May 8, 1878: Rookie Sam Weaver tosses 1-hitter according to official scorer, but not all his colleagues

In the fall of 1877, membership in the struggling National League shrank from six teams to four (and briefly three), the result of financial setbacks1 and a game-fixing spree that came to be known as the Louisville Scandal.2  During the NL’s annual meeting in early December, members admitted two new franchises into the fold: the Indianapolis Base Ball Club, which had finished atop the League Alliance in 1877; and the newly formed Milwaukee Baseball Club.3

In mid-March of 1878, the Milwaukee club announced a roster of 11 players, including two pitchers. There were five alumni of the West End professional club of Milwaukee, including its ace, 22-year-old Sam Weaver, and six players last with NL or International Association teams, including George Washington Bradley, who in 1876 had tossed the first no-hitter in NL history. When Bradley elected to play elsewhere, the Grays brought on former Indianapolis Blues hurler Mike Golden, but his preseason struggles left Weaver carrying the pitching load alone to start the season.4

Neither Milwaukee nor Indianapolis won a game in their respective 1878 season-opening series. The Indianapolis nine, known as the Blues for the color of their uniforms,5 lost three home games to William Hulbert’s Chicago White Stockings. The Milwaukee Grays – their name appropriated by manager Jack “Death to Flying Things” Chapman from the disgraced Louisville team he’d managed the year before – dropped three to the Cincinnati Reds in the Queen City.6

The NL’s two fledglings next faced one another in Indianapolis, each looking for its first taste of victory.

The May 7 opener of their planned three-game series proved a standstill. With darkness halting play in the 11th inning, the score reverted to where it stood after the 10th: tied, 2-2. A single by Blues manager-left fielder John Clapp in the ninth inning had knotted the score,7 saving 22-year-old Canadian-born rookie Ed “The Only” Nolan the ignominy of absorbing his fourth loss in as many starts.8

Clapp’s late heroics also denied Weaver his second career major-league win – he had won his one start for the National Association’s Philadelphia Whites in 1875. Pitching the last two seasons for West End, Weaver punctuated his time there by tossing a no-hitter in the deciding game of a putative state championship series with the Janesville Mutuals, dominating a lineup that included 17-year-old future Hall of Famer John Montgomery Ward.9

The next day the Indianapolis Sentinel declared “both teams are in first class playing order” for their contest at South Street Park,10 a ballyard built southeast of downtown, on the site of a former cornfield.11 Game previews also noted that 22-year-old Blues catcher Silver Flint had decided to not wear a catcher’s mask for the contest, “feeling its use only interferes with his playing.”12

There’s no record whether Flint’s decision prompted a response from his manager, Clapp. It was Clapp whose serious facial injury, incurred while catching for the St. Louis Brown Stockings exactly nine months earlier, reputedly led his inexperienced replacement, Mike Dorgan, to become the first NL catcher to don a catcher’s mask in a regular-season game.13

Accounts of the May 8 clash between the teams whose names matched those of the Civil War combatants differed in ways both big and small. Played on a “blustering and raw” Thursday afternoon, their battle attracted a crowd called small by the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, large by the Milwaukee News, and “large and enthusiastic” by the Boston Globe.14 Umpiring the game was young William “Smiley” Walker, “a dapper little cuss” from Cincinnati;15 Walker was replacing the previous day’s umpire at the Grays’ request, according to one game summary, substituting for a different umpire per another.16

Nolan once again pitched for Indianapolis, with Weaver in the box for the visitors, where he’d been in each of the Grays’ four previous contests.

Every account of the game shows the Grays won, 2-1, with their scoring done in the third inning and the Blues’ in the fourth.17 Newspaper box scores agreed on how many hits Milwaukee collected (six), but not on the number of Blues’ hits. Some had Indianapolis with one hit; others had the Blues going hitless.18

But unlike the War Between the States, this dispute wasn’t marked by unyielding regional sympathies.

Six newspapers that provided detailed accounts of the game – including one from Milwaukee – identified Clapp as collecting a hit for Indianapolis. Three other newspapers, however, including one from Indianapolis, asserted that Milwaukee’s Weaver allowed no hits.

The Indianapolis News claimed Clapp “made a base hit” in the first, and the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune credited him with a hit in the third. The Indianapolis News, Milwaukee News, Cincinnati Enquirer, and St. Louis Globe-Democrat listed Clapp as having collected the Blues’ only hit, with no details on when he got it.19

By contrast, the Milwaukee Sentinel, Indianapolis Journal, and Boston Globe all reported that Clapp – and the Blues – went hitless.20

In an exquisite example of conflicted reporting, the New York Clipper published one box score, titled “Indianapolis vs Milwaukee,” which highlighted Clapp’s hit, alongside another box score, titled “Milwaukee vs Indianapolis,” that described the Blues as “not making a single base hit.”21

Obscured from public view was the official scorer’s stance. Indianapolis, as the home team, provided an official scorer for this game, as had become customary in the NL by the late 1870s. Clinton C. Riley, the Indianapolis correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette, was identified as the team’s official scorer six weeks before the start of the 1878 season.22 Although no box score identified this game’s scorer, nothing suggests it was anyone other than Riley. The Cincinnati Gazette game summary, from a special dispatch presumably written by Riley, credited Clapp with a hit, implying that the game was a one-hitter in the eyes of the presumably unbiased official scorer.23  

Clapp’s hit aside, a largely consistent story appeared in the press about how the game unfolded. The Grays’ third-inning rally began with an infield single by 22-year-old Will Foley, “while Flint and Nolan stared at the umpire.”24 It was “the talented blundering” of Blues second baseman Joe Quest that allowed the first run to score,25 as he muffed a potential double-play grounder and threw wildly to first on the potential third out. A passed ball by Flint brought in the second run, according to most newspaper summaries,26 while some reported that both runners scored on Quest’s errant throw to first.27

The Blues’ run came similarly. Candy Nelson, who began his career at 16 with the pioneering Eckfords of Brooklyn and ended it as the oldest player in the American Association in 1890, drew a nine-pitch walk. He reached second on second baseman John Peters’ mishandling of a fielder’s choice and scored when first baseman Jake Goodman muffed a fly ball in short right field.28 The Cincinnati Enquirer called the rally “the only show of vitality exhibited by the home nine.”29  

With gusty winds “forcing the balls to the ground … before half their natural course,”30 the Indianapolis News reported that both the wind and the umpire were against the Blues.31 The Indianapolis Journal wondered if “maybe the wind didn’t cut such a very disastrous figure after all. On second thoughts, the umpire [Walker] did the business.”32 The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune described Walker’s calling of balls and strikes as “execrable.”33 A contrary Milwaukee Sentinel writer called the game’s umpiring “first class.”34

Two outstanding plays by Blues defenders in the second inning drew special notice. First, goat-to-be Quest made a one-handed stab of a line drive hit by leadoff batter Golden, playing right field. After singling and getting sacrificed to second base, Billy Redmond tried to score on a single to left field by Goodman, “but was beautifully fielded out on Clapp’s long throw to home plate.”35

Also impacting the outcome of the game were a pair of 20-year-olds who, together with Silver Flint, would be mainstays of the Chicago White Stockings 1880s dynasty. Indianapolis third baseman Ed Williamson threw the ball that Quest misplayed in the third inning, and Milwaukee’s left fielder and cleanup hitter, Abner Dalrymple, was the only Gray to collect multiple hits off Nolan.36

Despite their differences on whether or not Clapp had singled, most newspaper reports lauded Weaver. The Milwaukee Sentinel called his no-hitter “the finest ever displayed in a Hoosier diamond.”37 Atop their no-hit box score, the New York Clipper said, “Weaver’s pitching could not have been more effective.”38 “Well nigh invincible” is how the awestruck St. Louis Globe-Democrat described Walker in what it considered a one-hitter.39 The Indianapolis Journal, which had credited Weaver with a no-hitter, was silent on his performance, instead calling Nolan’s pitching “the feature” of the game.40

The next day, Nolan and Weaver locked horns again in a replay of the series-opening tie. Nolan came out on top, giving the Blues their first win of the season.41 In the final game of the series, on May 11, Weaver rested and Mike Golden made his pitching debut, outdueling Nolan, 1-0.42

Both Indianapolis and Milwaukee finished their seasons with records well under .500, landing in fifth and sixth place respectively. Unpaid debts spelled the end of each franchise soon after.43

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Dennis Pajot for providing materials from his 2009 online article about this game, Peter Morris for working with him to identify contemporary references on the first use of catcher’s masks in the National League, and Peter Mancuso for related references and an introduction. He also thanks Melissa Shriver of the Milwaukee Public Library and Mike Perkins of the Indianapolis Public Library for providing copies of hard-to-find contemporary game summaries in local newspapers. 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 Peter Morris’s A Game of Inches (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010), Base Ball’s 19th Century ‘Winter’ Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), and game summaries for early-season 1878 Grays and Blues games published in the Milwaukee News, Milwaukee Sentinel, Indianapolis News, Indianapolis Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, and Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. He also obtained pertinent material from Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and statscrew.com.

Notes

1 All six clubs lost money during the 1877 season. Dennis Pajot, “Scandals, New Rules, and Franchise Changes: The 1877 National League Winter Meetings,” in Base Ball’s 19th Century Winter Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 150.

2 Daniel Ginsburg, “The 1877 Louisville Grays Scandal,” Road Trips: SABR Convention Journal Articles, https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-1877-louisville-grays-scandal/.

3 The League Alliance was a loose affiliation of over 25 professional teams located across the East, Midwest, and upper South. Pajot, “Scandals, New Rules, and Franchise Changes.”

4 The New York Clipper reportedly asserted that the pitching of Golden was “not up to league standard.” His 3-13 record and 4.14 ERA for the 1878 season seemed to validate that claim. In author Dennis Pajot’s history of early Milwaukee baseball, The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball, he identified one other player on the March preliminary roster as being a pitcher, Bill Holbert, and the club’s catcher, Charlie Bennett, as also being a change (relief) pitcher. Contemporary reports identified Holbert as a “catcher and change field[er],” and Bennett as a catcher only. Neither Holbert nor Bennett pitched that season. Dennis Pajot, The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009), 57-58; “Base Ball,” Milwaukee News, May 3, 1878: 3; “Base Ball Matters,” Milwaukee News, March 12, 1878: 4.

5 Lisa Lorentz, “Friday Favorite: Indianapolis Makes the Big League by Playin’ the Blues!” October 18, 2013, Historic Indianapolis website, https://historicindianapolis.com/friday-favorites-indianapolis-makes-the-big-league-by-playin-the-blues/, accessed October 31, 2022.

6 Pajot, The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball, 57.

7 “Base Ball,” Indianapolis Sentinel, May 8, 1878: 5.

8 Nolan is believed to have earned his unique sobriquet after Blues owner W.B. Petit arranged for large (“perhaps 2 feet by 18 inches”) photographs of Nolan, captioned “The Only Nolan,” to be placed in windows around Indianapolis earlier that week, alongside similarly-sized photographs of catcher Frank “Silver” Flint that were captioned “The Champion Catcher of America.” John Thorn, “The Only Nolan,” May 18, 2015, Our Game website, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-only-nolan-bc7474dae960, accessed November 1, 2022; “Sporting,” Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1878: 7.

9 Pajot, The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball, 51.

10 “The Game To-day,” Indianapolis Sentinel, May 9, 1878: 8.

11 Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals (New York: Walker and Company, 2006), 23.

12 Catcher’s masks were relatively new throughout the sport, having been first devised in 1876 by Harvard baseball team captain Fred Thayer, with Pete Hotaling becoming the first professional ballplayer to wear one, in July 1877. Flint had purchased a mask at the tail end of the 1877 season, which the Indianapolis Sentinel said at the time “will be a great protection to him when Nolan gets to sending them in like chained lightning.” “Base Ball,” Indianapolis News, May 9, 1878: 4; “Base Ball,” Indianapolis Sentinel, October 1, 1877: 8; Peter Morris, A Game of Inches (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010), 297-299.

13 Researcher Peter Morris, in his groundbreaking A Game of Inches, identifies Dorgan as the first NL catcher to wear a mask in an NL game. The rookie Dorgan had been moved from shortstop to behind the plate after Clapp, the Brown Stockings’ regular catcher, was hit in the face by a foul tip in the first inning of that day’s game. Clapp’s injury, at first thought to be a broken cheekbone, was cited by the Brooklyn Eagle and the New York Clipper in editorials calling for acceptance of masks, which the Clipper described as “one of the best things out for saving a catcher from dangerous injuries.” Clapp elected to wear a mask when he returned behind the plate on August 17, after spending a few games in the outfield. Morris, A Game of Inches; “Sadly Crippled,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 9, 1877: 8; “Sporting Trifles,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 10, 1877: 3; “The Wire Mask Protection,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 16, 1877: 3; “Injuries to Catchers,” New York Clipper, August 25, 1877: 171; “Pastimes,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1877: 5.

14 “The Grief-Stricken Hoosiers,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 10, 1878: 3; “Indianapolis 1 – Milwaukee 2,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, May 10, 1878: 9; “Base Ball,” Milwaukee News, May 10, 1878: 1; “On the Diamond,” Boston Globe, May 10, 1878: 1.

15 Born in 1856 according to retrosheet.com, Walker was also at most 22 years old. “Talented Blundering,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 10, 1878: 8.

16 “The Fourth Defeat,” Indianapolis News, May 10, 1878: 1; “Indianapolis 1 – Milwaukee 2.”

17 The author identified 14 newspapers that provided game highlights, ranging from mention of one or two facets of the game to play-by-play descriptions of multiple innings. Those newspapers were the Milwaukee Sentinel, Milwaukee News, Indianapolis Sentinel, Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis News, Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati Star, Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, Cincinnati Gazette, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Boston Globe, Boston Journal, Boston Evening Transcript, and the New York Clipper (which published two game summaries). The author was able to retrieve only the last two paragraphs of the Indianapolis Sentinel game story, as the rest of it had been torn out of the page sometime before it was scanned and posted at genealogybank.com.

18 Additional differences, in assist and error totals for several players, were documented by Dennis Pajot in his detailed 2009 analysis of the eight most-detailed contemporary newspaper accounts of this game. Dennis Pajot, “Time to Credit Sam Weaver with a No-hitter in May 9, 1878 Game?” Seamheads website, http://mobile.dudasite.com/site/seamheads?url=https%3A%2F%2Fseamheads.com%2F2009%2F01%2F07%2Ftime-to-credit-sam-weaver-with-a-no-hitter-in-may-9-1878-game%2F&utm_referrer=#2553, accessed November 2, 2022.

19 “The Fourth Defeat”; “Base Ball,” Milwaukee News, May 10, 1878; “Talented Blundering”; “The Grief-Stricken Hoosiers.”

20 The Boston Globe claim of a no-hitter was also parroted in the Boston Evening Transcript and Boston Journal. “Baseball,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 10, 1878: 2; “Base Ball,” Indianapolis Journal, May 10, 1878: 8; “On the Diamond”; “Base Ball,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 10, 1878: 1; “Milwaukee, 2, Indianapolis, 1,” Boston Journal, May 10, 1878: 4.

21 “Indianapolis vs. Milwaukee,” New York Clipper, May 18, 1878: 58; “Milwaukee vs. Indianapolis.”

22 Lawrenceburg (Indiana) Journal, February 7, 1878: 2; “City News,” Indianapolis News, March 21, 1878: 4.

23 “Indianapolis, 1; Milwaukee, 2,” Cincinnati Gazette, May 10, 1878: 8. Given Riley’s standing in the community and affiliation with an out-of-town publication, he may have been a less biased scorer than most hometown sportswriters. The approximately 30-year-old Riley was active in local Indianapolis politics during the spring of 1878. He soon became an official in the Indiana state Republican Party and served as assistant clerk of the Indiana House of Representatives, until an 1883 indictment for embezzlement put him back on a journalist’s career path. Known more for his writing about horse racing than about baseball, Riley also gained renown as a horse-racing judge. “The Secretaryship,” Evansville Journal, May 13, 1878: 1; “Republican State Convention,” Indiana Herald, June 23, 1880: 1; “House of Representatives,” Indianapolis Leader, January 8, 1881: 1; “C.C. Riley Accused of Swindling,” Indianapolis Journal, January 8, 1883: 8; “Riley, Veteran of Turf Game, Dies,” San Francisco Examiner, March 26, 1935: 25; “Personal Mention,” Chicago Inter Ocean, June 11, 1894: 5.

24 “Talented Blundering.”

25 Quest went on to commit a league-leading 60 errors in 62 games at second base in 1878. “Talented Blundering.”

26 Flint’s inability to corral Nolan’s pitch was labeled a “fatal error” by the Indianapolis News. “The Fourth Defeat.” 

27 The Boston Globe and one of two New York Clipper box scores for the game reported that both runs scored on Quest’s bad throw to first, overlooking the passed ball by Flint, whose catching, the Globe cooed, “was up to his usual standard of perfectness.” “On the Diamond”; “Milwaukee vs. Indianapolis,” New York Clipper, May 18, 1878: 58.

28 The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune identified a third error, by Grays shortstop Billy Redmond, during Nelson’s trip around the bases. “Indianapolis 1 – Milwaukee 2.”

29 “Talented Blundering.”

30 “Base Ball,” Indianapolis Journal.

31 “The Fourth Defeat.”

32 “Base Ball,” Indianapolis Journal.

33 “Indianapolis 1 – Milwaukee 2.”

34 “Baseball,” Milwaukee Sentinel.

35 The Indianapolis News called Clapp’s throw “magnificent.” “Talented Blundering”; “The Fourth Defeat.”

36 Dalrymple also went on to win the 1878 NL batting crown.

37 “Baseball,” Milwaukee Sentinel.

38 “Milwaukee vs. Indianapolis.”

39 “The Grief-Stricken Hoosiers.”

40 “Base Ball,” Indianapolis Journal.

41 The Blues won, 6-1, courtesy of 11 Milwaukee errors, according to the Indianapolis News. Despite the previous game’s protestations, including the Indianapolis Sentinel’s assertion that “Captain Clapp will undoubtedly search the woods for another umpire,” Smiley Walker handled the umpiring chores. “Calling the Turn,” Indianapolis News, May 11, 1878: 4; Indianapolis Sentinel, May 10, 1878: 8.

42 “Base Ball,” Milwaukee News, May 11, 1878: 1. Nolan went on to pitch every inning of the Blues’ first 22 games of the season, based on the author’s review of Indianapolis game box scores published in Indianapolis and opposing city newspapers. After allowing nine runs and committing five errors in his 22nd start, and unusually poor play in at least one earlier contest, he was suspended by the club for “wilfully-poor pitching.” Nolan would be reinstated a few days later, after the club proved unable to “find proof of an irregularity.” In August he was suspended for the rest of the season when he left the club to supposedly attend the funeral of a nonexistent brother, “William.” “Providence, 7: Indianapolis, 4,” Boston Globe, June 21, 1878: 1; “Ball and Bat,” Boston Globe, June 20, 1878: 4; “Suspend Him Again, Brother Petit,” Baseball History Daily website, https://baseballhistorydaily.com/tag/the-only-nolan/, accessed November 8, 2022.

43 Pajot, “The National League Is Back to Eight Clubs: The 1878 National League Winter Meetings,” in Base Ball’s 19th Century Winter Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 156.