As the summer heats up, so does the pennant race in Major League Baseball. This episode of A New York Minute in History dives into baseball’s storied past as we learn about the first grand slam homerun in official Major League Baseball history that was hit by Hall of Famer Roger Connor in 1881. Where exactly it was hit remained a mystery for over a century.
Interviewees: John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball, Matt Malette, Albany historian and president of the Historic Albany Foundation, and Kathy T. Sheehan, Rensselaer County and Troy City Historian and Executive Director of the Hart Cluett Museum.
Marker of Focus: First Grand Slam, Rensselaer County.
Further Reading:
Paul Grondahl, “Historian Finds First Grand Slam in MLB History—In Rensselaer.” Albany Times Union, March 19, 2019.
John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, 2012.
John R. Husman, “September 10, 1881: Roger Connor’s Ultimate Grand Slam,” Society of American Baseball Research.
Music: Lemon Groves by Bon Voyage
Educational Resources:
National Baseball Hall of Fame: Educational Curriculum
Library of Congress: Baseball Across a Changing Nation
Devin Lander:
Welcome to A New York Minute in History I’m Devin Lander, the New York State Historian.
Lauren Roberts:
And I’m Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. Summer is heating up, and so is the pennant race. So, for this month, we've decided to focus on baseball. And we're heading to a marker in Rensselaer County at 300 Broadway in the city of Rensselaer. And the text reads, ‘First Grand Slam hit on this site in 1881 by Roger Connor of National League, Troy Trojans. National League became Major League Baseball 1903. William G Pomeroy Foundation, 2020.’ So, what's more American than baseball? We often think of this sport as a national pastime. Many of us have childhood memories of playing this game or being a baseball fan, or whenever our favorite team won the World Series, or maybe has never won the World Series, no matter how long we've been a fan. But we won't name names here. Because baseball is such a popular sport, and because New York has played such a big role in hosting baseball, back in October of 2019, we actually did a podcast related to baseball myths and the early game. And if you'd like to go back and remind yourselves, or give yourselves a little bit of a refresher about the history of the game, I recommend going back and listening to that podcast. But moving forward, we're going to talk a little bit about the history of the Grand Slam and where it happened and how that was discovered.
Devin Lander:
right? And as you noted, baseball has a long history, both in New York and nationally, but especially in New York, which has had some of the earliest teams or in organized baseball before there was even professional baseball, as our previous episode tells everyone, so please go check that out. But really, we're talking about something that happened with a Troy baseball team, the Troy Trojans. So a lot of people who maybe live in the capital region or in upstate in general, kind of may have a question of there was actually a professional baseball team in Troy, and yes, there was, there was professional baseball team in many smaller cities around the northeast, especially in the Midwest. As the game expanded, we have to remember that during the 19th century, when this grand slam was hit in 1881 during this era, baseball players often had other jobs. They weren't the multi-millionaires that we know today signing these huge contracts and playing solely professional baseball. No, these were often factory workers, some other type of labor, perhaps train railroad workers. So that's why you started to see these teams popping up in in these industrial areas, specifically in the Northeast. But Troy is one of only two upstate cities to have a professional. National major league team, the other being buffalo. You know, many of the cities had minor league teams, Rochester, Albany and onwards, but Troy and in Buffalo were actual major league teams. And Worcester as well, which is the team that the Troy Trojans were playing that day, another small kind of industrial city in Massachusetts had a professional baseball team. So there's a lot of interesting connections in this story about the first Grand Slam, and we have to also acknowledge that this was a walk off Grand Slam. So not only was it the first Grand Slam, so bases loaded, home run, drives home all the bases, including the batter Grand Slam, which it wasn't known as in those days, that term didn't even exist. So it was that, but it was the game winner too. They were down by three runs the Troy Trojans, when Roger Connor strode to the home plate and blasted the shot, which also was not actually hit out of the park, it was in in the park. Home run. So many great connections, great stories as there always is in these type of legendary events in sports history, specifically. But you know, one of the real story here is where this took place and trying to figure out exactly which field this occurred on. And this was something that was not known until relatively recently. There was some erroneous reporting during the era, suggesting that the game took place in Albany or Troy, or places where it didn't actually take place. So kind of to get to the bottom of this, and to really start to dig into this, we spoke with Rensselaer County Historian Kathy Sheehan, who had a hand in not only helping with the research, but also obtaining the Pomeroy marker.
Kathy Sheehan:
Well, it's interesting. So the Haymakers, and which then ultimately become the Troy Trojans in 1881, when we're coming up to this event that's marked on the on the Pomeroy foundation marker is they were supposed to play their games, most of their games they played up in Lansingburgh, up in north of Troy, on the flats now, where Lansingburgh high school plays. And yeah, they're all still playing up there, which is great. There's even a there's plaques up there to all the Hall of Faber's from Troy that that were on those early teams. And you'd have 10,000 people coming to these games. Now, apparently there had been a big rainstorm, and it was just is really flat ground. Those who are familiar in the area would know that it's the area underneath Oakwood Cemetery. Really flat. Lot of water runs off of there. So they decided to move this game that they were playing against Worcester, which was the other team in the National League. So it's the Troy Trojans now in September of 81 and actually September the 12th. Oh no, it's actually September 11. I think was the actual game.
Devin Lander:
These ones say September 10th.
Kathy Sheehan:
Okay, all right, so I'm off by two days. So there are two—so they move it. And there were lots, of course, there were lots of other, you know, stadiums around. And they also played, for instance, just kind of coming down the river what is now Starbuck Island, which was named after the foundry that was there. They used to play there as well. Ultimately, later on, they played up in Prospect Park and Troy, so on the east side. But then they would go down to the, basically the southern end of Rensselaer County into what is now the city of Rensselaer at that time, though, there were three villages. City of Rensselaer wasn't incorporated till 1897 and so this was a small there's lots of weird little islands. Have all been filled in now, but it was called Bonacker Island and the area there was the village areas known as East Albany. Of course, you literally are right, for those who wouldn't know, you're very near the train station, you probably could hit the Grand Slam and maybe hit the glass on the Amtrak station, that's over there. So that's, that's kind of generally, what is—if you come off the ramp, you'll find the Pomeroy Foundation marker that's right there, right? So, but this was a big stadium, yeah, this was, this was, this was a large stadium, almost as big as Yankee Stadium in New York.
Devin Lander:
So, when we spoke to Kathy, she let us know that it was really Matt Mallett, the president of the historic Albany Foundation, and himself, kind of an armchair historian and a baseball fan, and also a person that has a history program on Spectrum news. And he was brought this, and he was brought the idea for this story himself, not knowing that the first Grand Slam was hit in the capital region. So he thought it would be a great little segment for his program on spectrum. And he decided. To look into it, and when he did, he realized that the location was wrong, that there was erroneous reporting at the time in 1881 a few days later, or days later, saying that the game was played either in Albany or in Troy, or somewhere where it actually wasn't. So, what we do know is that the game was played in a park that was not normally the Troy Trojans Home Park, for whatever reason, they couldn't use their park. So they actually moved this game, and it was Matt who really dug into the archive and found out the true answers.
Matt Malette:
We wanted to have that segment come out opening week of baseball, you know, just, just to really tie everything in. So he sent me the basic information, and so this is all I got. I said, Okay, great. You know, river, Riverside Park, Albany, you know, 1881 Roger Connor, perfect should be open and shut case. Start going to the old maps of Albany, find Riverside Park, and immediately you're looking at the size of this park, and you're like, there is no way a baseball game was ever played here. It was maybe, maybe 200 by 150 feet. I mean, if this was, it's, this was a very narrow Park, like there, someone would have had a home run or a Grand Slam out of this thing way before 1881 so of course, then you got to start digging. If this isn't the spot where, where is it? Start going through some old newspapers, find that there is another Riverside Park, but it's across the river in in what would soon become Rensselaer. At the time, it was labeled East Albany bath, you know, had a number of names. It had not incorporated yet as a city. There was another issue that we came across in that there were also two Van Rensselaer islands. We knew it was. We quickly discovered it was on an island. There was a Van Rensselaer island in Albany, and there was a Van Rensselaer island in Rensselaer. Each island was a mile across from each other. No, you know, they're very close. The Van Rensselaer island in in Rensselaer also went by Bonacker Island. The Van Rensselaer island in Albany also went by Westerlo, which is the site of the port of Albany now. So the record stated that it was at Riverside Park in Albany on Van Rensselaer Island. Like that was in there were two separate locations in Albany, but they were the same location in Rensselaer. So we were able to quickly figure out that it was actually in Rensselaer, not in Albany. Now for me, not being a, you know, a licensed historian, or, you know, whatever that was enough for me. So we did our segment. We had Tim Wiles, who, at the time, was the Guilderland Public Library. And previous to that, his knowledge had come from Cooperstown. So he was the Baseball Hall of Fame librarian as well. I think he's since long retired, not long retired, but he's since retired. And, you know, every so often, kind of catch up on the social media, but we included him, and, you know, he went through all the facts, and he was like, Yeah, this, this. This looks legit. So we put that out in 2017 to very little fanfare, it really didn't catch fire until another two years later, in 2019 when Paul Grondahl with the Times Union wanted to do this story. So we covered the same story again, and it, I wouldn't want, I don't local viral. I guess, I guess, I guess it went local viral. You know, a lot of people started talking about it after that, and within a couple days, I had an email from John Thorne, like I had no idea who he was, but basically, you know, he told me I was incorrect, and I had written him back, saying, you know, I presented, you know, some information. And he was like, none of this is good enough. Like, we need, we need pictures. We'll need actual first-hand accounts from that day to prove that. And that's a tall order, especially for, you know, a sport that was not really huge at the time. I mean, a major league baseball team in Troy, right? You know, it's not right. You don't really hear. I mean, we're struggling to keep, you know baseball in general in the Albany area, let alone a major league team, right? Um. Yeah, so that was a tall order of a good friend of mine. She's another historian, Maeve. She had, she had said to me, Oh, I Google searched this guy. I was like, yeah. She's like, I am so sorry for you. She's like, Do you have any idea who this man is? I said, No, I haven't done it yet. She's like, do not, under any circumstances, look up who he is, because you're going to be scared out of your mind. So of course, I look it up. Yeah, she was right. I mean, I was so intimidated. Like, this is, you know, the baseball historian. I mean, he was the guy that essentially proved that Abner Doubleday did not create baseball and I have to now go and prove him wrong? No, no thank you.
Lauren Roberts:
Now that we understand the story of the first Grand Slam a little bit better, I think maybe some of the listeners will not be familiar with the name Roger Connor. So in order to learn a little bit about who Roger Connor was and about his backstory and his pretty incredible baseball career, we spoke with the official historian of Major League Baseball, John Thorne.
John Thorne:
First baseman, six foot three, unusually large for a major league player of that time, several of the Troy players, Tim Keith, Mickey, Welsh, Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, began their careers with Troy and then moved on to the Giants and ultimately won plaques in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Devin Lander:
So one of the interesting roles that John has, besides being a prolific author and obviously the official historian of Major League Baseball, which is probably the greatest job in the world, and he's a very busy individual, but one of the things that he does As historian for Major League Baseball is make sure that the records and the claims of these historical events are correct, and so he does have deep knowledge and access to the archives and the Hall of Fame and all of these other places. So John was the one who suggested that perhaps Matt was incorrect in his assumption that, or his theory that the hit took place where it actually did. So there was some back and forth and and Matt was trying to come up with archival records, which is what John really needs to see as a historian. He needs to see those archival records, those maps, those primary sources, as does the Pomeroy foundation. So very, very aligned in that there needs to be primary sources that really tell us the truth about these events. And that's what Matt was looking for. And it was really a chance occurrence that led him to the final conclusion.
Matt Mallette:
I had sent him a bunch of articles, maps, things like that, and none of it was from 1881 okay? And a lot of it was from the 1890s by this point, there was another baseball team playing there called the Bonacker, so the Bonacker family in Rensselaer, they were, I assume there's got to be some sort of family lineage still living in Rensselaer. But at the time, they were big in in the ice company, so they had ice houses on Bonacker Island, and in the summertime they would have a baseball team. And it worked out because this baseball field was very close to the train tracks. So a lot of a lot of teams at the time were railroad companies or railroad teams, and they would just travel the rails to get from field to field. So this was a pretty good spot for what they were doing in 1890 1900 the Bonacker eventually would have closed that field down, but the articles of the time was very specific as to where it was. At least in Rensselaer, they didn't really get down to Oh, it was on the corner of Fifth. We really don't know. We're pretty sure that's actually where it was. It's at just South of Fifth half. But, you know, we went through old obituaries from rom the Bonacker, the I think it was Adam Bonacker’s late son when, when he died, it stated that the baseball field was turned into a used car lot in 1930 so it was paved over, and by the 1970s the car lot had. Had ceased to exist, and by that point, they were getting ready to put the new Dunn Memorial Bridge in, and that's really where the on and the off ramps are. The for that bridge is that entire park. So, we had the location, but he again, like John, needed day of information. So, we had no pictures. However, about two or three weeks after he was kind of like, if you don't have this where, you know, we're not changing any anything, I was putting my shoes on, and I have a lithograph hanging, hanging in my living room, and it's an 1879 lithograph of the city of Albany. And it's not to scale, but it's a lovely piece of artwork, and I'm putting my shoes on, and I just happened to come eye level with the lower section of this lithograph, and clear as day, you can see a baseball field sitting on this little island at the very corner. I'm like, I've had this for years. I've never once noticed this before. Wow. So I find a much clearer shot a digital scan through whether it was Library of Congress, Congress or whatever. I send this to him. I was like, Hey, listen, I don't know if this is going to be any of any help, but I think this is the baseball field. And he was like, hey, hats off. That's it. Wow. You know this. This fits in 1870s 1880s baseball. You've got the grandstand there. We now know that there was a fence up until 1885 we didn't know if they even had a fence on this field. So now that we have that, it kind of kind of gave me a little bit of extra steam. Went down in the New York State Library, went through a ton of microfiche, found a day of article. It was a day late. The game was on Saturday, so the newspaper did not print on Sunday. Now, Sunday's kind of the big newspaper. They did not do it on Sunday, so it wasn't until Monday, and they describe how the game ended. They did not call it a Grand Slam. Yeah, it just says, after waiting a minute, he sent a long one over the center fielder's head and down to the south fence so he didn't even hit. It out. It wasn't in he had a he had a leg. It okay, it wasn't inside the park, and he cleared the bases and touching home plate himself before the ball. Wow. The cheers of the few who were present.
Lauren Roberts:
Since Roger Connor hit the very first Grand Slam, I think everyone would assume he's a great baseball player. This team, the Troy Trojans, were probably really great, but that isn't the case, is it?
Devin Lander:
Well, unfortunately, the Detroit Trojans were not a great team at the time. They were competitive, but they were not competing for a pennant or anything, or a championship, which is a little strange in retrospect, because at the time 1881 when this happened, the Troy Trojans actually had four future Hall of Fame players, including Roger Connor, who would go on to the Hall of Fame himself. But all of those players became much better known in the future of their careers. And that's really kind of the sad part about the Troy team itself. It didn't last much longer. I think it was two years after this, this hit happened, this grand slam happened. They actually folded. Some people think that they went on to become the New York Gothams, but they actually folded. And the New York Gothams were a separate team who signed Roger Connor and some of these other players, and then would go on to become the New York Giants, and then eventually the San Francisco Giants, where they still are. So some people erroneously believe that the Troy Trojans were the same franchise, but they're actually not. They just had some of the same players. So the game itself that this hit took place in and I've read some of the contemporary newspaper articles, and really it's interesting, at least one of the articles does mention that Roger Connor had this hit that was a Grand Slam, although, again, didn't use the term Grand Slam, but that he won the game by driving in these runs. But they really talked more about how sloppy a game it was, and how the fact that there was only 100 people watching it, which was one of the issues with the Troy team that was hard for them to generate a big audience. So there were 12 total errors in this game, and Roger Connor himself, who played first base, had four of those, which is not a very good fielding day. So that took up most of the attention. In these articles. But it is interesting that the pitcher that Roger hit this grand slam off of had a week earlier pitch the first perfect game.
John Thorne:
There were errors galore, including by Roger Connor at first base. So the denouement was that Worcester scored one additional run in the ninth inning, so that when Troy came to bat, they were trailing by five, and when Roger Connor hit the grand slam home run that ended the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Troy had scored one run before then on an error.
Devin Lander:
So that's the setup in the end. So, bottom of the ninth, two outs, Roger Connor strolls up.
John Thorne:
It is seven to four at that point when Connor hits the home run and they lead and win eight to seven.
Devin Lander:
At that time, you know, I know that the style of baseball was completely different, but why was it such a rarity at that time to see grand slams?
John Thorne:
Well, first of all, to hit a home run with the bases loaded was a rarity. To hit a home run with the bases loaded that won the game in the ninth inning, that turned around and otherwise, what otherwise would have been a defeat. This did not occur again after Roger Connor's blast, until Babe Ruth did it in 1925.
Lauren Roberts:
Although the Troy Trojans team from the 1880s didn't have a long life. The history of baseball continues in this area. It ebbs and flows through the different periods of history. In Saratoga County, there was a baseball league, and we had several Mills here because of all of the water power and baseball was so important to all of the mill workers, everyone had a different team, and they would go back and forth and playing each other. And I'm reminded during World War Two, one of the players on the team is writing to his brother, who's over in Europe, and he says, we know that the war has really affected us here in the town of Corinth, because there's no longer enough men in our community to field baseball teams. So the league has stopped playing because so many of our men are over in Europe, fighting the war. So at different times in our history, here in the capital region, baseball has been important in different ways, and then gone away and come back. And that's true today, we still see the minor leagues. We have the Troy city Valley cats, the Amsterdam Mohawks. There are several teams, and it really feels like summer when these teams come back and start playing, and they've got pretty good attendance. Some of them have very good records. So that tradition of summertime baseball continues today.
John Thorne:
Sports in particular, baseball is the way we mark time, and there are mile posts or sign posts in our own individual pasts, as well as in our collective past. So, it seems to me that when we connect baseball to history to geography, where that we're right there.
Devin Lander:
Thanks for listening to a New York minute in history. This podcast is a production of WAMC, Northeast Public Radio and the New York State Museum, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. Our producer is Aaron Shellow-Lavine. A big thanks to John Thorne, Matt Mallett and Kathy Sheehan for taking part.
Lauren Roberts:
If you enjoyed this month's episode, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and share on social media to learn more about our guests and the show. Check us out at WAMCpodcast.org, we're also on X and Instagram as @NYHistoryMinute.
Devin Lander:
I'm Devin lander
Lauren Roberts:
And I'm Lauren Roberts until next time Excelsior.
Devin Lander:
Excelsior.
