August 10, 1876: Short-handed Athletics borrow substitute from Mutuals, as both teams careen toward expulsion

As the Mutuals of New York prepared to host the Athletics of Philadelphia in a National League championship (regular-season) contest on August 10, 1876, the two clubs seemed to be moving in opposite directions. In fact, they were both headed to oblivion.

The Mutuals had won 7 of their last 11 after a disappointing 10-20 start in the league’s inaugural season. Off the field, Mutuals owner William Cammeyer and pitcher Bobby Mathews were being lauded for exposing a game-fixing scheme, demonstrating the club’s commitment to rooting out “improper conduct in regard to the winning or losing of any game.”1

The Athletics, meanwhile, had become a punching bag. Since sweeping the “Mutes” in a two-game series in early May, the Athletics had gone 8-30 in league play. Only the Cincinnati Reds stood between Philadelphia and the eight-team league’s cellar. On August 6 a Chicago Tribune headline called the Athletics, led by President G.W. Thompson, “bankrupt and about to disband,” predicting they wouldn’t be able to make their last trip to play the league’s Western affiliates.2 Competing with US Centennial celebrations in Philadelphia, the Athletics had seen attendance drop from 3,000 on Opening Day to 600 or fewer in their last five home games at Jefferson Street Grounds.3

The year before, the Athletics had compiled an impressive 53-20-4 record in the defunct National Association. They came into the new league with new ownership, at the behest of NL founder William Hulbert,4 but without their former battery or their budding superstar, Adrian C. Anson. The now 24-year-old Anson had joined Hulbert’s Chicago White Stockings, standout catcher John Clapp was with the St. Louis Brown Stockings, and 44-win pitcher Dick McBride, who also served as the 1875 Athletics manager, was inexplicably let go after the season.5 Days before their first regular-season game, new manager Al Reach, a former Athletic and the future sporting-goods magnate, resigned. He was replaced by the club’s secretary and editor of the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, Al Wright.6

Injuries took a heavy toll on the Athletics right from the start. Third baseman Ezra Sutton had to be moved to first base after their first NL game, his right arm crippled by rheumatism.7 In the club’s next game, on May 2 against the Mutuals, their inexperienced (and only) catcher, 21-year-old William Coon, was hit in the throat by “a sharply hit fly-tip ball,” leaving him gasping for air.8 Coon was replaced by the team substitute, Whitey Ritterson, making his major-league debut.9

A week later, Fergy Malone, formerly with the National Association Philadelphia Whites, was brought on to serve as the new primary catcher. He proved unable to consistently catch the swift pitching of the Athletics primary pitcher, Lon Knight, putting Coon back behind the plate. Frequent injuries to Coon, Malone, and Ritterson, catching without the benefit of a soon-to-be-invented facemask or padded glove, meant the starting catcher often had to be relieved during games.10 While grappling with their catching nightmare, the Athletics also lost their center fielder, Dave Eggler, for seven weeks after a bout of pneumonia that very nearly took his life.11

The Athletics’ catching situation came to a head the week of August 7. That day, injuries sidelined both Coon and Ritterson for a game in Boston. The Athletics couldn’t call on a hometown amateur nine to provide a fill-in player, as nineteenth-century professional clubs routinely did when shorthanded, so they borrowed a catcher from a Boston amateur team.12

Two days later, Ritterson’s hands gave out in the ninth inning of a contest with the Hartford Dark Blues. The Athletics had nobody available and willing to catch in his place, leaving Knight to pitch the last inning without a catcher. Four Hartford players reached base, each easily coming around to score.13 After that debacle, the “light blues,” as they were being called by the Brooklyn Eagle (after their uniform color), were off to the City of Churches for a game with the Mutuals.14

Despite drawing upward of 1,000 fans to most Mutuals NL games at his Union Grounds in Brooklyn,15 with as many as 5,000 for one Saturday game in mid-June,16 Cammeyer’s finances were stretched thin. He’d spent “a small fortune” to purchase and develop the Grounds,17 and was rumored to be “losing money fast” with the Mutuals.18 To keep expenses down, he did double duty as the team manager and had the team’s substitute player, Nealy Phelps, man the turnstiles, collecting tickets.

When the Athletics arrived at Union Grounds for their August 10 contest with the Mutuals, they brought only eight players, none of them a catcher.19 Rather than again seek out a local amateur, the Athletics made arrangements with Cammeyer to borrow Phelps. Given his supposed financial problems, it’s likely Cammeyer offered up Phelps to ensure that the game could go on as scheduled.

“Induced to go behind the bat,” according to the New York Times, the 35-year-old Phelps had played a smattering of National Association games with the Mutuals as well as the Fort Wayne Kekiongas, dating back to 1871, but none behind the plate.20 He’d appeared in one game for the Mutuals thus far in the 1876 season, as a center fielder, the same position he occasionally played for the amateur Mutuals club, formerly known as the Argyles.21

A crowd of 500 to 1,000 was on hand to see the Mutuals clash with the Athletics on a seasonably warm Thursday afternoon, with odds at $25 to $18 in the Mutuals’ favor. 22 Phelps was immediately on the spot to catch “Knight’s swift and wild delivery” as the Mutuals batted first.23 They quickly plated three runs on a pair of errors, a wild pitch, and a hit by Jimmy Hallinan, who like Phelps had briefly played for Fort Wayne five years earlier.

Mathews, in the pitcher’s box as usual for New York,24 held the Athletics scoreless in the first but yielded a run in the second, on a base hit by Sutton and an error by third baseman Al Nichols. Hits in the fourth inning by Mathews’ catcher Nat Hicks, the weak-hitting Nichols25 and 6-foot-tall Long Jim Holdsworth, produced two more runs and a 5-1 Mutuals lead. An error by Athletics third baseman Levi Meyerle gave the Mutuals another run in the fifth.

In their next two turns at bat, the Athletics came storming back. Hits by Eggler; George Hall, on his way to the NL’s first home-run crown; and Davy Force, whose contract dispute a year earlier helped precipitate the NL’s formation,26 coupled with a throwing error by Hallinan, gave the Philadelphians two runs in the fifth. A muff by the Mutuals right fielder, Brooklyn native Eddie Booth, in the sixth paved the way for three Athletics runs in that inning, with hits from Meyerle, Eggler, and Coon tying the score at 6-all.

Both teams scored a run in the seventh, the details left unexplained in newspaper accounts. An error by Meyerle in the eighth gave New York an 8-7 lead. They tacked on another run in the ninth, attributed by the Brooklyn Eagle to “loose playing,” and won the game by a 9-7 score.27

The Chicago Tribune claimed errors by Meyerle and Phelps “in the first and fourth innings lost the game for the Athletics,” despite the fact that the Athletics had come back later to tie the score.28 Phelps was “not in playing condition,” according to the New York Herald, which hung 15 errors on the emergency substitute.29 “Knight lacked confidence in [Phelps’] ability, and hence his pitching was not so effective as usual,” according to the Brooklyn Times.30 The Brooklyn Eagle said Knight’s inaccurate pitching led to passed balls and praised Phelps’ efforts, noting he played well “under the circumstances,” with “two good catches, throwing out a player at second and putting out another at home base.”31

Accounts of the game were matter of fact about the Athletics borrowing Phelps, but both clubs had clearly crossed a line. By having to use an opponent’s player, the Athletics were admitting they were dysfunctional, incapable of fielding a team.32 By loaning the Athletics a player to fill the crucial role of catcher, Cammeyer was giving them a chance to defeat his own nine. While loaning a player to an opponent was clearly unprofessional, it wasn’t reprehensible, as when a player illicitly agrees to fix a game, something he’d worked so diligently to prevent.

Weeks later, both clubs notified league President Hulbert that dire financial conditions prevented them from making their second (and final) scheduled swing through the league’s Western cities.33 The Athletics’ Thompson claimed injuries had decimated his club and paying off debts had left him too broke to fund travel. He proposed hosting series with Chicago and St. Louis in Philadelphia and giving them more than half of the gate receipts, but Hulbert flatly refused.34 Cammeyer declined guarantees of $800 to have the Mutuals play scheduled games in Chicago and St. Louis.35

During the National League’s annual winter meeting in December 1876, the four Western clubs, which had been denied the opportunity to collect gate receipts for games scheduled with the Mutuals and Athletics, successfully moved for them to be expelled.36 Six seasons would pass before either New York or Philadelphia, the nation’s two largest cities, had another major-league franchise.

Nealy Phelps never played in another major-league game.

Acknowledgments

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

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent material. He also consulted Michael Haupert’s SABR biography of William Hulbert and Brian McKenna’s SABR biography of Bobby Mathews. Other sources included summaries of Mutuals and Athletics games published in the New York Herald, New York Sun, New York Times, Brooklyn Union, Philadelphia Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer.

Notes

1 In June, Mathews notified Cammeyer that New York “pool-seller [bookie]” Fred Seibert had offered him $200 for every game that he would “throw.” Posing as Mathews, Cammeyer initiated a series of telegrams with Seibert in which he agreed to the offer. “The would-be corruptionist was nailed to the cross” when Cammeyer arranged for his correspondence to be published in various newspapers. Mathews’ forthright behavior in this affair may have helped repair a reputation tarnished by his rumored involvement in the fixing of Mutuals games in 1873 and 1874. “Caught at Last,” New York Herald, July 23, 1876: 5; “Alleged Attempt to ‘Buy Up’ a Ball Player,” New York Clipper, July 29, 1876: 139; “Pool-Selling,” Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1876: 3.

2 “Philadelphia Gossip,” Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1876: 7.

3 The Chicago Tribune reported attendance figures of 600, 400, and 500 during a three-game series with last-place Cincinnati in mid-June, and the Philadelphia Inquirer claimed only 500 attended each of the club’s next two league matches, in late July, against Boston and Hartford.

4 Hulbert allowed the Athletics to join his new National League on the condition that principal owner Charles Sperling be replaced. President G.W. Thompson represented the franchise at Hulbert’s founding meeting for the league, with Sperling expelled by a vote of Athletic Base Ball Club stockholders in early May. Michael Haupert, “William Hulbert and the Birth of the National League,” The Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2015: 83, https://sabr.org/journal/article/william-hulbert-and-the-birth-of-the-national-league/; “Who Shall Be Catcher?” Philadelphia Times, May 9, 1876: 1.

5 McBride eventually landed with the Boston Red Stockings, going 0-4 before being let go.

6 Unfortunately for Athletics fans, Al was unrelated to George Wright, arguably the first great baseball player, or his brother Harry, the “father of professional baseball.” “Personal Pick-Ups,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 16, 1876: 7.

7 “Base Ball,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25, 1876: 2; Louisville Courier-Journal, May 6, 1876: 1.

8 Before the 1876 season, Coon (often identified as “Coons” in newspaper accounts) had caught just four games as a professional, with the 1875 Athletics. “Mutual vs. Athletic,” New York Clipper, May 13, 1876: 53.

9 At the time of Coon’s injury, the game was in the top of the 12th inning with the score tied. Lacking a substitute catcher, the Athletics suggested the game be called a draw. After Mutuals manager Cammeyer objected, Ritterson was selected to go behind the plate. The New York Sun erroneously identified Coon’s substitute as “Richardson.” “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Union, May 3, 1876: 4; “Skill in the Ball Field,” New York Sun, May 3, 1876: 3.

10 For example, during a June 15 contest with the Cincinnati Reds, Malone replaced Coon after he’d been hit in the face. On July 8 Coon’s hands gave out in another match with Cincinnati, requiring Ritterson to take his place. On August 1 in Hartford, Ritterson once again finished a game that Coon left due to injury. “Our Boys,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 18, 1876: 1.

11 “Base Ball Notes,” New York Herald, June 4, 1876: 6; “Philadelphia and Suburbs,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 20, 1876: 3.

12 The borrowed amateur, John Bergh, identified as “Berg” in the Boston Globe account of the game, and as “Burge” in the Chicago Tribune summary, was a member of the Our Boys amateur club. “Base Ball – The Bostons Vanquish the Athletics Again,” Boston Globe, August 7, 1876: 2; “Boston vs. Athletic,” Chicago Tribune, August 6, 1876: 7.

13 Earlier in the game, Coon, playing right field to give his hands a rest, was caught wandering off second base on a hidden-ball trick executed by Hartford second baseman Jack Burdock. “The Hartfords Again Pulverize the Athletics, 9 to 1,” Boston Globe, August 10, 1876: 1; “The Hartfords Defeat the Athletics for the Eighth Time this Season,” Hartford Courant, August 10, 1876: 2.

14 “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 3, 1876: 3.

15 Cammeyer, a local businessman and politician, purchased the Union Grounds site in 1861, initially building an ice rink and then replacing it with a ballpark that was the first enclosed baseball field. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is reported to have been played before the first match at his Grounds, considered the first time music was played at a ballgame. Soon after, Cammeyer charged admission for entry to games there, another first credited to him. Jerrold Casway, “July 24, 1860: The First Enclosed Ballpark, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-24-1860-the-first-enclosed-ballpark/; “1865 Brooklyn Baseball Game,” nineteenth-century baseball website, http://www.19cbaseball.com/image-1865-brooklyn-baseball-game.html, accessed December 27, 2022.

16 “It’s Chicagos Victorious,” New York Sun, June 18, 1876: 5.

17 “William Cammeyer,” New York Times, September 7, 1898: 7.

18 Brendan Macgranachan, “Teams Banished from Baseball,” January 23, 2009, Seamheads.com website, https://seamheads.com/blog/2009/01/23/teams-banished-from-baseball/, accessed December 27, 2022.

19 “The Mutuals Defeat the Athletics by a Score of Nine to Seven,” New York Times, August 11, 1876: 8.

20 “The Mutuals Defeat the Athletics by a Score of Nine to Seven.” Phelps also served as “game-keeper [statistician]” for the Mutuals in 1875, as noted in the summary of an exhibition game played between picked nines from the Mutuals and the Atlantic Club. “Base-Ball,” New York Times, October 13, 1875: 12.

21 “St. Louis vs. Mutual,” New York Clipper, July 8, 1876: 115; “Mutual vs. Mutual,” New York Clipper, August 5, 1876: 147.

22 The New York Sun estimated the crowd at 500, while the Brooklyn Times reported that there were 1,000 spectators. “The Mutuals Defeat the Athletics,” Brooklyn Times, August 11, 1876: 3; “The Mutual’s Victory Over the Athletics in a Well-Contested Game,” New York Sun, August 11, 1876: 3; “Athletic vs Mutual,” Chicago Tribune, August 11, 1876: 5.

23 “The Mutuals Defeat the Athletics by a Score of Nine to Seven”; “The Mutual’s Victory Over the Athletics in a Well-Contested Game.”

24 Mathews had started each of the Mutuals’ previous 31 games, dating back to May 23. He finished the season starting all but one of their 57 games.

25 With only two walks and seven extra-base hits in 342 career plate appearances, Nichols compiled a career slash line that fell completely below the Mendoza line (.171/.176/.193).

26 As the 1874 National Association season came to a close, the diminutive (5-foot-4, 130-pound) Force, then a member of William Hulbert’s Chicago White Stockings, signed a contract for the next season with Chicago, then changed his mind and signed another with the Athletics. During the National Association’s winter meetings in March of 1875, after several attempts to determine which contract should be honored, a panel of owners led by Association President and Athletics owner Charles Sperling validated Force’s contract with the Athletics over the Chicago contract, enraging Hulbert. What became known as “The Force Case” created a schism within the National Association that prompted Hulbert to form the new National League, spelling the end of the National Association. William J. Ryczek, “The Force Case: The 1875 National Association Convention,” in Base Ball’s 19th Century ‘Winter’ Meetings (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 126.

27 “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 11, 1876: 3. Box scores showed that the Mutuals collected a hit or two more than the Athletics and committed far fewer errors. Error tallies ranged from 11-Mutuals, 26-Athletics in the New York Times game summary, to 4-Mutuals, 14-Athletics in the Chicago Tribune account of the game. “The Mutuals Defeat the Athletics by a Score of Nine to Seven”; “Athletic vs. Mutual.”

28 “Athletic vs. Mutual.”

29 “Yesterday’s Professional Games,” New York Herald, August 11, 1876: 6.

30 “The Mutuals Defeat the Athletics.”

31 “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 11, 1876.

32 A week after the August 10 game, the Athletics made another attempt to solve their catching problems by adding Doc Bushong, a 19-year-old hometown catcher who’d played one game for the NA Brooklyn Atlantics in 1875. Bushong would go on to be one of the finest catchers of the nineteenth century.

33 “Athletics Busted,” Chicago Tribune, September 14, 1876: 5; “The Mutuals,” Chicago Tribune, September 24, 1876: 4.

34 “Athletics Busted.”

35 The Chicago Tribune labeled the actions of the Mutuals and Athletics “nothing more or less than swindling.” The Louisville Courier-Journal called the Athletic Club “a persistent blood-sucker and unscrupulous scalawag to its professional brethren.” Rumors originating in July that Cammeyer was wooing the Hartford Dark Blues to play their home games at Union Grounds in 1877, which they ultimately did, fueled speculation that he had turned down the $800 guarantee in hopes the league would relieve him of his money-losing Mutuals franchise; allowing him to “start over fresh with a new professional baseball franchise.” “The Mutuals”; “The Sensation of the Year,” Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1876: 5; Macgranachan, “Teams Banished from Baseball”; “Sunken Scalawags,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 18, 1876: 1.

36 Major League Baseball official historian John Thorn has speculated that having rarely seen punishments for missed games during their five years in the National Association, neither the Mutuals nor the Athletics management feared repercussions from abandoning their final Western road trips. He also noted that both franchises had operated independently for over a decade before the establishment of the first professional league (in 1869), and so were “accustomed to determining their own fortunes.” Such an outlook could have emboldened them to exchange Phelps. Michael Haupert, “In the Face of Crisis: The 1876 Winter Meetings,” in Base Ball’s 19th Century ‘Winter’ Meetings (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 140; John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 164.