An Interesting Scorecard - Aug 25th, 1881

[Joe_G.]

I was able to snag an interesting scorecard from the August 25th, 1881 contest between the Chicago White Stockings and the visiting Detroit Wolverines. The scorecard was furnished free of charge, courtesy of the Chicago Base Ball Club. The 8/26/1881 Chicago Tribune had the following to share:

"Fully 3,000 people turned out to give the boys a send-off, and provision had been made by the management to make things especially pleasant. The grounds were gaily decorated with bunting, and a tasteful festoonery of flags ornamented the entrance of the clubhouse. Moore's band, the same that has supplied music through the season, was on hand and at 3:10 struck up a lively quickston, to which the visiting and home teams marched with very good military precision to the diamond amid hearty cheering by spectators. Even the big black dog, which is the vivid imagination of the reporters in other League cities has been kept for the express purpose of mangling the legs of visiting outfielders when they run after long hits by the home team, was led out on the field, but afterwards carefully conducted back to his lair. At the grand-stand entrance handsome souvenirs in the shape of illuminated scorecards were distributed, and, as the weather was superb, nothing seemed to be wanting to render the occasion enjoyable. It was enjoyable to the Detroit team and their friends. . ."

The Detroits would go on to win the contest 7-5, a rare loss for a very young Larry Corcoran. However, Chicago would finish the season with League honors (1st place) just as they did each year, 1880-1882 behind the strength of Anson, Kelly, and others.

As can be seen below, the scorecard introduces the game of baseball to the fans as a "Distinctively American Field Game" and splits the 8 team National League into Western and Eastern groups. It describes the league schedule (each team plays each other 12 times) and then lists the Chicago team on back with mention of how many years each player has been with the club. The Chicago line-up may look familiar to some as all but Quest would still be playing in some capacity and issued an Old Judge card several years later.

On the Detroit side, I was surprised to see the presence of Mike Moynahan whom Baseball Reference.com only shows playing a single game with Detroit. A little digging shows that Mike would actually play 3rd base a second time the following game when Joe Gerhardt failed to return to the team as expected after visiting his dying father. Details of this have been shared with Baseball Reference.com and an update is forthcoming.

Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, it appears Chicago was experimenting with positional uniforms in 1881. Al Spalding, who took over as Chicago team owner and president after Hulbert's death in April 1882, was more than happy to sell these new uniforms to each club in 1882. I hope to do a little more research into how many games the White Stockings played in 1881 with these or similar uniforms.

An interesting early scorecard from several perspectives. Are there other examples out there that hit on some of these same or similar points ("American Game", discuss the teams, schedules, players, listing positional uniforms, etc.)?

[barrysloate]

Joe- that's a neat scorecard, never saw one like that before. I know I've seen an image of the White Stockings where each player wore a different style uniform. Perhaps it was a colored Harper's woodcut, but I don't remember.