Who Was More Important

[ItsOnlyGil]

Your votes are private.
Your definition of "important" is yours.
Thank you.

[ItsOnlyGil]

I started it off with a Comiskey vote because he put together the first consecutive four season winner dynasty, eventhough he also had to fend off VdA's "help" and play first base. And he put togther a network including a minor league affiliate to help support the team's needs.

[Beady]

I voted for "another," and I'm tempted to say it stands for the much maligned and underestimated Von der Ahe. But realistically, it would have to be William Hulbert.

[hubkittel]

Originally Posted by ItsOnlyGil

he also had to fend off VdA's "help"

That "help" included picking up Caruthers, Foutz and O'Neill, among others.

Being the homer that I am, I would like to vote for Von der Ahe. His most significant contribution to the game was establishing a stable and profitable professional baseball entity in St. Louis. Can you imagine the history of the game without a team in StL? Throw in his role in creating the AA, promoting beer/Sunday baseball, putting together the Four Time Champions, promoting the World Series, building one of the first multi-use sports stadiums, and recognizing the connection between sports/commerce/entertainment and I think you can argue that VdA was as important a figure in the post-1875 baseball era as anyone.

But I really think the correct answer is Harry Wright.

[ItsOnlyGil]

Please do not construe my inquiry as an attempted rebuttal. However, I was under the assumption that VdA had a network who brought worthwhile candidate players to his attention. And one of those chief in that capacity was Comiskey.
The funding of trusted recommendations often is good business sense. And I thought that this is the approach which Von der Ahe was employing. Accompanying that, he may have also been a source for ideas which his managers, consultants and other experts found to be cumbersome. Or he may have been genuinely helpful.
But it did not occur to me that Chris Von der Ahe wanted to spend much time pursuing the intricacies and logistics of the sport.
Please elaborate if you have time.

[hubkittel]

The idea that VdA knew nothing about baseball and was just the money man behind the Browns goes back to Ted Sullivan, who basicly said as much when he resigned as the Browns' manager in 1883. And there is some truth to that. Sullivan and Comiskey certainly knew more about the game than did their boss. But the idea that VdA wasn't involved in baseball matters, in matters regarding the bringing in of talent, doesn't withstand scrutiny.

A few examples:

-VdA stated that he personally scouted Hans Wagner and decided against purchasing him from Louisville in 1897 or 1898. Not a great example of VdA's baseball judgement but at the time he was sort on cash and probably couldn't afford the $500 that L'ville wanted.

-He helped organize the Grand Avenue Club in StL in 1876/1877. Speaking of this, the StL Globe-Democrat, in 1885, wrote that "Mr. Von der Ahe has always taken a deep interest in sports, and especially in baseball."

-In 1884, Von der Ahe made the decision to get rid of Pat Deasley, who was part of an undisciplined clique that was dragging the club down.

-After the 1883 season, he took advantage of the Metropolitans mishandling of Tip O'Neill's contract to sign him and bring him to the Browns.

-VdA is often castigated for the fire sale after the 1887 season but if you really look at it, he did an outstanding job of getting rid of players who were at their peak or just past it. The players that he brought in (and VdA was the one who went east and negotiated the sale of the players) helped win a championship in 1888 and finished second in 1889. He brought in so many players that he was able to stock the StL Whites as a minor league club.

-Jon David Cash wrote in Before They Were Cardinals that Von der Ahe was responsible for bringing in Foutz. "Von der Ahe immediately embarked upon a search for new pitching talent. In late July he acquired the rights to pitcher David Foutz..."

-Foutz brought Caruthers to VdA's attention who then signed him.

-When the press had questions about players that the Browns were bringing in or about rumors regarding possible player transactions, the guy they talked to was VdA.

Like you said, VdA certainly made a good decision in surrounding himself with baseball men like Sulliven and Comiskey and they deserve a great deal of credit for putting together the Four Time Champions. But Von der Ahe was involved in every detail and decision including the bringing in of talent. He had help (and good help at that) but VdA was the guy making it happen. Comiskey wasn't the guy who signed Foutz or Caruthers or O'Neill. That was Von der Ahe. He wasn't the guy who remade the club going into 1888. That was Von der Ahe. Sullivan was gone by 1883 and the Browns didn't win a championship until 1885.

To be fair, if we're giving him credit for the club's success, he also has to take the blame for the collapse of the club after 1891. And he could be a pain in the rear end to deal with. Comiskey knew how to deal with him (he was one of the few) and that may have been one of his greatest contributions to the club's success.

I don't want to diminish the contributions of people who played pivital roles in the club's success but the point is that VdA was intimately involved in the running of the Browns and this included the acquisition of talent. The idea that he was just this clownish money man who lucked into running a good club is wrong and a result of years of stories by people like Sullivan and Arlie Latham who liked to get a good laugh at VdA's expense as well as the vicious attacks that appeared in TSN in the mid to late 1890s. Those stories got picked up by people like Fred Lieb and introduced into the history. The contemporary accounts present a very different portrait of VdA.

And that said, I'm still voting for Harry Wright.

[ItsOnlyGil]

Thank you. I had a misconception regarding Von der Ahe's level of involvement. He was a man with several different concurrent entertainment profit centers active, through this period (not the "clown" at all). To understand his level of activity with the sport is an important aspect of an accurate portrayal of his accomplishments.
I had thought that he was chiefly (almost solely) a financier in his ventures; entrusting his managers with profitability assurance, and most day-to-day decision making and operations.

[hubkittel]

Originally Posted by ItsOnlyGil

Thank you. I had a misconception regarding Von der Ahe's level of involvement. He was a man with several different concurrent entertainment profit centers active, through this period (not the "clown" at all). To understand his level of activity with the sport is an important aspect of an accurate portrayal of his accomplishments.
I had thought that he was chiefly (almost solely) a financier in his ventures; entrusting his managers with profitability assurance, and most day-to-day decision making and operations.

You're very welcome.

I don't think that there has been a really good look at VdA's finances and business dealings but I believe that the ballclub/park was his main source of income. He used the profits from that to fuel his other interests, specifically in real estate. As the club and national economy floundered in the 1890s, he found himself under a great deal of financial stress that ended with the club going into receivership in 1898.

If the club/park was his main investment and source of income, which I believe is true, then it makes sense that he would be involved in its day to day management. Looking at the organization of the club, you had VdA, a secretary, and Comiskey. How and to what extent front office responsibilities (defined in a modern context) were divided among those three is not totally clear but Comiskey was busy for most of the year playing baseball and running the club on the field. I can't think of any instance where Comiskey signed a player or even recommended a player to VdA. That's not to say it didn't happen but only that I can't remember seeing any contemporary evidence of it.

In 1888, as an example, VdA sold off half the team and brought in all kinds of new guys. Comiskey's role was to sort through those players and keep the best ones for the Browns. It does appear that he had some input on who VdA sold off and that one of the reasons for all of the moves was Comiskey's unhappiness with the attitude of some his stars. He also held the opinion that pitchers lost their effectiness after three years of (hard) use and that played a role in getting rid of Foutz and Caruthers. So Comiskey had an important role in shaping the Browns' roster but he was working with VdA in that area.

[ItsOnlyGil]

One comes to think of Von der Ahe being involved in alcohol sales from stories of how he "discovered" that the building across the street from his tavern was a sports arena. And tales of him incorporating amusement parks with other forms of joyfully extracting the maximum dollars per visitor could lead one into thinking that his specialty was entertainment, moreso than real estate investment. However, these do not need to be exclusive of each other.

Why did the Whites fold?

[Beady]

I am basically in agreement with hubkittel on Von der Ahe, although he sometimes goes farther than I would. The version of the acquisition of O'Neill I've seen is that Jimmy Williams spotted the irregularity at a time when he had been hired to be Von der Ahe's manager but was still acting in his previous position as AA secretary. I can't give him much credit for releasing Deasley, which was about as shrewd a move as deciding not to continue holding a red hit lead pipe.

Nevertheless, there's no question he was a hands-on executive, sometimes to the discomfiture of his managers. When St. Louis acquired Curt Welch and other players from the disbanding Toledo team, Von der Ahe went to Toledo and did all the negotiating himself; he may have had input from Comiskey or others about which players were desirable, but he held the purse strings and was the man on the spot, so he clearly had the primary responsibility. As I've mentioned before, Cincinnati manager Gus Schmelz' private account of his negotiations with Von der Ahe for the Hugh Nicol-John Boyle trade has been preserved, and Von der Ahe was clearly making his own decisions there, and is taken perfectly seriously by Schmelz. "When I offered to trade him Snyder [for Nicol] he laughed and said he would take Kid Baldwin, and made the same proposition when I offered him Pechiney and Boyle."

In the 1890's, when his financial situation turned grim, newspaper accounts regularly show Von der Ahe making his own deals at annual meeting of the National League, and even some reporters who made him a figure of fun described him as a shrewd baseball man and infinitely resourceful at staving off financial disaster. A Sporting Life correspondent wrote in 1897, “He is a wonder in the way he has managed with a perennial loser to keep going...For two years I have known local reporters to watch every payday expecting that the players would be a few chips shy...Every time Chris came through with the dough in big chunks.”

[hubkittel]

You're absolutely correct about Williams and the O'Neal contract. It was an extraordianary example of conflict of interest but, while Williams did discover the problems with O'Neal's contract and brought it to VdA's attention, it was VdA that made the decision to sign O'Neal. Williams did not, I believe, have the authority to sign players. As to Deasley, the question isn't whether or not VdA was a shrewd baseball man but whether or not he was involved in the day to day operations of the club. Getting rid of Deasley is merely an example of VdA's involvement.

I'm certainly further out there than most in my opinion of VdA and in my interpretation of the information that we have. If there was information showing that someone such as Comiskey was really making all the baseball decisions, I'd be willing to adjust my opinion accordingly. But right now, all the research shows VdA running the Browns and making the decisions. George Munson was the secretary of the club during the championship years and was involved in every facet of the organization, from player procurement to selling advertising, but he reported directly to VdA. If I remember correctly, I believe the two shared an office and there are reports of how the two men were in constant contact and communication with each other during any given day (usually quarreling).

So VdA didn't do it alone and he had a great deal of help. During the best years, he had Munson and Comiskey helping him make decisions. Later, he was unable to settle on anyone to run the club on the field and help in the front office. That lack of leadership helped create the chaos that surrounded the club in the late 1890s.

[Cubsfan97]

I put Hulbert, I think its much to difficult to say that one person was the most important, as some would not have been as helped if it wernt for others, but Hulbert as league president really implicated the rules, and didnt let players get away with murder as they did in the NA. And I am sure the reserve clause was critical for the survival of the game. Had it not been for that, players would still be jumping, and the league would have folded shortly after. But again, his importance was because of others around him such as Spalding and Anson. And I even think King Kelly was a bit helpful to the game. There really wasnt a celebrity status in the game until he showed up. I think that having a the celebrity status helped generate some more fans for the game.

[rrhersh]

Originally Posted by Cubsfan97

I put Hulbert, I think its much to difficult to say that one person was the most important, as some would not have been as helped if it wernt for others, but Hulbert as league president really implicated the rules, and didnt let players get away with murder as they did in the NA. And I am sure the reserve clause was critical for the survival of the game. Had it not been for that, players would still be jumping, and the league would have folded shortly after. But again, his importance was because of others around him such as Spalding and Anson. And I even think King Kelly was a bit helpful to the game. There really wasnt a celebrity status in the game until he showed up. I think that having a the celebrity status helped generate some more fans for the game.

I didn't vote in the poll, as is my usual (non)practice, but it struck me as immediately obvious that "other" is the only plausible vote, if the unstated [to what] following "important" is anything like "the development of baseball". Hulbert is one choice who immediately presents himself as more important than anyone on the list. If we are willing to go back further, then we can throw in my standard plug for Daniel Adams.

On the topic of the NA, however, there is a lot of propaganda floating out there: some from the period, some from later. I'm not sure what you mean by the players "getting away with murder" in the NA. The NA completely solved the problem of players jumping from one team to another during the season (at least between NA clubs: jumping from non-NA to NA clubs wasn't a problem, for the NA). Your discussion of the reserve clause suggests that what you have in mind is players moving from one club to another in the winter: i.e., exercising their free agency. It is an entirely defensible argument that the reserve clause was necessary for professional baseball to survive and thrive, but it does not follow that such obloquy should apply to individuals under no obligation to any club seeking to sell their services for the highest salary possible.

For actual shenanigans in the NA, we can look to players signing multiple contracts. It is usually assumed that the player signed a contract, then got a better offer and reneged on his prior obligation. Even when true, the player was often not the only guilty party. The second club might have known about the prior contract, sometimes backdating the contract, and even if it didn't know about the prior signing it would learn about it in due time. Yet there were repeated instances of such clubs fighting for illegitimate rights to players.

Then consider the episode of Tommy Miller. Following the 1874 season he was signed by the newly forming St. Louis club. Some time later, Bob Ferguson, the manager of the Hartford club, came for a visit. He examined Miller's contract and spotted a technical error. Ferguson, who had a famously strong personality, then browbeat Miller, who was young and inexperienced, telling Miller that the St. Louis club was going to die stillborn, leaving Miller without a position. He bullied Miller into signing a contract with the Hartfords. Miller subsequently repented, believing his obligation was to the St. Louis club, and signed another contract with them. Whackiness ensued, with Miller receiving all the usual accusations. There perhaps was blame to share in this incident, but at least as much lay with the Hartford club as with Miller.

The NL solved this problem by requiring clubs to notify the League secretary of all player contracts, which the secretary would publish. This cut out the worst of the shenanigans, by both players and clubs. As an organizational strategy, this was inspired. But if we insist on putting this in moral terms, it was protecting clubs from each other at least as much as from unethical players.