Hardy Henderson, of the Baltimore Base Ball team, and Fred Lewis, of the St. Louis Browns, were arrested and placed in the holdover at the Four Courts at an early hour this morning, charged with creating a disturbance at a house of ill-repute, 602 Clark avenue. They attempted to clean out the establishment and broke the furniture.-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 2, 1884
This will not end well.
3 comments:
note that at least as early as 1884 newspapers were referring to them as "St. Louis Browns" and not Brown stockings "St. Louis Americans" or anything else. The "mascot" system that we have today is firmly entrenched in the minds of at least the St. Louis Globe Democrat
If I recall correctly (and without bothering to look it up), there are instances of the 1875-77 Brown Stockings being referred to as "the Browns." It was rare and they were more often referred to as the St. Louis Club but it did happen. St. Louis Americans was pretty rare and, like the old Brown Stockings, the AA Browns were often just referred to as the St. Louis Club.
I'm not sure how entrenched the nickname/mascot system could have been if we're mostly getting references to the St. Louis Club and the St. Louis Unions instead of the Browns and the Maroons in 1884. It's an interesting question though because you do have references in the press to Browns and Maroons and these weren't just unofficial nicknames given to the clubs by the press. The Browns/Brown Stockings name went back to 1875 and clubs in StL from 1878 to 1882 purposefully took that name.
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