Steinhaeuser asked who the Bowery B’hoys were and why the Eckfords had not played them before.
“This is a new and dangerous club,” Mr. Pidgeon explained, “which was formed on Bowery Road over by Cooper Square, near Broadway. It is comprised of the criminals and derelicts that usually inhabit that part of the city and reinforced by a stock of genuine ball players that have been run out from other clubs.
“Ya see, in a match last year between the Shad Bellies and the Honey Bees in the Bronx, a gamer was murdered on the field. Five men were accused and kicked-off their teams as punishment. They were never formally indicted because in all the confusion, ya see, it was difficult to know exactly who did what to who. Now all five have resurfaced with this Bowery bunch.
“They call their club the Black Jokes,” he said with a lifted eye that suggested dangerous and anticipatory competition. “The game is at three tomorrow afternoon at Elysian Fields and it is sure to be a corker. If you don’t believe me, you can read about it here in these papers.” Indeed Mr. Pidgeon was correct, for both Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player and Wilke’s Spirit of the Times featured long and lurid articles on the Black Jokes Club and their match against the unbeaten Eckfords in Hoboken.
Steinhaeuser had left the table and was now engaged in a loud rendition of the Eckford Club Fight Song. Once he memorized the refrain, his voice could be heard above all the rest whenever this part of the song came due.
So raise your glass to Eckford
we’ve built a mighty ship
in all the base ball matches
we’ve never made a slip.
So here’s to mighty Eckford
the heroes of the sea
the greatest of the base ball clubs
in A-mer-i-ca the free
It was now almost nine o’clock and I could not tear Steinhaeuser away from his new friends and his bottles. Most of the ball players had left in preparation for the match against the Black Jokes the next day, and only the older club members were left to revel with John. I went to the bar and told him that I was going to take a long walk and then return to the hotel. By this time his starched collar had sprung on one side and his hair was fanned out all over his head. He gave me an unfocused look, smiled and said, “Have it your way, Dick. I’ll see you back at the hotel.”
As I walked the streets of New York City I was troubled by the fact that I had yet to meet or even see a single Indian of any tribe. With this thought in mind, I passed a theater house that was advertising their latest offering:
THE ORIGINAL, ABORIGINAL, ERRATIC, OPERATIC, SEMI-CIVILIZED AND DEMI-SAVAGE EXTRAVAGANZA OF POCAHONTAS.
At this moment I wondered if the new Americans had run all the Indians off this land, or if the Red Man had decided to just pick up and leave out of a sense of moral disgust.
I took a leisurely stroll home and stopped many times to examine merchandise in shop windows and exchange small talk with other pedestrians. In all, mine was a very pleasant stroll in the spring night air. As a result, I was unprepared for the spectacle awaiting me at the Empire State Hotel, but it should not have been entirely unexpected.
It seems that after being expelled from The Bat and Ball, John had invited the remainders of the Eckford Club back to the hotel for some additional drinking. When I arrived, the lobby looked as if it were in the middle of a rugby match. It was alive with employees shouting and cursing and chasing after Steinhaeuser and his friends.
John was eventually crowned with one of the hotel’s framed oil portraits of somebody, and now his face protruded out of the canvas at the place where the original mug should have been. He was racing about with his pants off and a bottle in his hand, singing a garbled refrain of the Eckford Fight Song and keeping the frame in position with one deft hand. Other members of his party were struggling with employees or else actively bothering female guests.
I managed to get him back to our room by the time the police arrived. The door was wide open, and the floor covered with empty bottles and smoldering cigars. A naked club man was unconscious in the bathtub. They had apparently started here and then moved into society when the liquor effected its final erosion of their sensibilities.
Steinhaeuser had crumbled to the floor with his head still through the middle of the painted canvas. Somehow he landed with the frame perfectly upright and it appeared as if the artist had fitted a gigantic, mussy head atop a properly attired, tiny body. Then the manager of the hotel appeared at the door with several Irish volunteers from the Mutual Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, which was located across the street. He immediately rushed for Steinhaeuser and began choking him, screaming, “Get out of here, you no good son-of-a-bitch. I’ll kill you. Get out I said.”
The Irishmen held me before I could stop the manager’s murderous assault. I begged him to let John go and we would pay all damages, leave at once, and he would never see us again. I suspect it was the scent of damage payment that broke the death grip, for it was at this moment that the manager turned to me and asked if we had two hundred dollars between us. It was an outrageous sum to ask, but I said, “Yes, yes we do.” It was everything to get us out of there and away from more trouble.
“Well then, show me the colour of your money to the tune of two hundred and fifty and you’ve ten minutes to leave with your lives.”
Steinhaeuser began coming around at this point. First, a weak moan, then mutterings of the Eckford Fight Song, then his arm appeared from the side of the portrait and attempted to give his head another drink.
“Come on, old man,” I said to this framed, sad head. “I think we have about eight minutes to pay and pack.” After delivering the ransom, we were assisted to the front door by the kindly gentlemen from the fire house and given a boot to our arse on the way out.
This is what brought us to the crusty Hotel St. George, where we took a room for the night and got some fitful sleep. At nine the next morning Steinhaeuser sat up in bed and sensed that something was amiss. “Burton, wake up! My left shoe is missing. I can’t believe it. It’s GONE!” I suggested that it may still be in the lobby of our last hotel or have slipped off when we were having our arses kicked at two o’clock this morning. He looked puzzled for a moment and the corners of his mouth turned down. He said that he may feel better if we had a drink before going to the game.
Elysian Fields held a crowd of perhaps four thousand souls who had arrived a full three hours before the match. There was a nervous air of anticipation among the men gathered around the numerous refreshment stands. Others pushed and shoved for position near odds makers who were yelling and waiving hands full of money over their heads.
“Bull Bathgate good for five bucks on the Black Jokes.” And another rejoined, “Garth Woodside better for ten on Eckford.”
Hundreds of others milled about drinking and debating behind the ropes that set the playing field from the betting and drinking areas. Dogs chased each other wildly through the crowd and fornicated openly without reproach. By game time the crowd swelled by another thousand or more and pressed against those hopeful ropes. Agitation was added to apprehension. This was followed by a huge roar as the Eckfords ran onto the field between two lines of men who had locked arms to form a passageway.
They were led by the valiant Frank Pidgeon and each had the silhouette of a steamship sewn onto the front and backs of their new, gray uniform shirts. They queued up along what’s called the “foul line” and accepted the applause of the crowd. Betting intensified as the Eckfords began their synchronized pre-game gymnastics.
Then came a thunder of boos and invectives as the Black Jokes charged through the crowd forcing it to part before them. As might be expected, they wore black jerseys and matching pants, but I am at a loss for the reason why large, yellow question marks were stitched to their uniform fronts. The Black Jokes warmed up for the game by slashing their cudgels about in violent and menacing fashion, some managing three or four in their hands at the same time. A bold Black Joke man even charged the Eckford line in m
ock combat with a bat raised above his head. Others gestured to the crowd with a motion whereby a clenched fist is abruptly jerked upward with the arm bent at the elbow. At the same time the other hand is slapped atop the upper arm as if preventing its upward movement. There can be no doubt that this is a form of sexual derogatory relating to maximum intromission and was designed to send the crowd into frenzy. A drunk from behind the rope broke loose and charged the gesturing antagonist. I was horrified to see one of the Jokes strike the man behind his knees with his cudgel and then thump him on the back for good measure when he fell to the ground. When friends from the crowd came to drag the man off, the Black Joke attacker instinctively raised his club in defense. At this point the spectators went wild at the site and more than a few bottles were thrown onto the field. The Bowery B’hoys ruffians in the crowd in turn attacked the bottle throwers.
An Irish donnybrook was avoided when the crowd’s attention was diverted by a man sitting on scaffolding who introduced the ball players by screaming their names into a paper megaphone. The crowd turned ugly again after the last Eckford player responded to his name and the Black Joke introductions began.
The general booing and jeering reached a crescendo when Mr. Nicey Horsie Vanderpole advanced and acknowledged the crowd with a raised middle finger, and there was almost a riot when Turnipseed Carrigan dropped his trousers at the announcement of his name. Bitchey Bob Turner and Jake Sampoon were hit with flying objects, including a dead cat.
In an attempt to restore order an umpire named Honest Jack O’Malley called for the captains of the opposing teams to meet at the strikers circle. There was a heated discussion, presumably over the ground rules, which ended with the Black Joke Captain simultaneously spitting and delivering a Neapolitan chin flick at Honest Jack and Frank Pidgeon.
While I am constantly being reminded that this game is not rounders, I say the two look very similar to me and I was able to follow the theme and action quite well. The first five innings were relatively tame by American standards. So far, all the actual fighting had taken place among the spectators. Nevertheless, every man there could sense that tensions were rising on the field and that the slightest incident could spark an eruption of volcanic proportions.
This came to pass in the latter portion of the seventh inning with the score tied at nineteen apiece. It began when an Eckford player was running between the first and second base in an attempt to “steal” the latter. Unaccountably, the Black Joke pitcher whirled and threw the ball at the base runner, hitting that man squarely in the head and knocking him into a state of unconsciousness. To make matters worse, he ran up to the motionless body, and shouted, “Yeer out!”
Honest Jack the umpire was mobbed by the Eckford team, who demanded he eject the pitcher from the game. Honest Jack was dishonest and claimed he didn’t see it. He was obviously terrified that any disciplinary action would result in retribution at the hands of the Bowery B’hoys. Henry Eckford himself was one of those who helped lift the unconscious player from the field. He exchanged some unkind words with the Jokes’ third baseman Burly Bob Sands who promptly picked up some dirt and threw it in Mr. Eckford’s face.
During the Black Jokes’ batting turn in the first portion of the eighth inning, Frank Pidgeon left his position at the first base and walked over to the feeder’s circle. There the two were joined by the team catcher who had come out from behind the striker. After the conference had dispersed, the Eckford feeder proceeded to underhand perhaps twenty-five off-the-mark pitches in a row in an attempt to get the Joke’s striker to swing at a bad ball. But Jake Sampoon would have none of it. After ten offerings, he called out to the feeder saying he was “yellow” and that his mother had conceived him with a chicken (although not in those exact terms). Then he acted bored and finally assumed a relaxed attitude at the home plate by leaning on his club, lazily watching the wide and high offerings pass by. As he was in this position, the Eckford feeder reared back and let go a beamer18 that struck Sampoon right between the eyes. The crowd fell silent as the cudgel dropped from Sampoon’s hand. His eyes crossed and he wobbled a bit before falling flat on his face, with his now unconscious mouth full of dirt.
Then began a spectacle of vast disorder. Honest Jack O’Malley bolted for safety as members of the crowd crossed the ropes and ran onto the field. The horse pulling the wagon carrying the hogsheads of beer stampeded and made slashing turns and abrupt stops to avoid groups of fighting men. Bowrey B’hoys clashed with Eckford Club members. Frank Pidgeon engaged in a bat duel with Bitchy Bob Turner. And Nicey Horsie Vanderpole was rolling on the ground with Mr. Henry Eckford’s wife. Baby Palta was seen urinating on the stone-still body of Jake Sampoon. When the beer cart finally overturned, both hogsheads burst open and the remainder of the rhubarb was conducted in a sea of foamy mud. The horse galloped off dragging broken pieces of the cart behind him and ran over several Black Jokes on his way out of the Elysian Fields.
But the real trouble as far as I was concerned was John Steinhaeuser. He had been drinking since before the game and had become a loud and active supporter of the Eckfords. By the fourth inning he had to be separated from an engagement with one of the Bowery B’hoys over a close play, and he disappeared from my side as soon as the fighting erupted. I caught a brief glimpse of him in the middle of the melee, fists clenched and face covered with mud, his eyes flashing back and forth in alcoholic alarm. He was delivered here at the St. George a few hours ago, eye blackened and sporting a vicious human bite mark on his cheek. He was out cold and I am yet unsure if he had been beaten into this state or had just been overpowered by the alcohol. When he wakes up we are off to Washington City.
NEWSPAPER CLIPPING FROM THE NEW YORK BUGLE19
May 10, 1860
GAMER KILLED IN TOWN BALL RIOT
Hoboken – A New York City baseball match ended in tragedy yesterday with the death of Mr. Percy Sampoon, a 31-year-old, unemployed resident of Manhattan. He succumbed to head injuries and was pronounced dead at Belleview General Hospital early yesterday morning.
Dozens of other people were injured in a general scuffle that broke out after a recreational game between two ball squads. Among those admitted for care were Mrs. Julia Chase Eckford, wife of shipbuilding king Henry Eckford, and Miss Tessy Fenyatz, whose name appeared in these pages just one week ago in a story about using public restrooms for purposes of prostitution.
Dr. Muncie Chillsperth declined to be specific about the nature of their injuries other than to confirm that Mrs. Eckford suffered a broken nose and that both ladies had other feminine-specific contusions. Twenty-three members of the New York City Police Department were also among those hospitalized.
It appears that Mr. Sampoon was accidentally struck between the eyes on a routine play during the game and that efforts to revive him by concerned spectators were unsuccessful. The cause of the riot remains unclear but eyewitness accounts seem to agree that the game itself was a peaceful affair and the attending crowd very orderly and well mannered. There was no evidence of any alcohol use or gambling.
It is strongly suspected that a handful of outside agitators were responsible for most of the trouble. One man, identified as John Steinwasher, and claiming to be a visiting physician from Arabia, was singled out as one of those.
RICHARD BURTON’S LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION20
Favored Sir:
Will you kindly extend every courtesy to Capt. R.F. Burton of the Bombay Army. He is a guest in this country and a personal friend of the undersigned. To my friends in the Great South to whom Capt. Burton may become acquainted and likewise may request assistance, I make a special plea. Capt. Burton is no Yankee, but an overseas Gentleman of great dash and valor. His safe passage is uppermost in my mind and I pray that God will see that you are empowered to render aid whenever possible.
Col. Pierre G. T. Beauregard
Superintendent
U.S. Military Academy
To Whom It May Concern:
Captain Richard Burton, a sub
ject of her Royal Majesty, Queen of England, is favoring the United States and its Territories with a visit in order to pursue his travel writings. It is the desire of the United States of America that Captain Burton be allowed to avail himself of any and all offices under the lawful jurisdiction of the President, be it in the Northern or Southern portions of this great and sovereign land. By this letter, we wish also to inform our Indian brothers that the Great Father is well disposed towards Captain Burton and will, if necessary, provide much wampum for his safe passage.
Honorable John B. Floy
18 In this case an overhand fastball. —Ed.
19 Collected by Burton and inserted between the pages of his journal. —Ed.
20 One may wish to note the contrasting regional and political allusions in the different notes. —Ed.
VI
BY RAIL TO THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
May 12, 1860
Cincinnati City
Through Washington City in a blaze, and now a rush by hard rail West nearing Cincinnati. Here in Porkopolis, a delay affords the weary traveler time for a brief journal entry before swinging north to Chicago. I am still with Steinhaeuser but an ultimatum had to be delivered. A week of sobriety before another drop, and an end to his heart stopping misadventures or he will be sent to Coventry. His human bite wound has become infected and the left side of his face is badly distorted. One eye has closed and his upper lip is three times its normal size. Our driven schedule does not allow the rest needed for a proper recovery. He has been eating opium continually for several days and nights and consequently has rarely uttered a single word. He sits in his seat and stares straight ahead, his good eye glazed and watery with lid half closed. The route from the capital to here is all coal and zinc mines with lumber mills and tobacco plantations supporting smaller interests. I cannot speak for what lies beyond the rail lines for it is to these tracks that we are bound. One must express frustration at the lack of opportunity to meet with anyone save fellow travelers; and, I’m afraid, a great portion of these are convention-bound folks and therefore most conversations are centered around political matters. While their considerations are mostly baw, one does get an earful of current opinions, and our friend Palmerston will have all he cares to read once we are able to sit still and I can write.
Ruffian Dick Page 7
