Jake Beckley's Obit

Jake Beckley

Jacob P. Beckley, 51 years old, died late this afternoon at his home, 1306 Bellefontaine Avenue.  Mr. Beckley came to Kansas City in 1907 from St. Louis, and for two seasons was first baseman for the Kansas City Blues.  During the season of 1909 he managed this baseball team, but was transferred to the Hannibal, Mo., team in 1910. 

Beckley was deputy constable of the Seventh District Court for the last two terms.  He had been ill since the first of the year.  Death was due to heart disease.  Besides the widow, Mr. Beckley is survived by his mother, Mrs. Barney Beckley, a sister, Mrs. A.G. Baird, both of Hannibal, Mo., and a sister, Mrs. George Miller of Monett, Mo. 

Burial will be at Hannibal. 

-Kansas City Star, June 26, 1918


Beckley played with the St. Louis Whites in 1888 and the St. Louis Cardinals from 1904-1907.

Pete Sommers

Pete Sommers

I get the best emails.  I'm always finding stuff in my inbox from folks who read the blog or have stumbled across it while doing a bit of research and they ask great questions.  These emails are often rather challenging and it takes some time and effort to answer the questions that people bring to me.  But I love a good challenge.

Week before last, I got an email from Paul Winter, who runs a nice website about St. Louis baseball.  One of the questions that he asked regarded the identity of the man pictured in the Old Judge card at the top of this post.  I made an educated guess, based on a reference that I had regarding the St. Louis Whites, that this was Pete Sommers.  I figured that he was one of the guys that Von der Ahe signed in the 1887/1888 offseason when he was collecting talent in order to replace the players from the Browns that he had just sold and also stock his new Western Association club.  But this was just a guess and I had to do a little research to run the thing down.  However, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again, and it looks like I guessed correctly.

According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Pete Sommers signed with the Browns in early December 1887.  "The first [player signed by the Browns] is Peter Sommers, a South Paw twirler.  He pitched for Savanah the first part of last season, and finished the year at Columbus, O.  He is not overstrong, but is considered a first-class man for one game a week."

The next mention of Sommers I have comes from the May 5, 1888 edition of The Sporting News.  "St. Louis takes second place but it is not likely she will stay there long as she has such pitchers as Staley, Somers, Nyce, Sproat and Devlin."  This reference shows that Sommers had not made the Browns and was, as of early May, a member of the St. Louis Whites.  It also shows, to a certain extent, the relationship between the Browns and the Whites.

Sommers stay in St. Louis, however, did not last long.  According to the May 14, 1888 edition of The Daily Picayune, "Peter Sommers is at large again, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to give him a trial in the box."  Sporting Life (May 23, 1888) is a bit more specific about what happened.  "Pete Sommers, who has just been released by St. Louis, pitched his first game for Mansfield [on May 11]..."

So we know that the Pete Sommers, who pitched with Columbus and Mansfield, had signed with the Browns and was, for a time, also with the Whites.  What I don't know and what I don't have any evidence of is whether or not he ever got into a game for either club.  But the information that we do have explains the Old Judge card.  Also we know that he was a left-handed pitcher.  This is of some significance given that his Baseball-Reference pages doesn't have that information.

I also have a reference from The Milwaukee Sentinal of a Sommers pitching for Des Moine in 1890.  While I can't be certain that this is Pete Sommers, it appears likely.  According to Baseball-Reference, Sommers pitched in three games for Evansville in 1890 and, given that he was active through 1897, he was probably pitching somewhere besides Evansville that season.  Des Moine is as good a guess as any but the evidence is not conclusive.    

The Herrs: The Error That Went Viral

I got an email from friend of the blog Cliff Blau two months ago pointing out a discrepancy and some confusion regarding Joe Herr and Ed Herr.  I've been meaning to write something up about this ever since and never got around to it until now.  This is a convoluted story, so bear with me.

Over three years ago, I wrote a series of posts about the 1888 St. Louis Whites, a club that David Nemec, in The Beer & Whiskey League, called "a kind of farm team."  The club was owned by Chris Von der Ahe and played in the Western Association.  Essentially, I was looking for evidence of a relationship between Von der Ahe's Browns and his WA club in order to prove or disprove David's statement about the nature of the Whites, an opinion that Peter Morris also supported.  While I was initially sceptical, I think that I was able to prove that the Whites were essentially a proto-farm team for the Browns and that David and Peter were correct.

Now in the course of writing up the series on the Whites, I identified on of the players on the club as Ed Herr.  If you look at the tags in the right-side column of the blog, you'll notice a tag for Ed Herr that leads you to all of the posts I've written that mentions him.  I wrote the following brief sketch of Herr:

Ed Herr: shortstop; played three seasons in the majors between 1887 and 1890; played with the Browns after the breakup of the Whites (and again in 1890); after he was finished with baseball, Herr worked as a carpenter in St. Louis; he died in 1933, drowning in the Mississippi.

The problem here has multiple parts.  First, there was a 19th century baseball player by the name of Ed Herr but he never played for the Whites or the Browns.  Second, the player who did play with the Whites was named Joe Herr but Ed Herr's full name was Edward Joseph Herr.  Both Joe Herr, of the Whites, and Ed Herr, not of the Whites, were born in St. Louis, less than a decade apart.  Both Herrs died in St. Louis, exactly a decade apart.

What appears to have happened is that somehow Joe Herr became identified as Ed Herr, essentially confusing the two men.  The error appears in numerous places.  It's on my website.  If you search "Ed Herr" at Baseball-Reference, one of the entries that pop up is Joe Herr.  It's at Deadball Era, where Frank Russo provides an obituary from The New York Times that identifies Ed Herr as having died in 1933, information that matches Joe Herr's date of death at Baseball Reference.  It's at Find A Grave, which has entries for Edward Joseph Herr, Joseph "Joe" Herr and Edward Joseph "Eddie" Herr.  The Beer & Whiskey League identifies the Whites' player as Ed Herr (although David has told me that, like myself and just about everybody else, he made an error).  It's at BR-Bullpen.  It's at Wikipedia.  

This error, which essentially is the misidentification of Joe Herr as Ed Herr, is everywhere you look.  It is an error that went viral.  And I played a part in that, something which I have to take responsibility for.  I made a mistake and the information that I passed along about was wrong.  I take a great deal of pride in this website and I've spent years building my credibility as a historian and researcher.  I make a lot of jokes about how few readers I have but the truth is that there are a lot of people who read this blog and use it as a resource.  The people who visit my site trust me to provide them with accurate information and, in this case, I failed to do so.  Now, I don't want to be all dramatic about this but I did make a mistake and I think I played a role in spreading this error.  So I do feel the need to apologize and take steps to correct the error.

So here's what I know:

The guy who played with the Whites and the Browns in the late 1880s was always referred to as Joe Herr.  The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Sporting Life, Inter-Ocean and various other papers always referred to him as Joe.  I have not seen one reference to this player being called Ed Herr.  Joe Herr played with the Whites in 1888 and with the Browns in 1888 and 1890.

Ed Herr played with various minor league clubs, beginning in the mid 1890s.  In the newspaper sources I've seen, he is always referred to as Ed, Eddie or Edward.  He was never, to the best of my knowledge, referred to as Joe.  Ed Herr never played with the Whites or the Browns.

Now as to their biographical data, I haven't bothered to run that down.  I assume that the data given for Joe Herr at Baseball-Reference and Find A Grave, which states that he was born on March 4, 1865 in St. Louis and died on July 12, 1933 in St. Louis, is correct.  Also, I assume the information for Ed Herr, which states that he was born on May 14, 1873 in St. Louis and died on July 18, 1943, is correct as well.  It does appear that their baseball records, as they appear at Baseball-Reference, are also correct.  But just to be clear, this is Joe Herr and this is Ed Herr.

Again, I apologize for my part in all of this but the best part of working in the media I do is that I can run corrections like this and make it a permanent part of the record.  To that end, I want to note that there is an entry for Joe Herr in Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900, Volume 1 that was written by Peter Morris and David Nemec.  They wrote the following:

A carpenter by trade, Joe Herr grew up near where the St. Louis Maroons' Palace Park was built in 1884 and by 1885 was a member of the famed semi-pro Peach Pies.  He began 1886 with independent Bellville, IL, and then moved to St. Joseph of the Western League.  Signed for 1887 by the new Cleveland AA entry, Herr was released to Lincoln of the Western League in May of that season at his own request after deciding that he could not play his best with such a weak team. 

The following spring Herr was named captain of the Western Association St. Louis Whites...In a WA game on May 1, 1888, he became only the fourth man to hammer a ball over the LF fence in Sportsman's Park...Herr later also became the fifth and sixth man to perform this feat.  The latter blast came in an AA game on June 27 after he had joined the Browns once the Whites folded.  Having established that he had extraordinary power, Herr soon also demonstrated that he lacked the necessary range to play SS...Although Herr remained on the Browns for the remainder of 1888 and participated in the World's Series against the New York Giants, he collected just 172 ABs.  Since RBI were not an official stat then, no one could have realized that his retrospective 43 RBI would be 12 more than any other player in AA history compiled in a season with less than 200 ABs. 

Something appears to have happened to Herr that winter, or perhaps he simply lost motivation after the Browns dropped him the following spring.  Herr began 1899 in the Western Association but was released by Milwaukee after 26 games...He then played in the Central Interstate League with Evansville...Riddled by Players League defections, the Browns rehired him in June 1890 and then released him less than two weeks later to Waco of the Texas League...That July, Herr took an offer from Jamestown of the New York State League but regretted it almost as soon as he arrived in that tiny town and was back in St. Louis in August.  Over the next eighteen months or so he married and began a family, seemingly having wasted a large quantity of baseball potential.  He was an unemployed carpenter living apart from his wife, Marie, in a men's shelter when he drowned in 1933.

Go buy the book so David doesn't yell at me for copying and pasting such a big chunk of it.  And remember, Joseph Herr played for the Whites and the Browns and Edward Joseph Herr, no relation, was a career minor leaguer who never played for a major or minor league St. Louis club.  

                             

Von der Ahe On Caruthers, Foutz, the Whites And The Browns Chances In 1888

"Can you confirm the sale of Foutz?"

"I can. Foutz has been signed by Brooklyn already. The price paid for him was even more than the $5000 first published."

"How do you feel over the sale of your players?"

"Well, the only man I regret losing is Caruthers. He is a great ball player, but very stubborn and hard to manage..."

"Do you still think that the Browns are as strong as ever?"

"I think they are stronger and will again win the pennant. I do not say this for a boast, but I mean every word of it."

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, December 4, 1887

This was part of an interview that Von der Ahe gave just before he left for the annual league meeting. One of the interesting things that he said was in response to the reporters question about the possibility of raising ticket prices to 50 cents. Von der Ahe said that he was in favor of raising ticket prices (naturally) and that, if prices were raised, fans in St. Louis would still have the option of seeing his new Western League club, the Whites, for 25 cents. This probably explains why the Whites lost money. If tickets to see both clubs were 25 cents in 1888, why would anyone pay to see the Whites when you could see the Browns for the same price?

Gleason Is Quietly Resting

The Associated Press yesterday was authority for the statement that Bill Gleason had been signed by the Philadelphia League Club. In order for Bill to sign with a League club it would require the consent of all the Association managers to his transfer, and it is safe to say that even if Mr. Von der Ahe wished to release him some Association club would gobble him up rather than let him go to the League. Besides, Bill is quietly resting at his home on St. Louis avenue, and is not bothering his head about ball matters. He is reserved by the St. Louis club and will play short-stop for either the Association or Western League team. The Gleason signed by Philadelphia is a pitcher.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 19, 1887

I don't think this is significant but it is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it appears to be common knowledge that Von der Ahe is shopping players and wanting to make some moves. This is the first time that Gleason's name has come up but his play in 1887 was found wanting and I don't think it was a secret that St. Louis wanted to upgrade his position. Second, I think it's really interesting how the Globe is almost treating the Browns and the Whites as one entity. There had been a bunch of stuff in the papers about Von der Ahe not treating or running the Whites as an extension of the Browns. It was basically part of the deal Von der Ahe made to get a Western League club. That stuff obviously went by the wayside rather quickly.

A New Player For The Browns?

Charles Alcott, short stop of the Ashland club, signed a contract to play with the St. Louis club to-day. He played with Harry Lyons and was highly recommended by the latter. He is 30 years of age, and of strong, athletic build, a good runner and a hard hitter. He played with the famous Merretts of Camden, Trendon, Syracuse, and Scranton clubs.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 26, 1887

Although the Globe's headline implied that Alcott was signed for the Browns, he never played with the club. He did, however, play with the St. Louis Whites in 1888.

A Training-School For The Browns

When it was first proposed to establish a Western Association club in St. Louis, objection was made to such location on the ground that Von der Ahe would use it as a training-school for the Browns, and would feel at liberty to cull from it any time when the senior organization betrayed weakness. Tom Loftus and Comiskey, who, with Von der Ahe, are factors in the new association, have given emphatic assurance that the policy hinted at would not be resorted to under any circumstances.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 25, 1887

The context of this was a meeting of the Western Baseball Association that was being held in Chicago on October 26, during which a decision was to be made on whether St. Louis or Lincoln, Nebraska, would enter the league.

I've written about the relationship between the Browns and the St. Louis Whites before and it's clear that Von der Ahe used the Whites as a farm club for his major league team. So the assurances that were given to get the club into the Western Association were either not kept or not sincere. Also, I think this is the first time I've seen Comiskey's name tied to the club and I'm not sure what his role was in the organization and management of the Whites.

A Busy September

The organization of the new Western League will be perfected at Chicago to-day. It will comprise the cream of the cities at present comprising the Western and Northwestern Leagues, with the addition of Chicago and in all probability St. Louis. A preliminary meeting of the delegates at present in Chicago was held yesterday, and though no actual business was transacted, it was decided to get everything in readiness for to-day when the real work will begin. President Meyers, of the Kansas City Club, was authorized to represent St. Louis at the meeting, President Von der Ahe giving him instructions if a good circuit were arranged and the new organization were financially sound, to count on him for membership. The prospects are St. Louis will be represented in the new organization.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 27, 1887

Von der Ahe had a rather busy September. He had a world's series to organize, a player's revolt to deal with and he was in the process of putting together the St. Louis Whites. And all of that was on top of the normal day to day operation of his ball club and his other business ventures. Plus, he probably had a couple of girlfriends on the side. If you ever run into someone who doesn't take Von der Ahe seriously, just mention what he was doing in the fall of 1887.

Kansas City Is A Good Baseball Town

President Nimmick and Manager Phillips, of the Pittsburg club, Chris Von der Ahe, of St. Louis, and E.E. Menges, President of the Western League, held a long secret conference [in Kansas City] this morning. What subjects were discussed is unknown, but a rumor is in circulation to the effect that the Pittsburg club may be transferred to Kansas City. It is a well-known fact that Von der Ahe has been looking for an opportunity to get an interest in a good club in Kansas City for several years, as he considers it a good base-ball town. All of the gentlemen who took part in the conference refuse to disclose the matters discussed. It is thought that the union of the Western and Northwestern Leagues, which is to be consummated before the beginning of next season, was one of the subjects which was talked about.

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 20, 1887

I would imagine that this meeting laid the foundation for the establishment of the St. Louis Whites.

And the title of this post was meant non-ironically. Kansas City is a good baseball town. They just have a bad baseball team.

Also, it's Election Day. Get out and vote a few times. If the FEC is monitoring this blog (and why wouldn't they be), that bit about voting a few times was a joke.

Harry Staley

Harry E. Staley, of whom we give a splendid likeness this week, is the well known pitcher of the leaders in the great League race-the Bostons. Staley is a native of Springfield, Illinois, and first played as a professional in 1885 when he signed with the Decatur, Illinois, Club, a semi-professional team. In 1886 he pitched for the club of his native city, and in 1887 went back to Decatur. In 1888 when St. Louis was admitted into the Western Association, Manager Tom Loftus secured him to pitch for the new team. His work in the Western Association was first class and he was looked upon with longing eyes by quite a number of managers who were anxious to secure his services. Their opportunity came soon, for the Whites were a financial failure, and President Von der Ahe was compelled to disband the team. Just before the team disbanded Horace Phillips, the manager of the Pittsburgs, secured Staley and Jake Beckley for his club. He remained with the Pittsburg League Club during the seasons of 1888, 1889 doing excellent pitching. In 1890 he was with the Player's League team of the same city. He began the season of 1891 with the League club of Pittsburg but about the middle of the summer was transferred to the Boston League Club with which he finished the season. This season he is with the same club and has so far proved to be one of the best members of their splendid corps of pitchers.

-The Sporting News, June 18, 1892

Still On Vacation

A quick and lazy post while I'm on vacation. Here's pictures of Ed Herr, Jim Devlin, and Tom Dolan's Old Judge baseball cards-three members of the 1888 St. Louis Whites who also played for the Browns that season.

An Index To Posts About The St. Louis Whites

Here's a quick and easy index to this weeks posts on the Whites (just click on the link to go to that post):

A Sort Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 1
A Sort Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 2
A Sort Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 3
A Sort Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 4
A Sort Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 5
A Sort Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 6

A Kind Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 6

Part Six? Are you kidding me? I certainly can prattle on, can't I? That's a lot of words on a subject that I don't really feel I have a complete handle on. Anyway, on to the summation.

The original question at hand was "Were the St. Louis Whites a farm club for the St. Louis Browns?" David Nemec called them "a kind of farm club" and Peter Morris wrote that Von derAhe "operated the St. Louis Whites of the Western Association as a farm club..." So the general consensus among baseball historians appears to be that the Whites were indeed a farm club. I would have to agree that the evidence supports this consensus.

However (and for Pete's sake, why can't I just reach a conclusion and stick to it without having to qualify it?), I would have to say that Von der Ahe had other motives in operating the Whites beyond the desire to put together a farm club and develop young talent. He certainly was interested in having another gate attraction for Sportsman's Park. While the Whites failed to draw a crowd in their short history, the appeal of having a team playing at home while the Browns were on the road is obvious.

While I certainly see the flaws in the argument, I still believe that the idea that the Whites were a Western Association stalking horse for Von der Ahe's baseball interests has merit. Von der Ahe saw the threat of the Eastern clubs breaking off from the NL and AA and forming their own league as a real possibility and it makes sense that he would make plans to deal with the fallout from such a threat. The Whites and the WA can be seen as central to Von der Ahe's plans to establish a Western major league if and when the Eastern teams made good on their threat.

So, yes, the Whites were a farm club for the Browns and, if the intent was to identify and develop future major league players, they were a successful one despite only existing for part of one season. The Browns were able to identify and sign Beckley, Staley, Devlin, Herr, and Crooks, all good young players. If the Browns had kept those players and continued to develop young talent, they most likely would have had more success in the 1890's then they did.

But the team also existed to further Von der Ahe's business interests. They were designed to draw a crowd to Sportsman's Park when the Browns were out of town and they were a fall-back position in the event that the contemporary major league structure fell apart. So while the Whites can be identified as a farm club, they certainly were more than that.

A Kind Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 5

I'm done speculating on the nature of the Whites. Let's take a look at the roster.

The following players were members of the St. Louis Whites in 1888:

Tug Arundel: catcher; played on and off in the major leagues between 1882 and 1888; after the breakup of the Whites, Arundel was released and received an offer from the Kansas City Association team although he ended up with the Washington Nationals.

Jake Beckley: first base; a heck of a player, Beckley was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971; he played 20 seasons in the major leagues between 1888 and 1907, ending his career with the Cardinals; after the breakup of the Whites, he was sold, along with Harry Staley, to Pittsburgh for $4500.

Ernie Burch: outfielder; played with Cleveland in 1884 and Brooklyn in 1886 and 1887.

Bart Cantz: catcher; played three seasons in the major leagues between 1888 and 1890; has a career batting average of .157; The Sporting News reported in June of 1888 that, after the breakup of the Whites, Cantz was going to join the Browns but it appears that he was sold to the Baltimore Association team.

Jack Crooks: third base; played eight seasons in the major leagues between 1889 and 1898, including two stints with the Browns (1892-1893 and 1898); was the manager of the Browns in 1892; led the NL in walks in 1892 and 1893, finished second in the AA in walks in 1890 and 1891; his 136 walks in 1892 set a major league record that stood until 1911; Crooks was sold to Omaha for $500 upon the breakup of the Whites.

Jim Devlin: pitcher; played four seasons in the major leagues between 1886 and 1889; played with the Browns after the breakup of the Whites and ended his major league career with the team the next year; I wrote a little bit about Devlin before.

Tom Dolan: catcher; played seven seasons in the major leagues between 1879 and 1888; played with the Browns in 1883 and 1884 before jumping to the Maroons (for whom he played in all three seasons of their existence); after the breakup of the Whites, Dolan rejoined the Browns; played baseball in St. Louis in four different leagues: the AA, UA, NL, and WA; after he retired from baseball, Dolan served as a fireman in St. Louis; I've written about Dolan a few times, most notably here.

Ed Herr: shortstop; played three seasons in the majors between 1887 and 1890; played with the Browns after the breakup of the Whites (and again in 1890); after he was finished with baseball, Herr worked as a carpenter in St. Louis; he died in 1933, drowning in the Mississippi.

Hunkey Hines: outfielder; born Henry Fred Hines; played one season in the majors with Brooklyn in 1895; after the breakup of the Whites, Hines was released and signed with a club in Rockford, where he lived the rest of his life.

Jerry McCormick: outfielder; played two seasons in the majors in 1883 and 1884.

Parson Nicholson: second base; born Thomas C. Nicholson, also called "Deacon"; played three seasons in the major leagues between 1888 and 1895; after the breakup of the Whites, he was released and it appears that he then signed with Detroit.

Harry Staley: pitcher; played eight years in the majors between 1888 and 1895; he finished his career playing with the Browns; after the breakup of the Browns, Staley was sold to Pittsburgh, along with Beckley, for $4,500; when Von der Ahe was attempting to sell the club, the player that most teams wanted to buy was Staley.

C. Alcott: shortstop; some sources list his first name as Charles.

Kenyon: outfielder; some sources list him as J.J. Kenyon or O.J. Kenyon; after the breakup of the Whites, Kenyon remained in St. Louis although it was expected that he would sign with a team in the Ohio League.

Fred Nyce: outfielder, pitcher; after the breakup of the Whites, Nyce received offers Kalamazoo and Canton and it was assumed by TSN that he would sign with the Kalamazoo.

Sproat: pitcher.


I put together this roster based on box scores, articles in TSN, and the Old Judge baseball card series. All players on this list either played in a game for the Whites, was mentioned as a member of the team, or were identified in the Old Judge set as a member of the Whites. I can state with certainty that the following players played in games for the Whites: Nicholson, Beckley, Crooks, Burch, Herr, Hines, Kenyon, Dolan, Staley, Sproat, Gantz, and Nyce. There is no record that I've found of Alcott, McCormick, Devlin, or Arundel playing in a game for the club.

Looking at the roster, it doesn't seem to be that bad of a team. There was a nice mix of veterans and youth. I would say that if the intent was to create a farm team and develop talent then the Browns did a good job putting the team together. Out of the sixteen players identified as members of the Whites, Beckley and Staley were outstanding young players who the Browns would have been wise to hold on to. Ed Herr looks like a good young prospect and I know that many clubs were interested in him. What happened to his career, I can't say but I'd certainly like to find out. Jim Devlin also was a young guy who looked like a promising major leaguer and then disappeared. Jack Crooks was twenty-two years old in 1888 and went on to have a nice career. So by my count and evaluation, that's five legitimate major league prospects on a sixteen man roster, three of whom went on to have better than average major league careers and one of whom was a Hall of Famer. I don't think you can do better than that and it speaks to the Browns' outstanding scouting ability.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try and wrap this thing up.

Person Jack Crooks

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A Kind Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 4

The available evidence make it easy to state that the Whites existed as a farm club for the Browns. Players are moving back and forth between the teams and the pattern fits a general baseball trend towards farming relationships that had been established in 1887. However, Von der Ahe's own words and actions in 1887 and 1888 cast some doubt on that relationship. He explicitly denied that the Whites were a farm club, quickly pulled the plug on the enterprise, and attempted to sell the franchise and players to another city rather than breakup the team and sell off the player individually. This attempt to keep the team intact in an effort to preserve the viability of the Western Association is fascinating and leads to another explanation for Von der Ahe's actions with regards to the Whites.

There are two articles that may possibly speak to Von der Ahe's intent. The first appeared in The New York Times on November 20, 1887:

A dispatch from St. Louis says the proposed new baseball League in the East is creating alarm among the stockholders of the St. Louis Browns. President Von der Ahe, since his return from the East, has had several conferences with other stockholders in the club, and he has imparted to them news of such a startling character that many of them are publicly asserting that baseball in the West next year will be practically dead. The President of the Browns says that Day, Byrne, and Barnie are heartily in favor of the scheme, and that if they pulled the other strong Eastern clubs into line the scheme would be adopted. "Without the big Eastern clubs," said he, "the business would go to smash, and if war was declared the East would have the advantage from the beginning." Foutz, Welch, and Bushong of the home team are to be traded off or sold, and if the proposed Eastern League is an assured fact the stars of the Browns will doubtless be sold and St. Louis will be contented with its little Western League Club.

The other appeared in The Sporting News on February 4, 1888:

St. Louis Will Be in The Big Western Association Next Year

And the Eastern Clubs Will Have an Association of Their Own

It seems to be the prevailing opinion among ball men that great changes will take place in the make-up of the base ball map after the present season. Said a gentleman, who is way up in ball circles, to me the other day:

“You will find that before the season of 1888 commences Brooklyn and Cincinnati will be full-flogged members of the National League. St. Louis will be in the New Western Association, leaving Cleveland, Louisville, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Kansas City to shift for themselves. Mark the prediction.”

While I don't find much evidence supporting the rumored geographical split in the baseball world, this doesn't mean that the rumors weren't floating about and being taken seriously by Von der Ahe. If you look at the language of the Times piece, I think it conveys how Von der Ahe may have seen the threat of the breakup of the National League and American Association along geographical lines. The Times uses the words "alarm," "startling," and "dead" and speaks of "war" and business going "to smash." The Times implies that Von der Ahe took these rumors very seriously and that he was concerned about the survival of his baseball interests.

The Sporting News article presented the rumor as a done deal. In the case of a geographical split, the Western Association would attempt to compete as a major league. In 1888, the WA had teams in St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Des Moines, Omaha, Davenport, and Sioux City. If you added Indianapolis to the Association, this would have made for a decent Western major league, although certainly it would have been at a financial disadvantage against the Eastern major league.

I believe that it's entirely possible that Von der Ahe was using the Whites and the Western Association as a stalking horse for the establishment of a potential Western major league in the face of the threat from the Eastern teams. If the threat materialized, Von der Ahe had a viable backup plan for his baseball interests. If the American Association fell apart, he could simply consolidate his baseball holdings and continue to operate in the Western Association.

Von der Ahe's attempts to sell the Whites in May of 1888 lends some credence to this interpretation. When the Eastern threat failed to materialize, Von der Ahe simply decided that he no longer needed the Whites or the players and entered into negotiations to sell them. His decision to sell the franchise and players rather than simply disband the team and sell off the players was defended by Von der Ahe as a move designed not to cause "irreparable damage to the Western Association." While Von der Ahe may have concluded that the threat had passed, he may have still had some concerns and wished to keep his Western Association option open.

Certainly this is highly speculative. But the rumors of the Eastern threat were floating about and Von der Ahe took them seriously. His ownership of the Whites and their participation in the WA would have allowed him to continue his baseball operations in St. Louis in the eventuality of the materialization of the Eastern threat. The Western Association also could have been quickly transformed into a major league with the participation of people like Von der Ahe and Spaulding, whose Chicago team also had a farm club in the WA. When the threat passed, Von der Ahe was able to dispose of the Whites while attempting to preserve the WA-just in case.

Tomorrow, I'll talk a bit about the players on the Whites.

A Kind Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 3

We can see evidence of a farming relationship between the Browns and Whites, with players moving between the two teams, and Peter Morris has written that this relationship fits within a general 19th century trend towards the establishment of the farm system. This seems sufficient to declare that the Whites were indeed a Browns' farm club. However, there is some contradictory evidence that most be dealt with.

In the November 9, 1887 issue of Sporting Life, there is an article that discusses Von der Ahe's purchase of the Whites and mentions that Tom Loftus would be the club's manager. In this article, Von der Ahe explicitly states that the Whites would not be run as the Browns' farm club. What are we to make of this? It's possible that Von der Ahe was simply being disingenuous. Some of the farming relationships developed by major league clubs in 1887 had been controversial and many stated at the time that they were illegal. So Von der Ahe, in denying a farming relationship between the Browns and Whites, may have simply been trying to cover up the true nature of the relationship in an attempt to avoid controversy. It's also possible, however, that Von der Ahe was stating the truth and that while there may have been the appearance of a farming relationship, the intent to establish a farm club did not exist.

If Von der Ahe did not intend for the Whites to exist as a farm club, what was the purpose of his ownership of the club? It is entirely possible that the Whites existed for their own sake-to play baseball, to win games, to capture a pennant, to draw fans to Sportsman's Park. On February 25, 1888, The Sporting News wrote that "Talking of the coming season's prospects Mr. Von der Ahe said they were unusually bright. He will have two splendidly equipped teams in the field, and when one is away the other will be found at work entertaining the local patrons." I don't think then that it's outside the realm of possibility that Von der Ahe established the Whites simply as another tenant for his ballpark. St. Louis had shown to a certain extent that it was able to support two teams. In 1884, the Browns and the Maroons finished first and fourth among all major league teams in attendance. While the Maroons' attendance fell off in their final two years, between 1884 and 1886 the two clubs drew over 800,000 fans between them. With the Browns drawing almost 250,000 fans in 1887, it's conceivable that Von der Ahe believed that there was room in the St. Louis baseball market for another team and that he could profit from the addition of that team.

However, the Whites, most likely as a result of their poor play, did not draw well and, at the same time, the Browns' attendance fell by almost 100,000 due to the St. Louis fans' displeasure over Von der Ahe's fire sale after the 1887 season. The market was unable to sustain both teams and Von der Ahe quickly decided to dispose of the Whites. It's Von der Ahe's quick decision to sell the Whites and the manner in which he went about it that casts a great deal of doubt on the status of the Whites and Von der Ahe's original intent with regards to the team.

The Whites first game was played against Milwaukee at Sportsman's Park on April 28, 1888. Less than a month later, Von der Ahe was actively attempting to sell the team. By May 27th, Von der Ahe was in serious negotiations with both "Mr. McClintock of Denver and Mr. Keith of Lincoln" to sell his Western Association franchise and all of its players. The Sporting News explained that Von der Ahe had received "good cash offers for several members of the team and notably for (Harry) Staley. He had not accepted any of those for the simple reason that he did not care to break up the team, a move that would be of irreparable damage to the Western Association. He believed that the only fair thing to do was to transfer the team bodily to some other city and he would only do this after receiving fair compensation."

This raises several questions. If Von der Ahe was operating the Whites as a farm club, why was he attempting to sell the franchise and the players less than four weeks after the club began playing? If the goal of owning the Whites was to operate a reserve club and develop players for the Browns, why was Von der Ahe pulling the plug in May? I understand that the Whites were drawing poorly and Von der Ahe was running the operation at a loss but wouldn't that loss have been acceptable to a certain extent if the Whites were operating as a farm club for the Browns? Even if the Whites were losing money, how substantial could the loss have been after only four weeks of operation? As far as selling the players is concerned, if the Whites were simply a farm club for the Browns why would Von der Ahe not simply sell off the players and fold the team? He had offers on the table for the players so why not take them? Why was he concerned about the viability of the Western Association? Why was his original intent to sell the franchise and the players?

While Von der Ahe originally wanted $10,000 for the franchise and players, by the first week of June he had reached an agreement with James Keith to sell the team for $7,000. At the time of the agreement, Von der Ahe had offers on the table from various teams to purchase members of the Whites. These included offers from Louisville, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Wilkes-Barre. If he had wanted to, Von der Ahe could have sold off the players at the beginning of June and received more money than Keith was offering him.

In the end, the agreement with Keith fell apart and McClintock never raised his offer over $5,000 so Von der Ahe, on June 20th, disbanded the Whites and sold off several of the players. He received $4500 from Pittsburgh for Jake Beckley and Harry Staley and sold Jack Crooks to Omaha for $500. Tom Dolan, Ed Herr, and Jim Devlin all joined the Browns. Bart Cantz also was assigned to the Browns but was transferred to Baltimore in a transaction for which I have no details. So out of the breakup of the Whites, Von der Ahe received, at the very least, $5,000 plus Dolan, Herr, and Devlin. If he had sold those three players, Von der Ahe would have most likely gotten well over the $7,000 that Keith had offered him for the entire franchise. The rest of the players were released.

It's Von der Ahe's own words and actions in 1887 and 1888 that raises doubts about the status of the Whites. While his comments that the Whites were not a farm club can be dismissed, he also stated in late May of 1888 that he saw no difference between the Whites and Browns and that he treated both clubs the same. At no time did Von der Ahe ever state or imply that the Whites were a farm club and were subservient to the needs of the Browns-this at a time when farming relationships were accepted and in the open.

Von der Ahe's attempts to pursue the viability of the Western Association is rather fascinating and the possible explanation for this also cast doubt about his intent regarding the Whites. I'll talk about this tomorrow.

A Kind Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 2

So while researching the status of the 1888 St. Louis Whites, I found enough evidence to establish a relationship between the Whites and the Browns that involved players moving back and forth between the two teams. However, in the face of contradictory evidence, I was still struggling to get a handle on the nature of the relationship between the two teams. At that point I got smart and pulled Peter Morris' A Game of Inches: The Game Behind The Scenes off the shelf. Morris has a great deal to say regarding the development of the farm system and specifically mentions the Whites.

Most sources credit Branch Rickey with inventing the practice of farming, but this is at best an oversimplification. Rickey was unquestionably the first man to put together what we now call a farm system, in which a player could advance from the lowest rung of the minor leagues to the major leagues while remaining the property of the same organization. But the system of major league clubs using minor league clubs as farm clubs had a lengthy, well-organized, and controversial history before Rickey's entry into the field.

It could be argued that the use of farm clubs dates all the way back to the very earliest baseball clubs. These clubs were represented in matches by their "first nine," but they also had second and third nines and often junior nines. These extra nines provided reserves when a member of the first nine was injured or unavailable and also helped develop new players.

-A Game Of Inches: The Game Behind The Scenes

Morris goes on to write about how the National League and American Association clubs formed reserve teams in the face of the threat posed by the Union Association in 1884. While the aim of these teams was to keep players away from UA teams, they became "virtually a training school" for players. Sporting Life noted that these reserve teams "served to develop some strong young players, a number of whom are now playing on the regular nines." However, with the collapse of the UA following the 1884 season, the reason for the existence of the reserve teams had been removed and teams no longer felt the need to sign extra players.

"But major league owners had seen the advantages to having additional players available," Morris writes, "and soon found ways to resurrect the scheme." In January of 1887, Cincinnati attempted to make arrangements whereby they would loan out two of their players to a club in Kansas who at the end of the season would return them to the Red Stockings. While this scheme fell through, the Detroit Wolverines in the same year loaned out three of their players (Jimmy Manning, Bill Shindle, and George Knowlton) to Kansas City of the Western League. According to the Detroit Free Press, the players "will not sever their connection with the Detroits, neither will the club have to pay their salaries. If by sickness or accident any of the others of the club should be laid up, the team will not be weakened perceptibly, as a dispatch will bring either or all of the loaned players into the breach..." Later in 1887, Cincinnati would lend Henry Kappel to Nashville, imitating the Detroit/Kansas City arrangement. These moves were controversial at the time and many believed them to be illegal.

"With that tactic meeting such concerted resistance," Morris said, "the 1888 season instead saw many clubs take the route of purchasing minor league teams and operating them as farm clubs. In contrast to the season before, this practice was conducted openly and created relatively little controversy." This trend saw the Washingtons purchase Troy of the International Association in order to operate it as "a training-school or feeder..." John Day bought the Jersey City club of the Central League and planned to "run it as a reserve for the New-York Club." While it's unclear if Philadelphia owned Allentown of the Central league, the two teams had a relationship which "amounted to farming."

St. Louis Brown Stockings owner Chris Von der Ahe operated the St. Louis Whites of the Western Association as a farm club, signing no fewer than twenty-nine players to 1888 contracts by December of 1887. Chicago White Stockings president A.G. Spaulding appears to have pursued a similar course with another Western Association club, the Chicago Maroons. Although Sam Morton was the nominal president of the Maroons, the club had close connections with the local major league franchise...

Like so many nineteenth-century minor league clubs, the farm clubs were not financial successes. The St. Louis Whites folded in June 1888, and while the other clubs made it through the season, none seem to have been in the black. The Maroons disbanded at season's end, while the Washington club quietly disposed of its Troy farm club...Ownership of the Jersey City club in 1888 was reported to have resulted in a $17,500 loss, and although it returned as "an annex to the New York League Club" in 1889, Day apparently sold out in June...Not surprisingly, a consensus emerged that such ventures were too expensive to be maintained.

That perception was one of several factors that led to the multiple experiments with farm clubs in 1888 being followed by six lean years for farming. A second was the concern voiced by Sporting Life's Columbus correspondent that farming could destroy a minor league's competitive balance. Another important reason was that the attention of the established leagues was focused on the player revolt that led to the creation of the Player's League in 1890. In addition...any exchange of contracts during this period meant releasing the players with the risk of losing them altogether.

-A Game Of Inches: The Game Behind The Scenes

So Morris places the Browns relationship with the Whites squarely in the 19th century trend towards the development of the farm system and explicitly states that Von der Ahe operated the Whites as a farm club. However, there is evidence that contradicts this and lends itself to other interpretations. I'll discuss this tomorrow.

A Kind Of Farm Team-The 1888 St. Louis Whites, Part 1

So top-heavy were the Browns with raw and untested players in the spring of 1888 that Von der Ahe formed the St. Louis Whites as a kind of farm team to play in the Western Association.

-David Nemec, The Beer & Whiskey League


I was recently involved in a very pleasant conversation about Chris Von der Ahe over at Baseball Fever when the subject of the 1888 St. Louis Whites came up. It was the contention of one of the posters that the Browns had developed the first minor league system and that the Whites were the farm club in that system. While I was aware of Nemec's statement regarding the Whites, I thought that the idea that the Whites were a farm club and represented one of the first steps in the development of the modern minor league system to be overstated. However, I soon realized how little I really knew about the Whites (and don't think for a minute that just because I don't have all the facts I won't opine on a subject).

If the Browns were operating the Whites as a farm club, I thought that we would be able to see some player movement between the two clubs. That seemed logical. If there was a farming arrangement between the clubs, one would think that players would move from the Browns to the Whites and vice versa just as players today move between the parent club and the AAA club. While I didn't think the arrangement would be as tidy as it is today, I wanted to see that sort of player movement before I was willing to declare the Whites a Browns' farm club.

So I started doing some research.

The St. Louis Whites were a Western Association club, owned by Chris Von der Ahe and managed by Tom Loftus, that operated during the 1888 season. They had a 10-18 record before disbanding on June 20th.

The first reference to the Whites that I'm aware of comes from the November 9, 1887 issue of Sporting Life. In an article, it states that Loftus was to be the manager and that some Browns' players could be transferred to the club. Interestingly, Von der Ahe denied in the article that the Whites would be run as a Browns' farm club.

Von der Ahe had gone East in the Fall of 1887 selling off the rights to Doc Bushong, Curt Welch, Bill Gleason, Dave Foutz and Bob Caruthers in the Browns' great fire sale. In the process, he created holes in the Browns roster at catcher, pitcher, and in the outfield. To fill those holes, Von der Ahe received some players back from Philadelphia in exchange for Gleason and Welch and he and his agents signed numerous players. Eight of the players that Von der Ahe signed in the Fall of 1887 would play for the Whites.

A question that goes directly to Von der Ahe's intent in 1887 regarding the Whites is whether he signed the players to compete for roster spots on the Browns or whether they were signed specifically for his new WA club. In the December 3, 1887 issue of The Sporting News, Von der Ahe, in an article where he addresses the fire sale and the make-up of the 1888 Browns, mentions the players that he had signed and states that "Out of them, have you or anyone else the idea that we will not be able to pick a good player of two?" He specifically mentioned Parson Nicholson and stated that he would be playing second base for the Browns in 1888. The fact that Nicholson and most of the others Von der Ahe mentioned in the article ended up playing for the Whites in 1888 implies that he was signing players for the Browns, the players failed to make the team, and they were then assigned to the Whites.

There is other evidence that the players Von der Ahe was signing in the Fall of 1887 were to compete for roster spots on the Browns and only after failing to make the club were assigned to the Whites. In the February 18, 1888 issue of The Sporting News, Tom Loftus stated that he had signed Ernie Burch specifically for the Whites. The implication here is that Loftus and the Whites were in the process of stocking their own roster. There was no mention of the players signed in 1887 playing for the Whites. What we see is the Browns signing players and the Whites signing players-each team attempting to fill out their roster independently of the other.

If one accepts this logic then the players signed by the Browns in the Fall of 1887 who end up playing for the Whites in 1888 are evidence of player movement from the parent club to the farm club. Harry Staley, Jim Devlin, Hunkey Hines, Tom Dolan, Jerry McCormick, Bart Cantz, Parson Nicholson, and pitcher Sproat, one can say, were demoted to the "minor leagues" after failing to make the Browns.

There is also evidence of player movement in the opposite directions-from the Whites to the Browns. After the Whites were disbanded in June, The Sporting News reported in their June 30, 1888 issue that "Cantz and Dolan have been doing such splendid work behind the bat that President Von der Ahe has signed both for the Browns. Cantz has been hitting the ball hard and
is a good fielder, while Tom Dolan’s ability is well known." While it appears that Cantz was either traded or sold to Baltimore before he had a chance to play for the Browns, Dolan appeared in eleven games for the Browns in 1888.

Besides Dolan, two other members of the Whites played for the Browns in 1888. While it's unknown under what circumstances the two were transferred, Ed Herr and Jim Devlin were members of both the Whites and the Browns in 1888. I have found boxscores of Whites' games were Herr was playing with the team as late as May 2nd and Devlin is mentioned as a member of the team as late as May 5th. It's insinuated by The Sporting News that both were with the Browns prior to the Whites being disbanded on June 20th.

So the evidence of player movement between the Browns and the Whites exist. This was the minimum threshold of evidence that I thought had to be established before I could accept the idea that the Whites existed in 1888 as a Browns' farm club.

There also exists a great deal of evidence that this relationship was part of a general trend in 1887 and 1888 towards the establishment of farm clubs. I'll address that tomorrow.

Tom Loftus

Tom Loftus was a prominent 19th century baseball man who was involved in the game for more than 25 years. A player, captain, manager, and team president, Loftus was described by Al Spink as a person who "did much to bring the game into its proper sphere" and as "one of the great builder's up of the national game".

Loftus was born in St. Louis in 1856 and first gained notice on the baseball field while playing for the 1875 St. Louis Reds. In 1876, Loftus was regarded as the best player on the Red Stockings.

Living a rather nomadic baseball life, Loftus played with a Memphis team in 1877, captained Peoria in 1878, and joined the Dubuque nine in 1879. Loftus would call Dubuque home for the rest of his life, even as his baseball career took him from city to city.

The 1879 Dubuque Rabbits were an outstanding baseball team. The nine consisted of Loftus, Charlie Comiskey, Old Hoss Radbourne, the Gleason brothers, Tom Sullivan, Billy Taylor, William Lapham, and Larry Reis. Loftus played second base as the team won the championship of the Northwest League and a victory over Cap Anson's Chicago White Stockings.

In 1882, Ted Sullivan, who had put the Dubuque team together, went to St. Louis to manage the St. Louis Browns and brought the core of his Dubuque team with him. Loftus, Comiskey, and the Gleasons all joined Sullivan on the Browns. Coming down with a serious illness, Loftus played in only six games for the Browns in 1882 and 1883.

In 1884, Loftus's health had recovered enough for him to sign with Milwaukee in the Union Association as both player and manager. However the illness had taken its toll and Loftus only played the early part of the season before retiring as player and devoting his full time to managing.

Over the next seventeen years, Loftus would manage numerous teams. In 1885, he returned to St. Louis to skipper the Whites. From 1887 to 1889, Loftus managed in Cleveland. He then managed two seasons in Cincinnati from 1890 through 1891. In 1894, Loftus was managing the Columbus Western League team and remained there until 1900 when he took the manager's job with the Chicago Orphans of the NL. In 1901, Loftus took his last baseball job, managing the Washington Senators. Staying in Washington for two seasons, Loftus also served as team president.

Retiring from the game in 1902, Loftus returned home to Dubuque to devote himself full time to his business interests, specifically the ownership and management of a hotel. He received numerous offers to return to the game but preferred to remain in Dubuque.

While no longer active in the game, Loftus was still a respected figure in baseball circles. Al Spink wrote that "(while) he was not active in the game from 1902, he was one of the counsellors of both big leagues and was regarded as one of the substantial men in baseball. His advice was sought and heeded..." Ted Sullivan would write that Loftus was twenty years ahead of his time when he was playing and remained so throughout his baseball career. Henry Chadwick regarded Loftus as one of the greatest baseball men who ever lived.

Loftus, who according to Al Spink was"one of the best fellows ever prominently identified with the game," died at his home in Dubuque on April 16, 1910.

The St. Louis Whites

The St. Louis Whites were, essentially, a minor league team for the St. Louis Browns. They played part of one season in the Western Association in 1888, compilling a record of 10-18 before dropping out of the league on June 20th. The Whites were owned by Chris Von der Ahe and managed by former St. Louis Red Tom Loftus. David Nemac writes in The Beer & Whiskey League that "(so) top-heavy were the Browns with raw and untested players in the spring of 1888 that Von der Ahe formed the St. Louis Whites as a kind of farm team..."

The cards posted above are from the Old Judge set and picture Whites' players Henry Hines, Harry Staley, Fred Nyce, and C. Alcott.