The St. Louis Brown Stockings again defeated their rivals from Cincinnati yesterday afternoon. There was a very large crowd on hand the number of spectators being estimated as high as 4,000. The game was by long odds the worst played this season, glaring errors being charged to the fielders on both sides. Had the Browns encountered a team anything like their match they would have received a bad beating, as their batting was not up to the mark, the tail end of the nine being unusually weak in that respect. The Cincinnatis, up to the eighth inning, did nothing worthy of notice at the bat. At that stage the Browns had
Such A Commanding Lead
that McGinnis began to toss the sphere over the plate without any pace to it so that his colleagues might have some thing to do in the way of leather-hunting. As a result the visitors earned the last four runs placed to their credit. Malloy handled the ash with a vim, securing two corking double-baggers and a three-baser. His work in the field was also superb. Decker never caught better in his life, and Reilly, though guilty of several errors, indulged in some marvelous playing at first. Peters, Billy Gleason and Baker did rare execution in their positions and were frequently loudly applauded. Jack Gleason had an off day, but all of his errors were on plays of the most difficult nature. Magner and Morgan both misjudged flies in the outfield, and McCaffrey dropped a good throw from short, but in spite of all these mishaps the Cincinnatis could not win, as they were overmatched in every department of the game. Baker and the Gleasons did most execution with the stick for the Browns. McGinnis did not pitch with his usual pace or accuracy, owing to the fact that his arm is still very sore, but he evidently knew there was no necessity for anxiety. The umpiring of Mr. Levis was perfect, as usual, not a single close decision being erroneously rendered. The Cincinnati lads left for home last night. Next in order come the Akrons, of Ohio, who will meet the Browns on Saturday, Sunday and Monday next, when the latter propose to make “honors easy” between the two clubs.
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 12, 1881
I love the bit here about how, once the Brown Stockings went up by ten runs, George McGinnis started soft-tossing the ball to the Cincinnatis. It's little details like that about a player that are special and rare. We have stats and numbers from the 19th century but what we're really often missing is the small details that add depth to our understanding of a player.
I can tell you all about how Ryan Ludwick behaved in right field between pitches. I can tell you how he was constantly in motion, shuffling from foot to foot, almost as if he was dancing to a song he heard in his head. I can tell you this because I like sitting in the right field bleachers at Busch and you get to see the outfielders up close when you do that. I enjoyed watching Ludwick and found his between-pitch-ADD-activities entertaining and memorable. And we all have memories like that about players that we've seen.
We don't really have that kind of collective, detailed memory about baseball players from the 19th century. Nobody living saw those guys play. We've lost a lot of information about 19th century baseball that I just don't think we'll ever regain. We'll never know the 1881 Brown Stockings the way a baseball fan living in St. Louis at the time did. We can't know these things on that kind of detailed level. It's impossible.
So I'm always excited when I get little details about a player, his style of play, his mannerisms, or something like that. We saw that kind of detail about Ned Cuthbert not too long ago and it was great. These kind of things bring us closer to the game as it was played back then and just gives us a better sense of the people involved. I love those kind of details and will never get enough of them.
I can tell you all about how Ryan Ludwick behaved in right field between pitches. I can tell you how he was constantly in motion, shuffling from foot to foot, almost as if he was dancing to a song he heard in his head. I can tell you this because I like sitting in the right field bleachers at Busch and you get to see the outfielders up close when you do that. I enjoyed watching Ludwick and found his between-pitch-ADD-activities entertaining and memorable. And we all have memories like that about players that we've seen.
We don't really have that kind of collective, detailed memory about baseball players from the 19th century. Nobody living saw those guys play. We've lost a lot of information about 19th century baseball that I just don't think we'll ever regain. We'll never know the 1881 Brown Stockings the way a baseball fan living in St. Louis at the time did. We can't know these things on that kind of detailed level. It's impossible.
So I'm always excited when I get little details about a player, his style of play, his mannerisms, or something like that. We saw that kind of detail about Ned Cuthbert not too long ago and it was great. These kind of things bring us closer to the game as it was played back then and just gives us a better sense of the people involved. I love those kind of details and will never get enough of them.
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