WE MAY LOSE OUR BROWNS
Joe Pulitzer Offers to Buy the Champions from Von der Ahe.
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One Hundred Thousand Dollars the Actual Price Offered.
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If They Are Sold They Will Be Transferred to New York.
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There is something more than smoke to the rumor that New York parties offered to purchase the St. Louis Browns from President Von der Ahe. It is stated on the best authority that Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, several weeks ago advised a prominent St. Louisian to call on Von der Ahe and offer him $100,000 to transfer the Brown Stocking team to New York and it was the very fact of this offer that brought Von der Ahe east with his team. Yesterday Von der Ahe is said to have met Pulitzer with a vow to closing the deal.
While the sale can be made now the actual transfer cannot be brought about until next fall. The National Agreement prohibits the transfer of a club from one association to another except during the month of November so that no actual transfer can be made until then. But it may be that the Browns even if brought here will not leave the American Association. It is believed that they could take the Mets place in that body and draw crowds to Wiman's beautiful grounds such as that place has never seen before. Were they on the other hand to take the Giants place in the League, why they could coin money for their owners.
(Actual story for this date. I'll be interested to see how it turns out! Well, we know how it turned out - the Browns stayed in St. Louis and became the Cardinals, the original Metropolitans eventually ceased to be, and the Giants, too, live to this day albeit on another coast. For those not aware of Chris von der Ahe, let me say two things: 1. he was if memory serves the brother of the guy who created the Midwestern grocery chain known as Von's, and b. he was a very colorful man in his own right. There was an entry in one of the Baseball Hall of Shame books on him that I highly recommend (or would if I had any idea which one it was). In a nutshell, he tried to turn the Brown's stadium into a full entertainment complex a la what the Diamondbacks did, complete with an adjacent amusement park. He also went bankrupt and was forced to sell the team in the 1890s.)
Molina Badly Hurt.
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BROOKLYN, June 3. In yesterday afternoon's game 2B Mike Molina (.277, 1, 20) was badly injured. A ball SS Cudmore (.286, 1, 22) threw to him in the second inning passed through his hands and struck him in the mouth. Both his lips were split so badly that after the game it was found necessary for the attending physician to put several stitches in each lip.
(Okay, so Molina's actual injury was a ruptured Achilles tendon, but how would that have been identified if it happened in actual 1887? "Molina pulled up lame and decided not to run. He is a coward and a mountebank and has been released without pay" is my guess. Anyway, Molina was the first overall pick in the 1884 draft and this year was looking like it was maybe going to be his breakout season. He's not a good fielder but weirdly, his poor fielding looks mostly range-based (his fielding average is .891 but that's only a little bit below average for a 2B in this era).)
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NATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS
W L PCT GB
New York Giants 23 9 .719 -
Chicago White Stockings 17 10 .630 3.5
Detroit Wolverines 17 12 .586 4.5
Boston Beaneaters 17 14 .548 5.5
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 14 12 .538 6.0
Washington Nationals 10 16 .385 10.0
Philadelphia Quakers 11 20 .355 11.5
Indianapolis Hoosiers 7 23 .233 15.0
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION STANDINGS
W L PCT GB
Philadelphia Athletics 24 13 .649 -
Cincinnati Red S'ings 25 14 .641 -
St. Louis Browns 24 14 .632 .5
Brooklyn Grays 20 14 .588 2.5
Baltimore Orioles 14 20 .412 8.5
New York Metropolitans 14 20 .412 8.5
Louisville Colonels 13 19 .406 8.5
Cleveland Blues 9 29 .237 15.5
RACE FOR .400
Right now the only player near .400 is Baltimore Orioles RF Sean Farris (.394, 3, 16), the highlight of an otherwise horrible team. Farris, who has only recently been starting full-time (previously he was time-sharing with Pablo Chavez (.288, 1, 10) in an arrangement which was DEFINITELY NOT a platoon because teams didn't platoon back then (and may not even have been completely clued into the fact that opposite-handed hitters hit better). I should note here that teams didn't really appear to time-share or even change out players except in the offseason in real life but... that's no fun. Anyway, he hit .400 in April, .410 in May, and so far has only 2 hits in 8 at-bats in June but, well, the month is still young, right? This average is still more than 100 points higher than his previous career high (.289 last year) but he's also walking *way* more than he did last year (his OBP is .484 right now!) so maybe it was a legit talent bump, who knows?
CHASE FOR 300 WINS
Mitch Thomas (4-7, 1.89) has been an ace since the inception of the league but he keeps getting stuck on mediocre teams. This year is no different, it seems. That being said, he does have 251 wins (against 176 losses) and he's in a bit of a race against Father Time to see if he can become the first pitcher to reach 300. He was 25 when the league got going in '76, so almost the perfect age to be that guy. Still, while right now he looks like a virtual lock to win 20ish games a year over the next 3 years and hit the 300 mark by age 38, he could also fall off a cliff or suffer an injury for all anyone knows... the other top 5 in career wins are Mike Bynes of the Beaneaters (7-3, 2.92) with 243, Brian Everhart in Pittsburgh (6-5, 2.92) with 235, Barry Woodruff, (N/R), most recently of Detroit with 226, and Thomas' former teammate Rodger Rott (7-3, 2.91) with 212.