“Play was lively and exciting,” reported the New York Times, “not as much difficulty being experienced from the use of skates by the players as was expected.” Baseball players from the Live Oak, Olympic, Lone Star, and Flour City clubs of Rochester, New York, gathered on January 14, 1860, and “experimented with a baseball game with ice skates.”1 Baseball historian Peter Morris commented that with the growing popularity of both baseball and ice skating in the 1860s, “it was inevitable that someone would try and combine them.”2 On December 28, 1860, the Lone Stars accepted a challenger by Live Oak to a baseball match on skates on New Year’s Day 1861. Near the Float Bridge on Rochester’s Irondequoit Bay, 2,500 spectators watched a game “of the most exhilarating description, as was attested by the glowing cheeks of the respective players,” wrote the New York Clipper.3 The Clipper then asked, “Cannot some of our New York clubs get up a contest on one of our Central Park ponds? Let not our Rochester friends be ice-olated in this respect.”

Baseball on ice came to New York on February 4, 1861, not in Central Park, but on the so-called Litchfield Pond, aka Washington Pond (for Brooklyn’s famed Washington Skating Club).4 The 10 acres were located along Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn Atlantics would compete on skates against Brooklyn’s Charter Oak.5 The Atlantics were the dominant team of the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) throughout the 1850s and 1860s. The Atlantics, officially organized in 1855, “have always and at all times had a nine from whom any rival club might almost despair of winning any lasting laurels,” wrote Charles A. Peverelly in The Book of American Pastimes (1866).6 They had won another championship in 1860. The Charter Oak club from South Brooklyn was a lesser-known club organized in 1857.7 Harold Seymour called them “the leaders in sartorial splendor,”8 based on a description of their uniform in Porter’s Spirit of the Times: “a white cap with blue peak, pink shirt with white facings, stars, & c, black belt, upon which is inscribed ‘Charter Oak’ in full, and white pants with pink stripes.”9 No such detailed description was given for this game. The Atlantics wore red jackets with blue facings while the Charter Oak were dressed in plaid.

The prize for the winner was a silver ball, the size of an ordinary baseball, donated by a Mr. Litchfield,10 president of the Fifth Avenue Railroad Company, for whom the pond was nicknamed at the time.11 The weather was pleasant. “For a February day,” wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “the weather might claim the prefix ‘fine.’ Cold, but clear and bracing, the sun coming out strong every now and then, thawing the embankment into a puddle, and though very comfortable in other respects, rendering it disagreeable under foot.”12 The game was played on the ice nearest Fifth Avenue, “in defiance of ominous-looking cracks or fissures, through which the water oozed up, produced by the tremendous pressure” wrote the Eagle.13

The streets were lined with people who came to see their baseball heroes who “dreamed not and cared not for broken bones and bruised flesh.”14 One-third of the crowd was estimated to be women and children.15 Some avoided the “triple row of spectators” and watched the game from their carriages, which provided “a good view of the enthusiastic and excited ball players,” wrote the Clipper.16 The pond was dotted with skaters ‘like feathered Mercuries,” wrote the Eagle.17 The crowd was estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000 spectators (depending on the source), “a large portion of whom were on skates,” wrote the Brooklyn Evening Star. Some arrived via the Greenwood and Atlantic street cars,18 ensuring that “the Railroad Companies had a rich harvest in the increase of travel.”19 The enormous crowd made the pond “uncomfortably crowded for skating purposes,” wrote the Star,20 while the Clipper remarked that “it really seemed as if the players would not have a rod of ice to display their skill upon.”21

Police were out in full force as “it was with utmost difficulty that the crowd could be kept from pressing too closely upon the clubs,” the Times wrote, but “everybody seemed bent upon being happy and making others so.” Those not close enough to see the game were not terribly disappointed but “amused themselves in skating at other points.”22 When they needed a break from the chilly air, “the refreshment men were not idle,” wrote the Star. “Booths were provided, and hot coffee and cakes and the all persuasive lager were in large demand.”23

The game began at 3 P.M. Each team fielded 10 players, with each adding an extra catcher. The base areas were marked with red paint. A Mr. Ellenbeck from the Live Oak Club was chosen as the umpire, while John Oswald from Charter Oak and G.W. Moore of the Atlantic club were chosen as scorers, who would definitely have their work cut out for them that afternoon.

Not surprisingly, the beginning of the game saw “several of the players, in their anxiety to stop or catch the ball, by a miscalculation were brought summarily, and in one or two instances rather unpleasantly, in connection with the ice,” wrote the Times.24 Charter Oak batted first and scored a run, and in their half of the first, the Atlantics scored eight runs. We do not have a play-by-play of the game, as the Clipper noted the futility. “We shall not attempt to follow up or criticize the succeeding innings, as it will be readily understood that the game, when played upon the ice with skates, is altogether a different sort of affair from that which the Clubs are familiar with.”25 Charter Oak had great skaters in Johnson, Jerome, and Phillips, “but the balance of their players could not support them. … (T)heir opponents, as a body, were their superiors.”26

The score was Brooklyn 18-2 after three innings, but the Atlantics grew overconfident and careless, in the Clipper’s opinion, allowing Charter Oak to score 20 runs in innings four, five, and six. Brooklyn’s Dickie Pearce, today credited as a pioneer in creating the shortstop position, “proved himself as good a short stop on the ice, as he is on a summer’s day; he made several splendid fly catches, and for an inning or two, caught capitally behind.” Pitcher Matty O’Brien, first baseman John Griffith Price, second baseman Charles J. Smith, and the first catcher, Folkert Rapelje Boerum, illustrated that “the championship boys can turn out a good crowd of skaters,” in the Clipper’s analysis.27 The New York Times said nearly all 20 players were experts in skating and “played as well on runners, as when on terra firma.”28 The Star said “the batting, catching, and fielding were remarkably good, when the unusual and uncertain footing of the player is remembered.”Pearce and Oliver of the Atlantics “exhibited their characteristic abandon, and danced, leaped, turned somersaults, and indulged in other eccentricities.”29

The final score was the Atlantics 36, Charter Oak 27. The Clipper was enthusiastic, writing, “We hope to chronicle many similar pleasant and exciting trials of skill during this and future winters.”30 The game was considered a success, and another match, between the Atlantics and Pastimes, was scheduled for two days later.31

The crowd was definitely entertained that day; the Eagle commented, “There lurks within the breast a tendency to laugh at the mishaps of one’s neighbors,” and “from the frequency of the tumbles, players as well as non-players, the conclusion is inevitable that many a participant in the sports of the day retired to bed with a sore head and aching bones.”32

While Brooklyn was skating, historical events were happening elsewhere. About 1,000 miles away, in Montgomery, Alabama, Howell Cobb, an ancestor of Ty Cobb,33 spoke to the newly established Confederate States of America, which had seceded from the United States. “We meet as the representatives of sovereign and independent States, who by a solemn judgment have dissolved all the political association which connected them with the Government of the United States,” Cobb declared.34 The Civil War would begin in April.

Baseball played on ice declined in popularity over the next few decades, although there were examples of it still being played in the early 20th century.35 Beadle’s Dime Base Ball Player in the 1870s even included a section entitled “Rules for Games on Ice.”36 The fad seemed to have worn off relatively quickly for some, however. Annoyed, the Eagle wrote, “We hope we shall have no more ball games on the ice. … Playing on skates is mere tomfoolery. … If any of the ball clubs want to make fools of themselves, let them go down to Coney Island, and play a game on stilts.”37

Apparently no one attempted a game like that.

The box score from the New York Times:

Sources

In addition to sources listed in the Notes, the author benefited from the following:

Astifan, Priscilla. “Baseball in the 19th Century,” in Rochester History Vol. LII, No. 3 (Summer, 1990). rochesterbaseballhistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/part-1-1990.pdf.

Morris, Peter. Base Ball Founders: the Clubs, Players, and Cities of the Northeast that Established the Game. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013).

Ryczek, William J. Baseball’s First Inning: A History of the National Pastime Through the Civil War. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009).

Notes

Photo entitled “Famous Gate City Baseball Club of 1867” appeared in Atlanta Constitution, October 21, 1906, page 26. Left to right: Tom Johnson, Hugh Angier, Jim Gregg, Billy Sparks, Bob Dohme, Willis Biggers, George Cassin, Rube Tidwell and John Collier.

In the spring of 1866, a year after the end of the Civil War, Atlanta was in ruins. Lone chimneys served as reminders of where homes and businesses once stood before the city was burned by the Union Army. Red rags hung on doors warned of smallpox quarantine. The city was so poor that its leaders sent pleas to Northern cities for food and money to feed those who had flocked to the once-thriving railroad town that had been so important to the Confederate army.

Amid this chaos, Tom Burnett noticed a lush patch of green grass surrounded by young oak trees near the City Cemetery. Why his thoughts ran to baseball is lost to history, but he decided to organize a baseball team.

Burnett owned an icehouse on Wall Street and likely served as a volunteer fireman, as was common in the 1860s. He quickly gathered friends who were interested in playing baseball. They called themselves the Atlanta Base Ball Club.1 Soon hundreds of enthusiasts went out three afternoons a week to see their husbands, friends, and sweethearts swing the willow stick [bat]; blister their hands catching the ball [no gloves or mitts]; and wear themselves out running the bases.2

After several weeks of enthusiastic practice, team captain Burnett named his starting nine players. Joining him were “Coach” Alexander, Edgar Thompson, Joe Ormond, Smith and Robert Solomon, Sonny Wright, Tiff Meade, Joe Bridges, and Hayne Ellis.3 To celebrate their confidence as a team ready to compete against others, they ordered uniforms. They wore white caps, white flannel shirts, and black broadcloth trousers, held up by wide leather belts trimmed in red.

Robert Dohme, a newcomer to Atlanta who had served in the Union Army, decided to organize his own team. He called it the Gate City Nine. The roster included Dohme as shortstop; James Gregg, pitcher; George Cassin, catcher; John Collier, first base; Willis Biggers, second base; Tom Johnson, third base; Bill Judson, left field; Dick Williford, center field; and Bill Sparks, right field.4

Not to be outdone by the smart uniforms of the Atlanta Baseball Club, they chose light blue knee-length breeches, with crimson stripes down the sides, orange shirts, and highly glazed black military caps. After a few weeks of practice, Dohme decided they were ready to challenge Burnett’s team. The challenge was immediately accepted.

When Tom Burnett and Robert Dohme met to talk about the match game, they settled on May 12, at 2:00 P.M. In need of an umpire, they agreed that Samuel Downs was their best bet. Downs owned the Cabinet Saloon on Alabama Street downtown and was well known as an honest man who never lost his temper and had the respect of both teams.5 Downs studied the Knickerbocker Rule Book and had a large oak chair made to order for the occasion.6 He also arranged for a brass band to lead himself and the two teams onto the field on the day of the game.

So great was the interest in this spectacle that the citizens of Atlanta could talk of little else. Groups gathered on street corners to “discuss the great event and to utter profuse predictions concerning the disastrous defeat that was sure to befall Captain Dohme and his men.”

The day finally arrived. By 10 o’clock people began making their way toward the ball ground near the City Cemetery that would one day be known as Oakland Cemetery. By 2 P.M. the ball ground was surrounded by spectators. Some sat upon carriages, some were in trees and others stood in eager anticipation. Music sounded and a brass band led the teams and Downs onto the field. As the umpire, Downs took his seat in his new solid oak armchair and shouted, “Play Ball!”

And they did. First-hand accounts of the game report that “no one left until the last man in the last inning was declared out.”7

The Gate City Nine had no trouble with Burnett’s soft tosses, delivered underhand in accordance with the rules of 1866. They scored 25 runs in the first inning, often knocking the ball into or over the horses, carriages, and onlookers. By one account, Gate City’s Tom Johnson got the longest hit of the day. It carried so far over the crowd that it was not found until two weeks later – a quarter-mile away.8

It was finally time for the Atlanta Ball Club to swing their bats. Jimmy Gregg pitched, and George Cassin did the catching without a glove, mask, or shin guards. An eyewitness to the game reported, “Gregg pitched a treacherous sphere. … It was a slow twister, which started as if going just where the hitter wanted it and would then fly up under his chin or curl around his feet or zig-zag out into the sociable crowd which surrounded the umpire.”9

Equal praise was given to Cassin, who was described as “a born catcher, he was quick as lightning and active as a cat and would often play right up under the bat. … [H]e could throw to second like a shot out of a shovel.”

After a while, shortstop Dohme and pitcher Gregg exchanged positions and Coach Alexander came to bat for the Atlanta Ball Club. Alexander drilled a soft pitch right back at Dohme, hitting him in the abdomen. “He turned pale as death and fell face-foremost on the ground. Everybody thought that he was dead. Deep groans went up from the crowd. Women screamed and some of them fainted. Children cried aloud.”10 Dohme was revived with some splashes of water and the game continued.

In the end, Sam Downs pronounced the Gate City Nine victorious by a score of 127-29.

The Gate Citys were ecstatic with their victory and had the ceremonial ball covered with gilt and black lettering recording the date, the opponent, and the score. It was placed in exhibition in the downtown Taylor’s Drug Store where people could view it “as if it was some great man lying in state.”

The Atlanta Ball Club was demoralized by the lopsided score and soon disbanded, leaving its beautiful ball ground to the victorious Gate Citys.11 Full of confidence, the Gate City Nine claimed to be the champions of Georgia and would take on any team. Newspaper accounts of the day report that they were victorious in 36 matches before losing to a team of students at the University of Georgia who called themselves the Dixie Club.

Author’s Note

After reading an account of this ballgame in Franklin Garrett’s two-volume history of Atlanta, Atlanta and Environs, I wanted to know if any of the participants in this historic event were buried at Oakland Cemetery, where I served as a volunteer docent. A deep dive into Atlanta history revealed six members of the Gate City Nine (Tom Johnson, Billy Sparks, Bob Dohme, Willis Biggers, George Cassin and John Collier), one member of the Atlanta Ball Club (Joe Ormond) and the umpire (Sam Downs). The research resulted in the creation of a “Boys of Summer” baseball tour that is offered from time to time by the Historic Oakland Foundation. For more information on the Cemetery and the tour: www.oaklandcemetery.com.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Russ Walsh and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Notes

1 Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1954), Vol. 1: 12.

2 Augusta Wylie King, “Atlanta’s First Ball Park and First Baseball Team 1866,” Atlanta Historical Bulletin,Vol. 8, No. 32, 1947: 12.

3 King, 13.

4 Garrett, 726.

5 King, 13.

5 Garrett, 726.

6 Smith Clayton, “After 22 Years: The First Match Game of Base Ball in Atlanta,” Atlanta Constitution, May 27, 1888: 5.

7 King, 14.

8 King, 14.

9 Clayton.

10 Clayton. 14 Clayton.

11 Peter Morris, “Gate City Base Ball Club of Atlanta,” in Baseball Pioneers 1850-1870 (Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland & Company, 2021), 315.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credit

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

The beginning of the end of African American participation in Organized Baseball probably dates to an in-season exhibition game less than two decades after the close of the Civil War.

Cap Anson’s Chicagos were a model of success on the field, having won the three previous National League titles, and at the time of the game they were in the thick of a battle for a fourth straight. Anson was their very capable leader, a Hall of Fame-bound player and by modern standards an outspoken racial bigot. His views were hardly unique at the time, within baseball or in the country at large, but his prominent position made him a major factor in segregating the game.

Baseball in Toledo was in its infancy, the 1883 season being the city’s first. The Toledo catcher was Moses Fleetwood Walker, a mulatto man1 and the target of Anson’s prejudice. Walker was one of just a few black men playing in the minor leagues at the time. His race nearly denied him that opportunity. The executive committee of the Northwestern League met at Toledo’s Boody House on March 14, 1883, to consider “a motion … by the representative from the Peoria, Illinois, club that no colored player be allowed in the league.”2 This action was made specifically to expel Walker. After a bitter fight, the motion was defeated, allowing Walker to play.

Unfortunately for researchers, only one Toledo newspaper containing the game account and the events leading up to it survives. The Toledo Daily Blade’s lengthy account is not at all complimentary of either Anson or his team. In fact it is exceedingly supportive of Walker and indicates that the Toledo management came to his defense and suggests that the city did as well. The article is replete with opinion and appeared under several headlines including “Baby Anson and the Color Line.”3 It is repeated here in part:

Walker, the colored catcher of the Toledo Club … was a source of contention between the home club and … the Chicago Club. Shortly after their arrival in the city … the Toledo Club was … informed that there was objection in the Chicago Club to Toledo’s playing Walker.…

Walker has a very sore hand, and it had not been intended to play him in yesterday’s game, and this was stated to the bearer of the announcement for the Chicagos. … Not content with this, the visitors … declared with the swagger for which they are noted, that they would play ball “with no d—-d nigger.” … (T)he order was given, then and there, to play Walker and the beefy bluffer was informed that he could play or go, just as he blank pleased. Anson hauled in his horns somewhat and “consented” to play, remarking, “We’ll play this here game, but won’t play never no more with the nigger in.”4

Toledo’s manager, Charlie Morton, had called Anson’s bluff, forcing the latter onto the field in order to secure his interest in the day’s gate receipts.

Contrasting the Toledo reporting, the Chicago Tribune’s brief story contained only basic game information and was not accompanied by a box score. “Ten innings were played today between the Chicagos and the Toledos, and the former barely succeeded in defeating the home nine, securing but one additional run on the extra inning. The score stood 7 to 6 and the home nine felt proud of having succeeded in holding down the league champions to their work.”5

Toledo secured two moral victories that day. Their manager and team had taken the high road by supporting Walker. Of lesser importance was their play, which forced the powerful Chicago team to extra innings. Most of the Chicago team had been together for several years and included two future Hall of Famers, Anson, the 19th century’s best hitter, and colorful catcher King Kelly. The supporting cast included Billy Sunday, who went on to become a noteworthy evangelist.

But Anson made good his bold statement — “won’t play never no more with the nigger in.”6 Chicago was at Toledo again in 1884 but this time Walker did not play. The reason is not clear, but Chicago had requested assurance in writing that no black would play any position in the July 25 exhibition game.7 Toledo’s response to this request is not known, but it is known that Walker had not played the previous three games because of injury, nor did he catch again until August 18. Teams featuring Walker and Anson met again in Newark in 1887 with Walker on the sidelines along with his black batterymate, George Stovey.8 Walker left after the 1889 season, “The last black to play in a highly competitive integrated league”9 until the arrival of Jackie Robinson in 1947.

Cap Anson was not entirely responsible for baseball’s more than half-century of segregation, but he had a lot to do with it. The incident of August 10, 1883, in Toledo certainly brought the issue to the forefront and began an open, blatant, and successful effort to bar black players from Organized Baseball.10

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

One of the key attractions at the 1884 Southern Exposition was a mid-September interleague exhibition game between the National League’s Chicago White Stockings and the American Association’s Louisville Eclipse. The game was played before what may have been the largest crowd to attend a “base ball match” in nearly two decades.

As described by its organizing committee, the Southern Exposition served “to exhibit the products and resources of the Southern states to Northern and Eastern manufacturers and the implements and machines of the great industries of the former.”2 The centerpiece of the Exposition was a 900-foot-long, 600-foot-wide exhibit hall, built along with several smaller buildings on 45 acres of land adjacent to Louisville’s Central Park. The interior of the exhibit hall and building exteriors throughout the exposition grounds were illuminated with a combination of 75 arc lights and 46,000 incandescent light bulbs, the latter manufactured by the Edison Electric Light Company and installed under the supervision of Thomas Edison himself.3 The lighting allowed for evening attendance throughout the exposition grounds, a first for such a large venue. At its debut, the Southern Exposition boasted more electric lights than all of New York City.4

Officially opened by President Chester A. Arthur on August 1, 1883, the Exposition welcomed 971,000 visitors over 100 days.5 Envisioned at first as a one-time event, the Exposition proved so profitable that it was held again in 1884, with a number of changes. At the center of the Exposition building, Edison workmen installed a 35-foot-tall water fountain illuminated by dozens of colored light bulbs, a dazzling sight known as an “electric fountain.”6 Also, to the south of the hall, a three-sided amphitheater with covered seating for 15,0007 was constructed surrounding a large parade ground. There, on Monday, September 15, Chicago’s Whites and the hometown Eclipse would be on display.

An amateur club when formed in the 1850s,8 the Eclipse evolved into a professional nine that was a charter member of the American Association when it debuted in 1882.9 Louisville sat in third place as Chicago came to town, five games behind the first place New York Metropolitans, with 20 games remaining in their quest for their first Association crown.

The White Stockings, NL champions from 1880 to 1882, were out of contention for the 1884 pennant, 24½ games behind the front-running Providence Grays. Coming off an Eastern swing through New York and Philadelphia, they were on their way back to the friendly confines of Lake Front Park. A change in Lake Front ground rules for the 1884 season gave batters a home run instead of a double for balls hit over the short porch in right field, only180 feet from home plate. That enabled Chicago to launch a major-league record 142 home runs by year’s end.10

Leading up to the game, the Louisville Courier-Journal shared one anonymous Kentuckian’s opinion that “the Louisvilles are the equals of any club in America.”11 The newspaper predicted that the game would feature “the attendance of a larger number of ladies than were ever seen at a base ball game in Louisville.”12 The morning of the game, the Courier-Journal offered yet another enticement to see Eclipse battle the “Chicago League Champions.” The exposition entrance fee, which included admission to the “immense amphitheater,” was only 25 cents, half the usual charge.13

Crowds began arriving at 1:30 P.M., two hours before game time. Once the amphitheater was filled, spectators “continued to pour into the grounds until every available foot of space around the guard ropes on all sides was occupied.”14 The Courier-Journal declared that “such a mass of enthusiastic spectators was never seen in the West.”15 Sporting Life estimated the crowd at 20,000 and called it the largest ever assembled on a Louisville ball ground.16 The Chicago Tribune agreed that no bigger crowd had witnessed a ballgame in Louisville, yet declared that only 2,500 attended.17 The Cincinnati Enquirer put the crowd size at 22,000, minimum.18

A crowd of this size for a game of base ball hadn’t been reported by any newspaper19 since the aborted opening game of the 1866 national championship series between the Athletics of Philadelphia and the Atlantics of Brooklyn. During the first inning of that contest, many of the reported 30,000 spectators spilled onto the field and couldn’t be persuaded to give players enough room for the game to go on.20  

While newspaper reporting of ballgame attendance figures in the nineteenth century was spotty, nearly a dozen games between the 1866 national championship and this one were described as played before crowds of “up to 20,000,” “20,000,” or “20,000 or more.” A list that includes the June 1870 match at Brooklyn’s Capitoline Grounds when the undefeated Cincinnati Reds fell to the Atlantics, the first-ever National League championship (regular) season match between the Boston Red Stockings and Chicago White Stockings in 1876, and the inaugural game at the original Polo Grounds in 1880.21

A decade before the Southern Exposition, 20,000 had also gathered to see the White Stockings take on the Philadelphia Whites in an exhibition close by another large fair, the St. Louis Exposition of 1874. But that game never happened, as Philadelphia backed out, unwilling to make the trip.22 This time, with an opportunity to show hometown fans they could compete with the former NL standard-bearers, Chicago’s opponent would have no travel issues.

One member of the Eclipse, though, likely saw the exhibition game as an opportunity lost: Joe Gerhardt, the club’s second baseman. The team’s manager one year earlier, Gerhardt was entitled to a one-third share of the receipts from the saloon at its home ballpark, Eclipse Park. Gerhardt had exacted the lucrative deal from his replacement, Mike Walsh, during preseason contract negotiations, as an enticement to stay with Louisville in the face of an Association-stipulated $1,800 maximum salary.23 At home games, Gerhardt frequently worked behind the counter in between innings, boosting his earnings while personally serving “a horde of wide-eyed hero worshippers with their drinks.” He wouldn’t be doing that at the Exposition.24

Despite its spacious design, the grounds, according to the Courier-Journal, “were no means good.”25 In the middle stood a 125-foot-tall open framework iron tower that held ten 2,000-candlepower electric arc lights to illuminate the parade grounds for nighttime events.26 No mention is made of any spectators spilling onto the field in order to see the game, as occasionally happened for well-attended games in the nineteenth century – a benefit of playing this game on a vast parade ground.

Louisville took the field with its regular pitcher, and the Association’s most dominant hurler, eventual 52-game winner Guy Hecker. Chicago captain Cap Anson elected to start his number-three pitcher, slender (5-feet-10, 155 pounds) John Clarkson on his way to a 10-win season.27

The crowd was enthusiastic from the start, with applause that went around the grounds “to thrilling effect.”28 The play was sloppy at times, particularly on the part of the visiting White Stockings, who “fielded like a lot of school-boys,” committing 10 errors.29 This was no surprise; unlike Louisville, which boasted the highest fielding percentage of any Association team in 1884, Chicago topped the NL in errors that season, with 595 or 5.3 per game. Chicago persevered, winning 11-7, on the strength of home runs by Anson, Clarkson, leadoff batter Abner Dalrymple, and NL batting champ-to-be King Kelly.

Typically Chicago’s right fielder in 1884, Kelly spent this game shuttling around the diamond. After starting in right field, he replaced catcher Silver Flint when Flint got sick in the middle of the game. (As Flint was being tended to, Chicago infielders Ned Williamson and Fred Pfeffer gave the crowd an impromptu throwing exhibition; each heaving a ball over the top of the iron light tower.30) When play resumed, Kelly split a finger catching Clarkson’s first pitch to him, and had to switch places with Anson, who’d been manning first base.

Louisville mustered only three hits off Clarkson, who, as hinted in the Courier-Journal, delivered the ball with his arm above the shoulder, a pitching motion allowed in the NL but banned by the AA.31 A pair of light-hitting Eclipse regulars each registered a rare extra-base hit. Catcher Dan Sullivan, who compiled an anemic .233/.262./.289 slash line across a five-year career, doubled, and shortstop Tom McLaughlin, who hit only two regular-season home runs in his five years in the big leagues, clubbed a bottom-of-the-ninth three-run homer. Former NL batting champ Pete Browning, the Louisville slugger who legend holds broke out of a batting slump earlier in the season after using a custom bat turned for him by 17-year-old apprentice Bud Hillerich, found no hits in the model he used for this game; he went 0-for-5.

Long before the game ended, the size of the crowd shrank noticeably. Once defeat seemed certain for Eclipse, many departed in order to get a seat at an evening concert in the Exposition’s music hall.

Two years passed before a larger crowd witnessed a game of base ball; not on a parade ground, but on a former polo field, in New York City.32

Acknowledgments                                              

This article was fact-checked by Stew Thornley and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Bryan S. Bush, Louisville’s Southern Exposition, 1883-1887 (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2011), Bob Bailey’s SABR biography of Eclipse Park, and Philip Von Borries’ SABR biography of Pete Browning. He also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information.

Notes

1 Not until 1931 was the Derby contested on the first Saturday in May, as it has been ever since. The winner of the 1884 renewal, Buchanan, was ridden by Isaac Murphy, a Black man born into slavery who was a member of the inaugural class of jockeys inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame in 1955.

2 Bryan S. Bush, Louisville’s Southern Exposition, 1883-1887, 22.

3 “Exposition Light,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 3, 1883: 6.

4 Susan Page Davis, “The Southern Exposition 1883-1887,” Heroes, Heroines and History website, August 23, 2013, https://www.hhhistory.com/2013/08/the-southern-exposition-1883-1887.html.

5 Louisville’s Southern Exposition, 1883-1887, 50.

6 Two years later, an electric fountain provided by a British engineer was installed as a centerpiece of the new St. George Grounds on Staten Island, New York, the final home of the American Association New York Metropolitans. “Fairyland on Staten Island,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 17, 1886: 348.

7 “No Fireworks,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 22, 1884: 6.

8 “Another Base Ball Club,” Louisville Daily Journal, August 20, 1858: 3.

9 Illustrating the long-standing significance of horse racing to the city of Louisville, the name Eclipse came not from the awe-inspiring alignment of celestial bodies but from a legendary eighteenth-century racehorse of the same name. The legacy of Eclipse continues to be prominent outside the world of horse racing into the twenty-first century; Mitsubishi Motors’ Eclipse sport sedan, manufactured from 1989 through 2011, was, like the American Association nine, named after the racehorse.

10 Chicago’s record was not broken until the 1927 New York Yankees of Murderer’s Row fame. The average number of home runs hit per game at Lake Front Park during the 1884 season (3.52) remains a major-league record.

11 “A Great Club,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 13, 1884: 5.

12 “Amusements,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 14, 1884: 3; “The News,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 15, 1884: 1.

13 “Twenty-Five Cent Day at the Exposition,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 15, 1884: 8; “Today’s Attractions,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 15, 1884: 8.

14 “Base Ball at the Ex,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 16, 1884: 5.

15 “Base Ball at the Ex.” This claim trumped one made two weeks earlier by the Courier-Journal, when it called the crowd on hand for a military drill competition held on the parade ground “the largest outdoor audience ever assembled in the West.” That competition was capped off by an evening fireworks display, accompanied by music from Cappa’s Seventh Regiment band, the same band that under the direction of John Philip Sousa, later played the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the April 1923 opening of the original Yankee Stadium. “The Biggest Yet,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 29, 1884: 6.

16 “Two Noteworthy Games,” Sporting Life, September 24, 1884: 2.

17 “Chicago, 11; Louisville, 7,” Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1884: 3.

18 “Twenty-two Thousand People Present,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 16, 1884: 2. On September 17, the Indianapolis News mentioned that 22,000 had attended a game in Louisville (presumably this one), calling the large crowd “testimony to the love of out door sport as positive as any that the English ever gave.” “Current Comment,” Indianapolis News, September 17, 1884: 2.

19 Based on the author’s review of multiple newspaper archives, including those of the New York Clipper, Sporting Life, newspapers.com, and genealogy.com. The author did find a letter to the editor in the Boston Watchman and Redeemer, dated August 2, 1871, in which a Chicagoan claimed 25,000 witnessed a recent game in that city, a crowd the letter-writer said “daily papers” estimated at 30,000. The letter-writer was almost certainly referring to a National Association contest between the White Stockings and the Mutuals played at Lake Front Park on July 28, which both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Republican described as played before a crowd that was unusually large. Those publications estimated attendance was only 12,000 or 11,000, respectively. J.C., “Chicago Correspondence,” Boston Watchman and Reflector, August 10, 1871: 6; “White Stockings vs. Mutuals,” Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1871: 4; “Top of the Heap,” Chicago Republican, July 29, 1871: 4.

20 “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1866: 4.

21 Based on the author’s review. The full list of games identified by the author in which one or more newspapers reported attendance of “up to 20,000,” “20,000,” or “more than 20,000” follows. Not included in this list is an unspecified game referenced in a widely published critique of baseball fanatics dated May 8, 1876, in which the writer referred to attending a game with 20,000 “more or less demented” and “feeble-minded” spectators. “Making the Home Base,” Pittsburgh Gazette, May 31, 1876: 2.

22 Chicago and Philadelphia had reportedly agreed to travel to St. Louis during an offday in the middle of a two-game National Association championship season series between the two teams in Chicago. The day after the postponed St. Louis match, the two teams held an exhibition in Chicago to mark the third anniversary of that city’s Great Fire. “Base Ball,” St. Louis Republican, October 9, 1874: 4; “Whites and Philadelphias,” Chicago Tribune, October 10, 1874: 12.

23 John J. McCloskey,” Gerhardt’s ’84 Salary Was $1,800 and Third of Bar Receipts,” Louisville Courier-Journal, February 4, 1934: 35. Modern databases, as well as several contemporary sources, identify Walsh as the Eclipse manager during the 1884 season, but multiple accounts assert that Gerhardt handled manager responsibilities that season. An umpire before he assumed Louisville managerial responsibilities in 1883, Walsh has been called the first salaried umpire in major-league history. “Picked Up,” Louisville Courier-Journal, March 4, 1884: 8; “Notes,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 13, 1884: 5; Tommy Fitzgerald, “Louisville Started Umpires and Bats,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 24, 1939: 51.

24 “Gerhardt’s ’84 Salary Was $1,800 and Third of Bar Receipts.” On game day at the Southern Exposition, Gerhardt was likely grieving a loss far greater than what he might have earned had the game been played at Eclipse Park; five weeks earlier his infant son had died of cholera. “Deaths,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 7, 1884: 5.

25 “Base Ball at the Ex.”

26 Louisville’s Southern Exposition, 1883-1887, 56; “Exposition Affairs,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 8, 1884: 8.

27 A year later Clarkson would collect 53 wins as Anson’s ace. Only Old Hoss Radbourn of the 1884 Providence Grays ever topped that total in a single major-league season.

28 “Base Ball at the Ex.”

29 “Base Ball at the Ex.”

30 “Notes,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 16, 1884: 5.

31 “Notes.” Hecker presumably followed the American Association rule, which required that pitches “pass below the line of [the pitcher’s] shoulder.” “The American Association Convention,” New York Clipper, December 23, 1882: 645.

32 The next game identified by the author with reported attendance of over 22,000 was the second game of a May 31, 1886, doubleheader at the original Polo Grounds. Officially listed as having an attendance of 26,000, contemporary accounts claimed as many as 31,000 were there. “The Polo Grounds Packed,” New York Sun, June 1, 1886: 3; “No Room for the Players,” New York Tribune, June 1, 1886: 8; “Winning Even Honors,” New York Times, June 1, 1886: 2.

Baseball fans can debate incessantly over what is the greatest game ever played. But there’s no debate concerning the greatest site to host a game. Only one “ballpark” in history can trace its lineage across three millennia, or boast the status of one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

On February 9, 1889, about 20 stars of the National League played ball on the desert sand of the Great Pyramids at Giza, Egypt. The event was the centerpiece of a world tour organized by Chicago White Stockings executive and sporting goods manufacturer Albert G. Spalding in an effort to promote America’s national pastime in foreign locales.

As a business proposition, the event was a bust. In addition to Egypt, the tour visited Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, India, Italy, France, Scotland, and England, generally attracting small crowds that consisted largely of American tourists. “I consider base ball an excellent game, but cricket a better one,” Britain’s Prince of Wales famously observed after the players’ March exhibition at London’s Kensington Oval.1 Spalding was said to have lost between $30,000 and $40,000 on the venture.2

The tour did succeed, however, as a statement that baseball had come of age as America’s national pastime. Firmly in that belief, the 20 players—10 representing the White Stockings, the rest drawn from other National League teams—had set off the previous October for a trip designed to keep them abroad through March.

Three future Hall of Famers were among the tourists. Adrian C. “Cap” Anson was the first baseman and captain of the White Stockings, John Montgomery Ward played shortstop and Ned Hanlon center field for the All-Americas, as the opponents were called. Two other future Hall of Famers accompanied the group: George Wright as umpire and Henry Chadwick, the era’s best-known baseball writer. Yet another, King Kelly, played on the U.S. portion of the tour, but did not go overseas.

Here are the rosters:

• White Stockings: Mark Baldwin and John Tener, pitchers; Tom Daly, catcher; Cap Anson, first base; Fred Pfeffer, second base; Tommy Burns, third base; Ed Williamson, shortstop; Martin Sullivan, Jimmy Ryan, and Robert Pettit, outfielders.
• All-Americas: John Healy, Indianapolis, and Cannonball Ed Crane, New York, pitchers; Billy Earle, Cincinnati, catcher; G.A. Wood, Philadelphia, first base; Fred Carroll, Pittsburgh, second base; Jimmy Manning, Kansas City, third base; John Montgomery Ward, New York, shortstop; James Fogarty, Philadelphia, Ned Hanlon, Pittsburgh, and Tom Brown, Boston, outfielders.

In the absence of daily communication from overseas, knowledge of the actual play is limited to the accounts furnished by Francis Richter, editor of Sporting Life, one of the two popular baseball weeklies of the era, and Harry Clay Palmer, an author who wrote a book about the trip. If any box score was kept, it no longer exists. The Sporting News, Richter’s archrival in the coverage of baseball-related happenings, scorned the enterprise and ignored the Pyramid Game.

The teams arrived in Cairo after a sea passage from Ceylon with the All-Americas holding a 15–13–1 edge in the series. They took up lodgings in the Orient Hotel, and, after an evening to regain their land legs, set out the next morning for the playing site. The transportation was unusual to say the least: The White Stockings were provided donkeys, the All-Americas took camels. The teams switched mounts halfway along. They arrived at 2 p.m., had lunch, posed for photographs, and toured the historic sites before proceeding to what Anson described as “the hard sands of the desert, where a diamond had been laid out.”3

Their audience for the game consisted largely of what Anson referred to as “Arabs”—presumably local Egyptians—with a few tourists thrown in. The Chicagos got away quickly, scoring twice in the first inning off Healy, whose nickname, ironically, was Egyptian. The All-Americas heartily returned fire in the second, swatting Tener around for seven runs and effectively deciding the outcome. From that point on, Daly provided the on-field excitement with a home run in the fourth.4 Spalding, who umpired in Chadwick’s absence, called the game after five innings and declared the All Americas the winner by a score of 10–6. “I apologized to the Sphinx on behalf of my team … to this she turned a deaf ear,” Anson reported.5

The spectators were generally respectful, but puzzled by what was happening before them. In an age when games began and ended with the same ball, fouls hit into the crowd presented a particular difficulty. “When the ball was thrown or batted into the crowd, the Arabs would pounce upon it and examine it as though it were one of the greatest of curiosities, and it was only after a row that we could get it in our possession,” Anson wrote.6

After the game, both teams dallied a while at the site. Observers reported that they amused themselves by throwing baseball’s at the Sphinx’s right eye, and that Fogarty, the Philadelphia outfielder, actually hit it.7

The All-Americas also prevailed during the overall tour, winning 14 of the 28 games contested on foreign soil. The White Stockings won 11 and three ended in a tie.

Although the tour did little to promote baseball around the world, it still had plenty of impact. Since 1885, Ward had been a leader of the Brotherhood Movement, the game’s first players union. While he cavorted with Spalding on the other side of the world, the other National league club owners drew up revised rules that had the effect of reducing the Brotherhood’s impact. Learning of this in Europe, Ward deduced—probably correctly—that he and the players he represented had been taken advantage of. He quit the tour, rushed home, and began to draw plans for what would become the Brotherhood War of 1890.

Notes

1 Spalding, Albert G. America’s National Game (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1911).

2 “Just Like Emigrants,” The Sporting News, March 9, 1889, p. 1.

3 Anson, Adrian C. A Ball Player’s Career (Mattituck, N.Y., Amereon House, 1900).

4 Lamster, Mark. Spalding’s World Tour (New York: Perseus Books, 2006).

5 Anson, A Ball Player’s Career.

6 Anson, A Ball Player’s Career.

7 Anson, A Ball Player’s Career.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author’s note

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

Sources

Baseball-reference.com.

Chronicling America.

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

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

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

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

1891 Reach Official Baseball Guide.

Notes

Sunday ballplaying had met with considerable resistance in the East. The West, with a more cosmopolitan outlook, had adopted a relaxed idea of Sabbath observance, and for many years Sunday ballgames, horse races, and other sports were acceptable; but Rhode Island was the first of the New England states to lighten up on the old puritanical blue laws against amusing oneself on the Sabbath, and Rocky Point, on the shore of Narragansett Bay, was a fitting location for a change of heart and mood. A 45-minute boat ride from Providence added to the Point’s mystique as a place detached from the real world, and it offered shore dinners– also known as clambakes – and all kinds of sports and amusement. But traditional Sabbath defenders feared that the manner by which the management of the Point had gone into the business of using baseball as an attraction would sooner or later draw to that famous shore resort a class of people who would cause nothing but trouble.

The Boston Daily Advertiser reported that the larger portion of the 2,500 or so who attended the game between the Bostons and Athletics were “sporting characters and the roughest element of the population, and with few exceptions the faces of the fairer sex present were more familiar to habitués of the Bowery than to the residents of Quality Hill.”1 Ouch. But the Daily Advertiser did grant that as a rule, the crowd was an orderly one, even though beer was freely and openly sold on the grounds and aboard the boats transporting the crowd from Providence.

Many of the cranks present were attracted by a rumor that the players would be arrested after the game, but there seemed to be no objection by the officers present. Sheriff Sprague of Kent County had guaranteed that there would be no trouble. His deputies were at the game to ensure order, and a special police force hired by Rocky Point also helped to control the expected crowd. In Sprague’s opinion, “If steamboats were allowed to run to the shore places, to band concerts, flying horses, swings, toboggan slides, and the like, and to the shore dinners served, he saw no reason why the laws of the state should stop at base ball, which he considered an innocent game and an activity that was not any more enticing to gamblers than their betting on two flies crawling up a window pane, if the spectators were inclined to bet.”2 But he and his men would be inclined to arrest anyone at the first sign of fighting, gambling, or drunkenness within the crowd or on the playing field.

The game that Sunday showed he was right in his opinion, and just so long as they were run in a manner as orderly as that one was, there would be no interference at future games. If he saw any activity that was hazardous to anyone, he’d stop it, but until he did, Sunday base ball games would be allowed in his bailiwick.

As for the Daily Advertiser’s report on the game itself, the newspaper declared that it was a poor one. The players seemed to take little interest in it, and the miserable field made the playing difficult. The grass had been recently mowed but only from the infield, which was also the only portion of the field reasonably level, and the players were hemmed in on all sides by the spectators. Stricker of the Bostons was the only one who made any pretense of playing ball, the listless manner of the others causing general disgust among knowledgeable spectators. When it was announced just before the close of the game that the Bostons and the Baltimores of the American Association would play there the following Sunday, a crank in the crowd predicted a light attendance if the standard of playing was not improved significantly. The Bostons won, 15-5.

Home runs by Tom Brown and Bill Joyce, and difficult catches of flies by Pop Corkhill in center field were the features of the game. The score:

Base hits – Boston, 19, Athletics, 9. Errors – Boston 3; Athletics, 4. Batteries,  Bill Daley, Charlie Buffinton, Duke Farrell and Morgan Murphy; Will Calihan and Ed McKean. Earned runs – Boston 8. Two-base hits – Brown, Corkhill. Three-base hits – Dan Brouthers (3). Home runs – Brown, Joyce. Stolen bases – Brown, Calihan. First base on balls – by Buffinton, Lave Cross; by Daley, Calihan, Gus Weyhing; by Calihan, Joyce, Farrell, Murphy. First base on errors – Boston 2, Athletics, 1. Struck out – by Buffinton 3; by Daley 1; by Calihan 5. Passed ball – Murphy. Wild pitch – Buffinton.

Sources

“Sunday Baseball,” Boston Daily Advertiser, June 22, 1891, 2.

“Will Play at Rocky Point,” Boston Herald, June 23, 1891, 10.

Charlie Bevis, Sunday Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2003).

Notes

1. “Sunday Baseball, Boston A.A. Breaks Rhode Island Law,” Boston Daily Advertiser, June 22, 1891.

2. “Will Play at Rocky Point,” Boston Herald, June 23, 1891.

It was now August and Bennett was tired from the long train ride from Michigan, but was able to enjoy some relaxing moments with his wife and former teammates Nichols and Charlie Ganzel and their wives. He had been fitted with artificial limbs in early June4 and was said to simply resemble someone suffering from rheumatism.5 But while this was not the same Charlie Bennett physically, his friends still cherished the time with the old catcher who had “stored away an inexhaustive sic fund of stories of the game and its kings.”6

Bennett was in town as Boston held a charity game on August 27 against a squad of college players. The proceeds were going to Bennett. The Boston Post said tickets for the game were “selling like hot cakes.”7

The former catcher saw 9,000 cheering fans come to pay tribute to him. “It was a trifle too cool for the greatest enjoyment,” wrote Sporting Life, “but it did not deter the friends and admirers of Boston’s crippled catcher from turning out in large numbers.”8 It must have been a moment that those who witnessed it would never forget, as Bennett made his way to his usual position “with the aid of his crutches and artificial limbs,” wrote Tim Murnane in the Boston Globe. “He walked out to the home plate just before the ball game, and there, surrounded by the members of both teams, bowed to the spectators on the bleachers and in the pavilion until the grounds fairly shook with the cheers.”9 He was overcome with emotion, the Boston Daily Advertiser noted, as “his eyes were filled with tears, the corner of his mouth twitched, and his lips trembled with emotion.”10

Gentleman Jim Corbett, the champion boxer of the day, donned the uniform of Boston’s Jack Stivetts (who was away following the death of his father)11 and went out to play left field for the Beaneaters. He was not afraid to get Stivetts’s uniform dirty as he ran the bases and scored a couple of runs. But his biggest contribution of the day came via a $50 check to Bennett while he himself asked for no travel expenses or compensation for his services. “That shows that he isn’t mean,” the Post wrote.12 Some familiar Boston ballplayers of yesteryear were also on hand: John Morrill, Harry Schafer, Art Whitney, George Wright and his brother Sam, and Dupee Shaw. King Kelly, a player-manager in one last hurrah in the minor leagues, sent a telegram showing that his sense of humor was fine: “Bennett can’t play ball, but he can play cricket, as he has stumps. Put us down for $25.”13

The game began at 2:30 P.M., and the crowd roared when Corbett was the first man to the plate. He swung the bat but looked more like a boxer, and struck out against Frank Sexton, formerly of Brown University and now with the New Bedford club.14 Bobby Lowe doubled, Herman Long, Tommy McCarthy, and Tommy Tucker all singled and Boston led 2-0.

The score remained that way until the fourth when the Picked Nine vaulted ahead with four runs. Guys named Upton, Cotter, Ranney, Abbott, and Steere sliced hits off Boston pitcher Harry Staley. Boston fielders were also sloppy as Billy Nash’s throw was wide and Jack Ryan dropped a throw. When the dust settled, the Picked Nine had scored four runs in the third and eight in the fourth, for a surprising 12-2 lead after four.

Boston stormed back to tie the game in the sixth. Had Sexton stayed in the game, Sporting Life believed, the Picked Nine would surely have won the game. But a pitcher named Dowd came in and “the champions didn’t do a thing with him but roll up ten runs.”15 Corbett was hit by a pitch, Long, McCarthy, Tucker, and Nash singled, Jimmy Bannon doubled, and Ryan doubled. Ten runs had scored and suddenly it was a 12-12 game. Boston added one in the seventh, and in the eighth Lowe reached on an error and Frank Connaughton homered. Boston added another in the eighth for a 16-12 lead and the eventual win. The Beaneaters even gave up their turn at bat in the ninth. Boston had scored 14 unanswered runs to get the victory.

When the game ended, the crowd rushed on the field “to get a good look at Bennett.” Bennett had watched the game from a large chair in the grandstand and “the ovation tendered him when some of his friends lifted him to their shoulders nearly took the roof off the structure,” wrote the New York Sun.16

There were more events after the game. Fred Tenney, McCarthy, Nichols, and Bannon competed in races against each other and later Nash and Lowe had throwing competitions. High jumps were also conducted. After the festivities the players retired to the clubhouse, where Duffy and Long served as a reception committee. Refreshments were served,17 and Bennett expressed his gratitude for the day. Mrs. Bennett mentioned, probably quietly to some of the guests, that Charlie had suffered more than he was letting on but had worked hard to look his best on this occasion. “The whole affair was handled in a first-class manner,” Murnane wrote.18

Bennett sent a thank-you letter to the Boston Globe which was published on August 29. In it he thanked everyone in Boston from the players to the fans and sportswriters “who have shown such magnificent generosity to me in my misfortune by giving me so flattering a testimonial.” He added that he “never shall be able to repay the manifold kindnesses which have been showered upon me from all sides.”19

Bennett remained in Boston at the Nichols residence until September 6, then returned to his home in Detroit, where he had many friends, but “not any more than he has right here in Boston,” Murnane wrote.20

It wouldn’t be the last time Bennett would be on the field accepting the applause of a crowd. On April 28, 1896, a new ballpark was opened in Detroit at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. Both teams lined up on the field, and the crowd began to cheer. The Detroit Free Press described the scene: “Charley Bennett, the idolized catcher from the palmy days, came out from the stand leaning on the arm of Charley Snyder, who was the star catcher of the American Association in the exciting days of twelve years ago. They walked to the plate and the players reverently doffed their caps.” The ceremonial first pitch was thrown and Charlie caught it “as easily as he could handle one,” the Free Press remarked. “The cannon boomed, the ceremony was over, and cheer after cheer went up for the man whose name the park bears.”21

The ballpark was remodeled and renamed over the years to Navin Field, Briggs Stadium, and eventually Tiger Stadium until its demolition in 1999. But it began as Bennett Park.

Bennett’s name has often appeared on a ballot for SABR’s Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend voting.22 He wasn’t overlooked that day at the South End Grounds, however, in what the Boston Journal called “a splendid tribute to a ball player whose personal character made him an honor to his calling.”23

Notes

1 “Same Old Charley Bennett,” Boston Globe, August 27, 1894: 2.

2 “Charley Bennett Maimed,” Detroit Free Press, January 11, 1894: 2.   

3 “Poor Charley Bennett,” Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1894: 4.

4 “Charley Bennett’s Benefit,” Boston Globe, August 26, 1894: 3.

5 “Same Old Charley Bennett.”

6 “Poor Charley Bennett.”

7 “Baseball Talk,” Boston Post, August 25, 1894: 3.

8 “Bennett’s Benefit,” Sporting Life, September 8, 1894: 6.

9 T.H. Murnane, “Nearly $6,000,” Boston Globe, August 28, 1894: 1.

10 “Nearly 9000 Persons,” Boston Daily Advertiser, August 28, 1894: 8.

11 “Baseball Talk.”

12 “Benefit Big,” Boston Post, August 28, 1894: 3.

13 Ibid.

14 David Nemec, Rank and File of 19th Century Major League Baseball: Biographies of 1, 084 Players, Owners, Managers and Umpires. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012), 73; Sexton would play all seven games of his major-league career for Boston in 1895.

15 “Bennett’s Benefit.”

16 “Charlie Bennett’s Benefit,” The Sun, August 28, 1894: 4.

17 “Benefit Big.”

18 Ibid.

19 “Charley Bennett’s Thanks,” Boston Globe, August 29, 1894: 1.

20 Murnane.

21 “17 To 2!!” Detroit Free Press, April 29, 1896: 6.

22 In 2015, Bennett was included on the ballot with a brief summary: “Bennett was one of the greatest catchers of the Nineteenth Century, starring for Detroit and Boston of the NL. He was a powerful hitter who often ranked among the leaders in homers and slugging percentage while finishing in the top 10 in bases on balls six times. His defense was stellar and he was a leader on the field.” sabr.org/latest/announcing-finalists-2015-sabr-overlooked-19th-century-base-ball-legend,  retrieved January 24, 2017.

23 “Rousing Benefit,” Boston Journal, August 28, 1894: 3. 

Emphasizing the safety and effectiveness of woven wire, Page employed a wide variety of marketing strategies to sell his fencing, like demonstrations of wire withstanding impacts from farm machinery. He also created a zoo on company grounds in which deer, wolves, sheep, and other animals were penned inside woven wire fencing enclosures.3

The summer of 1894 was a particularly prosperous time for the company commonly known as Page Fence. Expenditures for the coil steel they used to make fencing had been dropping for years, and steep tariffs on imported steel wire from the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act had sales booming – enough to help fund construction of a new two-story building.4 Flush with financial success, Page was receptive when local businessmen, together with an Ohio ballplayer with an eye for opportunity, approached him with the idea of financing a traveling baseball team.

Bud Fowler, “[b]aseball’s itinerant vagabond,”5 had come to Adrian in August 1894 as the field manager and second baseman for the integrated Findlay (Ohio) Sluggers, to play a pair of contests with a local nine. Planning to form a new all-Black team for 1895, Fowler was so impressed by the turnout for the Sluggers’ opening game with the Adrian Light Guard that he offered to base his new club in Adrian if the townspeople “will guarantee him $500 and fix up good grounds.”6 With that level of backing, Fowler told the Adrian Evening Telegram, he could “get a team equal to the famous [New York] Cuban Giants.”7

Within days local investors stepped forward to provide funding, most prominently J. Wallace Page. Dubbed the Page Fence Giants after their principal benefactor, the team went from town to town with the Page Fence name emblazoned not only across their uniforms, but also on the custom-made railroad sleeping car that they traveled in.

“The organization of the colored base ball club for the season of 1895, with management and headquarters in this city, is a settled fact,” announced the Telegram on September 21, 1894. “Thirteen of the finest ball players in the country have already been secured,” the story continued, adding that “[e]very other member of the club will be of the same high grade, of equal or even more distinguished professional renown” as Fowler and Grant “Home Run” Johnson, who reportedly hit 60 home runs for Findlay in 1894.8

Within weeks of the announcement, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Fowler had arranged for the Giants to tour “the Western states,” including an agreement to play two games in Cincinnati against that city’s National League club, the Reds.9

Tenth-place finishers in the NL in 1894, Cincinnati had reason to expect improvement in the coming season. Gone was former captain and manager Charlie Comiskey, replaced by longtime stellar backstop Buck Ewing, whom Reds owner John T. Brush credited with having “as thorough and complete a knowledge of baseball as any man living.”10

After a week of practice in the central Indiana town of Marion, the Giants played their first game on April 10 against the Western League Indianapolis Hoosiers.11 The Page Fence company had spent months promoting the team, giving out to potential customers “handsome calendars” and advertising cards adorned with images of its ballplayers.12 Facing an Indianapolis starting lineup that included eight former or future major leaguers, the Giants were “waxe[d],” 26-1.13

As the Reds headed into their first contest with the Giants, the Maysville (Kentucky) Bulletin reported that “[t]he Cincinnati Club under Captain Buck Ewing’s management has made a splendid showing in the exhibition games this spring, and promises to cut quite a figure in the League race this year.”14 The Reds had every reason to be confident of victory over the Page Fence nine – they had trounced Indianapolis, 14-2, just a few days before that team had embarrassed the Michiganders.15

Ewing tabbed Tom Parrott as his starting pitcher, a talented but temperamental two-way player, who had won 17 games the year before while hitting .323 – despite twice getting suspended for refusing to pitch.16 Suffering from an unspecified illness the day before this game, Parrott “knocked out the old malaria by the copious use of quinine and whisky,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.17 Opposing Parrott for the Giants was Joe “Cannon Ball” Miller, touted in 1890 as holding an amateur strikeout record, with 22 punchouts in a nine-inning Nebraska League game. Miller had spent 1894 with a pair of Iowa-based integrated teams, the Dubuque Whites and the Council Bluffs Maroons, where he was known as the “colored cyclone.”18

No attendance figures appear in the two known newspaper accounts of this game, but both describe a large contingent of Black fans on hand at League Park, cheering for the Giants. Said the Cincinnati Enquirer, “[E]very member of the local colored population who could get off yesterday afternoon was on the seats at the Cincinnati Park when time was called for the game.”19 The Cincinnati Post estimated that there were “enough distinguished gentlemen of color … in … the stands to equip a full score of [military] companies.”20

After two frames of scoreless action, the Giants “pounded in” two runs in the third inning “off the curves of the erratic Tom Parrott,”21 thanks to successive singles by right fielder George Hopkins, catcher Peter Burns (both last with the Chicago Unions), Miller, and first baseman George Taylor, who had played with Miller for both Dubuque and Council Bluffs.22

An inning later, Cincinnati touched up Miller for three tallies. After a walk to center fielder Bug Holliday, the centerpiece of Cincinnati’s 1894 offense,23 left fielder  Billy Hoy “cracked out a beauty to deep center” for three bases, scoring Holliday.24 Shortstop Germany Smith, Cincinnati’s 36-year-old elder statesman, next grounded to third baseman William Malone. Malone threw home, hoping to cut Hoy down at the plate, but the ball never got there. It hit Cincinnati’s deaf left fielder in the back, allowing him to score. One out later, rookie right fielder George Hogriever singled to bring Smith home.

In the fifth, a single by ironman Bid McPhee,25 an error by Taylor, walks to Smith and catcher Bill Merritt, and hits by Hogriever and Parrott gave the Reds another five runs.

Down 8-2, the Giants scored three times in the top of the sixth. Consecutive one-out singles by center fielder Gus Brooks (yet another Chicago Unions alumnus), Malone, and left fielder John Nelson, a former New York Cuban Giant, brought Brooks home and set the stage for the controversy that was to follow. Hopkins hit a comebacker to Parrott that the hurler threw to first, after which rookie first baseman Harry Spies fired the ball to third in time to cut down Malone. Or so the Reds thought. Umpire Jack Sheridan called him safe. A single by Burns scored Malone and Nelson, pulling the Giants to within three.

Miller proved unable to keep the Reds at bay in the bottom of the inning. Singles by Spies and Holliday and Hoy’s double scored two to put Cincinnati ahead 10-5.

The Giants drew two runs closer in the top of the seventh but gave one back in the bottom of that inning. How those runs scored was left unreported. At some point in that inning or the eighth, Fowler replaced Miller with 21-year-old Billy Holland, who had made his professional debut a year earlier with the Chicago Unions.26

Neither side plated another run over the final two innings, making the final score 11-7.

An anonymous Cincinnati Enquirer sportswriter called the game a great one, and lavished praise on the Giants for “put[ting] up a scrappy game of ball.” “Bud Fowler, the veteran, had got together a great team of players,” the writer gushed, adding, “They will win more games than they will lose.” Brooks, who fielded gloveless as most of the Giants did, was hailed for “three wonderful catches” and Malone for “playing in good style.”27 Malone and Burns were credited with being “good coacher[s],” presumably for their work as base coaches. Believing Fowler to be 47 years old (he was actually 10 years younger), that same writer marveled how the Giants’ organizer wore his age “like a young blood.”28

The two teams met again the next day in a game that proved to be no contest. Cincinnati scored 11 first-inning runs on the way to a 16-2 triumph.29  

Cincinnati swept Cleveland in its NL season-opening series in late April but Holliday contracted appendicitis soon after and was lost for much of the year.30 Left with an offense that was only average, the Reds finished the year at 66-64-2.

The Giants went on to play 156 games in 112 towns across seven states, compiling a record of 118-36-2.31 They finished the year with Sol White at the helm, a player-manager brought on in July from the Western Interstate League, after a dispute with J. Wallace Page and his partners drove Fowler to jump to the integrated Adrian team of the Michigan State League.32

The Page Fence Giants remained arguably the top Black baseball team through the 1898 season, after which J. Wallace Page reluctantly pulled his sponsorship and the team dissolved. Struggling to obtain the wire that his business depended upon from the “iron and steel trust,” later US Steel, Page needed to shepherd the company’s resources in order to stay afloat.33 The Page Wire Woven Fence continued producing wire fencing until 1919, when it was absorbed into a successor business.34 More than 100 years later, “page wire” has come to be a generic term used to describe woven wire mesh fencing, regardless of manufacturer.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Bud Fowler, Page Fence Giants, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the Sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Mitch Lutzke’s The Page Fence Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2018) and the Seamheads.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites.

Notes

1 “Woven Wire Won!” Adrian (Michigan) Weekly Press, December 13, 1891: 31.

2 “Wire Fences,” Adrian Weekly Press, November 2, 1894: 6. Adrian is about 70 miles southwest of Detroit.

3 “Page Woven Wire Fence,” Cassopolis (Michigan) Vigilant, February 25, 1892: 4; “Local Items,” Lake Geneva (Wisconsin) News, August 23, 1894: 5; “A Pleasing Zoological Collection,” Adrian Weekly Press, September 4, 1891: 2.

4 Douglas A. Irwin, “How Did the United States Become a Net Exporter of Manufactured Goods,” Working Paper 7638, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2000, https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w7638/w7638.pdf; Waterville (Kansas) Telegraph, August 24, 1894: 2; “The Week,” Adrian Weekly Press, August 31, 1894: 3.

5 Mitch Lutzke, The Page Fence Giants (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2018), 24.

6 $500 in 1895 was equivalent to approximately $19,000 in 2025, according to the CPI inflation calculator at https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1895?amount=500.

7 “Base Ball Talk,” Adrian Evening Telegram, August 31, 1894: 3.

8 “Page Fence Giants,” Adrian Evening Telegram, September 21, 1894: 3; Phil Williams, “Grant ‘Home Run’ Johnson,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/grant-johnson/.

9 “Baseball Gossip,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 5, 1894: 2; “Baseball Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 22, 1894: 2.

10 “Hooray!” Cincinnati Enquirer, December 15, 1894: 2.

11 “The Giants,” Marion (Indiana) Leader, April 3, 1895: 5; “The Giants Mowed Down,” Indianapolis Journal, April 11, 1895: 3. A high-level minor league formed in November 1893 with Ban Johnson as president, the Western League evolved over the next few years to become the American League. The Giants’ debut was originally scheduled for April 9, but wet grounds pushed their inaugural game to the next day. “The League Organized,” Kansas City Journal, November 22, 1893: 2; “Ball and Bat,” Adrian Evening Telegram, April 10, 1895: 3.

12 “The Week,” Adrian Press, January 18, 1895: 9. Framing team members as respectable, the Marengo (Illinois) Republican pointed out that several were college graduates, none were “addicted in any degree to strong drink, and only two use tobacco.” “Colored Base Ball Club,” Marengo (Illinois) Republican, January 18, 1895: 8.

13 “The Giants Mowed Down,” Indianapolis Journal, April 11, 1895: 3.

14 “Base Ball,” Maysville (Kentucky) Bulletin, April 11, 1895: 3. The Reds held their training camp in Mobile, Alabama.

15 “Sporting,” Dayton (Ohio) Herald, April 8, 1895: 3.

16 Mark Armour, “Tom Parrott,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Tom-Parrott/, accessed July 3, 2025. Parrott’s second suspension came the day after he had hit for the cycle while playing second base.

17 “Some Hot Swipes,” Cincinnati Post, April 10, 1895: 9; “’Come Seven,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 12, 1895: 2.

18 “All About the Amateurs,” Omaha Bee, August 3, 1890: 9; “Maroons Win Out,” Freeport (Illinois) Bulletin, August 3, 1894: 1; “Twice Winners,” Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, September 5, 1894: 3; “They Found More Woe,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, September 25, 1894: 8; “Will Go Against the Huskers,” Council Bluffs (Iowa) Nonpareil, September 11, 1894: 5; “Prominent Baseball Figure of Early Days Is Bluffs Visitor,” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, May 12, 1949: 20.

19 “’Come Seven.”

20 “Crap Fiends’ Joy,” Cincinnati Post, April 12, 1895: 4. In its highly bigoted recounting of the game, the Post claimed that “Every son of Ham was a rooter of the Page Fence Giants,” referring to the biblical figure that some Christians fundamentalists consider the ancestor of all Africans. “Crap Fiends’ Joy,” Cincinnati Post, April 12, 1895: 4.

21 “Crap Fiends’ Joy.”

22 “Prominent Baseball Figure of Early Days is Bluffs Visitor,” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, May 12, 1949: 20; “A Great Record,” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, August 28, 1894: 8.

23 A former American Association (1889) and NL (1892) home run leader, Holiday led the 1894 Reds in hits, RBIs, batting average and slugging percentage and was tied with Jim Canavan for the most home runs, with 13. That home-run total, as well as his .376 batting average and 123 RBIs (in 123 games), were each in the top 10 across all NL hitters.

24 “’Come Seven.”

25 Between 1884 and 1894, McPhee played in 1,406 games, more than any other major leaguer over that span. Across his 18-year career, spent exclusively in a Cincinnati uniform, McPhee appeared in 2,129 games at second base, a club record that remains unmatched through the 2024 season.

26 See, for example “Schroders Win from Unions,” Chicago Inter Ocean, October 21, 1894: 11, and “Brunette Ball Team Wins,” Chicago Inter Ocean, October 7, 1894: 11.

27 “’Come Seven.” Only Burns, behind the plate, and Taylor at first base wore gloves for the Giants. By the end of the 1880s, many major leaguers wore gloves. Cincinnati second baseman Bid McPhee was one of the last to don a glove, not doing so until 1896. Jim Daniel, “#Goingdeep: The Evolution of Baseball Gloves,” Baseball Hall of Fame, https://baseballhall.org/discover/going-deep/the-evolution-of-baseball-gloves, accessed July 3, 2025; Ralph Moses, “Bid McPhee,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bid-mcphee/, accessed July 3, 2025.

28 “’Come Seven.”

29 “Slaughtered,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 13, 1895: 2. Cincinnati’s winning pitcher, Frank Foreman, was one of a few ballplayers to play in four major leagues: the Union Association, American Association, National League, and American League.

30 “‘Bug’ Holliday Is Very Ill,” Boston Globe, April 26, 1895: 9.

31 Bruce Markusen, “Page Fence Giants Succeeded On and Off the Field,” Baseball Hall of Fame, https://baseballhall.org/discover/Page-Fence-Giants-succeeded-on-and-off-the-field, accessed May 20, 2025.

32 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), 836; Brian McKenna, “Bud Fowler,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bud-fowler/. Burns, Miller and 19-year-old George Wilson, a southpaw pitcher and Adrian native who did not play in the April 11-12 Reds games, joined Fowler in leaving the Giants for the Adrian team.

33 The Page Fence Giants, 227.

34 “Border Cities Wire and Iron Ltd. Observes Anniversary in 1951,” Windsor (Ontario) Star, December 30, 1950: 3-10.