I once wrote about baseball being played on ice during the 1860s for a brief spell. If you’d like to see what that might look like today, this team of ice skaters put on a brief demonstration of “biceball” in the modern world:
ICYMI: A couple days ago, MLB posted the covers of old World Series programs on their Instagram. These go as far back as the first World Series in 1903 and features some of the best designs over the years.
On September 19, 1883 at the Bank Street Grounds, the Red Stockings’ John Reilly completed his second cycle in eight days as Cincinnati beat Philadelphia, 12-3, at the Bank Street Grounds. The previous week, the 24-year-old first baseman collected three singles, a double, a triple, and a homer in a 27-5 rout of Pittsburgh Alleghenys.
Joe Posnanski wrote for the Kansas City Star throughout my teenage years. In retrospect, I have come to realize that he is a big part of the reason that I became a Royals fan. Because during those years, the Royals were bad. Like, really bad. All the other kids at my middle school and high school would not be caught dead wearing Royals gear, that’s how embarrassing this baseball team was during those years.
Every weekend, my dad would buy the Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star. And every Sunday, I would snag the sports section out of that bulky stack of newspaper and spread out on the floor to read anything that looked even mildly interesting.
It was not long before I became a regular reader of Joe Posnanski’s columns, because this man can write. And he wrote about the Kansas City Royals in a way that I just could not help but love the team, no matter how badly they played. So when my parents gifted me a copy of Why We Love Baseball this past Christmas, I knew I was in for a treat.
The book is subtitled A History in 50 Moments, and the combination of the two titles sum up the book quite aptly. Posnanski writes about fifty moments over the course of the history of the game that demonstrate exactly why we love baseball so much. From Babe Ruth to Shohei Ohtani, from Shoeless Joe to Cal Ripken, Jr., this book curates the greatest moments and retells the stories behind them in a truly captivating style.
But the book doesn’t stop at just those fifty moments. As a bonus, Posnanski throws in multiple collections of five shorter stories. For example, “Five Barehanded Plays” or “Five Catches” or “Five Blunders.” And just before revealing the number one moment in the book, there is “A Moment for Every Team,” that way every fan can find something they can enjoy, regardless of which MLB team they might root for.
And that, I think, is the true value that this book presents: it is a book that any baseball fan can find pleasure in. I also love the fact that this book does not have to be read continuously to be understood. It is essentially a collection of short stories, and, as such, it can be picked up at one’s leisure, anytime the reader is in the mood for a little baseball.
And in the same way Posnanski made me fall in love with the Royals, this book will make any reader fall in love with baseball all over again.
William Henry O’Kelleher Jr. (he would later Americanize the name to Keeler) was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 3, 1872. His father, William O’Kelleher Sr., worked as a trolley switch man. Willie Keeler began playing baseball at a young age, and was so good that he was named captain of his high school team as a freshman. His high school career was short-lived, however, as he quit school the following year and went on to play semiprofessional baseball in the New York City area.
After a couple of seasons with the Plainfield Crescent Cities of the Central New Jersey League, Keeler joined the minor league team in Binghamton, New York. He was called up to the New York Giants at the end of the season at the age of 20 years old. Standing only 5-foot-4 and weighing a mere 140 pounds, Keeler was one of the smallest players ever in major league baseball, earning him the nickname “Wee Willie.” Despite his stature, Keeler would establish himself as one of the greatest contact hitters of all time, being notoriously difficult to strike out. His motto at the plate was, âKeep your eye on the ball and hit âem where they ainât.â
Keeler compiled a .341 career batting average, hitting over .300 sixteen times in nineteen seasons, and he hit over .400 once. His best season came in 1897 with the Orioles, when he hit .424 and led the National League with 239 hits in only 129 games. Keeler also started the season with a 44-game hitting streak, beating the previous record of 42. His new mark stood for 44 years before being broken by Joe DiMaggio in 1941.
Keeler twice led his league in batting average and three times in hits. He hit an astounding 206 singles during the 1898 season, a record that stood for more than 100 years. Additionally, Keeler had an on-base percentage of greater than .400 for seven straight seasons, and when Keeler retired in 1910, he was third all-time in hits with 2,932, behind only Cap Anson and Jake Beckley.
Keeler was also a force on the base paths, totaling 495 career stolen bases. Of his 33 career long balls, 30 of them were inside-the-park home runs.
Keeler passed away on January 1, 1923 at the age of 50. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939.
William Van Winkle “Jimmy” Wolf was born on May 12, 1862 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the only player to appear in the American Association in all ten seasons of its existence. All ten of Wolf’s AA seasons were played for his hometown team, first known as the Louisville Eclipse in 1891, then known as the Louisville Colonels from 1882 to 1891. Wolf set a number of career American Association records: most games played (1,195), total bases (1,921), hits (1,438), doubles (214), and triples (109).Â
When the American Association folded, Wolf went on to play for the St. Louis Browns of the National League in 1892, which ended up being his last season in the majors. He played in just three games for the Browns before being let go. He would then play in the minor leagues until 1894, before retiring from baseball.
To Wolf’s family growing up, he was known as “Willie.” The nickname “Chicken” was supposedly given to him by Eclipse teammate, Pete Browning. According to the story, the Eclipse manager instructed the team to eat lightly before a game, but Wolf succumbed to his appetite and stuffed himself on stewed chicken. He then played poorly in the game, committing several errors. Pete Browning made a connection between the stewed chicken and Wolf’s lackluster play and hung the nickname âChickenâ on him. The name caught on with his teammates and the local press.Â
About halfway through his professional career, Wolf then became known as âJimmyâ Wolf in the Louisville newspapers. However, the origin or reason for this change remains unknown.
Following the end of his playing career, Wolf returned to Louisville, and in 1894, he joined the Louisville Fire Department. Five years into his firefighting career, while rushing to the scene of a fire, Wolfâs engine collided with a pushcart, and Wolf suffered a serious head injury in the accident. Wolf was declared âmentally unbalancedâ and, in 1901, spent time in the Central Asylum for the Insane outside Louisville. Wolf died on May 16, 1903 at City Hospital in Louisville. William Van Winkle Wolf was laid to rest in Louisvilleâs Cave Hill Cemetery.
In a Players’ League game between the Buffalo Bison and the Chicago Pirates on September 15, 1890, Bison pitcher Bert Cunningham threw five wild pitches in the first inning at South Side Park. This performance established a dubious regular-season record, which would later be matched by Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel during a 2000 playoff game against the Mets.
Cunningham was nevertheless inducted into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame in 1996.
On May 8, 1878, outfielder Paul Hines of the Providence Grays took part in what was believed to have been the first known unassisted triple play. Playing at home in the Messer Street Grounds against Boston, runners Jack Manning and Ezra Sutton were on third and second base, respectively. With no outs in the inning, Jack Burdock hit a short fly to left field that Hines ran hard to catch for an out, and he ran all the way to third base to get both Manning and Sutton out. Under the rules of the time, if both players had rounded third on the batted ball, by stepping on the bag, Hines got them both out for not tagging up. However, there is some debate as to whether or not Sutton actually rounded third on the play.
The publication date for this piece is unknown, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was written in the mid-to-late-1870s, around the time of the fall of the National Association and the beginnings of the National League. The poem is full of imagery and metaphor, speaking of “the collected debris of memories” and “New fortresses / Stretch their fledgling arms / And puncture the sky / With abbreviated zeal.” I can just imagine team owners clinking glasses to cheers of “Long live the National League!” as they concluded their meeting at the Grand Central Hotel.
*
No sun,
Now rubble,
The collected debris of memories
Echoes
An anguished ring through the corridors of Manhattan Canyons:
Where are we going?
From where
To where
Do we step?
December… a month… a day… a time
logged on the fresh pages of history…
the first and only real entry… a league
…a new league… a microscopic legion of
men bearing witness to the birth,
unfurling its colors on an industrial land to detract
from the former failure…
The National Association is dead,
Long live the National League!
From rubble to rubble,
From dust to dust,
New fortresses
Stretch their fledgling arms
And puncture the sky
With abbreviated zeal.
Like so many transients
Awaiting a derailed train,
The others come
And never go.
The American Association is dead
The Union Association is dead
The Players League is dead.
All gone,
All dead,
Long live the National League!
I haven’t done the research to determine just how far back the tradition of baseball teams wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day truly goes, but some believe that it may go back quite a ways. The 1899 Philadelphia Phillies introduced their new, green-trimmed uniforms on March 17th, a move that garnered headlines. Considering the Phillies wore these uniforms for the rest of the season, there remains some debate as to whether this could truly be considered a nod to St. Patrick’s Day. The modern tradition of wearing green on this day wouldn’t emerge until 1978, beginning with the Cincinnati Reds.
