Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Jeremiah Fruin And The Charter Oak Club

Before coming to St. Louis in 1861, Jeremiah Fruin played baseball with the Charter Oak Club of Brooklyn in 1859. According to Marshall Wright, Fruin played in all four of the club's match games that year. On May 26, 1859, the Charter Oaks lost to the Star Club of Brooklyn by a score of 26-22 with Fruin playing first base. The Brooklyn Eagle's account of the game is below.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does Fruin appear in any other games? I just did a quick check of the Brooklyn Eagle. Both the first and second nines of the Charter Oak club get box scores, and I don't see Fruin in any but this one. I suspect that he was not the club's wheelhorse.

Jeffrey Kittel said...

This was the only boxscore that I was able to find. Wright documented four games, all of which Fruin played in, and this game was one of those. I don't remember seeing the other three among the other box scores the Eagle had for the Charter Oaks but that doesn't mean they're not there. It just means I have to go back and look again.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't assume that they necessarily appear in the Eagle. It had good baseball coverage, but it was far from complete. These box scores may have been in the Clipper or one of the various incarnations of the Spirit of the Times, or in another of the several New York papers that covered baseball. We tend to emphasize the Eagle because it is easily available.