The Cincinnati Red Stalkings

by Troy Soos

  I thought back to when Margie told me how happy I’d looked telling baseball stories to Patrick Kelly. She looked the same with these children. And suddenly the thought struck me that if I ever had children of my own, I’d want Margie to be their mother.

  Someday, maybe.

  Chapter Ten

  At first glance, I thought I’d entered the wrong building. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was constructed more like a theater auditorium than a library. It was mostly open space, with a wide central well that rose all the way from the ground floor to the roof of the four-story building. Books were shelved between the railings and sidewalls of an upper-level mezzanine that circled the well like a balcony section. There were no bookcases on the main floor, which was furnished only with reading tables, chairs, and benches.

  Not sure where to find what I was seeking, I approached a high desk next to the main entrance. Before I could say anything, the matronly woman seated behind it tapped her finger on a sign that had the single word Ladies on it. “This is the ladies’ circulation desk,” she said. I was tempted to reply that I wasn’t here to check out a lady. Pointing to an identical piece of furniture on the other side of the entrance, she added, “The men’s desk is over there.”

  “I just want to know where I would find old newspapers.”

  The librarian hesitated. Perhaps she wasn’t even supposed to speak to males. “The papers for the past week are on the tables in the back.” She gestured toward the rear of the room with a slight lift of her head.

  “I’m looking for 1869.”

  “Oh my. Those aren’t generally accessible. Ask Mr. Driscoll at the men’s desk. He might be able to help you.”

  I thanked her and crossed to the side of the room designated for my gender. Wait till I tell Margie about this, I thought. Separate circulation desks for men and women—the city fathers probably wanted to be sure that Cincinnati’s gentler sex wasn’t exposed to any materials that might be considered risqué. I had to stifle a laugh, imagining the poor librarian who tried to stop Margie from taking out any book she wanted.

  Of the two young males behind the desk, Driscoll was the more slightly built. He agreed to bring me the old newspapers, although he seemed reluctant to do so. While I waited, I commented on the unusual style of the building to the other librarian. He told me that the structure had originally been designed as Handy’s Opera House; when the opera company went bankrupt during construction, the library took over, retaining what had already been built.

  Driscoll arrived with a ten-day stack of the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Commercial dated July 1 through July 10, 1869. Instead of handing them to me, he carried them to a reading table and laid them down gently. “These are very fragile,” he said. “No folding! When you’re finished, tell me, and I’ll return them to storage.”

  I promised to be careful, and reached for the July 3 issue of the Enquirer. Driscoll remained, looking over my shoulder to see how I treated the brittle, browning papers. I handled them carefully and turned the pages slowly. Eventually satisfied that I could read a newspaper without his supervision, he returned to his desk.

  By speaking with Ambrose Whitaker, I had tried going back one link in the chain of events that connected the murder of a girl named Sarah in the summer of 1869 with Ollie Perriman’s death this year. Now I was trying the other end of the chain. I scrutinized every item in the Enquirer, looking for mention of a murdered or missing girl, or a girl named Sarah or one from Corryville. Nothing. I proceeded to the Commercial for the same date, with the same results.

  There were no Independence Day editions. The Monday, July 5, papers had nothing about Sarah, but did report that the Red Stockings players were escorting members of the visiting Olympic Base Ball Club on a tour of the city’s sights. I couldn’t imagine Ty Cobb or John McGraw playing host to a visiting team like that; it certainly must have been a more gentlemanly era back then.

  Through the tenth of July, there were no items in the papers that could have been related to what I’d read in the note about Sarah. To be thorough, I went back to the issues from the first two days of the month—perhaps she’d been reported missing before her supposed murder. Still nothing.

  With no luck finding anything about the girl, I permitted myself to read about the team. There was extensive coverage of the Red Stockings homecoming. The July 1 Enquirer reported:

  The only real sensation which our city has enjoyed of late has been that created by our victorious Red Stockings on their Eastern tour. The success which they met is unprecedented in the history of the national game, and it is but natural that after such admirable playing and splendid conduct the citizens of Cincinnati will feel like giving the boys a hearty reception today.

  A hearty reception it certainly was, according to the next day’s paper. Four thousand people gathered at the Little Miami Railroad Depot and a committee of prominent citizens met what the Enquirer called “our victorious Red Stockings, the first nine of which met and conquered all the first-class base ball clubs of the country. ”The paper went on to describe the homecoming:

  The train arrived at the depot promptly on time, when the boys, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the spectators, were escorted to carriages provided for the occasion, and taken over the line of march to the Gibson House. At the head of the procession was the Zouave Band in an open wagon gaily decorated with flags and banners. Before starting, this band discoursed most elegant music, playing “Home Sweet Home,” and other airs, which, together with the cheering of the crowd, formed a scene of excitement such as Cincinnati has seldom witnessed. All along the line of march the streets had put on their gala-day costumes, the buildings were decorated with flags and the sidewalks filled with gaily dressed men, women and children, all eager to give hearty welcome to the men who had, by their unrivaled skill and gentlemanly conduct, spread Cincinnati’s good fame throughout the length and breadth of the land.

  It must have been a glorious time to be a ballplayer, I thought. To have a crowd of thousands meet your train and parade you through the streets amid cheers and song. To be adored by an entire city. Someday, maybe, I’d get the chance to play in a World Series, and if I was lucky enough to be on the winning team, I might get to feel a little of the adulation the Red Stockings enjoyed in 1869.

  After a brief rest at the hotel, another procession took the players to the Union Grounds for a game against “the best selected nine of the city.”

  Prior to the match was the presentation of the bat, the twenty-seven-foot trophy given by Josiah Bonner of the Queen City Lumber Company to Aaron Champion, president of the Cincinnati Base Ball Club. I noted in the article that, “If beaten in any match, the bat is to be transferred to the victorious club,” and wondered if the Brooklyn Atlantics ever received it.

  The exhibition game, won by the Red Stockings 53–11, was reported in tedious detail. Dick Hurley appeared in the lineup of the picked nine, so he was still with the club at that point.

  An even lengthier account described the banquet at the Gibson House that night, for which tickets were sold at $5 a head—probably an enormous sum back then. Besides club members, the guests included “many of the most prominent and respected citizens of Cincinnati,” and their names were listed in the article.

  The ten players were seated at a table of honor. Each wore a medal the shape and color of a red sock, which had been ceremoniously pinned on them as a token of appreciation from the City Council. Renditions of red stockings—called “sanguinary hose” by the Enquirer reporter—decorated virtually everything: a pyramid cake, the menus, and an elaborate floral arrangement.

  Following a meal that included sweetbreads, mountain oysters, and buffalo tongue, there were endless rounds of toasts. The first was to the players, each of whom was then called upon to say a few words. They all declined to do so, most of them giving the excuse that they were unaccustomed to speaking in public. I was amused to read that the substitute Dick Hurley gave the lengthiest re
fusal, concluding with, “I might have made a speech if I had been called upon before supper, but, as it is, I am too full for utterance.”

  The second toast was to Aaron Champion, who earned thunderous applause when he said, “Someone asked me today whom I would rather be, President Grant of the United States or President Champion, of the Cincinnati Base Ball Club. I immediately answered him that I would by far rather be president of the base ball club.” As I read his words, it occurred to me that I would have made the same choice—except I’d have wanted to be one of the players. Even if only the substitute.

  After mining the first batch of papers Driscoll had given me for all the information I could glean, I went back to the men’s circulation desk and asked him if there were any Corryville newspapers from that time. He said there weren’t, but brought me issues of the Gazette and Daily Times, the only other Cincinnati papers in 1869, and more copies of the Enquirer and Commercial. I checked all of them through to the twentieth of July; I would have gone further, but my eyes were starting to ache from the small print.

  I left the library and walked down to Fountain Square, the “center” of Cincinnati. Many of the men and women I passed had newspapers over their heads as if they’d been caught in a rainstorm. What was raining on them was worse than water though—it came from the flocks of starlings that occupied the ledges of the buildings. The birds were so numerous and their droppings so prolific, that probably half the newspapers sold downtown were used as headgear instead of reading material. I stayed on the street edge of the sidewalk to stay out of the line of fire, then crossed to the square in the middle of Fifth Street, where the magnificent fountain was situated.

  According to the clock on the Mabley and Carew Building, it was a quarter to twelve, and I still had some time before needing to leave for the ballpark. I walked around the square, immersed in thought.

  I was discouraged at having found no mention in the old newspapers of Sarah or a missing girl. Was Detective Forsch right—was the note a prank? Or did Sarah’s death merely fall through the journalistic cracks even more completely than Ollie Perriman’s had?

  For no good reason, I found myself getting angry. The civic leaders who’d attended the Red Stockings banquet all got their names in the papers, as had the businessmen who’d been at Perriman’s memorial in Redland Field. It seemed like “important” people could make the news simply by showing up, but folks like Perriman and Sarah could be murdered with little or no notice.

  A sudden breeze gusted, whipping water from the fountain onto those of us near it. I looked up and saw a dark cloud in the northwest; it was small and dense, but another developed nearby, and soon the sun was blocked and it felt as if the temperature had dropped a full ten degrees.

  By the time I hopped a streetcar for the ballpark, it looked like there might not be a game today.

  Those of us who’d gotten onto the field early were just starting to throw the ball around when a torrential cloudburst sent us scrambling for the shelter of the dugout.

  I ended up near the middle of the bench, between Edd Roush and Greasy Neale. Several of the pitchers were clustered at one end, and Bubbles Hargrave and Heinie Groh sat together at the other.

  We watched as Matty Schwab and his grounds crew dashed out with a tarpaulin to cover the infield. Black clouds thickened and swirled overhead, and rumbles of thunder grew louder. The rain came down in waves; fat drops pelted the tarp like machine-gun fire, and a windblown mist washed into the dugout.

  “I’m gettin’ the hell out of here!” Groh yelled, and he sprinted for the clubhouse with Hargrave close behind him.

  The rest of us stayed. Although we were getting wet, the cool spray was refreshing after all the hot weather we’d been suffering through. And it had been getting worse lately. This morning’s papers reported that Midwestern towns were pleading for shipments of ice from other parts of the country, and in Chicago the heat wave had claimed seven lives yesterday alone.

  We sat transfixed by nature’s cleansing outburst until Edd Roush broke the silence by saying, “Looks like they ain’t never gonna get that damn trial going.” Jury selection had finally gotten under way in the Black Sox trial, but it was progressing slowly. Only three jurors had been seated in three days, and now the defense was rejecting all Cubs fans from the jury pool, claiming they would have “an inherent prejudice” against White Sox players.

  “Wish to hell they’d get it over with and give us back our title,” Neale said. The burly outfielder stomped his foot on the ground for emphasis.

  “Get it over with which way?” I asked. “Guilty or innocent?”

  Roush turned his gloomy face to me. “Innocent, you sap. If they’re found not guilty, that means we won the championship fair and square.”

  “No way they can find them guilty anyway now,” Neale put in. “Not without the confessions.” In one of those peculiarities that occasionally afflict Chicago legal proceedings, the grand jury confessions of Joe Jackson, Ed Cicotte, and Lefty Williams had somehow disappeared from the files of the State’s Attorney.

  “Even if they get off, it won’t—” I stopped myself in mid-sentence. Why say what we all knew: the 1919 championship was tainted—baseball was tainted—by what had happened. A jury verdict wouldn’t change that.

  “We beat ’em ’cause we were better than ’em,” insisted Roush.

  “You really don’t think it was fixed?” I asked.

  Neale snorted. “Don’t be stupid. Of course it was.”

  Roush said, “Hell, everybody knows it was fixed. But that ain’t what won it for us. We’d have beaten them anyway ’cause we were the better ball club.”

  “Them gamblers sure found that out,” said Neale. “Wouldn’t have tried to get us to ease up otherwise.”

  “What do you mean?” As far as I’d heard, the only players approached by gamblers were the White Sox.

  “After we whipped the Sox in the first two games,” Neale explained, “the odds went way down. So some sports approached a few of our players, trying to get us to ease up and maybe let the Sox win a game or two.”

  “To get the odds back up,” I said.

  Neale nodded.

  “If them gamblers were as smart as they think they are,” said Roush, “they’d have played it straight and bet on us to win. We’d have taken care of winning the Series without any help from them. Would have saved themselves whatever they paid the Sox, and there wouldn’t be all this trouble now.”

  “Who’d they approach on the Reds?” I asked.

  Roush’s eyes drilled me like flying spikes. “There’s some things we keep ’tween ourselves. If certain things get out, they might get turned around, and next thing you know, somebody’s accusing one of us of taking a dive.”

  “He’s part of the team now, Edd,” Neale said.

  “Not that team he wasn’t.”

  Neale persisted, “Neither was Rixey, and you told him about it.”

  “Yeah, well, Eppa don’t get traded every year. Who knows where this boy is gonna be next season and who he might tell.” He spat on the dugout floor, adding to the puddle produced by the rain. “I’m going inside till this lets up.” With that, Roush trotted off to the clubhouse. The team’s star was known for four things: he used a bigger bat than Babe Ruth, he “retired” every year to avoid spring training, he had an uncanny ability to go back on fly balls in center field, and he could be every bit as ornery as Ty Cobb.

  I said to Neale, “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s all right. I don’t want you getting in hot water with Roush or any of the others.”

  “Never mind Edd,” he answered. “He just got a bug up his ass about that championship. We all do. Nobody gives us credit for winning it. They all say the Sox gave it to us. Hell, we busted our humps a whole season to take the pennant, then the series against Chicago, and it’s like we didn’t do nothing to earn it.” Neale shook his lowered head. “Anyway, we all knew about the gamblers. Edd himself is the one who brought it out in the
open. One of them bastards told him some fellows on our club already sold out, and that Edd might as well go along, too. Edd went to Pat Moran about it, and we had a team meeting before Game Five. Moran asked if anybody else was approached. Hod Eller was scheduled to pitch for us that game, and he said yeah, a guy on an elevator tried to hand him five thousand-dollar bills. Said he told the guy to go to hell. Moran gave Eller the go-ahead to pitch, and Hod threw himself a shutout. He won the last game of the series, too.”

  “The gambler who talked to Roush told him some of the Reds were already in his pocket,” I said. “Do you know who they were?”

  “I don’t believe there were any at all. Bastard probably made it up—you know, make it sound like everybody’s in on it anyway, so you might as well get your piece of the action.”

  “Jeez.” If the gamblers’ efforts had succeeded, there could have been two teams trying to lose the same World Series.

  “Well, the way I figure,” said Neale, “is we would have won that series anyway—we were the better ball club, I’ll always believe that—and we did end up winning, so everything worked out.”

  Yeah, worked out swell. Real fine exhibition of the national pastime.

  “By the way,” Neale added. “I hit .357 that series.”

  “I know you wouldn’t sell out,” I said. But I also remembered that Shoeless Joe Jackson, who admitted taking the gamblers’ money, hit .375.

  I remained in the dugout long after Neale and the pitchers retreated to the clubhouse, just watching the rain and thinking of the news stories I’d read this morning. Two world’s champions: the Cincinnati clubs of 1869 and 1919. But what a difference between the glory of ’69 and the scandal fifty years later.