1871 Warren N. Wilbert Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, OPENING PITCH OPENING PITCH Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, 1871 Wilbert For orders and information please contact the publisher Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 • fax 717-794-3803 www.scarecrowpress.com Sports • Baseball y the start of the 1870s, the game of “base ball” had been building momentum for a couple of decades as the new national pastime. From the fi rst game to be reported in a newspaper in 1853 to the fi rst all-star game in 1858 to the fi rst fully professional baseball team in 1869, minor and major milestones ultimately led to the formation of the fi rst professional baseball league. In Opening Pitch: Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, 1871, Warren N. Wilbert chronicles the events leading up to the sport’s offi cial fi rst season. Highlighting key players both on and off the fi eld, Wilbert provides a fascinating history of the sport’s highs and lows, culminating in the historic season when it offi cially evolved from amateur athletics to the professional sport embraced by all of America. Opening Pitch provides a close look at the teams that participated in league play, including the New York Knickerbockers, Cincinnati Red Stockings, Chicago White Stockings, Troy Haymakers, New York Mutuals, Fort Wayne Kekiongas, Cleveland Forest Citys, Washington Olympics, and the Philadelphia Athletics. Wilbert also pays tribute to the sport’s early stars who made the fi rst season memorable, such as Dave Eggler, Bob Ferguson, Cal McVey, Levi Meyerle, Joe Start, Ezra Sutton, Fred Treacey, James “Deacon” White, George Zettlein, and future Hall of Famers Adrian “Cap” Anson, George Wright, Harry Wright, and Al Spalding. Several appendixes include individual stats for all of the key players, as well as the season record for all the teams who participated in league play. Opening Pitch offers a fascinating glimpse into this historic era of professional sports for baseball enthusiasts as well as those interested in athletics in America. WARREN N. WILBERT is dean emeritus of Concordia University’s School of Adult Learning in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) since 1994 and has written articles for The Baseball Research Journal and National Pastime. He has authored or coauthored several books about the history of the game, including The Arrival of the American League: Ban Johnson and the 1901 Challenge to National League Monopoly and The Greatest World Series Games: Baseball Historians Choose 26 Classics. B ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6020-9 ISBN-10: 0-8108-6020-1 9 780810 860209 90000 Cover design by Janine L. Osif Cover photos: Harry Wright and Al Spalding of the Boston Red Stockings and Cap Anson of the Rockford Forest Citys OpeningPitch_mech.indd 1OpeningPitch_mech.indd 1 8/15/07 1:55:47 PM8/15/07 1:55:47 PM Opening Pitch Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, 1871 Warren N. Wilbert The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2008 PAGE i 16586$ $$FM 08-16-07 11:38:43 PS SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright ᭧ 2008 by Warren N. Wilbert All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilbert, Warren N. Opening pitch : professional baseball’s inaugural season, 1871 / Warren N. Wilbert. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0-8108–6020–9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0–8108–6020–1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Baseball–History–19th century. 2. Baseball–United States–History–19th century. I. Title. GV875.A1W55 2008 796.357’64–dc22 2007022463 ⅜ϱ ீThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992. Manufactured in the United States of America. PAGE ii 16586$ $$FM 08-16-07 11:38:43 PS To C. Paul Rogers, III PAGE iii 16586$ $$FM 08-16-07 11:38:44 PS PAGE iv 16586$ $$FM 08-16-07 11:38:44 PS  Contents Acknowledgments vii Prologue ix Chapter One The Eckfords: Link to the Past 1 Chapter Two Boss Tweed’s Mutes 7 Chapter Three Base Ball in the Hinterlands: The Kekiongas 19 OPENING PITCHES I: BASE BALL 1871 Chapter Four Base Ball on the Shores of Lake Erie 33 Chapter Five Chicago’s White Stockings 40 OPENING PITCHES II: SORTING OUT THE LEADERS Chapter Six Base Ball at the Agricultural Society Fairgrounds 55 Chapter Seven Troy’s Haymakers 66 OPENING PITCHES III: THE BROTHERS WRIGHT Chapter Eight Red Stockings in Boston 79 Chapter Nine The Capital’s Olympians 88 Chapter Ten A Whip Flag for the City of Brotherly Love 95 Appendix A 1871: The Ball Players’ Who’s Who 105 PAGE v v 16586$ CNTS 08-16-07 11:38:46 PS vi  Contents Appendix B The Championship Game 141 Appendix C 1871 National Association Standings and Team Statistics 143 Epilogue 145 Selected Bibliography 147 Index 151 About the Author 161 PAGE vi 16586$ CNTS 08-16-07 11:38:47 PS  Acknowledgments Among the many people who helped make this book possible, those whose names follow were especially helpful. They gave of their time, expertise, and support to help uncover not only the necessary data and factual information, but those little things that help make stories colorful and compelling. I owe these folks a great debt of gratitude. Hopefully, these few lines of acknowl- edgment will convey my heartfelt appreciation. Fred Schuld, who helped with the Cleveland Forest Citys story Kevin Keating, who provided leads for the Washington Olympics story Bill Hageman, who provided 1871 Chicago Tribune sports news David Smith of Retrosheet Miller Young, great grandson of Nick Young, Washington Olympics John Molyneaux, who was so ver y helpful with the Rockford story Eleanora Smith of the Rockford Register Star archives staff David Schultz, sports editor of the Rockford Register Star Walter Font, Curator of the Fort Wayne History Center John Thorn, fellow Saberite Bill Deane, researcher par excellence at Cooperstown Mark Rucker, Transcendental Images, helpful as always Lee Freeman, University of Michigan at Dearborn Mike Ossy, the Lah De Dahs, and Greenfield Village Ellen and Kip; Karen and Kelly—for all the moral support Jessica and Jeremy, computer and photographic whizzes Bill, Bud, Bob, and especially Marilyn for patience and support My sincere thanks to all of you. Warren N. Wilbert PAGE vii vii 16586$ $ACK 08-16-07 11:38:50 PS PAGE viii 16586$ $ACK 08-16-07 11:38:50 PS  Prologue Reconstruction: ordinarily a word with positive connotations. But not in 1870. Into the Spring of that year the good people of New Orleans were still struggling mightily under the privations and aftermath of the Great Rebel- lion, trying to restore the beauty of their fair city’s parks, squares, and plazas, as well as the necessary services, facilities, and living quarters, among them the stately Pontalba Apartments in the French Quarter that helped mark this city as one of the Southland’s gems. They toiled under the restrictions of scant supplies and the heavy hand of garrisoned Federal troops, scratching along as best they could, trying to refurbish their city in the years following the ravages and realities of their disastrous warfare. It was all still fresh in their minds, burning deeply in the very marrow of their beings. Reconstruction? That was, for many, a bitter pill to swallow. But despite deprivation and inconvenience, life in the Southland, which was in its better moments gracious, refined, and courtly, refused to stand completely still. Social events and many of the accustomed leisure-time activities found their way back into the homes, gathering places, and parks— quite possibly because of the very trying circumstances they endured. Young- sters and older folk alike once again pursued the growing national craze, playing ball games. Just a few years before the war began, the game of baseball debuted at the old Delachaise estate on a field that had been cleared, some- what leveled, and marked off according to the latest National Association of Base Ball Players’ specifications 1 . Members of the local gentr y, joined together in the Louisiana Base Ball Club, had met for the first time in 1859 to play the game. A lively start had been made. By 1870, the game of baseball had swept throughout much of the land, having received huge impetus from its popularity among s oldiers in both PAGE ix ix 16586$ PROL 08-16-07 11:38:56 PS [...]... the best players available By 1869, Cincinnati’s team made no pretense about its professional intentions Led by Harry and George Wright, two of baseball’s premier pioneers, the Red Stockings put a professional player at every position on the diamond, thus fielding baseball’s first fully professional team Part amateur and part professional, the National Association of Base Ball Players struggled through... visit Memphis on May 4, 1870 One year later to the day, on May 4, 1871, what we recognize today as organized baseball began its first professional season with a game featuring two ‘‘western’’ teams, the Cleveland Forest Citys and the Fort Wayne Kekiongas Another game in baseball’s first professional league had been scheduled for May 4, an inaugural affair between the Washington and Philadelphia clubs,... little romantic: professional baseball’s first year, 1871, was also a time of growth and often sheer delight, a time of discovery that captured the imagination and hearts of players and aficionados who used what few spare monies they possessed to pay their way into ball parks to see their favorites play a game on the greensward However sudden or even improbable the organization of a professional baseball... though they would be designated as Fort Wayne’s replacement later in the summer of 1871 when the Kekiongas folded So they set sail, did those nine intrepid teams, arranging to meet one another during the course of the 1871 season Indeed, way back there in 1871 there was something new on the face of the planet: a fully professional league of teams that endeavored to carry the national game into the metropolitan... youth leagues, amateur, semi -professional, and professional associations that engage huge numbers of their more youthful population And that is not all Throughout this land and others, professional baseball as we know it bids fair to become a worldwide sport, alive and well, despite some of the almost inevitable evils that attach to monied athletic endeavors The birth of professional baseball in the... and totally professional association, or league, thinkable, if not inevitable And that in fact happened on March 14, 1871 Now it just so happens that there was no entry from Brooklyn in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (referred to hereafter in abbreviated form as either National Association or simply NA), as previously explained Though Brooklyn’s Eckfords were professionalized,... successful, prestigious in matters baseball, and a national champion in years past, with respect to 1871 and its trail-blazing events, merits a longer look, standing as it did at the threshold of professional baseball’s first season Forthwith, a look, then, at this team as the first among the members of baseball’s first all-pro league, even though it did not play a single game in that league, followed... only one game during the 1871 season, the game that closed out New York’s National Association season in mid-October, making the Mutes essentially a tenplayer squad Frank Fleet was that Mutes one-gamer, filling in for Rynie 16586$ $CH2 08-16-07 11:39:36 PS PAGE 12 Boss Tweed’s Mutes 13 Wolters, who had pitched every other NA game on the New York slate that year Fleet was the pitcher of record in a... NA That would prove to be a tough order No review or story about the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players is complete without accounting for its inaugural game played in Fort Wayne on May 4, 1871 The game was just as amazing and unlikely an athletic contest, considering the year and state of baseball’s art at that time, as well as the ball park’s attractive setting near the banks of... Forest Citys, who had quartered at the Aveline House Pitchers for the day were to be the visitors’ Al Pratt, a veteran of several amateur and professional seasons, and the youngster from Baltimore, 19-year-old Bobby Mathews, whose famous dropping ball made him a highly effective hurler But more on both the ball used in the NA’s 1871 games and Mathews’ pitches later That the game wound up as it did was . 1871 Warren N. Wilbert Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, OPENING PITCH OPENING PITCH Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, 1871 Wilbert For. Citys OpeningPitch_mech.indd 1OpeningPitch_mech.indd 1 8/15/07 1:55:47 PM8/15/07 1:55:47 PM Opening Pitch Professional Baseball’s Inaugural Season, 1871 Warren