May 24, 1884

Before a crowd of a bunch of people who were likely standing around the field with a few people on wooden bleachers at a place called Orioles Park, the Brooklyn Atlantics, playing in their first major league season, beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3. The American Association had expanded to 12 teams in 1884 in its third year of existence and the new Brooklyn squad improved its record to 7-9, 6 games behind the first place New York Metropolitans and in eighth place.

Brooklyn had won the championship in 1883 while playing in the minor league Interstate League. But the first year of big league ball wouldn't be a successful one as the team finished 40-64 and in ninth place in a league that would eventually have 13 teams. The Washington Nationals lasted 63 games before folding and being replaced by a team from Richmond, Virginia for the rest of the season. The Metropolitans won the AA by 6 ½ games with a 75-32 record.

For the era, this game was pretty well played. There were only three errors by each team and just one passed ball. Not bad for a time when gloves were not yet in vogue. Brooklyn trailed 3-1 before scoring 3 runs in the seventh to get the win.

If we all stepped in to Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine, this game would be hard to recognize for most of us. We'd likely be surprised by the fact that Brooklyn batted its starting pitcher, 19-year old Adonis Terry, in the cleanup spot. Terry started 55 of Brooklyn's 113 games on the season and finished 54 of them (only fifth best in the league, the leader had 72). He had a record of 19-35 and threw 476 innings. Brooklyn's other starting pitcher, Sam Kimber, finished 18-20. Brooklyn's second baseman, Bill Greenwood, threw left-handed.

The newspaper coverage of baseball was spotty then. The headline in the New York Times just read "Baltimores Beaten at Home". The Washington Post coverage of the game appeared underneath a game about a group of Naval Academy midshipmen playing a local athletic club. But somewhere out in the Utah Territory, a guy named Steve, posted a piece of paper up on a pole that read "Fire George Taylor". This groundswell of support from a distant land must have had an effect on Brooklyn's ownership as Taylor never managed in the major leagues again. (Taylor was actually a newspaper editor and part owner of the club.) In January 1884, Taylor and Henry Chadwick each picked a team of 10 players to play an exhibition game of baseball to be played on ice with the players wearing skates. Chadwick's players won thanks to a 27-run sixth inning, 41-12.

"Did I think my pitcher had difficulty adapting to the ice? Maybe. Should I have changed pitchers earlier? I don't know. I just wanted my pitcher to be in a position to succeed. But when you're playing on ice, balls just get through to the outfield much faster. It's tough when you don't have a defense that can make those plays. But there's no defense for a ball that slides 300 feet on a sheet of ice," Taylor said after that game.

The 1884 Brooklyn team was not an offensive force. The team batted .225 and the highest batting average of any regular was right fielder Jack Cassidy's .252. But he had an OBP of .286! The league leader in OBP that year was at .376.

The American Association was one of three major leagues in baseball in 1884. In addition to the National League and the American Association, a variety of teams played under the banner of the Union Association that season.

Thanks to the New York Times, Washington Post, BaseballReference.com and Retrosheet

(OK, I may have fictionalized part of this a wee bit.)

As a huge fan of of the bass player for Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane, I'd always wondered about Jack Cassidy's earlier career.

Place your virtual bets.

vr

Xei

Outside the SBC Park visitors' locker room, the wolves circle and bay.

But as Jim correctly predicted, I'll take the under anyway.

One difference is that BABIP is typically higher for groundball pitchers and we've got a lot of them this year. Anyone know where to find team G/F numbers to see how big the discrepancy is?

If Michael Tucker gets in there tonight and Weaver is pitching, it could be interesting. For some reason that I cannot remember, these two don't seem to like each other.

BC

"Giants-Dodgers is one of the oldest - and certainly the best - baseball rivalry. Red Sox-Yankees has had its moments, but they didn't share a city or a state for 50 years. That was the beauty of the Giants and Dodgers simultaneous move to the West Coast -they moved to cities that were already rivals."

Then there's this surreal invective, the kind of thing the might come out if Saddam Hussein mated with Paul Lynde:

"Tommy Lasorda is a useless fat old man who's the spawn of satan. Steve Garvey is/was and always will be a pretty boy.
Eric Gagne is... Canadian."

Bob,

RE #2: (OK, I may have fictionalized part of this a wee bit.)

Would that be the part about the ice game?

As for the fictionalized parts of #2, the baseball game on ice did actually happen. There were 10 players on a side and the extra guy was labeled as "right short".

Here are the team pitching ratios from 2004 and 2005:

2004: 6.60 K/9; 3.17 BB/9; 1.10 HR/9; 8.58 H/9
2005: 6.01 K/9; 2.83 BB/9; 1.11 HR/9; 9.61 H/9

Overall, they're not as different as I expected.

Dodgers:

Izturis (SS)
Drew (RF)
Choi (1B)
Kent (2B)
Bradley (CF)
Ledee (LF)
Phillips (C)
Perez (3B)
Weaver (P)

Giants:

Ellison (CF)
Vizquel (SS)
Snow (1B)
Alou (RF)
Durham (2B)
Feliz (LF)
Alfonzo (3B)
Matheny (C)
Schmidt (P)

That's not an awe-inspiring lineup the Giants are trotting out there.

If we can't beat THIS team, however, then I'll worry.

I hope Kent goes off this series. Obviously I hope he always goes off, but to do it to his old team would be great.

BC

Did you look at the Angel line-ups from the weekend? Not much better and they took 2 of 3.

And they still won.

If the Dodgers have a stretch where 9 of 11 guys strike out against Schmidt, it will be a lonnnngggg night.

LOLOL.

Thanks, Bob.

Russ Ortiz gave up a leadoff triple to Dave Roberts and Geoff Blum drove him home with a productive out!

Choi goes yard.

Gotta like how many pitches Schmidt is having to throw.

I don't know. Looked to me like he was out by about 40 feet. Rather than go in hard and potentially hurt himself, I think he should have stopped dead. If he gets himself in a rundown, Perez can go to second.

All of a sudden, Schmidt is mowing us down.

As if it matters, I benched Weaver tonight on my fantasy team.

His arm is sore, if he keeps this up he's headed for the DL...

My immediate reaction on Bradley's non slide/take out was, at least he didn't pull a Vlad Guerrero, and it was early in the game. He was out by 40 feet, it was not bang-bang, and on that kind of play, Bradley has got to be thinking to take out the catcher before he even rounds third. BTW, at the major league level, at least on the h'lights I see less and less catcher's being taken out on that kind of play. Probably has something to do with contract$$$$$$

My source, I just read it in Tommy Davis' "tell-all" "Tales From the Dodger Dugout".

The Tommy Davis book isn't as good as "Bad Stuff 'Bout the Mets" by Chico Escuela: "Ed Kranepool: Borrow Chico's soap and NEVER GIVE IT BACK."

Is this the same radar gun that was clocking Odalis at 96 earlier this year? If so, this is still definately bad Weaver.

HR to Schmidt
HR to Matheny
double Grabowski on his birthday.

I may need to pick that one up. (the really bad 60's Met's stories have got to be great)

Actually, don't try looking too hard for it - it was from an old Saturday Night Live sketch with Bill Murray interviewing Garret Morris as the veteran Dominican SS "Chico Escuela" who was trying to get back to/stay in the big leagues and had written a nasty tell-all. :-)

1. Sore arm-
2. Lack of concentration-
3. ???
4. All of the above?

Go Choi!

No matter how bad our pitching is, or gets, the only team with a chance to beat us this year is SD

....just a hunch

But they were being very picky on how long pitchers had to stay set.

But Sc