Posts Tagged ‘Bridegrooms’
Saturday, April 8th, 2017
Monmouth County, located somewhat equidistantly between Hoboken and Atlantic City, boasts land of high significance to baseball and America. Once the spring training home of Brooklyn’s major league squad around the turn of the 20th century, nearly four decades before that gloried organization settled on the Dodgers label—having also been known as Bridegrooms, Flock, Trolley Dodgers—Allaire State Park has the ghosts of the National Pastime dancing around its environs. When vintage baseball teams, dressed in uniforms play on Allaire’s grounds, they continue the legacy.
Named for James Peter Allaire, who bought the land in 1822, the park showcases a 19th century village, complete with a reenactment of daily activities. Allaire purchased approximately 5,000 acres—it was labeled Howell Works.
The web site for the Monmouth County Historical Association calls Allaire “one of the foremost steam engine manufacturers of his time, although he was trained as a brass founder. Between 1804 and 1806, he cast the brass air chamber for Robert Fulton’s ‘CLERMONT’ and was with Fulton on the steamboat’s historic maiden voyage.”
Allaire enjoyed the confidence, friendship, and trust of Fulton, who manifested the bond by appointing Allaire executor of his will.
Expansion occurred under Allaire’s aegis—”an additional 3,000 acres of woodland to ensure the charcoal fuel supply necessary for the bog-iron production.”
Once a self-contained village of approximately 500 people, Allaire declined because of the “discovery of high grades of iron ore in Pennsylvania along with the benefit of an anthracite coal fuel source,” according to Allaire Village’s web site.
13 of the original buildings remain for visitors to take a peek into history, including tool making using 19th century methods.
Additionally, vintage baseball teams meet not he grounds once graced by the Brooklyn ancestors of Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, and Pee Wee Reese. “To my knowledge, visitor and Villagers participating in 1831 Philadelphia Townball at Allaire Village are involved in a unique experience not replicated anywhere else in the country! Most other historical site interpretations of Townball play the 1850’s Massachusetts-style Game. We play the game that Howell Works residents most likely would have known,” explained Russ McIver in a 2014 article on Allaire State Park’s web site. McIver is an Allaire volunteer and vintage baseball enthusiast, one of many dedicated to recreating 19th century baseball.
Allaire also has the distinction of being in a county that saw a turning point in the American War for Independence, also known as the Revolutionary War. General George Washington led the rebels in the Battle of Monmouth, which highlighted a severe dispute between the general and his second in command, General Charles Lee.
Washington ordered Lee into battle. Instead, Lee led his soldiers to retreat, which ignited wrath in his commanding officer. It was a clash of strategies. On the George Washington’s Mount Vernon’s web site, Dr. Mary Stockwell explains that regret formed a cornerstone of the conflict: “Washington’s fury stemmed in part from his regret at having appointed Lee in the first place. When Washington initially proposed attacking the British on their way through New Jersey, Lee scoffed at the idea.”
Lee wasn’t alone; General Henry Knox advocated against entering a battle with troops numbering around 15,000. Marquis de Lafayette, General Nathanael Greene, and General Anthony Wayne took the opposite approach.
Washington opted for battle, which resulted in victory. “Noticing British campfires burning in the distance, Washington decided to continue the fight in the morning. But at sunrise, he realized that the redcoats had kept their fires burning as a ruse and were safely on their way to New York,” described Stockwell.
A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on July 4, 2016.
Tags: 1822, 1831, 19th Century, 19th Century Baseball, Allaire, Allaire State Park, American War for Independence, Anthony Wayne, Atlantic City, Battle of Monmouth, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Charles Lee, Clermont, Dodgers, Dr. Mary Stockwell, Duke Snider, Flock, General Anthony Wayne, General Charles Lee, General George Washington, General Henry Knox, General Nathanael Greene, George Washington, Henry Knox, Hoboken, Howell Works, Jackie Robinson, Lafayette, Marquis de Lafayette, Mary Stockwell, Monmouth, Monmouth County, Monmouth County Historical Association, Nathanael Greene, New Jersey, New York, Pee Wee Reese, Peter Allaire, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Townball, Revolutionary War, Robert Fulton, Townball, Trolley Dodgers, War for Independence, Washington
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Friday, March 17th, 2017
Wee Willie Keeler, a diminutive Baltimore Orioles right fielder measuring 5’4″ and 140 pounds, declared of his success, “Keep your eye on the ball and hit ’em where they ain’t!” In 1897, he did it 239 times for a .424 batting average. Both stats led the major leagues—he repeated this achievement in 1898 with 216 hits and a .385 batting average.
1897 was, indeed, a career season for Keeler, whose seasonal achievements at the plate also included:
- Tied career high in doubles (27)
- 2nd highest number of triples (19)
- 4th highest number of RBI (74)
- Career high .464 on-base percentage
- Career high .539 slugging percentage
- Career high 1.003 on-base plus slugging percentage
- 44-game hitting streak (National League record tied by Pete Rose in 1978
Among Keeler’s skills, power was absent—he had zero home runs in 1897.
In addition to Keeler, Baltimore’s 1897 squad burst with supremacy at the plate.
- Jack Doyle, First Baseman (.354)
- Hughie Jennings, Shorstop (.355)
- John McGraw (Third Baseman (.325)
- Joe Kelley, Left Fielder (.362)
- Jake Stenzel, Right Fielder (.353)
Because the Orioles’ lineup overflowed with skilled batsmen, Keeler’s prowess, though formidable, may not be easily discerned. “The chief obstacle for evaluators of the Keeler legacy is that his prime years came with a juggernaut that was stocked with too many good hitters for pitchers to pitch around him and in an era that afforded him advantages that players who followed him as little as ten years later no longer enjoyed,” wrote baseball historian David Nemec in Volume 2 of his 2011 tome Major League Baseball Profiles: 1871-1900.
Keeler began his career in 1892 and, as Nemec points out, benefited from the allowance to “tap or chop pitches foul without having them counted against him as strikes” during his first seven seasons.
Sporting a 90-40 record, Baltimore’s 1897 team finished 2nd in the National League. Despite the team’s success in the 1890s, conflict resonated, especially between McGraw and Keeler. “McGraw, always needing a target, liked to pick on Willie Keeler, the only Oriole littler than he was,” wrote Burt Solomon in his 1999 book Where They Ain’t: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball. “Willie was a city boy and a happy one. Mac, raised an hour and a half by rail from Syracuse, had grown up hard. Mac had a talent for manipulation, even a need for it, and a knack for not letting it trouble him any. Willie cared nothing about things like that. He wanted to do his job as well as he could and to have fun, not necessarily in that order. Sharpening his spikes, he believed, was something a gentleman did not do,” continued Solomon.
Keeler died on New Year’s Day in 1923; his Orioles teammates went to Brooklyn’s Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel for a requiem mass—a former tormentor was among those in attendance. “Tears stood in the eyes of John McGraw, manager of the world’s champion Giants and a team mate [sic] of Keeler’s on the famous Orioles of the 90s, as he viewed his old body,” reported the Washington Post.
Keeler played for the Giants, the Bridegrooms, the Orioles, and the Yankees in his 19-year career. 2,932 hits, .341 batting average, and .415 slugging percentage boosted him to Cooperstown—the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Keeler in 1939. On his plaque, below the name and the visage, stands Keeler’s famous quote “Hit ’em where they ain’t!”
A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on April 8, 2016.
Tags: 1898, Baltimore, Baltimore Orioles 1897, Baseball Hall of Fame, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Cooperstown, David Memec, Giants, Hall of Fame, Hughie Jennings, Jack Doyle, Jake Stenzel, Joe Kelley, John McGraw, National League, Orioles, Syracuse, Wee Willie Keeler, Yankees
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Monday, June 17th, 2013
Topic: The most important person in Dodgers history.
Discuss. This could take awhile, if at least one participant bleeds Dodger Blue.
Jackie Robinson comes to mind, of course. His courage opened the door for integration to revolutionize baseball.
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Tags: 1888, 1890, 358 Chauncey Street, American Association, baseball, Branch Rickey, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn Excelsiors, Brooklyn Wonders, Brooklynites, Brotherhood War, Charles Ebbets, Dodger Blue, Dodger Stadium, Dodgers, Dodgers history, George Chauncey, integration, Jackie Gleason, Jackie Robinson, Lasorda, major league, Mechanics Bank of Brooklyn, minor league, National League, Players League, Ralph Kramden, The Honeymooners, Tommy Lasorda, Trolley Dodgers, Walter O'Malley
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Sunday, July 1st, 2012
“We got the Porsche! We got the Porsche!”
I heard these words of celebration ringing on a spring night in 1986.
I was not quite 19 years old, a somewhat shy pledge at Tau Epsilon Phi, Tau Beta chapter at the University of Maryland, College Park.
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Tags: 1945, 1986, 19th Century, 19th Century Baseball Conference, 2012, 4607 Knox Road, Arthur Miller, Author, Author Platform, Baltimore, baseball, Baseball Conference, baseball conferences, Baseball Hall of Fame, Batboys, Battle, Big Brother, Black Eye, Blue Magic, book hometown, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, brotherhood, Buckeye, Buckeyes, Business, Business of Promotional Baseball and American Culture Conference, Cleveland, Cleveland Buckeyes, College, College Park, Conference, Dodgers, Ebbets Field, fraternities, fraternity house, Frederick Ivor-Campbell, Greek Week, Hall of Fame, Hofstra, Hofstra University, Jackie Robinson, Jerry Malloy, Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, Kappa Delta, Long Island, Marilyn Monroe, Mascots, Meet the Mets, Mets, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Negro Leagues, Negro Leagues Conference, New Jersey, New York Mets, New York Mets 50th Anniversary, Park, pledge, pledge class, Porsche, Promotion, Risky Business, SABR, Society for American Baseball Research, Soul, Superbas, Tau Beta, Tau Epsilon Phi, University, University of Maryland, Veni Vidi Vici, Washington
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Friday, June 22nd, 2012
In Brooklyn, Charles Ebbets and his bosses suffered a crater in the bottom line because the Players’ League siphoned from the Brooklyn fan base for its Brooklyn team – the Wonders. Byrne merged operations with the Wonders.
The new incarnation acquired a nickname based on the trolley dodging custom unique to the urban landscape of Brooklyn. “Trolley Dodgers” eventually became “Dodgers” in the sports pages and popular accounts. But fluidity abounded regarding team names. (more…)
Tags: 1890's, 1951, American Association, baseball, Bobby Thomson, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Baseball, Brooklyn Baseball Club, Charles Ebbets, Dave Foutz, Dodgers, Eastern Park, Ebbets Field, Ferdinand Abell, First Street, Fourth Avenue, Foutz's Fillies, Giants, Gunner McGunnigle, Hanlon's Superbas, John Montgomery Ward, National League, National League Pennant, Ned Hanlon, Orioles, Players League, Red Sox, Shot Heard 'Round The World, South Brooklyn, Superbas, Third Avenue, Third Street, Trolley Dodgers, Trolley Dodging, Ward's Wonders, Washington Park, Wonders, Yankees
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Thursday, June 21st, 2012
Professional baseball for Brooklyn began about 125 miles south in a doubleheader against the ISBA’s Wilmington, Delaware team on May 1, 1883. The teams split the games. Wilmington won the first game 9-6, Brooklyn won the second game 8-2.
On May 9th, Brooklyn played its first home game under professional auspices. Sort of.
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Tags: 1888, 1891, 19th Century, 19th Century Baseball, 19th Century Baseball Conference, American Association, baseball, Baseball Hall of Fame, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Wonders, Charles Ebbets, Clara Bryant, Cooperstown, Delaware, Dodgers, Eastern Park, Ebbets Field, Frederick Ivor-Campbell, George Chauncey, Harrisburg, Henry Ford, ISBA, Jolly Roger, Marital Bliss, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, National League, New York, Players League, Professional Baseball, Prospect Park, Society for American Baseball Research, Superbas, The Sporting Life, Trenton, Washington Park, Wendell Goodwin, Wilmington
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Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
As baseball crawled toward its first wobbly steps of formal organization in the mid-19th century, Brooklyn embraced the game through several amateur teams, including Atlantics, Excelsiors, Putnams, Eckfords. The Atlantics played in the National Association of Baseball Players (NABBP), an amateur society that began in 1857. They won championships in 1864 and 1866.
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Tags: 1857, 1864, 1866, 1871, 1875, 1876, 1883, 19th Century, 19th Century Baseball, 19th Century Baseball Conference, American Association, American rebels, Atlantics, ballpark, baseball, Baseball Hall of Fame, Battle of Long Island, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Baseball, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Eckfords, casino, Charley Byrne, Cooperstown, Dodgers, Eckfords, Excelsiors, Ferdinand "Gus" Abell, Fifth Avenue, Frederick Ivor-Campbell, General George Washington, George Taylor, George Washington, John Brice, Joseph J. Doyle, Liberty Street, Manhattan, NABBP, Narragansett, National Association of Baseball Players, National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, National League, New York, New York City, New York Herald, Putnams, Revolutionary War, Rhode Island, Society for American Baseball Research, South Brooklyn, Superbas, Third Street, Wall Street, Washington, Washington Park
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Tuesday, June 12th, 2012
Today, we celebrate the birthday of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Opened on June 12, 1939 in Cooperstown, New York, the Baseball Hall of Fame is a time tunnel that journeys its visitors through a cornerstone of American history. More than a mere sport, baseball is a vehicle of social change.
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Tags: 1880, 1920, 1939, 1945, 1954, 1963, 19th Century Baseball, 19th Century Baseball Conference, Al Kaline, April, Babe, Babe Ruth, Bambino, Baseball and American Culture, Baseball Hall of Fame, Batboys, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, Branch Rickey, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooks Robinson, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Cal Ripken Jr., Casey Stengel, Christy Mathewson, civil rights movement, Connie Mack, Cooperstown, Cooperstown Symposium, Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, Dodgers, Don Drysdale, Duke Snider, Ebbets Field, Ellis Island, Frank Robinson, Frederick Ivor-Campbell, George Brett, Hank Aaron, Hank Greenberg, Harmon Killebrew, Italian immigrants, Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Bench, Josh Gibson, June 12, Leo Durocher, Lincoln Memorial, Lou Brock, Lou Gehrig, Martin Luther King Jr., Mascots, May, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, New York, New York City, New York Yankees, Nolan Ryan, October 23, Oneonta, Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rod Carew, Roy Campanella, SABR, Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Society for American Baseball Research, Sparky Anderson, Stan Musial, State University of New York, SUNY, Superbas, Ted Williams, Tom Seaver, Tommy Lasorda, Tony Gwynn, Ty Cobb, United States Supreme Court, Walter Johnson, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Yankee Stadium, Yogi Berra
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Saturday, June 9th, 2012
Cooperstown, New York has a quaintness that makes Mayberry, North Carolina look like a metropolis.
Last week, I visited Cooperstown for the second time this year. That is to say, the second time ever.
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Tags: 19th Century, 19th Century Baseball Conference, Baseball Hall of Fame, Batboys, Blue Magic, Bridegrooms, Brooklyn Baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, Carolina League, Cleveland Buckeyes, Cooperstown, Cooperstown Symposium, Diamond Dollars, Dodgers, Ebbets Field, Ed Logan, Frederick Ivor-Campbell, Hall of Fame, Hofstra University, Jerry Malloy, Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference, Ken Jacobsen, Mascots, Mayberry, Mr. Celery, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Negro Leagues Conference, New York Giants, New York Mets, New York Mets 50th Anniversary Conference, Oneonta, SABR, Society for American Baseball Research, State University of New York, Superbas, Vince Gennaro, Wilmington Blue Rocks
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