“Charles Hautz, Old Brown Player, Dead”

Funeral services for Charles Hautz, second baseman on Chris Von de Ahe’s old-time St. Louis Browns, will be held at 1:30 p.m. today from the Wacker-Heiderle funeral parlors, Grand Boulevard and Gravois Avenue. He will be buried in St. Peter and Paul Cemetery. Hautz, who was 77 years old, died at Alexian Brothers Hospital Thursday. He had been living with a nephew, Joseph Fritz, at 4152 Bates Street.

St. Louis Star and Times, 28 January 1929, Page 19.

Hautz was certainly around baseball for probably two decades.  Learning the game in the flowering semi-professional baseball world of St. Louis, he found himself playing on the Empire and Red Stocking clubs in 1874 and 1875.  At some point in 1875, the Red Stockings were allowed entry into the National Assocation, and as such were deemed a major league team  Hautz played 19 games with the St. Louis Red Stockings of the National Association in 1875 – the 19 games was all that the Red Stockings officially played that season. And, after years toiling in minor league towns of the Midwest and playing a lot of semi-pro baseball in St. Louis, he got one more shot with Pittsburgh in the American Association in 1884 where he appeared in seven games.

Without fail, Hautz was the best player on the Red Stockings in 1875 – he hit .301 with three doubles and four RBI. However, the team hit all of .199 and really had no business being in the Association – and within a short amount of time it went out of business.  (After 1875, so did the National Association as a major league organization…) The good teams played between 65 and 82 games, the bad ones (like the Red Stockings) did not and one team played just 13 games.

On August 3, 1876, Hautz umpired a National League game between Chicago and Louisville.  In the fifth inning, rain started.  Louisville’s Jim Devlin repeatedly asked Hautz to call the game because of rain; Chicago wanted to finish the inning and make it a legal game – which Hautz appeared inclined to do.  So, Chicago swung at whatever pitch was thrown and Louisville chose to throw the ball all over the field so that the game wouldn’t end.  At some point Hautz saw the shenanigans for what it was and forfeited the game to Chicago; Anson’s team led 4 – 1 when the game was stopped.  Chicago graciously chose to call the game dead and offered to play a double header a few days later instead.

Anyway…

Charles Hautz was the third of six kids born to Joseph and Catharina (Keil) Hautz, two German immigrants, in St. Louis on 5 February 1852. He was a laborer of sorts when not playing ball and at the time of his death, his profession was listed as “waiter.” By then, he was living with the widower and son of his younger sister Margaretta. The obituary got a few details wrong – Hautz may have known Chris Von de Ahe but he didn’t play on the Browns (unless the newspaper was referencing the semi-pro Browns and not the major league Browns of that period); he was a first baseman; and he hadn’t quite reached 77 years old. Hautz passed away about two weeks before his birthday of a stroke on 24 January 1929.

Sources:

Major League Baseball Profiles, Volume 1, Page 128.
Major League Baseball Profiles, Volume 2, Page 408.

1870 US Census
1880 US Census
1920 US Census

Find A Grave:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6884173
Baseball-Reference.com

New York Clipper, August 12, 1876.