Cincinnati Baseball Historical Review No. 1
Covington All-Stars, Babe Ruth, and Dead Beats In Wagons
You can’t really talk about the history of the Queen City without baseball. Let’s face it, if there was ever a baseball town in America, it’s Cincinnati. The first all-paid team and first night game, the innovations of the sprinkler systems for fields, bases, scoreboards, parades for Opening Day, the hundreds of major leaguers born here, the list goes on and on.
The rich baseball history and tradition are as much a part of our culture as our chili, the Fountain, and Roebling’s bridge. Our baseball story has been well documented of course, but like most historical things, there are little nuggets of gold hidden away in newspaper blurbs, photos, diaries and box scores.
From time to time, I hope to bring those bits of baseball gold to the surface in what I call The Cincinnati Baseball Historical Review. Each post under this banner will include stories, tales, and sometimes photos that aren’t as known as the 1919 saga or the exploits of the Big Red Machine. I’ll also bring up things that aren’t Reds related per se, but baseball related. There some great stories about amateur, semi-pro, Negro Leagues and much more. Hopefully, you will learn something new about the pastime in the Queen City and perhaps appreciate even more why we are the greatest baseball city in the world.
Covington Whips Reds
The next time you are in a Covington establishment, show off your local baseball history knowledge with this: A Covington baseball team beat a Reds Hall of Famer and the Cincinnati Reds at Covington Ball Park.
Back in the late 1890s and early 1900s, a post-season tradition began when the Cincinnati Reds would play exhibition game against a team of Covington All-Stars made up of greater Cincinnati semi-pro players and a few major leaguers. On 11/7/1904, this All-Star Covington club beat Reds HOF’er Noodes Hahn and the Reds 7-1 at the Covington Ball Park (where I-75 runs now in Covington’s west side) Covington boasted players like Ambrose Puttman, a pitcher for the New York Yankees and Charley “Red” Dooin, a 5’6 145 lb. catcher who had a long career with the Philadelphia Phillies. But the player who drew them to the park was Nick Altrock.
Cincinnati born Altrock went 20-13 as a pitcher for the World Champion Chicago White Sox, but an arm injury late that same year ruined his pitching career. He would appear mostly as a pinch hitter, and did so until the ripe old age of 57. His 42 years as a coach (1912-1953) with the Washington Senators is the longest consecutive tenure of a coach with the same franchise. And his comedic skills were legendary, often performing skits with the Clown Prince of baseball, Al Schacht.
These barnstorming games were a huge hit and made the players a little extra money in a time when players had to have two, sometimes three jobs to survive.
We’ll take longer look at the Covington Ball Park and some of the greats to play there in a future edition of The Cincinnati Baseball Review
Babe Ruth Trades Pinstripes For Cincinnati Red?
The 1934 Cincinnati Reds went 52–99, finishing a whopping 42 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals. But perhaps they would have been better if the Yankees would have let Babe Ruth become the Reds manager. It almost happened.
The Reds almost had Ruth as a player…twice, (that’s a story for another day) but at the tail end of Ruth’s career, on 12/29/1933, Reds general manager Larry McPhail got wind that the Yanks were set to release Ruth so he could become a manager. Ruth wanted to manage and McPhail wanted Ruth to mange his club. But Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert wasn’t having it. He wasn’t a big fan of the National League.
A few months later in February of 1934, Powel Crosley Jr. buys the Reds and begins to build a club that would eventually lead to back to back World Series appearances in 1939 and 1940.
Ruth would never get his chance to manage.
Dead Beats In Wagons
With the success of the eventual 1882 champion Reds, “dead beats” that summer who didn’t want to pay the ticket prices to see Bid McPhee and the boys, would drive their wagons down Bank St. and stand on them, peering over the fence to watch games for free.
The Cincinnati Public Works put a atop to that.
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Thanks for reading.
Cam
So ready for baseball-keep 'em coming!