August 9, 1872: Eckfords halt 3-month skid with help of familiar reinforcements

In major-league history, 10 teams have lost their first 11 regular-season games.1 Of these slow starters, the National Association’s 1872 Eckfords of Brooklyn were the most severely outclassed during their season-opening skid. They bore the largest negative run differential (-185), suffered more double-digit losses (10) and absorbed as many losses by 20 runs or more as the other nine teams combined (4). An infusion of familiar players from the National Association’s recently disbanded Troy Haymakers helped end the losing streak on August 9 with a 10-1 rout of the Baltimore Canaries, but couldn’t keep the Eckfords from compiling the lowest-ever full-season winning percentage for a major-league team.2

A charter member of the National Association of Base Ball Players, the Eckford Base Ball Club of Brooklyn won national championships in 1862 and 1863 on the strength of a 22-game winning streak. Surpassed in the late 1860s by the Cincinnati Red Stockings and others, as elite teams began turning professional, the still-amateur Eckfords sent a representative to the inaugural meeting of the all-professional National Association, but elected not to join for the 1871 debut season.3 As they’d done for many years through their history, the “Yellow Stockings”4 chose to stay independent, scheduling opponents, and negotiating the split of gate receipts, as they saw fit.5

In early 1872 the Eckfords reorganized themselves into a professional club, using a revenue-sharing approach called “co-operative.”6 Rather than committing to fixed salaries, as teams with more capital did, the club let its players share in the receipts from each contest. The club also elected to join the National Association, becoming one of three co-operative teams in the NA, along with the Atlantics of Brooklyn and Olympics of Washington. They, together with six “stock” (salary-paying) clubs, would be competing for the Association’s “official championship streamer.”7

While the Eckfords had been deciding their path forward, a number of their players signed on with stock clubs. Pitcher-outfielder Phonney Martin, third baseman Candy Nelson, and outfielder Alfred “Count” Gedney joined the Troy Haymakers. Outfielder Jim Holdsworth left for the Cleveland Forest Citys and substitute Nat Hicks moved over to the Eckfords’ co-tenants at Brooklyn’s Union Grounds, the Mutuals of New York.8 Eckford president-manager William Ray brought in new players for the 1872 season, creating what the New York Clipper called “quite a strong team.”9 A less sanguine New York Times noted that “there are weak points in their nine as now arranged.”10

“Shaky and nervous” at the outset, the Eckfords surrendered 14 unearned runs in the first two innings of their opening NA championship (regular-season) game on May 7, but put up a “plucky up-hill fight” the rest of the way in a 17-11 loss to the Troy Haymakers.11 They were “Chicagoed” by a dominant Al Spalding and the Boston Red Stockings in their next match, 20-0, then fell to curveball maestro Candy Cummings and the New York Mutuals. A fourth straight loss, at Troy, was followed by non-Association losses to the Yale and Princeton college nines sandwiched around a defeat by the amateur Resolutes of Elizabeth, New Jersey.12 Ray replaced pitcher James McDermott, whose previous professional experience was two games as an outfielder for the 1871 Fort Wayne Kekiongas, with Martin Malone, who had none.

The newcomer fared no better as the calendar turned to June. After allowing 24 runs in a loss to Boston and 26 in a defeat by the Mansfields of Middletown, Connecticut, Malone was out of a job and the Eckfords were 0-6. A 36-6 pasting from the Mansfields, followed by three more double-digit losses, prompted Ray to try another new pitcher, known to history only as “O’Rourke,” whose prior experience and first name are both a mystery.

The combination of O’Rourke and new catcher William Bestick were “an improvement over the recent incumbents” but the Brooklyn Eagle declared that the Eckfords “want a captain badly” after they fell to Troy yet again on July 9.13 Their losing streak now at 11, fresh leadership soon arrived, from an unlikely source.

As the Eckfords sank to the bottom of, and then off, the NA standings,14 the Haymakers were keeping heady company near the top. Competitive salaries had attracted talented players to the upstate New York hamlet ($14,400 for the roster of typically 11 players), enabling Troy to become the first National Association club to collect 10 victories.15 But they weren’t getting paid. After demands for immediate payment of all salaries were denied by the club’s directors, the players refused to play. By July 24, newspapers were reporting that the Troy club that “commenced with a flourish” (its record 15-10) had “gone out like an exploded sky rocket.”16 They reconstituted themselves as a cooperative team and played the Mutuals on July 30, but abandoned the effort soon after.17

Over the course of the next week, several Haymakers who’d previously played for the Eckfords rejoined them. Recent defectors Martin, Nelson, and Gedney were added, along with several others who’d left Brooklyn years earlier; Doug Allison, the former Cincinnati Red Stockings catcher who was the first to don catching mittens,18 pitcher George Zettlein, an 18-game winner for the 1871 Chicago White Stockings, and a former White Stockings and Haymakers captain, second baseman Jimmy Wood.19 So many former Troy club players were added by the Eckfords that the Baltimore Sun mistakenly assumed the two franchises had merged.20

The “new Eckford nine” played well in its first contest, losing a 3-2 rematch on August 6 with the amateur Elizabeth Resolutes.21 Three days later they faced the Baltimore Canaries at Union Grounds, in their first clash of the season with the National Association’s southernmost club.

To this point of the season, no club had played more National Association games than the Canaries, so called for their bright yellow and black uniforms. Their record was 20-11; only the Red Stockings had accumulated more victories. The Lord Baltimore Base Ball Club would be playing their third game in three days for the first time all season. They’d coughed up an early five-run lead in a loss to the lowly (3-14) Atlantics at Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn two days earlier, then came back from three runs down in the ninth inning to defeat the Mutuals in 12-innings at Union Grounds the day before.

Between 300 and 500 spectators were on hand for the Friday contest, including “numerous well-wishers and old admirers” looking forward to seeing the newly configured local nine, led by Wood, their newly appointed captain.22 Betting pools favored Baltimore over the Eckfords at $100 to $50, or even $40, as the game began.

Baltimore, the “orange stockings,” batted first, with Zettlein setting them down in order.23 The trio of former Haymakers heading up the Eckford lineup (Allison, Wood, and Martin) got the same treatment in the bottom of the first from 20-year-old Bobby Mathews, a sometimes erratic curveballer on his way to leading the NA in strikeouts and walks. Goose eggs filled the second frame as well. Allison gunned down Tom York attempting to steal second in that inning, a play that clipped the Canaries’ basestealing wings for the rest of the game.24

The Canaries “drew first blood” in the third when Wood, playing second base, dropped a relay throw, allowing George Hall to score from second on an outfield hit.25 Three throwing errors by Baltimore third baseman Lip Pike, known more for his bat than his arm,26 allowed the Eckfords to knot the score in the fourth and take a one-run lead in the fifth.27 The Brooklynites tacked on another in the seventh, courtesy of a dropped fly by shortstop John Radcliff, a bad throw by Hall from center field, and an undefined error by Canaries catcher Bill Craver.

Baltimore’s defensive gaffes worsened the next inning. No fewer than eight “important” errors, together with a pair of walks by a “nervous” Mathews and three Eckford hits (including a double by Jim Snyder), produced seven runs before a single out was recorded.28 Aggressive baserunning triggered the Eckfords’ good fortune, as Wood “sent his men around the bases in such a way as to completely bewilder and demoralize the Baltimoreans.”29 “It would be difficult to say who did not give them a run,” said the New York World about the Canaries defenders.”30

Meanwhile, Zettlein kept Baltimore scoreless inning after inning, supported by fielding that the New York World called “magnificent.”31 He scattered eight hits as the Eckfords won 10-1, snapping their losing streak.32

The Brooklyn Eagle credited Wood for “skillful maneuvering to bring his nine out of the contest victorious.”33 “One effect” of the win, according to the New York Clipper, “will be to place Eckford stock wel [sic] up in the market.”34

Following their drubbing of the Baltimores, the Eckfords lost two of their next three NA games, then suffered another double-digit losing streak before winning their third and final National Association game of the year, a 13-7 victory over the Atlantics on September 24. They finished the season, their last as an organized Base Ball Club, with a record of 3-26, for the lowest full-season winning percentage in major-league history (.103). Over the past 150 years (through the 2022 season), only the dreadful 1899 Cleveland Spiders (20-134, .130) have come close to surpassing their record for futility.35

Acknowledgments

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

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Brian McKenna’s SABR biography of Bobby Mathews, Charles F. Faber’s SABR biography of Doug Allison, and John Thorn’s Baseball in the Garden of Eden (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011). Other sources included summaries of Eckfords, Haymakers, and Canaries games published in the New York Herald, New York Sun, New York Times, New York World, Brooklyn Union, Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Eagle, Troy (New York) Times and Baltimore Sun. He also consulted Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet for pertinent material, including the box score for this game, located at https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1872/B08090BR11872.htm.

Notes

1 The teams included one from the Union Association (1884 Altoona Mountain Citys), two from the National League (1997 Chicago Cubs and 1884 Detroit Wolverines), three from the American League (2002 Detroit Tigers, 1988 Baltimore Orioles, and 1920 Detroit Tigers) and four from the National Association (1875 Washington Nationals, 1872 Washington Nationals, 1872 Eckfords of Brooklyn, and 1871 Rockford Forest Citys). Run statistics for each team’s season-opening 11 losses were as follows:

2 Excluding teams that disbanded in midseason, several of which failed to win a single game (for example, the 1872 Washington Nationals, 1873 Baltimore Marylands).

3 The collapse of the NBBPA after having allowed professional teams in for the 1869 season, forced the Eckfords and many other clubs to consider whether they needed to become professional in order to survive. “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 20, 1871: 2.

4 The Eckfords were often called the Yellow Stockings by Brooklyn newspapers.

5 For example, negotiations with the NA Boston Red Stockings in early May 1871 went back and forth on the question of whether the home team for a home-and-home series should take all receipts or split them. “Base-Ball Notes,” New York Times, May 2, 1871: 8.

6 “Local Items,” Brooklyn Times, January 15, 1872: 3.

7 “The Professional Nines for 1872,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 22, 1872: 2.

8 “The Haymakers for 1872,” Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch, December 10, 1871: 2; “Base Ball Notes,” Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1871: 8; “The National Game,” New York Herald, April 7, 1872: 5.

9 “The Eckford Baseball Club,” Brooklyn Times, April 3, 1872: 4; “The Eckford Club,” New York Clipper, March 23, 1872: 402.

10 “Base-Ball Notes,” New York Times, March 27, 1872: 2.

11 “Eckfords vs. Haymakers—A Plucky Game,” Brooklyn Times, May 8, 1872: 4.

12 The Resolutes briefly joined the National Association in 1873, going 2-21 before folding in midseason. “Eckfords vs. The Yale College Nine,” Brooklyn Times, May 23, 1872: 3; “Other Games on Saturday,” Brooklyn Union, June 3, 1872: 2; “Eckford vs. Resolute,” Brooklyn Times, May 29, 1872: 3.

13 Bestick’s predecessors included German-born David Lenz (identified as Leutz or Lentz in box scores), followed by Nat Jewett, a former member of the Mutuals. “Eckford vs. Troy,” Brooklyn Union, July 10, 1872: 3; “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 10, 1872: 3.

14 The records of cooperative teams were often tracked separately from stock teams in standings printed by newspapers covering the Association. See for example, Professional Notes,” Brooklyn Eagle, June 6, 1872: 2.

15 “Base Ball,” Chicago Evening Mail, April 24, 1872: 4; “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 27, 1872: 2.

16 “Troy—The ‘Haymakers’ Disbanded,” Schenectady (New York) Evening Star, July 25, 1872: 3; “Current Notes,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 29, 1872: 4.

17 “Disbanded,” Chicago Evening Post, August 3, 1872: 1; “Mutual vs. Haymakers,” New York Clipper, August 10, 1872: 149.

18 Doug was apparently unrelated to Eckford first baseman Andy Allison.

19 Wood and Zettlein had moved from the White Stockings to the Haymakers after the Chicago club determined that it could not recover from the loss of its ballpark in the Chicago Fire in time to field a team for the 1872 season. Jeff Laing, “The Windy City-Collar City Connection: The Curious Relationship of Chicago’s and Troy’s Professional Baseball Teams (1870-82),” The National Pastime, SABR, 2019.

20 “Base Ball,” Baltimore Sun, July 31, 1872: 4.

21 “Base Ball,” New York Times, August 7, 1872: 8.

22 Attendance range is based on reports in the New York Sun (“about 500”) and Brooklyn Eagle (“not over three or four hundred”). Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet list attendance as 350. The Ball and Bat,” New York Sun, August 10, 1872: 2.

23 The box-score for this game posted at Retrosheet lists the home team as batting first, but the game account in the New York Sun says the game began “with the Baltimores first at bat.” “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10, 1872: 3; “The Ball and Bat.”

24 This was the only time in seven attempts during the 1872 NA season that York was caught stealing. “The Ball and Bat.”

25 The author’s research indicates this was one of the first times the phrase “drew first blood” was used in a newspaper to describe the first run scored in a baseball game. The New York Dispatch first applied the phrase long used in boxing to describe the first run scored in a game four weeks earlier, between the Athletics of Philadelphia and the Mutuals. “The Ball and Bat.”; “Mutual vs. Athletic,” New York Dispatch, July 14, 1872: 6.

26 Pike, who’d starting the Canaries winning rally with a “fine hit” in the 12th-inning the day before, was on the way to his second of three consecutive NA home-run crowns in 1872. “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 9, 1872: 3.

27 “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10.

28 “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10.

29 “The Ball and Bat.”

30 The New York World identified Radcliff, left fielder York, and right fielder Tom Carey as “being the only ones who did not take a hand in at the wretched throwing.” In its retelling of the events in the Eckford eighth, the Brooklyn Eagle listed Baltimore misplays by all except Carey, Pike (who’d already done enough to help the Eckfords’ cause), and recently turned 20-year-old second baseman Dick Higham. “Triumph of the Eckfords,” New York World, August 10, 1872: 8; “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10.

31 “Triumph of the Eckfords.”

32 Unlike New York daily newspapers, several of which devoted many inches of type to the details of this game, the Canaries’ most widely circulating hometown daily, the Baltimore Sun, reported nothing more than the final score. “Base Ball,” Baltimore Sun, August 10, 1872: 1.

33 “The Professional Arena,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10.

34 “Baltimore vs. Eckford,” New York Clipper, August 17, 1872: 154.

35 The 1875 Brooklyn Atlantics compiled a lower winning percentage (.045) over a 2-42 season that ran from late April to early October, but they abandoned their October return matches with Western clubs, and so did not play a full schedule. In the modern era, the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics compiled the lowest winning percentage, .235 (36-117). “The Championship Record,” New York Clipper, October 9, 1875: 218.