Athletics manager Lon Knight is fired and temporarily replaced by 1B Harry Stovey; former Athletics manager Charlie Mason is eventually hired as his replacement.
Providence P Jim McCormick beats St. Louis 3-2 for his 200th career victory.
VINTAGE BASEBALL MEMORABILIA Vintage Baseball Memorabilia On July 2, 1885, Sam Thompson was working as a carpenter when he was signed to play professional baseball. The manager of the Indianapolis Indians was searching for players to make a team to oppose his own club of nine. He was told of Thomspon but warned that Sam…
At an NL meeting‚ the 5 men who jumped the NL to sign with the UA in 1884 (including John Day‚ Charlie Sweeney‚ Dupee Shaw‚ and Jim McCormick) are reinstated with fines of $1‚000.
The roster of the 1885 Chicago White Stockings (known today as the Chicago Cubs) Top row, left to right: George Gore, Silver Flint, Cap Anson, Sy Sutcliffe, King Kelly, Fred Pfeffer Bottom row, left to right: Larry Corcoran, Ned Williamson, Abner Dalrymple, Tom Burns, John Clarkson, Billy Sunday
1885 – Boston Beaneaters P Charlie Buffinton invents a baseball “roller skate” that gives pitchers greater impetus and swing in their delivery while still allowing them to keep both feet on the ground.
1885 – The New York Clipper reports that Paul Hines has canceled his Washington Monument ball-drop exhibition. “The experiment of trying to catch a ball thrown from the top of the Washington Monument has proved to be a failure. The ball reaches the ground with such great speed that it indents the ground almost as much as a heavy cannon ball would dropped from a proportionate height. The fact is that, independently of the difficulty of judging the ball falling from such a height, the speed is too great to allow of any one holding it when it nears the ground.”
1885 – The recently-disbanded Cleveland Blues team of the National League releases its players.
1884 – Only five clubs attend the “annual” Union Association meeting, one by proxy. The UA will die early in 1885.
1884 – The American Association votes to keep its ban on overhand pitching and to continue to allow fouls caught on one bounce to count as outs. It does abolish the tradition of team captains flipping for the honor of batting first. Now the home team will automatically bat first.
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