The Neshanock offense was led by Danny "Lefty" Gallagher, back in the clear score column, with five hits in as many visits to the striker's line. Tom "Thumbs" Hoepfner also had five hits and missed a clear score only because he was retired on the bases by a force play. Gregg "Burner" Wiseburn and Jeff "Duke" Schneider also flirted with a clear score, both coming up short in their final at-bat. Ken "Tumbles" Mandel, Joe "Mick" Murray, and Dave "Illinois" Harris also contributed multi-hit games, "Tumbles" with three and "Mick" and "Illinois" with two apiece. Two other noteworthy achievements were a well-executed fair-foul hit by Bobby "Melky" Ritter and a thrown out stealing with "Burner" on the throwing end and "Thumbs" making the tag. With the win, Flemington is 5-1 on the season heading into a visit next week to Piscataway to take on the Liberty Base Ball Club of New Brunswick.
Vintage baseball is, of course, a form of living history and like every kind of history, accuracy has to be one of the highest priorities. However, even with the correct facts, a historian's work isn't finished, if the story is incomplete. That isn't as simple as it may seem, because the larger the story, the more difficult it is to include everything especially when some parts have been kept on the margins, intentionally or otherwise. All too frequently in such cases, the challenge is even greater because limited information survives. Not surprisingly, a case in point is African-American baseball, but in the Morven exhibit, a special effort has been made to tell that part of the story of New Jersey baseball both the good and the bad. One item of historic note that visitors to the exhibit will see is a very brief article in the October 25, 1855 edition of the Newark Daily Mercury which documents the earliest known baseball game in the United States between two African-American clubs, at least one of which was a New Jersey team.
Another interesting aspect of this part of the exhibit is three incidents in New Jersey in 1886-1887 that symbolize how civil rights in baseball, and in the country for that matter, were at a crossroads. The first is the story of the Cuban Giants, who noted baseball historian, Larry Hogan has called "black baseball's first great professional team." Among other things, the Giants were the first black team to receive regular salaries instead of a portion of erratic and sometimes non-existent gate receipts. Founded in 1885, the team moved to Trenton in 1886 after the state capital had lost its minor league team. Through 1889, the African-American team was the city's top club, receiving unprecedented newspaper coverage, allowing for the first detailed statistical records of black professional baseball. Visitors to the Morven exhibit will see a Giants team picture, a season ticket and a rendering of their uniform courtesy of Craig Brown and his Threads of the Game website.
1887 Chicago White Stockings - Cap Anson is number 8, number 1 is the future evangelist - Billy Sunday
And the Cuban Giants time in Trenton was not the only positive news on the baseball racial front in New Jersey. Further north, in 1887, the Newark "Little" Giants, of the International League signed baseball's first all-black battery, catcher, Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first black major league player, and pitcher, George Stovey, one of the top pitchers of the period. In addition to their all-black battery, Newark had two other ethnic-based batteries and used all three to promote their club and attract customers. In addition, the International League had seven black players that season, a possible first step towards a critical mass, facilitated by the mostly northern geographic orientation of the league. Unfortunately, it was not to be, something symbolized by a game involving the "Little" Giants that same year in Newark.
Moses Fleetwood Walker
On July 14, 1887, Charles "Cap" Anson brought his major league Chicago White Stocking team to Newark for an exhibition game with the Newark club. Before the game, Anson let be known that his team would not play if either Walker or Stovey played. To what extent, if any, Newark management objected isn't known, but neither men played. Anson, did not, of course, establish the color line by himself, his action was more symbolic of what was going on in baseball and nationwide. That same day, a special meeting of International League clubs, directed the league secretary not to accept any more contacts for black players. In spite of what seemed like positive developments in Trenton and Newark, baseball was clearly following the shift of the country away from any concern about equal rights for African-Americans. It is not a positive or attractive part of the story of New Jersey baseball but has to be included to tell the full story and so we can better understand and appreciate what it meant almost 60 years later, in April of 1946, when Jackie Robinson took the field in Jersey City for his first game in organized baseball.
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