"The Steele Box" - 1880's / 1890's Baseball

[Scott Garner]

Awesome collection, Mark!

[Mforder]

Here's a local baseball club from Washington, NJ. It's interesting that the teams played form money back then, even the local teams.

[Mforder]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

Awesome collection, Mark!

The feedback is great today, glad to see the folks here are interested in this. It makes it worth the effort.

[Mforder]

Fort Stanton in New Mexico appears to have been an outpost to protect settlers from the Apache Indians. One of the soldiers there appears to have been one of the 15 left in 1893 and was a friend of Charles Steele and from what I can tell from the letter they too had a baseball team.

[Mforder]

This postal card is from a player looking for a team to pick him up. He references a name which may be John "Dude" Esterbrook who he was training under until he ran out of funds to pay Esterbrook.

According to what I found John "Dude" Esterbrook was once a professional baseball player for the Buffalo Bisons, Cleveland Blues, New York Metropolitans, New York Giants, Indianapolis Hoosiers, Louisville Colonels, Brooklyn Grooms, and he was one of the managers for the Louisville Colonels.

Looking at the timeframe John "Dude" Esterbrook was still alive at this time although he did end his own life late in 1901 by jumping from a train.

I have to wonder if this is the same Esterbrook?