In what would be a “prime time” matchup today, the first scheduled game of the new National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was to be a match of the now-disbanded Cincinnati Red Stockings, or what the Boston Advertiser called a matchup liken to “When Greek meets Greek.”2 Five of the old Red Stockings (Charlie Sweasy, Asa Brainard, Doug Allison, Andy Leonard, and Fred Waterman) signed with the Washington Olympics, while four signed with Boston (Harry and George Wright, Cal McVey, and Charlie Gould), which also took the Red Stockings name. A rainout on May 4 spoiled that storybook beginning of the association, yet the matchup still, according to the New York Clipper, was “the principal topic of interest in base ball circles east and west.”3 The matchup of Boston and Washington, which countered with the nickname of Blue Stockings, was a battle of two teams “torn from their Western admirers,” grumbled the Cincinnati Enquirer.4

“Long before the appointed time for calling play (4 P.M.), crowds could have been seen moving towards the grounds from all directions – hacks, ambulances and street-cars coming out heavily loaded … an eager and expectant multitude, numbering at least five thousand, were in waiting,” the National Republican wrote.5 The Olympic Grounds were located about 13 blocks north of the White House.6 Members of President Grant’s Cabinet, congressmen, and two British high commissioners, were in attendance.7 “The National Game of Base Ball has many admirers here at the Metropolis,” wrote Benjamin Perley Poore of the Boston Journal, “especially among those young men who are clerks in the Departments, and who need outdoor exercise.”8 This was the first official game in Boston’s professional baseball history.

Fans traveled from Cincinnati “anxious to witness the playing of those who gave the name of that pork packing metropolis such an honorable place in 1868, ’69 and ’70,” wrote Poore.9 There was a new team wearing red stockings with “the name ‘Boston’ emblazoned in scarlet letters upon the white flannel which covered their ample chests.”10

Umpire Hicks Hayhurst failed to appear, so Hervie Alden Dobson of the Flower City club of Rochester, New York, was chosen. Dobson was the baseball editor of the New York Clipper and had lost a leg in the Civil War but “moves about nimbly on crutches.”11 He was also a known friend of the Washington club and “it was generally remarked on the grand stand that the Bostons were playing against the Olympics and the umpire.”12 Dobson had also written a letter in the March 11, 1871, Clipper, suggesting batting averages should be determined by at-bats, not games played.13

Pitching for Washington was Brainard, “who rivals Lord Dundreary in his faultless attire and his whiskers,” Poore commented.14 Albert Spalding pitched for Boston.

At 3:30 P.M., the flags of both clubs were hoisted up the flagpole. Harry Wright won the coin toss and elected for Washington to bat first. Washington starters Sweasy and John Glenn were unable to play due to illness.

With runners at first and second in the first inning, Washington’s Doug Allison doubled on a fair-foul hit15 past third that scored Davy Force and put Everett Mills on third. George Wright’s throw of a George Hall grounder was wild, and Mills scored. Allison scored on a passed ball to make the score 3-0. Andy Leonard and the pitcher Brainard walked to load the bases, and then Harry Wright misplayed a fly ball by Henry Burroughs to center, and Hall scored. A groundball and another passed ball gave Washington a 6-0 lead over the error-prone Boston team.

Boston countered with one run in its half of the first, as George Wright walked and scored on a single by Cal McVey.

In the Washington second, Force led with a single, and Mills was hit by a pitch. Allison’s fair-foul loaded the bases with no outs. A single by Hall scored Force and Mills. George Wright and Henry Schafer collided on a pop fly hit by Leonard, and Allison scored. A single by Burroughs scored Leonard, and Washington led 10-1 after two innings.

In the Boston third, Spalding and George Wright scored on a throwing error by Allison. McVey reached on Harry Berthrong’s error, and Ross Barnes scored. Gould’s grounder scored Birdsall, and Schafer’s single scored McVey. Fred Cone walked to load the bases, and a groundout by Spalding scored Gould, making the score 10-7 Washington. George Wright hit back to the pitcher, but Schafer beat the throw to the plate. Seven runs scored on only two hits, making the score Washington 10-8.

In the fourth, singles by Hall and Brainard plus another error on George Wright loaded the bases for the Olympics. Berthrong walked, scoring Hall. Washington scored another run in the fifth to take a 12-8 lead, then added another three runs in the sixth inning, as another error by George Wright scored Burroughs and Berthrong. Barnes dropped a pop fly and Waterman scored. Washington led 15-8 after six innings.

In the Boston seventh, George Wright walked for the fourth time, advanced to second on a passed ball, and stole third. Barnes walked, and both runners scored on Allison’s throwing error. Allison also “had his thumb split by a ball,”16 and had to leave the game later. Birdsall scored on a single by Harry Wright, who scored on a double by Gould. Washington led 15-12.

In the Washington eighth, a groundball through George Wright’s legs scored Mills and Hall. A single by Burroughs scored Leonard. Washington pushed its lead to 18-12. In the Boston eighth, Schafer reached on an error by Norton, who was now playing third. He scored on a double by Cone, who then scored on a throwing error by Waterman, now catching. Wright scored on a double steal to cut the Washington lead to 18-15. Also in the eighth, “The umpire received an ugly blow on his only leg in the eighth inning, which keeled him over on the grass, but he soon recovered,” reported Poore.17

Boston held Washington scoreless in the ninth.

Harry Wright led off the Boston ninth with a walk and Gould singled. Both scored on Schafer’s triple to center, cutting the lead to 18-17. Spalding singled in Schafer to tie the game. George Wright singled, and Barnes doubled in Spalding with what would today be the walk-off run, but back then the entire inning had to be played out. Dave Birdsall tripled to right, scoring Barnes with Boston’s 20th run for the eventual 20-18 win. Boston tallied six of its 13 hits in the ninth inning, “when Brainard had dropped his pace to accommodate Waterman, who was catching,” wrote the Clipper.18 In those days with smaller rosters, the lack of a qualified backup catcher proved a game-changer that day for Washington.

“The victors were loudly applauded and warmly congratulated,” wrote Poore, “while the Olympics received many compliments for their plucky playing under the difficulties incident on the loss of three of their trained nine.”19

However, umpire Dobson was lambasted in the papers. “In several instances,” blasted the Boston Herald, “he called balls when they should have been strikes, and vice versa.”20 The Cincinnati Gazette declared that he “kept the bases full continually by calling every ball either as a strike or as a count, and the consequence was that the poorest batter got his base equally with the best.”21 A walk was definitely not as good as a hit in those days.

The Clipper, however, blamed the rule changes, not the umpire, for the chaos. “He umpired the game strictly in accordance with the letter of the new rules, never letting a ball pass after the first one, without it was either called ‘strike’ or a ‘ball.’ It is the first game so umpired here.” The rule change made an immediate impact on game strategy, the Clipper believed. In what sounds familiarly close to modern baseball strategy of taking pitches and making the pitcher work, “the Bostonians … won the game by waiting. Harry Wright’s orders were to wait for three balls, as they must necessarily come before three strikes in nine cases out of ten. … (F)orty-six strikes were called on the Boston to twelve on the Olympic, showing that the game was won by simply waiting. Truly not very scientific play.”22 Boston walked 18 times, Washington, 10.

The Cincinnati Gazette, not surprisingly, wasn’t impressed with the new Red Stockings. “The Reds made several wretched muffs, such as dropping flies, overthrows and general bad playing. They will have to vastly improve before they will be up to the old Red Stocking discipline.”23

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to John Thorn for research assistance in writing this article.

Photo caption

An advertisement in the May 4, 1871 edition of the Daily National Republican in Washington, D.C. This was the first regular-season game in Boston professional baseball history. It was rained out and played on May 5.

Notes

1 Benjamin Perley Poore, “Base Ball at Washington. The First Match for the National Championship. The Boston Club Victorious,” Boston Journal, May 6, 1871: 1. Note: The article is signed at the bottom with “Perley.” Benjamin Perley Poore (1820-1887) was a Washington correspondent for the Boston Journal (1854-1883) and other newspapers, covering mostly Congress and politics. He used his trademark “Perley” on his articles. Joseph P. McKerns. “Poore, Benjamin Perley,” in American National Biography Online, February 2000. https://anb.org/articles/16/16-01311.html; accessed July 24, 2015.

2 “The Red Stockings vs. Blue Stockings Base-Ball Match,” Boston Advertiser, May 8, 1871: 4.

3 “Grand Match at Washington,” New York Clipper, April 29, 1871: 26.

4 “Base-Ball. The Great Game at Washington. Boston Club Victorious,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 6, 1871: 1.

5  “Base Ball. The Great Game. Boston 20 – Washington 18,” Daily National Republican, May 6, 1871: 4.

6 The Olympic Grounds were bounded by 17th Street NW on the west, 16th Street NW on the east, and S Street NW to the south. Paul Batesel, Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2012), 196 [Google Ebook edition]. According to the National Republican, (January 27, 1870), work began on the new Olympic Grounds in early 1870. A block of ground bounded by 16th and 17th and R and S Streets were fenced in with an eight-foot fence. They also erected “a beautiful cottage-style club-house, painted in lavender and white, set back from the street, inclosed by a neat picket fence, to be decorated by a flower garden in front, when the season shall justify.” Two tiers of seats of 125 feet long, with five rows of seats in each tier, were assembled and could hold 1,000 spectators.  Between the tiers was a space of 40 feet, above which the scorers and writers would stand. The total size of the grounds were said to be 426 feet by 450 feet, with an excellent drainage system.  The grounds were formally opened on April 27, 1870, for the then-amateur Washington Olympic Base Ball Club, according to the April 30 edition of the Republican. The fences were “colored with a wash of bluish tint,” and seating accommodated over 1,000 spectators.  A year later, with the Olympics becoming a professional club and acquiring an influx of new talent, the grounds were improved. The Republican (January 20, 1871) noted that double train tracks were to be put in place by the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company along 14th Street to accommodate visitors. The Republican (April 7, 1871) noted that by the opening of the baseball season that there was a line of covered seats constructed to accommodate 2,500 spectators. The west side of the grounds contained a section seating 600, and along the north side was a section seating 1,200 along the entire width of the grounds. The grandstand was called “The Grand Duchesse.” The grandstand was 60 feet long and 12 feet in width, and could accommodate 200, with front seats reserved for the press. The east side had a row of uncovered seats accommodating 500. The northwest end of the section with covered seats was a “refreshment stand provided with eatables and drinkables in abundance for the benefit of the inner man. Many persons visiting the grounds to witness a game are compelled to go without their dinners, and this eating saloon, no doubt, will receive its full share of patronage.”

7 The two British high commissioners were among several in Washington from February 27 to May 8 to draw up the Treaty of Washington. After the Civil War, tensions were high between the United States and United Kingdom over the latter’s role in assisting the Confederacy during the war. The treaty settled various disputes between the countries. Theodore A. Wilson, “Treaty of Washington.” Salem Press Encyclopedia (January 2014): Research Starters, EBSCOhost (accessed June 14, 2015).

8 “Base Ball. The Great Game. Boston 20 – Washington 18.”

9 Poore.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 John Thorn, “Chadwick’s Choice: The Origin of the Batting Average.” Our Game.  Published September 18, 2013. https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/09/18/chadwicks-choice-the-origin-of-the-batting-average/.

14 Poore.

15 A fair-foul hit was one that landed started fair and rolled foul, even in the infield. In baseball’s early days, this was scored a hit, as opposed to the modern game’s foul ball. Some batters excelled at hitting fair-fouls.

16 Poore.

17 Ibid.

18 “The Professional Championship. Boston vs. Olympic,” New York Clipper, May 13, 1871: 42.

19 Poore.

20 “Base Ball. Boston vs. Olympic,” Boston Herald, May 8, 1871: 2.

21 “Base Ball. The Red Stockings of Boston vs the Olympics of Washington. All in the Family,” Cincinnati Gazette, May 6, 1871.

22 “The Professional Championship.” The rules of umpires calling balls and strikes had changed, based on the action of the convention in November 1870, and both of the split amateur and professional leagues approved these in March of 1871. “The Base-Ball Guide for 1871,” published after these conventions, stated in Rule II, Section II, “Should the pitcher repeatedly fail to deliver to the striker fair balls, from any cause, the umpire must call one ball; and if the pitcher per­sists in such action, two and three balls. When three balls shall have been called, the striker shall take the first base without being put out.” Rule III, Section II stated, “The striker shall be privileged to call for either a high or low ball, in which case, the pitcher must deliver the ball to the bat as required. The ball shall be considered a high ball if pitched between the height of the waist and the shoulder of the striker; and it shall be considered a low ball if pitched between the height of the knee and the waist.” (This text is taken from https://retrosheet.org/1871Rules.doc.) The first pitch was not called anything unless the batter swung. Strictly calling balls and strikes as the rules dictated, based on the striker’s (batter’s) request of “high” or “low,” resulted in more bases on balls. This outraged fans as it “took the bat out of player’s hands,” and made for a less interesting game. Still, there was disagreement over the actual rules themselves, something not uncommon in the NAPBBP. See David Nemec, The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Baseball (New York: David Fine Books, 1997), 7-8; William J. Ryczek, Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association, 1871-1875 (Wallingford, Connecticut: Colebrook Press, 1992), 17; Peter Morris, Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball: The Game on the Field (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 17-20.

23 “Base Ball. The Red Stockings of Boston vs the Olympics of Washington.”

Another Union general who did play a part in a baseball origin story was General Joseph King Fenno Mansfield. The Connecticut native, mortally wounded at the Civil War Battle of Antietam, was the namesake of the Nutmeg State’s first professional nine, the Mansfields of Middletown. Hailing from the General’s hometown, the Mansfields were a decorated amateur team before turning pro in 1872 at the suggestion of another prominent New Englander, Boston Red Stockings manager Harry Wright. In their professional debut, a National Association match with the Haymakers of Troy on April 26, 1872, the Mansfields fell in historic fashion by a score of 10-0 but earned glowing praise from the fourth estate.

Organized during the Civil War by 16-year-old Ben Douglas Jr., the Mansfields started out as a factory team for workers at the Douglas Pump Factory, a business that his father owned. Young Ben changed the team’s name from the Douglas Club to the Mansfields in honor of the general, his great-uncle. After the war, the Mansfields evolved into Connecticut’s premier amateur club, winning the state championship in 1869 and 1870.1

Building on his club’s successes, Douglas arranged several matches in 1871 with professional clubs affiliated with the new National Association. The boys from Middletown proved unable to win any of those encounters, but in an Independence Day battle gave curveball maestro Candy Cummings and the Stars of Brooklyn all they could handle. The Mansfields lost 5-3 in what that the New York Clipper called “one of the best games ever played in the Nutmeg State.”2

As the Mansfields’ 1871 season drew to a close, reports circulated that the team was reorganizing “on a professional basis,” but the following February, club members voted to remain in the amateur ranks.3 They’d lost the 1871 Connecticut amateur championship to the Osceolas of Stratford in a series marked by accusations that Middletown had cheated both on the field and off, and they hoped to restore their honor by taking back the whip pennant.4 Reinforcing its stance as amateurs, a month later the club sent a pair of representatives to the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players spring convention, where the club’s corresponding secretary accepted a position as second vice president.5 But in mid-April, the Mansfields reversed course and turned professional by joining the National Association.6

Why the about-face? It was the result of a dialogue between Douglas and Wright.7 When Douglas contacted Wright in March about scheduling games with Boston for the coming season, the “Father of Professional Baseball” balked. Claiming gate receipts from a Red Stockings August appearance in Middletown hadn’t lived up to promises made, he insisted on a sizable financial guarantee.8 That was something Douglas’s club certainly could not afford. After Douglas pressed Wright in vain for a reciprocal guarantee, the Boston manager pointed out that if the Mansfields joined the NA, “the professional clubs would have no choice but to play them.”9 Douglas posed that unexpected option to the team members, who agreed to “defy the odds and send [in] the $10 entry fee.”10 And so the seventh-largest city in Connecticut, with barely 11,000 residents, became home to the state’s first professional nine.11

Douglas engaged an impressive array of youngsters for the 1872 season. After the club’s August 1871 match with Boston, he had added infielder Eddie Booth, a veteran of several leading Brooklyn nines, and first baseman Tim Murnane, a promising 21-year-old from nearby Naugatuck to whom he’d also offered a job at a Middletown sewing machine shop.12 Catching longtime Mansfield pitcher Cy Bentley would be the team’s new self-appointed captain, 20-year-old John Clapp, formerly with the Clippers of Ilion (New York).13 From the Osceolas came the team’s new shortstop and change catcher, 21-year-old Bridgeport native and eventual Hall of Famer Jim O’Rourke.

For its first championship game, Middletown traveled to Troy, New York, to face the Haymakers. Founded in 1860, the club commonly known as the Trojans turned professional in 1869 and two years later was a charter member of the National Association. Led by its new captain, Jimmy Wood, Troy had a lineup remade from the one that had finished a lackluster 13-15 during the previous NA season. Its pitcher was veteran George Zettlein, who, along with Wood and several other new Trojans, was a former Chicago White Stockings player left without a team after the Great Fire of Chicago.14 Catching Zettlein was Doug Allison, backstop of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, who was last with the Olympics of Washington.

Between 700 and a few thousand spectators handed over 25 cents to attend “the first [NA] championship game of the season” on Friday, April 26, held at Haymaker Grounds, just north of Troy, on what was probably a pleasant afternoon.15 Both sides took the field in neat, new uniforms”; the Mansfields’ white with a shield bib bearing a large Old English letter M, accented by blue stockings and a matching belt.16 James McDonald, Clapp’s former Clippers batterymate, umpired.17

Unable to master Bentley’s “swift and deceptive” pitches, the Trojans were held scoreless until the fourth inning.18 They pushed one run across in that frame and three in the fifth, on a three-run home run by Wood that plated Zettlein and fellow Chicago refugee Charlie Hodes. In the Mansfields’ half of that inning, Wood turned a “sharp trick” that took advantage of sloppy baserunning by O’Rourke after he’d reached first on a single.19 Troy first baseman Bub McAtee, in his second tour of duty with the club after two years with the White Stockings, noticed that the Middletown shortstop was slow to return to the base after a foul ball. When O’Rourke strayed as far as second base, Wood orchestrated his pickoff.

Troy registered four more runs in the sixth inning, and one each in the eighth and ninth innings, by means that were left unreported.

As was often true at that time, newspaper summaries of the game were devoted to assessments of each team’s effort and identification of the game’s most remarkable performances, with an emphasis on defense and little space devoted to play-by-play. Tabloids from each team’s base of operations gave defensive kudos to the other side’s backstop – the Troy Times deemed Middletown’s Clapp “careful and brilliant” and the Middletown Constitution called Troy’s Allison “splendid” for not allowing a single passed ball.20 Another Trojan lauded by the Constitution was shortstop Davy Force, whose unfortunate practice of signing contracts with multiple teams for the same season would help bring about the Association’s downfall.21

Unable to muster a single run, Mansfield fell by a score of 10-0, “Chicagoed” in the first shutout in Troy history, according to the Troy Times.22 Every Trojan batter recorded a hit, and all but one (right fielder Phonney Martin) scored. The Mansfields struggled to hit the ball out of the infield, and managed only six hits off Zettlein, “the ‘Charmer,’” 23 two each by Clapp and second baseman Booth, and one apiece by Murnane and left fielder Jim Tipper, who came to be much admired by Murnane, a future baseball columnist.24

Newspaper reports glowed with praise for both sides. An anonymous writer for the Troy Times gushed that “[b]oth nines fielded with extraordinary skill and care,” with an “absence of disputes … to which Trojans have heretofore been unaccustomed.”25 The New York World called the Mansfield nine “a strong one [that] will give some of the “cracks” (first-rate nines) a great deal of trouble before the season is over.”26

Glorying in having a local nine competing on the sport’s grandest stage, the Middletown Constitution observed, “[N]o one anticipated so fine a show from the Mansfield club as they made.”27 Those uplifting words seemed in order, as the game story in that then-weekly publication followed the latest chapter in a tale of evil, the notorious Lydia Sherman murder trial in nearby New Haven.28

Three more times during the 1872 season did the Mansfields come up against the Trojans, and each time they came away with a loss. After absorbing a second shutout on July 23, the Trojans folded, unable to meet their payroll obligations.29 Less than three weeks later, the 5-19 Mansfields did the same.30

Bowed but not broken, Douglas was instrumental in bringing top-flight professional baseball back to Connecticut after the demise of the Mansfields. Two years later, he persuaded a group of prospective investors to bankroll another entrant in the National Association, the Hartford Dark Blues, a club that later became a charter member of the National League.

Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to David Arcidiacono for providing both sources and extended passages from his published works. This article was fact-checked by Andrew Harner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: George Zettlein, Baseball-Reference.com.

Sources

In addition to the Sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted David Arcidiacono’s Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2010) and his SABR biography of Ben Douglas, summaries of National Association annual winter meetings as described in Baseball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018) and the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites.

Notes

1 “Base Ball,” Troy Times, October 8, 1870: 3.

2 “Star vs. Mansfield,” New York Clipper, July 15, 1871: 116.

3 “Matters About Home,” Meriden (Connecticut) Republican, October 26, 1871: 2; “Mansfield Base Ball Club,” Middletown Constitution, February 28, 1872: 2.

4 For a detailed account of the accusations leveled by each side in the controversy, see David Arcidiacono, Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2010), 52-54.

5 “The Amateur Convention,” New York Clipper, March 23, 1872: 405.

6 “Base Ball Notes,” Boston Herald, April 13, 1872: 2.

7 Harry Wright Correspondence with Ben Douglas, March 25, 1872, April 8, 1872, and April 19, 1872, Albert Spalding Collection, New York Public Library

8 Boston won that game, played on August 10, by a score of 23-9. Wright’s disappointment with the proceeds of Boston’s trip down to Middletown suggests that Douglas had promised the moon, as both the Boston Evening Transcript and the Hartford Courant reported that “quite a large attendance” was on hand for the match.  “Despatches in Brief,” Boston Evening Transcript, August 11, 1871: 4; “The Mansfields vs. the Bostons,” Hartford Courant, August 11, 1871: 3.

9 Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut, 56.

10 Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut, 57.

11 The 1870 US Census counted 11,126 residents in Middletown. “Population of Connecticut Towns 1830-1890,” Office of the Secretary of State of Connecticut, https://portal.ct.gov/sots/register-manual/section-vii/population-1830—1890, accessed January 6, 2025.

12 The appearance of Booth and Murnane in the championship series a few weeks later prompted the first charge of Mansfield cheating from the Osceolas, who claimed the pair were ineligible to play. See Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut, 52-54. Murnane’s last name was initially reported as “Murhan” by the Middletown Constitution in a mid-April story on the club’s roster for the 1872 season. “Mansfield Base Ball Club,” Middletown Constitution, April 17, 1872: 2.

13 According to Murnane, Clapp was “wearing a red belt with letters spelling ‘Captain’” when he first arrived at the Mansfields’ grounds. “Mr. Clapp certainly could not play without wearing that belt, and he could not very well wear that belt without being captain.” Tim Murnane, “Murnane’s Baseball Stories,” Boston Globe, January 24, 1915: 39.

14 After losing their ballpark and all their equipment to the fire, White Stockings officials had no choice but to disband and wait for sufficient financing in order to go on. For more details on the connection between the Chicago and Troy baseball teams of that era, see Jeff Laing, “The Windy City-Collar City Connection: The Curious Relationship of Chicago’s and Troy’s Professional Baseball Teams (1870-82), The National Pastime, Vol. 45 (2015), 14-17, https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-windy-city-collar-city-connection-the-curious-relationship-of-chicagos-and-troys-professional-baseball-teams-1870-82/.

15 “Base Ball,” Troy Times, April 25, 1872: 4. Haymaker Grounds was located in the town of Lansingburgh, which in 1901 was annexed by the city of Troy. The Troy Times estimated 700 to 800 spectators were in attendance, but the Brooklyn Times asserted that “[t]he game was witnessed by many thousands.” The Troy Times reported early morning temperatures but nothing for the afternoon on that date. According to the National Weather Service’s past weather database, 150 miles to the south in New York City’s Central Park, no precipitation was reported for the day, with a high temperature of 83 degrees reached, tops for that month. “A ‘Dolly Varden’ Game,” Troy Daily Times, April 27, 1872: 3; “The Haymakers in The Field – They Chicago the Mansfields,” Brooklyn Times, April 27, 1872: 4; “Weather Report,” Troy Times, April 27, 1872: 3; National Weather Service, “NOWData – NOAA Online Data,” weather.gov, https://www.weather.gov/wrh/Climate?wfo=okx, accessed January 6, 2025.

16 “Base Ball,” Middletown Constitution, May 1, 1872: 2; “1872 Mansfield, Middletown CT,” Threads of Our Game, https://www.threadsofourgame.com/1872-mansfield-middletown-ct/, accessed January 6, 2025.

17 See, for example “Clippers, of Ilion, N.Y.,” New York Clipper, August 19, 1871: 156.

18 “A ‘Dolly Varden’ Game.”

19 “A ‘Dolly Varden’ Game.”

20 “A ‘Dolly Varden’ Game”; “Base Ball.” In its article, the Troy Times dubbed the match “a ‘Dolly Varden’ game,” mimicking an oddball craze then sweeping the nation in which the name of a fictional character from a Charles Dickens novel was applied to almost anything of interest. For more on the Dolly Varden craze, see “A Brief History of the Dolly Varden Dress Craze,” A Frolic through Time: Period Dressmaking and the Occasional Side Trip, August 23, 2008, https://zipzipinkspot.blogspot.com/2008/08/brief-history-of-dolly-varden-dress.html.

21 For additional details on the contract dispute that came to be known as the Force Case, and how it’s outcome helped drive a disgruntled William Hulbert to set about creating the National League, see William J. Ryczek, “1875: The Force Case,” in Baseball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 126.

22 “A ‘Dolly Varden’ Game.” “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 pocketbook 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/. Accessed March 2025.

23 “Base Ball.”

24 In marking Tipper’s death 23 years later, Murnane called Tipper one of the finest outfielders of his era. “He was a natural ball player, and made the easiest work of taking the most difficult drives. His one-handed catches, without gloves, never were equaled by a ball player in outfield work.” “The Late Tipper,” Sporting Life, May 4, 1895: 8.

25 “A ‘Dolly Varden’ Game.” 

26 “Troy vs. Mansfield,” New York World, April 27, 1872: 1.

27 “Base Ball.”

28 Covered in often gory detail by newspapers nationwide, the trial concluded on April 26 with Lydia Sherman’s conviction for poisoning her third husband to death. She later admitted to having fatally poisoned two previous spouses plus eight children, six of them her own. “Trial of Lydia Sherman,” New Haven Morning Journal and Courier, April 26, 1872: 2; Raymond Bendici, “The Derby Poisoner: The story of Lydia Sherman, a mass murderer,” New Haven Register, January 10, 2015, https://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/The-Derby-Poisoner-The-story-of-Lydia-Sherman-a-11358691.php.

29 “The Windy City-Collar City Connection.”

30 “Local Department,” Waterbury (Connecticut) American, August 16, 1872: 3.

April was not completely bad: The Red Stockings started their practice regimen on April 2 before a huge crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 on a fairly nice spring day when they beat a Picked Nine, 10-8. Such a throng was unexpected but publicity about the Reds’ European Tour later in the year had hiked the notoriety of and affection for the club. Fans were eager to see their two-time champions, who were now going to take their sport to England. On the “Nine” were normal subs Tommy Beals, Jack Manning, and the third Wright brother, Sam. Three days later the temperature was reported as 24 degrees in the Hub.1

Trying to stay in shape after that frigid spell, the next week Boston played and twice beat the Beacons, a makeshift “Field Team,” and finally the Harvard boys, 24-10, in what was “not Spring-like weather” on April 22 according to the New York Clipper.2 On April 25 the Philadelphia White Stockings were supposed to open the season but it snowed just as the game was about to start. (Elsewhere in this volume is a story about what the players did instead that day.) New Association entry Hartford was rained out on the 29th.

Eventually calendars turned to May in hope of better conditions. By elimination New York’s solid Mutual club became the Opening Day opposition. But they got caught in a two-way trap. They played in Hartford the day before and because the Dark Blues were postponed with the Reds, it was the first-ever National Association game for a Hartford team. New York was better and made more hits, but the home crowd wildly cheered the Blues to a 10-7 win behind slugger Lipman Pike (three hits/one run/three RBIs) and Tom Barlow (two hits/three runs). Ross Barnes of the Reds was the umpire.

The next day the Mutuals were at the South End Grounds to face the pent-up Reds. The New York Clipper claimed, “The Bostons appeared with a nine as strong perhaps as ever fought beneath the banner of the Red Stockings on any field.”3 Even with champion manager-outfielder Harry Wright sitting down and James “Deacon” White slightly injured, the game was over quickly as Boston jumped to a 9-0 lead and won 12-3. The poor Mutuals were beaten but unbowed, as the Clipper noted, “(Bobby) Mathews played pluckily between the pitcher’s points and ‘old reliable’ (Joe Start), again proved himself worthy of the title at first base. Jack Burdock covered third in fine style.”4 It was not enough.

Basking in their home glory and chilly sunshine, the Reds were nearly flawless. Al Spalding gave up New York’s three runs in the eighth inning, on hits by John Hatfield (two hits/run), John Candy Nelson (two hits/run), and Burdock’s triple/run/RBI. Boston’s attack was paced by Cal McVey (three hits/four runs), Jim O’Rourke (three hits/two runs), and George Wright’s three hits/run. The Clipper was terse: “The Reds put it to the Yorkers.”5 Hartford’s Scott Hastings, whose contract miscues helped cost the Reds the 1871 pennant, umpired the Opening Day game, likely a reciprocal favor for Barnes’s work the day before.

Little Tommy Bond’s Great Feat

Two days later the Reds whipped the Mutuals and Mathews, 11-4, behind the hitting of McVey again (three hits/three runs), Spalding (three hits/two runs), and George Hall (three runs). “Reliable” Start (three hits/run) and pitcher Mathews’ same output were no match. Ex-Red Dave Birdsall did the umpiring. McVey would lead the NA that season in hits, runs, and RBIs, and finish second to Levi Meyerle in batting (.359). Three more pummelings gave the Reds a 5-0 mark and a huge 75-18 run differential. Excited Hartford came to town after winning its first four games by a total of 58-24. The confident Hub Stockings first crushed them 25-3 and then 8-1 back in Hartford. After another six road victories, the Reds cruised home at 13-0.

Twice they had beaten the Brooklyn Atlantics in that span, 8-2 and 6-2. Now at the South End Grounds the Atlantics shockingly repaid that debt by dragging the Reds back, briefly, to reality on May 23 and 26. Little rookie Tommy Bond had absorbed both Brooklyn losses but regained more than a little dignity and grabbed a few headlines by holding the run-crazed Stockings (averaging 14-4 wins) to just five tallies in two games, winning 9-3 and 6-2. A feat so rare as to be astounding. Brooklyn got seven runs in the first inning of the first game, while Boston managed only three hits all day. Though the Atlantics made 11 bobbles behind hero Bond they still won handily under umpire Ross Barnes’s fair and square decisions. Barnes was injured and played in neither game. Three days later the Reds got seven hits but made nine errors and Tommy won again as Brooklyn hitters combined for four runs in the third inning. Brooklyn had no real standout batters in those two contests but tosser Bond did hit and score in both. The Reds took their medicine dose and then won five straight games for an 18-2 record. Warren Briggs of nearby Malden umpired that second Atlantic game, the only such game in his life.

Bond had split four decisions against the mighty Bostons in the first seven games of his career. In 1874 he topped the league in losses (32), home runs given up (15), and runs allowed (440). Tommy would later become a Boston legend when he joined the National League Bostons in 1877. He pitched for them five years and was the last hurler to win 40 games in three straight seasons. He continued to live there in quiet celebrity and operate a leather-goods business for the rest of life, passing away in January 1941.

Sources 

“Out-Door Sports; Opening of the Base Ball Season in Boston,” Boston Daily Advertiser, May 4, 1874: 1.

“Out-Door Sports,” Boston Globe, May 4, 1874: 2.

“Out Door Sports. Base Ball,” Boston Journal, May 4, 1874: 4.

New York Clipper issues for April, May, and June 1874.

Notes

1 “Weather Report,” Boston Daily Advertiser, April 6, 1874: 1.

2 “Boston vs. Harvard,” New York Clipper, May 2, 1874: 37.

3 “Boston vs. Mutual,” New York Clipper, May 9, 1874: 42.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

As with the nation itself, the new league’s founding fathers had multiple agendas. While ostensibly providing a solution to the National Association’s many ills, Chicago owner William Hulbert, the driving force behind the National League, was hardly a disinterested party. Hulbert had raided the rosters of the Boston and (Philadelphia) Athletics clubs in violation of National Association rules, and feared that the acquisitions would be canceled. Rather than risk such sanctions, he launched a preemptive strike under the guise of solving the old league’s problems.1

Although Hulbert raided the Athletic and Boston rosters, he wanted both clubs in the fledgling league. This was especially true of the Boston Red Stockings, managed by Harry Wright with his brother George Wright starring at shortstop. The new league’s leadership was less enthusiastic about the Athletics, but needed a team in Philadelphia.

The inaugural contest took place on Saturday, April 22, 1876 at the Athletics’ grounds at 25th and Jefferson, which had been improved at an estimated cost of $10,000.2 A crowd of about 3,000 was on hand in “favorable” weather. Although the new league was committed to prohibiting gambling, at least two news accounts showed that there was no shortage of betting going on.3

Boston scored the new league’s first run in the second inning, largely due to a bad throw by Ezra Sutton, the A’s third baseman. However, “fine hits” by the Athletics’ George Hall and Bill Coon tied the game in the bottom of the inning.

Boston struck again in its next at-bat, scoring twice on hits by Jim “Orator” O’Rourke and Tim Murnane, aided by a defensive lapse in the Athletic outfield. Good hitting and baserunning by Andy Leonard and George Wright added another run for the visitors in the fifth for a 4–1 advantage. While Boston built its lead, pitcher Joseph Borden set the Athletic club down in order in the third, fourth, and fifth innings. In the home sixth, however, William Coon, George Hall, and Wes Fisler led a rally that tied the score at 4–4.

Although the next two innings were scoreless, neither team lacked for opportunities. The home team had baserunners in both innings, but couldn’t score. Boston had even more chances, but was also turned away, especially in the eighth because of “a pretty double play.” Perhaps not surprisingly for an opening game, injuries became a factor. Sutton’s “rheumatic arm” led to his being moved to right field, with Bill Fouser going to second and Levi Meyerle to third. Boston had its own injury problems as catcher Tim McGinley’s eye was almost closed by a foul tip, but “pluckily” he stayed in the game.4

As the game headed to the ninth local newspapers described the excitement as “continuing at fever heat.” The “pretty double play” turned by the Athletic infield in the eighth proved to be a two-edged sword. Under the rules of the day the first Boston batter in the ninth was the player hitting after the runner who was put out on the bases for the third out. That allowed Murnane and Harry Schafer to bat again. Both came through with base hits and scored through “desperate baserunning” when Fouser, the Athletics’ new second baseman, couldn’t field Jack Manning’s hit.

The visitors took a two-run lead into the bottom of the ninth, but the Athletic club wasn’t finished. Lon Knight doubled, stole third, and scored on Force’s out to Bill Parks in left. Then Parks couldn’t handle David Eggler’s “difficult chance,” putting the tying run on second. Fisler hit a foul ball that McGinley, playing with one eye, somehow caught. Down to one last out, the Athletics got a reprieve when Boston third baseman Schafer muffed Meyerle’s grounder. That brought up Sutton, the “weak spot of the Athletics in this game.” He managed only a “feeble hit” back to the pitcher, who retired him at first.5 The Bostons were 6–5 winners.

While the game featured plenty of misplays and only three of the 11 runs were earned, the new league’s opener couldn’t have been more dramatic. Newspaper accounts agreed that defense and baserunning were the keys to Boston’s victory. The Athletic club didn’t have to wait too long for revenge, routing Boston two days later, 20–3.6

Although the large crowd and competitive opening game had gotten the National League off to a good start, there was plenty of uncertainty ahead. The Philadelphia team didn’t survive the season, refusing to incur the impending financial losses of the last Western trip and being expelled from the league. It would be six years before major-league baseball returned to Philadelphia.

The baseball futures of the players in that first game varied tremendously. One-third were out of the major leagues after 1876, including Tim McGinley, who stayed in that first game so heroically. The extreme case was Boston outfielder Bill Parks. His first National League game was his last major-league appearance. At the other extreme were George Wright and O’Rourke, who would be elected to the Hall of Fame. Murnane went on to a long and distinguished career as a sportswriter. Athletics outfielder George Hall participated in the league’s first scandal in 1877 as a member of the Louisville club. Yet somehow, and sometimes in spite of itself, the new league was there to stay.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

1 Thorn, John. Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), p. 159.

2 MacDonald, Neil W. The League That Lasted: 1876 and the Founding of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs ( Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2004) p. 28-29; Sunday Mercury, February 20, 1876.

3 Philadelphia Inquirer, April 24, 1876; Boston Journal, April 24, 1876; New York Clipper, April 29, 1876; Thorn, p. 162.

4 Boston Journal, April 24, 1876; New York Clipper, April 29, 1876.

5 Boston Journal, April 24, 1876; New York Clipper, April 29, 1876.

6 Boston Globe, April 24, 1876; Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25, 1876; Boston Journal, April 24, 1876; New York Clipper, April 29, 1876

7 Thorn, p. 164-65; www.retrosheet.org.

Yet this supposed juggernaut had lost three straight exhibition games to the upstart Quakers, of whom very little was expected in their first season in the National League, before rallying to take the final three contests.3 Perhaps even the Athletics themselves weren’t sure what to expect as they headed for the train station for the long ride to Pittsburgh for the 1883 season opener against the Alleghenys at Exposition Park.4

Since the Athletics spent the evening hours on the train, the players were not tempted to test management’s 11:30 P.M. curfew designed to curtail carousing. Even without such a restriction, however, the Philadelphia team was probably in better condition than the Alleghenys, who were “reputed to be the hardest drinking team of all-time.”5 Nor were the Pittsburgh club’s concerns limited to the condition of their players because there was so much water on the field from spring rains that the game was at risk. But Exposition Park had two fields and the upper one was sufficiently water-free to allow the game to be played. An estimated crowd of between 1,500 and 2,500, a fairly good crowd by Allegheny standards, turned out to watch the game played under mostly cloudy skies with temperatures in the low to mid-60s.6 Hung over or not, the Allegheny players had to face the Athletics’ new ace pitcher, 31-year-old veteran right-hander Bobby Mathews. Entering his 11th major-league season, Mathews was coming off a bounce-back season in 1882 with the Boston Red Stockings. Mathews went 19-15 with a 2.87 ERA as he overcame arm trouble that had plagued him for five seasons. Although he was only 5-feet-5 and 140 pounds, Mathews effectively changed pitches and speeds to confuse batters whose weaknesses he knew all too well.7 Mathews’ repertoire included a curveball and a spitball, both of which he used to hold the home team scoreless for the first four innings.8

The Athletics were equally stymied by southpaw Denny Driscoll of Pittsburgh. Driscoll, who had posted a 13-9 season with a league-leading 1.21 ERA in 1882, held the Athletics scoreless through four innings. Philadelphia’s fortunes changed for the better in the fifth, however, aided by some sloppy fielding by the home team. Fred Corey reached first base on a throwing error by third baseman Joe Battin and that miscue was followed by a wild pitch by Driscoll and a bad throw to second by Jackie Hayes, the Pittsburgh catcher. With the door to home plate thus set ajar, consecutive singles by Ed Rowen, Bob Blakiston, and Mathews himself sent three runs across the plate.9 The Athletics added another run in the eighth when Jack O’Brien doubled to drive in Mike Moynahan, who had singled.10 In fact, all, but one of Philadelphia’s runs were superfluous as Mathews shut out the Alleghenies on four hits. Hayes, Pittsburgh’s catcher, had two of those hits, including a double that made him the only Allegheny to reach second. (He advanced no farther.)11 Mathews did walk one opposing batter (he may have been helped by the fact that it took seven balls for a walk at this time in baseball history), but struck out seven while benefiting from one double play behind him.12 Mathews also collected two hits, as did Moynahan, O’Brien, and Blakiston. Stovey, who reportedly “could do everything on a ball field, and do it better than almost anyone else,” was held hitless, but on this day, at least, he wasn’t needed.13

Mathews received accolades from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which noted that the “Alleghenies could not understand Mathews’ manipulation of the sheep skin,”14 while the Times (of Philadelphia) called it a “walk-over” because Pittsburgh didn’t have “the ghost of a chance against Matthews’ pitching.”15 Apparently when the home team did have a baserunner, he ran the bases poorly, which both papers cited as an additional reason for Philadelphia’s victory, although they provided no details.

The shutout was the 15th of Mathews’ long career (he would have five more), but his Opening Day whitewash of the Alleghenys was the only one the Athletics recorded in 1883. Back home in Philadelphia, the result must have made those worried about the team’s prospects feel somewhat more confident, at least for one day. And those inclined to bet on their local heroes could take additional comfort from the Times’s conclusion that unless Pittsburgh improved, “Philadelphia people can bet on a certainty in the remaining games on their own club.”16 This proved to be sage advice as the Athletics dominated the Alleghenys and won 12 of the 14 games between the two teams.

Sources

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

Notes

1 “The Athletics Third Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 1, 1883: 3.

2 “The Home Team: Sketch of the Men who Constitute the Local Teams,” Sporting Life, April 15, 1883: 2.

3 David Nemec, The Beer and Whiskey League: The Illustrated History of the American Association – Baseball’s Renegade League (Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2004), 44-46.

4 Philadelphia Inquirer, May 1, 1883: 3.

5 Nemec, 48-49.

6 Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks (New York: Walker Publishing Company, 2006), 184; New York Clipper, May 12, 1883: 117; National Republican (Washington, DC), May 2, 1883: 1; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 2, 1883: 4A.

7 John Shiffert, Baseball in Philadelphia: A History of the Early Game, 1831-1900 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2006), 108; Brian McKenna, “Bobby Mathews,” SABR BioProject. sabr.org/bioproj/person/e7ad641f.

8 McKenna; Pittsburgh Daily Post, May 2, 1883: 4.

9 Pittsburgh Daily Post; New York Clipper.

10 New York Clipper.

11 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 2, 1883: 2.

12 Cincinnati Enquirer, May 2, 1883: 2.

13 Shiffert, 107.

14 Philadelphia Inquirer, May 2, 1883: 8.

15 Times (Philadelphia), May 2, 1883: 1.

16 Times (Philadelphia).

The above events beg the question which of these two ancient four-baggers – hit on the same afternoon and in the same top of the first inning – was struck first. Analysis of the situation is complicated by time-zone peculiarities. According to the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia-Baltimore game would be “called at 4 o’clock.”1 The game in Cincinnati was advertised to start “at 3:30 o’clock P.M.”2 Because Cincinnati was then situated in the Central Standard Time Zone,3 this ostensibly placed the Blues-Reds game a half-hour behind the contest in Eastern Standard Time Zone Baltimore. At the time, however, Cincinnati, like various other cities removed from the East Coast, did not accept the time regimes that had been imposed for the convenience of the railroads in November 1883. In 1887 Cincinnati remained on its own city time – which was 22 minutes faster than CST.4 That put the scheduled start of the game in Cincinnati only eight minutes behind the time set for the game in Baltimore.

Whether Opening Day festivities or other circumstance delayed the throwing of first pitch in Baltimore or Cincinnati is unknown. So are the number of minutes that may have elapsed before Griffin and Tebeau connected. Still, the probabilities favor Griffin being first, if only slightly. In any case, the narrative herein focuses upon the home run hit by the originally recognized record-holder, Mike Griffin.

Undaunted by “cold and disagreeable” weather,5 a crowd of 4,000 passed through the turnstiles at Oriole Park, aka American Association Park, to see their heroes open the 1887 season against the Philadelphia Athletics. When the home side took the field for pregame warm-ups “outfitted in white shirts and light blue breeches with maroon trimmings … [the team] looked good to Orioles fans.”6 Even more pleasing to the Baltimore faithful was the way that the Orioles lit into Philadelphia starter Ed Seward, a 19-year-old right-hander who had made only one previous major-league appearance – six innings pitched for the National League Providence Grays in 1885.

Exercising their home-field option, the Orioles elected to bat first and promptly put a four-spot on the scoresheet in the top of the first inning against young Seward. Re-creation of game action is hampered by the perfunctory news coverage that the contest received at the time it was played. Still, it seems safe to say that Baltimore had already scored at least one run (and perhaps two) when rookie outfielder Mike Griffin made his first major-league appearance. Slotted sixth in the Orioles lineup by manager Billy Barnie, the 5-foot-7, 160-pound lefty batter did not appear overly menacing, but there was pop in his bat. The newcomer immediately put that power on display, driving a Seward serving “over the fence in the first inning for a home run.”7 Although no great note was then made of the Griffin blast, it was thereafter recognized as the first time a ballplayer had initiated his major-league career by hitting a homer in his very first at-bat.

With Baltimore having an immediate four-run lead, the game’s outcome was not much in doubt. The Athletics faced the unlikely task of making up the deficit against the formidable Matt Kilroy, fresh off a season wherein he had recorded an astonishing 513 strikeouts, still the all-time major-league record.8 The Orioles left-hander held the A’s scoreless until Baltimore tacked on two more runs in the fourth. Philadelphia then scratched out a run. The score had reached 8-1 by the bottom of the eighth inning. Exactly how the Orioles scored those runs appears lost to history, but the hitting exploits of the club’s debutant center fielder are not. Mike Griffin was the hitting star of the game, “making a home run and two doubles, one of the latter being a hit over the left field fence.”9

Meanwhile, the Athletics “were puzzled considerably over Kilroy’s curves and they were unable to get on to his peculiar style,” lamented the Philadelphia Times.10 Only six Philadelphia batsmen reached Kilroy for base hits (not counting the six bases on balls that were counted as hits for batting average purposes under an ill-conceived 1887 season-only statistical dictum). Aided by excellent defense – teammates committed only one fielding error behind him – the Baltimore ace was dominant throughout, never being in serious trouble. A run-scoring double by Ed Flanagan in the eighth plated the A’s second tally before an unearned run registered via a ninth-inning passed ball charged to Orioles backstop Chris Fulmer finalized the scoring at Baltimore 8, Philadelphia 3.

As his maiden season progressed, Griffin demonstrated that his debut-game hitting outburst had not been a fluke. At season end his offensive numbers included a .301 batting average, 48 extra-base hits, and 94 RBIs. Kilroy, meanwhile, became the circuit’s dominant pitcher, winning an AA-leading 46 games for the third-place (77-58-6, .570) Orioles. On the other side, fledgling Philly starter Seward blossomed into a rotation mainstay, splitting 50 decisions evenly for the fifth-place (64-69-4, .481) Athletics.

From there, Griffin went on to a solid 12-year career that ended in 1898. And for more than a century, he was recognized as the first player to begin his major-league tenure with a home run in his maiden at-bat. But now research has uncovered that Cincinnati Reds rookie George Tebeau did exactly the same thing. In a game played against the Cleveland Blues some 500 miles to the west of Baltimore, Tebeau homered in his very first major-league at-bat – on the same day (April 16, 1887) and in the same frame (top of the first inning) as Griffin. The coincidence is obviously remarkable.

Sources

No inning-by-inning account of the Baltimore-Philadelphia game was uncovered. The narrative above has been drawn from wire-service game summaries published nationwide and after-the-fact game commentary published in the Philadelphia Times, April 17, 1887, and Baltimore Sun, April 18, 1887. Reference sources consulted include Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.

Photo credit: Mike Griffin, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Base-Ball … Baltimore Grounds,” Baltimore Sun, April 16, 1887: 1 (advertisement).

2 “Cincinnati Base Ball Grounds,” Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 16, 1887: 12 (advertisement).

3 Cincinnati did not shift to the Eastern Standard Time Zone until 1927.

4 Per essays recently published online. See e.g., “How Daylight Saving Time Arrived in Cincinnati,” https://www.tumblr.com/handeaux/140685032432/how-daylight-saving-time-arrived-in-cincinnati.

5 The description of game condition weather published in “Baltimore 8, Athletics 3,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 17, 1887: 18.

6 Preston Orem, Baseball (1882-1891) from the Game Accounts (Altadena, California: Self-published, 1966-1967), 287, accessed via the SABR Research Collection online.

7 As recounted in wire-service game accounts published in the Kansas City Times, New Orleans Times-Democrat, and elsewhere, April 17, 1887.

8 Making the Kilroy record even more remarkable was the fact that a strikeout then consisted of only called and swinging strikes, not foul balls. Balls batted foul were not counted as strikes until the early 1900s.

9 Per “Baltimore vs. Athletics,” New York Clipper, April 23, 1887: 89. The import of this passage is less than clear but perhaps suggests that one of the Griffin two-baggers landed over a short-porch outfield fence that was designated grounds-rule-double territory.

10 “The Ball Season,” Philadelphia Times, April 17, 1887: 2. The “peculiar style” was likely the balk-move Kilroy pitching delivery that other clubs frequently complained about, to no avail.

Trying to ascertain to whom the distinction of being first rightly belongs is hampered by the long passage of time and the unavailability of detailed inning-by-inning accounts of the two games in question. Particularly unhelpful is perfunctory reportage of the Orioles-Athletics match.2 It reduces reconstruction of first-inning game action and estimation of how long it took sixth-in-the-lineup-batter Griffin to reach the plate largely to guesswork. The same problems, but to a lesser degree, attend analysis of the home run hit by seventh-placed Reds batter Tebeau.

Another complication attends time-zone peculiarities. The Cleveland-Cincinnati game was advertised to start “at 3:30 P.M.”3 Because Cincinnati was then in the Central Time Zone,4 this ostensibly placed the game’s start time 30 minutes behind that of the Orioles-Athletics contest, scheduled to begin in Baltimore at 4:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time.5 But like various other cities removed from the East Coast, Cincinnati did not accept the time regimes that had been imposed for the convenience of the railroads some four years earlier. In 1887 Cincinnati remained on its own city time, which was 22 minutes faster than CST.6 This effectively moved the scheduled start time of the Blues-Reds game to within eight minutes of that set for the game in Baltimore.7 Whether either contest started precisely on time is unknown, as are the number of minutes that elapsed before Griffin and Tebeau connected. Still, the probabilities seem to favor Griffin, if only by a slight margin. Now, on to the Tebeau homer.

Dank and chilly weather discomfited the 2,700 fans in attendance at the Cincinnati Base Ball Grounds (later League Park I) for the Reds’ April 16 season opener against the Cleveland Blues, a newly admitted member of the American Association. The starting pitcher for Cincinnati was an obvious choice: staff ace Tony Mullane. Matinee-idol handsome and prodigiously gifted athletically – a natural right-handed thrower, the “Apollo of the Box” occasionally served one up from the port side, apparently for his own amusement – Mullane had notched his fourth 30-plus-victory season in 1886. And his return to Cincinnati for the current season represented a departure from the norm for the well-traveled twirler, marking the first time that Mullane had ever started a new baseball campaign with the same team that he had finished the previous one with. In fact, Tony’s penchant for contract-breaking and club-jumping provided an interesting sidebar to the Cincinnati-Cleveland game, as it had served to usher his opposite number, Blues starter George Pechiney, into a major-league uniform.

Mullane spent the 1884 season with the American Association Toledo Blue Stockings, but had an agreement to return to the St. Louis Browns (his 1883 ballclub) for the ensuing campaign. His disregard of that obligation and his signing with the Cincinnati Reds instead prompted Browns club boss Chris Von der Ahe to institute disciplinary proceedings. The result was a season-long suspension that idled Mullane for the entire 1885 campaign. Mullane’s unavailability, in turn, necessitated Cincinnati auditioning hurling prospects throughout the season. When his chance came, George Pechiney, a Cincinnati factory worker who threw semipro ball on weekends, performed well, posting a 7-4 record and earning a spot in the Reds’ next-season plans. So in some sense, Pechiney owed his place on a major-league roster to the waywardness of Tony Mullane.

Restored to eligibility, Mullane (33-27 in 56 starts) and Pechiney (15-21 in 40 starts) formed the bulwark of the 1886 Cincinnati Reds pitching corps. During the offseason, however, Cincinnati consigned Pechiney and batterymate Pop Snyder to the Association’s fledgling Cleveland club. The 1887 season opener therefore matched the Blues pitcher against his inadvertent baseball benefactor.

Electing to bat first, the Reds wasted no time in mounting an attack against their erstwhile teammate. Shoddy Cleveland defense contributed to the Cincinnati cause. But Pechiney himself was the primary source of his own misfortune. As subsequently observed by The Sporting News, the Blues hurler “complained of a sore arm and was unable to get the ball over the plate. When he did, it was lined out by the Red Stockings.”8

Cleveland left fielder Fred Mann set the game’s tone by muffing leadoff batter Bid McPhee’s fly ball. Third baseman Ed McKean then chipped in an error on a Frank Fennelly grounder. Pechiney walked the next two Cincinnati batters, forcing in the first run. A sacrifice and three passed balls by Blues catcher Charlie Reipschlager thereafter kept Reds baserunners moving around the sacks. With two outs finally recorded, debutante center fielder George Tebeau stepped to the plate. A solidly built 5-foot-9 175-pounder resplendent in an immaculate ivory-colored uniform with crimson trim, Tebeau just looked like a ballplayer.9 And in his first major-league at-bat, he hit like one as well. A righty batter, Tebeau drilled a Pechiney offering on a line to deep left-center and then circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run that upped the first-inning Cincinnati advantage to 5-0.10

In the ensuing frames, the Reds continued to pummel Pechiney. The good-hitting Mullane helped the cause with a home run in the second. A walk to McPhee and a triple by Pop Corkhill plated another Cincinnati run that inning. A three-run homer by Fennelly in the sixth put the contest far beyond Cleveland reach. Meanwhile, Mullane eased through the Blues batting order, plagued more by his own lack of control (eight walks and a wild pitch) than by opposition hitters – apart from Cleveland second baseman Cub Stricker, who touched the Reds twirler for a late-game dinger. Echoing a hometown newspaper assessment, “the game was not brilliant.”11 But the 16-6 triumph nonetheless got the Cincinnati Reds’ season off to a successful start.

Never much more than a journeyman during his six-season major-league career, George Tebeau went on to become a force as a baseball executive, founding the premier minor-league American Association in 1902 and managing/owning any number of prominent non-major-league ballclubs through World War I. He died in February 1923 at age 61, a respected if not particularly loved figure in the game. Neither at the time of his death nor for decades thereafter, however, was Tebeau consider a major-league record-setter. Rather, the claim was staked for him by late-twentieth-century baseball detectives who discovered that when Mike Griffin hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat on April 16, 1887, George Tebeau had done exactly the same.

Sources

Reference sources consulted include Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet, and Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff, eds., The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America, Inc., 3d ed., 2007). The sources for the narrative detail provided are specified in the endnotes.

Notes

1 David Nemec, The Beer and Whisky League: The Illustrated History of the American Association – Baseball’s Renegade Major League (New York: Lyons & Burford, 1994), 129.

2 The writer is informed that first-inning detail was published in the Baltimore American but was unable to access same.

3 “Cincinnati Base Ball Park,” Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 16, 1887: 12 (advertisement).

4 Cincinnati was not shifted into the Eastern Time Zone until 1927.

5 “Base Ball … Baltimore Grounds,” Baltimore Sun, April 16, 1887 (advertisement).

6 According to essays recently published online. See e.g., “How Daylight Saving Time Arrived in Cincinnati,” https://www.tumblr.com/handeaux/140685032432/how-daylight-saving-time-arrived-in-cincinnati.

7 Baltimore has been in the Eastern Standard Time Zone since the original formulation of time zones in November 1883.

8 The Sporting News, April 23, 1887: 7.

9 Years later, veteran observer John B. Foster recalled George Tebeau as “almost perfectly built … standing erect as a West Pointer, proportioned like an Apollo. He was an athlete long to be remembered … and appeared on a ball field as if he had walked out of a tableau.” Foster, “Giving the Tebeaus Their Place in the Game’s Annals,” The Sporting News, February 15, 1923: 7.

10 Per the game account published in “Base Ball: Hated Cincinnati Slaughters Pitcher Pechiney,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 17, 1887: 6. A slightly different game account appeared in Sporting Life, April 27, 1887: 4.

11 “Baseball,” Cincinnati Evening Post, April 16, 1887: 4.

With some of its National Association players still on the roster, the Red Stockings of the National League continued their winning ways, taking two of the first three pennants. Boston finished first again in 1883 but then, often nicknamed the Beaneaters, went through a drought the rest of the decade.

The 1891 Boston team had hopes for improving on the 76-57 record of the previous year, which was good for only a fifth-place finish. The Beaneaters opened their quest on Wednesday, April 22, in New York in what was a new stadium for the National League.

New York also had an entry in the National League in 1876, but its team, the Mutuals, were expelled for not completing their schedule. And it really wasn’t a New York team; the Mutuals played their games at the Union Grounds in the still-separate city of Brooklyn. The Union Grounds had another National League tenant in 1877, a team that had moved from Hartford, Connecticut, and retained the name Hartford Dark Blues. New York fans were understandably reluctant to support a team still identified with a city in a neighboring state, and the Hartford team disbanded after the 1877 season.

When the major leagues returned to New York, it came in the form of two teams: the Metropolitan, which played in the American Association, and a National League team that eventually adopted the nickname Giants. Both teams played on a long field to the north of Central Park that had been used for polo. The Polo Grounds, as this and other stadiums in New York became known, initially had diamonds at opposite ends, sometimes with games going on at the same time.

The Giants outlived the Metropolitan and won the World’s Series in 1888.1 However, it also marked the final games on the original Polo Grounds. Early in 1889 New York City decided to move ahead with plans to extend 111th Street, which at this point had been interrupted by the Polo Grounds between Fifth and Sixth avenues, through the site occupied by the Giants.

The Giants opened 1889 as an itinerant bunch, playing first in New Jersey and then on Staten Island before owner John B. Day found a site just off the Harlem River in the southern half of Coogan’s Hollow in Manhattan, beneath the 155th Street viaduct and along Eighth Avenue. Day was concerned about confusion that might be present with fans as the team prepared for its third home of the season. He knew that New Yorkers associated the name Polo Grounds with his baseball team, so—to send an unambiguous message as to where the Giants would be headquartered—he christened the quarters the New Polo Grounds.2

In 1890 the National League had a neighbor in New York as a new league—the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players—formed. Backers of the New York team in what became the Players’ League leased the northern section of Coogan’s Hollow and built a stadium, Brotherhood Park, next to the Polo Grounds.

The Players’ League lasted only one season, and the Giants moved into the northern space, carrying the name Polo Grounds with them again.

The Giants prepared for the 1891 season with a final exhibition tuneup in Albany, where a new stadium brought out a large crowd, and the same happened the next day in New York.

For Opening Day, the Boston and New York players assembled at 1:00 PM at Wall Street and Broadway and “were driven to the grounds in tallyho coaches. The line of parade was crowded with people, and the players got a royal reception all along the line, and also when they appeared at the grounds.”3

The teams did not play in a brand-new stadium—it had already been used for a season under a different name—but it was the first game with the name Polo Grounds. Attendance of between 15,000 and 20,000 was predicted, and the New-York Daily Tribune reported that “several wagers were made yesterday that the crowd would exceed 20,000.”4

Although the attendance didn’t reach that mark (it was 17,835), a huge crowd was on hand. Before the game, Giants who had remained with the National League team lined up on one side of the field with those who had gone to the Players’ League on the other. The two sides then came together to indicate that past differences were settled and that they were one team again.

The game began at 4:00, the Giants batted first, and they took the lead as George Gore reached base on an error and later scored on a sacrifice bunt by Jim O’Rourke.

Boston tied it quickly in the first as Herman Long hit a long fly into the overflow crowd in left and made it all the way around the bases. Exactly what happened on the play is subject to the newspaper reports and rules of the time. The New York Times description: “Long hit the ball to deep left field amid the spectators. It was a ‘blocked ball,’ and before it could be handled by pitcher Amos] Rusie in his position and sent home Long had scored. It was a close call, however.” The Boston Globe reported, “Herman Long opened well for Boston by hitting the ball into the crowd in left field and scoring, as Rusie failed to remain in his position to receive the dead ball on the return.”5

The play was scored as a triple by Long and an error on Rusie. Quizzed on what may have transpired on the play, John Thorn, the historian of Major League Baseball, wrote, “My guess about the 4/22/91 incident is that Long made three bases cleanly on the ball hit into the overflow crowd and that when the ball was returned to the infield Rusie was not in the box to receive it—an error that permitted Long to continue homeward.”6

The score continued to seesaw as well as the pattern of players following a bad play with a good one—or vice versa.

The Giants took the lead in the third, with Roger Connor singling home O’Rourke, who had gotten aboard when Marty Sullivan lost his fly ball to left in the sun. Sullivan got the run back in the bottom of the fourth as he led off with a walk, stole second, and scored when Mike Tiernan dropped Billy Nash’s two-out fly to right.

The game stayed tied until the ninth when Rusie grounded to short and was safe on first when Long’s throw was wild. Rusie went to second on a passed ball (an error charged on the play to catcher Charlie Bennett, one of five made by the Beaneaters that day), and scored on Gore’s single to left.

Gore undid the good of his hit in the bottom of the inning. Boston had two on and one out when Herman Long sent a fly to center. “Gore started after it, and to the great discomfiture of the vast throng he lost his footing and fell,” reported the Times.7

The Boston Globe provided a different perspective: “Long came up with his long bat and hit the ball hard, but it sailed high and George Gore started to get under it, having plenty of time. He misjudged, however, and then made a muff of it, high over his head, the ball rolling along the field as Gore lay in a heap on the ground, having tangled himself up in reaching for the ball.”8

The New York Tribune had a more scathing slant: “In plain English he [Gore] tried to win applause by making a difficult play out of an easy one, and his bungling caused him to make an error and lose a game in the last inning.”9

The newspapers differed on whether Gore was charged with an error or Long credited with a triple; in either case, two runs scored to give Boston a 4–3 win. The Boston Globe account treated the final play as an error on Gore rather than a triple, but it appears based on the opinion of the Globe writer. Other reporters give Long a triple, albeit a dubious one, and it appears from them that the official scorer did not charge Gore with an error.

The pitchers were a pair of future Hall of Famers. John Clarkson of the Bridegrooms was nearing the end of his career while Amos Rusie was in the early stages of his. Both pitchers would be credited with more than 30 wins in 1891.10 Boston won its first six games, finished 87-51, and went on to win the National League pennant for the first of three straight seasons. And five pennants in eight years.

For the remainder of their time in New York, through 1957, the Giants remained on this field. However, the wooden grandstand burned in 1911 and was rebuilt with a steel and concrete structure. The Polo Grounds name remained and is as synonymous with the National League team in New York as is the name Giants.

Notes

1 The 1888 World’s Series between the Giants and St. Louis Browns of the American Association, was set at 10 games. The fifth game, on October 20, was the final game on the original Polo Grounds. The Giants won that game and went on to win the series, six games to four. Until the Atlanta Braves closed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium with a World Series game in 1996, the Polo Grounds on 110th Street was the only stadium to finish its history with a World’s/World Series game.

2 “A New Baseball Field: The Giants Will Play Games in This City Again: Grounds Secured on the West Side of Town in a Convenient Place,” New York Times, June 22, 1889: 2; “The Giants New Grounds: A Home for Them on Manhattan Island at Last,” New York Tribune, June 22, 1889: 7.

3 “The Ball Is Set Rolling,” New York Daily Tribune, April 23, 1891.

4 “To Open the Baseball Season,” New York Daily Tribune, April 22, 1891.

5 Boston Defeats New-York: Over 17,000 Persons Witness the Opening League Game: The Giants Looked Like Winners to the Ninth Inning, but Lost by an Accident—Brooklyn Defeats Philadelphia. New York Times, Thursday, April 23, 1891: 2; “Grand Send Off: League Teams Begin the Battle for the Pennant: Over 17,000 People See the Game in Gotham: Boston Plays in Luck and Wins in the Ninth.” Boston Globe, Thursday, April 23, 1891: 1.

6 Email correspondence between author and John Thorn, December 31, 2016.

7 “Boston Defeats New-York: Over 17,000 Persons Witness the Opening League Game: The Giants Looked Like Winners to the Ninth Inning, but Lost by an Accident,” New York Times, April 23, 1891: 2.

8 “Grand Send Off: League Teams Begin the Battle for the Pennant: Over 17,000 People See the Game in Gotham: Boston Plays in Luck and Wins in the Ninth,” Boston Globe, Thursday, April 23, 1891: 11.

9 “The Ball Is Set Rolling,” New York Daily Tribune, April 23, 1891.

10 Clarkson is listed with a 33-19 record and Rusie a 33-20 record in 1891 by baseball-reference.com; these numbers have changed through the years. The win in the opener was the 221st of Clarkson’s career (according to the baseball-reference.com accounting). Clarkson is now credited with 328 pitching victories in his career. The Thompson-Turkin baseball encyclopedia, 1963 edition, had each with 34 wins in 1891.

Depleted by the Brotherhood war,² Pittsburgh finished the 1890 NL campaign dead last at 23-113. Expectations were high for the much-changed team heading into the April 22, 1891, season opener against Chicago. Among the changes, Pittsburgh was commonly referred as the Pirates. Hanlon predicted a first- or second-place finish based on the quality of players assembled in the offseason.³

Pete Browning joined Pittsburgh after eight years with Louisville in the American Association and a stint with Cleveland’s PL club. Browning was deemed “a terror to all pitchers, good, bad and indifferent and their hearts quiver whenever they see his lengthy form towering over the plate.”⁴ Charley Reilly moved over from the AA Columbus Solons and was viewed as “a young man full of ambition, [who] will play every point to win.”⁵ Connie Mack, formerly with Washington’s NL club and a member of the PL Buffalo Bisons, gave Pittsburgh a top backstop who “did great work and was admired by everybody.”⁶

Lou Bierbauer signed with Pittsburgh after playing with John Montgomery Ward’s PL club in Brooklyn. Hanlon was thought to have “made a ten-strike”⁷ in landing Bierbauer. A player who “hits like a Trojan and fields with consummate skill,”⁸ Bierbauer would man second base for Pittsburgh. Chicago player-manager Cap Anson shared the optimism about Pittsburgh, remarking, “Captain Hanlon has spent a barrel of money and has what you might call an all-star aggregation. … Pittsburg has corralled some of the champion hitters of the country.”⁹

There was a festive atmosphere around Exposition Park ahead of the 3:30 P.M. first pitch. The grounds were in good shape after a large group of workers spent the prior day on preparations.¹⁰ Fans crowded into the vicinity for the Opening Day parade as “[t]he band played and the base-ball season was inaugurated with a grand street pageant.”¹¹ The joyous mood dampened briefly when storms rolled through, but “[w]hen the clouds broke and the sun showed a winning hand there was a yell of satisfaction.”¹² The rain was thought to have limited the eventual 5,263 attendance, but fans purchased tickets despite the weather.

Chicago arrived by train the morning of the game. Anson’s club also entered the season with high expectations. The Chicago Tribune called the team “as evenly balanced a ball club as ever stepped on the field, and its discipline is almost perfect.”¹³ For the opener, the Colts were weakened by the absence of Tom Burns, who was laid up with an injured arm;¹⁴ Bill Dahlen, at 21, would make his major-league debut filling in for Burns at third base. Anson trusted the pitching to another freshman, 22-year-old Pat Luby. Because Luby “pitches in a way that proves very painful to most batsmen,”¹⁵ the move may have been viewed as a good one.

Though playing at home, Pittsburgh batted first. Fans greeted Doggie Miller16 with enthusiastic cheers as he approached the plate, an act that would be repeated for the rest of the home team’s lineup. Luby allowed a leadoff walk to Miller, but his teammates could not bring him home. Chicago scored in the bottom of the first, when Anson’s double brought Dahlen across the plate in his first major-league inning. Chicago added gradually to its lead. The Colts scored another run in the second inning when Fred Pfeffer worked his way around the bases after a leadoff walk. The visitors got two more in the fourth inning to take a 4-0 lead. In fielding a groundball off Cliff Carroll’s bat, Reilly belied his strong reputation playing third base by throwing wildly to first. Carroll landed at third base by the end of the play. Pfeffer brought him home with a single to center field. Three batters later, Elmer Foster singled to score Pfeffer.

By the seventh inning, Pittsburgh still trailed 4-0 and the Pirates partisans despaired. “Everybody had given up hope of scoring a run, to say nothing of winning the game,” wrote one of the local papers.¹⁷ After holding Pittsburgh scoreless through six innings, Luby unraveled. He hit leadoff batter Mack in the shoulder and followed that with four bad throws to put Reilly on base. Pitcher Pud Galvin “rapped out a clear single”¹⁸ to load the bases. At this point, “Luby evidently feared the consequences of pitching over the plate”¹⁹ and walked Miller on four pitches, which scored Mack. Luby surrendered another walk to Jake Beckley, which scored Reilly. With his pitcher “wild as a March hare,”²⁰ Anson tried to calm Luby. His words did not have the desired effect as Luby walked Fred Carroll, thereby scoring Galvin. With Pittsburgh now within one run, Anson called upon Bill Hutchinson to stem the tide.

Swapping pitchers did not stop the momentum, however. Browning’s sharply hit single to center field scored Miller to tie the game, 4-4. The bases remained loaded and there were still no outs. Bierbauer’s hit to Dahlen was collected by the Colts third baseman, who threw home to force Beckley. Hanlon’s drive into the outfield grass brought home Carroll and Browning, putting Pittsburgh ahead 6-4. “Pandemonium reigned in grand stand and bleachers. Two runs ahead was a cyclonic surprise,” a Pittsburgh sportswriter rhapsodized.²¹ Though dejected after the disastrous seventh, Chicago halved the deficit in the bottom of the inning. Hutchinson flied out to Browning in left-field foul territory and Malachi Kittridge grounded out to Miller at shortstop, but Foster started a two-out rally by reaching first after Miller bobbled a groundball. Jimmy Ryan uncorked a long double into center field that scored Foster. Jimmy Cooney struck out to end the frame but Chicago had pulled within one run.

Neither club scored in the eighth, but Chicago came close. With one out and Dahlen on third base, Cliff Carroll sent a high fly toward Fred Carroll (no relation) in right field. Dahlen neglected to take a chance on scoring, and would not make it home that inning. Pittsburgh did not add to its lead in the top of the ninth. Nonetheless, sensing victory, “the Pittsburgers put on their coats, and with a smile of satisfaction prepared to leave the grounds.”²² Chicago would provide reason for them to stay. Hutchinson sent a high fly to Fred Carroll, but the right fielder misjudged the ball and muffed the catch. With Hutchinson on second, Kittridge brought home his batterymate by singling to left field. The game now tied, 6-6, the Exposition Park crowd “resumed their seats with a thud that shook the stand.”²³ Chicago would not find the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, and the season opener headed into extra innings.

Only the 10th inning would be required to settle the matter. The Pirates’ Mack and Reilly began the top of the inning by striking out, adding to the anxiety in the grandstand. Galvin singled to keep the inning going, and Miller followed by drawing a walk from Hutchinson. The rally ended with Fred Carroll’s fly out to Cliff Carroll in right field. In Chicago’s half of the inning, Dahlen smacked the ball down the left-field line, almost reaching the outfield fence, and Dahlen was safe at third as a “sickening chill spread through the stands.”²⁴ Anson popped up to shortstop Miller, and Dahlen held third. He would not need to do so when Cliff Carroll drove the ball to left-center, allowing Dahlen to score the winning run. Chicago 7, Pittsburgh 6.

Despite the loss, the local newspaper observed some reason for optimism: “While they show a lack of team work, still there is evidence that this will be remedied in a game or two. …”²⁵ In truth, the optimism proved unjustified. Although Pittsburgh’s record was above .500 at the beginning of June, the team finished 55-80, placing it in the same spot as the season before: last place in the National League.

This article appears in “Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2018), edited by Jorge Iber and Bill Nowlin. To read more stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

¹ “About the Boys,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 22, 1891: 6.

² For information about the “Brotherhood War” related to the formation of the Players League, see, e.g., https://baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Players_League.

³ “News, Gossip and Comment,” Sporting Life, April 25, 1891: 3.

⁴ “About the Boys.”

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ “Anson’s Review,” Sporting Life, April 25, 1891: 3.

¹⁰ “Sporting Notes,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 22, 1891: 6.

¹¹ “Lost the First,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 23, 1891: 6.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ “Opening of the Campaign,” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1891: 5.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ “Lost the First.”

16 Miller was referred as “Kid Miller” in a season preview article in the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette. “About the Boys.”

¹⁷ “Lost the First.”

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ “Opening of the Campaign.”

²¹ “Lost the First.”

²² “Opening of the Campaign.”

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ “Lost the First.”

²⁵ Ibid.

Denton True Young – known as “Cy” since his professional debut in 1890 – emerged as an ace in 1892, pacing the NL in wins (36), ERA (1.93), and shutouts (9). According to historian David Fleitz, the Spiders of the 1890s “cut a swath through the National League, with brawls, fan violence, and umpire abuse regarded as necessary components to wining baseball strategy,” but the spartan Young was an exception to the hooliganism.2

In 1892 Young pitched the Spiders to their first winning record in four NL seasons; Cleveland won the league’s second-half title under a novel “split season” format before getting swept in the championship series by the first-half winners, the Boston Beaneaters. “Young sends terror into the hearts of the timid batsmen when he shoots the ball over home plate with cyclonic force, and his reputation has as much to do with his success in this respect as his real ability,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer asserted.3

But Young was not the only pitcher dominating in 1892.4 The overall NL batting average was down to .245, dropping for the fourth season in a row. The last time offense had been so low, in 1888, baseball had reduced the number of balls for a walk from five to four.5 With scoring dipping once again, discussions of mitigating the impact of hard throwers like Young and Amos Rusie of the New York Giants by extending the pitching distance, set at 55 feet 6 inches since 1887, began at the league meetings in November.6

When the owners reconvened in March 1893, they agreed to require pitchers to start from a white rubber plate 60 feet 6 inches from home.7 They also clarified the balk rule, limiting a pitcher’s movement prior to the pitch.8

Rulebook revisions were not the only changes for Young and the Spiders in 1893. On February 25 Cleveland traded 22-year-old George Davis, a regular member of its lineup at several positions since 1890, to the Giants for veteran William “Buck” Ewing.9

A Giant since 1883 – except for a season in the rival Players’ League – the versatile Ewing was one of baseball’s best players in the 1880s.10 Now 33 years old, however, he had been limited by an arm injury in recent seasons.11 “What on earth the Cleveland club want[s] with Ewing would be hard to tell,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle scoffed, labeling Ewing “almost a candidate for the retired list.”12

But Ewing was in right field when the Spiders traveled to Pittsburgh to open the season. The Pirates had rebounded from their disastrous 1890 campaign, when defections to the Players’ League resulted in a 23-113 record. In 1892 they had their first winning season since joining the NL in 1887.

A large crowd, reported at 7,600, filled Exposition Park on a cool, sunny afternoon.13 “Old men and young scrambled alike to secure places where they could command an unobstructed view of every movement made by the players,” the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette observed.14 Both teams, led by a brass band, paraded there through city streets.

As game time approached, no umpire was present. Finally, “[a]fter the spectators had craned their necks almost out of joint,” Tom Lynch arrived.15 Umpire Lynch gathered the pitchers, Young and Pittsburgh’s Frank Killen, and explained the changes to the balk rule. The season could begin.

Pittsburgh, per baseball’s rules in 1893, elected to bat first, and Young struggled at the outset. Patsy Donovan bunted the game’s second pitch toward third for a single. Young attempted a pickoff, but Lynch – enforcing the rule explained minutes earlier – called a balk, moving Donovan to second. George Van Haltren sacrificed Donovan to third.

Frank Shugart walked and stole second. Mike Smith hit a roller to short; Ed McKean took the out at first while Donovan scored and Shugart advanced to third.

Keeping up the pressure, Jake Beckley walked and took off for second. When catcher Charles Zimmer threw to third, hoping to catch Shugart off the bag, Patsy Tebeau dropped the ball, and Shugart scored for a 2-0 Pittsburgh lead. It took Young 25 minutes to get through the inning.16

After Pittsburgh batted, the 75 Spiders fans who had made the 130-mile trip from Cleveland presented Tebeau with a display of flowers. The arrangement depicted two crossed bats surrounded by a ball, with script reading, “Cleveland B.H.C., Champions of 1893.”17

The Pittsburgh Post described the fans’ gesture as having “a confidence that many took for downright arrogance and a few for open defiance.”18 Tebeau, Spiders player-manager and driving force, raised his cap, bowed several times, and shouted, “It will never do to lose with that!”19

Perhaps inspired by the gift, the Spiders rallied against Killen, a 22-year-old Pittsburgh native, acquired a month earlier in a trade with the Washington Senators.20 Cupid Childs led off with a walk and advanced to second on McKean’s one-out single to left.

Batting for the first time as a Spider, Ewing singled, driving in Childs with Cleveland’s first run. When catcher Connie Mack attempted to catch McKean advancing to third, the throw went wild, and McKean scored the tying run.

The play left Ewing on second, and he stole third. Jake Virtue then grounded to Lou Bierbauer at second; Ewing beat Bierbauer’s throw home for a 3-2 Cleveland advantage.

After Killen turned Jimmy McAleer’s bunt into a force at second, Tebeau hit a grounder to third, but Denny Lyons bobbled it and threw it away; Tebeau took second and McAleer moved to third. Zimmer drove in McAleer with a single. By the time the inning was over, nine Spiders had batted and Cleveland held a 4-2 lead.

The Spiders followed their first-inning surge by pulling away with runs in the third, fourth, and fifth innings. They manufactured a run in the third when Ewing singled, moved to second on Virtue’s sacrifice, stole third, and came home on another wild throw by Mack.

In the fourth, Childs lined Killen’s pitch to center. Van Haltren misjudged the ball, and it rolled all the way to the bleachers. Childs circled the bases for a home run, giving the Spiders a 6-2 lead.

Ewing scored the game’s final run in the fifth, when he singled to center, stole second, moved to third on Virtue’s sacrifice, and scored on McAleer’s single. For the afternoon, Ewing contributed three hits, three runs, three steals, and a catch of “a difficult chance which took him into a foot or more of water and mud” in right.21

“Ewing, whom the New York reporters have written down as a back number, was the star performer of the day,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.22 “He knocked the ball at will, ran bases with excellent judgment and much daring and gave other evidences that he is still one of the best players of the league.”23

Young was in control after the rough opening, holding the Pirates scoreless over the final eight innings, with only two runners getting as far as third. He struck out just two batters, but Pittsburgh walked only once after the first inning. The Spiders’ infield backed Young with a near flawless performance, with one error and 13 assists. The Cleveland Plain Dealer observed, “Cleveland made but one error, and considering the condition of the ground this is remarkable.”24

“The game went to Cleveland without a murmur from the crowd, as it was won on its merits,” the Pittsburg Press noted.25

As the 1893 season played out, the rule changes produced significantly more offense. Young’s numbers reflected the trend; his 3.36 ERA was nearly a run and a half higher than 1892’s, mirroring the league’s overall rise, but he adapted enough to finish third in the league in ERA.26

Ewing had a strong season in 1893, but his career wound down soon afterward. Meanwhile, Davis had an outstanding nine-season tenure with the Giants, eventually joining Ewing in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cleveland finished 1893 in third, 12½ games behind the Beaneaters.27 The Spiders fielded winning teams through 1898, then collapsed with a 20-134 record in 1899 after owner Frank Robison purchased the St. Louis Perfectos, one of several clubs struggling financially, and transferred most of Cleveland’s best players there.28 By 1900 Young was winning 20 games in St. Louis, Ewing was managing the Giants, and Cleveland’s NL team had folded.

But on Opening Day 1893 that dismal end was far away. The moment belonged to Young, Ewing, and their traveling fans.

“A good many of the Cleveland cranks can buy summer suits with the money they won on the game,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer concluded.29

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copyedited by Len Levin. SABR members Vince Guerrieri, Andrew Terrick, and John Thorn provided helpful research assistance; Kurt Blumenau had insightful comments on an earlier draft of the article.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes below, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information. He also relied on coverage from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, Pittsburgh Post, and Pittsburg Press newspapers.

Notes

1 Between 1890 and 1911, United States government regulations required that the names of all cities and towns ending with “burgh” be spelled without the final “h.” Accordingly, the city of Pittsburgh was known as “Pittsburg” during this period. “Pittsburgh with the ‘H’ Please: Geographic Board Reconsiders Dropping Final Letter,” Pittsburgh Post, July 22, 1911: 1. This article uses the current “Pittsburgh” spelling, except in reference to publication titles or direct quotations using “Pittsburg.”

2 David L. Fleitz, Rowdy Patsy Tebeau and the Cleveland Spiders: Fighting to the Bottom of Baseball, 1887-1899 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2017), 2-3.

3 “The First Game: Cleveland and Pittsburg Teams Come Together Today,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 27, 1893: 5

4 Anthony Castrovince, “How Baseball Settled on 60 Feet, 6 Inches: A Lot of Experimentation and a Lot of Strikeouts Along the Way,” MLB.com, August 9, 2021, https://www.mlb.com/news/why-is-the-mound-60-ft-6-inches-away.

5 After the change, league batting average had increased from .239 in 1888 to .266 in 1889.

6 Sam Crane, “New Baseball Rules: What the Pitcher’s Position and Bunt Hit Mean to the National Game,” Buffalo Courier, December 5, 1892: 8. Historically, extensions of pitching distance had resulted in increased offense. When the NL adopted a 50-foot distance in 1881, replacing the previous 45-foot span, the league batting average increased from .245 to .260.

7 “Base-Ball Rules Changed: Pitcher Put Back Five Feet – National League Meeting,” Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, March 8, 1893: 7.

8 “Base-Ball Rules Changed.”

9 “Davis for Buck: Cleveland Secures the Famous Ball Player,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 26, 1893: 6; “A Fine Player for Gotham: George Davis, the Crack Cleveland Fielder, Signs with New York,” New York Sun, February 26, 1893: 8.

10 “[Ewing] was regarded by many people as the best player in nineteenth century baseball,” historian Bill James wrote. Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, (New York: The Free Press: 2001), 379.

11 “Davis for Buck.” David Nemec’s SABR BioProject biography contains a good discussion of Ewing’s arm injury during the early 1890s, including disputes over the circumstances and extent of the injury.

12 “Signing the Players: Brooklyn Ball Tossers Coming Into the Fold,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 28, 1893: 5. As David Fleitz discussed in his book on the Spiders, Cleveland’s motivation for the trade was to repay the Giants for supporting a league policy for the even split of gate receipts between home and road teams. After New York finished eighth in the NL in 1892, as Fleitz wrote, “[t]he other magnates, including [Cleveland owner] Frank Robison, knew that a strong New York franchise was good for the league as a whole, so Robison, to repay the Giants for their support in the gate receipt matter several years before, offered to send a star player to New York.” Giants player-manager John Montgomery Ward was initially interested in Patsy Tebeau, to, as the New York Sun reported, “leave a good field captain in charge of the New York team” if Ward followed through on his plans to retire after the 1894 season. Robison did not want to trade the 28-year-old Tebeau but agreed to trade Davis instead. Fleitz, Rowdy Patsy Tebeau and the Cleveland Spiders, 74-76; “A Fine Player for Gotham.”

13 Two Pittsburgh newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post and Pittsburg Press, had the attendance as 7,600; a third, the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, reported 7,950 spectators.

14 “The Record Broken: Pittsburghs Suffer Defeat at the Hands of the Spiders,” Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, April 28, 1893: 6.

15 “They Are Rattled: Pittsburgh Players Harmoniously Confused by Big, Boisterous Crowd,” Pittsburgh Post, April 28, 1893: 6. Lynch later served as president of the National League from 1910 through 1912.

16 “Victory Placed Its First Laurels on Cleveland’s Club: Pittsburg Downed 7 to 2 in the Opening Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 28, 1893: 3.

17 “They Are Rattled.”

18 “They Are Rattled.”

19 “They Are Rattled.”

20 Pittsburgh sent catcher Duke Farrell to Washington for the left-handed Killen, who went on to lead the NL in wins in 1893 (36) and 1896 (30). “Pittsburgh Gets Killen: Farrell Traded to Washington for the Pitcher,” Pittsburgh Post, May 22, 1893: 6.

21 “They Are Rattled.”

22 “Victory Placed Its First Laurels on Cleveland’s Club.”

23 “Victory Placed Its First Laurels on Cleveland’s Club.”

24 “Victory Placed Its First Laurels on Cleveland’s Club.”

25 “Sporting,” Pittsburg Press, April 28, 1893: 5.

26 Young led the NL in 1893 in the twenty-first-century century metric of Fielding Independent Pitching, which measures pitcher effectiveness by strikeouts, walks, hit batters, and home runs allowed. Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 (New York: Avid Reader, 2021), 495.

27 Pittsburgh finished the season in second place, five games behind Boston.

28 Fleitz, Rowdy Patsy Tebeau and the Cleveland Spiders, 163-180.

29 “Victory Placed Its First Laurels on Cleveland’s Club.”