Astoundingly, More Tales of the Hudson River League
As promised/threatened, Part Five, from 44 years ago
This series commenced at: https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/tales-of-the-hudson-river-league-d7f463349066.
To repeat myself from the intro to Part One, I was tickled to locate these stories, so dimly recalled from so long ago, when in baseball circles I was a mere tyke. As I read it through, I experienced anew the thrill of talking with an ancient (like myself now) whose brother — shortstop Harry Brown — had hit a single off Christy Mathewson on a Sunday in Saugerties, back in 1903.
The Hudson River Baseball League of 1903–07 is notable for several oddities and firsts. Its teams and fans traveled together to distant games by riverboat, boarding the celebrated “Mary Powell” for the trip south to New York City to play either Paterson or Elizabeth, which entered the league in later years (along with Glens Falls, Schenectady, and Yonkers). The HRL was responsible for baseball’s first midseason all-star contest, played August 17, 1903 — and for an unbelievable quadrupleheader, between Hudson and Poughkeepsie on September 20 of that year (Hudson won all four games). The Kingston and Saugerties teams played, and defeated, two of the most famous barnstorming outfits of the day, the All-Cubans (the genuine article, not American “impostors” like the Cuban X-Giants) and the Sioux Indians (whose pedigree as Sioux, or even Indians, was open to question).
The contest between the Sioux Indians and the Kingston Colonials was played at night, incredible as that may seem for 1903, under arc lights at the new baseball grounds opposite the West Shore depot. And the Colonials, managed by Henry D. Ramsey, who was also the impresario of the All-Cuban tour, actually sailed for Havana on January 1, 1904 for a series of matches.
Perhaps most interesting for the student of the sport is the surprisingly large number of major leaguers, past and future, who took the field in this Class C circuit, to which it rose from a Class D founding in 1903. Most prominent of these was Hall of Famer Big Dan Brouthers, who played first base for Poughkeepsie from 1903 through 1905, then played for and managed the Newburgh club in 1906. As a major leaguer, Brouthers competed for eleven clubs in nineteen seasons, compiling a lifetime batting average of .342. He was the top slugger of all nineteenth-century players, and five times led his league in batting. In 1904, fat and 46, the Wappingers Falls resident topped Hudson River League batsmen with an average of .373 (only three men in the pitching-dominated circuit batted over .300) and even took time out to play in two games for the New York Giants. In a contest played at the Saugerties Driving Park in the first week of June 1904, Brouthers went six-for-six, including two prodigious home runs. (Merce Farrell said he snuck in to see this game.)
Other certain major leaguers on that 1903 Poughkeepsie club were: Jimmy Dygert, a little spitballer who went on to win 20 games for Connie Mack’s A’s in 1907, hurling three shutouts in the final week of the season and thereby ruining his arm; second baseman A1 Burch, who played six years for the Cardinals and Dodgers starting in 1906; catcher Pete Lamar, who appeared briefly in 1902 for the Cubs and in 1907 for Cincinnati; Elmer Steele, who pitched for the Red Sox, Pirates, and Dodgers; and Ernie Lindeman (Linderman), who pitched for the Boston Braves (then called the Doves) in 1907.
Suspected major leaguers — their identities cannot be absolutely confirmed — on the 1903 Poughkeepsie club include first baseman John McGlone (McGloin), who played for Washington and Cleveland in 1886–88; second baseman Charlie French, who played for the Red Sox and Indians in 1909–10; outfielder John “Red” Fisher, of the 1910 St. Louis Browns; and Pop Schriver, a catcher-first baseman whose big-league career spanned 1886–1901. Yet for all this talent, the Poughkeepsie Giants finished the 1903 campaign in fifth place, with a dismal record of 39–51! In its succeeding years in the HRL, Poughkeepsie was far more competitive and produced such future big-timers as pitchers Elmer Steele and Joe Lake; infielders Harry Lord, Bert Daly, and Joe Fox; and a catcher Moran who may have been Charlie Moran, who caught for the Cards in 1908 and went on to fame as a National League umpire and then football coach of the “Praying Colonels” of Kentucky’s Centre College.
Saugerties, which finished in fourth place, well above Poughkeepsie, featured two major leaguers. Until this week I thought our town had been home to only one, outfielder Rube DeGroff of the 1905–06 Cardinals. But then a letter from Vern Luse, an expert in minor-league history from Kansas City, indicated that Harrison, the right fielder here in 1903–04, was named Leo J. — the same Leo J. who played one game for the Washington Senators in 1901 as Ben Harrison.
Kingston’s certain major leaguers in 1903 were catcher Henry “Heinie” Beckendorf, who went up to Detroit in 1909 and played for the Tigers and Senators the next season, and infielder Con Daily (Daly, Daley), a 38-year-old whose big-league days stretched from 1884 through 1896. The Walsh and Martin on the 1903 Colonials may have been the Connie Walsh who had a cup of coffee with the Pirates in 1907 and the “Silent Joe” Martin of the 1903 Browns and Senators, but these are guesses, with far less likelihood of being correct than the major-league “suspects” listed above for Poughkeepsie. (In 1904, Kingston’s second baseman was Jimmy McQuaid [McQuade], who had played for Washington in 1898.)
Hudson’s probable major leaguer was third baseman Ed McDonald, who went on to the Braves and Cubs in 1911–13. The “suspects” are pitchers Deegan and Goodwin and catcher Clark; these may be “Dummy” Deegan of the 1901 N.Y. Giants, Art Goodwin of the 1905 N.Y Highlanders, and Archie Clark of the 1890–91 Giants.
Ossining, whose franchise was shifted to Catskill [my hometown since 2010 — jt] in mid-1903, offered Con Daily, who played there before moving on to Kingston, and a Kellogg who may have been Bill Kellogg of the 1914 Cincinnati Reds. Peekskill’s definite major leaguer was Pete Cregan, who played for the 1899 Giants and the 1903 Reds [and for the Mountain Athletic Club in Fleischmanns — jt]. Newburgh seems to have had no big timers in 1903, and I have not adequately researched its later years in the league. Paterson, which entered the HRL in 1904, featured shortstop Phil Cooney [a Jewish player — jt], whose real name was either Cohn or Cohen, and played one game for the 1905 Highlanders [and for the Mountain Athletic Club in 1903 — jt]; catcher Dan Coogan, who had played for Washington in 1895; and pitcher George McQuillan, a ten-year major leaguer who, while with the Phillies in 1910, would have led the National League with an earned-run average of 1.60, if he had pitched in two more innings.
That’s it for now. I’m signing off, though there’s no guarantee that I won’t bend your ear again in the future, on this subject or some other. These five columns have been fun for me, and I hope of interest to you.
