<— FEBRUARY 6     FEBRUARY 8 —>

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1850 Mike Hooper
1856 Charlie Reipschlager
1859 John Fox
1862 Charlie Dougherty

Charlie Dougherty is listed here because for years researchers believed that this Charles Dougherty was born OTD in Wisconsin. This hasn’t always been the case – it is something that was changed maybe 60 years ago. Nowadays, researchers like me are trying to get to the truth.

After Justin McKinney wrote about the Union Association the SABR bio committee chose to remove the bio data for the Wisconsin Dougherty. In fact, Dougherty was the “Mystery of the Month” for the January/February 2025 issue of the bio committee’s newsletter.)

So how did I come up with this as his birthdate originally for the site? It was in the Lehman database – I use the MS Access version which has been updated every year for, like, 20 years and now is shared with SABR. This allowed me to create lists of players with various criteria (bio or statistical or team), making it way easier to create the page you are visiting now. Where did the Lehman database get that date? I’m guessing from the data tables that came from one of the Total Baseball encyclopedias.

Charles Dougherty was listed as having been born in Philadelphia in the Turkin and Thompson Official Encyclopedia of Baseball (1951), though without a birthdate. I wish I had the original 1969 Big Mac – but I don’t. I have the 10th edition released in 1996. That book lists Charles William Dougherty as having been born in Milwaukee on February 7… That carried into the data used to assemble Total Baseball and remained in use until 2025.

Anyway – I’m guessing that McKinney went through any number of issues of the old Altoona Times and found that there were a few references to Dougherty, including one saying that he lived in Philadelphia when not playing baseball. That ruled out the bio data about Dougherty having come from Wisconsin. Bill Carle, who is among the leaders of the SABR Bio Committee, rightly chose to act as if we don’t know who Charles Dougherty was.

The Altoona Times has other interesting things about Dougherty, including the fact that he appeared in 23 of the Altoona games that year – which was nearly all of the games that Altoona played in the Union Association before disbanding around June 2, 1884. Altoona wasn’t very good, they didn’t always draw, and they stopped playing games on Sunday, which apparently angered a more biblically religious community.

Dougherty wasn’t part of the problem. He played second base mostly (14 games), plus some right field and a game at short. He batted .258 with a little power – enough to be essentially a league average hitter. In a win over Washington (the second game in this series), “Dougherty played a fine game at record, his catch of a line hit between first and second, and his stop of a swift ground hit at the same place, being especially noteworthy.”

“Base Ball,” Altoona Times, May 26, 1884: 1.

In flipping through old issues of The Sporting Life, I found this nugget:

“The Jumbo Park Base Ball Ground, at Broad and Dickenson streets, has been put in order by the August Flower Club, which will play there for the rest of the season. The nine, which is composed entirely of Philadelphians, is made up of the following players: Murphy, p.; Hufford, c.; Smith, 1b; Hyland, 2b; Easterday, s. s.; Deveney, 3b; with Dougherty, Baker and Folkrod in the field.”

“Notes,” The Sporting Life, May 27, 1883: 4.

I’m guessing that the Dougherty listed there is our man Charles. There’s a Dougherty playing second base for the Manayunk team. (For those not from the Philadelphia area, it’s a near northwest neighborhood there…) That’s also likely our friend here.

“Houston vs. Manayunk,” The Sporting Life, August 20, 1883 :6.

After his brief season with Altoona in 1884, Dougherty played on a team that began in Wilmington, Delaware before moving to Atlantic City in 1885.

Dougherty arrived with a good reputation, but played poor first game at 3B…

“Very Poor Opening,” Wilmington Morning News, April 30, 1885: 1.

…before moving to his natural position, second base, where he played a much better game.

“Some Better Playing,” Wilmington Morning News, May 12, 1885: 4.

At some point, the team moved from Wilmington to Atlantic City; despite the move, the club seemed likely to disband.

“Talk of a Club’s Dissolution,” Wilmington News Journal, June 26, 1885: 1.

“The Wilmington base ball team has proved a miserable failure. In the first place, there were very few good players in it, and as a result it was beaten in a great majority of games, and little interest in it on the part of our citizens was consequently manifested. To cap the climax it has been expelled from the Eastern League for non-payment of guarantee money.”

“A Failure,” Wilmington Daily Republican, July 1, 1885: 1.

Doughtery returned to Altoona for 1886 as Altoona now had a team in the Pennsylvania State League. Some of the players on the 1886 Altoona team also played on the UA team in 1884. A couple of newcomers were on their way to solid major league careers. At first base for that 1886 team was Jake Virtue in what was likely his first professional season of baseball. Another first time professional made a fine impression as a catcher and third baseman: Lave Cross.

The following season there is an infielder who played a couple of games with Danbury in the Eastern League. The StatsCrew.com site suggests that it was John Dougherty, but Baseball-Reference doesn’t have a record for a John Dougherty. And, within days of Dougherty’s release, there’s a Dougherty umpiring semi-pro games in Philadelphia. So, the Danbury player might have been Charles Dougherty.

“Hits Outside the Diamond,” New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier, May 25, 1887: 4.
“Landsdowne, 11: Fernwood, 8,” Philadelphia Times, June 5, 1887: 2.

In digging around, I have identified at least six people named Charles Dougherty who lived in Philadelphia at or near that time. It would take some dogged genealogy to try and find relatives who might know if an ancestor had a professional baseball background in the family tree. Fodder for another day, though…

1863 Mike Jordan
1865 Ted Kennedy
1866 Tom Daly
1867 Ed Haigh
1870 Bob McHale
1875 William Porter “Spike” Shannon

Shannon, after his playing days were winding down, was brought in as a manager for teams in Minnesota.

1876 Pat Moran
1881 Dave Williams
1884 Barney Reilly
1891 Bill Dalrymple
1893 Charlie Jamieson
1894 Charlie Jackson
1897 Elbert Norman
1898 Willie Bobo
1899 Earl Whitehill
1900 Bill Riggins
1904 Andy Reese
1905 William Austin “Cy” Moore
1906 Art Jones
1907 Bill Steinecke
1913 Mel Almada
1919 Stan Galle
1924 Paul Owens
1926 Jerry Lane
1926 Matthew Daniel “Dummy” Lynch
1927 Joe Lonnett
1927 Al Richter
1928 Al Smith
1928 Felipe Montemayor
1936 Frank Leja
1937 Juan Pizarro
1938 Johnny Werhas
1939 Frank Kreutzer
1947 Ted Ford
1950 Burt Hooton
1951 Benny Ayala
1953 Dan Quisenberry
1955 Charlie Puleo
1957 Carney Lansford
1957 Damaso Garcia
1958 Ralph Citarella
1959 Carlos Ponce
1964 Bien Figueroa
1966 Stu Cole
1974 Adrian Brown
1977 Dave Borkowski
1978 Endy Chavez
1979 Jon Leicester
1979 Humberto Cota
1979 Eliezer Alfonzo
1980 Brad Hennessey
1981 Seth McClung
1983 Scott Feldman
1986 Josh Collmenter
1993 Zach Davies
1993 J.P. Feyereisen
1995 Roberto Osuna
1995 Victor Arano
1997 Ty Adcock
1999 Kervin Castro
2000 Juan Then
2003 Jasson Dominguez

OBITUARIES:

1900 Jack Taylor

Phillies and Reds pitcher, Taylor died of Bright’s disease.

“Jack Taylor Dead,” St. Louis Globe Democrat, February 8, 1900″ 10.

1917 Tim Murnane

Murnane was in the lobby of the Shubert Theatre in Boston when he had a massive heart attack, most assuredly ruining a date with his wife.  By then, he had been an editor for the Boston Globe for three decades…

“Murnane Drops Dead in Theatre,” Boston Globe, February 8, 1917: 1, 7.

1924 George Kahler
1928 Rube Chambers
1936 Jimmy Dygert
1937 Jim Miller
1937 Charlie Bell
1942 Joe Poetz
1959 Nap Lajoie
1965 Bruno Betzel
1965 Rube Peters
1967 Joe Vitelli
1968 Ollie Marquardt
1979 Warren Giles
1991 George Detore
1993 Floyd Stromme
1995 Cecil Upshaw
1996 Red Webb
1997 Manny Salvo
1997 Jim Walkup
2009 John Gabler
2010 Paul LaPalme
2012 Danny Clyburn
2018 Ralph Lumenti
2019 Frank Robinson
2020 Angel Echevarria
2021 Tom Simpson

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!!

1898 Chris Von der Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, is taken into custody and told he will face jail time for not paying a $2500 damage to pitcher Mark Baldwin, who sued the owner for malicious prosecution.

TRANSACTION WIRE:

1881 Providence signs pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn.

1908 St. Louis purchases Rube Waddell from the Athletics for about $5,000.

1942 Boston purchases catcher Ernie Lombardi from the Reds – and would win the batting title.

2005 Detroit signs free agent outfielder Magglio Ordonez away from the White Sox.