1897 St. Louis (Browns)

These renderings are based on written documentation for uniform style and color. No visual documentation is known and an artist’s conceptualization is used to create the renderings.

Rendering accuracy:Year: documented    Team: documented

Visual documentation on these uniforms:
None

Written documentation on these uniforms:
March 1897: “In the office of the Browns, with the doors and windows open, sat Secretary Muckenfuss with Mr. Von der Ahe selecting stuff for the team’s new uniforms. A pretty cream white has been adopted as the body uniform for home games with the familiar brown belt, caps and stockings. For games away from home, light gray will be used instead of the white trousers and shirts.” From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 9, 1897. Research from Don Stokes.

May 1897: “Watch the Browns’ uniforms after the first rain. They will shrink like a boiled sponge. The suits are the cheapest thing in seven leagues. It’s a shame to make the boys wear them.” From The Sporting Life, May 1, 1897.

July 1897, an editorial on wearing flannel uniforms in the summer: “Rooters who sit in the grandstand clad in seersucker clothes and neglige shirts may kick about the weather, but they don’t know how lucky they are. When the victorious Browns came off the field Friday afternoon a Post-Dispatch man put Capt. Billy Hallman’s shirt and trousers on a set of scales. The uniform weighed just 15.5 pounds. Of this weight from three to five pounds was water, or rather perspiration. A baseball uniform is made of the heaviest quality of flannel, lined with a double thickness of sheep’s wool. The wool absorbs the perspiration without permitting it to dry up, or to become absorbed, in turn, by the atmosphere. Therefore each additional bead of perspiration that trickles from a player’s body goes to make the uniform heavier. A suit of light weight underwear is usually worn by the players, and that, too, becomes soaked with perspiration and adds to the Turkish bath sweating a man takes on the field. Besides accumulating the perspiration a goodly amount of dirt settles in the soaked uniform, adding a pound or two to the total. In addition to the uniform, a player has a pair of heavy woolen stockings — they must be heavy and closely knit to withstand all the slipping and sliding a ball tosser has to do, a pair of shoes weighted by spikes and toe plates, and to polish off this arctic attire he wears a flannel cap, thick and wide enough for a cushion for your office chair. Think of that, you crash-clothed fans up there in the grandstand with a tankard of iced lemonade to be had every time you raise a finger. Is it any wonder that [first baseman] Mike Grady flopped over after standing up under such a load in the broiling sun for an hour or so? The uniform of every other man on the team were the same as Hallman’s after the game. [Outfielder] Dan Lally, just to show that he had oozed as profusely as any of his teammates, playfully grabbed a handful of the suburbs of his shirt as it hung on a nail, and the water poured from it until a pool formed on the dressing-room floor.” From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 11, 1897. Research from Oliver Kodner.

January 1898: “The suit of the Jokerst-St. Gem Manufacturing Company against Sportsman’s Park and Club was on trial in the Circuit Court yesterday. Among the witnesses were Percy Werden, Theodore Breitenstein, Jack Crooks and other ball players. Part of the dispute was about the payment of a bill for sixteen uniforms billed as $200 and one mascot suit at $4.50. The latter is said to have been worn by Red McAuliffe, and was all right. The uniforms were said to be defective in make-up, and ripped to pieces at an early stage in their usage. [St. Louis team owner] Chris Von der Ahe refused to pay for them unless a reduction in the price was made. The ball players testified with respect to the uniforms.” From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 25, 1898. Research from Ed Morton. The same newspaper reported on January 27 that Von der Ahe lost the two-day trial with “the jury giving a verdict for the plaintiff for $211.65” and that “nearly all the members of the Browns base-ball team for 1896, who were accessible, were called upon to testify.” The Jokerst-St. Gem Manufacturing Company was a St. Louis manufacturing firm. In manufacturing directories from 1894 and 1896 the owner of the company was listed as G. G. Jokerst.

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.