May 15, 1894: The South End Grounds Fire

The 1888 version of the South End Grounds -- before the fire

May 15, 1894: The fiercest baseball rivalry of the time leads to a fire that destroys much of Boston's Roxbury and South End neighborhoods.

The Boston Red Stockings were formed in 1871, with half of the players from the 1st openly professional baseball team, the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings. They won the Pennant in the National Association in 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875. Their dominance of that league was a major reason why it broke up.

They became charter members of the National League in 1876, and won the Pennant in 1877 and 1878. In 1883, they embraced Boston's image as "Beantown," and took the name "the Boston Beaneaters." They won another Pennant. It took them until 1891 to win another, but then they also won in 1892 and 1893.

They were managed by Frank Selee, and included left fielder Hugh Duffy and center fielder Tommy McCarthy, known as "the Heavenly Twins"; and pitcher Charles "Kid" Nichols, all future members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Catcher Charlie Bennett, 1st baseman Tommy Tucker, 2nd baseman Bobby Lowe and shortstop Herman Long were all legitimate stars by the standards of the time.

Since 1871, the team had played at the South End Grounds. In 1888, a new ballpark with that name was built on the site, and it remains the most spectacular home ground in the history of New England sports.

The Baltimore Orioles were founded in the American Association in 1882, and after that league folded following the 1891 season, they joined the NL. In 1894, they surged from a losing record the year before to a team capable of challenging for the Pennant.

Manager Ned Hanlon led a group of (Cliché Alert) colorful characters. Brilliant men. One might even said, devious minds. They invented what became known as "scientific baseball" or "inside baseball." They pounded the ball into the ground, making it soar high in the air, making it difficult for fielders to get it and then throw them out at 1st base, inventing "the Baltimore Chop." They didn't invent the hit-and-run, but they did use it more than any team had before.

They also cheated. Their infielders would grab baserunners by their belts. Sometimes, if they thought the 2 umpires that the NL then used weren't looking, they would run from 1st, behind the pitcher, completely bypassing 2nd, and slide into 3rd, making it look like they had stolen 2 bases. Well, they had stolen them, in the traditional sense of the word "steal." And they would argue with the umpires over everything.

It's worth noting that 3rd baseman John McGraw, shortstop Hugh Jennings and catcher Wilbert Robinson would all eventually join Hanlon as men who managed teams to win Pennants. And Hanlon, McGraw, Jennings, Robinson, right fielder Willie Keeler, left fielder Joe Kelley, and 1st baseman Dan Brouthers would all be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

There had already been incidents between the Orioles and the Beaneaters before they took the field on May 15, 1894. There was as play where Tucker, known as "Foghorn" for his voice, which seemed to be continually in use, slid hard into 3rd base, where McGraw was playing. McGraw, well into a career that would see him take no crap from anyone from his 1891 debut as a player to his 1932 retirement as a manager, was knocked down. This enabled him to kick Tucker in the jaw. Naturally, a brawl resulted.

The brawl was broken up, and the Braves took the field for the next inning. James "Foxy" Bannon was playing right field for the Beaneaters, and he saw a fire under the right-field bleachers. It's not clear what started it, but the prevailing theory is that a pair of kids saw the grownups distracted from watching the fight, and decided to play with matches while no one could see them. Another theory is that one of the adult fans dropped a cigar without having put it out.

It was 4:10 PM. Bannon tried to stamp the fire out with his foot, but it was already too large for him to do it. And then a gust of wind caught it, and a wooden wall began to burn. Bannon ran to get help, but it was no use: In moments, the grandstand was ablaze.

Somehow, the ballpark was evacuated without anybody dying, but the whole thing burned to the ground within 45 minutes. The fire spread to the wooden houses between Columbus Avenue, on which the ballpark had stood, and Tremont Street, a block to the east. It took until 4:22 for the fire department to get word of the blaze.

There were 200 buildings destroyed, and 1,900 people left homeless. Every source I have ever seen says that nobody died as a result of this fire. I find that very hard to believe.

The South End Grounds was rebuilt, although the insurance money available to Beaneaters owner Arthur Soden was only enough to build a functional ballpark rather than a nice one like he had before. It opened on July 20.

In the interim, the team used the Congress Street Grounds, near the Fort Point Channel. The Boston Reds had used it for games in the Players' League in 1890 and the American Association in 1891. Its short left-field fence allowed Lowe to hit 4 home runs in a game on May 30, making him the 1st player ever to do that in a major league game. By 1899, that ballpark was gone.

The May 15 game was replayed as part of a doubleheader on June 18, at the Congress Street Grounds. The Beaneaters won it by what we would now recognize as a football score, 24-7. The Orioles won the 2nd game, 9-7.

On August 5, a fire broke out at West Side Park in Chicago, where the Chicago Colts, forerunners of the Cubs, were playing the Cincinnati Reds. Chicago, only 23 years past its Great Fire that destroyed 2/3rds of the city, and arguably cost the Cubs (then known as the White Stockings) the National Association Pennant, was lucky this time: Only one stand burned, and the rest of the ballpark, as well as all the fans, survived. The Cubs rebuilt the stand, and remained at West Side Park until 1915, moving the next season into what would become known as Wrigley Field.

On August 6, just 1 day after the West Side Park fire, the Huntingdon Avenue Grounds burned down in Philadelphia. The Phillies played a few games at the home field of the University of Pennsylvania, until a temporary structure could be built on the Huntingdon Avenue site, and they moved back in on August 18. In the subsequent off-season, a more fire-resistant stadium was built on the site, eventually to be known as Baker Bowl.

At the time of the South End Grounds fire, the Beaneaters were in 1st place, 1 game ahead of the Orioles. The teams stayed neck and neck for most of the season. On July 30, in the middle of a 7-game losing streak, the Orioles trailed the Beaneaters by 5 games.

Then the Orioles got hot, winning 7 out of 8. On August 24, they began a run of 16 wins in a row, which became 25-3 to end the season. They beat the Beaneaters for the Pennant by 3 games. They also beat the Beaneaters out for the Pennant in 1895 and 1896, before the Beaneaters took command again, winning the 1897 and 1898 Pennants.

In 1899, the Orioles ran into financial difficulty. Their manager, Ned Hanlon, was hired by the team that would become the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he bought some of his players over, including McGraw, Robinson and Jennings. Brooklyn won the Pennant, with the Beaneaters in 2nd, 8 games back, and the Orioles 4th. The National League consolidated after that season, and eliminated the Orioles, the Washington Senators, the Cleveland Spiders and the Louisville Colonels. 

Contracting from 12 teams to 8 made the American League possible in 1901. It had a Baltimore Orioles team in the 1901 and '02 seasons, but it fell apart. They were replaced by a new team in New York for 1903: Contrary to what you might believe, the team that became the Yankees is, officially, not the AL's 1st Baltimore Orioles. In 1954, the St. Louis Browns became the Orioles we know today.

The Beaneaters would later called the Doves and Rustlers, due to owners named Dovey and Russell, before being bought by James Gaffney, an official with the title of "Brave" in New York's Tammany Hall political organization, and in 1912 they became the Boston Braves.

They remained at the scaled-down version of the South End Grounds until 1914, when, going on a Pennant run and needing more seats than their ballpark could sell, they played out the schedule groundsharing Fenway Park with the Red Sox. They did this for most of the 1915 season as well, until the new ballpark that Gaffney had built, Braves Field, could open. They moved to Milwaukee in 1953, and to Atlanta in 1966. They had a fire at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1993, but it was limited to the press box and quickly put out.

*

May 15, 1894 was a Tuesday. Baseball was the only sport in America that dared to be professional at this point. These games were played in the National League, and to a conclusion, unlike the one in Boston:

* The New York Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-4 at the aforementioned Huntingdon Avenue Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, the proto-Dodgers still using the name they gained after several players got married one off-season, beat the Washington Senators, 16-7 at Eastern Park in Brooklyn.

* The Cleveland Spiders beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-0 at League Park in Cleveland. This ballpark would be replaced with a new park with the same name, on the same site, in 1910.

* And the Cincinnati Reds and the Louisville Colonels were not scheduled. Lucky for the Colonels: They lost 19 straight, August 15 to September 5; 3-33 from August 15 to September 29, and ended up a whopping 54 games behind the Orioles.