October 24, 1884: Providence, World Champions

The 1884 Providence Grays. Old Hoss is at the far left,

holding a bat despite his fame coming as a pitcher.

October 24, 1884: The New York Mets lose the World Series. Well, not exactly.

The Providence Grays, Champions of the National League, defeat the New York Metropolitans -- and, yes, this early franchise was called the Mets for short -- 3-1, behind the pitching of future Hall-of-Famer Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn, at the Polo Grounds in New York. This gives the Grays the first-ever postseason series between champions of 2 major professional baseball leagues, a series that was officially called the "World's Series."

In those days, pitching was mostly done underhanded, and most teams had as few as 2 pitchers. The Grays had 2: Radbourn and Charlie Sweeney. But they hated each other, and even fought in the clubhouse. Following a drunken incident on July 22, Sweeney left the team.

Radbourn had pitched 76 of the team's last 98 games in 1883, and offered to pitch every game for the rest of the season. Of the remaining 43, he ended up starting 40 and winning 36. His final won-lost record was 60-12 -- or 59-12, depending on whose rules and accounting you go by. (The criteria for which pitcher to credit with a win had yet to be standardized.) Either way, it's an all-time record that was never seriously challenged even before 1893, when the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate was increased from 50 feet to 60 feet, 6 inches.

A Game 3 was played, for charity, and the Grays won that, too. The Grays had won the NL Pennant in 1879, too, but would go out of business after the 1885 season. Radbourn went on to the Grays' arch-rivals, the Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Atlanta Braves), probably because they could pay the most. In an 1886 team photo, he raised his middle finger, and this is believed to be the earliest photographic evidence of anyone "flipping the bird," although the gesture goes back at least as far as ancient Rome.

He stayed in the majors through the 1891 season, retired with a record of 310-194, ran a billiard parlor, and died in 1897, possibly of the effects of syphilis. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, but his plaque reads "CHARLIE RADBOURNE," with an extra E on the end. His tombstone in Bloomington, Illinois also puts the extra E on the end.

The last survivor of the 1884 Providence Grays was outfielder Paul Radford, who lived until 1945 -- 61 years, 10 States and 11 Presidents later.

Aside from teams known as the the Providence Steam Rollers in the NFL (1920-1931, 1928 Champions) and the NBA (only the inaugural 1946-47 season), the State of Rhode Island has never had another major league sports team -- the New England Patriots, who play 25 miles from downtown Providence in Foxboro, Massachusetts, don't count.

The Grays had previously won the NL Pennant, and thus became de facto World Champions, in 1879. With a population of about 105,000 in 1884, Providence remains the smallest city ever to be home to the World Champions of baseball. Today, the population is nearly double that, about 191,000, but still much too small to be home to a major league sports team. The Grays' home, the Messer Street Grounds, had a suburban-style housing development built on it.

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October 24, 1884 was a Friday. No other baseball games were played. No college football games were played, although a few were played the next day. Hockey was still all-amateur and all in Canada. And basketball wouldn't be invented for another 7 years. So, no other scores on this historic day.

October 7, 1885: The End of Major League Baseball In Providence and Buffalo

The Providence Grays at the Messer Street Grounds

October 7, 1885: The Providence Grays sweep a doubleheader from the Buffalo Bisons, 4-0 and 6-1 at Olympic Park in Buffalo. Fred Shaw wins both games for the Grays, pitching a no-hitter in the opener.

These are the last 2 games ever played by these franchises, who are both struggling for cash, despite the Grays having won the National League Pennant the season before. Only 12 fans pay admission, as Buffalo, as it so often is, turns out to be cold in October. Not twelve thousand, not twelve hundred, but twelve.

Never again has a major league baseball team -- capitalized or otherwise -- played in the State of Rhode Island. And, unless you count the Federal League of 1914-15, it took until the COVID-19 epidemic, forcing the Toronto Blue Jays to play their 2020 "home games" at Sahlen Field, for another major league baseball team to represent Buffalo, or any other city in the State of New York, other than the City of New York.

Although Buffalo has an NFL team and an NHL team, and it has an in-city population of 258,000 that isn't that much less than those of St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, its metropolitan area population of 1,134,000 ranks it 49th among American metro areas. The current smallest area with an MLB team, Milwaukee, has nearly twice as many: A little over 2 million. If you count Canadian cities, Buffalo drops to 56th.

Providence? It has 178,000 people, and while its metro count of 1,604,000 isn't that far behind Milwaukee, it's usually included within Boston's area. Providence is, for this reason, the home of Boston's Triple-A baseball (well, Pawtucket is) and hockey teams, and the NFL team is actually slightly closer to Kennedy Plaza in Providence than to Downtown Crossing in Boston.

But Providence ain't getting another MLB team. And, since the Jays were allowed to go back to Toronto in mid-2021, that was probably it for Buffalo, which will never again get any closer than it did in 1991, when it was one of 5 finalists for the 2 that began play in 1993.

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October 7, 1885 was a Wednesday. Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, for his contributions to the understanding of the atom, including developing what came to be known as the Bohr model.

During the 1930s and '40s, he aided refugees from the Nazis, and became part of the British mission to the Manhattan Project, to develop the atomic bomb. The element Bohrium, with an atomic number of 107, was named for him.

He was a friend of fellow physicist Albert Einstein. Once, Einstein repeated his famous line, "God does not play dice with the universe," and said, "Einstein, stop telling God what to do." Bohr died in 1962.

There were 2 other baseball games on this day, both also in the National League. The New York Gothams, the team that would become the Giants beat the St. Louis Maroons, 5-1 at one of the earlier versions of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. And the Detroit Wolverines beat the Boston Beaneaters, the team that would become the Braves, 7-1 at Recreation Park in Detroit.

There was a college football game played on this day -- sort of. The current players at the University of Pennsylvania defeated their alumni, 42-0 at the University Athletic Grounds in Philadelphia. 

August 21, 1883: Baseball's Biggest Blowout

Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn

August 21, 1883: The biggest blowout in the history of what would be called Major League Baseball occurs.

The Providence Grays had won the National League Pennant in 1879, and were still considered a good team in 1883, led by a pitcher named Charles Radbourn, a.k.a. "Old Hoss." I'll get to what he did in 1884 later.

The Philadelphia Quakers were founded in 1883, replacing the defunct Worcester Ruby Legs of Massachusetts. They weren't very good. This set up the blowout in question: Grays 28, Quakers 0, at the Messer Street Grounds in Providence, Rhode Island.

Unfortunately, this game is so far back, Baseball-Reference.com doesn't have a box score, or even a linescore, to tell us how many runs were scored in which innings. But some things are known. Radbourn was the winning pitcher. The losing pitcher was Art Hagan, started by Philadelphia player-manager Bob Ferguson -- whose outfield skill had once gotten him the nickname "Death to Flying Things" -- because he was a Rhode Island native, and the hope was that a big crowd would show up for him. That plan worked. But he gave up all 28 runs, and it was hardly his fault, as, depending on which newspaper's record you believe, the Quakers made between 20 and 27 errors. It should be noted that, in 1883, walks, passed balls, and wild pitches were recorded as defensive errors.

Hagan was soon dispatched to the Buffalo Bisons, and he made his last major league appearance with them the following season. His career record was 2-18.

In 1884, the Grays won the NL Pennant, with Radbourn winning more games in a single season than any pitcher ever had. The exact number is disputed, because of the way the rule of when to credit a pitcher with a win. So some sources say Radbourn won 59 games that season, and some say 60.

But that led to the Grays wanting bigger salaries, and the owner, C.T. Gardner, couldn't really afford it. After the 1885 season, Gardner sold all the Grays' players, including Old Hoss, to the nearby Boston Beaneaters, ironically the Grays biggest rivals.

In 1890, the Quakers changed their name to the Phillies. So, unlike the Grays, the Quakers still exist. Although, given what the Phillies have done to their fans at certain times over the next 132 years, there have been times when the people of the Delaware Valley wished they didn't.

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August 21, 1883 was a Tuesday. These other National League games were played that day:

* The New York Gothams lost to the Boston Beaneaters, 15-8 at the South End Grounds in Boston. The Gothams became the Giants in 1886, and the Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The Buffalo Bisons beat the Detroit Wolverines, 6-4 at Riverside Park in Buffalo. The Bisons also went out of business after the 1885 season, although the name would be adopted by one of the more successful minor-league teams. The Wolverines won the Pennant in 1887, but followed the same pattern as the 1884-85 Providence Grays: The Pennant led to big salary demands, which led to the team owner losing money, and they were defunct after the 1888 season.

* The Cleveland Blues beat the Chicago White Stockings, 6-5 at Kennard Street Park in Cleveland. The Blues went out of business after the 1884 season. The White Stockings became the Cubs in 1903.

In the American Association:

* The New York Metropolitans beat the Columbus Buckeyes, 4-2 at the original Polo Grounds in Manhattan. Yes, the Metropolitans were called the Mets for short, and this was given as one of the reasons why the expansion team of 1962 was named the Mets. But those original Mets went out of business after the 1887 season. The Buckeyes went out of business after the 1884 season.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cincinnati Red Stockings, 11-9 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. This version of the A's went out of business after the 1890 season, due to the "Players' League War," and bears no connection to the team that began with the American League in 1901, and has been playing in Oakland since 1968. The Red Stockings became the Reds in 1890, and joined the NL in 1892.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Baltimore Orioles, 1-0 at the original Oriole Park in Baltimore. These Orioles joined the NL in 1892; won the Pennant in 1894, 1895 and 1896; and then had their players sold off by their owners, and were contracted out of existence after the 1899 season. The Browns also joined the NL in 1892, and became the Cardinals in 1900. There would be a new St. Louis Browns in the AL in 1902, but in 1954, they moved to become... the Baltimore Orioles.

* And the Louisville Eclipse and the Pittsburgh Alleghenys were not scheduled to play. The Eclipse became the Louisville Colonels in 1885. The Alleghenys became the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1891. Both teams joined the NL in 1892. After the 1899 season, the Eclipse were contracted out of the NL, and Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss bought the Colonels' assets, including manager-right fielder Fred Clarke and shortstop Honus Wagner, both Hall-of-Famers.

June 21, 1879: MLB's 1st Black Player

June 21, 1879: For the 1st time, a black man plays in Major League Baseball. This was 40 years before the birth of Jackie Robinson, and 5 years before the arrival of Moses and Weldy Walker. What's more, it seems that nobody knew it at the time -- except for the player himself.

William Edward "Bill" White plays 1st base for the Providence Grays. He went 1-for-4 and scored a run, and the Grays beat the Cleveland Blues, 5-3 at the Messer Street Grounds in Providence, Rhode Island.

Joe Start was the Grays' regular 1st baseman, and one of the best all-around players of that era. He was injured on that occasion, and White played in his place.

Little is known about White, including his exact birthdate: He appears to have been born sometime in October 1860, right before the American Civil War, in Milner, Georgia, the son of a white planation owner and a black slave -- which, if true, would make him the only former slave to play in MLB.

Having a white father and, figuratively and literally, a White name, Bill White chose to "pass as white," something that the darker-skinned Walker brothers could not do. As a result, there is no recorded objection to his having played professional baseball, including in this game: It's possible that no one on either team knew he was black.

Furthermore, it took a lot of searching to determine that White was the 1st black major leaguer: For a long time, it was thought that Moses Walker was. But in 2007, researcher Pete Morris found White and determined his heritage. But since he passed as white, many baseball historians still consider Walker the first black player, because he was the first to, as we would say now, identify as black.

White died on March 29, 1937, in Chicago. He was 76. Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers 10 years and 17 days later.

This Bill White appears to be no relation to the Bill White who would later be a star 1st baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, become the 1st black broadcaster for a major league team, and become the 1st black President of a major league.

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June 21, 1879 was a Saturday. There were 2 other games played in the National League that day. The Cincinnati Reds beat the Boston Red Stockings, 15-13 at the South End Grounds in Boston. These Reds folded at the end of the season, and the current team with the name began play in the American Association in 1882. The Red Stockings are the forerunners of the team now known as the Atlanta Braves.

And the Chicago White Stockings beat the Syracuse Stars, 5-3 at Newell Park in Syracuse, New York. The Stars folded after the season, while the White Stockings became known as the Chicago Cubs in 1903.