The 1884 Maroons: The First Players To Break The Rule

Tony Mullane, of the St. Louis Base-ball Club, and Jack Gleason, of the Louisville Eclipse, have broken the reserve rule, left their respective clubs, and signed with the new St. Louis organization, which is to form a part of the new Union Association. They are the first players to break the rule. Mullane was offered $1,950 for next season's play in the St. Louis Club, but refused that offer to go with the new St. Louis Club at a salary of $2,500, of which $600 is paid him in advance. The new organization offers Deasley, of the St. Louis Club, $3,000 for next season's work. He says he will accept the offer unless paid $2,500 by the older organization, which has placed him on the reserve list. The new St. Louis Club will to-morrow sign with Dickerson and Taylor, late of the Alleghenys. Gleason says the reason he broke the reserve rule with Louisville is that the Directors of that club wanted to reserve him at a salary of $1,000 for the season.

-New York Times, November 8, 1883

Neither Tony Mullane nor Pat Deasley played for the 1884 Maroons for reasons that I'm sure will become clear over the course of this exercise. Jack Gleason, Buttercup Dickerson and Billy Taylor, however, did play for the club.

Rumors about which players would join the Maroons were flying around fast and furious in October and November. Ted Sullivan was organizing a club for a Southern tour and I'm sure that all the players he was approaching about joining that enterprise were all rumored to be joining the Maroons. And Sullivan probably was trying to talk all of them into joining the new club. The club he put together had Buck Ewing, Jumbo McGinnis, Charlie Comiskey, Brother Bill Gleason, Tony Mullane, Jack Gleason, Old Hoss Radbourne, Joe Quest and Cliff Carroll. I don't know what it would have cost Lucas to sign all of those guys but it would have been a darn good team. Of course, the team he did put together finished 94-19 so he didn't really need all them.

But just imagine Radbourne pitching in the UA in 1884. If there's one thing I want you to take away from this post, that's it-the image of Charlie Radbourne pitching in the UA in 1884.

More On Pat Deasley

New York purchased catcher Tom Deasley from St. Louis, or more probably Deasley purchased his own release after negotiating a contract with New York that made it worth his while. In order to forestall Deasley's jumping to the outlaw Union Association in the fall of 1884 St. Louis owner Chris Von der Ahe had signed him to a contract that included a provision he would not be reserved for 1885. Probably in anger over Deasley's chronic drinking and other disciplinary infractions, Von der Ahe refused to honor the commitment and the American Association would not intervene in Deasley's favor on the grounds that it regarded the provision as an attempt to "evade the reserve rule." Deasley's release was then purchased for $400 and he immediately signed with New York for a salary reported as high as $3000 or even $3500. Most sources say Deasley paid the entire $400, though according to the Brooklyn Eagle the New York club agreed to pay $300 but would go no higher, so that Deasley contributed the last hundred dollars.

-David Ball, Nineteenth Century Transaction Register

Too Wild And Jovial

In the race for catching honors in the National League in 1882 Tom Deasley, then catching for Boston, tied Bennett of Detroit.

A great catcher and thrower was Deasley, so great indeed that Ted Sullivan brought him to St. Louis and here he really wound up his career.

Deasley was a fine receiver and thrower, but too wild and jovial a fellow to last long in league company. His life on the center of the baseball stage was brief.

-The National Game

The description of Pat Deasley as "too wild and jovial a fellow" wins the award for best euphemism of the week. Deasley was an alcoholic whose escapades were part of the Browns' "team discipline" problem in 1884.

On a trip to Indianapolis that year, several members of the team were, as the Post-Dispatch said at the time, "(pouring) liquor down their throats." A drunken Deasley, according to Jon David Cash, "approached two women on the street. He apparently propositioned them, and, when his overtures were rejected, Deasley grabbed one of them by her arm. Both women escaped to the safety of a store that sold women's hats. Deasley steadfastly pursued them, and the Indianapolis police quickly arrived to arrest him 'for drunkenness and insulting ladies.' After being convicted on charges of drunkenness and assault, Deasley paid a ten-dollar fine and court costs for each offense."

Later, when the team was in Toledo, Deasley was beaten up by teammates Joe Quinn and Tom Dolan. Deasley was injured in the fight and was unable to play in "an embarrassing 16-2 shellacking at the hands of the first-year Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers..."

On July 2, Deasley showed up drunk for a game against Baltimore. Held out of the game by Jimmy Williams, Deasley, according to Cash, "bitterly condemned the team's manager to the crowd" while his teammates were in the process of losing the game. As a result of his "jovial" antics, he was fined by the team and forced to sign an affidavit stating that he would refrain from alcohol for the rest of the season.

Late in the season, Deasley got into another fight with a teammate. This time it was Daisy Davis who Deasley battled in the dinning room of the Louisville Hotel. Deasley may also have been responsible for the Tom Dolan jumping to the Maroons. It seems that Dolan, who didn't much care for the "wild and jovial" Deasley, was unhappy that Deasley was starting at catcher ahead of him.

At the end of the 1884 season, the Browns sold Deasley to New York for $400 (although Baseball Reference states that Deasley was released by the Browns and signed with New York as a free agent). The Browns were on the verge of putting together their championship run and didn't need the kind of problems that Deasley brought. In a concise summation, Comiskey stated that Deasley was "a continual source of trouble to the team."

October 10th In 19th Century St. Louis Baseball History

On this day in 1881, Cincinnati baseball backers meet in Pittsburgh with H. Denny McKnight and issue a call to other independent club operators to meet November 2nd to form a major league independent of the NL.

In 1884, Pat Deasley‚ who will hit .205 for St. Louis (AA) this year‚ gets all 3 of his team's hits off Tim Keefe‚ but cannot prevent the 3-1 loss to New York.

In 1887, the World Series opens in St. Louis with the Browns beating the Detroits 6-1. P Bob Caruthers holds the Wolverines to 5 hits and has 3 safe hits himself.

And just for fun, in 1885, Phillies SS Charlie Bastian goes 5-for-10 in the last 2 games to raise his average up to .167‚ the lowest ever for a SS with over 350 at bats.

-from Baseball Library

A couple of notes:

• The Pittsburgh meeting in 1881 was the second of three meetings that would lead to the establishment of the American Association. This meeting was attended by Chris Von der Ahe, O.P. Caylor, Horace Phillips, John Day, Denny McKnight, and others. The meeting was organized by Phillips with McKnight acting as official host. The first meeting, in which only Caylor (representing Cincinnati) answered Phillips' invitation, was held in Philadelphia in September.
• I mentioned Charlie Bastian because I thought it was kind of interesting and it immediately made me think of Steve Jeltz. Jeltz, in 1988, would come close to breaking Bastian's record when he hit .187 in 379 AB while playing short for the Phillies. I believe that Steve Jeltz, in 1988, was the worst everyday ballplayer of all time.