PETER NASH on AL
REACH
As a young boy, Al Reach peddled newspapers on Broadway and
soon after cut his teeth as an amateur ballplayer on the sandlots of Brooklyn in the late 1850s. In the 1860s he was one of
the game’s first paid professionals as a member of the Athletic Base Ball Club
of Philadelphia and by the close of the nineteenth-century he had become one of
the most prominent figures ever connected with the National Pastime. However,
nearly a century after his death in 1928, Reach stands in relative obscurity as
one of baseball’s forgotten pioneers who Hall of Fame immortality has sadly
passed by.
Not only has Al Reach been dissed by the baseball Gods, his
name has only appeared recently in the news because rare photos of him were
stolen from the New York Public Library’s famous A. G. Spalding Collection and
have appeared for sale on eBay. Today’s BBWAA or Veterans Committee members
might not know the Reach name from a hole in the wall, but FBI
agents tracking his stolen photos online know him well. And not only has Reach
been passed over by Cooperstown voters, the Hall of Fame has also lost a rare
donated artifact that ties him to early Philadelphia
baseball history. Al Reach hasn’t been able to get into the Hall, but an 1870
picture of him sure did make its way out, thanks to some sticky fingers.
This rare cabinet photo of Al Reach was stolen from the NYPL and appeared for sale on eBay, before it ended up in the hands of the FBI.
When the Hall of Fame was founded in the late 1930s a
concerted effort was made to identify and honor the pioneers of the game with
permanent enshrinement into the newly formed institution. Reach’s
contemporaries like brothers Harry and George Wright, Albert Spalding, Henry
Chadwick, Candy Cummings and even Alexander Cartwright were honored with bronze
plaques in the Cooperstown shrine. It could be
argued Reach’s contributions to the game equalled, and in some cases even
surpassed, the accomplishments of some of these enshrined Hall of Famers.
A great case for Reach’s deserved enshrinement was made in a
SABR National Pastime article, “Philadelphia Baseball’s Unappreciated
Founders,” written in 2003 by early-Philly baseball authority Dr. Jerrold
Casway. Casway presented a biographical sketch of Alfred J.Reach as a player,
team executive and sporting goods magnate whose accomplishments were
extraordinary. Born in London in 1840, Reach’s
family emmigrated to America
in 1841 and ended up settling in the Williamsburg
section of Brooklyn. It was there in the late
1850s that Reach first joined the Jackson Juniors Base Ball Club as a catcher
and by 1861 had moved on to the prominent Eckford Base Ball Club as an amateur
infielder.
Reach was one of the key members of the 1862 Eckford team
leading them to a 14 and 2 record in the NABBP and, having defeated the 1861 champion
Atlantics, the Eckfords claimed the 1862 championship. Casway noted that,
“Reach was known as the “Scratcher” for his ability of “digging” up hard-hit
balls.” Of his prowess in the field he also wrote that “Reach set the standard
for playing second base” as one of the first “to play his position mid-way
between the bases.”
In 1865, Reach joined the ranks of the very first openly
professional players in the game as he accepted a salary of $25 a week to
commute to Philadelphia
and play for Thomas Fitzgerald’s Athletic Base Ball Club. Another Philadelphia
baseball historian, Tom Shiffert, said of the pioneer in his book Base Ball
in Philadelphia: A History of the Early Game, “Reach got to Philadelphia
for the 1865 season, and never looked back, establishing himself as the premier
individual name in Philadelphia baseball for the next 60-odd years, or at least
until Connie Mack started winning pennants with regularity.” During his career
as an Athletic player, Reach excelled on the field offensively and defensively
putting up numbers that were always near the league leaders. In 1871, Reach led
the Athletics to the first National Association championship and as Shiffert
also noted, was named as the best second baseman on theNew York Clipper’s All-Star team.
In 1874, he acted as the player-manager of the Athletics in England during baseball’s first European tour,
but three years later in 1877 his playing career was over and he established
his sporting goods business in Philadelphia.
Reach would end up becoming the founding President of the
Phillies franchise of the National League and also partnered with the likes of
Ben Shibe and A. G. Spalding to further revolutionize the sporting goods
industry. In addition, Reach was instrumental in helping his partner Ben Shibe
establish the first American League club in Philadelphia, Connie Mack’s A’s. If that
wasn’t enough for his baseball resume, Casway also describes Reach’s skills as
“an innovative ball park designer” who enhanced the fan experience in the city
of brotherly love. Alongside Harry Wright, Reach is, no doubt, one of the most
significant figures in the history of Philadelphia
baseball.
In an interview last week Casway expressed his opinion that
Reach was, perhaps, the most important. Said Casway, “Al Reach was a seminal
ballplayer, successful manager, franchise president and sporting goods
manufacturer. He was among the first professional ballplayers, and until his
retirement in the mid-1870s, was considered the game’s best second baseman. He
led the Athletics on the first overseas exhibition tour and became the
Philadelphia Phillies first president. Reach, together with Ben Shibe changed
the nature of the sporting goods industry. He and Shibe pioneered the
(manufacturing of) the modern baseball.”
An argument could be made for Reach to enter the Hall
singularly as either a player an executive or a pioneer. Considering his career
in its totality, its hard to believe he’s been overlooked. Whatever baseball
politics played a part in the Hall of Fame committee’s overlooking his
accomplishments are unknown.
The 1870 Philadelphia Athletics CDV produced by Gihon is extremely rare. Here are seven of the known examples that have survived.
One of the few surviving artifacts to document Al Reach’s
career as a standout player for the Philadelphia Athletics is an 1870
carte-de-visite card featuring the portraits of Reach and his teammates. Produced
in 1870 by Philadelphia
based photographer A. Gihon, the card is one of the earliest visual
representations of Reach’s career as a ballplayer and the card is of the utmost
rarity with less than ten examples known to exist.
Back in 1984, the Society for American Baseball Research
conducted a photo shoot at the Baseball Hall of Fame for a publication slated
as a photographic “Review of Baseball History in the Nineteenth Century. A copy
of the 1870 Athletics CDV was part of the Hall’s collection and was documented
in the photo shoot on a Kodak contact sheet along with many other rare images
housed at the National Baseball Library. The SABR contact sheet was marked on
the front and reverse as “HOF-9.”
The same CDV photographed at the Hall of Fame in 1984, with its unique scratch visible on this contact sheet image (left), appeared several years later in a book published by Mark Rucker (right).
The CDV captured on film at the Hall featured an imperfection
unique to this particular card, a fine scratch on the bottom of the albumen
print affixed to the cardboard mount. The same card, with the exact same
imperfection, appeared in the 1988 book, Base
Ball Cartes by Mark Rucker, however, it
was not credited to the Hall of Fame. Like many other images featured in the
book, the card was listed as part of Mark Rucker’s collection.
The same card that was originally photographed at the HOF appeared for sale in Robert Edward Auctions 1994 auction catalog.
In 1994, the same card appeared again as an offered lot in a
Robert Edward Auctions sale. The auction description noted the rare card had a
“single insignificant scratch in brown background.” It was One of the finest of
the very few examples of this important card in existence.” The auction also
noted “an extremely small abrasion” on the card’s reverse. It is likely that
handwritten Hall of Fame accession numbers were defaced on the reverse of the
card.
The image of the 1870 CDV is strong evidence of a Hall of
Fame heist.
Haulsofshame.com notified the Hall of Fame of the evidence
of the 1870 Athletics photo theft last year but Hall officials refused to
comment.
Since the early 1980s the Hall has fallen victim to massive
thefts of rare documents and photographs from the National Baseball Library
collections, but they have never vigorously pursued recovery of the donated
artifacts they were entrusted to safeguard. Ex-Hall of Fame officials and
employees have confirmed that recovery efforts have been thwarted to avoid what
one official called a “potential PR nightmare.”
So, will the kidnapped CDV featuring the portraits of Al
Reach and his fellow Athletics ever make its way back into the Hall of Fame
archives? If it does make it home to Cooperstown
it would be fitting if a bronze relief of “Pops” Reach was already hanging in
the Gallery of Plaques.
Until that day comes, Mr. Reach will have to enjoy his
extended stay in the Hall of Very Good.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Nash joined the Society of American Baseball Research at the age of 12 as an avid baseball fan and card collector. His early research intensified his interest in the pioneers of the game like Harry Wright, Albert Spalding and Henry Chadwick, and he moved from collecting bubble gum cards to rare and unusual baseball artifacts of the 19th century. By the time he graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College in 1989 he was known as the recording artist Prime Minister Pete Nice of the Def Jam Recordings group 3rd Bass. Still, even as he toured the world performing with the likes of hip-hop artists Public Enemy, De La Soul and LL Cool J, he managed to keep up with his baseball research and collecting, becoming more involved in the growing baseball memorabilia business.
But from 1989 to 1995 Nash experienced the dark side of the baseball collectibles field as he discovered, with the help of his friend and world renowned handwriting expert Charles Hamilton, that close to a quarter million dollars worth of materials he’d purchased were either bogus or stolen goods. Some of the stolen items were believed to originate from the collections of the New York Public Library and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Over the past fifteen years, Nash has conducted his own personal investigation into the hobby, which now constitutes the backdrop for his compelling exposé on the fraud-ridden industry. In particular, Nash has succeeded in unraveling some of the hobby’s greatest mysteries involving massive thefts from the historical baseball collections housed at the New York Public Library, Boston Public Library and National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Nash is the author of two baseball history books, Baseball Legends of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery (Arcadia 2003) and Boston’s Royal Rooters (Arcadia, 2005) as well as the writer and producer of the 2007 Emmy-nominated baseball documentary, Rooters: Birth of Red Sox Nation. In 2008, Nash re-opened Nuf Ced McGreevy’s 3rd Base Saloon at 911 Boylston St. in Boston, MA.
