Cap Anson

Adrian Constantine "Cap" Anson (April 17 1852 – April 14 1922) was a professional baseball player in the National Association and Major League Baseball. He played in a record twenty-seven consecutive seasons. Officially, according to MLB, he only played 22 major league seasons, since the National Association (an erratic, haphazard arrangement) was not considered a major league. His full career of 22 years for one team (Chicago NL) set an NL record tied by Mel Ott of N.Y. Giants (1926-1947) and Stan Musial of St.Louis Cardinals (1941-1963, except war year of 1945). The major league record (set in American League) is 23 years by Brooks Robinson of Baltimore Orioles (1955-1977) and Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox (1961-1983). Since the NA is not an official major league, Nolan Ryan holds the accepted major league records of 27 total years and 26 consecutive years for a career. In most polls, Anson is voted the greatest player of the 19th century. (Babe Ruth is voted the greatest player of the 20th century).

Early baseball career

Anson was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. Beginning in 1866, he spent two years at the high-school age boarding school of the University of Notre Dame after being sent there by his father in hopes of curtailing his mischievousness. His time away did little to discipline him, and soon after he returned home his father sent him to the University of Iowa, where his bad behavior resulted in the school asking him to leave after one semester. Anson played on a number of competitive baseball clubs in his youth and began to play professionally in the National Association (NA) at the age of 19. His best years in the NA were 1872 and 1873, when he finished in the top 5 in batting, OBP (leading the league in 1872), and OPS. His numbers declined slightly the following two seasons, but he was still good enough that Chicago White Stockings Secretary-turned-President William Hulbert sought him to improve his club for the 1876 season. Hulbert broke league rules by negotiating with Anson and several other stars while the 1875 season was still in progress and ultimately founded the new National League to forestall any disciplinary action. Anson, who had married a Philadelphia native in the meantime, had second thoughts about going west, but Hulbert held Anson to his contract and he eventually warmed to the Windy City.

Chicago White Stockings/Colts

Cap Anson baseball card (N162), 1888.

The White Stockings won the first league title, but fell off the pace the following two seasons. During this time, Anson was a solid hitter, but not quite a superstar. Both his fortunes and those of his team would change after Anson was named captain-manager of the club in 1879. With Anson pacing the way, the White Stockings won five pennants between 1880 and 1886. They were helped to the titles using new managerial tactics, including the rotation of two star pitchers. After the expression first became popular, in the 1890s, he retroactively claimed to used some of the first "hit and run" plays, and, especially aided by clever base runner Mike Kelly in the first half of the 1880s, had his players run the bases in a way that forced the opposition into making errors. In a modern sense of going South right before a season, he shares credit as an innovator of spring training along with then-Chicago President Albert Spalding. An aggressive captain and manager, he regularly helped players play better, and his contributions helped make baseball a higher-quality sport, while at the same time making it more popular with fans. On the field, Anson was the team's best hitter and run producer. In the 1880s, he won two batting titles (1881, 1888) and finished second four times (1880, 1882, 1886-87). During the same period, he led the league in RBIs an incredible seven times (1880-82, 1884-86, 1888). His best season was in 1881, when he led the league in batting (.399), OBP (.442), OPS (.952), hits (137), total bases (175), and RBIs (82). He also became the first player to hit three consecutive home runs, five homers in two games, and one of the first to hit four doubles in a game, as well as being the first to perform two unassisted double plays in a game. He is one of only a few players to score six runs in a game, a feat accomplished on August 24, 1886.

Anson was well known to be a racist and refused to play in exhibition games versus dark-skinned players. Despite this, Anson remained very popular in Chicago while playing for the White Stockings, which were increasingly known as the Colts starting with an influx of new players in the mid-1880s. Anson signed a ten year contract in 1888 to manage the White Stockings (which, because of a typographical error he failed to spot, ended after the 1897 season instead of the 1898 one), but his best years were behind him. He led the league in walks in 1890 and garnered his eighth and final RBI crown in 1891, but declined precipitously thereafter. On the managerial front, he failed to win another pennant. He also mellowed enough that his nicknames became "Uncle" and "Grandpa." When he was fired as manager after the 1897 season, it also marked the end of his 27-year playing career. The following season, the Colts were called the Orphans to reflect Anson's departure.

There is controversy as to whether he became the first player ever to get 3,000 hits in a major league career; for many years, recognized statistics credited him with precisely that total. Researchers in the 1990s argued that he was incorrectly credited with extra hits in 1887, when bases on balls were counted as hits. Eliminating the 60 walks Anson received that year would drop his hit total to 2,995 according to statistics officially recognized by Major League Baseball. However, if one counts his 423 earlier hits in the NA, the major leagues' predecessor (which Major League Baseball does), he is well over the mark. He was, by any standard, the first player to make 3,000 hits in his professional career. Recent research by several esteemed baseball researchers and historians have helped to determine a better estimate of Anson's hit total. The estimated 423 hits in the National Association were deleted (not a bonefide major league & not officially recognized as such) and the 60 walks that were once counted as hits under an 1887 rule were also deleted. His disputed hits in several years were analyzed, and the researchers reached the total of 3012 hits. (This total is used in "The 2007 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia" and "The 2007 SABR Baseball List & Record Book.") Even though MLB website includes 423 NA hits, MLB itself & reliable historians do not recognize NA as major league). (Now discredited figures include 3081, 3022, 3000-even, 2995, 2996, and 3418).

After retirement

Template:MLB HoFAnson briefly made a return to baseball managing the New York Giants in June and July of 1898, but fully retired afterward. After a number of failed business attempts, he was later elected city clerk of Chicago in 1905 and then, after serving one term, failed in the Democratic primary to become sheriff in 1907. After an unsuccessful attempt at owning/managing a semi-pro team, Anson began touring on the vaudeville circuit, which lasted up until about a year before his death. He first appeared in vaudeville in 1913 doing a monologue and a short dance. He next appeared in 1921 accompanied by his two daughters in an act written by Ring Lardner with songs by Herman Timberg. Following a glandular ailment, Anson died at the age of 69 in Chicago, Illinois and was interred at the Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

Anson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, one of the first 19th-century players selected. Over 100 years after his retirement, he still holds several Cubs franchise records, including most career RBI, runs, hits, singles, and doubles.

Popular culture

Anson was mentioned in the Simpsons episode Homer at the Bat, by Mr. Burns, while looking for professional ringers for his power plant softball team.

See also

• List of MLB individual streaks

External links

• Cap Chronicled - The Cap Anson Website
• Baseball Hall of Fame
• A Ball Player's Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson at Project Gutenberg
• Career statistics from Baseball Reference
• Baseball-Reference.com - managerial statistics
• Page at Baseball Library
• Page at Baseball-Almanac
• The Deadball Era - Anson's Obituary
• HickokSports.com
• Son of Henry Anson one of the founders of Iowa Article at Marshall Town