June 13, 1894: Senators rookie Bill Hassamaer hits for the cycle; Browns’ Kid Gleason is suspended without pay

The Washington Senators finished dead last in the 12-team National League in 1893, and a few changes were made for 1894. Washington parted with manager Jim O’Rourke and hired a new skipper, Gus Schmelz. “Prominent third baseman”1 Bill Joyce had been acquired from the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in February 1893 but refused to play for the salary offered and held out for the entire season. The Senators finally signed him before the 1894 season began and made him team captain.2

Among the other newcomers in the Senators’ lineup was 29-year-old outfielder (and occasional infielder)3 Bill Hassamaer. Hassamaer had been playing professional baseball since 1887, and his minor-league journey took him back and forth across the country, from the Midwest to the Northwest and California, to Texas and then to the South. After hitting .321 for the Southern Association’s Montgomery Colts in 1893, Hassamaer made his major-league debut with the Senators in 1894.

Despite the changes, the 1894 Senators lost 25 of 27 games after winning their season opener.4 When the St. Louis Browns visited Washington for a three-game series in mid-June, the Senators were again last in the NL.

The Browns – who, like the Senators, had joined the NL from the American Association in 1892 – had won six of their first seven games to start the 1894 season, but then they played sub-.500 baseball in every month after April. They were led by player-manager Doggie Miller, who replaced Bill Watkins. Watkins had managed the Browns the previous season to a 10th-place finish.

The third game of the St. Louis-Washington series was played on June 13. The teams had split the first two games. St. Louis sat three spots above the Senators in the standings.

Hassamaer was inserted into the Senators’ lineup to play the hot corner, instead of Joyce.5 According to the Washington Post, “third base is [Hassamaer’s] most natural position. He scoops up the hardest hit balls with comparative ease, and his throws to first are straight to the mark.”6 A crowd of 2,800 came out to Washington’s Boundary Field to watch the game.

Duke Esper started for the Senators. This was the left-hander’s second season with Washington, after bouncing around the majors between Philadelphia (both the Athletics and the Phillies) and Pittsburgh. He had lost a league-high 28 games in 1893, but had won two of his five starts so far in 1894, including the Opening Day game.

Esper was opposed by veteran Kid Gleason, who was making a much-anticipated return to the mound. This was right-hander Gleason’s first start since May 22, a 6-4 victory over Louisville. From 1890 to 1892, Gleason won a total of 82 games, despite playing for teams that didn’t win the pennant. When the distance from the pitcher to home plate was moved in 1893 from 55 feet 6 inches to 60 feet 6 inches,7 however, Gleason’s hits and walks allowed per nine innings increased while his strikeouts dropped, and his struggles were continuing in 1894. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “The increase of 5 feet in the pitcher’s distance affected Gleason’s speed and control. … He has not pitched a game in two years in which he has not had at least one bad inning.”8

Gleason’s return to pitching for the Browns was another struggle. According to the St. Louis Post-Democrat, the Senators players “fattened up their batting averages in a manner which made the fielders of the Browns very tired.”9

The scoring started in the top of the second inning. (The Senators batted first.) With one out, Gleason walked Kip Selbach, a 22-year-old outfielder who had joined the Senators after playing for Schmelz’s Chattanooga Warriors of the Southern Association in 1893. George Tebeau doubled him home and promptly stole third base. Ed Cartwright grounded a ball to third baseman Miller, who fired home in time to get Tebeau.10 Paul Radford’s double then plated Cartwright, giving the Senators a 2-0 lead.

In the top of the third inning, in his second at-bat of the game, Hassamaer “hit so hard toward the right field fence that even the swift Tommy Dowd could not return the ball until the runner had made the complete circuit of the bases.”11 The home run extended the Senators’ lead to 3-0.

St. Louis finally “made a circuit of the bases” in the fourth.12 Charlie Frank singled and tagged to second on Frank Shugart’s fly ball to center. Miller’s single drove Frank home.

Meanwhile, the Senators were piling up base hits off Gleason. In the top of the fifth, Washington sent 11 batters to the plate, with a result of five runs. Hassamaer started the barrage with a triple to deep center, his third hit of the game.13 After Charlie Abbey was retired, Deacon McGuire also tripled and then scored on Selbach’s RBI single. Tebeau doubled, and after Cartwright flied out, he and Selbach scored on Radford’s single. Piggy Ward also singled. In his second at-bat of the inning, Hassamaer reached on an error by second baseman Joe Quinn, but Abbey flied out for his second out of the inning.14 The Senators were cruising, 8-1.

In the Browns’ half of the fifth, Fred “Bones” Ely reached on a grounder that Hassamaer misjudged at third base for an error. He advanced to second on a fly ball by Dick Buckley and scored on one of Gleason’s two base hits in the game, making it 8-2.

Washington added a single tally in the sixth. Selbach singled, stole second, and scored on Radford’s single. Three more Senators runs followed in the seventh, giving them a dozen. Ward doubled15 and moved to third when Hassamaer grounded out. Ward scored when McGuire singled. Selbach’s triple brought in McGuire. Tebeau followed with his third double of the game, driving in Selbach, who had made four hits and scored four times in the game.

In the eighth frame, Gleason threw just three pitches, retiring all three Washington batters on successive fly outs. According to the Washington Evening Star, this was the second time it had happened this season at Boundary Field.16

When it was the Browns’ turn to bat in the bottom of the eighth, Miller sliced a pitch to Selbach, but the right fielder “slipped down,”17 and Miller made it all the way to third with a triple. He scored the Browns’ final run on Quinn’s “clean drive over second.”18 After almost two hours, the Senators had won, 12-3.

Gleason was touched for 20 hits, which included four doubles, three triples, and a home run. After the game, Browns owner Chris Von der Ahe met with Gleason and “gave the little pitcher a terrible dressing down, and closed the debate by suspending him from duty without pay until further orders.”19

Esper earned the victory, allowing the Browns only six hits. He made seven more starts after this game before being sold to the Baltimore Orioles on July 23.

The two teams split the 12 games they played in 1894. The Browns tied with the Cincinnati Reds for ninth place, 35 games behind the Orioles. The Senators jumped ahead of the Louisville Colonels in the standings but still finished in 11th place, 46 games back.

Hassamaer’s 4-for-6 performance included a single and double (although all of the newspapers gave him credit for a single, double, triple, and home run, none of them explained when the single and double occurred).20 He finished his rookie season batting .322 with 54 extra-base hits. He was sold by Washington to the Louisville Colonels for $200 on August 23, 1895, after batting .278 in 86 games for the Senators. He played 30 games for the Colonels in 1896, but then was gone from the major leagues.21

Four batters hit for the cycle in 1894: Lave Cross (Philadelphia Phillies, April 24), Hassamaer, Sam Thompson (Philadelphia Phillies, August 17), and Tom Parrott (Cincinnati Reds, September 28). Hassamaer was the first player in Washington franchise history to hit for the cycle.22

Box Score

Washington Post, June 14, 1894: 6.

Acknowledgments

The author appreciates insights and statistical assistance by Gary Belleville, John Fredland, and Larry DeFillipo. This article was fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org. Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org did not have box scores or play-by-play from the 1894 season when this article was completed in June 2023. The author instead relied on play-by-play and box scores published in contemporary sources, including the Washington Post, the Washington Evening Star, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (June 14, 1894).

Notes

1 Stephen V. Rice, “Bill Joyce,” SABR Biography Project.

2 This move paid off, as Joyce batted .355 in 1894.

3 Hassamaer played 68 games in the outfield and 49 games in the infield (second base, shortstop, and third base).

4 At one point (from May 3 to May 28), the Senators lost 17 games in a row. They began a homestand on May 29 and won eight of their next 10 games, but they entered this game in 11th place in the standings (out of 12 teams). During their stretch of 25 losses in 27 games, the Senators allowed an average of 9.6 runs per game. They finished the season allowing an average of 8.5 runs per game – worst in the NL. As it turned out, Washington’s staff ERA was 5.51, seventh best in the league. The Senators’ team fielding percentage of .908 was by far the worst in the league, which led to an average of three unearned runs scoring per game for the entire season.

5 In his rookie year, Hassamaer played 68 games in the outfield, 31 at third base, 14 at second base, and 4 as a shortstop. In 1894 he had an .876 fielding percentage at third base, compared with a league average of .878. Hassamaer made 21 errors in those 31 games, including one in this game.

6 “Hits and Runs Galore,” Washington Post, June 14, 1894: 6.

7 In 1887 the pitcher’s distance moved from 50 feet to 55 feet 6 inches after a significant decrease in batting average over several seasons; the high-scoring games of the early 1880s “had given way to an offensive morass.” This change was accompanied by other changes: Batters were allotted four called strikes, and walks were counted as hits. Batting averages skyrocketed. The next season, the league returned to the three-strike out, and batting averages declined once more. In 1893 the National League decided to move the pitchers back another five feet – to 60 feet 6 inches. The pitcher’s box was replaced with a 12-by-4-inch slab, and the pitcher was required to place his back foot upon it. For more information, see Anthony Castrovince, “How Baseball Settled on 60 Feet, 6 Inches,” MLB.com, August 9, 2021, https://www.mlb.com/news/why-is-the-mound-60-ft-6-inches-away.

8 “Gossip of the Game,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 14, 1894: 7. Gleason had an ERA+ of 104 in 1892 and 102 in 1893, while the league-wide ERA went from 3.28 in 1892 to 4.66 in 1893. This might indicate that Gleason did not struggle with the distance change much more than the average pitcher.

9 “Gleason Was Easy,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 14, 1894: 5.

10 The game summary in the Washington Evening Star credited Cartwright with a single.

11 “Gleason’s Delivery Was Easy,” Washington Evening Star, June 14, 1894: 7. According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Hassamaer “put the ball over the fence.” See “Gleason Was Easy.”

12 “Gleason Was Easy.”

13 A logical deduction is that Hassamaer got a hit in his first at-bat (in the first inning, since Hassamaer batted second in the batting order), but there was no mention in any of the newspapers, since the Senators did not score in the first.

14 There is some disagreement between a few newspapers. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that “ten strikers faced Gleason” in the fifth, and Abbey made two outs. The Washington Evening Star reported that Hassamaer led off and Abbey made two outs, which means that 11 Senators came to bat. The author believes this second account, which is also a local account of the game.

15 The Washington Evening Star credited Ward with a single, while the St. Louis Globe-Democrat gave Ward a double.

16 “Gleason’s Delivery Was Easy.”

17 “Gleason Was Easy.”

18 “Gleason Was Easy.”

19 “Pitcher Gleason Suspended,” Washington Evening Star, June 14, 1894: 7. In eight starts for the Browns in 1894, Gleason had a 2-6 record and a 6.05 earned-run average. On June 23, 1894, 10 days after this game, Gleason was purchased by the Baltimore Orioles from the Browns for $2,400. He made 21 appearances (20 starts) for the Orioles on the mound in the second half of the season, winning 15 of 20 decisions with a 4.45 ERA. He also batted .349 for the Orioles, with an OPS of .828, playing first base when not pitching. The next season he appeared in 112 games for Baltimore, but he pitched in only nine of those contests. He batted .309, and by 1896, the switch-hitter Gleason had transitioned completely to a position player. He never pitched another game in the majors after the 1895 season, and in November 1895 he was traded to the New York Giants. According to Gleason’s SABR biography, “His pitching days behind him, Gleason settled into second base in New York over the next five years. He developed into one of the better second basemen of the time, leading the league twice in assists and once in putouts.” See Dan Lindner, “Kid Gleason,” SABR Biography Project.

20 Hassamaer must have completed the cycle in his final at-bat (probably in the eighth or ninth inning – since the Senators batted first, and Hassamaer had batted in the seventh inning, it’s logical that he got one more at-bat before the game ended, giving him six at-bats in the game).

22 The Senators, who joined the American Association in 1891 and moved to the National League from 1892 through 1899, had three players hit for the cycle in their nine-season existence: Hassamaer (June 13, 1894), Cartwright (September 30, 1895), and Joyce (May 30, 1896).