Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Known 19th Century St. Louis Baseball Clubs, Part Three

19th century St. Louis baseball clubs not mentioned by Tobias:


The Sporting News of March 17, 1886 mentions the Amateur League of St. Louis which contained the following teams:


St. Gotthard
Drummand

Enterprise
St. Louis Amateur
West Ends
Union Blues


It also mentions the Business League which had six teams:


Crow
Hargadine & Co.
St. Louis News Co.
Wm. Barr Dry Goods Co.
Rice, Stix, & Co.
Brown, Daughaday, & Co.


The sixth team was the previously mentioned Sam. C. Davis & Co.


In a different article of the same issue of TSN, the Southern Illinois League and two east side teams are mentioned:


Belleville
East St. Louis


The St. Louis Baseball League was founded in 1889, lasted one season, and was composed of five local teams among whom one (the Reds) has already been mentioned:


Sultan Bitters
Jolly Nine
Home Comfort
Dimmicks


A game played in Edwardsville, Il, between the Eagles of St. Louis and the Madisons, the prominent Edwardsville team, was reported in TSN on March 17, 1886.


On October 17, 1886, the Madisons played “the Rescues, of North St. Louis” in Edwardsville.


Al Spink, in The National Game, while writing about Patsy Tebeau mentions that Tebeau, who grew up in St. Louis, learned his craft playing for the Peach Pies and the Shamrocks. This would have been in the very late 1870’s or early 1880’s.


In 1886 there were clubs in St. Louis called the Prickly Ash, the Waltons, the Jacksonvilles, and the Papins and there was also a club playing in Alton, Il.


A St. Louis club called the Standards are mentioned in G.W. Axelson’s biography of Charlie Comiskey as playing baseball in 1882.


Special mention also must be made of the Blue Stockings, an African-American baseball team that was active in St. Louis as early as 1875.


If we include Von der Ahe's Browns and Whites, that would give us a list of 109 baseball clubs, active between 1859 and 1888, that I'm aware of. Of course, as I stated in part one, this is in no way a comprehensive list. Most of the clubs on this list were active between 1860 and 1875 and were merely the most prominent clubs in the city. I have no doubt that there were innumerable minor clubs that I'm not aware of. If I had to guess, I would say that this list contains maybe twenty percent of the 19th century baseball clubs in St. Louis.


There's still a lot of work left to be done.


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