The Browns In San Francisco

California League Base Ball Grounds

End of Haight street Cable Road

Saturday, January 7th, at 2:30 P.M.

St. Louis Browns vs. Haverlys!

Sunday, January 8th, at 11 A.M.

Hardies vs. Keane Bros.

at 2 P.M.

St. Louis Browns vs. New Yorks!

-Daily Evening Bulletin, January 6, 1888

To-morrow at the Haight street Grounds will be played the game of the winter season, being the opening contest between the St. Louis Browns and the New Yorks, and an immense attendance is expected.  Notwithstanding this fact the management has decided not to increase the price of admission.

-Daily Evening Bulletin, January 7, 1888

Making the trip and playing for the Browns was King, Bushong, Comiskey, McPhee, Latham, Robinson, O'Neill, Welch and Foutz.  Keefe, Brown, Ewing, Richardson, Denny, Ward, Tiernan, Van Haltren and Fogarty were scheduled to play for New York.  

The base ball game at the Haight street grounds Saturday afternoon was not an exciting one.  Only about one thousand people were on the grounds.  The St. Louis Club won the game by a score of 14 to 4, the playing of the Haverlys being very poor.  Twelve base hits were made off Incell and ten off Foutz.  The Haverlys made 9 errors and the St. Louis club 3.

A large crowd witnessed the first game of the series of three between the New York Giants and the St. Louis Browns which took place at the Haight street Grounds yesterday.  It was considered the best game ever played in this State, and few better games have ever been played anywhere.  The game resulted in a victory for the Browns by a score of 1 to 0.

-Daily Evening Bulletin, January 9, 1888

Notwithstanding the intense cold several thousand people assembled at the Haight street Grounds yesterday afternoon to witness the second of the series of base-ball games between the St. Louis Brownd and the New York Giants.  The game was an excellent one, each club doing its best to win.  Van Haltren's pitching proved too much for the Browns, and not one hit was made off his deliverys, while the New Yorkers secured nine hits off King's pitching.

  -Daily Evening Bulletin, January 16, 1888

New York won the second game by a score of 5-0.  The Browns were scheduled to play a local club, the G. & M.'s, on January 21st and the third and final game of their series against New York on the 22nd but I didn't find any reports of those games.

Nearly all the Eastern ball-players have returned to their homes, the contingent now in this city being Foutz of the Browns, Williamson and Carroll of the Chicagoes, Brown and Denny of the New Yorks and Irwin, Wood and Fogarty of the Philadelphias, and these players will remain until the opening of the Eastern season.  The winter season on this coast has been a financial failure, owing chiefly to the bad weather; but the lack of public interest in exhibition games was another prominent factor.

-Daily Evening Bulletin, January 25, 1888

These were the final games of the Browns' "Big Trip" which took them to Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, Charleston, New Orleans and, finally, San Francisco.  It seems that their opponent for most of the trip was the Chicago White Stockings.  Interestingly, it was during this trip, which began on October 30, 1887, that Von der Ahe sold off Caruthers, Foutz, Gleason, Welch and Bushong.  Jon David Cash, in Before They Were Cardinals, writes that "Foutz, Bushong, and Welch had a chance to complete their careers with the Browns in one last blaze of glory.  For Welch, the games seemed so important that he disregarded an urgent message to return home to his wife, who had just given birth to twin boys, and instead stayed in San Francisco through the Christmas holidays."