The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Louisville nine that day -- or that year. Owners and players despised each other. The team wasn't very good, especially at pitching and fielding; the club was undercapitalized and its president, Mordecai Davidson, was lulu.
Few people bought tickets to watch home games as the Colonels quickly took over last place. In a series of vain maneuvers, Davidson tried to sell his best players, then to play out the season on the road, then to sell the franchise.
As May ended, the players entrained for their first eastern trip. Due in Philadelphia, for two days they were unheard from -- marooned en route by the Johnstown Flood. (All this was in 1889, when the junior circuit was the American Association and the senior was the National League. Baltimore, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City, Louisville, Philadelphia and St. Louis constituted the Association.)
Davidson, traveling with his team, was more than a month behind in meeting the payroll, even though he had pared the squad to 11 men and a playing manager-captain. Now he tried another, more drastic device: fines. For every game error, $25. For an impertinence, more. A typical player salary was $1,400. When Davidson boasted that he had imposed $1,435 in fines, his purpose was clear -- to cut pay, in violation of legal contract. Furious, the players handed him a detailed message of protest.
On Thursday, June 13, the Colonels (8-39 and losers of 19 straight games) arrived in Baltimore for a four-game series. Davidson had yet another idea. If they lost the next day, he announced, every player would be fined $25, no matter how well he had played. Whereupon Davidson took a train for New York, the Association having summoned all its presidents to consider Louisville's plight.
In Baltimore, the Louisville players had their own, different idea:
The first strike in baseball history.
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When in Baltimore, Louisville's 1889 team was put up at Wilson H. Pepper's Hotel, across Holliday Street from City Hall. There in the heart of downtown, a waiting fan could catch sight of the individual players, even talk with them.
In Louisville's lineup were three of the 19th century's standouts: big Guy Hecker, a Pennsylvanian who in 1884 had pitched 72 complete games, winning 52, still the third highest one-season total ever; Toad Ramsey, a left-hander who won 38 and 37 games in consecutive years; and outfielder Pete Browning, Louisville native and a lifetime .341 batter. What no one said in print was that by now the two pitchers' arms were moribund and Browning -- well, sometimes he got thirsty.
Baltimore (24-21, fifth place) had only one name player: Matt Kilroy, a left-handed fireballer. In 1887, Kilroy won 46 games, which is still the Orioles record. The Orioles, whose park was out Greenmount Avenue at what is now 25th Street, had just staged an exhibition game as a Johnstown Flood benefit.
Meanwhile, Davidson left behind another announcement: for anyone not showing up to play, a $100 fine.
The written protest that was delivered to him bore a circle of signatures, so no one player would be singled out for reprisals. But Hecker emerged as spokesman.
On Friday afternoon (game time 4:15 p.m.), when the ballpark stage left Pepper's Hotel, it carried six players. Not on board, besides Hecker, were Browning, catcher Paul Cook, second baseman Dan Shannon, pitcher Red Ehret and third baseman Harry Raymond. To have nine players, the team's manager-captain, outfielder Chicken Wolf, hired three Baltimore semipros.
After one inning, Baltimore led 5-0. Then a cloudburst sent everyone scurrying.
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Overnight, the battle lines hardened. In New York, Davidson smoothly won over the doubters among his fellow owners; the Association endorsed his actions. And the Association's president, Wheeler C. Wikoff, accompanied Davidson back to Baltimore. Davidson smoothly deducted $100 from the salary arrears of Friday's six absentees. Wikoff lifted a larger club: "Rebellion," he told the press, "laid [the Louisville players] open to big fines and the blacklist." Earlier, baseball owners had proved their ability to unite in banishing undesirable players from the majors for life.
In Baltimore, the Daily News headlines read: "Grinding Down the Strikers / A Practical Illustration of Baseball Slavery."
"A large crowd [has] congregated around Pepper's Hotel," its reporter wrote, "and sympathized with the players." A late flash: "The players are gathered in front of Pepper's, chewing on toothpicks and refusing to be interviewed."
For Saturday, the papers advertised "Two Games -- One Admission" (the word doubleheader had not yet been invented), "2 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. Tickets, 25 cents. Ladies Admitted to Grand Stand Free." The weather? Still chancy.
This time, they got through five innings (Kilroy vs. Ramsey; Baltimore 4, Louisville 2) before the rain came. But that was enough to count as an official game. Thereby, Baltimoreans Charles Fisher, Michael J. Gaule and John Traffley attained baseball immortality. None ever graced another major league box score, but playing in a single game is enough to get one's name into the baseball encyclopedias. In two at-bats, Fisher and Traffley each singled, giving them lifetime batting averages of .500. (Gaule and Traffley each committed an error -- and were fined?)
No Sunday game; the blue laws. So on Monday, another two games before Louisville left town, its road trip concluded. Both games were played in full -- and the full teams played them -- with Louisville almost winning the first one.
What induced the three-day strikers to give in? Newspaper accounts credit Billy Barnie, the Baltimore manager. Just back from a scouting trip, he counseled a Louisville player delegation to resume playing, while filing a formal grievance -- not to Davidson but to the Association.
Davidson issued no comment, but apparently he ceased the fining (later, the Association remitted all except the six $100 fines for missing a game). Back home, Louisville finally won, ending a losing streak that, at 26 games, is still the majors' record.
On July 2, Davidson turned the franchise back to the Association, which brought in new ownership. Even so, misfortune did not let up -- in August, injuries struck six players from the lineup. The season ended 27-111, the first time a major league team had lost more than 100 games. Baseball historian Bob Bailey points out that Louisville never really lay down; seven of those 26 consecutive defeats were by one run, five by two runs.
To a 1994 eye, that long-ago confrontation is interesting for its attitudes. The 1880s were a time of labor organizing and management truculence. There were no federal anti-trust laws yet; no labor relations acts. In baseball, an 1882 both-majors agreement enforced the reserve clause and a $2,000 salary cap. A "troublemaker" could find no contract offered him anywhere in the majors.
In Baltimore, the coverage of that Baltimore-Louisville weekend series told something. The Sun was impartial but skimpy and kid-gloved: It never used the words "strike" or "strikers." The American openly took sides in its news columns: "[Association president] Wikoff, now that he is in the city, should deal summarily with the so-called strikers." Alone, the Baltimore Daily News pictured the scenes and conveyed the excitement: "The Louisville Club Rebels Against Its Management."
James H. Bready is a retired Evening Sun editorial writer.