Al Spink At The West End/Pinchback Game

"Hyar! Yo, man, down thar, what debble's matter with yo' an' how?"

These were the words which issued from the lips of Mr. Turner, the first baseman and coacher of the celebrated Pinchback nine, who yesterday started in to mop up the earth with the famous colored nine of St. Louis, the West Ends, but were prevented from completely glutting their desire by a storm-cloud which hovered an hour or more over Sportsman's Park and finally burst in a heavy shower of rain.

The Pinchbacks, who have been noticed to some extent in the Post-Dispatch of late, are a very plucky team of colored ball players from New Orleans, and they are making a tour of the country at the expense of the Louisiana politician and bookmaker in whose honor they have been named. The game yesterday at Sportsman's Park only lasted for six innings, but it was "pow'ful excitin'" while it did last. The Pinchbacks came first to bat and were regularly retired. They scored one tally in the second inning and blanked the home team in the first three innings. In the third, when the visitors came to the bat, real fun began. Men were on bases continually; they were running like deers all the time, but somehow or another they were put out amidst the very wildest enthusiasm in the stands. At last they scored two runs on about four times as many errors and the masterly coaching of Mr. Turner. Far above the din could be heard his voice:

"Loak hyar, Ross, yo' jes watch 'self, d'understand'-come away now-thar you' air-hey thar. Say, what's matter with y0? Git away from dat ere bag. Dis hyar ain't Chicago-can't divorce from dat bag so easy s' yo' could up that-come off now-whar's de ball?"

Then Ross was put out at second and Mr. Turner collapsed with the remark, "Well, yo air a dandy."

When Mr. Defanchard got to first on a hit in the fifth Mr. Turner helped him out like this:

"Say, is't very cool over thar? I'se 'gin to 'spect yo' gettin froze to dat 'ere carpet sack! Git a motion on you'? What yo' gwine to'do over that? Settle down for de wintah? Git away, git away?"

This was his song during the game. Mr. Al Spink had a score book and tried to keep a score, but beyond estimating the Pinchbacks hits at 7 and the West Ends at 4 he accomplished nothing. He said he though there was something like a total of 97 errors, but whom to charge them to he gave up...The umpires were Stewart and Schaefer, the former colored and the latter white.

-St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 26, 1888

This is another account of the first game of the series between the West Ends and the Pinchbacks and it is certainly different than the one in the Republic. While the Post does stress the Pinchbacks coaching, they also give us a description of the game and the action. They even went so far as to publish the score by inning (the Pinchbacks scored one in the second, two in the third and three in the fifth; the West Ends got there lone run in the fourth).

And Al Spink was at the game, which is neat. It's also indicative of the prominence of the series in St. Louis. Spink, of course, wasn't just a baseball fan; he was the publisher of The Sporting News and a baseball institution in the city. Spink's presence, combined with the fact that the series was played at Von der Ahe's ballbark as well as the amount of interest shown by the local newspapers, indicates that this series had the support of the St. Louis baseball hierarchy. This series was evidently blessed by the St. Louis guardians of baseball high culture.

I did a quick search for information about the Pinchbacks' tour to see how the coverage of the rest of the tour compared to the coverage in St. Louis and didn't find much. The Inter Ocean of Chicago covered the Pinchbacks' when they were in town but their total coverage didn't amount to more than three or four paragraphs. The Picayune of New Orleans also covered the tour but, again, their total coverage didn't amount to much more than a paragraph per game. The coverage by the Republic and the Post is much more in depth than anything I've seen elsewhere.

Again, we have to tip our hats to Dwayne Isgrig for his work in discovering all of this and passing it along.

The End Of The Interregnum, Part Four

The 1881 season was a successful one in St. Louis, both on the field and at the box office. Several events that took place that season had a profound impact on the St. Louis baseball market and helped to shape that market for a generation. In many ways, the 1881 season is similar to the 1874 St. Louis baseball season in that the success that was found in those seasons led to a St. Louis baseball club entering a major league.

The most significant event that took place in 1881 was the creation of the Sportsman's Park and Club Association under the leadership of Chris Von der Ahe. August Solari, after the disappointments of the Interregnum years, gave up his lease on the Grand Avenue Park and this lease was picked up by Von der Ahe's new organization, which was officially incorporated at the end of March 1881. The SPCA originally had no connection with the St. Louis Baseball Association and the Brown Stockings other than providing the Browns with a home ballpark. Eventually, in October 1881, Von der Ahe and the SPCA would forcibly seize control of the club from the St. Louis Baseball Association and Von der Ahe would, at that point, become the Boss President of both ballclub and park. But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

The important point is that Von der Ahe and the SPCA were running the Grand Avenue Grounds by the spring of 1881 and had made significant improvements to the grounds. Also significant is that Von der Ahe was a relative outsider in St. Louis baseball circles. He had been a member of the board of directors of Solari's Grand Avenue ballclub in the mid-1870s and had some connections in St. Louis politics but he was not, in any real sense, an insider like Solari, the Spink brothers or the former Union Club members who had run the NA/NL Brown Stockings. Von der Ahe and the SPCA represented a new leadership force in the St. Louis baseball market and while this new force at first co-existed with the old, as represented by the St. Louis Baseball Association, eventually the two came into conflict, the result being the consolidation of the St. Louis baseball market under the new leadership of Chris Von der Ahe. It's the advent of this new leadership and their conflict with the old that brought about the end of the Interregnum.

The other significant event of 1881 was the return to the St. Louis baseball market of significant, outside competition. Because of the depressed nature of the St. Louis market from 1878 to 1880, as well as a depressed and disorganized national baseball market in general during the era, St. Louis did not receive many visits from good, nationally competitive baseball clubs. There are several reasons for this. As mentioned, the national baseball market was depressed and disorganized, as clubs and leagues of clubs searched for a business model that would support professional baseball. The effect of the game-fixing scandal and the general corruption that had surrounded the Brown Stockings from 1875 to 1877 on the St. Louis market can not be overstated, as it alienated and turned off what had been a very large fan base. The financial collapse of the Brown Stockings also had a negative impact as it essentially froze St. Louis out of the League system and denied the market visits from the best clubs in the nation. In the end, the St. Louis Baseball Association was unable to schedule many visits from good baseball clubs from large cities and when they were able to get a team like Indianapolis to visit, they couldn't get the fans out. Even the Chicago clubs stopped coming.

But by 1881, things had started to change. That season St. Louis saw visits from clubs from Cincinnati, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York and the fans flocked to the ballpark to see the Brown Stockings take on a higher level of competition. Harold Seymour wrote that it was Al Spink who arranged for these clubs to come to St. Louis and that, in many ways, it was the coming together of an anti-League group. St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York had all, for various reasons, been frozen out of the League and the arrangements that they made in playing each other in 1881 pre-figured the formation of the American Association the following year. The financial success that was realized in St. Louis by bringing these clubs in and the relationships that were formed among baseball men in the various cities was extraordinarily significant for the history of baseball. If these games had been financial failures or if Spink had not been successful in bringing the clubs to St. Louis, it's unlikely that the AA would have been formed or that St. Louis would have entered a new league. The Interregnum would have continued and possibly would have lasted into the 20th century.

So we have several events taking place in 1881 that combined to bring about the end of the Interregnum. The coming of new leadership under Von der Ahe and the SPCA, a group of anti-League cities and clubs forming relationships and scheduling each other, and the financial success of those scheduled games, by the end of the 1881 season, came together to create a unique situation in the St. Louis baseball market that led to Von der Ahe seizing control of that market and entering a new club in a new league.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about how Von der Ahe seized control of the Brown Stockings and the relationship that action had with the creation of the American Association.

Al Spink Testifies

Alfred H. Spink, formerly secretary of the Browns, and at present a sporting writer on one of the local dailies, was the first witness called. He testified to the organization of the St. Louis Baseball association by himself, his brother, the late William Spink, and William Pennoyer. This organization, according to Mr. Spink, formed the St. Louis Browns during the season of 1881 and their games were played on the grounds of Sportsman's Park and club on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The St. Louis Baseball association, said Mr. Spink later on, had a contract with Sportsman's Park and club whereby they got 90 per cent of the gross gate receipts, the corporation getting 10 per cent of the gate, reserved seats were sold, and all other privileges, such as sale of score cards, etc. When the season of 1881 had been completed he and his associates turned over their baseball interests to Von der Ahe, who continued the arrangements with Sportsman's Park and club.

-Chicago Daily Tribune, January 19, 1899

Spink was testifying in the suit brought by the Missouri Valley Trust Company against the Sportsman's Park and Club Association. Von der Ahe was arguing that his baseball club and the Sportsman's Park and Club Association were two separate entities in an attempt to stop the seizure of the ball club. He eventually lost that argument but as a result of the suit we have Spink's testimony about the founding of the Browns.

The Guardians Of Baseball High Culture

Between 1881 and 1882, St. Louis newspapers offered sparse coverage of the city's colored clubs...Why the poor coverage? One answer was column space.  Critics complained that editors gave baseball too much column space.  And the press doted on the white professional club, the Brown Stockings, which it viewed as a lucrative, civic-minded enterprise.  On the other hand, the Black Stockings colored nine hardly qualified as the city's iconic sports symbol...Throughout the 1870's, the white press' coverage of colored baseball declined.  In 1878, when the Globe-Democrat reported only games the sports editor "deemed sufficiently interesting," colored clubs became the first casualties.  In 1876, newspapers reported over thirty games; in 1877, only three contests appear in print, among them the Black Stockings vs. Our Boys (the "Blacks" won 6 to 4).  Colored clubs disappeared from the sports pages until 1881.  Of course, the Red Stockings, Brown Stockings, and Empires received coverage.  And sports editors devoted attention to white business and trade nines.  Coverage seems to have been based on their social and business relations with newspapers.  This exclusion represented only part of a strategic plan, that being the desire of the professional league to control labor, eliminate the numerous teams competing for attention (the Globe-Democrat identified over 200 nines in the city), and consolidate the market.

In the Mound City, guardians of baseball high culture-the Spink brothers, the McNeary brothers, Gus Solari, and Christopher Von der Ahe-wielded the civic clout and socioeconomic control to push an exclusionary agenda. 

-James Brunson, Henry Bridgewater's Black Stockings of St. Louis, 1881-1889

While Brunson goes on to place Bridgewater and the Black Stockings within the context of Reconstruction era St. Louis and the politics inherent to the era, I find his interpretation of the actions of the Spink brothers, McNeary, Solari, and Von der Ahe to be fascinating.  Throw in J.B.C. Lucas and some of the members of the Union Club and one can construct an argument that there was a cabal of men attempting to organize and control the St. Louis baseball market.  

However, the problem with the argument is that these men were actually in competition with each other.  While certainly the Spink brothers used their position as editors to promote and publicize the game, this was well within the tradition of "upbuilding" and a common practice of time.  But, in the late 1870's, when they were involved in the running of the Interregnum Brown Stockings, they were in direct competition with McNeary's Red Stockings.  McNeary originally was a part of the group that organized the NA Brown Stockings but, after the club decided to play its home games at the Grand Avenue Grounds, he placed the Red Stockings in the NA to directly compete against the Brown Stockings.  McNeary's Compton Avenue Grounds competed with Solari's Grand Avenue Grounds for clubs, games, and fans and the Reds were in competition against the Grand Avenue Club.  Von der Ahe had worked with Solari when they were both board members of the Grand Avenue Club and part of the Sportsman's Park and Club Association but essentially forced him out in the early 1880's.  

While these men worked together to promote baseball in St. Louis, they were just as often competitors.  There was no cabal.  There was no grand strategic plan.  The only exclusionary agenda was that of single-minded businessmen who were attempting to make money and establish the professional game in St. Louis.  They weren't out to destroy the black clubs or the mercantile clubs or the old amateur clubs but, rather, their goal was to establish something more.  These men were instrumental in transitioning St. Louis baseball from the amateur to the professional era and by simply looking at the history of the period-the starts and stops, the failures and successes-one can see that there was no over-arching grand vision being driven by a monopolistic establishment. 

As I said, I see some merit to the argument.  If one was looking at the situation from the view of someone like Bridgewater, who was not a member of the white St. Louis establishment, then you might see a monopolistic baseball establishment that marginalized Bridgewater's contribution.  But in the end, what I see is a group of businessmen fighting each other for control of the baseball market rather than working together to monopolize the market.           

Al Spink's Obit

Alfred "Al" Spink, veteran sports writer and a figure in baseball for more than a half century, is dead. After fighting a valiant struggle for several months, the man who helped organize the St. Louis Browns and whose hobby it was to know every baseball player personally succumbed at his home at Oak Park, Ill., last night. He was 74 years old.

Spink, who founded the Sporting News, a baseball publication, was chiefly identified with baseball in St. Louis and Chicago. In Chicago, he gained fame as a newspaper reporter, baseball expert and as the one who gave Charles A. Comiskey, president of the Chicago White Sox, his start in major league baseball. At St. Louis, Spink was sports editor of the Globe-Democrat, later aiding his brother, William, to organize the St. Louis Browns. Funeral services will be held tomorrow.

-The Washington Post, May 29, 1928

The Only Real History Of Base Ball Ever Published

Best Base Ball History

Interesting to Fans and Invaluable to All Connected With the Game

At last a standard work on base ball has made his appearance-the only complete history of the national game ever published. The book is called "The National Game."

In the earliest days of base ball in St. Louis, William Spink was the first real base ball editor. When he died his brother Al took up the reins and held unto the early records kept by his brother. From these early records and figures obtained since securing them, Al Spink has written the only bona fide history of base ball that has ever been published. It is a story woven out of real wool and is not only well and interestingly written but is beautifully illustrated with portraits of old and also of upcoming players.

Mr. Spink's story of "base ball in the cities," which is part of this book, covers the upbuilding of the game in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati and other major league cities and gives the book a national and widespread importance.

The book also contains sketches of very man who has played in the major base ball leagues from the days of the old Professional Association in the early 70's up to the present moment.

Mr. Spink in his time was associated with the great base ball leaders like Reach, Spalding, Johnson, Comiskey, Brash, Ewing, Anson, the Wright Brothers, George and Harry, Ward and others and he has written lively and interesting stories about them.

The book is not only an interesting one to read but it will prove of great value to managers, club-owners and base ball writers containing as it does all sorts of information which until this book was published was unobtainable.

-The Sporting News, November 17, 1910

Who would have imagined TSN giving The National Game a positive review? I don't really see any sort of conflict of interest there. Anyway, the image at the top of the post is an ad for The National Game that appeared in the same issue as the review.

Al Spink Writes About Himself

Like his brother, William McDonald Spink, "the first of St. Louis sporting writers," Al Spink, the author of this book, was born in Quebec, Canada, and educated at the Quebec High School.

He and his brother, William, played on the High School cricket eleven and then and there became enamored of outdoor sports.

The great book at the high school then was "Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby."

In it the great story was the description given by Tom Hughes of the fight between Tom Brown and "Slogger" Williams.

It taught the school boys that there was nothing so fair as a game at fisticuffs and down the hill from the high school there was a platform on which was settled with the fists all real differences that came up.

Manliness and fair play came from this practice and with it a wish to excel in all manly sports. So it came that the Spink boys early became enamored of cricket and boxing and when these two brothers left Canada they carried this love of sport with them.

William Spink came to St. Louis from Quebec when a mere lad to take charge of the Western Union telegraph office. He was even then the fastest receiver in that company. Soon after William Spink located here his brother Alfred came on and joined him.

That was back in the sixties. Since then Mr. Spink has done special or regular newspaper work for nearly all the leading newspapers of America. He was sporting editor of the Globe-Democrat, the Missouri Republican and the Post-Dispatch, all of St. Louis. For them he did all around sport work, but mostly baseball. In the early days of the game he organized many baseball leagues and in his time he was president of the first Western League, the first Inter-State League, and the first St. Louis College and Business Men's League. In 1884, while acting as secretary of the St. Louis Union team, he established The Sporting News, now the great baseball paper. A year or two later he was the secretary of the St. Louis Browns. He was one of St. Louis' early players and he was the president of the Standard Baseball Club, with whom he played in the early seventies.

Ten years ago he promoted the St. Louis World, a daily newspaper, which is still being published in St. Louis. It would, in fact, take more space than this book allows to tell of the many things he was started during his career, and this history of the National game is only one of them. Some future historian will perhaps tell the rest.

-Al Spink, writing in The National Game

Al Spink And The Bible Of Baseball

Naturally, I use The Sporting News as a source a great deal and I thought it would be interesting to take a brief look at the history of the newspaper in the 19th century. Lucky for me I found a nice article entitled The Sporting News: A History of the Bible of Baseball and rather than do any real work, I can just quote liberally from it:

The first issue of The Sporting News measured 17 by 22 inches, sold for 5 cents or if you wanted to bet on it's survival then $2.50 per year, and was published March 17, 1886, by 31-year-old Al Spink, a St. Louis Browns executive who was instrumental in the purchase of Sportsman's Park with the colorful Chris Von der Ahe. The Sporting News would be published by the Spink family for just over 90 years. They were a colorful bunch, that's for sure.

I previously referred to The Sporting News as "The Bible of Baseball" and while it would earn this moniker in time at its beginning it reflected Al Spink's interests and covered cycling, shooting, billiards and even theater. Boxing coverage would also be a big part of the 19th century Sporting News, but baseball was The Sporting News bread and butter from the start.

As soon as September 1886 The Sporting News would include sketches of the St. Louis Browns players on its cover with the banner headline "St. Louis Browns -- Champions of the World". For the most part these earliest editions of The Sporting News appeared at first glance the same as any newspaper--the cover was filled by text.

It should be noted that as successful as The Sporting News was, it was not the first sporting paper, and it did have formidable competition from the start in The Sporting Life, founded by Francis Richter in 1883. While The Sporting Life originally noted the arrival of The Sporting News with approval very soon they were accusing Spink's paper of copying The Sporting Life's style. Spink replied that indeed, their advertising columns were very similar, except that The Sporting News had so many more ads!

The Sporting News was pretty much a one-man operation involving Al Spink at first, with Al handling tasks as varied as balancing the books, soliciting advertising and overseeing the editorial content, but this soon proved too much for one man so Al brought in his little brother Charles Spink in 1887 at a $50 per week salary.

Even though his baseball knowledge was initially limited, Charles jumped at the opportunity and quickly helped boost circulation with a sample-copy campaign. Circulation stood at about 40,000 in October 1887 and had risen to 56,500 as soon as February 1888. Advertising requests were so heavy that The Sporting News would expand five times in 1888, growing from 8 to 12 pages.

This was followed by a brief drop in circulation when in 1890 The Sporting News broke the story about the player's revolt and backed the new Player's League. They had made the wrong choice and the public let them know it. Charles Spink was taking over the magazine little by little all throughout the 90's as Al persued other interests. Al Spink would depart for good in 1899 with A.J. "Joe" Flanner taking over as editor and Charles Spink holding the title of publisher. With Al out the door The Sporting News adjusted its coverage and focused entirely upon baseball.

While I'm at it I might as well take a look at Al Spink, who I've probably quoted more than anyone else here at TGOG. W.E. Kelsoe, in A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture of the City, had a great deal to say about the Spink brothers:

Mention is made elsewhere of the Spink family. William M. Spink, the oldest of the boys, remembered by old-timers as telegraph editor and sporting editor of the Globe and the Globe-Democrat in the Seventies and early Eighties and later (until his death) with the Chronicle, was a national authority on sporting matters generally. He had been an expert telegrapher before engaging in newspaper work. His brother, Alfred, now Mr. A. H. Spink of Chicago, came to St. Louis early in the Seventies and his first newspaper work here was as correspondent for New York papers. Then he worked for the Post, the Post-Dispatch and the Missouri Republican, in turn, as a reporter, and later was, first, telegraph editor and then sporting editor of the Republican. He was one of the early sporting editors of the Chronicle and held a like position on the Post-Dispatch for eight years. Al Spink was the founder of the present Sporting News of St. Louis and of the morning World, started in 1902. He was one of the organizers of the St. Louis Browns of 1882 and of the American Association (baseball) that year. For many years he was actively interested here in baseball, horse racing and other sports. The third brother, the late Charles C. Spink, devoted his newspaper activities to the management of the Sporting News, which is now owned and conducted by the widow, Mrs. Marie T. Spink, and son, John G. Taylor Spink, now prominent in sporting matters. The three newspaper brothers mentioned had two newspaper sisters, the wives of, respectively, William H. Hicks and George T. Lanigan, both newspaper men. Mr. Hicks I remember well. We called him "Billy Hicks," but I never worked with him. I think he was on the Globe-Democrat or the Post-Dispatch and my allegiance then was to "Old 1808" (Missouri Republican).

Mark Cooper wrote a nice piece on Al Spink:

Alfred Henry Spink is best known for introducing The Sporting News on March 17, 1886. It is today the oldest sports periodical, with a world-wide circulation of 625, 000.

Spink was born in Quebec, one of eight children, three of whom were brothers. After the American Civil War, the family emigrated to Chicago. The father died shortly after their arrival, and the sons-who had been excellent cricketers in Canada-turned their attention to baseball. The Spink boys helped form an amateur team on the West Side of Chicago: the Mutuals, named after the famous Mutuals of New York.

In 1875, Al moved south to St. Louis, at the suggestion of his brother Billy, a sports editor for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and was soon covering sports for local papers himself. The brothers were enthusiastic backers of the St. Louis Brown Stockings, the city’s first professional club, which operated at Gus Solari’s ball park on Grand Avenue.

When the professional club folded prior to the 1878 season, Al and Bill organized a semipro team to play at Solari’s park. Finally, in 1881, Al convinced a neighborhood saloon keeper named Chris Von der Ahe to form a corporation called the Sportsman’s Park and club and to renovate (and rename) the grounds. Al himself organized a local team and booked its out-of-town opponents. The following fall he helped Von der Ahe bring professional baseball back to St. Louis with a charter membership in the new American Association.

While an executive of the Browns, Al Spink published the first issue of The Sporting News in 1886, a weekly eight-page publication, 17 by 22 inches. The paper sold for five cents, $2.50 per year. In the inaugural issue Al wrote in an editorial: “It is the custom when a journal of any class is thrust upon an all-confiding and unsuspecting public to launch out into a lengthy editorial as to what the newcomer will do and as to the aims and objects. Now, for various reasons, TSN intends to ignore this custom and let its readers guess at hat its aims and objects are. One thing we must do, however, is thank the hundreds of kind friends who have wished us God speed in the new enterprise.” An inside column of short items bore the caption “Caught on the Fly,” a heading still found in the paper.

In September, 1886, the paper, in recognition of the Browns’ World Series victory over the Chicago White Stockings, brightened page one with sketches of all the St. Louis players, proclaiming “St. Louis Browns-Champions of the world.” The older sporting weekly the sporting Life, published in Philadelphia, became aware of the new competition in St. Louis. When Sporting Life accused The Sporting News of copying its style, TSN responded: “The cruelest thing a Philadelphia contemporary can say is that we imitate his newspaper. He is right. Our advertising columns are very much like his except we have so very many more advertisements.”

Al Spink was a great editor, but a poor businessman. Realizing his inadequacies, he hired his younger brother Charles, for $50 a week, to become business manager. Success followed, and in the May 4, 1889, issue, TSN reported reaching a half million readers weekly with its 60,000 circulation.

In 1889 Al’s intimate association with players allowed TSN to break the story of the impending players’ revolt that led to the formation of the Players’ League. The story headline read: “The Brotherood/Every Man but Anson Pledged to Jump The League/The Greatest Move in the History of the National Game.”

During 1890 Al wrote a melodrama titled derby Winner, and took the play on the road, leaving all responsibility for The Sporting News to his brother Charles. Because TSN backed the Players’ League, National League clubs and advertisers (particularly Spalding) withdrew editorial and advertising support from the paper in favor of Sporting Life, and Al returned from his unsuccessful attempt in the theater to find circulation and revenue declining with a vengeance. He christened his paper The Sporting Death, and reported that Jack Glasscock, active in the players’ organization, was actually spy for the club owners.

Al also lashed out at his old benefactor Chris Von der Ahe, whom he called “J Christ von der Ahe.” Brother Charles resumed control of TSN, decreasing costs and increasing circulation.

In 1894, Al began to lose interest in The Sporting News and, in dire need of finances, sold all his stock to Charles. Al opened a racetrack at this time but continued to work for TSN. Finally, in 1899, he left the paper for good. In 1910 he moved to Chicago and published his book The National Game, a history of the early years of baseball. In 1921, while a columnist for the Chicago Evening Post, he authored a three-volume set titled One Thousand Sport Stories. At his funeral in 1928, baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis gave the eulogy.

Al Spink's obituary was published in the New York Times on May 28, 1928:

Notes:

-Obviously the history of The Sporting News article at the beginning of the post used the Cooper piece as its main source.

-The first picture of Al Spink, at the top of the post, was taken from The Sporting News website.

-The second photo of Spink, the NYT obituary, and the Cooper piece were all taken from Bill Burgess' Meet The Sports Writers post at Baseball Fever. Calling Bill's work a post is, of course, inadequate. It's more like a treasure trove.

-I should also add that while I like Cooper's piece on Spink I think his analysis of baseball history in St. Louis is a bit superficial. I'm not saying it's inaccurate but I think it understandably glosses over some facts. The history of baseball in St. Louis from 1877-1882 is a bit more complicated than Cooper's has it.

W.A. Kelsoe

There's a large section of The National Game devoted to profiles of baseball writers. Al Spink, a baseball writer and newspaper man himself, believed that these men played a prominent role in building up the game and making it the national pastime. He believed that their role in the history of the game deserved to be chronicled. One of the baseball writers that he profiled was W.A. Kelsoe, author of my new favorite book, A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture Of The City When We Got Our First Bridge, And Of Many Later Happenings of Local Note.

Spink wrote that "(one) of the first of St. Louis baseball writers was William A. Kelsoe, now a member of the editorial staff of the Post-Dispatch. Mr. Kelsoe was one of the men who reported the famous game between the St. Louis Browns and the Syracuse Stars on May 1, 1877. In those days the local newspapers placed an embargo on baseball news. And the man who wrote that sort of thing did it through sheer love of the game and then had to beg his way into print. 'Bill' Kelsoe, as we called him in the long ago, was one of the men who wrote the game because he loved it. He was the city editor of the Republic in the early eighties and I was a cub reporter on that newspaper then. It was my ambition in those days to write of the baseball games and to smuggle as much of the stuff into the newspaper as possible. In my essays in this direction I always found a true friend in 'Old Bill.' He passed my copy early and often, and was so kind and good always that I learned to love him as did the other reporters who followed me. To-day 'Old Bill' often goes to the ball games and of the little army of newspaper men that follow the game there are none so universally beloved, so well honored and respected or so well thought of as he."

The 1877 game between the Brown Stockings and Syracuse that Spink mentions was a fifteen inning, 0-0 game that was called on account of darkness. Kelsoe entitled his piece about the game in A Newspaper Man's Motion-Picture Of The City "The Greatest Of St. Louis Ball Games". I can't remember if I've posted anything about this game or not. I'll have to check. Regardless, I may post some of Kelsoe's recollections about that game this weekend.

Update: It looks like I did post something about the game here. It's getting harder and harder to remember what I've covered and what I haven't. Premature senility, I guess.

Fred Dunlap And The Conventional Wisdom

The conventional wisdom regarding the best second basemen of the 19th century usually has Fred Dunlap well back of such players as Bid McPhee, Cupid Childs, Ross Barnes, and Hardy Richardson. While I'm not one to play "who's better than who" and I don't keep a list of my top 1000 players at each position, I will say that the idea that Hardy Richardson was better than Dunlap flies in the face of some basic evidence such as the fact that when the two men were on the same team, Dunlap was the starting second baseman. As to the others, I honestly couldn't tell you if they were better than Dunlap. But there are plenty of people who saw all these guys play and many of them believe that Dunlap was the best second baseman of his generation.

Al Spink called Dunlap "far and away the greatest second baseman that ever lived" and said that "of the great players of the olden times Fred Dunlap was considered by many the greatest." "(None of his contemporaries) could begin to compare with Dunlap in all around work or in covering the bag," he wrote in The National Game.

And Spink is not a lone voice in the wilderness. Stanley Robinson called Dunlap the greatest second baseman of his time and "perhaps the greatest player that ever lived." James Spaulding called Dunlap "the greatest second baseman who ever lived." Al Bauer, in 1886, called Dunlap "the best baseball player on the diamond." The Sporting News, at the same time, called Dunlap "the king pin of second basemen and the greatest fielder in America."

But Bill James doesn't think much of Dunlap as a player. He sees Dunlap's great 1884 season as illegitimate and goes so far as to say that Dunlap was "never a legitimate star" or that he was only a "minor star". The influence of James is wide and deep and, for those who know little or nothing about Dunlap and 19th century baseball, his word is the gospel truth. The Wikipedia article on Dunlap is an example of this. Just one paragraph long, the only reference that it sites is The Historical Baseball Abstract. It's final sentence, parroting James, claims that Dunlap "was never a star player in a full major league."

The problem is that James' assertion and the conventional wisdom can not be reconciled with the opinions of people like Spinks, Robinson, Spaulding, and Bauer. It can't be reconciled with the fact that Dunlap went to Detroit and took the starting second baseman's job from Richardson (James' choice for the best second baseman of the 1880's). It can't be reconciled with the fact that Dunlap's injuries and contract squabbles were front page news in the New York Times. It can't be reconciled with the fact that Dunlap was considered the best defensive player in the game. It can't be reconciled with the fact that Dunlap was the highest paid player on two championship teams. It can't be reconciled with the fact that he dominated the UA in a way that no professional athlete has ever dominated a league.

Fred Dunlap was a legitimate star in a legitimate league prior to 1884 and he was a legitimate star in a legitimate league after 1884. In fact there were very few players who had as much of an impact on baseball in the 1880's as Dunlap did. It's a shame that James and others don't recognize that.

More On The Organization Of Amateur Clubs In 1886

"The amateur clubs of St. Louis will outdo themselves this year in the number and character of their players, clubs and leagues. The Amateur Park Association of clubs will, of course, be first in point of quality and general excellence. The League formed will be the first and only one ever formed in St. Louis on a solid basis. The players will all be required to sign regular contracts with the clubs they join, and should they break any of the rules they will be forever disbarred from taking part in a championship struggle, and also from playing in any St. Louis park: and, moreover, the members of all clubs belonging to the League will be prohibited from taking part in any game where any player under suspension from the League is engaged. This rule will have a tendency to make the sore-heads come to reasonable terms and will prevent all revolving from one club to the other as has been the case in the past, and always to the detriment of strictly amateur ball playing."

"The Business League profiting by past experience will no doubt make some iron-clad rules to prevent clubs from grabbing up such semi-professional players as may chance to be out of an engagement. In fact, all amateur organizations in St. Louis have made a careful study of the word amateur, and they intend to carry out the meaning to the letter. The right men are now at the helm, and, with proper encouragement, will bring out the latent qualities of who now are compelled to play second fiddle for the benefit of older players of reputation."

"The Amateur League will have the following clubs represented: Amateur Park Club, St. Gotthard's, Drummand's, Enterprise, St. Louis Amateur, West Ends, and Union Blues. This will make eight evenly matched teams, and the winners of the bunting will have many a hard fight before securing the trophy."

"The Business League will open the season with six clubs and will try and keep this number as they are anxious to finish the schedule, which would be impossible with more members. The clubs likely to be selected from the score of applicants are as follows: Crow, Hargadine & Co., Sam'l C. Davis & Co., St. Louis News Co., Wm. Barr Dry Goods Co., Rice, Stix, & Co., and Brown, Daughaday, & Co. This will insure good games, as all of the teams will be equal in playing strength, and the struggle for supremacy will be long and hard."

"In fact, from the present outlook, amateur base ball will be a feature in St. Louis this year, something it never has been before. The managers have the correct idea and have only to carry out the policy laid down at the recent meeting to meet with the success their efforts deserve."

-From The Sporting News, March 17, 1886

It's interesting to see the machinations of the smaller clubs in St. Louis as they organize for the season. Groups and leagues and associations are being formed as clubs compete for players, fans, money, and survival. These clubs are competing against not only each other but also the bigger clubs in St. Louis. In 1886, there was not only the Browns and the Maroons in St. Louis but also the Peach Pies, the Prickly Ash, and the Reds while just across the river were the Madisons of Edwardsville, the Alton Club, the Belliville Club, and the East St. Louis Club.

In the face of such competition, organization had to have been crucial for the clubs to survive. Reading between the lines of the above article and some of the other ones posted this week, it's clear that these clubs were in the habit of raiding each other for players. Revolving was obviously a major problem. Making and keeping a schedule also must have been difficult. Arranging games so that they were economically beneficial to both teams was also an issue.

The Sporting News, as an advocate of the game, was not only reporting on these undertakings but was actively encouraging them. They toted the beneficial nature of such organizations and chided the poor management that often stood in the way of achieving them.

One interesting note about the above article is the quote at the end about the status of amateur baseball in St. Louis. Al Spink, of all people, should have known better then to write something like that, given the tradition of 19th century amateur baseball in St. Louis. The "Golden Age" of St. Louis amateur baseball had certainly passed but it had passed only a scant eleven years previous to this article being written and certainly within the living memory of most of the readers of The Sporting News in 1886.

The Griswold Letter

In The National Game, Alfred Spink wrote a great deal about the history of baseball in St. Louis. He gave substantial space to Shepard Barklay's account of Jeremiah Fruin's role in bringing the game to the city "in the early fifties." This account resulted in Merritt Griswold writing a letter to Spink in which Griswold gives his account of how baseball first came to St. Louis. Spink printed this letter in the second edition of his book, which was published in 1911. Below is Griswold's letter in its entirety.


Alfred H. Spink
Author The National Game
St. Louis, Mo.,

Dear Sir-One of the reporters of "The Standard Union" of Brooklyn, N.Y., showed me a few days ago a book written by you entitled the history of baseball.

To start at the commencement of the game in its first introduction into Missouri I would refer you to the files of "The Missouri Democrat" for the Winter of 1859 and 1860, where in you will find published "the rules of the game," also a diagram showing the field and the position of each player made from a rough sketch I gave to Mr. McKee and Fishback, the publishers, or to Mr. Houser, at that time their bookkeeper, cashier and confidential office man (and, by the way, a mighty fine young man).

At this same time I was organizing the first baseball club, "The Cyclone," which name was suggested by one of its members, Mr. Whitney, of the Boatman's Savings Bank.

Other members of "The Cyclone" were John Riggin, Wm. Charles and Orvill Mathews (the latter the late Commodore Mathews of the U.S. Navy), John Prather, Fred Benton, (later captain under Gen. Custer), Mr. Fullerton, (later a General, U.S.A.), Mr. Alfred Berenda and his brother, Mr. Ferd Garesche, Mr. Charles Kearney (son of Gen. Kearney), Mr. Edward Bredell, Jr., and a number of other young men of St. Louis.

Soon after the organization of "The Cyclone" several others were started, viz: "Morning Stars," "The Empire," "The Commercial" and later on several others.

The first match game played between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, (if not to the Pacific Coast), was between "The Cyclone" and "The Morning Stars" and was played in 1860, just back of the Old Fair Grounds in North St. Louis, "The Morning Stars" winning the game, the score of the game I now have. It is 50 years old, and the ball used in that first match game was for years used as the championship trophy, it going from one club to the other, and the last the writer ever heard of it, it was in possession of the Empire Club. I personally sent to New York for the ball to be used in this first match, and after the game it was gilded in gold and lettered with the score of the game.

"The Morning Star Club" was a "town ball" club and played from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Tuesday and Friday mornings in Carr's Park, but after considerable urging and coaxing on my part they passed a resolution at one of their meetings that they would try the national rules for one morning if I would coach them, or more properly, teach them, which I consented to do if they would agree to stick to it for the full hour without "kicking," for as I told them they would no like it until after playing it for a sufficient length of time to become familiar with some of its fine points, all of which they agreed to and kept their word like good fellows as they were, but in ten minutes I could see most of them were disgusted, yet they stuck to it for their hour's play. At the breaking up of the game to go home they asked me if I would coach them one more morning as they began to "kindy like it." I was on hand their next play day, or rather play morning at 5. Result they never played "town ball" after that second inning and in their first match, as stated above, "waxed" my own club. I could give you many incidents up to the breaking out of the civil war and the disbanding of "The Cyclone" by its members taking part on one side or the other.

Hoping you will excuse my intruding with these little facts in regard to early ball playing in St. Louis, I am

Yours Respectfully
Merritt W. Griswold.

P.S.-Although I am now in my 77th year, I take just as much interest in that splendid game as when a kid at school in old Chautauqua Co., New York, or when a member of the "Putnams" of Brooklyn in 1857 and the "Hiawathas" of the same place in 1858-59 in which latter year I went to St. Louis.

George Munson

George Munson was a prominent baseball man in the late 19th century. A sports writer, the secretary and manager of the St. Louis Browns during their championship run, and an entrepreneur, Munson was described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as “more nearly an institution than an individual…”

Munson was born in Iowa in 1861 and entered Cornell University in 1876. According to the Cornell Alumni News, Munson took “an optional course and did not graduate.” Leaving the university in 1879, he moved to St. Louis and took a job as a sports writer with the St. Louis Republican where he worked with David Reid.

In 1885, Reid was working for the Post-Dispatch and had taken a job as secretary of the St. Louis Browns. In the late afternoon on May 1st, Reid became ill and went to the house of his friend Munson to lie down. He never recovered and died the next evening at the age of 37. Munson replaced his friend as secretary and manager of Chris Von der Ahe’s Browns.

Described by the Post-Dispatch as “the business head of the organization,” Munson would see the Browns to four consecutive championships from 1885 to 1888. He was involved in every facet of the team from player procurement to selling advertising space on the outfield wall.

In October of 1887, according to the New York Times, Munson was in New York to arrange games at Washington Park in Brooklyn and at the Polo Grounds between the Browns and their NL champion opponents, Detroit, as part of the “world’s championship” series. When asked how he felt about his team’s chances after they had dropped two of the first three games, Munson said, “Will our boys win? Well, to prove what I think about the matter I have a well filled wallet that I am willing to risk on the result.” Regardless of Munson’s confidence, the Browns lost the fifteen game series ten games to five.

Munson had a rather tumultuous relationship with Von der Ahe, which given the character of Der Boss President is not exactly surprising. The Post-Dispatch wrote that Munson and Von der Ahe “were estimated to have quarreled four times a day-that is, (Von der Ahe) did the quarrelling and…Munson did the work.” Von der Ahe certainly did admire and appreciate the work that Munson did for the Browns, at least after Munson had moved on. Der Boss never found another employee who could compare to Munson and referred to him, simply, as “the best”.

Munson was elected as the first president of the Base Ball Reporters Association of America. The group was formed in 1897, according to Harold Seymour in Baseball: The Early Years, “for the purpose of bringing about a standard method of scoring games and to advance the interests of baseball through the press.”

In 1890, Munson had had enough of Von der Ahe’s drama and left the Browns to work with the new Players League. The New York Times reported in January of 1890 that “George Munson, late Secretary of the Browns, is busy getting things in shape for a Brotherhood ball club in St. Louis. He said today that he had $50,000 subscribed. He is negotiating with the Players League, and seems confident that St. Louis will be admitted to the circuit.” When his plans for a St. Louis team in the Players League fell through, Munson went to Chicago and took a job as secretary for the PL’s Pirates, who were managed by his old friend Charles Comiskey and had several other former Browns on the roster. In May of 1890, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, he was involved in a failed attempt to transfer either the Pittsburgh or Cleveland NL team to St. Louis.

In 1891, Munson was the editor of Reach’s Official American Association Base Ball Guide and was involved in raising stock for an American Association team in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that year that Munson was working for the Cincinnati team as secretary and was a stockholder in the club. He also went back to work that year as a press agent and advisor for Von der Ahe, whom he would continue to work for until 1894.

It was in his capacity as advisor to Von der Ahe that Munson was involved in one of the more bizarre incidents in baseball history. According to the New York Times, in March of 1891, Munson, Von der Ahe, Von der Ahe’s attorney Walter McEntire, and Al Spink “called upon Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Estep to swear out a warrant, charging conspiracy” against Mark Baldwin. Baldwin, a big league pitcher with the Pittsburgh NL club, had been hired by the League to get AA players to jump their contracts and sign with NL clubs. Baldwin had targeted Browns ace Silver King and Columbus player Jack O’Connor, both of whom were living in St. Louis. While Estep saw “no ground for a criminal warrant”, Baldwin was eventually arrested and jailed on bribery charges. In The Beer & Whiskey League, David Nemec writes that “Von der Ahe then pulled strings to have the case delayed so that Baldwin would be detained indefinitely in St. Louis and would be unable to continue his poaching for the League.” “Baldwin,” according to Seymour, “did not like being thrown into a jail infested with cockroaches and bedbugs, and retaliated against Von der Ahe’s harassment with a suit for $20,000, charging false arrest and malicious prosecution. Four years later a jury awarded him $5,000.” The only good thing to come of this mess was that Pittsburgh, Baldwin’s employer, gained a permanent nickname. Because of their poaching of AA players, the Pittsburg National League Baseball Club would forever be known as the Pirates.

In the mid 1890’s, Munson was involved in attempts to sell the Browns. As Von der Ahe’s financial and personal life deteriorated into tragedy, Munson was unable to broker a deal that would save Der Boss’s empire. By 1894, the two parted ways for the final time.

After his time with the Browns, Munson was involved in numerous entrepreneurial ventures. The Post-Dispatch wrote that “…Munson dabbled in skating rinks, racetracks, theaters, newspapers, theater programs, dog shows, horse shows, and nearly every other variety of enterprise calculated to attract public attention. Most of his adventures were successful.”

Munson died of pneumonia on March 8, 1908, leaving behind a wife, Lizzie, and two children, Porter and Daisy. His obituary in the Post-Dispatch was rather glowing. “He knew more people than any other one man in St. Louis ,” it said, “and was known by more…When the question of how a broken-down baseball player or any other member of the fraternity was to be taken care of in life or in death came up, George Munson was the man relied on to get the necessary contributions. In every public charity he was always a busy figure.”