Baseball in Old Chicago, page 2 of 3: BaseballChronology

This month's BaseballChronology Book of the Month is on the history of baseball in Chicago in the 19th Century. You are on page 2 of 3 of Baseball in Old Chicago. Click here to go back to the first page.

Anson, Chicago's Baseball Immortal
Adrian Constantine Anson, familiarly known as "Pop" to players and fans alike, was the baseball hero of Chicago from 1876, when he joined the champion White Stockings, until 1897. No other man, with the exceptions of John McGraw and Connie Mack had so long and notable a career as player and manager. His managerial record is not quite so impressive as McGraw's or Mack's, but he was certainly the greatest of his day, and topped baseball's hall of fame in the first poll of old-timers.

There is no question that Anson was one of the greatest playing stars of all time, and can rightly be called the most brilliant first-baseman of the old era. He was not only a fine mechanical player, but a heady one, and devised many tricks of infield play that are still in use.

Perhaps what hurt his record as a manager in the last eleven years with the White Stockings was his persistence in playing long after most men would have retired to the bench. He played up to the very end, and only at the last did he ease up by alternating with another player at first base. It is true that he did not have good material in all of those later years, but he might have done more in the development of his colts, as he called them, if he had stood on the side-lines to study their weaknesses. However, it was Anson's theory that a manager should be on the field, taking an active part in directing the play.

Anson Dons False Whiskers
In the early 1890's when Anson repeatedly drew the fire of Chicago sports writers for continuing to play, the constant reiteration of the term "old man" got under his skin, and he decided to get back at his critics through ridicule.

One day while the team was dressing, Anson opened a bundle containing a white wig and a false set of long white whiskers.

Fred Pfeffer, himself a veteran of long standing, gasped, "For God's sake, what's that for?"

Anson Renowned for Hitting
Pop Anson led National League batters four times: in 1879, with an average of .407; in 1881, with .399; in 1887, with .421; in 1888, with .343. He was second or third several other years, and only twice in his twenty-two seasons in the National League did he finish with a percentage below .300. Dan Brouthers, who led the National League four times and the old American Association once, was the only hitter before 1900 to challenge his record.

Strictly speaking, Anson was not a slugger. He did not try to kill the ball or knock it out of the lot every time he swung. Instead he was the Willie Keeler type, although years were to elapse after Anson's heyday before Keeler came along with his famous principle of "hitting 'em where they ain't."

Another Prairie Product
Anson was born in 1852, in Marshalltown, a community in central Iowa founded by his father. His first baseball experience was with the Marshalltown team, a nine which his father helped to organize and on which the elder Anson played, advanced years then being considered no great handicap to a ball player. Young Anson was not a regular member of the team until 1870, when he starred in a game played with the Rockford Forest Citys at Marshalltown.

In this game Anson's father and his brother, Sturgis Anson also played. Although they gave the Forest Citys a good a run for their money, they lost by a score of 18 to 3, which was considered quite an accomplishment against one of the strongest teams in the country. Anson's playing was so impressive that it won him a place on the Rockford team for the following year. According to his own statement, the salary was $66 a month. A second game was arranged for the following day, as the Forest Citys were chagrined by this showing against a team of green amateurs. Also they wanted to recoup, as there had been some heavy betting that they would defeat Marshalltown by a much wider margin. The second game ended more satisfactorily for the Forest Citys, as they took the long end of a 35 to 5 score.

Dead Ball Versus Live Ball
Most fans of today who discuss the respective merits of American League and National League baseballs imagine that the live ball-dead ball controversy is something new. It may surprise them to know that in 1870 the fans were already arguing just as learnedly on the same subject, whether hitting ought to be helped by using a lively ball, or the pitchers and fielders aided by a deader one.

In fact, in one Marshalltown-Forest City game Anson's father, who was disgusted by the outcome of the second game, alleged that the latter team pulled a fast one in the matter of the ball. They agreed to furnish it (only one was provided in those days), and the elder Anson accused them of taking a lively "Bounding Rock" ball, skinning it, and then sewing it up again in the cover of a "Ryan" dead ball.

Anson served but one year in Rockford (1871) for the Rockford club backers decided that they could no longer stand the strain of increasing salaries. Accordingly, the team was disbanded, as a free agent was signed by the Philadelphia Athletics.

He played four years at Philadelphia, with constantly growing fame as a top-notch fielder and dangerous hitter, but his development as a star was retarded by his being shifted from one position to another. From 1871 through 1878, he served variously at third base, shortstop, right field, and left field. It was not until 1879, when he became manager of the Chicago club, that he began to play the position at which he grew most famous, first base.

In the years following, down to the end of his career in 1897, Anson's team did not particularly distinguish itself. It was second in 1887 and 1888; third in 1889; second in 1890; second in 1891; but from then on the best they could do was fourth place in 1895. However, in the twelve years from 1880 through 1891, the Chicago club never finished lower than fourth, was on the top five times, and second five times, a record that indelibly places Anson among the great managers in baseball.

End of Anson's Career
It would be pleasant to record that Anson stepped aside at the height of his fame, with the plaudits of the fans still ringing in his ears. Unfortunately that was not the way it was. The disastrous seasons of 1892 through 1897 were evidence, in the opinion of many, that he had seen his best days as a manager, although his batting average was still above .300 and his fielding nearly as good as ever. But Anson refused to quit.

The darkest shadow of his last years was his difficulty with Spalding. It was really too bad that these two men, who had served Chicago baseball so many years, could not have ended their association in a pleasanter fashion.

Anson charges that Spalding sought to undermine his influence with the players, and that the enmity of James A. Hart, who succeeded Spalding as president of the club, had much to do with his ousting at the close of the 1897 season. It may be that Spalding, believing Anson's usefulness at an end, sought to ease the pain of his retirement by trying to induce him to resign. If so, Anson refused. He was a stockholder in the club, and could not bear to give up all active association with the team. In a move to get control, he received from Spalding a curious document which purported to he an option to buy the club for $150,000. Anson felt that this option was not made in good faith, but even if it had been, he could not have raised the money to take it up. The end came with his abrupt dismissal from the managership early in 1898.

Anson's Later Career
Pop Anson's fame will always be the touchstone by which the success of Chicago baseball managers is judged. During his twenty-two years' service, baseball in Chicago was Pop Anson, and Pop Anson was Chicago baseball. No Chicago manager since his time has finished the season at the top or nearly there so many times. He was temperate in his habits in a day when drinking, hard-living ball players were the rule rather than the exception. Honest beyond all reproach, he was scrupulously fair, and no ball player was ever known to complain of the way he was handled by Anson. His contribution to the national game at a time when it was trying to shed the disgrace of its early years is a monument to decent and honest sportsmanship.

After leaving baseball, Anson operated a billiard hall in Chicago. Although he took a lively interest in baseball, he was never again actively connected with it. He died April 14, 1922, and the following year the National League erected a monument to him in Oakwood cemetery, Chicago.

Three Lean Years
With virtually the same club that won the pennant in 1876, the White Stockings failed to repeat in 1877. The championship went to Boston. Louisville looked like a sure winner until the close of the season, when the Kentuckians lost enough games to the Beaneaters to make the latter the winners. As a result of charges that these games were thrown, four Louisville players were expelled from organized baseball.

The 1878 season saw many changes in the Chicago club, with Anson the only star left from the 1876 team. Spalding had resigned to devote his time to business, and Robert Ferguson, the new manager, could not drive his second-rate players higher than fourth place in a six-club race. In 1879, Anson became manager, and the team, although strengthened by stars obtained from the defunct Indianapolis and Milwaukee clubs, again missed the flag.

Perhaps the White Stockings of these years had not learned to choose their drinks well. An advertisement in the Evening Journal of April 30, 1877, says "The Chicago Base Ball Club delight in drinking mead at Gunther's." The dictionary defines mead as a fermented drink made of honey, but it should be explained that the beverage referred to was moxie mead, a soft drink of the time.

Pennant Flies Again in Chicago
The sun shone again for Chicago fans in 1880, when a strong team, ably piloted by Anson, took the National League flag for the second time.

Larry Corcoran and Fred Goldsmith, pitchers, and Mike Kelly and Frank Flint, catchers, eliminated the battery weaknesses of the lean years; while Ed Williamson, Tommy Burns, Abner Dalrymple, and George Gore added their strength at the bat and in the field to make up a winning combination.

Practically unchanged in its line-up, the same crew repeated in 1881 and 1882, thus becoming the first National League club to win the pennant three times in a row.
Anson credits the winning of three straight championships to the superb teamwork of the White Stockings in those years. Perhaps as much praise is due Anson's field generalship, then at the height of its power.

Fourteen Innings to Victory
In the longest game played on the Chicago grounds up to that time, the White Stockings scored a memorable triumph over the Troy club on July 4, 1882. The contest went fourteen innings, with Chicago on the long end of a 9 to 5 score.

The locals made one run in the first inning and one in the second. Troy tied the score in their half of the second (they were batting last, as was generally the custom for visiting teams then). The White Stockings scored again in the sixth, and Troy tied it up in the eighth. Both teams went scoreless until the eleventh. In that inning Dalrymple of Chicago started off with a single. He was followed by Gore, who drove a three-base hit into the crowd behind center field, scoring Dalrymple. Troy's center fielder, Conner, retrieved the ball, but held it too long, allowing Gore to come home on the error.

At this point, many Chicago fans, satisfied that these two runs would win, started to leave the park, but the police, refusing to underrate the Troy club, managed to keep most of them in their places.

The judgment of the police was vindicated. In the second half of the inning, Keefe and Harbige of the Troys both hit two-baggers, Keefe scoring. Harbige came home from second on a long fly tying the score.

For two more innings Troy staved off the White Stockings' attack. The big fourteenth inning was thus described by a reporter for the Chicago Times:

While in the fans' opinion some pitchers, past and present, could do about as well without any arms, the performance of a one-armed man on the mound would scarcely be expected to be of stellar rank.

Yet on at least one occasion a pitcher with only one arm humbled the proud White Stockings. He was "One-Arm" Dailey, who hurled for the Buffalo club in the early 1880's, and, in spite of his disability, he pitched and fielded as well as most slabmen of his time.

One-Armed Flinger Drubs Chicago
Charles Ebert, known as Dot Ebert in his own days as semiprofessional and professional ball player, and now an employee of the Cook County Court in Chicago, witnessed Dailey's triumph from a tree growing just outside the ball park. A small boy at the time, Ebert managed to elude the police, who were trying to discourage Chicago youths from seeing games without paying, and clung Tarzanlike to his perch throughout the contest.

Ebert attests to Dailey's fine form on that July day of 1882. He allowed only five hits and four runs. Even more remarkable, he hit a two bagger in the ninth, and scored the winning run. The final score was Buffalo, 5; Chicago, 4.

Rookies Were Ribbed in Old Days
A story is told about one of Anson's colts, a young pitcher named Sullivan, who had broken into the league with the Washington team. In his first trip
with the Senators, Sullivan was the victim of a ribbing by Hank O'Day, the veteran umpire who was then a player.

Sullivan had been assigned a lower berth. Being unused to Pullman travel, he was puzzled by the little hammock near the window and asked what it was for. With a perfectly serious face, O'Day replied: "That is a pitcher's berth; the man who is going to pitch the following day always gets that berth. The Pullman company provides that hammock for the pitcher to rest his arm in." Then, after showing Sullivan how to use it, he left the rookie with his arm swung high above his head.

The next morning Sullivan's arm and shoulder were so stiff and lame that he was unable to pitch, and since then the gag has often been repeated with other rookie pitchers as the victims.

1882 White Stockings

[Left to right, top row: Ned Williamson 3b.; King Kelly, rf.; Silver Flint, c.; Fred Goldsmith, p.; center row: Joe Quest, ss.; Tom Burns, 2b.; Cap Anson, Capt. and 1b.; Abner Dalrymple, lf.; George Gore, cf.; bottom row: Hugh Nicol, rf.; Larry Corcoran, p.]
In 1882 the National League attempted to add color to the game by prescribing that each player was to be outfitted with a shirt and cap of a certain color to indicate the position he played. The colors were: catcher, scarlet; pitcher, light blue; first base, scarlet and white; second base, orange and black; third base, gray and white; shortstop, maroon; right field, gray; center field, red and black; left field, white; substitutes, green or brown. The idea met with no favor, and was discarded after a year's trial.

Fans Go Wild over Team
No longer indifferent to the fortunes of Chicago ball players, the newspapers in 1880 joined the fresh upsurge of local pride. Here is what the Chicago Times of the day had to say of that year's final game:

Chicago won, 10 to 8. At the end of the story is an announcement that in the next game, an exhibition contest, the team would experiment with an invention of Harry Wright, a square bat.

Two More Years of Failure
It is hard to get on top, and harder still to stay. Although Anson's team was but little changed it finished second in 1883 and fourth in 1884.

The players' list retained the best of the outfit that was three times winner, with some notable additions. John Clarkson, a brilliant pitcher, joined the club in 1884, and the previous year the White Stockings had acquired a young outfielder who was to win fame on the diamond, and much more fame off it. His name was William A. Sunday. Discovered by Anson in Marshalltown, Iowa, Billy Sunday developed into a daring baserunner and a capable outfielder, but he was always a weak batter.

Tinker to Evers to Chance
By Franklin P. Adams

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double--
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
New York World, 1908

Franklin P. Adams, of "The Conning Tower" fame, was one of the most famous of New York columnists in the days when Frank Chance, the "Peerless Leader" of the Chicago Cubs, was holding down first base and inspiring his team to pennant after pennant, both in National League and world championships.

Joe Tinker, at shortstop, and Johnny Evers, at second base, formed the other members of this infield wrecking crew, which so often broke up rallies of opposing teams with their lightning fast double plays.

Although Joe Tinker, shortstop and Johnny Evers, second baseman, belong to the period since 1900, Frank Chance joined the Chicago club as a catcher in 1898, and thereby qualifies as one of the old-timers. This verse helped to make "Tinker to Evers to Chance" synonymous with fast and accurate team work, and it is here reprinted as a tribute to the Chicago baseball leader who carried on the tradition of Pop Anson's best days.

Champions of 1885 and 1886
With due regard for such mighty teams as the Cubs under Frank Chance, the Giants under McGraw, and, of late years, the slugging Yankees, the White Stockings of 1885 and 1886 were one of the best collections of ball players that ever won a championship.

Their "stone-wall infield" was the terror of opposing batters. Tom Burns, at third base; Ed Williamson, at short; Fred Pfeffer, at second; and A. C. Anson, himself, at first base, made up this redoubtable quartet. They gobbled up grounders and speared line drives with almost superhuman accuracy.

In the outfield they had Abner Dalrymple, a real slugger; George Gore, another heavy hitter; and Billy Sunday, whose speed on the bases made up for his light hitting. They were all first-rate fielders and cool-headed ball players, particularly when the chips were down.

Clarkson and Kelly
Written large among the names of famous battery mates are those of Clarkson and Kelly of the champion White Stockings. John Clarkson was a clever pitcher, with a puzzling drop and a fast overhand delivery. Mike Kelly, on the receiving end of Clarkson's pitches, was the most famous player of his day. A fine catcher, unusually good at throwing men out on the bases, he also starred as an outfielder. Kelly's other battery mate was James McCormick, who was also a great pitcher.

Clarkson and Kelly were also distinguished by the high money value set on them. Kelly, after leaving the Chicago club, was referred to as the "$10,000 beauty," because he was sold to Boston for that amount in 1887, the highest price received for a ball player up to that time. Clarkson followed him to Boston the next year, with the same $10,000 price tag attached. From this it will be seen that the 1880 market for baseball "ivory" was not high. It is a long stretch from Clarkson at $10,000 to Dizzy Dean at $185,000.

Kelly — the $10,000 Beauty
Mike Kelly — King Kelly, as he was called — is said to have inspired "Casey at the Bat"; certainly his personality and exploits rivaled those of the legendary Casey.

Kelly's tricks were often resourceful, if not honest. Once, while playing in the outfield for the White Stockings, in an extra-inning game at Boston, darkness threatened to halt the contest. In the twelfth inning Chicago went ahead by one run, but in their half the Easterners managed to fill the bases with two out.

It was growing very dark. In this crucial spot, the Boston batter hit a long, hard drive out in Kelly's direction. Mike could not see the ball at all, but realized that the umpire was probably in the same fix. He ran back, posed alertly, waited a moment, leaped into the air with a wild whoop, and pantomimed a catch. He then ran for the clubhouse as if the game were over, and the umpire, completely fooled, yelled, "Out."

How a Run Was Made to Order
On another occasion, Kelly and Ed Williamson conspired to manufacture a run out of nothing. In a game with the Detroit club, the score stood 2 to 2 in the ninth inning. When Chicago came to bat, Kelly got on first base, and Williamson drew a pass, sending Kelly to second. The pair then pulled off a neat double-steal, but as Kelly slid into third he howled with pain and asked for time.

Williamson came over from second to see what was the matter. "Ed," wailed Kelly, "it's me arm. Faith, I think it's out of joint. Pull it for me, will you?"

As Williamson leaned over to pull his arm, Kelly whispered hurriedly, "Say, Ed, as soon as Weidman [the pitcher] raises his arm, I'm going to make a break for home, and you sneak along behind me. They'll play for me, sure, and forget about you; but when I'm close I'll straddle me legs, and you slide under."

When Kelly dashed for the home plate, the Detroit pitcher was so astonished he almost forgot to throw the ball. Williamson, who as he afterwards confessed, had cut third base by fifteen feet, came tearing in behind. The Detroit catcher had the ball, and was waiting for Kelly. Mike stood still, with legs spread, and Williamson slid under, touching the plate without being tagged by the surprised catcher.

Sports Writing at Low Ebb
Baseball writing suffered a relapse in the 1880's. The exuberance of previous years gave way to a sober style. Reports of games usually consisted of a stereotyped summary in a few hundred words, followed by a box score similar to those used today.

On rare occasions some anonymous reporter cut loose with a bit of vivid writing, such as was to enliven the sports pages in the twentieth century. On July 7, 1885, the Chicago Tribune had this to say of a game with New York:

That is picturesque enough, but a practiced eye can detect at least three factual mistakes. Evidently the age of specialism in sports writing had not yet arrived. Of particular interest, however, is the writer's use of the term "sky-scraper" to denote a high fly. This was some years before the first skyscraper building was erected and the term came to have its present meaning.

Advise Players to be Gentlemen
Occasionally a column of sport comment dealt with etiquette. "Players should lift their caps when they receive hearty applause. It is a graceful acknowledgment of the compliment," was one such instance. In another, the commentator admonished players not to "act like schoolboys," when the umpire rendered a decision against them, but to receive the arbiter's rulings in soldierly obedience.

Despite their preoccupation with ethics, the sports writers had already learned the trick of passing sharp remarks on the value of players. Shortly after Chicago acquired Pitcher McCormick, the Tribune printed comments from other newspapers, adding its own:

Spalding Scouts Players Off Diamond
During the 1880's, when the White Stockings were shellacking their opponents with great regularity, A. G. Spalding was worried by the fact that most members of his club were addicted to the extracurricular sport of bending the elbow.

Finally Spalding hired a Pinkerton detective to trail the men and see exactly what they were doing. The sleuth took the players one by one and followed them everywhere, up and down Clark street, out of one saloon and into another, into barrelhouses and joints of every description. At last Spalding had a detailed report of every player's movement.

Kelly Cries "Foul!"
Calling the men into his office, he read the reports to them. As was expected, Anson and Billy Sunday were given a clean bill, but nearly all the rest had black records.

Mike Kelly, as usual, had a word to put in. The "King" raised his voice in the dead silence which followed the reading:
"I want to amend the record. It says there that I was seen drinking a lemonade at 3 A. M. It was a straight whiskey. I never drink a lemonade at that hour of the morning."

Asked to fix their own punishment, the players decided to pay the detective's bill.

McCormick and Kelly Boot One
Spalding goes on to tell the following aftermath:
"The White Stockings were about to leave for a series of games at Detroit. The train was ready to start. Standing on the platform was a great, green gawk of a fellow, staring with wide-mouthed interest at the departing players. Kelly caught sight of him and whispered something to McCormick. The 'King' stepped up to the countryman and, after denouncing him in the most violent terms as a Pinkerton detective, hauled off and smote him with all his might, while McCormick, coming up behind the bewildered 'Rube,' kicked the poor fellow's pants clear up to his shoulders. Then the bell rang and the belligerent ball players sprang to the platform of the rear car and went whirling eastward."

Flint — a Real Iron Man
Frank Flint, affectionately called "Old Silver" by his team-mates, had a record that stands comparison with the greatest catching performances of all time. In thirteen years of baseball, most of them spent with the White Stockings, he caught 935 games, and earned a reputation for durability rivaling that of Ray Schalk and Gabby Hartnett. Flint worked without a mask or chest protector throughout most of his career. Upon retiring, he said that every joint in every one of his fingers had been broken at least once, his nose broken frequently and his teeth smashed.

Although overshadowed by the more spectacular and colorful Mike Kelly, the record shows that Flint was unquestionably the better catcher of the two.

Seasons of 1887 and 1888
The loss of Kelly in 1887 and Clarkson in 1888 was looked upon as a death blow to Chicago's championship aspirations, but there were still plenty of good players in the club. Anson's team finished third in 1887, close behind Detroit and Philadelphia. In 1888, they were nosed out of first place by New York.

These seasons were highly successful from a financial standpoint, both for the White Stockings and other league members. Attend. ance figures ran high, and the fans were rabid in their enthusiasm. This financial success of the club owners was brewing discontent among the players, however, many of whom felt that their earnings were too small a share of the returns, and rumblings of revolt were beginning to be heard.

Chicago's Winning Streak Ended
From 1887 down to 1900, the Chicago club had but indifferent success. Not until 1906, when Frank Chance restored the former glory, were Windy City fans to see a Chicago team end the season on top of the heap. After kicking around in second or third place for several years, the White Stockings really hit the toboggan slide in 1892, and from then on were lucky to keep out of the second division.

Anson had great faith in his ability to climb the heights again, and relinquished the managership still protesting that his colts would yet fly the pennant. But Spalding and Hart could see nothing but poor seasons ahead, and wanted new blood to win for them. Burns was not the manager to do it, however, and neither was the famous Frank Selee, who was past his prime and in poor health when he came to Chicago.

On Delehanty's last trip to the plate Bill Lange, the Chicago center fielder, took a stand between the two club-houses back of center field, and dared him to send another that way. Delehanty obligingly cut loose with a drive _.that hit the roof of one clubhouse and bounded off the other, getting his fourth homer of the day.

In spite of this remarkable exhibition of batting, Delehanty failed to win the game, for Philadelphia lost to the White Stockings, 8 to 6.

The Brotherhood Baseball Wars
This period in the late nineties was a particularly dismal one for local fans, but was enlivened somewhat by the players' revolt in the Brotherhood war.

The National Brotherhood of Base Ball Players was an organization to protect the rights and interests of its members. Led by John Montgomery Ward, star player of the New York club, its influence was first felt in 1887, when it forced the league to adopt a new form of players' contract. Discontent had been growing in the ranks for some time. The principal grievances were: first, the reserve rule, under which a player's contract gave the club an option on his services for the following year, thus enabling the club owner to "sell" him at the end of the season; second, the failure of players to share in the profits from such sales; and third, a feeling that salaries were not as high as gate receipts warranted. During the next two years the Brotherhood vigorously campaigned to free the players from a condition which they regarded as equivalent to slavery.

New League is Formed
In November 1889, the Brotherhood issued a public statement, announcing that it intended to start its own baseball league, operated by and for The sharpest paragraph in this manifesto was the ball players. following:

The Brotherhood entered the season of 1890 with an eight-club league: Chicago, Boston, Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburg, and Cleveland.

Thus for one year there were three major leagues, the Player's League, the National League, and the old American Association. None of them prospered. The Players' League, although it had high ideals, was lacking in efficient business management, and the National League throttled the upstarts by scheduling games on conflicting dates in cities where each had a competing team. At the end of the season the Players sold out to the National League, and the war was over.

The Brotherhood League, though short-lived, was important to Chicago, not so much because this city was represented in it, but because it introduced for the first time in the role of league manager a native Chicagoan, Charles A. Comiskey.

He was born on the West Side in 1859, the son of John Comiskey, a prominent citizen and member of the city council.

Comiskey first broke into baseball in 1876 as a volunteer pitcher for the Libertys, a local amateur team. He also played at St. Mary's college in Kansas, for the Alerts in Milwaukee, for Dubuque in the Northwestern League, and finally became a member of the famous St. Louis Browns of the old American Association.

Comiskey's Brilliant Record
Opinions are divided as to Comiskey's value as a player. He was not the equal of Anson, either in fielding or hitting. But he had a cool head, a lightning fast brain, and was a daring base-runner.

As manager of the Browns from 1884 to 1889 his greatest triumph was scored over the Chicago White Stockings. In the 1880's, the American Association was counted as a major league, and its pennant winners met the champions of the National League, in a post-season series for the world's championship. In 1885, Comiskey's Browns tangled with Anson's White Stockings as the winners of their respective leagues. The series ended in a draw, each team winning three games and tying one. The following year they met again, and this time the Browns were victorious, four games to two. During the seven years that Comiskey managed them, the Browns never finished lower than second place.

Comiskey's First Chicago Team
Comiskey would scarcely figure at all in the history of Chicago baseball before 1900 if it had not been for the Brotherhood war. He came here in 1890 to manage the Chicago club of the ill-fated Players' League, in a new park at 35th street and Wentworth Avenue, a neighborhood later made famous by another white-stockinged team.

In 1891, Commy was approached by A. G. Spalding with the proposition to start a rival team in Chicago, using the south side park. It was Spalding's idea that Chicago could support two first-class clubs. But with the American Association tottering on its last legs, and Spalding failing to offer any financial assistance, Comiskey gave up the plan, although it was his cherished dream to have a permanent baseball team in his native city. He went back to St. Louis to manage the old Browns for the final year of their existence and that of the old American Association.

Catching Them on the Wing
Old-timers like to tell the story of the most sensational catch ever made at the old West Side park. As related by the late Al Spink, veteran baseball writer, the performer was one Elmer Foster, center fielder for an Eastern team.

In those days because of the ball parks' layout, fielders had to contend with shadows cast by the grandstand, and sometimes had considerable difficulty in seeing fly balls.

In this instance, a Chicago player took a terrific swing, and at the crack of the bat Foster began running toward deep center. Actually, although it sounded like a hard-hit ball, it was an easy grounder, which the shortstop fielded and threw to first for the out.

But Foster kept running back like mad toward the fence. "Look at Foster," yelled the bleacherites. "What does he think he is after?"

Foster ran almost to the fence, jumped into the air, and came down—with an English sparrow in his grasp.

The Closing Years
The last years of the century saw no upswing in the fortunes of the Chicago National Leaguers. Under the management of Burns, they finished fourth in 1898, and eighth in 1899 in a twelve-club league. The next year they finished fifth in an eight-club league.

The most important development in the baseball world during the closing years of the 1890's was the birth of a new minor league that soon challenged the baseball monopoly of the National League. This was the old Western League, founded in 1893 by Byron Bancroft Johnson, Charles A. Comiskey, and Matt Killilea.

In December, 1891, the old American Association was killed through a deal whereby the National League bought out the Boston, Milwaukee, Columbus, Washington, and Chicago,* franchises of the Association, and admitted Baltimore, Louisville, St. Louis, and another Washington team to membership in the National League.

*Permission was given to locate an American Association team in Chicago in 1892, under the management of Fred Pfeffer, but the association broke up before the franchise could be used.

American League Established
The twelve-club circuit created by this deal was unwieldy. Ban Johnson realized that there was an opening for another major league to replace the old American Association. He moved slowly, however, for the experiences of the short-lived Union and Players' Leagues had shown the danger of direct attack upon the National League. Accordingly, he tried first to build up a strong minor league. In laying the ground work for the new league, he had the support and assistance of Comiskey, then managing the Cincinnati Nationals, and of Killilea, a Milwaukee sportsman.

Johnson's forceful personality drove the Western League through early troubles to success. In 1900 he decided to convert his league into one of national scope to be called the American League and demanded permission of the National League to locate a team in Chicago. This was bitterly opposed by the old league, but the elder organization was passing through stormy times, and finally had to give in. Accordingly, the National League was reduced to eight clubs, and the American also played an eight-club circuit.

The twentieth century found Chicago, key city of major league baseball, with a new club headed by Comiskey. However, the new organization did not reach major league status until 1901.