Remembering the Maroons of 1884 and their place in history
If you’re a basketball fan you might recall that the Golden State Warriors set an NBA record when they won their first 24 games of the season. In fact they broke more than that. They broke the “allsports record” — if there can be such a thing — of 20 that was established by the St. Louis Maroons in 1884. The St. Louis Maroons? Honest, there was a team called the St. Louis Maroons. They won their first 20 games en route to a 94-19 season. They easily captured the first Union Association pennant, finishing 21 games ahead of the second-place Cincinnati Outlaws.
It was, by the way, also the last Union Association pennant. The league folded after one mostly inglorious season, but it left behind the Maroons’ record. Since historians recognize it as a major league the record has remained in the books for more than a century.
The concept of a professional baseball league — any league — was almost a novelty in 1884. The first successful league, the National League, had been organized only eight years earlier. The American Association had been formed in 1882 and was functioning as a viable competitor when the Union Association attempted to become a third major league in 1884.
The league was the brainchild of a St. Louis millionaire named Henry Lucas, who apparently had no interest in establishing competitive balance. The Phillies play their first 19games against the bottom of the NL. Of course, the Phillies may be the worst team in baseball, so it may not help much.
He loaded up his own club and didn’t worry about the fact that the other seven teams were unable to match him. Four clubs struggled so much that they dropped out before the season ended and were replaced on the fly by other teams.
The Maroons opened their season with a 7-2 victory over Chicago-Pittsburgh. (Yes, those two cities somehow shared the franchise. Their next eight wins — four at home and four on the road — came at the expense of Altoona Mountain City. The aggregate score of those eight games was 92-19.
The Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Monumentals were the next victims, losing four games each as the Maroons expanded their record to 17-0. This set up what looked like an earlyseason showdown as the second-place Boston Reds
(13-4) came into St. Louis.
It’s too bad details of the games haven’t survived. All we know is the Maroons hammered the Reds by scores of 4-1, 13-3 and 16-4 to run their winning streak to 20 games. Then, after a day off, Boston somehow turned the tables and chalked up an 8-1 victory that ended the longest season-opening winning streak in baseball history.
Nevertheless, there is plenty of reason to doubt that the team was a good one.
The Maroons’ star player was their 25-yearold second baseman Fred Dunlap, who batted .412 and accounted for 13 of the team’s 32 home runs. Their best pitchers were Billy Taylor (25-4 with a 1.68 earned run average) and Charlie Sweeney (247, 1.83).
After the demise of the Union Association the Maroons joined the National League in 1885 and finished last in an eight-team league with a record of 36-72. Dunlap batted .270 and hit two homers. Taylor was no longer on the team but Sweeney went 11-21 with a 3.93 ERA.
A year later the Maroons improved slightly and placed sixth, but were still 42 games behind the leader when the season ended.
Discouraged, Lucas sold the franchise to the league, which found a buyer for it in Indianapolis. After three more losing seasons the franchise folded forever.
It seems kind of ironic that this team’s name should ever go in the same sentence with this year’s Golden State Warriors.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pitcher who has more difficulty pitching through errors than Feliz Hernandez of the Mariners. After one start his ERA is 1.50 but, because of two unearned runs, his record is 0-1. He has made 335 starts in his career and allowed 89 unearned runs.
Among the Phillies’ first 19 games are three against the Reds, four against the Padres and three against the Brewers. If they don’t get off to a decent start against that kind of schedule they could be in for an extremely bleak summer.
Coming back to the modern world, I think it is noteworthy that four National League teams batted their pitchers eighth in their opening-day lineups. Washington New York Atlanta Miami Philadelphia Chicago Pittsburgh Cincinnati Milwaukee St. Louis Los Angeles Colorado San Francisco Arizona San Diego Tuesday’s games N.Y. Mets 2, Kansas City 0 Pittsburgh 6, St. Louis 5, 11 innings Detroit 8, Miami 7, 11 innings San Francisco 2, Milwaukee 1 Arizona 11, Colorado 6 Chicago Cubs 6, L.A. Angels 1 L.A. Dodgers 3, San Diego 0 Wednesday’s games Milwaukee 4, San Francisco 3 Colorado 4, Arizona 3 Detroit at Miami, 4:55 p.m. St. Louis at Pittsburgh Philadelphia at Cincinnati Washington at Atlanta L.A. Dodgers at San Diego Thursday’s games Philadelphia (Morton 0-0) at Cincinnati (Stephenson 0-0), 12:35 p.m. Miami (Conley 0-0) at Washington (Roark 0-0), 4:05 p.m. L.A. Dodgers (A.Wood 0-0) at San Francisco (Peavy 0-0), 4:35 p.m. Chicago Cubs (Lackey 0-0) at Arizona (R.De La Rosa 0-0), 9:40 p.m. Friday’s games Philadelphia at N.Y. Mets, 1:10 p.m. San Diego at Colorado, 4:10 p.m. Pittsburgh at Cincinnati, 7:10 p.m. St. Louis at Atlanta, 7:35 p.m. Houston at Milwaukee, 8:10 p.m. Chicago Cubs at Arizona, 9:40 p.m. L.A. Dodgers at San Francisco, 10:15 p.m. 2 2 2 1 0 0 1.000 1 .667 1 .667 2 .333 2 .000 _ 1/2 1/2 11/2
2
This could be the last season in which managers consider that an option.
There appears to be building sentiment in the NL to make the DH rule universal. If the majority of the clubs decide they want it, the change could happen as soon as next year. Houston Seattle Texas Los Angeles Oakland
Houston 5, N.Y. Yankees 3 Boston 6, Cleveland 2 N.Y. Mets 2, Kansas City 0 Detroit 8, Miami 7, 11 innings Tampa Bay 3, Toronto 2 Seattle 10, Texas 2 Chicago Cubs 6, L.A. Angels 1 Chicago White Sox 5, Oakland 4
Tampa Bay 5, Toronto 3 Seattle 9, Texas 5 Detroit at Miami Boston at Cleveland Houston at N.Y. Yankees Minnesota at Baltimore Chicago White Sox at Oakland
Chicago White Sox (Latos 0-0) at Oakland (Graveman 0-0), 3:35 p.m. Houston (Fiers 0-0) at N.Y. Yankees (Eovaldi 0-0), 4:05 p.m. Boston (Kelly 0-0) at Cleveland (Salazar 0-0), 6:10 p.m. Minnesota (Hughes 0-0) at Baltimore (Jimenez 0-0), 7:05 p.m. Texas (Holland 0-0) at L.A. Angels (Santiago 0-0), 10:05 p.m.
N.Y. Yankees at Detroit, 1:08 p.m. Cleveland at Chicago White Sox, 4:10 p.m. Tampa Bay at Baltimore, 7:05 p.m. Boston at Toronto, 7:07 p.m. Houston at Milwaukee, 8:10 p.m. Minnesota at Kansas City, 8:15 p.m. Texas at L.A. Angels, 10:05 p.m. Oakland at Seattle, 10:10 p.m. Blue Jays’ has five walks, none of them intentional…Rockies rookie has hit three homers in his first two games in the big leagues. He hit only 10 in 61 triple-A games last year…The have 15 hits in two games, but six are homers and three are doubles…In their first two games
batters struck out 21 times and drew only two walks against pitching.