I found this interesting Dalrymple article:
Abner Dalrymple Was a MLB Star When Baseball Was Vastly Different
The former outfielder was a pioneer in the early days of the game
Andrew Martin
SportsRaid
Andrew Martin
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Dec 13, 2021
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It’s widely accepted that the game of baseball is more physically demanding today than at any other time before, as players have gotten bigger and stronger and have access to much more intricate methods of training, health and strategy. However, that doesn’t mean that playing during the early days of professional baseball was a picnic. Former star outfielder Abner Dalrymple described some of the challenges he both faced and inflicted before the game became the more refined version we are used to today.
Dalrymple led a very interesting life. Born in 1857, he left home at 12, started working for a railroad at the age of 14 and was a professional ball player by the time he was 19. The left-handed hitting, right-handed throwing outfielder won a batting title as a rookie with the Milwaukee Grays in 1878 with a mark of .354 (that title has been disputed in later years as research shows Paul Hines was the likely actual winner).
Dalrymple spent 12 seasons (1878–1888; 1891) in the big leagues with four different teams. Eight of those; the best years of his career, were spent with the Chicago White Stockings of the National League. All told, he batted a combined .288 with 43 home runs and 407 RBIs. He was a spark plug and a catalyst, playing in a time when there was a lot that was accepted as part of the game that has long since been rejected.
Speaking with a reporter in a piece that appeared in the September 23, 1928 edition of the Billings Gazette, the former outfielder reflected on some of those differences from when he played and some of the interesting things he saw and participated in as a player.
At the time of the interview, it had been nearly 40 years since he last played in the big leagues. Despite the amount of time elapsed, Dalrymple liked to think he had made some sort of impact on baseball:
“Recently I read in a popular magazine an article by Hugh Fullerton describing one of the many thrilling incidents in the career of Pop Anson’s team. In this article he said that all are gone or forgotten save Fred Pfeffer and Billy Sunday. It may be true that I am pretty well gone, but I dislike to believe that I am forgotten. No youth who has stood there receiving the plaudits and jeers of a frantic baseball crowd ever could be told that he would be forgotten.”
Needless to say, conditions for professional players at the time were wildly different than they are today. Nowhere was this more apparent when it came to the money:
“So far as I know, I was the highest priced player on Anson’s team back in 1879. My salary was $300 a month. However, there was a stipulation in the contract which provided that in case of a sale to another club I was to receive a bonus. This ultimately brought my salary to about $333 a month.”
Umpires had it particularly bad. They not only had to face down players and managers who may not have agreed with their decisions, but unruly crowds could and would get in their face, even in the middle of games. Accordingly, they had to sometimes take matters into their own hands, as Dalrymple recalled from one memorable incident:
“I remember well a championship baseball game in St. Louis on October 15, 1885, in which the contenders were the White Stockings of the National League and the St. Louis Browns of the American League. It was in that game that the umpire, by two decisions in rapid succession brought on a riot, and Charles Comiskey, manager of the Browns, took his team off the field in protest to the decision. I was out in left field. While the rioting was going on I leaned against the fence in the sunshine and enjoyed myself until out of the crowd dashed Umpire Sullivan with an infuriated mob behind him. He leaped the high fence over my head and disappeared. Late that night at the hotel he rendered a decision giving the game to the White Stockings, declaring St. Louis had forfeited it because they had left the field.”
Before full umpire crews, instant replay and detailed rehashing on sports highlights, there was a strong sense of anything goes. The old adage of “if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying” was apt on a daily basis. The only two rules that seemed to be observed was that anything went and don’t be surprised if someone pulled a dirty trick on you. Dalrymple claimed to have pulled one of the most dastardly deeds possible, literally snatching a win away from a team who won it fair and square:
“Talking about umpires’ decisions, I believe that few baseball players ever performed as I did to win a game for my team. It was late in the season of 1880. The White Stockings’ opponent at Chicago was the Buffalo team, then a member of the National League. The ballpark was out on the lakefront. I was in my usual position in left field. Came the ninth inning, Buffalo had three men on and two out. Ezrah Sutton, Buffalo third baseman, was at bat. He caught the ball a furious wallop and it sailed directly toward me in left field. I had in the blouse of my uniform an extra ball which I had kept there for an emergency. A smoky haze had settled over the field. The ball soared as it neared me back almost against the fence. I seized the concealed ball, stretched my hand upward and leaped and came down with the ball in my hand. Umpire called the Buffalo side out. The game ended with victory for the Chicago White Stockings.
“Just after the game a small boy came into the Chicago players’ clubhouse and asked Pop Anson if he might have the ball which I had caught in that spectacular play. Anson smiled and answered, ‘Boy, that ball that Dal caught is probably going yet.’
“Some years later one of the eastern newspapers made an expose of this ‘spectacular play.’ The writer called it magic baseball, but no one ever created a rumpus about that trick and that game stands as a victory for the White Stockings to this day. Someone might say now that that kind of baseball was unfair but baseball had its tricks in those days and I believe now that everybody on the Chicago team would have done the same thing with the possible exception of Billy Sunday, who even in those days was somewhat of an evangelist.”
Players from Dalrymple’s day were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get an edge. This included things that were physically harmful to opponents. He never forgot an infielder by the name of Jack Burdock, who simply didn’t want base runners trying to steal second when he was playing. He was brutally ruthless with his tactics:
“Sliding to base was a hazardous performance when I first entered the National League. Boston had a second baseman whose name was Burdock, I believe. Burdock proposed to stop base stealing. He carried in his pocket gravel that was like broken stone. If a dangerous base stealer made first base, Burdock scattered the treacherous gravel around second base. Many a man before he was familiar with Burdock’s defense came up with an injured leg, face, arm or hand. After a while few men would undertake to steal Burdock’s base.”
Dalrymple passed away in 1939 at the age of 81. He represented an entirely different time and style of play in baseball, which may seem so foreign from what is expected today, but remains an integral part of the history of the game.
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