When Boston Dominated Baseball: The Politics, Economics, & Leadership

Baseball mirrors all of American society. Sustained success almost always is a combination of politics, money, and leadership wisely utilized by those in charge. Champions had been created before but with no reserve clauses, players constantly sought better opportunities. Boston now only held its powerful team together but improved, finishing in 1875 with a near “nuking” of the N.A.

This nearly total domination of the National Association by Boston required remarkable leadership in a turbulent time that was a combination of the competition outside Boston, the remarkable political and economic leaders of Boston who were united behind baseball, and the genius of Harry Wright in holding together a team of all-stars. A corollary question, in politics or baseball, is always: who did you beat? It doesn’t diminish the success of the victor but helps understand why those victories are more impressive because the competition failed to achieve or attract the talent to win. Understanding the competitive context is also important to understanding Boston.

America in the early 1870s: The Challenges Facing All the Teams

There were a number of macro-issues challenging all baseball teams.

Fire

1871 was not a particularly noteworthy year in American history until fall. Then in October, Chicago burned. The fire began on the west side, then burned out the south side, the business core, and jumped the river to burn the north side. The courthouse, post office, major banks, the newspaper buildings, train stations, hotels, theaters, music halls and most commercial enterprises were annihilated. An estimated $180 million in damage was done, the coroner estimated 300 people had died, and 100,000 were homeless. Chicagoans bragged that it was so big that only the 1666 London Fire and Napoleon’s burning of Moscow in 1812 could compare but “Chicago was twice as great as the total area destroyed by both of those fires.”1

Chicago was the boom city of America, with railroads opening up agricultural and natural resources key to American growth. Boston was in the midst of a revival, trying to recapture its early leadership. Then on November 9, 1872 Boston caught fire.2

Chicagoans would point out that the Boston fire was far smaller than theirs. Insureme.com estimates the Great Chicago Fire loss at 2.9 billion in current dollars, the third most costly in American history, and the Great Boston Fire at sixth, costing 1.3 billion. The double shock of the back-to-back fires in Chicago and Boston stunned the insurance and finance industry in the U.S. which was centered in New York. I was a Congressman during the 9/11 disaster. Without action by Congress the industry could not have sustained the losses nor offered future coverage for terrorism. In 1872 the country did not have the equivalent gross domestic product or scale of government to stabilize the nation. The Panic of 1873 soon followed.

The Economic Panic of 1873

The Panic of 1873 was directly triggered by the collapse of Jay Cooke’s bank in Philadelphia. Cooke had bailed out the Union Cause by selling bonds to maintain the northern forces on the fields of battle. He used his fame to secure funding for his ventures, including the proposed Northern Pacific Railroad. Other railroad lines also had been building rail capacity far beyond the ability to recover the investments. In 1872 the Credit Mobilier Scandal, involving bribes to Congress and massive fraud, wrecked the Administration of President Grant. In other words, the railroad chaos already had the financial markets reeling. Furthermore foreign investment, critical to growing America, was staggered by losses from the great fires and from the railroads. Capital became squeezed worldwide.3

Immigration

The immigration issue, and the politics of it (as well as the coming Irish domination of all of baseball), was only in its early stages in Boston. But it particularly engulfed the politics of New York, America’s largest and richest city, during these years of the National Association and, along with the financial panic, destroyed its ability to consistently compete during this period despite its still overwhelming resources and population.

African-Americans and Reconstruction

The 1870s were a tumultuous transition period for American race relations. Reconstruction, the policy of federal military enforcement in the South to allow black voting and the beginnings of legal rights, was resisted by most (but not all) white southerners from the time it began. Opposition from southern sympathizers among northern Democrats who also opposed all rights for African-Americans, corruption rampant in Reconstruction, and lukewarm support among many northern Republicans of black rights beyond ending slavery all doomed the process by 1876. At this point in American history, looming industrialization had not yet resulted in massive migration north by former slaves so the large cities most impacted by the racial conflicts of the time were those nearest the Mason-Dixon Line (i.e. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington).

Politics & Boston’s Competition for Baseball Dominance

The baseball competitive environment can be summarized like this: 1) the major cities and 2) the others.

“The Others”

The “others” are handled most easily. Few investors were willing to gamble much money on the emerging professionalization of baseball, plus the smaller cities had a smaller resource base from which to draw. Thus they were referred to as “co-op” teams in which players were solely, or nearly totally dependent on revenue derived from game attendance to cover salaries and other expenses. They had no capital reserve.

Fort Wayne, Indiana; Rockford, Illinois; Middleton and New Haven, Connecticut; Elizabeth, New Jersey; Troy, New York; and Keokuk, Iowa were obviously just confident enough to begin a season but could not then or today compete with the largest cities in the nation. Even Washington DC, Hartford, and Cleveland did not yet have the resources or population to sustain real competition. The cities west of the Appalachian Mountains also had to deal with much higher costs of travel to go east (and even to play each other). Their smaller population size and less wealth also meant that the East Coast teams didn’t like to play in those cities.

St. Louis was already a major city but lying west of the Mississippi in an East Coast League left it too isolated to be profitable. Two teams in 1875 began the change, but the Gateway to the West was not in factor in the N.A.

Chicago

In 1871, the championship competition was three-way among Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. Chicago then burned. In 1872 and 1873 they did not field a team. The powerful business establishment became pre-occupied with rebuilding Chicago. When Chicago returned for 1874 and 1875, they were decent but not yet as good. Both seasons they were just under a .500 team. Of course in 1876 Chicago led the creation of the National League and Major League Baseball as we know it today. But in the National Association, after the Great Chicago Fire, it wasn’t competition to Boston dominance.

Baltimore

Baltimore, on the other hand, was America’s sixth largest city, slightly larger than an unconsolidated Boston, but had never been dominant in the American psyche. Perhaps the War of 1812, when Frances Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner while watching the harbor burn, was its high point. Babe Ruth grew up there but left. Edgar Allen Poe wrote poetry, which provided a great name for Baltimore’s future NFL team. Symbolically, Baltimore was always a city with a harbor almost as good as the competition

German and Irish immigrant power was just ahead in Baltimore history, which ultimately impacted its politics and improved its baseball (e.g. Boss Sonny Mahon, Harry Von der Horst). But during the National Association era the powerful political duo of Arthur Gorman (a post-Civil War baseball pioneer) and Issac Raynor Rasin was just beginning to consolidate power in the Maryland Legislature and city of Baltimore. In 1872 the Democrat National Convention was held in Baltimore but the Party was still in disarray.

Baltimore, with its harbor and the resultant importance of railroads (especially the Baltimore & Ohio), was heavily influenced by the early form of black gold: coal. Ralph Waldo Emerson had referred to coal as “portable climate” in his book Wealth. Coal enabled industry to move beyond dependence on water falls for power.4 Thus it is not surprising that coal dealer Robert C. Hall was the first President and organizer of the stock sales for the Lord Baltimores. They raised sufficient funds to field an all-professional team luring back home star pitcher Bobby Mathews from Fort Wayne.5

Baltimore baseball historian James Bready notes that the team was plagued by rumors of game-fixing. Team President Hall did not seem to be significant part of the Baltimore power structure, though he was a leader in the horse racing establishment. Pimlico Race Course opened in 1870, with the Preakness Stakes beginning in 1873 (second-leg of the famous Triple Crown of horse racing). Horse racing, gambling, and “fixing” have always been closely tied, as has boxing. Baltimore’s Bobby Mathews, one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, is still not in Baseball’s Hall of Fame likely because of his links to infamous game fixing in Baltimore and New York.

Baseball, with prominent early examples like New York’s John Morrissey, struggled for decades to separate itself from those popular sports of the era as a “clean game.” Baltimore didn’t help.

New York

New York had multiple problems that kept it, and Brooklyn, from providing consistent competition to Boston. As noted earlier, Chicago Fire followed by the Boston Fire nearly wiped out the insurance industry centered in New York City. This, followed by the financial collapses in the Panic of 1873, short-circuited any New York City financial advantages. The political and business powers were pre-occupied with things far more significant to the future of New York. Furthermore, still NYC was so large, it was never as obsessed with its marketing image as were the cities that tried to compete with it. New York knew it was the biggest.

The politics of New York City were particularly brutal during the N.A. era. Boss Tweed, the original godfather of the New York Mutuals baseball team, was under intense investigation during this period. His political world began to fall apart in 1871. In 1873 he first avoided conviction but in the November retrial Tweed was convicted on 204 of 220 counts. He escaped to Europe. In 1876 he returned to New York and prison.

In 1872 to replace Tweed, the aforementioned John Morrissey—infamous former head of the Dead Rabbits Gang, champion boxer, Congressman, baseball game fixer, former financier of the Troy Haymakers (who just happened to fold that year with some players going to the Mutuals) and still notorious gambler—emerged as co-leader of Tammany Hall with John Kelly. Through his connections with Cornelius Vanderbilt and others, Morrissey had become a somewhat respectable gambler and politician as opposed to a fascinating but crooked thug.

New York was still New York, the largest city, the center of finance, home to the most powerful media, and the original home of “New York” baseball. In other words, New York City was hardly irrelevant to baseball. Three years of star pitcher Bobby Mathews, and one from Candy Cummings, kept them near the top. But during the N.A., a simple fact stands out: New York City could not topple Boston or the Philadelphia teams. In the five years their record against Boston was 12-30 (skewed by their 0-10 futility in 1875) and 31-34 against the three teams from Philadelphia. They were never quite good enough. You could bet on it.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn was an even more tangled mess. During this period Hugh McLaughlin was the Democrat political boss who dominated Brooklyn politics. He was both an internal rival to and ally of Manhattan Tammany before NYC consolidated. The bridge was completed in 1883, after the Tammany rings on both sides were paid off. It is little wonder that the baseball teams in Brooklyn were not necessarily known for probity during this era (obviously the Manhattan teams weren’t either). The major institutions were corrupt so it is not surprising that the baseball teams weren’t models of good behavior. During the era of the National Association, neither city could muster any sustained baseball threat, or consistent integrity even by the lower standards of the time.

Philadelphia

Philadelphia was the primary, consistent competitive threat to Boston. If Boston’s moment as the center of America’s political universe was pre-Revolutionary War through the abandonment of Boston by the British, Philadelphia’s dominant moments were from 1776 to 1787, when the Constitution was completed. From that time on, Philadelphia—like Boston—had periods of time when it dominated a category such as baseball but like Boston, it was mostly in New York’s shadow. Boston just complained about it more whereas Philadelphia seemed more resigned to its fate.

In the 1870s, however, Philadelphia was hoping for resurgence. Heading toward 1876 even Independence Hall was getting a makeover. The clout of Philadelphia is illustrated by the fact that two other Philadelphia teams were still playing in 1875. Philadelphia had split into two teams in 1873. They literally split, with the White Stockings taking five of the nine top players. The Athletics continued as a top team because they retained a core of pitcher Dick McBride, Al Reach, and Cap Anson with Elias “Hicks” Hayhurst as its leader.

So why, in the 1870s, did Philadelphia split whereas Boston did not? The racial divide we alluded to earlier became ground zero in Philadelphia during the Reconstruction Era until its demise in 1876. The politics were intense in these major cities of the era, but Philadelphia was the only one where black/white controversy split the city.

In the fall of 1871, the year the National Association was organized, a local black educator and civil rights leader Octavius Cato was gunned down on the first election day in which newly-enfranchised African-American voters were going to have a major determination in selecting the new Mayor. In other words, the Republicans were going to win if they voted. Two local Democrat Party henchmen assassinated Catto and were aided in escaping town. Catto was also a Republican Ward leader and the head of the famous black Philadelphia Pythians baseball team.

This tumult from 1871 to 1876 spilled into Philadelphia baseball very directly. The Republican Ring, dominated by powerful gas interests, ruled the city. Mayor William Stokely governed the city during the era of the NA. Among the loyal Republican Ring city councilmen was Hicks Hayhurst, who also was appointed head of the Police Committee. It oversaw the cleaning up the police department which had been at least partly responsible for killing Hayhurst’s friend Catto. Dick McBride, the star pitcher of the Athletics, was also a political appointee who had a “flexible” job in the city clerk’s office.6

Philadelphia’s sparring Republican factions (Athletics leaders Col. Thomas Fitzgerald and Hayhurst earlier divided the Athletics over this issue) appeared prevent Philadelphia from becoming an equal competitor to Boston except in 1871 season which was prior to the tumult exploding in gunfire. It may, in fact, have helped fuel the internal rivalry as well as the opportunity to earn revenue through intra-city competition. What is clear is that the Boston Red Stockings traveled to England with the Athletics in 1874. In other words, Boston was aligned with the traditional Republican power team of Philadelphia.

When one analyzes the competition, it makes the astounding consistent success of the Boston Red Stockings even more extraordinary.

The Wright Brothers’ Flight to Boston

It is not without some irony that Boston in the early 1770s was the cradle of American liberty, with the Adams family among the leaders in the early events that led to the creation of our Republic, and then in the early 1870s that Boston led the early stages of the professional of our National Pastime. It could be argued Boston, along with Philadelphia, pulled the rest of America along in both ventures.

It is also clear that in both revolutions, the keys were talent and leadership. And politics, both of the traditional kind and the Harry Wright version. In fact, Harry Wright may have been the best “politician” in that era as he worked with local leaders to keep his team together through fire, economic panic, and change that roiled the rest of the nation.

Harry Wright was a cricket player but America wasn’t England. The New York style of baseball began to be widely played, accelerated by young men with idle time between the Civil War bloodbaths. Younger brother George Wright, the more skilled player, was wooed to the Washington Nationals with a government “job.” The Nationals 1867 Western Tour was tremendously successful, as the Nationals defeated the greatest power of the West, the Cincinnati Red Stockings headed by Harry. Their only defeat was the result of great pitching in Chicago by Albert Spalding.

The Cincinnati Red Stockings were the most powerful example of a young leader’s organization that decided to contract with players to help promote a City’s image while hopefully also making money for the owners. Or perhaps the goals were the other way around, but there were dual goals.

The Nationals were actually a professional team as well, just a government-subsidized one. Cincinnati was the first private sector professional team. Harry convinced his brother to join him in Cincinnati (along with Asa Brainerd) as Washington politics broke up the Nationals. The Cincinnati club owners were the rising sons of many of the Cincinnati political, media and economic power structure. Most of them were already successful but their relatives even more so, and their own careers were rapidly rising. Baseball was not their focus.

Harry Wright used touring, both in the West and the East, to achieve multiple goals including to earn revenue, promote Cincinnati and the Red Stockings, provide attractive travel to players who otherwise would not have had financial resources like the upper classes, and to recruit (i.e. poach) other players. He also, obviously, had his eye open for other opportunities if things went bad in Cincinnati. Things did go bad in Cincinnati: after two years of conquering American baseball. The owners of the club didn’t make money, to hold the top players Wright insisted they needed more not less money, and the leaders decided they could make more money and promote Cincinnati in better ways than baseball. Their great rival Chicago soon soared past it in standing, though likely it would have happened even if Ohio had held onto the first set of Wright brothers.

A key part of the story is a match the Red Stockings played in Boston to a large crowd of 2,000 people on the Boston Commons. Wright, like most Americans who traveled and followed the news, already realized that Boston was undergoing a major overhaul and revival. He could also see that, in spite of the crowd for the Cincinnati game and the successful amateur baseball teams in the city, the Boston Commons was not suited for professional baseball. Harry Wright’s biographer, Christopher Devine explained what happened this way:

“The Boston Common was primarily used for Boston games because it was the only level grounds that could hold a large crowd. But because it was public property, permission was needed to play on it. Before play began in May 1869, the Common was rendered unusable for ball playing, leaving the Boston clubs to find new grounds. Delegates of city ballclubs decided eventually to build a field in the South End in an ideally accessible field location. In the fall of 1869, all city government candidates in favor of improving the field, generically christened the Union Grounds, won their races, defeating all the candidates opposed.7

The political battles in the election of 1869 were not just about baseball but rather part of a continuum of progressive change by an aggressive new emerging leadership in the Boston area that had decided to remake the city. The principal annexations that created today’s Boston were done from 1868 to 1874, with the most important being Roxbury in 1868 and Dorchester in 1870.8 The political goal of the Roxbury and Dorchester annexations was to give Boston further room for expansion, more area for improved housing as opposed to the downtown density, and green space for parks and community development. In the late 1850s a decision had been made to proceed with a massive landfill project to turn the Back Bay area into usable land. Land sales proceeded into the 1860s and 1870s. In 1870 when Oliver Wendell Holmes vacated his Beacon Hill for a Back Bay residence, he labeled his abandonment of the old house “a case of justifiable domicide.”9

The building of the South End Grounds was the beginning of a larger park vision that won nationwide media attention. America’s most first landscape engineering firm was founded by Frederick Law Olmstead in Boston. Olmstead had developed the most of the famous city parks in America including Central Park in New York. As the newly expanded Boston developed its green space, Olmstead conceived Boston’s famed “emerald necklace” of connected parks. The South End Grounds were near the southeastern end.

In the midst of the progressive Boston revival, of which baseball domination was about to become another prong, was an extraordinary event never again repeated in American history except for a second, less dramatic effort in Boston. The annexations, the landfills, and the parks development had been also part of a cultural push in Boston. This period also led to expansion and creation of educational institutions and new cultural leadership including the creation of Boston’s famed Museum of Fine Arts in 1870.

An Irish immigrant named Patrick S. Gilmore conceived the idea of a National Peace Jubilee and Music Festival to be held in Boston in 1869. His dream was big. The constructed wooden facility, located around Copley Square including the land where the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel is now located, could hold 50,000 people and was the largest structure in the country.10 Gilmore’s plan was not to display new manufacturing breakthroughs or discoveries like the Ferris wheel or ice cream: he organized a five-day music festival.

It wasn’t just any music festival. It featured classical music including the “anvil chorus” with a hundred firemen striking anvils, the William Tell Overture and the Messiah. Patriotic, religious and children’s days were included. There was an orchestra of 1,000 and a chorus of 10,000. President U.S. Grant attended, in spite of memorably stating that he only knew two tunes, “One is Yankee Doodle and the other one isn’t.” The incredible success and fame of the Jubilee solidified Gilmore’s place in history as the father of concert music.11

But it is one thing to conceive an idea as a dream, and quite another to make it happen. Gilmore was hardly an unknown at the time he proposed the massive, unprecedented undertaking. He was the director of the Boston Brass Band which organized the first large American concerts, the forerunner of the Boston Pops. Gilmore is nationally recognized as the father of concert bands. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Gilmore and his band joined the Massachusetts 22nd Regiment. He was became the bandmaster of the Union Army (and also served, for example, as stretcher bearers at the Battle of Gettysburg). Gimore is a famed songwriter whose inspirational music included the most famous Union tune of the Civil War, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” He is also credited with putting to music a tune he heard a Union soldier singing known as “John Brown’s Body.” Julia Ward Howe rewrote the lyrics, now known as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”12

Gilmore worked the press, and pounded on doors trying to raise funds for the Jubilee. Finally, as the date drew alarmingly close, Eben Jordan, the co-founder and leader of the rising (and soon to be nationally famous) retailer Jordan, Marsh & Company, decided to go “all in” with Gilmore. Jordan agreed to be treasurer, then organized community leaders and raised the necessary funds. Without Eben Jordan, Boston today would be a different city. In 1873 a 27-year old Civil War colonel, young Republican politician named Charles Taylor purchased a struggling small newspaper named the Boston Globe. During the panic of 1873, every stockholder but Eben Jordan pulled out. Jordan saved Taylor and the Globe. Taylor and his son later became the first Boston owners of the American League’s Red Sox.13

Professional baseball came to Boston because of everything else that was happening. Everything else didn’t happen because of baseball. The rising leadership, many of whom played baseball on the Boston area clubs themselves or were fans, saw the opportunity to make baseball a part of making Boston a nationally celebrated city as well as a better place to live.

When Harry Wright walked into the Parker House (now the Omni Parker House), it was already the distinguished hotel for the elite of Boston. Internationally celebrated writer Charles Dickens had made it his Boston residence for five months just two years earlier. Even Boston Cream pie originated there. It was also Boston’s political hangout since it was located right across from City Hall and near the state capitol building. Wright likely felt important just walking into the hotel.

The Boston new ballpark was essential but Wright also needed to know whether the proposed ownership would provide the financial resources to not only keep his preferred Cincinnati players together but also hire additional stars (in particular, raiding Chicago). Wright also wanted more control. To establish this, Wright needed to meet the proposed leadership and look them in the eyes to see if there was enough clout, as well as the commitment to sustain a team. After what happened in to him Cincinnati Wright wanted some stability.

When he met the men in the room, he had to be impressed just as they were with him. It wasn’t just the influential young men of Boston often the sons of political leaders or business titans (like in Cincinnati), but also present were the powers behind them. Through the hindsight of history we can now understand just how extraordinary this group was because these men in Boston were the cutting edge of a transfer of power from the classic elite of America to a much more diversified mix of leadership committed to remaking American cities and commerce which included annexation, parks, and improved governmental services like decent sewers and water.

Who Were These Merchant Kings & Politicos Behind Boston Baseball?

It is unclear how the introductions were handled at the initial meeting with Harry Wright. Henry Lillie Pierce perhaps was the first introduced because he was a twofer: a merchant king and a powerful politician. His father had been a state legislator, and Pierce served multiple terms in the 1860s. When his home of Dorchester was annexed into Boston, Pierce was elected Mayor of the newly consolidated Boston in 1872. Thus at this meeting, it was likely that people in the room likely knew that Pierce had a very good chance to be the political king at the City Hall across the street the next year. In fact, it is likely that they were a key impetus behind putting him there.

After a one-year term as mayor, Pierce was elected to Congress for two terms. In 1877 he left Congress to again seek, and win, the Mayor’s office. In other words, during the years of the National Association, Pierce was the Boston Mayor at the beginning and end, and was the Congressman during the years in between.

But Henry Lillie Pierce was first a chocolate man, as in building up Baker Chocolate Company into one of the most famous chocolate companies in America. Baker won the highest awards for chocolate and cocoa at the Vienna Exposition in 1873 and in Philadelphia at the 1876 Centennial. The company existed until 1927 when it was absorbed into General Foods, and then became part of Kraft. In other words, it was a stable product and company.14

Pierce was a powerful man in politics and business. He wasn’t the son of a politician, like the Cincinnati group. He was a real one. So was attendee Charles Augustus Burditt, who was an active Republican leader and member of the Boston Common Council.

While Pierce was the pre-eminent politician present, everyone present also knew who Eben Jordan was. Jordan was not just known to them as the successful retailer but as the financial man behind the nationally famous and profitable Peace and Music Jubilee two years earlier. In fact, those present included Alderman and businessman Edward Augustus White, who had played a prominent role in the Jubilee. So did attendee James Horatio Freeland. John C. Haynes—later treasurer of the Red Stockings—worked for the music business of Oliver Ditson, later becoming the president of Oliver Ditson & Co. Ditson was on the Jubilee Executive and the Finance committee with Jordan. The firm Burditt & North, of which Councilman Charles A. Burditt was a senior partner, were managers of the Boston Symphony and in some contemporary articles Burditt was personally listed as the “popular manager.” These music supporters all worked in concert, so to speak.15

To a significant degree, the established financial powers present at the initial baseball meeting suggest that it was a re-convening of the Jubilee leaders who were joined by younger, rising baseball enthusiasts (much like Jubilee organizer Gilmore was a music enthusiast). These leaders backed “enthusiasts” who could promote Boston.

Perhaps Frank George Webster was introduced next. He was a financial power and a leader of Kidder, Peabody & Co. In the book Gentlemen Bankers, the firm is described as having reached prominence “during the railroad boom of the late 1870s.”16 “Kidder, Peabody participated in the postwar funding of treasury short-term obligations in the 1870s.”17 In other words, we earlier noted that the Chicago and Boston fires, plus the over-building by many railroads had resulted in the Panic of 1873, which had been triggered by bank closings and shortages of capital. Kidder, Peabody & Co helped “bail out” the federal government by buying treasury notes. It is one of the more effective ways to accumulate political power. Webster was a formidable force behind the Red Stockings ownership. These men were able to pull lots of strings and made financial and political deals together beyond just promoting Boston. They logically viewed the success of Boston and their personal success as one and the same.

In the 19th Century, especially during this baseball transition when some teams were backed by young men’s clubs, some by governments, and some by opportunistic investors hoping to make a quick buck—not to mention gamblers—the good teams came and went. In most cities, an event like the Boston Fire would have finished off baseball. Chicago, with an admittedly bigger fire, took years to recover. The Economic Panic of 1873 finished off others. The combination sent Boston reeling as well. The follow-up economic crisis (and opportunity for others) distracted some of this first group. First year President Ivers Adams, for example, withdrew as leader when his firm was pummeled by the fire. The Red Stockings themselves had income drop precipitously in 1872 and their survival was threatened. But Boston survived. The owners re-organized and proceeded ahead. Their collective goal was to make Boston dominant and they did.

The Red Stockings Presidents

In the five years of the National Association, the Boston Red Stockings had four Presidents—Ivers Adams in 1871, John Conkey in 1872, Charles Porter in 1873, and Nicholas Taylor Apollonio. The frequency of change would seem to suggest instability but other facts illustrate why the franchise kept increasingly its dominance, as opposed to collapsing.

Ivers Whitney Adams has a name that fits well with the Cabots, Lodges, and Saltonstalls of WASP domination but actually Ivers’s father was a carpenter in rural Ashburnham. Ivers Adams never attended college. He was not those Adamses.18

Ivers Adams was a rising retail merchant, a profession built upon personal salesmanship especially back when there were not yet dominant chain stores. John H. Pray, Sons & Company was a significant retailer in downtown Boston. It was founded in 1817. Eben Jordan of the classic Boston retail institution Jordan Marsh did not begin in the retail jobbing business until 1851, over thirty years later. An article in the Cambridge Tribune in 1892 refers to Pray & Sons as the finest firm in the carpets trade, also noting its wholesale business and widespread reputation.19

Boston was an important carpet market in the 1870s, having “always enjoyed a large scale of the Mediterranean trade (e.g. Turkish and Persian carpets). An 1877 Carpet Trade Review states that John H. Pray, Sons & Co took over much of the business from the earliest founders of the trade. John H. Pray “was a gentleman of courtly presence” who was “ably seconded by his two sons John A. and William H., who in connection with Mr. I.W. Adams, still retain the old style of the firm.” (In business, if you read between the lines, the father felt Adams was needed to oversee things, not just his sons.) When American carpet production (as opposed to imported rugs) began with the introduction of “Lowell” and “Bigelow,” the Pray firm became the promoter and wholesaler of those brands across the United States.20

Erastus B. Bigelow of Lowell was the most important individual in the creation of the American carpet industry including not only the manufacturing but the key patents to make carpets. Bigelow carpets greeted the first baseball meeting invitees to the Parker House in Boston, as well as top establishments across America including the Capitol, the Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House.21

The early textile industry was centered in Boston and New England, as Americans desired more control and cheaper goods than imports from England. Carpet was a logical outgrowth from the textile industry. Most of the industry moved to the Carolinas and then to Asia, but the Lowell National Historic Site is the primary historic resource of the National Park Service to highlight early American manufacturing. Canal Place I at the historic park is the largest of the Bigelow/Lowell buildings still standing.22 The importance here is to note that Ivers Adams was a leader in what was then the most important regional manufacturing industry as well in national commerce and international trade. He wasn’t just a baseball guy.

Adams was the original organizer but the Boston fire caused him to focus with the survival of the John H. Pray & Co. at that point, not the baseball team. He was the leader of the Red Stockings for only one year but Adams set up the ownership team.

John Conkey succeeded Adams in 1872. Conkey was 32 when he attended the baseball organizing meeting in Boston. When in his twenties, he became a partner in a business that focused on the China trade business of the powerful Augustine Heard & Company. Heard had settled in Canton, China in 1830 where he was a partner of the Samuel Russell & Co, the leading American opium dealer in China (among other things). Heard eventually formed his own firm with partners John Coolidge and, most significantly, financial powerhouse John Murray Forbes. It became the third largest American firm dealing with China.

Forbes was also an active politician. He was an abolitionist and early Republican leader who provided funding and support to Abraham Lincoln and Union causes during the War. His son married the daughter of Mr. New England, writer Ralph Waldo Emerson.23 One of his ancestors, John Forbes Kerry, became a United States Senator from Massachusetts, a Presidential candidate, and United States Secretary of State.24

The economic problems drove the Augustine Heard & Company Chinese trading business into bankruptcy by 1875, which resulted in Conkey losing his business. He re-organized it at that time but it is highly likely that the events including the Boston (and Chicago fires of 1872) were already squeezing the capital markets. 1872 had also been a bad year for the Red Stockings revenues, forcing a re-organization and supplemental capitalization of the team. The combination of issues, but likely more the economic problems of his own business, resulted in Conkey serving just one year. The next President had also been part of the original group, suggesting that it was a re-organization as opposed to a revolution.

Charles Hunt Porter was directly involved in the activities of the Base Ball Club, having played and organized the Quincy Actives baseball club the decade before. One of the final pieces in making the Red Stockings so dominant was the adding of James “Deacon” White. Porter was personally involved in signing White in Corning, New York the year White had become “church struck.” White, according to Porter, was a “clerical-looking man with a tall hat” but Porter recognized that White was the sought after catcher because of a smashed finger and his hard-looking hands. Having a skilled catcher in the days before the invention of full gloves and all the protective equipment was essential to sustained success.25

Porter, like many of the other Boston leaders (and a high percentage of young leaders across the nation) had been an officer during the Civil War. Porter’s hometown, Quincy, was the home of the distinguished Adams family, including Presidents John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams (JQA). During the 1870s Charles Francis Adams Sr. (JQA’s son) was a national leader in the abolitionist movement. Porter could not have been involved in education, park and water department issues—eventually becoming the Quincy’s first mayor—without intense political involvement since Quincy would obviously have been ground zero of many of the intense conflicts as they played out in Massachusetts led by Charles Frances Adams. Porter, like the other young leaders, loved baseball but had a career of increasing importance outside of baseball.

Before moving to the fourth Red Stockings President in four years, it is worthwhile to again note some continuity of leadership amongst the change. The Boston Post story about the annual meeting of the 1874 Boston Base Ball Club meeting notes the Treasurer’s annual report given by John C. Haynes, who was re-elected to that post for 1875. Haynes, as earlier noted, was a leader in the Oliver Ditson music company that had been closely connected to the Boston Jubilee.26

Another key transition figure—Arthur Soden—was elected to the Board of Directors of the Club at the same meeting. Soden had been drafted into the Union Army in July, 1863. He was a hospital steward in the 22nd Massachusetts Regiment.27 This was the same Regiment to which Patrick Gilmore, creator of the Jubilee, and his Boston Band belonged. As noted earlier, the Boston band had helped man the hospital stretchers at major battles. It is not clear that Gilmore met Soden, but it is quite the coincidence nevertheless. Soden was also a young baseball enthusiast, who in 1876 led the takeover of the Red Stockings when they joined the National League. Again, in Boston there was change but continuity in leadership.

Nicholas Taylor Apollonio held the Presidency of the Boston Club for the longest period during the National Association years, though that is not saying all that much. It is impossible to separate Nicholas from his father Nicholas A. (N. A.) Apollonio. The younger Apollonio was a comparative unknown, while his father was a prominent government official. Nicholas worked as a clerk in his father’s office, and only has a track record of other jobs later in his life, including, interestingly, working with foreign trade with China. He was defined by this father more than himself, except for baseball. He, like many of the other younger key leaders of the Red Stockings was not just club President but also a baseball fan who enjoyed playing the game.

N.A. Apollonio was elected as Registrar for Boston by the Alderman and City Council (the process varied over the years). The position is among the first listed in city government sections of Boston directories, and was among the best paid. The Registrar was the superintendent of burial grounds and funerals and was responsible for records of the births, deaths and marriages as well as granting certificates for intentions of marriage.28 N. A. Apollonio earned $3000/year from 1872 to 1876. In 1870 the average worker in manufacturing and construction made an estimated $378/year according to the Bureau of Economic Research.29

In other words, the Apollonios were not among the very rich typical of the more senior part of the Red Stockings leadership, nor were they going to become as wealthy as most of the others in the group, but they were in an economic class—the political class – far above most citizens of the time. Government leadership minus graft did not lead to great wealth, but it did lead to a very comfortable life. The Registrar received a budget for clerks approximately equal to his salary. It varied by year. Assistants were added after annexations and as the city grew. His son Nicholas’s salary as a clerk was clearly very good but far short of his father’s. In other words, he was not a potential dominant financial owner of the team.

Both Apollonios have gone down in American history as unique contributors to Italian-American history: the father was the first Bostonian of Italian heritage to hold a high-profile political position and the son was the first Italian to have a significant position in professional baseball. After his death in 1891, N. A. Apollonio was described as having taken “a great interest in all the affairs of the Italians in our community, which grew out of a love for his father, who was Italian by birth.” For his first job, young N.A. Apollonio left his family in Connecticut for New York City. In the 1840s he was a contributor to the Spirit of the Times (one of the first newspapers to cover sports, including early baseball) which was owned by the company that also reprinted the British newspaper Albion for American subscribers. His skills led to his being hired by the Rev. J.F. Himes in 1845 to print the Advent Herald in Boston. 30

The Advent was not your typical newspaper. It was the publisher for the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Rev. Himes was the best friend of William Miller, to whom the sect traces its founding. There was a problem in 1845 when N. A. Apollonio was hired, since Miller had identified the Church with the prophecy that Jesus Christ would return no later than October 22, 1844.31 The Church’s focal points were reconfigured, and abolitionism became one of its identifiable missions.

N. A. Apollonio was at the very center of the movement in Boston. In 1848 he was selected as a member of the City Committee core of the Free Soil Party of Boston, on which he remained until 1854 when he was elected to public office.32 In 1848, the year Apollonio joined its leadership, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. of Quincy was selected as the Free Soil Party’s candidate for Vice-President of the United States.

In the years prior to the Civil War, the northern states were divided between those who focused on keeping the United States unified (such as Daniel Webster of Massachusetts) and those who demanded abolition of slavery (such as William Lloyd Garrison of Boston). Anti-immigration and anti-Catholic sentiment (roughly the same thing for the next 80 years) caused further chaos. Massachusetts was ground zero in this conflict.

The Know-Nothing Party was a northern coalition of anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-alcohol, and anti-slavery parties. (Its name arose from its members answering “I know nothing” when asked about their “secret” organization.)33 Their overwhelming sweep of Massachusetts in 1854 was not matched in any other state. The Governor, all state officials, the entire state senate, and all but three state representatives were elected as Know Nothings. However, Adams and others such as Wendell Phillips who focused primarily on abolitionism spoke out against the Know Nothings. Adams, for example, said their program was “immoral” and “antisocial.” 34

In 1854, when the Know Nothings were about to sweep the state, the incumbent Boston registrar died. C. H. Brainard as well as other unidentified friends of Apollonio encouraged him to seek the office. Apollonio won. Since Brainard was the only ally cited, it raises the obvious question: who was Brainard? He was prominent in Boston and beyond in the printing and artistic community. He is most remembered for his lithograph of abolitionist leaders titled “Heralds of Freedom.” 35 Included among the portraits were Garrison, Phillips, Theodore Parker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was publicized and sold throughout the nation.36 Clearly Apollonio was put forward by the abolitionists, and his political success was tied to them.

The Know Nothing Party soon fell apart. In Massachusetts the Whigs had already split between the “Cotton Whigs” (i.e. tied to the textile industry dependent upon southern cotton) and “Conscience Whigs” (i.e. abolitionists tied to Adams and Apollonio’s allies). The Free Soil Party and the Conscience Whigs were wiped out by the Know Nothings. The Conscience Whigs/Free Soil remnant were the early core of the Republican Party that backed John Fremont for President in 1856, Nathaniel Banks as the first Republican Governor in 1858, and John Andrew’s election in 1860 as the second Governor of Massachusetts. Brainard, Apollonio’s sponsor, helped promote Andrew with another widely dispersed lithograph.37

The Apollonio family was part of the fabric of the Free Soil and abolitionist movement, not a shiny button added for decoration. In fact, a quick review illustrates the depth of the connections to abolitionism among key leaders. Nicholas Apollonio was the fourth and longest serving Red Stockings President during the National Association years. The third President, Charles Porter, was a politician from Quincy, dominated by Charles Francis Adams, Sr. The second President, John Conkey, career began with and continued to be tied to Free Soil leader and Republican Party founder John Murray Forbes. And the first President was Ivers Whitney Adams, from a different branch of the Adams family but clearly comfortable working with the abolitionist leadership. The most powerful politician in the original meeting, Henry Lillie Pierce, was a fierce abolitionist. He served as Mayor of Boston during part of the NA years, and as the Congressman representing Boston during the other years.

We previously discussed how the National Peace Jubilee and Music Festival of 1869 knit together the Red Stockings key leadership. Of course the “peace” being celebrated was the triumph of the North, which resulted in the abolition of slavery. Even the original musical connection was anchored in politics. John Andrew, second Republican Governor (who Apollonio’s sponsor Brainard promoted), was responsible for enlisting Jubilee founder Patrick Gilmore in the 24th Massachusetts regiment specifically to reorganize military music making. The first Republican Governor, Nathaniel Banks, was one of the first major generals appointed by President Abraham Lincoln. General Banks then chose Gilmore not just to reorganize music for Massachusetts regiments but named him bandmaster for the entire Union Army.38 “It’s a small world” isn’t just a theme song for a Disney attraction.

While Apollonio remained interested in the team after he left the Club’s Presidency, as shown by his continued correspondence with Harry Wright, Apollonio did not have the wealth to continue in the position. He had interest but no power. Boston joined the new National League. A revitalized Chicago franchise hired away many of the Red Stockings stars. Boston began bleeding a different kind of red: red ink. But it is also true that by 1876 many other things had radically changed. It is unclear why the businessmen who had quietly funded the team disappeared, but there were likely multiple reasons including the successful establishment of baseball as a promotional tool for Boston. Others had significantly advanced in their business careers. Politics, however, is seldom not a factor.

1876 was one of the most politically tumultuous in American history. The Presidential candidate who won the popular vote lost in the Electoral College by a single vote because of a deal that resulted in the end of Reconstruction in the South. In Massachusetts Charles Francis Adams Sr. ran as a Democrat for Governor, and other abolitionists flipped parties as well. N. A. Apollonio survived as Registrar of Boston by a single vote, the only serious challenge in his long career. One of the few who publicly defended him, seemingly incongruently given past history, was Democrat Alderman Hugh O’Brien. O’Brien was elected the first Irish mayor of Boston in 1884. 39 The Red Stockings changes may have been more than just about money but this book is about the National Association years of 1871-1875, not 1876 and beyond.

There is one more relevant footnote to the founding meeting of the National League. William Hulbert of Chicago was the organizer of the NL. He wanted the first President to be from the East. In the 1850s, when the Aetna Insurance Company was becoming a national power in the industry, it was led by Eliphalet Bulkeley. Eliphalet was a Free Soil leader and one of the founders of the Republican Party. On his Aetna board was the Boston abolitionist and Apollonio political sponsor, C. H. Brainard. Eliphalet’s son Morgan and N. A’s son Nicholas—the sons of leading abolitionists and early Republican leaders—were the two most influential Eastern owners. Apollonio turned the position down.40 Bulkeley, who historically is more famous as a politician than as a baseball man, was chosen as the first National League President and ultimately as a member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

To adapt a famous expression, in politics “what you know” (e.g. abolitionism) leads to “who you know.”

Money & Love: Other Ways Boston Held Its Stars

Baseball, Boston & Liverpool

While the geographical and ancestral connections between Boston and Liverpool, England are superficially obvious due to the importance of U.S. and British oceanic trade in the 1870s. Powerful British political leader William Gladstone was born in Liverpool and served his first term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during this period from late 1868 to 1874. Liverpool was the primary port city and fought for financial independence from London, before London achieved dominance by 1900.41

Massachusetts was the penultimate English colony in the early settlement of North America, though Boston had led the revolt against England during the Revolution. After the United States was created, New England became staunchly Federalist and its leaders were once again known as “Anglophobes.”

The financial center of the United States was first Philadelphia and ultimately moved to New York City, but Boston’s strategic port, manufacturing industries and connections to England meant that it continued as a critical conduit for British investment in the United States. The European economy did not offer the dramatic financial gain (or risk) that was present in America. At the cusp of the industrial revolution, one industry that boomed was insurance.

The insurance expansion in the 1860s and 1870s in England was not led by London but Liverpool. A British researcher noted that it “accounted 1/5 of the home fire market in 1869, the last year that fire duty, the tax that obligingly measured that market, was levied. Two of the four largest British fire insurers were Liverpool companies. Their exploits in promoting the enormous insurance trade to the U.S.A. were far more dashing than anything achieved in London.” Royal Insurance of Liverpool (later Royal Globe) was the most important of those firms.42

It is clear that it wasn’t just the baseball salaries that kept the stars in Boston. Wright held together the team in many ways. Boston’s baseball fame was obviously personal point of pride and had marketable value. But pride, as is true today in baseball, only goes so far in replacing cash. But players took pay cuts and freezes partly because, as noted, the competition wasn’t in great shape either. Boston also offered opportunities beyond baseball, including supplemental employment.

Boston’s most essential players were Spalding and the Wright Brothers. William Ryczek has noted that in 1874, “the pitcher (Albert Spalding), along with George and Harry Wright, were passing the winter months as clerks in the office of Foster and Cole, agents for the Royal Liverpool Insurance Company, to supplement the $1,800 salary each earned during the baseball season.”43

The national insurance newspaper of the United States in 1872 included this item: “Foster & Cole, 15 Devonshire Street, Boston; Marine and Fire Insurance Effected in First Class Companies, in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Losses adjusted and paid in Boston. Geo E. Foster; Chas H. Cole; Gideon Scull; July 1, 1872.”44

A Boston genealogical history includes this important tidbit about Royal Insurance agent Foster & Cole: “It is one of the oldest as it is the largest house in its line in Boston and New England, employing about seventy people in its office at 85 Water Street, Boston, and maintaining a branch office at 65 Warren Street, Roxbury.45

The importance of these examples is twofold. The first note says that losses were adjusted and paid in Boston. The second pointed out that most of the firm’s employment was in Boston. The Wrights, both experienced in handling monetary decisions with sporting goods stores and Harry with the Red Stockings budgets, and Spalding, whose long history also proves his financial acumen, could have been financial clerks or salesman. It is likely, however, that the bulk of the needs in the Boston office in 1874—especially considering the Boston Fire of 1872 and the frenetic pace of rebuilding the city over the next few years—were for fire “adjustors” (pre- and post-evaluation of assets). Such responsibilities would have greatly expanded their already apparent financial skills.

Of course, another fringe benefit of playing for Harry Wright were traveling opportunities far beyond what the average American could ever dream of taking. Wright managed teams back in Cincinnati and took “join the Red Stockings and see the world” to levels far beyond any other team. Patterned after the Western Tour of the Washington Nationals in 1867, the Cincinnati Red Stockings toured the East. Then they went to California, which was the ultimate Western Tour (just four months after the final stake at Promontory Point in Utah had completed the Transcontinental Railroad). In Boston, they went to Canada for their summer break. Then Wright sent Spalding to scout and prepare for a baseball tour to Wright’s English homeland.46

Wright wanted to show the Brits how to play the more entertaining game of baseball. Since the English played cricket not baseball, the Bostonians needed to bring along some baseball opponents as well. Wright first mentioned the possibility of the Philadelphia Athletics joining Boston on the Tour in a January 5 letter to their club president. On January 24 he sent Spalding to England. Why Philadelphia, and why the Athletics? While Philadelphia was rather obvious (for the competitive reasons we discussed earlier), why not the White Stockings who were the better team during this period?

Wright’s personal ties were greater to the more established Athletics. In 1873 Harry Wright wrote to Hicks Hayhurst, when the White Stockings lead the NA at the summer break: “Let us get our second wind, then look out Philadelphias.”47 The Republican political compatibility among the leadership was a factor as well. As noted earlier, pitcher and on-field manager McBride, for example, worked in the Republican clerk’s office and Athletics board member Hayhurst was a city councilman aligned with the Republican Ring.

But there were business ties as well. For example, Thomas Cope was the premier trader in Philadelphia and he had specific Liverpool ties. A book about early ports of entry into the United States notes that “Thomas Cope had died in 1854, though Cope company ships remained busy in the 1850s, bringing English and Irish emigrants from Liverpool to Philadelphia.”48

The Athletics and the Red Stockings departed to Liverpool for their English tour from Philadelphia, not Boston. Cope’s line had been superseded by the American Line of steamers tied to the Pennsylvania Railroad. “The popularity of the American Line steamers was underlined during the summer of 1874 when the Ohio sailed for Liverpool with more than 400 passengers, including members of the Athletic and Boston Baseball Clubs, who were crossing for some exhibition games.”49

There were obviously things below the surface driving major decisions. In this case, some interesting facts stand out.

1. When Spalding went to England, and Wright was planning for the trip, both were on the winter payroll of the primary New England agency of the Royal Insurance Company of Liverpool. This was not likely an accident.
2. I own a stamped 1874 insurance document of the Royal Insurance Company of Liverpool. It was a policy sold in Philadelphia (Boston was where the finances and adjusting were handled, not all sales) to a dry goods firm named Evans & Kennedy (“dry goods” merchandising, in port cities, was generally dependent upon trade).50 In other words, Royal Insurance was also important in Philadelphia.
3. The Evans and Cope families were intermarried (e.g. the Cope histories are written by Evans family members). Evans and the Athletics most important leader, Elias Hicks Hayhurst, were also partners in a small trading firm located on the Philadelphia docks prior to Hayhurst becoming a city councilman. In addition to all this, Alfred Cope had been Chairman of the school which had employed Octavius Catto, the famed baseball leader of the black Phythians Base Ball team who had been assassinated in 1871. The Athletics leader Hayhurst – an advocate, friend and ally of Catto – obviously had familiarity with both Cope and Evans families.51

The Royal Insurance Company of Liverpool thus had strong connections in both American cities as well as in Great Britain. Their agents obviously had to sign off on employees Wright and Spalding planning the baseball trip. Philadelphia was also important to Royal Insurance. Many Philadelphia businessmen traveled with the Athletics to England as did some Boston businessmen. Had the Royal Insurance Company been heavily invested in the Tour, the promotion effort would likely not have been so lackluster. Baseball was not their focus. In the scheme of things for their company, baseball (even counting some supplemental salaries of baseball players) was a financial cipher. However, promoting good will in the business and political establishments of two important American trading cities was very important.

What is incredibly ironic—stunningly so—are the purchases of John William Henry II. His group purchased the Boston Red Sox in 2001 and the Boston Globe in 2013. The Globe had been made into a great newspaper by Charles Taylor, the first Boston owner of the American League’s Red Sox. In between, in 2010, Henry’s group added the Liverpool F.C. to its sports ownership collection. The Red Sox only trail the New York Yankees in Facebook and Twitter fans and followers with a combined total of over 7.2 million.52 The Liverpool soccer team, however, has a combined total of over 24.2 million followers and fans. So it is rather obvious that in spite of the efforts of Wright and Spalding, the Brits never took to baseball.53 But the Boston-Liverpool connection lives on.

The Sporting Goods Stores: Profiting from Baseball Celebrity

With the rise of leisure time and affordable products, the market for sporting goods greatly expanded. In 1866 Peck & Snyder Sporting Goods opened in New York City, billing itself as the “largest dealers in games of sports in the world.”54 New York was, by far, the dominant population center of the U.S. and the city where the style of baseball played today originated (“New York style baseball”) so it makes sense that baseball manufacturing and retailing was centered there.

Harry Wright’s biographer Christopher Devine states that in February, 1871 George Wright moved the store that he and Harry had established in New York while they played in Cincinnati to Boston because of poor sales in New York City. The Wright family had been associated with cricket in New York City from the time they had arrived in the U.S.55 Harry Wright had awarded his brother the contract to provide the Red Stockings uniforms. In spite of this, Wright’s business struggled so he moved it to Boston. There George Wright bought the patent for the first catcher’s mask in 1875 from its inventor Fred Thayer, a baseball player at Harvard. In 1879 George Wright accepted the manager’s job of the Providence Grays but soon moved back to Boston to manage his growing sports business. He had taken Henry Ditson as a partner, who also had a sporting goods store, and re-named it Wright & Ditson. It became the premier sporting goods company for tennis equipment, as well as for baseball and other sports.56

There is confusion about whether Wright & Ditson began in 1871, not the least being from the Wright & Ditson official site which states their beginning year as 1871. This likely refers to the separate precursor Boston retail operations. Evidence is clear that the firm Wright & Ditson was created after they merged in 1879. The city of Boston Landmarks Commission in the historical research necessary to certify a house George Wright once owned for landmark status, states that Wright & Gould (Charles “Charlie” Harvey Gould, another Boston player) operated under their joint name in 1871 and 1872, and then just under Wright’s name until he merged with Ditson.57

Harry Wright also re-appeared as a purveyor of sporting goods with a firm called “Wright, Howland & Mahn” on 26 Kneeland Street in Boston. George W. Howland is listed as a manufacturer of steel plate spikes and L. H. Mahn as manufacturer of the Mahn baseball.58 In 1872 Louis Mahn had purchased a patent from John Osgood for baseball designed so if one stitch broke, the entire baseball would not unravel. It became the official baseball for both the National Association and the National League. Mahn lived in Jamaica Plain, now part of Boston, just south of the ballpark. The Wrights also lived there for a time, though when Orator Jim O’Rourke joined the Red Stockings for the 1883 season he boarded with Harry and Carrie Wright at their home in the Highland section. Brother George, sporting goods partner Charlie Gould, and O’Rourke all boarded with the Harry and Carrie Wright.59

However, it was Albert Spalding who became the ultimate sporting goods monopolist. He learned the trade from the Wright brothers.

Boston & the Loves of Albert Spalding

Helping Boston keep such a collection of stars together on one team, without a reserve rule, was romantic “love.” George Wright, for example, married a Boston Irish girl in 1872 which supplemented his sporting goods store as an anchor keeping him in Boston, where he died at age 90. But the case of Albert Spalding’s love life is the most unusual.

A 1901 Boston Post feature story titled “Al Spalding’s Romance” states Spalding had fallen in love as a teenager in his adopted hometown Rockford, Illinois. “They became engaged, fixing for the time when Spalding should have enough money to support a wife. But there came a lover’s quarrel and Spalding left Rockford to go to Boston.”60 In other words, supposedly Wright was able to recruit Spalding because of romantic love lost. But even buried in this love story is money—the lack of enough income to support his youthful flame.

In Boston, Spalding married Sarah Josephine “Josie” Keith. Her father, Henry Snell Keith, was a respected farmer and local Republican politician. He, like many others in the area, was a shoemaker for the shoe factory of Elisha Holbrook of Holbrook, part of the Abington area factories.61 The area provided nearly half of the footwear provided to the Union Army during the Civil War. That is a lot of shoes and boots.62

It is apparent from all the sporting goods manufacturing activity that occurred around Boston, with superior equipment including baseballs, that there was an inter-relationship between the mills of Lowell (e.g. carpet, textile), the manufacture of leather shoes, and other industrially produced items (e.g. a tack factory was the original catalyst that consolidated footwear around Abingdon; Howland of Wright, Howland & Mahn manufactured cleats). These skills led to pre-eminent stitching designs for the “Mahn” baseball, the first catcher’s masks, tennis rackets, baseball gloves and other sporting goods.

In Peter Levine’s book about Spalding, he notes that in young Spalding’s personal scrapbook—before Wright had approached him about joining the Red Stockings—an article that included a notice that Wright and his brother had opened “a store in New York for the sale of bats, balls, bases and all the paraphernalia needed for outdoor games.”63 It hints that lost love was not the only motive for joining the Wright brothers in Boston. Spalding was planning ahead.

In 1876 Spalding, with his eye obviously on developing sporting equipment and his future empire, bought the patent for the Mahn ball from Mahn.64 The company Spalding created eventually bought up all his baseball rivals—Wright & Ditson, Peck & Snyder in New York City, and Al Reach’s company in Philadelphia. Boston connections taught Spalding how to be a successful capitalist in multiple ways.

William Hulbert offered Spalding $2,000 and promise of 25% of the gate receipts for the coming season to join the Chicago White Stockings of the newly created National League. For Spalding, money trumped love. Sort of. His former Rockford sweetheart had also been married to another. When Josie Spalding died in 1899, Spalding soon married his first Rockford love, Elizabeth Churchill (Mayer). They had actually been secret lovers for years. Elizabeth was involved in a cult of sorts, which led to their building a home at Point Loma in San Diego on the compound. There Spalding became involved in California politics as he had been in Chicago, which included a failed attempt to become United States Senator. Spalding clearly was a man of multiple loves: women, baseball, politics, and, greatest of all, money.65

When one understands the business and political connections of the Boston ownership group, the travel that came with playing for Harry Wright, the sporting goods business opportunities presented, the personal lives of key players, the satisfaction of being recognized as baseball’s best team, and the struggles of competing cities during the National Association era it is easier to understand why the star players were reluctant to leave the greatest power in the baseball world.

MARK SOUDER is from Fort Wayne, Indiana which he represented in the United States Congress for 16 years. Now mostly retired, in addition to doing political commentary in Indiana media, he has been working on a multi-year project on the history of baseball & politics. SABR’s 2015 The National Pastime published his article “Why did Wrigley, Lasker, and the Chicago Cubs Join a Presidential Campaign?” In 2015 at SABR’s 19th Century Conference in Cooperstown (the FRED) he presented “The French Connection: Government Baseball in Washington” and in 2016 was chosen to present “Baseball, Tammany Hall, and the Battle of Bull Run.” His interest in the interaction between baseball & politics was stimulated by comments during his participation as a lead questioner in Congressional Steroid Hearings. His version of a perfect day was spending his 50th birthday in the Chicago White Sox co-owner’s suite and having his name appear on the scoreboard, all while raising money for his campaign and watching baseball.

 

Notes

1 Donald L. Miller. City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 160.

2 Stephen Puleo, A City So Grand: The Rise of the Metropolis, Boston 1850-1900 (New York: Beacon Press, 2010), 174-175.

3 Thomas Kessner, Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America’s Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 159-160.

4 John F. Stover, History of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1984).

5 James H. Bready, Baseball in Baltimore: The First Hundred Years (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1998), 18.

6 Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 1993), Chapter 2: Ring Rule, 17-45; Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin, Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010).

7 Christopher Devine, Harry Wright: The Father of Professional Base Ball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2003), 85-86.

8 “Principal Annexations of Territory,” City of Boston website, at http://www.cityofboston.gov/archivesandrecords/facts/annexations.asp

9 Puleo, A City So Grand, 98.

10 “National Peace Jubilee 1869; http://www.celebrateboston.com/events/national-peace-jubilee.htm

11 “Peace Jubilee Coliseum,” goodoldboston.blogspot.com/2011/07/peace-jubilee-coliseum.html; Puleo, A City So Grand, 168.

12 Tom Lee, “Gilmore, Patrick S.: America’s First Superstar!” Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area; http://www.irish-society.org/home/hedgemaster-archives-2/people/gilmore-patrick-s; Michael Quinlin, Irish Boston (Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press, 2004), 73-76.

13 James Morgan, Charles H. Taylor, Builder of the Boston Globe (Boston: published by the Boston Globe on the Fiftieth Anniversary of his leadership, 1923), 59.

14 Anthony M. Sammaro, The Baker Chocolate Company (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2009).

15 Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, History of the National Peace Jubilee and Great Music Festival, Held in the City of Boston, June 1869; (published by the author Gilmore and distributed by Lee and Shepard; Boston and New York); 206-207; “Descendants of Solomon Peirce 46. Oliver Ditson” (includes information on Haynes); Solomon Peirce Family Genealogy compiled and arranged by Marietta Peirce Bailey, (Press of George H. Ellis Co., Boston; 1912), 25; Burditt & North as Boston Symphony Managers, for example, appeared in an ad for a Symphony appearance in The Washington Critic on March 21, 1890.

16 Susie J. Pak, Gentlemen Bankers: The World of J. P. Morgan (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013), 99.

17 Alan D. Morrison and William J. Wilhelm Jr., Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

18 Charlie Bevis, “Ivers Adams,” SABR BioProject.

19 “Advertisement for carpeting and upholstery, John H. Pray, Sons & Co., 646-658 Washington St., Boston, Mass., undated,” www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections

20 “Chat Concerning Carpets” Carpet Trade Review, June 1877: 84.

21 “A Century of Carpet and Rug Marking in America” by the Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Company; Livermore & Knight Co., 48.

22 “Canal Place One: Building History,” http://www.canalplaceone.com/history.html

23 “John Murray Forbes,” uudb.org/articles/johnforbes.html

24 Tulsa Brian, “Were John Kerry’s Ancestors Drug Runners?”; www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1242224/posts

25 James B. Jackson; “The Hall of Famer;” www.slate.com/article/sports/sports_nut/2013/07

26 “About-Home Matters: Base Ball,” Boston Post, December 3, 1874.

27 Brian McKenna, “Arthur Soden,” SABR BioProject.

28 The Boston Almanac and Business Directory (Boston: Sampson, Davenport and Company, 1875), 75.

29 Clarence D. Long, Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1960), 41.

30 “City Registrar Dead, N. A. Apollonio Passes Away in His Roxbury Home, Was Elected to His Responsible Office in the Year 1854” Boston Globe; October 30, 1891: 13.

31 http://www.catholic.com/tracts/seventh-day-adventism

32 “City Registrar Dead,” Boston Globe.

33 John R. Mulkern, The Know-Nothing Party in Massachusetts (Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern University Press, 1990), 201 footnote 3.

34 http://www.sec.state.ma.us/mus/exhibits/guest/Irish_Immigration_and_the_Know-Nothings.pdf

35 Devon Proudfoot, From Border Ruffian to Abolitionist Martyr: William Lloyd Garrison’s Changing Ideologies on John Brown and Antislavery (Bowling Green, Ohio; Bowling Green State University, 2013), 10.

36 “Heralds of Freedom,” The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts) November 14, 1856: 3.

37 “Portrait of John A. Andrew, Esq.,” The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts); September 28, 1860: 3. Lithographs were particularly important prior to advanced photography including in political campaigns. They were framed in people’s homes and offices, as well as widely promoted in newspaper advertising and/or supplements to articles.

38 Bryan S. Bush, Louisville’s Southern Exposition, 1883-1887: The City of Progress (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2011), 57.

39 “Board of Aldermen…The City Registrar’s Office-Reported Irregularities-Election of Mr. Apollonio-Orders Passed, Etc., Etc.,” Boston Post, March 14, 1876: 3.

40 “Base Ball: Convention of Managers in Cleveland,” Louisville Courier-Journal, December 14, 1876.

41 Charles P. Kindleberger, “The Formation of Financial Centers: A Study in Comparative Economic History,” Princeton Studies in International Finance No. 36, 17.

42 Neil McKendrick, Business Life and Public Policy: Essays in Honour of D.C. Coleman, Edition 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 144.

43 William J. Ryczek, Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association 1871-1875 (Wallingford, Connecticut: Colebrook Press, 1992), from the New York Clipper, January 3, 1874, 136.

44 United States Insurance Gazette & Magazine; Vol. 36; November 1, 1872 to May 1, 1873: 470.

45 William Richard Cutter, A.M., Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts Volume IV (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1908).

46 Devine, Harry Wright: Father of Professional Baseball, 104-105.

47 Ryczek, 115.

48 M. Mark Stolarik, editor, Forgotten Doors: The Other Ports of Entry to the United States (Philadelphia: Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, 1988), 41.

49 William H. Flayhart, The American Line (1871-1902) (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), 53.

50 Royal Insurance of Liverpool insurance contract for merchandise with Evans & Kennedy of Philadelphia, November 3, 1874.

51 “Hayhurst & Evans, Wholesale Dealers in Foreign and Domestic Produce at No. 30 North Wharf; E. Hicks Hayhurst and Morris J. Evans” period advertising trading card (undated); Biddle & Durbin, Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto, 403.

52 http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/everyones-still-chasing-the-yankees-and-red-sox-on-facebook-and-twitter/

53 caughtoffside.com/2014/07/19/top-ten-most-supported-football-teams-in-Europe/5/

54 “Peck and Snyder: The Company” by Rich Mueller; February 17, 2010; a re-post of an article by Jerry Houseman; www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/peck-and-snyder-the-company

55 Devine; Harry Wright: The Father of Professional Baseball, 101.

56 David L. Fleitz, More Ghosts in the Gallery: Another Sixteen Little-Known Greats at Cooperstown (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland; 2007), 11-12.

57 Kehew-Wright House: Boston Landmarks Commission Study Report, Petition #246.12; City of Boston.

58 www.sheaff-ephemera.com/list/odds_ends_album/wright_howland_mahn.html; Wright, Howland & Mahn Christmas advertising trade card with listing sporting goods for sale on the back; owned by the author

59 Jamaica Plain Historical Society; www.jphs.org/victorian/baseball-in-jamaica-plain.html; Mike Roer, Orator Jim O’Rourke (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2005), 34.

60 “Al Spalding’s Romance,” Boston Post, December 15, 1901.

61 “Henry Snell Keith,” Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts, Vol. I (J. H. Beers & Co.), 269.

62 “Abington/North Abington” from the Atlas of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1879; www.mapsoantiquity.com/store

63 Peter Levine, A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 10.

64 www.jphs.org/victorian/baseball-in-jamaica-plain.html

65 Levine, Chapter 7: Retirement to California: Theosophy and the United States Senate, 123-142.