AMERICAN GLADIATOR: The Life And Times Of ... - The Book Locker

AMERICAN GLADIATOR
Browning—pushing 40 and out of major-league baseball since 1893 and out of it altogether since 1896—was still
trying to catch on as a pinch-hitter.
As Hart told a Chicago Post reporter:
“Coming home on the lake boat recently from my trip East to see my mother, a passenger told me that Pete
Browning, the old Louisville player I used to manage (1885 and 1886), had expressed himself as ready to get into
the game to slug the ball.
“They may be wanting some fellow to sit on the bench and wait for a pinch in the ninth to bat in a run or two,
said Browning. Old Petronius B. is not so old that he has lost his batting eye. Some of the managers will be
telegraphing Pete to come to do the business.”
1901
While there are no major stories on Browning in 1901 in the Louisville Courier-Journal, this year nonetheless
deserves one brief note because 1901 is the “lost season” of Louisville minor-league baseball—as lost as Pete
Browning became in his late years.
After trying desperately during a two-year period to first save its National League franchise, then trying to
join another major league (a short-lived version of a new American Association, and the American League),
Louisville finally settled down in 1901 as a member of the Western Association. What Browning was doing during
the late 1899-early 1901 timeframe, when Louisville attempted to re-establish itself as a major-league city, is
unknown, since the major newspaper coverage of all those meetings carries no mention of Browning—prominent
or ancillary.
The city’s first minor-league foray, it is temporary and strange.
Playing at the “old stand” at 28 th and Broadway, home of the city’s last major-league team, they opened with
a 7-2 loss (losing pitcher: Gus Weyhing) to Indianapolis on April 25. However, they played good ball and were in
contention when the bottom dropped out in a bizarre reversal of fortune that is the signature of Louisville baseball
history.
In early June, the Grand Rapids, Michigan franchise was moved to Wheeling, W. Va. A month later, Grand
Rapids regained its team as the Louisville franchise was moved there due to poor attendance. It was typical
Louisville luck because Grand Rapids went on to win the pennant.
1902
That Louisville is a multi-faceted national sporting city is evidenced by the early-March arrival of Willie
Hoppe, the 13-year-old “boy wonder billiardist”, for a series of exhibitions. He is at the beginning of a long
Billiards Congress of America Hall-of-Fame career, which lasts until 1952 when he retires.
Later in the month, on March 13, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports that the new minor league team will
be called the Eclipse, not the Colonels, in honor of Browning, (Chicken) Wolf, (Leech) Maskrey and other
members of the fabled old Louisville American Association team.
It is a great gesture, but the Eclipse name at best lasts only that season, because by 1903 the team is being
identified as the Colonels, a name they will retain for some seven decades.
Louisville’s first, complete minor-league season features a Pete Browning-style finish. Though the Colonels
win a tripleheader on the final day of the season, they nonetheless narrowly lose the American Association
pennant to Indianapolis, who also wins a closing-day tripleheader.
1903
Despite the lack of news on Browning, the local baseball pages remained interesting reading.
On February 16, the Courier-Journal recorded the early death of Philip Reccius, one of Browning’s longtime
pals and baseball contemporaries.
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