1888 AA Cleveland

Well, I finally made it through the Cleveland home games, only 60 of those as a pattern continues - the better teams in the league got game transferred to their home grounds so that better attendances and as a result, more revenue for both teams was generated.

Cleveland's record:  50-82, 6th place

It is too bad that Cleveland did only play 60 games as their splits show:

H: 33 W 27 L
A: 17 W 55 L 

Pretty ugly away from home.


Their lineup for the most part was not very stable - I would love to see or hear of the "stability" of lineups correlated with win percentage - it makes sense that if you are winning you stick with a "winning combination" and do not change much as opposed to a team that is performing poorly is going to be constantly "tinkering" with the lineup.  Anyway here is the top breakdown of lineup positions of the (Navy) Blues lineup (this is with 117 of 135 games documented so far):

1  Cub Stricker 2b   -    60 games
    Mortimer Hogan rf  - 38 games


2  Ed McKean ss/lf - 93 games

3  Jay Faatz 1b -      50 games
    Pete Hoteling cf - 45 games

4  Jay Faatz 1b -        38 games
    Bob Gilks cf/lf -     26 games
    Pete Hoteling  cf -  22 games

5  Bob Gilks lf/3b -    43 games
    Cub Stricker 2b -  19 games
    Pete Hoteling cf  -  15 games

6  Mike Goodfellow rf/lf - 41 games
    Gus Alberts ss/3b       - 18 games

7  Gus Alberts 3b/ss - 59 games
    John McGlone 3b - 26 games

8  Pop Snyder c    - 51 games
   Chief Zimmer c  - 49 games


As can see, not too many recognizable names pop out at you - I knew of Stricker (from his "Cub" nickname, Zimmer, McKean, and Jim McGuire (acquired later in the season).

As for the pitching staff, Jersey (from guess where? :) ) Bakley (referred to as "Bakely" in most contemporary references that I read) led the team with 61 starts and a 25-33 record.  60 CG's.

Bakley alternated, for the most part, with Billy Crowell (5-13) through mid June and then with "Cinders" (also referred to as the "Other Darby" [there was a "Darby" with Brooklyn]) O'Brien (11-19) through the end of September and finally with George Proeser (3-4).

Stricker played 11 seasons from 1882-93, with 7 different teams in the AA, Players League, and NL.



http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/striccu01.shtml

Chief Zimmer, again, I knew from the 1899 Spiders.  He played 20 games for that club and hit .342, which was completely unacceptable!   As a result, Louisville took him off of their hands.
Zimmer played in the majors 19 years, from 1884-1903

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/z/zimmech01.shtml

Jim (Deacon) McGuire was another Long Time catcher who was reknowned for his throwing (out runner) skills.
McGuire had actually played for the NL Philadelphia & Detroit teams in 1888 before catching on with Cleveland.
 McGuire played in 26 seasons between 1884 and 1912.

He was the catcher in the infamous  Cobb/Detroit boycott game of 1912 which I documented in a previous blog post.  He was 48 years old at the time.

Also, in 1895, he caught all 132 games of Washington's games - Frank Hayes of the 1944 Reds would be the next (and last?) to do so.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mcguide01.shtml

McKean was at the end of his string when I first encountered him with the 1899 St. Louis Perfectos (which were not quite as good as the Brooklyn Superbas as St. Louis finished in 4th of 12 teams).  McKean had a nice steady 13 year career from 1887 to 1899, as the NL Cleveland Spiders starting shortstop.

With the exception of the 1899 season, I wonder if he ever really left Cleveland - born in Grafton (SW of Cleveland), 12 seasons in Cleveland, and buried in Cleveland.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mckeaed01.shtml




    

New Player found! Joe Cross

Still plowing my way through the 1888 AA Cleveland games and I think I have come across a "missing" player.


In a September 5, 1888 game between Louisville & Cleveland, a "Cross" is shown in the box score for Louisville as playing left field and having one at-bat (he struck out).   It was assumed that this was Lave Cross, one of Louisville's catchers - in fact ICI shows a Sept 5 entry for Lave.   However, in the Sept 6, 1888 Cleveland Plain Dealer, in its "Notes of the Game", it says: "While at bat in the seventh inning, Cook caught a swift pitched ball on the hand and had to retire.  Vaughn took his place behind the bat, Ramsey went to left field and Cross of the Graphics, a brother of Lave, a Louisville catcher, took the latter's place in right."

There is a Joe Cross who was a pitcher and occasional outfielder for the Graphics (a semi-pro team in Cleveland) in 1888.  He is identified in another citing as Lave's brother (when Amos Cross's death was reported on July 17, 1888).

I see no reference to this change in the Cleveland Leader.

However, Lave Cross was injured on September 2, "tore his knee in a fearful way.  He quit playing and will not likely play again for some time".

I currently do not have access to any Louisville papers to get their take on it.

Lave Cross' next game was on 9/13 at St. Louis.

The St Louis Republic makes no special mention of Cross's "return", but being a rookie and and an opponent's backup catcher, this is not necessarily surprising.

Digging into Sporting Life currently with no success.

I hope to get some more information from Louisville papers (Times and Post).

Has a "new" player been found?

Not sure - if anyone else has access to other resources or has any insight, I would greatly appreciate the help.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE - Adding comments into main blog entry for ease of reading:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

Got scans of the Louisville Post, Times, & Courier Journal for Sept 3-14.

No mentions in the Post or Times, but in the Courier-Journal, on Sept 6, it states in the game summary: "...Young Cross, a local player, who had taken Cook's place in the team, was in right field, and let a ball go through his legs, O'Brien scoring on the error..."

Also, in the heading it refers to "Two Local Players Borrowed To Fill the Positions On the Diamond"

One of those local players was Bill Crowell, as he is mentioned as such early in the article.

Lave Cross would not be referred to as "Young Cross, a local player" as he was, first, known as "Kid" Cross at this point in his career and unlikely would have been referred to in this manner ("a local player") as he had been on the team for a while.

As a result, with sources in the city of the game and of the team affected, I have concluded that this is indeed Joe Cross of the Graphics.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Sent out my info to the 19cc Yahoo group and got some great additional information from the great participants of that group:

John Thorn:
This Joe Cross appears also to have pitched for Altoona in the spring of
1887, being released in early June, and for the Cleveland Forest Citys
in a game against the Sharocks of Cincinnati on June 19, 1887. By
September he is back with the Graphics. pitching against the Malleables.
Joe Cross pitched for the Resolutes in April 1888. Joe Cross is also
referred to as the younger brother of Lave in the Plain Dealer of April
21, 1889. In Amnos Cross's obituary notice in the Plain Dealer of July
18, 1888, Joe is mentioned as a brother.


Richard Malatzky:
I have been working on the biographical info on Joe.

I traced him to the1892 Cleveland city directory as Mary Cross wid Joseph 668 Clark.

Remember that the last name was Kirz and they were all born in Bohemia or Austria. I am working on the sisters in the obit of Frank Cross.

This makes 4 brothers in the big leagues.Amos, Lave, Frank and Joseph.


John Thorn:
Joe Cross is first listed as a ballplayer with the amateur Forest Citys
of 1879:

In And Out-Door Sports. Turf, Field, Stream and Table. Base Ball

(News Article)

Date:1879-03-05;

Paper:Plain Dealer

BTW, it turns out that there is yet another ballplaying Cross brother:
George, who in 1906 signed on as a catcher with Evansville!


John Thorn:
Joe seems to be the oldest of the Cross (Kriz) brothers. An Ancestry
family tree, by no means a sure thing for reliability, lists Joseph A.
Cross as born 6 Jan 1859 in Chicago, Illinois, USA to Joseph Kriz (not
Kirz) and Mary Kotski Kriz. Joe died, according to this, on April 2,
1933, in Cleveland. His listed "widow" in 1892 may have been his
ex-wife. A Lena REmier is listed as his wife in the family tree, with no
birth/death data.

The father and mother of the Cross/Kriz brothers were born in Bohemia in
1831 and 1839, respectively, and died in 1891 and 1893, both in Ohio.
They may have landed in New York in 1858.

Joseph Cross is provide with this rundown at ancestry.com:

# /ID:/I257
# /Name:/Joseph A. CROSS
# /Sex:/M
# /Birth:/6 JAN 1859 in Chicago, Ill
# /Death:/2 APR 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio
# /Fact 1:/1933 Buried in Troy, New York
# /Fact 2:/1888 Baseball player with Cleveland Graphics
# /Fact 3:/1910 Cigar Maker
# /Fact 4:/1925 Caulker
# /Fact 5:/1930 Division of Water, Cleveland, Ohio
# /Fact 6:/1931 Store Keeper
# /Fact 7:/1932 Machinist


Name: JosephKriz
Year: 1859
Age: 26
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1833
Place: New York, New York
Source Publication Code: 206.2
Primary Immigrant: Kriz, Joseph
Annotation: Extracted from rolls 323 through 432 of Microcopy 237,
"Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, 1820-1897." Provides
data on country of origin, name of ship, and, sometimes, destination.
Date and port of arrival. Copies of these books may be obta
Source Bibliography: BACA, LEO. Czech Immigration Passenger Lists: New
York Passenger Lists. Richardson, TX: Baca. 1847-1869. Vol. 4, 1991. 182p.
Page: 78

By this census listing of the Cross/Kriz family from 1870 we see that Amos Cross was at first named Emil and that Lave was named Ratislaw.


Name: Joseph Kriz
Age in 1870: 35
Birth Year: abt 1835
Birthplace: Bohemia
Home in 1870: Milwaukee Ward 2, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Race: White
Gender: Male
Post Office: Milwaukee
Value of real estate: View image
Household Members:
Name Age
Joseph Kriz 35
Mary Kriz 33
Anna Kriz 13
Joseph Kriz 11
Emil Kriz 10
Vlasta Kriz 6
Ratisldw Kriz 4
Biminak Kriz 3
Libbey Kriz 7/12

Jack Morris:
Here's a death notice that ran in both the April 3 & 4, 1933 Cleveland Plain
Dealer for the Joe Cross listed in the Ancestry Family Tree:

Cross: Joseph A., beloved husband of Lena (nee Reamer), father of Liddia.
Sunday at 1:30 a.m. at residence 5005 Clark Ave. Remains at Edward H.
Lindhorst & Son's Funeral Home 1610 Clark Ave., where service will be held
Tuesday April 4 at 2:30 p.m.

John Thorn:
By this census listing of the Cross/Kriz family from 1870 we see that
Amos Cross was at first named Emil and that Lave was named Ratislaw.

Name: JosephKriz
Age in 1870: 35
Birth Year: abt 1835
Birthplace: Bohemia
Home in 1870: Milwaukee Ward 2, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Race: White
Gender: Male
Post Office: Milwaukee
Value of real estate: View image
<http://search.ancestry.com/iexec?htx=View&r=an&dbid=7163&iid=4268781_00324&fn=Joseph&ln=Kriz&st=r&ssrc=&pid=14907759>

Household Members:
Name Age
Joseph Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=14907759>
35
Mary Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=14907761>
33
Anna Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=5902553>
13
Joseph Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=14907758>
11
Emil Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=5902554>
10
Vlasta Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=8329879>
6
Ratisldw Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=14907762>
4
Biminak Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=14907757>
3
Libbey Kriz
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1870usfedcen&indiv=try&h=14907760>
7/12

David Nemec:
This great thread raises, among other things, the reliability of censuses in those days.  Seems like they all were handwritten, at least initially, and may have often been unintelligible to anyone else if the original interviewer happened to die or otherwise be unavailable to transcribe his/her notes for the official record.  Too, I'm puzzled why Emile would change his name to Amos, not at all a Czech or Bohemian name but a common Hebrew one.  My hunch is that by the time all the mysteries about this family are unraveled--or at least as many as can be--it will prove to be among our most interesting baseball families.  If Joe Cross was indeed with the 1879 semipro Cleveland Forest Citys (perhaps a sort of reserve team for the NL club), it deepens the puzzle of when and why he was the first of the ball-playing brothers to appear as Cross rather than Kriz since the team had several other Czech-Bohemian players who retained their names including the 3B
who finished the season with Chicago, John Stedronsky.

2 outs, bottom of 9th THEN 7 runs scored to win 16-15

While going through the 1888 AA Cleveland lineups, I ran across an interesting ending to a game that I wanted to go ahead and post.

On June 2, Cleveland led 15-9 going to the bottom of the 9th (Cleveland chose to bat 1st) and was within 1 out of a 6 run victory before all heck broke loose, KC scored 7 runs and won 16-15.

Cleveland's Doc Oberlander was by no means having a smooth game in this battle of tail enders, having already given up 9 runs

This is how it went for KC against Oberlander in the fateful 9th:

1.  Barkley singles to center
2.  Davis pops to catcher Zimmer (1 out)
3  Phillips pops to shortstop Alberts (2 outs)
4  Rowe singles to right (Barkley to 2nd or 3rd)
5  Daniels singles to center (Barkley scores, Rowe to 2nd or 3rd)  10-15
6  Allen triples to left (Rowe and Daniels score) 12-15
7  Easterday walks
8  Toole doubles past shortstop (Allen and Easterday score)  14-15
9  McTamany triples over cf Hoteling's head (Toole scores)  15-15
10 Barkley singles along 3rd base line (McTamany scores)  16-15


Not sure where this stands in regards to comeback win probability (or whatever it is called), but I would think it would be up there - down 6 with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and winning.

As the saying goes,  "it ain't over 'til it's over".

This would be Doc Oberlander's final game (of 4 total) of his major league career.  He did pitch a couple more seasons in minors.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=oberla001doc


Will have my Cleveland review up in a few days.

1888 AA St. Louis

Next up, the AA Champion St. Louis Brown Stockings.

Primary Source: St. Louis Republic (GeneologyBank.com)

Had batter k's in about 72 of 82 games (88.2 %).   GeneologyBank.com does not have the Republic for April, so I maybe able to get a few more games once I find someone in St. Louis to help me.


92 Wins 43 Losses

Primary Lineup:

1 Arlie Latham 3b
2 Yank Robinson 2b
3 Tip O'Neill  lf
4 Charlie Comiskey 1b
5 Tommy McCarthy rf
6 Harry Lyons cf
7 Bill White ss
8 Jack Boyle/ Jocko Milligan c
9 Silver King p

This team was filled with all sorts of interesting players and a quite colorful owner. 

Owner Chris Von Der Ahe - there is a great book on him, his teams, and his eccentricities (http://www.amazon.com/Chris-Von-Ahe-Louis-Browns/dp/0810834731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332266177&sr=8-1).   The same author, J. Thomas Hetrick, also wrote a day-by-day account of the woeful 1899 Cleveland Spiders.

Shorter bio here: http://research.sabr.org/journals/chris-von-der-ahe-baseballs-pioneering-huckster

Charlie Comiskey - In his 7th major league season at this point, the 28 year old captain/manager of the team.  It is quite interesting in reading about Comiskey the player given the perspective that many of us has of him as the owner of the 1919 Black Sox.   I have often wondered what influence/impact Von Der Ahe had on the development of Comiskey the owner.

Silver King - this year's Justin Verlander:  45-20, 1.66, 2.58, 584.1 innings pitched,  64 starts, 63 cg, 0.874 WHIP.   All of this at age 20.  Although he would have other very nice seasons, this was King's signature season.


http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kingsi01.shtml


Leadoff hitter Arlie Latham, "The Freshest Man on Earth". Led the league with 109 swipes (stolen bases were ANY extra advancement as a rule, though I am discovering many/most were "legitimate" swipes), but was best known for his colorful character.  Also did 3rd base coaching for the team (a "coacher") while not in the field or at bat.


http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e89392f6

Yank Robinson - led the league in walks by 42 WALKS! (116 to 2nd place Tom Fennelly's 72).   Let me re-emphasize,, Robinson had 116 walks in a 134 games when it took 5 balls to get a walk.   As a result, combined w/ the strong lineup behind him, Robinson ended up with more runs than hits, 111 runs to 105 hits.
His slash line was .231/.400/.314  (His OPS of .714 translated into a 120 OPS+).

http://mwww.baseball-reference.com/players/r/robinya01.shtml

Tip O'Neill - best known to baseball stat/historians as the guy who "hit" .492 in 1887 when walks were counted as hits (ONLY .435 without the walks factored in).   In 1888, he led the league with only a .335 average.  Not sure if there is another case of a player's bavg dropping by 25% and still retaining the batting title.


http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/o%27neiti01.shtml

Tommy McCarthy - an avg/slightly above avg outfielder at this point in his career.  He would later best be remembered as one of the 1890's Boston Beaneaters "Heavenly Twins" (along with Hugh Duffy).  Elected by the Old Timer's Committee into the Hall of Fame in 1945.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2187c402


I would remiss if I didn't mention that this team also had another player with a great nickname:

Ice Box Chamberlain - he came over in September and proceeded to start 14 games and go 11-2 down the stretch.  Chamberlain is known for having pitched with both hands during a game.

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ac500d52

There is a Jim Devlin on this team, but not the one that was kicked out of baseball.
Devlin, ironically was the oldest regular on the staff.

King - 20 yrs old
Nat Hudson - 19
Chamberlain - 20
Devlin - 22

Average age of all pitchers was 20.0 - and this was the league champions!

1888 AA Baltimore

Continuing my march through the 1888 AA.

Now working on Baltimore home games.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/1888.shtml

Main source:  Baltimore Sun (GeneologyBank.com)
Secondary source:  Baltimore American (Google News Archives)

I have hit my 1st hard spot, primarily due to no Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun.  The Sun for the most part has the batter k's, but it does not look as if the Sun had a Sunday edition.  The Monday edition gives a brief summary of Saturday games, but no box score.  As a result, I am having to rely on the Sunday edition of the American, which for all days, does not have batter k's in the box, but in many cases mentions the batter k's, in part at least, in the game write-up.  

For Retrosheet purposes, the American also serves to get me LOB's and some DP's.

Sample lineup from June 12:

Mike Griffin cf
Oyster Burns lf
Blondie Purcell rf
Jack Farrell  ss
Tommy Tucker 1b
Billy Shindle 3b
Bill Greenwood ss
Sam Trott c
Sam Shaw p

This team's rotation included
Matt Kilroy, coming off of his historic 46-19, 589 inning pitched season.  In fact in 1886-7, Kilroy completed 132 GAMES and pitched 1172.1 innings.   Already early in the season, there are many mentions of his arm being sore.  Even in this era of 2 1/2- 3 man rotations and shorter pitching distance (among others) , Kilroy  (led in CG's in both '86 & '87).    Though he would pitch over 480 innings in 1889, he was never really the same pitcher. 
Funny thing for me about Kilroy was that when I was doing the 1898 season, I was introduced to him (well I already knew of him) as an outfielder.  He did pitch 13 games in 1898, but also played 12 games in the OF).
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kilroma01.shtml

Bert Cunningham - again, I was familiar with him from later in his career, 1st as part of  the 1899 Louisville Colonel rotation (1899 was my first research season) and then as a 28 game winner for the previous Colonel team.  The papers referenced back in that season to his return to glory.  Actually, his 28-15,113 ERA+ was easily his best season in fairly poor career.  He would probably be referred to in our times as a innings eating 5th starter type - poor ERA, 200-300 innings (equiv 125-150 modern).  His measurements according to BR: 5'7", 147 lbs.  (soaking wet, I suppose).
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cunnibe01.shtml

John "Phenomenal" Smith - I love the nicknames of this era - you got some Farmers, a Blondie, an Oyster, and a bunch more I can't think of at this time.  And of course, we have "Phenomenal" or "Phenom" as we also sardonically referred to.  Smith played very small parts of the season from 1884-1886 (I don't see any minor league info during those season yet).  In 1887, he "broke out" with a 25-30 record with the Orioles (491.1 innings).  He was just 21.

He hung around the majors until 1891 and then had an extended minor league career, primarily in the New England League, until 1904.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/smithph01.shtml

In fact, the ages of Kilroy, Cunningham, & Smith were 22, 22, & 23 - starting 123 of their 137 games.

As for the everyday guys, a couple of players were of immediate interest to me.

I'll start with Tommy Tucker.
Again, I was introduced to Tucker in my 1899 research.   He was the starting first baseman for the ill fated Spiders/Exiles/Wanderers franchise that won only 20 of 154.   He hit .241 for them.   In retrospect, he was a bit like one of the veteran players (Ashburn, Hodges) on the 1962 Mets - he had previous "glory", but ended up on a very terrible team.  In his case, I think I should state that he would be a "poor man's" version of that.

Anyway, that was all I really knew about Tucker until I worked on the 1897 and read up on the 1890's Beaneaters teams.   He was a steady, not spectacular 1st baseman for them for 7 years and also won the batting title in 1889 with the Orioles.   The 1899 Spiders experience apparently convinced him that his major league days were done.  He did play a couple more season in primarily the Connecticut State League.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tucketo01.shtml 

Mike Griffin
When I think of Mike Griffin, I think of M101-1.   What is M101-1 you may ask?   It was a supplement premium produced by The Sporting News from 1899-1900.  One of the 1st (I have about 40 of the 60) ones I obtained was of Griffin as a Brooklyn Superba.  What was interesting about this is that he never played for the Superbas in 1899.  

The BioProject bio of Griffin gives a nice summary of the situation:


http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/45f87fcd

The Brooklyn franchise was floundering, posting a 54-91 record in 1898 and drawing the third worst attendance in the National League. So Charles Ebbets merged the team with Baltimore's club. Baltimore's manager was future Hall of Famer Ned Hanlon, who was retained to manage the new combined team.
Mike Griffin was offered a salary of $2,800 to be only a player instead of a player-manager. He refused the offer, saying he had a valid contract for $3,500 and expected it to be honored. It is likely he realized the "new" Brooklyn team was considerably better than the 1898 version, and he had looked forward to managing what promised to be a successful team. In none of his previous twelve major league seasons had he played for a pennant-winning ballclub.
The dispute dragged on with neither side willing to give in. Players had very few rights in this era, so owners were used to holding the upper hand. On March 11, 1899, Ebbets sent Griffin the following telegram: "You have been released to the Cleveland club. They wish you to report to Cleveland on Monday, to go with team to Hot Springs. Personally I wish you the best of luck in your new position." Griffin also received a telegram from Cleveland manager Patsy Tebeau that said, in part, "Mr Robinson has purchased your release from Brooklyn."
Griffin refused to report to Cleveland until his contract dispute with Brooklyn was resolved, because it appeared unlikely that Cleveland was going to pay the $3,500 salary that Griffin felt he was entitled to. For two weeks, letters and telegrams were exchanged between Griffin (at home in Utica), Cleveland, and Brooklyn. Cleveland finally had enough and released Griffin to St. Louis. This mattered little to Griffin as his beef was still with Brooklyn. He didn't report to St. Louis-he never played professional baseball again. In mid-April he announced his retirement from baseball.
Griffin filed suit against Brooklyn for breach of contract. Judge William Scripture of the New York State Supreme Court ruled in Griffin's favor and awarded him $2,266. Brooklyn appealed, with John M. Ward arguing their case. Ward was a former ballplayer who was one of the founders of the Players League that had challenged, unsuccessfully, the supremacy of the "Lords of Baseball," the owners.
The justices on the appeals court sided with Griffin. In fact, they said that Brooklyn not only didn't have grounds to win an appeal, they were fortunate with the initial ruling because the judge should have awarded Griffin several hundred dollars more in damages.

Back to M101-1 for a second - during my collecting of the set, came upon a second variation of the Griffin issue, this one with his team as St. Louis.  There are a number of variations in the M101-1 set, but that is for another blog time.  2 "cards" of a player in which he played for neither in the season of issue.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/griffmi01.shtml


Another player on this team that has his place in baseball history is George Bradley.  He only played in one game, as a shortstop, for the Orioles, but 12 years earlier he had pitched the National League's 1st no hitter.


http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bradlge01.shtml

1888 AA

Well, I finally decided to dive into the missing AA stirkeouts.   Most of these seasons have ICI sheets, but I like to work from the primary sources (ICI is not a primary and I am not sure where specifically it sourced its data).

As part of this phase of my batter k research, I agreed to pull (and format) as much of the pertinent retrosheet data as I could - that includes linescores, double plays, umpires, attendance, lob.  

I am working team by team, entering their home games from their home town paper.

So far, I have done
Kansas City Cowboys - Kansas City Times
Philadelphia Athletic(s) - Philadelphia Inquirer, Record
Cincinnati Red Stockings - Cincinnati Commercial Gazette

Having a subscription to GeneologyBank.com has really paid off.

Most of the scans are good, however many of the Commercial Gazette scans are a bit more adventurous and I have been using a secondary source like the Cleveland Plain Dealer to verify some of the blurry stuff.  However, what is nice about the Gazette is is that they have pretty good play-by-play for a number of the games which allows me to get better k info (and verify the box info).  


Interesting to see the home and away splits as far as games played.  Kansas City had only like 55 home games, while Cincinnati had about 81.  In fact, I saw a note in either the Gazette or Cleveland Plain Dealer mentioning the Cincinnati owner offering KC $1000 to transfer a set of games from KC to Cincy.

The real fun for me in doing the AA is going back more the 10 years prior to my previous earliest season that I had researched and pulled lineups for (1897).   It is interesting to see some of "my veterans" as young players - Lave Cross as a 22 year old catcher, Wilbert Robinson, not as a grisly veteran;  Bid McPhee in his prime; Elmer Smith as a young pitcher for the Red Stockings, and others.

Also, I get a chance to read up on some players that I have only known in bios or mentions, both famous and lesser - Toad Ramsey, Elton Chamberlain, Tony Mullane, Bob Caruthers and Dave Foutz - both pitching and playing the field, Pete Browning (who was in and out of the lineup battling his demons).

One other quick observation in regards to home/away game splits - I am finishing up Cincinnati's home schedule - Baltimore played in Cincinnati 3 TIMES on the same road trip - Aug 7-9, Aug 13-15, & Aug 25-26.   I haven't checked, but I wonder if this is another of those transferred games.

Favorite players so far (name-wise): McTamany of KC, Jersey Bakley of Cleveland (he started/completed 61 games for them, 2nd to St. Louis's Silver King (btw, all comtemporary references refer to him as Bakely (e & l flipped), and Long John Reilly.