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Mutual of Janesville
The Mutual Base Ball Club of Janesville, Wisconsin, rose
from the ashes of two earlier clubs in 1868 and went through numerous ups and
downs before reemerging at the end of the 1870s as a formidable professional
club that featured such stars as John Montgomery Ward and Albert “Doc” Bushong.
As such, the story of the Mutuals’ early years gives us a fascinating window
into the struggles that occurred in many towns to determine which baseball club
would become the local standard-bearer.
At least three ball-playing clubs were active in Janesville
in 1860: the Janesville Club, the Bowers City Club and the Badger Base Ball
City. The competition was intense enough for several matches to take place and
for a tournament of sorts to be staged on Independence Day to determine the
local championship of the “old fashioned American game of base ball.” But this
was very much an old-fashioned game – one of the versions that would
collectively come to be known as “town ball” – as games featured twelve players
a side and were played to fifty runs. (Janesville Daily Gazette, July 3,
August 11, August 24, and September 1, 1860)
Ball-playing disappeared from Janesville entirely during
the war, and it was not until 1866 that the Knickerbockers’ game was
introduced. Frank L. Smith, whose reminiscence as the primary source of this
piece, recalled that he attended school in Connecticut that spring and was first
exposed to the more regimented way of playing baseball. He returned home to
Janesville in July eager to pass his knowledge along, only to find that a New
York hardware businessman named W. J. Doolittle had relocated to Janesville and
had already begun to introduce the new version.
Over the remainder of the summer, a small group of players
began to practice the new version. Periodical notes would appear in that day’s
Gazette, such as one that read: “Ball players will meet on the old ground
at 6:30 this evening by order of Smith, Grand ‘Bawler,’” and the result would be
a gathering at the ground established on Court Street. Many of the players who
turned out did not think highly of the new way of playing, and continued to
throw the ball at the base-runner. As Smith puts it, their adherence to the old
way of playing was “amusing to the spectators … [but] rather annoying to the
party who was hit.” (Janesville Daily Gazette, February 8, 1905, 5)
Gradually, however, the “indifferent practices” gave way to
more satisfactory ones and by the fall a club had been formed to represent
Janesville. Known as the Bower Citys to reflect the city’s nickname (which in
turn was a tribute to Janesville’s many shade trees), the club relocated to
better grounds in the block the bounded by Milton Avenue, Prospect Avenue, Fifth
Avenue, and Glen Street. The club also arranged their first-ever game against
an outside club, to be played in Janesville on October 13 against the Olympians
of Beloit College.
For the historic match, the Bower City Club arrayed
themselves in spiffy uniforms consisting of “black trousers, white dress shirts,
cuffs and collars, black necktie, glossy black tarpaulin hats and boots shined
to order.” Other aspects of the match were attended by similar ceremony, with
post-game cheers for both clubs and the umpire being followed by a post-game
feast at the Myers House. Unfortunately, the match also revealed a couple of
major problems. The first was that the visitors won by the lopsided score of
61-8. The second was that Smith, who was only fifteen, was told that he was
“too small to take part in match games” and had to settle for being official
scorer of the historic match.
As a result, when the spring of 1867 rolled around and the
Bower City Club reorganized, Smith had instead decided to form a new club
consisting of lads of his own age. This was a solution that had many
advantages, since it created two clubs whose members had much in common and also
gave Janesville the potential for a spirited in-town rivalry. Initial signs
suggested that the split into two clubs had indeed infused energy into the local
baseball scene. A State Association of Base Ball Players was formed at
Janesville on July 22, 1867, and plans were announced for a state baseball
tournament in Beloit. Both the Bower Citys and Smith’s club, the Excelsior
Juniors, arranged several matches against clubs from other towns.
But it soon became apparent that the new arrangement was
far from perfect. When Smith entered his club in the junior bracket of the
state tournament, he received a response that read, “I think you will stand a
good chance, as no other junior clubs have entered.” A couple of other junior
clubs eventually signed up, but both of the matches that the Excelsior Juniors
were supposed to play were cancelled due to misunderstandings. The club was
given the second-place trophy, a silver ball reportedly valued at seventy-five
dollars, but Smith and his fellow club members were nonetheless disgusted at
having made the trip to Beloit for nothing.
The matches that were played by Janesville clubs in 1867
proved no more satisfactory. The Bower Citys showed a tendency to poke fun at
Smith’s junior nine, so the younger club challenged them to a match and won a
tightly fought contest. The result was very exciting to the Excelsior Juniors,
but demoralizing to the Bower Citys, who were forced to recognize that they were
not destined for much success on the baseball diamond. That message was
reinforced by convincing defeats at the hands of two Wisconsin college squads,
which pretty much were the death knoll for the Bower City Club.
By the end of the 1867 season, as Smith put it, it had
become apparent that Janesville did not “cut a very wide swath in the baseball
world. The Seniors did not seem possessed of the right material – or were too
old when they commenced to play – and the Juniors were too young to successfully
go out of their class. Probably with a full realization of these facts, both
clubs silently passed away in the mellow autumn.” (Janesville Daily Gazette,
February 13, 1905, 5)
In the spring of 1868, with both the Excelsiors and the Bower City Club having
passed out of existence, the Mutual Club of Janesville was formed and enlisted
many of the strongest players from its two predecessors. This arrangement had
the great advantage of giving Janesville the most competitive baseball club the
town had ever possessed. But at the same time it meant that the club members
were a heterogeneous lot – the Mutuals were a baseball club as opposed to a
social club that happened to play baseball. This was an important development
because it meant that the club’s existence was entirely tied to its ability to
win baseball matches.
During their inaugural season, the Mutuals devoted
themselves primarily to competition against clubs in the immediate vicinity.
They won a heatedly contested series against the Titans, a club from the west
side of Janesville that was mostly made up of railroad employees. The club also
won several other matches against nearby rivals, culminating in September when
they earned the title of county champions at the Rock County Fair. For doing
so, the Mutuals received a familiar trophy: the same silver ball that the
Excelsior Juniors had won at the previous year’s state tournament. According to
Smith, when that club has passed out of existence, the silver ball that was
supposedly worth $75 was taken to a jeweler for appraisal and he sniffed, “If it
was silver it would be worth about twelve dollars but as it is only thinly
plated it would be of no value to us.” So it was donated to the county fair
While the Mutuals beat all of the clubs in the vicinity in
1868, their only game against a well-known club produced a very different
result. The Forest Citys of Rockford paid a visit to Janesville in mid-July
and, in Smith’s dry account, “The Rockford boys ceased to run the bases when
they had accumulated 88 runs, during which time, it being a very warm day, the
Mutuals were seemingly contented with six.” (Janesville Daily Gazette,
February 14, 1905, 2)
The same pattern repeated itself in 1869. The Mutuals
again proved themselves the top club in the region, winning matches or series
against the cross-town Titans, the Athletes of Whitewater and the Capital Citys
of Madison and retaining the county championship. They even managed a very
significant victory against the Cream Citys of Milwaukee. The match was
especially gratifying to Frank L. Smith, who had spent the summers of 1868 and
1869 working for a railroad and playing in few of the club’s matches, but who
was so anxious about the match against the Milwaukee club that he quit his job
in order to play. The game was tied at 46-46 after seven innings, at which
point it had been previously been agreed that the game would end so that the
Mutuals could catch their train home. But the Cream Citys convinced the
Janesville players to stay and complete the game, and the visitors scored nine
runs in the next two innings without surrendering any. (Janesville Daily
Gazette, February 16, 1905, 2)
The triumph in Milwaukee led the Mutuals to bill
themselves, not without justification, as the champion club of Wisconsin.
Nevertheless, when pitted against a club from Chicago in a late-season showdown,
the Mutuals were once again badly outclassed. This left the Mutuals with a
dilemma to mull over in the winter of 1869-1870. With baseball’s national body
having now legitimized professionalism, many amateur clubs were forced to decide
whether to take this route. Since the Mutuals had always been more baseball
club than social club, it seemed likely that they would begin to gravitate
toward professionalism.
The 1870 season started with the Mutuals mostly using the
same local players who had represented the club over the preceding few years.
But the club opened the season by being trounced 74-5 by a strong club from
Chicago, and embarrassing loss that prompted the Milwaukee Sentinel to
chortle, “We don’t know how Janesville will regard this record made by the
Chicago club. With their usual presumption they will no doubt still claim the
championship of the state, and will sling ink fast and furious to establish
their pretensions. The other portions of the state will at once see the utter
nonsense of calling that club champion that has been hard at practice for the
last two months and after all could only make five runs against the White
Stockings.” (quoted in Janesville Daily Gazette, February 18, 1905, 2)
While the Mutuals improved in their next few games, in July
the club was reorganized and, in Smith’s words, the “executive talent was
becoming slightly top-heavy.” During the remainder of the season, it becomes
clear that the new directors were calling the shots and that longtime players
like Smith felt left out. His comments about professionalism are vague,
leaving it impossible to be certain how many of these players were receiving
money and how much. Newspaper coverage that year was also vague, though there
was a suggestive reference to a “misunderstanding” between the members that
caused several players to miss a key match. (Janesville Gazette,
September 1, 1870)
What is known is that the ensuing months saw several new
players suddenly appear, while other mainstays of the club left town and joined
rival clubs. One of the young men who departed was Orion Sutherland, who had
been born and raised in Janesville and spent almost all of his long life in the
town. But in 1870, he played a match for the Mutuals in Oshkosh and was
approached afterward by a man named Charley Brown, a former Janesville resident
who now owned a boot and shoe store in Oshkosh. When asked what he was doing,
Sutherland replied, “playing ball and hunting.” Brown offered him thirty
dollars a month plus board to join the Oshkosh ball club, along with use of a
team of horses for hunting whenever he wanted. Needless to say, Sutherland
moved to Oshkosh and spent the next two years there playing ball. (Oshkosh
Northwestern, November 21, 1932, 7; summary of a letter from Sutherland)
Meanwhile, the Mutuals’ new lineup was first tested in a
three-game northern tour that took them to Beaver Dam, Fond du Lac and Oshkosh.
All three games ended in triumphs, but none of the opponents were highly
regarded, and the Sentinel wrote dismissively, “There have been several
games of baseball lately at different points along the line of the Northwestern
railroad – all of which have been won by the Champion Muffers of Janesville.
They are able to play ball just well enough to be beaten by respectably strong
clubs and on their own grounds, at the rate of five to one. Their game of
blowing can discount their game of base ball. Cheek, too, is one of their best
points. Give them pen and paper and they will demonstrate without danger of
contradiction that if they have not won the championship of the state at
baseball by playing a game they are partly entitled to it by reason of the
remarkable dexterity with which they sling ink in their endeavor to prove
themselves such. They can also incontestably show that as blowers they are a
decided success. How fortunate for the world that the telegraph and the press
are sufficiently capable of heralding the vast achievements of the Muffers.”
By this point, the rivalry between the Mutuals and their
Milwaukee counterparts had now reached fever pitch and it was time to decided
matters on the diamond. Unfortunately for the Mutuals, however, the first game
was scheduled to be played in Milwaukee and when the day rolled around the
Mutuals were unable to assemble a creditable nine. So several last-minute
substitutes were enlisted, including a third baseman who disgusted Smith by
throwing a ball to first base that was so high that it soared over the fence and
out of the enclosure altogether. Not surprisingly, the Mutuals were trounced,
64-20.
That set the stage for a return match between the Cream
Citys and the Mutuals in Janesville on the last day of August. This time the
Janesville directors made certain to have enough players on hand but they went
too far and ended up with a surplus. As a result, as Smith poignantly describes
it, he “was asked by some of the directors to abdicate in favor of players to
whom we had to offer liberal inducements when short handed, as they might be
offended if dropped from the list – and of course ‘I didn’t care.’” Even
thirty-five years after the fact, Smith admitted that it was difficult for him
to write about and that he had become “worked up over a recollection of the
affair.” (Janesville Daily Gazette, February 18, 1905, 2) It is a
heart-wrenching portrayal of the conflicting emotions of a proud amateur member
of a club that had begun bringing in professionals.
Thus the man who had helped introduce regulation baseball
to Janesville, who had been a mainstay of the local baseball scene ever since,
and who had even arranged this match, was forced to watch from a buggy as the
opposing clubs warmed up before the start of the critical match. Suddenly,
however, the Mutuals’ new pitcher reached for a ball and came up clutching his
finger, which turned out to broken. The directors asked Smith to replace him
and, “after a few minutes of conflicting emotions I took to the field, ‘Sans’
uniform, not to please them, but because I, above all others on the grounds, was
anxious for victory.” After beginning the game in the outfield, Smith then had
the great satisfaction of being called upon to pitch the final two innings and
preserving a 19-17 win over the club’s archrivals.
The Mutuals followed the big win over the Cream Citys with
several more wins, but just when it seemed that the 1870 season would end on a
high note, the unthinkable happened. The club received a challenge from one in
Elkhorn, which as Smith puts it, was “a town that had been scarcely heard of at
that time, being known only as a place where Whitewater did its ‘courting,’ and
where cases were sometimes taken from other courts on a change of venue.” But
instead of the easy victory that was anticipated, “after locating the place on
the map we drove across the country and were effectually done up to the tune of
36 to 21.” (Janesville Daily Gazette, February 22, 1905, 2)
Naturally, the upset was viewed in Janesville as a “fluke”
and a “good joke” and a rematch was scheduled at which it was assumed that the
Mutuals would exact revenge. Once again, however, the club from Elkhorn emerged
triumphant, and the two shocking results changed the entire local outlook on
baseball.
In Smith’s words, “So we went into winters quarters with
our conceit somewhat shattered and the enthusiasm of the capitalists almost
flooded. This sad ending of an otherwise successful season was not the only
discouraging feature as the arrangement of all our games was fraught with more
or less difficulty. Most of the home players were engaged in business, making
it uncertain as to when they could indulge in practice or take part in games and
the gate receipts were insufficient a [sic] the outlay necessary to the securing
of outside players – who seldom made good. The final straw was a judgment
secured against the club by a liveryman, for the loss of a horse in a trip to
Rockford to secure players. It seems that the young man selected to make the
trip had never before driven horses, but he had some personal errand to do in
that city so two birds (and one horse) were killed with one stone at a cost of
about $200 to the club. With all these drawbacks it is not surprising that
there was no reorganization of the club in the spring of 1871.” (Janesville
Daily Gazette, February 22, 1905, 2)
Only a few games were played in Janesville in 1871 and none
at all in 1872. In 1873, arrangements were made for a game on Independence
Day. But after Smith and Orion Sutherland spent all morning preparing the
grounds, a big rain storm came and, as Smith dryly put it, “that is the nearest
Janesville came to having a ball game in 1873.” (Janesville Daily Gazette,
February 23, 1905, 2)
As it turned out, however, the Mutuals were not dead but
merely hibernating. A rebirth of baseball enthusiasm came in 1874 and over the
next few years a familiar pattern repeated itself. At first Janesville was
represented by enthusiastic local amateurs, including several holdovers from the
clubs of the 1860s such as Smith and Sutherland. But eventually, these men were
replaced by younger men such as the Morissey brothers –both of whom were
destined to play in the major leagues – and by imported professionals.
By 1877, the lineup of the Mutuals and Janesville included
such stars as John Montgomery Ward and Albert “Doc” Bushong and defeated many
strong professional nines. But, in a close parallel to 1870, the season ended
with two disappointing losses and, in Smith’s words, “if we had won the last two
games and the attendance during the week had come anywhere near up to
expectations, there is no doubt but what we should have continued for another
year.” (Janesville Daily Gazette, April 17, 1905, 2) Instead, the
Mutuals’ best players soon signed with other professional clubs for the 1878
season and the Mutuals of Janesville passed out of existence for good.
MEMBERS (1868-1870)
“Del” Bump: The identity of the player Smith referred to as
“Del Bump” remains in some doubt. There was only one man with a plausible name:
Delos S. Bump, who was born around 1837 in New York State and spent much of his
life on a farm in Buffalo County, Wisconsin. In 1864, he enlisted in
Wisconsin’s 36th Infantry, serving for sixteen months. Eventually he
returned to Buffalo County, where he farmed and later worked as a carpenter. He
died there on July 31, 1902. But I’ve found no indication that this man ever
lived in Janesville, which is in an entirely different part of the state from
Buffalo County. Also, Del Bump was still playing for the Mutuals in 1874, which
seems unlikely for a man born in 1837. Did Delos Bump move to Janesville after
the war, and continue to play until quite a bit older than might have been
expected, or was Del a nickname of one of the men named Bump who did live in
Janesville?
Theodore Pearson Conant: Theo Conant was born in Irasburg,
Vermont, on August 8, 1850, but his family settled in the Janesville area while
he was a child. In the early 1870s, he moved to St. Louis and found work as a
salesman for an iron merchant. He worked his way up to becoming secretary and
treasurer of the Sligo Iron Store Company, a leading manufacturer of carriage
lamps, and eventually became the president of the company. His success allowed
him to become prominent in St. Louis society and to send his son to Yale.
Conant lived to a very old age, dying in St. Louis on August 9, 1938.
William J. Doolittle: W. J. Doolittle was not a playing
member of the Mutuals, but Frank L. Smith credits him with introducing
regulation baseball to Janesville in 1866. Doolittle was born in Utica, New
York, on June 13, 1833 and attended Hamilton College. He was also an active
member of the Utica Base Ball Club, serving as the club’s first secretary in
1859 and appeared in at least 17 games as a player between 1860 and 1865. In
the mid-1860s, he moved to Janesville with his wife and young family to become a
hardware merchant. He eventually moved on to Milwaukee to accept a job with the
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance as an actuary. He worked for the firm until
1911, then retired to Cleveland where he died in August of 1912.
William G. Heller: William Heller was born in Wisconsin
around 1853 and grew up in Janesville. Amazingly, he was listed on the 1870
census as a “ball player,” but later censuses had less glamorous occupations
such as “bookkeeper.” He never married, and was still living in Janesville in
1931.
Pete Lenehan: Pete Lenahan was born around 1851 in Ontario,
Canada, to Irish immigrants who eventually moved to Janesville. Lenehan was
still living in Janesville in 1880, but his whereabouts after that have not been
determined.
George White Marston: George Marston was born in Fort
Atkinson, Wisconsin, on October 22, 1850. He enrolled at Beloit College as a
prep student in 1866, playing right field for the baseball team. He then worked
in a grist mill and clerked in a bank, and spent a year at the University of
Michigan as a pre-med student, while also finding time to play several games for
the Mutuals in 1869 and 1870. That fall, he and his father moved to San Diego,
California, where George Marston founded the city’s leading department store and
became a tireless community activist. Among his numerous accomplishments were
founding the San Diego Historical Society, donated the Serra Museum to the city,
and funding the design of Balboa Park and of the first formal plan for San
Diego’s development. Marston ran for mayor of San Diego in 1913 and 1917 and
lost both times – ironically, his opponents tagged the highly successful
businessman “Geranium George” and convinced voters that he would be unfriendly
to business and would be more interested in city beautification than
development. He also became a friend of A. G. Spalding. Marston died in
1946 in San Diego, where he was and remains a revered figure. (Nicholas C. Polos,
“George White Marston: The Merchant Prince of San Diego,” The Journal of San
Diego History 30:4 (Fall 1984))
Frederick B. Pullen: Fred Pullen was born in February 1849
in New York City and grew up in Janesville. The son of a clergyman, Fred
followed in his father’s footsteps, leading churches in East Orange, New Jersey,
and Providence, Rhode Island. He was still living in East Orange in 1920.
Edgar M. Smith: Ed Smith was Frank L. Smith’s older
brother, born around 1849. He appears to have died young, as no trace of him
has been found after 1870.
Frank L. Smith: Frank L. Smith was one of the leading figures in Janesville
baseball for many years and he wrote the 1905 series of articles on the history
of baseball in the city upon which this piece is based. Smith was born in
Janesville in April of 1851, the son of a dry goods merchant. In addition to
his baseball exploits, Frank Smith captured the state skating championship as a
young man. He was educated in Connecticut, then followed his father into
business, although as he revealed in his history of local baseball, on several
occasions he was forced to choose between business and baseball. After working
as a railroad clerk and businessman, he eventually became Janesville’s city
assessor. Although in his fifties when he accepted the position, he remained
city assessor for nearly four decades, still continuing on duty as late as
1940. Widowed three times, Smith died in 1942.
Dr. James W. St. John: Dr. St. John was a local doctor who
was quite a bit older than the other members of the Mutuals, having been born in
Janesville on October 30, 1839. Smith recalled that Dr. St. John used his great
strength to hit “haymakers” that “went so high and far that they had to be
relayed back through the entire nine.” According to another account, “the
doctor had a willow club of his own that he used to swing when he came up to bat
which weighed in the neighborhood of seven pounds and that every time he took
his position at the bat the crowd were [sic] much disappointed if the doctor did
not make a home run.” Dr. St. John helped out on his family farm until he was
eighteen, at which point he spent a year studying at a seminary in Vermont and
then began the study of medicine. He served as a medical cadet during the Civil
War, then graduated from the Chicago Medical College and returned to Janesville
to practice medicine. He served as the city’s mayor in 1875 and 1876, and later
as President of the Board of Education. He died in January of 1912.
James A. Sutherland: Born on November 7, 1847, James A.
Sutherland was the older brother of very club member Orion Sutherland. Like his
brother, James was an underage Civil War enlistee, serving in the 40th
Wisconsin Infantry in 1864. He joined his father and brother in the bookstore
business and remained in Janesville for the rest of his life. His health began
to fail around 1912, and he applied to a Civil War disability pension in that
year. His final years were also saddened by the death of his only child. He
died in Janesville on October 16, 1918. Note: J. A. Sutherland was described by
Smith as a member of the Excelsior Juniors. He later describes “Duck”
Sutherland as a member of the Mutuals (primarily during the mid- to
late-seventies). Orion was on the club at the same time, so “Duck” cannot be
Orion. I’m inclined to think that Duck is a nickname for James, but it could be
a different brother.
Orion Sutherland: Orion Sutherland was born in Janesville
on September 15, 1849, the son of a bookstore owner. Like his older brother
James Sutherland, Orion was an underage Civil War enlistee, serving as a private
in the Wisconsin 46th Infantry under the alias of Samuel Statelin or
Satelin. After the war, Orion began working as a clerk at his father’s
bookstore, but by his own account spent most of his time “playing ball and
hunting.” As described in the club history, he was recruited to join the
Oshkosh club in 1870 with an offer of $30 per month plus board and the use of a
team of horses for hunting. He spent the next two years there playing ball and
“hunting up the Wolf river through Butte des Morts, Winneconne, Lake Poygan,
going through the cutoff and up the Wolf river, passing Big and Little Partridge
lakes up as far as Stanley’s Landing.” His time in Oshkosh also reunited him
with James Rea, who had been one of the lieutenants in the 46th
Infantry. In 1871, Orion Sutherland returned to Janesville, got married, and
joined his father’s business, which became known as J. Sutherland & Sons,
Booksellers and Stationers. Both the marriage and his association with the
store lasted for more than sixty years, as it was not until the 1930s that he
finally retired. Sutherland remained very active throughout his life, receiving
several medals as a long distance bicycle rider. In 1933, at the age of 83, he
reported that he still played 18 holes of golf a day and had marched in that
year’s Armistice Day parade, carrying the colors. He died in Janesville on
April 11, 1937.
Other Members: Harry Adler (of the firm of Adler and Irwin,
president of club), Eager (who was described as a newcomer to the city in 1868
when he joined the club), Hart (member of Bower Citys before joining the Mutuals),
Hitchcock (a newcomer to the city in 1868, later with Fond du Lac), Nash, B.
and/or T. Smith, Stoddard, and White. Other men who played briefly for the
Mutuals between 1868 and 1870 included. Men who played for the club during the
latter part of the 1870 season and were likely imported professionals included
Barker, Bird, Hulse, and Waxham (first names all unknown). After reorganizing,
the Mutuals included many strong professional players, such as John Montgomery
Ward and Albert “Doc” Bushong from Pennsylvania, locals such as Tom and John
Morissey, Thomas and W. D. Cantillon, Cornelius J. McGinley, and Joseph Doe.
Sources: Frank L. Smith, twenty-part history of baseball in
Janesville, Janesville Daily Gazette, February 8-May 4, 1905; Oshkosh
Northwestern, November 21, 1932, 7 (article summarizing a letter from Orion
Sutherland); contemporary coverage in various Wisconsin newspapers
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