Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The First Cardinals

The Cardinals (colored) have organized for the season, with the following players: P.Chauvin, p; B. Leger, c.; J. Brooks, 1b.; H. Brown, 2b.; G. Fields, 3b.; W. Collins, s.s.; J. Johnson, l.f.; J. Thomas, c.f.; C. Manu, r.f.; L. Paul, sub.
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 20, 1884


You have to love this.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the first baseball club in St. Louis history that used the Cardinals nickname.  It would be fantastic if our currant Cardinals would take some interest in the 19th century history of the game in St. Louis and acknowledge their forebearers, both these Cardinals and the American Association Browns.  It would be nice but I'm not holding my breath.

Can you imagine the amount of attention that the St. Louis Cardinals could bring to the history of 19th century black baseball?  Can you imagine the amount of resources they could bring to table to further our research and study into all of this?  I think I need to have a little sit-down with Mr. Bill DeWitt.  

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