The Summer of Beer and Whiskey

by Edward Achorn

  The parade itself featured a vast array of marching bands, soldiers, ballplayers, and men carrying illuminated “transparencies” with slogans on them. Carriages and wagons glowed with lights and colored fire. Crowds saw, in succession, baton-wielding policemen, bands, marching boys, and carriages bearing the Athletics, the New York Metropolitans, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the amateur August Flower and Anthracite clubs. Umpires Kelly and Daniels were part of the parade, as were Billy Barnie and his fellow Baltimore owners. Behind them were local amateur teams, including one all-black club, social organizations, and scores of Philadelphians who simply wanted to march.

  Our Jumping Jack (detail),

  Harper’s Weekly, October 13, 1883 (Library of Congress)

  Marchers carried jumping jacks of all shapes, and a life-sized dummy of Browns owner Chris Von der Ahe on a stretcher. One transparency read, “Der ish von thing mine poys did lack, und dot ish dis, von Shumping Shack!” It was signed, “Von der Ahe.” Another read, “’Twas Bradley’s smile and Knight’s clear eye / Which made der Bresident moan and sigh.” And there was this: “Matthew’s [sic] brains, O’Brien’s style, Jones’ jump and Bradley’s smile, did it.” Others were pithier: “Rah for Yale”; “Stovey sixteen home runs”; “Jumping Jack”; “A Cold Day for St. Louis”; “A Cold Knight for St. Louis.” One sign parodied a classified ad: “For Sale, the Complete Outfit of a Base Ball Club, Address St. Louis.” Street hawkers, meanwhile, did a brisk business selling portraits of the Athletics players.

  The parade took a full hour and ten minutes to pass the reviewing stand. As the Philadelphia Record described the scene:

  Dignified-looking citizens, arrayed in broadcloth and stovepipe hats, drove by in open carriages and respectfully touched their hats; bands of masqueraders in the guise of Indians, Dutchmen, clowns, acrobats, Chinamen and dudes, capered along, performing a series of astonishing dances as they went past. . . . There were bands of music, fife and drum corps, dozens of base ball clubs composed of men, and scores of base ball clubs composed of boys, some in carriages and some on foot; social clubs, yacht clubs and various other sorts of clubs; squads of mounted men in citizen’s clothes; humorous characters bestriding donkeys and mules; temperance cadets, companies of pioneers, advertising wagons and a general conglomeration of miscellaneous attractions too numerous to mention.

  Along with hundreds of horses, one mule had the privilege of marching—an “antique gray” that, in the off-season, had pulled the milk wagon of Athletics second baseman Cub Stricker. In the carriages up ahead, Stricker “was one continuous smile.” Joyful noises filled the streets: “The uproar was tremendous with the blare of brass bands, the shrill piping of the fifes, the rattling of the drums and the howls of delight emitted by the numberless small boys, who, as usual on such occasions, were here, there and everywhere.” One band of revelers, passing Mayor Samuel G. King’s reviewing stand, let loose “terrific blasts upon a score or more of tin horns, an instrument that has long since received his severest official condemnation.”

  Fans looked on with adoration and envy. “There was many a man and boy last night who would rather have been one of the returning champions than a great general or successful politician,” the Press noted. Jones and Hubbard, mere college boys,

  have made their names more widely known than are those of two-thirds of the country’s professors, authors, statesmen or lawyers. Perhaps it may have occurred to these two as they rode through the thronged streets, while boys and men hung to their carriages and shouted themselves hoarse, that the honors, if real, were fleeting; that perhaps no such scene would ever arise from such a cause again; that if it should others would be the heroes of the hour, while their own triumphs would be as deeds writ in water, and that any reputation, to be enduring, must be based not upon contests which have no substantial results, but on those which promote the welfare of man’s fellows.

  Out in the crowd, pickpockets had a fine night. At district police stations, people complained of lost watches and other valuables. A man fell from a tree at the corner of Broad and Market streets and broke a wrist. A forty-five-year-old woman suffered a crushed foot when a horse lurched out of control at Broad and Lombard streets. As the parade approached on Sixth Street, dozens of people rushed forward, pushing out the supports of a large scaffold, and bringing it down “with a large crash.” Remarkably, it struck no one. At the corner of Broad and Chestnut streets, a pregnant black woman was watching the parade when a young white man named Charles Emerson shoved her. “She requested him not to push so roughly, whereupon he braced himself against an iron railing and kicked the woman in the face, seriously injuring her,” the Press reported. (The Inquirer claimed that he “accidentally” kicked her in the abdomen.) In any case, two police detectives swooped down and arrested the man. At Broad and Bainbridge streets, five-year-old Emma Moore was watching the passing parade when a large wagon knocked her down and ran over her, killing her instantly. Such were the vagaries of nineteenth-century life.

  The Athletics were blithely unaware of all this, savoring their hour of glory. Near the Central Station, Mayor King stood on a platform, hat in hand, flamboyantly bowing to the passing champions. “They rose in their carriage and saluted him heartily,” the Press reported. As the night grew late, the Athletics’ carriages suddenly departed from the parade, bolted down a side street for Seventh Street, and delivered them to Mercantile Hall for the grand banquet, scheduled to start at 11 P.M. As the players entered the hall, where tables had been laid for 160 diners, a band struck up “Home Again.” On the main table was a centerpiece of two floral baseball bats standing crosswise over a ball of red and white flowers, a gift from Bill Sharsig’s wife. Even the eight-course banquet’s bill of fare was designed with baseball in mind:

  Oysters on the Shell.

  “Take them on the Fly”

  . . .

  Spring Chicken. Asparagus.

  “Out on a Foul.”

  . . .

  Devilled Crabs. Escalloped Oysters.

  “Doubled Up.”

  . . .

  Chicken Croquettes. Chicken Salad.

  “A Juggled Foul.”

  . . .

  Fried Oysters. Lobster Salad.

  “Hot Liners.”

  . . .

  RELISHES. Celery. Olives. Pickles.

  “The former we get twice a month.”

  . . .

  Dessert. Fruits. Mixed Cakes. Ice Cream. Water Ices.

  “Freeze to your Base.”

  . . .

  Coffee. Tea.

  “Home Run.”

  The keynote speaker, Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald, an orator, publisher, philanthropist, and founder of the first Athletics club, seemed to share his audience’s awe over the extraordinary scenes they had just witnessed. “Nothing in the history of ancient Greece or Rome will compare with the reception given to the champions tonight. It is certain that 750,000 men, women and children witnessed the procession,” the colonel declared. “This triumph is wonderful when we consider that every man here [in America] is a sovereign and every woman a queen.” Lew Simmons beamed. The anxiety of Louisville was over, and baseball had obviously reestablished itself in the hearts of Americans, never to fade again as dangerously as it had before the American Association came along.

  Then it was time for awards. Each player received a gold badge bearing his name and the inscription, “Athletic Base Ball Champions of 1884” (denoting their reign until the end of the next season). “Not the least pleasant feature of the occasion,” the Press observed, was co-owner Charlie Mason’s formal presentation of a gold watch and chain to Harry Stovey, whose extraordinary grace and drive had sustained the club during its crucial final six weeks. Although the organizers had banned “liquors of any kind” that night, nobody seemed to mind too much, as the crowd enjoyed its feast to the strains of delightful music played by McCann’s Great Western Band. At 1:30 A.M., when the party finally broke up, everyone went out into the gas-lit night “de
lighted with everything.” Certainly, the club was delighted with its profit margin for the season: a whopping $78,320, based on a detailed balance sheet published in the Press. Lew Simmons, who earlier in the year had purchased a fruit farm near Vineland, New Jersey, now bought himself “a cozy family homestead, a fine house handsomely fitted up.”

  One great challenge for the Athletics remained: proving themselves against the National League champions, the Boston Red Stockings, in what was supposed to be baseball’s first World Series.

  CHRIS VON DER AHE CELEBRATED HIS BROWNS’ WILDLY PROFITABLE season in typically spectacular fashion, by funding a massive entry in St. Louis’s annual Trade Parade on October 5. Drawn by six large horses that were “led by colored grooms who were in full uniform,” the Missouri Republican said, his float was a stunning showpiece depicting Sportsman’s Park in miniature. It included “a substantial representation of the grand stand and scorer stand with a large crowd of spectators inside.” Standing on a scaled-down diamond at their own positions were the real Browns. They were “readily recognized by the crowd who sent up cheer after cheer as the familiar faces passed by.” At some point, they turned over their places to boys dressed in miniature Browns and Athletics uniforms, who actually played with a ball, “a wire screen having been provided on either side of the float to keep the ball from escaping,” the Globe-Democrat reported. As the float passed the corner of Fifth and Market streets, a bat rolled off onto the street. Before anyone could grab it, Arlie Latham “nimbly jumped down in the mud,” the Republican said, “and rescued it again. His action was much cheered.”

  As disappointing as the Browns’ finish was, Von der Ahe was never one to stew for long. After all, he had much to be proud of. The season had been a phenomenal financial success. While the Globe-Democrat estimated a profit of $50,000, Von der Ahe bragged he had cleared $70,000. And he had gathered many of the pieces for a great team for years to come. The immigrant grocer, in short, had worked wonders in this foreign land with the game Americans called their national pastime. In time, many St. Louis fans would come to forget him and what he did, but they would never stop loving, with a remarkable passion that burns on to this day, the game he had helped to save.

  And before the season was over, Chris was already making big plans for 1884.

  EPILOGUE:

  WHEN THEY SLIDE HOME

  THE PHILADELPHIA ATHLETICS, FINDING THEY WERE TOO severely injured to compete effectively in October, canceled what would have been baseball’s first World Series against the Boston Red Stockings. Even so, the baseball annuals published the following spring celebrated the magnificence of the 1883 season. It was “the most glorious and satisfactory ever known in the history of the game,” Wright & Ditson’s Base Ball Guide mused. “Never was the glorious uncertainty of the game so well displayed! Never was the rivalry between cities more intense and the excitement more infectious! Never was the result of games both in the home and other cities more closely watched for! The press was as wild as the public, and almost more space was devoted to the exploits of the favorite team in a day than had hitherto been given in a week.” The season’s attendance figures were unprecedented. The Philadelphia Athletics alone drew some 300,000 people. “The class of patron was of the highest character, well showing that the public had regained their confidence in the game”—the violence aimed at umpire Ormond Butler by Philadelphia goons notwithstanding.

  The future of baseball, foreboding only a few years earlier, now looked dazzlingly brilliant. “The month of May will see more professional clubs taking the field than was ever known since the game began to be played, more than thirty years ago,” noted Reach’s Official American Association Base Ball Guide. On opening day 1884, there were three major leagues competing for baseball lovers’ patronage—the new Union Association, destined to last only a year, had been founded by entrepreneurs who had been frozen out of the National League and the American Association. In addition, there were at least eighty professional baseball clubs hailing from more than seventy cities, and they employed more than one thousand players whose aggregate salaries would top an unimaginable $1 million.

  Professional baseball never again teetered on the brink quite as it had in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The stability won in 1883 dramatically and permanently strengthened the game. People trusted it again, and Americans resumed weaving baseball inextricably into the nation’s culture. There were some stumbles, of course. An economic depression temporarily blunted interest in the game during the following decade, and the Beer and Whiskey League was fatally wounded in 1890, when the Players League, a third major league, founded by rebellious players in 1890, and lasting only one season, deprived the Association of many of its players and much of its prestige. As a result, in 1892, the Association’s strongest franchises merged with the National League. Four Association franchises survive to this day: the Dodgers (who would leave Brooklyn for Los Angeles), the Cincinnati Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates (having dropped the Alleghenys nickname), and the St. Louis Cardinals (who shed the Browns moniker).

  Even though the American Association had come to an end, its unique approach, delightfully combining beer and Sunday baseball, came to be adopted by the leagues that took its place. By 1918, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington had Sunday baseball. The following year, New York permitted it. In 1929, Boston allowed Sunday ball; in 1932, Baltimore. Finally, Philadelphia—the toughest nut to crack—surrendered in 1934, thanks to the hard lobbying of Connie Mack, owner of the Philadelphia Athletics.

  THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION’S ATHLETICS NEVER RECAPTURED THE glory of 1883. Amid reports of heavy drinking, the club staggered to seventh place in 1884, and it never again rose above third place in the Association’s final standings.

  In 1901, the Philadelphia franchise of the new American League adopted the Athletics nickname and had better luck with it—for a time—winning six pennants in thirteen years under manager and part-owner Connie Mack, who had been a major-league catcher in the 1880s. In 1955, the Athletics moved to Kansas City. They relocated to Oakland in 1968, where they remain.

  Harry Stovey, who in 1883 became the first major-league player to hit more than ten home runs in a single season, later became the first to hit one hundred in a career. Two times he held baseball’s career record for home runs, yielding the crown to Roger Connor, who was finally bested by Babe Ruth. For decades, Stovey was considered among the greatest base stealers of all time. He owns another distinction suitable for trivia contests: in a way, he is why the Pittsburgh franchise uses the name Pirates to this day. The press began using that name for the team after Pittsburgh tried to make off with Stovey and second baseman Lou Bierbauer in an 1891 raid on the Athletics. Stovey retired after the 1893 season, returned to New Bedford, resumed use of the name he was born with, Harry D. Stow, and landed a job on the city’s police force. While patrolling his beat along the city’s grimy waterfront one day in 1901, Stow spotted a seven-year-old boy who had fallen in between two piers and was struggling in the water. He dove in to save his life. Soon he was promoted to sergeant for bravery, and later he became a captain. He died in 1937 at the age of eighty—to the last a loyal fan of the Philadelphia Athletics.

  Bobby Mathews, the tough little pitcher who led the Athletics to their only American Association pennant, won thirty games in 1884 and another thirty in 1885. Then he lost his edge. At the time of his retirement in 1887, he had won more games than any other pitcher in major-league history—298, counting his National Association years. That is still the most wins ever recorded by any pitcher who has been left out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yet for all his magnificent achievements, he left baseball a poor man. After struggling in odd jobs—he worked at Joe Start’s road house near Providence for a time—he began to show signs of mental illness, the result of paresis from syphilis, the same illness that finished off his onetime Providence Grays teammate Old Hoss Radbourn in 1897. Eventually, the great pitcher wound up in a mental hospital, where he died in April 1898
at the age of forty-six.

  Jumping Jack Jones, the improbable savior of the 1883 Athletics, never played another game in the major leagues. Within months, he was performing around the country as second tenor with the Yale College Glee Club. The group was bound from St. Louis to Louisville in early 1884 when their train derailed, killing and maiming some aboard. “Jones, who was uninjured, received much praise for the efforts he made in behalf of two of his unfortunate colleagues,” the New York Clipper reported. The lucky survivor went on to graduate from Yale Medical School. He studied dentistry at Harvard, then went into practice with his mother. In 1884, he briefly played ball for the Meriden club in Connecticut, where he pitched to a rising catcher named Connie Mack, later owner of the Athletics. “A friendship began that never ended,” the New York Times recounted. “The Athletics have always been Dr. Jones’s patron team. He sat on their bench with Connie Mack whenever he visited in Philadelphia, or any city where they were playing, and he and Mack visited each other repeatedly. Mack valued highly his judgment on the pitchers the Athletics developed.” The man known as Jumping Jack died at the Masonic Home in Wallingford, Connecticut, in 1936 at the age of seventy-five, two days before the death of Athletics co-owner Charlie Mason.

  The other members of that championship club quickly went their separate ways. Jud Birchall died of heart disease in 1887 at the age of thirty-two, one measure of the hard lives and bad diets of men at the time. Catcher Ed Rowen died at thirty-four after suffering hemorrhaging of the lungs. Mike Moynahan was dead before the turn of the century at age forty-six. Catcher John O’Brien became a Philadelphia teamster and, by 1910, was suffering terrible pain from Bright’s disease, a kidney ailment. Destitute and all but forgotten, he relied on the charity of the Elks Club to make his final days comfortable. A huge fan of Mack’s Athletics, O’Brien devoured every word about them in the newspapers his caretakers brought him on his deathbed. “Frequently he expressed the wish that he could go to the city hall and talk over old times with Lon Knight,” the Washington Herald reported. “When one pauses to consider the pathetic end of the former star, almost alone and forgotten by the masses who lionized him less than thirty years ago, what a lesson his death should be. . . . Baseball goes on, but the men who made the game are forgotten in the desire to do homage to the new kings of the diamond.”