In late August 1879, Deacon White, the elder stateman of NL catchers at age 31, announced that he would retire after the season.2 Reds fans might have expected the club to start casting about for a new catcher, but instead they were preparing to go out of business.

Beset by financial losses estimated at $8,000 or more, the club failed to pay Deacon (and presumably others) salaries for the month of October. They also neglected to reserve any players for the 1880 season.3 Somehow those warning signs didn’t deter Reds manager Bob Miles from organizing a postseason exhibition tour to California. When Deacon pulled out, ostensibly because he didn’t want to play on Sundays, Miles recruited a catcher whom some observers considered Deacon White’s equal – John Clapp of the Buffalo Bisons.4

“The best looking, best preserved and most robust man in the profession,”5 Clapp had made his name as a member of the 1876 St. Louis Brown Stockings. His brilliance behind the plate that year was credited with fashioning hurler George Bradley into the league’s most dominant pitcher, going 45-19 with 16 shutouts and a 1.23 ERA.6 Clapp also came with recent leadership experience, having served as captain of the Buffalo nine and captain-manager of the 1878 Indianapolis Grays.

Two weeks into the Golden State junket, directors back in Cincinnati agreed to withdraw the club from the NL.7 The Stars, an independent Cincinnati club, applied for membership in place of the Reds, with their admission to be voted upon by NL club owners at the league’s December convention. Clapp, who reportedly planned to leave Buffalo to join his younger brother, Aaron, on Albany’s National Association team, signed on with the Stars while still on the West Coast.8 Cincinnati fans had reason to celebrate, but, unlike the Reds, Buffalo had submitted a reserve list to the league, and Clapp was on it.

Buffalo management, with support from the Boston Red Stockings, threatened not to support admitting the Stars. They claimed that the Stars were bound by the reserve agreement that the Reds had entered into just months earlier, and had violated it in signing Clapp.9 NL President William Hulbert disagreed, reasoning that the Stars weren’t signatories to the reserve agreement. Buffalo relented, Clapp’s contract was recognized, and the Stars were admitted.10 Soon after, Clapp was named captain and manager.11

Great things were expected of Clapp and his ace, Will White.12 “As a team [White and Clapp] have no peers in the country of all who will play together this year,” wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer in early April, a few days later calling the duo “the most enduring, toughest pitcher and catcher in the country.”13

Boasting a roster filled with former Reds, the Stars got off to a slow start in 1880, losing five of their first six games in a pair of home-and-home series with the Chicago White Stockings. Back in Cincinnati on May 13, Clapp’s charges looked to turn around their fortunes in the opener of a three-game series with the Cleveland Blues.

Previously known as the Forest Citys, Cleveland was one of the NL’s three doormats during the 1879 season, along with the since-defunct Syracuse Stars and Troy Trojans. They were led by 23-year-old captain-manager Jim McCormick, who also doubled as the team’s pitcher. (Not until the end of June would anyone else pitch an inning for Cleveland in 1880.14) Thanks in large part to McCormick holding opponents to three runs or fewer in his last five starts, the Blues entered the Thursday afternoon battle at Cincinnati’s new Bank Street Grounds with a record of 4-2.

The crowd of 1,045 would not soon forget how the game began.15 With the Stars batting first, leadoff hitter Jack Manning lofted a fly ball to left-center field. Center fielder Pete Hotaling, stationed in right-center field, broke into a “dead run.”16 Doing the same was left fielder Al Hall. Both outfielders were new to Cleveland – this was just the third league game in which they were playing next to one other. Hotaling called for the ball, but Hall didn’t hear him. They collided. As Hall lay on the ground writhing in pain, Hotaling scrambled up to get the ball, holding Manning to a triple. Once he did that, he came running in for a doctor.17

Hall had suffered compound fractures of both his right tibia and right fibula above the ankle.18 A pair of doctors came down from the stands to reset the breaks in a makeshift splint. Hall was carried by stretcher to the clubhouse and taken by horse-driven ambulance to a nearby hospital. He never played another major-league game.19

Once Hall was on his way, McCormick plugged catcher Doc Kennedy in left field and set about trying to keep the Stars off the scoreboard. He struck out 35-year-old Andy Leonard, a member of the legendary 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings; induced Clapp to foul out; and got William Purcell, later known as Blondie,20 to fly out – keeping Manning at third all the while.

Over the first eight innings of the contest, no baserunner for either side got any closer to touching home plate.

White dominated a Cleveland lineup that had punished him for nine runs on 13 hits on the last day of the 1879 season.21 He surrendered his only walk of the game to Frank Hankinson in the third, but immediately atoned for his generosity by deflecting a ball hit by the next batter, McCormick, into a double play.22

Cleveland mustered its first hit of the game in the seventh, on Orator Shafer’s double down the left-field line. The hit moved Fred Dunlap to third, the 21-year-old having reached first to start the inning when Clapp failed to corral a third strike. Facing the Blues’ three-four-five hitters, White held fast. The curveball specialist retired Hotaling on a popup that left fielder Mike Mansell “took handsomely on the run,”23 Ned Hanlon on a ball hit to shortstop Sam Wright, and Kennedy on a grounder that also came to the youngest brother of Boston Red Stockings manager Harry Wright – all without allowing Dunlap to score. The third out brought cheers for White and “a thrilling lecture,” i.e. tantrum, from a frustrated Shafer.

McCormick matched White in putting up goose eggs inning after inning, “puzzling” the home team with his “remarkable headwork.”24 Clapp, hitting .500 when the day began, with six multihit games,25 led off the fourth with the Stars’ second hit but was erased when Purcell grounded into a twin killing. The fair-haired Purcell singled in the eighth but was gunned down trying to steal second by Barney Gilligan, Cleveland’s strong-armed backup catcher.

The ninth inning began as the first had, with Manning lifting a ball into the outfield. This time nobody got hurt as it landed for a single along the right-field line, with Manning advancing to second when the ball got past the right fielder, Shafer. Two batters later, Clapp slapped a run-scoring triple down that same right-field line. Seeing the throw from Shafer come in off-target, Clapp broke for home. He reconsidered, but was tagged out before he could get back to third base. After a Purcell fly out to deep center field that might have brought in an insurance run, the Stars were back in the field with a slim 1-0 lead.

The Blues went down in order in the ninth, on a pair of fly outs and White’s sixth strikeout of the game.26 “The terrible accident to Hall materially affected [Cleveland’s] play at the bat” was the assessment of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, adding “the wonder is that under the circumstances they were able to hold the Cincinnatis down to one run.”27 An admiring Cincinnati Enquirer said “[i]t was such a game as is not seen three times in a season,” adding, ”White was never in better form to pitch, and he kept his vantage from the start till the end. Cleveland’s big hitters were entirely helpless.”28

The good feelings from the Stars’ strong showing didn’t last. Losers of their next four games, they fell into last place and stayed there. Deacon returned in early August to take over outfield duties from Manning. but he didn’t make a difference – the team finished with a record of 21-59 (.263).29 White, despite a 2.14 ERA that was below league average, registered just 18 wins and a league-leading 42 losses. Many of those losses were the handiwork of a Cincinnati defense that averaged more than five errors per game, tops in the NL. Cleveland parlayed McCormick’s league-leading 45 wins into a 47-37 finish, good for third place behind the champion Chicago White Stockings. 

Guilty of having violated the NL gentleman’s agreement by playing on Sundays and selling beer at their ballpark, and unwilling to support a league policy that would formally prohibit both, the Stars were pushed out of the league weeks after the season ended.30

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Will White, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Charles F. Faber’s Will White biography in the SABR Biography Project as well as the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and statscrew.com websites.

Notes

1 Joe Williams, “Deacon White,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/deacon-white/, accessed January 2025.

2 “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 28, 1879: 8. The team’s captain and manager when the season started, Deacon had resigned in June over conflicts with club President J. Wayne Neff and did not get along with his replacement as captain, Cal McVey. “General Notes,” Cleveland Leader, June 11, 1879: 8; “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 11, 1879: 2; “Notes of the Day,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 18, 1879: 3.

3 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Leader, October 4, 1879: 3; “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1879: 4.

4 “General Notes,” Cleveland Leader, October 6, 1879: 8; “Off at Last,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1879: 4.

5 “Base Ball,” Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, September 19, 1879: 3.

6 “The Players of 1876: The Pitchers,” New York Clipper, December 2, 1876: 282.

7 “The Cincinnati Base Ball Club Resigns,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 24, 1879: 1.

8 “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Star, November 10, 1879: 8. Days after the group left for the West Coast, Clapp reportedly signed a contract for $2,000 with a $300 advance to play for Albany, champions of the National Association. That team’s 1879 roster featured several past and future major leaguers, including Lip Pike, Tim Keefe, Tom Burns, Jimmy Macullar, and Cleveland’s shortstop in this game, Ned Hanlon. The New York Clipper claimed that Clapp spurned Albany after that club refused to agree to financial terms that Cincinnati ultimately did. “Base Ball,” Buffalo Courier, October 7, 1879: 2; “Baseball Notes,” New York Clipper, November 22, 1879: 277.

9 “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 24, 1879: 5; “Baseball Notes,” New York Clipper, November 29, 1879: 282.

10 “The League,” Buffalo Morning Express, December 3, 1879: 4.

11 “Baseball,” New York Herald, January 5, 1880: 9.

12 “City Personals,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 17, 1880: 4.

13 “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 2, 1880: 8; “Notes, News and Personals,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 4, 1880.

14 Excluding exhibition games. McCormick’s time as the Blues’ solitary pitcher is based on game log compiled by the author. Gig Gardner was the first Cleveland pitcher other than McCormick to work a regular-season game, earning a 6-5 win over the Boston Red Stockings on June 29. “Gardner’s Debut,” Cleveland Leader, June 30, 1880: 8.

15 “Cleveland’s Calamity,” Cleveland Leader, May 14, 1880: 8.

16 “Wonderful William,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 14, 1880: 8.

17 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 14, 1880: 1.

18 “Wonderful William.”

19 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer. Aware that the injury spelled the end of his baseball career (based on the Cleveland Plain Dealer account), Hall faced the cruel reality of being soon released, as clubs of that era took no responsibility for ballplayers who suffered career-ending injuries while wearing their uniform. After releasing him, the Blues refused to pay his medical expenses, and Hall turned to drink. He died five years later, most likely while confined to a Pennsylvania mental hospital.

20 Before the 1880 season, the Cleveland Leader referred to Purcell as “Blonde Billy,” which over the next two years evolved into “Blondie.” “The Bird Has Flown,” Cleveland Leader, March 29, 1881: 5; “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 29, 1883: 2.

21 “The Clevelands Close the Season with a Victory,” Cleveland Leader, October 1, 1879: 5.

22 “Wonderful William.”

23 “Wonderful William.”

24 “Wonderful William.”

25 Based on a game log compiled by the author.

26 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer.

27 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer.

28 “Wonderful William.”

29 “What, Jim!” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 7, 1880: 8. The 1876 Cincinnati Reds are the only major-league team based in that city to finish a season with a lower winning percentage (.138).

30 For more details, see Dennis Pajot, “1880: The Most Harmonious of All the League Meetings,” Base Ball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 168.

The National League game was played on Saturday, June 12, 1880, at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Agricultural Fairgrounds, also known as Driving Park, and was the second game of a three-game series. The Ohio team came to town in third place, just a half-game behind the upstart Worcesters. Both teams were far behind runaway leader Chicago. In the first game of the series, on Thursday the 10th, Richmond and Worcester had shut out Cleveland, 5–0, the clubs swapping positions in the standings.

A 23-year-old left-hander in his first full season, Lee Richmond was a busy man both on and off the field that week. In fact, his activities prior to his perfect game made the outcome all the more unlikely. Besides being the Worcesters’ front-line pitcher, he was wrapping up his college studies and was scheduled to graduate from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, 40 miles down the road from Worcester, on June 16. Richmond skipped Worcester’s Friday exhibition game with Yale University, returning instead to Providence for Brown’s graduation festivities. His classmate, Walter Angell, recorded Richmond’s activities while in Providence in a scrapbook:

I met them (Thursday night) at the depot … and rode out to the Messer St. ball grounds in a carriage. …We returned at midnight. Next day was Class Day. Richmond went to the Class Supper at Music Hall. He was up all night. He took part in the usual ball game about 4:50 Saturday morning; went to bed about 6:30; took the train for Worcester at 11:30. …4

On Saturday Richmond and Cleveland’s Jim McCormick were matched in what became a classic duel. McCormick was outstanding, giving up three hits and one unearned run while striking out seven and walking one. Richmond, batting second in the order, got the first hit, in the fourth but was erased on a double play. Shortstop Art Irwin led off the fifth with a single. Catcher Charlie Bennett followed with a walk. Then Art Whitney hit a comebacker to McCormick, who threw to second only to see second baseman Fred Dunlap drop the ball. Alertly, Irwin rounded third and kept right on running. Dunlap recovered but threw home wildly for his second error on the play, allowing Irwin to score. McCormick allowed only one more baserunner. Dunlap was an unlikely source for decisive defensive miscues; he was considered a fine fielder. “I used to think Dunlap was the greatest defensive second baseman in the world,” Richmond later said of him.5

As good as McCormick was, Richmond was even better. Of the 27 batters Richmond faced, only two hit fair balls beyond the infield and one of these resulted in a gem-saving play. Leading off the fifth inning, Cleveland first baseman Bill Phillips slapped a Richmond left-handed delivery into right field for an apparent base hit. Lon Knight, the Worcester right fielder and team captain, fielded the sharply hit ball and fired to first in time to retire Phillips.

The game was delayed by rain for about five minutes with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning. Richmond then finished the game with the aid of sawdust that he used to dry the ball before every pitch.6 Richmond struck out five in the one-hour, 26-minute game.

The 700 people in attendance also witnessed what might have been the first instance of platooning. Richmond, the game’s first regular left-hander, had been in the league for only about six weeks. Cleveland had not yet seen him, but already the Clevelands knew that right-handed batters might have an edge against the left-handed heaver.7 Because of this, the Cleveland team changed its batting order against Richmond. Immediately before and after the Worcester series, Cleveland’s left-handed hitters, Orator Shafer, Pete Hotaling, and Ned Hanlon, were second, third and fourth in the lineup. For the June 10 game against Worcester, Shaffer was dropped to fourth, Hanlon to seventh, and Hotaling to ninth. For the games of June 12 and 14 Shafer dropped to the number five slot, Hanlon moved to the ninth position, and Hotaling was removed from the lineup.

In addition, switch-hitting in order to face the pitcher from the opposite side was employed as a strategy in this game. The Cleveland Leader reported in its June 10 edition, “Hotaling in today’s game will bat righthanded. …”8 Game accounts do not reveal whether Hotaling did turn around against Richmond. Nonetheless, the seed was planted for using the strategies of switch-hitting and platooning that are integral in today’s game.

Cleveland won the series’ final game, 7–1, on Monday, McCormick defeating Richmond. By season’s end, the 23-year-old rookie had won 32 games and lost an equal number as his team finished in fifth place. But the notoriety of pitching professional baseball’s first perfect game went with Richmond throughout his life. He remarked of it, “I can remember almost nothing except that my jump ball and my half stride ball were working splendidly and that Bennett and the boys behind me gave me perfect support.”9

• Related link: June 2, 1879: Lee Richmond’s no-hit debut, by John R. Husman

The pictured score sheet documents the details of professional baseball’s first perfect game on June 12, 1880. It was retained by Lee Richmond until his death in 1929.

Notes

1 Sunday Herald (unidentified clip in J. Lee Richmond file, National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, New York); Cleveland Leader, June 13, 1880.

2 Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc., 2009,), p. 630.

3 Worcester Daily Spy, June 14, 1880.

4 Letter from Walter Angell to the Editor of the Boston Post, August 18, 1925, p. 2.

5 Mayer, Ronald A. Perfect! (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1991), p. 17.

6 Worcester Daily Spy, June 14, 1880.

7 “Richmond’s Debut In Professional Baseball,” Brown Alumni Monthly, 1910-1911; from the New York Tribune.

8 Cleveland Leader, June 10, 1880.

9 Spink, Alfred H. The National Game (St. Louis: National Game Publishing Co., 1910), p. 155.

Providence was destined to finish second in the 1880 National League race. The Grays played at a fine .619 clip, but finished 15 games behind Chicago, which had a sizzling .798 winning percentage. Buffalo, the victim of Ward’s perfect effort, finished seventh, ahead of only Cincinnati and playing less than .300 baseball. The teams may have been a bit mismatched that day, but the pitchers were not. Ward and Buffalo’s Pud Galvin were both destined for the Hall of Fame, the only such players on the field. Galvin was young, at 23, and already a proven winner, but just coming into his own as an established star. Ward, even younger at 20, had won 47 games for Providence in 1879 and was destined to notch 39 wins that season. Galvin was a good pitcher on a bad team while Ward was a good pitcher on a good team.

The starting time for the Thursday contest, played at Providence’s Messer Street Park, was moved to 11 a.m. to avoid conflicting with boat races scheduled in Providence that afternoon. The ploy was successful, as a fine weekday crowd attended the game. The New York Clipper summarized Ward’s effort:

Ward pitched so effectively that not one safe hit was made off him while the entire field backed him up with perfect play. The result of this united work was that not one of the Buffalos reached first base in the entire nine innings, thus equaling the extraordinary Worcester-Cleveland contest on June 12.3

Of note is the usage of the descriptors “perfect play” and “united work.”4 Though the term “perfect game” had not yet been coined, the observer and writer recognized that the then rare errorless play and teamwork made the unblemished game possible. A Providence newspaper commented on fine defensive play in support of Ward: “Paul Hines playing in his position [center field] was remarkably fine, catching balls that looked good for two-base hits. John Peters [shortstop] made some wonderful stops.”5 The paper also commented on the hazard of being an unprotected catcher in 1880. “Jack Rowe and Bill Crowley changed positions in the middle of the fourth inning, on account of Rowe splitting his finger in trying to catch a foul tip.”6 Rowe’s treatment for his injury was to be sent to right field where he was, ostensibly, to heal. Providence prevailed, 5–0 (of course), and the game story was top and center on the front page of the Providence Daily Journal the next day:

…(E)ighteen hundred admirers of the national sport, who pronounced the fielding and batting exhibition of the champions excellent in every respect, [the Grays were the reigning National League pennant winners] as not one of the players of the visiting club were able to secure a safe hit off of Ward’s delivery, and not even allowing in the whole nine innings a man to reach the first bag without being put out.7

Certainly such a game cannot be pitched on demand but perhaps Ward’s effort was especially intense as he had an opportunity to equal his rival’s performance of five days earlier. Ward and Lee Richmond knew each other well. Richmond had pitched for Brown University, located in Providence. He and his Brown team faced the Providence professionals numerous times in exhibition games. Richmond never beat Ward as an amateur, but the tables were turned when Richmond pitched for money. He beat Ward when he made his major-league debut in September of 1879 and twice more that fall while pitching for Worcester. The following spring, with Richmond again an amateur pitching for Brown, Ward prevailed in two meetings. But then, after Richmond turned professional for a final time, he beat Ward and Providence in four of six meetings before their perfect efforts.

In his book Perfect!, Ronald Mayer wrote that “there was little love lost between these two rival pitchers. … Ward had a habit of hitting Richmond. Of course Richmond would retaliate whenever given the opportunity. And the bitter grudge lasted throughout their baseball careers.”8 It is at least an oddity that these two frequent opponents would both accomplish, within days of each other, a pitching feat not even thought of previously.

This essay was originally published in “Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century” (2013), edited by Bill Felber. Download the SABR e-book by clicking here.

Notes

1 According to baseball-reference.com, 201,156 regular-season major-league games have been played from 1871 through 2011. Using those numbers and the 19 perfect games pitched through 2011, a perfect game would occur on the average of once every 7.24 years or 10,587 games.

2 As stated by baseball-reference.com/bullpen/John_Ward: “While later baseball histories call him Monte frequently, he was not known by that name when he played. This appears to be an error on the part of historians.”

3 New York Clipper, June 28, 1880, p. 109.

4 New York Clipper, June 28, 1880, p. 109.

5 New York Clipper, June 28, 1880, p. 109.

6 New York Clipper, June 28, 1880, p. 109.

7 Ronald A. Mayer, Perfect! (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1991), p. 23.

8 Mayer, Perfect!, 23.

During that dominant season, no pitcher gave Chicago more trouble than Jim McCormick. A first-year captain of the Cleveland Blues,2 McCormick defeated the White Sox four times, including twice by shutout, the only times all season that the eventual NL champions were “Chicagoed.”3

McCormick’s first whitewashing, won on a game-ending ninth-inning home run by Fred Dunlap on July 10, also extinguished Chicago’s league-record winning streak.

Possessing a level of maturity that belied his age, the 23-year-old McCormick was elected captain prior to the 1880 season, despite losing a league-high 40 games the year before. The Cleveland Leader called McCormick “an old and experienced player,” who possessed good judgment and “a clear, cool head.” The Leader pointed out that “[h]is position as pitcher places him in admirable position to watch every point in the contest, without necessarily interfering with the effectiveness of his delivery.”4 Captaining certainly didn’t diminish McCormick’s stamina; he pitched every inning of the team’s first 31 games.

The Blues were 20-16 and in third place when they welcomed the 35-3 first-place White Stockings to the Forest City on July 10 for the opener of a three-game series. On the first stop of a five-city, 15-game Eastern road trip, Chicago had won 21 straight games, the longest such streak during the NL’s first five seasons. In that time, only the Boston nine of 1877 had strung together as many as a dozen consecutive victories.

The losing pitcher in each of the Blues’ three previous meetings with the Whites, the Scottish-born McCormick was looking for his 20th win of the season against 15 defeats.5 One of those losses was a 1-0 squeaker to the Worcester Ruby Legs in which Lee Richmond crafted the first perfect game in major-league history. Accused by the Chicago Tribune, a week earlier of “tiring out,”6 McCormick was pitching on three days of rest, as much as he’d enjoyed all season.7 His batterymate, Doc Kennedy, was also coming off a three-day hiatus, which may have been intended to help a lacerated eyelid heal, an injury he suffered a week earlier while batting.8

Opposing McCormick was second-year hurler Fred Goldsmith. Goldsmith and diminutive 20-year-old rookie Larry Corcoran were on their way to forming the major leagues’ first true pitching rotation.9 A change (relief) pitcher for the Troy Trojans the year before, Goldsmith was having a banner year, thanks in large part to his mastery of the curveball.10 Sporting a gaudy 16-1 record, Goldsmith had won his last nine starts,11 and, like McCormick, had the luxury of pitching on three days’ rest.

Threatening skies greeted the 1,300 to 1,600 spectators who made their way into Cleveland’s National League Park for the Saturday contest.12 Chicago captain Cap Anson used a lineup that differed from the stacked version he typically rolled out. Corcoran, getting a day off from pitching, was playing center field instead of eventual batting champ George Gore.13

The defending champions were first to bat, with Abner Dalrymple, “the wood-clopper of the West,” leading off.14 McCormick retired the season’s hits leader en route to a one-two-three inning. Goldsmith set the Blues down in order in the first as well, starting with Dunlap, Cleveland’s 21-year-old rookie second baseman.

A leadoff hitter with surprising power, Dunlap came into the game with 21 extra-base hits and a slugging percentage of .556,15 a level high enough to lead the league had he sustained it all season. A sure-handed infielder who umpired a major-league game before ever playing in one,16 he’d landed a contract with the Blues for the 1880 season that reportedly paid him $1,60017 – $600 more than incumbent second baseman Jack Glasscock, who was shifted to shortstop to make room for Dunlap.

Neither side mustered any offense in the second inning, with “a marvelous stop” by Glasscock on a hot shot up the middle by Chicago’s Tom Burns highlighted by the Chicago Tribune as the defensive play of the game.18 In the Cleveland Leader description of that play, Glasscock was referred to as “Honest John,” a nickname given him a year earlier for a trait he apparently held in common with the lead character in a popular play.19

In the top of the third, Blues third baseman Frank Hankinson dropped a one-out pop fly from Silver Flint “like a red hot iron,” giving Chicago the first baserunner of the game. Flint reached second on the play, following an errant (and likely ill-advised) throw by Kennedy.20 Unflustered, McCormick retired the next two batters to keep Chicago from scoring. In the next inning, Chicago’s Ed Williamson singled for the game’s first hit but McCormick picked him off.21

Cleveland threatened to score in its half of the fourth after Dunlap led off with a single to left. Breaking for second on what was either a straight steal or a passed ball, Dunlap kept running when catcher Flint’s throw to second sailed into center field, but Corcoran gunned him down at third.22 The final out of the inning came on a foul bound to Flint, a play that two years later would no longer be an out.

Chicago put another runner in scoring position in the sixth when light-hitting Joe Quest singled with one out and stole second, but he went no farther. In Cleveland’s next turn at bat, a two-out error, either on a wild throw from Burns (according to the Cleveland Leader) or on a missed catch by Anson at first (according to the Chicago Tribune), allowed Glasscock to reach first. He advanced to second on a wild pitch or passed ball but died there when Dunlap made the third out.

Poised to break through in the seventh, the Blues again came up short. A leadoff single, force out, and passed ball put Pete Hotaling on second with one out. Hotaling, the Cleveland center fielder better known to history as maybe the first professional catcher to wear a mask, reached third when 22-year-old rookie Ned Hanlon, the Cleveland left fielder better known to history as “the father of modern baseball” for his innovative methods as manager of the 1890s Baltimore Orioles,23 grounded out to shortstop. With the partisan crowd clamoring for a run, Kennedy popped out to end the inning.

Showing no signs of a weary arm, McCormick overwhelmed Chicago in the eighth. He fanned Corcoran to lead off the inning, and Flint to end it, giving him five punchouts for the game. Goldsmith found success in the bottom of the inning as well, retiring the Blues in order and keeping the game scoreless.

A lack of run support was something McCormick had experienced from time to time, but it was new to Goldsmith. In seven of McCormick’s starts, the Blues had scored one run or less. Only once had Chicago scored as few as two runs in a Goldsmith start.

Anticipating a shutout over the vaunted Whites, the crowd “began to boil” with excitement.24 McCormick got two quick outs to start the inning: a foul tip catch off the bat of Quest and a comebacker from Dalrymple, ending the latter’s 17-game hitting streak.25 Mike “King” Kelly followed with a single up the middle. Building the basestealing prowess that would later inspire cries of “slide, Kelly, slide,” Kelly swiped second, a theft made easy when Dunlap bobbled Kennedy’s throw.26 Briefly silenced by the prospect of Chicago scoring, the crowd “gave one long continuous yell” when Williamson hit an inning-ending groundout.27

The Blues came to bat in the bottom of the ninth with the ballpark “so still that a pin could be heard if dropped.”28 Glasscock, leading off, swung and missed on Goldsmith’s first offering, then took a called strike. Two pitches later, he singled to left, bringing the crowd back to life. Up stepped Dunlap, looking to win the game and end Chicago’s winning streak.

It didn’t take long. The youngster rifled Goldsmith’s next pitch over Corcoran’s head in center field. As the ball rolled to the center-field corner, Dunlap circled the bases for his fourth home run of the season.29 “Cushions, umbrellas, fans and everything imaginable were raised or thrown into the air,” reported the Cleveland Leader, adding that another five minutes passed before the crowd piped down.30 After what the Cleveland Plain Dealer called “as fine a game [as] was ever played here,”31 Chicago’s streak was over.

Goldsmith, who finished the year with the league’s top winning percentage (.875), tasted defeat just once more in the season’s 11 remaining weeks: on September 25 to McCormick and the Blues.32

No NL hurler pitched more often, or for more innings, than McCormick did in 1880. Over 657 innings in 74 starts, all but two of them complete games, he earned a league-high 45 victories.33

Dunlap, whose slugging percentage fell to .429 by the end of his freshman campaign, led the league with 27 doubles, finished second in extra-base hits (40), and second in fielding percentage among second basemen (.911).34  

While low-scoring games like this one were favored by baseball purists of that time, the dominance of pitching in 1880 sparked a backlash.35 At the NL’s annual winter meetings in December, owners agreed to increase the distance between pitchers and batters from 45 feet to 50 feet.36 When asked his opinion of the change, McCormick knowingly replied “I have no doubt it will increase the batting.”37

Acknowledgments 

This article was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Chris Rainey’s SABR biography of Jim McCormick, David Fleitz’s SABR biography of Fred Goldsmith and Bob LeMoine’s SABR biography of Larry Corcoran. He also consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Statscrew.com for pertinent information. In compiling game logs for McCormick and Goldsmith, he relied on game summaries published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Inter Ocean, Cleveland Leader, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and New York Clipper.

Notes

1 Only the Detroit Wolves of the 1932 East-West League (.839) and the 1884 St. Louis Maroons of the Union Association (.832) compiled higher winning percentages among major-league teams.

2 Both Retrosheet.com and Baseball-Reference.com identify McCormick as being manager of the Cleveland nine in 1880, and the year before; however SABR researcher Chris Rainey determined that McCormick’s role in 1880 was on-field captain.

3 “Chicagoed” was a popular nineteenth-century euphemism for getting shut out. The author has traced what may have been the first use of the term to politics, specifically in reference to a delegate at Chicago’s 1860 Republican National Convention getting his pocket book stolen. “‘Chicagoed,’” Millersburg (Ohio) Holmes County Farmer, May 24, 1860: 3. For more on the origin of the term, see Rich Bogovich and Mark Pestana, “July 23, 1870: The first ‘Chicago’ game,” https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-23-1870-the-first-chicago-game/.

4 “McCormick Appointed Captain,” Cleveland Leader, April 14, 1880: 8.

5 Based on an 1880 Cleveland Blues game log compiled by the author. In compiling that log, the author identified an error in the Retrosheet game database. McCormick’s 6-2 triumph over the Buffalo Bisons identified as taking place on Monday, May 10, actually took place one day later, according to multiple game accounts.

6 “Ball Gossip,” Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1880: 12.

7 Since Opening Day on May 1, McCormick had twice gone three days without pitching in a game, and never more: June 6 through June 8, and June 29 (the first game that year when someone other than McCormick started for Cleveland) through July 1.

8 “The Game T-Day,” Cleveland Leader, July 10, 1880: 5. Eye injuries were common for nineteenth-century backstops prior to the introduction of catcher’s masks in 1877, but in this case a foul ball off Kennedy’s bat ricocheted into his right eye. According to the Leader’s postgame summary of this contest, Kennedy played with one eye half-closed. “Hankinson’s Hit,” Cleveland Leader, July 3, 1880: 2; “Hip! Hip! Hurray!” Cleveland Leader, July 12, 1880: 12.

9 Frank Vaccaro, “Origins of the Pitching Rotation,” Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2011, https://sabr.org/journal/article/origins-of-the-pitching-rotation/.

10 Goldsmith learned to throw the pitch from Yale University’s Charles “Ham” Avery, the first college hurler to successfully throw one.

11 Based on an 1880 Chicago White Stockings game log compiled by the author.

12 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”; “Cleveland vs. Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1880: 6.

13 This was one of just eight times that Corcoran manned the outfield for Chicago in 1880.

14 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”

15 Based on a game log for Dunlap compiled by the author.

16 “Cincinnatis, 10; Troy, 1,” Boston Globe, September 12, 1879: 4.

17 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 12, 1880: 1. Dunlap was widely sought across the NL when he signed with Cleveland. He was a hot commodity thanks in part to a glowing profile that appeared in a July 1879 issue of the New York Clipper. “About the Nine for Cleveland Next Year,” Cleveland Leader, October 2, 1879: 8; “Fred Dunlap,” New York Clipper, July 19, 1879: 13.

18 “Cleveland vs. Chicago”; “Team Record,” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1880: 6.

19 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!” “Dropped,” Buffalo Courier Express, June 25, 1879: 4; “Boston Theatre,” Boston Evening Transcript, January 12, 1880: 1.

20 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”; “Cleveland vs. Chicago.”

21 Batting at the time was Anson, who Chicago Tribune readers learned the next day was the team’s RBI leader. The July 11 Tribune reported, for the very first time, “runs batted home” for each Chicago regular. Anson was listed as having 25, which the accompanying explanation claimed “undoubtedly leads the League.” “Team Record,” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1880: 6.    

22 “Cleveland vs. Chicago.”

23 “Ned Hanlon,” National Baseball Hall of Fame website, https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/hanlon-ned, accessed October 22, 2023.

24 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”

25 The hitting streak was the longest of Dalrymple’s career to that point. Based on game logs compiled by the author for his SABR biography of Dalrymple.

26 “Cleveland vs. Chicago.”

27 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”

28 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”

29 Based on a game log for Dunlap compiled by the author. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dunlap’s home run was his fifth of the season, putting him one ahead of Boston’s Charley Jones for the NL lead. Modern databases show Dunlap as having only four home runs for the entire season. Dunlap’s other home runs were on May 15 off Blondie Purcell of the Cincinnati Stars, on June 1 off 20-year-old John Montgomery Ward of the Providence Grays, and on June 4 off Curry Foley of the Boston Red Stockings. No other Cleveland ballplayer homered more than once during the 1880 season. “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 12, 1880: 4.

30 “Hip! Hip! Hurray!”

31 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 12, 1880: 4.

32 “Cleveland vs. Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, September 26, 1880: 7.

33 Only Will White of the 1879 Cincinnati Reds (75) and Old Hoss Radbourn of the 1884 Providence Grays (73) completed more games in a single major-league season. McCormick’s innings pitched in 1880 are fourth all-time among major leaguers, surpassed only by White’s 680 innings in 1879, Radbourn’s 678⅔ innings in 1884, and Guy Hecker’s 670⅔ innings pitching for the Louisville Eclipse in 1884.

34 Thirty years later, author/publisher Al Spink, in his groundbreaking National Game, called Dunlap “the greatest player that ever filled the [second base] position.” Alfred H. Spink, The National Game (St. Louis: National Game Publishing Co., 1910), 196.

35 League batting averages in 1880 dropped to .245 from .255 the year before, with team runs per game falling more than a half-run, to 4.69 from 5.31. For comparison, in 2023 the league batting average was .248, with teams scoring an average of 4.62 runs per game.

36 “The League Convention,” New York Clipper, December 18, 1880: 309.

37 “From a Pitcher’s Mouth,” Buffalo Express, January 27, 1881: 4.

The Chicago Tribune gave a little more detail, writing that the 2,000 fans present “saw something that never before occurred on the Chicago grounds — that is, a game in which the defeated team obtained neither a tally nor a base-hit.”3 The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune spent two of its six sentences of coverage in a lackluster comment that “Rain also caused a cessation of play. All this prolonged the game to nearly three hours.”4

While a pitcher throwing a no-hitter today is a top story on sports stations, the Tribune simply concluded, “the game of yesterday merits little in the way of description.”5 The Chicago Inter-Ocean said, “The Boston nine were treated to a fine, though unwelcome, basketful of goose-eggs.”6 They surely didn’t make much ado about nothing … nothing in the hit column, that is. In his short career, Corcoran still became the first pitcher to throw three no-hit gems, a feat matched only by Cy Young and Bob Feller, and surpassed by Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan.

Corcoran had actually thrown a one-hitter nine days earlier against Providence, “but it remained for the Bostons to suffer the extreme effect of his great skills as a pitcher,” the Tribune wrote.7 His rookie season of 1880 saw him throwing (unfathomable by today’s standards) 536⅓ innings, on his way to a 43-14 record and a 1.95 ERA with 268 strikeouts. He completed 57 of 60 starts. Keeping up this torrid pace for five years, Corcoran was essentially finished because of a dead arm at the age of 25.

The White Stockings at 47-11 and 12½ games ahead of second-place Providence had all but won the National League pennant already. They had taken sole possession of first place on May 13 and hadn’t looked back since. They had a 21-game winning streak from June 2 to July 8, and finished the season an amazing 50 games over .500 (67-17). It was a Chicago year, as were the next two seasons, as the White Stockings won three pennants in a row.

The Red Caps had struggled the entire season, and were entering the game 26-32 and in the sixth-place position they would finish the year in. Boston pitching allowed the most earned runs and had the second highest ERA in the league, 3.08 (Buffalo had 3.09). That looks excellent to the modern fan, but in 1880 three clubs had ERAs below 2.00. The Red Caps’s starting pitcher this day, Tommy Bond, had also been a workhorse the past three years, throwing over 500 innings and winning over 40 games each year.

Chicago scored a run in the first inning “through a base-hit and [Abner] Dalrymple’s good running,”8 along with a muffed throw by John Morrill at first base. In the third inning Joe Quest singled and stole second, and Dalrymple walked. Hits by George Gore and Ed Williamson brought in two runs, only one being earned. “A fine running catch by [Charley] Jones was much applauded.”9 Chicago took a 3-0 lead. The rain delay in the third inning made the ball “mushy and shapeless for the greater part of the play,” the Tribune commented, “but that did not prevent the White Stockings from making eleven hits and thirteen totals off Bond and [Curry] Foley.”10 It is not known when right fielder Foley and Bond swapped places. Chicago, wrote the Inter Ocean, “batted Bond freely and would have similarly treated Foley, but for the soggy condition of the ball in the last two innings.”11

In the fourth inning Boston shortstop John Richmond, who had sprained a knee in Cincinnati the week before, reinjured himself and had to leave the game. Jim O’Rourke moved to center field and his brother John took over at shortstop.

Chicago scored three more runs in the sixth inning. Tom Burns singled, stole second, and scored on Corcoran’s hit. Corcoran wound up at third on Morrill’s muff of a throw from Tommy Bond. Corcoran scored on Quest’s single. Dalrymple reached on Jim O’Rourke’s error. Gore “sent the mushy ball over to [the] right-field fence for two bases,”12 and Quest scored. Gore went 4-for-4 in the game with two doubles.

The Red Caps were retired in order in seven of their nine innings. They had their first real chance in the ninth, courtesy of two errors.

With one out in the ninth, John O’ Rourke grounded to Quest, who bobbled the ball and threw wildly to first. O’Rourke made second. Jim O’Rourke followed with a grounder of his own to Quest “and he muffed this one too,” wrote the Tribune, placing the brothers at first and third. Sometime during the inning, Chicago catcher Silver Flint had “his right thumb put out of joint in the ninth inning, and in trying to pull it back to place the flesh was badly lacerated. It will probably disable Flint altogether for a fortnight at least.”13 Jim O’Rourke raced to second on an attempted hit-and-run, but Jack Burdock “batted Quest a fly, and Joe had the satisfaction of closing the inning and atoning for his bungling by a clever double play.”14 Jim O’Rourke was doubled up, the game was over, and Corcoran had his no-hitter on the wet Chicago grounds.

Others injured besides Flint were Boston’s second baseman Burdock, catcher Sam Trott, and Corcoran himself. Burdock “was hit in the ribs by one of Corcoran’s twisters. Trott had his finger banged by a foul tip … and Corcoran injured his ankle in running the bases — quite enough accidents for one day,” wrote the Inter Ocean. 15

The Inter Ocean noted that Chicago’s King Kelly “had neither run, base-hit, fielding play, nor error,” but Cap Anson “retired twenty-one of the twenty-seven Boston men without an error, equaling the best first-base record ever made. Add to these unusual features the fact that four men were seriously injured during its progress, and it might truly be said that it was a remarkable game.”16

The time of game was 2 hours and 30 minutes. “The umpiring was unexceptional,” the Inter Ocean commented.17

This article was published in SABR’s “No-Hitters” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin. To read more Games Project stories from this book, click here.

Notes

1 “What Is the Score? The Bostons Chicagoed and the Providences Winners,” Boston Globe, August 20, 1880.

2 “Thoroughly Trounced,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 20, 1880: 8.

3 “A Game of Ball in Which Boston Scored Neither a Run Nor a Base-Hit,” Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1880: 8.

4 “Harry Wright Again Disgusted,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, August 20, 1880: 6.

5 “A Game of Ball.”

6 “Boston’s Goose Eggs, Which the Hub Nine Received Yesterday at the Hands of the Chicago Club,” Inter-Ocean (Chicago), August 20, 1880.

7 “A Game of Ball.”

8 “Boston’s Goose Eggs.”

9 “A Game of Ball.”

10 Ibid.

11 “Boston’s Goose Eggs.”

12 “A Game of Ball.”

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 “Boston’s Goose Eggs.”

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

Weston arc lamp, circa 1880s (Library of Congress)

Today many major league baseball games are played under artificial illumination. In the first few decades of “base ball” playing, however, games were often curtailed due to darkness. The increasing number of electric lighting systems being installed in the late 1870s made experimentation with artificial illumination at ball games almost inevitable.

The first known such experiment occurred during the evening of Sept. 2, 1880, when two teams, mostly employees from the dry-goods firms R. H. White and Company and Jordan Marsh and Company, played a nine-inning game on the back lawn of the Sea Foam House, a hotel near Nantasket Beach in Hull, Mass.

At that time, the prevailing means of nighttime artificial illumination was gas. But various electrical lighting firms were created to challenge the monopoly of the gas companies. The Boston-based Northern Electric Light Company, perhaps desiring a venue where thousands of people might be able to view a sample of the potential of their lighting equipment, erected at the beach three wooden towers 500 feet apart in an equilateral triangle. Each was 100 feet high, and mounted upon each of these was a circular row of 12 electrical lights “of the Weston patent.” Each light had an estimated 2,500 candle power; thus, the light of 90,000 candles was concentrated within a limited territory. The company used three “Weston machines,” undoubtedly dynamos, to generate “a motive-power of 36 horses,” that is 36 horsepower.1

The mention of “Weston” equipment is an indication that the lighting apparatus involved was not incandescent lamps (invented by Thomas Edison a year earlier in 1879 and in which a filament gives off light when heated to incandescence by an electric current), but rather the electric arc lamps (electrical lamps that produce light by an arc made when a current passes between two incandescent electrodes surrounded by gas) and electric dynamos developed by Edward Weston. In 1873 he established the Harris & Weston Electroplating Company in partnership with George G. Harris, and in the same year he developed his first dynamo (a machine used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy) for electroplating. Two years later, Weston patented what he called the “rational construction of the dynamo,” which enabled him, so he claimed, to increase its efficiency from 45 percent to more than 90 percent.

The New England Weston Electric Light Company was possibly a collaborator, perhaps with the idea that playing a base ball game under artificial illumination might bring added attention to its equipment. But it certainly had in mind a market much more extensive than just ball fields. The Boston Herald noted, “The design of the exhibition was to afford a model of the plan contemplated for lighting cities from overhead in vast areas, the estimate being that four towers to a square mile of area, each mounting lights aggregating 90,000 candle power, will suffice to flood the territory about with a light almost equal to mid-day.”

Reporters at the game assessed that the amount of lighting was insufficient for good ball play. Although reporting that the lights, with one single slight flicker, “burned steadily and brilliantly all evening” between 8 and 9:30 p.m., the Herald observed that “on account of the uncertain light, (resembling that of the moon at its full,) the batting was weak and the pitchers were poorly supported.” The historian Preston Orem summarized accounts in several Boston newspapers to conclude, “The light was quite imperfect and there were lots of errors made. The players had to bat and throw with caution. For the spectators the game had little interest as only the movements of the pitcher, in general, could be discerned, while the course of the ball eluded the vision of the watchers. … None of the reporters believed the idea to be at all practical.”2

The game ended in a 16–16 tie after nine innings, with further play precluded by the desire of the players to catch the last ferry boat back to Boston. What the electric companies involved officially concluded from the experiment is not known. But The Boston Evening Transcript concluded that “if the projectors of the experiment wish to convince the public that they can shed light enough over a city from elevated stands to allow people to sit in their houses and pursue their ordinary evening occupations without gas, candle or lamp light, more light still will be necessary.”3

Arc-lamp outdoor lighting from a system of high towers, known as moonlight towers, did become briefly popular in the 1880s and 1890s in several cities in the United States and Europe. But the numbers of such towers decreased as incandescent electric street lighting became more common.4

The contemporary accounts of the Nantasket Beach night game make no mention of individual participating players, which may have been deliberate. In 1909, nearly 30 years after it was played, an anonymous correspondent, stating that he had been the “Official Scorer” of the game, wrote to the New York Sun newspaper and claimed that “at almost the last moment the two firms mentioned [for an unspecified reason] forbade their employees taking part, so it was played sub rosa.” The ban by the companies, according to the correspondent, made it “inexpedient [for him] to mention any names of players, as some of them may still be employed in these establishments, although a number of players were recruited from the various jobbing houses in the dry-goods trade.”

Northern Electric did reward the players and officials for their efforts with a fine post-game supper (probably in Boston), of which the Sun correspondent had “the most vivid remembrance.”5

Notes

1 “Electric Lights in a Cluster,” New York Times, vol. 29, no. 9045, September 4, 1880, p. 3, col. 7, reprinted from the Boston Herald, September 3, 1880. The Herald’s account was also reprinted in The Annual Register: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad, for the Year 1880, new series, vol. 122 (London: Rivingtons, 1881), p. 88.

2 Orem, Preston. Baseball 1845-1881 From the Newspaper Accounts (Altadena, Calif.: Self-published, 1961), p. 342.

3 The passage is quoted in the Appendix item “September 2, 1880: The Latest Yankee Notion” p. 176-177 in Troy Soos, Before the Curse: The Glory Days of New England Baseball, 1858-1918, rev. ed. ( Jeffereson, N.C., and London: McFarland & Company, 2006).

4 For a lengthy, illustrated account of these structures, see the Wikipedia article “Moonlight tower.”

5 The passage from the letter to the Sun by “Official Scorer” was reprinted in William Shepard Walsh, A Handy Book of Curious Information (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1913), p. 107.

The first professional baseball game played in Manhattan took place on September 29, 1880, between the Metropolitan Club of New York and the National Club of Washington. This late a date is remarkable. Organized baseball had arisen among New York clubs a quarter century previous, and openly professional baseball had been played for over a decade. So why did it take so long to reach Manhattan? The explanation lies in geography and economic and social history.

The geography of New York City (meaning, in this era, the island of Manhattan) tended against professional baseball within its limits. The city grew from the south end, gradually spreading up the island. Within the developed area there were no good locations for a professional ball ground, for the simple reason that any suitable lot could be more profitably developed for other purposes. There were suitable lots above the line of development, but inadequate transportation infrastructure for spectators to easily get to them. It was cheaper and easier to take a ferry, crossing either the Hudson River to Hoboken or the East River to Brooklyn.

Many clubs based in New York City played in Hoboken or Brooklyn. The first ballfields enclosed by a fence – a necessary condition for charging admission – were constructed in Brooklyn. This had the proper balance of enough population density (both those residing in Brooklyn and visiting from New York) to support large paying crowds, with land values low enough that baseball exhibitions were an economically rational use of the land. The most prominent New York nine was the Mutual Club. It played in Hoboken in the amateur era and then moved to the Union Grounds in Brooklyn in the professional era.

Baseball in Manhattan was further delayed by the general economic Depression of 1873-1879. Indeed, professional baseball went into general decline. The National League, founded in 1876, had a high turnover of club failures in its early years, with vacancies filled by bringing in outside clubs. The nadir was the summer of 1880. The National League had its full complement of eight members, but there were only two other fully professional clubs in existence.

This general decline does not explain why such a large metropolis as New York could not support a professional club. The Mutuals collapsed late in the 1876 season. The Hartford club stepped in and played the 1877 season in Brooklyn, but they too failed and were not replaced. A similar process occurred in Philadelphia, leaving the two largest metropolises in the country without professional – much less major league – baseball clubs. Their long histories with baseball worked against them. They both had baseball establishments, which were inflexible and often corrupt. Advances in both playing and business techniques occurred elsewhere, leaving the New York establishment unable to compete. Professional ball’s absence acted like a farmer leaving a field fallow, giving it time to renew itself. This allowed a new generation, and the more forward-looking of the previous generation, to create a new establishment unburdened by the past.

The baseball recovery began late in the season of 1880. In August the Nationals and the Rochester Club scheduled a series of games in Brooklyn. This would prove visionary, but the decision was one of desperation. Recent history had shown the metropolis to be a baseball dead zone, but both clubs were in dire straits and prepared to try anything. They played three days in a row, beginning Wednesday August 11. The first game drew only three or four hundred spectators, but attendance increased with each successive game.

This caught the attention of the dormant New York baseball community. Several respectable nines sprung up, recruiting from the ample supply of inactive players. Most were ephemeral organizations, essentially pick-up teams that wouldn’t outlast the season. Two men, however, saw potential for something more substantial.

These were John B. Day, a cigar manufacturer, baseball fan, and unaccomplished player, and James Mutrie, an experienced professional player and manager, if not at the top level. Day provided the capital and Mutrie the baseball know-how. Day’s genius was in recognizing that he was in the right place at the right time. Baseball was reviving in New York, with no established club holding the public’s loyalty. Furthermore, the time had come for professional ball to be played on Manhattan. Railroad infrastructure had developed such that paying spectators could easily reach a site beyond the edge of development.

An eminently suitable parcel was available immediately beyond the northern end of Central Park, and easily reached by no fewer than four rail lines. This property was owned by James Gordon Bennett, son of the founder of the New York Herald. He was a member of the Manhattan Polo Association, which had been using it for several years. Day leased the ground, its use to be divided between the polo club, with two days a week, and Day’s new Metropolitan Baseball Club, with four days. Sunday, of course, was off limits, both being respectable organizations.

By acting quickly to set up a ball club on a permanent basis, Day could gain control of the New York market. The venture came with risk. Setting up the club on a permanent basis meant investing capital in salaries and real-estate improvements. Should the baseball revival prove illusory, this capital would be lost.

The improvements were substantial, with facilities not only for polo and baseball, but for track and field sports (“athletics” in the vocabulary of the day) and football, with a grandstand capable of holding a thousand spectators and encircled by a fence to ensure payment for entry.

Mutrie recruited the new Metropolitan team as the Polo Grounds were being prepared, rapidly putting together a credible nine. On September 15 they opened a series of warm-up games in Brooklyn and Hoboken against some of the new ad hoc collections, winning eight of nine games, most of the easily.

The occasion of the opening game of the new Polo Grounds called for more substantial competition than a glorified pick-up team. This was the National Club of Washington. The Nationals were an established team, the second of that name. The original Nationals had been the premier Washington club in the 1860s, most famous today for their being the first eastern club to tour the west (meaning what we today call the Midwest) in 1867. They faded away in the early professional period. The second Nationals were founded in 1877. This was an inauspicious time to be getting into professional baseball, and it is a testament to their management that they rode out the darkest years. Their prospects were excellent in the fall of 1880. They had good reason to believe that they would be inducted into the National League for 1881 and were making the investments to be competitive at that level. They provided the Metropolitans with the perfect balance. They were decent competition while still being beatable, still fielding their lineup of 1880.

The afternoon of the game opened well. Some 2,000 to 2,500 spectators showed up. While tiny by modern standards, and small by the standards of just a few years later, this was a very good crowd in 1880. Matters took a turn for the worse when the Nationals were late. Play was advertised for 3:30. By 4:00 some of the crowd was beginning to leave and a scrub game was being organized. The Nationals finally arrived, and play was called at 4:20 with the Metropolitans batting first. The game was everything that could be asked for given the late start. The leadoff batter opened with a triple and scored two outs later on a ground ball through the second baseman’s legs. The score was tied 2-2 after two innings. The Metropolitans scored two runs in the top of the fifth, and the game was called on account of darkness in the sixth, for a 4-2 victory for the home club.

This victory was followed by two more over the Nationals the next two days. These early victories set a good tone. It was fortunate that they got them in early. The end of September closed out the National League season and opened the October barnstorming season. The following Monday the decidedly mediocre Worcester club came into town and beat the Metropolitans 7-3. The Metropolitans would go on to win against National League clubs about one game in three. They weren’t yet ready for the big time, but their future was bright. (The Nationals faced a bleaker future. The National League chose the new Detroit club over them, and proceeded to find a thin excuse to steal away the Nationals’ best players. This broke the club, and it finally collapsed the following summer.)

The new Polo Grounds would prove a financial bonanza. The Metropolitans could limit their travel, and their travel expenses, and let other teams come to them, to large crowds. They managed this for the next two seasons. This strategy had run its course by 1883. Both the National League and the new American Association courted Day, and he managed the neat trick of playing both sides and getting a franchise in both leagues.

With two franchises and only one team, he signed the players of the defunct Troy team en masse, combined the Metropolitan and the former Troy players into one pool, and divided them up again, assigning the better half to the National League club. He sold the American Association half a few years later, and it lasted only a few years beyond that. He kept the National League side for a decade, until he succumbed to a later economic depression and was forced to sell.

The National League team was, of course, the Giants. The American Association side kept the old “Metropolitan” name. Some modern moderns dismiss the connection between the Metropolitans of 1880 and the Giants of today because of this. This is misguided. The Metropolitans of 1880 fathered the Giants every bit as much as they did the Metropolitans of 1883. Or better, to choose a different biological metaphor, they underwent mitosis, splitting into two. The 1880 season was a watershed year in professional baseball, with not only its entry into Manhattan but the creation of one of its storied franchises.

Photo credit

The earliest known image of Polo Grounds I in New York, from a Yale-Princeton baseball game in 1882. Originally published in Harper’s Young People, v. III, 1882. (PUBLIC DOMAIN)

During its dominant season, Chicago had relied on the arms of Larry Corcoran and Fred Goldsmith, with the duo combining for 84 of the team’s 86 starts and 64 of its 67 wins. At this juncture, Corcoran had started the prior three games, with the September 29 outing using both pitchers and a catcher to complete an embarrassing 19-10 shellacking at the hands of the Buffalo Bisons. The Chicago Tribune account of the game was pointed and unforgiving:

“They (Buffalo) struck the Chicagos in a particularly crippled condition, with both pitchers suffering from lame arms, and two possible catchers occupying seats in the grand stand. Moreover, (Chicago catcher King) Kelly’s hands were very sore, and neither Corcoran nor Goldsmith dared to put on a curve or speed. The result was that their pitching was the softest kind of ‘pie’: there are a hundred amateurs in Chicago who could have pitched a better game.”1

Apparently, the White Stockings’ management was listening.

By 1880, future Hall of Famer Albert Spalding had left his playing days behind. After retiring, Spalding had become secretary of the White Stockings while also leading a sporting-goods business founded with his brother Walter in 1876. His position as secretary afforded him some influence with Chicago manager Adrian Constantine “Cap” Anson, and among Spalding’s employees was the 24-year-old Guth, a noted amateur baseball player, at that point toiling for the Chicago Lake Views.2

Buffalo, in seventh place entering the day, had little to gain with either a win or loss, so it started George Edward “Stump” Weidman, who was saddled with a 0-8 record while toiling in his first season in the National League. Stump was the backup pitcher to future Hall of Famer James Francis “Pud” Galvin, who had posted 20 victories among his 54 starts for the season. With a season total 24 wins, the Bisons were mired in seventh place, and the outcome would have no bearing on their finish.

The game was hosted at White Stocking Park, otherwise known as Lake Front Park. Located near the corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street by the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad, it was the second iteration of Lake Front Park. The original opened in 1871 but perished in the Great Chicago Fire on October 8 of that year.

After completing the season at the Union Grounds and subsequently using the 23rd Street Park from 1872 to 1879, the White Stockings returned to the new Lake Front Park in 1878 and occupied the space until 1884, when it was determined that the land was actually owned by the federal government and the City of Chicago had no authority to lease the property, “it being the intention to dedicate the said public grounds irrevocably to the use of the public,” as it was “public grounds forever to remain vacant of buildings.”3 

Spalding, by this point president of the club, was later forced to vacate the park in 1885, a space that became part of Chicago’s Grant Park (renamed in 1901) which hosted a significant amount of the estimated five million people who attended the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 World Series celebration.

Before that happened, Charlie Guth seized his own moment in history.

It is unknown whether Guth was right-handed or left-handed, as a play-by-play account of the game does not exist, and limited press coverage outlined events of the day.

The host White Stockings chose to bat first. Chicago’s top three in the batting order – Abner Dalrymple, George Gore, and Kelly – were 9-for-15 in the game, and they were credited with igniting a three-run first that staked Guth to an early lead.

As noted in the Chicago Tribune’s account of the game: “Chicago’s runs were the product of magnificent batting by Dalrymple, Gore, and Kelly, aided by hits at the right time by Anson, (Tom) Burns and (Larry) Corcoran.”4

Buffalo tallied a run in the bottom of the inning. With two outs, left fielder Jack Rowe registered his only hit of the game, and came around to score an unearned run on successive errors by Burns, Gore, and Kelly. The run was Guth’s only blemish for most of the game.

The Chicago Tribune: “(Guth) provided to be an entire success for seven innings, during which time the Buffalos earned first base but once. He has all the elements of a first-class pitcher, unless it be experience, coolness, and nerve, which only come with time. His variations of curve and speed are extremely puzzling.”5

Chicago added seven more runs through the middle innings to take a 10-1 lead. The Chicago Daily Telegraph noted that “the Chicagos piled up nine runs off Weidman, seven of them earned. They added another to the score in the eighth when Galvin was pitching.”6

It was the bottom of the eighth before Guth showed any vulnerability.

“If he had maintained his pace throughout the game, he would have proved a phenomenal success, but he weakened visibly in the eighth inning, and then became wild and unsteady,” the Tribune reported.7

Bill Crowley led off the bottom of the eighth inning for Buffalo with a double and advanced to third on a wild pitch. A single by Hardy Richardson scored Crowley, and Richardson took third when Dalrymple let the ball get by him. Rowe hit a hard smash to second baseman Joe Quest, and Richardson was called out on Quest’s throw to the plate. Standing at first base, Rowe scored on three successive wild pitches by Guth. A final run in the inning came on Galvin’s single after hits by Joe Hornung and Mike Moynahan. The score was 10-4 entering the final inning.

Chicago went scoreless in the ninth, leaving an obviously fatigued Guth to close out the victory.

He struggled, as the Chicago Tribune noted: “In the ninth a double by Stearns, a three-baser by Richardson, and singles by Crowley, Hornung and Moynahan, together with a fumble by Quest, gave four runs, one being earned, and it looked for a time as though the game was going to be won before the side could be got out, but Corcoran made a high jump on Force’s bounder, and threw him out at first.”8

Likewise, the Chicago Daily Telegraph noted, “The Buffalo made seven of their runs in the last two innings, when they batted Guth’s weakened delivery all over the field.”9

Despite faltering late, the 24-year-old Guth earned the win in his only professional baseball appearance. His employment with Spalding qualified him to take a similar position with Wright & Ditson in Boston, and he relocated in late 1882 or early 1883, but died shortly thereafter at age 27 from asthenia, described as a general weakness or loss of strength.

The 10-8 victory was number 67 for Chicago, as they captured the first of three consecutive National League titles, this one by a margin of 15 games.

Chicago and Buffalo played two exhibition games in the following days, testing a new square bat, as well as a new baseball design. But with no World Series until 1903, those games had no bearing on the White Stockings’ championship.

Some additional noteworthy facts about the contest:

• Lake Front Park (sometimes referred to as Lakefront Park) had the shortest outfield fences in the majors, ever.10 Left field stood 186 feet from home plate and right field was a mere 196 feet. Despite the short distances and the pitching of the amateur Guth for Chicago and inept starter Weidman for the Bisons, there were no home runs recorded in the contest.

• In addition to Spalding, the game featured three additional future Hall of Famers in Cap Anson (1939) and King Kelly (1945) for Chicago and Pud Galvin (1965) for Buffalo. Charles Gardner “Old Hoss” Radbourn, listed as an outfielder and second baseman on the Buffalo roster, played in six games for Buffalo early in the season, but the Bisons released him in May. He became a pitcher in 1881, winning 59 or 60 games in 1884 (accounts differ) and was ultimately part of the 1939 Hall of Fame class with Anson.

• George H. “Foghorn” Bradley was the umpire of record. He previously pitched for Boston for a portion of the inaugural National League season in 1876 but his playing career was of limited duration, much like Guth’s. Despite winning nine games in 21 starts, he was deemed expendable by the Red Stockings and never returned to the major leagues as a pitcher. He did enjoy a solid career as an umpire, later referred to as “one of the best umpires in the country” and noted for his “powerful and penetrating voice.”11

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org for pertinent information.

Notes

1 “Tremendous Batting Performance of the Buffalo Team Yesterday,” Chicago Tribune, September 30, 1880: 8.

2 “The Game Is Up,” Chicago Daily Telegraph, October 1, 1880: 1.

3 “The Lake Front,” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1884: 8.

4 “The Chicagos Finish the League Season with a Victory Over Buffalo,” Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1880: 8.

5 “The Chicagos Finish the League Season with a Victory Over Buffalo.”

6 “The Game Is Up.”

7 “The Chicagos Finish the League Season with a Victory Over Buffalo.”

8 “The Chicagos Finish the League Season with a Victory Over Buffalo.”

9 “The Game Is Up.”

10 “White Stocking Park,”, https://www.seamheads.com/ballparks/ballpark.php?parkID=CHI03, accessed October 11, 2022.

11 “Base Ball Notes,” Philadelphia Times, May 23, 1886: 11.

They did it under the shrewd front-office guidance of Albert Spalding, and with a Stone Age version of Murderers’ Row that included Hall of Famers Adrian “Cap” Anson and Mike “King” Kelly, and one of the 19th century’s great sluggers, Abner Dalrymple. Dalrymple was considered so dangerous at the plate in his prime that he became the first player to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded.

Then there was center fielder George “Piano Legs” Gore, one of the era’s most valuable players, who was on seven pennant winners, all in the 1880s. On June 25, 1881, he did something truly extraordinary, running into the record book as the first player to steal seven bases in a game. (Only Billy Hamilton, in 1894, has matched the feat.)

Gore was a complete ballplayer. He hit for average, sometimes for power (he was the second person to smack five extra-base hits in a game), he could field, and he could throw.

He could also run really, really well.

Gore finished his 14-year career with more runs (1,327) than games played (1,310), reflecting the sturdy legwork of a player who earned his nickname because of superhero-shaped calf muscles.

In 1880 Gore led the National League in batting (.360). His average took a nosedive in 1881 (he finished at .298), but he was an artist at getting on and around the bases, and that Saturday game in June, a 12–8 win over the visiting Providence Grays, was probably his masterpiece.

According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, about 2,000 fans saw an offensive outbreak that “was full of action and at all times interesting. … Chicago won by virtue of superiority in every point of play, but notably so in base-running. Gore’s performances in this respect were something phenomenal.”[fn]1. Chicago Daily Tribune, June 26, 1881.[/fn]

Gore reached base five times in five plate appearances, had three solid singles and a walk, scored five runs, and generally made life really stressful for the Providence battery, pitcher Bobby Mathews and catcher Emil Gross. Gore stole second base five times—or every time he reached base—and stole third twice.

At the time, stolen bases were not part of the official statistical records in the National League, but the Tribune nonetheless noted that Gore had set “a record which as a whole has probably never been equaled in a League game.”[fn]Ibid.[/fn]

The game itself wasn’t a thing of beauty: “The contest was characterized by numerous errors in fielding,” the Tribune reported. The teams combined to make 14 errors (10 by the Providence club). There were three passed balls (all by Gross), and only one of Chicago’s dozen runs was earned.[fn]Ibid.[/fn]

At the time the White Stockings were in the midst of their longest winning streak of the season (eight games) and hottest stretch (they went 18–3 from June 4 though July 13). Gore’s record-setting performance came in the second of a three-game set at home against Providence, during which Chicago outscored the Grays 39–20.

As the two teams took the field for Saturday’s game, Chicago was in first place with a threegame lead over the second-place Buffalo Bisons, and Providence was in last place, one win behind Cleveland.

Chicago took a 3–0 lead in the first. Batting second, the left-handed-swinging Gore reached on either an error or a fielder’s choice, stole second, and scored on Anson’s double. He had base hits in the second, fourth, and sixth innings— subsequently stealing bases and scoring each time. Those helped Chicago build a 10–4 lead through six innings.

Gore walked in the eighth and scored on Ned Williamson’s two-run triple to give Chicago a 12–4 lead. Providence scored its last four runs in the top of the ninth on four hits and a wild pitch.

National League rules banned Sunday baseball at the time, so the two teams finished their three-game set on Monday, a 19–12 Chicago victory.

After the series the Grays turned their fortunes around, posting the best record in the league for the stretch run (35–17–1). That included a change in field managers, with outfielder Tom York replacing second baseman Jack Farrell. It was Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn’s rookie season, and he led Providence with a 25–11 record.

Chicago went 33–18 after the Providence series to finish 56–28, winning the pennant by nine games over the second-place Grays. It was a familiar pattern—Chicago won three straight pennants, 1880–82, and Providence finished second each time.

And Gore? He kept on running wild, and not just on the basepaths. Anson considered Gore one of the best players of the era, and even included him on his list of all-time greats, but claimed, “Women and wine brought about his downfall.” Gore was suspended from the 1885 World Series for drunkenness, and a year later Chicago sold him to the New York Giants because of all the drinking and cavorting. He helped New York win two pennants.

In his 14 major-league seasons, Gore led the league in runs scored in 1881 (86) and 1882 (99), then scored 100 or more runs a season for seven of the next nine years and is one of the most prolific run scorers of all time (1.02 runs per game). He batted .306 for his career with a .386 on-base percentage, and led the league in walks three times in an era when pitchers stood only 45 (then 55½) feet away.

Ironically, Gore never “led” the league in stolen bases—the National League didn’t start keeping official records on the statistic until 1886. He stole 23 bases that year, a career-high 39 the next, and is credited with 170 stolen bases for his career. But Gore always will be remembered for the day he swiped seven in one game.

This essay was originally published in “Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century” (2013), edited by Bill Felber. Download the SABR e-book by clicking here.

The independent professional baseball club of Akron, Ohio, had its start in 1879 when it chalked up a 17–3 record, with two of the losses coming late in the season to Cleveland’s National League entry. The Akrons posted a 19–12–1 record against substantially stronger competition in 1880, including a 1–9 record against National League opponents. The single victory was a solid 4–3 victory in September over Cap Anson’s Chicagos, the League champions.[fn]Summit County Beacon, October 29, 1879; Peterjohn, Alvin K., “Baseball in Akron, Ohio, 1879-1881, A Case Study,” undated paper in the Akron file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library; New York Clipper, September 18, 1880, p. 205; Akron Sunday Gazette, September 12, 1880.[/fn]

Heading into the 1881 season, the reputation of the Akrons was such that the National League arranged its schedule so as to give every club open dates in Cleveland to be filled with exhibition games against the Akrons. In fact, the Cleveland Leader newspaper called them “… the strongest non-league club in the country.”[fn]Summit County Beacon, Sept. 29, 1880; Peterjohn, op.cit.; Grismer, Karl. Akron and Summit County (Akron, Ohio: Summit County Historical Society, undated), p. 229; Cleveland Leader, April 27, 1881, July 23, 1881.[/fn]

But when the team departed for Louisville in late June to play four games with the Eclipse, its prospects looked bleak. The strength of the team made it difficult to find local opponents, and it had fared badly against the National League teams, dropping all five of those games. It took to the road with only six wins and six losses. It would be “reorganized,” or, perhaps, disbanded on its return.[fn]Worcester Evening Gazette, May 14, 1881; New York Clipper, May 21, 1881, p. 138; Cleveland Leader, May 14, 16, 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 1881; Akron City Times, May 25, June 22, 1881; Summit County Beacon, June 22, 1881.[/fn]

The Eclipse, which would join the American Association in 1882, was a solid, experienced semi-pro club led by Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning and Fred Pfeffer, both destined for productive major-league careers. Browning, then just 20 years old, was still three years short of acquiring the original Louisville Slugger bat. He went on to win two American Association batting titles and a third in the Players League. Pfeffer, a Louisville native, played 16 major-league seasons as a sure-handed second baseman, mostly in an era when fielders were still gloveless.[fn]Tiemann, Robert L. and Rucker, Mark, eds. Nineteenth Century Stars (Society for American Baseball Research, 1989), pp. 19, 102.[/fn]

In all, seven members of the 1881 Eclipse club eventually played in the majors. At the same time, of the 19 players who played all or part of 1881 season with the Akrons, 14 played in either the American Association or the National League in 1882. Chief among these were Bid McPhee and Tony Mullane. McPhee, a second-base counterpart to Pfeffer, spent his entire 18-year major-league career with Cincinnati, during which he led his league in double plays in 11 seasons and in fielding average in eight seasons. Mullane was both talented and strong-willed, and his ego frequently led him into conflicts with management. Nevertheless, in 13 major-league seasons he racked up 284 victories, including five 30-win seasons in his first five full seasons in the American Association.[fn]Ibid., pp. 91, 97.[/fn]

All of that was in the future when the Akrons arrived in Louisville for their four-game engagement beginning on Tuesday, June 21. The Eclipse was undefeated at the time, and the fact that the Akrons triumphed 9–1 before a crowd of about 800 at Eclipse Park served as a wake-up call. The following day, with Louisville hosting the Midsummer Encamp- Louisville’s John Reccius. ment of Masonic Lodges, the game was held at Central Park before a crowd estimated at 7,000. Jimmy Green was the starting pitcher for the Akrons and, as the Louisville Courier-Journal reported, “… the home boys got on to Green, and they just batted him all over the field.” The Eclipse chalked up an 11–6 victory.[fn]New York Clipper, July 2, 1881, p. 233; Summit County Beacon, June 29, 1881; Louisville Courier-Journal, June 22, and 23, 1881.[/fn]

After two days of rest, the Akrons returned the favor in a Saturday game with a 10–6 victory in which the Eclipse was charged with 13 errors. That set the stage for the Sunday game.

Mullane pitched for the Akrons on Sunday and the Eclipse countered with John Reccius. Batting first, the Eclipse took the lead in the second inning when Fred Pfeffer tripled and scored, the game’s only run until the bottom of the seventh inning. Then Daniel “Link” Sullivan, Akron’s center fielder, singled and scored on two Eclipse errors. The Eclipse took the lead again in the top of the eighth on a run-scoring double by Pete Browning, only to have the Akrons tie it again in the bottom of the inning on errors.

The Eclipse, in fact, was charged with 10 errors for the game, but neither team could score again, although the Akrons came close in the bottom of the 18th inning. Ed Swartwood attempted to score from second on a hard hit by Mullane, but was thrown out at home on what the game report in the New York Clipper called “a wonderful throw by Pfeffer from left field.” Since Pfeffer played second and the only Louisville outfielder credited with an assist was center fielder Ike Van Burkalow, it is more likely that Pfeffer’s “wonderful throw” was a relay of a throw from Burkalow.[fn]New York Clipper, July 9, 1881, p. 252.[/fn]

The 19th inning was scoreless and the game was then called due to darkness. Mullane and Reccius had each gone the distance. But neither team was content with a tie, so the Akrons remained in Louisville an extra day and a fifth game was played at Eclipse Park on Monday. Mullane and Reccius each started again, but the Courier- Journal termed the result “a general disappointment” following Sunday’s showing. Reccius was pounded for five runs in the first inning, and the Akrons headed home with a 14–5 victory, as well as three wins, a loss, and the 19-inning tie from their visit to Louisville. It was enough to save the team that was, indeed, “re-organized” when it reached Akron.[fn]New York Clipper, July 9, 1881, p. 252; Louisville Courier-Journal, June 28, 1881; Summit County Beacon, June 29, 1881.[/fn]

This essay was originally published in “Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century” (2013), edited by Bill Felber. Download the SABR e-book by clicking here.