October 15, 1899: The Unceremonious End of the Cleveland Spiders

October 15, 1899: The Cincinnati Reds close out the season with 16-1 and 19-3 victories at League Park in Cincinnati, over the hapless Cleveland Spiders. John "Bid" McPhee‚ usually considered the best 2nd baseman of the 19th Century‚ plays in both games‚ the last of his career, with all 18 being spent with the Reds.

Cleveland finished with 20 wins and 134 losses‚ 84 games behind the Pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas, and in the cellar, 12th place, by 35 games behind the next-worst team, the Washington Senators. They have a "winning" percentage of .149. And on their last day, they lost by an aggregate score of 35-4. They couldn't even die with dignity.

They also conclude a 36-game road trip (1-35) after setting a mark earlier this year with a 50-game road trip. They lost 24 straight at one point (the 2nd-worst ever, behind the 26 of the 1889 Louisville Colonels, the worst since being the 1961 Phillies with 23), and 40 out of their last 41. 

The reason for the Spiders' futility is that they were bought by the owners of the St. Louis team that would soon be renamed the Cardinals. This system, known as "syndicate baseball," was legal at the time. And, as St. Louis natives, the owners brought all of the good Cleveland players, including pitcher Cy Young – but not Louis Sockalexis, the once-powerful but now injured and alcoholic Penobscot tribesman who has been called "the original Cleveland Indian" – to St. Louis. The result is a Cleveland team that may not even have been, by today's standards, Triple-A quality.

The Spiders, the Baltimore Orioles, the Louisville Colonels and the Washington Nationals were contracted out of the National League within weeks, though this made the American League, and its franchises in Cleveland, Washington and, at least for two years, Baltimore, possible.

In their 13-season history, the Spiders were 827-938, a percentage of .4685. Minus that last season, they were 807-804, .5003. They deserved a better fate: They had on their roster, at one time or another, Hall-of-Famers Cy Young, John Clarkson, Buck Ewing, Bobby Wallace, George Davis and Jesse Burkett, plus Cupid Childs, Chief Zimmer, Patsy Tebeau, Lave Cross, Louis Sockalexis, Lou Criger, Kid Carsey and Jack O'Connor, any one of whom would have been an All-Star had there been an All-Star Game in the 1880s or 1890s.

They never won a Pennant, but finished 2nd in the NL in 1892, 1895 and 1896, and were 81-68 (5th out of 12) in 1898 before the syndicate broke them up. They were not a failed franchise: They got sabotaged.

The last surviving 1899 Cleveland Spider appears to have been right fielder Lewis "Sport" McAllister, who lived until 1962. I say, "appears to have been," because no date of death is known for pitcher Frank Bates, who went 3-19 that season, losing his last 14 decisions. The last record anyone has of him is his World War I draft registration form from 1918, showing him living in Cincinnati. He would have been 85 years old when McAllister died, so it is possible that he was the last survivor. But he does not appear in the 1920 Census. Since he is not listed among those killed in action in the war, he was likely a victim of the 1918-19 Spanish Flu epidemic.

No major league team, in any sport, has been called the Spiders since. The highest-ranking teams with the name, that I can think of, are those of the University of Richmond in Virginia. I don't even know of any soccer (football) teams in other countries with the nickname.

With the Washington Football Team having dropped the name "Redskins," the Cleveland Indians announced that they would follow for the 2022 season. The hope was that they would call themselves the Cleveland Spiders. Instead, they chose to become the Cleveland Guardians.

Two members of the Cleveland Spiders have been honored by the Guardians in their team Hall of Fame: Burkett and Sockalexis.

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October 15, 1899 was a Sunday. There were 3 other games were played in the National League that day. The Chicago Orphans (they "missed their Pop," Adrian "Cap" or "Pop" Anson) played 2 games, against 2 different teams, at the West Side Grounds in Chicago.

They beat the St. Louis Perfectos, 7-0 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. The Perfectos would become the Cardinals in 1900, and the Orphans became the Cubs in 1903.

And they lost to the Louisville Colonels, 9-5. This would be the last game the Colonels ever played, as they were absorbed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, including their 2 Hall-of-Famers, shortstop Honus Wagner and left fielder-manager Fred Clarke. I have a separate entry for this event.