Oscar Bielaski

A member of the Washington Nationals, a short-lived 1872 National Association club, Oscar Bielaski is generally recognized as the first major league ballplayer of Polish descent. Other aspects of his five-season professional career are less noteworthy. A low-average singles hitter and a poor defensive outfielder, Bielaski holds another, less enviable distinction – that of being the very worst statistical performer on the roster of the National League’s inaugural championship team, the 1876 Chicago White Stockings. Released by Chicago at season’s end, Bielaski’s professional career was over. Thereafter, he returned to hometown Washington, DC, where he was employed by the US government until felled by a heart attack in 1911. His life story follows.

Oscar Bielaski was the third of eight children1 born to Alexander Bielaski (1811-1861), an ethnic Pole born in what is now Belarus, and his wife Mary Ann (née Cary, 1824-1887), a native of Springfield, Illinois. The couple met while recent immigrant Bielaski was working for the Illinois Central Railroad in the late 1830s. A year after Alexander became a naturalized American citizen in 1841, he wed Mary Ann, a Methodist-Episcopalian. Their children were raised in their mother’s faith and one of the sons, the Reverend Alexander Bielaski Jr., later became a prominent Protestant clergyman.

At the time of Oscar’s birth in 1847, Alexander Sr. was employed by the government’s General Land Office in Washington, DC. When Oscar became a teenager in 1860, a regular visitor to the Bielaski residence was newly elected US President Abraham Lincoln, an old friend of his father from Springfield. Alexander was a military engineer by profession, formerly a junior officer in the Russian Imperial Army.2 After the Civil War erupted in April 1861, Bielaski – despite being responsible for a large family and nearly 50 years old – acceded to the President’s request that he accept a commission in the Union Army. Seven months later, Captain Alexander Bielaski was dead, killed while leading an infantry charge upon a Confederate outpost in Belmont, Missouri.3

Back in DC, widow Mary Ann and her daughters threw themselves into efforts to support the troops. After Oscar completed his schooling, he found work as a printer. But following his father’s example, Oscar enlisted in the Union Army in September 1864. However, his tour of duty with the New York 11th Cavalry was brief. After just one month in uniform, he was discharged, reputedly for being underage.4 Upon returning home to Washington, Bielaski took a job as a clerk in the US Treasury Department.

The origins of Oscar’s baseball playing are unknown, but he first came to public attention in 1867 when “fine batting” by Bielaski was mentioned in local press coverage of the amateur Capitals club’s 39-11 victory over a picked nine from Alexandria, Virginia.5 Two months later, another hallmark of his ensuing career was unveiled during a turn playing second base in another Capitals victory. “Bielaski,” the National Republican noted caustically, “had evidently been in the butter business, as several balls slipped through his fingers without difficulty.”6

The following spring, Bielaski was elected a director of the Capital Base Ball Club.7 But the Capitals did not take the field in 1868, leaving him with only random ballplaying opportunities that season. For the most part, it appears that Oscar found his playing time manning first base for the Rosedales, an amateur nine captained by his younger brother Alex.8 Playing time was also sparse the following year for Bielaski.

An intermittent association was initiated in 1870 when Bielaski joined the Nationals, an amateur nine based in Washington, DC. Bielaski’s new club engaged fast competition, playing formidable opponents like the Mutuals of New York and the Washington (DC) Olympics. The Nationals remained an amateur side when the National Association, the first professional baseball league, was founded in 1871. But the Nationals regularly took on NA teams that season, although without much success. In a lopsided 32-4 loss to the Boston Red Stockings, Bielaski demonstrated that a professional career might lay in his future, going 3-for-5 off Al Spalding, then the game’s foremost hurler.9 The highlight of the year, however, occurred away from the diamond. In late November, Oscar took fellow Washingtonian Mary Blanchard as his bride.10 In time, the arrival of seven children completed the Bielaski family.11

Oscar Bielaski entered the professional ranks when his Washington Nationals club joined the National Association for the 1872 season.12 With Bielaski stationed in right field, the Nationals got off to an ignominious start, being drubbed in their opener by the Baltimore Canaries, 21-1. More thrashings followed. The only close game among the Nationals’ ensuing contests was a 15-13 verdict dropped to their intracity rivals, the Washington Olympics, on May 17. Some five weeks later, a 9-1 loss to Baltimore proved the Nationals’ swan song. Having lost every NA game that it played, the Washington Nationals abandoned the circuit. During the club’s 11-game National Association existence, Bielaski, playing in all but one contest, did little to further the Washington cause.  The right-handed batter and thrower posted a harmless eight singles in 46 at-bats (.174) and played lousy outfield defense (.737 fielding percentage). Later that summer, Bielaski and the Nationals reverted to playing amateur baseball.

During the offseason, Treasury Department employee and baseball enthusiast Nick Young reorganized the Nationals.13 Once again admitted to the National Association, the 1873 club was not as hapless as its predecessor, posting an improved but still awful 8-31 (.205) final record, worst in the NA.14 As aptly noted by National Association chronicler Bill Ryczek, “under Young’s wand, the Nationals [went] from horrible to merely bad. They were no longer steamrolled by every team that came to town. Washington was capable of beating [NA weaklings like the Baltimore] Marylands … and, of greater relevance, could stand toe to toe with the NA contenders, although they generally went down to defeat.”15

Something comparable could be said about the performance of club right fielder Oscar Bielaski. It was better than previously but still substandard. His batting average rose to .283, second-best among the Washington regulars. But despite being of above-average size (5-feet-10, 170 pounds) for an 1870s ballplayer, Bielaski supplied little power. Only five of his 49 base hits took him past first base. And he was the poorest of the Washington outfielders, with his .755 fielding percentage being weak even for a barehanded defender and well below the marks posted by pasture mates Holly Hollingshead (.824) and Paul Hines (.798).

As the National Association season neared a close, the Nationals eked out a 13-10 exhibition game victory over “a picked nine of colored ball players,”16 a rare instance of interracial play during the 19th century. The following month, Bielaski was among the Washington players enlisting in a local volunteer fighting corps pledged to assist Cuba in its insurrection against rule by Spain.17 Diplomatic initiatives, however, forestalled American intrusion into hostilities and Bielaski spent the offseason at home in DC.

The Washington club did not return to the National Association for the 1874 season, leaving Bielaski in need of new employment. Coming to the rescue was a new iteration of the Baltimore Canaries, the latest club based in that star-crossed NA venue.18 The franchise may have been new, but its playing fortunes were familiar to Bielaski – except the Canaries were even worse than the Washington Nationals. The club began the campaign by losing 12 of its first 13 games. The Canaries won their next two contests, the only occasion on which the club posted consecutive victories. At season end, a 9-38 (.191) Baltimore record secured the NA basement for another Bielaski club. As for Oscar, he was his customary powerless self, posting a .241 batting average predicated on 45 singles in 187 at-bats. Remarkably for an everyday player, Bielaski’s year-end slugging percentage was exactly the same: .241. Two walks inched his on-base percentage up to .249. Meanwhile, Bielaski’s .806 fielding percentage as an outfielder was a personal career-best but still the lowest of the Baltimore outfielders.

The Baltimore Canaries disbanded during the offseason, but once again Bielaski found an NA club wanting his services: the Chicago White Stockings, a fifth-place finisher in 1874.19 In the run-up to the new season, Chicago field leader Jimmy Wood described his new charge as “very quiet.”20 Added to that characterization of Bielaski could have been descriptives such as sober, conscientious, and utterly colorless, a ballplayer who appears never to have been the subject of a newsprint anecdote.

If the White Stockings were in need of a soft-hitting, shaky-fielding outfielder, engagement of Oscar Bielaski filled that bill. In 51 games for a sixth-place (30-37-2, .448) finisher, Bielaski batted a tepid .239. But a lone double among his 48 base hits elevated his slugging percentage to .244, while another two-walk campaign brought his OBP in at .246. As for defense, Oscar’s work drew occasional commendation in the press. In its coverage of an early-season Sox victory over the St. Louis Browns, the Chicago Inter Ocean took note of “two very difficult fly catches being capitally taken by Bielaski in right field.”21 But in the end, Oscar’s defensive play deteriorated, with 27 outfield errors yielding a sorry .748 fielding percentage for the 1875 season.

During the offseason, Chicago club boss William Hulbert remade professional baseball, forming the National League from desirable components of the now-disbanded National Association. And to ensure that his White Stockings were dominant, Hulbert stocked the team with the crème of NA playing talent, including future Hall of Famers Al Spalding, Cap Anson, and Deacon White. Also added to the Chicago roster were 19th-century standouts Ross Barnes, Cal McVey, and Paul Hines. The club’s signing of a mediocrity like Oscar Bielaski, however, is a puzzler.22 It was subsequently reported that $1,500 of the White Stockings $21,500 player payroll was allotted to the club’s prospective right fielder.23

Being surrounded by elite talent did not lift Bielaski’s performance. To the contrary, he regressed. On an NL championship club (52-14, .788) that posted an extraordinary .337 team batting average, part-timer Bielaski hit .209 in 32 appearances. His .220 OBP and .230 slugging percentage were also embarrassingly below the White Stockings’ norms (.353 OBP/.417 SLG). A year later, the Chicago Tribune was unsparing in its retrospective critique, describing Bielaski as “useless at the stick in 1876.”24 And as usual, Oscar’s defense was unreliable, his .763 fielding percentage bringing up the rear among Chicago outfielders.

Unsurprisingly, Bielaski was not reengaged for the 1877 season. No other National League club wanted him either. At age 29, Oscar Bielaski’s professional playing days were now behind him. In 174 games spread over five NA/NL seasons, he posted a power-deficient .240 batting average (179-for-746) that included only nine extra-base hits. Although fleet afoot – “Bielaski’s speed to first base often caused a fielder to blunder out of sheer anxiety”25 – he rarely took another base once aboard (nine career steals, total).26 And his outfield defense (252 putouts/33 assists/87 errors = .766 fielding percentage) was dismal even by the barehanded standards of his day. In short, Bielaski’s stats do not explain his repeated engagement by top echelon professional ballclubs. This suggests that perhaps it was Bielaski’s character – he was a serious, intelligent, even-tempered, and dependable man – that made him attractive to employers, his marginal playing talent notwithstanding. In the end, however, an agreeable persona could only carry him so far in the game.

Although no longer a major leaguer, Bielaski did not abandon the diamond. In 1877, he rejoined his old club, the again-amateur Washington Nationals. Under the direction of playing captain Bielaski, the Nationals registered a 23-2 (.920) record against area competition that season.27 He retained the captain’s position during the following two summers, but gradually reduced his playing role on the Nationals to that of substitute.28 But Bielaski reinserted himself into the lineup for a July 1879 exhibition game against alumni of the Washington Olympics, the Nationals’ traditional rival. Highlighting the Nats’ 23-2 victory was a home run hit by Oscar Bielaski, the only reported four-bagger of his playing career.29

Bielaski further reduced his playing time in 1880, his final year in uniform. In a mid-October exhibition game against an erstwhile employer, the NL Chicago White Stockings, Oscar enjoyed an improbable last hurrah. With the Nationals clinging to a one-run lead, “Bielaski’s catch of Abner] Dalrymple’s long hit in the tenth inning saved the game for the Nationals.”30

Once he left the game, Bielaski receded into the anonymity of private life. He spent the remainder of his life employed by the government, serving as auditor of the Navy Department.31 But Bielaski never lost his interest in baseball and coached various navy yard teams. His son Vic was a star infielder in the government departmental baseball league during the 1890s and considered a hot prospect, but he was discouraged from turning professional by his father.32

As he entered his sixties, Bielaski developed heart disease. Nevertheless, he remained on the job at the navy yard. At the close of the work day on November 8, 1911, Oscar left the office to meet friends but collapsed as he was about to board a DC streetcar. He had suffered a heart attack and died in an ambulance en route to Casualty Hospital.33 Oscar Bielaski was 64. Following funeral services conducted at the family residence, the deceased was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Survivors included his widow Mary, the adult Bielaski children, his sister Agnes Sprague, and his brother and youthful teammate, the Reverend Alexander Bielaski Jr.

Postscript

Our subject had been in his grave for almost a century when his memory was revived in 2005 by induction into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame. The organization’s counterpart in Cooperstown had an ample contingent of the new inductees’ countrymen, but the honor commemorated the fact that paving the way for the likes of Stan Musial, Al Simmons, Carl Yastrzemski, Phil Niekro, Stan Coveleski, and Bill Mazeroski had been a once-forgotten trailblazer from baseball’s pioneer era named Oscar Bielaski.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Darren Gibson and Rory Costello and fact-checked by Dan Schoenholz,

Sources

Sources for the biographical info imparted herein include the Oscar Bielaski file at the Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York; the Bielaski profile in Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Vol. 2, David Nemec, ed. (Lincon: University of Nebraska Press, 2011); US Census and other government records accessed via Ancestry.com; and certain of the newspaper articles cited in the endnotes. Statistics have been taken from Baseball-Reference.

Notes

1 The other Bielaski children were Rosie (Rosetta Jane, born 1843), Victor (1846), Agnes (1849), Alexander (1851), Elizabeth (1853), Eugene (1855), and May (1858).

2 Trained as an engineer at a military academy in St. Petersburg and thereafter commissioned as an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, Alexander Bielaski joined a nationalist Polish insurrection in 1831 and was seriously injured in fighting outside Warsaw. After the rebellion was suppressed, he fled to Paris and subsequently emigrated to America.

3 Heroic action at Belmont by Captain Bielaski was later memorialized in “War History-Belmont,” (Springfield) Daily Illinois State Journal, January 13, 1868: 2.

4 According to his Find-A-Grave page, Oscar Bielaski enlisted in the US Navy after he became of age. No contemporaneous evidence of such naval service, however, was found by the writer.

5 See “Base Ball Games Played,” (Washington, DC) National Republican, July 6, 1867: 3. An unidentified modern-day newspaper profile of Oscar Bielaski contained in his GRC file maintains that he was among the Treasury Department clerks who formed the nucleus of the Washington Nationals aggregation that “made the first cross-country trip” ever undertaken by an amateur baseball club. But contemporary newsprint yields the impression that Bielaski spent the 1867 baseball season at home playing for the Capitals, not on the road with the Nationals.

6 “Base Ball,” National Republican, September 13, 1867: 3.

7 Per “Election of Officers,” (Washington, DC) Daily Morning Chronicle, April 3, 1868: 4.

8 As recalled decades later in “The Old Rosedales,” Washington (DC) Evening Star, April 14, 1907: 61.

9 As reported in “Base Ball: Boston vs. National,” (Washington, DC) Daily Patriot, May 3, 1871: 4.

10 The Bielaski-Blanchard nuptials were reported in “Married,” (Washington, DC) Daily Critic, December 2, 1871: 3, and “Married,” Washington Evening Star, December 1, 1871: 3. Likely because the marriage was a mixed one joining a Methodist (Oscar) and a Catholic (Mary), the wedding ceremony was performed by a priest in the rectory of St. Dominick’s Roman Catholic Church, rather than in the church itself.

11 The Bielaski children were Charles Victor (born 1874), Oscar Jr. (1875), Rose (1879), Arthur (1883), Isabella (1885), Georgia (1888), and Clara (1890).

12 Nineteenth century baseball historians disagree about whether the professional Washington Nationals club of 1872 was an extension of the amateur Washington Nationals of the previous season or an altogether different club which merely adopted the Nationals name. See Peter Morris, “Nationals of Washington,” in Base Ball Pioneers, 1850-1870, Morris, William J. Ryczek, Jan Finkel, Leonard Levin, and Richard Malatzky, eds. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012), 275.

13 The team is called the Washington Blue Stockings in Baseball-Reference, a moniker unknown in the 1870s.

14 This excludes the Elizabeth Resolutes (2-21, .087) and Baltimore Marylands (0-6, .000), both of which abandoned play early in the 1873 season.

15 William J. Ryczek, Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association, 1871-1875 (Wallingford, Connecticut: Colebrook Press, 1992), 101.

16 Per “Base Ball,” (Washington, DC) New National Era and Citizen, October 23, 1873: 3.

17 Bielaski was appointed the putative corps’ first lieutenant. Washington teammates Bill Stearns, Paul Hines, and John Hollingshead also joined the volunteers. See “Cuban Avengers,” Daily Critic, November 17, 1873: 4.

18 Bielaski’s engagement by the Canaries was noted in “Baltimore Ball Tossers,” Washington (DC) Chronicle, March 11, 1874: 8.

19 Chicago’s signing of Bielaski was reported in “Base Ball: The Chicago Nine for Next Season,” New York Herald, November 29, 1874: 12, and “Base Ball,” Chicago Inter Ocean, November 8, 1874: 1.

20 “Base Ball,” Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1875: 10.

21 “Sporting News,” Chicago Inter Ocean, May 20, 1875: 8.

22 The new Chicago club’s engagement of Bielaski was noted in “Sporting,” Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1875: 12; “Sports and Pastimes: Base Ball,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 29, 1875: 3; and elsewhere.

23 According to “Salaries of Base Ball Players,” (Nashville) Daily American, July 18, 1876: 4; “Guessed At,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 18, 1876; and other published reports.

24 “Sporting: Base-Ball,” Chicago Tribune, October 28, 1877: 8.

25 “A Neat Compliment,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1877: 7.

26 Bielaski’s meager stolen base total belied the fact that he and Lip Pike had been adjudged “the fastest runners in the country,” per “Base Ball,” Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1875: 10.

27 According to “Sporting: Base-Ball,” Chicago Tribune, November 25, 1877: 7.

28 See “The National Ball Clubs,” Boston Post, March 10, 1879: 3.

29 As memorialized in the box score accompanying “Ball and Bat,” National Republican, July 19, 1879: 4.

30 “Sports and Pastimes: Base Ball,” Washington (DC) Sunday Herald, October 17, 1880: 4.

31 By 1901, auditor Bielaski’s government salary had risen to $1,800/year, as reported in “Shifting the Employees,” Washington (DC) Times, March 2, 1901: 7.

32 Per “Oscar Bielaski” in Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Vol. 2, David Nemec, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 338.

33 As condensed from news reports of Bielaski’s death published in the Washington Evening Star, Washington Herald, and Washington Post, November 9, 1911.