Articles.2026-TNP – Society for American Baseball Research

Editor’s Note: The National Pastime 2026

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:54:56 +0000

If you want to write about baseball history, there are far worse wells from which to draw than Cleveland.

The city’s first professional baseball team, the Forest Citys, started in 1869. The city is best known for the team now called the Guardians, a charter member of the American League in 1901, but over the years, it’s also been home to teams in the National League (the Spiders), the Players’ League (the Infants), the minor-league Federal League (the Green Sox) and the Negro Leagues (many teams, but most notably the Buckeyes). It’s even been home to a vibrant local amateur baseball scene, with record-setting crowds and notable semi-pro teams earning it the nickname of the Sandlot Capital of the World.

This year’s edition of The National Pastime talks about some of those amateur teams and one of its most notable venues, Brookside Park, as well as the American League’s prehistory and early years and the current Cleveland major league team, from its early days as the Blues to its time as the Indians to today’s Guardians.

But we wanted to go farther than that for this year’s edition. That’s why this year’s theme is “Baseball on Lake Erie.” The history of the Great Lakes is intertwined with the history of baseball—in no small part because the Great Lakes gave rise to many of the nation’s great midwestern cities. The game has been played in Toledo and western New York dating back to the nineteenth century, and one of the pieces in this year’s edition talks about the roots of baseball in Ontario, which could go back almost as far as the origin of the game itself.

At one point or another, many of baseball’s all-time greats—and all-time great characters—played baseball in Cleveland and around Lake Erie. Before Randy Johnson started the first game at Jacobs (now Progressive) Field, he was a minor leaguer in Western New York. Indians Hank Helf and Frankie Pytlak set world records—by catching balls dropped from the Terminal Tower! Bob Feller became an institution in Cleveland—and took his show on the road during and after his playing days. Luke Easter was an outsized character in Western New York who met a tragic end just outside of Cleveland, while Roger Maris remains one of the great what-ifs in Cleveland baseball history. All are parts of stories in this edition.

So, on behalf of editor Liz Roscher, publications director Cecilia Tan, and myself, I’d like to welcome you to this edition of The National Pastime. I hope you learn as much as we did compiling it, and I hope it’s an enjoyable read.

— Vince Guerrieri
July 2026

Read online: Articles from The National Pastime 2026 can also be read online at SABR.org.
Download the e-book: Click here to download a free e-book edition of The National Pastime 2026.
Buy the magazine: Purchase the print edition of The National Pastime 2026 from Amazon.com.

The 1881 Cleveland Blues and a Trio of Canadian Baseball Pioneers

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:53:56 +0000

Edward “The Only” Nolan was beloved by his fans, especially children, who copied his mannerisms and his way of walking. (Wikimedia Commons)

Cleveland and Canada have long been kindred spirits. Immediately south of the Canadian border running through the middle of Lake Erie, Cleveland shares a frigid winter climate and torrents of lake effect snow with its Southern Ontario neighbors. The hard, industrious nature of its populace is born of the same conditions that ossified a similar Canadian steadfastness.

Blistering cold and hardscrabble tenacity aren’t Canada’s only shared traits with Cleveland. Canada’s influence extends to Cleveland’s ball diamonds as well. Over its 125-year existence, the franchise now called the Guardians has employed 26 Canadian players, while the long-defunct Cleveland Blues and Cleveland Spiders claimed four and two Canucks respectively. Relative to the 30 other current franchises, the Guardians have rostered the sixth-most Canadians all-time, only five fewer than the most maple-infused club, the Phillies. From Jack Graney to John Axford, Ron Taylor to Cal Quantrill, and including the current trio of Bo Naylor, Cade Smith, and Erik Sabrowski, Canadians have suited up for the team now called the Guardians for over a century.

But I would like to wind the clock all the way back to the short-lived Cleveland Blues of the then-nascent National League. Only in existence from 1879 to 1884, the struggling Blues rarely finished in the top half of the league, finishing as high as third place only once, in 1880. In 1881, the Blues wrapped their season second from the bottom, with a team that included three Canadians. First baseman Bill Phillips, third baseman Pop Smith, and pitcher Edward “The Only” Nolan teamed up as the first trio of Canadians on the same major league roster.1 These three men had an immense impact on Cleveland’s baseball history, and, more broadly, on the development of baseball in Canada. So let’s take a look at each of these players, how they got to Cleveland, what they did together in 1881, and where they went afterwards.

For many years, the New Brunswick-born Bill Phillips was regarded as the first Canadian to break into the major leagues.2 However, Peter Morris’s research within the last twenty years has revealed Bob Addy’s Port Hope, Ontario, origins, which have readjusted our historical understanding and marks Addy as Canada’s first major leaguer.3 Further research by Morris, as detailed in a piece by John Thorn in 2015, revealed Edward “The Only” Nolan’s birthplace to be Trenton, Ontario, in 1857.4 Nolan was a member of the Indianapolis Blues for their sole year in the National League in 1878, making him the second-ever Canadian to play major league baseball, pushing Phillips to the bronze position.

Though more is being learned about Nolan, his life is still shrouded in mystery. What we do know about the man may mark him as one of baseball’s most colorful characters. Though his major league career was short, he managed to get himself suspended or blacklisted multiple times, once for missing a train after a boondoggle to New York City with teammates, once for fabricating an ill sibling needing assistance as an excuse to leave his team to visit a prostitute, once again for using a phony funeral as an excuse to go drinking, and finally for his involvement with gamblers.5 Regardless of his misdeeds, he was beloved by fellow players and fans alike. According to letters from his daughter to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, young fans copied his mannerisms, including his way of walking, as well as his personal fashion stylings.6

As a pitcher, he could be a marvel. Known for a fastball more rapid than those of his contemporaries, Nolan was also an early master of the curveball.7 He may well have been the first pitcher to deliver what was known at the time as the “curve drop.”8 In 1877, Nolan turned in what could be considered the greatest pitching season of all time, albeit with Indianapolis in the League Alliance.9 He ended that campaign with a record of 64-4-8 and an ERA of 0.50, while delivering his team an absurd 30 shutouts (including two in one day, one a no-hitter). For good measure, in 33 games where he didn’t pitch, he played right field.10

The following season, Indianapolis was added to the National League and Nolan got to pitch to major league batters. He worked the bulk of the team’s innings and posted a 13-22 record with a 2.57 ERA. Era-adjusted, that translates to a subpar 80 ERA +. He also led the league in walks with 56, at a time when a walk required nine balls. The Indianapolis team was disbanded following the season and Nolan moved west to San Francisco to pitch for a number of non-major league clubs over the next two seasons.11

In 1881, Nolan made his way back to the majors, this time with the Cleveland Blues, then in their third year in the National League. Nolan had an 8-14 record and a 3.05 ERA. Better than his 1878 National League stint, this ERA still translates to a sub-par 86 ERA + . Perhaps for the first time in his professional career, Nolan did not amass the majority of his teams’ innings. That distinction went to his old friend from adolescence, Jim McCormick. At the end of the season, Nolan, along with nine other players, was blacklisted from the league for “confirmed dissipation and general insubordination.”12

He managed to get back to the majors in 1883 with Allegheny of the American Association, then Wilmington, which joined the Union Association towards the end of 1884, and finally with Philadelphia of the National League in 1885. He was not the primary hurler for any of these teams, and through his final three big league seasons, he went a cumulative 2-16 with a 3.87 ERA.

Nolan’s statistics, as displayed on Baseball Reference, leave the baseball fan wanting. But they may belie his status as one of his era’s most respected pitchers. He had a blazing fastball and a beguiling curveball like few of his contemporaries, and he left batters scratching their heads across 11 seasons and multiple leagues. Perhaps his career numbers were hurt by his mercurial nature, his general lack of respect for the authorities of either league or club, and a renegade spirit that meant he answered to no one, and likely only pitched for himself.

Bill Phillips’s large stature made him the perfect target at first base, and he led the league in double plays from 1880-82. (Wikimedia Commons)

The third Canadian to play major league baseball, Bill Phillips, was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1857. Like so many Maritimes-born ballplayers of that generation, his family participated in a widespread migration away from the region.13 When he was a teenager, Phillips’ family moved to Chicago. Baseball had caught on in a big way in eastern Canada, so it’s quite likely that Phillips was already proficient at the game by the time his family landed in the Windy City.14

As a 20-year-old first baseman and occasional catcher, Phillips began his professional career with a handful of independent teams, including the 1878 Forest City club in Cleveland. He led that team in batting average, then made the jump to the majors when Cleveland was granted a National League franchise. Phillips’ first major league hit came off future Hall of Famer John Montgomery Ward. He remained with the Blues for six seasons, serving as their everyday first baseman, though he did play catcher in 12 games, and outfield for two.

Known mostly for his slick fielding, Phillips’ large stature made him an ideal target at first base. As such, he led the league in double plays from 1880-82. It didn’t hurt that he was a member of Cleveland’s famed “Stonewall Infield,” with Fred Dunlap and Jack Glasscock. This group was widely regarded as the finest defensive infield of the early 1880s.15

Phillips’ rare catching duties nearly created a tantalizing first for the game. When Nolan joined the Blues for the 1881 season, the possibility arose of seeing the game’s first-ever all-Canadian battery, should Phillips see any time behind the plate while Nolan toed the slab.16 Unfortunately, Phillips only played first base that year, so the game would have to wait a little longer for the great Canadian battery to arrive.17 Regardless of the missed opportunity, Phillips, in his third year in Cleveland, paced the 1881 Blues club in games played and triples, while slashing .272/.282/.387, good for a 112 OPS + . Over his six seasons with the Blues, Phillips tallied 590 hits, accrued a .264 batting average, and a 108 OPS + .

Phillips carried the load for Cleveland the best he could, but the club’s dismal performance in 1884 precipitated untenable attendance numbers leading to the collapse of the franchise. The Blues’ manager, Charlie Hackett took over Brooklyn in the American Association after Brooklyn bought the Cleveland team, and Phillips was one of the Cleveland players brought over to Brooklyn after the sale.18 Phillips enjoyed three good years in Brooklyn before being replaced. At just 31 years old in 1888, he played his final major league season with Kansas City. He was still adept in the field, but his bat fell off dramatically, likely the result of the syphilis that would kill him just 12 years later.19

Over his ten-year career, Phillips proved to be one of the game’s most adept fielders, and, while with Cleveland, an anchor of the best infields in baseball. He provided enough offense to remain productive for several lousy teams. He ended his major league tenure with a 109 OPS + , and bears the distinction of being the first Canadian to amass 1,000 career hits, beating fellow Canuck George Wood to that mark by one season.20 Tall, burly, and mustachioed, Phillips cut quite the figure for his era and played first base with the grace and confidence that made him stand out among his peers. Had he not been slowed by a fatal illness in his early 30s, it’s hard not to think about how much more Phillips could have accomplished in the game and what more he could have done for Canada’s burgeoning baseball reputation.

Charles Marvin “Pop” Smith, who completed professional baseball’s first all-Canadian trio with Cleveland in 1881, was a utilityman and largely a nomad of the game. (Wikimedia Commons)

Pop Smith was an outstanding proto-utilityman. Mainly a second baseman, he also played over 300 games at shortstop, 52 at third base, and 14 in the outfield, all for 10 different clubs over 12 seasons. Like so many utilitymen throughout major league history, he was a glove-first player. But what a glove it was. Regarded as one of the game’s best second basemen, his defense covered for his lackluster offense to keep him employed in professional baseball for 22 seasons.21

Charles Marvin “Pop” Smith was born in Digby, Nova Scotia, in 1856, and like Phillips, his family moved to the United States when Smith was still young. He started his professional career as a 19-year-old, playing for a handful of teams in various independent leagues the next four years. In 1880, at 23, Smith got his first taste of big league ball with the short-lived Cincinnati Stars of the National League. The Stars were disbanded after the NL expelled them for the 1881 season, and Smith found himself moving between three different clubs that year. He played for Cleveland starting in late May, played for Buffalo in late June/early July, and finished with Worcester starting in late August.

Smith’s arrival in Cleveland completed professional baseball’s first-ever Canadian trio. Blink and you’ll miss it, as the trio were together for just a brief time in the early summer of 1881. Smith’s abbreviated tenure with the Blues was underwhelming at best. Second base may have been his main position, but he would not be supplanting Cleveland’s best batter and primary keystoner, Fred Dunlap. As a result, Smith’s 10 games all came at the hot corner. Clearly more adept at second, Smith struggled defensively at third, posting a subpar .838 fielding percentage on 37 chances. At bat, Smith’s time in Cleveland was the strongest showing of his three stops that season, but that is saying very little indeed. He slashed .118/.118/.118 over 34 at-bats—just four hits, and none of them for extra bases. Smith’s time with the Blues may have been forgettable from a performance standpoint, but we can appreciate it more thoroughly as the first time in professional baseball that three Canadians played together for the same team.

From 1882 until his final major league appearance in 1891, Smith would take his steady glove and versatility to six different teams. Though he underperformed in 1882 with Philadelphia and Louisville, he had some very fine years with Columbus and Pittsburgh, both of which he played with for multiple years. He appeared briefly for Boston and Washington, before leaving the majors behind him and playing seven more seasons split between the minors and various independent leagues.

Smith’s best seasons came between 1883 and 1886, when he played every day, primarily at second base or shortstop. His more nomadic phase, both positionally and between clubs, were the years before 1883, and that lack of consistency shows up in his underwhelming numbers. But such is the fate of the utilityman. Despite a bat that couldn’t pass muster against major league pitching, he showed enough ability with his glove at multiple positions to keep himself employed for twelve years at the highest level of competition—his was a longer tenure in the bigs than either Phillips or Nolan. At the end of his major league career, it was written of Smith that “he knows every point of the game, is thoroughly familiar with the tricks of the business (and) is quick to take advantage of every play that will help his side win.”22

The 1881 season was just the sixth for the nascent National League. The Cleveland Blues joined the league for its fourth season in 1879. In a league to that point dominated by Chicago, Providence, and Boston, the Blues finished their inaugural season in sixth place out of eight clubs, with a dismal 27-55 record. The following year, the Blues improved greatly as they wrapped the 1880 campaign in third place with a 47-37 record. Their seventh-place finish in 1881 is all the more surprising given they competed with a very similar roster to the previous season. Notably, their Stonewall infield returned intact, along with their box stalwart and strongest player, Jim McCormick. But the 1881 squad stumbled and staggered to a lackadaisical finish second-from-the-bottom in the league. The high point of their season was three days in third place in early and mid-June. Otherwise, it was a trudge to the end of September.

The team may not have benefited in the standings from the historic union of Canadians Nolan, Phillips, and Smith, but each man brought a unique style of play to the diamond: Nolan, a fastball whiz and trailblazing curveball specialist, Phillips, a large first baseman with good hands and membership in the 1,000-hit club, and Smith, an ur-utilityman who rode his glove through twelve years of big league service. Each man’s marvelous baseball story penned chapters in Cleveland, including a convergence in 1881. That each man’s tale began in Canada is no small historical anomaly; rather, it is an important milestone for the development of baseball in Canada. It serves as a reminder that Canadians have played a part in major league baseball for over 140 years, and that baseball has lived and thrived in Canada from the earliest days of the sport’s existence. And as the following century and change has shown, baseball in Cleveland is all the stronger and richer for the Canadian ballplayers who have made their way to the Forest City.

MACKENZIE LONGPRÉ is a professional musician from Toronto, Ontario. He spends most of his time touring, performing, and recording, but dedicates every second of spare time to reading, researching, and writing about baseball history. The game and its immense history are Mackenzie’s primary passions. He has been a SABR member since 2024 and has presented his work at the 2025 Canadian Baseball History Conference. Along with several other research and writing endeavors, Mackenzie maintains a Substack for which he writes long-form essays about long-forgotten or overlooked former Toronto Blue Jays (vukesbikerstache.substack.com).

Notes

1. George Wood and Arthur Irwin made up the first Canadian duo in the major leagues just one year earlier as members of the 1880 Worcester Ruby Legs.

2. Jim Shearon, Canada’s Baseball Legends (Malin Head Press, 1994), 3.

3. Peter Morris, “Bob Addy,” SABR BioProject, accessed July 1, 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-addy/.

4. John Thorn, “The Only Nolan,” Our Game, May 18, 2015, accessed July 1, 2026, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-only-nolan-bc7474dae960.

5. Alex Remington, “Today in 1857, The Only Nolan Was Born,” FanGraphs, November 7, 2013, accessed July 1, 2026, https://blogs.fangraphs.com/today-in-1857-the-only-nolan-was-born/.

6. Frederick Ivor-Campbell, Mark Rucker, and Robert L. Tiemann, eds., Baseball’s First Stars (Society for American Baseball Research, 1996), 121.

7. Bill James and Rob Neyer, The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (Fireside, 2004), 326.

8. Tim Murnane, “The Pitcher’s Art,” Boston Globe, June 25, 1887.

9. The League Alliance consisted of teams affiliated with the National League. It comprised 13 clubs in 1877 and Indianapolis, along with a handful of other Alliance teams, were considered by many to be on par with the six National League squads that season.

10. Thorn, “The Only Nolan.”

11. Thorn, “The Only Nolan.”

12. Thorn, “The Only Nolan.”

13. Colin D. Howell, Northern Sandlots: A Social History of Maritime Baseball (University of Toronto Press, 1995), 128.

14. William Akin, “Bill Phillips,” SABR BioProject, accessed March 14, 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bill-phillips/.

15. Ivor-Campbell et al., Baseball’s First Stars, 127.

16. David Matchett, “Early Batteries in the Great White North,” Our Game, Too: Influential Figures and Milestones in Canadian Baseball, Andrew North, ed. (Society for American Baseball Research, 2022), 133.

17. Though he wouldn’t form a part of an all-Canadian battery, Phillips did indeed bat against the game’s first. As revealed by David Matchett’s research in Our Game, Too, Canadians Tip O’Neill and John Humphries of the New Yorks teamed up as pitcher and catcher respectively in 1883. Phillips faced them as a batter in their second game together.

18. Akin, “Bill Phillips.”

19. Akin, “Bill Phillips.”

20. Phillips currently occupies the twelfth position on the all-time Canadian hits list, though Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sits just 53 hits behind Phillips heading into the 2026 season.

21. William Akin, “Pop Smith,” SABR BioProject, accessed March 14, 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/pop-smith/.

22. Akin, “Pop Smith.”

Sport McAllister Starts at all Nine Positions in 1899

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:52:56 +0000

Sport McAllister, top left, continued being a super-utilityman after the 1899 season, playing eight positions for the 1900 minor league Detroit Tigers, and six for the 1901 major league Detroit Tigers. (Wikimedia Commons)

In 2017, in a late season “stunt” with his team—the Detroit Tigers, going nowhere—Andrew Romine played all nine positions in a game. Romine became the fifth player to achieve this feat, joining Bert Campaneris (1965), Cesar Tovar (1968), Scott Sheldon (2000), and Shane Halter (2000).

In addition, several players have played all nine positions during a given season, but only one has had the wherewithal to start all nine positions in a season. Appropriately, his nickname was “Sport,” and in fact, to show his complete versatility, he even umpired a game and was a ticket taker!

LEWIS WILLIAM “SPORT” MCALLISTER

Born: July 23, 1874 in Austin, Mississippi
Died: July 17, 1962 in Wyandotte, Michigan (Aged 87 years, 359 days)1

BACKGROUND

Sport McAllister was in his fourth season in 1899, all with Cleveland. It was to be the first in which he played in more than 43 games. Right before the 1899 season (March 28), the Robison brothers, who owned both the St. Louis and Cleveland teams, transferred most of the best Cleveland players to St. Louis, in hopes of bolstering St. Louis’s chances in the 12-team National League. Cleveland had not supported their team well; in fact they had only attracted a little over 70,0 cranks the previous year, last in the league. Unfortunately for Sport, he was not one of those who was transferred, giving him the “opportunity” to play for what is arguably the worst team in major league history (20-134).

THE STATS

For the season, McAllister’s line:

Starts by Position (Team W-L in his starts)

THE STARTS

Going into the 1899 campaign, Sport was already known for his versatility, having played at eight positions in 1897, starting at seven (all except second and third base).

On March 30, it was noted that “It is officially announced by [manager] Pat Tebeau that Pitchers McAllister and Wilson will play in Cleveland during the coming season.”2

Before the season began on April 15, McAllister broke his finger during an exhibition game at Indianapolis. He would miss the first 17 games of the season.

Umpire (1)

On April 30, still out with a broken finger, McAllister and Cincinnati’s Frank Dwyer umpired the game “in the absence of regular umpires.”3 The Spiders lost 9-0.

Shortstop (3)

When McAllister finally healed from his broken finger, he was first used at short for three games (May 9, 10, and 11), replacing Harry Lochhead, who was hitting .172 with a fielding average of .912 (next to last in league).4

Despite Lochhead’s poor past performance, he was back at shortstop on May 12 and ended up playing 148 of the team’s 154 games, posting a horrendous 56 OPS + !

Right Field (71)

This was McAllister’s primary position during the season, starting on May 15. Prior to that, the Exiles had mainly employed Suter Sullivan & Louis Sockalexis. Sockalexis played the immediate five games in right field prior to McAllister’s first start, which turned out to be the last five major league games of Sockalexis’ fateful career. By this time, McAllister was considered the team’s utility man.

Left Field (7)

Dick Harley was the primary left fielder for the Spiders, starting 141 games there.

From May 24-26, McAllister started in his place after Harley was spiked in the knee by Washington’s Dick Padden in the first inning on an errant catcher throw during an attempted steal attempt. The injury turned out to be not as bad as first anticipated and Harley was back for the May 29 game.

Subsequently, McAllister started in place of Harley in left field on June 1 (swapping positions with Harley), August 22 and 23, and September 12 (second game).

Third Base (6)

On June 5, with utilityman Lave Cross (.286) and starting pitcher Willie Sudhoff (3 wins) playing too well for the Wanderers, the Robisons transferred the two to St. Louis. As a result, McAllister was called upon to take over third base, which lasted for the next three games. Jack Stivetts played one game at third on June 9, and then Suter Sullivan took over third base for the greater part of the rest of the season.

Sport was called upon to assume the hot corner on three more occasions. The first one was part of a three-team doubleheader in St. Louis on July 9—the Perfectos played Louisville in game 1 and their “sister” club, Cleveland, in the second game. Louisville, ironically, ended its season much like Cleveland: on the road. Its home park, Eclipse Park (III), burned to the ground on September 2, causing the Colonels to play their last 36 games on the road. Cleveland, due to extremely poor attendance, played its last 36 games on the road starting August 31.

On August 16, McAllister was playing right field when Sullivan was injured in the sixth inning. Sport moved from right field to third base with Charlie Hemphill taking Sport’s previous spot in right field. Sullivan was back in action on August 19, but McAllister did not resume his position in right field as Hemphill took over the spot for the remainder of the season. In fact, he was used more sparingly, playing only 28 of the 48 remaining games after playing 85 of the previous 89.

Catcher (16)

McAllister’s first start at catcher was on August 9, sitting behind home plate instead of Joe Sugden.

Once McAllister lost his right field spot to Hemphill, he began platooning with Sugden, catching in games on August 19, 20, 24, and 26.

Jim Duncan joined the squad on August 28 and it became a three-way platoon with Sugden and McAllister, with Sport having 11 more starts in September and October.

Pinch Hitter (2)

On August 28, McAllister pinch hit for Jim Hughey in the ninth inning of a 6-4 home game loss against Boston. His at-bat resulted in an out. And on October 14, he again pinch-hit for Hughey in the ninth inning of a 12-4 loss to Cincinnati, again producing an out.

First Base (4)

On August 29, McAllister started both games of a doubleheader versus Boston in place of regular first baseman Tommy Tucker as well as the single game on the 30th. Harry Colliflower (better known for his 1-11, 8.17 record that season) played the 31st and Tucker returned to his post on September 1.

McAllister played one more game at first base on October 7 versus Pittsburgh. He moved to catcher late in the game, replacing Duncan, with Colliflower taking over first base. Tucker had been released on September 16 and the Spiders were using primarily Duncan with Colliflower and Sullivan helping out.

Second Base (1)

On August 31, Sport took the place of player-manager Joe Quinn at second base. It is not clear why Quinn did not play, but he was run into by umpire (and former Spider) Chippy McGarr in the previous game while trying to field a ground ball in the third inning. Quinn was back the next game.

Center Field (1)

On September 4, in the first game of doubleheader at Cincinnati, Sport started in place of regular Tommy Dowd. The previous game, Harry Colliflower had started in center field and in game two of the doubleheader, pitcher Crazy Schmitt patrolled the center garden. (It was that type of season!) Dowd was back in center field two days later. He also came in as a fourth-inning replacement for Colliflower in the on September 15—the “vegetable” taking the mound in place of Schmitt.

Pitcher (1)

The last day of the Spiders’ long, long season—October 15, 1899—was a doubleheader at Cincinnati. McAllister got the nod in the first game and a cigar stand clerk named Eddie Kolb was scooped off the street (almost literally) to pitch the second and final game of the season. It makes you wonder if player-manager Joe Quinn came to him before the game and said “Hey Sport, you’ve played everywhere else this miserable season, you want to take a hand at pitching today?” For McAllister’s part, he gave up 17 hits, walking 5, and striking out 1 in a 16-1 shellacking. Kolb was even worse, losing 19-3 to end the Wanderers’ misery.

Ticket Taker(?)!

According to McAllister’s SABR BioProject entry: “Because of his business background, Cleveland’s management utilized Sport as a ticket taker at League Park during the season.”5

Additionally, while McAllister started in eight of the nine batting positions, he never started batting third!

Following his 1899 Exiles experience, McAllister continued his versatility for a couple more seasons, playing eight positions (except first base) for the 1900 minor league Detroit Tigers, then starting at six positions for now major league Detroit in 1901. Then he played seven positions for Detroit/Baltimore in 1902 (he was “loaned” to Baltimore for 3 games.) Interestingly, his “primary” position shifted from right field to catcher/second base in 1900, catcher/first base in 1901, and then first base in 1902.

Sport McAllister was known as versatile player during his career, and as a result he was used and started all over the diamond, and during one historically infamous season, he did something that no one has done before or since: start all nine positions during the season.

JONATHAN FRANKEL has been an on-and-off SABR member since 1979. He has researched extensively to fill the gap of the missing late nineteenth/early twentieth century batter strikeouts in the record. In addition, he has contributed articles to prior SABR publications—BRJ (2007) and TNP (2013) as well as recently collaborating with Herm Krabbenhoft on a series of “turn of the century” strikeout research articles for various SABR newsletters. He is a recently retired Process Improvement Consultant and currently resides outside of Detroit.

Author’s Note

The 1899 season, especially the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, is what got me seriously into baseball research, starting with documenting all of the 1899 lineups and leading to my obsession with researching and documenting the missing batter strikeouts of this era. (See blog post: http://batterk.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-this-all-got-started.html.)

Sources

Baseball Reference

Cleveland Leader

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Jonathan Frankel 1899 Lineup MS Access Database

Notes

1. Sport McAllister,” Baseball Reference, accessed July 5, 2026, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcallsp01.shtml.

2. “Things That Won’t Happen,” Cleveland Leader, March 31, 1899, 6, newspapers.com.

3. “Dropped Another,” Cleveland Leader, May 1, 1899, 6, newspapers.com.

4. “Public Unmoved,” Cleveland Leader, May 8, 1899, 6, newspapers.com

5. Jimmy Keenan, “Sport McAllister,” SABR Bioproject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/sport-mcallister/.

Lost to Lake Erie: Early Canadian Baseball at Colchester’s Sunken Field

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:51:56 +0000

The ruins of old Christ Church in Colchester, Ontario, pictured in this 1921 postcard. According to local memories and historical accounts, the land now lost to erosion once held a baseball diamond and a schoolyard where local children played during the nineteenth century. By the time this photo was taken in July 1921, decades of shoreline erosion, compounded by a violent windstorm in 1913, had already claimed much of the original grounds, leaving the church ruins just feet from the lake’s edge. (Internet Archive)

Stand today at the ruins of old Christ Church in Colchester, Ontario, and you are only feet from the edge of Lake Erie. But in 1821, when the church was completed—its limestone hauled across the winter ice from nearby Pelee Island—the landscape looked very different1. A broad expanse of land stretched between the church graveyard and the high bank above the lake, crossed by a road and shaded by a grove of walnut trees.2 On that open ground sat the churchyard, a natural spot for children to play.3

Over the decades, the lake slowly claimed the land. Surveyors in the late nineteenth century noted that in some spots, the shoreline was receding by up to two feet a year.4 Seeking higher ground, the community opened a new church farther inland in 1876.5 By the early twentieth century, erosion threatened the cemetery itself, and efforts to protect the bank—cement walls, log groynes, and brush piles—proved largely ineffective.6

The situation worsened on March 21, 1913, when a violent windstorm battered Essex County.7 The storm’s fury toppled buildings, uprooted trees, and drove Lake Erie’s waters inland with immense force. When it was over, the bank had receded to within fifteen feet of the old church’s remains.8

Even as the shoreline vanished, memories of the lost land remained. Local tradition held that the property once extended so far into Lake Erie that children played baseball nearly a mile from today’s shoreline. These stories lived on in family memory before eventually being written down. In the early 1970s, for a high school essay, Colchester resident Mary (nee Brush) McKeen recounted her grandmother’s stories about playing ball by the lake, an account later excerpted in a 2018 booklet marking the town’s 225th anniversary.9

In 1821, between the graveyard and the lake bank were three things—a road, a grove of walnut trees and a baseball diamond. People tethered their horses to the trees and watched the boys play baseball all day. I can remember my grandmother saying that she used to play baseball almost a mile out in the lake when she was a child.10

But could baseball, or some other bat-and-ball game, really have been played in Colchester as early as 1821? A tantalizing thought, to be sure. Though it may sound far-fetched at first, accounts of earlier games across what is now southern Ontario suggest it is not entirely out of the question.11 But one thing is certain: if Colchester children played baseball in the early 1820s, McKeen’s grandmother was not among them. Georgeanna Hubbell, McKeen’s paternal grandmother, was born in February 1876, making it impossible for her to have played in the churchyard during the 1820s.12 Hubbell would have played ball there in the late nineteenth century, by which time the shoreline had already begun to recede, but memories of the broader churchyard still lingered.

Such stories of ballplaying on the lost land are common in Colchester, where many families have lived for generations. The Brush family, for example, has been part of the village nearly as long as it has existed. Colchester’s origins date to the mid-1790s, when the government began laying out townships along the north shore of Lake Erie. John Brush, who arrived in Canada around 1799 with a company of United Empire Loyalists, lived in Colchester until his death.13 His brother, Stephen Silas Brush—McKeen’s great-great-great-grandfather—followed from Connecticut in 1806, settling with his wife, Jemima Squire (later Huffman), near present-day Harrow.14, 15 By the time Stephen Brush died in 1808, the couple had seven children.16, 17 His grave is believed to be the cemetery’s oldest.

As the village grew around these early families, it soon became clear that they needed a place to worship. Christ Church was first planned in 1816 under the guidance of Rev. Richard Pollard.18 When it opened in 1821, the church—modeled after its counterpart in nearby Amherstburg—became a focal point for both worship and community life.19,20

We can get a sense of the surroundings from McKeen’s high school essay, which depicts how the area was organized in those early days. Three lots were reserved for the village, extending far south of today’s shoreline.21 Historian Chris Carter notes that the original six-acre parcel stretched south from present-day Sullivan Street all the way to the water’s edge.22 As the Amherstburg Echo recalled in 1913, “The property in those days extended so far out into the lake that old inhabitants yet remember the time they played baseball south of the church, and there was plenty of room to spare.”23

A week later, the Echo returned to the subject, this time drawing on the memories of Philip Ferriss, one of Colchester South’s oldest residents. Born there on June 4, 1824, he was the second of eleven children of Isaac Ferriss and Lucy Wright.24, 25 His father, a Kentucky-born United Empire Loyalist, had come to Upper Canada as a boy and later served as a private during the War of 1812, including at the capture of Detroit.26

Raised near the old church, Philip Ferriss would have known the grounds before decades of erosion reshaped the shoreline. As a boy in the late 1820s and early 1830s, he may even have watched schoolchildren at play in the churchyard. By the time the Echo published his recollections, he was nearing 90 and among the last residents with firsthand memories of the churchyard as it had appeared in the early nineteenth century.

When the old church was built, the property stretched out southward a sufficient distance to permit the first school being built, having an extensive schoolyard on which when the lads played ball, they had no fear of the ball going over the lake to the south, not breaking the windows of the church to the north. Philip Ferriss, who has seen over 90 summers and winters, is about the only one left who remembers attending the school.27

Though they offer fewer specifics, other records support the claim that children once played baseball in the churchyard. Laurie Brett, who wrote the Colchester 225 booklet, found a reference in Harrow and Colchester South: 1792-1992—a local history better known as the “Blue Book” because of the color of its binding—which notes: “The earliest reference to base ball notes that it was played on a field south of Christ Church cemetery before the site eroded into Lake Erie.”28,29 While the exact timeline remains unverified, the community never forgot that the land once served as a ballfield.

Colchester was not alone in its love for the game. By the first decades of the nineteenth century—when the region was officially known as Upper Canada—baseball emerged as a popular pastime across the colony. Historian William Humber has uncovered several references to ballplaying dating to the early 1800s.

One of those early traces of the game’s history comes from an 1803 diary entry by Ely Playter, a resident of York (the colonial precursor to modern-day Toronto), who wrote about “playing ball.”30 That same year, Playter’s brother-in-law, David McGregor Rogers, was playing a similar bat-and-ball game 60 miles away, near present-day Port Hope.31 Over the following decades, brief but telling newspaper references offer a glimpse into a pastime far more prevalent than is otherwise captured in the sparse historical record. As Humber noted recently in the Baseball Origins Newsletter—a publication of SABR’s Origins Committee—these scattered reports point to a game that was already familiar to many in Ontario. For example, a newspaper in the town of Prescott noted in 1845 that young men who had “only played what is called ‘Base Ball’” were now taking up cricket, while an 1848 report from Goderich listed “Bass-Ball” among the day’s common amusements.32 By 1860, a Kingston newspaper noted that before cricket came into vogue, baseball had long been a favorite pastime of Canadian youth, particularly in rural areas.33

Baseball was clearly well known throughout Upper Canada, and in areas closer to Colchester, it began appearing in local newspapers, with pick-up games giving way to public challenges. On November 5, 1859, the Chatham Planet published one such challenge, in which locals invited “any dozen Young Men” to a match at the Chatham North Cricket Ground, with victory decided by runs over three innings.34

This 1859 challenge represented the peak of competition in what was known as the Canadian game, a regional version of baseball that developed in southwestern Ontario. As the New York Clipper reported in the following summer, this version had distinctive rules: the ball was thrown rather than pitched, teams fielded eleven players per side, and an inning did not end until all players were out.35

But perhaps the most well-known example of early Ontario baseball comes from the small town of Beachville. What we know of that 1838 contest comes from Dr. Adam Ford, who wrote about it 48 years later. His letter, published in Sporting Life in May 1886, described a game he witnessed as a 7-year-old in vivid detail.36 There are several excellent accounts of the Beachville game—notably Andrew North’s chapter in SABR’s Our Game, Too, Brian “Chip” Martin’s Baseball’s Creation Myth, and Humber’s Old Ontario at Bat. Rather than another retelling, we will focus on one of the men who stepped onto the Beachville field and explore his ties to Colchester.

That man was “Old Ned” Dolson of the Zorra club from Zorra and North Oxford, remembered for his skill on the field—in an 1886 letter, Ford noted that Dolson could “catch the ball right away from the front of the club.”37 The Dolson family, originally Van Dolzen and later Dolsen, were prominent early settlers with deep roots in the Western District.38 They were Loyalists who had fled Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, to Niagara during the American Revolution, and their first Canadian ancestor eventually settled at Petite Cote, across the river from Detroit, in the region that included the township of Colchester.39

The family established themselves as influential merchants and landowners throughout the Western District. Matthew Dolsen, a son of Van Dolzen, built a successful settlement along the Thames River—known as “Dolsen’s”—complete with a distillery, grist-mill, tavern, and blacksmith shop.40 He was also active in regional security; in 1813, he joined prominent citizens petitioning the government to station troops at Amherstburg to protect the frontier.41 His wife, Hannah Field, served as an unofficial physician.42 Other branches of the family settled in Sandwich and Essex County, while some moved into Kent and Oxford counties.43

“Old Ned” Dolson came from this same network of Western District settlers.44 The Dolsons were connected through marriage and migration to other prominent families in the region, including the Burdicks and Williams, linking them to the very site of the Beachville match, played on a pasture owned by Enoch Burdick.45 As branches of the family spread across Ontario, including areas around Colchester, they left a lasting legacy—Dolson Creek, east of the village, still bears the family name today.

There are other, more tentative connections between the Beachville game and Colchester. Reuben Martin of the Beachville club, for example, shared an admittedly common surname with a prominent Colchester South family whose descendants remained active in local affairs.46 The Williams brothers, Abel and John, traced their Loyalist lineage to settlements in Gosfield and Colchester, where their family home became a hub for Methodist worship.47

Together, these communities and families helped plant the seeds of a baseball tradition that would take root across southwestern Ontario for generations—one that would leave a lasting mark well into the next century and produce remarkable players, including Indigenous athlete Jay Justin Clarke. In July 1902, while playing for the Corsicana Oil Citys of the Texas League, Clarke reportedly hit either seven or eight (or possibly just three) home runs in a game against Texarkana, depending on the account, a reminder of just how much talent could come out of the ballparks of southwestern Ontario.48

While Beachville is best remembered for hosting one of the earliest documented baseball games in Canada, and other communities were already playing baseball across southwestern Ontario, memories from Colchester suggest that the sport may have already been taking root along the shores of Lake Erie, even before anyone thought to record it. The lost field behind Christ Church is a reminder that the sport’s beginnings were never confined to one place, but grew wherever families and neighbors gathered to play.

STEVE RENNIE is an author and former journalist. He regularly gives talks on early baseball history, including at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and his baseball writing has also appeared in the “Journal of Canadian Baseball.” He co-edited and contributed to “From Bytown to the Big Leagues,” which explores the origins of baseball in Canada’s capital. His next book, on baseball during the Klondike Gold Rush and across the North in the nineteenth century, is being published by University of Nebraska Press. He previously reported on politics and national affairs for the Canadian Press, where he won two National Newspaper Awards and was a three-time finalist for the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards. His reporting took him around the world, from covering the war in Afghanistan to a journey through part of the Northwest Passage aboard an icebreaker. He lives in Ottawa with his wife, two children, and cat.

Notes

1. Gregory F. Nolan, “Christ Church Colchester Celebrates 200 Years,” Harrow News, March 8, 2005, 10; “Old Church and Cemetery at Colchester,” Amherstburg Echo, November 14, 1913, 6; Mary Brush, “The Development of the Village of Colchester in the 1800s,” 1.

2. Brush, “The Development of the Village of Colchester in the 1800s,” 2.

3. “Old Church and Cemetery at Colchester.”

4. “Widening its Banks,” Windsor Evening Record, May 27, 1897, 2. According to a report by government surveyor O.J. Klotz, the north shore of Lake Erie west of Port Stanley shifted inland by four to eight rods over a fifty-year period. One rod is a historical surveying unit equal to 16.5 feet, meaning the shoreline retreated by about 66 to 132 feet in total, or roughly 1.32 to 2.64 feet per year.

5. Chris Carter, Tour Colchester: The Way We Were (Upper Canada Press, 2010), 150.

6. “Waves Invade Graves,” Hamilton Spectator, April 10, 1916, 2; “Old Church and Cemetery at Colchester.”

7. Neil F. Morrison, Garden Gateway to Canada: One Hundred Years of Windsor and Essex County, 1854-1954 (Ryerson Press, 1954), 248.

8. “Old Church and Cemetery at Colchester.”

9. Laurie Brett, Colchester 225: 150 Historical Facts (Revised Edition 2018), Town of Essex, 2018, https://www.essex.ca/en/discover/resources/Colchester-225-Revised-Edition-2018-for-WEB.pdf, accessed December 3, 2025. The town of Essex was formed on January 1, 1999, when the towns of Essex and Harrow joined together with the townships of Colchester North and Colchester South. This merger brought the area back to roughly the same boundaries as the original Colchester township in 1792. Confirmation that the original essay was written around 1970 for a Grade 13 history project at Harrow District High School was provided by Mary (Brush) McKeen via email correspondence, February 17, 2026.

10. Brett, Colchester 225, 42; Mary Brush, “The Development of the Village of Colchester in the 1800s,” 2.

11. William Humber, Old Ontario at Bat: Baseball’s Unheralded Ancestry (Centre for Canadian Baseball Research, 2024), vii, 54-55.

12. Mary (Brush) McKeen, email message, February 17, 2026.

13. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, Ontario (Toronto: J.H. Beers & Co., 1905), 49.

14. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, Ontario, 381. This record states that Stephen Brush married Jemima Squire in Connecticut, his family was born there, and he later settled on a Loyalist free grant in the 3rd Concession of Colchester.

15. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, Ontario, 381; No. 2. Colchester & Gosfield, Western District, n.d., map (Ontario Department of Lands & Forests, Surveys Branch, Reel M-308, 796-800), item no. 4132197, Maps, Plans and Charts Collection, Library and Archives Canada, catalogue record, https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=fonandcol&idnumber=4132197; Town of Essex, Ward Map (Essex, ON: Town of Essex), https://www.essex.ca/en/town-hall/resources/Ward_Map.pdf, accessed January 28, 2026.

16. “Stephen Silas Brush,” Find A Grave, memorial no. 271734007, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/271734007/stephen_silas-brush, accessed December 3, 2025.

17. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, Ontario, 381; FamilySearch, “Stephen Silas Brush, 1765-1808,” FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/K2F3-R78, accessed January 27, 2026. These records list the seven Brush children by name: Silas Squire, John Cornwall, Jairus Rood, Benjamin Anson, Nathan Villerse, Amos Curtis, and Stephen Dexter.

18. Gregory F. Nolan, “Christ Church Colchester Celebrates 200 Years,” Harrow News, March 8, 2005, 10; R.M. Fuller, Windsor Heritage (self-published, 1972), 58.

19. “Christ Church Colchester Celebrates 200 Years.”

20. “Christ Church Colchester Celebrates 200 Years.”

21. Brush, “The Development of the Village of Colchester in the 1800s,” 1.

22. Carter, Tour Colchester, 169.

23. “Colchester South,” Amherstburg Echo, November 7, 1913, 5.

24. “Ontario, Canada records,” image 854 of 1369, Archives of Ontario; digital images, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-XC4S-9MV: accessed January 26, 2026), Image Group Number 004170931.

25. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 89; “United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95CJ-1PG?view=index, image 769 of 2809; United States, National Archives and Records Administration, Image Group Number 004867442, accessed January 26, 2026. The latter source lists Isaac Ferriss as a private in the War of 1812. He and Lucy (Wright) Ferriss were the parents of eleven children: Ann (m. Benjamin Knapp); Philip (m. Eleanor Little); Hulda (m. Joseph Snider); Caroline (m. William Buchanan); Sarah (m. John Munger); Lucy (m. Joseph Drummond); Joseph (m. Alma Baldwin); Abner; Ebenezer (m. Margaret Brimmer); Thomas; and Isaac (m. Mary Lonsberry).

26. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, Ontario, 89; “United States, War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812-1815,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5CJ-BF5 : accessed January 26, 2026), Isaac Ferris [Ferriss], image 770 of 2809; citing NARA microfilm publication M602 (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); Image Group Number 004867442.

27. “Old Church and Cemetery at Colchester,” Amherstburg Echo, November 14, 1913, 6.

28. Brett, Colchester 225. The town of Essex was formed on January 1, 1999, when the towns of Essex and Harrow joined together with the townships of Colchester North and Colchester South. This merger brought the area back to roughly the same boundaries as the original Colchester township in 1792. Confirmation that the original essay was written around 1970 for a Grade 13 history project at Harrow District High School was provided by Mary (Brush) McKeen via email correspondence, February 17, 2026.

29. Harrow History Book Committee, Harrow and Colchester South, 1792-1992 (Harrow History Book Committee, 1992), 183.

30. Humber, Old Ontario at Bat, 39-40.

31. Humber, Old Ontario at Bat, 36-38.

32. William Humber, “Baseball, Not Cricket, Was Always Going to Win (Unlike the Blue Jays who came so close in 2025),” SABR Baseball Origins Committee Newsletter, Vol, 6, No. 1 (February 2026): 2-5.

33. Humber, “Baseball, Not Cricket,” 2-5.

34. “Challenge! Base Ball,” Chatham Planet, November 5, 1859, 2.

35. “Base Ball at Ingersoll,” New York Clipper, August 4, 1860, 5; “Base Ball in Canada,” New York Clipper, August 18, 1860, 5. These two articles reference games between the Young Canadians of Woodstock and the Rough and Ready club of Ingersoll. Woodstock won the first game by a score of 83-59 and the second game by a score of 100-58. The August 4 article details the differing Canadian style of play: “The game played in Canada differs somewhat from the New York game, the ball being thrown instead of pitched, and an innings is not concluded until all are out, there are also eleven players on each side.”

36. Brian Martin, Baseball’s Creation Myth: Adam Ford, Abner Graves and the Cooperstown Story (McFarland & Company, 2013), 192-94.

37. Martin, Baseball’s Creation Myth, 194; Thorn, “A Canadian Ball Game of 1838.” In his 1886 letter, Dr. Adam Ford describes “Old Ned” Dolson as a “gray-headed” man who served as the Zorras’ catcher during the 1838 Beachville match.

38. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 29-30; John Laddell and Monica Laddell, Inheritance: Ontario’s Century Farms Past & Present (Macmillan of Canada, 1979), 176-77, 180, 181, 183-86. The family name changed over time from Van Dolzen to Dolsen and finally to Dolson. Early nineteenth-century records usually show “Dolsen,” but the spelling “Dolson” became common in later land records, local histories, and references to figures like “Old Ned” Dolson.

39. Laddell and Laddell, Inheritance, 183.

40. Laddell and Laddell, Inheritance, 183-184; W. S. Wallace, “Captain Miles Macdonell’s ‘Journal of a Jaunt to Amherstburg’ in 1801,” The Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 25, No. 2 (June 1944): 171; Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 29-30, 115-116. Matthew Dolsen’s settlement became very successful and was widely known as “Dolsen’s.” It was the main center of Kent County until Chatham eventually took that role around 1818. Captain Miles Macdonell’s 1801 journal describes “Dallsons” (Dolsen’s) as a “very good Inn,” where travellers stopped for dinner and to prepare their boats for lake travel. By 1793, Matthew Dolsen’s inn had become an important venue for regional diplomacy, hosting figures such as Jacob Lindley and Joseph Moore during Indian land conferences. This early commercial success enabled the family to acquire extensive landholdings, eventually playing a central role in the municipal and social development of Essex and Kent.

41. Laddell and Laddell, Inheritance, 180.

42. Laddell and Laddell, Inheritance, 184.

43. Laddell and Laddell, Inheritance, 183; Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 29-30; Wallace, “Captain Miles Macdonell’s ‘Journal of a Jaunt to Amherstburg,’“ 171; John Thorn, “Pittsfield 1791 and Beachville 1838,” Our Game (blog), May 20, 2013, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/pittsfield-1791-and-beachville-1838-6b07d3f20497.

44. Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 29-30. Ned’s status as an elder in the game aligns with the timeline of the Dolson family.

45. Thorn, “Pittsfield 1791 and Beachville 1838.”; Andrew North, “The Beachville Game,” in Our Game, Too: Influential Figures and Milestones in Canadian Baseball, ed. Andrew North, Len Levin, and Bill Nowlin (Society for American Baseball Research, 2022), https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-beachville-game/; Martin, Baseball’s Creation Myth, 192-94.

46. John Thorn, “A Canadian Ball Game of 1838,” Our Game (blog), August 23, 2012, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-canadian-ball-game-of-1838-15019564f9a6; Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 495; Martin, Baseball’s Creation Myth, 162-63. The sources do not document a direct genealogical relationship between Reuben Martin of Beachville and the Martin family of Colchester South (including Robert, Thomas, or Thompson Martin). Rather, the connection rests on the shared surname and on the well-established pattern of interconnected settlement among late Loyalist and immigrant families across south western Ontario in the early nineteenth century.

47. Thorn, “A Canadian Ball Game of 1838;” Commemorative Biographical Record of the County of Essex, 278-80. The available sources confirm the Williams family’s Loyalist origins and long-standing presence in Essex County. Thomas Williams, a Welsh-born Loyalist who settled in Colchester South after the American Revolution, established the family’s roots in the region. His son, also named Thomas Williams, later drew land in Gosfield from Colonel Talbot in 1825, where the family homestead became a recognized center of Methodist worship for more than three decades.

48. “Seven Four-Baggers in One Game for J. Clarke” Los Angeles Evening News, July 10, 1909, 16; “Many Freak Plays,” Hutchinson News, February 19, 1910, 3; Jack Keene, “Sport Snaps,” Bayonne Times, October 6, 1922, 14; Allen Tait, “Jay Justin Clarke and the Ennis, Texas Ballpark,” Journal of Canadian Baseball, vol. 3 (2024): 28-33; Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, “Jay Justin Clarke,” accessed January 27, 2026, https://baseballhalloffame.ca/hall-of-famer/jay-justin-clarke/. The first source, citing a scrapbook kept by Houston part-owner J. Doak Roberts, reports that Clarke hit seven home runs and a triple in eight at-bats in a July 17, 1902, game in Ennis, Texas, which Corsicana won 54-2 after Clarke and five teammates combined for 19 home runs. The second source also credits Clarke with seven home runs and a triple. The third source, published many years later, says Clarke hit eight home runs in a July 14 game. No contemporary game accounts have been found that clearly resolve these conflicting versions. In his article, Tait provides new research on the Ennis ballpark and the circumstances of the game. Clarke’s eight-home-run performance is also officially recognized by the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Major League Clubs on Lake Erie During the Late Nineteenth Century

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:50:56 +0000

Many historians assign the 1884 Toledo club a special place in baseball history as the first major league team with a black player. That player was Moses Fleetwood Walker, who was the first string catcher for the first half of the season. He played openly as a Black man, appearing in 42 Toledo games in his only major league season. (Wikimedia Commons)

Major league baseball’s nineteenth century period extends from the National League’s 1876 founding to 1900. In 1901 the American League entered as a major to form the basic NL-AL structure of the current major leagues. Relative to today, it was mostly a period of significant instability, with teams coming and going almost annually prior to the National League mono-poly being established in 1892. At one time or another during the previous 16 years, there were no fewer than four different major leagues.

This article examines major league presence on Lake Erie during this 25-year formative period. Three cities were involved: Buffalo, Cleveland, and Toledo (yes, Toledo). Cleveland was in for 19 years, Buffalo for eight, and Toledo for two. In seven of these years there were at least two Lake Erie major league teams and in 1890 there were actually four.

The article proceeds as follows. First is a review of nineteenth century major leagues. The next section describes the major league membership of the three Lake Erie cities, followed by a summary of their club records. The fourth section presents the National Hall of Fame players on these clubs. The main data source is Baseball Reference. It identifies late nineteenth century major leagues; member clubs and their players; club and player records; and club nicknames.

MAJOR LEAGUES DURING 1876-1900

The first professional baseball organization was the National Association of 1871—75.1 However, it is not today considered to be a major league mainly because of its haphazard organization and operation. Cleveland’s Forest City Club participated in the NA’s first two seasons but then dropped out after weak showings. The National League is the first to be recognized as a major league today, operating continuously since its 1876 inception.2 Despite some difficulties in its first few years, it achieved success, and dominated the pre-modern period. The Cleveland Blues and Buffalo Bisons both joined in 1879, with the Blues departing after the 1884 season and the Bisons after 1885.

The NL’s creation “inspired” the formation of other professional leagues. First was the minor International Association of 1877-80. It was poorly organized and operated, similar to the NA, and additionally hampered by its membership of mostly small eastern cities.3 After three tumultuous seasons, the IA, which had been renamed to the National Association in 1879, began 1880 with only three clubs, collapsing mid-year. The Tecumseh Club of London, Ontario, was a member for the first two years, winning the IA’s initial championship. The Maple Leaf club of Guelph, Ontario, was a member for 1877 only. Also, Buffalo was a member in 1878, winning the championship before joining the NL the next year.

Next, the American Association was formed in 1882 as a major league.4 The AA adopted the NL’s organizational and operational model and had a fairly successful ten-year run. A new Cleveland club joined in 1887 and Toledo was a member in 1884 and 1890. Then in 1884 the Union Association entered the fray as a third major league.5 However, it barely survived that single season, largely a victim of the turmoil caused by its own entry. No Lake Erie cities were involved.

The next five years were a period of generally peaceful and prosperous coexistence between the NL and AA. This ended in 1890 when again a third major league entered, the Players’ League. Both Buffalo and Cleveland were members.6 It was a creation of the players union that had been formed a few years previously, and its on-field playing success was due largely to the support and participation of its union members. Many today consider it to be stronger than the NL and especially the AA. Nevertheless, serious financial difficulties resulting from the three-way AA-NL-PL “war” caused the PL to fold a few months after the 1890 season. The player market turmoil created by the PL’s entry carried over into 1891, affecting particularly the already weakened AA. The result was an unsuccessful season that ended with the AA’s demise and four of its teams being absorbed by the NL.7 The NL then operated as a 12-team monopoly from 1892 to 1899.

LAKE ERIE CITY MAJOR LEAGUE REPRESENTATION

A key determinant of baseball club viability and thus the likelihood of having a successful major league club is the potential fan base, roughly measured by host city population. Table 1 shows the 1880 and 1890 US Census populations of our three Lake cities: Buffalo, Cleveland, and Toledo. Cleveland’s population was 160,146 and 261,353, respectively, with Buffalo slightly smaller in each year. Toledo was much smaller, roughly one-third the size of the other two cities in each year. The national population rankings of the three cities was almost identical in 1880 and 1890, with Cleveland at 11th and 10th, respectively, Buffalo at 13th and 11th, and Toledo at 35th and 34th. Only Cleveland and Buffalo could reasonably be considered as “major league” in size.

Table 2 summarizes Lake city major league membership from 1879-90. There were no major Lake teams during 1876-78. From 1879 to 1884 the Buffalo Bisons and Cleveland Blues were together in the NL, with Toledo’s AA club in 1884 adding a third major league team. After Cleveland and Toledo were dropped from their leagues in 1885, Buffalo was the only major league Lake club that year. Then in 1886, after Buffalo departed the NL, there were no Lake city major league members. Following a two-year major league hiatus, in 1887 Cleveland again was represented in major league when a new club joined the AA. Two years later that club switched to the NL and was known as the Spiders. Cleveland’s NL membership continued until 1899 after which they were dropped as part of the NL’s 1900 contraction from 12 to eight clubs.

Table 1. Lake Erie City Populations: 1880 and 1890

Table 2. Lake Erie Major League Cities: 1879–90

In 1890, with the PL’s creation, there were no fewer than four Lake city major league entries. A new Buffalo Bison club joined the PL that year and the new Toledo club joined the AA.8 Cleveland also sported a new PL club in addition to its continuing NL entry, giving it two major league clubs. After 1890, the two Lake city PL members were gone when the PL folded and the Toledo club was dropped from the AA, leaving the Cleveland Spiders as the only Lake city in the major leagues until its demise after the 1899 season. In 1900, again, Lake Erie had no major league representative. None of the nineteenth century Cleveland clubs were antecedents of the modern Guardians. They were “born” in 1901 as a charter member of the AL, although not adopting the “Indians” name until 1915.

CLUB PERFORMANCE

We now summarize the performance of the clubs representing the three major Lake cities. With one significant exception, it is best described generally as only “fair to middling.” The NL Clevelands of 1879–84 in 549 games were 242–299–8 (.447) and AA-NL Clevelands of 1887–99 were 827–938–37 (.469) in 1802 games. But during their peak period of 1892–98, the Spiders’ record in 967 games was a very good 548–396–23 (.581), “goosed” by the presence of several Hall of Fame players (Table 3). Nevertheless, the 1899 Spiders earned everlasting notoriety by producing the worst record in major league history for a club playing at least 100 games, winning only 20 against 134 losses, a .130 win average.9 Buffalo’s overall record for 656 games during its seven NL seasons was 314–333–9 (.486). However, it finished above .500 five times, with a .556 win average for those 459 games. Its 1890 PL club was a weak 36–96–0 (.273). Toledo’s two teams in their two AA seasons had similar records, totaling 114–122–0 (.483) in 236 games.

Table 3. Hall of Fame Members on Lake Erie Major League

Many historians assign the 1884 Toledo club a special place in baseball history as the first MLB team with a Black player, six decades before the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson in 1947.9 Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first-string catcher for the first half of the season, playing in 42 games in his only major league season. However, other baseball historians suggest William White as a possible candidate. At age 18 and while a member of the Dartmouth College nine, his only major league appearance was in a single home game for the nearby 1879 NL Providence club as a fill-in for an injured regular player. He apparently lived his life “passing” as a White man, a fact discovered in the twenty-first century. There is no evidence that anyone present at his sole major league game was aware that he was Black.10

No Lake Erie major league club managed to win its league’s championship during the nineteenth century. However, in 1895 the Cleveland Spiders came close. They finished the regular season in second place, three games behind the first place Baltimore Orioles, then won a postseason series with the Orioles, ostensibly for the NL championship. But the series was an ad hoc bilateral arrangement between the two clubs, not an official league-sanctioned event. At the annual NL meeting in November that year, the league Directors formally awarded the 1895 championship to Baltimore based on regular season records.11 The Spiders had two other second place finishes and a third place finish in the five-year period 1892-96 while members of the 12-club NL. These teams, managed by the feisty Patsy Tebeau, gained notoriety by challenging the three-time NL champion Baltimore Orioles both in the standings and in rowdy behavior.12 The NL Buffalo teams never finished higher than third, although they achieved that four times in their seven years in the league. The best Toledo finish was fourth place in the 1890 PL.

Buffalo and Cleveland shared league membership on seven occasions (see Table 2). They played 78 head-to-head games in their six NL seasons together. Buffalo won 45 of these and Cleveland won 33. However, outside of 1884 when Buffalo won 14 of 16 games, the two clubs were dead even at 31 wins each. In the 1890 PL season, Buffalo was 7-9 versus Cleveland.

HALL OF FAMERS ON NINETEENTH CENTURY LAKE ERIE CLUBS

Table 3 shows the National Baseball Hall of Fame members on Lake Erie major league clubs 1876-1900. Buffalo and Cleveland both sported HOF members, logging 23 and 31 player-seasons, respectively. Buffalo had four individuals and Cleveland had seven. Toledo had no HOFers. The name most recognizable to modern fans in this HOF group is, of course, the great Cy Young. He was born in Gilmore, Ohio, about 100 miles south of Cleveland, and began his unparalleled career at age 23 with the Spiders in 1890. He had several outstanding seasons there before moving on to St. Louis in 1899, thereby avoiding the Spiders’ history-making debacle that year.

Cleveland had a remarkable run of nine years, 1890-98, with at least three HOF members in each year. There were four in 1892 and 1893, and five in 1894. As noted above, during 1892-98 their winning percentage was .581, finishing second three times. The streak included all 31 of Cleveland’s HOF player-seasons. Seven individuals were involved: Cy Young (9), Jesse Burkett (8), Bobby Wallace (5), John Clarkson (3), George Davis (3), Buck Ewing (2), and Ed Delahanty (1, the 1890 PL club). Nevertheless, they never finished first. Buffalo had four consecutive years, 1881 to 1884, with four of its five HOF players present in each year: Dan Brouthers, Pud Galvin, Jim O’Rourke, and Deacon White. Brouthers is considered by many to be the leading power hitter of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the Bisons never managed to place higher than third in the NL during that span.13

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

During the 1876-1900 period professional baseball experienced significant instability caused by experimentation and essentially trial and error development, including its organizational structure. As it happened, Lake Erie cities were well represented. Cleveland was the most prominent, with two clubs covering 19 of the 25 years: the 1879-84 NL Blues and the 1887-99 AA-NL Blues-Spiders. A third Cleveland club, the Infants, was a member of the one-and-done 1890 Players’ League. The Buffalo Bisons were NL members for the seven years from 1879 to 1885 and a second Bisons club was a PL member. Last, Toledo had two separate clubs in the AA, in 1884 and 1890. Since 1890, Cleveland has been the only Lake Erie major league city, except for 1914-15 when Buffalo belonged to the major Federal League.

Generally, the performance of pre-1901 Lake clubs was only mediocre. No league championships were won. However, during 1892-98 the Cleveland Spiders were usually strong contenders, finishing second three times and third once in the 12-team NL. A Lake Erie city would not win a league championship until 1920 when the Cleveland Indians took the AL title.

DR. WOODY ECKARD is a retired economics professor living in Evergreen, Colorado with his wife Jacky and their two dogs, Petey and Violet. Among his academic publications are 13 papers on sports economics, five of which relate to Major League Baseball. More recently he has published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Nineteenth Century Notes, and The National Pastime. He is a Rockies fan and a SABR member for over 30 years.

Notes

1. William J. Ryczek, Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association, 1871-1875 ( McFarland & Company, 2016, Revised Edition).

2 Neil W. MacDonald, The League That Lasted: 1876 and the Founding of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (McFarland & Company, 2004).

3 Woody Eckard, “The International Association of 1877-80: The Third Professional Baseball Organization,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Spring 2024).

4. David Nemec, The Beer and Whiskey League: The Illustrated History of the American Association—Baseball’s Renegade Major League (The Lyons Press, 1994), 21.

5. Justin Mckinney, Baseball’s Union Association: The Short, Strange Life of a 19th Century Major League (McFarland & Company, 2022).

6. Robert B. Ross, The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players League (University of Nebraska Press, 2016); and Rob Bauer, Outside the Lines of Gilded Age Baseball: The Origins of the 1890 Players League (Self-published, 2018).

7. Nemec, The Beer and Whiskey League, chapters 12 and 13.

9. In 1899, the Spiders and the NL’s St. Louis Browns had the same owner, who decided to concentrate the best players on the two teams with St. Louis. As a result, the 81-68 1898 Spiders imploded to 20-134 in 1899 and the St. Louis club, formerly the Browns but became known as the Perfectos, rocketed from 39-111 to 84-67. See David L. Fleitz, Rowdy Patsy Tebeau and the Cleveland Spiders: Fighting to the Bottom of Baseball, 1887-1899 (McFarland & Company, 2017), Chapter 13.

10. For example, see Bruce Allardice, “William E. White,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, accessed June 1, 2026, at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/william-e-white/. See also John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2011), 185; and Peter Morris and Stefan Fatsis, “Baseball’s Secret Pioneer: William Edward White, the First Black Player in Major League History, Lived His Life as a White Man,” Slate.com, February 4, 2014 at https://slate.com/culture/2014/02/william-edward-white-the-first-black-player-in-major-league-baseball-history-lived-his-life-as-a-white-man.html.

11. Spink’s history of baseball indicates that the idea for the Temple Cup series was broached at league meetings, so it might not have been league-sanctioned, but it was at least league-approved. Alfred Spink, The National Game (National Game Publishing Company, 1910), Google Books.

12. William H. Johnson, “The Magnates Expand Their Control: The 1895 Owners Meetings,” in Base Ball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857-1900, Jeremy K. Hodges and Bill Nowlin, eds. (SABR, 2018), 337.

13 Fleitz, Rowdy Patsy Tebeau.

Cleveland Baseball at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and the Path to the American League

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:49:56 +0000

Along with his brother, Stanley Robison mined the Cleveland Spiders for talent and sent the best players to the St. Louis Cardinals, the other team the brothers owned. (Wikimedia Commons)

The central issue was attendance. Cleveland had never been one of the bigger draws in the National League, partially due to the Blue Laws which forbade Sunday baseball. But even when finishing runners-up in 1895 and 1896, the Spiders were one of the weaker attractions. As the team’s fortunes declined in 1897 and 1898, attendance followed. Brothers Frank and Stanley Robison, the owners of the Spiders, responded by transferring almost the entire second half of the 1898 home schedule to other cities. So began three years of proving and disproving that Cleveland was worthy of major league baseball.

The Robisons owned the Spiders since their inception as an American Association outpost in 1887. They grew wealthy from streetcar and railway investments, and parlayed that into baseball. The Robisons constructed League Park near one of their streetcar lines, thereby collecting fares for the ride as well as the game. The Spiders joined the National League for the 1889 season, and had been competitive throughout the 1890s, but never took the pennant. As local support for the Spiders dwindled, so did the Robisons’ interest in Cleveland.

The Robisons had not lost interest in baseball, however. By the late 1890s, the once-powerful St. Louis Browns had fallen into bankruptcy. In that club’s misfortune, the Robisons found opportunity. At the time, St. Louis (approx. 600,000 residents) was a significantly larger city than Cleveland (approx. 400,000 residents), and the Robisons believed there was greater potential for success in the Gateway City. To take advantage of the opportunity, though, the Robisons had to acquire the Browns. Winning a bankruptcy auction was no sure thing, especially with other interested parties, including emerging Western League president Ban Johnson and player-turned-owner Charles Comiskey. Plus, Johnson stated that if the National League did not appreciate Cleveland, his circuit would. Frank Robison, perhaps thinking that the Spiders might be the only way to remain a baseball magnate, declared that “Cleveland will be in the National League the coming season. There is no doubt of it.”1

As clubs undertook preparations for the 1899 season, the Spiders were not bereft of talent. The roster included future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Jesse Burkett, and Bobby Wallace. Manager Patsy Tebeau spoke confidently about the coming season, “We will have a few words to say about winning the pennant.”2 Frank Robison backed up his manager, adding that the club “will be on deck this year and in the front rank all the time.”3 As the players headed to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for preseason training, the bankruptcy auction in St. Louis decided the fate of the Browns. Working through local agents, Frank Robison gained control. On March 29, 1899, the Robisons then executed one of the largest trades in baseball history when they swapped almost the entirety of the Browns and Spiders rosters. That the 1898 Browns had finished dead last with a 39-111 record did not bode well for the new 1899 Spiders.

The St. Louis-Cleveland combination under the Robisons ushered in baseball’s experiment with syndicate baseball. Between the brothers, Frank assumed the leading role in St. Louis with Stanley overseeing operations in Cleveland. The Plain Dealer ridiculed the Robisons’ efforts to maintain interest in Cleveland, writing, “The management of the alleged Cleveland Baseball Co. that controls the alleged Cleveland team has done absolutely nothing to create local enthusiasm.”4 Stanley retorted, “You can say emphatically that it is our honest intention to build up in Cleveland a club that will rank with the one that has been transferred to St. Louis.”5 With third baseman Lave Cross installed as manager, Cleveland lost the season opener, 10-1, in St. Louis of all places. Despite the Robisons’ claims to support Cleveland, Franklin Lewis in The Cleveland Indians relayed the story of Cross’s request for players being met with rejection. In Lewis’s telling, Frank Robison responded, “I’m not interested in winning games here. Play out the schedule. That’s your job.”6

The Spiders played their home opener May 1. Already 1-7, only 500 could be bothered to attend the doubleheader against Louisville. Home crowds remained in the low single hundreds throughout May, and players generated pity more than anything. Instead of Spiders, the team was more commonly referenced as Outcasts, Exiles, Wanderers, and Castoffs. The effect of syndicate baseball became clearer when Cross and pitcher Willie Sudhoff were “assigned” to St. Louis in early June. Second baseman Joe Quinn managed the Outcasts for the balance of the miserable season.

Meager crowds in Cleveland affected visiting teams, specifically their take of the gates. Other clubs knew “[t]hey will not make their carriage here in this city, and the owners of the local team knew it well.”7 Cleveland became a focus in discussions about whether to reduce the NL from 12 clubs to eight. By the end of June, chatter increased about transferring the club to another city. Following a late June series against Boston, the Cleveland team was rarely seen in Cleveland through the balance of season as the Robisons again moved games to other cities.

Frank Robison was part-owner of the Cleveland Spiders at the turn of the century, though he and his brother were better known as the owners of the St. Louis Cardinals. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Robisons may have forsaken Cleveland, but the Western League and a rumored American Association revival kept watch. Tom Loftus, owner of the Columbus franchise and close ally to Johnson and Comiskey, viewed Cleveland as a better home for his club. With Cleveland unavailable without provoking the ire of the NL, Loftus moved his team instead to Grand Rapids in July for the balance of the 1899 season. The Spiders returned to Cleveland in late August for games against New York and Boston, but few bothered to show. Home attendance barely topped 6000 for the season. With nothing to play for and management behind in paying salaries, the uninspired Spiders won a single game among their final 39 to close the season at 20-134.

During the offseason, Cleveland became of hub of more baseball intrigue than its paltry attendance might have warranted. Despite their abandonment of the city, the Robisons did not want to surrender Cleveland if there might be a payoff through the NL’s contraction efforts. Cleveland was often included on lists of the cities for the nascent AA. Ban Johnson’s Western League renamed itself the American League in a bid for greater status and, as the midwestern circuit looked east to expand its reach, Johnson reaffirmed his interest in Cleveland. The NL was expected to drop Cleveland along with Baltimore, Louisville, and Washington, but doing so required costly buyouts. Negotiations consumed the winter months. Meanwhile, the American League’s Comiskey was determined to transfer his St. Paul club to his hometown of Chicago. The AL’s interest in Cleveland became tied to reaching an understanding with the NL Orphans (later Cubs) without rupturing the National Agreement.

As much as Johnson desired an AL club in Cleveland, he would need to overcome the damage done by the Robisons. That required a winning team to attract alienated fans and local ownership with the wherewithal to make that happen. A discussion with local banker and former Spiders secretary Davis Hawley led Johnson to Charles W. Somers and John F. Kilfoyl.8 Somers had deep pockets as the heir to a coal and shipping fortune; Kilfoyl owned a local men’s clothing store. Both loved baseball. Though business remained unsettled with the NL, Johnson welcomed Somers and Kilfoyl—and Cleveland—into the AL in early March 1900. At the time, Cleveland technically remained in the NL and the Robisons threatened to block the AL unless there was a settlement between the two leagues.

By the end of March, Johnson, Comiskey, and Chicago’s NL magnate Jim Hart reached an agreement that allowed the AL to claim the South Side of Chicago. The NL bought out its four undesirables, including $25,000 to the Robisons for both the Spiders as well as League Park. Somers and Kilfoyl had scouted for alternate sites on which to build a ballpark, in part to avoid any association with the Robison club, but purchased League Park from the NL for about $10,000.9 The duo hired former Spiders outfielder Jimmy McAleer as manager, promising ample backing. Kilfoyl said, “Mr. McAleer will have free sway and he can put together the best aggregation in sight, no matter what the expense may be.”10

Cleveland assumed Grand Rapids’ place in the AL, which had been vacated when the franchise was officially returned to the league. Several Grand Rapids players made the switch to Cleveland, including second baseman Lou Bierbauer, third baseman Charlie Buelow, and outfielders Frank Genins and Ollie Pickering. McAleer further supplemented the roster with players such as first baseman Candy LaChance and pitchers Bill Hoffer and Bill Hart. Without time to plan for a warm weather training site, McAleer directed the players to report to League Park. He seemed pleased with his team, stating that “the material on hand is far better than I hoped for. The men are all willing to work and anxious to succeed.”11

Without preseason games, it was anyone’s guess how the new team would fare against live competition. For its first game, the AL scheduled Cleveland away against the defending champion Indianapolis Indians on April 20. Cleveland prevailed, 7-6, in a surprise. Local interest was high for the new club, though technically minor league, and it was called by nicknames such as Lake Shores, Babes, Infants, and Revivals. For the April 26 home opener against Detroit, long ticket lines and a brass band contributed to a festive day. Around 5,500 provided a “royal welcome; an indisputable avowal that Cleveland wants baseball.”12 Cleveland won, 5-4.

Cleveland played solid ball to good crowds for the first month of the season. Buelow and Pickering were proving to be among the AL’s top hitters. By the end of July, injuries were proving difficult to overcome. Cleveland fell under .500 and stayed there. The slide continued through August, with McAleer occasionally away from the club scouting for players. By September, Cleveland was firmly in sixth place, where it would finish. Much of the initial enthusiasm had dampened by then, but “[t]he fact has been proved that Cleveland is not dead to the baseball world.”13

During the 1900-01 offseason, the AL elevated itself to major league status. That move, however, required more than a simple declaration of intent. By Opening Day 1901, the AL dropped Buffalo, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Minneapolis in favor of new clubs in the larger eastern cities of Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington. Johnson declared the AL was not a minor league dependent on the protection of the NL, but an equal deserving of a partnership. As Johnson elevated the AL, Somers was indispensable to the effort. As biographer Eugene Murdock wrote, “Ban Johnson built the American League, but Charles Somers paid the bills.”14 Somers became increasingly involved in AL affairs, joining the league’s circuit committee, accompanying Johnson on eastern trips to establish the new teams, and assuming the AL vice presidency. His financial largesse secured AL efforts in Philadelphia and Boston. Somers become so involved in Boston that he became the team president. He intended to turn over the team to local owners but, when he could not do so, he transferred his Cleveland shares to Kilfoyl and McAleer to avoid charges of syndicate baseball.15

With Somers now otherwise engaged, Kilfoyl and McAleer prepared Cleveland for the 1901 season. In the battle for players, Cleveland found itself in the NL’s crosshairs first when it rejected Cincinnati’s attempts to exercise major league drafting privileges over pitcher Earl Moore and second baseman Erve Beck, and later when it nabbed third baseman Bill Bradley and outfielder Jack McCarthy from Chicago as well as pitcher Ed Scott from Cincinnati.

McAleer declared optimistically that the team would give “all these teams as hard a fight as they care to have.”16 Players started to arrive at League Park around April 1. One practice drew 500 fans on a nice spring day, significant progress from the nadir under the Robisons. Cleveland dropped three of four in Chicago to start the season. For the April 29 home opener, Kilfoyl eschewed the ceremony that accompanied most curtain raisers. He declared, “We do not care to march our players through the streets like circus animals. Their business is on the diamond and not in cages.”17 Eight thousand turned out for a come-from-behind 4-3 win over Milwaukee. The team faltered quickly, however, dropping 14 of the next 16, sinking to last place. The pitching staff suffered sore arms and the offense struggled to generate runs.

Amid the losing, Cleveland managed to provide 1,250 of their fans with a thrill on May 23. Trailing Washington, 13-5, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Cleveland rallied feverishly. When Pickering crossed home plate with the winning run on a McCarthy single, “hats, umbrellas, canes, cushions went up as if a cyclone had struck” in celebration of a 14-13 win. One week later, a Decoration Day doubleheader against Philadelphia witnessed the “cushion riot.” In the seventh inning of the second game, rain halted play and fans from the bleachers sought cover in the grandstand. At some point, a cushion was hurled into the crowd, starting a 10-minute melee in which the players assisted the two on-duty officers in restoring order.18

Kilfoyl’s enhanced responsibilities as team president conflicted with his business interests, and he considered offers from a local consortium headed by businessman J.J. Buckley. Kilfoyl proclaimed, “I am always ready to sell out at a good profit and if I can get my price, the club will be sold.”19 Discussions dragged through the early summer months, but ultimately the sale came to naught. McAleer speculated that Kilfolyl changed his mind when he realized he had a valuable investment after all.

As the losses piled up, rowdyism was an increasing feature of games at League Park. After being swept by Boston in an ugly doubleheader on July 17, Cleveland players faced abuse from the crowd. LaChance and shortstop Frank Scheibeck were singled out for particular opprobrium. LaChance had enough. After the games, he packed his belongings and quit the team before McAleer calmed him down and talked him into staying. Days later, Cleveland police announced plans to increase their presence at League Park.

Cleveland’s struggles continued. On September 13, Cleveland played its final home game, a 7-0 loss to Detroit characterized by “stupid baserunning and an inability to hit with men on bases.”20 The same day, McAleer sold his shares to Kilfoyl with plans to retire from baseball after the season because of business interests in his hometown of Youngstown. For the final roadtrip, Cleveland dropped 11 of 14 games to finish 54-83. Only hapless Milwaukee kept Cleveland out of the cellar. Milwaukee was on its way to St. Louis to challenge the NL in another city, and McAleer soon reemerged—his business issues apparently resolved—with the charge of luring players from the NL Cardinals to join the new Browns. At several points, rumors suggested Cleveland would be the club to move to St. Louis, almost bringing full circle what the Robisons had started. Instead, Cleveland has endured as an AL city to this day.

JOHN BAUER is empty-nesting with his wife in Bedford, New Hampshire, while his two children are “launching.” By day, he is general counsel of an insurance group headquartered in Manchester, New Hampshire, with specialties in insurance, corporate, and regulatory law. By night, he spends many summer evenings watching the San Francisco Giants, and he is a year-round avid reader of baseball, history, and baseball history. He is a past and ongoing contributor to various SABR projects.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author also consulted the following:

Baseball Reference

Case Western University, Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, case.edu/ech/articles/b/baseball.

Harold and Dorothy Seymour, Baseball: The Early Years (Oxford University Press, 1960, 1989 reprint.)

David Quentin Voigt, American Baseball: From the Gentlemen’s Sport to the Commissioner System, Volume I (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.)

David Quentin Voigt, The League That Failed (The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1998.)

Warren N. Wilbert, The Arrival of the American League: Ban Johnson and the 1901 Challenge to National League Monopoly (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007.)

wikipedia.com.

Timothy J. Zarley, 1901: The War of the Baseball Magnates, 2024.

Notes

1. Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 26, 1899, 12.

2. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 4, 1899, 8.

3. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 7, 1899, 8.

4. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 15, 1899, 8.

5. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 16, 1899, 14.

6. Franklin Lewis, The Cleveland Indians (Kent University Press, 1949, 2006, reprint), 31.

7. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 17, 1899, 6.

8. Lewis, 32.

9. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 21, 1900, 6.

10. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 16, 1900, 6.

11. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 9, 1900, 3.

12. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 27, 1900, 6.

13. Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 7, 1900, 6.

14. Eugene C. Murdock, Ban Johnson: Czar of Baseball (Greenwood Press, 1982), 50.

15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 13, 1901, 6.

16. Cleveland Leader, March 15, 1901, 8.

17 Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 29, 1901, 3.

18 Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 24, 1901, 8.

19. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 21, 1901, 6.

20. Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 14, 1901, 6.

The 1904 Cleveland Blues-Pittsburgh Pirates Postseason Series

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:48:56 +0000

The Cleveland Blues, seen here in 1903 or 1904, were part of the new American League, which many in the long-established National League considered inferior. (Wikimedia Commons)

The first modern World Series played in 1903 was between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Americans of the recently established American League.1 Boston prevailed in the best-of-nine series, five games to three. No World Series was played in 1904. The National League champion New York Giants refused to play Boston, winners again of the American League. However, there were two postseason series played between American and National league teams in the fall of 1904. The two St. Louis teams, the Browns and the Cardinals, played a traditional “city series.” The other postseason series, played between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cleveland Blues (also known as the Napoleons or Naps after their star second baseman, Napoleon Lajoie) was unusual and notable. The series was significant both on the field as it brought together two of baseball’s biggest stars, Honus Wagner and Napoleon Lajoie, and off the field because it maintained something of an amicable relationship between the two leagues.

The New York Giants dominated the National League in 1904, finishing with a record of 106-47-5, thirteen games ahead of the second place Chicago Cubs. The Pirates finished in fourth place, with a disappointing record of 87-66-3, due in large part to injuries to Fred Clarke and Honus Wagner. Just as Boston had done in 1903, they finished atop the American League. Like the Pirates, Cleveland finished in fourth place, with a record of 86-65-3. The Giants refused to play Boston in what would have been the 1904 World Series for several reasons, including that Giants’ owner John Brush and manager John McGraw had a mutual disdain for American League President Ban Johnson. Likewise, Brush and McGraw seemingly did not want to risk losing a postseason series to the American League, which they deemed inferior.2

Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss, on the other hand, was willing to work with the American League and specifically with Cleveland owners Charles Somers and John Kilfoyl. These men pursued the scheduling of the series in part to keep the relatively new relationship between the National and American Leagues cordial.3 The best-of-five-game series was played from October 10 to October 14 in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

The Pirates had their regular lineup set for the series, including future Hall of Famers Clarke and Wagner. Player-manager Clarke had essentially been out of the lineup since July 15 and Wagner missed the last two weeks of the season with rheumatism. Cleveland featured three future Hall of Fame members: second baseman Lajoie, right fielder Elmer Flick, and pitcher Addie Joss. The leadoff hitter and left fielder in the series for Cleveland was 25-year-old rookie outfielder Rube Vinson. Vinson began the season with the Providence Grays of the Eastern League, where he led the league in batting with a .360 average. He was acquired by Cleveland on August 27 and played in the final fifteen games of the season, hitting approximately .306. Vinson would prove to be quite impactful in the series.

The typical series lineups for the two teams were as follows:

GAME ONE: October 10, 1904
League Park, Cleveland
Cleveland Blues 2, Pittsburgh Pirates 2

The weather was threatening as 3,845 fans made their way to see the Monday afternoon game. Bill Klem was named the sole umpire for all the games in the series. Klem had umped in the American Association in 1904 and was scheduled to move up the National League in 1905—the beginning of his Hall of Fame career.

Otto Hess, a 25-year-old lefty, got the start for Cleveland against fellow southpaw Patsy Flaherty, the ace of the Bucs staff. In the top of the third with one out, Ginger Beaumont drew a walk. After another out, Wagner stepped to the plate and drove a 3-2 pitch over the left field wall for a two-run home run. During the regular season Wagner had slugged just four home runs but led the team in round-trippers. With the Pirates leading 2-0, rain began to fall in the fourth inning. Flaherty, who relied on his spitball as his best pitch, lost control due to the rain and walked Bill Bradley and Flick to start the inning. Lajoie came to bat. Despite calls from the crowd to match Wagner’s power, he sacrificed to move both runners into scoring position. Bradley then scored on a groundout and Flick scored on a passed ball dropped third strike to tie the game. Flaherty was able to get out of the inning without further damage. Despite the rain, the game continued. In the top of the sixth, Bransfield led off with a double, but was stranded there when Umpire Klem called the game due to the rain-soaked field, ending the game in a 2-2 tie.4

GAME TWO: October 11, 1904
League Park, Cleveland
Pittsburgh Pirates 7, Cleveland Blues 4

The second game of the series was played the next afternoon. Unseasonably cold weather and the fact that the park did not open to fans until 30 minutes before game time held the crowd to only 1,488 paid fans. Bill Bernhard, ace of the Cleveland staff, started the game against Sam Leever for the Pirates. Both pitchers started strong and did not allow any runs for the first five innings. In the bottom of the sixth, Cleveland rookie outfielder Vinson led off with a double, scored when Flick bunted for a base hit, and then Lajoie squeezed out a single. Terry Turner then doubled to send his teammates home and the Blues had a 3-0 lead. But the Pirates answered back in the seventh. Beaumont walked to lead off the inning, and then McCormick and Wagner both singled to load the bases. Bransfield singled to score Beaumont and keep the bases loaded. Harry McCormick then scored on a Tommy Leach groundout, and Wagner was plated on a Claude Ritchey groundout to tie the game, 3-3. Brans-field was ejected from the game for arguing with Umpire Klem, and Wagner took over at first with Otto Krueger coming into the game to play shortstop.

Cleveland could not answer in the bottom of the frame, and Pittsburgh once again pounced on Bernhard’s pitching in the top of the eighth. Leever led off the inning with a double and Clarke followed with a single. Beaumont then singled to score Leever. McCormick sacrificed, and Wagner smacked a ball to shortstop that Turner bobbled, and then threw wildly to home, allowing Clarke to score. The Blues followed with another error when Krueger grounded to third and Bradley threw home attempting to cut down the run. However, Bemis dropped the ball, allowing Beaumont to score. Ritchey then singled, scoring Wagner to push the Pirates’ lead to 7-3. Cleveland was able to score one final run in the ninth when Vinson hit his third double of the game, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on a Flick single.5

GAME THREE: October 12, 1904
Exposition Park, Pittsburgh
Cleveland Blues 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 3

The teams moved on to Pittsburgh for game three. The weather was cold and windy. Addie Joss started the game for Cleveland against Pittsburgh’s Charlie Case. No runs were scored in the first four innings. In the top of the fifth, Cleveland got on the board when Lajoie singled, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on an infield out. In the seventh, Wagner led off with a single, advanced all the way to third base on a bunt, and scored on a double play to tie the game. In the top of the ninth, Cleveland scored twice. Vinson led off the inning with a single and scored on a bunt inducing error by Bradley. Bradley then scored on a long triple by Elmer Flick. In the bottom of the ninth after the Pirates quickly made two outs, Bransfield grounded to third but beat out the throw to reach safely. Cleveland was not happy with Umpire Klem’s call. Leach then singled, and he and Bransfield scored on a double by Ritchey. The Pirates nearly won the game when Phelps hit a smash to third, but Ritchey was thrown out at the plate, sending the game to extra innings.

The game went 14 innings. No runs were scored in the final five innings, although the Pirates did have a baserunner in each inning. At the end of the 14th inning, Klem called the game on account of darkness, ending it in a 3-3 tie. With the tie—the second of the series—the Pirates remained in the lead in the series, one game to none.

Both pitchers went all fourteen innings. Neither pitcher walked a batter, and Joss struck out eight. The game was played in two hours and twenty-five minutes and paid attendance was 3,716.6

GAME FOUR: October 13, 1904
Exposition Park, Pittsburgh
Cleveland Blues 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 2

For game four, Barton Emory “Dusty” Rhoads started on the mound for Cleveland against Mike Lynch for Pittsburgh. Cleveland got on the board early with classic deadball-era baseball. In the top of the first Vinson led off with a walk followed by a single by Bradley. After a sacrifice by Flick to advance the runners, Lajoie reached on an infield single that scored Vinson. On a double steal, Bradley was cut down at the plate while Lajoie advanced to second. Lajoie then scored on a single by George Stovall. In the sixth, Vinson got things started once again when he singled and advanced to third on a Bradley double down the third base line. Vinson then scored on an errant throw by Honus Wagner, which pulled Bransfield off first. In the seventh, the Pirates finally tallied a run. Bransfield reached on an infield hit and advanced to third on a Leach double. Bransfield then scored on a groundout by Ritchey. In the bottom of the ninth, the Pirates mounted a two-out rally. Ritchey singled and scored on a double by Ed Phelps. But Jack Gilbert, pinch-hitting for the pitcher, struck out to end the game. Pitching had dominated the game, with both pitchers going the distance. Rhoads got the win, allowing two runs while walking nine and striking out eight, including Honus Wagner twice. Mike Lynch took the loss, allowing only two earned runs while striking out seven and walking only the first batter in the game.

Paid attendance was 3,465 and the game was played in an hour and forty minutes. It was reported that players from both teams were guests at The Grand Theater that evening and were the focus of many jokes by the vaudeville performers. With the series now tied at one game apiece, it was announced that the first team to win two games would win the series.7

GAME FIVE: October 14, 1904
Cleveland Blues 4, Pittsburgh Pirates 1
Exposition Park, Pittsburgh

The fifth and deciding game of the series was played in front of 3,620 fans. Hess started the game for Cleveland against Chick Robitaille for Pittsburgh. Scoring started in the bottom of the second inning when Wagner led off and smacked a double down the third base line. Wagner advanced to third on a ground out by Bransfield and scored on a long fly ball by Leach. Both pitchers were strong and there was no scoring until the top of the seventh when Cleveland rallied. Turner led off with a single and was advanced to second on a sacrifice by Lush. Harry Bemis followed with a triple, driving in Turner. Hess then singled, driving in Bemis for the second run of the inning. Vinson reached on an infield single, but the inning ended without any other scoring. In the seventh, the Blues rallied again. Stovall singled and scored on a triple by Lush. Lush in turn was plated on a double by Bemis, ending the scoring and giving the Blues a 4-1 lead. The Pirates could not mount any offense, and the Blues went on to win the game and the series. Hess pitched a stellar game, allowing only two hits and one run while striking out six and walking three.

The 1904 Pittsburgh Pirates were the National League champions, but they couldn’t get the job done against the Cleveland Blues, losing their second straight postseason series to the upstart American League. (Wikimedia Commons)

Series Postscript

Cleveland’s Ernest Vinson was arguably the best player in the series. He was the only player to get a hit in each game, amassing ten hits in the five games and finishing the series with a slash line of .476/.522/.619.8 Vinson would start the 1905 season with Cleveland, but he struggled, hitting only .194 in 39 games. In August he was suspended for dissipation and later sold to the Chicago White Sox.9 Napoleon Lajoie hit .263 for the series. Honus Wagner hit .286 and slugged the only home run in the series. Bill Klem, who umpired the entire series by himself, stated, “It was hardest series of games I ever umpired.” Klem would go on to umpire in the National League in 1905 and every season until 1941. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown posthumously in 1953.

The team owners agreed to split the series money between the players after expenses were paid, resulting in a payment of about $100 to each player. With their defeat in the series, the Pirates had lost two consecutive postseason series to the upstart American League. This did not support Brush and McGraw’s criticism of the new league nor the Giants’ refusal to play a World Series in 1904. As a result of the criticism the Giants received, John Brush took the lead in establishing a perennial championship series between the American and National Leagues going forward. Pittsburgh did not appear again in the postseason until 1909, and Cleveland would wait until 1920.

RICHARD J. PUERZER is the chairperson of the Department of Engineering at Hofstra University. His writing on baseball has appeared in several SABR books, including Moments of Joy and Heartbreak: 66 Significant Episodes in the History of the Pittsburgh Pirates (2018) and Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords (2020), as well as in Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture; Black Ball; The National Pastime; The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture proceedings; Zisk; and Spitball. He and his wife, Clare, have four children, Casey, Aaron, Josh, and Addie.

1904 Cleveland-Pittsburgh series line scores

Notes

1. Benton Stark, The Year They Called Off the World Series (Avery Publishing Group, 1991), 190-93.

2. “Pirates May Play a Series,” Cleveland Leader, October 6, 1904: 8; “Pittsburg Will Play Cleveland,” Cleveland Leader, October 8, 1904: 8.

3. For game one the following references were used: “Pirates Meet “Naps” Today,” Cleveland Leader, October 10, 1904: 8; “Pirates Here for Two Game,” Plain Dealer, October 10, 1904: 6; “Honors Even, Then It Rained,” Cleveland Leader, October 11, 1904: 8; “First Contest a Drawn Battle,” Plain Dealer, October 11, 1904: 8; “First Game Ended a Tie,” Pittsburgh Press, October 11, 1904: 12; “First of Post-Season Games,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 11, 1904: 8.

4. For game two the following references were used: “First Victory for Nationals,” Cleveland Leader, October 12, 1904: 8; “First Blood for the Pirates,” Plain Dealer, October 12, 1904: 8; “Champions Make a Great Finish,” Pittsburgh Post, October 12, 1904: 6; “Pirates Beat Lajoie’s Men,” Pittsburgh Press, October 12, 1904: 10; “Pirates Win from Cleveland,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 12, 1904: 10.

5. For game three the following references were used: “Fast Fielding Saves Pirates,” Cleveland Leader, October 13, 1904: 8; “Neither Side Could Win,” Plain Dealer, October 13, 1904: 6; “Great Game Ended a Tie,” Pittsburgh Press, October 13, 1904: 12; “Great Game Ends In Tie,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 13, 1904: 8.

6. For game four the following references were used: “Honors Are Even with the Pirates,” Cleveland Leader, October 14, 1904: 8; “Dusty Rhoades Was the King,” Plain Dealer, October 14, 1904: 8; “Rhoades Beat the Pirates,” Pittsburgh Press, October 14, 1904: 20; “Cleveland Beats Pirates,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 14, 1904: 8.

7. Statistics for the series are not available from Baseball Reference or Retrosheet and were given in the text and calculated based on the published box scores.

8. “Vinson Suspended,” Cleveland Leader, August 22, 1905: 6.

Telling’s Strollers: 1914 World Amateur Baseball Champions

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:47:56 +0000

Photos taken during and after the Telling’s Strollers amateur games in 1914 illustrate how popular the games were in Cleveland, with fans bringing handheld signs just like they do today. (Library of Congress)

Cleveland was baseball crazy in 1914. It was no more evident than on an unusually warm, late September Sunday afternoon when a crowd of 91,0 people jammed themselves into Cleveland’s Brookside Park Stadium to watch two sandlot teams, Telling’s Strollers and the Hanna’s Street Cleaners, play for the amateur championship of the city. The gathering was proclaimed the largest ever to watch a baseball game in the United States.

A little less than a month later, Telling’s Strollers, the winners of the Cleveland city championship, beat a team from Chicago in a three-game series to win the amateur championship of the United States.

How did baseball in Cleveland gain such heights and passion? The roots are based in the Cleveland Amateur Baseball Association (CABA). CABA oversaw all the sandlot teams, going as far as to have the amateurs sign contracts to avoid players from jumping teams throughout the season.1 They also coordinated with the Cleveland Parks Commission to assign fields and worked with the Cleveland Umpires Association to have umpires assigned to all games. CABA worked with over 20 leagues, splitting them into Saturday leagues and Sunday leagues.2 But the most prestigious league was CABA’s Class A Division. By governing all the leagues, CABA created a de facto minor league for the Class A teams, guaranteeing that the best baseball was played in its league. CABA’s strong leadership saw its way through the myriad problems that would have fractured other organizations.

CABA, with the blessing of Cleveland’s Department of Recreation and backed by several wealthy benefactors, was formed in 1910 to oversee all amateur baseball in Cleveland.3 By 1914, an estimated 400-500 teams were governed by CABA.4 The Cleveland Leader called CABA the “world’s premier amateur baseball association.”5

The driving force behind CABA was Clayton Townes, a Cleveland lawyer and a powerful member of the city council.6 He was the perfect person to lead the organization, which needed to navigate Cleveland’s political landscape and engage the Cleveland wealthy. But his vision for amateur baseball went far beyond Cleveland. He was also interested in creating an amateur World Series where Cleveland could test its champion against the best amateur teams in America.

The four primary leagues that CABA governed were simply called Class A, Class B, Class C, and Class D. The classes were divided by age for the first five seasons of their existence. Class D was for players under 16. Class C had 16-18-year-old teams. Class B was for 18-21-year-olds and Class A was for players over 21.7 In March 1914, 20 teams planned to play in Class A, which played once a week on Sundays, including two Black teams, the Z-Stars and the Royal Giants.8 Games were free to attend. The number of teams in each league varied from year to year and even during the season as teams folded for varying reasons.

One of the teams that had played in the CABA every year since 1910 was the Strollers. It had won the very first CABA Class A championship in 1910 and was one of the better teams every year since. Going into the 1914 season, the Strollers acquired a sponsor, the Telling Brothers Ice Cream Company. The president of the company, William E. “Bill” Telling, was the driving force in sponsoring the team. Telling’s company was a leader in the dairy industry, being the first company “to pasteurize, develop, and distribute (via home delivery) glass bottled milk, which revolutionized the industry with standards of cleanliness and purity.”9 Not only did he sponsor the Strollers, Telling backed a team in the Class B division (Belle Vernon) and teams in Columbus, Akron, and Youngstown.10

While gaining a sponsor, the Strollers didn’t change their manager, Frank Novario. Nicknamed “Doik” for his love of marbles as a child, Novario became manager of the Strollers in 1912.11 Before Novario, the Strollers had seven different managers predating the formation of CABA.12 Novario was also on CABA’s board of directors.13 A Cleveland native, he was a circulator for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.14

For 1914, Novario built his team around the Schreiner brothers, Dudley and Norman. Dudley played center field and was the Strollers’ leadoff hitter. He was a base-stealing threat who terrorized opposing catchers. An all-around athlete, he also played football for the powerful Canton Professionals. Norman was the team’s captain and a hitting machine in the middle of the Strollers order.

Roy Kirby was named the Strollers shortstop. In 1913, Kirby played in the then minor-league Federal League for the Cleveland Green Sox. He was called the “best shortstop in Cleveland” by the Cleveland Leader.15 A steady fielder, he had some pop in his bat. He often batted behind Dudley Schreiner in the batting lineup.

The two corner outfielders were Art Huge (right field) and Eddie Raus (left field). Joining Norman Schreiner and Kirby in the infield was Joe Krupitzer at second base. Krupitzer turned out to be the Telling’s Strollers best hitter, batting .370 for the season. Veteran George Novak was the Strollers’ third baseman until he broke a finger on his right hand before the season opener on April 26.16 He attempted to play but was batting less than .100 when he was cut from the team. Novario tried a couple of different third basemen before settling on Jimmy Prosser. Prosser wasn’t much of a hitter but he was a fine fielder, committing only two errors during the season.

Novario went through several pitchers before landing on Charley Saxe. Saxe was a Cleveland fireman who had played in the minor leagues since 1910.17 He started the season with the semi-pro Shelby Blues before moving over to the Strollers in June. A hard throwing right-hander, he struck out 68 batters in 13 games for the Strollers while walking 23 and hitting four batters.

Joe Dooley was the Strollers catcher to start the season but left four games into the season to play for the semipro Crestline, Ohio, team. Novario tried three other catchers before signing George Gohr. Gohr started 1914 playing in the minor league Ohio State League, first with Ironton and then with Maysville.18 He was cut from Maysville in July and Novario grabbed him for the Strollers. His bat was a welcome addition to the Strollers lineup. He hit .294 and stole seven bases in 15 games.

Despite Dooley jumping the team, Telling and Novario were able to keep other semipro teams from cherry-picking their best players. One of the worst kept secrets of the CABA was that players were paid in both Class A and Class B leagues. It was a “well known fact that many of the Class A and B players.. .are being paid anywhere from $3 to $5 and some time even $10 per contest,” wrote the Cleveland Leader.19 While paying the players allowed the CABA to keep players from leaving, it created a problem later in the season for the Strollers and nearly derailed their march to city championship.

The season opened on April 26 for the CABA teams. The season started inauspiciously for the Strollers, who lost, 2-1, to the McIntyres at Edgewater Park before a purported crowd of 10,000.20 The loss would be the last for the Strollers in Cleveland until July 26. In that time, they went 11-1 with their lone loss being in Barberton, Ohio, against a local semipro team.21

As the Strollers rolled through their season, there was incredible anticipation for their July 19 game with the Marottas, one of the better teams in CABA’s Class A. An estimated15,000 people jammed into Edge-water Park for the contest.22 The Marottas bolstered their lineup by signing Emil Kalal, a shortstop who had a tryout with Terre Haute of the Central League.23 This was highly unusual because Kalal was a member of the Preisels, another CABA Division A team.24 The game featured everything from dirty tactics to a riot to extra innings. The umpires stopped the game once because spectators were using mirrors to blind batters. Coaches kicked up dirt into infielders’ eyes. Then, in the bottom of ninth, umpire Fred Britton called the Strollers’ Krupitzer out at the plate when he tried to score the winning run on Norman Schreiner’s single. A riot ensued. Six Stroller players and several spectators were taken to the 12th precinct police station when order was restored. The game was halted until the players, after being warned, returned to the field. When the game was restarted, the Marottas scored two runs in the top of the 10th to win 9-7.25

The CABA Division A playoffs began on August 2. The CABA board picked eight teams to participate in the playoffs.26 The big news was that George Sisler, an Akron native off his season at the University of Michigan, was playing for the May Company in the playoffs.27 The Strollers’ first-round opponents were the D.R.K. All-Stars. The Strollers easily beat them two straight games in the best-of-three series. Next up was the White Autos. Again, the Strollers took just two games to eliminate their opponent, putting the team in the city championship.

Through a series of coin flips, Brookside Park Stadium was picked as the place where the Strollers and their opponents, the Street Cleaners, would play.28

Brookside Park Stadium was a natural amphitheater.29 The stands could hold about 1,500 people but the hills around the ballfield could “accommodate nearly 100,000 people.” In preparation for the contest, a large tree behind the backstop was removed and the grass diamond was made over to a “skin diamond of clay.”30 “Not since the Naps made such a gallant but losing fight for the American League pennant in 1908 has such interest been in evidence over a baseball series,” wrote the Cleveland Leader.31 Despite the threat of rain and problems with the street-car system, 40,000-45,000 people turned out to watch the Strollers win the first game, 3-2.32

One item of serious concern for CABA was the amount of money being bet on the games.33 A day before the first game was played, the Cleveland Leader wrote that close to $10,000 had been bet on the first game of the championship series.34 To prevent the bribing of umpires, the names of the umpires were not revealed to the public during the playoffs.35 CABA had one incident during the CABA Class C playoffs when 22 players were arrested from two teams when it was learned that each team had put up $67 with the winner to claim the money.36

For the second game, the “special streetcar service” was promised to handle the throngs.37 The newspapers estimated anywhere from 45,000-80,000 people attended.38 When Saxe was uncharacteristically hit hard, rumors began to circulate that the Strollers had tipped off pitches and that the “players failed to play to win” after losing, 6-1.39 While there was a chance that the Strollers threw the game, the loss probably was due to fact that some of the team was demanding more money and played poorly to make a point when they were denied. The newspapers reported that on the morning of the game, Saxe went to Telling demanding more money than their normal salary for Gohr, Norman Schreiner, Prosser, and himself.40

Due to the accusations, Townes met with the team, Novario, and Telling before the third game.41 At the meeting, everyone denied any wrongdoing. It was “just a misunderstanding,” said Norman Schreiner about the player dissatisfaction.42 In the end, the big news that came out of the meeting was that CABA would employ 50 “counters” to go through Brookside Park and count the number of attendees for Game Three.43

A huge crowd met the players when they took the field on September 20. To handle the crowd, the Cleveland Railway Co. ran 261 trolley cars an hour by Brookside.44 John Bunny, one of the most well-known comedic actors of the time, threw the first pitch.45 The Strollers easily handled the Street Cleaners, 8-3. Saxe pitched a great game, striking out nine and only walking one and hitting another with a pitch. After the game, the Strollers’ Social Club passed the hat and gave Saxe $40.46

The official count for the game was 83,753. But the counters felt they missed about 10% of the crowd so the final number was revised to about 91,000.47 By contrast, at the same time, 2,800 fans watch the Cleveland Naps lose their 95th game of the season at League Park.

Over 90,000 fans filled Cleveland’s Brookside Park to watch the Strollers beat the Street Cleaners, 8-3, on September 20, 1914. (Library of Congress)

Townes, earlier in the year, had engaged many cities in the midwest to create an amateur World Series.48 Now his plan was coming to fruition. Teams from Kansas City, Louisville, Columbus, Toledo, St. Paul, Omaha, Chicago, and St. Louis had been playing each other and by October, three teams, including the Strollers, were left. It was decided that the St. Louis team would play the Strollers and the winner would take on Chicago in the amateur World Series. The best-of-three series between the St. Louis team, Hellrung & Grimm, and the Strollers was to be played at League Park in Cleveland starting on Saturday, October 3, with the second game to follow the next day. Hellrung & Grimm had a record of 26-3 entering the series.49 Their best player was pitcher Ray Neusel, who had signed with Burlington of the Central Association in July, but was back with the team after the Central Association season closed.50

Before the first game, Townes was called to the Strollers’ locker room to find Saxe, Prosser, and second baseman Jake Young in their street clothes. The players let Townes know they wanted to be paid. Townes refused to address their concerns. Prosser and Saxe left the team while Young got dressed to play. Townes later banned Saxe and Prosser from playing in CABA games.51 The Strollers found themselves without their starting pitcher and third baseman. Novario quickly switched to Joe Belohoubek, who played with the Preisels in the regular season, to pitch the first game. Young, who had taken over second base after Krupitzer was hurt, was moved to third base and Krupitzer took back his job at second. Despite the changes, the Strollers took both games, 6-2 and 3-2, to advance to the amateur World Series.

It was agreed that the teams, the Butler Brothers Company from Chicago and the Strollers, would play a doubleheader on Sunday, October 11 at League Park in Cleveland. The Butler Brothers top player was Edwin “Tacks” DeLave, who both pitched and played in the outfield. He was a veteran minor leaguer having started his professional career in 1906. More than 21.0 people jammed into League Park to watch the doubleheader. Things looked dire for the Strollers when they lost the first game, 11-1. Strollers pitchers Belohoubek and Billy Wank were shelled. Into the breach for Game Two stepped Nick Cyrgalis. Cyrgalis, who pitched for the Marottas during the regular season, had been the winning pitcher in the riot game against the Strollers earlier in the season. A left hander, Cyrgalis pitched eight innings, scattering seven hits and giving up one run to lead the Strollers to a 4-1 win.52

The rubber game was played at Chicago’s Weeghman Park (now Wrigley Field) on Sunday, October 18.5. fans attended the finale. Cyrgalis was back on the mound and pitched even better ball than the previous Sunday. He held the Butler Brothers to five hits and two runs as the Strollers took the final game, 3-2. After the last out, Cyrgalis was carried around the park by Cleveland fans who had made the trip to Chicago.

The 1914 season was not an anomaly for Cleveland baseball fans. In 1915, crowd estimates for several games ran anywhere from 60,000 to 115,000 attendees as CABA played most of their big games at Brookside Park. The White Autos, whom the Strollers had beaten in the second round of the 1914 Cleveland playoffs, won the amateur world’s championship in 1915, traveling to San Francisco to seal the championship. Cleveland would continue to support sandlot baseball well into the 1950s.53

JACK V. MORRIS is the retired head of a large pharmaceutical company’s research library. He splits his time between suburban Philadelphia and coastal Delaware with his wife and is the father of two adult daughters. His baseball biographies have appeared in numerous SABR books including The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America (1947 Brooklyn Dodgers) and Scandal on the South Side (1919 Chicago White Sox). He is not the Jack Morris of World Series fame but, every once in a great while, wishes he was.

Table 1. Telling’s Strollers 1914 Schedule

Notes

1. “Townes, C.A.B.A. Leader, Accepts Challenge and Declare War on C.U.A,” Cleveland Leader, August 4, 1914, 8.

2. In 1911, the Ohio state legislature declared Sunday baseball legal if it started after noon. Mike Curtin, “No Sunday Baseball, Booze Sales, Rioting…Ohio’s Long History with ‘Blue Laws’,” Columbus Dispatch, April 18, 2023, https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-sunday-baseball-booze-sales-095511056.html, accessed on March 12, 2026.

3. Richard Raponi, “Amateur Baseball at Brookside Park,” Cleveland Center for Public History + Digital Humanities website, https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/606, accessed on February 28, 2026.

4. Johnny Lodwick, “Improvements Will Cost Amateurs Many Baseball Diamonds,” Cleveland Leader, February 8, 1914, 2; Carl Whelan, “Amateur Season to be Opened in Style with 400 Teams,” Cleveland Leader, April 26, 1914, 36.

5. Carl Whelan “Novario has Great Squad of Amateur Baseball Tossers,” Cleveland Leader, June 7, 1914, 2.

6. Townes took over the city council seat from his father. In 1924, Townes became mayor of Cleveland under Cleveland’s City Manager Plan. Case Western Reserve website, https://case.edu/ech/articles/t/townes-clayton-c, accessed on March 12, 2026.

7. Starting in 1915, the teams were classified by playing ability rather than age. This was precipitated in 1914 by the fact that every team in Class C were found to have over-age players.

8. The white newspapers noted the Black teams but provided little coverage—at most a box score—unlike the White teams which were featured prominently in the papers. The Z-Stars and Royal Giants were eventually kicked out of the CABA for charging admission fees for their games.

9. Jim Lanese, “William E. Telling—Dairyman and Businessman,” Cleveland Center for Public History + Digital Humanities website, https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/606, accessed on February 28, 2026.

10. “Items of Interest to Amateurs Gathered by Johnny Lodwick,” Cleveland Leader, April 5, 1914, 2.

11. “Novario of Sandlots is Dead at 82,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 16, 1964, 32.

12. Johnny Lodwick, “Pilots for Amateur Nines are Much in Demand by Cleveland Amateurs,” Cleveland Leader, March 15, 1914, 2.

13. “Three New Men are Named to Board of C.A.B.A.,” Cleveland Leader, April 8, 1914, 8.

14. “Frank Paul Novario is Doik’s Big Secret,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 26, 1914, 14.

15. “Stars in the Amateur Ranks,” Cleveland Leader, May 1, 1914, 11.

16. “Features of Opening Contests in C.A.B.A.,” Cleveland Press, April 27, 1914, 13.

17. Charles B. Saxe, The Sporting News Contract Card, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/115889/rec/1, accessed on March 13, 2026.

18. “Catcher Gohr is to Play with Ironton,” Cleveland Press, January 31, 1914, 10; George Gohr, The Sporting News Contract Card, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/61903/rec/2, accessed on March 13, 2026.

19. Carl Whelan, “Townes Can’t Get Proof That Coin Goes to Amateurs,” Cleveland Leader, June 14, 1914, 2.

20. Carl Whelan, “Blaser Fans 14 Macs but Loses Game,” Cleveland Leader, April 27, 1914, 11.

21. “Barberton Boys Break Even with Cleveland Team,” Akron Evening Times, June 1, 1914, 10.

22. “Riot Halts Ball Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 20, 1914, 12.

23. Emil Kalal, The Sporting News Contract Card, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/113735/rec/1, accessed on March 13, 2026.

24. Kalal was sent back to the Preisels after the game. Since the Preisels manager had signed off on the transaction, it was a legal move under CABA’s bylaws.

25. “Victory Goes to Marottas,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 20, 1914, 11; “Riot Halts Ball Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 20, 1914, 12; “Protest May Follow if Kalal Plays on Sunday,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 25, 1914, 3.

26. In addition to the Strollers, the teams were the May Company, Street Cleaners, D.R.K. All-Stars, White Autos, News, Marotta, and Preisels.

27. “Dope On Amateur Games is Upset in Worst Way,” Cleveland Plain Dealer August 3, 1914, 9.

28. “First Championship Game in Stadium at Brookside Park,” Cleveland Press, September 1, 1914, 10.

29. It’s now called Brookside Reservation.

30. Carl Whelan, “Saxe to Oppose Verran,” Cleveland Leader, September 6, 1914, 1.

31. Carl Whelan, “Fortune Wagered on Game,” Cleveland Leader, September 5, 1914, 6.

32. The Plain Dealer was the most conservative of the three Cleveland papers in estimating crowd size throughout the series. The Leader estimated 45,000 people and the Press wrote that 45,00-60,000 attended. “Forty Thousand Persons See Strollers’ Victory,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 7, 1914, 11; Carl Whelan, “Strollers Take Opening Game from Cleaners in 3 to 2 Pitchers’ Duel,” Cleveland Leader, September 7, 1914, 8; “Biggest Crowd in Baseball History Sees First Clash of City Championship Series,” Cleveland Press, September 7, 1914, 1, 8.

33. “Amateur Players Pinched for Betting on Contest,” Cleveland Leader, September 21, 1914, 8.

34. Carl Whelan, “Fortune Wagered on Game.”

35. “C.A.B.A. Officials Can’t Trust Umps,” Cleveland Leader, August 16, 1914, 2.

36. “Amateur Players Pinched for Betting on Contest.”

37. Carl Whelan, “Same Pitchers to Work Again in Title Game,” Cleveland Leader, September 13, 1914, 1.

38. The Plain Dealer was the low estimate at 45,000. The Leader claimed 60,000 and the Press wrote that 85,000 people attended. “Victory Gives Cleaners Chance for City Title,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 14, 1914, 9-10; Cleveland Leader, September 14, 1914, 8; “Verran Stars Cleaners Sweep Tellings to Defeat,” Cleveland Press, September 14, 1914, 10.

39. Carl Whelan, “Four Men to be Dropped by Tellings,” Cleveland Leader, September 15, 1914, 11.

40. Carl Whelan, “Four Men to be Dropped by Tellings.”

41. “Krupitzer to Play Second Base for Telling Strollers in Final Contest,” Cleveland Press, September 14, 1914, 9.

42. “Regular Telling Stroller Team Takes Field Sunday,” Cleveland Press, September 16, 1914, 10.

43. “Clockers to Get Total Present at Amateur Contest,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 16, 1914, 11.

44. “Enormous Crowd Expected at Amateur Title Game,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 20, 1914, 17.

45. Carl Whelan, “Strollers Win Amateur Title of Sixth City,” Cleveland Leader, September 21, 1914, 8.

46. Carl Whelan, “Strollers Win Amateur Title of Sixth City”.

47. “Telling Strollers Execute Comeback and Win City Championship,” Cleveland Press, September 21, 1914, 12.

48. Carl Whelan, “World’s Amateur Series Booked at League Park,” Cleveland Leader, October 1, 1914, 8.

49. Carl Whelan, “St. Louis Baseball Champions Come to Tackle Strollers,” Cleveland Leader, October 3, 1914, 6.

50. Ray Neusel, The Sporting News Contract Card, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/155765/rec/4, accessed on March 13, 2026.

51. Carl Whelan, “Saxe is Barred for Asking for Money to Hurl,” Cleveland Leader, October 4, 1914, 1. It was claimed by Prosser that his contract guaranteed him a certain sum for every game but, for the St. Louis series, they were expected to play for free.

52. The game was called, controversially, after the top of the eighth due to darkness after the crowd surged onto the field while the Butler Brothers team was protesting a call.

53. For an excellent review of sandlot baseball in Cleveland, see Richard Raponi, “Amateur Baseball at Brookside Park,” Cleveland Center for Public History + Digital Humanities website, https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/606, accessed on February 28, 2026.

The 1926 Cleveland Indians: A Bright Season During a Challenging Stretch

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:46:56 +0000

George Burns, who would end up as the American League’s Most Valuable Player, led Cleveland’s offense in 1926. He would tally 216 hits, the most in the major leagues. (Wikimedia Commons)

The 1926 Cleveland Indians were an unexpected bright spot during a challenging period in franchise history. Between 1922 and 1939, the American League was dominated by the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Athletics. The 1926 Indians finished in second place, three games behind the Yankees. Cleveland compiled an 88-66 record, their best record and highest finish until the 1940 Indians finished one game behind the Tigers with an 89-65 record. The 1927 Clevelanders fell to sixth place at 66-87, and subsequent teams finished in the AL’s upper half only once between 1927 and 1934.

Future Hall of Famer and player-manager Tris Speaker managed the club for his eighth (seventh full) season, which turned out to be his final season with the team as player and manager. Cleveland’s offense was led by 1926 AL Most Valuable Player George Burns (major league-best 216 hits and 64 doubles), future Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Sewell (6.0 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement, known as bWAR), and 38-year-old Speaker. The pitching staff was led by workhorse George Uhle, who led all major league pitchers with 8.9 bWAR, 27 wins, 32 complete games, 318⅓ innings, and 118 walks. Joining Uhle were veteran hurlers Emil Levsen and Joe Shaute, who each amassed at least 14 wins and 200 innings pitched.

Cleveland fans expressed hope for improving upon their 1925 sixth-place finish and 70-84 record. After winning the 1920 World Series and finishing second the following season, the Indians had been an average ballclub. Their best finish during that stretch occurred in 1923, when they finished third with an 82-71 record but 16½ games behind AL pennant-winning New York. The Indians dropped to sixth place during both 1924 and 1925, though core veterans Speaker, Sewell, and Burns performed admirably throughout 1925. However, the Indians’ team hitting and pitching was slightly below average.

Baseball prognosticators weren’t expecting much from Cleveland for the upcoming season. During spring training, The Sporting News Indians beat writer complimented the pitching but noted the hitting was struggling: “However that may be, it is rather strange that the Indians pitchers are doing valiant work while the batters are idle. Usually it has been just the reverse.”1 Although the offense was underperforming during the spring, optimism still existed that the team was “.. .likely to surprise many of its critics with some good baseball and a spot higher than seventh in the American League.”2 Other baseball writers were more confident in the team, suggesting that the AL was up for grabs, with only the Boston Red Sox not considered a viable contender. While the 1925 AL season was a battle between Washington and Philadelphia, the five other teams improved their prospects during the off-season. Better seasons were expected from Uhle and lefty Shaute, along with solid support from Levsen, Jake Miller, Benn Karr, and Sherry Smith. By Speece, Norm Lehr, Garland Buckeye, and Ray Benge were competing for additional staff spots. There were higher expectations for the Indians’ catching and infield as well. Cleveland was expected to finish between third and seventh.3

Cleveland hosted the Detroit Tigers for the first two games of the new season. Opening Day starting pitcher Uhle was already a seven-year veteran for Cleveland. He led AL pitchers with 26 wins and 318⅓ innings pitched during the 1923 season, but struggled during the next two seasons, ending 1924 with a 9-15 record and 4.77 ERA, but garnering an improved 13-11 record and 4.10 ERA during 1925. Fans were worried the 27-year-old right-hander had lost his touch, but Uhle regained his stellar form that had eluded him over the past two seasons. In the third inning, Freddy Spurgeon singled home Charlie Jamieson with the season’s first run. Burns doubled home Sewell in the following frame as the offense awakened. Uhle kept the Tigers’ claws clipped, blanking them for five innings. Detroit’s only run occurred on a sixth-inning groundout. Uhle allowed nine hits and overcame seven walks to pitch the Indians to an Opening Day win, and the lead sentence from The Cleveland Press’s game coverage read, “George Uhle seems to have something this spring he hasn’t had for the better part of three years.”4

Joe Sewell was a major part of Cleveland’s offense in 1926, and would eventually become a Hall of Famer. (Wikimedia Commons)

After winning their opener, the Indians completed April with a 10-5 record, two games behind AL-leading New York. Their April included a five-game winning streak and two extra-inning wins. Uhle delivered a 3-1 record and 2.83 ERA over 35 innings while Burns batted .400 for the month over 60 at-bats, getting at least one base knock in 14 of 15 games. One stellar Cleveland victory occurred on April 24 when they hosted Detroit. With the game tied 3-3, Detroit loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth. Cleveland starter Levsen, making his season debut, started a double play, firing home followed by catcher Luke Sewell throwing to first to complete the double dipper. A flyout ended Detroit’s threat. Two innings later, Sewell drove home Burns with the winning run. In a courageous effort, Levsen overcome a long time between outings, Tigers base hits during eight of the first nine innings, and high winds to earn his first win of the season.5 The second-place Indians were looking forward to the first series with New York, scheduled for mid-May.

Cleveland ran into a frustrated Yankees team for their series. The Yankees played .800 ball in April and won their first game in May, but then dropped six of their next seven games, defeating Detroit in the final contest before facing Cleveland. Heading into the series, the teams were tied atop the AL standings with identical 15-9 records. The Yankees swept the series, winning the first game in ten innings and the second with five unanswered late runs. In the finale, Levsen limited New York to two hits, though one was a Babe Ruth first-inning two-run homer. The Indians threatened in the ninth inning with the winning run aboard, but New York center fielder Earle Combs made a great running catch to end the game and preserve a 2-1 New York victory.6

The series sweep was early in a 16-game winning streak that resulted in an 6-game lead for New York by Memorial Day.

Cleveland rebounded to win their next two series, then lost eight of their next nine games. But their lone win during that awful stretch was exciting. Hosting the St. Louis Browns on May 25, the Indians led 4-1 after seven innings with staff ace Uhle on the mound. The Browns tied the game in the ninth on an unearned run. Uhle, who often struggled with his control, walked no batters during this contest. In the 11th inning with one out, Homer Summa was thrown out at home; next, the decent-hitting Uhle delivered a walk-off two-run round-tripper into the left field bleachers.7

After their May swoon, the Indians were firing on all cylinders in early June, climbing the standings from sixth place back into second place, with Uhle pitching well, Sewell delivering timely hits, and Speaker making the right moves.8 But the good feelings subsided, and amid late June struggles, Cleveland dropped to fifth place and 13 games off the pace.

A 20-win July and playing above .500 ball during August and September brought the Tribe as close as two games from the league lead. The Indians displayed their resilience in a game at Philadelphia on July 21. Through eight innings, Levsen and Philadelphia’s Howard Ehmke were locked in a scoreless duel. In the ninth inning, Cleveland batted around, scoring six runs on six hits to stun the Athletics. Cleveland’s rally started with Freddy Spurgeon’s leadoff double. Speaker bunted down the third base line; hoping the ball would drift foul, Philadelphia fielders didn’t touch base the ball until it completely stopped.9 Speaker’s sacrifice bunt attempt turned from an expected runner on third with one out scenario into runners on second and third with no outs. Joe Sewell singled and the scoring started. Cleveland’s 6-0 win returned them to second place for the first time in nearly a month.

Two star Clevelanders showcased excellence during August. On August 11, the Chicago White Sox scored five 13th-inning runs to drop Cleveland farther behind New York, but manager Tris Speaker delivered a double in the third inning. On August 28, Levsen pitched two complete-game wins against Boston; in each game, Levsen allowed a lone run on four hits.10 During his amazing feat, the emerging star walked only three batters—and recorded zero strikeouts—over his 18 innings. Levsen’s two complete-game victories on the same day have not been replicated since.11

1926 would be Tris Speaker’s final season as player/manager for Cleveland. He would never manage at the major league level again. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Indians carried a seven-game winning streak into the final month. A four-game losing streak midmonth hampered their efforts, and losing three of their last four games ended their postseason prospects. Cleveland’s 1926 campaign ended on a high note when 1926 MVP Burns singled home Jamieson with the winning run in the season’s final game to dramatically conclude the season; Burns went 3-for-5 with four RBIs and his league-leading 64th double.

MVP Burns established full-season career highs for batting average (.358), hits (216), doubles (64), RBI (115), and plate appearances (657). Uhle reached career highs with 27 wins, .711 winning percentage, and 32 complete games while overcoming a league leading and career high 118 walks. Levsen enjoyed the best season of his six-year career, compiling a 16-13 record and 3.41 ERA over 237⅓ innings. Tris Speaker ended his Cleveland managerial tenure with a 617-520-2 record; he ranks fourth in games managed (1,139) and wins (617). The team’s shortcomings included injured pitchers, light-hitting catchers, and underperforming outfielders.12

Following the season, Speaker was forced out of baseball by American League President Ban Johnson for allegedly betting on a 1919 baseball game against the Tigers. Ty Cobb, by then the Tigers player-manager, was also forced out. Though he left his post following the season, AL President Ban Johnson forcibly removed Speaker and Cobb amid allegations of fixing a 1919 game between the Indians and Detroit Tigers. Speaker’s surprise retirement announcement landed on the front page of the Plain Dealer.13 While the immediate focus was identifying Speaker’s replacement, Speaker was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. He never again managed at the major league level, though he played in 1927 with Washington and ended his career in 1928 with Philadelphia—with Cobb as a teammate.14

During the exciting 1926 campaign, the Indians exceeded expectations. Uhle pitched a complete game and delivered a walk-off home run in the same game, Cleveland scored all six runs during the ninth inning of a 6-0 win, Speaker hit his 700th career double, Levsen pitched two complete games in the same day, and the Indians won their final regular season game with a Burns walk-off single. This Cleveland ballclub should be remembered for its colorful cast of characters, best season over a 17-year stretch, and unexpected dramatics after the season concluded.

GORDON J. GATTIE is a lifelong baseball fan and a SABR member since 1998. Currently a civilian US Navy engineer, his baseball research interests include ballparks, the minor leagues, and statistical analysis. Gordon earned his PhD from SUNY Buffalo, where he used baseball to investigate judgment performance in complex dynamic environments. Ever the optimist, he dreams of a Cleveland Guardians World Series championship. Lisa, his wonderful wife who roots for the New York Yankees, and Lexi, their adorable Labrador Retriever, enjoy visiting baseball-related sites. Gordon has contributed to several SABR publications, including books, The National Pastime, and the Games Project.

Sources

Baseball Reference: http://www.baseball-reference.com

Cleveland Guardians 2025 Information and Record Book.

Retrosheet: http://www.retrosheet.org/

Ritter, Lawrence. The Glory of Their Times (New York: Vintage Books, 1985)

Snyder, John. Indians Journal: Year-by-Year and Day-by-Day with the Cleveland Indians Since 1901 (Cincinnati: Clerisy Press, 2008).

Notes

1. Francis J. Powers, “Now, If Tris Can Get Both Ends to Meet,” The Sporting News, April 1,1926: 3.

2. Powers, “Now If Tris Can Get Both Ends to Meet,” The Sporting News.

3. Henry P. Edwards, “American League Chase Will Be Much Closer Than 1925, Edwards Says,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 11, 1926: 24.

4. Joe Williams, “George Uhle Shows Return of Old Stamina in Victory,” Cleveland Press, April 14, 1926: 24.

5. Henry P. Edwards, “Indians Beat Tigers in Eleven Innings, 4 to 3,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 25, 1926: 19.

6. Henry P. Edwards, “Babe Ruth’s Homer, One of Two Hits Off Levsen, Beats Indians, 2 to 1,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 15, 1926: 18.

7. Henry P. Edwards, “Uhle Hits Homer in 11th, Strikes Out Ten, as Tribe Beats Browns, 6 to 4,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 26, 1926: 22.

8. Francis J. Powers, “You Can Knock ‘em Down But Not Out,” The Sporting News, June 24 ,1926: 1.

9. Henry P. Edwards, “Levsen Blanks Athletics While Tribe Rallies in Ninth to Gain 6-0 Victory,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 22, 1926: 17.

10. Henry P. Edwards, “Levsen Hurls Double Victory Over Red Sox,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 29, 1926: 23.

11. Leonard Gettelson, “Iron Man Pitching Performances,” Baseball Research Journal, Society for American Baseball Research, Vol 6, 1977, https://sabr.org/journal/article/iron-man-pitching-performances/. Levsen’s accomplishment as the last pitcher to win two complete games in a single day was also verified at baseball-almanac.com: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats24.shtml.

12. Francis J. Powers, “They Can’t Blame It All On Speaker,” The Sporting News, October 28, 1926: 3.

13. Henry P. Edwards, “Tris Quits, M’Callister In Line,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 30, 1926: 1.

14. Don Jensen, “Tris Speaker,” SABR Biography Project. Accessed February 16, 2026, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Tris-Speaker/.

George Uhle: The Bull Leads the Tribe in the 1926 AL Pennant Race

wpadmin — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:45:56 +0000

While Cleveland couldn’t catch the Yankees to win the 1926 AL pennant, George Uhle dominated them in the second half of the season. (Wikimedia Commons)

George (The Bull) Uhle led the Tribe to a near pennant in 1926, going 27-11, as Cleveland finished three games behind the Yankees. Uhle debuted in 1919, pitching in the World Series, won by the Tribe. He enjoyed 20-win seasons in 1922 and 1923, but 1926 was his best yet.

In 1926, he won nearly one-third of the Tribe’s 88 wins, and led the AL in WAR for pitchers, wins, win-loss percentage, innings pitched, complete games, and adjusted ERA. He was second in overall WAR, and second in ERA.

Uhle had a very strong second half, going 16-4, as compared to 11-7 in the first half. Additionally, he was 16-4 in his home park, as compared to 11-7 on the road.

Table 1. George Uhle Pitching Stats for 1926

Table 2. George Uhle by Month, in 1926

George had a winning record against every other AL team, except for the White Sox, against whom he was 0-3. Two of those losses were on the road, and all 3 losses were in the first half of the season. He went 61 against the Yankees, the team whom the Tribe needed to beat for the pennant. He was also 5-1 against Detroit and 5-2 against Philadelphia. Five of his six wins against the Yankees came in the second half of the season!

Table 3. Cleveland vs. the Rest of the AL, 1926

Uhle was the clear leader of the pitching staff, but three other pitchers won in double figures. Emil Levsen went 16-13, Joe Shaute was 14-10, and Sherry Smith came in at 11-10. Cleveland didn’t have a strong offense, but George Burns had an MVP season, with 216 hits, 64 doubles, 115 RBIs and a .358 batting average. Joe Sewell had 41 doubles, 84 RBIs, and a .324 BA. And the Cleveland outfield consisting of Tris Speaker, Homer Summa and Charlie Jamieson all batted around .300.

The Tribe fell behind the Yankees early on, but had a strong finish, almost catching the Pinstripers late.

Table 4. Yankees vs. Indians, 1926

We can see that Cleveland got hot in the second half, very nearly catching New York. Uhle went 6-1 vs. the Yanks—and 5-1 from July.

Table 5 will show how effective Uhle was against the Yankees in the second half, noting that his first start against New York occurred on June 7.

Table 5. Uhle Against The Yankees In 1926

We can see how effective George was against the Yankees, and his overall second half was so good that it lowered his ERA from 3.68 on July 7 to 2.83 by season’s end. And considering that the Yankees had Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and the beginning of their Murderers Row team, Uhle’s effectiveness against them was remarkable!

Uhle really carried the Tribe in 1926, and he would have been a good choice for league MVP. According to The Hidden Game of Baseball, by Pete Palmer and John Thorn, Uhle was second to Lefty Grove in Pitching Runs and Normalized ERA, was third behind Grove and Eddie Rommel in Park Adjusted Pitching Runs, and was first in Percent of Team Wins and Wins Above the Team. Cleveland’s Ball Park Factor was 98<100, which somewhat favored the pitcher, while Philadelphia’s Ball Park Factor was 117 >1, which strongly favored the batter. Thus, the A’s pitching numbers were adjusted up, while the Indians’ pitching numbers were adjusted down.

Grove’s win-loss numbers were nowhere near what Uhle’s were, so hats off to Uhle and the Tribe for a good season which nearly brought them the AL pennant!

STEVE KREVISKY is a retired Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Connecticut State Middlesex Campus, and still teaches part time. He enjoys using baseball in his math classes, as he feels it motivates his students. He has also presented at national and international math and statistics conferences. He has been a frequent presenter at regional and national SABR meetings, and has written several articles for the convention journals. He has been on seven teams which won the national trivia championship, and is the chapter president of the SABR’s Smoky Joe Wood chapter in Connecticut. A Yankees fan, Steve takes guitar and banjo lessons, and also enjoys chess and travel.

Sources

Peter Jedick, League Park (SABR, 1992).

Baseball Reference.

Retrosheet.org.

Palmer, Pete and John Thorn. The Hidden Game of Baseball (Doubleday & Company, 1984).

Wancho, Joe, “George Uhle,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/george-uhle/.

Daguerreotypes.