Clippings:1880
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Clippings in 1880 (264 entries)
a California player comes East
| Date | Sunday, December 5, 1880 |
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| Text | Jeremiah Denny, late of the Athletics of San Francisco, has been engaged by the Troy nine to play third base. He is said to be a good batter, and will be a valuable acquisition to the nine. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a German language baseball column
| Date | Sunday, January 18, 1880 |
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| Text | Among the new features in base-ball circles of Cincinnati this season will be a regular base-ball department in the Volksblatt, containing reports of games, score and all. This will be the first German paper in the country to introduce base-ball reports. It is done because a great many German citizens are taking an interest in the new Club. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a ball goes under the fence 2
| Date | Saturday, September 11, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Buffalo 8/31/1880] Singles by Start, Farrell and Ward and a wild throw by Moynahan gave the visitors two runs at the outset, and they added another run in the second on a fortunate hit by Gross, the ball going under the left-field fence, and before it could be fielded in Gross had scored a home-run. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a call for the return of straight arm pitching
| Date | Sunday, August 15, 1880 |
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| Text | [from a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald] Will you permit an old lover of the National sport, and one of the original founders of the Boston Base Ball Association to make a suggestion? I havee found of late that, although my interest in the game could not be lessening, as I was still possessed of the same eagerness to read in your columns the reports of the various league matches as also to scan the details of the fielding and batting of the Bostons, yet when I attended a match I would become wearied as at a dull play at the theater, and although the Bostons would be playing what might be called a good game, yet I could not “enthuse” at all. If ind that I am not alone in this feeling, and it is growing on the “veteran” patrons of the game, as shown in the decreasing attendance. Now this is all accounted for in the fact that the game itself has changed. … ...the change made from the old style of delivery of the ball at base ball. When the ball was fairly pitched, and not thrown, and delivered below the waist at straight arm, good pitchers were scarce, but since underhand throwing has been in vogue good deliveries of the ball—not pitchers—are plenty. Underhand throwing, from one having good command of the ball, can not be batted successfully, if he is properly supported. Consequently the balls from the bat do not come hard to the fielders and the records of games show less than five errors to a club and less than ten runs in all. But is the game any shorter, so that the spectator may not be wearied? One would naturally suppose that, in a game where only seven runs are made, under the new style of playing, the game would take less time than in the old style of game, where double the number of runs were scored. But such is not the fact. The writer being an unfortunate suburban is obliged to leave the grounds at 5:30, and on Friday at the same time six innings had been played. Now for the remedy. The spectators would rather see good batting that good fielding, and there was more enjoyment in the old Harvard and Lowell matches of 30 run on a side than in all of the present 3 to 0 contests. Go back, gentlemen managers of the League, to the old base ball game, with straight-arm pitching, and abolish the rule allowing the pitcher to deliver 11 balls to each batsman. Let six bad balls at the most, give a batsman a base, and stop the warning of “good ball” after two strikes. This will make the pitcher sharper in his deliver, the batsman more eager to strike the batting heavier, and the game ll the more interesting and the patronage consequently better. Cincinnati Commercial August 15, 1880 George Wright has been recently interviewed, and expressed himself strongly in favor of a return to the old style of straight-arm pitching, adding that with the present curved underhand throwing a base hit is only made by chance. It is his opinion that Corcoran, Will White, Ward and McCormick throw the ball almost from the shoulder, and should be ruled out. Cincinnati Commercial September 5, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a challenge to prove a ball can curve
| Date | Saturday, July 24, 1880 |
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| Text | Soule of Rochester, N.Y., is said to have offered $1,000 to the person who could demonstrate to him the possibility of a baseball being curved in the air. He has received many offers from parties prepared to prove that such a feat can be performed, and he now intends to divide the amount into two prizes, the first to go to the pitcher who can make has ball describe the greatest curve. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a condemnation of the reserve system; a call for a Players' League
| Date | Thursday, August 12, 1880 |
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| Text | What right has the League to say to any player where he shall play next year? The days of slavery are over. This system of Ku-Kluxism in ball-playing ought to be quashed. A ball-player has no better right than to place a price on his services in Cincinnati and another for his services in Chicago. It may be that he would rather play in Chicago for $100 less than in Cincinnati, or vice versa. Let him name his price for each place. Let the city which considers him worth the salary asked pay fo4r it. If he asks too much; that city need not engage him. No man with common business sense would engage a clerk at a salary he could not earn. And no Ball Club will engage a player for a sum stated unless that Club thinks that player is worth the money asked. … … It is time such outrageous policy was ended. If the League will not do it, the players must. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Let the players then anticipate the fraud, and meet it half way. Let every League player sign a solemn agreement with every other League player not to play ball next season with any Club that shall attempt to coerce players in this manner. The players command the field. Club can not do without them; but they can do without Clubs. If the League intends to repeat the fraud, it deserves to have its existence ended. Such men as George Wright, Jim White and John Clapp can not afford to be driven out of the profession by such repeated outrages. If the player, or, at least, the better part of them, will but demand their rights as men—freemen--they can have them. If they go on supremely careless and do nothing until forty of them are under the yoke of despotism, they will richly deserve all that they suffer by it. This is the time to act. We warn players that the log is already rolling which is intended to pin them down again under the dictation of a despotic power. The prime movers in the plot are the Club that have been most successful and want to retain some of their players for next year, but are not fair and honest enough to pay deserving salaries not to let the players go where such salaries can be obtained. It is the one great stain upon the record of the National League, and ought to be wiped out effectually. Cincinnati Enquirer August 12, 1880 Isn't it about time for League players to form a “league” of their own, and announce to the world that they do not intend to be sold this fall. New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburg, St. Louis, and probably several other cities, might be willing to step in a do the right thing if the players will give them a change. Think this over, boys. Cincinnati Enquirer August 19, 1880 If the League should continue the Buffalo 'five-man agreement' it would be well for the players affected to rise up in their manhood and rebel. No man or body of men have any right to compel a player to play in a certain city in the League, or to go outside of that organization, against his own free will. If the League should continue this policy, and legislate much more in the same direction, the players owe it to their own self-respect to form a League of their own, which, however, in order to be successful and effective, would require that every professional of prominence should unite with it. Cincinnati Enquirer August 27, 1880, quoting the Boston Herald |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a condemnation of the reserve; George Wright's hold out; proposal for a salary cap
| Date | Saturday, October 23, 1880 |
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| Text | For some years past a puzzling problem to the League Association has been that involved in the question of how to regulate the salary-list of their professionals so as to make it accord with paying returns at the gate. The yearly struggle to secure the best professional talent has resulted in the increase of salaries from simply remunerative figures up to “fancy prices.” ... Finally a rule was adopted which gave to each League club the power to hold five men of one season’s team to service for a succeeding year at such terms as each club holding them might think fit to offer. The rules was made so as to be mandatory to the extent that the player refusing to abide by it was prohibited from employment in any League Club save the one reserving his services. The arbitrary character of this rule was fully exhibited in the case of George Wright’s engagement with the Providence team in 1880, that player being practically ruled off League fields as a player because he refused to accede to the reservation policy the past season. While it is to a certain extend a necessity with stockholders of clubs to economize as much as possible in the way of ou8tlays for salaries, it is also possible to adopt such a method for controlling salary-lists without resorting to so objectionable a law as the existing five-men rule. The same united action of the clubs required to carry out the five-men law would prove equally effective in the case of a regular limitation of salaries to figures commensurate with the sum of the annual gate-receipt account. Thus it might be easily determined that no club should pay more than $1,200 a season for a pitcher or catcher’s services, nor more than $1,000 a season for those of the in and out fie4lders; but a law which admits of so gross a piece of tyranny as that contemplated by the League in the case of forcing Snyder to play with the Boston Club or no other is one which is a disgrace to the League code. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a contract dispute with the media
| Date | Saturday, July 24, 1880 |
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| Text | An amusing controversy is going on between the Troy Club and the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company. The company having refused a request to frank all messages on club affairs, their operator was refused admission to the ground, and accordingly climbed a convenient pole and tapped the wire. The manager was so pleased with the operator's exploit that a seat is to be rigged on the pole. To prevent a successful issue of this device, the Troy directors have ordered a large canvas to obstruct the ope rator's view. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a defense of the reserve system
| Date | Sunday, September 5, 1880 |
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| Text | Let us see how the abolition of the five-players agreement, or the absence of something of a similar character, would work. Cincinnati, for example, desirous of getting a team that it thinks would win the championship, and being determined to outbid any and all other clubs in order to get the players it wants, enters the field after the 23d of October and begins the engagement of a team for 1880. the local management and the local newspaper advisers agree upon something like this for an outfit: Jones, Gore, and Kelly for the outfield, Will White and Corcoran for pitchers, John Clap and Flint for catchers, Jim White for first base, Burdock for second base, Burns for short-stop, Williamson or Connors for third base, and Hines or Dalrymple for substitutes. This would be a tremendous batting and fielding collection, and might or might not win the championship: much would depend on management, in which respect Cincinnati is lamentably deficient. Anyhow, Cincinnati wants these players, and is going to have them at whatever rate of salaries promised,--payment being quite another affair. But how about Chicago and Gore, Kelly, Burns, Williamson, Corcoran, and Dalrymple? Presumably Chicago wants to keep these players, and to a certainty Chicago can afford to pay them $2 for every dollar offered by Cincinnati. Boston wants to keep Burdock, Troy wants Connors, Providence wants Hines; more than that, they are going to have them, or else they are going out of the ball business, for a club cannot survive which loses the players having the strongest hold upon the favor of its patrons. Chicago, Boston, Providence, and Troy will pay these players $2,000 apiece before they will let them go. Bu Cincinnati will pay $2,500, and gets them—gets a mean which will cost upwards of $25,000 for salaries alone, or $32,000 when traveling, hotel, and incidental expenses are added. To meet this expense the Cincinnati Club must average $400 per game for eighty games, at home and abroad,--a thing which no club ever did or ever can do. The average will be less than one-half that figure when Cincinnati shall have crippled every other club in the League by taking away their best and most popular players. Result, a net loss of $16,000, which the Cincinnati stockholders must pull out of their pockets and pay into the Club treasury. Will the Cincinnati stockholders do it? Unquestionably they will not. Then the players engaged lose one-half the salaries promised, and have played ball for considerably less than what they would have received had the five-players agreement operated to prevent this senseless competition. We do not believe the ball-players of the country are so silly and short-sighted as to want to kill the goose that lays for them the golden egg,--said goose being the League, which has been instrumental in elevating and popularizing the game of ball, in creating a demand for players, and in guaranteeing them honest and fair treatment by the clubs employing them. What is good for the League is good for ball-players, for the day when the League ceases to control the National game in America by wise legislation and judicious business management will see the speedy downfall and obliteration of the game as a grand popular amusement and pastime; and nothing will more surely disrupt the League and reduce base-ball to chaos than a policy which increases salaries beyond a point justified by club receipts. Salaries are already as high as they should be, and the person who advocates a plan that will inevitably increase the present expense of maintaining a club, be he officer, stockholder, player, or newspaper reporter, is no true friend of base-ball. Ball-playing talent is worth what it will bring, and it will bring, in the long run, not what indiscreet club officials are foolish enough to bid for it, but what experience has amply demonstrated the public will pay for it in the shape of patronage, and no more. In many instances this revenue from patronage has not equaled the expense of maintaining the club, and club stockholders, enthusiastic and ardent devotees of the game, have paid the deficit. This will have to do it this year in several instances, and they are willing to do it again, provided the deficit is not too large. How to keep it down to the minimum should be the study of every club management, and no how to make it larger. It was for this that the plan of reserving players was devised, and it is for this it should be continued. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a denial that the Boston Club salaries are in arrears
| Date | Sunday, August 15, 1880 |
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| Text | The story that the Boston nine has not been paid regularly by the management was denied by one of the players last night, who says that all the men are paid promptly on the 15th day of each month. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a denunciation of beer and Sunday games
| Date | Sunday, August 15, 1880 |
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| Text | ...the beer-jerking and the Sunday games are relied on to help the [Cincinnati] Club out financially, and the present Cincinnati nine are employed very much as pretty waiter-girls are,--to increase the consumption and sale of beer and swell the receipts of the Club. It is degrading, offensive, ruinous, this association of base-ball and beer, and the league should legislate against it with as much severity as it has legislated against everything that tends to bring the game into disrepute. Decency requires that this business of running a base-ball team as an adjunct to a brewery should be sat down upon by the League. Similar severity should be displayed toward Sunday games on League Club grounds. Such games are a fraud upon visiting clubs, in that they attract to the Sunday play visitors who would otherwise go to a Monday game, and surfeit and cloy the appetite of the community for base-ball. This question both of Sunday games and beer-jerking is not one of morals, but of sound business policy. Base-ball, outside of Cincinnati, is supported by a class of people by whom these practices are regarded as an abomination,--a class of people whose patronage is of infinitely greater value in dollars and cents, let alone respectability, than that of the element to whom beer is an attraction and a necessity. If the Cincinnati Club wants to have Sunday games and convert its grounds into a beer saloon, let it do it outside the League. There are plenty of cities anxious to take the place vacated by Cincinnati, whose retirement would be hailed with general satisfaction. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a dispute with a telegraph company and a spite fence
| Date | Sunday, July 25, 1880 |
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| Text | An amusing controversy is going on between the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company and the Troy City Base Ball Club. Until yesterday the former, which has several contracts to send the score of each game by innings, was allowed a seat in the reporters' stand, and was paid for all messages sent by the Troy Club. The Directors, having leaned that clubs in other cities were remunerated for admitting an operator, asked the manager of the telegraph company to rank all messages on club affairs. The request was refused, and when the operator reached the ground yesterday the Directors declined to allow him to attach his instrument. The operator was equal to the occasion, and leaving the ground, climbed a pole and tapped the wire. The manager was so pleased with the operator's exploit that a seat is to be rigged on a convenient pole. To prevent a successful issue of the operator's device, the Base Ball Directors have ordered a large canvas, which will be stretched on two poles, and so fixed that it can be moved to any desired point on the ground., quoting the Syracuse Herald |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a failed early attempt to organize a new league
| Date | Friday, November 5, 1880 |
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| Text | The convention of delegates from base ball clubs, which was called to meet at the Fifth Avenue hotel to-day [11/4], to organize a new base ball league, has been postponed until the 8th of December, by which time it will be known what new clubs will be organized. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a financially disastrous trip to California
| Date | Saturday, January 24, 1880 |
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| Text | [see NYC 1/24/1880 for a letter from Wm. W. Kelly relating a loss of $9,000 sending the Cincinnati and Chicago clubs to California.] |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a fine for language
| Date | Saturday, July 3, 1880 |
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| Text | Williams of the Chicagos was fined $10 yesterday for calling Capt. Anson a d.f., and Kelly was fined $5 for not running to second base in a proper manner., quoting the Troy Times |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a ground rule double?
| Date | Saturday, May 8, 1880 |
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| Text | [National vs. Cleveland 4/26/1880] Dunlap led off for the Clevelands with a two-base hit over the fence... |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a high delivery
| Date | Saturday, April 17, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcester vs. Yale 4/7/1880] Stovey opened play on the Worcester side, and he endeavored in vain to hit Lamb's rather swiftly and widely-thrown balls, the umpire allowing Lamb to deliver almost “straight from the shoulder.” this high delivery is, of course, illegal, and every umpire who strictly interprets the rule will call all such balls foul balks. We point out this defect of Mr. Lamb's pitching now so that he may reform it before playing in the college-championship games. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a home run over the fence 8
| Date | Saturday, July 31, 1880 |
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| Text | [Buffalo vs. Boston 7/24/1880] The Bostons tied the score in the fourth, when Jones lifted the ball high over the left-field fence, making a home-run and sending in James O'Rourke, who had reached first base on a force-hit. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a home run over the fence 9
| Date | Saturday, August 14, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Boston 8/6/1880] Burdock sent the second ball pitched by Corcoran flying over the left-field fence, making a home-run, and James O'Rourke followed suit with another home-run. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a joke about curve ball pitching
| Date | Saturday, January 10, 1880 |
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| Text | Cincinnati brags of a man who can throw a ball around the corner of a house. In these parts almost anyone can throw a ball around the corner of the house just as well as to do it in front of the house. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a new generation of Knickerbockers playing match games
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | “Many years ago,” when the New York Knickerbocker Club members were “young and charming,” they used to play quite a strong game. Afterwards they fell into “the sere and yellow leaf” of their ball-playing age, as it were, and resolved themselves into a committee of the whole on recreative practice on the field, and this they kept up until 1879, when time began to tell on such old soldiers of the Knickerbocker crops as “Jim” Davis, Purdy, Hinsdale, Benson, et al., and a corps of younger players began to take the places of the veterans; and now the old boys—with two or three exceptions—are no longer to be seen out on the field on practice-days. But the club does not die out from that cause; on the contrary, this year it has taken a new lease of life, and the young blood which has been inoculated into the ancient body bids fair to restore some of the old-time prestige of the club in its field-work. The fact is, the Knickerbockers of 1880 can raise a very good amateur-club team; and if they will only turn out well and get their new team into match-playing form, they ought to be able to trouble any of the regular metropolitan amateur nines to win a ball from them. On May 7 the Knickerbockers played their first club practice-match, on which occasion they had the Freshmen's nine of the Stevens Institute as their opponents. … [Stevens won 12-2] [Note: the game was played with ten men on a side, nine innings.] |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a no hitter
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | [Baltimore vs. National 5/24/1880] The Baltimores failed not only to make a run, but even to get a base-hit. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a player agent?
| Date | Sunday, February 1, 1880 |
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| Text | Robert J. Reid, the agent of the “only Nolan,” who officiated as pitcher for the Knickerbocker Base-ball Club during the past season, has received a letter from Patterson, N.J., stating that Nolan has signed a contract with W. J. Kohlman, manager of the Unions, of San Francisco, to pitch for that club next season. Nolan will also take with him a first-class catcher in the person of C. Kelly, who caught for the Syracuse club part of the last season. |
| Source | Philadelphia Item |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a quick pitch before the catcher is in place
| Date | Friday, June 25, 1880 |
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| Text | [Troy vs. Chicago 6/24/1880] Corcoran showed the boys a new trick when Welch was at the bat. Williamson had not yet taken position at the backstop when Corcoran delivered the ball, and Welch, knowing there was no catcher behind, had no notion of striking at the ball, and a strike was called. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a release and suspension clause added to the standard contract
| Date | Friday, February 27, 1880 |
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| Text | [describing the new NL standard contract] ...it is expressly stipulated in the League contract that the player may be suspended from play and from pay at any time when he shall be deemed by the club management to be disqualified from playing with the requisite skill, by reason of illness, injury, insubordination, or misconduct of any kind; or whenever he shall, by the captain or manager of the nine, be considered as lacking in the zeal, willingness, or physical condition necessary to the rendering of satisfactory service as a ball-player. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a revolver expelled by the NA
| Date | Wednesday, July 14, 1880 |
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| Text | The Rochester Club have expelled John Richmond for leaving them and going with the Bostons. But the National Association is not of enough importance just now to be a source of trouble to any body. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a reward out on Horace Phillips
| Date | Sunday, August 8, 1880 |
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| Text | The following speaks for itself: $100 reward! Horace B. Phillips, Manager of the Hop Bitters Base Ball Club, having been missing since Saturday night, the 24th inst., he having left Rochester, N.Y., at that time with money to pay the club, we will pay a reward of $100 for news of him or where he may be found. He is about 28 years old, 5 feet 6 inches in height, slight build, thin face, dark blue eyes. Hop Bitters Mfg. Co. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a rules proposal for larger bats
| Date | Sunday, October 3, 1880 |
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| Text | It would also be well for the League to remove all restrictions as to the size of the bat, which is now restricted to two and one-half inches diameter in the thickest part. The use of a bat of greater diameter would cause less foul hits and a greater number of clean hits, and, inasmuch as the desirability of in creasing the batting is very generally recognized, there would seem to be no good reason why a player should not be permitted to use just as big a bat as he likes. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a special engine for a pitcher
| Date | Saturday, June 19, 1880 |
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| Text | As Richmond is compelled to attend the exercises of the graduation class at Brown University Wednesday, June 16, to9 receive his diploma, the date the Worcesters meet the Chicagos at Worcester, and being unable to get through in time to catch the regular 11/30 A.M. Train, Manager Bancroft has chartered a special engine, which will leave Providence at 2 P.M. and get Richmond to Worceters, a forty-five-miles rune, in tome to fact the big hitters at 3:30 P.M. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a suggestion for two umpires
| Date | Saturday, February 7, 1880 |
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| Text | A correspondent suggests that the rules be amended so as to have two umpires, one to stand in the usual position near the home-plate and to decide all points in regard to pitching, catching, batting and outs at the home-plate, and the second one to decide all other questions, including outs on the bases. Our correspondent does not seem to be aware of the fact that this cumbrous contrivance of two umpires was abolished a quarter of a century ago. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a suggestion of a second ball put in play
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | The Albany Express gives the following account of a curious incident in the Albany-National game on May 3: “There was one man out. Farrell was at first and Morrissey at third. Pike at the bat peppered a hard one to the left field. Dignan and Warner both went for it. Everybody saw it drop to the ground, but in a twinkling a ball was thrown in, and Warner claims to have caught it. The umpire thereupon declared Pike out and Morrissey for leaving his base, amid much confusion. Where did the ball go to? Were there two balls? What has become of the ball seen on the ground? everyone asked, but nobody answered. It was very curious.” Another account says that Dignan and McClellen ran for the ball, which was seen to strike the latter's hands and fall to the ground, and that without either of the fielders stopping the ball was fielded in and the striker declared out. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a switch pitcher
| Date | Saturday, April 24, 1880 |
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| Text | Corcoran, the change-pitcher of the Chicagos, has naturally a right-hand delivery, but it is said that he can pitch with the left hand with almost equal facility. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a throwback Massachusetts game
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | A novel game took place at Stoneham, Mass., Aug. 28, in the shape of an old-fashioned Massachusetts contest, for the benefit of Frank H. Austin, an old-time ball-tosser. The Zouaves consisted of the present Stoneham nine, wtih five additional players, while the Benecia Boys comprised most of the players of the Stonehams of olden times, who were then the champions of the State. The game was won by the young players by a score of 21 to 15 in thirty-six innings. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a trick played on a pool room operator
| Date | Wednesday, June 16, 1880 |
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| Text | A practical joke of quite extensive ramifications was played Monday afternoon by a pool-room-keeper in “Gamblers' Alley” upon a rival establishment. Riley has been in the habit of relying on the telegrams received at Fox's room giving the results of heats in horse races, inning in ball games, and the like. Fox, of the larger pool-room, has received these announcements of innings by telegraph, while Riley, through the agency of a very small boy, who took the figures from Mr. Fox's blackboard as soon as they were placed thereon and ran with them to his employer's place, has been able, at comparatively little or no expense, to be thus only a few seconds behind his rival in telling his patrons of the progress of sporting events. This displeased Fox, and for a long time he cudgeled hi brain to devise means of punishing his rival. He accomplished his desire on Monday. Four games of ball were played upon that day, and, as the combinations in which the 50-cent gamblers buy tickets only take in three of the games, one of the four was left out. The game not placed in the combination ws that pleyd at Troy by the local League Club and that hailing from Chicago. Notwithstanding the game was not included in his combinations, and no pools were sold on it by him, Fox got the score as usual, and as usual Riley's mall boy carried the result of the innings as soon as they were received over to his employer. Riley did have the Chicago and Troy game in his ball combination that day, and about $300 worth of tickets were sold. The result of the game as received at Fox's room and duly transferred to Riley's blackboard was very startling to those who had wagered upon the White Stockings, and the score at the close standing,--Troy, 16; Chicago, 2. The “short-end” purchasers, i.e. those who had betted against Chicago in the hope of receiving large return for their money, were delighted, and very shortly after the close of the game Riley had divided among them the money. There were rumors during the evening that there was something wrong in the matter, but it was not until yesterday morning, when the backers of the “long-end” read in The Tribune the score, “Chicago, 16; Tory, 2,” with the usual interesting description of the game, that they saw that some extraordinary mistake had caused Riley to pay over the money to the wrong parties. Some of them had torn up their tickets in disgust the evening previous and were left without recourse, others who had retained the pasteboard gathered together and demanded of Riley an explanation. By this time he was fully able to make one, and it was to the effect that the wily old Fox from whom he got his information the day previous had very wickedly reversed the order of the result of the Chicago-Troy contest, with a special view to deceiving Riley, and had succeeded admirably. What with the combinations which had been paid to the wrong men and the “auction” bets upon innings and the result during the afternoon, Riley was, as they call it, “in the hole” to the extent of some $800. It is said, however, that he paid up every winning ticket which was presented, but it is safe to assume that at least $1100 worth of tickets had been destroyed by the disgusted holders. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
a version of the Lincoln nomination story
| Date | Saturday, February 7, 1880 |
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| Text | In 1860, when a committee from Washington called upon the late lamented Lincoln to ascertain whether he would accept the nomination for the Presidency, they found him in an open field near Springfield, Ill., engaged in playing a match game of baseball. He was the captain of one of the clubs, and so interested was he in the success of his side that he did not notice the approach of the gentlemen composing the committee until they were close upon him. When they made known their errand, Lincoln dropped his bat, and, with astonishment depicted on his countenance, turned to them and asked if they thought he was a fool. Only receiving a negative reply, together with the assurance that it was the people's earnest desire that he should become their standard-bearer, he remarked complacently that if he was not a fool the people were, and, turning away, he was soon oblivious to everything about him except the game of baseball. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
abandoning the foul bound rule
| Date | Sunday, January 18, 1880 |
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| Text | Last year the National Association tried the experiment of doing away with the foul bound, requiring all balls to be caught on the fly to insure an out, and it worked to a charm. None of the clubs would like to see the old rule re-established. The League will gradually work up to that point. |
| Source | Philadelphia Item |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
admission fee in Washington
| Date | Saturday, March 6, 1880 |
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| Text | The managers of the Nationals of Washington have decided to sell a limited number of season tickets, charging ten dollars for gentlemen and five dollars for ladies. They have also decided to charge ladies the usual admission to the ground, and twenty-five cents extra to the grand-stand. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Albany club finances
| Date | Saturday, March 13, 1880 |
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| Text | The Albany Club made over twenty thousand dollars in 1879, and there is nothing to prevent their doing even better than that the coming season. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an early proposal for RBI
| Date | Saturday, May 29, 1880 |
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| Text | Hulbert of Chicago advances the theory that the value of a batter actually depends upon how many runs he brings in. for example, Gore at Cincinnati made four consecutive base-hits, but neither scored himself nor brought home anyone else; so, to all intents and purposes, the result would have been just the same if he had struck out four times, instead of hitting clean. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an earned run that doesn't count in the score-keeper
| Date | Friday, May 21, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Chicago 5/20/1880] Curiously enough, the score gives one earned run which was not scored. It happened in this way: Williamson had hit for two bases, and Anson followed with a clean drive to centre field, on which Williamson reached home without difficulty, but he carelessly overstepped the plate, and so was put out. It is a unique question whether in such a case a run should be scored as earned, though it was not actually made; but as a fact in the game and as affecting the pitcher's record, it ought probably to go as an earned run. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an independent league is proposed
| Date | Wednesday, October 27, 1880 |
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| Text | The following telegram went to New York last night: Cincinnati, October 26, 1880 To the President of the Metropolitan B.B. Club, New York City: You are invited to send a Delegate to a meeting of Base-Ball Clubs to be held at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, November 4th, at noon, there to form an independent League on a liberal policy, and with the right of each club to regulate its own tariff. Albany, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Buffalo, and Detroit are expected to be represented in the new League. Wire your acceptance to Col. L. A. Harris, Cuvier Club Rooms, Cincinnati, Ohio, Executive Committee Cincinnati B. B. Club. This dispatch was duplicated, with the slight changes need, to the Buffalo, Albany and Washington Clubs. These cities named are the only cities which have at present Clubs not members of the League. We include Buffalo in this list because it is understood the Club will leave the rotten old League and get into decent company. The organization once formed by two or three or four of the Clubs above named, its success is assured. Pittsburg, Detroit and Philadelphia already have inclosed grounds, and would have Clubs had there been any place for such Clubs to have gone after being formed. But for years the selfish policy of the League has held base-ball interest in check in these cities. With a chance given them to put teams into a new organization, these cities are expected to come to the front at once. Cincinnati Enquirer October 27, 1880 The Washington Club replies that, on account of the absence from the city of several of their Directors, they are unable to act upon the invitation to send delegates to the New York meeting, but will reply soon. They undoubtedly will be represented. Cincinnati Enquirer October 28, 1880 The Directors of the Buffalo Base-ball Club have taken no definite action in regard to the new League. It is safe to say that they will not send any delegate to the New York meeting, and will remain in the present League during the season of 1881 at least. Cincinnati Enquirer November 1, 1880 The meeting of the Base-ball Clubs which was to have taken place yesterday at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to organize an independent League failed for want of a little pluck on the part of the Cincinnati Club. That body of wabbling gentlemen at the last moment failed to come to time. Having invited a meeting of conference, they were the first to make their absence conspicuous. It was, however, in accord with all their previous line of action. There has been a Board of Directors trying to do battle with the affairs of the Club, and the seven gentlemen who composed the Board were about as effective as seven mules hitched to seven points of a post, all pulling in as many directions. It was on this account that President Kennett dropped the Presidency like a hot potato. He found himself but a figure-head, while the other gentlemen of the Board were strong in their individual and distinct bruch [sic] of conflicting opinions. The application for readmission to the League was, as we believe, insincere. The Metropolitan Club of New York, through Manager Mutrie, sent word to the Cincinnati Club that they would join hands in the new League, and would be represented. This should have been sufficient. With New York in the East and Cincinnati the West as a “starter” the Independent League could have been a success. It would have formed the Association, and before spring a half dozen other cities would have applied for admission. The the Cincinnati Club in its ignorance seemed to think it was necessary to have promised from cities to be represented where no Clubs have as yet an existence. The meeting has now been postponed till the 8 th of December. By that time Boss Hulbert and the League will have met in New York and cooked the goose of the Independent Leaguers. Enquirer November 5, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an interracial match in New Orleans
| Date | Saturday, March 20, 1880 |
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| Text | About 2,500 people assembled at the ball-park in [New Orleans] on March 4 to witness the game between the Howards and the Orleans, the latter nine being selected from two crack colored clubs. The Howards were too much for their opponents, and pounded their pitcher for fourteen safe hits and nine earned runs. The Orleans played pretty well,but were a little nervous, it being the first game that any colored club had ever played in New Orleans against their white brethren. The crowd, composed mostly of colored people, was very enthusiastic. Their pitcher (a white boy) has always been considered a good local pitcher, but the heavy batters of the Howards were a little too much for his. New York Clipper March 20, 1880 [N.B. The Orleans' pitcher was “Kennedy”.] A game of base ball was played recently at New Orleans in the presence of nearly three thousand spectators, between the Orleans, a colored club, and the Howard Club, which is composed of Northern professional players. Although the audience was composed largely of colored people, the Orleans had not sufficient nerve to compete with the whites, who won by a score of 16 to 1. Philadelphia Item March 21, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an opinion of O. P. Caylor
| Date | Sunday, July 4, 1880 |
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| Text | The self appointed base ball authority is a singular specimen. He can be likened to an annual plant or fungus of unhealthy growth, that blooms somewhere along in April, emitting a rank odor all through the summer months extremely offensive to every one save himself, to whom it is as sweet wafted fragrance from Araby the blest. In the fall, heaven be praised, the plant withers on its attenuated and unnatural trunk and dies, to the intense relief and improved mental health of every one who unfortunately comes within its baleful influence. No class of persons have been more deluded by this unsavory jack o'lantern than professional base ball players, who, as a rule, have minds entirely too pliable. Chancing by a little ill timed praise on the part of some journal to come under the favorable notice of the individual in question, they are immediately lauded up to the skies and accepted by the groundlings as players of undoubted merit. It takes but a short time to disclose the fallacy, and the professional's downfall is as rapid and inevitable as fate. Then it is that the authority with a pinchbeck collar of his own manufacture comes down on the poor wretches with a whereas. He howls with the wolves and helps shutter the fraudulent image that he created. The base ball wrecker of the Enquirer, a man of this pattern, has in the past two years very nearly killed the National game in Cincinnati, and President Hayes would confer a boon on lovers of the sport if he would appoint him as Minister to the heart of Africa and cut off all means of retreat. He is cordially despised by all men who have invested their capital in playing nines, to say nothing of the opinions of admirers of the sport. During the winter this young man, whose pecuniary existence depends on the sport, casts his evil eye about until it fastens upon a ball tosser of seeming promise. Immediately thereafter the alleged authority covers him with his guano and fosters him until spring, when he foists him upon an unwilling Board of Directors, who are convinced of their mistake when the man who turns out to be worthless has cost a number of valuable dollars of the club's money. The authority, to his credit be it said, has intelligence enough to know that the fact of his emptiness is but too apparent to journals of the first class, and the knowledge galls him. At intervals he gives vent to his feelings by indulging in little gadfly bites that are passed by unnoticed, until, by his persistence, he rouses one of them up to a reply, the retaliator afterward regretting the action as being a loss of dignity as well as a contamination. No city that harbors an authority of the kind described can ever expect to have a successful ball team; but one can survive, and unfortunately it is usually the latter that goes under. The Cincinnati Club and its adherents are behooved to remember Sinbad the Sailor, and shake off this “old man of the sea.” Cincinnati Commercial July 4, 1880 [N.B. The Commercial's baseball editor was Charles Scanlan.] |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an out-of-town scoreboard
| Date | Thursday, April 29, 1880 |
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| Text | At the Chicago-Cincinnati game next Saturday the management have made arrangement to receive telegraphic reports by inning form each of the other League games at Cleveland, Providence and Worcester, and post them on a black-board in plain view of the crowd. Thus the spectators will be enabled to witness the progress of the four games at the same time. Cincinnati Enquirer April 29, 1880 Hereafter League games elsewhere will be posted by innings on the blackboard, in full view of the spectators. Cincinnati Commercial May 5, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
an unassisted triple play
| Date | Saturday, March 6, 1880 |
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| Text | A correspondent calls our attention to the extremely rare instance of a triple-play made by a player unaided, which happened in an amateur game at Cleveland, O., on last Thanksgiving-day. Base-runners occupied the first and second bases, when a seemingly safe hit to short right-field was captured on the fly by the second-baseman, who touched the player running from first and then touched the second base before the occupant thereof could return to that point. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Anson fines himself
| Date | Sunday, July 25, 1880 |
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| Text | The Troy Times tells this story as illustrative of the justice and fairness which characterize Anson's management of the Chicago team: “Anson fined himself $5 during the recent visit of the Chicagos to this city. He was put out while running to one of the baes, and when he returned to the players' bend one of his associates remarked that he would have been safe if he had run a little faster. 'yes,' said another, 'if it had been one of us we would have been fined.' 'Well,' said Anson, 'I find myself $5, and I want some of you fellows to see that I pay it without kicking.' The find will be paid, for Anson has on several occasions imposed a similar penalty upon himself, and President Hulbert says it has always been collected. That Anson is an excellent Captain and a strict disciplinarian is clearly demonstrated by the obedience rendered him by his men and the success his Club has achieved thus far this season. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
applause for an intentionally dropped infield fly
| Date | Saturday, August 14, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Providence 8/5/1880] Farrell purposely missed an easy catch in the fourth, when men were on first and second bases, and made a brilliant triple-play, which elicited round after round of applause. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
arm surgery
| Date | Sunday, March 14, 1880 |
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| Text | Hague, who was forced to retire from the Providence team last season on account of his inability to throw, has undergone a surgical operation, and is reported all right again. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
backing up plays; playing the outfield in
| Date | Saturday, May 8, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cincinnati vs. Chicago 5/7/1880] It is safe to say that such a thorough backing of every position in the infield has never be3en seen on a ball-field as that which this team [Chicago] gives. The outfielders are not mere automatons to take in flies and run after grounders; but, wherever a ball goes, or is likely to go, to either of the bases, one of them is there to see that it doesn't get away. Wild throws in a hurry from the catcher or pitcher never get to the outfield. A thrown ball generally finds three men in its track, the baseman, Burns [shortstop], and the corresponding fielder, and, if a ball comes in from the field to either first or third, it finds Corcoran [pitcher] in the position of support, with Flint [catcher] behind him. Capt. Anson plays his field closer in than any other field captain in the league. His theory is that long hits are the exception, and that, while, when they do come they may occasionally go over a fielder's head, the bases so gained will be comparatively few, while the close playing will enable the field to support the diamond and hold runners on short hits to the least possible number of bases. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
baseball reporter in Cleveland
| Date | Tuesday, May 11, 1880 |
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| Text | Mr. Pearce, formerly base-ball editor of the Cleveland Leader, is now connected with the Herald of that city. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
bat design
| Date | Thursday, April 29, 1880 |
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| Text | The bats manufactured by George Wright, instead of gradually tapering from butt to handle, have long, small round handles, with the full swell at the center of the bat. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
beer sales
| Date | Thursday, July 29, 1880 |
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| Text | At present Cincinnati and Buffalo are the only cities where sale of beer is allowed, and for this privilege the Club receives a handsome revenue., quoting the Worcester Spy |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
blocking the base; Anson's deportment
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Providence 6/4/1880] Anson refused to get away from the bag, and attempted to keep Farrell from getting upon the base. He was knocked down, and threatened to whip Farrell after the game. His language and deportment created considerable indignation, and it was thought at one time that Anson would be mobbed., quoting from the Boston Herald account |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Bobby Mathews delivery
| Date | Saturday, August 21, 1880 |
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| Text | [from the Clipper biography of Robert T. Mathews] Mathews was one of the first to introduce the curved delivery; and as he uses a good deal of headwork, his swift pitching has generally proved troublesome to even the best of batsmen. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Boston Club allegedly in arrears; Charley Jones
| Date | Wednesday, July 21, 1880 |
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| Text | The “Indifference” of Jones about playing in Boston has its causes which were not told. It is no secret that the Boston Club owes its players for a large share of their salary for the season as far as advanced. Foley of the same Club has been raising a breeze about his “back pay.” The fact that players have no protection against a Club holding back their salaries is a disgrace to the League. If they attempt to collect what is due them they are incontinently kicked out. It is but fair to Jones that his friends here and in Cincinnati ought to know both sides of the story. If the Boston Club can not pay him they ought to release him honorably. Cincinnati Enquirer July 21, 1880 The Boston Herald says: For quite a number of games on the South-end grounds it has been noticed that several members of the Boston team have played in a careless, “devil-ma—care” sort of a way, both at the bat and in the field. The club officials have been aware of this state of things for some time, and the boys have been spoken to and warned regarding their playing, in the hope that they would do better. Talking has not had the desired effect, and Saturday the management determined to exercise a little wholesome discipline. The ax first fell upon the head of Jones, and he was given permission to “lay off” with the loss of pay. Others are to follow unless marked improvement is shown int heir work, and in all cases suspension will be attended by loss of pay. The team is capable of playing as fine a game as any in the League, and the management is determined that there shall be no indifferent work done. A player who fills his position earnestly, and to the best of his ability, need have no fears, but the one who does not perform his whole duty will surely have discipline meted out to him. Cincinnati Enquirer July 21, 1880 [N. B. Jones was reinstated 7/21/80.] |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Boston Club cash flow problems
| Date | Thursday, September 9, 1880 |
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| Text | [an interview of P. J. Daily, of Boston] About the latter part of July—I think it was July 26th—I received an order for $100 from Jones, of the Boston Club. The order was dated the above day—the 26th—and was in lieu of money I loaned Jones, who at one time said he wished to redeem a watch. The order was on Mr. Long, Treasurer of the Boston Club. On the Wednesday prior to the departure of the Boston Club I met Mr. Long at the store of Wright & Howland, this city [Boston], and presented the order to him for payment. I asked if he could pay it then. He told me to come up to the game between the Chicagos and Bostons, the next day, on the Boston grounds. I went as he requested. This was on Thursday, August 5th, I am pretty sure. I saw Mr. Long at the grounds. He asked me if $50 on the order would be accepted at that time. I said yes, and he gave me that amount on the Saturday afternoon following, August 7th. I sent a young man up to the grounds where the Chicagos and Bostons were again to play to see Mr. Long and get the $50 still remaining due on the order. Mr. Long paid the balance due that same afternoon to my messenger. On the day I saw Mr. Long at Wright & Howland's store, I asked if the payment of the order depended on the gate receipts and attendance at the game between the Chicagos and Bostons that week. He gave me to understand or intimated that in a measure it did. In the latter part of July Jones told me that the Boston Club was in arrears to him to the amount of about $2100. Jones also told me that he was obliged to give the proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel, where he boarded, an order on the Boston Club for board due, and that he had been obliged to take this course on account of the backwardness of the Boston Club to pay what they owed him. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Boston stockholders' game
| Date | Saturday, April 17, 1880 |
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| Text | A game on Fast Day between nines of the stockholders of the Boston Club has become one of the features of the opening of the season in Boston, Mass. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
California League salary; a League club does not recognize outside contracts
| Date | Saturday, July 10, 1880 |
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| Text | Whereas, James F. Glavin, having signed a contract to play baseball with the Athletic Club [of San Francisco] for the period of nine months at a salary of $1,200 for said term, and having received $200 advance and two months' salary, violated said contract by engaging with the Buffalo Baseball Club, and leaving the State indebted to said Athletic Club in the sum of $165; and whereas the Buffalo Baseball Club induced the said Galvin to break his contract with the Athletic Club without condescending to ask either the said Galvin or the Athletic Club whether he could obtain his release, but induced him by sending dispatches offering him $300 advance-money, and telling him that they would stand by him, and that they did not recognize the California League or any other outside baseball organization..., from a resolution of the California League expelling Galvin |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
called balls and strikes
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Providence 6/5/1880] The umpire...came in for a share of unmerited censure, though he was thoroughly impartial. It is surprising to note the different view a club partizan takes of compared to that of a dis-interested spectator. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
calling for fly balls
| Date | Wednesday, May 19, 1880 |
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| Text | ...a word about collisions between fielders and fly-balls which drop in between through fear thereof. Fielders need never run into each other if they will follow the practice of giving way to the man who is most likely to catch the ball. The player running at full speed, with a chance of getting under the ball, should sing out as he runs, “Let me have it!” and, whether he can get the ball or not, he should invariably have the right of way. If this rule is observed there will be no bones broken by fielders running into each other. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
championship stated by the year won
| Date | Wednesday, July 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Chicago 7/6/1880] The fact is, the champions of 1879 hardly furnished more than a mild recreation for the champions of 1880. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Changing the pace of curve pitches
| Date | Wednesday, August 11, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Chicago 8/10/1880] As for batting, the heavy hitters of the visiting team were completely baffled by Corcoran's slow and swift curves. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
charge of playing for a release
| Date | Saturday, July 10, 1880 |
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| Text | McClellan, the short stop of the Nationals, has been playing poorly lately, owing to a sore hand, but the directors said that he had received an offer from a League club, and they thought he was not trying to play, and accordingly he was fined $100 for insubordination. He refused to submit to such treatment, and the directors, finding they had been too hasty, remitted the fine, and McClellan is again playing with the Nationals. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Chicago Club rules
| Date | Sunday, March 7, 1880 |
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| Text | For the violation of each one a penalty of suspension and forfeiture of wages for one League game is provided: There must be no conversation by players with reporters, scorers, acquaintances or persons in the audience while upon the field in uniform. No smoking while in uniform. To appear on the field in uniform not more than twenty minutes nor less than ten minutes before the beginning of the game. When away from home players must come upon the field in a body under charge of the Captain. No friends or acquaintances allowed to ride to the grounds with players. No money or expenses will be recognized by the management incurred by a player while away from the team. There must be no fault-finding on the field with another's errors or argument or dispute in presence of the spectators. Players are forbidden public or private association with gamblers or men known to bet on games of ball. Players must behave gentlemanly while in hotels, on cars or other public places. Players must always see that they are at the depot in time for the train while the team is traveling. Players are forbidden to play any game of chance for money while under engagement. They may play games for amusement. Players are forbidden to drink intoxicating liquors. All players must report at head-quarters from 9:30 a.m. Till 12 m. and from 2 p.m. till 5:30 p.m. on all week days when the team is at home, except when excused in writing by their Captain. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati Club expelled
| Date | Thursday, October 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the NL special meeting in Rochester] Mr. Hulbert asked Mr. Kennett what decision the Cincinnati Directors had come to, and the latter replied that he would not deviate from the stand he had taken when the Sunday and liquor agreement was first presented, he had been authorized to maintain his position, but was willing to listen to any amendment proposed as an addition to the Constitution. President Hulbert then said that the meeting could not go on with their further business until this matter was definitely settled. He wanted to know from Cincinnati whether they would vote yes or no to the agreement. If they held off any longer, the Club would forfeit its membership in the League. The subject under discussion was practically law now, as seven delegates had pledged themselves to support it at the annual meeting in December. … Mr. Kennett wanted to know what the great fret about passing this matter was. They could not pass any amendments to the Constitution at this meeting, and this was a matter to come up before the annual meeting. Mr. Hulbert said that this was not a legislative body, but merely a business arrangement. It was always customary to ascertain with certainty whether or not a Club was going to continue another year. Mr. Kennett said that he did not suppose the members of the Cincinnati Board of Directors, who were all prominent business men, would think of saying that they were going to have a nine if they did not mean it; they did not think that they would go to work and hire men, run themselves in debt, &c., if it was not their intention to play next year. He did not sign the agreement from principle, and thought he had a perfect right to retain such right. A resolution was then submitted to the effect that the Cincinnati Club vacated its membership in the League if its representative did not make a formal assent or negative to the agreement prohibiting Sunday games on League grounds and the sale of liquors. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati Club finances
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | The Auditing Committee, consisting of G. W. Smith, M. E. Moch and Nathan Menderson reported that the books had been examined and found correct. There was a balance of $1,100 in the treasury, against which are outstanding bills somewhat in excess of that amount. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati Club finances 2
| Date | Friday, October 1, 1880 |
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| Text | The Board of Directors met last evening and took the bull by the horns. The first thing done was to read President Kennett's resignation, tendered because he thought no money could be raised to carry on next year's business in the start till funds came in, and he was not willing to run a bankrupt club. This was a damper to start with, and Mr. Mack was named a Committee of one to see whether the necessary amount of money could not be borrowed. He reported unfavorably, however, then it was proposed that each of the Directors advance $200 as a reserve fund, but this was found to be impracticable, as several of the Directors could not furnish that amount. At this date of the affair Mr. Menderson came to the rescue and offered to loan the Club the necessary money. Then Mr. Grehbiel, not to be outdone in generostiy or magnanimity, offered to “go halves” with Mr. Menderson, and their proposition was accepted. These two gentlemen, therefore, have put the base-ball public under obligation, and whatever sport we may have here next year the public owes to them. It was agreed that they would loan the Club all the money it shall need to wind up its affairs this year and pay beginning expenses next year, which will not be over $2,000, and take the notes of the seven Directors—of which they are two—in security. Mr. Kennett then, at the request of the Board, withdrew his resignation and the Board appointed him a delegate to represent the Cincinnati Club in the League meeting at Rochester next Monday. They also delegated him power to name two other persons who will act with him as a Committee of Three in employing players; and he is authorized to spare no expense, though to act judiciously in engaging the best team possible. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati Club groundskeeper
| Date | Tuesday, March 9, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Club yesterday contracted with Mr. B. Simpson as ground-keeper for the coming season. Mr. Simpson came to them highly recommended by Mr. Hannaford, Supervising Architect of the Government building, for whom he has worked during the last two years. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati Club stockholders
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | The following-named gentlemen were present at the meeting last night and voted their stock: Messrs. Clement, G. Lowenstein, H. Lowenstein, Mack, Menderson, Feenhei9mer, Eschenbrenner Klein, Zanoni, Dickerson, Ray Brothers, Essig, Herancourt, Harris, Mulvihill, Frawley. The stock of Messrs. Samelson, Schott and Blackburn was voted by proxy. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati Grounds rented for Sundays
| Date | Sunday, March 7, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Grounds have been rented for Sunday games to Wallace and Miles, with Manager Bob Miles to the fore. They propose to organize a strong local nine which can give Sunday visitors good sport. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati finances; beer sales and Sunday ball
| Date | Thursday, July 29, 1880 |
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| Text | From the rent of its ground to a Sunday team and for the privileges of selling beer and refreshments on the ground the Cincinnati Club annually realizes from $2,500 to $2,500, and yet with this addition to their income they lost money last year, and will not be $1,000 ahead this year. … Besides, deprive Cincinnati people of the privilege of getting beer during a game of ball and 50 per cent. of the attendance will cease. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati tests the waters for a new league
| Date | Sunday, October 31, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Base Ball Club on Tuesday sent out a call for a meeting to be held at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, on Thursday, Nov. 4, the object being to form an independent league of the base ball clubs on a liberal policy and a home-rate, free-tariff plan; that is, each club will be allowed to regulate its own affairs and rates of admission to its grounds. The New York Metropolitan Club, the Washington Club, Buffalo Club and Albany Club have been asked to send representatives to the meeting. Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Detroit and possibly Baltimore, it is expected, will get up clubs and join the new league. Base ball sentiment here has been entirely against the old league and in favor of the new departure. The Cincinnati Club has withdrawn its application for readmission to Hurlburt's [sic] league. As the League, the only professional organization in the country, will not admit more than eight clubs to membership, efforts are being made to organize an independent League for next season in order to allow such cities as Cincinnati, St. Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Washington, Syracuse and Albany to put strong teams in the field. Philadelphia Item October 31, 1880 The following circular, addressed by the Executive Committee of the Cincinnati Club, has been sent to the presiding officials of the professional baseball clubs of New York, Washington, Buffalo, Albany, Detroit, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and other cities where there is any prospect of the organization of a new professional club for 1881. The circular is the initial step to a new movement in professional playing, which bids fair to have a very important bearing on the pecuniary welfare of professional baseball stock-companies for 1881. Cincinnati, Oct. 26, 1880. To ______: You are hereby invited to send a delegate to a meeting of baseball clubs to be held at the Fifth-avenue Hotel, New York, Nov. 4, at noon, there to form an independent League on a liberal policy, and with the right of each club to regulate its own tariff. Albany, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Buffalo, and Detroit are expected to be represented in the new League. Wire your acceptance to Col. L. A. Harris, Cuvier Club-rooms, Cincinnati, Ohio, Executive Committee Cincinnati B. B. Club. New York Clipper November 6, 1880 |
| Source | Philadelphia Item |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati to be expelled; the reserve rule upheld
| Date | Saturday, October 16, 1880 |
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| Text | The preliminary caucus meeting of the League Club delegates was held at Rochester, N.Y., last week, and was called to order Oct. 4, with the following representatives of the League Association present, viz.” N. A. Hulbert of Chicago, president; N. E. Young, secretary, E. G. Smith of Buffalo; J. F. Evans of Cleveland; H. T. Root of Providence; A. H. Soden of Boston; W. C. Kennett of Cincinnati; Freeman Brown of Worcester; and C. R. De Freest of Troy. Mr. Bancroft was not sent by the Worcesters, as he was opposed to the five-men rule, and so was Mr. Soden, although the original author of the rule. Mr. Smith of Buffalo and Mr. Kennett of Cincinnati were opposed to the rule. The Buffalo Courier says: “after two days of discussion the League settled down to real work on Wednesday. The Buffalo representative had returned, and Mr. Kennett was on hand with the telegram from his Board of Directors: ‘Stick to your position, accept any amendments but don’t give up the main question.’ Mr. Hulbert asked Mr. Kiennett what the news was from Cincinnati? The latter immediately replied that he should not recede from the stand he had taken, although he was ready to accept any compromise. Mr. Hulbert said that the meeting could not go on with their further business until this matter was definitely settled. He wanted to ascertain from Cincinnati whether her club would say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the agreement. If they held off any longer, the club would forfeits its membership in the League. The subject under discussion was now practically a law, as seven delegates had pledged themselves to support it at the annual meeting in December. Mr. Kennett said he was willing to have the sale of liquor restricted to a bar under the grand-stand, and he would give his word that the directors would exert themselves to do away with the custom as fast as the prejudice in its favor could be overcome. To this offer Mr. Hulbert replied that he failed to see how the other delegates could accept any such amendment of the original articles, and did not think that they could stultify themselves, having already given their vote for the first agreement. A resolution was then submitted to the effect that the Cincinnati Club vacated its membership in the League if its representative did not make a formal assent or negative to the agreement prohibiting Sunday games and sale of liquors on League grounds. Seven delegates voted in favor of the resolution. Mr. Kennett styled such legislation as infamous, and he believed that it was nothing more nor less than an attempt to oust his club. Courtesy, however, demanded that they should permit him to telegraph to his Board and obtain a final answer. This privilege was granted, and Mr. Kennett then left the meeting. Before doing so he said to Secretary Young: ‘I want to enter my formal protest against all proceedings that shall be enacted at this meeting.’ With the distasteful element from Cincinnati out, the gathering proceeded to hold a more than ordinarily secret conclave. Each delegate solemnly swore, as were informed, not to disclose the results of their deliberations after a two hours’ session their business was concluded, and the representatives came downstairs. Our representative was enabled to gather an outline of the result of the afternoon’s proceedings. The five-men matter was discussed. The Buffalo representative opposed it vigorously, and made a desperate fight, but he was outnumbered. The other delegates had made up their respective minds, and decided to send their pet policy through flying. All law, courtesy, and everything else were thrown aside to let Worcester, Troy and Cleveland have their best men. Buffalo was most emphatically sat upon, and the six delegates voted to renew the reservation agreement signed at Buffalo in 1879. Among other things learned was the fact that the Boston delegate, who had not been in favor of the plan, was pacified by the agreement of all not to approach Snyder and permit Boston along to sign him. All but Buffalo signed this bond, and the baseball slavery-act once more became a reality. Such cramping of the interests of the players, and designating where and how they shall play, is preposterous. The delegates all left for home without doing anything further with the Cincinnati matter.” New York Clipper October 16, 1880 [per NL minutes 10/4 seven clubs signed an agreement to vote to prohibit Sunday games and liquor sales.] |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cincinnati trying to sign George Wright
| Date | Tuesday, May 18, 1880 |
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| Text | President Thorner...started for Boston. It can not remain a secret, and might as well be announced right here that he has gone there hoping to be able to obtain the services of George Wright, believing that the Providence Club would release George to allow him to play in Cincinnati. ...we do not believe he will succeed. Even if Providence would release George from the five men reservation agreement, it is extremely doubtful whether he would leave his business in Boston and play ball in Cincinnati. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
ciphers to prevent gamblers from intercepting information
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | Anson is said to use a cipher alphabet in sending telegraphic messages to Chicago, in order that the recipient of these messages can use the information thus sent in advance of the gamblers'. A Chicago scribe says: “Experience has demonstrated that this information would in half an hour be in the possession of a few gamblers, and be used by them in the poolrooms to the disadvantage of those who supposed the Chicago team in full strength was to play. So Hulbert, who uses a cipher in his business, has fixed up a code for Anson to employ in telegraphing. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
claim that Boston is in arrears; the Jones matter
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | [dateline Cleveland 9/3] Hearing certain rumors about Charlie Jones and the Boston Club, an Enquirer correspondent started out with paper and pencil in hand and learned the following facts: The Boston management have been for some months back, and are now, owing their players about $5,000 in salaries. The players have demanded their play again and again, and have been put off from time to time. While in Cincinnati Charlie Jones demanded that the back pay due him be paid immediately, which Harry Wright said could not be done, as he had no funds to pay him with. A compromise was, however, effected between the two, Wright agreeing to pay Jones in full when the team reached Cleveland. Matters ran along smoothly until Tuesday, when Jones, not getting any money nor getting any satisfactory answer from Wright, again demanded what was then due him, or he would not play any more. At this Wright got upon his ear, and for a time the two had it right and left in the Weddle House parlors. The squabble lasted for some moments, when Wright in a moment of excitement told Jones that he (Jones) could consider himself suspended. This was no bad news for Jones, who was anxious to hear just such words from Wright's lips. This was why Jones did not play I n Thursday's game. The matter here is looked upon as very poor judgment on Wright's part, and a good thing for Jones, who has, evidently, the best of the Boston management, who engaged Jones to play for a certain number of years, and pay him at the end of each month. This, they have failed to do, and now Jones intends to seek redress in the ?Courts, providing he does not get what belongs to him. Jones left this morning for Elyria, where he is now, the guest of the Cincinnatis. Cincinnati Enquirer September 4, 1880 In spite of all the protestations of the Boston Club to the contrary, they owe Jones over $600. this sum may be cut down by subtracting traveling expenses, price of uniform and a few outstanding orders, none of which have been accepted. While in Chicago the Bostons received $1,500 as their share of the gate money. Jones then asked for his back pay, and was told that he would get it in Cleveland. At Cleveland he again demanded it, and the usual excuse was given. He could not get enough from the Club to pay a laundry bill, and had to telegraph home for money. He then plainly said he would not play until paid. Harry Wright then telegraphed home to President Loder [sic] for instructions, and received the reply: “Unless Jones complies with your requests suspend him.” And he was accordingly suspended. The Boston Club owe this money, and all the assertions to the contrary go for naught. They can not bring one iota of proof of payment. They acknowledged the indebtedness, and we propose showing in a few days by parties in Boston that the Boston Treasurer promised to pay part of it to a friend of Jones, and made an appointment for that purpose. When the friend went to the tryst the Treasurer was not here. The gentleman is a well-known Bostonian, whose word will be proof enough. Cincinnati Enquirer September 7, 1880 The Boston Club will hardly have the gall to deny that they...owed Sutton over $700, and that the Club offered to compromise with him by deducting part, Sutton accepting the rest as payment in full, which he did. Call Mr. Sutton. It will not be denied that Mr. Foley's “indifference,” for which he was laid off, was because he presumed to make a demand for his money which had some time been due. Call Mr. Foley. It is also a fact that at one time last year the Boston Club owed Jones nearly $700, and he refused to go with them to Worcester till he was paid. They could not spare him then, and paid him. It is not supposable that, getting a salary of $1,700, as he does this year, Jones would be so anxious to get rid of it without cause. The truth is he has had extreme trouble in getting his money ever since he went to Boston, and that is the cause of his extreme dissatisfaction with the Boston Club. The buncombe is all on the side of the Club, and none with him. Cincinnati Enquirer September 7, 1880 Last fall Jones, who was under a three-years' contract with the Boston Club, one year of which had expired, made a request for his release. In making this he was encouraged by the Cincinnati Enquirer, whose special pet Jones unfortunately happens to be, and by individual s who were extremely anxious to have him a member of the Cincinnati Club. According to his own statements all sorts of inducements were out to him to encourage him in his demands for a release, and finally, as a reason for his release, it was stated that he had a chance to go into business, but when questioned on that score in Boston Jones has invariably been very reticent. His request was refused, and much against his will he was obliged to come to Boston. After arriving here, however, removed from the influence of the Enquirer and other friends, who have, however, got him into his present difficulty, he appeared satisfied and has said himself that certain parties in Cincinnati were more anxious for him to obtain his release than he was, or words to that effect. In the last two months, or since the club made its first trip to Cincinnati the present season, a marked change has been noticed in Jones' playing. He has been apparently careless both in batting and fielding, and particularly so in base-running. So apparent was this that it became the theme of universal comment, and finally he was suspended. His suspension was brief, and for a time he played ball with his old-time skill and ability. But the Club, on its second Western trip, which it returned this (Wednesday) evening, struck Cincinnati as the first place, and again Jones fell under an evil cloud. More outrageous playing was indulged in, and matter finally terminated at Cleveland on the first or second day of September. Jones made a demand on Manager Wright for his pay in full to September 1 st. He knew, as does every League player, that pay-day is not observed when the Club is away on a trip, and beyond being furnished from time to time with pocket money, no funds are distributed to the players until their arrival home. Then again, Jones had given several drafts on the Treasurer of the Boston Base-Ball Club to certain creditors from his September pay. But he made no reference to these in his demand for pay. Manager Wright was aware of this state of things, but did not know how much Jones' drafts amounted to, and he refused to accede to his demand, though he told him that in about a week when the Club would be at home he would receive all money due. Thereupon Jones refused to play ball any longer. Acting under instructions from President Soden, Manager Wright suspended him. Jones then left for Cincinnati, or some other place, without consent of his Manager, and hence his expulsion by the Association. Cincinnati Enquirer September 8, 1880, quoting the Boston Herald The case, as it stands, is this, counting all sums paid to Jones, including orders given by him, the Boston Club owed him, September 1st, $378. … Mr. Jones' statement is very simple. He cites the provisions of his contract by which the Boston Club obligated itself to pay him on each of the following dates $250, namely: May 1st, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, September 1st and October 1st.. He states that on May 1st he received from said Club $300. between June 1 st and 6th he received $150; between July 1st and 6th he received $150, and between August 3d and 7th, $170, and that is all the cash he received from the Boston Club this season. He admits that he has given the following written orders on the Boston Club, which, however, at latest accounts had not been paid, though Mr. Long, the Treasurer, admits in his letter above he has promised to pay them. These orders are as follows: To Ed Murphy, $39; I. H. Farrington, $25; Metropolitan Hotel, $38.40; total, $102. These are the only orders he has written. Thus by cash and orders accepted he has received the following sums... $872 Amount of this salary to September 1st, as per contract, $1,250. Balance due and unpaid, $378. Cincinnati Enquirer September 9, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Clapp not wearing a mask?
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Cincinnati 5/14/1880] The home nine was decidedly off, and Clapp particularly so, that player scattering his favors in every inning except the first three and the ninth. A foul tip that cushioned on his victualing department early in the game may have had something to do with it... |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
club communications in cipher
| Date | Sunday, May 2, 1880 |
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| Text | All telegrams from Capt. Anson to the home management while the Chicago team is on its travels are sent in cipher. It has been demonstrated that telegraph-offices are very leaky, and that information that belongs of right to the Club management alone frequently finds it way to the possession of gamblers, who use it to their advantage at the pool-rooms. We will suppose Anson and Flint were to be taken sick to-morrow forenoon in Cincinnati, so that neither was able to play. A telegram to this effect written in plain English would at once be made known to such of the sure-thing gamblers as have confederates in the telegraph-offices, and the sharpers would use the knowledge to pluck the uninformed. The use of a cipher code would render sharp practice of this kind impossible, and for this and other sufficient reasons the system has been adopted by the Chicago Club management. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
collective League hotel arrangements
| Date | Saturday, March 13, 1880 |
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| Text | The Leave have made contracts with one hotel in each League city to accommodate all visiting clubs. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
complaint about modern baseball
| Date | Saturday, June 26, 1880 |
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| Text | The New Haven Register says: “The modern game of base ball is 'too fine.' It is one man with a bat pounding the air, vainly attempting to hit a ball that is pitched so that he can't hit it anyway, and if he does h8it it, nine men standing ready to catch it before he can make 'first base.' What is wanted is a game where the ball is sent whizzing all over the lots, and everybody yells and hoots and runs and makes tallies, and as for the umpire, this autocratic gentleman who calls 'foul ball' and 'strike one' in such distressing monotone, he is an innovation not to be put up with. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
complaint about slow pitching
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | [Baltimore vs. Maryland 5/4/1880] ...the contest was long and uninteresting, mainly owing to the time Tucker took in pitching. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Corey's delivery
| Date | Sunday, August 22, 1880 |
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| Text | [Corey] gave the finest exhibition of overhand throwing that has ever been witnessed in this city. It is a wonder that the young man does not grow dizzy, the way he whirls his arm around his ears when he delivers the ball. The rule of delivering the ball with the arm below the waist is evidently a dead letter to this young man., quoting the Buffalo Courier |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
credit should be given for sacrifice hits
| Date | Saturday, December 11, 1880 |
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| Text | There is one thing that ought to be a feature of the scoring rules next season, and that is giving a man credit for a sacrifice-hit that yields a run. If there is a runner on third base, with but one man out, and the batsman by his hit to the field–either by a short grounding to right short-field or a long fly-ball to the outer field which is caught–enables the runner to come home, though the batsman is thereby put out, such a hit ought to be credited the same as a base-hit, for it yields just as much. As it is, the not giving such credit spoils a batsman’s record, and this acts as reason for his not “playing for the side” by making such a hit. New York Clipper December 11, 1880 Caylor was giving inside reports of League meetings; information management [reporting the NL meeting of 12/8/1880] The Cincinnati Club, having withdrawn from membership, sent no delegate, nor was Mr. Caylor on hand to give us an inside report of the proceedings. The Convention was held with doors closed to the representatives of the local press, Mr. Mills being assigned the duty of preparing such a report of the proceedings as was deemed necessary. New York Clipper December 18, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
crowds like high scoring games
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | [National vs. Union 8/27/1880] Manager Cammeyer gave them an elastic Ross ball to bat against, and the result was one of those splendid batting games which the crowd so delight in. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Cummings and the curve ball
| Date | Saturday, February 21, 1880 |
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| Text | Arthur Cummings, one of the first to introduce the present style of curve pitching, is now engaged in mercantile pursuits in this city. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
curve ball pitching technique
| Date | Saturday, January 31, 1880 |
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| Text | Pitchers have different methods of curving the ball, some holding it with the first and second fingers and the thumb, and delivering the ball with their wrist turned well back and a sort of snap motion so that it shall roll off those fingers and thus get a rotary motion which will give it the in-curve. In the out-curve the ball leaves the end of the fingers last, the thumb being kept out of the way. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Daly discharged, possibly for throwing game
| Date | Saturday, May 22, 1880 |
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| Text | [Albany vs. Baltimore 5/10/1880] The home-team had apparently won, when the Albanys in the ninth inning, by a few timely hits and the aid of the approaching darkness, succeeded in wresting the victory from their opponents' grasp. Daily's pitching was very unsatisfactory, and resulted in his suspension for thirty days, until an investigation can be made. New York Clipper May 22, 1880 The Baltimore Club at a special meeting held on May 14 dishonorably dismissed Daly for cause. No charges were brought against him for alleged crookedness in the Baltimore-Albany game of May 10. New York Clipper May 22, 1880 maintaining discipline Since the suspension of Brown by the Bostons there has been considerable talk among the fraternity in regard to the length of time such suspension can be enforced—that is, they argue that the act of suspension can be rescinded at the pleasure of the club directors; but the League officials do not interpret the rule that way. They state the case thus “officially” through their secretary: Washington, D.C. May 1.--W.A. Hulbert, President National League.--Sir: Mr. Louis J. Brown is suspended for the remainder of the playing season. N.E. Young, Secretary. By this document Brown is literally thrown out of employment as League player in any club—and, for that matter no National club can employ him either—for the entire season. The fact is as stated by a Chicago paper, viz., that under the League Constitution Brown's disability can only “be removed on appeal to the League directors, and can only be heard by them at a regular annual meeting. There is, therefore, no earthly chance for the reinstatement of any player disciplined by his club under Sec. 3 of Art. X until the playing season is ended. The League is in better shape than ever before to enforce this penalty, for there are many experienced and serviceable players not yet under engagement, and there is hardly a League club in the country that is not in receipt of applications from such players.” New York Clipper May 22, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
death of Charles Hadel
| Date | Saturday, May 22, 1880 |
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| Text | Charles A. Hadel, the secretary and scorer of the old Baltimore Club some six seasons ago, died of consumption at his residence in Baltimore, MD., on April 22, intelligence of which has just reached us. His genial disposition made him a favorite everywhere, and the news of his untimely demise will be a great surprise and shock to his numerous friends. As a scorer he was one of the most complete in details to be found. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
deeking the run with a fake dropped fly ball
| Date | Saturday, January 10, 1880 |
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| Text | In a Mutual-Athletic game some seasons ago, in Brooklyn, “Cherokee” Fisher played a sharp point that Eggler attempted to imitate last season in Buffalo. Three of the Mutuals were on the bases, with but one out, when a high-ball was hit to Fisher at right field; he pretended to drop it, but caught it before it touched the ground, and, fielding the ball to third base, put out the man who had started home on the supposition that the ball was missed. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
defining the strike zone
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | Umpire Shay in the Princeton and Dartmouth match decided that he could not call strikes on balls not struck at which only came over the corner of the home plate. He says they must come over the centre of the plate. He also decided that it was optional with the umpire to call a waist-ball high or low. In both cases he is mistaken. If the ball only comes over the right or left corner of the home-plate an inch, it is a fair ball as far as coming over the plate is concerned, and the rules expressly define what a waist-ball is. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
delaying for a rainout; a home run on a dropped third strike
| Date | Wednesday, June 30, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcester vs. Chicago 6/29/1880] [The bottom of the fifth inning, with rain apparently imminent] ...the Worcesters undertook to delay the game in the hope that thereby the last half of the inning would be interrupted, and “No game” be called. The Chicagos were equally anxious to get out and end the inning. Goldsmith struck at three balls four feet above his head, and made the entire circuit of the bases without an effort to put him out. At this the spectators grew indignant, and Mr. Bancroft, the manager, and Mr. Brown, the Worcester Treasurer, both exerted themselves to the utmost to have the ridiculous exhibition stopped, and ordered Bushong and Richmond to go on and play ball under pain of a fine of $25 apiece if they persisted in trifling. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Devlin in California
| Date | Sunday, June 27, 1880 |
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| Text | Jim Devlin has gone to San Francisco under engagement to the management of the Recreation grounds there. It is well that he should at last find a place in the base-ball Dry Tortugas. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Devlin playing in California
| Date | Monday, July 5, 1880 |
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| Text | [Knickerbocker vs. Athletics, both of San Francisco, 7/4/1880] The [Athletics] on this occasion achieved their maiden victory over the “Knicks” by a score of 2 to 1. This result is attributed mainly to their new pitcher, Devlin, and generally to the support given him by the fielders. That Devlin is a pitcher of great ability, albeit he has not appeared on the diamond field for two years, and with but ten days’ preliminary practice to yesterday’s contest, his performances [sic] in this game proved beyond all question. He posses the peculiar talent and special training necessary to his position, and has a thorough command of the ball. He relies entirely on his skill and finesse in delivery, and is provokingly cool as he faces the batsman, measuring him for a knowledge of his characteristic strength or weakness. He preserves an unruffled disposition, and the calling of balls and strikes has no effect in irritating or working him up, but serves only to call for the full exercise of head work. |
| Source | San Francisco Chronicle |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
different rule sets
| Date | Saturday, May 22, 1880 |
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| Text | The League rules allow a foul-bound catch, the National rules do no. New York Clipper May 22, 1880 an excursion car for a Western tour The Worcesters will make their six weeks' Western trip, beginning June 19, in an excursion-car, taking their own cook and porter with them, and making the car their hotel during their absence. The cost of the trip will not be increased by this plan, but the comfort of the players will be promoted. The car has accommodations for all the players and an umpire. New York Clipper May 29, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
dropped balls while attempting to tag the runner
| Date | Saturday, January 10, 1880 |
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| Text | In regard to the rule which obliges a base-player to hold the ball after touching a base-runner, the experience of 1879 was dead against the retention of it. More quarrels arose from this cause than any other. The rule simply offers the base-runner a premium to collide with the base-player in order to knock the ball out of his hand. It is unfair in every way. Under the old rule, which gave the runner out if he was touched by the ball in the hands of the base-player, whether the ball was held afterwards or not, it might happen occasionally that the fielder would not be able to hold the ball; but as a general rule the decisions were fair. It is the very reverse in the rule of 1879, for in three out of four of the instances in which the ball was not held the runner was legitimately touched, and yet he unjustly escaped being put out. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
ERA
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | The pitching averages of the League pitchers....says the Clipper, afford ample evidence of the error of forming an estimate of a pitcher's skill by the record of base hits scored off his pitching. For instance, Richmond, or the Worc4esters, heads the list in fewest runs being earned off his pitching, while as regards fewest base hits scored, Corcoran, Ward and McCormick are ahead of Richmond, and all but Bond are nearly equal with him. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
early League support for a Detroit franchise
| Date | Sunday, September 26, 1880 |
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| Text | Detroit is anxious for base-ball representation. The Free Press has the following report of a recent meeting held in that city to discuss the advisability of organizing a nine: “...Mr. Bancroft stated that he had interviewed Presidents William Hulbert, Evans, Soden, and Root, of the Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, and Providence nines, respectively, relative to the admission of the Detroit Club to the League, and those gentlemen assured him that they would work and vote to admit the Detroit Club. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
early pitching rotation
| Date | Saturday, July 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The Chicago plan of playing their pitchers alternately is a good one. With the hard work our pitchers have to attend to, playing in every game is too much of a strain. Look at the effects of it on McCormick, Keefe, Richmond, Ward, etc. Three pitchers are not too many to have in a first-class team, each with his own catcher. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
early recognition that the schedule requires a multiple of four clubs
| Date | Sunday, January 18, 1880 |
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| Text | It is, perhaps, a great misfortune that the League can not admit more than eight Clubs, unless the number be twelve. Nine or ten Clubs will be an impossibility, on account of arranging the schedule. The scheme of ten Clubs is impracticable, inasmuch as that would cut the number of games down to eight for a series, and would destroy the equilibrium between the East and the West which is so nicely established by the admission of Worcester. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Early rumor of Harry Wright moving to Philadelphia
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | We are informed that Harry Wright intends managing a nine next season, either in Philadelphia or this city. We know it to be a fact that several responsible and prominent parties of the Quaker City have already entered into negotiations with the Boston manager with that object in view. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
early use of 'twirler'
| Date | Wednesday, August 25, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Cleveland 8/24/1880] The visitors presented the heretofore troublesome twirler, George Washington Bradley, who was yesterday hit quite freely by the blue legs. |
| Source | Cleveland Leader |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
earned run average 2
| Date | Saturday, March 13, 1880 |
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| Text | For some years past there has been no correct record made in either the League or the national Association of the averages of the pitchers of the clubs of the two Associations on the basis of earned runs. Below we present the averages for 1879 of the pitchers of the National Association clubs, made up by J. A. Williams. In his letter he says: “I hand you herewith a table of pitchers' averages for 1879 in the National Association. It is made up on the basis of earned runs as the only standard of excellence... |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Eastern players in California
| Date | Monday, January 5, 1880 |
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| Text | [Knickerbocker vs. Union, both of San Francisco 1/04/1880] ...the contest being a compliment of the fraternity to two of the most skillful exponents of the sphere and ash who have ever visited this coast—Messrs. Williamson and Cary of the Chicago White Stockings. These gentlemen, together with Quest, are all who are left of the famous Eastern club whose speculative career in this city has been so disastrous to the managers who brought them there. They are not, as many suppose, stranded upon the rocks of poverty, but have become inoculated with the germs of that disease indigenous to San Francisco, technically known as “love of the glorious climate,” and they have delayed their departure until absolute necessity shall have demanded their presence in the East to arrange for the coming season. … McVey, who is one of the oldest and most able players in the profession, has also been stricken with the climatic affection, and ignoring all offers from the East, has determined to make San Francisco his home for the future, and has signed articles to play with the Bay Citys of this city next season. Leary drifted to this coast with the Rochester Club, and has also been engaged to pitch for the Bay Citys next year. San Francisco Chronicle January 5, 1880 [Union vs. picked nine, of San Francisco 1/11/1880] Joseph Quest, the second baseman of the Chicago White Stockings, who was given a benefit at the Recreation Grounds yesterday was more fortunate than his professional confreres—Williamson and Cary—in that the day which he selected for his benefit was as warm and clear as the preceding Sunday was cold and gloomy. The attendance numbered about 1500, and was a flattering tribute to the personal and professional popularity of the beneficiary. San Francisco Chronicle January 12, 1880 The ranks of our local players have been augmented by the engagement of Cary, who was Captain of the Clevelands last season and who played shortstop for the Chicagos on their late visit. Fritz & Shear, proprietors of the Recreation Grounds, have contracted with him for the coming season, and he will captain the club now being formed by those gentlemen. Cary will leave for the East on Monday morning, clothed with power to engage a pitcher and catcher for the club. San Francisco Chronicle January 17, 1880 A. J. Fritz, one of the managers of the Athletic Baseball Club, received a dispatch from Thomas Carey in Chicago that he had engaged Galvin, pitcher; Dolan, catcher; and Sweeney, change pitcher. The first-named has a national reputation as a pitcher, and filled that position for the Cincinnatis on their recent visit to this city. Dolan is equally famous as a catcher, and Sweeney is well known to baseball lovers on this coast, he having pitched for the California Club last season. San Francisco Chronicle February 16, 1880 Edward Nolan, known to baseball fame as “The Only,” and John Kelly arrived from the East Thursday under engagement to the Union Club as pitcher and catcher respectively. Of Nolan's capabilities on the diamond field, the baseball lovers on this coast have had an opportunity of judging, as he pitched last season for the Knickerbocker Club. Kelly has an Eastern reputation as a catcher, he having filled that position for the Olympics of Paterson, New Jersey, for several seasons. During a portion of last season he caught for the celebrated Clevelands of Ohio. San Francisco Chronicle March 13, 1880 |
| Source | San Francisco Chronicle |
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economic recovery
| Date | Saturday, March 13, 1880 |
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| Text | For this early period matters in the professional baseball world have not looked so promising for a successful season for many years past as they do now. In the first place, trade and commerce have been awakened from their lethargic state; business people are prospering as they have not done since the year prior to the panic; and with this improved condition there naturally comes increased liveliness in the amusement world, and especially in outdoor sports. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
experiment with a flat bat, cork-centered ball
| Date | Saturday, October 9, 1880 |
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| Text | The Chicagos twice defeated the Buffalos in exhibition games at Chicago, Ill., on Oct 1 and 2, by the respective scores of 12 to 10 and 7 to 4. The feature of the first game was an experiment with the flat bat. It did not increase the batting, and was pronounced a failure. A ball with a centre of cork wound with a strip of rubber, was also tried, but it did not seem to favorably impress the players in any respect. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
experimental games: square bat a cork ball
| Date | Friday, October 1, 1880 |
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| Text | Some interesting experiments are to be made to-day and to-morrow in exhibition games between the Chicago and Buffalo teams. In to-day's game two radical new departures will be made,--first in the use of a square bat, which is Harry Wright's pet notion of the best way to improve batting; and second, by the introduction of a new style of ball, the peculiarity of which is the presence in the centre of a small globe of cork would round with string, rubber and yarn. It will be interesting to note the effect of these two innovations, especially the use of the square bat, and the game to-day bids fair to be both entertaining and instructive. Chicago Tribune October 1, 1880 [Buffalo vs. Chicago 10/1/1880] An experiment was made with the square bat, and it proved a total failure as a substitute for the present style of stick. So far from improving the hitting, it served to diminish the force with which the ball was struck, for the very plain reason that whenever the ball struck the bat on either side of the exact centre of the flat surface it turned the bat in the player's hands, causing a disagreeable sting in the palms, and for the same cause the hitting was weak and unsteady. The players pronounced the flat bat a flat failure, and only with much arguing could be induced to use it after one trial. Finally, they abandoned it altogether as worthless and unsatisfactory, and played the rest of the game with the regular round bats. Experiments were also made with a new ball of livelier qualities than the present League ball. Here again the innovation was not successful. The ball didn't sound natural when hit by the bat, and though it went very swift and far when fairly hit, it behaved awkwardly when batted on the ground to the infielders, and they soon made up their minds that they couldn't handle it as well as they could the regular Spalding League ball. It was the verdict of Presidents Hulbert and Sage, of the Chicago and Buffalo clubs, who watched the play with close interest, that the square bat is of no earthly account, and that the present League ball is not only a better ball than any other in existence, when uniformly made, but that the players are all accustomed to it and its ways, and that it would be extremely unwise to make a change. The players are very decidedly of this opinion, and will earnestly oppose the adoption of any other ball than the one now used by the League. Chicago Tribune October 2, 1880 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
fielders reacting to the batted ball
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Providence 6/4/1880] The style of fielding of the Chicagos was a revelation compared to that of the old Chicago nines. The moment a ball was hit every man in the field was alive either to field it or to back up. They all knew what to do with it, too—where to send it, and how to hold it. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
finances of the League clubs
| Date | Sunday, October 10, 1880 |
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| Text | The Boston Club lost about $1,000 during the season, the Buffalo about $9,000 and the Providence $3,350. … Chicago is the only club that made any money this season. The net receipts, it is said, will be over $10,000. |
| Source | Philadelphia Item |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
five white professionals vs nine colored
| Date | Saturday, April 17, 1880 |
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| Text | A very singular game was played at New Orleans, La., on April 4, five well-known Northern professionals then defeating the colored champions of that city by a score of 17 to 3. Keefe pitched, Bennett caught, Sullivan played first base, and Creamer and Wood filled between them the other six positions. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Flint's hand-care routine
| Date | Monday, June 21, 1880 |
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| Text | Flint's immunity from sore hands is by no means attributable to luck alone; he is one of the most careful and pains-taking players in the business, and it is to his own good sense and good care of himself that his freedom from disability is chiefly due. His method is worth describing for the benefit of other ball-players. After every game Flint works hard and laboriously on his hands, sometimes rubbing them far into the night. To care for his hands has become a habit with him, so much so that he rubs and kneads the palms and joints more or less at all times. At the end of the game with the Cincinnatis, of which four and one-half innings were played in the rain, Flint worked on his hands until three o'clock the following morning. He got a bad stone-bruise from the wet and dirty ball which would have laid him off for a week had he neglected it, but he caught next day as though nothing had happened. He uses a preparation of alcohol, rock salt and lemon juice to keep the palms tough and prevent the skin from cracking; and for stone-bruises and other hurts he applies Pond's extract, and keeps at it until every particle of inflammation is allayed. Considering the amount and character of the work he has had to do this year behind the bat, Flint deserves to rank as the best catcher of this or any other year. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
free admission for retrieving a ball
| Date | Saturday, May 29, 1880 |
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| Text | Kelly of the Chicagos is said to have batted eleven foul balls over the left-field fence in one game at Chicago, Ill, and consequently eleven boys obtained admission to the ground for securing and returning the ball. New York Clipper May 29, 1880 the League poaches a player from the California League [NYC 5/29/1880 for an extended item on James Galvin poached by Buffalo from the Athletics of San Francisco, and sneaking away dodging law enforcement to get East.] |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
games take too long
| Date | Friday, May 7, 1880 |
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| Text | The public which supports base-ball doesn't like to be late at its evening meal, and there is no good reason why it should be kept late if the players will show a disposition to play the game rapidly. A great deal of unnecessary time is wasted in taking position at bat. It should be the duty of each Captain and his assistant to see that every player who is next at bat has his bat in hand, and that he runs to the plate and gets ready for striking. A good way to secure this would be to fine a few of the laggards who keep the spectators waiting on their laziness. Patrons of ball games have a right to demand promptness in this matter, and it is the duty of the resp3ective Captains to require their men to respect this demand. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
George Wright both captain and manager
| Date | Saturday, February 21, 1880 |
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| Text | The Providence Club won the League championship last season mainly through the experienced and able efforts of George Wright as manager, captain and short-stop of their nine. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
George Wright holding out; reserve clause
| Date | Sunday, January 18, 1880 |
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| Text | There appears to be no prospect of settling the difference between George Wright and the Providence management. Being still held by the “five men” rule, Wright cannot sign elsewhere, although he would like to go to Boston, where he has been offered the position of short-stop in Harry Wright's team. Chicago Tribune January 18, 1880 The trouble between George Wright and the Providence Club in regard to the “reserved-men”matter has already been alluded to in these columns. A great amount of noise is being made in certain quarters over the affair, although it is really not worth the powder already expended upon it. The facts are that Wright was one of the five men reserved under the Buffalo agreement by Providence, the other clubs binding themselves by signing that agreement not to approach him in any way with offers for the present season. When the subject of the year's contract was broached by Mr. Root, President of the Providence Club, Wright demanded an increase of salary, which was refused, he being offered $2,000,--the amount received by him last season. He declined to sign unless his terms were acceded to, and was left to take his own sweet will in the matter. After waiting a reasonable time for him to reach a conclusion, Providence signed Peters for next season in order that their short-field might be properly attended to in case Wright refused to play. As soon as the engagement of Peters was announced the Worcester Club began to meddle with a matter in which it could have no possible interest in case it intended to live up to the agreements it had signed upon becoming a member of the League. Bancroft, the Worcester manager, “happened” to be in Boston, and, during a conversation with Wright, the latter said he would like to play in Worcester this season if he could do so without neglecting his business. Bancroft replied that he would like to engage him, and agreed that in case Wright could get a release from Providence Worcester would take him and allow him to go home every night with the Club was in Worcester. Wright, during this talk, said he would not play in Providence under any consideration, as he did not get along well with President Root. Bancroft thereupon hied himself to Providence and asked Mr. Root if he was willing to release Wright, but received a very prompt and emphatic negative. Thus the matter stands: Wright says he will not play in Providence, Root says Providence will not release him, and Bancroft is trying to create public opinion in favor of Wright, hoping thereby to induce Providence to change its course. Mr. Bancroft's mistake was in meddling in the matter at all. The Buffalo agreement was a wise and necessary measure, and no clubs were benefitted less by it than Providence and Chicago. It was a measure taken for mutual protection, and, having been willingly signed by all the members of the League, no one of the them should endeavor in any way to tamper with it. If George Wright chooses to refuse $2,000 a year in Providence he is at liberty to do so, but the action of Worcester in taking his side in a quarrel with Mr. Root was all wrong. Chicago Tribune April 4, 1880 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
George Wright on the reserve
| Date | Friday, September 3, 1880 |
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| Text | George Wright speaks of the five-men agreement as “infamous.” Of course it is, and every play3er in the League will agree with him. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
George Wright supervising the Boston Athletic Grounds
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | The Boston Athletic Association formally opened their new grounds on May 25, when a band of music was present, and the sports consisted of archery, lawn-tennis, and a game of baseball, win which the Harvard freshmen defeated a nine made up of the younger members of the Association by a score of 22 to 7 in seven innings. The grounds, which are under the supervision of George Wright, the veteran baseball-player, have been well laid out. A large tract of land has been nicely graded for baseball, another has been arranged for cricket, a good range has been selected for archery, and several level plats have been marked and laid out, with and without sod, for lawn-tennis. A track for pedestrians, and another of cinders for bicycle riding and racing, also form attractive features of the grounds, while ample space has been reserved for football and the usual outdoor sports. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
George Wright won't play in Providence
| Date | Sunday, March 28, 1880 |
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| Text | George, for purely personal reasons, refused to play in Providence this season, and Providence, taking advantage of the strict construction of the Buffalo agreement, says he shall not play at all or play with them. About three weeks ago Manager Bancroft, of the Worcester Club, met George Wright in Boston, and during a friendly conversation George said he would like to play in Worcester provided Providence would release him. He said that under no circumstances would he again play in Providence; that he felt he had been misused there, and could not forget it; that his refusal to play in Providence was not a matter of salary, but purely of a personal nature; therefore, as he had fully determined to not play in Providence, and as President Root had signed Peters, he would, if released, play in Worcester on certain conditions, viz: that he should have the privilege of going to Boston every evening when the nine were at home returning the next noon. The distance is only fort-four miles, and the trip is made in an hour and fifteen or twenty minutes. He stated his terms. The proposition was one of his own seeking. Mr. Bancroft went to Worcester, and the Directors talked the matter over informally. They then sent Mr. Bancroft to Providence to ask President root to release Wright. President Root said he should be please to accommodate Worcester, but under no circumstances should Wright play in any other club than Providence the present year. He said he would keep the place open for Wright, who could come back at any time, provided he would take the salary offered him. There the matter stands. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
ground rules for a large crowd; clearing the spectators off the field
| Date | Tuesday, July 6, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Chicago 7/4/1880] The crowd was so great that special ground-rules had to be provided, in the case of balls being knocked out of reach of the players one base only being allowed for balls going into the right or left field crowds, and all the player could make if he hit to centre field. When the time came for the game to commence, the crowd was scattered all over the diamond, and it took half a dozen special police with the eighteen ball-tossers half an hour to get them into some shape so as to leave room for the players. And as it was, they were within ten feet of the third base. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
high deliveries; condemnation of the reserve
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | George Wright has been recently interviewed, and expressed himself strongly in favor of a return to the old style of straight-arm pitching, adding that with the present curved underhand throwing a base-hit is only made by chance. It is his opinion that Corcoran, Will White, Ward and McCormick throw the ball almost direct from the shoulder, and should be ruled out. He alluded to the so-called “five-men agreement” as outrageous, with no particle of justice in it. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
hint at an anti-reserve league
| Date | Saturday, October 23, 1880 |
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| Text | In regard to any action looking to an effective opposition to this five-men rule by players themselves, we see nothing better that can be done than the adoption of propositions to form a new League outside of the six clubs opposing the five-men League. Thus far but two clubs have “kicked” against the personal rule. But these two, by the aid of the newly-formed clubs in cities like Detroit, Cincinnati, Buffalo and St. Louis, in the West, and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, in the East, can by judicious and combined action utterly destroy the five-men rule. The question is, will they do it? |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
holding onto the runner; early use of 'sacrifice fly'
| Date | Saturday, August 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. National 7/26/1880] The Nationals should have won in the tenth inning but for a seemingly deliberate bit of foul play on the part of one of the Chicagos, and the last man, by the way, whom one would suspect of such conduct. Baker had made his third safe hit, stole second, and in attempting to score on Lynch's sacrifice-fly was, it is alleged, purposely prevented from doing so by Williamson, who held him on third base, and this palpable obstruction of a base-runner was allowed to pass unnoticed by the umpire on the plea that he “didn't see it.” The only parallel case that we know of was in an Athletic-Boston game some seasons ago, when Anson prevented Barnes from making the winning run. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Horace Phillips
| Date | Saturday, March 6, 1880 |
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| Text | Horace B. Phillips, formerly manager of the Hornells, Syracuse Stars, Troys and Baltimores, has signed with McVey's Bay City Club of San Francisco, Cal, and will play right field for them during the coming season. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Horace Phillips goes missing
| Date | Saturday, August 7, 1880 |
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| Text | H. B. Phillips, manager of the Rochester nine, is among the missing. Hawes will succeed him in the manager's position, as he likewise did when Phillips left Baltimore unceremoniously. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Horace Phillips goes missing with the money
| Date | Thursday, July 29, 1880 |
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| Text | A. T. Soule, proprietor of the Rochester Base-Ball Club, is unable to trace the whereabouts of Horace B. Phillips, manager of his nine. The latter left Rochester Saturday with $400 of Soule's money, with which to pay the players, then at Springfield, Mass. Phillips telegraphed from Buffalo Saturday night that he had had trouble with his wife, but would reach Springfield Tuesday morning. He did not go, and has not bee heard from. Soule believes Phillips has either been robbed or has decamped with the money. In the latter event, Soule will take no speical measures to follow, or prosecute him, for he says if Phillips is dishonest he considers $400 a small amount to lose in getting rid of him. The Club, which has played the last four games with only seven errors, will be retained as if nothing had happened, and the men's salaries will be paid. Acting Manager W. H. Hawes takes the place vacated by Phillips. Cincinnati Enquirer July 29, 1880 A. T. Soule, proprietor of the Rochester Base-Ball Club, offers a reward of $100 for accurate information which will lead to the whereabouts of Horace B. Phillips, his Club manager, who disappeared with $400 of the team's salaries... Cincinnati Enquirer July 31, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Horace Phillips leaves the Baltimores
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | H. B. Phillips has resigned his position as manager of the Baltimore Club. W. H. Hawes has been chosen to fill the vacancy, and all communications should be addressed to the latter, care Gen. Wayne Hotel, Baltimore, Md. Phillips claims that several of the directors wanted to “run the machine.” He is now in Rochester, N.Y., where he expects to manage a club. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Hulbert instructs the umpire to go easy on pitch delivery
| Date | Sunday, April 25, 1880 |
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| Text | [referring to a series of exhibitions games National vs. Chicago] Mr. Hulbert was advised beforehand of the peculiar character of Lynch's delivery, but did not take as much interest in the matter as he would if Lynch had been a League pitcher, and the games were to count in the League championship schedule. He did, however, say to the Umpire, prior to the commence of the first game: “Of course you know these games are to be played under League rules, and if the pitchers on either side violate those rules it will be your duty to enforce the penalty. But,” he added, “please understand that the people of Chicago, who have paid their money to see these games, don't want to have a game broken up on account of the pitching.” Thus advised, it was hardly to be expected that the Umpire would bother his head much about Lynch's delivery. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Hulbert reelected
| Date | Friday, December 10, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the League meeting] Mr. Hulbert, of Chicago, President of the League, came to the meeting fully determined to permanently withdraw from the position he has so long and so acceptably filled. When the matter of election of officers came before the Convention today he stated that he would not be a candidate for reelection, but this at once aroused a unanimo9us sentiment of opposition, and, when he formally declined, a motion was made and carried that he be the President for the ensuing year. Thus the matter stood when the meeting adjourned, and it will be further discussed to-morrow, Mr. Hulbert having declared this evening that he must insist upon his declination. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
hypocrisy over Sunday games and alcohol
| Date | Saturday, October 23, 1880 |
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| Text | The moral ground assumed by the League as the ostensible cause of its action against the Cincinnati Club is untenable. The Chicago Club entertained no such scruples against Sunday games when it sent its team to California; nor was there any strenuous objection against beer when the sale of it “paid” on the old Chicago field. The whole matter seems to be governed by a desire to get rid of a club whose official action is far too independent and uncontrollable by the power that be to admit of their being allowed to remain in the League. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
ignoring the League hotel
| Date | Saturday, July 10, 1880 |
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| Text | The Providence Club ignored the League contract made with a Cincinnati hotel, preferring to make their headquarters at another hotel in that city. Out of this will probably arise a law suit. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
improvements to the Polo grounds
| Date | Sunday, September 12, 1880 |
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| Text | There are alterations and improvements on every hand. Numerous workmen were busily engaged in laying down a running path that will be, when completed, by far the finest in the world. It completely encircles the ground, being 1,960 feet in length and having an average width of twenty feet. It measures, therefore, but two and three quarters laps to the mile, and as the track is a dead level all the way round it will not only be the finest but in all probability the fastest in the country. In the southeast corner of the ground another set of workmen were engaged in the erection of a permanent grandstand capable of comfortably accommodating a thousand spectators. Alongside the stand a small ground on which to decide jumping contests, weight throwing and minor athletic sports is being laid out, while immediately in front of the rapidly rising edifice will be the baseball diamond, and adjacent to it the football ground. ... On the 29th, by which date the running path and the grand stand will be finished, a grand inaugural athletic meeting will be held, on which occasion the Manhattan Polo Association will offer a number of handsome and valuable prizes for competition. On the 30th the first game of baseball will be played on the ground, between picked nines, and on the 2d of October a series of bicycle contests will take place for gold medals given by the club. The enterprise of the members of the Polo Club certainly merits the liberal public patronage that it will doubtless enjoy, and as arrangements have been concluded with the executive of the elevated roads to convey visitors to and from the grounds at reduced rates, it seem probable that the polo grounds will speedily become a popular place of resort for lovers of all kinds of outdoor sports and pastimes. |
| Source | New York Herald |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
incidental sources of revenue in Cincinnati
| Date | Wednesday, January 14, 1880 |
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| Text | [advertisement] Sealed proposals will be received until 12 o'clock, noon, Monday, January 19, 1880: First, For lease of bar on grounds at Bank street and McLean avenue for year beginning April 1, 1880 Second. For lease of grounds for Sunday games during the base-ball season of 1880. Third. For fence-advertising privilege for year beginning April 1, 1880. Bids may include one or all of the above items, and must be accompanied by the names of sureties. Terms—Two-thirds cash, balance in monthly installments, payable in advance. The Board reserves the right to reject any or all bids. Bids must be sealed and addressed “Board of Directors Cincinnati Star Base-Ball Association,” care C. T. Blackburn, Secretary, City Auditor's Office Cincinnati Enquirer January 14, 1880 The new Cincinnati Club will realize $4,600 profits paid for “privileges” before the season begins. They get $2,000 for the refreshment privilege, and a donation of $1,500 from the Consolidated Street Railroad Company. Cincinnati Enquirer January 25, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
infield playing in; aggressive base running
| Date | Tuesday, June 29, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcester vs. Chicago 6/28/1880] [Kelly at third base, Williamson at second base, no outs] With the infielders playing well inside the base lines, Williamson took long ground, actually getting two-thirds of the way to third base; so that when Anson hit Corey [shortstop] a difficult bounder which he did well to stop and send to first ahead of the striker, Williamson ran like a deer for home close behind Kelly, and two earned runs were scored, where ordinary base-running would have produced but one. Chicago Tribune June 29, 1880 keeping secret the identity of the Cincinnati Club official scorer In one particular Mr. Thorner has caused considerable dissatisfaction—i.e., in suppressing from every one the name of the official scorer, his idea being that the players, in their anxiety for many base hits and few errors, would give the scorer, if they knew him, no rest. The Commercial reporter has unearthed the young man. His name is Jacob Harmon, and he is a resident of West Eighth street. Cincinnati Commercial June 29, 1880 With a spasmodic jerk the young man who writes the base-ball matter for a morning contemporary broke out yesterday, and suddenly made a vicious, malicious attack upon President Thorner of the Cincinnati Club. [a discussion of the secret of the official scorer ensues] ...this young man, who so suddenly wants Mr. Thorner removed, wanted to know who [the scorer] was, and fretted his weary brain about it. Many were his demands to be told and threats what he would do if he were not told. He was plainly informed that it was a secret, and part of the business of the Club to keep it secret, the reasons being explained to him. But, boy like, he must know or he would do dire damage through his paper to the Club. Why he wanted to know he could not tell. It could not benefit, him, for no newspaper in the United States is publishing scores as they are officially made up. He became so persistent, however, that one of the Directors stuffed him with confidence, and named a person who probably never in his life visited a base-ball park. This “discovery” was proclaimed by him in his paper one day this week, with a flaring head-line and a boast that the Secret was a secret no longer, and that he had done great things in making this discovery. Selah. But the same day he learned how cruelly he had been hoaxed. Thus nettled, he went to President Thorner again at the conclusion of the game Wednesday and finally--”once and for all”--demanded to know the name of the official scorer, threatening that unless he was so informed he would next morning, through his paper, make war upon Mr. Thorner. The latter replied: “Mr. S., you can not black-mail or bully me. I have told you time and again that you are demanding a business secret, which I can not reveal, and explained why. If you make war on me I can not help it, but I will not be scared into doing what I deem my right not to do.” Cincinnati Enquirer July 2, 1880 All the Cincinnati dailies save one have been repeatedly assured, at and since the opening of the season by the officer delegated with authority to appoint the official scorer, that his appointee was not a newspaper man. For some time there was a lingering suspicion that Mr. O. P. Caylor, of the Inquirer, was the selection. Although often questioned on the subject, he emphatically and persistently denied that he held that position. Club matters having reached a culminating point yesterday he was cornered, and finding no outlet of escape, faced the music, and confessed that he had lied. The confession perhaps was partially due to the failure of an effort to obtain money from the Directors for his services. That this effort was made is stated on the authority of two of the Club Directors, who added, however, that they were in ignorance as to the scorer's name. If the board has the proper amount of backbone, it will cut loose from newspaper scorers and choose an outsider for the purpose. The Commercial has more ammunition in reserve. Cincinnati Commercial July 4, 1880 [from a card from George Herancourt] I never said to Chas. Scanlon nor to any person else that O.P. Caylor or the official scorer had tried to obtain money from the Cincinnati Ball Club or the Directors for his services or for any other reason. Cincinnati Enquirer July 5, 1880 [from a card from C. T. Blackburn] I did not say to Mr. Scanlon or any one that Mr. Caylor or the official scorer had made an effort to get money for his services; the subject was never mentioned to me, except by Mr. Thorner, who said he ought to be paid, although it had been agreed that no pay should be given.] Cincinnati Enquirer July 5, 1880 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
infielder playing in
| Date | Friday, September 3, 1880 |
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| Text | [Troy vs. Chicago 9/2/1880] [bases loaded with one out] Poorman struck a vicious line fly to right, which looked a certain base hit and good for two runs, as Corcoran [runner at second] was almost up to third; but Ferguson [second baseman], who was playing well up for a return home, made a run and jump for it, making a miraculous left-hand catch, almost with the ends of his fingers and threw to first before Quest [runner at first] could get back, making a rare double play and getting heartily cheered for his pains. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
intentionally dropped third strike; triple play
| Date | Friday, May 21, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Chicago 5/20/1880] [Cleveland at bat] The bases were now full and Flint began to play for a “double” by blocking the ball. Glasscock got three strikes, and as Flint purposely failed to hold the third one, everybody was forced to run in order to make room for Glasscock at first. Flint picked up the ball and stepped on the plate, retiring Hanlan and then threw to first. Hankinson was evidently laboring under the impression that Glassock was out, somehow, and club to first base. Anson touched him out and then, stepping on first, put out Glasscock, making a rare triple play. It is safe to say that half the players on the field and two-thirds of the score-keepers in the gran stand don't know to this hour how it was done. The better way to have accomplished the play would have been for Flint to step on the pate, retiring Hanlan; throw to Williamson at third, retiring Phillips, who was forced to run from second, and for Williamson to threw to Quest, putting out Hankinson, forced to vacate first for Glassock, who would not have been out. Nine times out of ten only a double play could be accomplished the other way, as the man on first would not stand by to be touched out. What helped mix the spectators on the play as made was the fact that after putting Hankinson and Glasscock out, Quest called for the ball at second and Anson threw it there. Of course, it was entirely useless as the side was already out. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Jones and other Boston players behind in their pay
| Date | Sunday, July 25, 1880 |
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| Text | The “indifference” of Jones about playing in Boston has its causes which were not told. It is no secret that the Boston Club owes its players for a large share of their salary for the season as far as advanced. Foley of the same Club has been raising a breeze about his “back pay.” The fact that players have no protection against a Club holding back their salaries is a disgrace to the League. If they attempt to collect what is due them they are incontinently kicked out. It is but fair to Jones that his friends here and in Cincinnati ought to know both sides of the story. If the Boston Club cannot pay him they ought to release him honorably. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Jones expelled by the Bostons
| Date | Saturday, September 11, 1880 |
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| Text | Jones, the left-fielder of the Boston Club, has got into trouble with the management of that organization, and has been suspended. It appears to have been a dispute about the non-payment of salary, and as usual there are two sides to the story. Jones has returned to Cincinnati. New York Clipper September 11, 1880 Charles Jones of the Boston Club, having refused to play at Cleveland, O., on Sept. 3, unless he was paid what he claimed was due him, was suspended, and in addition was fined $100 for “poor play and insubordination.” Jones then returned to his home in Cincinnati, O., and on Sept. 7 was expelled by the Boston Club for leaving its service without consent. In reference to the above, The Cincinnati Enquirer, which is championing Jones’ case, has the following: The case as it stands is this: counting all sums paid to Jones, including orders given by him, the Boston Club owed him, Sept. 1, $378. Because he demanded to be paid according to the stipulation of his contract, he was, in the presence of witnesses, suspended for the season without salary. Left penniless in Cleveland by the Boston Club, who went East, he had to telegraph to friends for money to come home to Cincinnati. After his arrival here, he is notified that the Bostons have fined him $100 for poor play and insubordination. Next comes news that they have expelled him. Jones was suspended by the Bostons last Friday in Cleveland; by that act they deprived themselves of his service, as well as every other club, and stopped his salary for the rest of the season (barring it was not running very fast, and was easily stopped). They would not have paid his traveling expenses to Boston had he gone with them. Had he been there–were he there now–they would not have nay more demand on his services or right to ask him to remain in Boston than they would to make the same request of the Prince of Wales. Why, if Jones can be expelled for such action, then why not expelled for such action, then why not expel Brown, who was suspended by the Boston Club at the beginning of the season? For nobody has seen Brown tagging round the country at the tail of the Boston Club this Summer.” The Boston side of the story is as follows: The Boston Baseball Club has expelled Jones for breaking his contract, which did not run out until next Fall. Under that contract his salary was payable on the 1 st of the month, but the custom of the League clubs is, when away from home, to defer payment until their return, the players in the meantime being given money to meet their personal expenses. When at Cleveland, on the 2d inst., according to newspaper telegrams, Jones demanded his pay from the manager, who declined to give it to him, whereupon, “having no hope of getting his back pay,” he declared his contract void, and left the service of the club. Treasurer Long testifies that ll the players were paid their salaries to Aug. 1 before starting on their Western trip, and that the Association is not in arrears to any of them. In view of this, Jones has been expelled, as stated, the warrant for his expulsion being Sec. 5 of Art. V of the League Constitution. No club pays its players their salaries when on the road or away from home, and Jones, knowing this to be the invariable practice, must have expected a refusal when he demanded of Harry Wright his salary in full, and must have acted as he did with the express intention of leaving the team. He had been paid in full up to Aug. 1, and was certain to be paid thereafter, as the Boston Club officers are solvent, responsible men. It is known that Jones was anxious to leave Boston and go to cincinnati, and it is probable he took this means of bringing about a rupture. His action was at once unnecessary and unwise, for a player who has cause of complaint against his club for an alleged breach of contract, or who has been expelled or suspended, has an appeal to the Board of Directors of the League; but Jones, by taking the bit in his own teeth, and acting on his own judgment in the premises, has undoubtedly deprived himself even of this right. Jones has forwarded to the League secretary a written statement of his defense, asking that an appeal be allowed him, and his version of the affair contains these particulars: He had been promised what was due should be paid him when the club got to Cleveland, but that he was there again denied, and he notified Manager Wright that until the Boston club fulfilled their part of the contract he would refuse to continue his part. Thereupon, in the presence of P. J. Hotalling, Herman Doscher, Foley and others, Manager Wright notified him that, by direction of the president of the Boston Club, he suspended him (Jones), with all the disabilities attached, as provided by the League Constitution. Being thus disabled from furnishing any further services to the Boston Club, and being without money or salary, he considered it his right to return home, and not his duty to follow the Boston Club while resting under these disabilities. Moreover, the Boston Club made no demand for him to follow them from Cleveland, nor demurred when they went to Troy becuase he did not accompany. He reutnred to his home in Cincinnati, where he was first surprised to receive a letter from Manager Wright, written at Troy, notifying him that, by authority of the boston Club, he (Wrigh) thereby fined him (Jones) $100 for poor play and insubordination. He next received a letter from Treasurer Long, asking for a statement of what the club owed him in order that a settlement could be made. The next was a ntoice that he had been expelled by the Boston Club for leaving the service of the club without permission. He urges that he did not quite the Boston Club until after his suspension, and that by the suspension the Boston Club, under the League Constitution, deprived itself of his services, according to the last clause of Section 6, Article V, which says: “And during the period of said suspension such player shall be disqualified from playing in or against any League club.” He accordingly appeals to the League against the expulsion, upon the grounds that when he left the club he was, by the Bostons’ own act, cut off from all means of support as a baseball-player, and also deprived of the power to do any service under his contract to the Boston Club, and accordingly, they, by this act of suspension, forfeited all right to his services or further obedience while such disability remained. He further appeals to the League to make null and void the act of suspension, because he did not refuse to comply with his part of the contract until they (the club) had utterly refused to comply with their part, and pay him the money past due, namely, $378. New York Clipper September 18, 1880 Jones has his case in the hands of an attorney, who purposes to bring suit immediately against the Boston Club. New York Clipper October 2, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Jones' appeal denied on a technicality
| Date | Tuesday, March 9, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the special meeting of the League 3/8] In the morning a meeting of Directors was held, and the only matter discussed was the case of C. M. Jones, expelled from the Boston Club. The subject was talked over briefly, when it was decided that, as he had not filed his papers for appeal before the annual meeting, the League could not, in accordance with its constitution, recognize his request for examination of his case. Therefore his application for reinstatement was denied. Chicago Tribune March 9, 1880 [N.B.: no such provision was in the NL Constitution until 1882] The League Directors held a special meeting, at which the Secretary presented an application for reinstatement from Mr. C. W. Jones. On motion, the following preamble and resolution was adopted: “Whereas, Section 3, Article 8, of the League Constitution directs that any person who shall have been expelled shall file with the Secretary a written statement of his defense, accompanied with a request that an appeal be allowed him, and the Secretary shall lay the appeal before the next annual meeting, Resolved, That inasmuch as Mr. C. W. Jones neglected to file with the Secretary until after the annual meeting, we consider that he has forfeited his right of appeal by his own neglect, and the said application is therefore respectfully denied.” Cincinnati Enquirer March 9, 1881 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
keeping a book on hitters
| Date | Saturday, April 3, 1880 |
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| Text | Richmond of the Worcesters denies the paragraph that is going the rounds to the effect htat he has a little book in which he has noted the peculiarities of all the batsmen who played against him last season, and that he has thoroughly studied it. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
League parochialism
| Date | Saturday, January 10, 1880 |
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| Text | A Chicago paper recently gave a list of “ball-players retired from the profession;” but on looking over said list one finds that it includes only those who have retired from League clubs, just as if retiring from the League was leaving the baseball profession. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Leary expelled from the NA
| Date | Thursday, February 19, 1880 |
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| Text | At a Convention of the National Base Ball Association... the report of the Judiciary Committee, approving of the expulsion of Leary and Owen from the Manchesters...was read and adopted. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Lew Brown suspended for dissipation
| Date | Wednesday, May 5, 1880 |
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| Text | When Brown was engaged as catcher for the Boston team last fall, it was on a most solemn promise from him that he would abstain from the use of alcoholic beverages. Through the winter his conduct has been all right, as far as the management of the Boston team have any knowledge, and on his trip to the South he lived up to his promise. Recently, however, he fell from grace, and has been indulging more or less in intoxicants. The climax was reached last Wednesday in the game at Lowell, when he appeared on the field in a disgraceful condition, and utterly unfit to fill the position of catcher, and was transferred to the field. Of course his conduct and condition were noticed by Manager Wright, and last evening Brown was suspended for one year. The effect of this action is that he can not play in any league club this coming season, in accordance with the legislation of the last annual session of the league. This false step on Brown's part will cause regret to a great many who have noticed his playing the present month, and who were confident that he was to fill the catcher's position with his old time ability., quoting the Boston Herald |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Date | Saturday, April 10, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the formation of the Baltimore Club] It was announced that a subscription-list had been opened, a special provision of which was that subscribers should not be held responsible for any amount above their subscription. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Lynch's high delivery
| Date | Sunday, April 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [National vs. Cincinnati 4/17/1880] When the game was more than half over some one in authority became aware of a fact, known to the crowd from the beginning, that Lynch was delivering the ball considerably above his waist. A protest was made, and Lynch then pitched according to rules—but for a few moments only, as he was immediately hit for two double bases and a single. He then returned to his former style, and maintained it without further interference from the umpire. Cincinnati Commercial April 18, 1880 Some of the Western papers are complaining about , forgetting or being ignorant of the fact that there is only one professional pitcher in the country who delivers the ball with his arms swinging nearly perpendicular by his side and his hand passing below his waist as the rules require. Cincinnati Commercial April 29, 1880, quoting the New York Clipper |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
McLean quits umpiring
| Date | Saturday, July 17, 1880 |
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| Text | McLean has forwarded his resignation as a League umpire, and the national game is a loser thereby. He towered head and shoulders above all other umpires in fairness and good judgment, but he could not stand the abuse and billingsgate that was poured upon him by the rowdy element., quoting the Boston Herald |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
NL marketing campaign
| Date | Saturday, March 6, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the League meeting] The League then signed a contract with a Buffalo firm for printing nearly 12,000 three-sheet posters for the use of the League clubs. The poster is to have a figure of a full-sized baseball-player, and to be printed in various colors of red, blue, green and black. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
National League set at eight clubs
| Date | Saturday, February 14, 1880 |
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| Text | It was officially announced on Feb. 3 that the Worcesters had been elected to membership in the League, and that that body had also voted that it was not advisable to increase the membership beyond eight clubs, its present number, believing that to be as many as can be successfully handled and play out a well-arranged schedule. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
netting above the right field fence
| Date | Sunday, May 9, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cincinnati vs. Chicago 5/8/1880] That [decision by the umpire] allowing Wright to take four bases on a ball which lodged in the netting at the top of the right-field fence is a violation of the ground rules, which limit a hit over the fence to two bases. At least ten times last year balls lodged in the netting, and in every instance but two bases were allowed to be run. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
new League balls
| Date | Saturday, August 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Boston 8/6/1880] One of the was tried in Boston t-day, and at first it seemed as if some tall batting would be done, but it soon got in the same condition as usual and hits were few and far between. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
night baseball
| Date | Saturday, October 2, 1880 |
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| Text | The novel sight of a game of baseball in the evening was recently witnessed at Nantasket Beach, Mass., it being the first public experiment in illustration of a new system of illuminating towns by electricity. An idea of the effect produced by the illumination may be best conceived by stating the fact that a flood of mellow light thrown upon the field enabled the ballplayers, between eight and half-past nine o’clock, to complete a game of nine innings. The contestants were amateurs, and the game ended in a tie. It cannot be said that baseball is likely at present to be played extensively at night, for the players had to bat and throw with some caution, and the errors due to an imperfect light were innumerable. Fly-balls, descending nearly perpendicular could be caught easily, but when batted a long distance it was easier and safer to get the ball by chasing it after it struck the ground. To the spectators the game proved of little interest, since in general only the players’ movements could be discerned, while the court of the ball eluded their sight. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
no base coach with the bases empty
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Providence 6/4/1880] ...Hines opened play at the bat in the sixth inning, and punished Corcoran with a safe two-base hit to right-centre. There being no one to coach base-runners effectually, and apparently no understanding as to what Hines was to do on signal in running bases, he was left to his own judgment; and very injudiciously he took the risk of going for third on his hit, he calculating on a poor throw-in. The ball was finely returned to Williamson, however, and the result was that Hines was easily captured at third... |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
no base coaches
| Date | Friday, August 27, 1880 |
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| Text | ...hardly a game is played but that somebody among the spectators grumbles, and with good cause, because the Cincinnatis are not properly coached. Ferguson has a man near first and one near third all the time, whether a man is on base or not. In one inning Wednesday Fe4rguson went to bat, and, as it happened, nobody was standing near third. His eye noticed the void, and, turning to his players on the bench, he sharply inquired, “Are you all tired playing?” The hint was enough, and a player at once jumped up, went down near third and stood ready to coach any man who might come there. Yesterday Say reached first base and was compelled to call up a fellow-player to coach him. While Purcell was on base and Jim White at bat, Clapp and Smith stood within ten feet of the plate watching Jim White bat, but nobody was near first or third. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
no substitutes allowed
| Date | Saturday, December 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL meeting of 12/8/1880] In Rule 27 of Class 4 the words “after the commencement of the second inning of the side first at the bat” were stricken, out, no substitute being allowed for any player except in case of injury or illness disabling the player from all further participation in the game. A base-runner now who cannot run the bases on account of a sprained ankle or knee must leave the game or run the bases as best he may, no temporary substitute being allowed. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Nolan signs with Cleveland
| Date | Sunday, November 7, 1880 |
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| Text | The “Only Nolan” arrived in Cleveland from San Francisco Thursday evening, on his way to Peterson, N.J., to spend the winter. He was met at the depot by some of the Cleveland Directors, with whom he had been in correspondence, and Nolan expressed his willingness to sign for 1881 for Cleveland. The transaction was over in ten minutes, and his contract has been forwarded to Secretary Young. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
official scorer for the Buffalo Club
| Date | Sunday, May 30, 1880 |
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| Text | Grant Warren, official scorer for the Buffalo base-ball club, is in the city visiting friends. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
opposition to the reserve system
| Date | Sunday, September 5, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Club has now passed into a new existence, and within the next two months its capability will be brought to a trial in a meeting with other League Associations. The five-men agreement, as it stands is undoubtedly hurtful to home interests, for while it exists the best players will be monopolized by other clubs, who will have their services at a much lower figure than if they were in open market. If Cincinnati expects to have a good nine next year that agreement must be abolished. |
| Source | ~ |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
opposition to the reserve system 2
| Date | Wednesday, October 6, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the NL special meeting in Rochester] The all-important subject, five men reserve agreement, was brought up. Mr. Smith, of Buffalo, at once showed his teeth, and gave others a little exhibition of the material he is made of. He denounced the reservation policy in a very forcible speech, and said that, while he represented Buffalo, he never would sign any such contract. The articles made at Buffalo last year were simply a business understanding between delegates, and it had expired. The plan had been tried, and it was a dismal failure. It had not realized the idea for which it was conceived, and he sincerely believed that the best thing that could be done with it was to let it remain what it was, a dead letter. He knew as well as any body else did that players' salaries were too high; that the Chicago was the only Club that could make money, and all of that, but he did not propose to run a team under the present circumstances at a dead loss for the purpose of allowing the Worcesters and Troys and others to retain men they could not fully remunerate. Boston, Chicago and other cities were the cause of the present enormity of the pay-rolls, and, as every body but Chicago, who had been the prime movers in advancing prices, had suffered, he did not understand why they wanted Buffalo to make a dunce of herself. They had said that $30,000 had annually been lost, attributed only to over-paid players, but if Buffalo felt that she could make a nine pay, even with such a record before, it was her loss and affected nobody else. It was certain that his city could not afford to put a team in the field with a reservation policy in vogue. They had got through playing second fiddle and wanted to try their hand with another deal. He felt confident that base-ball could be self-supporting in his city, and he and others were anxious to try their luck. The citizens demanded a change, and they desired to give it to them. If, as the delegates claimed, they were all working for the interest of the League, why did they want to advocate any policy whose direct result was to make one or two teams invulnerable and the rest mere demoralized bands? |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
out of town scoreboard; seat cushions
| Date | Sunday, June 20, 1880 |
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| Text | Some improvements have been made at White Stocking park during the absence of the Chicago team. A large bulletin-board has been erected upon which will be painted in large figures, legible to all the spectators, giving the results of innings both here and in the League games played elsewhere. Additional cushions have been provided for use in the grand stand, this feature having proved very acceptable and popular. Chicago Tribune June 20, 1880 Some improvements have been made on the [Chicago] grounds during the absence of the Club, notably in following Cincinnati's example in the erection of a huge bulletin-board, placed in full view of all the spectators, where the results of innings, both on the grounds and in other League games, will be displayed. Additional cushions for seats in the Grand Stand have also been provided. These are rented out at five cents per game, and have proved to be a popular affair. Cincinnati Enquirer June 21, 1880 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
outside exhibition games
| Date | Saturday, January 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The restriction on clubs in this restrict [playing exhibition games with outside clubs] which has characterized the League rules has been costly each season, but especially was it so in 1879. while it is desirable that the clubs which enter for the championship-pennant should be debarred from playing any games with one another until each has completed its championship schedule-games, it is short-sighted policy to allow any other restriction. There is no doubt that the playing of exhibition games by the National championship teams of 1879 before they had finished their championship schedule-games materially weakened the attractive power of each club which engaged in such games. There was no interest while there remained regular championship games to be played but this, of course, need not interfere with a championship team's playing outside clubs on off-days. The narrow-minded policy of the League in this respect has resulted from the simple fact that the prominent Western clubs had no outside teams to play with like the Eastern League teams had, and therefore they declined to allow the latter to participate in a profitable series of matched in which they themselves could not engage. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
overhand delivery
| Date | Saturday, May 8, 1880 |
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| Text | Mr. Stevens in The Boston Herald of April 28 says: “Now is a good time for umpires to resolve to enforce the rule regarding fairly-pitched balls. Several pitchers have an illegal delivery a large part of the time, and, though the rule might bear hard on them, it ought to be either enforced or rescinded.” the last line of the paragraph is exactly to the point. Either enforce the rule as it reads, and to its letter, or let it be repealed, and the pitcher (?) be allowed to deliver the ball as he likes, either by a pitcher, a jerk or a throw. The only advantage a straight throw from the shoulder yields is accuracy of aim in delivery. As to the pace, that must always depend upon the ability of the catcher to hold the ball, whether it be pitched or thrown. We favor the license to deliver the ball as the pitcher likes, if only to fully test the merits of throwing the ball. Under the old rules of the New England game of twenty odd years ago, the ball was always thrown straight from the shoulder to the bat; but then it was only a three-ounce ball. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Phillips breaks engagements
| Date | Saturday, May 8, 1880 |
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| Text | The Yale College Team appear to have been shabbily treated by the action of Manager Philips of the Baltimores in violating his agreement to play them on April 28 at New Haven, Ct., after the collegians had been subjected to considerable expense for advertising, etc. the Bostons and Worcesters were treated in a similar manner by Phillips on the two preceding days, much to their pecuniary loss. To say the least, it seems as if the Baltimore Club manager was rather careless regarding his engagements, and his conduct in the matter is the reverse of creditable. The Yale management have furnished us with copies of their telegraphic correspondence with manager Phillips, which indicate that pecuniary considerations prompted him to break his engagement with them. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pitcher and catcher signs
| Date | Saturday, December 4, 1880 |
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| Text | A well-trained battery works together with one apparent thought and movement. There are certain signs agreed upon between the two players which no other players of the nine are cognizant of. It is by these signs that their strategic movements are governed, so that the pitcher can let his catcher know when he is going to send in a ball low or high, to the right or to the left, fast or slow, with a curve or for the catcher to hold for a throw, etc., etc.,; and the catcher can make his pitcher aware of the time for throwing to a particular base, or when to send in a high or a low ball or one either wide of the plate or over it. Each judges his batsman, and it is by their trained system of interchanging signals that they are enabled to outwit the man at the bat. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pitcher need not be in his position to make a foul ball live
| Date | Saturday, December 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL meeting of 12/8/1880] In Rule 46, Section 11, all the words after the word “pitcher” are stricken out. This leaves the rule in such form as to admit of the pitcher holding the ball in play wherever he may stand after a foul ball has been fielded. Before, the pitcher had had to first hold it while standing within the lines of this position. Now it is in play if he be standing on the base when the runner is returning to retouch the base after the foul ball has been hit. New York Clipper December 18, 1880 runners must retouch their base after a time out [reporting the NL meeting of 12/8/1880] A new section was added to Rule 46 as follows: “Section 15. If when the umpire calls play–after a suspension of the game–he (the base-runner_ fails to retouch the base he occupied when time was called, before he touches the next base, he shall be declared out.” This puts a stop to the unfair stealing of bases on the call of “Time” and “Play” in vogue the past season. New York Clipper December 18, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pitching delivery; improved curve pitching
| Date | Saturday, November 6, 1880 |
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| Text | The most skillful pitching ever seen in the professional arena was that which marked the season of 1880. Not only was greater speed shown, and more variations of the “curve” delivery than ever before, but there was more strategic–“headwork”–pitching exhibited, as a general rule, than in any previous season’s work in the annals of the game. By the word “pitching” we of course mean the existing method of delivering the ball, which is neither more nor less than an underhand throw,, and not a square pitch at all; for by regularly pitching the ball, though great speed could be obtained, no such accuracy of aim or thorough command of the ball as is attainable by the underhand throw would be secured. The marked improvement exhibited by curve-pitchers this season, not only in their command of the ball, but also in their endurance, is, of course, due to their increased training and practice in this method of delivery. When the old school of pitchers began to take up the curve, they brought into play a new set of muscles, and to overtax these with the same amount of work as the muscles trained in the old method could endure was likely to disable them from work in the position. Those of the pitcher who got into the curve-delivery by degrees and without over work were, of course, best able to stand the season’s pressure, and the most effective pitchers for 1881–all other essentials being equal–will be those who have trained their pitching muscles the most intelligently. New York Clipper November 6, 1880 proto-pitching rotation A feature of the club management of the Chicago team of 1880 was the constant change of pitchers, not in regard to the substitution of another pitcher when one becomes punished, but in order to avoid giving one pitcher too much work in his position. The duties of a curve-pitcher, required to send the ball in with great speed and with variations of the bias imparted to the ball, are too arduous to be long sustained without injury to his power of effective delivery; hence the important of the frequent changing of pitchers, even to the extent of one pitching in one inning and another in the next, and then again of giving a pitcher a rest of a day off. By this system of careful training or nursing of his muscles he will be enabled to pitch through an entire season without injury, whereas by overtaxing him–as too many pitchers have been–half the effectiveness of his delivery is lost. It has long been a rule with club-managers to have a change-pitcher in their team; but the past season’s experience has proven pretty conclusively that two regular pitchers, as well as a reserve-man, are a necessity for a first-class team. The Chicago management this past season has shown this pretty conclusively, for a large share of the success is due to the judgment shown in nursing their “batteries.” Of course, there will be exceptional cases, where a man of strong physique will be found capable of enduring an unusual strain on his pitching muscles; but, as a general rule, it will be found that two regular pitchers will be needed to thoroughly do the work of a championship campaign, with a third in reserve in case of emergency. New York Clipper November 6, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pitching rotation
| Date | Sunday, July 18, 1880 |
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| Text | The plan inaugurated by the Chicago club in playing its pitchers alternately, so that neither shall become overworked, has met with such success that it will almost certainly be imitated next year by other league clubs. The probabilities are, however, that it will be difficult to secure two pitchers of such exceptional ability as Goldsmith and Corcoran. Half the regular pitcher in the league are wearing elastic bandages on their arms. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pitching strategy 3
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cincinnati vs. Worcester 6/3/1880] In pace and curve, and in well-disguised change of pace, besides a low and perfectly legitimate delivery, both pitchers [John Richmond and Will White] excelled anything we have seen for years past. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
platooning pitchers
| Date | Saturday, March 20, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the Buffalo Club for the upcoming season] The two batteries will be brought to bear on the teams they are most successful against. Experience has shown that every pitcher in the arena finds one team with which he is invariably more successful than against any other, and the team he is able to pitch against with the most effect should, of course, be that one he [is] selected to play against. Thus the two batteries will be regular, instead of one being regular and the other the change-battery. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
players staying in New Orleans for the Spring
| Date | Saturday, January 24, 1880 |
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| Text | Foley, Bushong, Nichols and Bennett remained in New Orleans, where they will play with local clubs until the Worcesters' championship season opens, in May next. The Worcesters had originally contemplated playing in several Southern cities on their way home, but failed to do so for lack of financial encouragement on the part of said cities. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
playing poorly to avoid the reserve list
| Date | Saturday, August 28, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cleveland papers are pitching into Dunlap, claiming that he is playing poorly, so as not to be included in the five-men reserve scheme. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
poaching players
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | Article 2 of the League Constitution says: “The objects of this League are to encourage, foster and elevate the game of baseball,” “and to make baseball-playing respectable and honorable;” also, “to protect and promote the interests of professional baseball clubs.” The question is, are these words put in the constitution for buncombe, like the words of political platforms before election, or do they mean what they say? If the latter, why is it that the League board of directors so quietly ignore the conduct of the Buffalo, Troy and Boston Clubs, as shown in the action of the first-named in inducing Galvin to break his contract with the San Francisco Athletics; the Troy Club, to try and induce Keenan and Keefe to break their contracts with the Albany Club; and the Boston, in attempting to induce Snyder and Lynch to leave the Nationals? Galvin proved false to his agreement with the Athletics; but, to the credit of Keefe and Keenan, they have stood true to their engagements, as have Snyder and Lynch. But this does not relieve the League clubs, who tried to seduce them from the path of honor, from their responsibility. Let the League expunge the above article from their constitution a once, or punish the three clubs which have violated it. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
poor base coaching
| Date | Monday, May 17, 1880 |
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| Text | What the Cincinnatis want is better base coaching. They sadly lack in this respect. When Purcell made his three-base hit Saturday there was nobody within sixty feet of that base, and when he got there he had to stop and find out for himself where the ball was. Nor was any body sent down to his vicinity afterward to coach him in. this deficiency was been marked in the Cincinnati team, and has caused much grumbling among the spectators, who have noticed that the Chicagos and Clevelands are never without two men standing along the line ready to coach their men while on bases. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
poor drainage at the Cincinnati grounds
| Date | Saturday, April 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The clay ground of the Base-ball Park will cause the postponement of many games during the coming season, and a corresponding reduction in the total gate receipts. A sandy soil will absorb rains almost immediately, and a clay surface will have just the contrary effect. It was for the latter reason that there was no game yesterday between the Nationals and Cincinnatis. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
practice uniforms 4
| Date | Sunday, January 4, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnatis' uniform will not be changed from that of previous clubs. The men will, however, be furnished with an extra gray uniform to be used while practicing. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pre-season practice
| Date | Sunday, April 4, 1880 |
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| Text | All of the members of the Chicago team or on hand, and in regular forenoon and afternoon practice. The grounds are still wet from the heavy rain on Friday, but this fact did not interfere with yesterday's work. Thirteen men were on the field, including Remsen, which gave a full field and four batsmen, with President Hulbert as umpire. The team, as a body, shows up in fine form, and, if its practice is any index of its ability, there will be fun when the season opens. The advantage of continuous practice during the winter is illustrated in the cases of Williamson, Dalrymple, Gore, and quest, who handle themselves as though in the middle of the season. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pre-season practice 2
| Date | Sunday, April 4, 1880 |
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| Text | All of the members of the Chicago team or on hand, and in regular forenoon and afternoon practice. The grounds are still wet from the heavy rain on Friday, but this fact did not interfere with yesterday's work. Thirteen men were on the field, including Remsen, which gave a full field and four batsmen, with President Hulbert as umpire. The team, as a body, shows up in fine form, and, if its practice is any index of its ability, there will be fun when the season opens. The advantage of continuous practice during the winter is illustrated in the cases of Williamson, Dalrymple, Gore, and quest, who handle themselves as though in the middle of the season. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
President Garfield a baseball fan
| Date | Saturday, November 27, 1880 |
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| Text | At the meeting of the National club of Washington, D.C., on Nov. 8, the following gentlemen were unanimously elected honorary members; General Jas. A. Garfield, Col. H. C. Hodges, Capt. H. W. Howgate, J. K. Upton, and O. L. Pitney. Concerning President-elect Garfield’s love of baseball, it is said that he never fails to put in an appearance at the National grounds, and few people take the interest in the game that he does, or follow it as closely. He keeps the score himself, and watches every play as intently as if he had thousands of dollars on the result. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
profits from a Southern tour
| Date | Saturday, January 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The Worcesters received $270 as their share of the gate-receipts in the game with the Eckfords at New Orleans, La., on Jan. 4. Manager Bancroft is endeavoring to arrange games in Galveston and Houston, Tex., and, after returning to New Orleans, and playing one or more games there, he will wend his way homeward, playing in Mobile, Montgomery, Ala.; Augusta, Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Ga.; and Charleston, S.C., where he will take steamer for New York. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
prospects for Boston remaining in the League
| Date | Sunday, September 26, 1880 |
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| Text | In reply to numerous inquiries as to whether or not Boston will be represented in the league next year, The Herald will say that the directors of the club are now considering the matter, and are strongly inclined to go ahead; but it will, in a great measure, depend on the spirit shown by the friends of the organization. It is not unlikely that in the next week or two steps will be taken to canvass the sentiment existing in order that the management may be prepared with a definite plan when they send their delegates to the special meeting of the league, to be held on the 4th of October. Of one thing the public can be assured—viz., that if a club is put in the field it will be as strong a one, in all its departments, as can be procured. This is universally conceded., quoting the Boston Herald |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
prospects for the Boston Club for next season
| Date | Friday, October 1, 1880 |
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| Text | It will be remembered that in the Herald of Sunday last it was stated that the management of the Boston Club was considering plans for next season; it was also intimated that they would be governed in their decision by the sentiment existing among the supporters of the game in this city and vicinity. Enough has been learned during the past week to warrant the belief that, so far as the game is concerned, the interest is substantial and can be relied upon to make itself manifest, provided a first-class nine for 1881 is put into the field. With scarcely an exception, every man who has been seen in regard to the matter, has expressed a willingness to subscribe to a fund sufficient to make the project a success. It is, accordingly, proposed to start a paper at once, and, if there are any gentlemen who desire to have their names put on it, they may send their addresses to the base ball editor of this paper, who will see that they are handed to the proper parties. It s important that the responses should be prompt., quoting the Boston Herald |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
proto-fielder's choice
| Date | Sunday, February 8, 1880 |
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| Text | In the fourth column shall be placed to the credit of each player the total number of bases run during the game. In scoring bases run, where a player has reached first-base as the result of the putting out of another player, such first-base shall not be credited to the striker as one of the bases run by him. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
proto-on base percentage
| Date | Saturday, February 21, 1880 |
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| Text | Harry Wright suggests that the score-sheet shall be changed so as to place to the credit of each player the total number of bases ran during the game, with the exception where he reaches first base as the result of the putting out of another player. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Providence Club finances 2
| Date | Saturday, October 9, 1880 |
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| Text | The Providence Club held their adjourned meeting on Oct. 1, when the committee appointed to raise by subscription the sum necessary to liquidate the indebtedness of the Association to its players and to canvass for support during the coming year made a most encouraging report. Over three thousand dollars in cash, it was shown, and been subscribed, and the result arrived at is that Providence will have a first-class club next season. The further sum of $1,000 is needed to finish the extinction of the last of the old indebtedness, and the Association is thus placed on a level footing for the ensuing year. The players unanimously express themselves satisfied with the carrying out of the plan for their immediate release, and they will be paid in full to Oct. 15. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Pud Galvin's second perfect game
| Date | Sunday, July 11, 1880 |
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| Text | In 1877, when the famous Allegheny club...flouished, the same feat [of a perfect game] was accomplished by Galvin of the Allegenys. It occurred in the game between the Alleghenys and the Champion Citys, of Springfield, O. During this game the only error made by the Alleghenys was an excusable one by Dolan, who missed a foul-bound, and the Champion Citiys did not make a single hit off Galvin: neither did a single man reach first base. … This game was played at Allegheny on the 21st day of July, 1877. Chicago Times July 11, 1880 [N.B. Confirmed in Clipper 8/4/1877] |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
pushback on charging for uniforms and travel expenses
| Date | Saturday, January 10, 1880 |
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| Text | The O'Rourke Brothers—John and James—declined to sign contracts with the Boston Club so long aas the directors of the latter refused to cancel the clause taxing them thirty dollars each for uniforms, and fifty cents each daily while traveling. The lovers of the game in Boston, Mass., then subscribed the required amount, and the O'Rourkes will probably sign. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
RBIs
| Date | Sunday, July 11, 1880 |
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| Text | Below are given some interesting figures as to individual work in the thirty-eight games played by the Chicago team prior to yesterday, and also a record of the runs batted home by the different players in the twenty games played in this city. The percentage of base hits is reckoned on the basis of times at bat, and the column of “runs batted home” is computed upon the basis of results, but not of clean hits alone; that is to say, each batsman is credited with the result of his batting in the matter of bringing in runs, and no account is made of fielding errors on the side of the opposing team. … These figures may, we think, be taken on the whole as a fair criterion of the value a batsman is to his team; for surely the man who hits safely when men are on bases, or who hits so hard as to compel fielding errors on the other side, is of far more value to his club than the man who earns a base for himself twice as often, and makes a weak hit or foul or strikes out when the bases are loaded. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
RBIs 2
| Date | Sunday, October 3, 1880 |
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| Text | The Tribune has preserved a careful record throughout the season of the runs batted home by each player of the Chicago team, and presents it below as an interesting feature. In this record account has been taken of all the runs resulting from each player's hit, though not from his time at bat, as it would be manifestly unfair to credit the man at bat with results accomplished before he has completed his time at bat, such as runs resulting from passed balls, wild pitches, wild throws to bases, and other errors of the kind. But the batsman is credited with all runs resulting after he has made a fair hit, no matter what errors may then be made. For example, with three men on bases,if a fly ball hit to the outfield is muffed and four runs come in, the player who hit the ball is credited with having batted in four runs. Any other method would not be correct, as the batsman who hits a ball so as to create an error in the field by which his side profits in the way of runs is entitled to credit for producing that result. The score, moreover, shows in some measure who are the men who bat best with men on bases—a very important thing to ascertain in its bearing upon the question of batting strength. Chicago Tribune October 3, 1880 [from a letter to the editor signed “Fair Play”] “I fail to see in what respect the aforesaid table would enhance the record of any player or entitle him to credit, when it depends entirely on the ability of those preceding him to get on the bases; and if those who immediately precede him are the best batters, then it is more a question of position than of skill. The natural inference would be, and the table verifies it, that those who bat best with men on the bases are those who immediately follow the best batters, provided they are good batters.” The point made by “Fair Play” as to the merit of the preceding hits which made it possible subsequently to bat in runs was so obvious that it was not thought necessary to allude to it in the remarks accompanying the table showing the number of runs batted home by each player of the Chicago team. … It is not claimed that the figures published do more than in a general way to indicate the characteristics and peculiarities of the different batsmen in the matter of making safe hits when they will do the most good; and we are convinced from careful observation that... the figures do furnish at least a hint in this direction. Chicago Tribune October 4, 1880 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
rebuttal to a proposal to return to straight-arm pitching; reduce the number of balls for a walk
| Date | Sunday, September 12, 1880 |
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| Text | There is a good deal of nonsense current about a return to straight-arm pitching, or at least some restriction of the present privilege of underhand throwing. The thing is impracticable in the form advocated. To undertake now to change the rules regarding the style in which a ball may be delivered would be to reduce ball-playing to a hopeless muddle, so far as the question of pitchers is concerned. As the matter now stands every club has a perfectly defined idea of the value and effectively of its one or more pitchers. Change the rule regarding delivery, and no club would know anything about its pitching resources, and would be simply feeling its way in the dark. Moreover, there are no two umpires living, or yet to be born, who would construe and apply alike any rule that could be devised regarding a pitcher's delivery. What one regarded irregular and unlawful another would accept as unobjectionable, and endless confusion and trouble would result. Better let the style of pitching alone, and leave the underhand throwers in their glory. If anything is necessary to increase batting and run-getting, reduce the called balls to six, and then abolish the “fair-ball” call, so that every ball out of nine delivered by a pitcher shall be either a ball or strike. This would insure freer hitting, and possibly a greater number of bases on balls. The latter, however, is a very disagreeable and unsatisfactory feature of a game, and pitchers would soon be compelled to deliver fair balls, and depend on their fields rather than on their own skill. The question of pitching will doubtless receive some attention at the League's annual meeting, but the action taken is much more likely to be in the direction of decreased latitude in the number of balls than in any foolish tinkering with the rules governing the style of delivery. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
releasing and rehiring a player at lower pay
| Date | Tuesday, September 7, 1880 |
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| Text | It is an undisputed fact that Powers, to whom the Boston Club owed money, was released by them while at Chicago, and immediately approached with an offer for a re-engagement at a salary of $300 less. Being a married man in want he had to accept it. That is one way of highway robbery. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
resistance to the reserve clause
| Date | Saturday, August 28, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Enquirer is making war on the five-men rule, and in doing it is trying to rouse up the players to form a committee of the whole in opposition. This is a hard task, Brother Caylor. AS things look now, if the majority of the clubs favor such an arbitrary and unfair rule the players will have to abide by it, unless an Easter League should be formed, which is now very likely. Failing that, the players will have to submit, as no one could unite them ito band together against such wealthy organizations as the Chicago Club and the clubs that can apparently be whipped into submission. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Richmond the son of a Baptist minister
| Date | Saturday, July 3, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cleveland Leader's Geneva correspondent says: “Richmond, the celebrated pitcher of the Worcesters, is a native of this place. He is one of a large and highly respected family. His father is a Baptist minister, as is also one of his brothers. He developed his baseball proclivities upon the Normal School-ground, and played a good game for a boy seven years ago.” Richmond graduated with honors at Brown University on June 15. In the language of Horace, one can say pilae jaculator audax—the bold hurler of the ball—is worthy of his success. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
rumors of the end of the Brooklyn ball grounds; the state of baseball grounds
| Date | Saturday, January 31, 1880 |
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| Text | The old Union ball-grounds in Brooklyn have been purchased for the site of the new armory for the Forty-seventh Regiment, which is to be commenced the ensuing month; and the Capitoline ball-grounds, Brooklyn, will be built upon this Spring, a street right through the centre now being graded. … The great gathering-place for the amateur clubs in the metropolis is the grand ball-ground at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, with its thirteen regularly laid-out ball-fields and its two special fields for first-class matches. What is sadly wanted in the metropolis is an athletic park of sufficient extent to admit of a professional baseball-ground, a cricket ground for international matches, an exhibition field for college football contests in the Fall and Spring, a lacrosse club-ground, and full facilities for the grand games of the athletic clubs. Such an enterprise as this should pay handsomely if located near any of the elevated-railroad depots uptown. Why cannot New York have such a model place? Our park is useless for any such sports, its “cricket-field” and “baseball-grounds,” as marked out on its maps, being merely ornamental, having no practical existence. New York Clipper January 31, 1880 We have good news for the resident professionals of New York and Brooklyn in the fact that Manager Cammeyer desires us to announce that the Union Baseball Grounds will open for the season as soon as the weather permits, and that a good co-operative nine will be at once organized to play professional matches for as much of the season as the arrangements for the sale of the grounds will admit of. The delay in the legislative action in regard to the use of the ground for the 47th Regiment Armory admits of Mr. Cammeyer's having this ball-=ground until August, if not later. This will assure the patrons of the game in this neighborhood a season's play of at least four months, and the best part of the season at that. It is now in order for the Flyaways and other local co-operative professional clubs to organize nines for the Union Grounds campaign. Mr. Cammeyer will at once get a good Brooklyn team organized, which will be strong enough to cope with the League and National teams that may pass through New York to play in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. … The Capitoline Ground is now in process of being graded for the new street run through. Last week the fence was taken down, and this week the street-grading begins. There is now, therefore, only the Union Ball-grounds left in Brooklyn for the use of professional teams. New York Clipper March 20, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
runner missed the base
| Date | Saturday, May 22, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcester vs. Boston 5/14/1880] ...Wood and Bennett hit safely and scored on Whitney's drive over the left-field fence, while he himself traveled the circuit of the bases, but in doing so he failed to touch the third base. This was noticed by Bond, who fielded the ball to Morrill, and then called the umpire's attention to the omission on the part of Whitney. McLean [umpire] had also noticed the mistake, but, instead of deciding Whitney out, allowed him to hold third base, and he subsequently scored on Sullivan's hit. New York Clipper May 22, 1880 Wm. McLean of Philadelphia is one of the best umpires, and his rulings are seldom questioned. An instance to the contrary, however, occurred in the Worcester-Boston game on may 14, and has called for the following explanation from the ex-pugilist: “Whitney sent the ball over the fence, and was entitled to a home-run, according to the ground-rules. The ball was thrown back over the fence by outsiders, and it was thrown to Morrill, who touched third base (Whitney having failed to touch that bat), and he asked “Judgment?” I would not give Whitney out, and assigned as my reason that it was a dead ball, and that it had to go to the pitcher's hands while he was in his position. Bond took this hint, ran to his position, and from that point fielded the ball to third before Whitney could get there. I would not, however, decide hi out, as I thought that I did him an injustice in telling Bond that he had to be in position before the ball was in play; and, not seeing Whitney turn to get back to third, I allowed him to remain there, thinking I was doing justice to both clubs. I now see that I was wrong.” McLean's candid admission that his decision was an erroneous one settles a disputed point as to whether the ground rules would not admit of Whitney making a home-run without touching each base, and shows that the umpire's love of fair play got the better of his judgment. It would be better for the game if we have a few more umpires like McLean. New York Clipper May 29, 1880 the Long Island Amateur Association; optional championship; trophy rather than pennant; association provides balls At the adjourned meeting of the delegates to the Amateur Convention held on May 14 at the nameless Club rooms, Brooklyn, N.Y....the constitution and by-laws of the National Amateur Association of 1871 were accepted, with a few modifications to suit a smaller organization. At the meeting next Thursday evening the initiation fee of $1 and the annual dues of $1 will be received, and final arrangements regarding the Prospect Park championship are to be made. The 20th inst. Will be the limit for receiving entries to said championship. The $5 fee for the purchase of the trophy will then be due from each club desiring to enter; also the assessment for balls to be made and used especially for said championship. New York Clipper May 22, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
running into the fielder
| Date | Wednesday, July 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Chicago 7/6/1880] Corcoran hit for a base, and on a clever steal to second committed one of those atrocities which we heard so much about from the Providence and Boston papers a few weeks ago, that is to say, he ran into Farrell, who stood on the line in his way, and knocked that unassuming young man off his pins, and he dropped the ball as it was thrown by Gross. We call that good base-running here in Chicago. A runner has the right of way on the path, and a fielder has the right to stand on the path to receive a ball if he wants to, but he mustn't grumble if he gets run into and tipped over in so doing. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
running into the umpire
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | Anson was fined $20 for “bulldozing” the umpire in the last inning of the Boston-Chicago game at Boston, Mass., on May 29. a few more fines by McLean would stop the Chicagos' habit of running into basemen, as Gore is said to have done to Dunlap three times in three Cleveland games. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Saloon at the Boston grounds
| Date | Sunday, June 13, 1880 |
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| Text | The saloon on the Boston base ball grounds was broken into Friday night and two and one-half cases of beer were stolen. The thieves did not seem to be satisfied with this performance, and broke into the safe room of the base ball association and stole all of their tools, also a hat and coat owned by Fred Schmalhoft, the manager of the grounds, and a cardigan jacket owned by James O'Rourke. The thieves are known, warrants have been issued, and they will soon be brought to account for their crimes. Boston Globe June 13, 1880. |
| Source | Boston Globe |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
scientific batting 3
| Date | Saturday, August 28, 1880 |
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| Text | [Rochester vs. National 8/21/1880] ...out of the sixty-two times the two nines went to the bat they were put out twenty-six times by catches, and but four ground-hits were made in the entire game. Mr. Derby charged the weak batting to the dead Ross ball they played with. But this was no excuse whatever. A dead ball is the very ball to test a batsman's skill in the two great essentials of skillful batting, and these are, first, in being able to “face for the hit” properly, and, secondly, to “place” the ball well, after properly waiting for a fair ball, and being ready to hit it when it comes in. … Nearly all of the two nines on Saturday went in for heavy batting. Their sole ambition appeared to be to hit the ball as far out of reach as possible in their efforts to accomplish they they were, time and again, caught unprepared for good balls when they came in, or when they did hit the ball they either sent it in the air, giving chances for catches, or, failing to “face for the hit” properly, they hit the ball direct to some fielder's hands. To “place” for a right or centre field hit when an open space is left in the field for the purpose is something apparently unknown to the majority of batsmen. As fielders, they know where to go and what to do to field the ball, and they field up to a high mark in every position; but as batsmen they are as ignorant of the rules of as the veriest amateur. It is, of course, a difficult thing to do to “place” a ball sent in by a swift curve-pitcher; but it can be done, and high-salaried professionals out to be trained to do it, just as they trained to field skillfully. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
scoring a walk-off home run
| Date | Sunday, July 18, 1880 |
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| Text | A curious controversy has arisen in connection with the game of July 11 in which Cleveland beat Chicago 2 to 0. It will be remembered that up to the last half of the ninth inning neither side had made a tally, and that Cleveland then scored two runs on a base hit and a home run immediately following. The Cincinnati Enquirer man was the first to declare that the record of this game should be 1 to0 instead of 2 to 0, and Anson coincides with that opinion, and for this reason: The League rule is plain and imperative in saying that, “If the side last at bat in the ninth inning scores the winning run before the third man is out, the game shall then terminate.” The instant the first runner touched the plate the game was ended by a score of 1 to 0,--there can be no doubt of that,--and the man following who hit for four bases was “left” at whatever base he had just passed when the winning run was made, and is not credited with a home run. Chicago Tribune July 18, 1880 [from answers to correspondents] According to the letter of the League ruling the play, Dunlap's hit—yielding so many base-hits—counted only so far as the winning run was scored, and when Glasscock reached the home-plate that ended the base-running of the game, and Dunlap is only entitled under the League rule to a three-base hit. New York Clipper July 24, 1880 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
scoring walk-off hits
| Date | Sunday, August 15, 1880 |
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| Text | National League of Professional Base-Ball Clubs, Secretary's Office, Washington, D.C., July 30.--Dear Sir: Yours of the 28th inst. Received. The score forwarded is correct. The game could not end or be called until the play which won it was complete. Had there been three men on bases when Dunlap made his home run the runs would all have to count and be recorded as the score of the game. Had the game ended as soon as Glasscock crossed the home plate, you can see what a gross injustice it would have been to Dunlap, as he would have been deprived of the record to which he was justly entitled. Yours, N. E. Young. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
scoring walk-off home runs
| Date | Saturday, September 4, 1880 |
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| Text | The disputed score of the Cleveland-Chicago game on July 10 is officially decided by N. E. Young to be 2 to 0, instead of 1 to 0, as claimed by the Chicagos. Secretary Young says: “The game could not end or be called until the play which won it was completed. Had there been three men on bases when Dunlap made his home-run the runs would all have to count and be recorded as the score of the game. Had the game ended as soon as Glasscock crossed the home-plate, you can see what a gross injustice it would have been to Dunlap, as he would have been deprived of the record to which he was justly entitled. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
season ticket price goes down
| Date | Saturday, February 14, 1880 |
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| Text | The price of season tickets to the Boston grounds this year has been fixed at $12, a reduction of $2 from last years. These tickets will admit the bearer to all the games played on the Boston grounds, including 42 championship games, which will make the price of admission to each game about 28 cents. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
season ticket reserved seats
| Date | Sunday, January 25, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Club will sell a season ticket for $15, admitting the owner to the forty-two League games to be played on the home grounds. It will not be transferable. They will be on sale as soon as printed. The owner of one of these tickets will be entitled to a reserved seat for the season, which he may select as soon as he buys the ticket. These tickets will be on sale at Hawley's when printed, where a plat of the Grand Stand will be found, so that the seat may be selected with the purchase of the ticket. The Club will also sell twenty coupon tickets for $10, which may be transferred, and as many used for the same game as the owner wishes. These tickets will admit to the Grand Stand without extra charge. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
season tickets and ticket coupon books
| Date | Sunday, February 8, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Club will shortly place on sale...transferable coupon books good for twenty admissions, including seats in the Grand Stand. The cost is $10 each. In addition to the above, season tickets can be had, good for all league games, at $15, the ladies' ticket transferable and the gentlemen's not transferable. The owners to be entitled to reserved seats in the Grand Stand. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
season tickets in Boston 2
| Date | Sunday, February 15, 1880 |
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| Text | The price of season tickets to the Boston Base-ball grounds this year has been fixed at $12, a reduction of $2 from last year. The tickets will admit the bearer to all the games played on the Boston grounds, including forty-two championship games., quoting the Boston Herald |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
shading the outfield
| Date | Friday, May 14, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Cincinnati 5/13/1880] Manning was first at the bat, and sent a high fly for three bases to left center. Being a right-field batter, Hotaling was playing well to the right of center. He and Hall both started on the dead run, trying to get under the ball. Hotaling was called, but Hall did not hear it, and both met with full force. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Sharsig managing the Athletics
| Date | Saturday, September 11, 1880 |
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| Text | The Athletics have recently greatly strengthened their nine, and are now prepared to offer good guarantees to all League and other clubs which may pass through Philadelphia on their way between Baltimore, Washington and New York. All communications for the Athletics should be addressed to Wm. Sharsig, southeast corner of Sixth and Pine streets, Philadelphia, Pa. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
slow curves
| Date | Friday, June 25, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcester vs. Cincinnati 6/24/1880] White changed his style of delivery to a slower pace, with rising balls and , and it puzzled the Worcesters' batsmen exceedingly. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
smoking and beer-selling in the grand stand
| Date | Sunday, June 27, 1880 |
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| Text | ...the rules for the Grand Stand prohibiting smoking or beer-selling in that department, so strictly enforced at the beginning, have been revoked, and the beer-seller passes among ladies brazenly crying out his liquor for sale, and men who claim to be gentlemen sit right in their faces. Is it a wonder that the attendance of ladies has fallen off to almost nothing. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
smoking cigarettes while on the field
| Date | Monday, March 22, 1880 |
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| Text | [Athletic vs. Bay City, both of San Francisco 3/21/1880] The Athletic nine is one of the strongest in the League and under the captaincy of Carey the promise is strong that it will not be second at the season's close. To bring the club up to the requisite standing of excellence the strictest discipline is enforced, and any violation of the playing rules is punished by a fine, a second offense subjecting the offender to dismissal. It was remarked yesterday that three of the players took desperate chances to indulge in their favorite cigarette. Taking advantage of Carey's back being turned, and while his attention was being given to the field, those players would take surreptitious draws at the soothing weed and eject the forbidden fumes as spasmodic puffs until their appetite was satisfied. |
| Source | San Francisco Chronicle |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Spalding and Wright draft the amended rules
| Date | Saturday, December 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL meeting of 12/9/1880] The second day’s session of the Convention was devoted almost entirely to the subject of a revision of the playing rules. In this work Al. Spalding was called on to assis, and his and Harry Wright’s suggestions were in the main adopted, though the other delegates also aided in this important revisionory work. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
street car access to the Cincinnati grounds
| Date | Saturday, April 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The John and Seventh street car lines pass within two squares of the grounds. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
sun-burned hero
| Date | Tuesday, July 6, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Chicago 7/4/1880] Dalrymple came to the bat, and after two strikes had been made by him, he sent one over the right-field fence, a lady in the stand shouting out, “Run, you , run. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Sunday games, alcohol and betting prohibited
| Date | Saturday, December 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL meeting of 12/8/1880] ...An increase in the number of penalties, in which forfeiture of membership is concerned, was made, to the extent of including the prohibition of any match games on League grounds on Sunday, or the allowing of any player to participate in any Sunday game during the term of his League service. Also that of prohibiting the sale of beer or spirits on League grounds, or of open betting or pool-selling. Under the revised constitution, any club in the Association found guilty of any violation of either of the above prohibitory rules is liable to immediate expulsion from the League–after due proof of the facts before the Board–on a two-thirds vote of the League championship clubs. New York Clipper December 18, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
switch hitters
| Date | Sunday, June 27, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcester vs. Chicago 6/26/1880] [Richmond pitching] [Corcoran] batted right-handed, as did also Dalrymple and Gore, and the result was that ll three made a hit apiece, while Anson, Kelly, Flint, and Quest were unable to do much with Richmond... |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
switch hitting 2
| Date | Saturday, July 10, 1880 |
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| Text | Gore and Dalrymple, both left-handers, batted right handed against Richmond's pitching. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
talk of Troy and Buffalo withdrawing from the League
| Date | Saturday, January 3, 1880 |
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| Text | The professional clubs of Troy, Buffalo, Worcester and Washington agreed to hold a meeting in this city some time ago, but at the last moment Troy and Buffalo failed to withdraw from the League, and the project of a new association was consequently temporarily abandoned. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
teamwork in fielding
| Date | Wednesday, September 15, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Cincinnati 9/14/1880] [The Chicagos'] field work and show of discipline was the finest exhibited by any team which has visited Cincinnati this year. … Every field knows just what he will do with the ball if he gets it, and there is no show of demoralization. They don't stand rooted to the same spot twenty feet apart as though placed there on the penalty of death if they move. But when Jim White goes to bat Williamson and Burns concentrate over toward third, while Gore moves over to left center. When Clapp comes to bat Williamson takes' usual position, Burns moves down near second, and Quest moves up toward Anson, while Gore plays over in right center. We believe the Cincinnati players have not been seen out of their “hole in the ground” this year, no matter whether the batter hits to left or right field. The masterly hand of discipline, so clearly visible in the Chicagos' play, is entirely absent in the Cincinnatis' play. The contrast is most marked. When Anson got a foul fly yesterday Corcoran was stooping under him ready to catch the ball if his captain should by chance have let it drop. We have taken occasion to deliver this criticism after a victory, on Harry Wright's theory that it is such a time when criticism will do the most good. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
ten men on a side in Cuba
| Date | Saturday, January 10, 1880 |
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| Text | [Worcesters in Cuba 12/21/1879 vs. a picked nine from Havana, nine on Worcester side, ten on Havana] |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the 'phenomenon' Richmond
| Date | Saturday, June 26, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Worcester 6/14/1880] ...the visitors, who had previously failed to hit , pounded him pretty freely... New York Clipper June 26, 1880 League clubs poaching players Referring to the article in your issue of June 12 in regard to the efforts made by certain League clubs to “seduce from the path of honor” players belonging to National Association clubs, and which, by the way, I read with great pleasure, I take the liberty of informing you that at least two of the clubs mentioned are indefatigable in this disreputable business. Deasley (catcher) and Richmond (short-stop_ of our club have recently received overtures-the former from the Troy and the latter from the Boston Club—to induce them to break their contracts. As you intimate in the article referred to, there seems to be a total disregard on the part of the management of some of the League clubs for one of the cardinal principles in their Constitution. It has occurred tome that, with the aid of your valuable journal, some plan might be devised to put a stop to this disgraceful business, which, if persisted in, can only result in the disintegration of all Association clubs—unless, fo course, each and all of the players approached should determine to “stand true to their engagements,” which, I fancy, it will be difficult for them to do in the face of the large inducements offered. The friends of the National clubs—and their name is legion—would be glad to hear your voice again on this subject. I am, very truly, etc., Jno. W. Cathcart, Treas. Baltimore Baseball Club. New York Clipper June 26, 1880 The Bostons deny that they acted dishonorably in endeavoring to secure the services of Lynch and Snyder of the nationals and Richmond of the Baltimores. No further inducements were offered to Richmond after he had notified the Boston management that he could not obtain his release. In regard to Snyder and Lynch, it may be said that the Bostons dealt directly with the Nationals' manager, and as a result got Trott. … The Troy directors claim that they have a telegram from Deasley of the Baltimores, asking for an engagement as catcher. Troy's response was favorable, and another dispatch was received from Deasley saying: “Send me $100, and I will be in Troy on Saturday.” Troy forwarded the money to a responsible man, with orders to pay it over when a contract was signed; but as the Baltimore managers had paid Deasley his back-pay he agreed to stay with them. This is Troy's version, and it puts an entirely different phase on the matter. New York Clipper July 3, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the Boston Club's activity
| Date | Tuesday, January 27, 1880 |
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| Text | ...the Bostons commenced play last season on April 5 and concluded on Oct. 16, on both occasions being opposed to picked nines. During this period they played 109 games, 84 of which were championship contests and 25 exhibition; were prevented from playing twenty-two times by rain; were traveling seven days, and were otherwise idle but twenty-three days in all. The Bostons won 54 out of their 84 championship and twenty out of their 25 exhibition games... |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the Chicago trip to California a financial failure
| Date | Sunday, January 18, 1880 |
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| Text | William W. Kelly, whilom manager of the Chicago Baseball Club, will be tendered a benefit at the Union Grounds this afternoon by the baseball fraternity of this city. Two picked nines have been selected to play, which will embrace the best available material in the city, and a close and interesting game is anticipated. The bringing to this coast of the Eastern professionals, while it has given a new impetus to baseball in this community, has, at the same time, proved a most disastrous speculation for Mr. Kelly. The members of the different clubs are putting forth every effort to make the benefit a success. |
| Source | San Francisco Chronicle |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
The Enquirer's scoring system
| Date | Sunday, April 4, 1880 |
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| Text | The Enquirer serves notice that it will not use the “chances offered” or “c.o.” column in its scores of League games this summer, but will retain the old “error” column. We do this not on account of a whim, but because we believe the old style is more easily understood. According to the new style the put-outs and assists have to be added the and sum subtracted from the chances offered before one can discover how many errors have been made; whereas, under the good old system every thing is designated in its respective column, and a glance tells all. If any body wants to know how many chances were offered he can easily do it by adding up the put-outs, assists and errors, and he has it. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the Jefferson street grounds sold
| Date | Saturday, November 6, 1880 |
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| Text | The old ball-ground in the neighborhood of Twenty-fifth and Jefferson streets, Philadelphia, Pa., belonged to the city, and as it was not bringing in any revenue, either in the way of taxes or water rents, it was deemed advisable to dispose of it; so it was sold at public auction on Oct. 26. The sale was largely attended, and bidding was very spirited. The portion of the ground disposed of was divided into building-lots, and realized a total amount of $48,800. It was first used as a ball-ground sixteen years ago, the Olympics having then obtained a lease and sublet it to the Athletics and Keystones. The formal inauguration of the ground took place May 25, 1864, by the playing of a match between selected nines of the most prominent clubs of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, for the benefit of the Sanitary Fair then being held in Philadelphia. ... The Olympics occupied this ground for fourteen successive seasons, sharing it in company with the Athletics from 1871 to 1877, inclusive, and also with the Philadelphias in 1873, ‘74, ‘75. The history of the ground during the fourteen seasons of its occupancy would require considerable space... |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the League bans Sunday games and alcohol; Cincinnati out of the League
| Date | Tuesday, October 5, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the NL special meeting] Mr. Kennett, of Cincinnati, said he would not sign any such agreement [abolishing liquor sales and Sunday ball] or entertain any such proposition. The Cincinnati Club derived too big revenues from those sources to cut them off in this manner. Mr. Hulbert asked him if he could not telegraph to his Directors and gain their consent to the agreement. Mr. Kennett said it would be impossible to find them in less than two days, at least; besides, he did not see what great stew there was about this matter, any way, as it was something that would come up before the annual meeting. Mr. Root said that he had received information, through the Cincinnati Enquirer, that the local Club would not go into the League if such plan was adopted, and he wished Mr. Kennett would tell them whether or not they intended to stay in the League, as this matter would certainly be passed in December. Mr. Kennett replied that if they had any hopes of scaring him by any such moves they were badly mistaken. They all knew that Cincinnati was opposed to the reservation policy, and that they intend to fight it out, to boot. This liquor matter was of secondary consideration tot hem now. He had come there in the interest of his Club, and he intended to stick to that. He would give no decisions on the agreement matter and did not think he was obliged to. Mr. Hulbert said that this subject had nothing to do with the five-men policy, whereupon Mr. Kennett quickly replied that he thought that it had a great deal to do with it. He saw the dodge, but it would not work. This announcement fell like a bombshell in the enemies camp, and, on motion, it was decided to adjourn until to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. At this time inquiries were made as to what Clubs would continue in the League, and all present announced that their organizations had decided to retain their membership. Cincinnati Enquirer October 5, 1880 Mr. Kennett said he was willing to have the sale of liquor restricted to the bar under the grand stand, and he would give his word that the Directors would exert themselves to do away with the custom as fast as the prejudice in its favor could be overcome. To this offer Mr. Hulbert replied that he failed to see how these delegates could accept any such amendment of the original articles, and did not think that they could stultify themselves, having already given their vote for the first agreement. A resolution was then submitted to the effect that the Cincinnati Club vacated its membership in the League if its representative did not make a formal assent or negative to the agreement prohibiting Sunday games and the sale of liquors on League grounds. Seven delegates voted in favor of the resolution. Chicago Tribune October 7, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the League weasels on expelling a club
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | [The Troy Club had refused to remain in Providence to make up a rain-out. The League held a special meeting to consider Providence's complaint.] The written answer of the Troy Club admitted all the substantial facts of Mr. Root's complaint, but excused the action of their manager on the ground that the schedule game he was obliged to play on the 18th prevented his running the risk of a prolonged stay in Providence. He might reach Troy in time; but as there was a risk that he might not, he chose the safe side. The meeting was called to order at 3 P.M. by the League president, and the documents on both sides were submitted by Secretary Young. … In their report the directors took the ground that, although there had been a technical violation of the section of the constitution referred to, still the said action was not entirely clear on the point of dispute; therefore, while they censured the manager of the Troys for not playing the third game in Providence, as requested, they reported against expulsion, and also against compelling the Troy Club to forfeit the game. The report was adopted, Mr. Root of Providence alone objecting. An agreement was then prepared, to the effect that hereafter Section 3 of Article Xii of the Constitution be so construed as to cover such points as the one raised by the Providence Club; and should any club belonging to the League in the future repeat the offense committed by the Troys, the extreme penalty must be enforced. This agreement, we are informed, was promptly signed by all of the club representatives except the Providence Club. Mr. Root was not at all satisfied with the action of the meeting in letting the Troys off, and he raised various objections to the proposed agreement. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the League's poor financial season
| Date | Saturday, January 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The League season of 1879 was the most unsuccessful one, pecuniarily, known in its history; and it was due to two causes, primarily the fifty-cent tariff, and secondarily the restrictive policy [of prohibiting outside exhibitions]. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
The Louisville four will never be reinstated
| Date | Thursday, December 9, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the League meeting] Repeated application having been made to the Board in behalf of James A. Devlin, George Hall, and A. H. Nichols for the removal of the disabilities resulting from their expulsion from the League for alleged dishonest ball-playing, a resolution was adopted to the effect that the Board of Directors would never remit the penalties inflicted on the men names, and that no appeals touching their cases would hereafter be entertained. Chicago Tribune December 9, 1880 rules changes: pitcher moved back, number of balls and strikes reduced; putting runners out on foul balls [reporting on the League meeting] 1. The pitcher's position is moved five feet farther from the home base than at present. 2. The number of called balls is reduced to seven, and the strikes to three, the warning of “good ball” being stricken out. … 6 A base-runner may be put out in returning to his base on a foul ball if touched by the ball in the hands of a player after it has passed through the pitcher's hand. Chicago Tribune December 10, 1880 Under the new rule, if a base-runner be on first base when the batsman hits a foul ball that is not caught on the fly or first bound, te is liable to be put out in returning to the base he had left when the ball was hit, just as he was when the old rules were in vogue, with the exception that the pitcher is not now required to be standing within the lines of his position before the ball—returned to him from the fielder—can be used to put such base-runner out. He can take the ball from the fielder even were he standing on the base the runner was returning to, and then legally put him out. It will be seen by this that not only does the batsman incur a double penalty for hitting a foul ball to that he incurs in hitting a fair one,--such ball being allowed to be caught on the bound as well as they fly,--but the base-runner is punished for the batsman's poor hitting. Chicago Tribune January 9, 1881 |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the NA adopts the fixed guarantee system
| Date | Saturday, February 28, 1880 |
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| Text | Another desirable change was made in adopting the following amendment: The admission-fee to all championship games played between clubs belonging to the National Association shall be twenty-five cents, and the visiting club shall be entitled to receive for each such game so played the sum of $75. By this rule the home-club receives all benefit of its power to attract large crowds on its own grounds, the visiting club taking no share of the receipts whatever, but only its $75 guaranty. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the NA allows the square bat
| Date | Friday, February 20, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the NA convention] This year some few changes were made in the Constitution and playing rules, but none of them of a very radical character. The most important change was that allowing the use of either the round or the new four-sided bat. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the Nationals railroaded out of the League Alliance
| Date | Saturday, December 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL meeting of 12/9/1880] On Wednesday morning, Dec. 8, when the Nationals were informed of their rejection as a new League club, nothing was said about any charge that they had violated any League rule as a member of the League Alliance. It was, therefore, quite a surprise to them when, on Thursday, they were informed that Cleveland had a grievance against them, on which, if not cleared up satisfactorily and promptly, would involve the immediate expulsion of the Nationals from the League Alliance. It is unnecessary to go into details; suffice it to say that the Clevelands claimed that the Nationals owed them guaranty-money. This was disputed; but the Nationals were willing to give a check for the amount claimed if they were allowed time to ascertain whether their manager regarded the claim as legal. This was not granted them; and as they refused to pay the claim unconditionally on demand, they were expelled from the League Alliance. The Washington delegates assert that there was a hidden motive for this action, and when it leaked out that the manager of the Detroit Club had signed Derby the day the Detroit Club was admitted–something he could not legally do while the Nationals were a League Alliance club–th expulsion business began to have an ugly look. The sequel of the affair must be that either the claim was legitimate, and the Nationals obliged to pay it, or that it was otherwise, and their expulsion illegal. It will be settled at the March meeting in Chicago, and it is to be hoped satisfactorily. New York Clipper December 18, 1880 Boston Club finances The Boston Base Ball Association held its annual meeting Dec. 15... The report of the treasurer showed a diminution of the receipts of 1880 as compared with previous years of $3,461.50. The falling-off in the receipts was partly offset by a reduction in expenses of $3,165.77. New York Clipper December 25, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the Rochesters placed under the ban
| Date | Saturday, July 31, 1880 |
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| Text | One of the League rules provide that if a game is arranged between a club of that association and an outside club on the latter's ground, and is prevented by rain, the outside organization must pay $50 to the League club, and in case of default no other League club can play the offending party until the $50 is paid. The Chicagos and Rochesters were to have played at Albany, N.Y., on July 20, but it rained, and the game was in consequence prevented. Manager Phillips refused to pay any such sum, and consequently the League clubs have been notified that no more games can be played with the Rochesters until the difficulty is settled. New York Clipper July 31, 1880 Coney Island games; early talk of the Polo Grounds PROFESSIONALS AT CONEY ISLAND.--The managers of the National and Rochester Clubs are arranging to play a series of games on the newly-laid-out ball-field on the Brighton Beach racecourse, three games to be played on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week, beginning Aug. 9—the off-days of the races there. They are also arranging to lease the Polo Ground in this city for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I which case the Chicago team may play the opening game with the Nationals in New York. The Polo Ground enterprise is the best one, as it will make a beginning for the revival of professional play in this city for 1881. New York Clipper August 7, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the advantages of quick pitching
| Date | Saturday, June 5, 1880 |
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| Text | [Seton Hall vs. Rose Hill of St. John's 5/25/1880] ...both pitchers occupy too much time in delivery, and neither catcher plays the point of a quick return to the pitcher. The more a pitcher deliberates in his movements in delivering the ball, the better chance he gives the batsman to punish him. Quick returns to the pitcher by the catcher is a necessity in strategic play, otherwise the batsman is allowed time to recover his lost form after each hit. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the championship pennant 2
| Date | Sunday, May 2, 1880 |
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| Text | [Boston vs. Providence 5/1/1880] The championship pennant was displayed on the staff, towering above the Grand Stand, and triangular in shape, of white centre, blue trimmings and “Providence Champions 1879,” in red lettering in the center. The Grays manned the halliards and hoisted it to place amid great enthusiasm. |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the condition of baseball in California
| Date | Sunday, September 12, 1880 |
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| Text | The California craze has altogether subsided, and such of the Eastern professionals as have not been lucky enough to get back home are in very destitute circumstances on the Slope. McVey has written to a friend in this city for help to return to the land of the League and good salaries. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the condition of the Cincinnati Club
| Date | Saturday, November 6, 1880 |
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| Text | The Cincinnati Club held a special meeting Oct. 26, when a resolution withdrawing the application for membership in the League was passed unanimously. It was also agreed to assess the stock twenty-five per cent., so as to have a working cash margin for next year. The stockholder manifested much enthusiasm respecting the formation of a new and independent association of baseball clubs, and but one sentiment was expressed, viz., faith in the success of the movement and a belief that the Cincinnatis had acted judiciously under the circumstances. It now seems more than likely that St. Louis will take membership in the new Association, and organize a strong team for next season. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the condition of the Knickerbocker Club 2
| Date | Saturday, May 1, 1880 |
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| Text | The Knickerbocker Club.–This veteran amateur organization began their thirty-sixty successive season of ball-play at Hoboken, N.J., on the afternoon of April 23, on the St. George Cricket Club Grounds, foot of West Ninth street, where they found the field in excellent condition for play; and, though the weather was cloudy and not very pleasant, they enjoyed a lively practice game of “one-two-three” for a couple of hours. Owing to the chilly weather, the veterans of the club did non turn out, but the younger members were on hand, led by Kirtland, Goodspeed and Rogers. The club will be able to present a very good amateur nine of young players this season, with Aymar to catch and Marshall to pitch, and they can give very good field support with the force they now have at command. The Knickerbockers will meet for practice every Monday and Friday at 4 P.M. until October. College-players visiting the city are always welcomed by the Knickerbockers. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the condition of the Philadelphia Olympics
| Date | Saturday, March 13, 1880 |
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| Text | The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia, Pa., held its forty-seventh annual meeting on March 1, when the following gentlemen were elected officers for the ensuing year: President, F. DeB. Richards; vice presidents, J.C. Browne and E. H. Hanson; treasurer, C. Buob; secretary, W. B. Scott; directors—Charles Buob, Wm. H. Morris and E. Hicks Hayhurst. The prospects of this time-honored organization for the coming season are most excellent, and the members' choice for officers augurs favorably. The veterans Fred Richards and Hicks Hayhurst have labored faithfully for more than twenty years to promote the growth of the national game, and Charley Buob has also been an enthusiastic disciple of baseball for nearly as many years. Oakdale Park was selected as the playing ground of the Olympics, and Tuesdays and Fridays as their practice-days. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the cost of organizing a club
| Date | Saturday, April 3, 1880 |
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| Text | The amount subscribed [for the new Baltimore club] reaches $1,200, with about one-third paid in. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the decayed state of the Union grounds
| Date | Saturday, August 21, 1880 |
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| Text | [Nationals vs. Rochester at Brooklyn 8/11/1880] The old field with its dilapidated surroundings did not look like the one-time model Union Ground. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the folly of not using a catcher's mask
| Date | Saturday, June 19, 1880 |
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| Text | The folly of facing swift pitching behind the bat without the protection of a mask was again illustrated recently in Philadelphia. Fred Pfeffer, who has filled positions in the Philadelphia and Athletic Clubs,met with a painful accident while playing behind the bat in a game between the Royer's Ford and Collegeville nines. While his nine (the Collegeville) were in the field he was struck between the eyes by a foul tip and fell senseless to the ground. He remained in an unconscious condition for some time, and an examination disclosed that his nose had been broken, and that he had sustained an ugly contused wound on the forehead. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the foul bound out and game length
| Date | Saturday, January 17, 1880 |
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| Text | The experiment of doing away with the boys' catch of the foul bound in the National [i.e. National Association] arena was quite successful. Instead of the new rule lengthening the games, it shortened them, as the figures proved during the first month of the season. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the grounds in Baltimore
| Date | Saturday, April 24, 1880 |
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| Text | The Baltimore Athletic Club has control of the old ground at Newington Park, and refuses to rent it for less than $10 per day, with free admission for their 223 members—a matter of $50 more a day, although they pay only $350 for the entire year. The Baltimores offered them $500 for Monday,s Wednesdays and Fridays during the baseball season, but the Athletic Club rejected these terms. The Baltimores do no intend jeopardizing their chances of financial success by acceding to these extortionate demands, and have been offered the site for a new ground on the Bellaire road, about twenty minutes' ride from the city. The new location is easy of access by three street-railway lines. The grounds can be fixed up at a small outlay, and it will be much cheaper to make the needed improvements than to pay the Athletic Club about $1,000 for six months. New York Clipper April 24, 1880 scoring convention; batting average versus slugging percentage; discounting runs scored; separating pitching from fielding stats Going forward in the course which it has heretofore purposed, The Sunday Times will this year present a scoring records of the league games in a form peculiar to itself, and containing features and points of interest to be found nowhere else. It has persistently refused to follow the form of score adopted by the league, because it was illogical and did not bring out many of the most important items of play, such, for instance, as base running and hitting beyond one base. The official form of the league score is always a matter of convention—a compromise of pet notions—and, as such, must be incomplete and contradictory. This of the present year is perhaps more so than any of its predecessors, leaving out, as it does, the important item of “times reached first base,” and thereby making entirely useless as a record the interpolated column of “total bases run.” The same is true as far as the general reader is concerned, in regard to its column of “chances offered,” because it furnishes no complementary column of “chances accepted.” For these, and other reason, The Sunday Times will present its readers with a form of its own. The intention is to present in the detailed score a record of the individual work at the bat, running the bases, and in the field; in the summary by innings, the same points by team aggregate. The score of last year contained nine columns as was the completest ever published; but it was found to embrace more particulars, more minute divisions that the general reader cared to digest, and , the present year's score, an attempt has been made to give the same information in a form which requires but six columns. In the batting department, for instance, the columns of first base hits has been dropped, as that of total bases on hits includes them. It is an open question as to whether the man who makes frequent hits for one base is more valuable at the bat than the one who makes fewer safe hits, but is addicted to two and three-baggers. Certainly the latter draws more upon the enthusiams of the spectators than the former, and, as the game is for their pleasure, such hitting is worthy of encouragement. Moreover, a heavy hitter is especially valuable when bases are full and there is danger of a double play. A first-base hit, under such circumstances, will ordinarily bring in but one man, while a two-baser is good for three runs. This record, therefore, makes no distinction between the value of two first-base hits and one second-baser. It is generally true that heavy hitters are not as safe hitters as light ones; but this is a matter of natural adaptation, and the hard hitter would not hit safely any oftener if he were to moderate his force. Moreover, both styles are desirable in a team. Three or four safe hitters, followed by a long driver or two, are better than a full strong of short hitters. In the department of base running the column of runs is left out as a matter of no individual important, and is relegated to the innings summary, showing the work of the club as a whole in that line. The theory of the column of total bases run is that runs are made up of bases, and that a man's value as a runner must be gauged by the number of bases reached, regardless of whether they result in runs or not. Here the adage “Take care of the cents and the dollars will take care of themselves” is applicable: if the runner gets a base at every opportunity the runs will be forthcoming. In the fielding department the three columns of put-out, assists, and errors are condensed into chances offered and chances accepted. Chances offered include every play presented to each player during the game, and chances accepted the number which he executes. The difference, naturally, is the number of errors. In this no distinction is made between an assist and a put-out, both being perfect plays and equally meritorious. This method shows at a glance the proportion between the plays offered and those executed. The order of the columns in the score is this: A.B. (times at bat), T. H. (total bases on hits). R.B. (reached first base), T. R. (total bases reached). C.O. (chances offered), and C.A. (chances accepted.) … The pitcher's record, as presented in this score, is an entirely new feature, and the only form which has ever, even approximately recorded the value of the men playing that position. All attempts at such a record heretofore have been based on the proportion of base hits to times at bat, and other things in which the work of the fielders in general was involved, so that they showed nothing; the present method makes his work separate from the fielding work. It is the pitcher's business to offer chances to the fielders to put men out, and, when he has done that, his duty is fulfilled, whether the fielder does his or not. Evidently, therefore, the pitcher—as a pitcher—is the most valuable man who furnishes the most opportunities for put-outs in proportion to the number of strikers faced. As to his value as a fielder, and a batsman, of course his record with the other members of the team will be determined. Lovers of the game who will study the details of this method sufficiently to get a clear understanding of it from top to bottom, will find that it contains all the necessary information as to individuals and teams, without surplusage. Chicago Times April 25, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the ideal balance of pitching and hitting; experiment with reduced number of balls
| Date | Sunday, October 3, 1880 |
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| Text | [Buffalo vs. Chicago 10/2/1880] The average of the [proportion of first-base hits to times at bat] has been less than one hit to three times at bat. In order to put the game on an even footing as between the batting and fielding sides, it should be an even thing for the average batsman when he steps up to the plate, whether he makes a base hit or goes out. That is, the average batter should be able to make a record of .500 instead of .333, and, of course, the heavy batter should be able to do better than that. With the chances evenly balanced, there would be a good chance for the display of skill on both sides. The object of the game is to put the ball in play, and, in order to do this, it must be hit. The heart of the problem is to get frequent hits, with as few of them as possible over the heads of the outfielders, which puts it out of play, practically, for the time being. This was the point sought to be obtained in yesterday afternoon's game. To this end the number of called balls was reduced to six, and the number of strikes to three, without any “fair-ball” warning to the batsman. Narrowing the number of balls to be called to this extend forced the pitchers to be more careful in their delivery in order to avoid sending batsmen to the base on called balls. The consequence was that they were less puzzling, and the batsmen hit with more confidence. The cutting of one-fourth of the balls also had the effect of bringing batsmen to the plate in more rapid succession, thereby enlivening the game to that extent. The innovation seems a good one... |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the improvement in professional clubs
| Date | Saturday, July 24, 1880 |
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| Text | In these days of better trained professional stock-company teams it is almost impossible to get together a nine which would be invincible. In 1869, when the old Cincinnati team recorded its unequaled season of uninterrupted freedom from defeat—only a drawn match prevented a succession of victories from the start to the finish—it encountered nines composed mostly of crude or unreliable material in the professional class, and unpracticed nines in the amateur. Against these the Cincinnatis presented the best-trained professional team then known to the fraternity. Now we have half a dozen just as well managed as the Cincinnatis of 1869 were, and hence the task of going through a season now without a defeat is almost impossible. New York Clipper July 24, 1880 dual membership in the League Alliance and any other organization prohibited; the end of the National Association? ...the Nationals have joined the League Alliance “for protection,” and thereby have been obliged to resign from the National Association, and consequently forfeit all claim to the National championship. … The law of the Alliance referring to clubs joining it says: “No club which is in any other organization of clubs than the League or League Alliance shall be entitled to membership.” So, good-bye to the Washington Nationals as members of the National Association or as candidates for the National championship, and thus ends “the strange, eventful history” of the Association. New York Clipper July 24, 1880 The Nationals, we are told, have not resigned from the National Association, and are therefore still claimants for the pennant, their rivals being the Rochesters. New York Clipper August 7, 1880 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the percentage of ladies
| Date | Sunday, May 2, 1880 |
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| Text | [Buffalo vs. Cleveland 5/1/1880] Eleven hundred persons, including a dozen ladies, saw Buffalo defeat the Clevelands here to day... |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the pitcher moved back to fifty feet
| Date | Saturday, December 18, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL meeting of 12/8/1880] ... substituting the words “fifty feet” in the place of “forty-five feet,” thereby increasing the pitcher’s distance from the bat five feet. The design of this amendment was to give the batsman a better chance to judge the ball as it comes from the pitcher’s hands; the increase of distance, too, must necessarily affect the speed of the ball. In regard to its effect on the curve-delivery, it will oblige the pitcher to aim differently in order to send the curved ball over the plate; moreover, it will greatly bother those pitchers who curve the ball without knowing it, as some do–that is, the class whose curve-delivery is considerably more of chance-work. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the reaction to a perfect game
| Date | Saturday, June 19, 1880 |
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| Text | [Cleveland vs. Worcester 6/12/1880] Our Worcester, Mass., correspondent sends us the appended account of an exceptional contest which took place there on June 12, between the Worcester and Cleveland nines. It was not so much from the small score—1 to 0—as it was from the fact that the Clevelands did not make a base-hit or even reach first base a single time, and the Worcesters did not make a fielding error. … Glasscock then struck out, and Hanlon came up looking determined, hitting the first ball pitched to Irwin, who threw him out beautifully at first, ending the game amidst loud cheering by the assemblage, as it had fallen to their lot to witness the greatest game of the season. Richmond was unable to get off the field for a few moments, owing to the crowd that surrounded him and showered congratulations on him. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the relationship between the manager and the captain
| Date | Saturday, March 20, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the Buffalo Club for the upcoming season] Who will captain the nine is yet a matter of doubt. Should they secure a good a manger, it would be easy to name a player as captain who—like Morrill in the Bostons—would carry out the orders of the manager. In this case the latter would require to be an experienced player himself. There does not appear to be any player in the team competent to fill the bill of the captains position unassisted by the directions of a manager like Harry Wright, who is the real captain of the Boston team, Morrill only being a lieutenant. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the reserve is renewed
| Date | Thursday, October 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the NL special meeting in Rochester] Treat, of Buffalo, spoke at length upon the subject, showing what a fallacy it was, not a delegate was present that could say that his expenditures had been decreased by it. He knew that many had paid more in order to keep their men and still they said that it was a move to cut down salaries. Brown, of Worcester, who had been as uneasy as a body with a hot biscuit in his pocket, was the first to give their secret away. With his face wreathed in smiles he congratulated every body with the success of their scheme, and told the Buffalonians that he was sorry that they had lost. Defreest, of Troy, said that they had done something they had before, &c. The fact was they had decided to carry the matter through by a majority, although it was merely a business agreement. It was an insult to Buffalo, and all semblance of courtesy and legality was cast aside to allow two mere villages to retain their men in preference to favoring Buffalo and Cincinnati. The most audacious part of their agreement was, we are informed, signed in order to pacify Soden, of Boston. Snyder last year eloped from them to go to Washington. This year the Bostons want him again, and to keep her solid the conspirators agreed not to approach Charles, and he will remain practically as reserved. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the reserve system renewed
| Date | Thursday, October 7, 1880 |
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| Text | [reporting on the League special meeting] ...the five-men reservation policy was brought up and fully discussed. Buffalo opposed its continuance in the most vigorous manner. It was decided, however, by a majority of six to one, to readopt the agreement signed in 1879 in Buffalo, permitting each club to reserve five men. It is also said that Boston, who was one of the doubtful members, was pacified by the representatives on signifying their willingness to let the Hub have Snyder, who left her to go to Washington in 1880. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the revival of baseball in Philadelphia
| Date | Sunday, September 12, 1880 |
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| Text | The Philadelphias have settled down to earnest work, and there is every prospect that at last we will have a first-class club. Charley Fulmer is the moving spirit, and he is determined to make the club a success—financially, and from a playing point. Although the current week was intended for preliminary practice, Fulmer tried to arrange a match with the Athletics, but was unable to do so. Surely the Athletics are not afraid? We were under the impression that they had bragged about being the first to revive the Base Ball interest in Philadelphia? Stick to that sentiment, gentlemen, for it is a good one, and don't back down when asked to play. We suggest that you play the Philadelphias at Twenty-fourth and the Ridge, on Friday, and on Saturday at Oakdale. Witll you do it? … The ground, Twenty-fourth and Ridge ave., has been secured for four days in the week. Negotiations are pending with the Union, of Brooklyn, Nationals, of Washington, Boston, Providence, Chicago, and other League clubs. |
| Source | Philadelphia Item |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the short lives of pitchers
| Date | Monday, July 19, 1880 |
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| Text | [from a letter to the editor by “P.M.”] Successful pitcher have very short lives in their positions, the most difficult at first to hit becoming easy game to the heavy hitters in about four years. Especially is this the case when he is put in to pitch every game for a few seasons. Batters become familiar to his balls and his different motions in delivering them. Spalding retired in this glory, after a short period of six years. Matthews lasted seven years, but faced no heavy hitters lately for any length of time. Bond is now in his fifth successful season, but gets it hard occasionally this year, as does White, only in his third year. Nichols went out very suddenly, but did fine work for a few seasons after 1875. Cummings was great in the days of Lively-ball. Bradley, McKelvey and Hankinson have made no records in the pitcher's position of any note, except the first named. H. McCormick, Critchley and Foley have done good work in a brief time. But all these have seen their best days, and that after a few years only, and must leave the diamond for more expert men in handling the ball. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the substitute sits in the stands
| Date | Thursday, August 26, 1880 |
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| Text | [Troy vs. Cincinnati 8/25/1880] Purcell was put in to pitch yesterday, experience having proved that while the Troys have not punished his delivery this season they have hit Will White harder than has any other team. It was, therefore, at Will's own suggestion yesterday that the Syracuse Blonde was placed in the points. Whoop, la! occupied an exalted seat in the grand-stand, and was the most jubilant man in the spectators. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
the umpire goes into the game as a substitute
| Date | Saturday, May 22, 1880 |
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| Text | [Brooklyn vs. Princeton 5/10/1880] ...Horton, the Princeton pitcher, was disabled, and Archer, who had been umpiring, exchanged positions with him. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
threat of flooding the Cincinnati grounds
| Date | Thursday, April 29, 1880 |
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| Text | The back water of the Ohio river is up against the levees surrounding the grounds. Should the rise increase eight feet the grounds will be flooded, which would make the Chicago-Cincinnati games impossible. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Tommy Beals struck gold
| Date | Sunday, March 14, 1880 |
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| Text | In the fall of 1875 Hulbert engaged Spalding, J. White, McVey and Barnes, the great four, for the Chicagos of 1876. Harry Wright promptly signed Beals for three years to take the place occasioned by the loss of Barnes. At the close of the season of 1875 Tommy went West to visit a relative who was engaged in gold mining in Utah. The ball-tosser make a lucky strike, and before the balmy days of spring had arrived he had accumulated quite a snug little fortune. He notified the Bosons that he would not play any more, and his contract was annulled. Last fall, while Al Spalding was on his way to California, he stopped off and had a talk with Beals the result of which was that Thomas decided to return once more to the diamond. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
tossing the ball around as the catcher puts on his mask
| Date | Wednesday, September 1, 1880 |
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| Text | [Troy vs. Chicago 8/31/1880] While engaged in the turn-over line we are moved to suggest to Capt. Ferguson to put a stop to that absurd and time-wasting foolishness of the throwing of the ball by the catcher to the third-baseman and by him to the first-baseman while the catcher is coming forward to put on his mask. What time play is going on Chicago people want to see the ball handled for “business” only, and while in this city it would be no more than a graceful concession to the large and fine crowds for the Troys to stop that sort of nonsense. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
treatments for the catcher's hands
| Date | Sunday, June 20, 1880 |
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| Text | Always after every game he [Silver Flint] rubs into his palms a mixture of alcohol, lemon-juice, and rock-salt, the effect of which is to render the skin tough and at the same time pliable, and thus to avoid cracks and splits. In the case of stone-bruises or sprains he uses Pond's Extract, often working upon the injured part until midnight and after. In the chicago0cincinnati game of four innings and a half, which was played in the rain, Flint got a severe stone-bruise on one of this joints, and he sat up till 3 o'clock the next morning rubbing that bruise with the Extract until every particle of inflammation had been overcome, and instead of being laid off for a week, as would have been the case had he neglected his hands, he caught in the next day's game as though nothing had happened. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
tripping the runner
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Providence 6/4/1880] [Farrell at first base] Then Ward came to the rescue with a high ball to right centre, which both Gore and Kelly tried to get, and between them—no one calling for the catch—the ball fell safely. On the throw-in, Farrell ran to third, and as he passed Burns [shortstop] the latter put out his foot and tripped him, and act causing loud hisses from the crowd. On Peters' fly-ball Farrell tried to get home, but the ball was finely thrown in by Gore to Flint, and the expected run was lost. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
umpire behind the home base?
| Date | Saturday, March 13, 1880 |
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| Text | In a recent game at the New Orleans, La., a short-sighted umpire was so badly battered by erratic curve-pitching that he had to relinquish his position at the close of the fourth inning. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
umpire in shirtsleeves, behind the catcher
| Date | Friday, July 9, 1880 |
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| Text | [Providence vs. Chicago 7/8/1880] In yesterday's game the Chicagos played against ten men. … This tenth man did not wear the Providence uniform, however, but stood up in the dignity of his shirt-sleeves, just behind the batsmen. |
| Source | Chicago Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
umpire pay scale
| Date | Saturday, July 10, 1880 |
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| Text | [from answers to correspondents] League umpires are paid $5 per game. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
wasting time looking for foul balls
| Date | Sunday, April 25, 1880 |
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| Text | [National vs. Chicago 4/24/1880] There was an astonishing number of safe fouls knocked, which went over the fences and scooted back of the grand stand, so that twice the time was consumed in waiting for the ball to be brought in than was used in playing the game... |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
Wes Fisler now playing cricket only
| Date | Saturday, August 7, 1880 |
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| Text | Weston D. Fisler, at one time thought to be the best general player in the country, has abandoned baseball, and now devotes his attention to cricket. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
winning club keeps the trophy ball
| Date | Saturday, May 15, 1880 |
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| Text | [a question to the editor] Is the old habit of giving a ball to the victors in a League game still in vogue? [answer:] Yes. The winning team takes the ball used in the game. |
| Source | Cincinnati Enquirer |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
working the count
| Date | Saturday, June 12, 1880 |
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| Text | [Chicago vs. Providence 6/4/1880] The fourth inning opened with Joe Start at the bat again, and once more did the veteran judiciously wait for a good ball, and, not getting one, was given first on balls again. This waiting for balls is a much-neglected point in facing swift curved-pitching, and being always ready to hit straight balls is a still scarcer point of play in batting, both the nines in this match showing weakness in this respect. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |