- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Philadelphia
- Team: Quakers
- League: National League
Charles J. Ferguson (1863-1888) was considered by future Hall of Famer Wilbert Robinson to be the 5th best player of all-time when Ferguson succumbed to typhoid fever at age 25. Primarily a pitcher for the Quakers over four seasons, the right-hander also handled the outfield and second-base. He won at least 21 games each year and was lights-out in 1886, winning 30 with a 1.98 ERA (2nd in the league). Playing more outfield the next year, Ferguson not only won 22 but drove in 85 with a .327 average. The youngster was stricken before the ’88 season and never recovered.
- Hurled a no-hitter against the Providence Grays on Aug 29, 1885
- In tribute to this young warrior, the Quakers and three other NL teams wore black crepe for the entire 1888 season
- Decades later, W.B. Hanna dubbed him “the game’s best all around player”
- Robinson ranked Ferguson 5th all time after Cobb, Keeler, Ruth and Wagner
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Louisville
- Team: Colonels
- League: American Association
John Ewing (1863-1895) had three early cups of coffee, playing 1 game in 1883 for the St Louis Browns, 1 game in ‘84 for the “Outlaw Reds” of the Union Association, and 1 game also in ’84 for the Washington Nationals of the UA. In that game, Long John had a triple and scored– the full extent of his offense until returning to MLB four years later. Ewing finally caught on as a pitcher in 1888 with the Louisville Colonels, playing there for 2 seasons before ending his career with the 1890 Giants of the Players’ League and their NL club in ’91 where he went out with a bang, earning the NL’s ERA title with 2.27. In all, Ewing played for six ML teams in four leagues during his brief career.
- Ewing’s brother Buck went on to a Hall of Fame career as infielder/manager
- The brothers were teammates for two seasons and John played under Buck as manager in ‘90
- Series: Beginnings: 1880's
- City: Louisville
- Team: Colonels
- League: American Association
Philip Sydney Ehret (1868-1940) made his major league debut while still only 19, in July 1888. A pitcher for six big league teams over 11 seasons through 1898, Red broke in with the Kansas City Cowboys and closed his tenure with his hometown Louisville Colonels. Overall, he achieved a 139-167 record with a 4.02 ERA. Young Ehret had a great year in 1890, winning 25 games for the Colonels with the second-best ERA in the American Association at 2.53. Only 29 when his major league career closed, Ehret returned to the minors for another six years finishing up in the Southern Association with the Memphis Egyptians for three seasons and, finally, with the Montgomery Senators in 1906 where he pitched only five innings.
- Pitched three games, winning two, in the 1890 post-season series which ended in a tie with Brooklyn, 3-3-1 after weather curtailed a planned nine-game event
- Led the NL in shutouts in 1893 with four
- Red was part of what became the longest streak of a team starting a different opening-day pitcher, 13 straight years in Cincinnati from 1892-1904, a record still unmatched. He was sixth in the skein
- 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: 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
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