|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 1, 2016 15:31:15 GMT -5
I played the outfield for a championship club in New York, then pitched for a Reds team that failed to win the championship, despite compiling the best record in the league...
Who am I?
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 2, 2016 12:50:35 GMT -5
Technically, I won my championship playing for Brooklyn, but I'm from Albany, so it's all New York to me...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 2, 2016 12:53:22 GMT -5
And I wouldn't have qualified for the All-Century Team...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 4, 2016 8:38:53 GMT -5
I pitched the game in which my Brooklyn teammate suffered a fatal injury while batting...
|
|
|
|
Post by schellis on Feb 4, 2016 9:19:37 GMT -5
Harry Wright?
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 4, 2016 10:58:06 GMT -5
Great guess, Schellis, I knew Harry Wright in New York but wasn't a teammate until he recruited me for Cincinnati. I played professionally but enjoyed my peak years as a star player before the organization of a professional league... |
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 4, 2016 16:39:58 GMT -5
My claim to a championship, or co-championship, in Brooklyn remains controversial. It could just as easily be said that I twice played on teams that won more games than any of their competitors, both times capturing the public imagination in a way that transformed the sport, without winning an outright championship in either season...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 5, 2016 16:01:35 GMT -5
At $1,100, I earned the third-highest salary on the 1869 Red Stockings, after George ($1,400) and Harry ($1,200) Wright...
|
|
|
|
Post by schellis on Feb 5, 2016 20:32:47 GMT -5
Asa brainard
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 5, 2016 23:16:53 GMT -5
Yeah, good one, Schellis, almost certainly in the top two or three pitchers before the NAPBBP in 1871. If nothing else, Harry Wright had an eye for talent...
Brainard played in Jim Creighton's shadow during the 1860 NABBP season in New York, as an outfielder and occasional pitcher for the Brooklyn Excelsior club, which finished the season at 18-3, five wins better than the Brooklyn Atlantic. Although the Excelsior had won their first game against Atlantic, the 1859 champions, and held an 8-6 lead in the sixth inning of the third and deciding game, a violent Atlantic crowd of perhaps 15,000, incensed over the umpire's calls against their side and driven on by local gamblers, made it impossible for the game to continue...
The umpire mistakenly declared the game a draw, and the Atlantic retained the title on a technicality, though the New York press would have none of it and declared for co-champions if the Atlantic weren't to be disqualified. The Excelsior tour of New York state during the summer, extended to Baltimore and Philadelphia, mobilized unprecedented crowds to watch Creighton's fast pitching and did more than any other single event to spread the New York Game before the Civil War. Brainard would have been the leading pitcher for any other nine, learned both speed and deception from Creighton before his death in 1862, and was the best pitcher in baseball when Wright recruited him to carry three-quarters of the pitching load during Cincinnati's historic 1869 to 1870 run...
At that point, Brainard and his teammates were too busy making money to give a damn about the NABBP title...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 5, 2016 23:23:03 GMT -5
Brainard also manned the box for the Excelsior in October, 1862, when Creighton suffered the batting injury that would lead to his premature death a few days later at the age of 21...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 5, 2016 23:25:10 GMT -5
Brainard, 1860 Excelsior, second from right; Creighton, third from left...  |
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 5, 2016 23:28:08 GMT -5
Brainard, 1869 Red Stockings, seated second from right...  |
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Feb 5, 2016 23:30:03 GMT -5
Love those illegal bats...
|
|
|
|
Post by schellis on Feb 5, 2016 23:44:12 GMT -5
I actually read a fantasy novel about a guy that travels back in time to play with the 1869 team. So I at least had some familiarity with the players on that team.
The first clue had me looking for someone that played with Ray Chapman though
|
|
