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1877 AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE ALL-STAR GAME
NIAGARA PLAYS HOST FOR FIRST TIME; KNICK & ST. JOHN’S LEAD NOM’S WITH SIX EACH;

BUFFALO, N.Y. (July 30, 1877) – There are fifteen games left to play in the season, and that means it’s time for the annual American Professional Baseball League All-Star Game!

Rosters for the A.P.B.L. Midsummer Classic aren’t the same as those in its NBBO counterpart:

• Twenty players per conference
• Roster places 1-4 go to pitchers – two for each rotation place
• Roster places 5-20 go to batsmen – two for each position
• All six teams from each conference must be represented (see note below)

The game was hosted by the Colonial Conference this year, and it was decided that last year’s surprise conference champions, Niagara B.B.C., should host the festivities, making this the first time the All-Star Game was played in Upstate New York.

The rosters for this year’s All-Star game were led by the conference leaders, with St. John’s & Knickerbocker both sending six players to Buffalo for the game. Excelsior, currently one game behind Knickerbocker in the Metropolitan Conference, sent five players. The A.P.B.L.’s two other forty-win teams, Alleghany & Kings County, both sent four.

The elder statemen of the All-Star Game were, once again, the trio of Jim Creighton, Konrad Jensen & Anthony Mascherino. Creighton was going to his sixteenth total All-Star Game, Jensen his seventeenth, and Mascherino his eighteenth. There were nine first-time All-Stars and four Greenhorns, although Carl Nevers had made an All-Star Game while he was in the N.B.B.O.

The Metropolitan had more talent on paper but the Colonial won last year’s game with a similar disadvantage, so it was far from guaranteed that the Metropolitan megastars would waltz away with an easy win.

These were the All-Star Game rosters, with total All-Star appearances between the N.B.B.O. & A.P.B.L. noted:

Here are the number of nominees who represented each team:

• ALLEGHANY: 4 (Ellerby, Golden, Haney, & Meier)
• AMERICAN: 2 (Burke & Prince)
• EXCELSIOR: 5 (Creighton, Hill, Myers, Oberst, & Seabold)
• FLOUR CITY: 2 (Goodman & Skaggs)
• GOTHAM: 1 (Quarles)
• KINGS CO.: 4 (Banfield, Bartholomew, Koonce, & Nevers)
• KNICK: 6 (Alexander, Goodman, Harris, Jost, Mascherino, & Strachan)
• MASS. BAY: 3 (Berg, Fisher, & Garvin)
• NIAGARA: 3 (Barrow, Roper, & Schumacher)
• ORANGE: 2 (Schreiber & Whitehead)
• SHAMROCK: 2 (Jessup & Simon)
• ST. JOHN’S: 6 (Burns, Decker, Evans, Jensen, Smith, & Todd)

As for the game itself, this was how it turned out:

The Colonial Conference won the All-Star Game again, thanks to a rally in the bottom of the eighth.

The Metropolitan started out well, taking the lead in T1 on a Single by Troy Oberst before scoring four times in T3 on four separate run-scoring base hits to take a 5-0 lead. The Colonial cut the lead to 5-2 in B3 thanks to a two-run Double by Joseph Evans, and they shortened the Metro lead to 5-4 in B5 on run-scoring hits by Konrad Jensen & Eamonn Todd.

5-4 was how the score stood until the bottom of the eighth, when the Colonial turned the potential result on its head. After a leadoff Single by Arthur Fisher, the next two batters were retired with P Thomas Smith due to bat. Smith then singled in Fisher to even the score (5-5), Gerhardt Berg singled Smith over to third, and Reginald Roper’s Double brought Smith & Berg around to give the Colonial a 7-5 lead.

In the top of the ninth Hugh Harris hit a Double that drove in Henry Jost and made it a 7-6 game, but with Harris on second the next two batters had no luck, and the Colonial Conference was the All-Star Game champion for the second straight year.

The All-Star Game M.V.P. was the man who produced the game-winning hit: Niagara’s Reginald Roper.

• CC SUB Reginald Roper (RF): 2/3 (2B, 3 TB), 1 R, 2 RBI, GW HIT

He was one of four players with multiple Hits in the game, the others being Fred Bartholomew (2/3, 2B, 2 R, RBI), Konrad Jensen (2/3, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 SB), and Henry Jost (2/3, 2B, 1 R).

The pitchers of record were Thomas Smith with the Win and Nicholas Banfield with the Loss. Every player took part to varying degrees, with four starters staying in until the eighth inning.

A crowd of 8,113 watched the proceedings at the Greater New York Sporting Grounds in Buffalo, a sellout crowd that was able to enjoy a great game in pleasant summer weather (65 F, 12 mph winds).

The Metropolitan Conference may have the marquee talent, but right now the Colonial Conference has the bragging rights.