Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers

[tfishstein]

Are there any turn of the century vintage cards that have the full "Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers" team name visible?

Know most 'T' 'M' & 'E' series cards had the players' city and league listed... which set first included team names? Was it Goudey?

Thank you.

[darkhorse9]

It's important to understand that team "nicknames" weren't always an official thing. They were mostly used by sports writers to avoid having to say "The Brooklyn Baseball team" or New Yorkers all the time.

That's why many early nicknames were descriptive (i.e based on uniforms or the teams size etc. )

I'm not sure (though I could be corrected) that the team was ever officially known as the "Trolley Dodgers" . That just became something that fans and writers said. Their first official name, again - I believe - was the Superbas

Historians step in here and clarify.

[paul]

The T205 set includes team names. The Brooklyn team is listed as the Superbas.

[tfishstein]

Thanks, both. Really interesting context.

In doing some more research certainly looks like the "Trolley Dodgers" moniker was only a nickname, and was never used on uniforms.

https://www.mlb.com/dodgers/history/timeline-1890s

https://www.mlb.com/news/los-angeles...20to%20Dodgers.

[doug.goodman]

Retrosheet (where Baseball Reference and many others get much of their data) has the Brooklyn & Los Angeles teams listed using the following names :

1884-1887 : Trolley Dodgers
1888-1898 : Bridegrooms
1899-1913 : Superbas
1914-1931 : Robins
1932-2024 : Dodgers

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/FR_LAN.htm

[RUKen]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

Retrosheet (where Baseball Reference and many others get much of their data) has the Brooklyn & Los Angeles teams listed using the following names :

1884-1887 : Trolley Dodgers
1888-1898 : Bridegrooms
1899-1913 : Superbas
1914-1931 : Robins
1932-2024 : Dodgers

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/FR_LAN.htm

I believe that the team was not called the Trolley Dodgers until the 1890s, when they were also sometimes called the Bridegrooms or Grooms. When Ned Hanlon became the manager in 1899, the newspapers called them "Hanlon's Superbas", but it was never an official name for the team. "Superbas" as a nickname outlasted Ned as their manager by many years. Some papers continued to call them by that name even after Wilbert Robinson became the manager.

[JollyElm]

I gotta ask, how in high heck is "Superbas" supposed to be pronounced???

a. Sooper-baahs (sheep sound at end)
b. Superb-uhhs
c. Other

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I gotta ask, how in high heck is "Superbas" supposed to be pronounced???

a. Sooper-baahs (sheep sound at end)
b. Superb-uhhs
c. Other

Could be "sooper-bass", like Billy the talking bass.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Could be "sooper-bass", like Billy the talking bass.

Or Soup-errr-B.A.'s?

[RUKen]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I gotta ask, how in high heck is "Superbas" supposed to be pronounced???

a. Sooper-baahs (sheep sound at end)
b. Superb-uhhs
c. Other

soo-PER-buz

Superba was the name of an aerial acrobatic show in the 1890's starring the five Hanlon brothers. They were no relation to Ned Hanlon the ballplayer/manager. When Ned managed the Baltimore team for much of the decade they were always known as the Orioles, but when many of the players transferred to Brooklyn (along with Ned the manager) before the 1899 season, the transformed team was called Hanlon's Superbas in the newspapers, and the name stuck for over a decade. The team was also alternatively called the Dodgers at this time.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

Retrosheet (where Baseball Reference and many others get much of their data) has the Brooklyn & Los Angeles teams listed using the following names :

1884-1887 : Trolley Dodgers
1888-1898 : Bridegrooms
1899-1913 : Superbas
1914-1931 : Robins
1932-2024 : Dodgers

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/FR_LAN.htm

As a side note to this post (this info is slightly long and possibly boring), Baseball-Reference recently updated many of their team names and they got so much wrong. They butchered the Pirates team history. I don't know what made them randomly decide to not fact check the updates they got, but it's now a mess over there.

As others have said, nicknames were not official for a very long time. Using the Pirates as an example, the name Pirates was first used in 1891 to describe the current-day Pirates team, but their jerseys during the 1908-09 seasons had PBC interlocking on them because the actual team name at that time was the Pittsburgh Base Ball Club (There was no "H" at the end of Pittsburgh at that time, plus Baseball was actually two words). They still weren't the Pirates at that point, well after when they "became" the Pirates.

The actual official name of the 1891 "Pirates" team was The Pittsburgh Athletic Company

All of early history is just an official name you rarely saw and then a recognized team name from newspaper accounts. The BR update didn't use either of those, and just went about calling the 1882-90 teams "Allegheny City", which was where they played (it's current day Pittsburgh), but NEVER used as a team name. The 1882-84 team was called the Alleghenys in the papers (also spelled Allegheny/Alleghenies), but the actual team name was Alleghenys. The team changed it to the Pittsburghs in 1885, even though the papers stuck with Alleghenys. Then prior to the Pittsburgh Athletic Company name switch in 1891, the team was officially called the Allegheny Base Ball Club for some time.

The team itself in 1898 called themselves the Pittsburgh Patriots, announcing the name change in the papers and with their new red, white and blue uniforms. They said that the Pirates nickname given to them never really fit the club. That Patriots name is more official than any use of the Pirates team name prior to 1899. The club was also often called the Braves from mid-1893 through very early in the 1895 calendar year.

BR did a massive update that didn't really need to be done and they made a ton of mistakes. They were basically 95% correct before the change, but now they are about 60% correct on early team names.

[RUKen]

Originally Posted by z28jd

BR did a massive update that didn't really need to be done and they made a ton of mistakes. They were basically 95% correct before the change, but now they are about 60% correct on early team names.

I think that the names indicated now on BR better reflect how the hometown newspapers of the time referred to the teams, at least from about 1901 onwards. Sometimes, different papers used different names for the teams (such as Highlanders vs. Invaders for AL New York in 1903 and Browns vs. Ravens for AL St. Louis in 1906), but at least they eliminated the names that are not supported by the contemporary papers, such as dropping Beaneaters in favor of Nationals for NL Boston prior to 1907.

[doug.goodman]

I get my info from Retrosheet and will continue to do so...

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by RUKen

I think that the names indicated now on BR better reflect how the hometown newspapers of the time referred to the teams, at least from about 1901 onwards. Sometimes, different papers used different names for the teams (such as Highlanders vs. Invaders for AL New York in 1903 and Browns vs. Ravens for AL St. Louis in 1906), but at least they eliminated the names that are not supported by the contemporary papers, such as dropping Beaneaters in favor of Nationals for NL Boston prior to 1907.

Most of the new problems are 19th century ones, but they changed the Senators to Nationals from 1905 on. I did a look at the 1925 season in the middle section of that run and the usage of Senators is substantially higher by newspapers dot com results (over 700% higher). In fact, most of the "Nationals" usage that year was referring to the 19th century team, not the Senators.

They changed the Cubs franchise name to just Chicago in 1902-03. Who said that was right? They were often called the Colts. Call them the Colts. Why just leave it blank? No one was referring to the team as the Chicago, simply because there was another Chicago team. Worst case, call them Chicago Nationals. That was used often too, though mostly just to differentiate between the AL team.

The 19th century names are butchered now and it just causes confusion because they did the changes on their own. I run a Pirates history page with daily posts, which I've been doing in various places since 2002. I now have random people just telling me names are wrong and sending me clips of the BR page as their "proof", so each time I have to explain how the biggest baseball site made a huge blunder with their updates. Who do you think most people believe? I'll give you a hint, it's not the guy who breathes Pirates history every single day. The changes were poorly researched at best. Just an awful job.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by RUKen

soo-PER-buz

Superba was the name of an aerial acrobatic show in the 1890's starring the five Hanlon brothers. They were no relation to Ned Hanlon the ballplayer/manager. When Ned managed the Baltimore team for much of the decade they were always known as the Orioles, but when many of the players transferred to Brooklyn (along with Ned the manager) before the 1899 season, the transformed team was called Hanlon's Superbas in the newspapers, and the name stuck for over a decade. The team was also alternatively called the Dodgers at this time.

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