The Louisville Grays were a 19th-century United States

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team and charter member of the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

, based in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. They played two seasons, 1876 and 1877, and compiled a record of 65–61. Their home games were at the Louisville Baseball Park. The Grays were owned by businessman

Walter Newman Haldeman Walter Newman Haldeman (April 27, 1821 – May 14, 1902) was an American newspaper publisher, owner, and businessman from Louisville, Kentucky, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the founder of the ''Louisville Courier'', which would la ...

, owner and publisher of the '' Louisville Courier-Journal'' newspaper.

Overview

The Grays were undone by

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

's first

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three ele ...

scandal. The team was in first place in August 1877, then suddenly lost seven games and tied one against the Boston Red Stockings and Hartford Dark Blues. Boston ended up winning the pennant, seven games ahead of the second-place Grays. A ''Courier-Journal'' story questioning the team's conduct was written by John Haldeman, the owner's son. Team president Charles Chase received two anonymous telegrams. One noted that gamblers were favoring the less talented Hartford team in an upcoming series. The second telegram predicted Louisville would

throw Throwing is an action which consists in accelerating a projectile and then releasing it so that it follows a ballistic trajectory, usually with the aim of impacting a remote target. This action is best characterized for animals with prehensile ...

the next game versus Hartford on August 21. The Grays committed a number of suspicious errors and lost that game 7–0. League president William Hulbert investigated and ordered players to authorize

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

to release all telegrams sent or received during the 1877 season. All players complied except

shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists wh ...

Bill Craver, the team's captain. The telegrams indicated that

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or dr ...

Jim Devlin,

left fielder In baseball, a left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder who plays defense in left field. Left field is the area of the outfield to the left of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering sys ...

George Hall George Hall may refer to: People The arts * George Hall (actor) (1916–2002), Canadian-American actor * George Hall (musician) (c. 1893 – c. 1989), American bandleader * George Hall (cartoonist) (born 1960), Australian comic book writer and ...

, and utility player Al Nichols intentionally lost games in exchange for money. No direct evidence was found implicating Craver. All four were banned from baseball for life, Craver for refusing to comply with the investigation. Devlin pitched every inning for the 1877 Grays, leading the league in games and innings pitched. Hall played every inning in left field; he was a good batter, and was the 1876 home run leader with five. The original

St. Louis Brown Stockings The St. Louis Brown Stockings were a professional baseball club based in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1875 to 1877, which competed on the cusps of the existences of two all-professional leagues—the National Association (NA) and the National Leagu ...

had signed Devlin and Hall for 1878 and went out of business with the Grays after the investigation.Cash 38-54

References

* Cash, Jon David. ''Before They Were Cardinals: Major-League Baseball in Nineteenth-Century St. Louis''. 2002, U. of Missouri Press. * Cook, William. ''The Louisville Grays Scandal of 1877''. 2005, paperback, McFarland and Co. * Ginsburg, Daniel. ''The Fix Is In: A History of Baseball Gambling and Game Fixing Scandals''. 2004, paperback, McFarland and Co.

External links

Team index
at Baseball Reference {{MLBHistory, state=collapsed Defunct baseball teams in Kentucky Defunct Major League Baseball teams Baseball teams established in 1876 Sports clubs disestablished in 1877 1876 establishments in Kentucky

Overview

See also

References

External links