Kansas City, July 11.-The colored ball players had a battle on the green diamond this afternoon, the Blue Stockings, of St. Louis, defeating the Brown Stockings, of Kansas City, by a score of 30 to 2. The Browns were whitewashed eight times.
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 12, 1876
Lawrence, Kas., July 12.-A beautiful game was played here, to-day, between the Eagles, colored champions of Kansas, and the Blue Stockings, of St. Louis, which resulted in favore of the Blues, after a hard fight, by a score of 13 to 11.
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 13, 1876
2 comments:
Jeff,
This is the fun part: finding 'colored' games and fleshing out baseball seasons that, I believe, had full slates, including road tours. This 1876 road tour that you mentioned out west included four games; another tour to Illinois that same year included three games. (How did the Blue Stocking players get out of their regular gigs for this extended period?)
It adds depth to our understanding of teams like the Blue Stockings, the club's organization and sporting circle, and communication network--both regionally and nationally (the Black Stockings as well, who in 1875 and 1876 played colored clubs from both Kansas and Western Missouri) Some of these teams were more organized than we think. (We need to keep digging through newspapers throughout the region to uncover the gems that we believe exist.)
I love the detective work! Good deal, Jeff!
I'm coming across a great deal of coverage of the black StL clubs (relativley speaking) as I go through the 1876 season day by day. I'm trying to remember what I've posted before and what's new to me. That gets harder and harder as time goes on but it's important to me to find this information and get it out there so we can put together a complete history of baseball in StL. I'm sure I've made this point somewhere before but I think it's ridiculous that baseball history is as segregated as the game was. It's intellectually lazy. If you're going to tell the story of 1876 season in StL then the Blue Stockings are a part of that story and it doesn't matter how hard it is to find information about the club. It's part of the story and the work has to be done with we're to present an honest history of the game.
Btw, I mentioned your name to a guy here in StL who's putting together a large project covering 150 years of StL baseball history. I told him you would be the guy to talk to about the 19th century black clubs and that I'd drop you an email about it. Then I realized I didn't have your email address. If you're interested and have some time to talk to him, send me an email at thisgameofgames@gmail.com and I'll send him your email address. It's an interesting project in that this guy has an ambitious vision and certainly wants the input of historians and experts. I'll leave it up to you.
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