Peeking Behind the Curtain

PEEKING BEHIND THE CURTAINIn 1894 Tuck Turner led the Philadelphia club in batting average. This was no small feat as the 1894 Phillies hit .350 as a team. But Turner, in his second major league season, could not crack the Phillies lineup as a regular despite batting .418 in 347 at-bats. His competition was three future Hall of Famers-Sliding Billy Hamilton, Ed Delahanty, and Big Sam Thompson-who as a trio hit a collective .408. Turner had the same experience that a generation of shortstops in the Baltimore organization had as Cal Ripken soaked up all the playing time for over a decade.David Nemec's The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Major League Baseball has scores and scores of nuggets like this as he traces the history of the major league game in 1871-1900. Nemec is the author of many baseball books, including the firstclass Beer and Whiskey League (1994) and The Rules of Baseball (1994). The first edition of The Great Encyclopedia was published in 1997.The second edition is essentially the same book as the first edition. Much of the first edition's narrative has been reproduced word-for-word. There are half a dozen or so new sidebars, and these are always fun and always informative. They take a peek behind the usual historic curtain of teams and players and uncover oddities and anomalies that define the differences between today's game and the evolutionary 19th century game. One of the best in the book appears in the chapter on the 1894 season. Entitled "Trader Ned," this vignette demonstrates how Baltimore manager Ned Hanlon grasped the power of player trades-rarely used in prior seasons-to build what became known as the "Old Orioles" powerhouse of the 1890s. It tracks eight deals in the 1893-1894 period that brought the Orioles Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley, Hughie Jennings, Dan Brouthers, Steve Brodie, and Duke Esper, among others. These player joined John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson to form the signature squad of the period.Just one more pearl, this one from 1889. In that season Hick Carpenter became the first player to log 1,000 career games at third base. Interesting-but in an "only in the 19th century" twist we learn that Carpenter was a left-handed-throwing third baseman.The descriptions of the various seasons' pennant races are fairly pedestrian. While a necessary part of each season's description, it is clearly not Nemec's focus. Rather, he takes us season-by-season through the evolution and development of the game through rules changes and economic influences. The establishment of the Reserve Rule following the 1879 season and its effect on player mobility and franchise stability are described. Upstart leagues-the Union Association and the Players' League-make their single-season appearances. And the battles between the National League and the rival (and sometimes partner) American Association are chronicled. It is interesting that the National League always wished to eliminate or at least control its competition, yet struggled economically in the two periods in which they had no competition: 1876-1881 and 1892-1900. Attendance sagged, franchises disappeared or became noncompetitive, yet the owners continued to think that a single league adequately met the public's demand for baseball.Some of the most illuminating information in the volume comes as Nemec follows rules changes, great and small, from season to season and explains their effect on the game and individual players. He describes how Hall of Fame executive Harry Wright struggled as a manager after the establishment of the Reserve Rule. …