1889 Athletic, Philadelphia (Athletics)
This rendering is based on visual documentation for uniform style and written documentation for color. Important details may be undocumented or difficult to determine. An educated guess is made to complete the rendering.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Blue ribbons or beer? The struggles of the 1889 Athletics.
On June 22, 1889, the Athletics of Philadelphia trotted onto the Jefferson Street grounds with an added element on their uniforms. Each man wore, according to the Philadelphia Record, “a band of blue ribbon on his left arm.”
Today, blue ribbons represent a variety of causes — but in the 1880s, blue meant temperance. Why then on this very same day in June did the rival Philadelphia Times report that the Athletics were “in a beastly state of intoxication?”
The after-hour habits of the 1889 Athletics don’t seem to have much of a digital footprint today and are not often included with other irreverent tales of the American Association (1882-1891). However, recent finds by researcher Ed Morton have revealed new depth and detail to the problem of the A’s. Morton’s discoveries come from the Philadelphia Record, available on the often-overlooked Google News Archive, and make this a story worth sharing.
Sports medicine in the 1880s.
Athletics owner (and often manager) Bill Sharsig certainly had peculiar notions about the hydration of his players. When interviewed by the Philadelphia Record in March of 1889, he opined “I had rather they would drink beer.” Sharsig reasoned that “from city to city, the changes in water will do more to break up [the] men.” He proclaimed that “free use of beer and ale” was preferred over the idea to “indulge their thirst with water.” To further his point, Sharsig said, “I sometimes carry several bottles of bitters with me on purpose to keep the boys from drinking water.”
In regard to intake, Sharsig added, “I tell my men to drink just as little as possible before the games, and do their filling up in the evening.” To support his theory, he offered the Record two case histories.
One was of the 1883 pennant-winning Athletics, in which Sharsig remarked that “no team in the country drank harder.” He added, “it seemed as though the men had to drink in order to play ball. […] Bob Mathews pitched some of his best games for us in 1883 when he was so full of liquor that he could not walk straight. At Cincinnati, on our last Western trip, Bob was sick […] but I doctored him up with a bottle, giving him an additional drink between each inning. We won and the Reds made only three hits.”
The other was of the 1888 Athletics, where Sharsig noted that “on the last Western trip we struck St. Louis about ‘half full’, and won the first game by a score of 13 to 11. I kept the men pretty straight that night and we were beaten out of sight the next day. For the third and last game the men showed up as near drunk as they could be and yet navigate, and we won by a score of 9 to 2. The ride to Louisville sobered us, and feeling the pennant was now in our hands, we once more tried temperance and lost the first two games. […] After the second game the boys went on a ‘bat’ and won the next day.”
Electioneering on the wet side.
As the 1889 season unfolded, the Athletics were once again neck and neck with the St. Louis Browns, the reigning four-time champions. On Tuesday, June 18, 1889, the A’s were 14 games over .500 and beginning a 5-game series at home with the lowly Columbus team. As Sharsig told the Record, “a successful team can do anything — and the public will only notice the victories.” Well, this time the public noticed more than the victories.
Newspaper reports from the June 18 game against Columbus described the condition of Athletics third baseman Denny Lyons. The Philadelphia Times politely noted that “Lyons was taken sick in the first inning and gave way to [Jack] Brennan.” The Philadelphia Inquirer spelled it out more clearly: “Denny Lyons started in to play third base for the Athletics, but he didn’t last long. Denny had evidently been electioneering on the ‘wet side,’ and his morning exertions made him very tired. Lyons was sent to first on balls in the first inning, and he staggered and was pushed around the bases on another base-on-balls and two base hits. After Mr. Lyons had made a run he was allowed to retire from the game and Brennan took his place.”
Reporting on the following game played on Wednesday, June 19, against Columbus, the Inquirer wrote that “Brennan again played third in the absence of Lyons, who is said to be unable to play on account of a sore wrist.” The Times also reported on the June 19 game, saying that “when the blue legs took the field they were minus the presence of two of the regular players, Lyons being still under the weather, and since Tuesday [centerfielder Curt] Welch has joined the ranks.” Welch, as most historians know, was as proficient at drinking as he was tracking down balls hit over his head.
The beastly state.
The Philadelphia Times, evidently opposed to how the team was being handled, decided to sound the alarm. On the morning of June 22, 1889, the paper warned: “Watch your men, Manager Sharsig.” The Times went on to say that “it is an open secret that Lyons, Welch, Mattimore, Larkin, Stovey and sometimes Fennelly and Bierbauer are frequently in a beastly state of intoxication, and it is easy to prove when and where they have been recently seen so in public places. Manager Sharsig says that Welch is sick and unfit to play ball. Sick he may be, and those who saw him in the company with Lyons last Tuesday morning at the early hour of 3 o’clock [A.M.] wonder that he is not laid up. That model pair were sitting on the curbstone on the South Penn Square side of City Hall, hilariously and shockingly drunk. Saloon-keeper Irwin, who keeps on Juniper street, told a friend that Welch and another ball player [seemingly Lyons] became so vulgarly and obscenely boisterous in his place on Monday night that he had to order them out [and] ask that gentlemanly ball player to cease his visits.”
So later that afternoon, when the team took the field wearing blue ribbons, were they merely having fun with their critics at the Times? Or had the Athletics seriously decided to reform and take the blue ribbon pledge?
A blue-ribbon day.
The blue ribbon pledge was devised in the 1870s by temperance evangelist Francis Murphy (1836-1907), who eventually headquartered in Pittsburgh. His message? Compassion for the afflicted — with no condemnation for drinkers or sellers. Murphy’s movement was strongest in the east and midwest, and according to one resource, by the mid-1880s millions of Americans had taken the pledge, signed their pledge card and donned a blue ribbon. Murphy borrowed the blue color from a Bible verse that encouraged one to wear a “ribband of blue” to “remember all the commandments.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer described the scene at the Jefferson Street grounds on June 22 in a hopeful tone: “There were 5,432 spectators, and they all applauded the home players when they came on the field with blue ribbon ties to their arms. This emblem of temperance has been adopted none too soon if the team is to remain in the championship race.”
The Philadelphia Times described the ribbons as a “token of their having reformed,” but then the paper noted that the Athletics “took them off when the game began.”
The Philadelphia Record, seemingly more supportive of the team, called the ribbons “cold-water badges” and stated that the articles “were removed before the game was commenced, but not until the 5,432 spectators had grasped and enjoyed the joke.” Apparently Lyons, Welch and friends were not yet ready to reform. Oh, and the Athletics won the game, 13 to 1.
“The Athletic team would hardly pass for a cold-water brigade,” the Record said the following day on June 23, “in fact, neither the men nor their manager make pretense to total abstinence. It is a beer-drinking team, and Manager Sharsig holds that no better beverage for traveling ball-players can be found than beer, but wholesale charges of drunkenness preferred against the Athletic team by one of the local papers yesterday [the Philadelphia Times on June 22] was unjust and uncalled-for.”
“Curt Welch admits,” the Record added, “that he has been indulging too freely in the use of spirituous liquors, and Denny Lyons displayed unmistakable evidence of deep potations [i.e., alcohol drinking] when attempting to play last Tuesday [on June 18]. It is drink that is likely to rob the club of the pennant, since away from home the men are less amenable to discipline. Liquor was undoubtedly the cause of the poor showing of the team in the West.”
Researcher Cliff Blau had chronicled some of the team’s poor showing on the road during the 1889 season. When the A’s played in Brooklyn in early May, Blau noted that “rumors of drunkenness kept cropping up, with Denny Lyons’ name prominent in most of them. He was charged with nine errors in the first three games in Brooklyn, all losses.” Later in May when the team played in St. Louis, Blau noted that “Curt Welch missed the first game with what was reported as malaria, but was more likely a hangover [as] he was back to help even up the series the next day.”
A prolonged hangover.
After displaying their blue ribbons as a lark on June 22, the Athletics played only .500 baseball the rest of the way, finishing the 1889 season 17 games over .500 in third place. Not surprisingly, both Denny Lyons and Curt Welch battled excessive drinking throughout their careers. Al Glynn wrote in Nineteenth Century Stars (1989) that Lyons’ “frequent lushing tried management’s patience and led to numerous suspensions and premature releases.” Lyons died in 1929 at age 62.
Legend has it that Curt Welch, a truly talented centerfielder, sometimes hid a pint of whiskey in the outfield grass, taking nips between batters. Eddie Mitchell wrote in Baseball Rowdies of the 19th Century (2018) that it was a case of beer that Welch sometimes kept in the outfield behind a billboard. Michael S. Burich of the Lisbon (OH) Morning Journal wrote in 2020 that Welch “was known to hide beer behind the outfield fence at Toledo’s League Park [in 1884] and “in an 1888 Fourth of July game as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics, he hid a keg behind the boards in a game in St. Louis.”
Burich also noted that a few years later, while playing for Baltimore in 1892, Welch “showed up for games against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Spiders in an inebriated state and management lost patience.” Robert Tiemann wrote in Nineteenth-Century Stars (1989) that Welch “drank himself out of baseball.”
Welch died young, succumbing to consumption (tuberculosis) in August 1896 at age 34. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said a contributing cause was “dipsomania,” or alcoholism, and that “drink ruined him.” The St. Paul Globe noted that “Curt’s experience should prove a lesson to all ball players,” and then added “but it won’t to some.”
On October 13, 1896, the Pittsburgh team played an exhibition game in Ohio to benefit Welch’s widow and young family. There were no reports if the players wore ribbons on that day, blue or black.
Thanks to Ed Morton for his research of the Philadelphia Record. Sharsig interview from the Philadelphia Record, March 3, 1889. Game reports from the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 19, 20 and 24, 1889, the Philadelphia Times, June 19, 20 and 23, 1889, and the Philadelphia Record, June 23, 1889. “Watch your men” from the Philadelphia Times, June 23, 1889. Info on Francis Murphy from wikipedia.com, retrieved January 31, 2023. “Millions had taken the temperance pledge” from Jack S. Blocker, et al, Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, Volume 1 (2003) via wikipediia.com. Cliff Blau research from seamheads.com, June 6, 2011, retrieved January 31, 2023. “Dipsomania” from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 30, 1896. “Prove a lesson” from the St. Paul Globe, July 27, 1896. Exhibition game in Ohio from the Boston Post, October 18, 1896.
Visual documentation on this uniform:
Photo A
Dated April 1889. Most likely this team photo was make at the Athletics’ home park, Jefferson Street Grounds, Philadelphia. If the date in the photo caption is correct, this photo was possibly made between April 19 and April 24, 1889, the opening home stand for the team. Photo year can be confirmed by the appearance of player Brennan, who only played for this team in 1889. The team wore tight-fitting white uniforms in this photo. A newspaper report from this same year described the Athletics’ uniform as white in color, with blue lettering and stockings, and blue stripes on the collar and cuffs. This description matches the uniform worn in this photo. The blue accent color was most likely light blue, the traditional color for this team. The newspaper described the belt as red, white and blue, also matching the belt worn in this photo. Most of the players wore long sleeves in this photo. Two players wore their collars up and three players wore striped jackets, which may also suggest an April 1889 photo date.
Dated April 1889. Detail view of photo A. Detail view shows that the lace ties ended above the lettering and that the team name extended across the chest to the arm pits, often obscuring the first and last letters. A suggestion of stripes can be seen on the shirt collars and cuffs, and a banded belt with a darker band on top can be seen at the waist. A newspaper report from June 1889 stated the team wore a “red, white and blue striped belt.”
Written documentation on this uniform:
March 1889: “New suits for the Athletic Club were selected yesterday — white knee breeches, white Jersey shirts with blue trimmings, blue stockings, white caps, red, white and blue belts, and dark jersey blouse with white streaks.” From the Philadelphia Record, March 2, 1889. Research from Ed Morton. The “dark jersey blouse with white streaks” was a description of the team’s jacket, which can be seen in the team photo above.
May 1889: “Those suits of the Athletic men would throw a shadow on a football player’s mud-covered habiliment [i.e., clothing].” From the Philadelphia Record, May 27, 1889. Research from Ed Morton. This may imply the Athletic uniform was bright white in color.
June 1889: “White flannel knee breeches, white jersey cloth shirt with blue stripes in collar and cuffs and ‘Athletic’ in blue on front; blue stockings, red, white and blue striped belt, two caps–one all white and the other deep blue.” From the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 4, 1889. Research from Clifford Blau.
June 22, 1889, Athletic, Philadelphia, v. Columbus, at Philadelphia: “There were 5,432 spectators, and they all applauded the home players when they came on the field with blue ribbon ties to their arms. This emblem of temperance has been adopted none too soon if the team is to remain in the championship race.” From the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 24, 1889.
June 22, 1889, Athletic, Philadelphia, v. Columbus, at Philadelphia: “During the practice hour the Athletics appeared wearing blue ribbon tied on their arms, as if in token of their having reformed, but they took them off when the game began.” From the Philadelphia Times, June 23, 1889.
June 22, 1889, Athletic, Philadelphia, v. Columbus, at Philadelphia: “The Athletic Men Come Out with Blue Ribbons on their Arms. — When the players of the Athletic Club came on the field for practice before the game yesterday [on June 22] each man wore a band of blue ribbon on his left arm. These cold-water badges were removed before the game was commenced, but not until the 5,432 spectators had grasped and enjoyed the joke.” From the Philadelphia Record, June 23, 1889. Research from Ed Morton.
Team genealogy: Athletic, Philadelphia 1880-1890
Athletic was formed in Philadelphia, PA, in 1880 as a touring team and joined the American Association (AA) in 1882. The AA was a major league operating 1882-1891. Athletic played in the AA between 1882 and 1890. The team was expelled from the AA after the 1890 season and the team subsequently folded. The Philadelphia team of the Players’ League (PL) joined the AA for the 1891 season after the PL folded in 1890 and used the Athletic name. Information from wikipedia.
Rendering posted: February 1, 2023
Diggers on this uniform: Carson Lorey, Cliff Blau, Ed Morton, Ken Samoil, Nigel Ayres, T Scott Brandon,