In 1881 a new pro league appeared in California, creatively named the New California League.
The California League, which played continuously from 1879 to 1893, both preceded it and long outlived it, as 1881 proved to be the New California League's only season. Of its three teams, the Mystics and Oaklands were new to pro ball while the Californias had played in the semi-legendary 1880 California League. There they had finished their season with a 1-10 record, dropping out of the league a third of the way through the season.
The 1881 New California League was a big step-down from the 1880 California League in terms of player quality. The 1880 California League was fantastic for a minor league, featuring Eastern stars like The Only Nolan, Cal McVey, Jim Devlin, Grasshopper Jim Whitney, and even hall-of-famer Pud Galvin. Presumably, paying the salaries of such skilled players turned out to be an insupportable strain upon the wallets of the clubs because the only Eastern players in California in 1881 were fringe players in comparison, like Ed Rowen and Bill French.
Though the New California League was not overflowing with talent, its one year of operation was filled with colorful characters and drama. Making appearances in this story are gypsies, nervous pitchers, wonderfully inept second basemen, hapless umps, and freeloading spectators.
The 1881 New California League did feature some home-grown California talent destined for the big leagues. Sandy Irwin caught six games for the Oaklands, hitting .208 but with enough courage behind the bat to catch the attention of the National League's Providence Grays. The first Mexican-American in the major leagues, Sandy Irwin, who in the major leagues played under the name of Sandy Nava to sound more Hispanic, played the next five years in the major leagues. He hit just .177 but was presumably esteemed behind the plate. Pete Sweeney, a mere 17-year-old from San Mateo who played two games for the Oaklands, would play in the major leagues (hitting .209 with horrendous defense) from 1888 to 1890, and Pete Meegan, the league's top pitcher, had a 14-20 record in the American Association in 1884 and 1885.
The New California League was supposed to open its schedule on April 3, 1881, and run until October 9. All games were to be held at the Oakland Baseball Grounds between three teams: the San Francisco Mystics, the San Francisco Californias, and the Oaklands. There was one slight problem: in March, it was discovered that a band of gypsies had lived in the Oakland Baseball Grounds over the winter, and "had succeeded in keeping themselves warm by frequent raids upon the stands, dressing rooms, and bar, in order to obtain the necessary fuel." The park was in rough shape. Many of the buildings were "tottering, " and there were camp-fire remnants scattered about the grounds. Manager-outfielder Percy Jacobus of the Mystics quickly took charge of restoring the park. He had the buildings newly painted, made "general improvements," and the new league opened right on time, April 3, when Jacobus' Mystics beat the Californias 9-1. (All quotes and data are from the San Francisco Examiner unless otherwise specified.)
California baseball in 1881 was young and rather uncouth. Games were only played on Sundays, and fans watched the games from outside the park as well as inside. The San Francisco Examiner reported after the game of April 24 that "there was quite a large number of spectators perched in the trees and on the housetops outside the ground during the early part of the game, but before the Mystics had half filled the available space in their error column, their freebooting spectators got disgusted and filed sadly home. As one unadulterated hoodlum remarked, it was altogether too tough for a 'fellar' to spoil a pair of pants climbing a tree only to see the crack player of a nine muff four balls out of five, and stop the fifth only because his legs happened to be in the way of its further progress."
That crack player was Ed Lamb, shortstop for the Mystics. Lamb led the league in at-bats (84), games (17), and runs scored (23), but apparently his effort on defense was lacking. In their account of the April 24 game, the Examiner elaborated that "In point of ABSOLUTE IRREDEEMABLE BADNESS , E. Lamb, the phenomenal shortstop of the club, and who is also regarded as its best player, certainly earned a position away ahead of the front rank. " The Examiner was even more direct in their condemnation of him after the game of June 5: "Lamb, shortstop, was simply impotent, letting balls pass without even stooping to attempt to stop them."
Yeah. The baseball was a little rough. Near the beginning of the season, teams were making about a dozen errors a game per team. The Californias made 20 errors in their opening day loss, and the Mystics made 22 in that infamous game of April 24. Fielding improved somewhat over the course of the season, but it was never exactly pristine. It settled down to an average of maybe 6-8 errors per team per game, though on July 17 the Mystics and Californias did play a game where each team only made two errors.
As one would expect, due to the proliferation of errors the scores were frequently high. The high water mark of scoring was reached June 26, when the Mystics beat the Californias 23-11 in a game marked by small attendance and the players' "general inattention to the details of the game."
It wasn't all bad, but it was rather primitive. My favorite player in the league might be "Wallace," who was the captain and third baseman of the Californias in the early part of the season. Wallace was not his real name. According to the Examiner, April 25, Wallace was a "young gentleman who fears maternal chastisement for Sabbath-breaking so much that he plays under an assumed name." It is possible his mother detected his ruse and duly inflicted maternal chastisement upon him for, though he played well, his last game was May 22.
One player who would go on to be great was William Incell, pitcher for the Mystics, who Carlos Bauer describes as the "first great California-bred pitcher." (1) In 1884 in the California League he had an 8-0 record and 107 strikeouts, but that was three years off. He was a good pitcher in 1881, but was not yet a star. He may have been most notable for his nervousness. His 12-4 loss to the Oaklands on May 8 was due partly to his flusterment at the umpire's doubtful decisions.
A quick note on the league's umpires: The league had no umpiring staff. For umpires, they typically used players selected more-or-less at random from the team rosters. They were predictably mediocre.
Back to Incell. The Examiner did not beat around the bush after his 14-8 loss to the Californias on June 5. It said: "Incell has a bad habit of getting nervous, and he allows the, perhaps, too-frequent comments of the small boys among the spectators to irritate him." Apparently acid-tongued small boys were a problem at the time, and no high-strung young pitcher was safe from their heckling.
One player who was great in 1881 was Pete Meegan, the other pitcher for the Mystics. He pitched them to their opening-day 9-1 drubbing of the Californias, allowing but three hits. For the next three months he didn't pitch a single time, playing left field and second base while Incell pitched every game. Finally getting the chance to pitch again on July 10 against the Oaklands, he won 9-1 again. In two games he had pitched two one-run games; not a single other one-run game had been pitched by anyone else in the league at that point. But the Examiner was not impressed, and commented after the game that "The change of pitchers from Incell to Meegan is not very much of a gain, if at all."
Meegan pitched most of the rest of the season, hurling with success, and on August 29 the Examiner did admit he was "developing good method in his works, his specialty being curves and deceptive soft snaps." In the last game of the season, October 9, he set the league's K record against the Oaklands, striking out 13 of the hapless Oakland batters in a 4-3 win. For the season, Meegan had a 6-1 record, and Incell had a 6-4 record. As mentioned before, Meegan would go on to pitch in the major leagues for two seasons.
A California all-time great made his pro debut on July 3, playing center field and getting four hits for the Californias. His name was Rube Levy, and though he was less successful for the rest of the season, he would play in California pro ball until 1900. An early Jewish star, he was one of the most popular players in California and received many contract offers from the east. He refused them all, saying that "he knew California needed him, and... he would never desert the state." (2)
The Mystics and Oaklands had a tight pennant race, the Oaklands finishing with a record of 11-5 and the Mystics finishing at 11-7. The Californias ended in distant third with a dismal standing of 4-14.
