One-third of it, to be exact. When the Excelsiors, a fine black base ball team from Philadelphia arrived in New York that Thursday morning, they were warmly received by what the New York Herald characterized as “… a delegation of gentleman of the colored persuasion…” Following a fife-and-drum-led parade and various “sumptuous” entertainments, the team was escorted over to Brooklyn to face the Uniques, a black team representing the Williamsburg section of the borough.

It was the Brooklyn Daily Times that labeled this contest “the colored championship of the United States” and claimed that it had been the “…theme of conversation for some time between colored gentleman…”

The match, believed to be the first ever played between black clubs in an enclosed grounds, boasted the largest crowd seen at the field that season, according to the Brooklyn Daily Union, with half of the spectators white males. Also in attendance, the Union reported, were “… a large number of the gentle demoiselles of darkydom…(who) …by their expressive and readily distinguishable smiles, cheered the dusky heroes in their noble endeavors.”

The Excelsiors, by all accounts, were the superior team, some observers going so far as to put them on a par with the best of the white Philadelphia clubs. The home-standing Uniques, meanwhile, were described by the Tribune as “second-rate opponents.”

Once the contest got underway, attention focused on the umpire, Mr. Patterson, a black arbiter from the Bachelor Club of Albany. Disputes over his decisions were frequent and led both clubs to engage in various histrionics. In the next morning’s Herald, a reporter indentified as Kelly described this plea from the captain of one of the squads following a call that seemed particularly unfair to his side: “Put on yer coats, put on yer coats, das all”, he was said to have yelled. Kelly found the game: “… rendered remarkably lively by such interludes…”

Participants included an unidentified Brooklyn pitcher who, according to Kelly, “jerked the ball most palpably…” (Was he perhaps throwing an early version of a curve?) When taken to task over his unorthodox delivery, Kelly reported that the hurler “struck a position and exclaimed, ‘jis dry up; you fellers pitch jis the same…’”

The contest continued through seven innings until the Philadelphia team claimed it was too dark to see the ball. As the visitors were leading 42–37 at the time, this naturally led to another disagreement.[fn]The New York Tribune saw the end of the game differently, reporting the final score as 37-24 after six innings, the runs scored in the seventh not counting due to the game being called. Since other sources have included a box score showing the score as 42-37, however, the Tribune’s reporter must have assumed that the game was “officially called” after six.[/fn] No “colored darky is a gwine to take deat yere ball out o’ Wimsburg,” Kelly characterized one Brooklynite as declaring. But, he added, they were finally persuaded to admit defeat, “and the game terminated in most delicious confusion.” The Brooklyn Daily Union, however, was not so easily amused. “The contest was in no respect credible to the organizations,” it contended.

The Excelsiors and their contingent ferried their way back to New York in triumph, scheduled to return the next day to take on a second black Brooklyn team known as the Monitor. The next morning’s Times hyped this event, but included a warning: “It is to be hoped that the scenes that characterized the first game for the ‘Colored Championship of the United States’ will not be repeated. Act like men, and set an example to the ‘white trash,’” they chided.

But the game did not take place as scheduled.

Newspaper accounts of Saturday, the 5th, report that the Philadelphia team never arrived, with the Times speculating on a possible cause: “The … manner in which their game with the Unique club was played … doubtless deterred them from visiting the ’Burgh yesterday.”

On October 25, however, a game was played on the Satellite Grounds, pitting the Uniques against the Monitor. This match-up seemed a perfect contest between natural rivals, but according to a couple of sources, it might have been more than that, with the Tribune trumpeting this game as actually being the third match of a “round-robin”: “The Monitors are the gentlemen who, on the return of the Philadelphians from their Albany trip avenged their brethren (the Uniques) by a handsome victory.” The New York Herald agreed, stating that since the Philadelphia club had beaten the Uniques on October 3 and the Monitor had defeated Philadelphia in a follow-up contest, this game would be for the true “colored championship.”

But though box scores and game stories exist for the other two contests, no post-game reports can be found of the Philadelphia-Monitor meeting. For whatever reason, the papers that covered the other two games ignored this “middle” contest, so we can only look at the subsequent Uniques-Monitor match for what it was: the first recorded meeting between the two most prominent black base ball clubs in Brooklyn.

According to the Daily Times, this game was “credible at first” with the Monitor holding a 7–6 lead after 4½ innings, but due to some “very bad muffing” on the part of the Uniques, the Monitor piled up 42 runs over their final four at-bats, winning 49–17.

Did this win solidify the Monitor as the “Colored Champions of the United States”? Or was the best black team still the Excelsior club of Philadelphia? Like the term “Championship,” the hazy history of early baseball is not so easily codified. It would not be until the formation of Professional Negro Leagues decades later, that true Colored Champions could be officially crowned.

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.

Photo credit

New York Sun via Newspapers.com

Leading Philadelphia blacks understood how education and community associations could further their advancement. A focal point of this movement was the city’s only black high school, the Institute for Colored Youth, later renamed the Banneker Institute. In addition to a rigorous curriculum, the Institute supported a number of athletic organizations.2 An esteemed graduate, later teacher/principal of the school, was Octavius Catto. An experienced cricket and town ball player, Catto became the shortstop and captain of the Institute’s baseball team. Known as the Independent ball club, Catto’s team by the spring of 1866 became one of the leading black ball teams in the city. Later that summer, because a large number of the Institute’s players were affiliated with the Knights of Pythias Lodge, the team was renamed the Pythians.

The colored community of Philadelphia had more than a passing interest in baseball. They followed both white and black local ball clubs. In 1867 the “Pyths,” as they were sometimes called, strengthened themselves by recruiting players from other black teams. Under Catto’s captaincy the team played 13 games in 1867. They went 8–3, and two games have no known results. One white reporter was so impressed by the Pythians, he described them as a “well behaved gentlemanly set of young fellows … [who] are rapidly winning distinction in the use of the bat.”3

Despite their successes, in October 1867 Catto and his teammates got a dose of reality when they applied for admission to the Pennsylvania Association of Amateur Base Ball Players. Despite being nominated by E. Hicks Hayhurst, the vice president of the Athletics ball club and the presiding president of the Association’s convention, the Pythians were denied access because of race and were compelled to withdraw their application.4

This rejection was not indicative of the Pythians’ relationship to Philadelphia’s white baseball establishment. Catto’s club scheduled games at white-controlled ball fields and had accounts with the A.J. Reach Sporting Goods Company.5 These relationships encouraged Catto to believe that social and political acceptance could be promoted by competing against “our white brethren” on the field of play.6 But there is no record that any game between white and black teams had been played to that date, and white clubs had mixed feelings about playing a black ball club. They believed that if they won, it would be expected, and if they lost their prowess would be called into question. One columnist even posed the question of whether “negroes” made better players then white men. The response was that colored players were better at “whitewashing, and in hot weather they play a stronger game.”7

In 1869 the Pythians’ challenge was accepted by Philadelphia’s oldest ball club, the Olympics, whose town ball tradition went back to 1832. Thus for the first time on record, white and black teams took the field against one another. It appears that the decision to set this game up was based on two factors. Both the Olympics and the Pythians needed the revenue drawn from gate receipts. The Olympics had not played in two months [ July 15] and had just undergone a restructuring of the ball club. Team morale and revenue were affected by these actions. If the “novelty” of a game against a local black team was a factor then the game would primarily be a financial decision.8

The same considerations influenced the Pythians. A game against the Olympics would acknowledge their existence and sustain their treasury. The Olympics also required that the contest would be played at their home field at 25th and Jefferson. Despite these conditions, this controversial match needed mediation. The key figure in the negotiations was Col. Thomas Fitzgerald, the founding president of the Athletics of Philadelphia and the owner and publisher of Philadelphia’s City Item newspaper. Fitzgerald loved baseball and used his newspaper to promote the city’s teams. He also championed equality before the law in his City Item editorials. Once the game was set in motion, he agreed to serve as the game’s umpire.

As expected a large and enthusiastic crowd assembled on Friday, September 3. It was the largest crowd to see an Olympics game since they played the Red Stockings of Cincinnati on June 19. A number of policemen patrolled the enclosure. They kept the game orderly until the last inning when spectators broke through the restraining ropes. At 2:45 p.m. the game began and the Pythians took a 3–1 lead after the first inning. In the top of the second the Olympics scored eight runs and never again gave up the lead. Catto’s team was “blanked” in three innings and to everyone’s astonishment the Olympics were held scoreless in their half of the seventh. John Cannon pitched for the Pythians and young Len Lovett threw for the Olympics. Lovett was only 17 years old and had just been recruited to be the Olympics’ pitcher. The final score was 44–23. The game took three hours and 10 minutes to play.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said the Pythians “acquitted themselves in a very creditable manner.”9

A return match was set for October 11 to be played at the Athletics field at 17th and Columbia. There is, however, no record that the game was ever played. The Pythians did go against Fitzgerald’s white City Item ball club on the 16th at the Athletics field. Fitzgerald’s three sons actually played in this game, which the City Item team lost 27–17. Another scheduled game against the white Masonic club of Manayunk had no published results.10

Although the Pythians played ball through 1871, their schedule was greatly reduced. Racial tensions were heightened by the passage of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution giving male Freedmen the vote, and leaders such as Catto were preoccupied with political matters. It is also possible that white-operated ball fields were intimidated by the possibility of racially-inspired violence. When Octavius Catto was gunned down on October 10, 1871 during race riots spurred on by the local mayoral elections the gains made between the races on the “field of green” did not look so substantial.

A woodcut depicting the shooting of Octavius Catto on October 10, 1871.

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

Meanwhile, on the sports page, the Herald reported that Newark of the International League had defeated the Chicago White Stockings, the reigning National League champion, 9–4. The brief report said, in part, “The home club hit Mark Baldwin very hard, but the visitors were not so fortunate with Mickey Hughes .” Newark had 18 hits and two errors while Chicago had 12 hits and five errors. The account noted that the batteries consisted of Hughes and Bart Cantz for Newark and Baldwin and Dell Darling for Chicago.2

The real story of this day, however, was what was not reported — events that would change the face of baseball for the next 60 years.

Chicago and Newark played because the White Stockings had an off day after completing a series in Washington. The White Stockings were to start a series with the Giants in New York on the 15th. This gave Chicago a lucrative opportunity for an exhibition game on the 14th at the Newark ballpark.

Newark had a powerful team that had won the Eastern League championship the preceding season and had jumped out to a strong start in its first year in the International League. The team’s ownership correctly anticipated that fans would come to the ballpark in droves to see the White Stockings. The Newark fans were confident; after all, they had one of the best batteries in minor-league baseball. Twenty-one-year-old left-handed pitcher George Stovey began the season by capturing his first 10 decisions, and Moses Fleetwood Walker was one of the better defensive catchers in the International League. Both were men of color.

A story in the Newark Evening News provided some information that the Herald’s story lacked. In a frontpage article headlined “DRAWING THE COLOR LINE; Chicago Unwilling to Play With Stovey, No More Colored Players,” the Evening News reported fully on what happened in Newark as well as at an International League meeting in Buffalo that day.

“Before the game with the Chicago Club yesterday, Manager Charles Hackett (of Newark) received a telegram from Captain Cap Anson (of Chicago) saying that the Chicago Club would not play if Stovey and Walker, the colored men, were put at the points,” the newspaper reported. It said Hackett “would probably have had Stovey pitch, however, but for the fact that that player was not feeling well, so Hughes was substituted at the last moment.” No explanation was offered for why Walker was also not played.

The report then shifted to the upstate New York meeting: “The International League representatives held a meeting at the Genesee House, in Buffalo, yesterday and passed a resolution instructing Secretary (C.D.) White not to approve the contract of any more colored players. Jersey City and some of the other clubs insisted the African players drove white men from the league.”3

A biography of Stovey by Brian McKenna of the Society for American Baseball Research sheds additional insight on the matter. According to the biography, the Newark Sunday Call effectively dismissed the Stovey “not feeling well” report and offered this version: “It was announced on the (grounds) that he was sulking, but it has since been given out that Anson objected to a colored man playing.”4

McKenna’s research on Stovey’s life amplified what else may have driven the banning of further contracts with “colored players” at the International League meeting in Buffalo. The vote, he says, “was sparked by a revolt in the Binghamton club” against two black Binghamton players, Bud Fowler and William Renfro. He added: “After the contest on June 27, one of Binghamton’s white players, Buck West , rallied the rest of the team around his cause. A petition was signed by nine players and a telegram was sent to the club directors demanding that Fowler and Renfro be released or the protesters would strike.5

With the Binghamton players’ petition looming and Anson’s chilling financial threat to withdraw his popular White Stockings from play with clubs fielding “colored players,” it was probably a relatively easy step for the International League team representatives to pass the ban. McKenna’s research, however, adds another layer to the story.

The Newark and Jersey City teams had joined the International League in 1887 after playing in the Eastern League the season before. In 1886 Pat Powers , owner of the Jersey City team, had signed Stovey from the all African American Cuban Giants, “and Stovey had pitched exceedingly well in ’86 for Jersey City; 270 IP, 1.13 ERA and 203/43 SO/BB ratio.” But after the season Powers lost a contract dispute that involved Stovey jumping to Newark. “Powers had little motive to save Stovey from being banned and perhaps all the motive in the world to see him excluded from IL play,” McKenna wrote.

Stovey and Walker remained with Newark until season’s end, Stovey’s 2.42 ERA ranking sixth among 32 International League pitchers for the year. Stovey remained active in minor league and semiprofessional baseball as a player and umpire for a good number of years. Walker remained in the International League through 1889 despite the ban.

At the same time, on the day that Stovey was withdrawn, Organized Baseball effectively committed to a policy to exclude “colored players.” The prohibition remained in effect for six decades until it was breeched by Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey .

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

The Cuban Giants, managed by S.K. Govern, were not Cuban. They were organized in 1885 and were “the first salaried professional black baseball team” and the top Negro team in 1887 and 1888, according to historian James A. Riley.3 Their second baseman, Frank Grant, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. He was “a consistent .300 hitter with power, a fast base runner, [and] an outstanding fielder,” said Riley.4

At home and on the road, the Cuban Giants drew fans with impressive play and witty coaching. After a baserunner reached third base by a desperate slide, the third-base coach might say, “That’s right, don’t be afraid of your clothes — you got something better for Sunday.”5 To a runner on first base, the first-base coach might say, “There’s a hunk of molasses candy on that second bag waitin’ for you,” and the third-base coach would add, “Yeah, and your supper is over here on third!”6

The Lebanon Grays, a white semipro team, rose to the professional ranks by joining the Middle States League in August 1889. “Remember, the Grays are now professionals,” said the Lebanon Daily News proudly, “and all games they play are League championship games.”7 The team was managed by 24-year-old Joseph U. Buck, who sold sporting goods at his Lebanon store.8

The Grays played their first four League games at Penryn Park in Lebanon. They lost the first two to the Gorhams and the third to the Cuban Giants. They played the Cuban Giants again in the fourth contest, on Friday, August 16, 1889. The pitchers were 22-year-old William Selden of the Cuban Giants and 19-year-old Sam Heagy of the Grays. Selden was praised as “an excellent strategic pitcher” by none other than Henry Chadwick, the 64-year-old “Father of Baseball.”9 Heagy’s repertoire of pitches included “ins, outs, drops and snakes,” reported the Lebanon Daily News.10

The Grays batted first and took advantage of shaky defense. Grant Kirst drew a walk and stole second base as the throw from catcher Clarence Williams sailed into center field. The next batter, George Brown, singled, sending Kirst to third. Brown then stole second, and again the throw from Williams went into center field and Kirst scored. After Selden got two fly outs, Harry Hahn’s single was fumbled by left fielder Arthur Thomas, permitting Brown to tally.

With one out in the bottom of the second inning, Abe Harrison hit sharply through the legs of Brown, the Grays second baseman. Harrison then stole second base as catcher Hahn overthrew the bag. He continued toward third but was nabbed by a fine throw from Kirst, the center fielder. Now with two outs, Heagy walked John Frye, and Selden grounded the ball to the shortstop, Sparrow, whose low throw was dropped by the first baseman, George Goodhart. Johnston singled into short right field to load the bases, and Ben Boyd’s single drove in Frye and Selden.

Wilson Kline led off the top of the third inning with a single. Selden then threw a “fearfully wild pitch which nestled in the cinder near the back stop” until Kline “crossed the plate.”11 Goodhart drew a walk, and Hahn tapped back to Selden, whose poor throw to second base was muffed by Frank Grant. After Heagy popped out, Hull singled to load the bases. Selden made another wild pitch, and Goodhart scored. Grant prevented more damage by “capturing an apparent safe hit” by Sparrow, and after Selden walked Henry Lauser, Grant caught Kirst’s popup to end the threat. In the bottom of the inning, Grant doubled “dangerously near the foul line” and came home on Harrison’s single.12 After three innings, the Grays led 4-3.

Selden settled down and retired 18 of the next 19 batters; the lone exception was a two-out single by Hull in the eighth inning.

The Cuban Giants scored three runs in the fourth inning and three more in the sixth, on singles by Johnston and Clarence Williams, and two each by George Williams and Arthur Thomas. They tallied one more run in the seventh when “Selden sent the ball to the woods for a triple” and came home on Boyd’s sharp grounder to Goodhart at first base.13 The final score was Cuban Giants 10, Lebanon Grays 4.

It was the fourth consecutive loss for the Grays. “To make a respectable showing the Lebanon club needs at least one or two new infielders and an outfielder, and they must be good players and fine hitters,” said the Lebanon Daily News. “Now, [manager] Joseph [Buck], hustle for men like these and those four lickings will be forgotten.”14

At the end of the season, the Grays had a 6-16 record in League play. The record of the Cuban Giants was subject to debate, either 55-17 or 57-16, depending on which games were counted. A similar debate over the record of the Harrisburg Ponies made it unclear whether the Cuban Giants or the Ponies had the better season record and were the league champions.

Photo credit

Advertisement in the Lebanon (Pennsylvania) Daily News, August 12, 1889.

Sources

Game coverage in: “Off Days for the Grays,” Lebanon (Pennsylvania) Daily News, August 17, 1889: 1.

Browne, Paul. The Coal Barons Played Cuban Giants: A History of Early Professional Baseball in Pennsylvania, 1886-1896 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013).

Chadwick, Henry, ed. Spalding’s Base Ball Guide and Official League Book for 1890 (Chicago and New York: A.G. Spalding & Bros., 1890), 89.

Ancestry.com and Seamheads.com, accessed November 2018.

Baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Middle_States_League.

Notes

1 Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Telegraph, May 2, 1889: 1. The six teams that began the 1889 Middle States League season were the Cuban Giants, Harrisburg Ponies, Lancaster Dutch, Philadelphia Giants, Reading Actives, and York Hayseeds.

2 Harrisburg’s record was 64-19 and the Cuban Giants were 55-17.

3 James A. Riley, Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), 202, 203.

4 Riley, 331.

5 “Dropped Flies,” Harrisburg Telegraph, May 3, 1889: 1.

6 “Come Honey, Move Chile,” Pittsburgh Press, June 21, 1888: 7.

7 “The National Game,” Lebanon (Pennsylvania) Daily News, August 12, 1889: 1.

8 “Business Notes,” Lebanon Daily News, April 12, 1889: 4; “Deaths,” Reading (Pennsylvania) Times, September 15, 1902: 6. Joseph U. Buck lived from 1865 to 1902.

9 “An Opinion of the Cuban Giants,” Lebanon Daily News, August 12, 1889: 4.

10 “This Time ’Tis Victory,” Lebanon Daily News, August 27, 1889: 1; “Condensed Locals,” Lebanon (Pennsylvania) Courier, May 28, 1890: 3. Newspaper coverage of the game of August 16, 1889, in the Lebanon Daily News refers to the Grays pitcher as “Hagey.” Further research revealed that he was Samuel S. Heagy of Manheim, Pennsylvania, and not the “Ed Heagey” listed on the 1889 Lebanon roster at Baseball-reference.com in 2018.

11 Lebanon Daily News, August 17, 1889: 1.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

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

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.

The early twentieth century rivalry was intense between the two leading Negro teams of the East Coast, the established Cuban X-Giants,1 managed by Grant “Home Run” Johnson, and the upstart Philadelphia Giants, managed by Sol White. The Cuban X-Giants had prevailed over the Philadelphia Giants, five games to two, in their 1903 championship series.2 Andrew Foster, a big right-handed hurler from Texas, won four games in the series for the X-Giants.

Before the 1904 season, White strengthened his Philadelphia lineup by luring Foster, second baseman Charlie Grant,3 and outfielder Andrew Payne away from the Cuban X-Giants. Meanwhile, Johnson countered by taking Harry Buckner, a talented pitcher and outfielder, and second baseman John Patterson from the Philadelphia Giants.

There were no organized Negro leagues at this time. The Cuban X-Giants and Philadelphia Giants played most of their games against white East Coast minor-league, college, and semipro teams.

During the 1904 season, the Cuban X-Giants billed themselves as “the Colored Base Ball Champions of the World.”4 Buckner shut out a Wilmington, Delaware, team on May 20, 1904, in a 1-0 victory for the X-Giants.5 The next day X-Giants pitcher Walter Ball fired a one-hit shutout against Camden, New Jersey.6 The team’s best pitcher, southpaw Danny McClellan, had pitched a perfect game against Penn Park the year before, on July 17, 1903.7

Foster anchored the Philadelphia Giants’ pitching staff in 1904. He hurled two no-hitters during the season, and his teammates, Will Horn and Kid Carter, each threw one. The club was prepared for a rematch with the Cuban X-Giants in a three-game championship series set for Thursday through Saturday, September 1, 2, and 3, 1904.

The series was played at Inlet Park in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The ballpark had been recently renovated and featured a new grandstand with a capacity of 3,000 and bleachers able to accommodate 6,000 more. The ballpark was “as pretty and bright as could be,” said the Philadelphia Inquirer.8

In the first game of the series, the attendance was 4,000, and “betting on the game was very heavy and the excitement intense throughout.”9 The Philadelphia Giants won the game, 8-4, and the star of the game was Foster, who fanned 18 batters and had three hits, including a triple. Payne also contributed three hits for the Giants, including a home run. McClellan was the starting pitcher for the X-Giants, but he struggled and was relieved by Ball. Buckner homered for the X-Giants and played flawlessly in right field, recording five putouts and one assist. X-Giants first baseman Robert Jordan had two hits, including a home run, but made two errors in the field. The X-Giants’ Harry Moore, one of the best outfielders of the era, had a dreadful day, making three errors in center field.10

Three thousand fans attended the second game of the series, a pitchers’ duel won by the Cuban X-Giants, 3-1. Buckner earned the victory with a six-hitter, while Horn and Foster combined for a five-hitter in a losing effort. Grant Johnson tallied three of the X-Giants’ five hits.11

Five thousand fans, the largest crowd ever at Inlet Park, turned out for the series finale and saw the Philadelphia Giants “wrest the colored ball championship of the world” from the Cuban X-Giants in a “hard fought” 4-2 triumph.12 Foster and McClellan each pitched complete games. This time Foster struck out only five batters, but he allowed only two hits, a third-inning single by Johnson followed by a John Patterson home run, to account for the only two X-Giants runs. McClellan yielded six hits and a single earned run. Three X-Giants errors contributed to their loss, including two more by Moore in center field.13

In his Official Base Ball Guide published in 1907, Sol White summed up the 1904 championship series: “Both players and spectators were worked to the highest pitch of excitement. Never in the annals of colored baseball did two nines fight for supremacy as these teams fought.”

The Philadelphia Giants’ 21-year-old center fielder, Pete Hill, had only one hit in the series, but he would go on to play 21 more seasons with great success.

After Foster had outdueled Rube Waddell in an exhibition game in 1902, the press nicknamed him “Rube” Foster.14

Rube Foster was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981; Sol White and Pete Hill were inducted in 2006.

Sources

Cottrell, Robert Charles. The Best Pitcher in Baseball: The Life of Rube Foster, Negro League Giant (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

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

Seamheads.com.

White, Sol. Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide, 1907, reprint edition (South Orange, New Jersey: Summer Game Books, 2014).

Notes

Elyria was proud of its semipro baseball team. Competing against local opponents, the team won three consecutive pennants in the Cleveland and Southwestern Trolley League from 1904 to 1906.1 Though not in a league in 1907, the team nonetheless played a full schedule of games. A three-game series was played at Elyria’s Athletic Park, June 14 through 17 against the Cuban Stars of Havana.

The Cuban Stars were a touring group of all-stars from the island of Cuba. In 1907 Manuel Camps was the team’s owner, president, and manager,2 and Rafael Almeida was both a player and assistant manager.3 Luis Bustamante was the team’s “cannon-armed, slick-fielding shortstop.”4

The 1906 Cuban Stars reportedly won 85 games, lost 36, and tied one, playing against semipro, minor-league, and college teams in the United States.5 Before arriving in Elyria, the 1907 Cuban Stars had played against teams in six Northeastern states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont) and two Midwestern states (Illinois and Indiana).

Attendance was reported to be 200 at the first game of the series, on Friday, June 14. The visitors looked sharp in their dark blue uniforms with white lettering that read “Cuba’s Champions.”6 Inocencio Pérez, a 37-year-old right-hander, was their pitcher. His batterymate was Rafael Figarola. The home team, which wore gray and brown with “Elyria” across the chest,7 chose Joe Agler, a 20-year-old southpaw, to pitch. His catcher was Jim Hopkins.

In the first three innings, six Cuban Stars reached base, via two singles and four bases on balls, but superb defense kept them from scoring. Castle made a fine catch in right field, and Hobart, the second baseman, twice snagged a liner and doubled up a baserunner. O’Neill’s solo home run in the bottom of the third inning gave Elyria a 1-0 lead.

The Cuban Stars tallied in the top of the fourth. José Magriñat reached on an error by first baseman McSweeney and moved up two bases on a sacrifice and a balk. He came home on Pérez’s single to left field. The next inning, Bustamante drew a walk, stole second base, and moved to third on a sacrifice. Esteban Prats brought him home with a single to center field.

In the sixth inning, Fred Lawrence, Elyria’s captain, tripled to right-center field and came home with the tying run on an infield out. After that, it was a pitchers’ duel that went to extra innings. O’Neill led off the bottom of the 10th inning with a single and stolen base. Pérez fanned the next two batters, but Rudy Wiggins followed with a game-winning double to left field. The final score was Elyria 3, Cuban Stars 2.

Agler surrendered only six hits but walked six. Bustamante received three of the six walks and handled nine chances at shortstop without error. Pérez allowed eight hits and struck out nine.

The fans enjoyed the contest and were fascinated by the Cubans’ Spanish banter. “There was no need for a secure set of signals,” reported the Elyria Telegram. “The players talked their intentions out loud, even the pitcher and catcher exchanging tips in the most audible if unintelligible way.”8

The second game of the series, on Saturday, June 15, drew a much larger crowd, reported to be 600. Bustamante led off the game with a home run off Elyria pitcher Zeke Robinson and then dazzled the crowd with his brilliant play at shortstop, handling 10 chances without error. In the eighth inning, the 27-year-old Bustamante made “the most remarkable stop ever seen on the local grounds,” spearing a ball about 20 feet back of second base.9

Magriñat, who played in left field in the first game of the series, started the second game at third base and clumsily committed several errors. This led to midgame defensive adjustments. He swapped places with Pérez, who was in left field. But after Pérez also erred at third base, Almeida, the pitcher, went to third, and Bernardo Carrillo went in to pitch. Magriñat “atoned for his four errors” by hitting two home runs and a single.10

The visitors had no trouble hitting Robinson’s pitching. The final score was Cuban Stars 11, Elyria 6. “The high, strident coaching” of Pérez, who jabbered in Spanish “a thousand words to the minute … was alone worth the price of admission,” said the Telegram.11

The Elyria team lost 4-1 at Sandusky, Ohio, the next day12 and returned home to play the Cuban Stars in the series finale on Monday, June 17. Pedro Medina, a 24-year-old right-hander, pitched for the visitors, and Agler pitched once again for the home team. Only 150 fans attended.

Bustamante led off the game with a double to left field. José Muñoz singled to right, scoring Bustamante. Magriñat’s bunt single brought in a second run. In the bottom of the first, Elyria took advantage of two errors (including the first error by Bustamante in the series) and tallied twice. The visitors did likewise, with two unearned runs in the second inning, but Elyria evened the score with two runs in the fourth.

The Cuban Stars broke the game open with four runs in the sixth inning. Figarola drew a walk and scored on Medina’s double. Carrillo walked, and he and Medina came home on a hit by Bustamante, who himself scored on a squeeze play. The visitors added an insurance run in the seventh. The final score was Cuban Stars 9, Elyria 4.

The Cuban Stars hit .263 in the series, compared with .184 for Elyria. Bustamante and Magriñat led all batters with five hits apiece.

Epilogue

Rafael Almeida played for the Cincinnati Reds, 1911-13. He and Luis Bustamante were among the first players inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1939. José Muñoz and Rafael Figarola were inducted in 1940 and 1950 respectively.

Joe Agler reached the major leagues as a first baseman and outfielder. He appeared in two games with the 1912 Washington Nationals and in 232 Federal League games, 1914-15.

Sources

The author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information.

Game coverage in the June 14-18, 1907, issues of the Elyria Telegram.

Seamheads.com, accessed December 2023.

Photo credit: Baseball card of Luis Bustamante from the 1909 Cabañas set.

Acknowledgments

This game was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Notes

1 “Eagles Won,” Elyria (Ohio) Reporter, September 29, 1904: 8; “Elyria Team Receives Championship Trophy,” Elyria Reporter, October 3, 1905: 1; “Trolley League Season Closes Today at Medina,” Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle, September 6, 1906: 4.

2 “Cuban Stars Are Coming,” Topeka (Kansas) State Journal, January 23, 1907: 2.

3 “First Ball Game Now Called Off until Tomorrow,” Binghamton (New York) Press and Leader, April 26, 1907: 16.

4 Gary Ashwill, Notes section in Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide (South Orange, New Jersey: Summer Game Books, 2014), 153. This is a reprint edition of Sol White’s 1907 book.

5 “Cuban Stars to Open Season May 1,” Trenton (New Jersey) Times, January 7, 1907: 11.

6 “Cubans Score in But One Inning,” Lynn (Massachusetts) Item, April 23, 1907: 6; “Baseball Notes,” Fall River (Massachusetts) News, April 25, 1907: 3.

7 “Players Report,” Elyria Chronicle, April 3, 1907: 4.

8 “Wig’s Double Won Very Pretty Game,” Elyria (Ohio) Telegram, June 15, 1907: 4.

9 “Robinson Suffers Brunette Nightmare,” Elyria Telegram, June 17, 1907: 4.

10 “Robinson Suffers Brunette Nightmare.”

11 “Robinson Suffers Brunette Nightmare.”

12 “Sandusky Defeated Elyria Team,” Elyria Telegram, June 17, 1907: 4.

Bill Wernecke, a former semipro outfielder and an employee of General Electric, which had a large presence in Schenectady, had obtained a lease to Island Park, Schenectady’s premier baseball site, in 1912.1 Located on an island in the middle of the Mohawk River, Island Park could be accessed only by a gutsy walk over an “active” pontoon bridge.

Unable to obtain the rights to a White semipro team, Wernecke decided to bring in outside professional Black players. Following the common practice at the time of raiding other teams’ players, he hired William “Big Bill” Smith, a Black baseball player, to find and lure players by offering nonseasonal full-time jobs.2 While many Black players came to Schenectady for short stays, the Mohawk Giants’ lineup included at times such prominent players as Smokey Joe Williams, Chappie Johnson, Harry Buckner, Grant “Home Run” Johnson, and Frank Wickware.3

Drawing on Smith’s exceptional recruiting talents, the 1913 Mohawk Giants were an outstanding team. Against regional White semipro teams, other Black professional teams, and White minor-league teams, their documented aggregate record was 52 wins, 22 losses, and 2 ties for a winning percentage of .703.4  They tied their series against Nat Strong’s Brooklyn Royal Giants, and defeated the Philadelphia Giants, the Cuban Giants, and the Norfolk and Atlanta Dixie Giants. In their 12 games against White minor-league teams, the Mohawk Giants won 9, lost 2, and tied 1.5

If Rube Foster’s quote is meaningful—“the main strength of all baseball nines lies in their pitchers”—then the success of the Mohawk Giants resided within Wickware’s gifted arm.6 In 1913 the 25-year-old right-hander’s documented pitching record was 24 wins, 5 losses and 2 ties.

With victories came attendance, and with fan support came profits. Wernecke’s risk was paying off and by midseason he expanded the seating at Island Park from 2,000 to 2,800.7 Like many Black baseball teams, independent and Negro Leagues alike, there was significant movement of players in and out of the Mohawk Giants lineup. In the second half of the season, team composition stabilized as stars Wickware and 40-year-old right fielder Buckner, whose career in elite Black baseball dated to the 1896 London Creole Giants (based in Muncie, Indiana), remained regulars.

The highlight of their successful season did not occur until the last game of the year, when it was announced that Walter Johnson and a team of mostly minor-league players would play the Mohawk Giants on October 5. Johnson had completed an incredible year with the Washington Senators at age 25, winning the Chalmers Award as the American League’s Most Valuable Player, while compiling a 36-7 won-lost record with an earned-run average of 1.14.8

The excitement accompanying Johnson’s appearance in Schenectady brought an estimated 8,000 spectators to Island Park.9 The overflow crowd encircled the outfield and effectively formed a human outfield fence.

As the umpire signaled to begin the game, all but three of the Mohawk Giants ran off the field, crossed the pontoon bridge and loudly assembled at the ticket booth entrance. A boycott led by Wickware was underway. Wernecke owed them $921.10 A chaotic and dangerous situation arose as fans and opposing players recrossed the pontoon bridge to better understand the delay.

The Schenectady police sent silent owner Alfred Nicolaus to Wernecke’s office for appropriate player remuneration. He returned with $500. The money was to be disbursed to all the Mohawk Giants. By the time the appeased team returned to the ball field, approximately 75 minutes of playing time had been lost.

Two pitches into the game, the general manager of the Walter Johnson All-Stars, Dave Driscoll, interrupted the game to demand immediate payment of their portion of the gate receipts. The police immediately ordered Driscoll to sit down and threatened to distribute the All-Star earnings to the frustrated fans.11

When the game finally resumed, the fans were treated to a great pitching duel between Johnson and Wickware. In October’s reduced light, with a late start, the game was shortened to 5½ innings.

Johnson was brilliant, striking out 11 batters and giving up only two hits. In the fourth inning, Mohawk Giants catcher-manager Phil Bradley hit a routine fly ball into left field that landed in the overflow crowd. It was ruled a ground-rule double. A subsequent stolen base and outfield fly produced the game’s only run.

Wickware’s performance was not as sharp as Johnson’s, but he scattered five hits on his way to a shutout. Two of the hits were doubles by Johnson himself.12 Fans walked away satisfied that they had seen the world’s best pitcher and relished the success of their home team’s 1-0 victory over the barnstorming All-Stars.

While national and local press coverage of Johnson and Wickware’s exploits were extensive, few newspapers captured the game’s intriguing backstory as well as the New York Times’s article “Walter Johnson Loses: Senators’ Pitcher Drops Game to Colored Team After Near Riot.”13

The great 1913 season for the Schenectady Mohawk Giants team had come to an end. For the next two weeks, the highly sought-after Wickware continued to pitch for teams in the New York City area. That summer Wernecke had made a lot of money, and he left his family and moved to South America, where he worked as a construction engineer for the rest of his life.14

The Schenectady Mohawk Giants returned to play in 1914 under new ownership and management, but their 1913 success  was not to be repeated. The future of Negro League Baseball in Schenectady, however, would once again be thrilling, as a great Schenectady Mohawk Giants team resurfaced in the 1920s and 1930s.

Wickware’s career in Black professional baseball was long and storied. Originally hired by Rube Foster for the Chicago Leland Giants in 1910, he greatly benefited from Foster’s tutelage. From 1910 until 1920, his blazing fastball and pinpoint control made him a premier pitcher in the Negro Leagues. He was considered in 2006 for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Special Committee of the Negro Leagues.15 He returned to Schenectady to live and died in 1967 at age 79. He is buried at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady, New York.

Author’s note

Thomas Disher and Marianne Rae provided motivation and research assistance. I would like to thank the staff of the Schenectady (New York) Historical Society for allowing me to peruse the Frank M. Keetz Collection highlighting the history of baseball in Schenectady. Additionally, longtime SABR member Frank Keetz’s self-published book, The Mohawk Colored Giants of Schenectady, is a detailed (but nonannotated) account of an independent Negro League team’s history in a predominantly White community. The character and strength of the Keetz book is its ability to inform the reader of the complexity, challenge, and beauty of the struggle of Negro League players to overcome the barriers of discrimination to bring high quality and exciting baseball to an upstate New York small industrial city. Finally, through membership in the New York Public Library, I was able to access historical newspapers using the ProQuest Database.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

Notes 

1 Frank M. Keetz, The Mohawk Colored Giants of Schenectady (Schenectady, New York: Self Published, 1999), 5-6.

2 Keetz, 6-7.

3 Keetz, 7.

4 Keetz, 7.

5 Keetz, 7.

6 Mark Ribowski, A Complete History of the Negro Leagues from 1884 to 1955, (New York: Citadel Press, 1995), 61.

7 Keetz, 8.

8 Keetz, 14. A day earlier, on October 4, the Senators had beaten the Boston Red Sox 10-9 in the final game of the 1913 regular season. In a game with many odd or farcical moments, Johnson started in center field, then took the mound for two batters in the ninth inning before returning to center for the end of the game.

9 Ryan Mahoney, “Schenectady Baseball History: The Mohawk Giants,” New York Almanack, March 6, 2013. https://www.newyorkalmanack.com.

10 Keetz, 15.

11 Keetz, 15.

12 Keetz, 16.

13 “Walter Johnson Loses: Senators’ Pitcher Drops Game to Colored Team After Near Riot,” New York Times, October 6, 1913: 8.

14 Keetz, 16.

15 Keetz, 17; Stephen V. Rice, “Frank Wickware,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, accessed April 28, 2023, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/frank-wickware/.

Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants had been arguably the best team in Negro baseball since 1911, but C.I. Taylor’s Indianapolis ABCs were poised to overtake them in 1916. The rivalry was intense as the teams began a series in Chicago on Sunday, August 27, 1916. The “largest throng that has ever witnessed a ball game on a semi-pro lot” assembled at Schorling’s Park. The ballpark, called “the finest semi-pro park in the world” by Foster, was built on the site of the old South Side Park (the home of the Chicago White Sox until they moved to Comiskey Park in 1910).1 Many fans traveled from Indianapolis to root for the Bull Moosers, as they called their beloved ABCs.

Manager C.I. Taylor relied on two of his brothers in the infield: the power-hitting Ben Taylor at first base and Candy Jim Taylor at third. The ABCs’ Bingo DeMoss was the best second baseman in Negro baseball. At short was Morten Clark, nicknamed Specs for his eyeglasses. George Shively, known as Rabbit for his speed, played in left field; Oscar Charleston, an impressive 19-year-old, patrolled center field; and the veteran George Brown played in right. The battery was Dizzy Dismukes, a right-handed submarine-style pitcher, and backstop Russell Powell.

Foster’s infield was anchored by shortstop John Henry Lloyd, regarded by many as the greatest player in Negro baseball. Leroy Grant, Harry Bauchman, and Bill Francis handled first, second, and third base, respectively. The talented Pete Hill covered left field; the fleet Jesse Barber occupied center field; and Frank Duncan was stationed in right. Pitching for the American Giants was Frank Wickware, a tall right-hander with overpowering stuff. His batterymate was the veteran Bruce Petway, the finest defensive catcher in Negro baseball, renowned for his rifle arm.

Umpire Ed Goeckel was white and well known in Chicago semipro baseball. The no-nonsense arbiter, who threw the legendary Cap Anson out of a semipro game in 1909, served as a Federal League ump in 1914.2

The American Giants jumped to a quick lead by scoring three runs in the bottom of the first inning. Hill and Lloyd drew walks from Dismukes; Francis was safe on an error by Clark, scoring Hill; and Grant singled over second base to drive in Lloyd and Francis.

Dismukes settled down after the shaky start, and he and Wickware delivered one scoreless inning after another with the help of stellar defense. Brown made a running catch of Hill’s drive to right field in the third inning, and Lloyd deftly handled a wicked grounder from DeMoss in the fourth. Shively hauled in Duncan’s blast to deep left field in the fifth, and Lloyd made two more fine plays in the sixth, earning an ovation from the fans. Hill caught two fly balls in left field in the seventh, and Barber stole a hit from Charleston in the eighth with a spectacular running catch in center field.

Through eight innings, the American Giants had three runs on four hits, and the ABCs had no runs on one hit,3 but the visitors threatened in the ninth. Shively led off with a single on a bad-hop grounder to Francis at third base, and DeMoss followed with a single over second base. Jim Taylor advanced the runners with a sacrifice bunt, and his brother Ben was beaned by Wickware, loading the bases. The crowd was on its feet.

Bauchman, the second baseman, misplayed Clark’s grounder and everybody was safe, as Shively came home with the first ABC run. The score was now 3-1, and with one out the ABCs had the bases loaded: Clark on first base, Ben Taylor on second base, and DeMoss on third.

With one ball and two strikes on Powell, Wickware threw a pitch that catcher Petway dropped. The ball rolled a short distance away, but Petway retrieved it quickly. He noticed Taylor off second base and rifled the ball to Lloyd, who tagged Taylor for the second out. Lloyd, seeing that DeMoss had drifted off third base, whipped the ball to Francis. The ball bounced away from Francis, though, as DeMoss slid into the bag. DeMoss sprang up and ran for home as Francis went to retrieve the ball. Francis fired it to first baseman Grant, covering home. As DeMoss slid feet-first into home plate, he collided with Grant, and the two rolled in the dirt. Grant held onto the ball, and Goeckel yelled, “Out!” Enraged by the call, DeMoss struck Goeckel in the face! The American Giants quickly surrounded the ump to protect him from further harm.

The peculiar 2-6-5-3 double play ended the game. The final score was Chicago American Giants 3, Indianapolis ABCs 1.

In October 1916 the ABCs won four of five games from the American Giants in Indianapolis and proclaimed themselves the new champions of Negro baseball. Foster, of course, disputed that claim.4

Sources

The author relied on the game description given in the September 2, 1916, issue of the Chicago Defender. Background information about the players was obtained from James A. Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994).

Notes