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    Nineteenth Century Stars: SABR Digital Library, #5
    Nineteenth Century Stars: SABR Digital Library, #5
    Nineteenth Century Stars: SABR Digital Library, #5
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    Nineteenth Century Stars: SABR Digital Library, #5

    By Society for American Baseball Research

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    With almost 150 years of baseball history, the stories of many players from before 1900 were long obscured. The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) first attempted to remedy this in 1989 by publishing a collection of 136 fascinating biographies of talented late-1800s players. Twenty-three years later, Nineteenth Century Stars has been updated with revised stats and re-released in both a new paperback and in e-book form.

    Baseball didn't begin as the strictly professional business it is today. Back in the late 1800s, the game changed rapidly: rules, teams, and even leagues varied wildly from year to year. From that primordial soup of competition, camaraderie, and commerce rose the game as we know it.

    Nineteenth Century Stars collects the biographies of 136 men from baseball's early era, the players and club members who played and shaped the game pre-1900. While some stars of the era have "name recognition" and inclusion in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, most would be unknown to modern baseball fans were it not for this book. Alongside Louis Sockalexis, Dummy Hoy, and Alfred Reach are the tales of Icebox Chamberlain, Lipman Pike, and Toad Ramsey. The photographs may be black and white, but the life stories can be quite colorful. These men were more than just baseball players: some owned businesses, others were doctors, one became an evangelist (and a few even became murderers).

    Nineteenth Century Stars is a labor of SABR's Nineteenth Century Committee. Founded in 1983, the committee first released the book in 1989. Since then, both SABR and the committee have grown more than ten-fold, and interest in baseball's origins has increased. Many wonderful new books on the era are appearing, but Nineteenth Century Starsremains one of the founding works of the nineteenth century baseball canon, including the works of many writers, including Robert L. Tiemann, Mark Rucker, John Thorn, Joseph M. Overfield, Paul Adomites, Richard Puff and L. Robert Davids.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSociety for American Baseball Research
    Release dateApr 9, 2012
    ISBN9781933599298
    Nineteenth Century Stars: SABR Digital Library, #5

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      Book preview

      Nineteenth Century Stars - Society for American Baseball Research

      NINETEENTH CENTURY STARS

      2012 Edition

      Edited by Robert L. Tiemann and Mark Rucker

      New Preface by John Thorn

      Published by

      The Society for American Baseball Research

      Phoenix, AZ

      NINETEENTH-CENTURY STARS

      2012 Edition

      Copyright © 1989, 2012 Society for American Baseball Research, Inc.

      Preface © 2012 John Thorn

      New stats tables prepared by Cheslea Miller

      All rights reserved

      2012 Edition

      978-1-933599-28-1

      Ebook ISBN  978-1-933599-29-8

      Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

      Photo Credits:

      Bruce Foster: William Alexander Lange

      Barry Halper: William Forrest

      Randy Linthurst: Michael Joseph Tiernan

      Lou Lipset: Louis Bierbauer, Thomqs P Burns, Robert Caruthers, Icebox Chamberlain, Jeremiah Denny, Dave Foutz, George Gore, Ned Hanlon, Matt Kilroy, Silver King, Henry Larkin, Arlie Latham, ­Deacon McGuire, Edward McKean, Jouett Meekin, John Morrill, Jim Mutrie, Toad Ramsey, Harding Richardson, Yank Robinson, Kip Selbach, George Van Haltren, Curt Welch, Gus Weyhning, Jim Whitney

      Missouri Historical Society: George McGinnis, Ted Sullivan

      National Baseball Library: Lady Baldwin, Martin Bergen, Ted Breitenstein, Pete Browning, Doc Bushong, Larry Corcoran. Bill Dahlen, Hugh Daily, George Davis, Eugene DeMontreville, Jim Devlin, Fred Dunlap, David Force, Bud Fowler, Chick Fulmer, Pink Hawley, Guy Hecker, William Hoffer, Pete Hotaling, Dummy Hoy, William Hulbert, Arthur Irwin, Frank Killen, Fred Klobedanz, Herman Long, Bob Lowe, Alexander McKinnon, Sadie McMahon, Bid McPhee, Levi Meyerle, Ed Morris, Tip O’Neill, J. Lee ­Richmond, Frank Selee, Elmer Smith, Lou Sockalexis, Joe Start, Jack Stivetts, Herry Stovey, Charlie Sweeney, Fred Tenney, Moses Walker, Perry Werden, Will White

      New York Library: Ross Barnes, Charles Bennett, John Chapman, John Clapp, Weston Fisler, Charlie Getzien, Jack Glasscock, Charley Jones, Denny Lyons, Bobby Matthews, John Rowe, Ezra Sutton

      Joseph Overfield: Frank Grant

      Mark Rucker: Roberty Addy, Esteban Bellan, Tommy Bond, Asa Brainard, Charles Buffinton, Thomas E. Burns, Warren Carpenter, Jim Creighton, Abner Dalrymple, Duke Farrell, Charlie Ferguson, Bob Ferguson, Frank Flint, Bill Gleason, Mike Griffin, Paul Hines, Joe Hornung, Bill Joyce, Andrew Leonard, Edward Lewis, Jim McAleer, Jim McCormick, Cal McVey, Tony Mullane, Dickey Pearce, Fred Pfeffer, Lipman Pike, Joe Quest, Al Reach, Mort Rogers, Jim Ryan, Ted Sullivan, Billy Sunday, Ezra Sutton, Patsy Tebeau, Tommy Tucker, Jim Tyng, Sol White, Ned Williamson, Chicken Wolf, George Wood, Tommy York

      Frank Steele: Frank Bancroft

      John Thorn: Joe Borden, Count Campau, John Clements, George Hall, David Orr, Chris Van Der Ahe, Deacon White

      Ebook Graphics Usage Note

      We have tested the epub and Kindle versions of this book on various devices. On some devices, the numbers in the stats tables appear quite small. The resolution of the tables is the standard 72 dots-per-inch: enlarging them (zooming in) may make the numbers look blurry. Unfortunately, including higher resolution graphics in the epub and Kindle editions resulted in ebooks so large that they could not be downloaded by many users and could not be read at all on some devices. For those who would like to be able to zoom in at full resolution, please download the PDF edition. If you have purchased this ebook from a source that does not include/provide the PDF, please email Cecilia Tan, SABR Publications Director, with your proof of purchase, and she will gladly provide you with a courtesy PDF copy. She is reachable at PubDir@sabr.org.

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      Robert Addy

      Lady Baldwin

      Frank Bancroft

      Ross Barnes

      Esteban Bellan

      Charles Bennett

      Martin Bergen

      Louis Bierbauer

      Tommy Bond

      Joe Borden

      Asa Brainard

      Ted Breitenstein

      Pete Browning

      Charles Buffinton

      Thomas E. Burns

      Thomas P Burns

      Doc Bushong

      Count Campau

      Warren Carpenter

      Robert Caruthers

      Icebox Chamberlain

      John Chapman

      John Clapp

      John Clements

      Larry Corcoran

      Jim Creighton

      Bill Dahlen

      Hugh Daily

      Abner Dalrymple

      George Davis

      Eugene De Montreville

      Jeremiah Denny

      Jim Devlin

      Fred Dunlap

      Duke Farrell

      Charlie Ferguson

      Bob Ferguson

      Weston Fisler

      Frank Flint

      David Force

      Dave Foutz

      Bud Fowler

      Chick Fulmer>

      Charlie Getzien

      Jack Glasscock

      Bill Gleason

      George Gore

      Frank Grant

      Mike Griffin

      George Hall

      Ned Hanlon

      Pink Hawley

      Guy Hecker

      Paul Hines

      William Hoffer

      Joe Hornung

      Pete Hotaling

      Dummy Hoy

      William Hulbert

      William Hutchison

      Arthur Irwin

      Charley Jones

      Bill Joyce

      Frank Killen

      Matt Kilroy

      Silver King

      Fred Klobedanz

      William Lange

      Henry Larkin

      Arlie Latham

      Andrew Leonard

      Edward Lewis

      Herman Long

      Bob Lowe

      Henry Lucas

      Denny Lyons

      Bobby Mathews

      Jim McAleer

      Jim McCormick

      George McGinnis

      Deacon McGuire

      Edward McKean

      Alexander McKinnon

      Sadie McMahon

      Bid McPhee

      Cal McVey

      Jouett Meekin

      Levi Meyerle

      John Morrill

      Ed Morris

      Tony Mullane

      Jim Mutrie

      Tip O'Neill

      David Orr

      Dickey Pearce

      Fred Pfeffer

      Lipman Pike

      Joe Quest

      Toad Ramsey

      Al Reach

      Harding Richardson

      J. Lee Richmond

      Yank Robinson

      Mort Rogers

      John Rowe

      Jim Ryan

      Kip Selbach

      Frank Selee

      Elmer Smith

      Lou Sockalexis

      Joe Start

      Jack Stivetts

      Harry Stovey

      Ted Sullivan

      Billy Sunday

      Ezra Sutton

      Charlie Sweeney

      Patsy Tebeau

      Fred Tenney

      Mike Tiernan

      Tommy Tucker

      Jim Tyng

      George Van Haltren

      Chris Von der Ahe

      Moses Walker

      Curt Welch

      Perry Werden

      Gus Weyhing

      Deacon White

      Sol White

      Will White

      Jim Whitney

      Ned Williamson

      Chicken Wolf

      George Wood

      Tommy York

      Preface

      by John Thorn

      When this book appeared in 1989, the Nineteenth Century Research Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research was six years old. Already it had grown from an initial thirty to more than a hundred; today it numbers nearly eight hundred. Either number seemed equally unimaginable back in 1983.

      Within the context of self-congratulation that marks the republication of this now venerable committee’s first book-length work, I’d like to talk a bit about the state of research into early baseball, that former dark side of the side of the moon: how far it has come during the tenure of this committee, and where it may yet go, for we have only scraped the surface and returned with a few moon rocks. From the number of books issued about base ball to the launch of Protoball to Major League Baseball’s creation of a blue-ribbon Origins Committee, we have seen a renaissance of interest in how the game began and first flowered. It may not be too much to say, as Fred Ivor-Campbell did a few years ago in Cooperstown, that we few reinvented early baseball after it had long languished in the dustbin of history.

      Questions about baseball’s evolutionary tree have tended to dominate the listserv activity of this committee, as some of our most active researchers, myself included, have taken up mental residence in the antebellum period. But when Mark Rucker and I first believed that a research committee would be valuable to SABR, our interests and concerns were quite different. On September 30, 1982, we sent out a letter to some individuals—mostly collectors, which will explain some of the language below—known to have an interest in early baseball, especially its visual record. That letter read, in part:

      To whom it may concern: Knowledge of baseball from the 1860s to the 1890s, the era of earliest organization, has till now been restricted to a very few. With more information continually appearing, the opportunity for research is expanding, as is interest in the earliest known teams and players. To accommodate this growing fascination, and to widen the possibilities for gathering information, we propose a new SABR committee dedicated to the nineteenth century game.

      The committee will compile photographic and factual records of individuals and clubs from the New York Knickerbockers to the end of the century. Considerable attention will be focused on the late 1850s, the 1860s, and 1870s, where it is most needed. A particular goal will be to assemble a photo file (copied from original sources) of all major teams and players, a virtually unattainable task, but one which should give the committee long life. The committee’s job must be pure research, and will not be a vehicle for the selling and trading of documents.

      Among the concerns of the new committee was the relative absence of nineteenth century players from the Hall of Fame. Accordingly, Nineteenth Century Stars included no biographical profile of a man already ensconced in Cooperstown. Rucker and I conceived the idea for this volume but I dropped off the active roster in order to concentrate on the first edition of Total Baseball. With Bob Tiemann as co-editor, he brought this landmark project home, profiling so many great figures about whom even the most avid SABR member was likely to know not a blessed thing.

      It is gratifying for me now to come off the bench after all these years to honor a truly notable book.

      John Thorn

      Introduction

      By Robert L. Tiemann

      When baseball evolved in the nineteenth century from a child’s game to adult social recreation to professional sport, the very best players emerged into the public consciousness to become America’s first sports heroes. More than three dozen of these long-ago stars have been enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame, but scores of other outstanding pre-1900 players have fallen into obscurity. With this book, the Society for American Baseball Research, through the efforts of its committee on the 19th century, attempts to bring some forgotten stars back into the limelight. By going beyond the published statistics, SABR authors have tried to achieve greater insight into the careers and lives of these men and into the nature of baseball in their time.

      You’ll find some real characters in these pages. There were glory boys, fan favorites and boo-targets. There were alcohol abusers, rule-breakers and game-fixers, team jumpers and company men.

      And there were innovators. The game these men played was constantly changing - in its rules, its strategies, its tactics. The first known box score from 1845 shows only eight players to a side, but nine were used a year later. Games were initially won when one team reached 21 aces (runs) and led after even innings, nine innings not being adopted until 1857. A batted ball caught on the first bounce put the batter out through 1863, and the foul bound out remained on the books until 1885. Pitching resembled horseshoes, soft and underhand, until Jim Creighton took the baseball world by storm with fast underhanded pitching in 1859. Overhand deliveries were not allowed until 1884. Teams relied on one pitcher as much as possible until Chicago’s Larry Corcoran and Fred Goldsmith were formed into the first pitching rotation in 1880. Gloves and catcher’s masks were unknown until the mid-1870s, and veterans like Bid McPhee disdained the use of a glove until well into the 1890s.

      As pitchers like Boston’s Jim Whitney and Charlie Buffinton began to dominate and fielders like Cleveland’s Fred Dunlap and Jack Glasscock became more expert, scoring fell off dramatically by the mid-’80s. So the pitcher’s movements were restricted greatly in 1887, and the pitching distance was increased in 1893, fueling a resurgence in scoring in the ‘90s. That last decade of the century was dominated by great teams and managers like Frank Selee’s Boston Beaneaters and Ned Hanlon’s Baltimore Orioles, teams that excelled at aggressive baserunning and offensive teamwork.

      The earliest known admission charge (50 cents) for a ballgame was imposed in 1858, and the first enclosed commercial ballpark was built in 1862. The first professional league, awarding the first pennant. was formed in 1871. Minor leagues appeared as early as 1877, and two and even three Major leagues competed for fans and players in the 1880s. Playing schedules expanded to six games a week, and top salaries rose from below $2000 in 1869 to near $5000 in just over twenty years. The establishment of a monopoly by the National League in 1892 and depression times during that decade led to a significant drop in salaries and a shrinking of the minor leagues. At the turn of the century, one minor league, the Western League, changed its name to the American League and broke the National League’s monopoly, leading to new levels of prosperity. At the same time, the adoption of the foul strike rule altered the scoring balance again. All of these changes were played out on the field every day by the players.

      This project was conceived by SABR 19th Century committee chairmen Mark Rucker and John Thorn several years ago. Although they have turned the committee chairmanship over to Bob Tiemann, they remained active in this project, along with many others. Biographies have been submitted by thirty-one SABR members, with Joseph M. Overfield leading the way with twenty-five biographies. The sketches were reviewed for accuracy by Bob Tiemann, Bob Davids, Vern Luse, and Bob McConnell. Richard Puff, Len Levin, and Paul Adomites did the copy-editing. Mark Rucker developed the book design and selected the photographs. Bob Tiemann put together the statistics. Paul Adomites, SABR Publications Director, coordinated this multi-pronged effort.

      From the first real shortstop, Dickey Pearce, and the first professional player, Jim Creighton, to turn-of-the-century standouts like George Davis and Fred Tenney, 136 biographical sketches of players and managers are included here. No particular criterion was used in selecting the players included, except that Hall-of-Fame members are excluded, and despite special efforts to get sketches of certain men, many worthy players remain absent from these pages.

      Come meet the men who were there at the beginning, as baseball itself was taking shape. The Society for American Baseball Research is pleased to submit to you this work on Nineteenth Century Stars.

      A Note On The Statistics

      The statistics have been added to supplement the biographies in the text. However, they are not purported to be complete, official, or definitive. Unlike the biographical section, which was some years in the making, the tables have been put together quickly and suffer from some shortcomings.

      Nineteenth-century statistics varied tremendously - from the care and completeness of their compilation, to the statistical methods used in figuring averages, and even to the choice of statistics chosen for publication. In many cases, even the basic statistics given in this section were unavailable. And in many more cases, the numbers published in different sources were different. The figures presented here are taken from wherever they could be found in a brief period of research with little or no effort being made to resolve the conflicts among sources. As a result. the numbers in this section often differ slightly from the statistics quoted by the authors of the individual ­­­­biographies.

      In addition to our panel of authors. several SABR members provided additional information upon request. They included Vern Luse, Ray Nemec, Bob Davids, Bob Hoie, Joel Franks, and John Thorn. Vern Luse and Ray Nemec were especially generous with their time and research. The following source materials were used as well: Baseball guides by DeWitt, Beadle, Spalding, Reach, and Sporting Life, The Baseball Encyclopedia by Macmillan, Daguerreotypes by Paul MacFarlane and The Sporting News, the Stagno Collection of National Association box scores and Michael Stagno’s National Association batting statistics, Minor League Stars Vol. I & II by SABR, Sporting Life, The Sporting News, the New York Mercury, the New York Clipper, the St. Louis Globe Democrat, and the editor’s past baseball research notebooks.

      The statistics included are:

      G - Games played (if followed by the symbol #, the batting and fielding statistics are incomplete for the season)

      R - Runs scored

      H - Hits

      BA - Batting Average - These have been adjusted for the pre-1877 era to remove bases on balls from the at bats total. However, for 1887 bases on balls are counted as hits in these figures.

      SA - Slugging Average - Bases on balls are counted as singles for 1887 only.

      POS - Position(s) played - The positions listed are those at which that a player started at least 10% of his games, with a maximum of three positions listed.

      E - Fielding Errors - These do not count passed balls, wild pitches, or bases on balls where it was possible to delete those from the published statistics.

      FA - Fielding Average - If followed by the symbol #, the errors and fielding average are for only the first position listed, otherwise the fielding statistics are for all positions listed. In some cases, they are for all positions played during the season.

      GP - Games Pitched - Includes both starting and relief appearances. If followed by the symbol #, the pitching statistics for the season are incomplete.

      W-L, R, H - Games won and lost, runs, and hits allowed as a pitcher. These figures are only approximate.

      Robert Edward Addy

      (The Magnet)

      by Joseph M. Overfield

      Born: 1838, Rochester, NY

      Died: April 10, 1910, Pocatello, ID

      TL 5’8"

      The facts about Robert Addy’s birth and death are fuzzy. Both the Turkin J. Thompson and the Macmillan encyclopedias indicate he was born in Rochester, NY, in 1838 and that he died in Pocatello, Idaho, on April 10, 1910. A 1965 letter from Addy’s daughter, Mrs. Hugh Ivey, to the late Lee Allen is in agreement on the place and year of birth (although she calls it about 1838), but says he died April 9, not April 10. A letter in the Addy file in Cooperstown quotes an 1874 pamphlet written by George Wright which states that Addy was born in Canada. A brief obituary in the 1911 Spalding Guide indicates that he died on April 10, 1910, in his 67th year, which would mean he was born in either 1842 or 1843.

      The uncertainties of his vital statistics aside, Addy moved to Chicago when he was quite young and at a young age he became adept at the new sport of baseball. Late in 1865, he joined the Forest City Club of Rockford. The star pitcher of the Forest Cities, who played their first match games in 1866, was future Hall of Famer and sporting goods magnate Albert G. Spalding. The team at first was strictly amateur, but toward the end of the decade it began the practice of divvying up the gate receipts among the players, after expenses, thus becoming semiprofessional. One account (Spink Sport Stories, Vol. #3, pg. 85) says Addy’s cut after an 1870 tour of the United States and Canada came to $15.25.

      In 1871, Addy and the Rockford nine became members of baseball’s first professional league, the National Association. Among his teammates that year was future Hall of Famer Adrian Anson. Addy played second base and shortstop and batted .254, while third baseman Anson batted .352. The season was a disaster for the Forest Cities, and their 6-21 record and last-place finish resulted in the disbanding of the team. In his 1900 autobiography, A Ballplayers Career, Anson wrote of Addy: He was one of the best of the lot, was a good, hard, hustling ballplayer, a good base runner and a hard hitter. He was honest as the day is long. He was an odd sort of genius and quit the game because he thought he could do better at something else.

      Addy did, indeed, leave the game in 1872, but it was to be several years before he quit for good. In 1873, he returned to play with Boston and Philadelphia and batted .326, while playing in both the infield and outfield. He switched to the Hartfords in 1874 and batted .264, and then in 1875 - the last year of the Association - he batted .263 for the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1876, the maiden year of the National League, he rejoined his old teammates of Rockford days, Spalding and Anson, on the Chicago White Sox. The team made a shambles of the first pennant race by finishing first with a 52-14 record. As these were pre-reserve rule times, Addy moved to Cincinnati for the 1877 season and experienced a precipitous drop from first place to the cellar as the Reds posted a pathetic 15-42 record. A quarter of the way through the season, outfielder Addy became captain Addy, succeeding Lip Pike. At the end of the season, in which his managerial record had been 5-19, he was given $100 and his walking papers.

      It was published in one Cincinnati newspaper that Addy was fired as much for his imbibing as for his poor record. The Cincinnati Enquirer made an oblique reference to this problem in a story about a skating rink venture of Addy’s in Chicago saying, Bob stands up better on ice than he does on land.

      After the rink project failed (he had tried to popularize baseball on ice), Addy went to California and became manager of a tin shop. In 1888 or thereabouts, he moved to Evanston, Wyoming, and then in 1890 to Pocatello, Idaho. where he operated a hardware store for 20 years. He died there from heart disease.

      Charles Busted Baldwin

      (Lady)

      by Joseph M. Overfield

      Born: April 10, 1859, Ormel, NY

      Died: March 7, 1938, Hastings, MI

      BL TL 5’11", 170

      The baseball life of Charles Baldwin is a tale of two seasons and a curious nickname.

      With a modest record of 73-41 in six major league seasons (three of which were mere cups of coffee), the left-handed Baldwin probably would not merit inclusion here were it not for his remarkable year with Detroit (NL) in 1886 and his feat of winning 4 games in the post-season series between Detroit and the St. Louis Browns in 1887. And then there was his nickname, Lady.

      Baldwin was born in Ormel, NY, a tiny hamlet about 60 miles southeast of Buffalo. When he was 18, his family moved to Hastings, MI, where he learned the rudiments of the game. He started professionally with Grand Rapids (Northwest League) in 1883 before joining Milwaukee of the same circuit the next season. In 1884, he also appeared in seven games with Milwaukee in the ill-fated Union Association. He was a mature 26 when midway through the 1885 season he joined the Detroit Wolverines (NL) and teamed up with Charley Bennett, who was one of the great catchers of the day. Baldwin’s 1885 record was an unprepossessing 11-9, but his ERA was a dazzling 1.86.

      The failure of the 1886 Detroits to win the pennant was not the fault of Lady Baldwin. He won 11 of his first 12 starts; he pitched one 1-hitter, five 2-hitters and five 3-hitters; and had 7 shutouts, which was best in the league. He started 56 games and completed 55, hurled 487 innings, struck out 323 and wound up with a 42-13 (.764) record and an ERA of 2.24.

      The Wolverines followed their second-place finish in 1886 with a pennant in 1887, but it was a bittersweet year for Baldwin. His arm, overworked in 1886, never was at full strength. Additionally, he had trouble adjusting to the new rule requiring the pitcher to keep one foot on the back line of the box and take only one step in delivering the ball. He was so bad that on July 27 he was sent home without pay. (His salary was a princely $3,200.) Baldwin improved after rejoining the team in August, winning 7 of his last 8 games. In the 15-game challenge series between Detroit and the St. Louis Browns (AA), precursor of the World Series, Baldwin won 4 of 5 starts, including the clinching game, and held the Browns to a feeble .155 batting mark.

      As far as major league stardom is concerned, that was it for Baldwin. His arm dead, he pitched a few games for Detroit in 1888 and for Brooklyn (NL) and Buffalo (PL) in 1890 before retiring.

      The nickname? The mystery is not how he acquired it, but how he managed to survive in baseball as long as he did while bearing such a handle. He earned the name not because he was effeminate, but because he behaved the way ladies were supposed to behave: he did not smoke, swear, or imbibe. In an interview he gave in 1934 when he was 74, he said he had yet to taste alcohol or tobacco.

      After retiring from the diamond, Baldwin operated a farm in Hastings, MI, until 1910 when he sold out and moved into town. In 1919, he started a real estate business at which he enjoyed great success. In 1937, the man they called Lady died in Hastings. He was 77.

      Francis Carter Bancroft

      by John Richmond Husman

      Born: May 9, 1846, Lancaster, MA

      Died: March 30, 1921, Cincinnati, OH

      Frank Banny Bancroft was associated with professional baseball as a manager and an executive for more than 40 years.

      Never a professional player, he developed a liking for the game playing as an amateur in his hometown of Lancaster, Massachusetts, and later while serving in the Civil War. His service time provided his first managing experience as he organized games between Union Army Regiments.

      After the war, Bancroft settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He founded the local hotel, the Bancroft House, which prospered. Always a businessman at heart, he owned a theater, opera companies, and a minor league baseball team. He managed hockey teams for a number of years.

      In 1878 New Bedford entered a team in the International Association, baseball’s first minor league. Bancroft was chosen to manage the team. Managerial duties at that time encompassed not just field managing, but management of the business as well. Immediately Bancroft demonstrated that he was an excellent handler of athletes. He also demonstrated an innovative business style. Midway through the season, he pulled his team from the league and went barnstorming. His team played a record 130 games that season and won the championship of New England.

      The next year Bancroft accepted an offer to manage the Worcester entry in the same league. His team started slowly. By late May he was given an ultimatum by the board of directors to make good or be fired. Bancroft began to revamp his roster by bringing in new talent. Two of his most notable acquisitions were Art Irwin and Lee Richmond. Both started their first game as professionals June 2, 1879, in an exhibition game against the Chicago White Stockings. Richmond pitched a no-hitter that day in a game that signaled a change in the fortunes of the Worcester club. By season’s end, many acclaimed the Worcesters as the finest team in professional baseball. Bancroft proved to be a shrewd judge of talent. His signing of Richmond may have saved his baseball career.

      After the season, the innovative Bancroft, the Charles Finley of his day, led his team on a spring tour of Cuba and the South. This was only the second time that a professional team had played abroad, and was the introduction of professional baseball to the Caribbean. The success of 1879 propelled the Worcesters into the National League for the following season, where an initial rush faded, with the Worcesters finishing a creditable fourth.

      Bancroft was an independent sort, strong-willed and resentful of front office involvement in the running of the team. Upset by his board of

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