May 13, 1880: Cincinnati battery of Will White, John Clapp does it all in one-hit shutout of Cleveland

In 1879 Will White of the National League’s Cincinnati Reds set single-season major-league records for complete games (75) and innings pitched (680) that will almost certainly never be broken. The first major leaguer to wear glasses on the field, White had as his batterymate a future Hall of Famer whom baseball historian Peter Morris called “far and away the best” of the 1870s: Will’s older brother Jim “Deacon” White.1

In late August 1879, Deacon White, the elder stateman of NL catchers at age 31, announced that he would retire after the season.2 Reds fans might have expected the club to start casting about for a new catcher, but instead they were preparing to go out of business.

Beset by financial losses estimated at $8,000 or more, the club failed to pay Deacon (and presumably others) salaries for the month of October. They also neglected to reserve any players for the 1880 season.3 Somehow those warning signs didn’t deter Reds manager Bob Miles from organizing a postseason exhibition tour to California. When Deacon pulled out, ostensibly because he didn’t want to play on Sundays, Miles recruited a catcher whom some observers considered Deacon White’s equal – John Clapp of the Buffalo Bisons.4

“The best looking, best preserved and most robust man in the profession,”5 Clapp had made his name as a member of the 1876 St. Louis Brown Stockings. His brilliance behind the plate that year was credited with fashioning hurler George Bradley into the league’s most dominant pitcher, going 45-19 with 16 shutouts and a 1.23 ERA.6 Clapp also came with recent leadership experience, having served as captain of the Buffalo nine and captain-manager of the 1878 Indianapolis Grays.

Two weeks into the Golden State junket, directors back in Cincinnati agreed to withdraw the club from the NL.7 The Stars, an independent Cincinnati club, applied for membership in place of the Reds, with their admission to be voted upon by NL club owners at the league’s December convention. Clapp, who reportedly planned to leave Buffalo to join his younger brother, Aaron, on Albany’s National Association team, signed on with the Stars while still on the West Coast.8 Cincinnati fans had reason to celebrate, but, unlike the Reds, Buffalo had submitted a reserve list to the league, and Clapp was on it.

Buffalo management, with support from the Boston Red Stockings, threatened not to support admitting the Stars. They claimed that the Stars were bound by the reserve agreement that the Reds had entered into just months earlier, and had violated it in signing Clapp.9 NL President William Hulbert disagreed, reasoning that the Stars weren’t signatories to the reserve agreement. Buffalo relented, Clapp’s contract was recognized, and the Stars were admitted.10 Soon after, Clapp was named captain and manager.11

Great things were expected of Clapp and his ace, Will White.12 “As a team [White and Clapp] have no peers in the country of all who will play together this year,” wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer in early April, a few days later calling the duo “the most enduring, toughest pitcher and catcher in the country.”13

Boasting a roster filled with former Reds, the Stars got off to a slow start in 1880, losing five of their first six games in a pair of home-and-home series with the Chicago White Stockings. Back in Cincinnati on May 13, Clapp’s charges looked to turn around their fortunes in the opener of a three-game series with the Cleveland Blues.

Previously known as the Forest Citys, Cleveland was one of the NL’s three doormats during the 1879 season, along with the since-defunct Syracuse Stars and Troy Trojans. They were led by 23-year-old captain-manager Jim McCormick, who also doubled as the team’s pitcher. (Not until the end of June would anyone else pitch an inning for Cleveland in 1880.14) Thanks in large part to McCormick holding opponents to three runs or fewer in his last five starts, the Blues entered the Thursday afternoon battle at Cincinnati’s new Bank Street Grounds with a record of 4-2.

The crowd of 1,045 would not soon forget how the game began.15 With the Stars batting first, leadoff hitter Jack Manning lofted a fly ball to left-center field. Center fielder Pete Hotaling, stationed in right-center field, broke into a “dead run.”16 Doing the same was left fielder Al Hall. Both outfielders were new to Cleveland – this was just the third league game in which they were playing next to one other. Hotaling called for the ball, but Hall didn’t hear him. They collided. As Hall lay on the ground writhing in pain, Hotaling scrambled up to get the ball, holding Manning to a triple. Once he did that, he came running in for a doctor.17

Hall had suffered compound fractures of both his right tibia and right fibula above the ankle.18 A pair of doctors came down from the stands to reset the breaks in a makeshift splint. Hall was carried by stretcher to the clubhouse and taken by horse-driven ambulance to a nearby hospital. He never played another major-league game.19

Once Hall was on his way, McCormick plugged catcher Doc Kennedy in left field and set about trying to keep the Stars off the scoreboard. He struck out 35-year-old Andy Leonard, a member of the legendary 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings; induced Clapp to foul out; and got William Purcell, later known as Blondie,20 to fly out – keeping Manning at third all the while.

Over the first eight innings of the contest, no baserunner for either side got any closer to touching home plate.

White dominated a Cleveland lineup that had punished him for nine runs on 13 hits on the last day of the 1879 season.21 He surrendered his only walk of the game to Frank Hankinson in the third, but immediately atoned for his generosity by deflecting a ball hit by the next batter, McCormick, into a double play.22

Cleveland mustered its first hit of the game in the seventh, on Orator Shafer’s double down the left-field line. The hit moved Fred Dunlap to third, the 21-year-old having reached first to start the inning when Clapp failed to corral a third strike. Facing the Blues’ three-four-five hitters, White held fast. The curveball specialist retired Hotaling on a popup that left fielder Mike Mansell “took handsomely on the run,”23 Ned Hanlon on a ball hit to shortstop Sam Wright, and Kennedy on a grounder that also came to the youngest brother of Boston Red Stockings manager Harry Wright – all without allowing Dunlap to score. The third out brought cheers for White and “a thrilling lecture,” i.e. tantrum, from a frustrated Shafer.

McCormick matched White in putting up goose eggs inning after inning, “puzzling” the home team with his “remarkable headwork.”24 Clapp, hitting .500 when the day began, with six multihit games,25 led off the fourth with the Stars’ second hit but was erased when Purcell grounded into a twin killing. The fair-haired Purcell singled in the eighth but was gunned down trying to steal second by Barney Gilligan, Cleveland’s strong-armed backup catcher.

The ninth inning began as the first had, with Manning lifting a ball into the outfield. This time nobody got hurt as it landed for a single along the right-field line, with Manning advancing to second when the ball got past the right fielder, Shafer. Two batters later, Clapp slapped a run-scoring triple down that same right-field line. Seeing the throw from Shafer come in off-target, Clapp broke for home. He reconsidered, but was tagged out before he could get back to third base. After a Purcell fly out to deep center field that might have brought in an insurance run, the Stars were back in the field with a slim 1-0 lead.

The Blues went down in order in the ninth, on a pair of fly outs and White’s sixth strikeout of the game.26 “The terrible accident to Hall materially affected [Cleveland’s] play at the bat” was the assessment of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, adding “the wonder is that under the circumstances they were able to hold the Cincinnatis down to one run.”27 An admiring Cincinnati Enquirer said “[i]t was such a game as is not seen three times in a season,” adding, ”White was never in better form to pitch, and he kept his vantage from the start till the end. Cleveland’s big hitters were entirely helpless.”28

The good feelings from the Stars’ strong showing didn’t last. Losers of their next four games, they fell into last place and stayed there. Deacon returned in early August to take over outfield duties from Manning. but he didn’t make a difference – the team finished with a record of 21-59 (.263).29 White, despite a 2.14 ERA that was below league average, registered just 18 wins and a league-leading 42 losses. Many of those losses were the handiwork of a Cincinnati defense that averaged more than five errors per game, tops in the NL. Cleveland parlayed McCormick’s league-leading 45 wins into a 47-37 finish, good for third place behind the champion Chicago White Stockings. 

Guilty of having violated the NL gentleman’s agreement by playing on Sundays and selling beer at their ballpark, and unwilling to support a league policy that would formally prohibit both, the Stars were pushed out of the league weeks after the season ended.30

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Will White, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Charles F. Faber’s Will White biography in the SABR Biography Project as well as the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and statscrew.com websites.

Notes

1 Joe Williams, “Deacon White,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/deacon-white/, accessed January 2025.

2 “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 28, 1879: 8. The team’s captain and manager when the season started, Deacon had resigned in June over conflicts with club President J. Wayne Neff and did not get along with his replacement as captain, Cal McVey. “General Notes,” Cleveland Leader, June 11, 1879: 8; “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 11, 1879: 2; “Notes of the Day,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 18, 1879: 3.

3 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Leader, October 4, 1879: 3; “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1879: 4.

4 “General Notes,” Cleveland Leader, October 6, 1879: 8; “Off at Last,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1879: 4.

5 “Base Ball,” Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, September 19, 1879: 3.

6 “The Players of 1876: The Pitchers,” New York Clipper, December 2, 1876: 282.

7 “The Cincinnati Base Ball Club Resigns,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 24, 1879: 1.

8 “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Star, November 10, 1879: 8. Days after the group left for the West Coast, Clapp reportedly signed a contract for $2,000 with a $300 advance to play for Albany, champions of the National Association. That team’s 1879 roster featured several past and future major leaguers, including Lip Pike, Tim Keefe, Tom Burns, Jimmy Macullar, and Cleveland’s shortstop in this game, Ned Hanlon. The New York Clipper claimed that Clapp spurned Albany after that club refused to agree to financial terms that Cincinnati ultimately did. “Base Ball,” Buffalo Courier, October 7, 1879: 2; “Baseball Notes,” New York Clipper, November 22, 1879: 277.

9 “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 24, 1879: 5; “Baseball Notes,” New York Clipper, November 29, 1879: 282.

10 “The League,” Buffalo Morning Express, December 3, 1879: 4.

11 “Baseball,” New York Herald, January 5, 1880: 9.

12 “City Personals,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 17, 1880: 4.

13 “Base-Ball,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 2, 1880: 8; “Notes, News and Personals,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 4, 1880.

14 Excluding exhibition games. McCormick’s time as the Blues’ solitary pitcher is based on game log compiled by the author. Gig Gardner was the first Cleveland pitcher other than McCormick to work a regular-season game, earning a 6-5 win over the Boston Red Stockings on June 29. “Gardner’s Debut,” Cleveland Leader, June 30, 1880: 8.

15 “Cleveland’s Calamity,” Cleveland Leader, May 14, 1880: 8.

16 “Wonderful William,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 14, 1880: 8.

17 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 14, 1880: 1.

18 “Wonderful William.”

19 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer. Aware that the injury spelled the end of his baseball career (based on the Cleveland Plain Dealer account), Hall faced the cruel reality of being soon released, as clubs of that era took no responsibility for ballplayers who suffered career-ending injuries while wearing their uniform. After releasing him, the Blues refused to pay his medical expenses, and Hall turned to drink. He died five years later, most likely while confined to a Pennsylvania mental hospital.

20 Before the 1880 season, the Cleveland Leader referred to Purcell as “Blonde Billy,” which over the next two years evolved into “Blondie.” “The Bird Has Flown,” Cleveland Leader, March 29, 1881: 5; “Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 29, 1883: 2.

21 “The Clevelands Close the Season with a Victory,” Cleveland Leader, October 1, 1879: 5.

22 “Wonderful William.”

23 “Wonderful William.”

24 “Wonderful William.”

25 Based on a game log compiled by the author.

26 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer.

27 “Base Ball,” Cleveland Plain Dealer.

28 “Wonderful William.”

29 “What, Jim!” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 7, 1880: 8. The 1876 Cincinnati Reds are the only major-league team based in that city to finish a season with a lower winning percentage (.138).

30 For more details, see Dennis Pajot, “1880: The Most Harmonious of All the League Meetings,” Base Ball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 168.