Tobias Was Holding Out On Us

At a meeting of the "Commercial Base Ball Club," the following gentlemen were elected officers for the ensuing year:

Wm. Bliss Clark, Esq., President.
A.W. Howe, Esq., Vice President.
Jno. W. Donaldson, Esq., Secretary and Treasurer.
Messrs. C.F. Gauss, Edwin Fowler and Hy. L. Clark, Directors; and Messrs. E.H. Tobias and E.C. Simmons, Field Captains.

-Missouri Republican, May 3, 1863

While he mentioned that he was a member of the Commercials, Edmund Tobias never bothered to mention that he was one of the captains of the club during the Civil War.  I also don't believe he ever mentioned the fact that the Commercials played during the war.  In fact, I believe that he specifically mentioned that the club broke up at the beginning of the war.  But I guess I can find it in my heart to forgive the Herodotus of 19th century St. Louis baseball. 

Captain Tobias' club was one of the most important pioneer-era baseball clubs in St. Louis and I regret not writing about them in Base Ball Pioneers.  When the publication of the book got pushed back, I mentioned to Peter Morris that I wanted to add something about the club to my chapter, which was already completed.  In the end, I choose not to do so even though Peter thought it was a good idea.  I liked my chapter as it was and while I had some information on the Commercials, I just didn't think I had enough to put together something interesting.  Of course, it's three years later and I know a lot more about the club.  I know that they were one of the two most active clubs in St. Louis during the Civil War.  I know about their role in developing Lafayette Park as a baseball grounds.  I know more about the members of the club.  I know that they had a junior club.  I know who their officers were in 1863.

The Commercials have been overlooked by baseball historians.  That's something I want to rectify.        

A Great Piece Of Advertising

This is just a fantastic piece of baseball-related advertising from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 6, 1884:

Click on the thing to get a good look at it and see how big it was.  Also of note is that the owner of the Simons Hardware Company was E.C. Simons, a pioneer-era St. Louis baseball player who was a member of both the Commercials and the Unions.

Wallace Delafield

Wallace Delafield, a member of the antebellum Commercial Base Ball Club of St. Louis, was born in Cincinnati on May 1, 1840. At some point his family moved to St. Louis and the young Delafield was educated at Edward Wyman's school. In 1854, he went to work as a clerk for F. A. Hunt & Company and then for William N. Newell & Company. By 1857, Delafield was working as a clerk for Pomeroy & Benton, a wholesale dry goods store, and after the Civil War he returned to work for William Benton until 1869. That year he entered the general insurance business with Lewis Snow and the company they formed, Delafield & Snow, was still operating in St. Louis at the time of Delafield's death on August 8, 1915.

The Commercial Club, according to Tobias, "was composed of young businessmen" and was among "the very first of regularly formed clubs in St. Louis..." While the club disbanded at the outbreak of the Civil War, several members went on to join other clubs. Edward Simmons was a member of the Union Club and Tobias was a member of the Empire Club. Edwin Fowler, another club member, had also been a member of the Morning Star Club.

E.C. Simmons Plays Against The Empires

Here's the box score from the game E.C. Simmons played against the Empire Club on May 31, 1865. Blogger wouldn't let me add it to the post yesterday for some reason but everything is working fine today. So here it is.

E. C. Simmons And The Union Club

I got an email yesterday from John Mena of the St. Louis Unions Vintage Base Ball Club and when I was checking out their website I noticed that they mentioned that E. C. Simmons was the first captain of the Unions of St. Louis. I didn't recall ever seeing Simmons mentioned as an original member of the Unions, let alone the captain, so I did a little quick digging.

In The National Game, Al Spink quotes Jeremiah Fruin as saying that "E. C. Simmons, now at the head of the Simmons Hardware Company, was I think the first captain of the Unions. But he was so overbearing and arbitrary that his players fell out with him and he went in another direction and started a team of his own."

Edwards C. Simmons was born in Fredrick, Maryland on September 21, 1839 and, according to Bertie Charles Forbes in Men who are making America, he "trekked to St. Louis when a young lad." As president of the Simmons Hardware Company, "he made St. Louis the greatest hardware centre on earth..."

In 1854, Simmons, at the age of 16, was working for Child, Pratt, & Co., the largest wholesale hardware store in St. Louis at the time. By 1860, according to Kennedy's St. Louis city directory, he was working for Wilson, Levering, & Waters, the company that would become the Simmons Hardware Company. His is truly one of the great American success stories.

Fruin's claim, however, that Simmons was one of the founders of the Union Club or the first captain of the club is without merit. According to E.H. Tobias, "The original Union Club was composed of high school pupils who organized under the name in 1860 with Asa W. Smith, president; Robert Niggeman, vice-president; J.P. Freeman, secretary; E.F. Finney, treasurer...In the latter part of '61 the Union Club disbanded on account of the Civil War and did not reorganize until 1865. Of those who belonged to the original club Asa W. Smith, Wm. E. Greenleaf and J.P. Freeman were the promoters of the new organization."

Simmons is mentioned by Tobias as a member of the Unions in 1865. On May 31, 1865, the Unions played a match against the Empires and Tobias noted that "E.C. Simmons now of Simmons Hardware Co. was substituted for O. Garrison (in center field)." There is no mention of him through 1865 as either the captain or as an officer of the club.

Fruin, of course, did not arrive in St. Louis until 1861 and he had no first hand knowledge of the antebellum Unions. His conversation with Spink took place fifty odd years after the fact and it's understandable that his memory is faulty. However, while Simmons had nothing to do with the founding of the 1860 version of the Unions, he was an original member of the post-Civil War Union Club. While it's highly unlikely that he ever captained the first nine, the rest of Fruin's statement (regarding Simmons leaving the club and starting a new one) is possible and needs more research.