A catcher for a decade, and his record shows him as not much of an offensive force – so he must have been fearless, mobile and the owner of a cannon throwing arm, right?  (Well, he was fearless and he had a fairly good arm.  The rest of his story follow…)

John Thomas Arundel was born June 30, 1862 in Auburn, New York to Thomas and Ellen Arundel, both Irish immigrants who arrived in the US in the late 1840s.  John was the fouth of seven children born to the laborer and his wife.  Before his baseball career, and with an education that couldn’t have gone further than the eighth grade, he was working as a mason tender.  He learned baseball on the side, though, and Arundel’s toughness fit the role of catcher.  In time, he was hired to ply his trade there instead.

The Auburn, NY native got a tryout after spending time with a team in Atlantic City.  The Philadelphia Athletics gave him and a pitcher, Ed Halbriter, an opportunity to face the Philadelphia Phillies in an exhibition game and both played well in a 6 – 5 extra-inning win.  In fact, Arundel threw out two Phillies who were trying to steal and only made one error.  The very next day, the same battery were allowed to face the St. Louis Brown Stockings in a major league game.  A catcher playing in back to back games is normal – doing that to a pitcher who had just tossed ten innings seemed a bit harsh, but that’s the 1880s for you… Halbriter was less accurate – three wild pitches and a curve ball that no longer bit – and Arundel struggled with Halbriter’s wildness.  It didn’t help that Arundel also struck out four times in five at bats.  So, instead of staying with the Athletics, he’d play for the Merritts in Camden, NJ. Articles noted alternate behaviors – one game throwing out four players who were trying to steal; in another leaving his team between the second and third inning because he found out he would be released by the Merritts, so he quit mid-game.

For the next nine years, he would bounce between major and minor league teams.  In 1883, he was signed by a team in Saginaw, Michigan.  That should have ended when Arundel, called “a slugger of the most disgraceful type…”, brutally assaulted outfielder Mike Mansell.  Instead, Saginaw brought him back for 1884, then gave up on him, allowing Arundel to play for Peoria for 17 games. Then, in an odd twist of fate, the Northwestern League folded in August and Arundel wound up on Toledo with Mansell.

Arundel was not one for good decisions.  He was a heavy drinker; when drunk he was abusive in language, attitude, and decorum.  And he could be rather combative on the field, too.  Despite this, people loved the guy.  Here’s a quote from the Memphis Avalanche in 1885 that pretty much explains what it must have been like to have Tug on the team.

“A subscription list is being taken the rounds to get up money enough to pay Tug Arundel’s $50 fines, which (umpire) Young gave him. A big part of it was raised last night. Tug is very popular in Memphis. and deservedly so, as he won’t stand any ‘monkey business,’ and besides is a very hard working and conscientious player.”

“Diamond Dust,” Daily Memphis Avalanche, August 2, 1885: 4

People loved him, but couldn’t wait to get rid of him.  He played with two teams in 1885 and four teams in 1886.  The longest he stayed with a single team was his time with Indianapolis in 1887.  Indianapolis was in the National League, owned by newspaperman Horace Fogel, but the onfield management was apparently pretty lax in the handling of players, including Arundel.  One June night, he disabused opposing players, women, police officers and teammates alike, getting a $100 fine from his team, a $62 fine from the city court, and a suspension.  (He wasn’t alone in the drinking and bad behavior part, but he was the only one who was inordinately violent that night.)  The manager was fired and Fogel himself took over the team.  Somehow, Arundel survived the season despite hitting .197.  When he held out for more money the next spring, Fogel refused to sign him.

Then you have this onfield incident when he was with Washington in 1888.

“During the New York-Washington game in this city, Sept. 27, ‘Tug’ Arundel was guilty of as ‘dirty’ a piece of work as has been seen on the Polo Grounds this season. In the fourth inning Arundel popped up a ball that was coming down on fair grounds, and Brown ran over and was standing prepared to catch the ball when Arundel, who was passing him on the way to first base, deliberately pushed Brown and made him drop the ball. Of course Umpire Valentine immediately called him (Arundel) out, which was perfectly proper, but he should also have imposed a $25 fine on him, as a reminder not to repeat such a trick in the future. He should be taught a lesson that he is in baseball to elevate it, and not do all he can to lower it. It would be better for the game if the baseball magnates would weed out of the professional ranks all such players, or in fact any man who will persist in ‘dirty work’ on the ball field.”

“America’s Game,” New York Clipper, October 6, 1888.

Good times. Washington didn’t want him back so it was back to being a minor league nomad and abusive drinker until 1891 when teams finally had enough.

“Tug’s propensities, however, could not be controlled, and he sank to the level of a sot, and finally passed from even the minds of the public.”

“The Scramble for Pitchers,” Indianpolis Journal, April 11, 1898: 6.

A few stories followed Arundel after his playing days were over.  Tim Murnane, who pitched to Arundel with Toledo in 1884, said a foul tip once richocheted off Arundel’s head toward fair territory where third baseman Foghorn Miller made the catch for an out.  In another story that doesn’t have a box score that would corroborate it (or, for that matter, a consistent telling of the story), Frank “Piggy” Ward once got into an insult match at home plate during a game against Arundal’s Washington team.  Arundal’s final shot was to tell Ward that if he got the chance to tag him, he would break Ward’s ribs.  Ward missed strike three and Arundel deliberately dropped the third strike so that he could tag Ward out.  He started chasing Ward to first base, then to second and onward – one heavy catcher chasing a heavy batter named “Piggy.”  They continuted all the way to home plate – and Arundel never caught Ward.  Oh – and the bases were loaded, so four runs scored on a dropped third strike.  This tall tale was created by Furman Bisher (originally he said it was Walter Brodie who was the batter; Piggy Ward made the story funnier) and then retold into the 1940s.

Here’s a story that might be true…  In the weeks following Gabby Street’s successful catch of a baseball dropped from the Washington Monument, stories came out in Indianapolis talking about how Horace Fogel once dropped baseballs toward the brash Arundel, who claimed he could catch one in 1887.  Fogel admitted that Arundel wasn’t successful – many of the balls landed several feet away from Arundel, and the one Arundel got a glove on (he was wearing a padded glove with extra cotton underneath for more padding) didn’t stick.  Fogel said, “Arundel, if I remember aright, only succeeded in getting his hands on one ball and it almost tore them from his wrists.” We’ll return to the catcher’s glove in a minute.

Anyway – Arundel’s ten seasons as a professional resulted in his playing in just 76 major league games for four teams (Philadelphia, Toledo in 1884, Indianapolis in 1887, and sharing time behind the plate with Connie Mack in Washington for 1888); essentially a half season of ball.  He batted .173 with a sub-.200 slugging percentage.  That’s some poor hitting.

It’s hard to say what Tug did after his playing days.  In the 1905 New York census he’s retired and living with his mother.  No woman in her right mind would marry him…

In later years, he claimed his ideas were used in the development of the catchers mitt used in the years after Tug retired.  One article claimed Tug wore a padded glove in 1885 and 1886 while catching pitcher Tom Ramsey in Chattanooga, the first such catcher’s mitt seen in the south. (What works against the article is that I don’t see where Ramsey and Arundel were ever on the same team in the south.)  A different article notes that he wore a leather tipped glove, but made no mention of padding.  It did say, however, that fans routinely laughed at Arundel when he wore his pillows onto the field.  It seems likely Arundel’s use of a glove when catching – whether his idea or that of someone else – legitimately happened and the use of a glove remained connected with Arundel for years after he played.

He died in the Willard State hospital in Romulus, NY on September 5, 1912, having recently turned 50.  Arundel had been hospitalized by strokes; the last one left him paralyzed and he died a few hours later.  He would be buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Fleming, NY.

Notes:

1855, 1905 NY Censuses
1870, 1880, 1910 US Censuses

“Ten Innings,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 23, 1882: 3.
“Laid Out Again,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 24, 1882: 2.
“Sporting News,” Buffalo Express, March 16, 1882: 3.
“The Ball Field,” Philadelphia Times, May 27, 1882: 2.
“The Canadians Win,” Camden Post, August 14, 1882: 1.
“Active, 12; Merritt, 6,” Reading Times, August 26, 1882: 1.
“Notes,” Fort Wayne Daily News, June 1, 1883: 1.
“A Saginaw Bully,” Fort Wayne Sentinel, August 4, 1883: 3.
Box Score, Detroit Free Press, June 8, 1884: 11.
“Stray Hits,” Boston Globe, August 12, 1884: 5.
“Beaten Again,” Memphis Daily Appeal, August 12, 1885: 2.
“Ball-Players In Disgrace,” Indianapolis Journal, June 29, 1887: 3.
“A Dip Into the Misty Past,” The Sporting Life, August 19, 1905: 3.
“Continued Rain Blocks Local Ball; Another Young Twirler Joins Nationals,” The Evening Star, August 28, 1908: 13.
“Here. There. Elsewhere,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 19, 1910: 10.
“A Freak Play,” Fall River Globe, May 2, 1919: 5.
Furman Bisher, “Bish’s Dish,” Charlotte News, May 26, 1949: 9B, 10B.
“Mitt Introduced by Tug Arundel,” Chattanooga News, March 30, 1932: 13.
“Tug Arundel Dies of Paralysis,” Fort Worth Record, September 6, 1912: 8.
“Famous Athlete Dies in Auburn,” Buffalo Commercial, September 9, 1912: 6.