The St. Thomas Atlantics’ 1882 Tour of the United States

With the rapid spread in popularity of baseball across North America after the Civil War, St. Thomas, Ontario, was among the many burgeoning communities to use the game as a prominent civic community and promotional enterprise. The seat of Elgin County grew slowly until the arrival of the Canadian Southern and the Great Western railroads in 1872,1 thereafter becoming a major railroad hub, its location near the northern edge of Lake Erie halfway between Detroit and Buffalo providing inexpensive, fast linkage with major Northern American cities.2 Upon being designated a city in 1881 with a population of 10,000, St. Thomas and its business and civic boosters sought to enhance its reputation by fielding a competitive team in the intercity barnstorming world of Ontario baseball.

Since its first organized team in 1868, St. Thomas had fielded nines made up of local players, but in 1881 hired William “Bill” Watkins, player-manager of the 1880 Canadian champion Guelph Maple Leafs, to import players for a team pretentiously named the Atlantics after the Brooklyn Atlantics, the dominant US team of the 1860s.3 The strategy paid off immediately, St. Thomas in August 1881 defeating Guelph to win the Ontario championship, the equivalent of being the champions of Canada.4

In March 1882 the club’s board of directors, headed by President Elijah Moore, a founder of the St. Thomas Street Railway, allocated $100 for formal playing grounds behind the Horton market, conveniently located a half-block north of Talbot, the town’s main thoroughfare.5 But then, heady with grandiose visions, they decided instead to build a playing facility worthy of a championship team near the Great Western “Air Line” railroad station at a cost, including fencing and a grandstand, “in the neighborhood of $700.”

To fund construction and cover team expenses, the club innovatively reorganized as a joint stock company, issuing $1,000 worth of shares, 30 percent coming from team members.6 The directors also deviated from tradition by outfitting the team in gray Halifax tweed uniforms accented by red stockings and belts, instead of traditional flannel jerseys and woolen pants.7 Meanwhile, player-manager Watkins wasted no time recruiting “a first class nine,” signing by early April seven players, including Bob Emslie, former star of the Harriston Brown Stockings, as the team’s pitcher.8

After a couple of games against the London Tecumsehs, a 2-2 tie and a 5-4 loss in 10 innings, the Atlantics tested their mettle against major-league competition on May 24 against the National League’s Detroit team. Agreeing at the last minute to replace the Cleveland Blues, and having arrived late in Detroit that morning from Chicago, the Wolverines took a special train to St. Thomas, dressed for the game en route, and raced to the ballpark. Despite their harried rush, they disappointed the more than 1,600 who flocked to the ballpark by thoroughly outclassing the home team, 6-1. Emslie gave up only six hits, but George Derby flummoxed Atlantic batters, allowing only one hit and striking out 13.9

Struggling with only modest success, winning three games but dropping two more games to London, 20-3 and 13-3, the Atlantics regrouped, added players, and went on a winning streak.10 Returning to the diamond in late June, they won three straight, besting London 4-3, Hamilton 13-3, and Guelph 7-4. Following a 7-6 loss to the Tecumsehs on July 4,11 the Atlantics went on the road for six games in six consecutive days from July 9 to 14, outscoring opponents 84-42 in defeating the Guelph Maple Leafs 9-8, the Bowmanville Royal Oaks 19-0, the Cobourg Mutuals 14-9, the Port Hope Dauntless 19-9, the Maple Leafs again 21-14, and concluding with a 2-2 tie against the Hamilton Standards.12 Back home, they beat London 18-9 on July 15, then coasted to two victories over Hamilton on July 20 and 21, 10-1 and 14-7.13

Riding high, the Atlantics now faced a scheduling, and therefore financial, problem. The semiprofessional independent team depended on raising money by barnstorming, traveling from town to town to play games for a share of gate receipts; they now had difficulty scheduling games, London and Hamilton being the only towns having the wherewithal to field competitive teams. So Watkins decided to seek more and better competition south of the border in New York, where there were many semipro and professional teams eager for games.

Early on Sunday morning, July 23, the Atlantics boarded a train for games against Rochester, Syracuse, and Auburn. The tour began auspiciously on July 24. With no advance promotion, only a “small audience” was on hand to see the Atlantics, described as “a champion professional team,” give a 15-4 shellacking to the Rochesters, whose pitchers “failed to arrive.”14 Their success was short-lived, as they dropped three straight games, to Rochester the next day 8-7 in 10 innings, then Syracuse 6-2 and Auburn 4-3.15

Having reached the end of scheduled tour, and exhausted from playing four games in a row, the Atlantics were ready to go home. Emslie, as did his teammates, expected that the trip would last about a week, and accordingly had his uniform hastily “done up in newspapers” instead of luggage, and had packed only “one shirt and one pair of socks.”16 But Watkins, hoping for a lucrative grand tour, had sent inquiries to other American clubs. The result was a grueling barnstorming tour of 36 days over five weeks, featuring 26 games in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Personal connections had made arranging games in Ontario easy, but scheduling contests on the road was more complicated. As the trip progressed, Watkins, given suggestions and contact information from each host club, telegraphed ahead, hoping to find teams whose schedules could accommodate a game or two for a share of gate receipts sufficient to cover travel, accommodation, and per diem expenses, plus enough to pay each player.

Rejuvenated and excited about playing American teams, the Atlantics ran off a string of eight straight victories in upstate New York: Auburn 15-3 and 14-5, Oswego 17-0 and 14-3, Syracuse 3-2 and 11-7, and Binghamton 2-0 and 10-2.17 Emboldened by success on the diamond, they then headed to New York City for a date with the Metropolitans, namesake of the current National League club, en route playing two games in Newark, New Jersey, winning 5-2 and losing 9-8.18

It is easy to imagine what went on in the minds of the small-town lads as they gaped at the awe-inspiring urban scene as they ferried across the maritime-clogged Hudson River to Manhattan on Wednesday, August 9, then wended their way uptown through the teeming streets of the largest metropolis in North America, population just over a million, by far the largest city anyone on the team had ever seen.19 (The population of Toronto in 1880 was 86,000.) Jaws dropped even further when they entered the Polo Grounds, located at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue, across from the northwest corner of Frederick Law Olmsted’s vast Central Park. An expansive elliptical field originally built to accommodate the sport of polo, it had been reconfigured for baseball in 1880 as the home grounds of the Metropolitans.

Managed by Jim Mutrie, the Metropolitans, eventual champions of the League Alliance, were a top-flight independent professional squad, major league in all but name.20 (In 1883 the Mets would join the major-league American Association, finishing fourth in the eight-team league.) The Atlantics knew they faced a formidable challenge in taking on a team whose roster included two native-born Canadians, both future major leaguers, John “Jack” Doyle from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and James “Tip” O’Neill from Springfield, Ontario.21 Although blanked 5-0, the Atlantics acquitted themselves well. Their batting was “very weak,” as they produced only two hits (O’Neill hitless), but they were complimented on having “a good battery” and received “well deserved” applause for “sharp fielding” and making “quite an interesting fight of it.”22

Both teams regarded the rematch on August 10 as an exhibition game. The Mets, in order to rest their regular pitchers and catcher for the next day’s League game against Cleveland, used a battery from the amateur Olympic Club of Manhattan; the Atlantics responded in kind, moving Emslie to center field, with Frank Beck pitching.23 The Canadians got off to a good start, scoring three runs in the top of the first, only to have the Mets plate eight in the bottom of the inning. Emslie then returned to pitch, holding the Mets to four runs the rest of the game, not giving up more than one hit in an inning. The Atlantics, with six extra-base hits including two home runs, outhit the Mets 15 to 10, but came out losers, 15-5.24 Despite suffering two defeats, they left New York satisfied with having given a top-flight professional ballclub a good tussle.

On the way to Philadelphia to take on another top Alliance club, the Atlantics stopped in Camden for a two-game set with the Merritt of the Interstate Association, New Jersey’s best professional squad. The arrival of the Canadians created great enthusiasm, the games being reported on the front page of both the Camden Post and the Camden Courier. For the game on Friday, August 11, advertised as “Jersey vs. Canada,” some 1,000 fans showed up at City Hall Park to see the home team’s 5-2 victory over the “Canucks,” the first time that term had been applied to the Atlantics. While Beck pitched a good game, giving up six hits while striking out six, the Atlantics again had trouble with professional pitchers, collecting only two hits themselves. The local papers praised the visitors, “a fine-looking set of men,” for “playing excellently in the field, making some beautiful stops and catches,” albeit “throwing rather wildly,” thinking “no club has created a better impression on the Merritt’s ground than they.”25

The following day, the Atlantics reversed the result, defeating the Merritt 6-4, the offense finally erupting for nine hits, including a home run over the right-field fence by London native Tony Friend. They were praised as “a very gentlemanly set of men” who, in the “one or two instances decisions were against them smiled pleasantly.” Emslie pitched “very effectively,” giving up but four hits and striking out 10, his sharp breaking curveball so impressing the Merritt management that after the game they signed him to his first professional contract, to commence after the Atlantics tour.26

After six straight games, the Atlantics rested on Sunday, August 13, leisurely crossing the Delaware River into Philadelphia, then catching a train heading northwest 60 miles to Reading, the shipping center for anthracite coal, there to play two games with another Interstate Association team, the Active. The local newspaper noted the novel appearance of a Canadian club with sizable advertisements and front-page reports of both games. On August 14, the Atlantics beat the Actives 8-5; the next day about 1,500 saw the hometown team, behind their first-string pitcher, who yielded but five hits, return the favor, downing the visitors 6-0.27

The Atlantics returned to Philadelphia, a bustling seaport of 850,000 on the Delaware River. That America’s second largest city was also its most historic – the home of Benjamin Franklin, the site of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776 and the Federal Constitution drafted in 1787, and the capital of the nation between 1790 and 1800 – may or may not have been of interest to the Canadian visitors, but the appearance of the first “foreign” team was much anticipated. The newspapers had printed accounts (with box score) of the earlier Atlantics games with Camden and Reading, noting that the Canadians’ “pitcher, catcher and third baseman are spoken of as more than ordinarily expert.”28

The Atlantics’ opponent was not the major-league Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association managed by George “Jumbo” Latham, late of the London Tecumsehs, but rather the Philadelphia Phillies of the League Alliance, the games likely having been arranged while the Atlantics were in New York playing the Mets. (Major-league quality like the Mets, the Phillies would join the National League in 1883 as the Quakers.)

Philadelphia in Greek means “City of Brotherly Love,” but the locals proved ungracious hosts at Recreation Park on August 16, handing their guests a 7-4 beating. Emslie walked five but allowed only four hits, the Inquirer reporting that the “heavy batsmen of the home nine were completely outwitted” by his “very peculiar and puzzling delivery,” Philadelphia probably not scoring a run were it not for eight Atlantic fielding errors. Assessing the talent level of “the championship baseball nine of Canada,” the local papers thought the “fine, muscular set of young men” had given “evidence of careful training, but [that they] lack the experience necessary to cope successfully against such a nine as their opponents.” In particular, Atlantics batters, striking out 11 times, “showed themselves to lack experience against curve pitching.”

Observing that the tour of the United States had been made “by management with the hope of reviving interest in base ball in Canada and also to induce American clubs to cross the border,” the assessment concluded: “If the Canadians stay in this country any length of time they will undoubtedly show a great improvement in their batting and fielding”; and that “all they need to cope successfully with their American cousins is more experience against curve pitches and better coaching.”29

The next day, Philadelphia scored twice in the second inning to post a 2-0 victory. Emslie continued to baffle Philadelphia batters with his “puzzling curves,” again yielding only four hits, and received better fielding support, the Atlantics countering five errors with three double plays, and Billy Hunter in right field making “two marvelous fly-catches, taking both on a full run and jump.” The Canadians could muster just three hits, but thanks to three errors filled the bases in the ninth, then failed to score when Stapleton30 struck out to end the inning and the game.31

Unhappy about dropping two in Philadelphia, but buoyed by better performance in the second game, the Atlantics headed across New Jersey to Atlantic City, a popular ocean beach resort town.32 It was not a pleasant stay. On August 18 and 19, they lost two games, 8-1 and 2-1, games pitched respectively by Beck and Emslie, against Ferguson “Fergy” Malone’s Atlantic City nine, self-proclaimed champions of the Garden State.33

Undoubtedly tired after playing six days in a row, dispirited by five consecutive defeats, and weary of a trip that had extended far beyond initial expectations, the Atlantics finally headed for home. On the way they stopped again in Reading, dropping the rubber game of the series 18-3, and Syracuse, losing 9-5 to the Stars, another League Alliance team, finally arriving back in St. Thomas on Sunday, August 27.34 It had been a remarkable journey, the players benefiting from the cultural experience, developing camaraderie with teammates, and honing their baseball skills competing against more experienced American teams.

There were only a few days’ rest for the weary. On August 29 the Atlantics hosted Port Huron, Michigan, five of whose players, including pitcher Bill Mountjoy, were members of the recently disbanded London Tecumsehs. The Atlantics committed 10 errors, Hunter at first and Watkins at third responsible for three apiece. Emslie yielded but one run through six innings, but in the bottom of the sixth “severely” sprained an ankle while running the bases. Although “practically disabled,” he returned to the box for the seventh, whereupon the Hurons scored six runs, and added two more in the eighth to win 9-3. The next day the teams played in London, the Atlantics defeating Port Huron 20-7.35 And finally, on September 2 they defeated Hamilton 8-6.36

Producing “a heap of fame but a paucity of cash,”37 the glorious tour of 1882 had an inglorious ending, the team disbanding after the Port Huron series. Jim Tray jumped to Port Huron, as did Bill Watkins, who in 1879 had moved to Port Huron; in 1883 he would lead his hometown club to the Michigan State League championship.38 Charles “Chub” Collins, Jay Faatz, and Billy Hunter also left to play minor-league ball in the United States, each eventually reaching the majors. Emslie, too, departed on September 4 for more baseball with the Camden Merritt. If his recollection of the trip late in life was mistaken in several respects, he was correct in that it was “a lucky trip for me,” as it serendipitously led to his first professional contract and eventual appearance in the major leagues.39

With the disbanding of the Atlantics, baseball left St. Thomas, not returning in professional form until the 1896 Saints of the Canadian League. Whatever the case, the 1882 St. Thomas Atlantics warrant a prominent place in Canadian – and baseball – history. Cobbled together piecemeal on the road, their peregrination of 26 games in 35 days in three states was by far the most extensive in terms of time and games ever undertaken by a Canadian team, and among the longest taken by North American clubs.40 Although road and game weariness, combined with higher caliber competition, resulted in their losing 11 of the final 13 games, including the last seven in a row, the Atlantics did win 12 games against far more experienced and skilled opponents, including two major-league-caliber teams. In the process “the champion club of Canada” brought inestimable pride and notoriety to St. Thomas, while introducing Americans to the growing proficiency of baseball north of the border.

LARRY GERLACH, past president of SABR, is the author of The Men in Blue: Conversations With Umpires, and co-editor with Bill Nowlin of The SABR Book of Umpires and Umpiring.

 

Notes

1 Ron Brown, The Lake Erie Shore: Ontario’s Forgotten South Coast (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009); St. Thomas: 100 Years a City, 1881-1981 (St. Thomas, Ontario: St. Thomas Centennial Committee, 1981). See also https://www.stthomas.ca/visiting_us/a_brief_history_of_st_thomas.

2 St. Thomas today remains a railroad city, hosting the North American Railway Hall of Fame in the restored Canada Southern Station, as well as the Elgin County Railway Museum: “The Railway History of St. Thomas,” https://stthomaspubliclibrary.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Railway-History-of-St-Thomas-Slideshow.pdf.

3 Born in Brantford, Ontario, in 1858, Watkins subsequently became Canada’s most successful manager, piloting numerous minor-league clubs and five major-league teams – Indianapolis Hoosiers in 1884, Detroit Wolverines in 1885-1888 (World Series champions in 1887), Kansas City Cowboys in 1888, St. Louis Browns in 1893, and Pittsburgh Pirates in 1898-1899. See Brian Martin, “The Winning Ways of William Watkins,” Centre for Canadian Baseball Research, http://baseballre-search.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Martin17.pdf, and Bill Lamb’s essay in this volume.

4 St. Thomas Times, August 11, 1881.

5 Statutes of the Province of Ontario (Toronto: John Notman, 1878), 216-220. Until electrified in 1898, the streetcars conveyed passengers in horse-drawn cars. Horton market, in its original location, still serves the community as a farmer’s market.

6 St. Thomas Times, March 28, April 4, and 6, 1882.

7 St. Thomas Times, April 25, 1882.

8 The other players then under contract were E. Faatz and H. Faatz of St. Thomas, and Londoners T. Friend, Wm. Hunter, J. Queen (or possibly Quinn), and J. Smith.

9 Detroit Free Press, May 25, 1882; St. Thomas Times, May 25, 1882.

10 St. Thomas Times, June 8, 1882; New York Clipper, June 27, 1882.

11 St. Thomas Times, June 27, 1882.

12 St. Thomas Times, August 29, 1882.

13 St. Thomas Times, July 18 and 23, 1882.

14 The trip began with the following Atlantics lineup: Billy Hunter 2B, Bill Watkins 3B, Bob Emslie P, Jim Tray C, Jay Faatz LF, Tony Friend CF, Charles “Chub” Collins 1B, Snider RF, and Quinn SS. Beck and Hunter were the backup pitcher and catcher respectively, with Stapleton utility.

15 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 23, 25 to 28, 1882.

16 Robert D. Emslie, “Ramblings of an Umpire,” Baseball Magazine, November 1908: 18. In his Memoir (p. 1), Emslie said the trip began on May 24 and ended June 30; he was off two months on either end.

17St. Thomas Times, August 1, 3, and 8, 1882.

18 St. Thomas Times, August 10, 1882.

19 Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Esther Crain, The Golden Age in New York, 1870-1910 (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2016); John Duffy, History of Public Health in New York City, 1866-1966 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1974).

20 In 1882 the Metropolitans won the League Alliance title with a 20-12 record, their season total being 101-57-3. For Mutrie, see Peter Mancuso, “Jim Mutrie,” at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jim-mutrie/. For the League Alliance, see Brock Helander, “The League Alliance,” at https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/the-league-aIlianee/.

21 Doyle pitched three games for the St. Louis Browns in 1882, while O’Neill in 10 major-league seasons was a record-setting slugger, leading the St. Louis Browns to four pennants and a World Series victory in 1886. See Dennis Thiessen, Tip O’Neill and the St. Louis Browns of 1887 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019).

22 New York Times, New York Sun, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 10, 1882.

23 Beck, whose real name was Frank Hengstebeck, later pitched in the major leagues, in the American Association and the Union Association in 1884.

24 New York Times, New York Sun, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 10, 1882.

25 Camden Post and Camden Daily Courier, August 12, 1882.

26 Camden Post and Camden Daily Courier, August 14, 1882.

27 Reading Times, August 15-16, 1882.

28 Philadelphia Times, August 16, 1882.

29 Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Times, August 17, 1882.

30 Stapleton is Guelph-born Edward Jones Stapleton.

31 Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Times, August 18, 1882.

32 Nelson Johnson, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City (Medford, New Jersey: Medford Press, 2010).

33 Philadelphia Times, August 19-20, 1882, and St. Thomas Times, August 22, 1882.

34 Reading Times, August 22; Philadelphia Times and Wilmington News Journal, August 26; St. Thomas Times, August 29, 1882.

35 Port Huron Daily Times, August 31, 1882.

36 Detroit Free Press, September 5, 1882; New York Clipper, September 9, 1882.

37 St. Thomas Times-Journal, April 26, 1943.

38 St. Thomas Times, September 7, 1882; Sporting Life, January 13, 1886.

39 Emslie, Memoir, Elgin County Museum and “Ramblings,” 18. He erroneously said the team lost only eight games, that New York and Philadelphia were National League teams, and that his last game for the Atlantics was July 1, Dominion Day, against Detroit, a 5-3 loss. He also claimed to have been the team’s only pitcher; he was, at the start of the tour, but as the trip progressed, he played at least three games in right field while Beck pitched. His memory was also faulty in identifying sites of games: “We played in Harrisburg, Pottsville, Pott-stown, Redding [sic], Binghamton, Elizabethtown, Troy, Albany, Poughkeepsie, Wilmington, Chester and other cities.” Binghamton and Reading were the only named towns in which the Atlantics played, although they may have passed through or near the other places, with the exception of Wilmington, Delaware. He was probably confused about timing, as with Camden in 1883 he did play in Harrisburg, Pottsville, Reading, and Wilmington. The errors were invariably repeated as in the New York Times obituary, April 27, 1943, and in St. Thomas: 100 Years a City, 1881-1981, 98-99.

40 The Brooklyn Excelsiors initiated touring in 1860, traveling through upstate New York to play six games in towns from Albany to Buffalo. In 1869 the Cincinnati Red Stockings from mid-September to mid-October hopped the new transcontinental railroad to play 12 games between St. Louis and San Francisco. And in July and August, 1874, Albert Spalding led members of the Boston Red Stockings and Philadelphia Athletics of the National Association on a 15-game tour of England and Ireland. Several American teams subsequently undertook touring, but not as extensively as did the Atlantics.