A Movement Is On Foot

A Professional Team For St. Louis. - By a dispatch received Sept. 28 we are informed that a movement is on foot to organize a professional nine to represent St. Louis, Mo.  Our informant states that $20,000 has already been subscribed for the purpose.  The best players who can be secured are wanted, and professionals are requested to write to W.C. Steigers, secretary, Times office, St. Louis, Mo.

-Mears Baseball Scrapbook, Volume 4, 1876-1907


Obviously, this piece comes from 1874. 

Bad Timing

About thirty gentlemen, interested in base ball matters-most of them shareholders in the St. Louis Base Ball Club-met yesterday evening in parlor No. 22 of the Lindell Hotel. The chair was taken by Mr. J.B.C. Lucas, President of the club, who, after calling the meeting to order, stated that, though the fact was generally well known, he would remind those present that for the past years base ball ventures in St. Louis had not proved financially successful. This season the club found itself considerably in arrears, and the meeting had been called in order to start an effort to raise the necessary amount with which the salaries of players might be paid. Individual Directors had, at their own expense, carried the club through the season, and they wanted now to see if they could not get assistance from shareholders and others. Out of $20,000 of stock only $17,000 had been subscribed, and on this some stockholders had not fully paid up.

After a brief discussion of the situation and the best means of improving it, a motion by Mr. Charles A. Fowle was carried, calling upon the Chair to appoint a committee of six gentlemen to collect subscriptions from stockholders and others to make up the deficiency.

The Chair appointed as such committee Messrs. W.C. Little, P.C. Butler, W.A. Stickney, W.C. Steigers, Aug. Solari and E.S. Brooks.

Subscription lists were opened at the meeting, when the sum of $400 was immediately subscribed.

In answer to a query, the Chair stated that upon the raising of the amount necessary to pay the deficiency, the question of whether there would be a St. Louis nine next year or no virtually depended. At the same time he did not like to say that, if the amount was raised, there would be a club, as this season closed his connection with the club. He believed that $2,500 had already been subscribed by parties towards next year's team.

After a discusion on general base ball topics, the meeting adjourned.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 1, 1877

This attempt to raise funds took place the day before William Spink's long piece about gambling in baseball, the St. Louis connection, and the effect that it would have on the fate of professional baseball appeared in the Globe. The piece must have had a devestating effect on the Brown Stockings' attempt to salvage their financial situation and on the moral of St. Louis baseball supporters. Lucas was stepping aside as club president, the Globe was withdrawing its support for professional baseball, numerous Brown Stocking players were being accused of throwing games, other clubs and players were being accused of crookedness, and the fate of the League itself was in doubt. There could not have been a worse time to go to the public and ask them to financially support the Brown Stockings.

William Colbert Steigers

William C. Steigers, a prominent St. Louis newspaperman, was a member of the Union Base Ball Club and was one of the organizers of the 1875 Brown Stockings.

Steigers was born in St. Louis on September 15, 1847 to Francis Ignatius and Sarah (Price) Steigers. Educated at the Wyman School and Christian Brothers College, he enlisted with the 8th Missouri Volunteers on September 15, 1862, his fifteenth birthday. Serving in the "armies of Grant and Sherman," Steigers took part in the battles of Arkansas Post, Chickasaw Bayou, and Port Hudson as well as the siege of Vicksburg. On July 5, 1863, a day after the fall of Vicksburg, he became seriously ill while travelling from Vicksburg to Jacksonville, Tennessee and spent three months in a hospital. Steigers was mustered out of the army on October 22, 1863 due to the illness and returned to St. Louis.

In April of 1863, W.C. Steigers began his career in the newspaper business with the St. Louis Evening Dispatch as a collector before rising to head the advertising department. In 1872, he became the advertising manager of the St. Louis Times before returning to the Dispatch in 1874. In December of 1878, the Post and the Dispatch merged to form the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with Steigers running the advertising department. A close associate of Joseph Pulitzer, Steigers was named vice-president and business manager of the Post in 1897.

Steigers was most likely not a member of the original antebellum Union Club. He was listed by E.H. Tobias as a member after the club reorganized in 1866. In 1875, he was involved in the organization of the Brown Stockings, serving on their board of directors as vice-president.

On September 4, 1896, while serving a short stint as advertising manager of the New York World, Steigers married Helen Martha Wadsworth. He passed away on May 25, 1923.

The Fifteenth Annual Ball Of The Empire Baseball Club

Two balls on the night of December 16th (1874) were reported with considerable detail by the papers next day. One was the fifteenth annual ball of the Empire Baseball Club, "champions of Missouri," which was attended by quite a number of prominent citizens with their ladies, and the other was the "grand ball of the Sixth Ward Democrat Club." One of the papers described the dresses worn by some of the ladies. There was no "Veiled Prophet's"ball in those days and the Imperial Club was too select for newspaper publicity.

From A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture View Of The City

One of the reasons that I find the 1875 season so fascinating is that, in St. Louis, you find the game transitioning from its older forms into "modern" baseball. As the Empire and Imperial Base Ball Clubs clung to the old custom and rituals, men were in the process of ushering in the "professional" era of baseball in St. Louis. As the men of the Empire Club (and their ladies) enjoyed their year-end ball, W.C. Steigers, J.B.C. Spinks, and others were putting together the finances and organizational structure that would lead to the advent of the Brown Stockings and a new era of baseball in St. Louis.

Charles H. Turner

This weekend I was doing research on three projects that I wanted to get off my plate. The first was a basic genealogy of the Lucas’s, a prominent St. Louis family that was deeply involved in the history of 19th century baseball in the city. The second was the makeup of the board of directors of the 1875 St. Louis Brown Stockings. In A Newspaper Man’s Motion-Picture View of the City, Bill Kelsoe lists the members of the board and I wanted to gather some general information about the men who were instrumental in financing and organizing the team. Finally, I wanted to find more information about the social makeup of the Union Base Ball Club of St. Louis. Based on a few sources that I have, it appears that some of the members of the Union Club came from prominent and wealthy St. Louis families. That members of the Union Club came from the city’s upper class seems to be fairly unique among baseball clubs of the era and demanded more research. While I was unable to finish any of the three projects, interestingly all three research threads came together in the person of Charles H. Turner. As a wise man once said, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Charles Turner was born in 1849 to Henry S. Turner and Julia Hunt. Henry Turner was a West Point graduate and classmate and friend of William T. Sherman who served with Stephan Kearney in the Mexican-American War. Julia Hunt was the daughter of Theodore Hunt, a naval officer and favorite in St. Louis social circles, and Anne Lucas, the only daughter of J.B.C. Lucas, one of the earliest settlers of St. Louis and one of its wealthiest and most influential citizens. H.S. Turner, with the support of his wife’s powerful family, would serve as a member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, the Missouri State Legislature, and as Assistant United States Treasurer. In the 1880 census, he listed his occupation as “retired capitalist.” In the 1870’s, H.S. Turner, as a member of the Board of Aldermen, would introduce legislation that established the street car system in St. Louis. Within a few years, his son Charles would own the company that his father helped to establish.

Charles Turner, according to Jeremiah Fruin, was an original member of the Union Base Ball Club of St. Louis. Other members of Turner’s social set who were members of the club included his cousin Robert Lucas, Shepard Barkley, Joseph Charles Cabanne, Orrick Bishop, and Harry Carr. Turner, a catcher, was described as a part of the original battery of the Union nine. He also pitched and played second base for the club. His membership in the original Union Club raises some questions. If the club was founded in the early 1860’s at about the same time as the Empire Club (and they were certainly playing baseball by 1861) then Turner could not have been an original member, being too young. It’s most likely that Turner did not join the club until after the Civil War.

In 1875, Turner was involved in the founding of the Brown Stockings. With the urging of newspaper men W.C. Steigers and R.P. Thompson, “several young St. Louisans of prominence” set up an organization to create a professional baseball team in St. Louis that could compete with the professional Chicago White Stockings. The board of directors that was elected to run the new organization included J.B.C Lucas, president; W.C. Steigers, vice-president; Charles A. Fowle, secretary; and Charles Turner, treasurer. Other members of the board included Orrick Bishop, William Medart, and Joseph Carr. Interestingly, the Union Club was heavily represented on the board with Turner, Steigers, and Bishop all being members and with the possibility that Lucas and Carr were as well. The Lucas family was also well represented with Turner joining his cousin J.B.C. Lucas on the board.

While it’s unknown exactly what role Turner played with the Brown Stockings, he was involved, according to Jon David Cash, in the signing of the Louisville players in 1877. These signings which were an attempt to duplicate Chicago’s raid on the Boston Red Stockings, coupled with the gambling scandal that involved both the signed Louisville players as well as members of the Brown Stocking nine, helped to bring about the collapse of the Brown Stockings organization and the experiment with professional baseball in St. Louis.

It’s difficult to overstate the prominence of Charles Turner in 19th century St. Louis. Not only was he a member of the wealthiest St. Louis family, he also married into another prominent family. His wife Margaret was the daughter of Stephen Barlow, the cousin of Stephen Douglas and a wealthy politician and railroad magnate in St. Louis. Turner himself was the president of the Suburban Railway Company, which owned the St. Louis street car system, and the Commonwealth Trust Company. He was described by Lincoln Steffens as being a millionaire and served on the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners in the 1880’s. Turner also was a member of the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, which raised the money to put on the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Turner’s influence in St. Louis was exposed in a negative way by Steffen in 1902. In what became known as “The Boodle Scandal,” Turner was shown to have been a member of a cabal that bribed city aldermen and state legislators in order to get legislation passed that was favorable to their business interests. In grand jury testimony, Turner was shown to have paid over $144,000 in bribes to secure legislation that would double the value of the Suburban Railway Company, which he was looking to sell. The case was tied up in court for several years and Turner died in 1906 before facing the legal consequences of his actions.

While “The Boodle Scandal” and Steffen’s exposes may have tarnished Turner’s reputation, his legacy was saved by the service of his grandson. Charles Turner Joy was the son of Charles Turner’s only daughter, Lucy Barlow Turner, and Duncan Joy. He graduated from Annapolis in 1916 and served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. During Korea, Rear Admiral Charles Turner Joy served as Commander of Naval Forces, Far East. After he passed away in 1956, a destroyer was named after him. The USS Turner Joy, pictured above, served the nation proudly until it was decommissioned in 1982.

"Chicago Is Sorry She Was Ever Rebuilt"

If I could choose one game in the history of baseball to attend, I would without hesitation choose the May 6, 1875 game between the St. Louis Brown Stockings and the Chicago White Stockings at the Grand Avenue Ballpark. While the game itself was not a great one, its significance was enormous.

Since its inception, the Chicago club had been coming down to St. Louis and having its way with the best teams the city had to offer. This was extraordinarily galling to the people of St. Louis for several reasons. First, they were proud of their baseball teams, players, and tradition and were not pleased to have outsiders come in and trounce their favorites. Second, and more importantly, the rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago was alive and very real by this time. The two cities were in a fight for the economic dominance of what would come to be called the Midwest. Both cities were experiencing tremendous growth in population and economic development and were, by 1870, the fourth (St. Louis) and fifth (Chicago) largest cities in the United States. This rivalry with Chicago, both on the baseball diamond and in general, was the major impetus for the creation of St. Louis professional teams that would compete in the NA for the championship.

In A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture of the City, W. A. Kelsoe has a nice account of the first meeting between the new St. Louis professional club and the hated White Stockings which is reproduced in full below.

DEDICATION OF SPORTSMAN'S PARK TO PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL

Under an announcement, May 6, that the Chicago Baseball Club would arrive in St. Louis from Keokuk at 8:30 that morning, the Times printed this item under the headline "Spicy Correspondence":

"A telegram was received from Chicago as follows: 'To W. C. Steigers, Times Office, St. Louis, Mo.-I am authorized to ask of you if the St. Louis club will bet $1,000 against the Chicago club on the result of the coming match. Money up. Answer. (signed), Ralph A. Ladd, Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago.' Mr. Steigers, vice-president and acting president of the St. Louis club, promptly replied: 'St. Louis, May 5. To Ralph A. Ladd, Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago. The St. Louis club will not gamble. I think individuals here will accommodate you in any amount from one to ten thousand dollars. (signed), W. C. Steigers.'"

The morning these telegrams were published (May 6) the famous Chicago White Stockings arrived in St. Louis and that afternoon the city's second professional baseball game was played, the first one for St. Louis in which another city was represented. It was the dedication of Grand Avenue Park, now called Sportsman's Park, to professional baseball. The contest ended in a victory for the Browns by the score of 10 to 0. Adam Wirth, a member of the St. Louis Fire Department and a member also of our crack amateur ball club, the Empires, umpired that historic game. It was a one-sided game and Adam had no close plays to decide. George Washington Bradley held the visitors to four hits, all of them singles, and only three Chicago men were left on base. St. Louis made 13 hits, with a total of twenty bases, and seven men were left on base. "The crowd was simply enormous," said the St. Louis Times next morning, and a little further on the paper continued: "A rope had to be extended across a portion of the right field (then on the northside of the park) to give relief to those who were packed like sardines in a box against the fence between the field and the seats (bleachers).

* * * A comical sight was when the occupants of the eastern tiers rose en masse to stretch, the effect being indescribably ludicrous * * *

When the surprise was over and the fact that the Whites had drawn a nest of goose-eggs was realized, the entire assemblage in the seats arose and shouted until they were hoarse. They danced and sang and threw their hats in the air. They kissed, wept and laughed over each other, embraced, shook hands, slapped each other's backs and ran to and fro like mad men. " When the Boston champions were here a little later another such scene occurred, but it hardly equalled this one as seen from the press seats. All the St. Louis papers made a big ado over our victory. The Globe's report (written by Wm. M. Spink), had a long head topped with the one word "Chicagoed," which was explained in the introduction in this way: "In 1870 when the Mutuals (of New York) defeated the Chicagos by the score of 10 to 0, the baseball term 'skunked' was changed to the less vulgar and equally suggestive expression 'Chicagoed,' which the Whites (Chicagos) now, more than ever, are fairly entitled to." How the Chicago papers took the defeat of the Whites in St. Louis may be inferred from one (the third) of ten "lines" in the head of the Chicago Tribune's report of the game: "The fate of the two cities decided by eighteen hired men. St. Louis no longer wants to be the national capital and Chicago is sorry she was ever rebuilt."

Kelsoe was not exaggerating about the reaction of the crowd to the victory. Other sources tell of the people streaming out of the ballpark and parading jubilantly through the streets of the city with the crowd growing and growing as news of the victory spread. The celebration lasted throughout the night, the next day, and carried over into the second game between the Brown Stockings and White Stockings on May 8th. When the home team won that game 4-3, the celebration again went well into the night.

With the victory on May 6th, coupled with that of May 8th, the baseball honor of St. Louis was restored, a blow was struck in the rivalry with Chicago, and professional baseball was established in the city on a firm foundation of popular support.