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THE NBBO'S "SHAMATEURISM" PROBLEM

By the beginning of the 1870 season, "Shamateurism" brought the NBBO into a full-blown crisis. Over the course of the organization's previous thirteen seasons crowds and gate receipts slowly but steadily increased, and as a result clubs started paying talented players cash under the table to secure their services. As hinted at previously it meant there was a clear-cut class of marquee players in the competition who could spend more time working on their skills, but on the whole the NBBO remained somewhat balanced.

However, by the start of the 1870 season it was made clear that the usual order of the six championship divisions of the NBBO - mostly tight competitions at the top that sometimes had to be decided with one-game playoffs - had been completely upended by clubs that were now hoarding quality players with these under-the-table payments. In particular, Kings County raised eyebrows as they managed to recruit seven-time All Star 2B James Rousey, eight-time All Star CF Herman Farris, and thirteen-time Orange Club All Star 3B/SS Edward Huntley in a matter of weeks. Kings County GM Alfred Carraway managed to add the trio even though he already had a team containing multiple-time All-Stars George Drew (OF), Frederick Madsen (C), and Delbert Hodges (3B & SP). A club with half a dozen All Stars in a 24-team league looked mighty suspicious, and other clubs who employed the "under-the-table" method were fuming at the brazenness of it while fans of baseball were left wondering if Kings County had bigger plans for the sport itself.

In their Brooklyn Championship, Kings County went 49-21 and were about half a dozen games ahead of any other team. In New York City, the Knickerbocker Club finished 52-18 & Orange went 48-22 while Harlem finished in last place with the reverse of Orange's record: 22-48. In the Upstate New York Championship, the Victory Club won 47 of 70 games while last-place Binghamton won only 20 of 70.

The Northeastern League was more of the same. In the frequently cutthroat Coastal championship, Shamrock went 47-23 while the Olympic Club was a shocking 10-60 - the worst record in the history of the NBBO. Over in the Inland championship, Reading was 53-17 - a full eight games better than 2nd place - while last-place Pioneer was 21-49. Finally, in the New England championship Green Mountain was four games in the clear at 44-26.

To bring things back to the club at the center of the cash payment and talent hoarding issues, Kings County's semi-open flouting of the NBBO's rules did exactly what it was intended to do. After a classic five-game New York League Championship Series win over Knickerbocker, Kings County swept Green Mountain in the Tucker Wheaton Cup. The final scores were 24-10, 9-3, and 10-3, with "The Mighty K.C." putting up what was easily the most dominant cup series performance to date.

Meanwhile, the Excelsior Club had a Shamateurism issue of its own that was raising eyebrows: that of superstar Konrad Jensen. Providence native Jensen had been recruited by the Brooklyn-based Excelsior Club in 1858 straight out of high school and was perfectly happy to remain with them, even though there were other NYC-area clubs with better facilities and Providence-based St. John's offered the same. In the 1870 season, Jensen was busy doing just what he'd done in each of the previous three seasons: leading the 48-team NBBO in batting average (.422), on-base percentage (.458), slugging percentage (.649), OPS (1.107), OPS+ (222), and total bases (209). He'd become so dominant in his late-20s that fans wondered if he was too good for the league itself.



The real issue with regards to Jensen was an open secret among the other clubs in the NBBO: as Jensen became ever more talented in his mid-to-late 20s, Excelsior owner Jeremiah Nelson Tappan secured the funds to pay him no less than $780 in cash each season to stay with the Excelsior Club. This meant that Jensen could focus full-time on honing his already considerable batting skills, and as he became unstoppable his under-the-table pay rose to well over $800 for just three months of baseball each year. Manual laborers averaged a bit over $500 for an entire year's work at the time, so Jensen could easily spend the rest of the nice-weather months perfecting his craft and then work a bit during the winter for some extra spending money.

There was now a clear split between the under-the-table, pay-for-play teams and those who either stuck to amateurism or didn't have the means to slide cash to high quality players. Something had to give, and it did about six weeks after the end of the season.