere on the Atlantic, the ten-day period that other teams had to sign them as free agents elapsed. Once that happened, Mutrie inked the two to Gothams contracts. Upon discovery that star players had been slipped out of its league, the American Association executive board howled in protest. But all it could do was ban Mutrie from the league, an empty gesture as Mutrie had already left for the National League. The American Association directors also voted to expel the Mets franchise, but quickly reconsidered. Instead, the Mets were fined $500 for the manner in which Keefe and Esterbrook had been released. The Mets were also required to post a bond, a sort of guarantee that the team would complete its 1885 AA schedule.[13] When the time came, a dispirited Mets team played out the campaign as obliged but plummeted to seventh place in the standings. But this was of little concern to Day and his MEC associates. In December 1885 the Mets were sold for $25,000 to Staten Island amusement impresario and local railroad magnate Erastus Wiman, who promptly relocated the franchise to his St. George Grounds, a ferry ride away from Manhattan.[14]

 Fortified by its new acquisitions (which included future Hall of Fame outfielder Jim O’Rourke, late of Buffalo), the Gothams posted a dazzling 85-27 record in 1885. But that was good only for second place in the National League as the Cap Anson-led Chicago White Stockings were two games better. In addition to a change in its fortunes, the New York team also underwent a name change as well. During the early part of the 1885 season, the New York Gothams acquired the handle Giants, the moniker by which the team would soon become famous.[15] As the fortunes of his team increased in the National League, the stature of John B. Day among his fellow magnates rose with it. Along with dominant team owners A.G. Spalding (Chicago) and John I. Rogers (Philadelphia), Day was chosen to represent the league on the important Joint Rules Committee of Organized Baseball. He was also appointed to the National League Board of Arbitration and became a voice to be heeded in executive conclaves. Top salaries, first-rate road accommodations and bonhomie – John B. was on familiar terms with many of his charges – also garnered the New York team owner esteem and good will in the player ranks.[16]

 In 1888 the Giants players rewarded Day’s amity by bringing home the 1888 National League pennant. New York then made its triumph complete by downing the St. Louis Browns of the American Association in a postseason match of league champions. Unfortunately for Day, he did not fare as well against a different adversary: City planners determined to complete the Midtown traffic grid by running a street through the Polo Grounds outfield. Maneuvers, both legal and political, had forestalled the project during the 1888 season but by early the following year it had become evident that the Giants would have to find a new playing field, the Tammany connections of the team’s owners notwithstanding.[17] At first unable to locate suitable grounds in Manhattan, the Giants opened the 1889 season in Jersey City and then switched to the St. George Grounds, erstwhile home of the by-now-disbanded Mets. Persistent bad weather and the inconvenience of the locale had a debilitating effect on the Giants’ box office. But by June renewed negotiations between Day and James J. Coogan, the wily estate agent of the vastly propertied Lynch-Gardiner family, afforded the Giants a lease to a vacant field situated in the far northern end of Manhattan. Within three weeks thereafter, the small army of workmen engaged by Day had erected a usable, if unfinished, ballpark on the grounds. When completed that winter, this handsome edifice at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue seated more than 14,000 fans and was dubbed the New Polo Grounds.[18]  On July 8, 1889, the Giants inaugurated their new home field with a 7-5 victory over Pittsburgh, a harbinger of the second-half success that would see New York nip the Boston Beaneaters at the wire for the pennant. The Giants then successfully defended their world champions title, defeating the American Association’s Brooklyn Bridegrooms behind the hurling of unlikely mound heroes Cannonball Crane and Hank O’Day.[19]

Day’s enjoyment of the triumph was tempered by a sense of foreboding. The 1889 season had been conducted amid simmering player discontent, longstanding player resentment of the reserve clause having been exacerbated by the imposition of a tight-fisted salary classification scheme, adopted by National League magnates over Day’s objection. Even as the Giants rallied for the pennant, plans for a new major league, one controlled by the players themselves, were taking shape. And the chief promoters of this nascent rival, from visionary organizer John Montgomery Ward to chief recruiters Tim Keefe and Jim O’Rourke, all wore New York Giants uniforms. Still, Day remained confident in his franchise’s future. Despite the rumblings of player secession, Day turned down a $200,000 offer for the club made late in the 1889 season by Polo Grounds landlord Coogan.[20]

On November 4, 1889, the players’ intention to form a new major league was publicly disseminated in the press.[21] As New York was the very font of the rebellion, Day’s Giants would be particularly hard hit by player defection. The Giants quickly lost the team’s entire regular lineup to the Players League, save for aging pitcher Mickey Welch and outfielder Mike Tiernan. To counteract the attrition, the National League formed a War Committee chaired by the hard-nosed Spalding, with Day and Rogers as the other members. The two leagues then began maneuvering. Ward and his comrades, genuinely fond of Day and eager for a defection in the National League owners’ ranks, attempted to entice Day to their side by offering him a lucrative position in the Players League executive offices. Ever the NL loyalist, Day refused and was soon busy trying to lure wavering Players League enlistees – notably Giants star Buck Ewing and second baseman Danny Richardson – back to the National League fold, but ultimately to no avail.[22] Thereafter, Day adopted a litigation strategy, instituting reserve clause-based suits against Ward, Keefe, Ewing, and O’Rourke. The courts entertaining such actions, however, were uniformly unpersuaded, declining to grant Day any form of relief.

With his roster depleted and the start of the 1890 season on the horizon, Day took the first of the steps that would hasten his financial ruin: He tendered Indianapolis team owner John T. Brush a $25,000 note in exchange for Jack Glasscock, Jerry Denny, Amos Rusie, and others under contract to the just liquidated Hoosier franchise.[23] Long-term implications aside, the move yielded an immediate benefit. Day would now be able to put a presentable team on the field. And he would need to, for the interleague competition in New York would be cutthroat. In a display of hubris and disdain, War Committee chairman Spalding had arranged the National League schedule to place his league’s teams in direct head-to-head competition with the upstart league whenever possible. This made the atmosphere in New York particularly fraught, as the Players League had erected its playing site (Brotherhood Park) on grounds immediately adjacent to the New Polo Grounds. Only the stadium walls and a ten-foot-wide alley separated the two ballparks.[24]

 The fan allegiance question was settled on Opening Day when 12,013 attended the debut of the star-laden Ewing Big Giants at Brotherhood Park while only 4,644 chose to watch Day’s Real Giants play next door. This roughly three-to-one difference in patronage continued throughout the season but both teams drew poorly.[25] Typical gates were the 1,707 fans drawn to Brotherhood Park on May 12 for a Boston-New York Players League game while only 687 paid their way into the New Polo Grounds to see the National League Boston-New York contest. Interestingly, as word of a fierce pitching duel between Kid Nichols and Amos Rusie made its way across the stadium divide, the Players League fans migrated to the upper reaches of the right-field grandstands to spy on the National League game, decided 1-0 in the 13th inning by a Mike Tiernan home run that reportedly soared out of the New Polo Grounds, crossed the alley, and struck the outside wall of Brotherhood Park.[26] Regrettably, the occasional thriller was hardly enough to revive fan interest in the Giants, and the Day operation was soon awash in debt. Funds from Day’s tobacco business were unable to stanch the tide of red ink – but did achieve the effect of undermining the fiscal health of the team owner’s non-baseball interests. By July the New York Giants were on the verge of bankruptcy. 

National League magnates summoned to a meeting in Brooklyn were stunned by the degree of Day’s distress. To avert the collapse of the league’s flagship enterprise, Spalding orchestrated a financial bailout on the spot, pledging $25,000 to Day in return for stock in the Giants club. Boston owner Arthur Soden did the same, while Philadelphia co-owner Al Reach and Brooklyn’s Ferdinand Abell each chipped in $6,250. John T. Brush, meanwhile, agreed to convert Day’s outstanding $25,000 players payment note into a Spalding/Soden-sized stake in the Giants operation.[27] When word of the arrangement leaked, the press took to referring to the strapped team owner as John Busted Day. But with the aid, the New York team managed to stagger to the 1890 season finish line, its 63-68 record good for sixth place.

While the Players League Giants had managed a more respectable (74-57) third-place finish, the de-facto franchise boss, Wall Street financier Edward B. Talcott, and his partners had seen little return on their investment in the league.[28] Indeed, they, like John B. Day, had lost a good deal of money during the 1890 season. But unlike Day (and Spalding, even Brush), these men were not lovers of the game. To them, baseball was simply another business venture. That made them receptive to settlement overtures quietly conveyed via New York Sun sportswriter Joe Vila. Pre-empting consolidation of the two leagues as a whole, Day and Talcott swiftly reached an agreement to merge the New York teams, cutting out John Montgomery Ward and his player board in the process.  Day, onetime friend of the renegade players, had been adamant that player representatives be excluded from the consolidation discussions. Said Day, “The players have nothing to say at all. They have not lost the money during the last season and consequently, they have no interest at stake. The capitalists on both sides will do the negotiating. The players will have to do what they are told to do.”[29] In short order, Talcott came to agree, brushing off objections by Ward. “I don’t propose to have Mr. Ward or anybody else criticize my business methods,” Talcott declared, testily. “Nor shall I allow Mr. Ward to tell me how my financial interests must be arranged. The fight cannot go on for another year, for baseball will become a dead sport. Ward can say what he likes but it cannot alter matters with us a particle.”[30] With its New York operation co-opted, the Players League swiftly passed from the baseball scene, its remaining backers scrambling to reach consolidation or buyout agreements with NL counterparts. By late November 1890 a triumphant A.G. Spalding could accurately proclaim, “The Players League is as dead as the proverbial doornail.”[31]

While it may have been dead, the brief existence of the Players League had exacted a grim toll on the fortunes of John B. Day. Competitive pressures had drained MEC coffers and prompted Day to tap his tobacco business to keep the Giants afloat. And when that proved inadequate, Day had been forced to seek financial help from fellow National League owners, whose combined investment in the New York franchise now exceeded Day’s own. Worse yet was Day’s new arrangement with his former Players League rivals. Unlike Spalding, Brush and the other silent club partners, the Talcott faction would be active in management affairs and quickly achieve operational control of the Giants franchise. An early sign of Talcott ascendency was conveyed by the selection of the team’s playing site for the 1891 season. Day had built and paid for the New Polo Grounds less than two years earlier and the stadium was a fine baseball venue. But Brotherhood Park was the home base of the Talcott forces and Talcott himself was responsible for the ten-year lease that the Players League Giants had signed with landlord Coogan. With no intention of having an idle ballpark on his books, Talcott had Brotherhood Park renamed the Polo Grounds and designated as the permanent playing field of the New York Giants. Day’s adjoining stadium, retitled Manhattan Field, was relegated to hosting track meets, horseracing and other secondary sporting events. Day’s diminished stature in the new Giants operation was also reflected in the treatment of his old friend and collaborator Jim Mutrie. Although continued as Giants manager at Day’s insistence, Mutrie was shorn of effective command of the team, supplanted in authority by field captain Buck Ewing, the former PL Giants leader. At the conclusion of the 1891 season Mutrie was unceremoniously severed from franchise employ, with Day powerless to stop it. John B. continued to hold the title of team president for another season but was now little more than a figurehead. Control in the Giants’ front office was exercised entirely by the Talcott forces.

In February 1893 Day resigned. At a farewell meeting of the franchise stockholders, John Montgomery Ward, a small-stake Giants shareholder, offered a motion of thanks to the departing team chief. Although he and Day had had their differences, Ward pronounced himself “deeply grieved to see Mr. Day retire from the presidency.”[32] The motion was thereupon seconded by John T. Brush who added “a glowing tribute to Mr. Day as a baseball president, a companion and a gentleman.”[33] Upon unanimous adoption of the testimonial, Day, “overcome with emotion,” could do no more than reply, “I thank you, gentlemen.”[34] And with that, the founding era of New York Giants baseball passed into history.

The remainder of Day’s life was spent in ever-tightening circumstances. He was now only a nominal shareholder in the baseball franchise that he had started and his tobacco business was in serious decline. Soon, Day was obliged to close its Manhattan tobacco-processing plant.[35] From then on, John B. Day would eke out his existence on the periphery of baseball. In March 1896 National League President Nick Young appointed him the league’s National Agreement liaison to the minor leagues.[36] The following spring, Day relinquished that post to make probably the strangest decision in his baseball career: acceptance of the offer to manage the New York Giants, tendered by new franchise commander Andrew Freedman, a Tammany Hall friend of Day’s.[37] Without managerial experience and saddled with a mediocre lineup, Day lasted until early July, posting a 29-35 log before being fired by the mercurial Freedman.[38] Several years later,  Day returned to baseball as supervisor of National League umpires, issuing widely ignored directives against rowdy behavior on the field.[39] In January 1902 Day made a peculiar reappearance on the game’s executive stage. With league magnates locked in a bitter stalemate over the league’s presidency – the factions being evenly divided between supporters of A.G. Spalding and the Freedman/Brush candidate – Day offered himself as the perfect compromise choice. John B. would even serve his first year as league president free of charge. To no great surprise, his offer was politely ignored by the warring sides.[40]

In March 1903 Day resurfaced at the side of former MEC partner Joseph Gordon when the long anticipated entry of the American League into New York was announced. News accounts identified Gordon as president of the new franchise with Day being described as “associated” with the operation.[41] As for the team’s prospects, Day stated, “I feel sure that the New York public will appreciate our efforts, and that the new club will be a success. We have a splendid team under contract and our grounds will be the finest in the country.”[42] While Gordon would serve as ceremonial New York Highlanders president for several years – the club’s actual bosses being the less presentable Frank Farrell and Bill Devery, characters from the Manhattan demimonde – Day quickly settled back into obscurity, with no further connection to the New York American League team found by the writer.

Ella Day died in 1906. Sometime thereafter, Day remarried, taking a middle-aged Connecticut woman named Agnes Wallis as his new bride. By 1910, the couple was living in rented premises in Brooklyn, Day having spent the previous year as president of the Metropolitan Baseball Club, “a fast semipro nine of Carlsbad, NJ.”[43] Day also spent time peddling his personal Day brand cigars to friendly saloon owners and shopkeepers. From there, his fortunes continued to wane. Although his name was periodically listed among the attendees at Major League Baseball functions[44]⁴⁴, Day’s only remunerative connection to baseball was the $5 a game that he made as a ticket-taker at the Polo Grounds. John B. also began to experience health problems, suffering a series of small strokes that hampered his mobility. By 1920, the Days were back in Manhattan, their meager income supplemented by rent paid by lodgers sharing their apartment and by Agnes Day’s sewing.

Finally, in the fall of 1923, Day’s plight became public knowledge via press reports. Agnes, now terminally ill with cancer, extolled her husband to visiting newsmen. “He doesn’t look a great man now,” she said, “but he was. A tobacco man when he came here in the Eighties. He was worth nearly a million. … When he used to visit his (cigar factory) in Middletown, Connecticut … whistles blew and work was suspended to greet him.”[45] Mildly embarrassed by the situation, Giants executives hastily arranged a Polo Grounds benefit game for Day and Jim Mutrie, discovered living near destitution on Staten Island. The game, between the defending World Series champion Giants and a minor-league Baltimore team featuring alumnus Babe Ruth, drew a disappointing crowd of only 5,000 but the modest gate was supplemented by contributions from Charles Comiskey, Garry Herrmann, and other baseball dignitaries.[46] Day was also granted a small pension by the National League.[47]

After Agnes died, Day spent his final years living with friends in nearby Cliffside, New Jersey. On January 25, 1925, he died from the effects of a fifth stroke. John B. Day was 77 years old. After an Episcopal funeral service in Manhattan, Day was interred in the family vault at Center Cemetery in Portland, Connecticut.[48] Childless, he was survived by an unmarried sister, Fanny Day, and three sons of his brother-in-law/business partner Charles Abbey (the husband of Day’s older sister Eliza). Respected and well liked in his heyday and thereafter largely forgotten, Day was a good man and a lifelong lover of baseball. But deeply ingrained traits of personal honor and institutional loyalty left him ill-equipped to deal with the fast-changing diamond scene of 1890 and the cold-blooded entrepreneurs who entered the game with it. Perhaps the most prominent casualty of the Players League War, John B. Day is best remembered as the earnest founder of the New York Giants, the first great franchise in the storied history of baseball in the big city.

September 27, 2011

Sources                                                                                                                       

In addition to the sources specifically cited in the endnotes below, the following works were consulted in the preparation of this profile:

Bryan Di Salvatore. A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward. New York: Pantheon Books, 1999.

Frank Graham, The New York Giants: An Informal History of a Great Baseball Club. New York: G P Putnam, 1952.

David Nemec, The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball. New York: David I. Fine Books, 1997.

David Stevens, Baseball’s Radical for All Seasons: A Biography of John Montgomery Ward. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1998.

The writer is indebted to SABR 19th Century Committee chairman Peter Mancuso for his careful reading and beneficial comment on the profile draft.

Notes