- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Chicago
- Team: Maroons
- League: Western Association
John Francis Dwyer (1868-1943) served MLB as player, manager and umpire. He won 176 games, led the NL in saves in 1893, piloted the ’02 Tigers and officiated Cy Young’s perfect game on May 5, 1904. The Massachusetts native was college-trained when he began his big league career in 1888 with Chicago’s White Stockings. Over his twelve year playing span, the right-hander completed 270 of his 318 starts. Dwyer’s hitting was good enough that he played four other positions, hit five HRs and compiled a .229 BA.
- Dwyer won over 15 games in nine of his twelve years including two 20+ seasons
- Dwyer was the workhorse on Kelly’s Killers (aka Cincinnati Porkers) during their 1891 AA season-still perhaps the rowdiest bunch in a wild era when franchises and whole leagues were forming and folding with abandon. Player-manager Mike “King” Kelly and owner Chris von der Ahe shared the conviction that beer and baseball were made for each other. That Dwyer could win 13 games under their leadership is a tribute to his athletic prowess.
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Chicago
- Team: Maroons
- League: Western Association
Daniel Edward Dugdale (1864-1934) had a brief exposure to major league baseball but carried the game’s torch to Seattle where he dominated the Pacific Northwest sports scene for 36 years until his sudden death crossing the street in front of a truck the night before his annual banquet celebrating the game. Big “Dug” had been a savvy catcher for the KC Cowboys and Washington Senators before migrating west seeking Klondike gold. He settled in Seattle where his devotion to baseball and his entrepreneurial instincts melded into a different kind of gold. He founded and managed teams, he built the first double-deck stadium on the coast, he was a warrior fending off the Pacific Coast League invaders from California. At last, he settled for being a legend in Rainier’s shadow, extolled at the banquet he missed as the Northwest’s “greatest individual figure in the national game.”
- When he decided to stop being the backup to Deacon McGuire in D.C., Dug went home to Peoria and founded the Distillers in what was then the world’s spirits capital
- Dugdale Park endured for decades until it perished two years before its owner, victim to a serial arsonist with an oil drum in the heart of the all-wood structure
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Omaha
- Team: Omahogs
- League: Western Association
John S. Doran played for 6 minor league teams over 5 years. He was with the Quincy, IL, Quincies club of the Northwestern Association in 1883 and then shows up on the Eau Claire Lumbermen and Oshkosh teams in the same league in ’86 and ’87. At Oshkosh, Doran played for future Hall of Fame manager Frank Selee who went on to the majors in 1890. The following year Jack played for the Davenport Onion Weeders and the Omaha Omahogs of the Western Association. His final year was with Worcester of the Atlantic Association. Based on the limited documentation available, Doran’s finest year was with Selee’s squad where he hit .334 in 504 ABs and stole 18 bases.
- Doran got into 25 games for the ’88 Omahogs
- Based on the year he had in Oshkosh, it is curious that Selee didn’t take Jack to the Beaneaters
- Although the Old Judge series features two known poses of John Doran, I could not find one of suitable quality for this project. This image is taken from an Old Judge proof taken at the same time as Doran's other OJ images and may represent an as-of-yet undiscovered pose.
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Denver
- Team: Grizzlies
- League: Western Association
William Darnbrough is another of the minor leaguers featured by Old Judge. They published 2 poses of this right-handed hurler in 1889 while he was with the Denver Grizzlies of the WA. Baseball-reference.com researchers have compiled a bare-bones profile of this player’s work for the Bloomington Reds of the Central Interstate League, Aurora of the Illinois-Iowa League, the Western League’s Kansas City Blues and Lincoln Rustlers and Darnbrough’s final assignment with the Rochester Flour Cities of the Eastern League. Most of the data is very sketchy, given the state of minor league ball in the 19th century. The year he met the Old Judge folks, Darnbrough had a busy year with a 12-14 record and a 4.37 ERA in 32 games. He got into 41 games as a batter with a .232 average. His play was more limited thereafter, but he closed his tenure in pro ball with a hefty .333 average for the Flour City lads (playing in only 6 games in their ’92 season).
- Darnbrough and his teammates were party to a blue law suit in Lancaster County, NE in 1891 – charged with unlawful play on Sunday, April 26 (before 3,000 similarly renegade fans)
- The case seems to have been brought to expose and overturn such prohibitions. The Nebraska Supreme Court eventually upheld the ban on Sunday play, a decision that would stand in the state until 1913
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Sioux City
- Team: Corn Huskers
- League: Western Association
Joseph P. Crotty (1860-1926) was a catcher in two leagues: the American and Union Associations. He was in these organizations with 4 clubs from 1882 to 1886. Before, during and after these years in the “major leagues,” Crotty floated among numerous minor league franchises including the Sioux City Corn Huskers in whose uniform he appeared in the Old Judge series for 1889. A journeyman receiver, Crotty had a typically anemic batting average (.170 in MLB) but fared 100 points higher when in the lower echelons. His career did allow him to see the country: as far east as Syracuse, south to Jackson and west to Helena. Joe’s initial year, 1882, was also a year of firsts for his two clubs. He began in Louisville with the new Eclipse squad and then was picked up by Chris von der Ahe’s St. Louis Brown Stockings. This enabled him to be present at the creation of the Cardinals as the controversial owner brought the team into the American Association.
- Joe’s other ML clubs were the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds and the NY Metropolitans
- The Reds played in the UA’s only season, 1884, affording Crotty another chance to make a kind of history
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