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Post by dukecrunchybagel on Jan 8, 2015 16:29:01 GMT -5
I pitched for the Reds in the early days of baseball at end of my HOF career. I played most of my career in Boston.
My unusual claim to fame is I was the first person ever photographed extending my middle finger (i. e. flipping the bird).
Who am I?
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Post by schellis on Jan 8, 2015 17:03:01 GMT -5
I pitched for the Reds in the early days of baseball at end of my HOF career. I played most of my career in Boston. My unusual claim to fame is I was the first person ever photographed extending my middle finger (i. e. flipping the bird). Who am I? Old Hoss Radbourn? |
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Post by psuhistory on Jan 8, 2015 22:35:18 GMT -5
This charming man...  |
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Post by dukecrunchybagel on Jan 9, 2015 13:37:36 GMT -5
A gold star for schellis!
Old Hoss Radbourn was indeed the very first photographed giving the one finger salute in a team photo taken of the 1886 Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Braves).
For those who want to see the picture, go to Wikipedia. Old Hoss is standing on the left on the back row.
Radbourn of course pitched at the tail end of the 1891 season for the Redlegs after the Boston Reds of the old American Association, a transplant from the one-season third-league Player's League, folded. Radbourn was not very effective for the Reds.
Old Hoss's best season was for the Champion Providence Greys in 1884, when he won the pitching triple crown with a 1.38 ERA, 441 strikeouts, and 59 wins in 678 2/3 innings. Yep, baseball was a different game in those days...
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Post by Lark11 on Jan 9, 2015 13:44:53 GMT -5
I'm impressed, that's some serious knowledge you guys have!
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Post by schellis on Jan 10, 2015 0:39:28 GMT -5
Another sad fact is that after a hunting accident he spent the remainder of his years in a darkened office of a billards room/bar that he owned. He passed away only 42.
Plenty of really great pitchers have pitched for the Reds, unfortunately for a lot of them it was well past their primes. Amos Rusie and Christy Mathewson are two of the others, with Rusie actually being traded for Matty in what has to be the worst deal of all time (though I believe that the Reds owner either also owned the Giants or was in the process of buying them.)
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Post by psuhistory on Jan 10, 2015 11:34:06 GMT -5
Radbourn had a free agent's mentality, very much in step with the early union movement among NL players. He hated the NL contract system, probably had something to do with the middle finger attitude...
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Post by schellis on Jan 11, 2015 17:25:43 GMT -5
Radbourn had a free agent's mentality, very much in step with the early union movement among NL players. He hated the NL contract system, probably had something to do with the middle finger attitude... Yep, the reason he had the season he with Providence is because he agreed to pitch everyday after the number 2 starter left the team as long as he was released from his contract and the reserve clause system. |
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Post by psuhistory on Jan 11, 2015 19:23:51 GMT -5
Radbourn had a free agent's mentality, very much in step with the early union movement among NL players. He hated the NL contract system, probably had something to do with the middle finger attitude... Yep, the reason he had the season he with Providence is because he agreed to pitch everyday after the number 2 starter left the team as long as he was released from his contract and the reserve clause system. Interesting generation, 1880s/1890s. I think Achorn's book--basically a biography of Radbourn--talked about how Radbourne also negotiated a better contract with another club in a different league during that 1884 season. There's not much discussion of it, but these clubs don't appear to have meant much to players before the first decade of the twentieth century, when the money got bigger, and the players started seeing more of it. With the paternalistic owners like Mack and Ruppert, club loyalty got a little more sentimental, because the clubs were actually taking care of at least some of the players... Providence was more like root, hog, or die... |
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Post by dukecrunchybagel on Jan 12, 2015 8:55:01 GMT -5
1884 was the year of the Union Assocation, the first attempt to break the reserve clause which was seriously flawed to begin with due to the St. Louis Maroons.
I think the finger wave may have been because the Greys folded in 1885, and his contract was assigned to the Beaneaters. I believe the photograph in question was taken on Opening Day in 1886; hence, Radbourn's expression of contempt.
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Post by psuhistory on Jan 12, 2015 11:43:00 GMT -5
Motivation may be overdetermined in Radbourn's case. By the time of the baseball card, he'd clearly evolved a "fuck the world" perspective. He was suspended in Providence on suspicion of deliberately losing a game. On the whole, the middle finger seems like progress...
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Post by psuhistory on Jan 12, 2015 20:50:52 GMT -5
Old Hoss is standing on the left on the back row. Also interesting that the photo contains some members of the New York Giants as well as Boston players. It's really not clear what's going on, and one possibility is that it's just a joke, with little meaning. Interesting document, DCB...  |
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Post by Lark11 on Jan 14, 2015 0:10:18 GMT -5
Old Hoss is standing on the left on the back row. Also interesting that the photo contains some members of the New York Giants as well as Boston players. It's really not clear what's going on, and one possibility is that it's just a joke, with little meaning. Interesting document, DCB... Bill the Butcher is dominating that photo. |
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