Yeah, here comes the rooster.
What's Up With That Rooster?
The rooster is cool. The rooster is 100% full of awesome. The rooster has been adopted as the official mascot of TGOG and when I sell out and start peddling merch and swag, the rooster will be on t-shirts and coffee mugs. At that point, the rooster will be everywhere. The rooster will be unavoidable. The rooster will be lord of all he surveys. You will all bow down to your rooster overlord.
Seriously, What's Up With That Creepy Rooster?
If I remember correctly, I first saw the rooster in an 1886 issue of The Sporting News.
That's your 1886 St. Louis Browns, who had just won a proto-World Series against the hated White Stockings of Chicago. This was the series that ended with the $15,000 Slide, one of the most famous baseball plays of the 19th century. Of course, as I always say, the $15,000 Slide was neither a slide nor worth $15,000. But I digress.
So the Browns win the Series and TSN, which was published in St. Louis and run by Al Spink, a prominent member of the St. Louis baseball fraternity dating back at least to 1877, publishes what amounted to a celebratory issue. It's really a great issue and a lot of fun to read if you're a fan of the Four Time Champions (who at that point were the Two Time Champions). And there, on the front page, in the upper corners, we find the rooster.
I had no idea what the rooster was all about but I assumed it had something to do with crowing over the victory. That was the only explanation I could come up with that made even a little bit of sense. And over time, I found the rooster popping up, in the same context, in other St. Louis newspapers. I think the earliest recorded instance of the rooster appearing in a St. Louis paper comes from the May 6, 1876 issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, after the Brown Stockings defeated the White Stockings in a 1-0 game. And my late friend David Ball mentioned to me one time that he found the rooster in other 19th century newspapers, agreeing that it was most likely a symbol of crowing over a victory.
I just think the rooster is cool and weird and very 19th century. I just like him. So I've decided to adopt him as the official symbol of TGOG and I'm going to try and slap him on every page.
And that's what's up with the rooster.
So the Browns win the Series and TSN, which was published in St. Louis and run by Al Spink, a prominent member of the St. Louis baseball fraternity dating back at least to 1877, publishes what amounted to a celebratory issue. It's really a great issue and a lot of fun to read if you're a fan of the Four Time Champions (who at that point were the Two Time Champions). And there, on the front page, in the upper corners, we find the rooster.
I had no idea what the rooster was all about but I assumed it had something to do with crowing over the victory. That was the only explanation I could come up with that made even a little bit of sense. And over time, I found the rooster popping up, in the same context, in other St. Louis newspapers. I think the earliest recorded instance of the rooster appearing in a St. Louis paper comes from the May 6, 1876 issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, after the Brown Stockings defeated the White Stockings in a 1-0 game. And my late friend David Ball mentioned to me one time that he found the rooster in other 19th century newspapers, agreeing that it was most likely a symbol of crowing over a victory.
I just think the rooster is cool and weird and very 19th century. I just like him. So I've decided to adopt him as the official symbol of TGOG and I'm going to try and slap him on every page.
And that's what's up with the rooster.
