Shown: JUNE: Cincinnati Reds (red) establish dominence and go on to Blowout in pennant race. Philadelphia (pink) peaks June 6th and St. Louis (light green) peaks June 29 and begins a slide that will finish with them under .500.

On a Friday morning of the previous year, September 9th, 1881, the strong independent Philadelphia Athletics led by Chick Fulmer stepped off a train in Cincinnati en route St. Louis to Pittsburgh in a hastily organized road trip. Word got out to all the ballplayers in that Ohio city and an afternoon pickup game was organized on the Star Grounds. Unadvertised, there were few fans at game's start, but about 200 by game's end. In the eighth inning the landlord of the grounds found out about it and walked two blocks from his office to see what was going on. His name was Justis Thorner and he joined the crowd and cheered with them, promising a team to represent the Queen City in many future matches.

The American Association was officially born November 2, 1881, in the Gibson House in Cincinnati. Cincy, St. Louis, Louisville, and Pittsburgh were considered the western teams that would balance Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Brooklyn. Within days, however, Brooklyn and New York pulled out of the plan after their convention delegates were met by National League president Bill Hulbert on their way home. Hulbert skewered the pool of players the AA was building from claiming most were on the NL blacklist. He was right, but the NL blacklist, whether official or unofficial, included dozens of voiceless players guilty of only the most innocent transgressions.

With weak Baltimore as their geographical counterpart, that same Philadelphia team broke out fast from the gate and held first place for the first week of June. In truth, only three of the Fall '81 Athletics were still members: catcher Jack O'Brien, second baseman Cub Stricker, and left fielder Jud Birchall. 1881 team captain Fulmer bonded with Cincy's Thorner and was "stolen" from the Athletics by the Reds in February. Philly's problem was their old-time one-man pitching rotation which consisted of Sam Weaver: damaged goods from the start. In their 10-7 opening day win he complained of a sore arm and didn't go to his curve ball for fear of pain. After realizing three back-up pitchers in May were failures, the Athletics held first place while settling temporarily on Frank Mountain "on-loan" from Worcester.

On odd days the Athletics found themselves in second place but each time they rebounded. On May 30, in front of a huge Memorial Day crowd at home, Cincinnati captain Charlie "Pops" Snyder literally led the fight in a 10-5 Cincy win that put the Athletics one win down. Snyder bad-mouthed all the Philadelphia players until Athletic manager Lew Simmons came out jawwing. Snyder, a big catcher who used little or no gear, pushed him twenty odd feet and out of play. Part owner Charlie Mason (think general manager) then jumped on the field but was also physically ejected by the catcher. Frank Mountain, released from Worcester of the National League six days earlier, then spun a five-hit 10-1 victory the next day to put the Athletics back into a first place tie. Mountain went 4-for-4 with a double. The Athletics beat Cincinati again, June 1st, when Judd Birchall made the catch of the year in left-field with two-outs in the ninth inning. Birchall guaged a Henry Luff liner eight feet off the ground as it was sailing over his head, slapped it with his left hand, and caught it with his right. Eventually Mountain proved unsatisfactory and Philadelphia began a 3-9 slide visible on the graph: the fourth pink dot from the left the first loss of the slide, June 2. Philadelphia then signed Bill Sweeney, a Philadelphia native with California ball experience, as Weaver's alternate late June to end the losing ways. Philadelphia put on a second drive that kept them within five games of the Reds as late as August 22, when, in Cincinnati, the Reds took three of four. If anyone has access to a Cincinnati newspaper from this time, I'd love to hear the details of these four games. I am awaiting inter-library loan at this time. Cincinnati probably clinched September 15th without knowing it, with eight games remaining. One suspects that if it were a closer pennant race, more make-up games would have been rescheduled, and the clinch date would have come later.

St. Louis touched first place May 19th. With backing from a St. Louis bar owner near Sportsmen's Park on Grand Avenue (note the varient spelling later accepted as "Sportsman's") the St. Louis Brown Stockings were built by Ned Cuthbert, a National Association veteran who spent many post 1877 years organizing, managing and playing on independent St. Louis teams. Cuthbert took prize pick of these St. Louis independent players and mixed them with the core of the champion Dubuque team of the ill-fated 1879 North West League: first baseman Charles Comiskey, the shortstop-thirdbase brother combination of Bill and Jack Gleason, and catcher Tom Sullivan. St. Louis independent players included barrell-chested ace pitcher Jumbo McGinnis, outfielder George Seward, and infielder Bill Smiley. Oscar Walker was a big-whiff, no-field Brooklyn boy who previously played in Memphis and Buffalo.

St. Louis started the season with a two-man pitching staff of McGinnis and hardscrabble ex-Elizabeth, NJ, pitcher John Schappert. Schappert liked beaning batters before the rule awarding them first base came into effect in 1885. This two-man combo might have won the pennant for the Browns but for a twisted ankle suffered by McGinnis in running to third base in the top of the fifth inning of the Fourth of July contest hosting Pittsburgh. McGinnis removed his left shoe, mummified his foot in a cord of bandages, and tried pitching the bottom of the inning while hopping around on one foot. They lost. Over the next few days, everyone but the groundskeeper was tried as a pitcher as the team, at 21-12, began its 16-31 finish.

St. Louis had been in or tied for first place with Cincinnati from June 11th to July 2 when the Reds won their tenth consecutive game. You'll notice on the graph St. Louis appears one-half or one full game back during this period. That's because, once again, St. Louis had suffered fewer May rainouts and had more losses on their record: first place decided by wins this last year before winning percentage was adopted as the rule for 1883. You'll notice the St. Louis win June 29th is a box on the graph. Boxes on graphs indicate games that were thrown out later. St. Louis earned this twenty-first win when Louisville player manager Reddy Mack walked his team off the field in the fourth inning arguing balls and strikes. This game was thrown out September 26 for the simple reason that the teams could make more money playing another championship game. They rescheduled it for October 3rd, two days after the season's schedule officially ended. That proved to be a 5-5 tie and the make-up game October 5th finally proved a 6-2 St. Louis win. Most MLB databases of games played omit these two October games.

The single point that made Cincinnati the champions was their pitching depth, namely, that they had a two man pitching rotation: or perhaps more accurately, their secondary pitcher, Harry McCormick, was of such ability that their first rate ace, Will White, could rest any time he wanted. It also helped that Cincinnati formed quicker than any other AA team: reportedly within days of the AA's November 1881 organization. Every player but one had previous NL experience including four from the Cincinnati 1880 squad: pitcher White, left-handed third baseman Warren Carpenter, and outfielders Joe Sommer and Harry Wheeler. However, the only Cincinnati player without MLB experience may have been the best: second baseman Bid McPhee. McPhee was a 5-foot 8-inch lumber-yard clerk from Akron who quietly assumed his duties with such sure-handedness over the next eighteen years that when gloves became accepted in 1893 he alone refused one. A throw to McPhee was more popular among the infielders than a throw to first base (with a runner on first base). It was said Cincinnati pitchers never worried about giving up a walk. Plays to second base were so common by the Reds that McPhee still holds records for put outs at that position that can never be touched by any modern player. Official scorers in Cincinnati alone scored base-hits to batters who reached after grounding into force plays at second base. This came to be known as the "Cincinnati base-hit" and was finally eliminated for the 1913 season.

Protected by his teammates like Wayne Gretzky was, McPhee came into his own during the Reds ten game winning streak which broke the back of contending St. Louis. Here McPhee became the first major league second sacker in history to have an errorless ten game hitting streak. (I haven't checked everybody, but I've checked alot.) Game six of the streak came June 13th against Philadelphia when Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and St. Louis were in a three-way tie for first. Cincy broke Philly pitcher Frank Mountain's no-hitter in the sixth inning and won the game in the eighth behind Pop Snyder's rbi-single. The Athletics even lost their gritty catcher Jack O'Brien this game when McPhee spiked his face after a slip during a run-down. The tenth game of the streak finally gave the Reds lone possession of first place: a forteen inning win hosting Pittsburgh that featured a Red 6-4-1-3 triple play, their second triple killing of the streak.

Incidentally, Tom Sullivan, the St. Louis catcher, thrilled with his second promotion to a team in a real league, got on the train for St. Louis' first road trip in May and reclined on what he thought was a bed. "You didn't have to get a sleeper car." he said to general manager Tom McNeary, who informed the greenhorn that he was lying on regular seats. After that, whenever cheap teams saved money by having players sleep in regular seats, it was called getting a "Sullivan Sleeper", language that lasted in the majors until air travel became the norm in the 1950's.