1900 St. Louis (Perfectos, Cardinals)
Left: This rendering is based on visual documentation for uniform style and written documentation for color. Minor details may be undocumented or difficult to determine. An educated guess is made to complete the rendering.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Right: This rendering is based on written documentation for uniform style and color. No visual documentation is known and an artist’s conceptualization is used to create the rendering.
Rendering accuracy:Year: documented Team: documented
Visual documentation on these uniforms:
Photo A
Dated March 31, 1900 to early May 1900. Year of photo determined by the appearance of players Keister and Hughey, both of whom only played for St. Louis in 1900. Date range of March 31 to early May determined by the location of the photo in combination with the appearance of player Schreckengost. Based on the grandstand in the background, this photo was most likely taken at St. Louis, League Park. St. Louis returned home from spring training on Friday, March 30, and played exhibition games there before the season started April 19. The first exhibition game was against Rochester in St. Louis on Saturday, March 31. Schreckengost did not play in any regular-season games and was farmed out by St. Louis to Buffalo in the days before May 5. The date range for the photo can be further confirmed by the absence of notable players J McGraw (00) and W Robinson (00), both whom had been sold to St. Louis during the off-season but had refused to join the team while negotiating new contracts. Agreements were made on May 9 and the two played their first game for St. Louis on May 12. Players wore a white uniform in this photo, with caps, lettering, belts and stockings in red. In April 1900, a newspaper described this accent color as “a cardinal hue.” The pants the players wore in this photo were noticeably dirty and of a dingy off-white color, indicating these were game worn. However, the shirts in the photo appeared clean and bright-white in color, and it could be that the players only wore their newly-arrived shirts for this photo on the same day they were also playing an exhibition game. The shirts were both long-sleeved and short-sleeved with sleeve extensions, and featured wide collars and lace ties down the front. The city name was arched high across the chest in lettering that was larger and thicker than the lettering found on the 1899 uniform. Two players in the photo, Donovan (top row, fourth from left) and Hughey (front row, far right), wore Pittsburgh caps from the previous season. Donovan played for Pittsburgh in 1899, however Hughey last played for Pittsburgh in 1897. Player Harper (top row, far right) wore a non-matching cap. Player Heidrick (middle row, third from left) may have worn a striped wool cap over his baseball cap, also suggesting an early April photo date.
Top row, from left: Schreckengost (dnp, Buf AL 00), C Jones (99-01), C Young (99, 00), P Donovan (00-03), C Knepper (dnp) and J Harper (StL 00 1 gm, 01, FW ISL 00). Middle: J Powell (99-01), B Wallace (99-01, 17, 18), E Heidrick (99-01), J Burkett (99-01), M Donlin (99, 00), P Tebeau (mgr 99-00), F Buelow (StL 99, 00, Den WL 00), L Creiger (99, 00), D McGann (00, 01) and P Dillard (StL 00, Chi AL 00). Front: J O’Connor (99, 00), B Keister (00), N Cuppy (dnp, Bos NL 00), L Cross (StL 98-00, Bro NL 00) and J Hughey (00). Image and player IDs from the Spalding Base Ball Guide 1901, which was published as a recap of the 1900 season. Years with team from baseball-reference.com. Info on team’s return to St. Louis and game with Rochester from The Sporting Life, April 7, 1900. Info on Schreckengost farmed to Buffalo from The Sporting Life, May 5, 1900. McGraw and Robinson contract agreement date from The Sporting Life, May 12, 1900, and date of first game from The Sporting Life, May 19, 1900. Original image from the Lifeograph Co., St. Louis.
Dated March 31, 1900 to early May 1900. Detail view of photo A. Note the soiled pants, especially shown on the player in the left foreground. However, the shirts in this photo appeared clean and bright-white in color, and it could be that the players put on only their newly-arrived shirts for this photo in St. Louis on the same day they were also playing an exhibition game. Also note that the player seated at right, J Hughey (00), wore a Pittsburgh cap in this photo. Hughey last played for Pittsburgh in 1897. Hughey dates from baseball-reference.com.
Photos B & C
Dated March 1900. Photos of D McGann (00, 01), left, and P Dillard (StL 00, Chi AL 00), right, taken while the team was at spring training in Memphis and Hot Springs. Players may have been wearing uniforms from previous seasons. Image and ID of McGann from the St. Louis Republic, April 2, 1900, image scan from Ed Morton, and from Ken Samoil. Image and ID of Dillard photo from the St. Louis Republic, April 3, 1900, image scan from Peter Reitan.
Photo D
Published August 4, 1900, photo dated 1899. This portrait of M Donlin (99, 00), full view left, detail view right, was printed in a newspaper in 1900 but was not a depiction of the uniform from 1900. The player wore a buttoned shirt in this photo with the city name in small lettering arched across the chest. Both of these elements were similar to those found on the 1899 St. Louis uniform and do not match the uniform shown in photo A above. Image and player ID from the Sporting News supplement, August 4, 1900. Years Donlin with team from baseball-reference.com.
Photo E
Drawings of the 1900 St. Louis uniforms by baseball historian Marc Okkonen. Note that Okkonen depicted a “StL” emblem on the front of the caps. This cap design matched that found in the St. Louis team photo from the following year of 1901. Drawings from the Dressed To The Nines uniform database at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum website, and retrieved March 12, 2022.
Written documentation on these uniforms:
March 1900: “The contract for the [St. Louis] club uniform was awarded to the Rawlins [sp?] Sporting Goods Company yesterday. The colors will be white and crimson, instead of white and scarlet of last year. White flannel at home, with crimson stockings, belt and cap; gray flannel abroad, with the same trimmings.” From the St. Louis Republic, March 6, 1900. Research from Ed Morton.
April 1900: “[St. Louis] Manager Tebeau had ordered himself the regulation St. Louis uniforms, and will wear them at home and abroad with diurnal [i.e., daily] regularity. That he has adorned the bench in street attire during the exhibition games [in spring 1900] is due entirely to the fact that his trunk was lost somewhere between Hot Springs and St. Louis.” From the St. Louis Republic, April 2, 1900.
April 1900: “In discussing his team today Manager Tebeau said: ‘The Perfectos are progressing nicely, and will be ready for the opening game.’” From The Sporting Life, April 21, 1900. An example of the team nickname in use by the manager.
April 1900, special from St. Louis: “There will be no ceremony at the opening game [in St. Louis v. Pittsburgh]. No invitations have been issued by the club management, and the season is to start here on a strictly business basis.” From the Chicago Tribune, April 19, 1900.
April 19, 1900, St. Louis v. Pittsburgh, at St. Louis, League Park, opening day: “[St. Louis] must have encased themselves in their natty uniforms immediately after dinner, as they were practicing when the first contingent of fans appeared. Their new suits were the same as their garb of ’99, white with red trimmings, except that the stockings, belt and cap seemed more of a cardinal hue.” From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 19, 1900. Research from Ed Morton, and from Peter Reitan.
April 19, 1900, St. Louis v. Pittsburgh, at St. Louis, League Park, opening day: “The new [five-sided] home plate at St. Louis was improperly placed and [Pittsburgh] Manager Clarke declined to play until the matter was fixed. Umpire [Tim] Hurst had the plate dug up and properly interred.” From The Sporting Life, April 28, 1900. This entry was not uniform-related but is interesting nonetheless.
April 28, 1900, St. Louis v. Chicago, at Chicago: “St. Louis and Chicago played the best game of the season at the West Side grounds today. […] It was good baseball that enabled the Cardinals to win.” From the St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 29, 1900. Research from Peter Reitan. This mention of the Cardinals nickname, based on the accent color of the uniform, may be the first use in print. Reitan writes: “I did not find any other references to the team as ‘Cardinals’ in any report of their first seven games of the [1900] regular season in either the St. Louis Republic or Post-Dispatch newspapers.” Reitan states that after the April 29 use of ‘Cardinals’ by the Post-Dispatch, the nickname “appeared in headlines (and text) of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on April 30, and the St. Louis Republic on May 1st and May 2nd of 1900, and quickly became ubiquitous shortly thereafter.” For more detail on the origin of the Cardinals nickname, see Peter Reitan’s blog here.
June 6, 1900, St. Louis v. Boston, at Boston: “The [St. Louis] Redcaps broke their losing streak Wednesday [June 6] and defeated the Bostons in easy fashion.” From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 7, 1900. Use of a nickname based on the St. Louis cap color.
June 1900: “[National] League players are a unit in the belief that a $60 charge for two uniforms is petit larceny.” From The Sporting Life, June 16, 1900.
1900, referenced in 1903 in a newspaper story on the origin of the Cardinal nickname, in a game played in Chicago: “Attired in clean gray traveling suits, adorned with bright red trimmings, [St. Louis] presented a pretty picture as they crossed the field. […] [A] Chicago miss […] clapped her hands enthusiastically and exclaimed to her companion: ‘Oh! Isn’t that just the loveliest shade of Cardinal!’ […] ‘Billy’ McHale, then a well-known baseball writer, and at the time official scorer of the team, was the first to publish it. […] McHale accompanied the team to Chicago about the middle of the season in 1900 and sat in the press box during the first game of the series. […] McHale caught the exclamation and a moment later had flashed [it] over the wires to St. Louis in his introduction of the game.” From the Pittsburgh Press, April 10, 1903. Research from Peter Reitan. Per the April 29, 1900 Post-Dispatch report listed above, this event in Chicago may have happened in April 1900 and not the middle of the 1900 season as stated here. Reitan notes that many sources in the retelling of this story after 1903 have dated the event as happening in 1899, not 1900.
Team genealogy: St. Louis 1882-
St. Louis joined the American Association (AA) in 1882. The AA was a major league operating between 1882 and 1891 and St. Louis played in the AA in every year of the league’s existence. The team moved to the National League (NL) for the 1892 season. The NL began operation in 1876 and St. Louis has played in the NL every year since 1892. Information from wikipedia.com.
Rendering posted: March 12, 2022
Diggers on this uniform: Ed Morton, Ken Samoil, Peter Reitan,