The old Black Stockings, the champion colored club of the country, has been reorganized under the management of Henry Bridgewater, with the following players: Ben Johnson, p.; S. Johnson, c.; E. Rogers, 1 b.; H. Lawrence, 2 b.; L. Canter, s.s.; S. Chauvan, 3 b.; W. Sutton, c. f.; E. Gordan, r.f.; C. Gardner, l.f.-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 21, 1884
I have to say that I'm disappointed in the Globe's coverage of St. Louis black baseball during the 1884 season up to this point. Maybe it will get better. Maybe the black clubs were starting a bit late. Who knows? But given the excitement going into the season and the amount of space the Globe was devoting to baseball, I expected to see more coverage of the black clubs.
2 comments:
jeff,
The untimely death of Isaac Carter (mid-April 1884), the Black Stockings star second baseman put the club into a tailspin. Carter, killed--allegedly during a home invasion(evidence argues otherwise)--made national newspapers and sporting journals. Manager Henry Bridgewater also lost his star battery to the Chicago Gordons. The brooding Bridgewater didn't regroup until late May when his club pummeled the St. Louis Colored Athletics.
In 1884, coverage of colored clubs was as good as could be expected. The Black Stockings lost the local colored championship in five games (for a lots of money) to the Eclipse Base Ball Club; the teams detested each other.
Unfortunately, there are no full box scores for those games.
I was really hoping to find more information about the black clubs, as I went through the 1884 Globe day by day. So far, I just haven't seen much. I'm realistic enough not to expect full articles and box scores but I was thinking, with the increase in baseball coverage, they would at least get a semi-regular mention in the general baseball column. But I am only through May, as of now, and things might change as I get into the coverage of the summer of 1884. Hope springs eternal.
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