July 4, 1871: Candy Cummings outduels Clytus Bentley in Independence Day clash

The 1871 Fourth of July festivities in Middletown, Connecticut, were modest and reserved, save for what the Hartford Evening Post labeled “the usual popping of fireworks and pistols.”1 The main social event was a base ball game at the new grounds built on the property of local businessman Dewitt Clinton Sage. He had gifted the land to the local Mansfield Base Ball Club at the beginning of the year.2 In turn, the club spent the spring making the old cow pasture suitable for base ball. It was an improvement from their home in 1870, the Coffin Grounds, described as “a common rough field, half plowed over.”3

That unflattering assessment had been provided by the Star Club of Brooklyn, who played in Middletown on Independence Day 1870 and coasted to a 44-9 win.4 Perhaps encouraged to hear of a new field, or perhaps the Mansfield’s generous 50-50 split of the day’s gate was too good to pass up,5 the Stars agreed to play the Mansfields again on July 4, 1871.

Brooklyn’s W. Arthur “Candy” Cummings had not made the trip to Middletown in 1870; he had instead gone on his honeymoon.6 The 22-year-old right-hander was already a famous ballplayer. He owed his status to a novel pitch of his own invention: the curveball. Cummings explained how he executed his famous curved ball in a 1909 letter to the author of Base Ball and Base Ball Players: “I found that by holding the ball with my thumb, first and second fingers, giving it a twist with my second finger and giving a snap with my wrist I could cause it to assume a curved flight.”7 After graduating from college, Cummings joined the Star Juniors of Brooklyn. In 1866 he was recruited to the Excelsiors by their star catcher, Joe Leggett.8 Cummings moved on from the Excelsiors after two years, landing in 1868 with the Star Club, where he had remained ever since.

The Manfields’ starting pitcher was Clytus “Cy” Bentley. Compared with the famous Cummings, Bentley was an anonymous amateur. The 21-year-old was a tradesman, listed as an iron molder in the 1870 census. He had begun pitching for the Mansfields in 1869 and earned a reputation for being a talented swift pitcher.9 A great athlete in general, he was able to fill in at any position. During one 1870 match, Bentley was credited with “making several beautiful catches” while playing center field against the Lowell Club of Massachusetts.10

The game started at 2:25 P.M., with an estimated 1,000 spectators in attendance.11 As was the standard of the day, the umpire was chosen from those present among the crowd. Both teams agreed on a member of the local New Britain Base Ball Club named John Reynolds.

Because Cummings had not pitched in their previous Independence Day matchup, the Connecticut club was seeing his bedeviling curve for the first time. The Mansfields’ struggles were evident as they went the first five innings without a baserunner. Cummings started by striking out two batters in the first. He added a strikeout of Billy Arnold in the second inning, Frank McCarton in the third, and a second strikeout of Arnold in the fifth inning. Cummings also received excellent support from his center fielder, Herb Worth. Worth tracked down a “fine fly” from the bat of Mansfield catcher William Kelley in the fourth inning, which he “secur[ed] in style.”12

In the Stars’ half of the second, Cummings helped his own cause with a two-out RBI single. It was the only earned run Bentley surrendered.13 The Stars added one run in both the third and fourth innings, which gave Brooklyn a 3-0 lead.

In the top of the fifth inning, Bentley found himself in a jam. Each of the first three Stars’ hitters made singles, loading the bases with nobody out. The next batter, Hy Dollard, hit a fly ball to center field that McCarton corralled for out number one. Each baserunner advanced on the play, the runner on third scoring and the other two moving to second and third. The next two batters each hit toward first baseman Ben Marks, who put both men out while holding the runners.14 The Stars were now up 4-0, but Bentley and his defense hadn’t broken under pressure.

After the Stars went down in order in the top of the sixth inning, Marks led off the bottom of the inning and crushed a pitch by Cummings over the left-field fence. Before the home crowd could celebrate, umpire Reynolds declared Marks’ clout a foul ball.15 Marks stood back in the hitter’s box undeterred and slashed a single to end Cummings’ perfect game. Although he reclaimed his hit, Marks did not get his run back. He was stranded on third base while Cummings retired the next three men.

Kelley opened the bottom of the seventh with a single. The next batter, Ready (first name unknown), hit a ball over the right fielder’s head for a double,16 scoring Kelley. Arnold followed with his third strikeout of the day, “he not yet getting the range of Cummings’ curved line balls.”17 One out later, David Lenz grounded to Dollard at second base. Dollard threw wild to first, allowing Ready to score and Lenz to reach second base. Marks, the Mansfield player who was quickest to solving Cummings’ curveball, drove in Lenz with another single. The inning ended on McCarton’s pop fly to the catcher, but it was now a one-run game.

Both teams were held scoreless in the eighth. Tommy Barlow and Fraley Rogers opened the top of the ninth for the Stars with base hits. Worth followed with a grounder to shortstop George Fields, who threw to third base for the force out. What happened next is unclear. We can say for certain that the next batter, Dollard, grounded to Arnold at third base, who threw to first for the putout. Rogers somehow scored on the play. It is possible he stole third base before Dollard’s hit, but the Clipper lists this run as unearned.18 It seems more likely that an error was made on the play and Rogers scored, but there’s no mention of this error in the Clipper’s comprehensive play-by-play. Regardless, Bentley coaxed the next batter into a groundout. The Stars clung to a 5-3 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth.

Ready was first up and made hard contact to center, but Worth made another great catch for the first out. Arnold came up next and struck a hard grounder to John Clyne at third base. Clyne’s throw pulled the first baseman, Breen, off the bag.19 The Clipper’s account contended that Arnold had reached first base before Breen made it back to the bag, but Reynolds called Arnold out. Reynolds’ overall performance was a major point of contention for the Mansfields: “The umpire made three erroneous decisions against (the Mansfields),” according to the Hartford Evening Post on July 6, “and had it not been for this the Mansfield’s [sic] would probably have won the game.”20

Bentley was next to bat, representing his club’s last chance. He managed his first base of the day on an error. Bentley then flashed his blue-chip athleticism by stealing second and third, putting himself 90 feet away from scoring his club’s fourth run of the day. But Lenz stranded Cy with a groundout to first, ending the game 5-3 in favor of the Stars.21

The 1871 season could have been the beginning of a career rivalry. Instead, it marked the point when the two pitchers’ paths diverged. Both made the jump to the National Association in 1872. Cummings joined the powerhouse Mutual club. He started all but one game, logged a 33-20 record with a 3.01 ERA and tied Al Spalding for the league lead with three shutouts.

Bentley was in a less favorable situation: The Mansfields, who had proved themselves to be a good-but-not-great amateur club, made an ill-advised transition to professionalism. The club faltered in their only professional season, posting a 5-19 record. Bentley started 17 games and posted a 6.06 ERA. Bentley’s 1872 season was filled with personal tragedy. First his mother died, causing him to take a brief leave of absence. Then his newborn son, Clytus Bentley Jr., died a week after his birth. Finally, on February 26, 1873, the 22-year-old Clytus Bentley himself died of consumption.22

Acknowledgments

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

Photo credit: Candy Cummings (left) with a Star Club of Brooklyn teammate, circa 1869, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information. Special thanks to David Arcidiacono for his assistance.

Notes

1 “Middletown,” Hartford Evening Post, July 6, 1871: 1.

2 The club was named in honor of local Civil War General Joseph Mansfield, who had died at the Battle of Antietam. David Arcidiacono, Major League Baseball in Gilded Age Connecticut (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2010), 26.

3 Arcidiacono, 36.

4 Arcidiacono, 48.

5 Arcidiacono, 37.

6 Arcidiacono, 48.

7 Elwood Andrew Roff, Base Ball and Base Ball Players: A History of the National Game of America, and Important Events Connected Therewith from its Origin Down to the Present Time, (Chicago: E.A. Roff, 1912), 227.

8 Roff, 229.

9 “Mansfield vs. Wesleyan University,” New York Clipper, July 31, 1869: 133.

10 “Tour of the Mansfield Club,” New York Clipper, August 20, 1870: 157.

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

12 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

13 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

14 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

15 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

16 The Stars’ right fielder was named Price. His first name is unknown.

17 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

18 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

19 Breen’s first name is unknown. He was the Stars’ regular first baseman in 1871; Craig B. Waff, William J. Ryczek, and Peter Morris, “Star Base Ball Club,” in Peter Morris, ed., Base Ball Founders, The Clubs, Players, and Cities of the Northeast That Established the Game, Kindle ed. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2013), 555.

20 It’s impossible to know what three decisions the Post had in mind. Along with Marks’s overturned home run and Arnold’s ninth-inning out, a correspondent from Mansfield told the Clipper that one of Arnold’s strikeouts came after two strikes, and that one of the Stars’ runs came “on called balls.” “Middletown,” Hartford Evening Post, July 6, 1871: 1.

21 “Star vs. Mansfield.”

22 Arcidiacono, 195.