First biography of Pete Browning, namesake of the Louisville Slugger bat.
Excerpt
I
THE EARLY YEARS, 1861-1881
For more than 75 years, on the southwest side of historic Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, near the intersection of what used to be called Virgilia and Hovenia Avenues, there lay a plain granite marker. The inscription on it was slightly misspelled, and the gravesite stood in the shadow of a twisted sweetbay magnolia tree.
The old marker was replaced by a much grander one in 1984, though the tree still remains. Buried there in lot 549 is Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning, whose occupation at the time of his death in 1905 at age 44 was succinctly listed in the large lime-green City Mortuary Book as “ball player.”
It was a notation of concise understatement, as the following synopsis shows.
During the course of 13 major-league seasons, from 1882 through 1894, the bulk of that with Louisville in first the fabled American Association and later the National League, Browning compiled a lifetime .341 batting average.
Browning’s .341 figure is tied for eighth place on the all-time list with Cooperstown residents Wee Willie Keeler and Bill Terry.
The .341 mark also ranks today as the fourth-best among the game’s right-handed batsmen. Only Hall-of-Famers Rogers Hornsby (.358), Eddie Delahanty (.346) and Harry Heilmann (.342) have ever done better work from that side of the plate.
To date, Pete Browning is one of several dozen players to have legitimately batted .400 in a season: .402 in 1887.
Browning’s .402 campaign of 1887 ranks 23rd on the all-time list of seasonal batting averages. Remarkably, Browning did not win the crown that year. He lost to American Association Triple Crown winner Tip O’ Neill’s .435 mark, which just as remarkably, is second-best on the all-time list. The top mark belongs to Hugh Duffy, who batted .440 in 1894 with Boston of the National League.
Browning recorded a .467 lifetime slugging average. His personal-best was a .547 mark in 1887. Other top marks include .530 in 1885, .517 in 1890 and a league-leading .510 in 1882.
Recorded his personal-best .464 on-base percentage in 1887, one of the hundred-best in the game’s history. Finished second to .490 percentage of Tip O’Neill, who that season became the only player in major-league history ever to lead a league in batting, hits, total bases, slugging average, runs, doubles, triples (a six-way tie), home runs, RBIs and on-base percentage.
Other notable on-base percentage marks: .459 in 1890 (second in the Players League), and a league-leading .430 mark in the American Association (1882).
His lifetime .403 on-base percentage mark ranks among the top fifty on the all-time list.
Twice hit for the cycle; major-league record is three.
Only player ever to have lost a batting title to a pitcher: teammate Guy Hecker in 1886, .341 to .340.
Browning literally swung the big lumber: he reportedly favored bats that were 37 inches in length and 48 ounces in weight.
Namesake of the famed Louisville Slugger bat, an American icon.
A genuine pre-modern national star, one of the game’s earliest pioneers, and one of the sport’s most enduring and intriguing figures, Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning was born in Louisville, Ky. on June 17, 1861 at 13th and Jefferson on the city’s west side.
Because the state of Kentucky did not require the official recording of vital statistics until 1911, no formal birth certificate exists today for Pete Browning or any of his six (possibly seven) siblings. However, numerous sources from his own life verify this date, including Federal census records for 1900; the legal documents that authorized his commitment to an insane asylum at nearby Lakeland, Ky. in June of 1905; the official record of his death as filed three months later in the pages of the aforementioned City Mortuary Book (number 13, page 44); obituaries from Louisville’s four leading newspapers of that day—the Courier-Journal, the Times, the Herald and the Post; and Browning’s first grave marker itself.
A lifelong resident of Louisville, Pete Browning was the youngest of seven (maybe eight) children born to Kentucky natives Samuel Browning (November 10, 1814-October 19, 1874) and Mary Jane Sheppard Browning (1826-April 6, 1911). The pair were married in Jefferson County, the county in which Louisville is located, the day after Valentine’s Day of 1849.
The little family history left today is directly due to the incisive research of film historians David J. Skal and Elias Savada in their 1995 biography of Pete Browning’s uncle, Tod Browning, a noted film director. A genre classic and the only major work to date on Tod Browning, Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood’s Master of the Macabre is equally valuable to baseball writers and historians.
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According to the special “Genealogy” section in Dark Carnival, which extensively details basic family history previously published by the author, Samuel and Mary Jane Browning had seven known children. The four sons and three daughters included Charles Leslie Browning (1850-1922); Florence Bell Browning (1851/52-1935); Henry D. Browning (1853-1911); Blanche N. Browning (1854/55-1861/65); Samuel L. Browning, Jr. (1857-May, 1900); Fannie E. Browning (January, 1859-March, 1907); and Louis Rogers Browning (1861-1905).
Charles Leslie Browning married Lydia Jane Fitzgerald (1853-1928), all six feet, three inches of her according to Skal and Savada, on July 5, 1872. The daughter of William M. Fitzgerald and Jane Cook, Lydia Fitzgerald Browning produced three children: Octavia F. Browning (1874-1875), who died in infancy; George Avery Browning (1876-1958); and the aforementioned Charles Albert “Tod” Browning (1880-1962). A fourth child in the brood, though never formally adopted, was raised by them. The daughter of Lydia’s brother and his wife, according to Skal and Savada, Virginia “Jennie” Cook Browning (1883-1972) was a little red-haired girl Lydia and Charles took in for some unknown reason. She married William E. Block, Jr. (1877-1954) on October 25, 1900, and had six children by him (four sons and two daughters).
“A remarkably thin man, mustachioed and of average height” (Dark Carnival), Charles Leslie Browning was a contrast to his wife. During his life, he worked as a “bricklayer, carpenter and machinist, primarily for the firm of B.F. Avery and Sons, a world-famed manufacturer of plows and agricultural equipment.”
According to Skal and Savada, his older son, George Avery Browning, was “evidently middle-named after his father’s longtime employer”. In time, he “became a coal merchant, eventually founding the company of Bower and Browning.”
Like his famed baseball-playing cousin, George Avery Browning was a fascinating figure in his own right. Again, Skal and Savada from Dark Carnival
“Avery—as George preferred to call himself, is remembered as the tallest member of the family, almost six and a half feet tall, and an obsessively organized personality, with a lifelong aversion to being touched. He was also phobic about germs. His nieces recalled, more than a half-century after the fact, his wary response to their offering him a piece of homemade fudge: “Is it clean? Is it clean?” Avery preferred having most of his food prepared by his mother alone, and well into adulthood made a daily ritual trip home to eat Lydia’s never-changing lunches of roast beef and homemade bread.
“Avery favored long dark overcoats which he wore regardless of the season, and constantly puffed odiferous cigars. He had an aversion to driving. Family members recalled that he stopped attending church at the age of sixteen. He never married, and his social life centered around his lodge, where, as a member of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, he achieved the rank of a 32nd-degree Mason.”
Around Christmastime of 1958, he was found dead of asphyxiation at his home, the result of an unvented water heater.
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In Dark Carnival, Skal and Savada also provided the following information on the other immediate Browning family members.
The second oldest child and oldest daughter, Florence Bell Browning married “a certain John Ramsey of Louisville” on November 16, 1869. They were apparently childless.
Henry Browning and wife Katherine P. (maiden name unknown say Skal and Savada) had one known child, L.R. Browning (1882-1883), who died in infancy (Quite possibly, he was named in honor of his famed uncle, Louis Rogers, who began his major-league career the same year his namesake was born.) Little is known about Henry outside the fact that he “worked as a woodcarver and lottery dealer.”
Blanche N. Browning died in childhood.
Samuel L. Browning, Jr. and wife Katherine (maiden name also unknown) had two daughters: Mildred (1891-1986) and Mary (no lifedates available; unmarried). Mildred Browning married Paul Kapfhammer (1891-?) and they had one child, Mildred (1912-?), who married a Benjamin McAuliffe.
Like older brother Henry, virtually nothing is known about Samuel, Jr. outside the fact that he was a “plumber, fireman and barkeeper”.
The two youngest members of the immediate Browning clan, Fannie E. and Louis Rogers (Pete), never married.
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All but Charles and Henry are buried in the family plot at historic Cave Hill Cemetery on the city’s fashionable east side, records show. (Charles and Henry could possibly be buried in an old family site in nearby Eastern Cemetery.)
Those same cemetery records note that Browning’s father, Browning’s sister Blanche, and an “Ida May Browning” were re-interred at Cave Hill on May 14, 1886. The relationship of Ida May Browning to Pete Browning is unknown.
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In October of 1874, when Browning was 13, his father—a prosperous merchant who for years ran a grocery store at the corner of 15th and Jefferson streets in Louisville—died at age 59 from injuries sustained during a cyclone.
Browning’s mother, with whom The Gladiator, a confirmed bachelor, lived all his life, lasted substantially longer. She died April 6, 1911 at age 85 of old age at her home, 1427 West Jefferson Street on the near west side of the city. According to her obituary, she had lived there for more than a half century, and was survived by three children: Charles, Henry and Florence. (Skal and Savada colorfully note in Dark Carnival that when Federal troops marched through Louisville in 1861, Mrs. Browning—a native of Danville, Ky. and obviously a full-blooded Southerner—“flew the Confederate flag proudly from her home.”)
Nothing is left of the Browning residence today. In the 1970s, it was demolished as part of an urban renewal program that cleared out huge blocks of one of Louisville’s oldest neighborhoods. At the time of this book’s completion, a strip-mall occupied the site.
As a youth, Browning was a crack athlete and avid sportsman who studiously avoided schoolwork. Frequently, he would hide the schoolbooks his mother had provided him under the doorsteps of the home of John Reccius. A teammate of Browning’s on some early Louisville teams and later a pallbearer at Browning’s funeral, Reccius was a part of a noted Louisville baseball family that also included brothers William and Philip. Rounding up companions, Browning then would spend the rest of the day shooting marbles, spinning tops or playing ball.
About the last category, the Courier-Journal had this to say in his obituary: “When a lad, he began playing ball on the commons, and was a good player from the start.” Browning’s proficiency as a marble shooter mirrored that of a later Louisville product to the major leagues, Dodger Hall-of-Fame shortstop Harold “Pee Wee” Reese.
A master of the game in his neighborhood where he regularly won all the marbles of his friends, Browning then began to return the common marbles while keeping only the prized agates for himself. In time, Browning accumulated a trunk full of them. Eventually, his reputation became so great that Browning had to travel to the east end of Louisville, where he was unknown, in order to get up a game.
And, according to his Louisville Times and Louisville Courier-Journal obituaries, Browning was also a superb skater who “was easily the best in Louisville”, possessing an ability to “cut more funny figures and skate faster than any other boy of his acquaintance.”
A lover of the outdoors, Browning enjoyed all athletics except swimming, which he claimed hurt his ears. This is not exactly insignificant since Browning, a resident of a town nicknamed the “River City”, was only blocks away from the Ohio River.
Browning’s habitual absences from the classroom in lieu of sports as a young man had the expected repercussions, though, leaving him uneducated and rendering him a functional illiterate his entire adult life (although like other aspects of Browning, that has been substantially blown out of proportion).
And, that adulthood came pretty early.
On Friday, April 13, 1877, still some two months shy of his sixteenth birthday, Browning made what is thought to be his debut as an organized ballplayer. And, it came against penthouse competition no less, the city’s charter National League club, the Louisville Grays. Picked by many to take that year’s National League flag, the powerhouse Grays were just about a month away from their seasonal opener.
Operating on all eight cylinders and more, the Grays decimated the Eclipse 22-1 behind Jimmy Devlin’s nifty three-hitter; a five-for-six, five runs scored performance by first-baseman Juice Latham; and right fielder George Shaffer, who was good for four hits and four runs. The lone black marks against the Grays were a pair of errors in the ninth that cost the talented right-handed Devlin a shutout.
As for Browning, his debut was unremarkable, as he went zero-for-four, perhaps understandably so in light of the competition and maybe even the date. His work also included three putouts and one error at third base. Nevertheless, it was a start all the same, and Browning was on his way through an inaugural season that would include appearances for several different teams against a variety of competition.
There are some who can find a silver lining in anything, and the following morning, Saturday, April 14th, the Louisville Courier-Journal ran an account fully in keeping with that tradition. Whatever they lacked in reality, they more than made up with their optimism.
“The game between the Eclipse club and the Louisville nine yesterday proved to be quite an interesting contest, in spite of the one-sidedness of the score. The West-end boys proved rather weak at the bat, but they atoned for this by some very fine work in the field. Nine errors are all that are recorded against them, and in the face of the heavy batting done by the professionals, the showing is an extraordinarily good one.
“During the progress of the game, (catcher) Daily was struck in the mouth by a foul tip, which loosened several teeth. Crowley took his place and Lafferty the position vacated by Crowley. The one run scored by the losing side did not make its appearance until the ninth inning. It was presented by (center fielder) Lafferty and (shortstop) Craver—the one missing a fly and the other missing a bad throw to Latham.
“The Eclipse nine can be congratulated on yesterday’s showing. The members plainly demonstrated that they know how to field, and the Amateurs will have to look sharp, for when these nines meet, the wrong pig may be grabbed by the ear.”
That happened at least once because several months later, on July 17, 1877, Browning pitched the Eclipse to a 24-8 bombing over the aforementioned Amateurs, and his contributions were mighty: three-for-six at the plate, four runs scored, eight assists, six strikeouts, no walks, and a “W” in the win column.
That month was a watershed month for the talented teenager.
Ten days later, using a fine curveball and deceptive change of pace, Browning hurled the Eclipse to a 4-0 shutout win over the vaunted National League Louisville Grays. According to Browning’s Louisville Times obituary, Manager John Chapman of the Louisville Nationals remarked during the game: “If (George) Hall hits one of those slow ones and its hits Browning, there will be a dead ball player.”
It never happened.
This antique photograph is the earliest known ballplayer picture of Pete Browning—either a “very old” 15 or a “very young” 16 depending on when the picture was taken. He is shown with the 1877 Louisville Eclipse. A top-notch semi-pro team, they restored major-league baseball to Louisville in 1882 when they joined the newly-formed American Association, the National League’s first competitor. STANDING: Pitcher John Reccius, J. Pfeiffer, Tim Lehan, W, Zimmerman. MIDDLE: Quinlan (substitute/catcher), Pete Browning, M. Walsh, and catcher Coleman. FRONT: left fielder Charles Pfeiffer, center fielder C. Arny. (Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Louisville)
Browning’s strikeout victims that day included the slugging Hall and ace pitcher Jimmy Devlin, two of the four participants in that season’s National League pennant-fixing scandal that eventually cost the city its major-league team and those two stars.
The clearly-irritated Louisville Courier-Journal ran only a note on the game, reporting in its lead paragraph that “the Grays were thrashed yesterday afternoon by the Eclipse nine”. The concluding sentence of their Saturday, July 28th “homer” story gives clear indications of Browning’s pitching skills the preceding afternoon: “The last inning came with the score of 4 to 0 against them, and, as the Grays went out in striking order, the figures remained unchanged.”
This game is of enormous historical significance since this is thought to be the game alluded to in Browning’s obituaries in the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times as the contest that gained Browning his first major baseball attention. Certainly, it is a wonder in light of the quality competition he faced and shut down completely. Factor in his age, and the feat takes on even more brilliance, not a glitzy, shining brilliance, but a sparkling, elegant brilliance.
Sent back out against the Grays on August 3, Browning and his teammates ran straight into Frank Lafferty, who no-hit the Eclipse in an overwhelming 14-1 win. Browning received the loss, as his teammates scored their lone tally in the fifth inning off a missed third strike; a bad throw to second; and a flyball between second-baseman Joe Gerhardt and right fielder George Shaffer which was allowed to drop.
George Hall, the previous season’s National League home run leader, led the Grays’ offensive rampage with a four-hit performance that saw him just miss hitting for the cycle: two singles, a triple and a home run. The victory, as to be expected, was much more to the liking of the Louisville Courier-Journal, who led off its story the following morning thusly: “Yesterday afternoon, the Grays sat down on the boys from the West End; in fact, squashed them rather badly.”
Spreading the wealth around, Browning went five-for-nine in several games for the Liberty in early September.
That pair of games were sandwiched around a splendid September 7th contest for the Amateurs against the Mutuals. Playing second base and batting second in the order, Browning posted fine work on both sides of the diamond in the 6-3 win by the Amateurs. Going two-for-four, one a double, and scoring once, he also played some fine defense; the game account noted “several fine stops” by Browning and second-baseman Pfeffer. Browning would have done even better save for Mutuals’ third baseman T. Daily, who made “a rattling line catch close to the ground” of a ball hit by Browning, robbing that one of a sure third hit.
The big boys showed up again on Tuesday, September 11th, and Browning, stationed again at second base, went zero-for-four as the Amateurs lost 12-7. The defeat, though, was nothing to be ashamed of, coming at the hands of the city’s major-league team, whom they played nearly dead-even for six frames. In the seventh, however, the Louisville National League Grays broke the game wide open with seven runs and coasted home from there.
Never a man to be held down for long, Browning broke loose the following day.
Posted first and second respectively in the lineup, first-baseman John Haldeman and Browning, at shortstop, joined forces to destroy a team from nearby Anchorage 21-2. Haldeman and Browning notched five hits each, and scored five runs apiece in the September 12th hit parade which was mercifully called on account of rain and darkness after eight innings.
Browning’s work included a pair of triples, while Haldeman, who would in a few months break open major-league baseball’s first scandal, contributed a double and a triple.
With the 1877 baseball season nearing a close, Browning prominently displayed his wares in as the Eclipse pounded the Amateurs 13-4 in a September 25th matchup. His offensive contributions included four hits in six at-bats, one of them a double, and two runs scored.
Stationed at first base, Browning batted fourth in the lineup. Fifth in the order was the shortstop, an “H. Browning”, believed to be his brother Henry, who went one-for-six with two runs scored.
1878
Despite the devastating loss of its top baseball draw, the major-league Grays, Louisville nonetheless opened its 1878 baseball season for business in mid-May. Whatever the shock and the disarray attendant to the 1877 pennant-fixing scandal which had seen the Grays expelled by the National League, baseball life in one of America’s great baseball cities still went on, though in a radically different form.
The local diamond campaign debuted with the Louisvilles taking a 12-4 laugher from the Louisville Mutuals on Saturday, May 18. Browning did not play in this game. However, this was not the only game in the city.
Across town, Churchill Downs held the fourth renewal of the Kentucky Derby on Tuesday, May 21st. The victor was outsider Day Star, a wire-to-wire victor over heavily-favored Himyar. This baseball/horse racing tandem built the foundation of Louisville’s national sporting reputation, a reputation which would later be permanently solidified by a third major sport, basketball.
On the national non-sporting front, inventor Thomas Edison made headlines with his successful experiment of the incandescent light at his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory, which led to the birth of he electric light bulb the following year.
One of the more notable early-season performances by Browning was in a 20-0 slaughterhouse by the Eclipse of the aforementioned Louisvilles on Wednesday, May 29th. Playing second and batting third in the lineup, Browning went two-for-six; scored two runs; and according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, played “a slashing game at second”.
On June 1st, Browning, now in the leadoff spot but still at second, went three-for-five with two runs scored and one double for the Louisvilles. It was all for naught, though, as they dropped an 11-7 decision to a team named the Waddell Browns.
A week later, Browning came up with a killing cut-off throw from second to nail a go-ahead run in the top of the twelfth, then in the bottom of that frame doubled home the winning run in an exciting 6-5 win by the Eclipse-Mutuals over the Louisvilles. The defensive gem and offensive heroics were all part of a well-balanced game that included a triple, two runs scored, a pair of RBIs, five putouts and three assists.
Back in uniform with the Louisvilles on Tuesday, June 11th, Browning powered them to a runaway 17-5 victory over the Waddell Browns with a five-for-six performance and three runs scored.
Described by the Courier-Journal as “the crack hitter of the Eclipse nine”, Browning singled, doubled, and scored three times in another extra-inning job June 13th. The victim was familiar, the Louisvilles, the score 6-4 in ten frames. In a June 24th game against the Louisvilles, Browning went four-for-five with a triple and two runs scored in a 9-7 victory by the Eclipse.
Browning’s stellar work continued on through the summer and the season, with what had to be the most unusual combination and action coming on August 6th. Batting lead-off as the catcher for the Picked Nine, he responded with two hits, one a double, and two runs in a 12-6 loss to the Brown Stockings. Though he did come up with four errors, it was no doubt the product of an unfamiliar and technically difficult position. In any event, it showed two things: Browning’s versatility and his steadily increasing skill as a baseball player.
1879
Among Browning’s more interesting contests of 1879 were three that had absolutely nothing in common.
The first was an August 26, 1879 contest by the Eclipse against the Columbus, Ohio Deaf Mutes. This is not a misprint, a joke. Equally as serious is that Browning, batting lead-off and playing third, went hitless in five at-bats, though he did score a run in the 7-2 triumph. Unquestionably, this had to be an absolute gem of a game for the umpires to call in light of the losing team’s restrictions and those of the marquee player on the winning side.
On a related note, Browning the next month played against this same team as a member for the Louisville Mohawks, a club made up of the five strongest Eclipse players plus other talented local players. The Deaf Mutes were described by the Courier-Journal as being “earnest, quiet players” whose “fame has been deservedly acquired.”
About a month later, on Sunday, September 21st, Browning—again at third and batting lead-off—was part of a 7-0 shutout by the Eclipse of the Covington Stars in what the Louisville Courier-Journal headlined as “The State Championship”.
A week later, on September 28th, the Eclipse were matched up against another local team: the Red Stockings. It was a close call, a very close call, but the Eclipse as they typically seemed to do, prevailed 4-3 at the wire as Browning contributed two hits and a run from his third-base/lead-off venues.
1880
By 1880, the year that canned fruits and meats first appeared in stores, the Louisville Eclipse, a sparkling semi-pro club, were hands down the top baseball club in Louisville. Besides Browning, its list of regulars numbered future major-league star Fred Pfeffer, rated by experts as one of the 19th-century’s two best second-basemen (Hall-of-Famer Bid McPhee is the other).
The steadily-developing Browning, according to existent records, continued to play third and bat in the lead-off slot. And, though the Eclipse did not go unbeaten in 1880, they most certainly did have a phenomenal campaign. Virtually invincible, they were as hard to deal with as a fastball on a hot summer’s day: a stream of thin, white sewing thread ominously unraveling in the blinding sunlight.
Here is a sampling of some 17 games, from June through October, 16 of which were won by the Eclipse. The results are a testament to the team’s power and Browning’s hitting talents, which included ten multi-hit games and one collar, a zero-for-four contest on September 12.
June 20: two hits, one run in 6-3 win over the Red Stockings
June 23: four hits, one double, five runs in 28-0 stampede of Evansville
June 24: two hits, 2 runs in 9-1 win over Evansville
June 27: one hit in a 12-inning, 1-0 victory against Covington
July 4: three-for-four, one double, one run, 5-1 win against the Cincinnati Americus
July 5: one-for-four, one run, lost 7-5 to the Cincinnati Buckeyes
July 11: three-for-six, beat Red Stockings 1-0 in 12 innings
July 19: two-for-five, one run, defeated Covington 12-0
July 25: one-for-five, one double, one run in 8-7 defeat of the New Orleans Lone Stars
July 26: two-for-four, one double, one run in 3-1 win versus the New Orleans Lone Stars
August 15: two-for-four, one double; 5-1 win over the Cincinnati Wirths
August 22: One of the more unusual lines you’ll ever see for Browning or any other ballplayer. One-for-six, but five runs scored in a 20-1 rout of the Cincinnati Alerts.
August 29: three-for-five, one run in 6-0 win against the Ohio Columbias
September 12: zero-for-four in 5-0 win against the Cincinnati Ravens
September 20: one-for-four, one double, one run in 3-0 shutout of St. Louis Brown Stockings.
October 10: three-for-five, one triple, one run, 11-3 victory over the Cincinnati Stars
October 17: one-for-four, one run in 5-1 season-closing win over the Cincinnati Buckeyes
1881
In 1881, the year the Red Cross was founded and Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute, Browning signed his first professional contract for $60 a month. That campaign, which opened with a 9-4 win over the Cincinnati Ravens on Sunday, April 24, was hallmarked by a host of signature events.
One was a 19-inning marathon contest between the Eclipse and the Akrons at Eclipse Park before a packed house of 2,500 fans on Sunday, June 26. In the seventh, Browning tied up the game with a double to the left off a hanging curve, his lone hit in eight at-bats.
That was it for the scoring. The protracted contest was called a 2-2 draw because of darkness, and subsequently replayed as a nine-inning game. Remarkably, Browning played the entire set and that constituted a quick comeback for Browning, who had missed the previous day’s game because of a serious, but undescribed illness. The Courier-Journal described the situation this way in ‘Diamond Dust’, their post-game notes section: “Pete Browning has about given up all idea of playing any more this season. His physician says it won’t do.”
The tie game wasn’t the first time that season Browning’s health had come into issue. In a Sunday, May 22 game, an obviously distressed Browning came to the plate in the ninth with the Eclipse down 9-8 against the Chicago Athletes. Browning got a four-run ninth going with a double that plated two runs, and the Louisville club went on to take a 12-9 victory.
The following morning’s Courier-Journal played it for all it was worth with a story billed as “Browning’s Last Call”. That was followed by a supporting headline that read: “A Sick Man Saves The Day For The Eclipse, And Defeats The Chicago Visitors.”
The early-season problems resolved themselves shortly thereafter, and a stabilized Browning went through the rest of the season without any more major health conflicts. The only things that changed were his positions, shortstop and third base, and his slot in the batting order: first, second and third.
A representative sampling of 38 regular-season games from April through October broke down this way: 18 games at third base, number two in the lineup; 14 games at shortstop, batting third; twice at third base and batting leadoff; three times at third base and batting third in the lineup; and once batting second while playing third and the outfield.
Certainly, Browning’s best overall offensive games were a pair of five-hit games July 31 and August 15. The former spearheaded a 24-4 bombardment of the Covington Stars, and Browning’s five-for-six line also included three runs scored. The latter featured a perfect five-for-five line, a double, and one run scored in a 15-7 blowout against yet another strong Windy City contingent, the Chicago Eckfords.
The work was reflective of a powerhouse team that during the 1881 campaign met a dazzling array of regional and national clubs. By season’s end, the roster of vanquished teams read like a who’s who: the Cincinnati Ravens, the Philadelphia Athletics (forerunner of the 1882 American Association major-league team by the same name), the Chicago Athletes, the Cincinnati Buckeyes, the Cincinnati Columbias, the Chicago Emmetts, the St. Louis Red Stockings (also called the Reds), the Ohio Akrons (featuring soon-to-be major-league stars Ed Swartwood and the previously mentioned Bid McPhee), the Chicago Lakeviews, the Chicago Dreadnaughts, the Covington Stars, the Chicago Eckfords, the Cleveland White Sewing Machine Company, the Cleveland White Stockings, the Cincinnati Stars, the Chicago North Ends, the Brooklyn Atlantics, the St. Louis Browns and the New Orleans Lees.
The 8-4 Eclipse win over the last-named in mid-November brought both the Louisville team’s post-season Southern tour, and very long season, to an apparent end.
Several names in particular on this list stand out.
One was the Chicago North Ends, whom the Eclipse met on September 11 and 12. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, this was not your average Chicago club. Rather, it was an amalgam of four Chicago teams which had been manhandled by the Eclipse earlier in the season: the Emmetts, the Lakeviews, the Dreadnaughts and the Eckfords.
The combination didn’t work any better than the individual teams had. Like the others, the Eclipse dispatched the North Ends quite effectively, beating them 9-4 and then blowing them out 17-0, the game being called after seven innings for obvious reasons.
Then, there were the highly-acclaimed Brooklyn Atlantics, who came in for a four-game set less than a week after the contests with the Chicago North Ends. After losing the opener to the Atlantics 3-2 on an eighth-inning home run, the Eclipse racked up 9-3, 9-2 and 4-3 victories. Browning’s best anti-Brooklyn Atlantics work came in the finale when he went three-for-five with a double.
The official 1881 campaign concluded the following month on Sunday, October 9, the season ending the way it had begun. With a sound victory over the Cincinnati Ravens. Only this time, Browning—collared in the late-April seasonal opener, the aforementioned 9-4 victory—got a piece of the action. In the 7-3 closing-day win, Browning went three-for-five and scored two runs.
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No game during the 1881 campaign had greater ramifications than did a long-forgotten August 21 contest against the White Sewing Machine Company team of Cleveland, Ohio.
Though the Eclipse won 6-3, the victory came under extenuating and frighteningly ugly circumstances. The Ohio squad was forced to compete without their best player, a black catcher named Moses Fleetwood Walker, whose race brought objections from several Louisville players. Browning was not one of them according to the newspaper accounts. The “unlevel playing field” action was decried in numerous quarters, by the Louisville Courier-Journal, the fans and even a Louisville baseball executive.
All to no avail.
The following morning, the Courier-Journal ran their story under a principal headline that read “A Disabled Club”, with one of the supporting headlines reading: “An Uncalled For Exhibition Of Prejudice On The Field Towards A Quadroon.”
More than a century later, the story still has all of its raw and lethal edge.
“There were between 2,000 and 3,000 persons present to see the game at Eclipse Park yesterday between the ballplayers of the White Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland, Ohio and the home nine. What promised to be a very exciting game, turned out to be a very ordinary one. The Clevelands have won a fine reputation this season, and the score of six to three in favor of the Eclipse was not earned against the visitors on merit.
“The score might have told a very different story but for an incident which occurred during the second inning in which a great deal of feeling was exhibited, and which caused considerable comment of an unfavorable nature upon the conduct of the Eclipse Club.
“The Cleveland Club brought with them a catcher for their nine a young quadroon named Walker. The first trouble they experienced from Kentucky prejudice was at the St. Cloud Hotel yesterday morning at breakfast, when Walker was refused accommodations. When the club appeared on the field for practice before the game, the managers and one of the players of the Eclipse Club objected to Walker playing on account of his color. In vain, the Clevelands protested that he was their regular catcher, and that his withdrawal would weaken the nine.
“The prejudice of the Eclipse was either too strong, or they feared Walker, who has earned the reputation of being the best amateur catcher in the Union. He has played against the League clubs, and in many games with other white clubs, without protest. The Louisville managers decided that he could not play, and the Clevelands were compelled to substitute West.
“During the first inning, West was ‘burned out’ by the terrific pitching of Jones, and when the Eclipse went to bat in the second inning, after one or two efforts, West said he could not face the balls with his hands so badly bruised, and refused to fill the position.
“The very large crowd of people present, who saw that the Clevelands were a strong nine laboring under disadvantage, at once set up a cry in good nature for ‘the n—’. Vice President Carroll, of the Eclipse, walked down in the field and called on Walker to come and play.
“The quadroon was disinclined to do so, after the general ill-treatment he had received; but as the game seemed to be in danger of coming to an end, he consented, and started in the catcher’s stand. As he passed before the grand stand, he was greeted with cheers, and from the crowd rose cries of ‘Walker, Walker!’. He still hesitated, but finally threw off his coat and vest and stepped out to catch a ball or two and feel the bases.
“He made several brilliant throws and fine catches while the game waited. Then Johnnie Reccius and Fritz Pfeffer, of the Eclipse nine, walked off the field and went to the club house, while others objected to the playing of the quadroon.
“The crowd was so pleased with his practice, however, that it cheered him again and again and insisted that he play. The objection of the Eclipse players, however, was too much and Walker was compelled to retire. When it was seen that he was not to play, the crowd cheered heartily and very properly hissed the Eclipse club, and jeered their misplays for several innings, while the visitors, for whom White consented to catch, obviously under disadvantages, were cheered to the echo.
“Jones, the pitcher, was not supported adequately, and if Walker had caught, it is probable the Eclipse would have been defeated. It was a very small part of business, particularly when Walker was brought out as a substitute for a disabled man and invited to play by the Vice President of the Eclipse, who acted very properly in the matter.
“The Clevelands acted foolishly in playing. They should have declined to play unless Walker was admitted and entered suit for gate money and damages. They could have made their point because it was understood that Walker was catcher, and no rules provide for the rejection of players on account of ‘race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’ The crowd was anxious to see Walker play, and there was no social question concerned.
“Walker shook the dust of Louisville from his feet last night and went home. The succeeding games will be totally uninteresting, since without him the Clevelands are not able to play the Eclipse a good game.”
Walker is an epic figure in American baseball history, and in the eyes of many, its single greatest casualty.
Several years later, the former Oberlin College diamond standout became the first black major-leaguer in baseball history, making his debut on May 1, 1884, ironically in of all places—Louisville. Two days later, Fleet Walker got his first major-league hit, a single, in that same city.
For the record, the second black major-leaguer was none other than Fleet Walker’s brother, Welday Wilberforce “Weldy” Walker, a star along with his brother on the Oberlin baseball team. This progressive state was short-lived though. After that ground-breaking and historic 1884 American Association campaign, no blacks played major-league baseball again until Jackie Robinson re-integrated big-top baseball in 1947. It is interesting to note that Kentucky’s strong connections with both these black pioneers: Fleet Walker for the aforementioned reason and Robinson, via future Hall-of-Fame Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who did so much to ease Robinson’s transition into major-league baseball. Moreover, that major-league career was affected by another Kentucky native and future Cooperstown resident, A.B. “Happy” Chandler, the Baseball Commissioner who broke the color line.
Revisionist historians notwithstanding, Walker’s existence is a matter of documented historical fact. As is something else. His unparalleled talent.
A crackerjack bare-handed catcher who possessed a shotgun arm, Walker was a dependable singles hitter who exhibited speed and élan on the basepaths. In the only season he ever played, his average was .263, a full 23 points above the league average. And just how good Walker was can also be gauged by the quality of his backup. That was Deacon McGuire, who went on to catch over 1,600 games in an extraordinary, record-setting 26-year major-league career.
Where Fleet Walker would have gone as a ballplayer will never be known. But where he went as a blacklisted ballplayer and tortured soul we do know.
In 1887, Walker joined Newark of the International League (a minor-league circuit), forming with star George Stovey the first black battery in organized baseball. It was a real piece of work, as Stovey, the first, great black pitcher in American baseball annals, reeled off a 34-14 record.
Walker’s last season in organized baseball was in 1889 with Syracuse in the International League.
In 1908, he published a book entitled “Our Home Colony”, a book which called for black emigration back to Africa as the only alternative to racial prejudice. His publishing career also included a newspaper, The Equator. Towards the end of his life, he was tried and acquitted of second-degree murder charges following an attack by a convicted burglar, whom he had killed with a knife in self-defense.
Of all the game’s black players, Moses Fleetwood Walker suffered the most, was damaged the worst, paid the highest price. Because he was the first. The blame for Walker’s disintegration as first a ballplayer and then a man and citizen does not belong on the shoulders of everyone, just the mantle of those who supported and expedited his situation, either passively or actively.
It is simplistic jingoism to say that Walker was the victim of racial prejudice. This is too narrow a scope, “cartoon/tabloid” history that only recognizes his ethnicity, but not his inherently greater worth as a human being. It shows no regard for the true nature of the beast and simultaneously fails to identify the single-most important element in this crime. His color is ancillary, a sidebar. The loss wasn’t a potentially great black catcher. It was a potentially great catcher. Period.
This is the way it really plays out.
When you strip a man of his livelihood, you deprive him of his life. And that is the most profound socio-economic sanction that you can impose on another human being, and its consequences are severe and undeniable You leave that individual without a trade, a future, or hope. Naked and defenseless in a relentless world that takes no prisoners, and prey for hyena-like predators. In the end, this type of behavior erodes the very fabric of free society, whose lifeblood and standard-bearers are dynamic individuals who enable it to operate at maximum strength and efficiency. Like Moses Fleetwood Walker.
This is a living death, and it has a visceral parallel in the form of another American icon and hero: the cowboy.
In the days of the more linear and less complex western society (black and white, no grays), stealing a horse was tantamount to death. Thus, the punishment for stealing a man’s horse was as capital as you can get. Hanging. And, with damn good reason.
Bereft of his horse, he had no transportation, no pistol or rifle for self-defense or hunting of wild game, no food, no water, no shelter, no blankets, no bedroll, no rain poncho, no rope, no fire-making materials. No nothing. And, if the thieves had been particularly sadistic, no boots or hat. A hostile terrain, like a desert, further magnified the gravity of the situation. They might as well gone on and shot him, because when they stole his horse, he was as good as dead. With virtually no chance for survival, which they knew. And, that’s murder, plain and simple.
Even felony exile is easier than what was imposed on Walker (1856-1924) and all the other black players of his time. Common criminals who have been deported back to their own country only lost their place in which to conduct their illegal business. They can still run their operations in absentia, just not in America. Walker, by contrast, had no place to go. He was an exile in his own country.
The signature of the 1881 Louisville/White Sewing Machine Company game is this. That day in Louisville, his foes proved that the ugliest thing in the world is deliberate human cruelty, and it takes all forms, shapes, sizes, colors and designs.
Dragging Walker—and unwittingly, all of baseball—to the edge of a mighty precipice, they made him feel like the loneliest man in the world; let him swing in his quiet desperation briefly and tauntingly; and then shoved him over the side without so much as a thought about what they were doing. Though he came back to play some organized baseball later, including a year’s worth of major-league baseball, Walker had been mortally wounded and by the end of the decade, he and all others like him were gone from the game.
In committing this horrific act, these grotesque thugs violated the cardinal rule of life: that we need to get along with one other because, as the man once said, we’re all in this together, and nobody gets out alive.
Nobody.
******
Sometime late in September of 1881, The Gladiator laid the groundwork for his lifelong battle with the press.
On July 2, Charles Guiteau had shot newly-elected President James A. Garfield in Washington’s Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station. This was this country’s second Presidential assassination, and it came from Garfield’s own party no less. Occurring in a bloody year that also included Pat Garrett’s gunning down of Billy The Kid, and the fight at the O.K. Corral between the Earps and the Clantons in Tombstone, Arizona, Guiteau’s crime had deep and bitter roots.
The year before, Garfield had become the Republican Party’s Presidential candidate after they had unsuccessfully tried to run General U.S. Grant for a third consecutive term. The result created deep divisions within the party, and Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker and Republican factionalist, was reflective of that hatred and animosity.
Lingering for several months, Garfield finally died on September 19. Subsequently informed of Garfield’s death, so the ageless (and undocumented) “story”goes, Browning queried an astonished reporter: “Oh, yeah? What league was he in?”
Later as a major-leaguer, he would gain the monicker of “The Gladiator” for his battles with the press, flyballs and his pathological alcoholism, best phrased by another memorable quote (also unreferenced): “I can’t hit the ball until I hit the bottle!”.
The colorful character material didn’t stop there. There was more, loads more.
In Browning’s 1905 Louisville Times obituary, teammate and long-time friend John Reccius recounted an oddity of The Gladiator’s playing: “Pete was afraid of players coming in on the bases. He had a habit, too, of standing on one foot and extending the other knee if he saw a fielder approaching him.
“He always declared that if the man ran into the bone (the knee), he would be put out of business and ‘Old Pete’ would escape injury.
“After Pete went to the outfield, he would often catch a ball standing on one leg, with the other knee extended. Browning was also timid at the bat when the speedy pitchers were putting them in close.”
That peculiar defense was partially explained in Browning’s Courier-Journal obituary. “He was one of the best infielders who ever played on Louisville, but he lost his nerve after being run over and spiked by players on several occasions and was shifted to the outfield, where he always played after that time.”
The Times obituary also provided several other rich tidbits on Browning and his batwork. “Old Pete enjoyed notoriety. When traveling over the circuit, the gladiator would frequently alight from the train and exhibit himself to people at the station, and if no one recognized him, he would introduce himself as the champion batter of the American Association. He has been known to impart his identity to a lone station agent.”
Another paragraph noted Browning’s personal statistics keeping.
“’Old Pete’ kept his average on his cuffs. At night, he would transfer the figures to a book. Nobody could figure Pete’s average but himself.”
And, Pete Browning wasn’t crazy about sliding, either, most likely for the same reason he played “ultra-defensive” baseball defense: a fear of being spiked.
The same Times obituary produced this gem from William Reccius, brother of John Reccius.
“Will Reccius tells a humorous incident in connection with Pete’s inability to slide. Captain Dyler had ordered Browning to slide and gave him to understand that if he did not, he would be fined. That night, Pete told his troubles to Mr. Reccius as follows:
“Dyler fined ‘Old Pete’ fifty cents. ‘Old Pete’ can’t slide, no use talkin’. Don’t care if he fines me a dollar and a half, ain’t going to slide. See if I do.’”
Illiterate, deaf, eccentric, and a defensive liability (although the last has been wildly blown out of proportion), The Gladiator was nonetheless well on his way towards becoming one of the game’s great legends. A classic who was just a year away from exploding into major stardom.
However, Browning’s emergence as an epic baseball figure was not by accident, but rather by design, reflective of the city and the times that birthed him. Larger than life in every way, Browning was so because the stage that served as his backdrop was larger still.
Read more about AMERICAN GLADIATOR: The Life And Times Of Pete Browning and Philip Earle Von Borries HERE.
Copyright 2008 Philip Earle Von Borries. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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