base ball in philadelphia
Reviewed by Daniel R. Bronson, English Department, Montclair State University
JULY 23, 2007 archive
I admit it. I delayed submitting this review until the Phillies had secured their record 10,000th defeat, setting a standard unmatched by any other major professional team in any sport. Such is the nature of a native Philadelphian baseball fan, to seek something to celebrate and find it in a record for futility. Boston fans may mourn decades of being second best; Philadelphia fans know decades of being dead last.
However, it was not always so. As John Shiffert’s Base Ball in Philadelphia makes clear, the city produced a number of important baseball firsts, even if they occurred a century or more in the past. Among these claims for Philadelphia mentioned on the book’s end leaf are: “the first baseball club in America (the Olympic Town Ball Club), the first great African-American team (the Pythians), the first interracial match (the Pythians, probably against the white City Item club in 1869, the first openly paid professional (Al Reach), two influential baseball publications…and one of the powerhouses of the first major league (the Athletics)….” There is no mention of the Phillies.
In this well-researched book, Shiffert traces the development of baseball in Philadelphia from its earliest forms to the established major league days of the Athletics and Phillies at the turn of the Twentieth century. There is a very thorough biographical dictionary, featuring familiar names—Cap Anson (Athletics), Ed Delahanty (Phillies), Harry Wright (managed the Phillies for a decade) and Al Reach—and also local legends, such as Dick McBride (“Philadelphia’s first superstar”), Billy Hamilton, Hicks Hayhurst and the truly significant Octavius Catto (“civil rights leader, educator, radical, martyr and baseball pioneer”). The biography alone makes for fascinating reading, as does the rise of the Athletics as a power in the game. Sadly, the title of Chapter 15, “The 1890s Phillies—It Was Always Something,” tells you all you need to know about that team’s familiar tribulations.
As befits a SABR member, Shiffert uses statistics and records throughout to back his claims or make his points. There are also frequent illustrations, photos and pictures of old baseball cards that bring the period to life. This will help most readers in the early chapters, which seem a bit dry, with names and dates that may appeal only to devotees of the period. With Chapter 4 and the rise of the Athletics and Chapter 5’s “The Drawing of the Color Line,” the book picks up steam and interest. The collapse of the Athletics and the American Association and the Players League War, bad management on the part of both Philadelphia teams (this would become a given over the years) overshadowed the individual skills of some players and emphasized the faults of others like Pearce “What’s the Use?” Chiles (whose nickname is curiously omitted by Shiffert).
As the period under study in Base Ball in Philadelphia draws to a close, it is 1901. The American League is formed and “the Philadelphia Phillies sue the Philadelphia Athletics over the status of superstar Napoleon Lajoie.” Long-suffering Philadelphia fans don’t need to ask which team won. As usual, they both lost. Lajoie went on to a long and stellar career in Cleveland. The A’s successes would end long before they took off for Kansas City and Oakland. Despite over 10,000 losses on their and their fans’ backs, the Phillies continue. Who knows but that another Hicks Hayhurst may come along some day to bail them out.
Shiffert, John. Base Ball in Philadelphia: A History of the Early Game, 1831-1900. McFarland, 2006. 288 pp, $29.95. ISBN: 0-7864-2795-7.
Copyright © 2007 by Daniel R. Bronson.