The Deacon is a truly historic baseball figure. He began the game early enough to
have played, and lost, against the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869. He played three
championship seasons with Harry Wright's Boston Red Stockings of the National Association.
He was with Cap Anson's White Stockings for the first championship of the National
League. And, as an ardent supporter of players' rights, he ended his 22-year career
as playing owner of Buffalo's Brotherhood team.
His long face, walrus mustache,
and sober mien made him look out of place on the ball field in that rough-and-tumble
era, but precisely like the abstemious, nonsmoking, Bible-toting, church-going deacon
he was.
Nonetheless, he was the best barehanded catcher of his time, and when he
joined Buffalo in 1881, with the great Jack Rowe behind the plate, he became the
best third baseman, too. He threw righthanded and batted left.
With the Association
Bostons he was, with Al Spalding, Ross Barnes, and Cal McVey, one of baseball's first
Big Four. They defected to Chicago in 1876, but White returned to Boston for his
fifth straight pennant in 1877, plus a league-leading average of .387.
For the
next three years Deacon and his brother Will, a righthanded, 222-game winner, were
a battery for Cal McVey at Cincinnati. Deacon Jim also had an eight-win, eight-loss
stint as manager before handing the job back to McVey. In 1881 he and Will went to
Buffalo where, with Dan Brouthers, Hardy Richardson, and Rowe, Jim made up a second
Big Four. The owners sold the franchise to Detroit interests in 1886. The lads found
Ned Hanlon, Sam Thompson, and Charley Bennett already there, and a Wolverine pennant
was won in 1887. In postseason play they thrashed Chris von der Ahe's Browns in a
15-game "World Series" that traveled through ten cities.
Whiter and Jack Rowe bought
back into Buffalo in 1889, although Pittsburgh had rights to their services. After
a bitter legal fight they were forced to play for the Alleghenys, a situation that
gave impetus to formation of the Players' League. When the Brotherhood collapsed,
Deacon,
then 42, retired, honored and respected by all who knew him.
(ADS)
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FROM THE BASEBALL CHRONOLOGY
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| » March 22, 1888: Deacon White signs with Detroit after a prolonged battle with manager William Watkins, under whom White had said he'd never play. » December 17, 1888: Former Detroit players Deacon White and Jack Rowe purchase a controlling interest in the minor league Buffalo club. Though their reserve rights have been sold to Pittsburgh, both men announce plans to play in Buffalo next year.
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