The Local Boys. Joe Heffron
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an amazing 32 triples, he was called up near the end of 1954, but he got only three at-bats and one hit. After the season, he was part of a five-player swap with the Cubs. The Reds appeared to be set in the outfield with young stars Gus Bell, Jim Greengrass, and Wally Post.
In 1956, he had his best year, playing in the AAA Pacific Coast League for the Los Angeles Angels, still considered one of the great minor league teams in history. The Angels posted a 107–61 record; Bolger posted a .326 batting average with 28 home runs and 147 RBI.
Promoted to the Cubs, he struggled as a part-timer, and after being dealt to the Indians, who traded him to the Phillies, he found himself back in the minors, where, with regular playing time, he began hitting. Though he posted .319/.368/.470 for Louisville in 1962, he decided he’d had enough. He was 30 with a wife and four sons and needed to move on.
“I had no plan at all,” he recalls. He went to work for a friend of the family at a car dealership. After a decade there, he landed a job as a clerk at the Hamilton County courthouse.
Though he never became a star, he had a career most guys would look back on proudly. Jim “Dutch” Bolger isn’t most guys. “I wish I’d done better,” he says. “I wish I’d had more years in the big leagues and made more money.” After a pause, he adds, “I did get enough years in to get the pension.”
AMOS “DARLING” BOOTH
AUGUST 14, 1848–JULY 1, 1921
Major League Career
1876–1882
Time as a Red
1876–1877
Position
CATCHER; INFIELD
LIKE MANY BASEBALL PLAYERS OF HIS ERA—and even today—Amos Booth was superstitious. He bought into the common belief that if he found a hairpin at the ball yard before a game, he would get a hit. Apparently he didn’t find a lot of hairpins. He certainly didn’t get a lot of hits. Born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio, the son of George and Eleanor Booth, he starred for the town’s well-regarded amateur team in the early 1870s, which may have been how he came to the attention of the newly reformed Red Stockings, who signed him for their inaugural season in the National League in 1876. He debuted on April 25, 1876. If not especially gifted, he was versatile, playing every position except first base and center field. He even pitched. While mostly a backup infielder, he became the first pitcher in National League history to give up two home runs to the same hitter in one game—to George Hall of the Athletics on June 17, 1876.
Though he only played in 110 major league games, Booth managed to post a few other firsts: In his debut game, he got the first hit by a Red as a member of the National League, smacking a single in the first inning in a 2–1 Opening Day victory over the St. Louis Brown Stockings. Later in the game, he scored the team’s first run in NL history; he also was the first player in the league’s history to both catch and pitch as many as 10 games in a season. In several games, he started out catching and ended up pitching.
Listed at 5′9″ and 159 pounds, he was light even for that time, and at 27 years old when he reached the majors, he wasn’t young. He batted .261 in his first year with the Reds in 281 plate appearances and was one of the first players signed for the next year. The Enquirer reported that he’d “grown stouter” during the winter, which might help him hit the ball harder. But, in 1877, he found far fewer hairpins, hitting just .172 in a season that saw the franchise temporarily collapse. Professional baseball was rocked by its first scandal at the end of that year, when members of the Louisville Grays were banned for allegedly fixing some games. Eager to regain credibility, teams released players suspected of similar activity. On November 17, the Reds released Booth, along with Bob Addy and Will Foley. The latter two were directly accused of “drunk and dishonest play,” according to The New York Times on that date, but the dismissal of all three was explained with “The threat of an investigation and an offer of $100 enable the management to get rid of the unsatisfactory material without legal troubles.”
He moved on to a team in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the International League, and then in 1879 went to the Washington Nationals in the National Association, while continuing to live in Cincinnati, in the Cumminsville area, where he and his wife, Lena, were raising six children. He returned to the Reds on August 18, 1880, to play one game at third base, subbing for Hick Carpenter, who was nursing a sore elbow. The Enquirer summed up his performance with, “Booth … showed up very weak as a fielder and still weaker as a batter.” In 1882, he played one game for the Baltimore Orioles and another for the Louisville Eclipse. Thus ended his major league career, though he played in the Ohio State Baseball League for the first professional team in Hamilton in 1884 and for two seasons with the semipro Cincinnati Buckeyes.
He later joined the Cincinnati police force, where he made news for consorting with gamblers and prostitutes, for riding his horse into a canal, and even for killing a man who Booth mistakenly thought was a burglar. In his later years, he owned a bar in Miamisburg, where he died of a stroke in 1921. Why he was nicknamed “Darling” remains a mystery, especially since he really didn’t seem to be one.
JOHN “HONEST JACK” BOYLE
MARCH 22, 1866–JANUARY 7, 1913
Major League Career
1886–1898
Time as a Red
1886
Position
CATCHER; FIRST BASE; THIRD BASE
THE MAJOR LEAGUE CAREER OF “HONEST JACK” Boyle got off to a historic start when, on October 25, 1886, he was involved in the first trade of major league players. His hometown Reds traded him to the St. Louis Browns, along with $350 in cash, for Hugh Nicol. The Reds got the short end of the deal. Nicol stood all of 5′4″, while strapping Jack was a foot taller. Nicol remains one of the shortest major leaguers in history; Boyle was the tallest major league catcher in the 19th century. Height aside, Boyle also was nearly a decade younger. Though an outstanding baserunner, the speedy Nicol, primarily an outfielder, was a weak hitter nearing the end of his career. Meanwhile, local boy Boyle, only 20, was just getting started.
At the time of the trade, his hometown Reds really hadn’t given him much of a chance yet. Earlier that year, the Reds were desperate for pitching and gave a tryout to a local boy named Bobby Mitchell, who had pitched for the team in 1877 and 1878. At the time, Mitchell was playing for a semipro team called the Blue Licks, and for the tryout he brought along his young battery mate, Jack Boyle, who had grown up in Price Hill. The Reds passed on Mitchell, but they signed his tall catcher before loaning him to the Richmond (Indiana) Henleys for the season. They brought him back and put him in the lineup for the final game on October 8, 1886. He went 1-4 in a 14–8 win over Baltimore. Less than a month later, his time as a Red was over.
His successful career, however, was just beginning. He went on to establish himself as a premier backstop and field leader for St. Louis—so much so that when Browns manager Charles Comiskey jumped to the upstart Players League in 1890, he talked Boyle into joining him. Both returned to St. Louis the following year.
In 1892, Boyle was dealt to the New York Giants, where he signed a contract for $5,500 per season, reportedly the largest baseball contract to that point. But his best years may have been in Philadelphia, where he played from 1893 to 1898, excelling at the plate as well as behind it, though by this time he saw more action at first base. In 1894, he posted career highs in nearly every hitting category, with a slash line of .298/.360/.406. Two seasons later, he was joined in the major leagues by his brother, Eddie, who was also a burly catcher from the west side of Cincinnati. Eddie played just one season, starting with the Louisville Colonels before being traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates.