- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Chicago
- Team: Maroons
- League: Western Association
Herman C. Long (1866-1909). A shortstop for 5 teams over 16 seasons, Long was a member of 5 NL pennant-winning teams. Despite a good career, Long is perhaps best known as the record holder for total errors (1,096) & errors by a SS in a career (1,070). Despite these records, Long was statistically a better than average defender & was considered a good shortstop by his peers.
- NL HR Champ: 1900
- .300+ batting average: 4x
- 2 seasons with 100+ RBI; 2 with 100+ Runs
- 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: Chicago
- Team: Maroons
- League: Western Association
John T. (or F.) Crogan is another of those tantalizing “mystery men” of the Old Judge card era. Many of their subjects were photographed in anticipation of a major league career that never happened. In this case, Jack was posed for five images in the OJ 1888 series. He wears the uniform of the Chicago Maroons of the Western Association as depicted in the Miller/Gonsowski/Masson definitive OJ text with middle initial T. whereas Baseball-Reference.com has him with F. Prior to his brief time with the Maroons (21 games, .188 BA) Jack was with Wheeling in ’87, apparently his first year in the minors. He went on to play in the Texas and Tri-State Leagues before finishing up with Davenport of the Illinois-Iowa League in 1891. The rest of this would-be big leaguer’s exploits are lost to history.
- The Miller compilation shows a possible alternate surname spelling of Croghan
- The only batting pose available shows Jack in a left-handed stance
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Chicago
- Team: Maroons
- League: Western Association
Charles Boyd is another of the Old Judge mystery men. He appears in the 1888 card series in three poses in the uniform of the Chicago Maroons of the Western Association. He is right-handed and identified as a first-baseman. Miller, Gonsowski and Masson, in their Old Judge compendium, relate a reference from the Feb 18, 1888 Sporting News reporting the signing of Charles, of Sheffield IL, by the Maroons. A March 31 article predicted this fleet-footed (“he can beat Billy Sunday”) slugger would join the club by April 15. We find no record of Boyd making the Maroons or any other minor league team. There is a cryptic reference to a “Boyd” on the roster of the Danville, IL Browns in 1888 but there is nothing else to identify that player.
- The Old Baseball Cards website lists the Boyd card as depicting “Jake” Boyd while the Goodwin editors have him as “Charles” with the Sporting News items as support
- As ever with these “ghosts” from the early decades of the game, Ars Longa welcomes any leads on identifying Mr. Boyd
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