Runs and Bases: The 1870's, Part 2

[SWC75]

In 1876 the teams representing the larger cities of the National Association of Baseball Players broke off to form the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, (now just called the National League). The new league didn’t bother to keep track of stolen bases, (and wouldn’t again until 1886), so the bases produced below are simply total bases plus walks.

The story of the founding of the National League is interesting and ironic. The main points: The National Association has been compared by Bill James to the Articles of Confederation, which pre-dated our Constitution: a loosely-organized group of teams with no real mechanism for enforcing rules. Teams refused to play games against other teams if the travel was too great or the expected gate too small. There were arguments for how to split up the gate. Players jumped from team to team. There were attempts to rein things in in the final season, including a rule that teams could not negotiate with other team’s players during the season.

William Hulbert, the owner of the Chicago White Stockings, broke that rule by trying to entice Adrian Anson, the star of the Philadelphia Athletics to jump to his Chicago team. When the league threatened disciplinary action, Hulbert announced the creation of the new league so he could sign Anson and avoid punishment. He then appointed himself president of the new league. Another historical comparison seems appropriate here: Henry VII creating the Church of England and naming himself the head of it so he could marry Anne Boleyn and determine for himself whether he was going to be condemned for it.

The National League then created the reserve clause so the teams could retain control of their players.
The League worked because those larger cities no longer had to play the smaller cities like Keokuk and Middletown. Then New York and Philadelphia, well out of the race, refused to make their last western road trip of the season and Hulbert kicked them out of the league in a show of authority. Hulbert’s insistence on following the rules gave the league the continuity it needed to survive.


1876 - National League

Runs Produced
Ross Barnes, CHIC 184
Deacon White CHIC 125
Cap Anson CHIC 120
Paul Hines CHIC 119
John Peters CHIC 116
Cal McVey CHIC 114
George Wright BOS 105
Lip Pike STL 104
Jim O’Rourke BOS 102
Dick Higham HAR 94

Bases Produced
Ross Barnes CHIC 210
George Hall PHIL 154
Cap Anson CHIC 148
Jim O’Rourke BOS 146
Lip Pike STL 141
George Wright BOS 141
Paul Hines CHIC 135
John Peters CHIC 135
Deacon White CHIC 134
Dick Higham HAR 129

1877- National League

Runs Produced
Deacon White BOS 98
Cal McVey CHIC 94
George Wright BOS 93
Jim O’Rourke BOS 91
Charley Jones CIN 89
John Peters CHIC 86
Cap Anson CHIC 84
Jack Manning CIN 83
Erza Sutton BOS 82
John Clapp STL 81

Bases Produced
Deacon White BOS 153
Jim O’Rourke BOS 138
George Hall LOU 130
Cal McVey CHIC 129
Charley Jones CIN 128
Lip Pike CIN 119
John Cassidy HAR 118
Cap Anson CHIC 116
Jack Manning CIN 115
Mike Dorgan STL 114

1878- National League

Runs Produced
Cap Anson CHIC 95
Dick Higham PRO 88
Paul Hines, PRO 88
Charley Jones CIN 86
Lew Brown PRO 86
Joe Start CHIC 84
Bob Ferguson, CHIC 83
Tom York PRO 81
Orator Shaffer, IND 78
Joe Gerhardt CIN 74

Bases Produced
Orator Shaffer IND 134
Tom York, PRO 133
Paul Hines PRO 127
Joe Start, CHIC 127
Abner Dalrymple MIL 120
Charley Jones CIN 119
Cap Anson, CHIC 118
Lew Brown, PRO 117
Bob Ferguson CHIC 115
Cal McVey CIN 112

1879- National League

Runs Produced
Charley Jones, BOS 138
Paul Hines, PRO 131
Buttercup Dickerson CIN 128
John O’Rourke BOS 125
King Kelly CIN 123
George Wright, PRO 120
Cal McVey CIN 119
Tom York, PRO 118
Sadie Houck BOS 116
Jim O’Rourke PRO 114

Bases Produced
Charley Jones BOS 210
Paul Hines PRO 205
John O’Rourke BOS 179
King Kelly CIN 178
Jim O’Rourke PRO 169
John Peters CHIC 167
George Wright PRO 158
Buttercup Dickerson CIN 157
Charlie Eden CLE 156
Tom York PRO 154

Cumulative Top Tens (10 for #1, 9 for #2, etc.)

Runs Produced
Ross Barnes 49
Cal McVey 47
George Wright 41
Deacon White 38
Jim O’Rourke 32
Cap Anson 30
Paul Hines 24
Andy Leonard 17
Lip Pike 17
Al Spalding 16

Bases Produced
Ross Barnes 50
Jim O’Rourke 44
George Wright 41
Lip Pike 39
Cal McVey 33
Deacon White 28
George Hall 22
Cap Anson 21
Paul Hines 21
Charlie Jones 21

At the start the best players in the National League were the same guys who had been the best players in the National Association.

ROSS BARNES won the league’s first batting title at .429 and scored 126 runs in only 66 games. The very next year, his production nose-dived: He never hit higher than .272 again or scored more than 55 runs. This decline coincided with the rule change that eliminated the “fair-foul” bunt, in which a ball that landed in fair territory would be a live ball even if it rolled foul. That has caused Barnes’ detractors, (including Bill James), to claim that he was a fraud as he was noted for his skill at the fair-foul play. But he’d led the National Association/League in doubles three times and triples twice. Per Wikipedia:

“In 1877, he fell ill with what was then only described as an "ague" (fever), played only 22 games, and did not play well when he was in the lineup. The illness robbed Barnes of much of his strength and agility, and shortened his career. While many baseball histories originally blamed the change in rules that outlawed the "fair-foul" hit, of which Barnes was an acknowledged master, his illness has become a more widely accepted explanation for his loss of productivity.”

Despite his late-career slump, Barnes was ahead in the cumulative rankings of both run producers and base producers as the 1870’s ended and was clearly the “Player of the Decade”. In 1918 Cap Anson named his all-time team in a Sporting News article and Ross Barnes was his second basemen.

CAL MCVEY, GEORGE WRIGHT, DEACON WHITE AND JIM O’ROURKE continued their productive careers though the end of the decade. McVey moved to California after the 1879 season and did some playing and coaching out there. Wright’s career as a regular player ended with the decade. White and O’Rourke remained top players through the 1880’s.

Some other players were beginning to become prominent. And no one became more prominent than Adrian Constantine ‘CAP’ ANSON. Anson had been there at the beginning of the National Association as a 19 year old playing for Rockford. He moved on the Philadelphia and became a star player. He married a Philadelphia girl and didn’t want to move to Chicago but was eventually persuaded by Hulbert to do so. When Al Spalding retired to the front office, Anson became the White Stocking’s “Captain-Manager” and was referred to as “Captain Anson” so many times that he became “Cap Anson”. He also became what Ken Burns in his “BASEBALL” documentary called “The Greatest Player of His Century”. He was a giant among his contemporaries: He stood 6 feet tall and weighed 227 pounds. (Barnes was 5-8 ½, 145, McVey 5-9 170, Wright 5-9 150, Deacon White 5-11 175, O’Rourke 5-8 185.) Anson played for an amazing 27 years, not retiring until 1897, by which time the nickname was “Pop”, not “Cap”.

Team nicknames in that era were informal. When the Player’s League, in 1890, deprived the White Stockings of their best player’s, he had to restock them with young players, the team was called “Anson’s Colts” and that stuck until he retired. The year after he retired the team was nicknamed the “Orphans” by the press because they had lost their “Pop”. They again lost some key players when the American League was founded in 1901 and had to restock so from 1902 they were called “the Cubs”. In 1907 that was formally chosen as the team’s permanent nickname.

As a player, Anson hit .334 lifetime, (per Baseball reference.com: I’ve seen figures as high as .339) over 27 years and became the first player credited with making 3000 hits, (3465 including his National Association days). He led the league in RBIs 7 times. Strangely, he never led the league in home runs but hit as many as 21 in one season.

He had even greater fame as a manager, leading the White Stockings to five pennants. Despite his
personal size and strength, his teams were noted for their use of speed to pressure defenses, (something hard to measure in the stats with the absence of stolen bases. He also came up with innovations such as spring training and many playing techniques such as the hit and run, (also claimed by others) and the hook slide. Per Bill James, he saved the league after the expulsions of New York and Philadelphia by organizing a system of scouting players and obtaining them from ball clubs and other leagues, forcing other teams to follow suit. This created the first “major” and “minor” leagues and established the National League as the pinnacle league of the sport. Connie Mack called Anson “The Napoleon of the Diamond”.

Anson was also a virulent racist who refused to take the field if the other team had a black player. He’s often ‘credited’ with being the force behind the “gentleman’s agreement” that banned African Americans from “organized” baseball for the next six decades. Despite his prominence, it’s doubtful that he had enough influence to do that on his own. It happened because many people shared his attitude. But he likely would have taken credit for banning blacks if he could have. He was also well-known for openly gambling on baseball games, generally for betting that his team would win the pennant. But that was not illegal at the time: the great concern was accepting bribes to lose. Nonetheless, Pete Rose didn’t do anything that Cap Anson didn’t do. Anson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939 and his plaque remains on the wall. He had the body and skills to be a baseball star today. But modern baseball likely would not have put up with him.

But we might put up with one of those talents he scouted and brought to Chicago: Michael “KING” KELLY, who was the Joe Namath of 19th century baseball. He was a great player who could play all 9 positions. He batted .308 lifetime with over 500 extra base hits. But he was most famous for his base running. Formal records were not kept until his 9th season in the league but he still stole 368 bases, including 84 in one season. He was known for bending the rules, on and off the diamond. His obituary said: "His convenient way of forgetting that there is a third bag in the circuit has astonished many baseball enthusiasts.” Well, you see, there was only one umpire in those days…. When he was a player-manager he was standing in the dug-out and saw that none of his players could get to a foul ball. He loudly announced he was substituting himself for one of the players and caught the ball. He was also noted for fouling off pitch after pitch until he was thrown one he liked: foul balls were not strikes until 1901.

He made the hook slide famous and fans became famous for sho0uting “Slide, Kelly- Slide!” when he was one base because that’s what they came to the ballpark to see. Per Wikipedia, a song was written for him with that as the title and was recorded by Edison studios: it became America’s first “hit record”. Kelly became a Vaudeville performer in the off-season where he was described as “a natural comedian”. He also became noted for his rendition of “Casey at the Bat”. He was regarded as the most handsome man in the game and the sharpest dresser. He lived in fancy hotels rather than houses, all the more to accommodate his swinging lifestyle. Female fans came to the ball park in droves to see him and some of them did so after the game as well. He had a Japanese valet who, among other duties, lit a cigarette whenever the “King” seemed about finished with the previous one and then pulled the old one out of his boss’s mouth and inserted the new one.

Actually, I take back the Joe Namath comparison. There was only one King Kelly.

Other up and comers included PAUL HINES, whom Bill James calls “the best player in baseball in 1878 and 1879.” He may have performed the first unassisted triple play: "The greatest play I ever saw was made by Paul Hines . . . he caught a low fly ball behind shortstop on a full run, continuing on to third base where he put out the two men . . . from second and third bases, making the triple play unassisted." Some accounts say he threw to second for the third out. He also won the first Triple Crown the same year, although it wasn’t recognized as such. He was hit in the head by a pitch in 1886 and lost much of his hearing but still played until 1891. He was friend of William McKinley’s and got a job as a postmaster at the Department of Agriculture. As a sideline he became the finest pick-pocket in Washington. When he was finally arrested in 1922 the authorities found his home full of purses, pocketbooks and 25 pairs of glasses. (Baseball reference.com ).

Bill James lists CHARLEY JONES as the leading home run hitter of the 1870’s with 18, 9 in 1879. But that’s based on National League totals only. “A big man, built like a bull”, when he retired after 12 years, he was the major league career home run hitter with 56. He missed two years in a pay dispute. Ball clubs in those days didn’t like to carry large amounts of money on the road so they didn’t pay players for road trips until they got back. Jones, another natty dresser who was called “The Knight of the Limitless Linens”, refused to play unless he was paid. Limitless linens cost money. As a result, was blacklisted by the National League. He later resumed his career in the American Association.

James calls GEORGE HALL the “Least Admirable Superstar” of the 1870’s, “a sort of early-day Hal Chase who had developed a reputation for dishonesty in the National Association”. He was one of the stars of the Louisville Grays, who seemed to have the 1877 National League pennant all but clinched when they went into a free-fall keyed by several “bonehead” plays and finished second to Boston. When pitcher Jim Devlin was seen sorting some fancy jewelry, an investigation by the league revealed some New York City gamblers had arranged the collapse with bribes to Devlin, Hall and others. Hall was a .322 lifetime hitter with a penchant for hitting triples- when not taking money to avoid them.

BOB FERGUSON had my all-time favorite baseball nickname: “Death to Flying Things”, due to his defensive prowess. Surprisingly, he was an infielder, not an outfielder. JOHN O’ROURKE was the older, less talented but more taciturn brother of Orator Jim O’Rourke. ORATOR SHAFFER probably got his name because he talked too much but I doubt he was as entertaining as Orator Jim. Bill James tells the story of the White Stockings playing a game in Indianapolis, only to find that Shaffer and teammate Sliver Flint were wanted there due to unpaid debts. Cap Anson made a show of reading the warrant slowly and loudly while Shaffer and Flint disappeared into the crowd, (which must have been hard to do in a baseball uniform) and somehow made their way back to Chicago. Such was baseball in the 1870’s

 

[SmilinBob]

Teams wouldn't go to other cites due to the gate being too low...sounds like college football.