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The Worst Team Ever · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to a very old-timey episode of Pittsburgh Sports Memories podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your co-host, Steve Wirt, and as usual, I'm joined with I'm Tim Hannon.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh today we're gonna talk about the 90s Pirates.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, do you remember the 90s Pirates?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love those early 90s Pirates teams.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Those are great.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um unfortunately in this episode, we're not talking, well, not unfortunately, but um we're not talking about Sid sliding or Barry Bonds or Jose Lean.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, we're talking about the worst team in Pirates' history.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: That would be the 1890 Alleghenies.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the story of this team, it's kind of they were thrown together in the after aftermath of a rival league.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh to form a team, and this ends up they end up having one of the worst records in baseball history, and actually the worst record in pirates' history, although they didn't play the same amount of games as some of the 1952 Pirates, uh percentage winning percentage-wise, they're definitely lower.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So just an intro.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in 1890, in case you were wondering what was going on in the world, and this is I could not believe this when I looked this up, Tim.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: On December 29th, 1890.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this would have been if after the season was completed, the battle of wounded knee happened.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a long time ago.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did I you never put like it's always interesting.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: You ever see like those timelines sometimes where and they overlap and they have everything going on in the world?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like always interesting to see, like, oh, the Ming Dynasty was before the time of Christ, or you know, stuff like that.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those weird ones where like I can't believe like people on the east coast of the country are like all into baseball and you know, interested in recreation while we're still putting Indians on the reservation and slaughtering them.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's this is basically considered the end of the Wild West, this battle.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not much of a battle.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's a struggle over a gun.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Indians are supposed to turn the guns into the the army, and during the struggle, they supposedly uh a gun went off by accident and they just started shooting.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: They brought in artillery, which had exploding shells, and they just killed not only the men but women and children.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a horrific moment in the United States history, probably one of the lowest parts in our history, besides forcing people off their land.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: We slaughtered them while they were starving, and it's just a horrible nightmare.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it happened in 1890.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, presiding over this mess was uh Benjamin Harrison.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he was president, he had been elected in I think 1888, I want to say.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he won over Grover Cleveland, and he actually did not lose the he did not win the popular vote, but he won the Electoral College, Tim.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that has happened before, although people say this is unprecedented.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is not unprecedented.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And grow and Benjamin Harrison was a Democrat.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: None of this was uh has happened before.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, guess what else happened, Tim?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Idaho and Wyoming became a state in the middle of the season in July.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when the pirates started playing in March, Idaho and Wyoming didn't even exist as a state.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, hey, there was a there was a worldwide pandemic going on.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: That that's consistent.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the a the Russian flu.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: See, back then when you're allowed to call it after the place where it origin originated, you know, like how they used to call COVID.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: At least Trump did the China flu.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: They they called it the Russian flu, but it then, you know, we had to call it the Asiatic flu for reasons.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: In 1889, it actually killed.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It killed 13,000 people in the United States and one million people worldwide.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So pretty bad.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um, this period uh is known as the gay 90s.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this is the term gay obviously meant like happy, carefree, not your sexual orientation.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there was a lot of like as this period became like more in the rearview mirror and in people's memories, it became very nostalgic.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you ever watched a lot of old Hollywood movies, like they seem to always go back to this period in time, like Hello Dolly, or you know, uh, what is it, Meet Me in St.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of those movies are set like in the 1890, 1900 era.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, it sounds like a really happy era with you know the slaughter of all the Native Americans and a worldwide pandemic flew, they killed a bunch of people.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't think of a happier time.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think like you know, sometimes in your memory you forget that happened because it happened at the beginning, and then the rest of the decade stuff like that really didn't happen.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it was like the turning point that oh, we put that behind us.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe people look at this era like, oh, we put that COVID stuff behind us, and we got on to other stuff.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt it, but hey, whatever.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Gro Grover Cleveland losing that election, by the way.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: He talked about unprecedented.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: At the time it was unprecedented because then he Yeah, he ran again and won again the next in the next election cycle.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's now that's now happened twice, so that's not unprecedented either.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Non, what would you say, non-consecutive presidential terms?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Guy guy is president for four years, loses for four years, then is president again for four years, and like you said, it it finally happened a second time.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, Cleveland and Harrison talk about things going circular.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Harrison was um big on tariffs.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Funny thing about that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Cleveland was kind of like, eh, whatever about tariffs.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the Democrat big on tariffs and the Republican kind of eh about him.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, go go figure.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh the Alleghenies were founded in 1881.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is the baseball team, and they played in something called the American Association, which is not the American League.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different league that folded.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just for a little background, the National League, which is now the National League of Major League Baseball.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Major League Baseball has two divisions, which were leagues in it, the American League and the National League.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: National League was founded in 1876, and that's why it's called the Senior Circuit.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's much older.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't then do you know when the American League was founded off the 1900 or 1901.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right around that time frame.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: That was Ben Johnson founded the American League.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so 24, yeah, 24 years before, 24, 25 years before them.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so in 1887, the Alleghenies leave the American Association and joined the National League.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is considered the beginning of pirates' history.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were called the Alleghenies by the papers of the time.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The official name, and I think this is kind of a handful, was the Allegheny City Baseball Club, which just rolls right off the tongue.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um they just called the Allegheny City, and you said, that's kind of weird.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you name them after the county, not Pittsburgh?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Tim, here's some more history.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is the I love this episode because I got to really go down some fun rabbit holes in the history.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know this too.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've mentioned this before.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, back then, the city of Pittsburgh did not include the north side, which included uh Northview Heights, Perry North, Spring Hill, Trent Troy Hill.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like you go up that hill there behind Northside, and all those neighborhoods were part of Allegheny City.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that was called Deutschtown down on the north side because of the large German population.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, my wife's family goes back three generations in Deutschtown in that part of the city.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: My family is newcomers.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: We only moved here in 1978, so we're a bunch of newbies.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know how Pittsburgh is, Tim.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Foreigners.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why they're called the Alleghenies because they played in Allegheny City, not Pittsburgh.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so Pittsburgh did not annex Allegheny City until 1907.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so you know, that's that's kind of what happened.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they annexed Beachview, I think, at that time.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think we mentioned that in the previous episode that they had meant that 1907 or I think 1908.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 1908.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because the city started annexing everything except for Mount Oliver.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Oliver somehow fought off, they went to court and fought off the annexation.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So a little fun fact about Mount Oliver.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so that thing you said about the team name, have you noticed, Steve, that team names seem to be kind of free-for-alls again.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like Yeah, there's Pirates in the at this time, there's actually a Chicago Pirates, I think, but they're in the rival players club league.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a league called the Players Club, and that's gonna come into play here.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's and like there's like a Giants, I think there might be two Giants teams in New York.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a team named the New York Bridegrooms in the National.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, but they're in the National League with the Alleghenies or Pirates.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And some teams have like more than one name that they refer to.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like Boston when they were before they were the Red Sox.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The bean eaters, I think.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or the Pilgrims or the Americans, because they played in the American League.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was all these like these free-for-all names, but I feel like we're kind of getting back to that point.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about things being circular.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have like, you know, the Washington football team for a year or two, and then you had like the Utah Hockey Club, and then they changed their name.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And like like this season in baseball, you have the athletics, but they're not a city athletics, they're just the athletics.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's yeah, no, they're not the Sacramento athletics, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not the Vegas or Oakland athletics, they're just the athletics.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it seems like team names are are are like going back to that free-for-all error just a little bit.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is I don't know.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the it's the not the it's the roaring twenties, so I don't know.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so uh the year before the Alleghenies in 1889, they were mediocre.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: They sit finished 61, 71, and two.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like they were this great team that got broken up, they had some decent players there competitive in the National League.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So where did they play?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: They played in a field called Recreation Field.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Recreation Field and Exposition Park are two separate fields, which I did not realize.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually looked up on the north side, there's just a big warehouse where Recreation Field is.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Exposition Park is in one of the parking lots of um I think Heinz Field.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a home plate designated because that's where the first World Series is.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the Players League team, which was named, you're gonna love this name, Tim, the Burgers.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Pittsburgh Burgers, like which makes me really hungry, but um, but yeah, they they were they played in Exposition Park and the Alligates, which were the pirates, played in Recreation Field.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: So so where exactly was Recreation Field then?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Was it it's like back in the part like behind like over by like uh I want to say you know where the Humane Society is on the north side?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not there, but like a couple blocks back behind there.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so further away from the river than than Exposition because Exposition Park was yeah, and it would flood it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think they would flood as much back in recreation, but now it was converted later because like I tried to look up the seating and they list the seating at 17,000, and I don't think in 1890 they they had 17,000 seats.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was the final construction because later in its life, Barney Dreyfus, the owner of the Pirates, bought that field and turned it into like a racetrack and made it so just so you couldn't play baseball there.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's very petty back in the yeah, not petty, but I mean it's actually smart business-wise, so nobody can compete with you.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, actually, fun fact about Recreation Field, it's the site of the first professional football game.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is a marker for it, but it's nowhere near the field, it's somewhere down on the north side.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know how those Pennsylvania has those little historic marker things.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was the first it was there in uh 1892, the first professional football game.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it was actually two years after the season.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the Alleghenies only played three years there, 1887 to 1890.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think it had a capacity of 2,500 at the time, if I'm I don't quote me on that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what I'm inferring from the sources I was reading.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the Alleghenies do move the Exposition Park in 1891.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um there really isn't um, like I said, a marker for that recreation park, it's just in a warehouse.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a warehouse there.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe I'll do one of my little man on the street things for our Facebook page down there.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go in front of the warehouse and yeah, I'd love to see where it is.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, the rival league called the Players League started a team in Pittsburgh.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: They started a team in all these cities that had National League teams, and the reason were as they always were was the reserve clause and low pay.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you might say, Steve, what is the reserve clause?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it was a clause represented in 1879, which did not let the players negotiate with other teams in the league, and it meant the teams held the rights for the players for the entirety of their career.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine, Tim, if you worked for McDonald's and they would say you can't work for any Wendy's or any other fast food restaurant, you know?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it definitely was very restrictive and it led to it, like just gave the owners an excuse to not pay the players.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think they went on, I don't know if they went on they they tried to go on strike eventually in 1975.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They did get rid of it, and that led to the free agency period of that baseball was now in.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, for better or worse.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's I mean the reserve clause, it was a bad deal.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't fair to the players.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, you you gotta pay the players, it just held down the wages of the players, and that was the point of it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It did make it make the fans loyal to that player.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like Ted Williams never played anywhere but the Red Sox, which was kind of cool.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but then like you said, Ted Williams could have probably and and it's not just that guys could have gone somewhere else, it's it's the fact that there was like a free market.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe Ted Williams still spends his whole career in Boston, but Boston knowing that another team could sign him is gonna pay him more to stay.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you're right, it it definitely cheated a bunch of players for a bunch of decades.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: It just made them property.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think I think baseball, other leagues have figured this out and have kind of mitigated this with salary caps.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like okay, let's kind of even things out, let's let's not make it a free-for-all.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but baseball, kind of like the way college football is now, you know, when baseball got into that mode of like, oh, we can go anywhere we want, then it turned into a free-for-all, and they've yet to mitigate it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't do well.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've said this many times about baseball.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Yankees think they're competing against the Pirates, and they are on the field, but for market share, they're not.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: The market share they're competing with is the Rangers, the Knicks, the Jets, the Giants of base of football.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's who you're competing against.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Pete Rossell in the NFL realized that that the New York Giants New York New York football giants were competing against the Yankees and the Mets, not the Jets.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so I I just don't I I think there's like, and I've said this before about current baseball, is there's two groups that very benefit from having this system.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the few players like Otani and the Scott Boris's, the agents and the rich owners.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't understand why there's a lot more of the of the Bob Nuttings of the world and the players that make minimum salary or middle the road salary than there are Otane's.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if they would realize that, and if I was a small market owner, I would say, well, we're gonna give you a salary floor, which means you're gonna get your wages raised.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can outvote.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they still, as far as I know, you know, Scott Boris doesn't get any votes in the union, and Otani only gets one.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know why baseball can't figure that out, but I digress.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um Fred Carroll um was uh one of the Allegheny's best players.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: He definitely went to the burgers, so that hurt.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'll go through some of the other players here in a minute.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um style of play.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is the dead ball era, Tim.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yay! We don't hit a lot of home runs.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you hit 10 home runs, you've had a great season.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you could do uh and a lot of things, like they would use the same ball for most of the game, which is like wild.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So like the ball would get like all worn out, and more importantly, it would get really dirty so you couldn't see it as well because it would not be white anymore, it would be brown, and obviously somebody throwing hard.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there were not a lot of home runs, and there was no pitcher's mound.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I found that interesting.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was just a box they painted in the dirt.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I always wondered why they said, Oh, a hit back through the box.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've heard that saying before, and that's apparently allusion to 19th century baseball.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh here's another fun fact uh baseball gloves.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're just hey, we're gonna start using them like right about now.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, especially catcher, catchers and first basemen, but I think everybody by this point is probably using a glove.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't you don't have to use a glove, I guess.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's a rule now, but back then they were just definitely catchers, and the catchers didn't wear like the face guard, like the little shin guards, the chest protector.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think the pirates catcher actually named Doggy Miller did not wear a chest protector.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: He refused to wear one.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I couldn't imagine playing catcher.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess that comes into play a little bit during the season, is like the catchers when nobody was on base would play like way back, would like back all the way up to like whatever the backstop or the fence because it's easier to catch a ball, you know, when you're farther back, you know, obviously.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and the gloves, weren't the gloves like very much very thin?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they called them pillow more like pillowy, like they weren't like like they are now where you could really squeeze.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was like you know, you couldn't catch it, it would just kind of bounce off it, I guess.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or and like you said, thin.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't they weren't very good.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I couldn't imagine playing catcher first base without a glove.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's impossible.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like people literally gunning it as hard as they can at you.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even third base without a glove.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ouch! I'm getting out of the way of that one.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um they did obviously no helmets, and I don't know what the bat regulations were, but and also limited substitution, Tim.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: You could only have three subs per game, and the fourth was only allowed if somebody got injured or ejected.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So teams would carry like 15 players.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: You would only like you know, now what's the modern day roster?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like 24, 25, I think.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: After September.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think yeah, I think September it goes up, doesn't it?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like 20, 20, then it goes up a couple.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, uh uh the home team.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Also, how about this, Tim?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: The home team could choose whether they wanted to bat first or play the field first.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's kind of an interesting yeah, yeah, isn't that it's like football, very much like do you want the ball first?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want it?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, and I guess you know, people hadn't figured out how much of an advantage it is to bat last.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so I mean, maybe people, it's got to be like everybody was just always choosing to bat last because you know it's like you know how many runs you need.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you score a run, the game's over.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the biggest thing.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in the ninth inning and you score a uh the the run to go ahead, you're gonna win the game.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a big big advantage at home.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and also the Alleghenies didn't play games on Sundays, which um for one of our players is gonna be very important.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, like I said, a bunch of uh players left this team to go play for the burgers.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of those players was Fred Carroll.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he was a good hitting catcher, career batting average of 284, 27 home runs.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is actually the guy that buried the pet monkey in Recreation Park.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we talked about that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe when I do my man on the street thing and I find recreation.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know where it is.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I looked it up on Google Maps, so I'm gonna I wonder if the monkey is still buried there.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um Pud Galvin.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um he he actually is uh he went to the Burgers also Hall of Fame pitcher.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's in the Hall of Fame, he's the first 300-game winner in Major League Baseball history, so that's obviously a major loss.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Ned Hanlane.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: He became the manager of the other team.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: He had managed the Alleghenies the year before.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's also an MLB Hall of Famer.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: He won the five the pennant five times, but not with the Pirates, Alleghenies, or Burgers.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was with Baltimore and then Brooklyn.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jake Beckley.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think he was a first baseman or yes, first baseman.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know what his nickname is?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Old Eagle Eye.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's what Eagle Eye.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's like such a 19th century name.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, old Eagle Eye over there.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and Old Eagle Eye was a bit of a I don't know, Barry Bonds type.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know Barry Bond's type.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's unfair.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to uh maybe Derek Bell type.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm only in this game for the money.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Honesty.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was operation shutdown back in 1890.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: I bet Twitter, 1890, Twitter was pretty upset about that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the little like newspaper boy on like the corner of like, you know, fifth and forms.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Extra, extra, old eagle eye says he's in it for the money.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Forsooth, I can't believe that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: My honor, sir.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Have you no honor?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: The honor of the glory of Allegheny City in baseball cannot be sullied by your greed.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Neither, neither mind.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Old Eagle Eye needed more money in 1891, so he came back to the Alleghenies.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder what he was spending his money on.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't know.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol, maybe alcohol, I don't know.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, um, here are the people that were played the 1890 season.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some guy named Frederick Crazy Schmidt, and he was a pitcher for the Alleghenies.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was named Crazy for his off-the-field anchor antics.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: In the book I used and on the papers I searched for his name, I could not find any stories of his off-the-field antics.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: So what a letdown, huh, Tim?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I guess we could just make some up.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why he was called Crazy.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: He just was.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's 1890.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You figure it out.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: He once swam across the Allegheny River in December.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um Guy Hecker.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: He was um, this is like an interesting thing.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: He was the manager, but he also played first base and pitcher.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's weird that he managed and pitched for the team.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, probably the person that you recognize the most off of this team was a gentleman named Billy Sunday.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of Billy Sunday, too?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I have.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was their starting center fielder.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was considered one of the best base stealers.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the bo uh according to he really like this is the tail end of his career.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's finishing up.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he really couldn't get on base a lot, so he didn't get the he didn't really get to take advantage of his base stealing.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what he did after baseball is he became a famous evangelist and um led many crusades, they called him back then.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they used to call it the kerosene circus circuit.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: He would go around and have these camp meetings.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: He actually went to the White House at one point.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, very influential religious figure, early 20th century.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sound about right, Tim?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: He had like a very like more like uh if you remember Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hangs of an Angry God.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we had to read that, you know, that kind of style, scare them into heaven.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're all going to hell if you don't watch my baseball game.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: But good for Billy Sunday, they didn't have to play on Sunday.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to his credit, I guess he was a man of his word.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't leave because he was under contract with the Alleghenies, so he stayed with them.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um there you go.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um a guy I mentioned early, Doggy Miller.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what his name is.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Doggy Miller, I don't know.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was a catcher.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: He replaced Jake Beckley.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he actually was still on the team in 1891 when Beckley came back.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I guess he played first base too, maybe.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: He got relegated to a backup.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he led the team that year in most offensive categories that in 1890, 150 hits, 24 doubles, he had 68 walks, 66 RBIs.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was the only player to play from 1890 to 1891 for the Alleghenies.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't leave, he didn't get cut, he didn't get traded.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: He actually went through all this ridiculousness.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he's got that going for him.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: You'll say, who owns the team?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Bob Nutting.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, he does not.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um William A.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nimic.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um very shade.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I guess, you know, once again, like baseball wasn't as like big as it was big, but it wasn't like people really cared who owned the team a lot.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: So in the paper, like we think he owned the team, but I don't know how much he ran the team.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, supposedly he owned it with four other people.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he seemed to leave the running of the team to a gentleman named Jay Palmer O'Neill.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um that leads us to the team executive, Mr.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jay Palmer O'Neill.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's the Alleghenies team vice president.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: He declared early in the season after watching a couple practices of the 1890 team, and this is quote, I guess it was 1890, maybe nobody remembered later in the season.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've got the best team we've ever had in Pittsburgh.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like, it wasn't like they ever like won a pennant or anything, they barely won 500.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like the other couple teams, the other seasons were like had like records that were comparable to that other record, if not worse.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, um he employed he was one they employed 25 cent baseball.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the price of a baseball game was 50 cents.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine getting in a baseball game for 50 cents, dude?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how much that I I imagine that was more than 50 cents.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I I didn't you know do the conversion to from 1990 dollars, and it was real silver, too.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: You figure that was like when they went to those coins, they were really made out of silver, not whatever the fake crap it is now.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um they did this to draw fans away.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is like so petty from the players league team uh across the town.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they just yeah, they lowered the they did like the do you know how Walmart or like other businesses will do that?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like there'll be this other business across town, like shop and save or something, will have bananas on sale for like a normal price, like 50 not expensive, but not a great price.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: So Walmart will like cut their price in half because Walmart has stores all over the country and they can do that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: They call what they call that um predatory pricing, right?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like that, whereas he I guess he figured he could survive losing some money if he could put the players league team out of business.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Steve, the the players league, the the I can see where this is going, right?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, the Pirates lose all these players to this rival league.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not the only ones, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's no there's player league.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't look up too much about the players league.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: They had teams like in every pretty every city at that time, like I think New York had a team, Philadelphia had a team.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Every team where there every city where there was a National League team.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pretty much.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: So so other so all the other National League teams were losing their players.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would assume so.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't let's again, I only kind of focused on the Alleghenies and slash Pirates.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I did not I assume that happened.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm just just saying that like the the meeting gal isn't unique to them.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I would say not.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Ed Sales, he was a replacement, midseason replacement.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Really a minor league, or never played into the majors after this season.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll mention him once here.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into the um, you know, normally you have the highlights.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna call it the lowlights of the season.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the season starts out with the bang with the 1890s papers.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta remember there was more than just the Post Gazette back then.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: There was like the whatever the press was called.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's like five different papers because there's no news.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Also, like I I forgot to mention this.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, remember, there's no cars, right, Tim?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the only way to get from like Pittsburgh to Chicago or New York is on the train.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or unless you're riding a horse.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, like my wife's grandmother told me stories of her father who lived on the north side at this time, making deliveries for the hardware store he worked for with a horse in like cart.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no vehicles.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't imagine what the roads were like.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're all like country roads.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I think there's telephones, Tim.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think there was telephones yet, right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or very there would have been the invention of a telephone.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how widespread it was at that point.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And same, same thing with electricity.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know how much of the city was electrified.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Allegheny City was electrified, maybe it wasn't.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: So like they couldn't play night games, obviously.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have that kind of technology, but very interesting time without, so you figure, you know, telegraph, or you know, I guess when the pirates were out of town, I guess they would get like the or like the little ticker thing.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if they even had like the little stock ticker thing.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So very interesting.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So papers before the season called for the team to relocate to Indianapolis.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why just because they were so they they they were I guess they were so bad and they liked all the players on the other.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they wanted them to leave so they could keep the burgers, uh is my only way I could surmise.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where all the good players went.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the burgers, okay.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, on opening day, the attendance wasn't bad for them.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: They got 1200 to 1500, so maybe that's like half crowd, half sellout.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then, you know, as this team stunk, they actually did win their opening game.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was against, I want to say against the Reds.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the Reds were good that year, and this is the Reds, the Cincinnati Reds, that still exists to this day.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, they they they played, and then on April 22nd, after opening day, they played a game with only 80 fans officially, but there's internet rumors that there were only 17 fans at this game.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a problem.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also, you know, a mitigating factor was once again, I mentioned Indianapolis and uh Washington were supposed to have teams.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So there's supposed to be a 10-team league that year and unf with a hundred and twenty-eight game schedule.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Washington and Indianapolis would have been either minor leagues or expansion league teams that made the jump.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, both those teams backed out or folded.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they didn't have those two teams to play against, so it went to an eight-team league, and they had to play instead of 14 games, which they would have each played against each of those teams, that would have been 28 games where maybe they win half of them.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: They ended up playing 20 games against these eight other teams.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean that that so they ended up with a tougher schedule, which didn't help the Alligator's.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the best game of the year was in preseason.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: They played preseason, Tim, even back then.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the preseason teams they played, they played like teams like Altoona, Wheeling, McKeesport.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they had like semi-pro teams back then, and they they played McKeesport.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to believe the Pirates playing a team from McKeesport.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's playing a team from McKeesport.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think in McKeesport, too, probably.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they scored 34 runs against this semi-pro team because there's no spring training.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, 25 cent baseball.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not sure if they charged higher.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the whole league did this or just the Alleghenies.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I it seemed to think like the Pirates were making more money when they went on the road than they played at home games.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if that's just because the games were better attended on the road, or if it was because 25 cent baseball, or because a little bit of both.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: So by the way, see if I did look it up.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's 25 cents in 1890 is about$9 today, so still a pretty good value.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you can't get into a pirate game for$9 now.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can't even get a beer for$9 in a pirate game.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing how much things have inflated and how much more important people like baseball now, too.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um so with the 25 cent game ticket price, the team they needed to have 600 fans to attend to break even because they had to pay the visiting team$150 just you know to show up.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess you know, this they they would start losing money because they didn't have like most of their fan totals were like$400,$500.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you're losing money.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Never mind, you have to pay your own players, you can't even pay the fee of the team.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then there were rumors that the team was late on its rent at recreation field, but then it only came up once and then it went away.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they paid or made a deal or what.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so what happens is late in the season when they really start to stink, they like reschedule a lot of games out of town so that they can they make a better number one, they don't have to pay the hundred they get the hundred and fifty dollar fee, and number two, they don't have to pay it, you know.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually more profitable for them so the pay out of the yes.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: What a weird, yeah.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because back then you gotta remember there's no TV deal.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: The papers don't pay to cover the team, they just go there and pay a ticket and cover it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously you wouldn't charge them to because you want that publicity.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean it's a weird, like the only way they made money was on the gate, you know.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's like no other, you're right, there's no other streams.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Advertising, like, but I don't know, like, like I think that was more of a 20s and 30s things, maybe as things went on.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you could sell advertising the outfield and stuff.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you could I I don't know if they did if they had concessions at the game back then, you know, that'd be another way.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you're right.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, everything's dependent on attendance, and there's really nothing else.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're not selling uh jerseys in the pro shop.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're not, you know, you're right.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things you're not doing.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And to I will say to his credit, Jay Palmer O'Neill does say he wanted to make a better experience for the fans with his discounted baseball.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: So they added a roof area, I guess, to recreation field to shield you from the sun and the rain if there was a little bit.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And also, he wanted to add padded opera chairs.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that is, but there's some sort of section with padded chairs.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And also comfortable.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I and also a ladies section so that they could get away from the rowdy fans.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Woo! So those ladies didn't have to hear all those drunken uh and there was a lot of gambling back then.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like you obviously didn't have your phone, you didn't have any phone, maybe, especially like people are paying 25 cents for a baseball game, would probably have to use a public phone, you know.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so you would bet you would go there and like, I bet Billy Sunday steals a base today, and somebody goes, I bet you he doesn't.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you would trade money at the end of the game.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they had like the insta, they had the insta bets even back then.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or prop bets, or you know, I bet I bet, you know, I don't have four RBIs and three strikeouts.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: I bet, yeah, Guy Hecker doesn't pitch today.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also Jay Palmer and Neil did clever promotions like stating that it's not a sin to steal a base.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, referencing Billy Sunday.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think Billy Sunday actually still he had converted, even the because it's late in his career, he had actually converted.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he became more, I don't know, fervent in his religious belief.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a thing, Tim?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he would he might have been actually preaching at on Sundays at this time.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they didn't play on Sundays because of the blue laws, correct?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't I didn't think look that up.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably yeah, because remember they had to change that for the I remember going over that in 1933.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was a big reason the the Steelers were able, like Art Rooney was able to get them to change the blue laws.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Right.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: It might have just been a cultural thing too, Tim, because you remember, you know, there was there there was a like in England, I want to say in the late 19th century and early 20th century, there was a great reformation um re what they call it, Great Awakening.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, anything that happens in England culturally seems to slowly spread to the United States.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was one of those things with you know D.L.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Moody and all those great preachers of the 19th century.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you're saying you're saying there were blue laws, but probably people even if there weren't blue blue.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I I think I don't know when the blue laws started, but I think even if there wasn't blue laws, it would have been like something so like culturally taboo that they just wouldn't have done it because nobody nobody would have sh showed up.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the blue laws actually prohibited it, correct?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the blue laws started with the Quakers.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the blue law.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then they definitely then you definitely couldn't do it.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: So but I think culturally also people probably wouldn't have gone for it.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, anywho, um, whatever the price, uh, they're going to and um they actually they go on a 33-game road trip in May.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: A 33-game.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so once again, we're gonna play a lot of games, even in May, out of town to make money.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Doggy Miller, uh fun fact uh in this, got a$10 fine against the New York baseball giants for arguing a strikeout.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of it, he's like, well, make it 20 then.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the umpire was like, just get off the field.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't how much of$20 had to be like thousands of dollars now, right?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like yeah.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: The team ends up losing$5,700 for the season, which doesn't sound like much now, Tim, but I'm sure that was millions of dollars back then.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's funny, they had a season tick promotion early in the season.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, come down to the far this pharmacy and you know, wherever and buy your season ticket books.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, We've sold tons and tons.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then halfway through the season, they revealed, oh, nobody bought any.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh dear.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which actually benefited them because in August they were able to move those home games out of town without like upsetting anybody because nobody had tickets.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it actually worked to their advantage, Tim.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Smart.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, once again, in June, um, they've they've made some changes, but not a lot.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Jay Palmer on the not one for sticking his foot in his mouth, not once, with the greatest team ever, but twice.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: There will scarcely be any changes to the team from now on.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: I believe we have a better team than is ever before.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, they ended up using a total of forty six plus.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Players in a season.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, that lasted as a record until the nineteen eighty-seven season, Tim.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh twenty of those players were asked to pitch.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a fun one.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're you know, you know, when you're a bad team and you're having a bad season, right?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everything just goes wrong.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Ed Sales, who I rem mentioned earlier, hits a home run, but unfortunately it hit a tree and it bounced back into the field of play.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if they didn't have ground rule double or what, but they just said, nope, it's a double, not a home run.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: You get to stay at second.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: Was the tree like in the outfield?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he also committed four or five errors in one game.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the paper stated that poor Ed was afraid to get in front of any ball.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Fred Clement, uh, I do believe he was a shortstop.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: He got one one game trial, and he only got two innings because he committed three errors on five chances.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Fred was a dentist by trade, and the paper said that his uh play was comparable to him pulling teeth.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: I hope he was a better dentist than shortstop.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they're just pulling guys off the street at this point.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, you you want to play?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a dentist.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, whatever.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like Jay Palmer and the old.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just went to the dentist.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, hey, we could use a few more guys.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: You ever played shortstop before?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like no, no.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you five bucks.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: You would have half the gate.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh it gets more laughable as uh this is like insane.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I the Alleghenies record by month was is a fun stat.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: In July, five wins and twenty-one losses.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good, right?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: In September, four wins and twenty two losses, and the PS de resistance, the heart of the season, August, the ultimate insuctitude, Tim.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Have you looked at the notes?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can you guess how many games they have won in August?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh three.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: You would be two too high.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: At least they won one more than the what is it, 2008 Detroit Lions.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: They went one in 27.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Out of 28 games, they won one in a month.
• 46:49
  unknown: Wow.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God a lot of those were on the road.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: I like people just weren't showing up.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: In the book, I I I based a lot of this on a book called The 1890 Pirates, the worst team ever.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's by an author named John Decker.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's a local historian.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Does a great job.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's an okay read.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's very detailed on every game.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to read about every game that happened in 1890, he's your guy.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you just want like I I kind of went through and just tried to pick out the fun parts because I wasn't sitting here and reading, like, you know, on July 5th, you know, they pitched and, you know, they lost 23 to 3.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wasn't doing that.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he does a very good job on, you know, giving you a feel for the season and you know, a lot of nice background and stuff.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: So pick it up.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not a bad read.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they it and uh they allowed 330 runs and only scored 113.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's just for the month of August, Tim.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I think so.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: August was really ugly.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: So ugly, in fact, that on August 26, on 22nd, they trade one of their better players, Billy Sunday, to the Phillies for a left fielder, Eddie Burke, and a pitcher Bill Day.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, according to the author, um Burke was younger and healthier and the better players at this time.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there were rumors that Billy Sunday was going to retire after the season.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Billy Sunday denied them, said, No, I'm in it for the long haul, and then promptly retired after the season.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so um I I don't know if the I didn't look up whether Burke or Bill Day.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard of them.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I mean, not that I've heard of a lot of players.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard of Cap Cap Anson.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know he was mentioned a couple times.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think he played for the Giants, I want to say.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard of him, but just from the Mr.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Burns baseball team episode of the Simpsons Simpsons.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh anyway, it's a pretty crappy season.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: They finished with a horrible record.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the aftermath here, Tim, it's a disaster.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Alleghenies finished with a record of 23, 112-2.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's a 0.169 winning percentage.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a controversy whether the last couple of games were official or not.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, baseball reference counts them as 113 games.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um the attendance for the league for the whole season was 16,000.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think so for the season.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my wow.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in contrast, now I don't know how accurate this is.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: I found this on the internet.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Burgers published their season attendance at 117,000.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, even if you figure they got half that, it was still 50 or 60,000, which is double the attendance of the Alleghenies.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they they beat them though, hands down by a wide margin.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh they finished no not surprisingly 66 and a half games out of first place behind the uh Brooklyn bridegrooms, Tim.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which it's just a weird name.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's a bridegroom?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is that like the male guy?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's the groom.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's bridegrooms.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they just dropped the bride and went to the groom because it sounded weird.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: I believe so.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the bridegrooms, uh which are now the Brooklyn Dodgers, I do believe.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: They went through like five different names before they finally stuck with the Dodgers.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the Burgers uh also had like a very mediocre season.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think they they finished like either with a losing or 500 record.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, 60-68.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they were 20 games out of first, so the Burgers didn't do that much better anyway.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: So even if all those players would have stayed.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe against the lesser talent, maybe they do okay.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the 1952 Pirates for the modern contention are considered the worst team of the modern era, and they had 42 wins and 115 losses, and uh that would have been a 162 game season.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: I did not write down their winning percentage, but it's definitely, I guess, you know it's better than who wants to, yeah.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: All you math majors divide 42 by 115 and you'll figure out.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this this team had the worst winning percentage, like you said.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you just go by winning, because you had different errors with different amounts of games in a season.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: This was the worst winning percentage, 1890.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I looked at MLB history.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the White Sox, who I saw in the 2024 season in a game against the A's.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got to witness history, Tim.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: I got to see one of their 41 wins.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they had a winning percentage of 2002.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Mets in 62, the what was that?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: The lovable loser Mets.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 40 and 120 at 250%.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the all-time worst, the 1899 Cleveland Spiders at 134 losses and 20 wins, 130 winning percentage, which is actually a higher winning percentage than the no, no, it's lower.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, the they the papers did reference the spiders losing that 134 or game because that was or the 114th game that that they said they set the record when they did that over the Alleghenies.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess the Alleghenies for you know seven or eight years had that record of the worst losses ever.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um, obviously, for obvious reasons, I mean I I don't think Pittsburgh had reached its max.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like for a while there in the 1920s, Pittsburgh, did you know Pittsburgh was one of the top ten cities by population there.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think Pittsburgh was there in the late 1800s.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely the steel mills were going full blast, and they aren't Andrew Carnegie and you know all the steelmaker, steel worker guy, you know, Henry Craig and all them were having fun.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I they they couldn't support two baseball teams, that's the point I'm getting at.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's pretty obvious that you know Pittsburgh's just a one baseball team kind of town.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: So after you know, the season, the players league actually folds.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess they just didn't have enough money to sustain what they were paying the players, you know.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: They probably needed to be played more, but you know, there just wasn't enough money at that time.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the teams combined um in 1891 um they were the players were from the rival league were expected to go back to the teams that they had left.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, that's why Beckley and all them went back to the Alleghenies, you know.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, but there's this manager, Ned Hanley, and he's the manager of the burgers, but he goes back to being the manager of the Alleghenies in 1891.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: So rumor is that that that winter he went all the way to Erie in the middle of a winter, crossing a frozen bay to sign a second baseman named Lou Bayerbach.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: This move was considered piratic by the Philadelphia Athletics.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, so you know, being the 1890s and it sounded like a cool nickname, they went with the pirates.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been the pirates ever since.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was that was super controversial.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think we we had talked about that at one point in an earlier show because like you said, when that player is like forwarded, it's like, okay, everybody because you know, hey, like we said, the reserve clause basically made the players property.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you couldn't poach.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think too, like it protected teams from other teams poaching their players too.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it worked that way, too.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: But when when they all left their contracts to go in the the other league, yeah, they technically didn't just return to the same contract.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think the I think Philadelphia even took them to court and lost because a judge, I believe, rolled that like, no, this guy he was under contract in 1889, but then once this new league started and he came back, he technically wasn't under the same, you know, role anymore.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: So so early free agency.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: He might have been the first free agent.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of was the first free agent, and I think that all the players and the owners and everybody just assumed like you know, it was almost like a gentleman's agreement that no, no, no, like we we keep the same players, and for the pirates to go out and steal one of them.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean he was a good player too, so that's why they were so upset about it.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's why they started calling him pirates.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Ned Ned Hanlon was crossing frozen bays in the middle of winter in Erie.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he once again, like he had to take the train to Erie and like a horse or something to to get there or walk.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the middle of winter in Erie.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been in Erie during the winter, Tim?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that's kind of funny, isn't it?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: That the the the team name is because they Philadelphia were kicked off and were like making fun of and and derisively calling them this name.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's like, ah, we'll just take it.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, taking your taking it and using it for your uh I feel like if the Flyers were called like the goon scumbags or something.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, oh yeah, we'll just we'll just keep that name.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the team really wouldn't be any good until 1900 when Barney Dreyfus bought the Pirates and he folded the team called the Louisville Colonels into the Pirates, and they end up I guess he called the Pennant.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't called the Pennant, they just won the National League champion.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: The National League in 1901.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: They whatever that was, they won it.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't play the American League back then, not even in an exhibition.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um this kind of a forgotten team.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a legacy, probably most of you know anybody who's relative to these poor people would want forgotten.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure, you know.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: Billy Sunday's relatives probably don't would would rather him remember for his evangelism rather than his 1890 baseball playing.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: But um worse.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think they're the worst than some of the modern teams, Tim, or mitigating circumstances?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it's it's interesting because our yeah, record-wise, they're the worst.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean that would be like if you know remember when the NFL had like the strike and they used like the replacement players?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's but the Steelers got better.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, yeah.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying, imagine imagine they do that for an entire season.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, one of those teams could have easily been 0-16 just because you know they got the the dregs of whoever was left.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like that's so so yeah, they're the worst, but it's kind of like like you said, mitigating circumstances.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's like a little asterisk on that one for that reason.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it it's tough to compare.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'd say the Cleveland Spiders probably are worse in this era just because even then though, they they there was a whole the the guy that owned them owned some other team and he like moved all the good players from the Cleveland team over to his other team.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: So like that like I think a lot of those teams have mitigating circumstances.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's why like the the modern they always say modern era versus non-modern era because it's just different.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like what excuse do the White Sox have?
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or the Colorado Rockies this year.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I meant to I meant to mention that, yeah, they they've only won eight games that first m I mean now if they go one for whatever in August, then I'll be impressed.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be bad teams in in any sport in any league.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but you know that yeah, that's that's the worst pirate team ever.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in college football, wasn't there like a prairie view team that won lost like uh like 30 in a row, 20 or 30 in a row?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was like multiple years in a row where they didn't win games.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean that that's all I can think of.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um great, great interest.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, uh the book is the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenies, the worst team in the Pittsburgh Pirates history.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I used some statistics.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: I got the story of the Pirates thing off the Major League Baseball website.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some stuff off the Pirates website if you want to check anything like that out.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's no video.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have a picture of Recreation Field.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have a drawing I found on the internet somewhere.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: I did this there, there's no I saw a few baseball cards of some of the players, like obviously Billy Sunday later, because he lived in the like 1939 or something.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's pictures of him, like obviously out outside of his baseball career, but most of these guys there really isn't any pictures of.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard to find information.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you did a really good job researching all that.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I love that I love that old baseball history stuff, Steve.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: So well, it's fun that there's a controversy over how many games like this guy in the book.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: I went with, I think he goes with 113 losses, I think, or 112.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so there's even contrast because they played some like games after like they had such a bad season, then they played like three or four more games after the season is over.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who the hell cares?
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: It just there's no way you're making any money on this.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it it's the most insane.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who would play more games with this team?
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I could see if you have like a championship team and you want to, but they actually played like more games.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you doing?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's lose more money.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's like what do they call it, the lost revenue.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're just you're just gonna keep digging.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you dig yourself out.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, well, this is a podcast where we never want to dig out.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: This had a lot of fun rabbit holes.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had trouble like staying on topic because there were so many fun rabbit holes, like you know, and trying to figure out how it'll you know, give you guys a good context of what was going on at in 1890, besides us slaughtering Indians, you know, apparently.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um, if you enjoy this, you know, definitely check out our podcast for more fun.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is a subject that many other podcasts have covered, Tim.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: I bet we're the only one.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, check us out on Facebook.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll try and get that man on the street interview done.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll find Recreation Field, I promise.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: Check us, look for that on Facebook, and you know, it'll definitely be me in front of a warehouse on the north side trying not to, you know, get uh get in any trouble.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for thanks for uh watching and listening, and as usual, God bless, and we'll catch you next time.