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| Al Pratt: Present at the Creation by David Pietrusza |
| His name is largely forgotten now, but in his time he was termed the premier hurler in the land, the starting moundsman in the first Big League baseball game ever, a pioneer umpire, Pittsburgh's first Major League manager, and time-after-time present at the creation of big league after big league.
Meet "Uncle Al" Pratt. Al Pratt? Yes, Al Pratt. Let us first return to Al Pratt's most historic moment. The scene is a ballpark known as the "Old Duchess" at Fort Wayne, Indiana. The date: May 4, 1871. Under threatening skies and before just 200 paying customers, baseball history is unfolding as we witness the very first contest of the National Association, baseball's initial pro circuit. Pitching for the Forest City Club of Cleveland is the aforementioned Albert George Pratt, a 22-year old veteran of the Civil War's One Hundred and Ninety-third Pennsylvania Regiment (he had served in the Union infantry as a mere 15-year old). He was a mainstay of the professional clubs of the pre-Cincinnati Red Stockings era, the "acknowledged greatest pitcher of his day." His first experience in the pitcher's box had been back in 1867 when he performed with Pittsburgh's Enterprise and Alleghany clubs, independent teams that existed in a twilight world between professionalism and gentlemanly amateurism In 1868 he graduated to the post of playing manager (at the tender age of 20!) of the Portsmouth, Ohio club. The following season he shifted over to the famed Forest Cities of Cleveland. Now, back to the action of that historic day. At 5'7" and 140 pounds, Pratt, in a white flannel uniform and blue stockings, is hardly an overwhelming figure as he faces the Fort Wayne batters. Still he stands a full inch and a half taller than his Kekionga opponent, righthander Bobby Mathews. Yet Pratt and Mathews match curves so effectively, so skillfully, that the game's score (2-0 with Mathews triumphing) was the lowest scoring contest for the next four years of the Association. "Sure, I remember that game--," boasted Pratt decades later, "look at that score and see if my catcher, Jim White, didn't make an error that let in the first run. Jimmy Foran opened the inning with a three-bagger and White had a passed ball on the next hitter and gave them a run." Careers were short in those days (the great Albert Spalding was washed up at age 26), and Pratt was no different. He went 10-18 in 1871 (the whole team was only 10-19) and just 3-9 in 1872. That ended his major-league career. Al returned to the non-league nines, pitching for Pittsburg's Xantha club ("In those days," recalled one old fan in 1890, "he was quite good looking, and how the girls did admire him") and for the Nationals of Cincinnati. But soon even the option of pitching for these lower-level clubs was closed to him, as his arm deadened. Aside from some National League umpiring in 1879-1880, Al turned to the bar for a career. Not, the legal profession, but bartending (One contemporary account delicately termed his establishment "a baseball emporium, the headquarters of the fraternity in the city"). And fate brought Al and some visitors from Cincinnati together on the evening of October 10, 1881. By then the National League was firmly in business. But a number of bustling cities were not represented in its lists--Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Louisville, and Cincinnati among the most prominent. To bring major league ball to these towns (which all still had viable independent pro teams), Horace B. Phillips, manager of the "Philadelphias" club, had summoned his fellow independents to Pittsburgh. Prior to the session, however, Phillips was canned as "Philadelphias" pilot (Player troubles: the more things change the more they stay the same), took a job as a hotel clerk, and promptly forgot about the whole scheme. In one sense, it didn't matter anyway. Few were interested enough in the postcards Phillips had mailed out to come to Smoke City. In fact, only three Cincinnatians arrived for the confab: brewer Justus Thorner, and newsmen OLiver Hazard Perry Caylor Dand Frank Wright. As luck would have it, the beer they cried into was poured by Al Pratt, who suggested that all was not lost. First, he put them in contact with a local iron manufacturer and "crank" Denny Harmer McKnight. McKnight had formerly been associated with the now-defunct "Alleghanies" and was more than willing to start the club up again. Secondly, it was suggested that messages be dispatched to all the non-attendees, indicating that the meeting had been a smashing success and coyly suggesting that everyone had been present but them. This rather crude ruse worked. On November 2 everyone did show up. The "American Association" was established as a rival major league, and Al Pratt, who had in the interim had helped resurrect the Alleghanies (a direct antecedent of today's Pirates), was suitably rewarded with the job of club manager. On one level, Pittsburgh's first major league campaign was distinctly mediocre. The team finished with an even .500 mark, 39 and 39, although the squad featured such standouts as outfielders Ed Swartwood (A.A. leader in doubles and slugging percentage) and Tom "Brick" Mansell (leader in triples) and pitcher Denny Driscoll (leader in ERA). Despite the standings, it was hardly an uneventful year. The Alleghanies appropriately enough played at Exposition Park, a field near the Alleghany River at the "Point." Actually, it was located too near the river. In May, floods inundated the park. On July 17, a cyclone ripped apart its director's stand and backstop, causing "hundreds of dollars" worth of damage. Oscar Wilde, touring the States, even took in a game versus Cleveland in late May. "He admired the game very much, but the uniforms [the Alleghanies wore clay colored breeches and purple and black shirts and caps] were not to his aesthetic taste," noted one reporter. Center fielder John J. Leary was suspended for cursing both Pratt and the Board of Directors while "indisposed" (from "too much rock and rye"). Pitcher Morris Critchly was suspended on May 18 for "bad conduct", i.e. gambling and dishonest conduct. Pratt himself sued a Pittsburgh newspaper for libel when they dared to print rumors that he had purchased pools (a 19th century form of gambling) on games. The Alleghanies had been a financial success in 1882 and vowed to be an artistic one in 1883. Yet, the latter year's edition was far less talented. With the club mired in seventh place, 60 irate stockholders convened to explain why. They were out for blood, and they got it. "Manager Pratt," noted Sporting Life "was given the bounce. Charges were made that he failed to keep proper control of the team, not only permitting them to get drunk, but being, it is said, drunk himself in Johnstown recently. Poor Al had not a friend in the meeting, the vote for his dismissal being unanimous. Strange to say the players were all for him, and presented a written petition against his removal." Pratt was not to be at liberty for long. Almost immediately Denny McKnight (now Association President) offered him the post of Association umpire, compensation being $140 a month and $3 per diem for expenses. The experience made Pratt's disastrous year-and-a-half as Alleghanies' pilot seem quite tranquil. When he officiated in Cincinnati, the abuse was torrential. O. P. Caylor, despite being a correspondent for the Cincinnati Inquirer, would sit on the Reds bench and heap abuse on rival players--and on umpires. Worse, he spewed invective from his columns, charging Pratt with "bare faced robbery" and even reporting that Pratt's allegedly woeful officiating was "part of a scheme of the Alleghanies" to throw the pennant to the St. Louis Browns. At a Saturday game featuring the Eclipse club of Louisville at the Queen City, things threatened to get completely out of hand. The "hoodlum element on the ground" was unmerciful towards Pratt and Al threatened a forfeit to Louisville "if the disorder were not suppressed." "The Cincinnati management," observed Sporting Life, "who had the game in hand, saw the danger and at once summoned the entire police form to preserve order. This was effectuated." And none too soon for our hero. He immediately wired the Association Secretary, tendering his resignation. It was not accepted (the Association could not find a substitute for Pratt) and he was ordered to St. Louis. While the Mound City's press and public was easier on Pratt, but the Reds were there and were in no mellower mood than when at home--particularly as the Browns won. Cincinnati outfielder Charley Jones and third baseman Hick Carpenter were particularly offensive. "Their incredible effrontery and disgraceful conduct caused one businessman to say he would never attend another game in which Jones played;" read one account, "that if the management countenanced such behaviour it was not entitled to his patronage. The shameless audacity of these players caused hissed and hoots by the large crowd." This time "Uncle Al" resigned for real. But he was not to be discouraged for long, and the following season, he popped up as one of the organizers of yet another major circuit, the Union Association, bankrolled by the scion of a wealthy St. Louis family, 26-year old Henry V. Lucas. As early as August 1883, Pratt was putting together plans for such a loop, tentatively christened "The American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs." By September of that year, the league was termed the "Union Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs," and Pratt was named to its Board of Directors. He even signed four players from the Columbus (Ohio) American Association Colts for the U. A.'s projected Pittsburgh entry. The city, however, fielded no Union nine, and in any case the venture folded within the space of a single year. One would think that Al would be blacklisted from Organized Baseball for his role in this revolt. Hardly. He secured a post with Albert Spalding's local sporting goods outlet--a job he held for a full half-century--and soon he was back umpiring (!) for the Association in 1886 and for the National League in 1887. When the next challenge to big league hegemony occurred in 1890, "Uncle Al" Pratt was there again. This time on the other side of the barricades. The Players' National League was a full-blown labor revolution. Most of the National League's finest stars deserted and literally formed their own rival circuit. When the Players' League invaded Pittsburgh, the Alleghanies (now in the National League and dubbed the "Innocents") were in disarray. To counter this threat, the franchise turned to Pratt, admitting him as a "stockholder and director" of the club. "A better acquisition than this would be hard to find," noted one weekly, "and ... a new way of things will be inaugurated once Mr. Pratt takes hold." Pratt, however, could do little to reverse the team's fortunes. It lost a then-record 113 games (and was awarded a "Booby Pennant", festooned with 113 stars by the National League), and Pratt vanished from the scene. The face of baseball was changing in the 1890's. The Players' revolt came and went in that single season. Then the American Association disappeared, leaving the National League with a 12-club monopoly. In October 1894 Pratt drifted off to yet another quixotic adventure in an attempt to revive his old creation, the American Association. Pratt along with fellow Pittsburghers manager Al Buckenberger and Al DeRoy (the "Three Als") arrived in New York pledging to found a new circuit. Others such as Francis Richter, editor of Sporting Life and second baseman Fred Pfeffer joined in the cabal but it quickly collapsed when the National League brought pressure to bear. That was end of "Uncle Al" Pratt's involvement in major league history, but he was still a popular old-timer. An 83-year old Pratt was even featured in the 1932 Spalding Guide. When the Pirates celebrated the Centenary of the National League in 1936, "Uncle Al" was there to play a prominent part in the procedings. Al Pratt died on November 21, 1937. A relic of an earlier age, he was buried--as he wished--resplendent in his Grand Army of the Republic uniform. |