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Dick McBride

Pitcher
  • Series: Athletic of Philadelphia: 1874
  • City: Philadelphia
  • Team: Athletics (NAPBBP)
  • League: National Association (NAPBBP)

John Dickson McBride (1847-1916) was the captain and workhorse moundsman of the Philadelphia Athletics during the team’s five years in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP), from 1871-75. Despite piloting the Athletics to a 161-84 (.657) record over 5 years in which he won 149 of those games as a pitcher, McBride suffered the indignity of being ousted as captain (manager) with a mere eight days remaining in the '75 season. Some of the humiliation should have been assuaged by the fact that ownership decided to replace him with a young Adrian Anson - a man who would become perhaps the most formidable and accomplished player of the 19th century.

It would be difficult to overstate McBride's impact with the Athletics. In 1871, Dick led the NA in winning percentage, going 18-5, and leading the team to the circuit’s first pennant, thus winning professional baseball's first league championship. In ‘74 Dick led the NA in ERA at 1.64. Second in career National Association wins only to Albert Spalding, McBride was 149-74 for Philadelphia overall and was putting the finishing touches on an astounding 44-14 season when he was replaced by Anson. (The team's record was 49-18-2 (.731) under McBride. Anson would pilot the team to a 4-2-2 record over the last eight games of the season and the NA would fold shortly thereafter, giving way to the nascent National League in 1876.) 

McBride was a Civil War vet and former cricket star who developed into one of the era's best pitchers. No less than Henry Chadwick said of him: “what Dick doesn’t know about the tricks and dodges of strategic pitching isn’t worth knowing.” Years later, former teammate and famous scribe Tim Murnane asserted that Dick was “the first to master the ‘raise ball.’”

  • Was apparently renowned as a baseball player as early as 1864, when he was allowed to take a 3-day furlough from his Civil War service to participate in a baseball exhibition
  • Completed 224 of the 233 games he started for the Athletics and never once made a relief appearance
  • Signed in ‘76 with Boston in the new NL, but didn’t win a game in four outings and retired
  • McBride's "most similar" player according to baseballreference is Candy Cummings

Auction History

Ezra Sutton

Third Base
image unavailable
  • Series: Athletic of Philadelphia: 1874
  • City: Philadelphia
  • Team: Athletics (NAPBBP)
  • League: National Association (NAPBBP)

This cabinet is currently on the drawing board and is coming soon.

Ezra Ballou Sutton (1849-1907). A 3rd baseman & shortstop, Sutton played for 5 teams over 20 seasons. Ezra was the 1st player to hit a home run in Major League baseball and became the 1st player to hit 2 HRs in one game when he hit his second that day (in a losing effort). Sutton was also one of the 1st ball players to collect 1,000 career hits.

  • Played in 1st National Association game: 5.4.71
  • Played in 1st National League game: 4.22.76
  • Lifetime .294 batting average
  • Sutton is tied with 17 other players as the first player in major league baseball history

Count Sensenderfer

Substitute
image unavailable
  • Series: Athletic of Philadelphia: 1874
  • City: Philadelphia
  • Team: Athletics (NAPBBP)
  • League: National Association (NAPBBP)

This cabinet is currently on the drawing board and is coming soon.

John Phillips Jenkins Sensenderfer (1847-1903) was a second baseman and outfielder for the Philadelphia Athletics during the first four years of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, from 1871-74. The debonair man with an aura of aristocracy earned his nickname at least in part from the elegant mustache he sported. The Count, a lifelong Philadelphian, had been with the club in the amateur league since 1866, making him one of the true leading lights of baseball’s earliest days. Sensenderfer hit .299 over his ML career, but injuries prevented him from approaching the outstanding batting he displayed in the Athletics’ early days in the NABBP. For example, he scored over 200 runs in 1868 as one of the most prolific of early hitters.

  • After leaving baseball, Sensenderfer turned to politics. He was a local county commissioner and active in state Democratic roles as well

Al Reach

Substitute
image unavailable
  • Series: Athletic of Philadelphia: 1874
  • City: Philadelphia
  • Team: Athletics (NAPBBP)
  • League: National Association (NAPBBP)

This cabinet is currently on the drawing board and is coming soon.

Alfred James Reach (1840-1928) “served baseball with distinction as player, organizer, club owner and provider of the equipment to attain the highest possible skill in the game,” per his own Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide upon his death. “A good man, of the kindest impulses, his name will last as long as we have baseball” expressed the legacy of one of the great men of the early era of America’s game. The London-born, Brooklyn-raised Reach joked that he made the gloves he eschewed in the beginnings of the game in which he starred for the Brooklyn Eckfords and Philadelphia Athletics. He also made the AL’s balls while owning the NL Phillies franchise. A genius for marketing equipment and a lifelong love of the game made him one of the most influential figures of baseball’s first half-century.

  • Began play in the amateur era and was a stalwart of the NABBP, first with the Brooklyn Eckfords from 1861-1864, then with the old Athletics of Philadelphia, from 1865-1870
  • Made the transition with the Athletics from the NABBP to the NAPBBP in 1871, helping the team win the first professional baseball pennant that year
  • Retired from play with the demise of the NAPBBP after the 1875 season
  • Founded the NL’s Philadelphia club in 1883, still going strong today as the Philadelphia Phillies
  • Built the first modern ballpark in 1887, then rebuilt it with steel after a fire in ‘94
  • Al's brother Bob Reach was an MLB shortstop for 3 games, 1872-1873
  • Was the 80th player to debut in MLB

Tim Murnane

Substitute
  • Series: Athletic of Philadelphia: 1874
  • City: Philadelphia
  • Team: Athletics (NAPBBP)
  • League: National Association (NAPBBP)
  • Hall: J.G. Taylor Spink Award Recipient

Timothy Hayes Murnane (1851-1917) vaulted from a career in the early days of the game to become the noted baseball writer for the Boston Globe for three decades. As a player, Murnane had occasional success, but remained less than full time. He did place fifth in the National Association in 1872 with a .359 average for the Middletown (CT) Mansfields. He was in Philadelphia with the Athletics and White Stockings for the final years of pre-modern baseball in the NA before joining the Boston Red Caps (Beaneaters) in the inaugural season of the National League, 1876, and won a pennant the following year. Murnane’s incisive grasp of the game would manifest in a varied career as field manager, executive, owner and minor league president over the ensuing decades. But it was with the pen rather than the bat that Murnane made his greatest mark. In 1946, the Hall of Fame established the Honor Rolls of Baseball to recognize non-player contributions and Murnane was among a dozen scribes enrolled. Murnane was the 1978 recipient of  the J.G. Taylor Spink Award commemorating outstanding achievement by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

  • In his eight-year career as player, Murnane averaged .261. His final season was as player/manager for the Union Association’s Boston Reds as they tried vainly to challenge the NL
  • Recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award: 1978

Auction History