The Cincinnati Red Stalkings (9 page)

“That was the beginning of the end,” Whitaker said. “The team lost a few more games, and people stopped turning out—in Cincinnati, anyway. Fans still came to see them play in other cities, but not at home.” He knocked a pop bottle aside with his cane. “The streak was a double-edged sword. The novelty of it brought people out, but it also gave the impression of invincibility. Once that notion was shattered, it was all over for the Red Stockings.”

“The club disbanded?”

“Again, club and team are two different things. At the end of the season, the club members voted to revert to amateur status and no longer finance a professional team. But other cities had started putting together professional nines, so there wasn’t much interest in an amateur team anymore.”

“You said there was an auction?”

“Yes. Terribly sad day. It was April of 1872, only three years after the streak began. The ballpark was partly dismantled—the wood had already been sold. Then everything else was auctioned off—the trophy balls, pennants ... everything.”

“And that’s where you got the ball you gave Perriman.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So the whole club fell apart?”

“Oh, some of the social activities continued. But it was never the same. I left the club myself after the ’70 season.”

“You never played?”

“Never more than a muffin.” He explained that a muffin was a poor player who muffed plays. “No, my association with the club was helpful in getting me some business connections, and I pursued those.”

“The Mount Auburn Automated Trolley . . .” I couldn’t remember the exact name of his company.

“Mount Auburn Electric Inclined Railway. That was later. The seventies were a boom for trolleys, and folks started expanding to the hills. I worked with Bill Price on Buttermilk Mountain—”

“Where?”

“Price Hill. It was the only incline without a saloon at the top, so it was nicknamed ‘Buttermilk Mountain.’ We developed a cable system to draw trolley cars to the top of the hill. Worked well enough, but had to rely on mule power. Then in the eighties, I got the idea to form my own company and electrify the inclines. First one I did was Mount Auburn, and the first route we ran was here to the zoo.”

We’d reached the band shell where an orchestra was warming up.

“You still own it?” I asked.

“Own a number of companies, but never wanted to change the name. Should always remember where you came from. My daughter’s pushing for a more general name, though, something that sounds bigger.”

“She runs the company now?”

“Yes. She and my son. You didn’t see him at the office, did you?”

“No.”

“Not surprised.” He sat down on one of the benches, and I did the same. “I retired two years ago. Figured it’s time to give my children their chance with the business.” I noticed that he didn’t mention anything about bad health; maybe he wanted to make it sound like he’d retired entirely of his own volition. “So now I have fun,” he went on. “Look at the animals, watch the children, listen to music. You like opera?”

“No, sir.” I knew that the summer season of opera at the zoo had recently started. It was cruel enough to keep animals in cages, I thought, without making them listen to opera. I also thought that Ambrose Whitaker didn’t look like he was having as much fun as he claimed. Perhaps after all those years in business, he had to learn how to enjoy himself. Maybe baseball. “You ever go to ball games anymore?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve lost interest.”

“Well, if you’d ever like to, I’d be happy to get you tickets.” Right, Mickey, this man is probably a millionaire, and you’re offering him $1.50 seats.

“I appreciate the offer, son.” A pleased smile etched deep creases in his face. “Who knows, maybe I’ll take you up on it someday.”

On the bandstand, a singer began to screech her warm-ups. I thanked Whitaker for his time and said good-bye.

I should have left for Redland Field, but decided I had time for a quick detour to the northwest corner of the zoo.

Past a row of odd Japanese-styled structures that served as aviaries, was the Carnivora House, home to the zoo’s big cats. On the lawn near the building’s entrance was Margie, surrounded by about fifty children with attendant parents.

She was dressed in the outfit that she’d worn most often in her movies: pith helmet, khaki shirt, jodhpurs, and high boots. A trainer held a bushy-maned male lion on a leash while Margie gave a talk on how lions lived in the wild, describing their diet, family life, and sleeping habits. It was only her second day on the job, but her performance was polished and natural.

And she really came to life when the children started asking questions, fielding them with patience and charm. They asked everything from why didn’t the lion get a haircut to how did he get the title “King of the Jungle”—her answer to the latter question was, “Because he married the Queen of the Jungle.”

I thought back to when Margie told me how happy I’d looked telling baseball stories to Patrick Kelly. She looked the same with these children. And suddenly the thought struck me that if I ever had children of my own, I’d want Margie to be their mother.

Someday, maybe.

A
t first glance, I thought I’d entered the wrong building. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County was constructed more like a theater auditorium than a library. It was mostly open space, with a wide central well that rose all the way from the ground floor to the roof of the four-story building. Books were shelved between the railings and sidewalls of an upper-level mezzanine that circled the well like a balcony section. There were no bookcases on the main floor, which was furnished only with reading tables, chairs, and benches.

Not sure where to find what I was seeking, I approached a high desk next to the main entrance. Before I could say anything, the matronly woman seated behind it tapped her finger on a sign that had the single word
Ladies
on it. “This is the ladies’ circulation desk,” she said. I was tempted to reply that I wasn’t here to check out a lady. Pointing to an identical piece of furniture on the other side of the entrance, she added, “The men’s desk is over there.”

“I just want to know where I would find old newspapers.”

The librarian hesitated. Perhaps she wasn’t even supposed to speak to males. “The papers for the past week are on the tables in the back.” She gestured toward the rear of the room with a slight lift of her head.

“I’m looking for 1869.”

“Oh my. Those aren’t generally accessible. Ask Mr. Driscoll at the men’s desk. He might be able to help you.”

I thanked her and crossed to the side of the room designated for my gender. Wait till I tell Margie about this, I thought. Separate circulation desks for men and women—the city fathers probably wanted to be sure that Cincinnati’s gentler sex wasn’t exposed to any materials that might be considered risqué. I had to stifle a laugh, imagining the poor librarian who tried to stop Margie from taking out any book she wanted.

Of the two young males behind the desk, Driscoll was the more slightly built. He agreed to bring me the old newspapers, although he seemed reluctant to do so. While I waited, I commented on the unusual style of the building to the other librarian. He told me that the structure had originally been designed as Handy’s Opera House; when the opera company went bankrupt during construction, the library took over, retaining what had already been built.

Driscoll arrived with a ten-day stack of the
Cincinnati Enquirer
and the
Cincinnati Commercial
dated July 1 through July 10, 1869. Instead of handing them to me, he carried them to a reading table and laid them down gently. “These are
very
fragile,” he said. “No folding! When you’re finished, tell me, and I’ll return them to storage.”

I promised to be careful, and reached for the July 3 issue of the
Enquirer.
Driscoll remained, looking over my shoulder to see how I treated the brittle, browning papers. I handled them carefully and turned the pages slowly. Eventually satisfied that I could read a newspaper without his supervision, he returned to his desk.

By speaking with Ambrose Whitaker, I had tried going back one link in the chain of events that connected the murder of a girl named Sarah in the summer of 1869 with Ollie Perriman’s death this year. Now I was trying the other end of the chain. I scrutinized every item in the
Enquirer,
looking for mention of a murdered or missing girl, or a girl named Sarah or one from Corryville. Nothing. I proceeded to the
Commercial
for the same date, with the same results.

There were no Independence Day editions. The Monday, July 5, papers had nothing about Sarah, but did report that the Red Stockings players were escorting members of the visiting Olympic Base Ball Club on a tour of the city’s sights. I couldn’t imagine Ty Cobb or John McGraw playing host to a visiting team like that; it certainly must have been a more gentlemanly era back then.

Through the tenth of July, there were no items in the papers that could have been related to what I’d read in the note about Sarah. To be thorough, I went back to the issues from the first two days of the month—perhaps she’d been reported missing before her supposed murder. Still nothing.

With no luck finding anything about the girl, I permitted myself to read about the team. There was extensive coverage of the Red Stockings homecoming. The July 1
Enquirer
reported:

A hearty reception it certainly was, according to the next day’s paper. Four thousand people gathered at the Little Miami Railroad Depot and a committee of prominent citizens met what the
Enquirer
called
“our victorious Red Stockings, the first nine of which met and conquered all the first-class base ball clubs of the country.
”The paper went on to describe the homecoming:

It must have been a glorious time to be a ballplayer, I thought. To have a crowd of thousands meet your train and parade you through the streets amid cheers and song. To be adored by an entire city. Someday, maybe, I’d get the chance to play in a World Series, and if I was lucky enough to be on the winning team, I might get to feel a little of the adulation the Red Stockings enjoyed in 1869.

After a brief rest at the hotel, another procession took the players to the Union Grounds for a game against “
the best selected nine of the city
.”

Prior to the match was the presentation of the bat, the twenty-seven-foot trophy given by Josiah Bonner of the Queen City Lumber Company to Aaron Champion, president of the Cincinnati Base Ball Club. I noted in the article that,
“If beaten in any match, the bat is to be transferred to the victorious club,”
and wondered if the Brooklyn Atlantics ever received it.

The exhibition game, won by the Red Stockings 53–11, was reported in tedious detail. Dick Hurley appeared in the lineup of the picked nine, so he was still with the club at that point.

An even lengthier account described the banquet at the Gibson House that night, for which tickets were sold at $5 a head—probably an enormous sum back then. Besides club members, the guests included
“many of the most prominent and respected citizens of Cincinnati,”
and their names were listed in the article.

The ten players were seated at a table of honor. Each wore a medal the shape and color of a red sock, which had been ceremoniously pinned on them as a token of appreciation from the City Council. Renditions of red stockings—called
“sanguinary hose”
by the
Enquirer
reporter—decorated virtually everything: a pyramid cake, the menus, and an elaborate floral arrangement.

Following a meal that included sweetbreads, mountain oysters, and buffalo tongue, there were endless rounds of toasts. The first was to the players, each of whom was then called upon to say a few words. They all declined to do so, most of them giving the excuse that they were unaccustomed to speaking in public. I was amused to read that the substitute Dick Hurley gave the lengthiest refusal, concluding with,
“I might have made a speech if I had been called upon before supper, but, as it is, I am too full for utterance.”

The second toast was to Aaron Champion, who earned thunderous applause when he said,
“Someone asked me today whom I would rather be, President Grant of the United States or President Champion, of the Cincinnati Base Ball Club. I immediately answered him that I would by far rather be president of the base ball club.”
As I read his words, it occurred to me that I would have made the same choice—except I’d have wanted to be one of the players. Even if only the substitute.

After mining the first batch of papers Driscoll had given me for all the information I could glean, I went back to the men’s circulation desk and asked him if there were any Corryville newspapers from that time. He said there weren’t, but brought me issues of the
Gazette
and
Daily Times,
the only other Cincinnati papers in 1869, and more copies of the
Enquirer
and
Commercial.
I checked all of them through to the twentieth of July; I would have gone further, but my eyes were starting to ache from the small print.

I left the library and walked down to Fountain Square, the “center” of Cincinnati. Many of the men and women I passed had newspapers over their heads as if they’d been caught in a rainstorm. What was raining on them was worse than water though—it came from the flocks of starlings that occupied the ledges of the buildings. The birds were so numerous and their droppings so prolific, that probably half the newspapers sold downtown were used as headgear instead of reading material. I stayed on the street edge of the sidewalk to stay out of the line of fire, then crossed to the square in the middle of Fifth Street, where the magnificent fountain was situated.

According to the clock on the Mabley and Carew Building, it was a quarter to twelve, and I still had some time before needing to leave for the ballpark. I walked around the square, immersed in thought.

I was discouraged at having found no mention in the old newspapers of Sarah or a missing girl. Was Detective Forsch right—was the note a prank? Or did Sarah’s death merely fall through the journalistic cracks even more completely than Ollie Perriman’s had?

For no good reason, I found myself getting angry. The civic leaders who’d attended the Red Stockings banquet all got their names in the papers, as had the businessmen who’d been at Perriman’s memorial in Redland Field. It seemed like “important” people could make the news simply by showing up, but folks like Perriman and Sarah could be murdered with little or no notice.

A sudden breeze gusted, whipping water from the fountain onto those of us near it. I looked up and saw a dark cloud in the northwest; it was small and dense, but another developed nearby, and soon the sun was blocked and it felt as if the temperature had dropped a full ten degrees.

By the time I hopped a streetcar for the ballpark, it looked like there might not be a game today.

Those of us who’d gotten onto the field early were just starting to throw the ball around when a torrential cloudburst sent us scrambling for the shelter of the dugout.

I ended up near the middle of the bench, between Edd Roush and Greasy Neale. Several of the pitchers were clustered at one end, and Bubbles Hargrave and Heinie Groh sat together at the other.

We watched as Matty Schwab and his grounds crew dashed out with a tarpaulin to cover the infield. Black clouds thickened and swirled overhead, and rumbles of thunder grew louder. The rain came down in waves; fat drops pelted the tarp like machine-gun fire, and a windblown mist washed into the dugout.

“I’m gettin’ the hell out of here!” Groh yelled, and he sprinted for the clubhouse with Hargrave close behind him.