The Pittsburgh Pirates today clinched their 20^th consecutive losing season, a mark that surpasses even the futility of our Kansas City Royals. That brought to my mind a pretty good question, which franchise is really more hopeless? To start I’ll look at the recent performance of the two clubs, as putrid as it is, and then I’ll finish with the future prospects.

While it’s true that the Pirates haven’t had a winning season in 20 years, it’s easily arguable that they’ve been more competitive than our Royals. For one, they’ve only lost 100 games twice in the last 26 years, while the Royals have done it four times in the last eleven. However, in terms of actual wins, it’s ridiculously close with the Pirates averaging 68.2 wins to the Royals 67.7 since 2000. The Pirates have a more recent playoff appearance, with three straight from ’90-’92 but they’ve gone six years longer without a championship winning their last in 1979. Trying to compare these teams based on their past performances is like a race between a Prizm and a Sunfire, so let’s move on to what the future looks like.

It might be easy to think that since the Pirates have won more games in 2012 they’re better set up for next year, but I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case. For one thing, the Royals are much younger. The average position player for the Royals is a full year younger than the Pirates and their pitchers are an average of three years younger. The Pirates best two pitchers, A.J. Burnett and Wandy Rodriguez, are 35 and 33 respectively and it seems unlikely they’ll match this year’s performance. On the other hand, their best offensive players, Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez, are both under 26 and just entering the prime of their careers. Whit the Royals having club control of virtually their entire line up, and most of them at an age where improvement is expected, I think you’d have to give the position player advantage to the Royals. I’m not sure anyone has a worse prospective starting rotation in 2012 than the Royals though, so until David Glass actually opens his pocket book this winter, the starting pitching edge goes to the Pirates. Although the bullpen may be an advantage for the Royals, I’m not sure it’s enough to put them over the top.

Looking at the minor leagues doesn’t offer a much clearer picture. Wil Myers is the best prospect in either organization, but the Pirates probably have the next three best is Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, and Starling Marte. While both clubs have exceptional talent in the minors, if anything I’d give the edge to the Pirates if only because their top two prospects are pitchers and we’ve all seen what a need that is for small market clubs.

Essentially there’s no separating these two clubs because they’re almost mirror images. Young players, hungry fans, embarrassing recent history and cheap owners. I guess you could call them our sister club in the National League, and that should be depressing enough for both fan bases.

Years of losing and futility by the Kansas City Royals prompted Royals fans Joe Accurso and Nick Palmer to create a website called No-More-Glass.com. They raised $5,100 to place a half-page ad in the August 23 Sports section of The Kansas City Star. The ad is an open letter to Royals owner David Glass to sell the team to another owner.

In the letter, signed by Accurso, he thanks Glass for keeping the team in Kansas City. Then Accurso points out the losing seasons, the perpetual “youth movement,” the present monetary value of the Royals and how teams in similar markets have played in the post season since Glass’ tenure. The letter ends with Accurso imploring Glass to immediately sell the team to a local ownership group.

While the letter hasn’t got a response from David Glass, it did get the attention of local Kansas City media outlets and several websites and blogs. The letter also got a response from Kevin Uhlich, Royals senior vice president for business operations. In an article in the Star, Uhlich said, “Nobody wants it more than our chairman (Glass) and (general manager) Dayton Moore. There is no lack of commitment. It’s sad there are those who want to spin it differently.”

In the same article, Accurso said, “I’m not naive enough to think I can write a letter, Glass will read it and say, ‘I should sell the team.’ But I felt like, ‘Can I take some initiative and at least get a conversation started?’”

And it is a worthy conversation, even if David Glass has no desire to sell the team. If Glass did sell the team, would it bring back a winning culture and attitude to the Royals?

In the early years of Glass’ tenure, he ran the Royals like Wal-Mart: stocking the roster with marginal young players at a low cost and trading away star players like Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye and Johnny Damon when they were up for free agency. There were times when the team would overpay for journeyman veterans like Juan Gonzalez and Jose Guillen, wasting money that would be better spent drafting players in the later rounds.

But when Dayton Moore came aboard in 2006, the team invested and spent more money in its Minor League system, the amateur draft, front office positions, and player scouting and development. And last offseason, the Royals signed long-term deals with Alex Gordon, Salvador Perez and Alcides Escobar.

And while the investment produced one of the top minor league systems in baseball, the Major League results are a bust. Since 2006, the Royals have been under .500 every year and will likely finish below .500 this year. And unless the team improves their starting rotation through free agency or a trade this offseason, 2013 might be another sub .500 season.

And what if Glass sold the team like Accurso desires? Selling a baseball team isn’t like selling a 2006 Toyota Camry on Craigslist. Potential buyers have to place a bid and are vetted by Major League Baseball and the owners of the other baseball clubs. Then the winner of the bid has to get a three quarters majority vote from owners to buy the team. This can be a long, arduous process, like the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Even if a sale of the Royals went smoothly, it would take a while for the team to be sold to another owner.

And what kind of owner would the Royals get? Many fans want a Mr. K type of owner, who lives in the Kansas City area and are committed to a winning ballclub. But what if the new owner(s) lived outside Kansas City and after a few years they decide to move the team? Are you ready for the Charlotte Royals? It’s unlikely, but possible. Even if Mr. Glass lives in Bentonville, AR and appears distant and aloof, he at least wouldn’t move the team to Charlotte or another city.

I admire Accurso’s and Palmer’s passion for the Royals and their desire for a winning ballclub. And trust me, I’m getting tired of the losing as much as they are. They live in the Kansas City area, where they’re surrounded by frustrated Royals fans. Try living in Southwest Missouri, an area awash in a sea of Cardinal red. When you see Cardinals fans wearing 2011 World Champions and Rally Squirrel shirts, it reminds me the Royals have lost a generation of fans in Southwest Missouri. And it’s not getting any better when the Royals are desitned for another losing season and the Cardinals are in the playoff hunt once again.

I don’t doubt Mr. Glass’ desire of wanting a winning ballclub in Kansas City. But how committed is he? Is he committed enough to move to Kansas City and show up at Kauffman Stadium every day, overseeing the team? Is he willing to spend the money in the offseason for starting pitching or risk trading a prized prospect to get a number one or two starting pitcher? Is he willing to spend the big bucks on Scott Boras clients like Eric Hosmer or Mike Moustakas when they reach free agency? Yes, Mr. Glass has invested more money in the team the last several years, but playing it safe is not going to make the Royals a winning ballclub.

If the Royals were playing above .500 baseball and in the playoff hunt more years than not, fans could care less if David Glass owned the team and he lived in New York City. But with the perennial losing, countless draft busts (especially on the pitching side) and PR faux pas like the Frank White firing, Mr. Glass has set himself up as part of the blame of the losing culture of the Kansas City Royals. But Glass isn’t going anywhere and unless he takes risks and increases payroll, he’s not going to see a winning Royals team in his lifetime.

This past week the Kansas City Royals ended a twelve game losing streak. A streak that was so bad it included a winless ten game home stand. Twelve games! That’s hard to do. The Royals have had more double digit losing streaks than any other team in Major League Baseball history! As Royals fans we’ve come to expect stuff like this, but for some reason this losing streak was especially hard to swallow.

Royals fans have been hearing for thirteen months about how their organization has the best farm system in baseball. If it wasn’t the best it was certainly near the top. This was not Kansas City media and Royals Public Relations saying this trying to make the Royals more relevant that they deserved. This was baseball experts from multiple organizations, whose job it was to opine on all things baseball, giving the Royals organization some genuine positive feedback. Since Kansas City has nowhere near the largest fan base in baseball, and thus these experts were not trying to boost advertising numbers, I have to assume that their assessment is genuine. Then you add the momentum of the first crop of prospects arriving at the big league level and playing well. I looked back to some of last season’s stories and you can see the momentum building. Royals fans, and even some non Royals fans began to buy in. I thought the days of 19 game losing streaks and other historical futility were behind us…at least for a few years. As it turned out, “a few years” was only three games on a west coast road swing.

That’s what made this losing streak so hard to take. After six years of the Dayton Moore Era this what Royals fans have? Players getting picked-off bases left and right, opponents scoring seven runs in the first half inning of the home schedule, bad starting pitching, bad bullpen, untimely hitting, and fielding lapses so preposterous little leaguers should know better? This is what the first harvest from the best farm in baseball looks like?

This losing streak certainly ran off any casual Royals fans for the entire summer. It made me and other die hard Royals fans that I know question why we are Royals fans in the first place, and whether we should remain a Royals fans going forward. The Royals have done a good job of dwindling it’s fan base over the years. It seems like in the last six months, starting with the Frank White firing, that the organization has tried to chip away at the bed rock of it’s fan base on purpose.

As soon as the Royals get back to .500 I'll turn this tag right side up. Until then it's a distress signal

I’m a firm believer that once you’re a fan of a team, you are a fan of that team for life barring contraction or moving to another city. So I shall remain a Royals fan, it’s part of my identity. However, sports franchises are businesses. The relationship between fan and organization is more complicated than just a strait business-customer relationship. There is some non-rational emotional attachment involved. You can get mad and write David or Dan Glass, call a sports radio station, complain on blogs and message boards, or tweet “You Suck” to the Royals organization. You can do all those things. In this case I’m going to treat the Royals like I treat any other business that makes me mad; complain with my wallet. If the Royals think I’m going to drive three hours to watch mistake filled deplorable baseball while paying outrageous prices for concessions they are sadly mistaken.

It’s not just the losing; it’s the losing in spectacular fashion. It’s the annoying and astonishingly misplaced “Our Time” slogan. It’s the rambunctious cheerleading in the broadcast booth and social media. Everything about this organization seems to miss the mark with me. I would be lying if I said I’m never going to go to another Royals game, or buy anymore Royals gear. But I am a scorned and bitter fan right now, and it might be a while before I do any of those things. Three wins isn’t going to solve this. An exceptional twelve games winning streak probably will. That’s the funny thing about winning baseball games, it solves a lot of problems for an organization and it’s fans. However, this organization does not have a track record of quick recoveries on the field or being progressive in reaching out to fans off the field. I don’t know why I would expect a new behavior to start now. To me, the Royals have a long way to go, but they won’t be using my time or money to get there.

Once again the Kansas City Royals are starting the season by solidifying themselves on the Mt Rushmore of baseball futility. They have yet to win a home game! They let Prince Fielder, and Jose Bautista steal bases. They found a way to lose a game that’s never been done before, or if it has no one can remember, by hitting two consecutive batters to force home a winning run. It’s frustrating to the point of being mystifying how one organization can come with so many ways to be terrible.

It’s not like we haven’t seen this before. In January I wrote a post called Winter Worries. Unfortunately it appears a lot of my worries are coming true. The past two weeks have reminded me of 2004 more than the Kauffman Era. Key players are on the Disabled List. Veteran players have regressed. Rookies have regressed, in the case of Greg Holland, spectacularly. The league has adjusted to the younger players and they appear to have trouble adjusting back. I don’t know if Ned Yost is going to jump in the shower with his uniform on, or flee the team in the middle of the night. Since that whacky stuff has already happened, probably not. But it would not shock me if the Royals find some other way to make their fan utter “WTF” and national media text “LOL” to all their friends. You see, this organization has more of a track record for creating scenes fit for a Yackety Sax Youtube video than winning baseball games.

I’ve been told thirteen games is not a large sample size. Let me tell you about a sample size: Since April 18, 2000, the date David Glass assumed sole ownership of the Royals, the Royals are 813-1144. That is the worst record in the Major Leagues during that time. (They are 2 games back of the Pirates in case you were wondering.) Is that a big enough sample size? Royals fans have been told by non-stake holders that the Royals have one of the best farm systems in Major League Baseball. We’ve been told that this 2012 version is better on paper. I guess I should believe that, but fans don’t print up t-shirts, and you don’t get to hang banners in your stadium for being good on paper and winning awards from publications. You get those things by winning baseball games.

The organization tells us it takes 8 to 10 years to build from within and go from terrible to winner. Really? Tell that to Andrew Freidman General Manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. He was promoted to General Manager after the 2005 season. At the end of 2008 the Rays were American League Champions. I hope Jon Daniels of the Texas Rangers doesn’t hear that it takes 8 to 10 years to turn a team around. Daniels was also promoted to General Manager at the end of the 2005 season. It took him four seasons but the Texas Rangers won the AL Pennant in 2010 and 2011 and look to make another run, not just for the playoffs, but for the World Series title. Both of these General Managers took over their organizations six months before Dayton Moore took over the Royals. Want another example unfolding in front of our eyes? Look at the Washington Nationals. In March of 2009 Mike Rizzo was promoted to General Manager of the Nationals. Granted, the Nationals haven’t won anything yet, but they look a lot more promising than the Royals right now. Tell me again how long it should take to rebuild an entire organization?

DO NOT tell me I need to be patient! And that I’m some how not a good fan because I’m losing patience with “The Process”. I’ve been patient. The fact that I even care enough to let this baseball team make me mad says enough about my patience. It’s not like I’m being unreasonable. I was not expecting to see a World Series or even a division contender from the Royals this season. What I am expecting is for the Royals to not be fundamentally terrible in the field and on the base paths. I’m expecting them to not walk the bases loaded. I’m expecting them not do things that are so off the wall and terrible that the Royals land on baseball blogs for the wrong reasons, and become punch lines for late night television. All I’m asking is that the Royals be mediocre as opposed to historically terrible.

Is it too much to ask of the Royals to not open their home schedule with a half inning so bad that casual fans tune out for the rest of the year? Is it too much to ask the Royals to not spiral into a losing streak that has diehard fans questioning why they root for this team in the first place? Is it too much to ask that the Royals be more relevant than Major League Soccer in their own town? Is it too much to ask that the front office find some other marketing drivel to defend their terrible on field performance? It shouldn’t be. Other teams in worse markets than Kansas City have used a process to turn their organizations around. Asking Royals fans to trust Dayton Moore’s “Process” is becoming too much to ask.

For the first time since the incredible evening of September 28th, 2011 the Kansas City Royals finally took the field for a game that counted. How much should I emphasize finally? Our roommates here at I70 Baseball, the St Louis Cardinals, had completed two games in two different cities before Alex Gordon dug in against Jered Weaver Friday evening. Finally we can quit speculating about what might happen. Finally we have real games to watch and react. Finally baseball can show us why we why love it so much. Baseball shows us that when we think we know stuff about baseball, we really don’t know anything about baseball.

Coming into the season we had this team figured out. The Kansas City Royals were going to hit. The Royals were going to be good defensively. The bullpen was going to be strong, and the starting rotation was going to be suspect. Then the first game of the 2012 season starts and the game unfolded like none of us thought it would.

Alex Gordon digs in and promptly flies out to center and begins a long evening for the Royals at the plate. Jered Weaver hamstrung the Royals for 8 innings, striking out 10, and never allowed a runner to reach third base. Granted Weaver is an ace pitcher and a lot of the Royals futility can be attributed to him. However, the top of the Royals line-up looked lost at the plate. Especially on Alex Gordon’s second at bat where he struck out with three check swings. The closest the Royals came to scoring was in the 7th when Jeff Francoeur doubled with one out…and promptly got picked off. There are some trends that seem to carry over from year to year. Horrendous base running appears to have not changed in the Royals organization. It was a disappointing offensive to performance. Oh well, we waited this long for the Royals to play a game. I guess we’ll wait a few more hours for the Royals to score a run.

Fortunately, there was a bright spot for the Royals. It was starting pitcher Bruce Chen, who threw six innings of shutout ball, striking out 4, and not walking anyone. A good performance from this starting staff is important. Since the Royals bullpen is supposed to the strength of the pitching staff I thought it was a good idea to not let a tired Chen face the heart of the Angels line-up. Chen was lifted, and Aaron Crow was sent out to pitch the 7th. To this point in the game there had not been a lot to cheer about. But then the fist pumping began. Aaron Crow struck out the side in dominating fashion. This performance was highlighted by a three pitch strike out that made the greatest active hitter in baseball; Albert Pujols, look flat out silly. I’ll take another inning of that please. Unfortunately, that was the high water mark for the Royals in this game.

Crow came back out to pitch the 8th. After retiring Kendrys Morales on a fly ball to left, Crow gave up three consecutive singles before being lifted for Greg Holland. OK, Holland is viewed by many fans to be the best arm in the bullpen. If anyone is going to put this fire out it’s Greg Holland. Instead, Alcides Escobar mishandled a weak grounder from Peter Bourjos allowing a run to score and keeping the bases loaded. Erick Aybar was the next hitter who uncorked a triple down the right field line and that was your ball game. The Angels beat the Royals on Opening Day 5-0.

This game just goes to show that in baseball anything can happen. That’s part of the sport’s mystery. This was a game of opposites for the Royals. The parts of the team we thought would be strengths; bullpen, offense, and defense let us down. The part we thought was suspect, the starting pitching, gave us something to cheer about. It’s too early to tell if this is a trend to buck the prevalent thinking, or it’s a one game, or even an entire series anomaly.

This was just one game of 162. It has been said that during a baseball season a team will win 50 games, lose 50 games, and their season will be decided with the middle 62 games. While I’m still irritated that Aaron Crow and Greg Holland didn’t hold down their end of the bargain. You have to remember the Royals did not score any runs for their pitchers. Because the Royals got shutout I have to put this game in the 50 they were going to lose anyway. Not every pitcher will be tough as Jered Weaver. It’s just tough when it’s the first game in six months. The good news is, the Royals get another crack at winning in less than 24 hours. This next is likely one of the coveted 62.

It’s that time again, for the monthly article devoted to the Kool Aid Drinker. Originally, the Kool Aid Drinker wanted to run down his most boo-able Kansas City Royals at each position, but then I thought that might confuse some people. I have clearly presented the Kool Aid Drinker as an overly positive Royals fan that is predicting big things for the club, so talking about booing Royals doesn’t seem like his style right? Wrong. That bit of foreseen confusion led me to this, the Kool Aid Drinker’s Manifesto:

First and foremost, the Kool Aid Drinker is not just in me. There is a little bit of him in everyone that still considers himself a Royals fan in 2012. Every true fan that believed in Bob Hamelin, Mike MacDougal, and Angel Berroa…amongst others. I cannot imagine you could still be a fan of this team after 20 some years of futility without having a little unreasonable optimism in you.

While it is quite obvious that the Kool Aid Drinker loves his Royals, it should be mentioned that he is not above becoming disenchanted with those who do not live up to his lofty expectation, especially if their effort or desire seems to be lacking in any way. Ricky Blownsavico, Pop Up Perez, and Odalis “grasa pedazo de caca” Perez are just a few players that have felt his wrath. The Kool Aid Drinker is a very vocal fan, in good times and in bad.

As you can probably tell from above, the Kool Aid Drinker loves nicknames. But not Trey Hillman type nicknames. Getzy? Gordo? C’mon. He expects creativity like Country Breakfast, The Pain Killer, and The Dominator. Sometimes the Kool Aid Drinker latches on to main stream nicknames, and others he creates his own. But you will not hear him calling Jonathan Sanchez “Sanchy” any time soon.

The Kool Aid Drinker is fairly old school, especially when it comes to stadium behavior. If there is something exciting going on and you are behind him you are expected to stand; don’t ask him to sit on his hands. While he believes that there is no place for vulgarity in the stadium, he will absolutely heckle an opposing player if given a reason, mercilessly at times. I say fairly old school because he does not hate the amusement park in left field or people that start the wave. If you’re there to cheer on the Royals, we are all on the same side.

The Kool Aid Drinker hates the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals. He doesn’t care much for their fans either, especially the ones that live in KC. He believes that Yankees fans living in KC are generally bandwagoners who know little about the game. He thinks that the “Greatest Fans in Baseball” are probably the ones still coming out to the K after 26 years of losing baseball, and not some “Nation” of bird watchers that are so absolutely “informed” and “polite,” yet they blindly cheered for one of the most obvious steroid users of our generation without even a hint of remorse. (Mark McGwire, not Albert Pujols.) He also likes to goad these fan bases into ridiculous arguments that even he knows he can’t win with logic, like telling them it is okay that they lost the 43 year old Pujols because he’d rather have Eric Hosmer in 2012 anyway…or that new video evidence clearly shows that Denkinger got it right.

The Kool Aid Drinker is not thrilled with bandwagon fans, but he welcomes them all the same. There’s plenty of Kool Aid for everyone, especially in 2012. Unless, of course, they are in the above mentioned categories and just trying to hedge their bets. In fact, the Kool Aid Drinker wants to take this moment to invite anyone who reads this to jump on board right now. I’m not ready to make my final projections, but you can see what I think about the first half of the year here. It’s going to be an amazing ride in 2012, with youth developing into greatness and the eyes of the world on Kansas City in both July and hopefully October. It is “our time” Kansas City–for winning, for championships, for Kool Aid.

If you want to identify a date at which the Royals hit rock bottom, look no further than June 6, 2001.

Ten years ago, nearly to the day, the Royals may have reached their high point, or low point rather, in futility at the 2001 amateur draft. And there have been plenty of days to choose from.

Colt Griffin

To say that a draft would mark the low point in the history of a franchise may seem odd. But consider where the team was at that point. The once-proud franchise had finished the last six seasons below .500. The team was struggling to retain its top talent in the free agent market, and had missed on several of its recent draft picks. The farm system was depleted. An infusion of talent was needed.

On that day in 2001, however, spirits were riding high. The Royals spent their first two picks in the major league baseball draft on two high school phenoms. No, make that legends.

Colt Griffin and Roscoe Crosby. The two conjured up memories of Nolan Ryan and Ken Griffey, Jr.

“We got the best high school arm in the country, and we got probably the best athlete in the draft,” said Allard Baird about the picks. “If somebody would have told me before the draft we were going to get Mr. Griffin and Mr. Crosby, I would have said ‘You’re nuts.’”

Today it looks like Baird was the one who was nuts. But he wasn’t the only one who coveted Griffin and Crosby. The two were considered risky picks, but not without off-the-charts potential.

Griffin and Crosby never panned out, however. The 2001 draft turned out to be simply the culmination of several consecutive bad drafts that left the franchise devoid of young talent. The draft of 2001 was not the beginning of the Royals problems, as you can see by reading here.

But the pinnacle of imperfection was the 2001 draft, which netted two legendary flameouts.

The Royals took Griffin with the ninth pick of the draft because he was reported to have topped 100 mph, supposedly the first high schooler known to have done so. KC risked a $2.4 million signing bonus on the 6’4” Texan, knowing he would have to conquer control problems.

He never did.

Griffin bounced back and forth between Burlington and Wilmington for two consecutive seasons, trying to gain some semblance of control over, and develop anything besides, his blazing fastball. He worked on changing his mechanics, developed arm problems, and languished in A-ball.

In one last-ditch effort to get something out of his golden arm, he converted to the bullpen at Wichita. He got his walks more under control there. But faced with shoulder surgery following the 2005 season, he opted to retire at age 22.

Griffin could have served as the model for Bull Durham’s “Nuke” LaLoosh. For his minor league career, he struck out 271, walked 278, hit 44 batters, and threw 82 wild pitches in 373 minor league innings. He posted a career 4.79 ERA.

If Griffin’s story is disappointing, Crosby’s is tragic.

The South Carolina high schooler had the tools, according to Royals scouts, to rival Griffey. The only reason Crosby was still available in the second round, at pick number 53, was because he was also one of the most sought-after football talents in the nation.

The Royals, willing to let Crosby play football at Clemson, planned to develop his talents as a center-fielder on a part-time basis, hoping their patience would eventually pay dividends. The Royals had, of course, been the part-time home of none other than Bo Jackson in days past.

But their new young star was star-crossed. While setting freshman receiving records at Clemson, he injured his elbow. He worked to rehab the injury during the summer under the watchful eyes of the Royals.

But tragedy struck when several of his high school friends, en route to visit him at Baseball City, FL, were killed in a horrific car crash. Crosby was devastated.

He planned to red-shirt the upcoming football season to recover from the elbow injury. But he wound up going AWOL, seeking psychological counseling, and battling the Royals over arbitration when he didn’t return to the field.

Later, his brother died in a swimming accident. Crosby couldn’t recover.

Crosby never played a baseball game after high school, and wound up getting just $1 million of his $1.75 signing bonus after arbitration.

He made one final attempt to tap his limitless potential by trying out for NFL teams in 2005. But he never stuck.

The 2001 draft, which inspired such high hopes at the time, left the farm system completely empty. The only player taken by the Royals who actually made the majors is Devon Lowery, who pitched in five games in 2008.

Every franchise has its spectacular flops. Players who just couldn’t miss, but somehow did. But the 2001 draft followed a disastrous string of failed drafts when the team could ill afford it.

No one thought it would turn out this way for Griffin and Crosby. And the franchise paid a steep price for it. About a decade’s worth.

During the offseason I will be taking a look at the past, giving readers a timeline of St. Louis baseball throughout history. The plan is to build five years at a time from now through whenever I hit the present. Originally I was going to start at 1900, but I realized that there were stories to tell before then, which is where we will begin today. Hope you enjoy this series!

Before superstars were looking for millions of dollars to play a game, before players had their pick of which car to drive to the park that day, and before uniforms could be tossed in a bin at the end of the game and players could come back the next morning to find a sparkling white one hanging in their locker, there was baseball in St. Louis. Baseball pre-dates television, planes, cars, and even the Civil War. The game was first brought to St. Louis in the 1850s, when a contractor by the name of Jere Frain came in from New York and built a diamond, hoping to spark an interest in his new city for the game he had grown to love.

Throughout the first twenty years or so of baseball in St. Louis, the amateur teams went by several different names, including the Empires and Unions. The teams were loose, unorganized, and utterly terrible, routinely passing down scores of 36-8 and 47-1. In 1874, St. Louis boosters, discouraged and frustrated by the futility, scraped together $20,000 to build a professional team. The team became known as the Brown Stockings, for although the team uniform socks were white, they quickly became brown from tobacco spit and dirt. Gross.

The 1875 season had two games that officially put St. Louis on the baseball map, defeating the Chicago White Stockings twice in the course of three days, winning 10-0 and 4-3. This came after being defeated twenty times in a row the previous year, so the turnaround from that to even a couple of wins was understandably exciting for the St. Louis faithful.

The Brown Stockings lasted just three years as professional team before withdrawing from the National League at the end of the 1877 season. Baseball, however, would not die so easily, and the team continued playing with an amateur status on the corner of Grand and St. Louis avenues, at the site of the eventual Sportsman’s Park. Two brothers – Al and William Spink – held the team together, paying for everything the club would need, creating schedules and even doing their own write-ups on games in St. Louis papers. In 1880 and 1881 the team lost just one game per season. It was after the 1881 season that something truly exciting happened: Charlie Comiskey was brought in to play first base for the large salary of $75 per month.

Chris Von der Ahe

It was based on the play of Comiskey that Chris Von der Ahe was convinced to buy the team and return it to professional status in 1882. He knew nothing of baseball until he started noticing how quickly his bar would fill, then empty, before the start of every Browns game. He then realized that these baseball fans liked their beer, and bought the team so that he could sell beer at the games and make a tidy profit off the fans. He even went so far as to convert a house he owned behind right field into a beer garden where people could drink to their hearts’ content and watch the game at the same time. It was Von der Ahe who first recognized that baseball could be a profitable adventure for an entrepreneur such as himself.

However, thanks to Al Spalding’s tyrannical rule of the National League, beer could not be sold in-stadium at professional baseball games. In 1881, Spalding jettisoned four teams from the NL, two for not finishing the schedule and two for selling beer. A few of these clubs joined together to create the American Association in 1882, and Von der Ahe’s Browns were among the founding members.

A strong showing in 1883 found the Browns a mere one win from winning the pennant, but Von der Ahe could not stop meddling in the affairs of the team. Despite his claims to just be the owner and not know anything about baseball, “der boss president” became the George Steinbrenner of his time, leading his team in parades before every game, telling his team to hit every ball to right field after the team won one game on a ball hit to right, building a life-size statue of himself and pouring all the cash receipts from the day into a wheelbarrow and personally pushing it down to the bank, flanked at all times by two armed security guards. Because of the constant circus-like attitude, there was a merry-go-round of managers for the Browns, until Von der Ahe turned to his then 25-year-old star first baseman, Charlie Comiskey.

Comiskey would take over the managerial reigns before the 1885 season, and Von der Ahe, desiring to see his ballclub become a juggernaut, opened his wallet and created the most expensive team in the country. That 1885 club had a salary of $32,000 spread out over fourteen players, and it was worth every penny. Comiskey led the talented team to four consecutive pennants and one championship, making him the brightest star on the baseball landscape and Von der Ahe the owner everyone loved to hate. Comiskey was not afraid of Von der Ahe, instead taking his suggestions and doing the exact opposite, to the relief of the players and boosters.

Charlie Comiskey

Make no mistake; Comiskey was a brute of a ballplayer, which overshadowed his brilliance as a manager in terms of ability to keep players motivated and playing tough every day of the season. Those who argue that Ty Cobb was the dirtiest player of them all obviously have never heard stories of Comiskey, who would stand in the basepaths and knock unaware runners over, start fights unprovoked and managed a team as wild and unruly as he was. One of his players, Curt Welch, was a known umpire-baiter who consistently found himself in trouble with the law, and this not because of what he did before and after the games, but what he did on the field, causing riots and at times almost critically injuring opposing players! Third baseman Arlie Latham became the poster child for trash talk, finding new and colorful ways to yell and curse both on the field and from the dugout. To top it off, Comiskey and shortstop Bill Gleason were such vile base coaches that the rest of the league insisted upon setting boundaries to keep them in check (you know them today as the coaching boxes up the first and third base lines).

The Browns of the late 1880s were the jerks of baseball, but St. Louis fell in love with their winning ways. Beyond the players mentioned above, the team was led by the one-two punch of Dave Foutz and Bob Caruthers, who had records of 114-48 and 106-38 over the course of 1884-1887. They became the strongest defensive team in the American Association, teaching pitchers how to back up bases, shifting infielders to eat up more groundballs up the middle by having the first baseman play away from the bag, and confusing batters by being in constant motion before and during each pitch. The team also scored runs by the tens, outscoring their opponents by 352 runs in the 1886 season alone and averaging 8 runs scored per game.

However, despite four consecutive pennants, Von der Ahe’s meddling could only go so far, and after the owner refused to pay his players their share of the gate receipts from the 1888 championship series for the second consecutive year, the players lost all respect for the owner. Despite player-manager Comiskey’s best efforts, things were unraveling for the Browns. The 1889 season was suspect, and despite the team only losing the pennant by two games, between forfeits, threats of going on strike, and rather suspect play from the players, it was obvious that the second place finish was not where the Browns should have ended up.

In 1890 salary disputes caused many players in the American Association to defect and create their own league, called the Brotherhood League. It lasted one season, but the point was made, and many owners, after losing a stockpile of money because of their stars disappearing, welcomed back their players with open arms and checkbooks. However, Von der Ahe had not learned his lesson, and while he did allow all of his players (including Charlie Comiskey) to return, he had become even more of a wild card. His ridiculous demands, low salaries and treatment of players caused all of his stars to declare that they were leaving the team after the 1891 season to play for National League teams.

Even with the owner’s trickery, including swinging a deal to wipe out the American Association and join the National League, without Comiskey to show him the way Von der Ahe could not put together a winning ballclub even after gaining a place in the NL. He even attempted to be the manager in 1892, then went through five managers in the next three seasons in an attempt to recreate the magic he had been a part of with Comiskey, Gleason, Latham, Caruthers and Foutz, but to no avail. The media turned on him, as The Sporting News returned to prominence after beginning a personal attack on the curmudgeon of an owner by referring to him as “Chris Von der Ha Ha.”

The downward spiral continued. Five managers sat in the dugout for the Browns in 1896, four more in 1897, and the team went from a 90+ win team to going 29-102 in embarrassing fashion. The nail in Von der Ahe’s baseball coffin came in 1898, when the stadium caught fire. The grandstand, half the bleachers, his saloon, offices, gate money, trophies, clothes and files were left in ruins. Many fans were also injured in the fire, and the lawsuits came fast and furious. Eventually Von der Ahe found himself jailed and disgraced. The other owners of the National League stripped him of the franchise and sold it to Frank and Stanley Robinson in 1899.

The Robinsons were the owners of the Cleveland Spiders of the American Association, and quickly transferred the best of their Cleveland players to St. Louis, including a pitcher named Denton ‘Cy’ Young. To revamp the club’s image the owners changed the look of the team, including changing their socks from brown to a bright red, and the name shifted from Browns to Cardinals. There is some debate as to how this change came about, some crediting a journalist and others a relative of the owners. I prefer the latter, which is the one I will close this post with.

Upon seeing the revamped team for the first time in 1899, a young woman turned to a club official and said, “My, what a lovely shade of cardinal!” The name stuck.

Next week: the new-look Cardinals from 1900-1905.

Angela Weinhold covers the Cardinals for i70baseball.com, BaseballDigest.com and writes at Cardinal Diamond Diaries. You may follow her on Twitter here or follow Cardinal Diamond Diaries here.