Play Ball!:

Some Aspects of Pioneering Professional Baseball

in Tennessee.

by James B. Jones. Jr.

Public Historian

In 1885 professional baseball in Tennessee got its start in three of the state's cities, when Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville joined the newly formed Southern Baseball League Association. (or the Southern, or "old Southern" League), where "close scores, brilliant playing and exciting games are the rules". Admission was placed at 25 cents. Joining the Tennessee trio were league teams from Birmingham, Alabama; Columbus, Macon, Augusta, Atlanta, and Americus, Georgia. Teams were reported to be well backed financially with managers who were "progressive, capable and withal keen lovers of the sport, and the sections represented are quickened by a generous rivalry which...will insure fair and full play and the development of all excellence attainable." Team uniforms were colorful, for example:

The nine teams of the Southern League began play on April 15, 1885, playing a series of three games with each opponent until moving on to the next game lineup. For example, Chattanooga played at Macon, the Nashville Americans (few teams had names) were at Columbus, and the Memphis nine took the field at Birmingham on April 15, 16, and 18, 1885. Teams traveled by rail to their next game sequence. The last Southern League games were scheduled to be played in October, with Memphis playing Chattanooga in a three game series on the 14th, 15th and 17th. The team with the best win/loss record was to be declared the pennant winner and Southern League Champions. By mid-summer it was reported that there were a total of 125 players, managers, and umpires in the Southern League, earning aggregate salaries of $ 15,000 a month, or about $150 a month each.

For a brief time it appeared as though there would be no professional baseball in Memphis. In February the City Council, prompted by moral reform sectors in the municipal population, passed an ordinance prohibiting the playing of baseball on the Sabbath. An outcry arouse and ball fans circulated a petition to rescind a city ordinance against Sunday games. According to the Memphis Daily Avalanche mechanics especially were unhappy because

The effort to reverse the hated ordinance was evidently successful and Sunday baseball was played, not on an Arkansas sandbar, but in Cycle Club Park in Memphis.

By March 10 each of the nine teams in the Southern League had finally recruited their players, and exhibition games were to be played with local amateur and professional teams from the North. Memphis and Chattanooga won their first games, but Nashville was downed by Columbus. Baseball games were reported with much interest in the newspapers, indicating the wide-spread popularity of the national past time in the urban South by 1885. Crowds of from 400 to 2,000 were reported at various games. Yet, at first anyway, the Memphis team's owners were initially discontent because they were not making money on the games because of low attendance, caused by a poor win/loss record of the club. This news would have consequences later on in the season.

Aside from controversy were the social aspects of baseball and baseball fans. Ladies were admitted to the game free and good male conduct was encouraged so as to maintain the proper atmostphere so women would attend ball games at the park. Sometimes women were admitted to the ball park and stands free. Newspaper reports indicate female attendance at ball games increased, but that men "unaccompanied by women should not be allowed in the ladies stand, no matter whom they are." The ladies were welcome, however, it was reported they could not keep score, although it was bragged by the Memphis press that "[t]here are more ladies in Memphis, and young ladies too, who understand more about the intricacies of the game than in the balance of the circuit towns put together." It was not uncommon for ladies to bestow their attentions on ball players. For example, according to a report in the Chattanooga Daily Times, a player, Hart, was said to be a regular heartbreaker; he had received a "beautiful Bible" from an admiring Fourth Ward miss, "and it is said some handsome bouquets mysteriously found their way into his dressing room." "Tug" Arundle of the Memphis nine was likewise a favorite of the ladies - one female fan claimed she came to see "Tug" catch and if he did not she would stop coming to the games. By season's end Arundle had started wearing the catcher's "breast plate" and so had descended from the status of "the noblest Roman of them all" to mere ball player. Not only that, lamented the Memphis Daily Avalanche, "some fair maid of Georgia" had captured his attention and soon thereafter the brawny athlete wore the apparel of an

By the middle of the season "baseball parties" were "all the rage...amongst fashion's votries." Blacks also formed baseball teams; for example, the Memphis Eureka Baseball Club, although there is no information available to support the notion they were part of a nascent African-American League. Baseball fever also resulted in attempts to form Southern League teams in Jackson and in Knoxville.

Sometimes news of interesting games involving vying Tennessee city teams playing home games were telegraphed to local cigar stores or hotel lobbies where scores were kept on blackboards for the congregated fans. Late in the season in Memphis it became conventional for fans to congregate in the Terrace Garden "to hear the telegraph tick the details of the Memphis and Nashville clubs." Such entertainment was novel and well attended. One key operator received the coded play-by-play messages, while the other read the news. The game was "played" by using a representation of a ball diamond and a series of cards with the names and positions of the players printed on them.

Western Union had quarreled with the Chattanooga team's management and had no wires run from the ball park, and so for at least the first season there were no telegraphed games from Chattanooga.

Perhaps the first controversial game in the Southern League's first year was reported in May after a Macon newspaper made some unsupported charges about a lack of sportsmanship against the Chattanooga team which had earlier beaten the Macon nine. Chattanooga club directors demanded a retraction of the comments.

Unpopular umpires are perennially a favorite subject among baseball fans, and this was as true in 1885 as it is today. Umpire Jennings called a game between Nashville and Atlanta in late May due to rain, although the Atlanta team's manager claimed the game as a forfeit, insisting the grounds were not too wet. Sometimes the mood of the home crowd turned ugly, as was the case in the Nashville Americans and the Columbus, Georgia, game of July 7, played in Nashville. According to the Nashville American the umpire, McCue, declared one of the Nashville nine out, an unpopular call among the fans. The Americans player Diestel, denounced him. According to the newspaper report:

The Columbus team's manager expected trouble and summoned the police to the diamond to protect the hapless umpire. They arrived in the nick of time too, as a "gang of spectators were about to administer to him what they evidently believed he deserved, when...he was escorted by a body guard of police out of the grounds, up Cherry street to Gaffney's saloon." He remained inside, even though a crowd of several hundred had followed him there. He, according to the newspaper report, called a runner out because it appeared as though he had run more than three feet out of the base line to avoid a contact with a Columbus team member player, which made him out.

The hometown press insisted he only made a wide turn around third on his way home, which he reached safely. Diestel had already been safe for some five seconds when the ball found its way to the catcher's mitt and McCue made his contentious decision. McCue, earlier released as a pitcher from the Birmingham team, was not qualified as either a hurler or umpire, said the American. He enforced technicalities that were "ignored on every ball field in the country and makes himself odious and pitiable for his ignorance of those very technicalities. He is the only umpire in the south who has sent batters to bases because the pitcher 'unnecessarily delayed' the game."

Managers of the Nashville Americans and the Columbus team wired the President of the Southern League, H. W. Grady of Atlanta, asking for another umpire. The Nashville team's directors encouraged the crowd to remain calm in future games and that any intemperate remarks made toward players or umpires would result in expulsion from the park. McCue was relieved by President Grady, a rare occurrence, more for his own safety than for reasons of revulsion emanating from the hostile Nashville fans.

Arguments with the umpire about strike calls led to fines against players. In other instances, in early September in Memphis during a game with the Macon nine, a fight ensued between the managers of the two teams. "Tug" Arundle, popular catcher for the Memphis team, stepped up to the plate and hit a single and then stole second. The next Memphis batter, Carroll, hit a grounder to third, and "Tug" was out. Memphis manager Ted Sullivan and Macon manager Price took to the field and exchanged heated words when Price slapped Sullivan in the face with his score card. "Sullivan threw out his right fist and a knock-down that would have done credit to his cousin from Boston, John L., was the sequel. Brass buttons [police] interfered and Price was gently lifted from the ground." There were no arrests, although the affair would have dire consequences after the season was over. In another instance two members of the Memphis team intimidated Umpire Dunlevy who took the threat seriously and asked President Grady to relieve him of any future work in the Bluff City. In another instance manager W.H. Voltz of the Chattanooga nine also petitioned to have an umpire be removed: "I will not play another game with DeFrance" he telegraphed to the president of the league, "Remove him from here at once or we go home." His demand was not met and he apparently left the city still alive.

Umpire "Dandy" DeFrance, an ex-manager, had run afoul of the fans and manager of the Chattanooga team and was not a favorite there. Obviously, if the President of the Southern League were to accede to every request to remove an umpire, then every losing club would make similar demands and "the whole system would be demoralized." There was an established procedure involving the receipt at League headquarters of three written protests from three clubs which would secure the removal of an umpire. DeFrance stayed in Memphis while Voltz left for Chattanooga. Memphis nine's manager, Ted Sullivan, was pleased with the behavior of the fans in Atlanta, but complained of the umpire Cartwright's "rottenness." Sullivan felt "if New York or Chicago were playing in Atlanta they could not win one game out of ten with Cartwright as umpire."

Umpire bashing had gotten so bad that by late July it was feared that the Southern Baseball League would soon break up, at least that was the acerbic observation of the Boston Herald, which reported

It appeared for awhile that the Memphis team would not survive the first season of the Southern League's 1885 season. The first stockholders guaranteed that the club would be supported even though baseball wasn't yet profitable. The strength of their commitment to baseball was made evident in the abrupt newspaper headlines of June 14: "The Memphis Club Reorganized and in New Hands." The new management of the Memphis Baseball Club had only recently secured contracts with two Omaha, Nebraska, club players, and would "spare neither pains nor expense to secure first class men." They likewise promised to "revive local interest in the national game" and made improvements at the Cycle Park baseball field. By early July, the nearly complete transfer of the Kansas City team to Memphis had a beneficial effect and Memphis soon downed Macon. These two "baseballists" were said to be the best players in all the Western League, and would be joined by other players from St. Louis, Missouri, and from the professional team at Milwaukee and one player all the way from Elmira, New York. Trading and recruiting players was common; for example, Nashville found players from the St. Louis and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania teams, and management talent in Chicago, while Chattanooga acquired players from the Detroit team.

Details are sketchy, but hints that the league might disband appeared in August. By September 12, representatives of all nine teams met in Atlanta, league headquarters, to decide the question of "whether the league would continue or disband." While the Memphis and Nashville club agents strongly argued against disbanding they were out voted and the first Southern Baseball League was scheduled to be dissolved on September 17. Only Nashville refused to assent. The Chattanooga and Memphis representatives unsuccessfully amended the dissolution measure to allow for the extension of the season past the 17th. This would have allowed teams who desired to play out their games. It appeared that Atlanta would most likely win the pennant, with it closest rival being Nashville. Ironically, it was reported that all the clubs present in Atlanta "favored a continuance of the league next year."

In Nashville the Daily American fulminated that the destruction of the league was the result of a deliberate withdrawal by Atlanta from the league and was done out "fear of losing the pennant." If the league could be disbanded early, then the Atlanta team would ensure its commanding lead. It was a matter of percentages, and the Nashville Americans would have a better record than Atlanta if the season was not shortened by the League's dissolution. If Nashville and Augusta both won every game until the 17th Atlanta would still win the pennant. Atlanta, seeing that their "chance for the pennant was lost, and rather than see another club win it by fair and square ball playing, they...break up the league."

According to reports in the Daily American, all Southern League teams but Birmingham met again in Atlanta on the 17th and determined that Augusta should win the pennant if she and Nashville played rained-out games with Atlanta. Atlanta refused inasmuch as she had already released several players to the Baltimore and Brooklyn teams as a result of the dissolution of the league. By a vote of four to three it was determined the games with Nashville and Augusta should be played. The Atlanta club, the pennant holders, flatly refused to play the deferred games with Nashville and Augusta and so remained the defunct Southern League Baseball Association champions.

Apparently the league had not actually dissolved, and the members of the Southern League met in November, in Macon, Georgia, to discuss continuation of the association in January 1886. Memphis was, in a "premeditated" move, kicked out of the League, (Birmingham suffered a similar fate) as a result of the altercation between Macon's manager, Price, and the Memphis nine's manager, Sullivan. Memphis was to be replaced by the Savannah, Georgia team. Dropping Memphis from the roster was, according to a report in the Memphis Avalanche, "done merely to spite the Memphis club for the treatment of Mr. Price by Manager Sullivan last summer." If both the Nashville and Atlanta clubs kept their promises to "stick by the Memphis club...it will be safe to say there will be no more Southern League." After winning the support of the Chattanooga and Columbus clubs to his alliance, the new manager of the Memphis club, John L. Sneed, returned home from strategy consultations with the management in Atlanta. There he gained support for a meeting to reinstate Memphis into the Southern League.

By mid-January, 1886, Memphis bought its way back into consideration by completing a bargain with Columbus selling their club and four of the franchise's players, all for $675. By January 23, 1886, speculation had it that the league would refuse to recognize Memphis' purchase of the Columbus franchise, yet eager speculation about the new ball season quickly supplanted any acrimony that resulted from the Southern League's first vociferous year of existence and Tennessee's first profesional experience with the national pasttime. It is an example of Tennessee's participation in the American invention and promotion of new customs, games, and urban identities in an age of the swiftly diminishing frontier.