Baseball on Roller Skates

It is no doubt safe to say we will never see major leaguers playing an exhibition game on roller skates. Just as likely the prospect of minor league prospects risking a serious injury is considerably slimmer than winning the lottery. But in a different time–can I say a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away– a roller skate baseball game in Milwaukee on May 6, 1885, was played, watched and reported on with a good sense of humor.

On Monday, May 4 the Evening Wisconsin reported manager Tom Loftus (of the Milwaukee Western League team) and Dan O’Leary (of Toledo, who were in town playing regular baseball with the Grays) “arranged to play a game of base ball on rollers at the Exposition rink Wednesday evening”. According to the newspaper “a soft ball and light bat will be used in lieu of the regulation League ball and stick, and netting will be stretched before the audience at the first and third bases”.

Further, the players were “utilizing all their reserve time practicing at the rink and all promise to become proficient before the beginning of the contest”. Obviously the players were getting into a jolly mood, as it was reported “Manager Loftus will prance about in spangled tights, and Schoeneck will wear skates on the back of his neck to facilitate his base running to second. Manager O’Leary’s fairy form will gracefully pose on third bag and McSorley has arranged to give a tumbling exhibition”.

The Evening Wisconsin reported (tongue in cheek?): “The players will ride in carriages to the rink, leaving the Kirby House at half past seven, and preceded by two military bands. Mr. O’Leary has procured a number of the recently invented red-fire bogs, which will be burned along the route”. The next day the paper wrote “Archie Foster, the Sentinel’s horse reporter, has consented to act in the capacity of umpire and be disliked forever afterwards”.

The game itself appeared to have been a fun evening. Dan O’Leary’s “combination of bicycle riders, roller skaters and foot racers” won the 5-inning game 7 to 3. Toledo showed excellent base running, “while the Milwaukees, although batting hard, were unable to secure more than three times, as the bulk of the players invariably sat down midway between the plate and Faatz’s corner”. On the whole “the players’ work on skates [was] surprisingly good, considering the small amount of practice they had before the game”.

There were some mishaps. “Manager O’Leary carried off the fielding honors by missing several hot grounders, but he was at home handling red hot carbon when a hit by Schoeneck smashed an electric light to smithereens”.

Billy Furlong–not the Milwaukee Sentinel horse reporter–actually umpired the game. Furlong was an old Milwaukee favorite, having played with the local semi-professional West End Club in 1876 and ’77, and was one of the three chosen umpires for the Milwaukee Grays 1878 National League season. Billy’s umpiring “was eminently satisfactory” according to the Evening Wisconsin .