On March 6 the National League published a 10-team schedule for the coming season. The schedule included two former American Association teams, Brooklyn and Cincinnati. Both of these clubs had switched to the senior circuit the previous November. The 10-team schedule was actually a ruse put out to mislead Brotherhood officials. In reality, National League executives had decided to cull two of the least profitable franchises, Washington and Indianapolis, from the loop. This would cut down on travel expenses, while replacing a pair of weaker teams with stronger ballclubs. But Washington owner Walter Hewitt and his counterpart in Indianapolis, John Brush, were put in the unenviable position of having to sell their teams for the betterment of the league. Their capitulation allowed the National League to compete in the same cities as the Brotherhood, with the exception of Buffalo, while retaining an eight-team schedule.

Working in Hewitt’s favor were stipulations in the National Agreement that gave him rights to any professional baseball team operating in Washington, D.C. Noted baseball ombudsman Ted Sullivan was in Washington at this time working for Hewitt. The intuitive Irishman had a more realistic view of the National League situation. While Hewitt traveled to New York City to finalize the sale of his club, Sullivan was granted an Atlantic Association franchise. This circuit was a high-caliber minor league made up of teams along the Eastern Seaboard. When Hewitt returned to Washington he was initially upset over Sullivan’s unsanctioned application. The two soon reconciled, pooling their resources in order to organize a new minor-league team in Washington called the Senators.

Hewitt authorized the construction of a ballpark at 17th and U Streets in the Northwest section of Washington in early March of 1890. It was completed a month later. Early newspaper accounts referred to the field as Dupont or Stand Pipe Park. These grounds were eventually given the name of Atlantic Park in honor of the Senators’ new league affiliation.

Under the watchful eye of Ted Sullivan and team captain Bill Gleason the Washington team began practicing for the upcoming season. Gleason, a shortstop for most of his career, compiled a .267 lifetime batting average while playing in the majors from 1882-1889 with St. Louis, Philadelphia and Louisville.

Ted Sullivan was an ardent promoter of 19th-century minor-league baseball. A former major-league player, he was a manager as well as a scout. Sullivan founded the Northwestern League in 1879. This loop is considered to be the first organized minor league. Sullivan reportedly signed Hall of Fame players Hoss Radbourn and Charles Comiskey to their first professional contracts. He is credited with coining the term “fan” to describe enthusiasts of the game. The word was short for fanatic. Hall of Famer Clark Griffith said Sullivan was the first person he heard use the term Texas Leaguer to denote a fly ball that fell safely behind the infield.

Sullivan’s Senators undertook a heavy preseason schedule that included triumphs over local nines as well as professional and independent teams. By the middle of April the club was making its final preparations for the start of the 1890 campaign. On April 18, the day before the opener against Hartford, the Senators played their final exhibition game of the spring, against the New York Gorhams in front of nearly 300 fans at Atlantic Park. Washington had defeated the Gorhams 15-1 two days earlier. The Gorhams, a team composed of African-American players, were charter members of the first professional Negro Baseball League in 1887. Gorhams owner Ambrose Davis, considered to be the first African-American baseball magnate, signed the highly touted battery of Sim Simpson and Eben Blue for the rematch against Washington. But due to circumstances unknown to the author the two were unable to report in time for the game.

With the regular season starting the next day, Sullivan didn’t want to use any of his league pitchers. With that in mind he called on a 22-year-old pitcher from Baltimore named John M. Lyston to start the game. Lyston had been signed by the American Association Baltimore Orioles in September of 1887. He was a late scratch in his only scheduled start for Baltimore, against Louisville. The following season Lyston pitched for Orioles manager Billie Barnie’s Baltimore Reserves, a forerunner of the modern-day farm club. In 1889 he played for Uniontown in the Western Pennsylvania League until the team folded after the Johnstown flood.

For the Gorhams, pitcher John Vactor took the box in hope of a better outcome than what occurred two days earlier. Vactor, a pitcher/outfielder, played for the Gorhams and Philadelphia Pythons in 1887.

The Gorhams got on the board in their first at-bat. With one out William Wood bashed a triple to the fence. Wood played with the Philadelphia Pythons in 1887. Oscar Jackson followed with a two-bagger that scored Wood. Jackson, a catcher/outfielder/first baseman, was an original member of the Gorhams in 1887. He went over to the Cuban Giants for the next two seasons before rejoining his former club in 1890. The next man, Conover, is credited with knocking in Jackson while being put out at first on a groundball to Gleason at short. These would be the only runs of the game for the New Yorkers. Vactor lasted two innings before being replaced by J. Jackson as Sullivan’s charges went on to defeat the visiting Gorhams, 26-2.

Washington smacked 22 hits while playing its second errorless contest of the spring. The most exciting action of the afternoon took place in the Senators’ half of the second inning. Jerry O’Brien batted a grounder to Gorham second baseman Thompson, who threw past Peterson at first. The errant toss put O’Brien on second. Frank Nicholas followed with a bouncer to Wood at third. O’Brien tried to score from second on the play but was tagged out by catcher Oscar Jackson after a lengthy rundown. Nicholas tried to sneak over to third during the confusion but he was caught in between the bases. The Washington Post described what happened next: “This brought almost the entire team into the infield and there followed a lively passing of the ball until the leftfielder [J. Jackson], who had taken the ball, ran Nicholas down.”1

Lyston went the distance for the Senators, allowing three hits while scattering eight free passes. He stroked a triple in his first trip to the plate. In regard to his work in the box the Washington Evening Star wrote, “Manager Sullivan imported a man from Baltimore to do the pitching for the home team in order to save his own men for the opener today. His name is Lyston, and he is an amateur, who is employed in the Baltimore city post office. He did very well indeed, his delivery being quite swift and certain. Nicholas [catcher] held him well. He is one of the men whom Mr. Sullivan has his eye, and it is not improbable that he may be called upon to do some regular work in the senatorial box before the season is over, if there is an emergency.”2

Lew Whistler paced the Washington attack with four hits. Gleason banged out a pair of two-baggers and he scored four runs. Frank Bird contributed three hits, including two triples, to the Senators’ offensive onslaught.

Washington dropped the league opener the next day to Hartford, 15-13. As the Atlantic Association season progressed, the Senators began experiencing financial difficulties. On August 2, 1890, the Washington club disbanded after posting a record of 38-47. Sullivan attempted to organize a new club to finish out the season but he was unable to find any investors, telling the press, “I can get plenty of backing for next year but the capitalists I have met are timid about putting money in for what must for a time be a losing venture.”3

Author’s note

John M. Lyston is the great-grandfather of the author.

Sources

Baseball-reference.com.

Chronicling America.

Dreifort, John E. Baseball History From Outside The Lines (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997).

Keenan, Jimmy. The Lystons: A Story of One Baltimore Family and Our National Pastime (Self-published, 2009).

Riley, James A. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1994).

Thorn, John, Phil Birnbaum, Bill Deane, et al., eds. Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia. 8th ed. (Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, Inc., 2004).

1891 Reach Official Baseball Guide.

Notes

Organized the previous offseason by players disenchanted by labor relations in the existing Organized Baseball structure, the Players League offered teams in which the players themselves retained partial ownership. The concept attracted most of the game’s stars, and the popularity of those stars cut deeply into the existing leagues. Of the 72 players appearing in Players League box scores on April 19, all but two had played in either the National League or American Association in 1889. That star power showed itself at the turnstiles of the four Opening Day sites.

Philadelphia at New York. More than 12,000 arrived at the Brotherhood Park on a cold afternoon for the inaugural Players League match in New York. The crowd greeted the Players League Giants with “such cheering and yelling, throwing up of hats and general enthusiasm as, perhaps, had never before been witnessed at a ball game.”[fn]Sporting Life, April 26, 1890, p. 3.[/fn] New York featured a lineup remarkably similar to the regular lineup for the 1889 National League Giants; the entire lineup had played for the ’89 National League outfit and seven had been regulars. Tim Keefe, who won 28 games for the National League Giants the previous year and whose sporting goods company supplied the Players League game ball, pitched for New York. Charlie Buffinton, who equaled Keefe’s 28 wins with the ’89 Phillies, took the mound for the Players League Quakers.

New York opened the scoring with three runs in the top of the second inning, but Philadelphia answered with seven in the bottom half. The Giants chipped away at Philadelphia’s lead with one run in the fourth and two more in the sixth.

After Philadelphia added one run in the bottom of the sixth to take an 8–6 lead, New York regained the lead with a five-run eighth inning and held that 11–8 lead into the ninth. Philadelphia batted last despite playing away from home. A combination of two hit batsmen, two singles, and a double provided the spark for Philadelphia’s come-from-behind 12–11 win. As a reward for their season-opening win, the Philadelphia players were promised new suits.[fn]Op cit, p. 1-2.[/fn]

Chicago at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh hosted Chicago before approximately 8,500 at Exposition Park. The crowd “gave the players a good reception and made them jubilant.”[fn]Op cit, p. 3.[/fn] Charlie Comiskey, longtime member of the American Association St. Louis Browns, led Chicago into the Players League campaign. His nine comprised of former Browns teammates as well as members of the ’89 National League Chicago White Stockings.

Comiskey contributed to his club’s cause with one hit in four at-bats and two runs. Those contributions helped Chicago score seven runs in the first three frames. Pittsburgh pitcher Pud Galvin was undone by his defense as well as Chicago’s bats. Chicago tagged Galvin for 10 runs and 12 hits over the nine innings, and Pittsburgh’s seven errors hurt the home team’s cause. Chicago pitcher Silver King scattered six hits and surrendered two unearned runs in a 10–2 Chicago victory.

Brooklyn at Boston. After an exhibition schedule in which it won all 12 matches,[fn]Ibid.[/fn] Boston hosted Brooklyn at the Congress Street Grounds. Boston’s 3–2 win in front of more than 8,000 fans included elements of a modern-day pitchers’ duel. Boston’s Matt Kilroy and Brooklyn’s George Van Haltren allowed only 10 hits between them. Boston third baseman Billy Nash and Brooklyn center fielder Ed Andrews were the only batsmen with multi-hit games.

Boston opened the scoring with right fielder Harry Stovey’s first-inning home run, one of two four-baggers in the four Opening Day games. Boston doubled its lead in the third inning when an error by Brooklyn shortstop John Montgomery Ward allowed Stovey to get on base. He stole second, then scored on a double by catcher and captain Mike “King” Kelly. In the top of the ninth inning, Boston added what proved to be the difference in the game when Nash scored.

After failing to score in the first eight innings, Brooklyn rallied in the bottom of the ninth. Left fielder Emmett Seery’s two-out, two-run double allowed Brooklyn to pull within a run. The game ended when the next batter, second baseman Lou Bierbauer, grounded out.

Cleveland at Buffalo. Buffalo hosted Cleveland before 3,125 at Olympic Park, and romped to a 23–2 win over the visiting Infants. The Bisons scored in each of the first six innings and every batter but one crossed home plate at least twice. Pitcher George Haddock scored more runs (four) than he surrendered (two).

The Bisons offense proved effective in garnering 17 hits, with second basemen Sam Wise contributing four and right fielder John Rainey hitting a home run. Cleveland assisted in its own demise with seven errors and pitcher Henry Gruber’s 16 walks.

Over the course of the first four games of season, Buffalo would score 79 runs in completing a fourgame season-opening sweep of Cleveland. The promise of this fast start was undone with 11 losses in the next 12 games en route to a 36–96 season that left the Bisons 20 games behind seventh-place Cleveland.

After the first day of games, Brotherhood leader Ward pronounced himself satisfied with the start to the season. He asserted that the Brotherhood movement was “in accord with the spirit of the times” and “the Brotherhood grounds … [were] far better than those of the League.”[fn]Ibid.[/fn] Ward had reason to feel satisfied. In the three cities where the Players League and National League went headto- head, the Players League teams won the attendance battle by approximately 3 to 1.

That pattern continued through the remainder of the season. But with the baseball market glutted by an extra league, all teams in all three leagues lost money. At season’s end, the established leagues, relying on their deeper financial reserves, managed to coerce backers of the Players League into going out of business.[fn]Other references used in preparation of this article included: Koszarek, Ed. The Players League ( Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006). Nemec, Nemec. The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Major League Baseball (2d ed.) (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006). Baseball-reference.com, Retrosheet.org[/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.

Before joining the Association, Rochester had competed in the International League, where, known as the Jingoes, they’d enjoyed first-division finishes the previous two years. After Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and Kansas City abandoned the Association for greener pastures in November 1889, Rochester was added, along with teams from Syracuse and Toledo.3

During the winter of 1889-90, the new Players’ League cast a long shadow on both the Association and the League, as the NL was then called. Formed by the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, the PL strategically placed teams in many of the same cities where the two established leagues already had franchises and signed away many of their talented players by offering higher pay and more ballplayer-friendly policies.4

Coming up from a lower-level league, Rochester drew little attention from PL raiders. Nonetheless, Powers beefed up the roster of the Jingoes team he’d managed the year before with a handful of seemingly flawed players. He added Bill Greenwood, a left-handed-throwing journeyman second baseman; Deacon McGuire, a weak-hitting backup catcher on the brink of stardom; and Lyons, an outfielder with the reputation of being a clever fielder despite fielding stats to the contrary.5

Rochester opened its inaugural Association season in Philadelphia. The Association Athletics were decimated by PL personnel raids. Gone from a team that had finished third in each of the previous two seasons were its three top run-producers – Harry Stovey, Henry Larkin, and Lou Bierbauer – plus swift-pitching ace Gus Weyhing. Owner-manager Bill Sharsig had to lean heavily on a primary battery of 22-year-old hurler Sadie McMahon and catcher Wilbert Robinson and a lineup otherwise filled with reclamation projects. To replace Stovey and Larkin, Sharsig installed a pair of aging veteran corner outfielders: 36-year-old Blondie Purcell, a flaxen-haired former two-way player; and 38-year-old Orator Shafer, a four-time NL assists leader and major-league single-season assist record holder.6

Thankfully, the Blue Legs, as the Association nine were known after their dark blue stockings,7 had Philadelphia all to themselves for their season-opening, four-game series with Rochester. The City of Brotherly Love’s PL nine as well as the NL’s Phillies, were opening their seasons in New York.

Rochester dropped the season opener at Jefferson Street Grounds by a score of 11-8, leaving the bases loaded when their last batter, McGuire, flied out to left in the bottom of the ninth.8 The Philadelphia Inquirer called both teams nervous, with pitchers so wild they seemed “afflicted with St. Vitus’ dance.”9 The second game produced a similar result. Rochester lost 12-9 after the Athletics scored five unanswered runs in the last two innings.10

Hopeful of bringing Flower City its first major-league victory, Powers sent hurler Bob Barr out for the third game. The Jingoes’ ace the previous two years, winning an International League-leading 30 games in 1889 and 35 the year before, Barr had experienced little success during three previous seasons in the majors. He entered 1890 with a career ERA+ of 76 and a .231 won-lost percentage (21-70), the lowest of any major-league hurler with 40 or more lifetime decisions. Regardless, Powers expected great things of Barr in the new season, declaring beforehand that “Barr never had greater speed and he has a slow ball this season that will fool the best of them.”11 Starting opposite Barr was Philadelphia’s Opening Day starter, McMahon. In that meeting, he’d been hit hard but came away victorious.

As they’d done in the two previous games, the Athletics elected to bat first in the third game, played in front of a crowd of 2,106 on a pleasant but chilly (52-degree high) Saturday afternoon.12 The home team broke the ice in the top of the second on a two-out RBI single by Orator’s 23-year-old brother, Taylor.13 Rochester knotted the score in the third. McGuire singled with one out, advanced to second when Purcell in left field couldn’t field the ball cleanly, reached third on Robinson’s passed ball and scored when Barr flied out on a ball that carried to the fence in left field.

Philadelphia recaptured the lead in the fifth on a “corker down the left field line” by Purcell that went for two bases,14 followed by singles from a pair of Sharsig’s scrap-heapers: Slugger Jack O’Brien,15 a former Athletic coaxed out of semi-retirement, and Joe Kappel, who’d bounced around lower-level leagues since playing a handful of games with the 1884 Phillies.

An inning later, Rochester erased the Athletics’ lead once again. With one out in the sixth, speedy Ted Scheffler singled, stole second,16 advanced to third on an errant pickoff attempt by Robinson and scored when shortstop Ed Carfrey, making his lone major-league appearance,17 fumbled a grounder hit by Lyons. The score stood tied at 2-2.

Rochester pulled ahead for the first time in the seventh on a rally that began when 21-year-old rookie Will Calihan banged a double off the outfield fence. Rochester’s Opening Day starting pitcher, Calihan had entered this game in the second inning after center fielder Sandy Griffin broke his left foot sliding into second base.18 Calihan came home on a single pulled to right by the switch-hitting Greenwood.

With neither side able to push a run across in the eighth, the score remained 3-2 in favor of Rochester entering the ninth. Curt Welch, the everyday center fielder on the St. Louis Browns team that dominated the Association from 1885 to 1887, hit a one-out double to left. Purcell lifted a popup to left that Lyons “after a desperate run captured, the momentum nearly upsetting him.”19 A Philadelphia fan favorite who hailed from nearby Chester, Pennsylvania, Lyons drew applause from the appreciative crowd for the play.20

Down to their last out, Philadelphia’s hopes rested on the shoulders of their hard-hitting third baseman, Denny Lyons. The Athletics’ best hitter in 1890, he finished the year batting .354 and led the Association in slugging percentage (.531), OPS (.992), and OPS+ (193).21 Three years earlier, Denny had compiled a then-record 52-game hitting streak that decades later was reclassified as a consecutive on-base streak.22

Hitless in his previous at-bats, Lyons drove a Barr offering into left for a hit. Welch raced for third, then ran through a stop sign put up by Robinson, who was standing “in the coacher’s box.”23 As Welch headed for home with the tying run, Harry Lyons unleashed a “beautiful throw” to the plate.24

Expecting a close play, Welch dropped into a slide. Four years earlier, he’d scored the winning run in the deciding Game Six of the 1886 World’s Championship series (on a wild pitch) with what was dubbed the “$15,000 slide.” This time, he was denied. McGuire tagged Welch, who was called out by rookie umpire Bob Emslie, later to become “the least-known famous umpire in baseball history,”25 and the game was over. Harry Lyons, the son of a Philadelphia policeman, had spectacularly robbed his namesake of a chance to tie the game.26

“It is difficult to tell whether the credit for Rochester’s victory belongs to Harry Lyons, Calihan or Barr,” the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle declared, adding that the “trio combined went far toward winning the game.”27 The Philadelphia Times claimed “bad coaching” cost the Athletics a chance to tie the game in the ninth, but rated the contest “close and exciting throughout.”28

The victory launched an eight-game winning streak for Rochester that propelled the team to the top of the Association standings. Philadelphia overtook them in late May and held onto first place for nearly two months. After financial troubles led the club to start shorting ballplayers their pay in July, the Athletics went into a tailspin.29 They lost their last 22 games and finished in eighth place, ahead of only the disbanded Brooklyn Gladiators. Bankrupt and “in arrears in unpaid salaries, league dues and gate guarantees,” they were expelled from the Association after the season.30

While Rochester had been successful on the field, finishing at .500 and in fifth place, they too suffered withering financial losses, roughly $18,000. Eager to place franchises in cities much larger than Rochester, Association leadership persuaded principal owner-president Henry Brinker to relinquish his franchise for $10,000.31

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Almanac.com Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites.

Photo credit: Deacon McGuire, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 W.L. Harris, “Happy Pat Powers,” Sporting Life, April 19, 1890: 13.

2 M.T.S., “Rochester Ripples,” Sporting Life, April 12, 1890: 3; “Rochester Ripples,” Sporting Life, April 19, 1890: 10.

3 John Bauer, “1889-90 Winter Meetings – The Establishment Responds,” in Baseball’s 19th Century Winter Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 271.

4 For a detailed discussion of the Players’ League, see Robert Ross, The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players’ League (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 2016).

5 “Grand Stand Chat,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 21, 1888: 8. In what was his only previous year as a major-league regular, Lyons led all Association outfielders with 33 errors.

6 Shafer’s 50 outfield assists for the 1879 Chicago White Stockings has, through the 2024 season, never been equaled.

7 “Sharzig’s [sic] “Blue Legs” on Top, Harrisburg Telegraph, April 12, 1890: 1; “1890 Athletic, Philadelphia (Athletics),” Thread of Our Game website, https://www.threadsofourgame.com/1890-athletic-philadelphia/, accessed September 22, 2024.

8 “One for the Athletics,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 18, 1890: 6.

9 “One for the Athletics.” A term dating back to the Middle Ages, “St. Vitus’s dance” refers to irregular and involuntary movements in various muscle groups that can stem from streptococcal infection – a condition now known as Sydenham Chorea. “Sydenham chorea,” Britannica.com website, https://www.britannica.com/science/Sydenham-chorea, accessed October 26, 2024.

10 “Two for the Athletics,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 19, 1890: 6.

11 “Happy Pat Powers.”

12 “Barr, Lyons and Calihan,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 20, 1890: 7; “The Weather,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 20, 1890: 1.

13 “Barr, Lyons and Calihan.” Born in July 1866, Taylor was nearly 14 years and 9 months younger than Orator. As of September 21, 2024, Baseball-Almanac.com listed 454 sets of siblings who played major-league baseball. The author has identified only six other sets of brothers on that list who were further apart in age than the Shafers: Art and Jesse Fowler (23 years, 8 months), Pat and Ham Patterson (19y, 3m), Heinie and Frank Manush (17y, 10m), Bill and Pat Friel (17y, 10m), Bob and Ike “Newt” Fisher (15y, 4m), and Jim and John Paciorek (15y, 4m). “Baseball Brothers,” Baseball-Almanac.com, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/family/fam1.shtml, accessed September 21, 2024.

14 “Barr, Lyons and Calihan.”

15 “Rochester Calls a Halt.”

16 The theft was Scheffler’s second of 77 steals for the year, second only in the Association to Tommy McCarthy, who stole 83 for the St. Louis Browns.

17 Caffrey was filling in for Dennis Fitzgerald, who’d severely wrenched his ankle the day before in what was his first game in the majors. Yet another Philadelphia shortstop made his major-league debut the day after this game, Ben Conroy, who earned the most playing time of the nine shortstops the Athletics used in 1890. “Two for the Athletics.”

18 “Rochester Calls a Halt.”

19 “Barr, Lyons and Calihan.”

20 “The Browns Beaten,” St. Louis-Post Dispatch, May 30, 1888: 2; “Lyons Saved the Game,” Philadelphia Times, April 20, 1890: 3.

21 All three figures are retrospective; they were not compiled in that era.

22 Matthias Koster, “Denny Lyons 52 Game Hit Streak,” Mop-Up Duty website, December 10, 2010, https://mopupduty.com/denny-lyons-52-game-hit-streak/. In two of those games, Lyons’ only “hit” came via a base on balls, which in 1887 were counted as hits. One of major league baseball’s many rule changes in 1968 reclassified 1887 walks as no longer hits.

23 “Rochester Calls a Halt.”

24 “Barr, Lyons and Calihan.”

25 Considered by many of his peers to have been “the greatest base umpire of all time,” Emslie, a pitcher for the 1885 Athletics, is best known for a call he didn’t make. Manning the bases in a late-September game between the New York Giants and Chicago Cubs during the 1908 NL pennant race, he failed to notice whether New York’s Fred Merkle had touched second on an apparent game-ending single, after which home plate umpire Hank O’Day famously waved off the winning run; a play known to history as Merkle’s Boner. David Cicotello, “Bob Emslie,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-emslie/. Accessed October 3, 2024.

26 “Notes,” Wilmington (Delaware) Every Evening, August 24, 1887: 4;

27 “Barr, Lyons and Calihan.”

28 “Lyons Saved the Game.”

29 Cliff Blau, “The 1890 Athletics: The Worst Team in Major League Baseball History,” Seamheads website, October 9, 2012, https://seamheads.com/blog/2012/10/09/the-1890-athletics-the-worst-team-in-major-league-baseball-history/. Author David Nemec in his The Beer and Whisky League attributes Philadelphia’s collapse to a spate of injuries suffered by Dennis Lyons, “real or imagined,” poor pitching by everyone other than Sadie McMahon and a lack of offense from their middle infielders. David Nemec, The Beer and Whiskey League (New York: Lyons and Burford, 2004), 195.

30 John Bauer, “1890 – Three Divides into Two,” in Baseball’s 19th Century Winter Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 293.

31 Bauer, “1890 – Three Divides into Two,” 294. Rochester’s population in 1890, according to the 1890 U.S. Census, 5,321, was tiny compared to two of the preferred cities, Chicago (1.1 million) and Boston (448,000).

The Detroit Wolverines, managed by Bob Leadley, had captured the 1889 International Association pennant in convincing fashion, finishing seven games ahead of the second-place Syracuse club. Leadley predicted that his 1890 Wolverines would be “fully 25 per cent stronger” than the 1889 championship team.1 “Manager Leadley has in the Detroits undoubtedly one of the best, if not the best, minor league club in the country,” said the Buffalo Express.2

The Torontos,3 under new manager Charles Maddock, hosted the Wolverines on Opening Day, Thursday, May 1, 1890, at the Toronto Baseball Grounds in front of 2,500 fans, “a large attendance considering the painfully chilly weather.”4 Players and spectators were “thoroughly uncomfortable, as a cold north wind made the atmosphere as chilly as that of a March day.”5

The game was preceded by a grand parade through the streets of Toronto. A brass band led the way, and the ballplayers followed in horse-drawn carriages. At the ballpark, after the teams’ pregame warm-ups, Toronto Mayor Edward F. Clarke made a welcoming speech and ceremoniously tossed a baseball onto the field. Wesley Curry, “a steady, reliable umpire,”6 was the game’s sole arbiter.

The Detroit lineup featured a first-rate infield. Jake Virtue was regarded as one of the best-fielding first basemen. Bill Higgins, the second baseman, could “make a double play as quick as anyone.”7 The speedy Bobby Wheelock covered a lot of ground at short. Jim Donnelly, the third baseman, was the team captain.

In the Detroit outfield were Harry Hulin in left, George Rhue in center, and Count Campau in right. The battery was pitcher Edgar Smith, a 27-year-old right-hander, and catcher Mike Goodfellow. Smith had posted an 18-9 record for the 1889 Wolverines. He was “a quiet, intelligent, gentlemanly fellow”8 and a good hitter; Leadley placed him sixth in the batting order.

The Toronto battery was pitcher Ledell Titcomb, a 23-year-old southpaw, and catcher John Grim. Titcomb had compiled a 15-13 mark for Toronto in 1889.

The Toronto infield was composed of Pete Wood at first base, Tom McLaughlin at second, Albert Ike at short, and Chris Rickley at third The outfield was covered by Denny Connors, Billy Bottenus, and John Coleman in left, center, and right field, respectively.

The defending champions had prepared for the new season by playing a number of preseason games, but the Torontos had played only one.9 Five men in Toronto’s Opening Day lineup (Wood, Ike, and the entire outfield) were new to the club, so the Torontos opened the season with little experience playing as a team.

Toronto batted first and took a 2-0 lead. Smith struck out Grim, the leadoff man, but the third strike got past the catcher, Goodfellow, allowing Grim to make it to second base. Bottenus followed with a single to center field, scoring Grim, and went to second base on the throw home. Wood’s grounder was handled by Virtue, who tossed to Smith covering first, but Smith dropped the ball and Wood was safe. Bottenus rounded third base a little too far, and Smith fired the ball to Donnelly, who tagged Bottenus before he could return to the bag. Wood reached second base on Connors’ sacrifice and came home when McLaughlin sent “a line hit right into Hulin’s hands [in left field], and to the amazement of everybody he dropped it.”10

Connors singled with one out in the third inning but was erased by a 4-6-3 double play, from Higgins to Wheelock to Virtue. The nifty twin killing was “one of the finest ever seen on the home grounds,” reported the Toronto Mail.11

Two sacrifices and three singles, including a base hit by Smith, netted two runs for the Wolverines in the bottom of the third to knot the score. In the next inning, the Torontos were sloppy on defense as the visitors rallied for four more runs. Rickley and McLaughlin muffed infield popups. Higgins doubled in the inning, and Wheelock and Campau contributed singles.

Leading off the fifth inning, Grim grounded to Donnelly, who threw errantly to first, enabling Grim to get aboard. Bottenus grounded into a force out, advanced to second base on Wood’s sacrifice, and scored on Connors’ single. With McLaughlin at the plate, Smith delivered two wild pitches, allowing Connors to reach third base, and McLaughlin’s single brought him home. The Torontos had cut Detroit’s lead to 6-4.

Grim led off again in the seventh inning and repeated a grounder to Donnelly. This time Donnelly’s throw to first base was accurate, but the usually-sure-handed Virtue dropped it. Bottenus singled, sending Grim to third base, and Bottenus stole second base. When Smith fanned Connors, Goodfellow dropped the third strike and unleashed a wild throw to first base that went into right field, where it was collected by Campau. Grim scored, but when Bottenus also tried to score, he was nailed at the plate by Campau’s “splendid throw” home.12 A single by McLaughlin scored Connors, and the game was tied, 6-6.

Smith tripled in the bottom of the seventh for the Wolverines, but Titcomb fielded Virtue’s tap and collaborated with Grim and Rickley to nab Smith in a rundown between third and home. Virtue, however, reached third base on the play and scored after McLaughlin fielded Hulin’s grounder and threw wildly to first base. Detroit led, 7-6.

Bothered by a sore arm, Donnelly was replaced at third base in the top of the eighth inning by Jake Wells, Detroit’s backup catcher. Wells immediately muffed Ike’s popup but atoned for it by starting a 5-4-3 double play later in the inning.

The Wolverines tacked on three more runs in their eighth on singles by Higgins, Campau, and Smith, and two errors by Ike at short. Smith then retired the Torontos in order in the ninth, and the ragged affair was over. The final score was Detroit 10, Toronto 6.

“Errors were more numerous than runs,” noted the Toronto Mail.13 The Wolverines were charged with seven errors, and the Torontos were guilty of 11 miscues. The home team could have been charged with more errors: Two fly balls that were counted as Detroit hits should have been caught, but the Toronto outfielders “feared a collision [and] no one tried for them.”14

Epilogue

The Wolverines won their first nine games of the 1890 season15 and were the clear favorites to win the pennant, but the International Association folded on July 10. Several Detroit players were signed by major-league clubs. Campau, Higgins, Donnelly, and Wells went to the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, while Wheelock went to the Columbus Solons in the same league.

Smith and Virtue joined the Cleveland Spiders of the National League, and Leadley became the Spiders manager on July 26, 1890. In Leadley’s 10th game at the helm, Cy Young made his major-league debut in an 8-1 victory over Cap Anson’s Chicago Colts.

On September 15, 1890, with Grim as his batterymate, Titcomb pitched a 7-0 no-hitter for the Rochester Broncos of the American Association.16

Acknowledgments

Joe Gonsowski provided the Jake Virtue photo.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the International Association page from the Bullpen section of the Baseball-Reference.com website. Neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Retrosheet.org have yet extended their digitized box score coverage as far back as 1890; I used the box score for this game from the May 2, 1890, Detroit Free Press game story cited in Note 4.

Notes

1 “Opening of the International League Championship Season,” Toronto Mail, May 1, 1890: 2.

2 “The International League,” Buffalo Express, May 9, 1890: 6.

3 Although Baseball-Reference.com refers to the team as the Toronto Canucks, contemporary newspapers refer to the team as the Torontos.

4 Detroit Free Press, May 2, 1890: 2.

5 Ibid.

6 Toronto Mail, May 2, 1890: 2.

7 “The Crack of the Bat,” Detroit Free Press, January 20, 1889: 3.

8 “Gossip,” Detroit Free Press, September 18, 1889: 2.

9 Toronto Mail, May 1, 1890: 2.

10 Detroit Free Press, May 2, 1890: 2.

11 Toronto Mail, May 2, 1890: 2.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 “The International,” Sporting Life, May 24, 1890: 12.

16 “Here’s Pitching for You,” Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), September 16, 1890: 6.

Canton opened the 1890 season with a doubleheader at Wheeling, West Virginia, on April 30. In the first game, Cyclone Young hurled a three-hitter as Canton defeated Wheeling, 4-2. In his second appearance, on May 3, he won again, a 4-3 triumph at McKeesport, Pennsylvania.3

Cy Young’s third start came on Tuesday, May 6, in the first game of a three-game series against Akron, Ohio, at Akron’s West Hill Park.4 The Akron Beacon Journal reported that it was a “dark, cold afternoon” – cloudy with the temperature in the mid-40s – and noted that the “few spectators” included some enthusiastic Canton fans.5 The teams wore colorful uniforms: Canton in blue and red, and Akron in bluish-gray and dark blue.6 Canton brought its mascot, a bull terrier.

Akron, as the home team, opted to bat first. Young yielded a solid double to the leadoff man, Charlie Pike, the Akron captain. After Frank Motz sacrificed, shortstop Mike O’Rourke singled, scoring Pike for a 1-0 Akron lead.

Canton answered in its half of the first. Leading off, Jack Darrah reached first on O’Rourke’s throwing error, moved to second on a passed ball, and stole third. John Carr was hit by a pitch from George Whinnery, and Ed “Fatty” Cline, the Canton captain, slapped a run-scoring single, tying the game. Henry Yaik singled to load the bases, but Whinnery escaped further damage when Joe Fern hit into a double play.

Both teams had men on base in the second inning but could not score. Young and Whinnery settled down and retired the batters in order for the next three innings in a pitchers’ duel.

In the top of the sixth, O’Rourke drew a base on balls from Young, advanced a base on an error by Darrah, the second baseman, and stole third. Yaik, Young’s catcher, was charged with a passed ball that permitted O’Rourke to score, giving Akron a 2-1 edge.

Darrah made amends for the error in the bottom of the seventh. After Ed Dillon reached first when Whinnery muffed his easy popup and took second on a passed ball, Darrah brought him home with a single. Canton went ahead in the eighth as Cline singled, went to third on Tom Dallas’s double, and came home on a wild pitch.

Young was sharp. He retired the Akron hitters in order in the eighth and ninth innings. The final score was Canton 3, Akron 2. Young allowed five hits, struck out eight, and walked two. After the final out, the elated pitcher hugged his manager, William C. Heingartner.

The next day, Akron won the second game of the series, 6-4. Young pitched again in the third contest, on Thursday, May 8. It was a cloudy day, but with the temperature in the mid-50s,7 a much larger crowd, about 600, attended.

Canton was the first to score. In the bottom of the first, Darrah smacked a ball that went between O’Rourke’s legs at short. Carr followed with a two-run homer. Akron got one back in the top of the second; Homer Berger singled, stole second, moved to third on a sacrifice, and scored on an error by Darrah.

Randall, the Akron pitcher, was wild. Canton added a run in the fourth on two singles, a walk, and two wild pitches. Akron battled back with two runs in the fifth, from a double by Charlie Tebeau, a Canton error, and a single by Whinnery, who was in right field for Akron in this game.

In the top of the sixth, Dan Sweeney earned the distinction of becoming the first man to hit a home run off Young in a professional baseball game. His solo shot “sailed gracefully far over the left field fence.”8 This gave Akron a 4-3 lead. But Canton scored once in the sixth and once in the seventh to retake the lead.

It looked forlorn for the home team when Akron came to bat against Young in the top of the ninth trailing 5-4. The first man up was Tebeau. He got on base on Young’s fielding error, stole second, and went to third on Yaik’s wild throw. Randall’s dribbler down the third-base line was watched intently by Dallas, the third baseman, who waited for it to roll foul. It stayed fair, however, as Tebeau stormed home to tie the game.

Akron broke the game open with three more runs off Young, via a double by Pike, a single by O’Rourke, and two more Canton errors. Canton’s bull-terrier mascot “crawled under the player’s bench and shed scalding tears,” gloated the Beacon Journal.9

Canton scored a run in the bottom of the ninth, but it was too little too late. The final tally was Akron 8, Canton 6, and Young was handed the first loss of his professional baseball career. He allowed 10 hits, struck out four, and walked none. Canton committed eight errors, including two by Young.

Epilogue

Even with the talented Young, the rebuilt Canton team of 1890 was the weakest squad in the Tri-State League. At season’s end, the team’s record was 27-47.10 Young’s record was 15-15.

For Young, his stay in Canton was a time of inconsistency. Against Springfield, Ohio, on June 2, he surrendered 17 hits in a 13-5 debacle, yet a week later he beat them, 5-3.11 McKeesport seemed to have him figured out, routing him 14-4 on June 28 and 8-2 on July 7.12 But on July 25, he threw a no-hitter against them with 18 strikeouts.13 That was his final game with Canton. He signed with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League and made his major-league debut on August 6. It was the beginning of a 22-year big-league career in which he won a record 511 games.

Sources

Game coverage in the May 7-9, 1890, issues of the Akron Beacon Journal.

Peterjohn, Alvin K. “The First Year of ‘Cyclone’ Young,” Baseball Research Journal (SABR), 1976.

Notes

1 Henry Chadwick, ed., Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1890 (Chicago and New York: A.G. Spalding & Bros., 1890), 86, 87. Baseball-Reference.com (accessed November 2021) refers to the 1888-90 Canton teams as the “Canton Nadjys.” The research for this article found no mention of this nickname in period sources.

2 “Whinnery’s Muff,” Akron Beacon Journal, May 7, 1890: 4.

3 Sporting Life, May 10, 1890: 12.

4 West Hill Park was located on Crosby Street in the West Hill neighborhood of Akron.

5 “Whinnery’s Muff”; “Meteorological Report,” Akron Beacon Journal, May 6, 1890: 1.

6 “The Akron Club’s Uniform,” Akron Beacon Journal, April 4, 1890: 3.

7 “Meteorological Report,” Akron Beacon Journal, May 8, 1890: 1.

8 “Intensely Exciting,” Akron Beacon Journal, May 9, 1890: 3.

9 “Intensely Exciting.”

10 Henry Chadwick, ed., Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1891 (Chicago and New York: A.G. Spalding & Bros., 1891), 166.

11 Sporting Life, June 14, 1890: 10.

12 Sporting Life, July 5, 1890: 11; Sporting Life, July 12, 1890: 10.

13 Sporting Life, August 2, 1890: 11.

The National League Giants, who became the first team to win consecutive undisputed “World’s Championships” in 1888–89, were decimated for 1890 when practically all of their star players jumped to the Players League. The only first-string players to remain were pitcher Mickey Welch, a future Hall of Famer, and Silent Mike Tiernan, a hard-hitting outfielder.

The Players League Giants consistently outdrew their National League counterparts. This was the situation on Monday, May 12, 1890, when only 687 cranks[fn]“Over The Fence In Centre Field,” New York Herald, May 13, 1890, p.8.[/fn] showed up for the National League Giants- Boston game, while 1,707[fn]2. Ibid.[/fn]patrons attended the Players League Giants-Boston game next door.

National League teams went to great lengths to obtain star players. The Giants managed to convince the Indianapolis team’s owner, John Brush, that the 18-year-old pitching phenomenon Amos “The Hoosier Thunderbolt” Rusie was more valuable to the National League’s success playing his home games in New York City than in Indiana. Thus, Rusie came to the National League Giants, where he would go on to a Hall of Fame career with more than 20 victories in each of the next eight seasons.

To say that Rusie, now only in his second majorleague season, was the backbone of the Giants pitching staff in 1890 is an understatement. He pitched in a career-high 67 games. He managed 29 wins against 34 losses for an anemic-hitting team and completed 56 of the 62 games he started, including four shutouts.[fn]John Thorn, Phil Birnbaum, and Bill Deane, eds. Total Baseball: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th Ed. (Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, Inc.)[/fn] That day’s starting pitcher for the National League Boston Beaneaters, 20-year-old rookie Kid Nichols, would go on to have a 27–19 season, appearing in 48 games and completing all of his 47 starts while pitching a league-leading seven shutouts.[fn]Thorn et. al., op. cit.[/fn] Nichols would be one of only three pitchers of the 1890s (Rusie and Cy Young were the others) inducted into the Hall of Fame, leading that decade with seven seasons of 30 wins or better.

“Silent” Mike Tiernan arrived with the National League Giants as a rookie in 1887 and played an integral part as the starting right fielder for the club’s back-to-back world’s championships. Tiernan hit home runs in double digits five times, leading the league in 1890 and 1891 with 13 and 16 respectively. His .311 lifetime batting average for his 13-year career,[fn]Ibid.[/fn] all with the Giants, made him a New York fan favorite. His nickname was attributed to his disinclination to argue with umpires in an era when the reverse was the norm.

The home-team National League Giants elected to bat first, hoping to get first crack at the still lively ball. In the bottom of the first inning, Boston stranded its lead runner at third base, the only Beaneater to reach third in the game. The pitching duel continued for 12 innings with remarkable defensive play by both teams, particularly by Herman Long, Boston’s great shortstop. Nichols struck out 11 (New York Herald) or 10 (New York Times), while Rusie fanned 12 (Herald) or 11 (Times).[fn]“Tiernan’s Home Run Won It,” New York Times, May 13, 1890, p.3.[/fn]

As the game passed beyond the ninth inning, each putout by the Giants was met with lusty cheers by the small but enthusiastic crowd. This brought many of the spectators in the adjacent Brotherhood Park to the top row of the grandstand that overlooked right field and center field of the New Polo Grounds.[fn]New York Herald, op. cit., loc. cit.[/fn] Soon, every putout was met with cheering from both parks. Nichols struck out Rusie to start the top of the 13th, and with the game in Brotherhood Park a 12–2 Boston rout, the attention of almost all at that game turned to the National League contest.

The next batter after Rusie was Tiernan, who had one of the three hits that Nichols had allowed. (Rusie had also allowed only three.) Tiernan fouled off the first pitch into the grandstand. Before the foul ball could be retrieved, the Giants quickly provided a brand-new ball to the umpire, who tossed it to Nichols. Nearly simultaneously, the ball that Tiernan fouled off was thrown back to Nichols’ feet. Remembering that Tiernan’s only other hit in the game, back in the eighth inning, had been off a new ball, Nichols picked up the old ball and asked the umpire, “This ball is all right, isn’t it?” “No, the new ball was on the field first,” said umpire Phil Powers, “and you will have to use it.”[fn]Ibid.[/fn]

The significance of the new ball was not missed by the cranks, who chanted, “Now, Mike.” Nichols’ very next pitch was shoulder high and the sound of Tiernan’s bat communicated that every pound of his power was behind it. The ball headed for the deepest part of the outfield, more of a line drive than a towering shot. Center field in the New Polo Grounds had been set at 360 feet when the ballpark was hastily built during the start of the 1889 season,[fn]Lowry, Philip J. Green Cathedrals (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1992), p.190.[/fn] but the distance had been increased by 50 feet before play began in 1890.[fn]New York Herald, op. cit., loc. cit.[/fn] Additionally, a canvas-covered wooden fence sat atop a tall, steep embankment. Tiernan’s blow cleared the center-field fence near the flagpole, landed in the narrow alley between the two stadiums and bounded against the wall of Brotherhood Park. The onlookers in both parks erupted in wild cheering as Tiernan circled the bases. Rusie then made quick work of Boston in the bottom of the 13th.[fn]Ibid.[/fn]

One sportswriter predicted that the flagpole would long mark the spot of Tiernan’s great hit. But when the Players League disbanded, the National League Giants took over Brotherhood Park, renaming it the Polo Grounds. The site of the great game of May 12, 1890, passed into obscurity.

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 left-handed-hitting Tiernan, who spent his entire career with the New York Giants, slugged 106 home runs and led the National League in home runs twice. At the time of his retirement in 1899, his career total was only 32 shy of the existing major-league career mark of 138 (held by Roger Connor, whose career mark stood from 1895 to 1920).

In 1890, his fourth season with the Giants, Tiernan hit a league-leading (and career high) 16 home runs. One of those home runs had the unique distinction of being cheered simultaneously by fans in two ballparks and was called “one of the most spectacular in history.”[fn]The Sporting News, November 28, 1918.[/fn]

The Giants, who had won back-to-back National League titles in 1888 and 1889, had gotten off to a slow start in 1890. Through the games of May 11, the Giants were in last place with a 5-10 record. Tiernan, just one of two Giants regulars in 1889 who didn’t sign with the New York team in the rival Players League for the 1890 season, was one of the early-season bright spots for the Giants.

Tiernan took a .303 batting average into the Giants’ home game against Boston on May 12. On the mound for the Beaneaters was rookie (and future Hall of Famer) Kid Nichols. Nichols, who was 20, and Giants rookie (and future Hall of Famer) Amos Rusie, who was 19, matched scoreless innings until Tiernan provided the heroics in the 13th inning.

In the top of the eighth inning (the home team had the option of batting first at that time),Tiernan singled with two outs and stole second. But Nichols ended the threat by retiring Giants shortstop Jack Glasscock.

The game remained scoreless through 12 innings. Nichols struck out Rusie to open the top of the 13th inning, bringing Tiernan to the plate. Tiernan’s eighth-inning single was just one of three hits Rusie had allowed in the first 12 innings.

After Tiernan fouled off the first pitch, a new ball was put into play. Newspaper accounts differ slighty on what happened next.

One account reported, “He hit a foul, and then a new ball (was provided). The first ball was too far away for the batter, but the next one was just right.”[fn]New York Post, May 13, 1890.[/fn]

Another account said, “He had knocked a foul and a new ball was thrown in. He hit the first one pitched.”[fn]New York Times, May 13, 1890.[/fn]

A third account said, “Two balls were pitched to Tiernan, and a new ball came into the game. Tiernan met it squarely on the end of his bat.”[fn]Boston Globe, May 13, 1890.[/fn]

Whether it was the second or third pitch of the at-bat can be debated, but the result can’t. Tiernan lined a tremendous drive that cleared the center-field fence for a home run to give the Giants a 1-0 lead. After Tiernan’s home run, Nichols retired Glasscock and Dude Esterbrook. In the bottom of the 13th, Rusie retired the Beaneaters in order to complete his three-hit shutout victory.

The game was “the best that has been seen in New York and it has been a long time since one so good was played in the United States.”[fn]New York Post, May 13, 1890.[/fn]

Tiernan’s home run not only stirred the 687 fans in attendance at the Polo Grounds, it brought cheers from the fans of the adjacent Brotherhood Park – the two ballparks were separated by an alley – where, by coincidence, a Players League game between New York and Boston was being played at the same time.

“Never before in the history of the game has the same number of people shown so much enthusiasm on a ball field. Even the people who were at the Brotherhood Game, and who were watching the League game at the top of the fence, made a great demonstration. And, why not? Tiernan had done what few people ever believed could be accomplished. The ball struck the fence of Brotherhood Park.”[fn]New York Times, May 13, 1890.[/fn]

According to one newspaper account, Tiernan’s home run wasn’t the only thing that that made the game memorable.

“And another thing about the game. It was the finest contest played by two professional teams, and will go down to record as such, not on account of the number of innings played, but because of the wonderful work done by the pitchers and the brilliant fielding.”[fn]Ibid.[/fn]

Tiernan would go on to hit .304 with 59 runs batted in and a league-leading .495 slugging percentage for the Giants in 1890. The Giants went on to finish sixth in the National League with a 63-68 record – 24 games behind the first-place Brooklyn Bridegrooms.

Tiernan retired in 1899 with a .311 career batting (including a career-high .369 in 1896). After his retirement, one national sportswriter pointed out that Tiernan should be remembered for his defense, as well.

“In looking back over the history of the game for great outfielders, one invariably picks men who worked in the center garden, yet some of the most remarkable workmen the game has produced played the other outfield positions. Among them . . . Sam Thompson, Tom McCarthy,and Mike Tiernan in right. All worked without a mitt or glove of any kind and were the true artists of the game.”[fn]Sporting Life, June 19, 1909.[/fn]

When he passed away at the age of 51 in 1918, Tiernan was remembered as “one of the best players of his day. At the plate, he had a fine eye and a splendid follow-through swing. His fielding was phenomenal and his base running very fine.”[fn]The Sporting News, November 28, 1918.[/fn]

Sources

Baseball-reference.com

Retrosheet.com

Newspapers

Boston Globe

New York Post

New York Times

Sporting Life

The Sporting News

With some 1,267 fans in attendance at Pittsburgh’s Recreation Park,3 Gumbert started the opener of a doubleheader against the Cleveland Spiders. He proved to be the star of a much-needed Alleghenys triumph, 9-2. The newcomer handcuffed the Cleveland bats, throwing a complete-game three-hitter. Billy also provided the game’s offensive highlight. In his first official at-bat, Gumbert hit a two-run homer, becoming the first player in National League history to begin his major-league batting career with a home run.4

Homestanding Pittsburgh elected to bat first but was held scoreless in the initial frame by Cleveland rookie right-hander Jack Wadsworth. Betraying no outward signs of jitters, Gumbert returned the compliment, setting down the Spiders in the bottom of the first. In the second, the Pittsburgh offense erupted for five runs. Third baseman Fred Roat ignited the outburst with a double to left, and skipper Hecker drove him in with a single, taking second on the throw home. Hecker soon advanced to third on a wild pitch. He remained there when Wadsworth walked Allegheny outfielder John Kelty and thereafter scored the second Allegheny run on shortstop Sam Crane’s base hit. That brought pitcher Gumbert to the plate with runners on first and second. A successful sacrifice bunt promptly moved the runners up a base. A single by right fielder Doggie Miller then got both runners home, with Miller taking second on a futile throw to the plate. He eventually came around, scoring Pittsburgh’s fifth run on another Wadsworth wild pitch.

In the bottom of the third, Cleveland got on the scoreboard. Gumbert hit his opposite number with a pitch, after which consecutive sacrifices placed Wadsworth on third. Cleveland’s first hit of the game, a double by Peek-a-Boo Veach, brought Wadsworth in. The Alleghenys immediately recouped their five-run lead with a tally in the fourth. Crane doubled, Gumbert again sacrificed, and a single by center fielder Billy Sunday made the score 6-1. In the last of the fourth, a double by Cleveland catcher Chief Zimmer, a sacrifice, and a miscue by shortstop Crane gifted the Spiders an unearned run. It would be their last of the contest.

In the top of the sixth, a single by Kelty brought Gumbert to the plate with one out. Having sacrificed his initial two times at the plate, he remained without an official big-league at-bat. And once again, he came to bat in a sacrifice situation. But manager Hecker decided to let Billy hit away. The righty-swinging Gumbert responded with a long drive to left-center that the swift-footed pitcher5 converted into an inside-the-park home run. The blast, while surely welcomed by Pittsburgh, was hardly a total surprise. Gumbert was a solid-hitting former position player who had socked a homer and a triple off then-Pittsburgh ace Pud Galvin in an exhibition game two years earlier.6 Still, Gumbert’s four-bagger was a record-setter, the first home run ever hit by a National League player in his first major-league at-bat.

From there Gumbert coasted home, allowing only a single by Zimmer over the final four innings. In his route-going 9-2 victory, he held the Spiders to a mere three hits, striking out two while walking a like number. Unhappily for Pittsburgh, the result did not repeat itself in the nightcap of the twin bill. Fellow recruit George Ziegler lasted only six innings in a 7-1 beating of the Alleghenys.7 The contest was pitcher Ziegler’s only appearance as a major leaguer, as he was released shortly thereafter. But Cleveland was anxious to retain first-game hurler Gumbert, from whom more good work could be expected.

Nineteenth-century baseball scholar David Nemec has speculated that “Billy Gumbert may have been more talented than his younger brother Ad,” a 123-game major-league winner.8 But while close as brothers, the two had very different ambitions. At least during his early years, Ad Gumbert was willing to sublimate advancement in the various local government posts that he held in order to play baseball.9 Billy was not so inclined. He landed a promising position in the bookkeeping department of a Pittsburgh steel products manufacturer and was loath to travel far from the home office. Fortunately for Pittsburgh, Gumbert’s employer was a baseball fan and willing to make the pitcher available – but on a home-game-only basis. For the remainder of the season, Billy went to the office every morning and would head for the ballpark in the early afternoon if he received a “come over and pitch” telephone call from the Alleghenys.10

Because attendance at Recreation Park was so meager – an April contest against Cleveland attracted only six paying patrons (out of 17 spectators in attendance, total), the all-time major-league single-game turnstiles nadir11 – the Alleghenys switched many scheduled home dates to away games.12 As a result, Billy was used only 10 times that summer. He finished the season with a substandard 4-6 record, but his .400 winning percentage was easily the highest of any Allegheny pitcher with double-figure game appearances.

Despite his potential, only a handful of major-league games lay in Billy Gumbert’s future. He preferred to devote his working life to business pursuits. But for the remainder of his years – and Gumbert lived to be 80 – he would always recall fondly the afternoon of June 19, 1890 at Recreation Park.

Sources

No play-by-play for the subject-matter game was discovered. The sources for the narrative above are specified in the endnotes.

Notes

1 Ad Gumbert had posted a 16-13 record for the NL Chicago White Stockings in 1889 and was then on his way to a 23-win campaign with the Boston Reds of the upstart Players League.

2 As reported in “General Sporting Notes,” Pittsburg Press, June 18, 1890: 3. The account identifies our protagonist as Will Gumpert, the first name most commonly used by the Pittsburgh sports press.

3 Per National League game-attendance figures published in the Pittsburg Dispatch, June 20, 1890: 7. Thereafter, Sporting Life’s local correspondent insisted that had the club properly advertised that popular Billy Gumbert was going to pitch, the game “would have attracted 200 more people.” See “Pittsburg Pencillings,” Sporting Life, July 5, 1890: 3.

4 The narrative above has been crafted from game accounts published in the Pittsburg Dispatch, Pittsburg Press, and Pittsburgh Daily Post, June 20, 1890.

5 Gumpert had stolen 52 bases in his lone minor-league season and later played halfback on a semipro football team.

6 The Gumbert extra-base hits came in June 1888 when Billy was the everyday shortstop for the Zanesville (Ohio) Kickapoos of the Tri-State League.

7 Various next-day newspaper game accounts misspelled the hurler’s name as Zeigler.

8 See “Billy Gumbert,” in David Nemec, ed., Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Vol. 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 2011), 317.

9 Ad Gumbert went on to a long career in local government. At the time of his death in April 1925, Ad was serving his third term as an Allegheny County commissioner.

10 According to Harry Keck, “Keck Says: Recalling the Three Gumberts, a Great Pitching Family,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, March 1, 1942: 26. The third Gumbert pitcher was oldest brother Charley, a fine amateur hurler. The Gumbert brothers were first cousins, twice removed, of Harry “Gunboat” Gumbert, a capable National League pitcher from 1935 to 1950.

11 Per the Recreation Park entry in Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks (New York: Walker & Company, 2006), 184.

12 Only 40 of the 138 games the Pittsburgh Alleghenys played in 1890 were contested at Recreation Park.

Played before a crowd estimated at between 4,000 and 4,500, the game was the first of four scheduled between two struggling teams. Although preseason predictions had Charles Comiskey’s Pirates winning “first place in a walk-over,” Chicago had played no better than .500 ball. On the other hand, little had been expected of Brooklyn, which got off to a quick start before stumbling in June.

Chicago had major problems on the left side of its infield because of poor performance, injuries, and personal issues. Brooklyn’s lineup was also depleted because of injuries, most notably the loss a few days earlier of Dave Orr, one of the league’s best hitters.1

Although the teams’ regular lineups weren’t up to par, the same couldn’t be said of the starting pitchers. In the pitcher’s box for Brooklyn was its best hurler, Gus Weyhing. Opposing him was the even more intimidating Silver King. An ace pitcher with the American Association St. Louis Browns, King had jumped to the Players League with teammate Charles Comiskey, the Chicago player-manager.

Although born Charles Frederick Koenig, the Chicago pitcher was known almost exclusively by his nickname. It derived both from his blond hair, which was said to resemble “burnished silver” and also from the fact that the German word Koenig is King in English.

Whatever he was called, the right-hander used speed and control to dominate hitters. After his last start, the Chicago Herald had compared the opposition’s offensive efforts to a pig trying to climb a greased pole.2

Because of the problems at shortstop and third base, Comiskey was forced to use Jack Boyle and Dell Darling, both primarily catchers, at those positions. Orr’s absence from the Brooklyn lineup gave King one break, but there were still three .300 hitters in the Ward’s Wonders’ batting order.3

Home team manager Comiskey chose to bat first, and Weyhing retired the Pirates without incident. With one out for Brooklyn in the bottom half of the inning, John Montgomery Ward, Brooklyn team manager and founder of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, which had started the Players League, drew one of the three walks King would issue. The Brooklyn shortstop stole second and third before catcher Charles Farrell picked him off that base. Chicago’s infield weakness was demonstrated during Ward’s next at-bat as fill-in third baseman Boyle threw his bunt over Comiskey’s head at first, one of his three throwing errors in the game. Then one of the two true infielders in the Chicago lineup, second baseman Fred Pfeffer, threw out Ward trying to reach second.4

If King was being let down by Chicago’s fielding, the hitting was even more futile. The Pirates mustered only four singles and two walks, never advancing a man past second. One potential Chicago threat was short-circuited by Ward, who made a leaping catch of Comiskey’s line drive in the sixth and turned it into a double play.

In spite of being the beneficiary of three walks and eight Chicago errors, the Ward’s Wonders were hitless and scoreless as they batted in the seventh. With one out George VanHaltren hit a grounder to Darling, who had already made two errors. The catcher-turned-shortstop got to the ball “quickly enough [almost] to hand it to Comiskey” at first, a newspaper reporter at the game told readers the next morning. Instead, he threw “like a crazy man” past Comiskey, and Van Haltren went to second. Brooklyn’s Paul Cook then bunted to King, who threw him out at first while Van Haltren advanced to third. At least one writer speculated that King had a play at third, but the Chicago pitcher probably, and understandably, no longer had confidence in the left side of his infield.5

The next batter was second baseman Louis Bierbauer, who hit what on most days would have been a single to right field. However, Chicago right fielder Hugh Duffy followed a difficult stop with a strong throw to retire Bierbauer at first, although Van Haltren was able to score the game’s first run.

One dramatic moment remained. Chicago’s Jim Ryan led off the ninth with a drive out of the park but foul. He struck out on the next pitch, and the last two batters went down. Silver King had not only lost a classic pitcher’s duel, but earned the dubious distinction of being the first major-league pitcher to no-hit the opposition and lose. To further add to the bizarre events, Comiskey’s decision to bat first meant King had pitched only eight innings.6

The biggest challenge to the media was finding enough adjectives to describe the Pirates defense or lack thereof. Recognizing that King had pitched the “best game” of the season, they lamented the “miserably poor infield work” of Boyle and Darling. Stating the obvious, one writer noted that Darling, who had five errors in two consecutive games at short, was “badly out of position.” In a final touch of irony, Chicago’s regular shortstop, Ed Williamson, who had been away with his dying sister, returned for the remaining three games—all Pirates victories.

Comiskey, Ward, and Duffy would go on to the Hall of Fame, but it is doubtful that they, or anyone else who was there, ever forgot the game. As one eyewitness put it, “It will be a long time before as queer a game will be seen again.”7

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

After the 1889 season, both the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and Cincinnati Reds defected from the eight-club American Association and joined the National League.3 Soon thereafter, the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Cowboys left as well. On January 6, 1890, Syracuse, Toledo, and Rochester became new AA additions, bringing the number of teams up to seven. (Eventually, another Brooklyn team, the Gladiators, was recruited, but when they folded in August 1890, the Orioles returned to the Association.)

Toledo played 68 games in Speranza Park, winning 40, losing 27, and tying one. The Maumees outscored their opponents 422-316 at home. On the road, though, Toledo had trouble scoring, winning just 28 of 66 games and tying another. The Stars had a similar away record (25-42), but they won only half, or 30, of their games at home.4 

Toledo hosted the Stars for a four-game series that began with a July 4 doubleheader. Coming into the series, Toledo had won three of its last four games, while the Stars had lost three of four. They had split a four-game series played about a month earlier in Syracuse. The teams entered the doubleheader in sixth (Toledo) and seventh (Syracuse) places in the American Association standings.

Syracuse swept the holiday doubleheader by scores of 4-3 and 7-5. Over 3,000 spectators showed up to watch two closely played contests. In the opener, Toledo’s four errors and some “foolish base running”5 prevented them from winning. In the second game, pitcher Fred Smith’s wildness allowed Syracuse to take an early lead. Toledo fought back and attempted a ninth-inning rally, but Syracuse held on.

The highlight of the second game was Toledo left fielder Bill Van Dyke’s batting and baserunning, according to one Syracuse newspaper.6 He had three hits and scored three runs in a losing cause for the Maumees.

Van Dyke broke into professional baseball as a 20-year-old in 1884, with Terre Haute in the Northwestern League. He played the next five seasons in the minors as well, ultimately moving to the International League’s Toledo Black Pirates in 1889, under manager Morton. When Morton agreed to manage the Maumees, Van Dyke joined him.

The third game of the Toledo-Syracuse series took place on July 5 and was characterized as a heavy-hitting affair. Van Dyke again proved to be the hitting star of the game, but the Stars rallied in the ninth inning for their third win over the Maumees in two days.

For Toledo on the 5th, 20-year-old rookie Ed O’Neil got the starting nod. This was his second big-league start, coming just two weeks after his major-league debut.7 Syracuse sent veteran left-hander Dan Casey to the mound, in his seventh season. He had played for the NL’s Philadelphia Phillies for four years but was released at the end of the 1889 season. Casey was a workhorse for the Stars, starting 42 games and notching 40 complete games in 1890, his final season in the majors.8

The home team batted first,9 and the first two innings passed without any scoring. In the bottom of the third, Casey singled, went to third on Tom O’Rourke’s single, and scored on a wild pitch by O’Neil.

Toledo evened the score in the top of the fourth, when Van Dyke homered. It was one of only two home runs he hit in 1890.

Syracuse answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. Grant Briggs doubled and scored on Barney McLaughlin’s triple. Casey followed with a fly ball scoring McLaughlin for a 3-1 advantage.

The Stars’ lead lasted only until the Maumees batted in the top of the fifth. Singles by George Tebeau and Ed Swartwood put runners at the corners. Swartwood stole second, and Frank Scheibeck launched a two-out double. Both runners scored, again tying the game, 3-3.

Each team tallied in the sixth. Tub Welch led off the top of the inning and was hit by a Casey pitch. One out later, Perry Werden tripled and Welch “crossed the rubber”10 with the Maumees’ fourth run of the game. O’Neil walked two batters in the bottom of the sixth, and Mox McQuery’s single once again gave the Stars the lead, 5-4.

Casey kept the Toledo batters off the scoreboard in the seventh, and Syracuse expanded its lead in the bottom of the inning. George Proeser started the rally with a double. Tim O’Rourke brought him home with a triple. Briggs hit a grounder to Van Dyke at third, and his wild throw to first baseman Werden allowed Tim O’Rourke to score and Briggs to move into scoring position. He scored on McLaughlin’s single. Syracuse had a 7-4 lead.

The teams traded big innings – and leads – in the eighth. Welch “started the music”11 in the Maumees’ eighth with a single into right field. Second baseman Cupid Childs muffed a grounder by Tebeau, and Toledo had men at second and third with two outs. Both scored on Swartwood’s single. Parson Nicholson also singled, and he and Swartwood crossed home plate on Van Dyke’s triple. Scheibeck reached and Charlie Sprague singled to drive home Van Dyke. Welch’s second hit of the inning brought Scheibeck home with the sixth run of the inning. Toledo now led 10-7.

Syracuse again took the lead in its turn at bat, and “O’Neil was fairly slaughtered as Casey had been in the first half of the inning.”12 Tom O’Rourke singled, stole second, and scored on Rasty Wright’s single. Proeser launched a triple to deep center and Wright scored. Childs singled, driving in Proeser, and tallied on Tim O’Rourke’s base hit, erasing Toledo’s lead and putting Syracuse ahead, 11-10.

The see-saw battle continued in the final frame. Werden and Swartwood each singled. With two outs, Van Dyke’s double produced two more runs, once again giving Toledo the lead. It was Van Dyke’s fourth hit of the game, and he had hit for the cycle. (Although the newspapers do not explicitly state when his single occurred, the Syracuse and Toledo box scores show that Van Dyke collected four hits, with one double, one triple, and one home run. The Toledo Bee gave minimal accounts of all four games in the series, reporting, “]T]here [was] no necessity for a further description of the game.”13)

In the bottom of the ninth, however, “the visitors went to bat one run behind with blood in their eye.”14 Tom O’Rourke singled and scored on Wright’s triple, the fifth triple of the game. Proeser’s single up the middle gave Syracuse a walk-off 13-12 victory, when “Rasty skated over the rubber.”15

According to the Syracuse Daily Standard, “The game was won by the home team in the eighth, but they lost it in the ninth.”16 The Stars won their fourth consecutive game and eighth in their last 11. The teams combined for 35 hits, with every player on both teams (except O’Neill) getting at least one hit. Syracuse completed the four-game sweep with a 6-5 win on July 6.

Bill Van Dyke became the only Maumees player to accomplish the rare feat of hitting for the cycle. He was in his rookie season in 1890 and played just seven total games in two other seasons in the majors – four games in 1892 for the St. Louis Browns and three games in 1893 for the Boston Beaneaters. He was not known as a slugger, as just 28 of his 134 career hits went for extra bases. His career slugging percentage was just .334.

A record seven batters hit for the cycle in 1890.17 Van Dyke’s feat was the second.

Author’s Note

Ford Frick, president of the National League, led the effort to establish a National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York,18 in 1939. Several festivities were planned, including bestowing the honor of the real-life player who inspired Ernest L. Thayer’s 1888 poem, “Casey at the Bat.” Pitcher Dan Casey, the Syracuse starter from decades earlier, was selected, as “baseball officials wished to honor as many forgotten heroes of the game as they could find.”19 The late Charles F. Faber, a longtime SABR member, wrote a biography of Dan Casey in which he included Casey’s own account of the poem-inspiring game: “I was a left-handed pitcher for the Phillies. We were playing the Giants in the old Philadelphia ballpark on August 21, 1887. Tim Keefe was pitching against me and he had a lot of stuff, but I was no slowpoke myself. It was the last of the ninth and New York was leading 4 to 3. Two men were out, and there were runners on second and third. A week before, I had busted up a game with a lucky homer and folks thought I could repeat.”20

Casey’s 1890 teammate was John Keefe (Tim’s cousin). The home run Casey hit a week before facing Tim Keefe was the only round-tripper of Casey’s major-league career. Alas, when he stepped up to bat with that 1887 game on the line, the mighty Dan Casey did indeed strike out.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Gary Belleville, Kurt Blumenau, and John Fredland for their assistance. This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

The author sincerely thanks Dan Smith, local history/genealogy librarian at the Onondaga County Public Library, for scans of three Syracuse daily newspapers covering the game, and Ann Hurley, local history & genealogy librarian at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, for scans of the Toledo Bee.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org. With no play-by-play available on Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, the author based the game’s play-by-play on details found in the Syracuse Daily Standard and the Syracuse Daily Journal.

Notes

1 The 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings also played for one season in the American Association.

2 Morton was a player-manager for both the 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings (American Association) and the 1885 Detroit Wolverines (National League), while Frazier’s only major-league experience was as skipper of the 1890 Syracuse Stars.

3 John Bauer, “1889-90 Winter Meetings: The Establishment Responds,” Base Ball’s 19th Century Winter Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 271-280, accessed August 13, 2023, https://sabr.org/journal/article/1889-90-winter-meetings-the-establishment-responds/.

4 Unfortunately for the Maumees, their home record did not prevail, as Syracuse swept the four-game series played in Toledo.

5 “Lost Both,” Toledo Bee, July 5, 1890: 5.

6 “Fourth of July Games,” Syracuse Daily Journal, July 5, 1890: 1.

7 O’Neil started for Toledo on July 2 against the Philadelphia Athletics. (He took the loss in that game when Toledo forfeited to Philadelphia.) His ML debut was on June 20. O’Neil made just two appearances for the Maumees, and by September 1890 the Philadelphia native was pitching for the Athletics, where he made six more starts and appeared in four other games as a position player. In the time between playing for the two AA teams, O’Neil also pitched in 15 games for the Dallas Hams in the Texas League. O’Neil’s major-league career consisted of one season (1890) and eight starts. He lost all eight games.

8 Casey did continue to pitch, spending six more seasons in the minor leagues.

9 In many nineteentth-century games, the home team batted first. See Gary Belleville, “The Death and Rebirth of the Home Team Batting First,” Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2023, https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-death-and-rebirth-of-the-home-team-batting-first/.

10 “Sports of the Summer,” Syracuse Daily Standard, July 6, 1890: 1.

11 “Sports of the Summer.”

12 “Sports of the Summer.”

13 “Lost Another,” Toledo Bee, July 7, 1890: 3.

14 “Sports of the Summer.”

15 “Sports of the Summer.”

16 “Sports of the Summer.” 

17 This record was broken in 1933, when eight batters hit for the cycle. The batters are Van Dyke (Toledo Maumees, AA, July 5), Jumbo Davis (Brooklyn Gladiators, AA, July 18), Roger Connor (New York Giants, Players’ League, July 21), Oyster Burns (Brooklyn Bridegrooms, NL, August 1), John Reilly (Cincinnati Reds, NL, August 6), and Farmer Weaver (Louisville Colonels, AA, August 12). According to several sources, Mike Tiernan of the National League’s New York Giants is given credit for completing the cycle against the Cincinnati Reds on June 28, 1890, which would have been the second time in his career (see retrosheet.org, baseball-almanac.com, and mlb.com) and the first cycle of 1890. The Reds won the game 12-3, but a careful inspection of the newspapers shows that Tiernan was 2-for-4 in that contest with a single and home run (see box scores at (1) “Knocked Out of the Box,” Philadelphia Times, June 29, 1890: 2; (2) “The Reds Pounded Rusie’s Curves,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1890: 3; and (3) “Cincinnati 12, New York 3,” Boston Globe, June 29, 1890: 8). The Globe gives Tiernan credit for three base hits. Other box scores support the fact that Tiernan did not get four hits in this game against the Reds. Perhaps he did hit for the cycle a second time in his career. If so, it was not on June 28, 1890.

18 Charles F. Faber, “Dan Casey,” Baseball Biography Project.

19 Faber.

20 Faber.