Introducing Your 1890 Brooklyn Bridegrooms

Hello, baseball fans and welcome to the 1890 edition of your Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Coming off of a very successful 1889 campaign where they won 93 games under Bill McGunnigle to lead the American Association. The team moves out of the American Association to the newly formed National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.

The Brooklyn team will be playing this season in Washington Park II. This is the second season the team will have games here and the first season they will play the entire schedule in this park. We Brooklynites have every reason to be proud of our boys.

The offense is led by 1st baseman, Dave Foutz, and outfielders Oyster Burns and Darby O’Brien. O’Brien and Burns have shown considerable skill with the bat, and Foutz is a veteran and still very skilled batsman. Adonis Terry, who doubles as a hurler for the team is the 3rd outfielder.

2nd base is manned by Hub Collins. He is steady at the bat and is skilled on defense. SS is manned by Germany Smith. Smith is not very consistent at the bat and is equally inept in the field. 3B is handled by 31 yr old George Pinkney. Pinkney is a skilled fielder and also very consistent with the bat.

Receiving the balls are C, Tom Daly, Doc Bushong, George Stallings and last years starter, Bob Clark. Daly because of his youth will get the bulk of the receiving duties. Spare outfielders are Patsy Donovan, and Pop Corkhill.

Our hurlers are a talented lot. Starting with Tom Lovett, then Adonis Terry and Bob Carruthers. Those chaps are backed up by Lady Baldwin, Dave Hughes and Dave Foutz. The Brooklynites hope to make a fine showing in their first season in the new league. And erase the taste of losing in the postseason to the cross-town rival Giants.

I thought it would be fun to go back to the Dodgers first season in the NL and try and introduce the team the way I thought the papers of the day might do it. Not historically accurate by any means, but fun none the less.

For the record, the Bridegrooms finished 1st in 1890. Winning the pennant in the NL’s inaugural season. They had a record of 86-43 beating the 2nd place Chicago Colts by 6.5 games. The Colts won 83, but due to rainouts and other factors, they lost 53. Playing 7 more games than the Bridegrooms. That added 3.5 games to the lead.

The Giants finished 24 games back in 6th place. The NL that year was made up of teams from Cleveland, Chicago, Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Cincinnati. Cleveland would later move to the AL and be replaced by a team from St. Louis. Brooklyn would play a 7 game post-season series against the American Associations Louisville Colonels which would end up 3-3-1.

Brooklyn’s leading hitter in 1890 was Darby O’Brien who posted a .314 mark. He stole 38 bases which was 4th on the team. Collins stole 85 and Foutz and Pinkney were over 40. Burns led the team with 13 HR’s and was the only player to drive in 100 with a 128 mark. No other hitter managed double-figure HR’s, but Foutz drove in 98, just missing the century mark. 3 batters hit over .300. Foutz, Pinkney and O’Brien.

The pitchers were very good with Lovett winning 30, Terry 26, and Carruthers 23. They scored 884 runs and allowed only 620. All of that on 43 HR’s which was 2nd in the league. They stole 349 bases to lead the league. 6 of those were by pitchers. It was a pretty good showing in their first year in the NL. They had begun the journey which would eventually lead to Ebbets Field and then Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

I am one who thinks history and your roots are very important. The Bridegrooms began the NL history of the present-day Dodgers, although the uniforms and the names have changed, it is still part of the team’s history. The winning started then. There would be some great seasons, some not so great, some heartbreaking.

There would be times they were alternately loved, despised, laughed at and missed. Going to those games would have been for most of us, a foreign land. People dressed up wearing hats suits and ties. Concessions were nothing like they are today. I am not sure when, but the hot dog had not even been introduced to the game yet. 50 cents would get you a box seat. Gambling on games was the norm. Fights would break out in the stands, and sometimes spill onto the field.

It was a whole other ball game as they say. But you have to love the names. Oyster Burns, Lady Baldwin, Patsy, how many guys do you know today named Patsy or Lady? I think one of my favorites is Adonis Terry. Terry’s WAR that season works out to 6.2. He was the Ohtani of his time. He did not look like what one might imagine Adonis did look like, but he was not a bad-looking fella.

And they did all that for 136 total games with 17 players. Those pitchers threw in excess of 300 innings each. Just the starting three. The reserves pitched a total of 103 innings. Period. Won’t happen in today’s game. One other note, almost all of the players were purchased from other teams. There was no minor league system as we know it today. Hope you enjoyed your trip to 1890.