1897 Orioles Opening Day invitation.

1897 Orioles Opening Day invitation.

PLAYER OF THE DAY - Hughie Jennings

PLAYER OF THE DAY - Hughie Jennings

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jennihu01.shtml

April 21, 1954 - Major League baseball returns to Baltimore.

April 21, 1954 - Major League baseball returns to Baltimore.

PLAYER OF THE DAY - George Hemming

PLAYER OF THE DAY - George Hemming

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hemmige01.shtml

St. Mary's Industrial School

St. Mary's Industrial School. Home of Babe Ruth.

1886 - Matt Kilroy's No-No

Matt Kilroy pitches the Orioles first no-hitter October 6, 1886

More Matches

PLAYER OF THE DAY - Matt "Matches" Kilroy

PLAYER OF THE DAY - Matt "Matches" Kilroy

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kilroma01.shtml

PLAYER OF THE DAY - Jack Dunn

The legendary Jack Dunn.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=dunn--005joh

1885 Baltimore Orioles

1885 Baltimore Orioles

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/1885.shtml

Baltimore Fire of 1873

Baltimore Fire of 1873 - The six known photos... 

Fire swept through downtown Baltimore on July 26, 1873 scorching a large section of the business district bounded by Lexington street on the south, Howard street on the west, Mulberry street on the north, and Liberty street on the east. The exact cause of the blaze is unknown, but it spread very quickly, aided by the large number of shingle roofs which were exceedingly dry in mid-summer and burnt like paper. 

Residents fled into the street and waited patiently for help. Since there weren't any hydrants or central water system, the firemen had to draw from small streams and the harbor and dammed up the gutters to not waste it. At the height of the inferno the Baltimore Police department was urged to blow up a building to stop the progress of the flames, but prudently decided that such extreme measures were unnecessary. Reinforcements came by train from Washington with three flat cars loaded with steamers and hose reels along with a passenger car filled with firemen, making the emergency run in forty minutes.

Casualties were thankfully light; two firemen were wounded when a boiler pump exploded, and only one death was reported, as Sister Rinaldi, a nun at the convent of Saint Alphonsus Church, suffered a heart attack and died from fright. The aftermath crippled commerce in the city for months as efforts to rebuild began immediately. Over 140 buildings had burned to the ground in less than a day. The cost of the devastation was roughly half covered by insurance, putting a catastrophic strain on banks that were already paying off the 1871 Chicago and 1872 Boston Fires. The area immediately south of the 1873 fire would burn in the Great Fire of 1904 and cause far more damage.

"This morning's Sun estimates the loss by the fire yesterday at $500,000, and states that good judges place the damage as low as between $300,000 and $400,000. Gazette estimates the loss at from $500,000 to $800,000, and the American says the loss will closely approximate $1,000,000."
- Davenport Daily Gazette, Iowa July 26, 1873

July 24, 1873 - Ferguson vs. Hicks

July 24, 1873, Umpire Bob Ferguson breaks Mutuals catcher Nat Hicks' left arm after a Lord Baltimores game in New York. -- The Lord Baltimores were leading the Mutuals heading into the late innings. Veteran player and umpire Bob Ferguson had received continuous verbal abuse throughout the game from Mutuals' catcher Nat Hicks. New York came back to score three runs in the bottom of the 9th for the close victory, but the argument between Hicks and Ferguson escalated after the game and ended with Ferguson hitting Hicks with a baseball bat, breaking his left arm in two places. The crowd went berserk and Ferguson needed a police escort to exit the field safely amidst a shower of boo’s and trash. Hicks refused to press formal charges and would be out two months waiting for the injury to heal.
Diorama by Ken Mars

1921 Baltimore Orioles International League Champions!

1921 Baltimore Orioles International League Champions!

http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=dcca6056

1890 - The Robinson, McMahon, Welch deal

Saturday September 13, 1890 found the O’s in Philadelphia splitting a double header against one of the most troubled teams in the American Association. The Athletics were a club spiraling downward and had tumbled from first place to sixth in a handful of weeks. The financial woes that plagued Brooklyn and the rest of the American Association were even more so in Philadelphia. Like Baltimore in 1884, the Athletics had not one, but two teams in town to compete with. Unpaid bills mounted so fast that by mid August the players threatened to strike if not paid. The situation grew worse on a road trip when the club was forced to pay their players per game out of the gate receipts instead of under their set contracts. Upon their return home, manager Bill Sharsig was shocked to discover that the Athletics no longer had a ball field to play on. City officials had seized all of the Athletics property while they were gone to pay back the mounting deficit. The Sheriff’s office sold the grandstands and fencing as scrap lumber and netted only $600 ($15K) for the bank. In September Philadelphia began to sell off its players. Any and all offers were accepted. 

On September 17, 1890, the Base Ball Gods smiled upon Billy Barnie as he very smartly purchased the contracts of veteran outfielder Curt Welch, young pitcher Sadie McMahon and reliable catcher Wilbert Robinson. Thought to be the centerpiece of the trio and by far the most expensive, Welch was once chased through the streets of Baltimore by an angry mob. Curt was a hard drinking, hard playing, uneducated rabble rouser who had helped St. Louis win three straight pennants and a made a daring slide to win the 1886 World Series, but Chris Von Der Ahe dealt him to Philadelphia after only those three seasons. Early successes drove up Welch’s contract price and the only thing that exceeded his ego was his thirst, and nobody wanted him. He led the American Association in hit-by-pitch three times and it’s pretty certain most of them weren’t accidents. By all accounts he was a jerk, but now he was the Orioles best hitter and suddenly all was forgiven (sort of). Welch’s contract was costly, but the package included the battery of McMahon-Robinson, which was Barnie’s ultimate prize in the first place. The key to the entire deal was that both Welch and McMahon had "extra baggage" that made them less attractive to buyers, but it would prove to be the greatest signing in the history of baseball in Baltimore since Lipman Pike in 1872. Period. A handful of bird seed for McMahon-Robinson at a fire sale.

     Wilmington, Delaware native John Joseph “Sadie” McMahon was in his sophomore year of professional baseball in 1890. It is rumored that he acquired the nickname Sadie when a teammate called out to a girlfriend that McMahon was standing next to and McMahon responded to the call of “Sadie” before she did. Instead of protesting when his teammates taunted him with it, the rough Irishman let it stick and made it his own. Good natured as he was, McMahon was no stranger to controversy. In May 1888 while a member of the Brandywine Club of West Chester, Pennsylvania, McMahon was charged with the murder of Carmen Malacalza. The recent Italian immigrant Malacalza was working as a peanut vendor on the Forepaugh Circus grounds in Wilmington, Delaware when he was harassed by a group of men believed to be McMahon’s teammates. A scuffle broke out in which several men shoved the innocent vendor and yelled at him. Malacalza was hit in the head with a rock and fell to the ground unconscious. His skull was fractured and he died a few hours later of a brain hemorrhage. The rock was thrown at a good distance and no one saw exactly who threw it, but McMahon was taken into custody on May 23^rd and denied bail ten days later. When McMahon finally stood in court on October 1^st, the trial came to an abrupt end. With the evidence being thin and contradictory, the State abandoned the case and cleared his name, but the stigma of the incident stuck with him. Sadie McMahon had an immediate effect on the Orioles and between Philadelphia and Baltimore; he went 36 and 21. His value to the pitching staff after the loss of Matt Kilroy is beyond estimation and he would remain an Oriole for the next six years, but he is easily eclipsed by the third piece from the Athletics deal: Wilbert Robinson.

1892 John McGraw equipment order for Bonaventure College

1892 John McGraw equipment order for Bonaventure College from when he and Hughie Jennings were trading their coaching skills for an education.

1913 Baltimore Black Sox

1913 Baltimore Black Sox

PLAYER OF THE DAY - Tillie Walker

1925 Tillie Walker

http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=walker001cla