- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: St. Paul
- Team: Apostles
- League: Western Association
George W. Treadway (1866-1928) hit .328 with 26 triples and 102 RBI for the Brooklyn Grooms in 1894. That was the high-water-mark of a brief 3+ year ML career. Treadway knocked around the minors for several more years before retiring in California from the Pacific Coast League. Treadway was a target of racial slurs and rumors that he was passing for white. The gossip was printed by a Louisville paper and may have caused his trade from Baltimore to Brooklyn. If it was a spiteful move, Treadway commanded a high price: he and another player were traded for Hall of Famers Dan Brouthers and Willie Keeler.
- A noted biography of Joe Jackson asserted Treadway was “driven out of baseball” by the accusations—belied by the lengthy minor league career he pursued until age 37
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Kansas City
- Team: Blues (WA)
- League: Western Association
Parke B. Swartzel (1865-1940) pitched for seven years in organized ball but only played one year at the major league level—for the Kansas City Cowboys in 1889. Swartzel won the team’s season-opener and their final game that year. All told he made 48 appearances, starting 47 games and completing 45. During this busy year, Swartzel allowed a league-high 481 hits, going 19-27 for a struggling team.
- Played for five minor league teams including the Lincoln Tree Planters of the Western League
- Also gave up a league high 21 home runs as one of the workhorses of the American Association
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Omaha
- Team: Omahogs
- League: Western Association
Joseph Strauss (1858-1906) was a fixture in minor league outfields from age 25 to 39 and got a a brief turn in the majors with 3 clubs from 1884-86. He entered MLB with the KC Cowboys the year they played in the short-lived Union Association, playing in only 16 games in ’84. The following season proved even slimmer pickings for “Dutch” as he was picked up by the Louisville Colonels in the AA, but appeared in only 2 games. His 1-for-6 performance must have showed them something, however, as Louisville brought Joe back the next year. He got into 74 games & hit .215 in nearly 300 at-bats. Joe’s lot improved a bit late that season when he was purchased by the competing, and stronger, Brooklyn Grays. Brooklyn would go on to a third-place finish. Strauss appeared in 9 games & hit .250 in his final experience in the big leagues. Undeterred by his mediocre showing at the top level, Joe continued his extensive minor-league career that included at least 15 teams, finishing up with Rock Island in the Western Association in 1898.
- Strauss made two relief appearances for the Colonels in ’86, saving one game. The scant data for bullpen achievement in that era records that Joe tied for the AA lead in saves that year with four other hurlers
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Des Moines
- Team: Prohibitionists
- League: Western Association
Luke Schildknecht was a minor league catcher in the late 1880s in the midwest. Photographed by the Old Judge crew for their 1888 series, Luke appears in three known poses in a Des Moines uniform. The Baseball Encyclopedia lists Luke on the 1888 Des Moines Prohibitionists' roster, playing 26 games with a .237 BA. They indicate the same stat line for the ’88 Sioux City Corn Huskers, which had taken over the Des Moines club mid-season. Interestingly, only three players on that team lack personal data, with Schildknecht and battery mate Frank Wells being two of them. The tandem seem to have arrived and left the team at about the same time.
Dennis Pajot’s The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball documents that the Cream City team signed both Schildknecht and Wells prior to the 1889 season. However, Schildknecht is listed as the fourth-string catcher for the squad and does not appear in the historical record for the team at any time. Despite not making the team in Milwaukee, the Old Judge editors changed Luke's team designation from Des Moines to Milwaukee and continued to use the Milwaukee designation on Luke's cards throughout the rest of the Old Judge run.
- Yep, I was confused too. Took me a few years to realize that the uniform Luke is wearing in this image is a Des Moines uniform. Reversing the trend that the Old Judge guys started 128 years ago, I changed Schildknecht's team designation on this card in September, 2017, from Milwaukee to Des Moines. Balance is restored. Six cards were previously released with the Milwaukee team designation.
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Des Moines
- Team: Prohibitionists
- League: Western Association
- Hall: Baseball Australia Hall of Fame
Joseph James Quinn (1864-1940) came a long way to play baseball for the Dubuque Rabbits. And it would be over a century until the next Aussie made the trip to the big leagues of America. Joe quickly advanced to that level with the Union Association’s St. Louis Maroons in 1884. Joe brought his working-class background to the ballpark and soon became one of the mouthpieces for players in an era when they were chattel. “Ol’ Reliable” was a leader in the Players’ League revolt in 1890, an interruption in Joe’s long National League career, primarily in Boston and St Louis. He had another memorable detour when called upon to take the “worst job in baseball” managing the doomed Cleveland Spiders in 1899. When owners shipped out Cy Young, Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace and others to their St. Louis Perfectos, Quinn was left with the unenviable task of shepherding the lousiest team in history to a 12-104 record. Even in defeat, Joe’s men followed him, a tribute to his character.
- In 1893, The Sporting News awarded Joe a gold watch as “the most popular player in baseball”
- Elected to Australian Baseball Hall of Fame: 2013
- Quinn's uniform color was changed in August, 2017, from black to blue to reflect recent reliable research by Craig Brown & Friends at Threads of Our Game. Six cards were previously released featuring a black uniform.
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