The Cincinnati Baseball Historical Review No. 6: The 1882 Champion Cincinnatis - Part 1
The Story Of The Reds First Championship Club On Their 140th Anniversary
On September 30, 1880, only hours after the Cincinnati Stars of the National League shutout the Cleveland Blues 2-0 in the season finale at the Star Base Ball Grounds, a meeting of the Board of Directors was called to order. The men squeezed into the cramped offices at the ballpark on Bank St. and listened to President John Kennett read his resignation letter.
The other directors were stunned.
His reason for resigning was simple: There just wasn’t the necessary funds and running a bankrupt club was not something that interested him. The season was terrible, both in on the field and financially. The Stars, who were admitted to the NL to replace the old Reds of the NL (1876-1879), finished an embarrassing 21-59 and in last place. It was oft reported in the newspapers that season that Cincinnati baseball fans would no longer stand for cheap players and a cheap team. Someone proposed that if every director chipped in $200, they could stay afloat until enough funds could be raised at the start of the 1881 season. This idea was quickly shot down as not all of the members of the board could come up with that kind of money so quickly. Director Menderson and Director Grehbiel chimed in that they would loan the club the needed money. The board then asked President Kennett to withdraw his resignation, which he did. He was then asked to represent the club at the upcoming NL meeting in Rochester, NY, and gave him the power to appoint two other men to form a committee of three to employ players for the 1881 season. Professional baseball in Cincinnati was saved.
At least for the time being.
At the Rochester meeting on October 4, Kennett and the other representatives met at the Osborne Hotel to sign the agreement for membership for the 1881 season. Seven teams signed the agreement.
Cincinnati did not not.
Kennett objected to the new rules stating that clubs could not rent out their parks for use on Sundays and from selling alcoholic beverages.
Kennett tried desperately to reason with the league, stating that the revenues from renting the park and alcohol were just too great to give up. For two days, Cincinnati and the NL bickered back and forth, but it was to no avail. On October 6, 1880, The Reds were expelled from the National League.
There was no professional baseball in Cincinnati during the 1881 season.
No Opening Day. No packed stands on the Fourth of July. No Ladies’ Day.
No professional baseball, in the city that birthed professional baseball. Cincinnati fans could not believe it.
On March 2, 1881, the Star Base Ball Club officially dissolved.
As the 1881 baseball season began, Cincinnati papers were filled with box scores and newsworthy tidbits from league cities across the country. Fans in the Queen City who craved the pastime, flocked to various parks and empty lots to watch amateur clubs. Cincinnati sportswriter O.P. Caylor was one of those patrons and saw that there was still high interest in baseball. He began organizing the Cincinnati professional players that remained in the city to play exhibition games with various clubs.
As the baseball season of 1881 was coming to a close, Cincinnati fans wondered if baseball would make a triumphant return in 1882. One frustrated “Patron” went to bat for an organized club in a letter to The Cincinnati Enquirer in late summer of 1881:
That fall, O.P. Caylor began receiving messages from his associates in cities such as Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh asking why they couldn’t form a league. Why couldn’t they organize a group that appealed to the working class citizens, something they thought the NL did not do?
On November 2, 1881, Caylor led a group of representatives from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Louisville, Columbus and Brooklyn into the Gibson Hotel to begin the process of forming a new league. Justus Thorner, who had founded the Cincinnati Stars in the National League in 1880, was put in charge of the Cincinnati club.
The new league was called the American Association and the following day, they adopted their constitution.
For Cincinnati, the process of building the new club in the new league began immediately. Charley Jones, a former Cincinnati NL slugger, and one of the first players signed, convinced Thorner to send him to Akron to sign three players whom he thought highly of, including a second baseman on the Akron semi-pro club named Bid McPhee.
A few days later, on November 12, a Cincinnati favorite, Hick Carpenter, signed on the dotted line.
A few weeks after the Carpenter signing, Charles “Pop” Snyder, one of the best catchers in the 19th century, agreed to terms as player/manager.
As 1882 dawned, The Cincinnati Base Ball Club was coming into form. But little did Cincinnatians know just how special this team would be.
To be continued….