By Edwin Cooney
The most amazing thing, when one thinks about it, is that
America lasted as long as it did – from Thursday, July 4th, 1776 to Tuesday,
May 4th, 1869 -- 92 years and 10 months -- without professional
baseball. No wonder we fought seven wars
during those years; we needed a national pastime of some kind!
Until the spring of 1869, bank clerks, bankers themselves,
mechanics, dockhands, and merchants (among others), practiced their professions
in cities and towns across America.
However, at about 3 o’clock on sunny spring, summer and fall days, they metamorphosed
into baseball players to play for the glory of a newspaper, a bank, a college,
or regions of a city. It was rough but it
was fun. Even more, it actually helped sell newspapers.
Most players belonged to the National Association of
Baseball Players (NABBP). Early in 1869,
the NABBP decided to sanction professional baseball. So, on Tuesday, May 4th,
1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, employing Englishman Harry Wright as
manager, his younger brother George (the team’s star shortstop) and eight other
men (only one of whom, first baseman Charlie Gould, was from Cincinnati) began
playing professional baseball. That day
they defeated the Cincinnati Great West, a crosstown rival, 45 to 9.
The Red Stockings would go undefeated in 1869 and, even more
impressive, would play games from Boston to San Francisco. The players were under contract from March 15th
to November 15th. The following
year they took up where they left off in 1869. They continued to win until
they got to Brooklyn and played the Atlantics on Tuesday, June 14th,
exactly 58 weeks to the day after their first victory. They played eleven innings and lost 8 to
7. Although they went on to have a
record 36 wins and only 7 losses in 1870, by the end of the year, two American
realities had taken hold. First, incredibly,
after their first loss the magic was gone.
Cincinnati fans had become fickle and home attendance dropped like a
misplayed pop fly. Second, the team’s
owners, who after all were Cincinnati businessmen, became tired of paying
baseball players minus a profit on their investment. (Note: one story I’ve seen reported that the
Cincinnati Baseball Company’s profit for their undefeated season was less than
two dollars.) The players were ready to
move on to more lucrative environs.
About half of them, including the Wright brothers, went on to
Boston. Even more, they took the name
Red Stockings with them.
In 1876, when Chicago entrepreneur William Hulbert founded
the National League, the Cincinnati Red Stockings were “born again” but they
lasted for only four years as a member of the new league. (Note: in Boston some
were calling the Red Stockings the “Red Caps.”) Unlike those who are “born again” with whom modern America is
familiar, the “reborn” of Cincinnati were more the indulgent type than the
spiritual kind. They would be expelled from the National League in 1880 because
they insisted on serving beer and alcohol at home games and playing baseball on
Sundays.
One hundred and forty-five years after that historic May 4th
game, baseball hasn’t fundamentally changed.
Sure, the bats are lighter, the gloves are bigger -- as are both the players’
salaries and team owners’ profits -- but baseball fans and players, from their willfulness
and their superstitions to their egos, are pretty much the same.
In fact, superstition is no small factor in baseball. There are players who, if they have a good
game, will wear the same sweatshirt as long as their luck holds out. Some players believe that there are only so
many hits in a bat or that their bats get tired if they use them too much. Hughie Jennings who managed the Detroit
Tigers between 1907 and 1920 would throw a fit if he saw a cross-eyed batboy or
if a black cat ran across the field before a game. The irony here is that Hughie Jennings was not
the typical uneducated dirt farmer or factory worker of his time. He attended Cornell Law School in 1903 and
1904 and, although he never finished his degree, he passed the Maryland State Bar
in 1905 and practiced law during the off-season.
In the 1930s and 40s, the sons of immigrants like Yogi Berra
and Joe Garagiola had difficulty convincing hardworking parents that one could
make a good living playing baseball. In
his book “Baseball Is a Funny Game,” Joe tells the story that the first time
his parents attended a St. Louis Cardinal night game, his father couldn’t
understand how the owners could possibly afford to pay the bill for all the
lighting in the ballpark. Joe and Yogi
came from “The Hill,” a heavily Italian neighborhood in St. Louis. In the same book, Joe, who was signed as a
catcher by the Cardinals before Yogi was signed as a catcher by the Yankees, also
tells of a neighbor who said to him in a very thick accent: “Joey, you’re the
first boy what comes from the Hill to get his name in the paper and no kill
somebody!”
Today, in keeping with modern “globalization,” players come
from all over the world. In 2012, 243 of
the 856 players on opening day major league rosters were born outside the
United States. The Dominican Republic
had 95 players, Venezuela 66, Canada 15, Japan 13, Puerto Rico and Cuba 11
each, Mexico 9, Panama 7, Curacao and Australia 4 apiece, Nicaragua 3, Taiwan
2, and Columbia, Italy and South Korea each had 1. Like their American contemporaries, each
spring they leave their home and go far away to cities and a way of life that is
both demanding and rewarding. Some will almost
-- but not quite -- make the big time.
Others will be released for reasons both just and unjust. Still others will become injured and
reluctantly return to the bosom of their home to recover and renew their dreams
of major league glory.
You and I will listen and watch as a part of us imagines
that we’re actually at bat or on the mound.
As we anticipate tomorrow, the memory of all those players, living and
dead, from yesteryear are gentle on our minds.
Baseball, which returns each spring like the season, really
and truly is about hope and hope is about you and me! Is there anything more personal than that?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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