Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2310: Only a Woman: Ella Black, Lost and Found (Part 2–Ella’s Season)

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Ella Black was the first woman to write about baseball for a national publication—if her name was Ella Black, and if she was a woman. On Ella Black: Lost and Found, a three-part scripted series from Effectively Wild, Ben Lindbergh explores what we know about the enigmatic trailblazer and tries to solve some of the […]

In September of 2024, I went to the last home game of the Pittsburgh Pirates season. The last place Pirates had already been eliminated from the pennant race, and their opponents and division rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, had already clinched the National League Central title. In terms of playoff implications, this game was almost meaningless. But even when the Pirates are playing out the string, PNC Park is a picturesque place. Let's go, Randall!

From high behind home plate, I could see the Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol bridges and the shining skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh, a more impressive spectacle than the team on the field that day. Rookie phenom Paul Skienz wasn't pitching. It felt fitting that the city stole the show because I'd come less to see the Pirates

than to try to tap into the Pittsburgh of Ella Black. Granted, Ella never saw that skyline. None of those bridges or big buildings was standing in its present form when Ella was writing about baseball for Sporting Life in 1890. But even then, the Allegheny River was wending its way toward the Ohio with a ballpark on its bank.

The Pirates have moved many times since the late 19th century, but they haven't gone far. Before PNC, before Three Rivers Stadium, before Forbes Field, there was Exposition Park. Three different Exposition Parks, actually, dating back to the franchise's founding in 1882. The thrilling climax of the Exposition Park trilogy, which was built about two blocks west of where PNC stands today, opened in 1890, just in time to host the Player's

League's Pittsburgh Burgers. And quite often, Ella Black, who wrote in March of 1890 about the impending debut of the 10,000-seat capacity park. Work is progressing rapidly on the grounds of the new club, and this week, a picture of what they will be like when finished was published for the first time. It shows the park to be the handsomest we have ever had here. The grandstand is conveniently laid out and will be comfortably equipped with opera chairs. This and covered free seats will make the park a very attractive spot, and it will aid in drawing many persons to the grounds who are neutral in their feelings

towards the two leagues and want to be comfortable as well as see a game of ball. I met up at PNC with Ben Zimmer, a writer, linguist, and lexicographer, and my research partner on this project. Ben has a kid at Carnegie Mellon, and Parents Weekend was a perfect excuse to schedule some sleuthing and heritage tourism. Once the present-day pirates were well on their way to another loss, we left and took a short stroll to a sign that commemorates a milestone series played at Exposition Park. As I was reading, with a very conspicuous mic in my hand, I was reminded why podcasts

are typically recorded indoors. It says, in October 1903, National League Champion Pittsburgh played American League Champion Boston in Major League Baseball's first modern World Series. Boston won the best of nine series, five games to three. Podcast. Yeah. Wow. Effectively wild.

Yes. Wow. He said cool when we said podcast. That's not the typical reaction. After our new listeners had walked away, we continued. Games four through seven were played near this site at Exposition Park, Pittsburgh's home from 1891 to 1909. Yes, and what the sign neglects to say is that before the Pirates moved into Exposition Park in 1891, it was the home of the Players League team, the Burgers,

who played here in 1890. And that was Ella Black's team primarily. So she would have walked here along Robinson Street, I'm guessing a 10-minute walk, because she lived down near Federal, which is sort of the corner of PNC Park now. So pretty easy walk for her to just come down and catch her games. We should put up a gorilla memorial of our own. Just Ella Black was here, the burgers were here.

Absolutely. Should we look for the plate? Yeah, let's see if we can find home plate. We searched for a separate plate-shaped plaque that denotes the former location of Home Plate at Exposition Park. We had a hard time finding it. It's tough to see from afar. A flat marker stuck in the cement in the middle of a parking lot between PNC

and the stadium that houses the Steelers. PNC is beautiful and a lot less prone to flooding than Exposition Park. But it made me sort of sad to see this homeless home plate at a place that was once a center of attention and is now ignored. Thousands of spectators once paid each day to watch Hannes Wagner play,

and reaching that plate and preventing opponents from reaching it was his whole goal. But most modern day passersby are oblivious to it, and Ben and I initially walked by it even when we were looking for it. We needed help from local historian Craig Bricher, who's written about Pittsburgh's dueling 1890 teams to track it down. So yeah, it's pretty cool.

You can stand in the place where Hannes Wagner faced down Cy Young, you know. See this black SUV? It's on the other side of that, I believe. Oh, it's in between the black and the white vehicles. On the other side there. On this side? Yeah. Like the song says, they paved Exposition Park, put up a parking lot.

At least the location hasn't been lost, unlike Ella Black's identity. Welcome back to Only a Woman, Ella Black, Lost and Found. I'm Ben Lindberg, a senior editor for The Ringer, and this is a production of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast. Last time we met Ella Black, the mysterious trailblazer who became the first female baseball writer for a national publication. We learned about the barriers that made her entry into journalism so extraordinary, the social movements that began to crack open the doors to traditionally male spheres, and

the upheaval in baseball that stemmed from some of the same historical trends. This time on Part 2, Ella's Season, we'll examine how Ella wrote about baseball, how readers and fellow writers reacted to her coverage, and how baseball's brotherhood drama played out. But first we'll finish our trip to Ella's old neighborhood. When I found Ella's 1890 address, 160 Robinson Street, I reached out to the experts at the website, Historic Pittsburgh, to get the lay of the land. I heard back from an archivist at the University of Pittsburgh, David Grinnell. David and I hit a wall when we tried to trace Ella's

address to Ella herself, which is where Ben Zimmer came in. More on his help and our big breakthroughs next time. But David did help me pinpoint the modern-day location of Ella's old address. Allegheny City, where Ella lived and the burgers played, is now part of Pittsburgh, and Robinson Street is now a general Robinson Street. But one thing hasn't changed, there's a ballpark nearby. To get to games in 1890, Ella would have had to cross Federal Street

and then walk about six blocks, a straight shot down Robinson Street to Exposition Park. Today, PNC Park is barely a block away. 160 Robinson, which we found in photos from about 20 years after Ella lived there, was a nondescript three-story brick boarding house in a row of similar buildings. Today, the same location is a nondescript

six-story office complex between a tavern and the Andy Warhol Museum. Ben and I rendezvoused with David and Craig, and we stood across the street from the spot formerly known as 160 Robinson as David set the scene. Yeah so I mean I think her house where she was probably living is right in through here. Probably in this block I mean it seemed like it was from the maps. This area, so come on that side the other side of Federal Street was also known as

the Ward because that was the first ward of Federal Street, was also known as the Ward, because that was the first ward of Allegheny City originally. That was kind of like the trouble spot. Even into like the early part of the 20th century, this was considered kind of like a bit of a bootlegger red light district. There was a lot of bars and stuff like that. It certainly was not the nicest of the neighborhoods, okay? Another nickname for the neighborhood was Little Canada because criminals considered

themselves as safe there as they would have been up north. A former policeman recalled that in the 1890s, before Pittsburgh annexed Allegheny City, crooks could commit crimes in Pittsburgh, scoot across the bridge, and be safe as long as they left Allegheny alone. Not that there weren't vices galore in Little Canada. In 1904, a lawyer claimed that there were 210 gambling houses, speakeasies, and houses of ill repute in the area. The other thing is that you have to remember is in the 1890s, the railroad is right there. And then the other thing that is hard to imagine is think about where you were at PNC Park, how close you are to the river, right? So what's going on along this river though

is a variety of kinds of industry. You know, there were still cotton mills over here. Then further on down, there were a number of auxiliary kinds of things because wood was still floated down the river and used in planing yards and stuff like that. Just a little further down from there is where the Heinz plant was even in the 1890s. I mean this was a great place to be able to live if you were working in any of those industrial

kinds of things that we don't have today. It was also a convenient location for a baseball rider as long as they didn't mind all that local color, most of which seems to have faded, for better or worse. I couldn't detect any trace of the vibrant, bustling, seedy setting David kept telling me was once there. So I finally asked, is anything from Ella's era left? Yeah, there's very little evidence. One of the reasons why I think this was a great spot to actually come to was because if you were here just before PNC Park was built or just afterwards, there actually were still row houses here. Where this building is and the parking garages,

there were still these row houses that were probably built in the 1870s still along here. That was really controversial for them to take those out. But everybody was for what was going on in terms of the North Shore and transforming the stadiums. Time marches on. While it was nice to be able to tell myself I was retracing Ella's steps, I didn't feel quite the connection to her time that I had hoped for.

Prior to the trip, I'd thought about two of my favorite time travel novels, Jack Finney's Time and Again, and Daryl Brock's If I Never Get Back. In each of those books, the protagonist journeys back to the late 19th century, not by boarding an elaborate machine, a la H.G. Wells, but simply by putting his mind to it. In those stories, the past is barely beyond reach, a lingering reality that a person in the present has to train themselves to see. I'd imagined myself as Sy Morley from time and again, immersing myself in studying 1890 Pittsburgh, excuse me, Allegheny, until it seemed so real that I could free my mind from its tethers to the present.

After reading so much by and about Ella, maybe if I focused I could blink and suddenly see the city as she did. On that visit, at least, my imagination wasn't up to the task. In my defense, the neighborhood didn't give me much to work with. In time and again, Cy gets into an 1880s headspace by staying at the Dakota,

the venerable building on Manhattan's Upper West Side that overlooks Central Park. His surroundings, largely unchanged since the 19th century, are physical links to the time he's trying to transport himself to. A home plate plaque in a parking lot probably wouldn't have done the trick for him either. But even if tangible remnants of that time and place are scarce, we still have the descriptions of those who were there. Like this passage from Ella's April 1890 account of opening day at Exposition Park.

When the game began, the grandstand and bleaching boards were both filled so that it was almost impossible for any latecomer to get a seat. Every good play of both teams was applauded to the echo, both in practice and during the game. As each player stepped to the plate, he was greeted with a round of cheers that could have been heard across the river. Best of all, there was a big attendance of the weaker sex, and they were by no means slow with their applause, but cheered and shouted almost as much as the men. The stakes that spring were high for professional baseball, and for the two Pittsburgh teams, as Ella explained before that game.

The winter months have been taken up with many exciting skirmishes, but while they have been productive of lots of talk, that was all. The struggle that begins on Saturday is one for blood, i.e. for gate money. The winter skirmishes had no money attached to them at the time. The fight now is for what means the life or death of the game. The stakes were high for Ella also. Ella was said to have contributed previously

to local papers in Pittsburgh, potentially including the Pittsburgh Post as Laura, but journalistically speaking, sporting life was the big leagues. The paper, which was founded in 1883 and would run through 1917, with a brief revival in the early 20s, had a circulation of roughly 40,000,

which trailed only the sporting news among sports publications. Given that the country's population was more than five times smaller in 1890 than in 2025, that's proportionately speaking, equivalent to having halfway between the average weekday circulations of The Washington Post and New York Times today.

Granted, sporting life's 1890 web presence was seriously lacking. Ella made her nationwide debut at a time when sports writing, and baseball writing specifically, were just finding their footing. Baseball is known for its tradition of literary, lyrical writing, but that tradition didn't exist in the 19th century, when such coverage as there was tended to be more meat and potatoes. Before radio, TV, and the internet as there was tended to be more meat and potatoes. Before radio, TV, and the internet, writing was the only way for most baseball enthusiasts, whom sporting life tended to call cranks, as the sporting news helped popularize the

more familiar fans, to find out what was happening. So basic box scores and game stories made up the bulk of baseball coverage. Dedicated sports sections and newspapers didn't yet exist. As John Thorne, MLB's official historian, says, Most of the baseball reporting, the game accounts, was fairly routine in the newspapers and even in the sporting weeklies. By the 1890s, the tide had shifted. Sporting life rode and drove that evolution.

In the 1860s, the writer and early baseball booster Henry Chadwick had started a standalone weekly called the Ball Players Chronicle. But it folded after two years, even after expanding its purview to other sports. The market wasn't there yet, and the low demand for in-depth coverage led to low supply, says Professor Scott Peterson, author of Reporting Baseball's Sensational Season of 1890. I didn't find a lot of coverage of professional baseball in magazines like Scribner's or Harper's Weekly, who seem to turn their noses down at professional sports in general. And then we really have just kind of sporadic coverage, nothing dedicated until the sporting life and then the sporting news. And these truly were the first national magazines in that they collected correspondence from coast to coast and from Minnesota to Galveston, Texas.

1890 was barely 20 years removed from the debut of the first fully openly professional baseball team. The first professional leagues arrival was more recent than that. So although people had been playing baseball since well before the Civil War, the appetite for coverage of the organized game was still growing, fostered and fed by the new sporting weeklies. And I think these were instrumental in providing the fan base that had finally kind of come of age. American men grew up playing baseball in the 1860s and 1870s, and by the 1880s, they were perhaps no longer playing, but they still had an avid interest and wanted to read about the game. So the fan base was in place

by the late 1880s and 1890s and so the sporting life and the sporting news gave them that information about baseball. The increased prosperity and leisure time that enabled the new woman to thrive, baseball to become a popular spectator sport, and the brotherhood of professional baseball players to advocate for a cut of the proceeds, also made it more feasible for a mass audience to crave coverage of sports, which in turn supported a sizable sporting press.

Sporting Life wasn't focused solely on baseball, but it aimed to be comprehensive in chronicling the new national pastime, offering reports from far-flung leagues of all levels. Its format foreshadowed the personality and debate-driven style of modern sports media. In addition to tending to their beats, sporting life correspondents would compliment and chide each other, playing off previous reports by their counterparts across the country in much the same way that something said today on one sports studio show becomes fodder for discussion on another.

The paper went to press in Philadelphia every Friday afternoon and was available via mail anywhere in the US or Canada, or even in select locations overseas. When the 1890 season started, a one-year subscription cost $4, which corresponds to approximately $140 today. Business was booming enough for a price hike. A subscription cost $2 before early April, when, shortly after Ella Black debuted, Sporting Life's price doubled along with its page count, which swelled from 8 to 16, partly in response to the Player's League's launch. The supersized paper promised more

copious correspondence from all points. One of those points was Pittsburgh. Sporting Life already employed one Pittsburgh correspondent, a man named Alfred Craddy, who wrote under the pseudonym Circle. But Pittsburgh now had twice the teams, and Craddy, of course, couldn't provide the woman's view. The three major leagues, and in particular the National League and the Players League, were not only competing to provide the best baseball entertainment, but also making contrasting appeals

for the public's loyalty on ideological grounds. So the Sporting Weekly's columnists could wield their newfound influence to spin the news in ways that would sway their readers toward the writer's preferred positions. One of the interesting things when I dug into the Sporting Life journalism was how aware the journalists were of their

position in the invention of sports journalism. They were beginning to realize the symbiotic relationship between the press and Major League Baseball, which became really solidified in the next century. And again, they had this sense of how they were there to act as the interface between the public and the leagues. On the whole, Sporting Life's sympathies were with the Players League. But the paper employed correspondence of all stripes. Chadwick, the eminent screes of the ball writers in Brooklyn, was mostly a mouthpiece for the National League. Tim Murnane, a Boston-based player turned writer, had nothing negative to say about his brethren in the Players League. Ella, who had no pre-existing ties to any power brokers in baseball, entered the season with

an open mind. The leagues would have to fight for her affections. I have no choice between the Brotherhood and the league, accepting that I want to see a good game. I am most decidedly opposed to having to spend the larger part of a dollar to see an amateur game. She supports the labor cause of the players, but also is critical when she feels they deserve criticism. So Ella Black of the Three was the most objective in an era before objectivity became a journalism practice. Which isn't to say that she hedged her bets or engaged in both sidesism. Although I am only an insignificant, no-account personage, still I believe in saying plainly

what I mean, instead of staying on the fence, ready to jump to the winning side. It's a wonder that Ella got the chance to say anything in Sporting Life. The paper was founded and edited by the powerful Frances Richter, a Players League supporter who later changed allegiances and was offered the National League presidency. Richter wrote this in September 1890

while his paper was publishing Ella. Woman is nowhere on earth more out of place than on a baseball diamond. Woman has no place in baseball except as a patron and enthusiast. And female baseball teams should not be patronized by the public nor encouraged and noticed by the press, except in terms of condemnation. You might have thought there were no female baseball teams until the All-American Girls League of the 1940s and 50s, immortalized by the movie A League of Their Own. But that's just what the man wanted you to think.

Or the men, men like Frances Richter. Debbie Shattuck Burton, author of Bloomer Girls, Women Baseball Pioneers, explains. I had assumed that baseball was always considered a quote unquote man's game. But as I discovered, as long as there have been bat and ball games, girls and women were playing those games. Basically, every type of team that boys and men had, girls and women had those same types of teams in the 1800s. So you have pick up teams, you have school teams,

college teams, even a few teams that were organized in business environments. Everything that men and boys were doing in baseball, women and girls were doing it as well. Much to some men's dismay. Here's historian Donna Halper. There was a lot of negativity around women participating in sports, whether as players or as sports writers. This was considered a masculine domain and the idea that a woman would be participating in it, the horror of it all.

Still sensing a money-making opportunity, some men in the 1870s started organizing women's teams to play exhibition games against each other. It was meant to be a novelty. The women were basically performing baseball for an audience. And then as time goes by, as we move up into the 1880s, we see more of these performing baseball teams, these theatrical teams being organized and traveling around the country. And gradually as we move into the 1890s, now

we see the rise of women's baseball teams where the women are being paid to play. In September 1889, a man named W.S. Franklin, who was organizing a girls' team in Pittsburgh, told the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Why shouldn't the girls play ball? It was originally a women's game and the men have stolen it from them. Ball playing ability wasn't Franklin's sole concern. He was putting on a show and gave preference to women with a good figure and a comely face. But women's baseball was becoming a bigger business, and whether the women could play mattered too. As Billy Beane might have said, we're not

selling bloomers here. They're traveling thousands of miles a year for months at a time, and the teams are often playing against men's teams. Again, it's still meant to be entertainment, but there's much more emphasis on the women being good athletes. In some places, women's teams were well-received, but there's much more emphasis on the women being good athletes. In some places, women's teams were well received, but in others they were seen as scandalous, says Barbara Gregorich, author of Women at Play, the story of women in baseball. When women began playing baseball, wearing bloomers under their skirts, their skirts came down to their knees and then the bloomers extended down to their ankles as typical bloomers.

There were riots, okay? Townspeople drove them out of town in some cases. They just considered this immoral and indecent. Hence Frances Richter's reactionary response. But why were Richter and others so threatened by the prospect of women playing baseball? In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner would propose his frontier thesis, which argued that the frontier was the crucible that created America's culture and character.

Well, now the frontier is closed. How are men going to demonstrate their strength, their virility? It becomes sports that enables them to do that. We see in the 1890s the burgeoning of sporting journalism where they can promote these spectator sports and frequently the narrative used for men's sports is how masculine and manly it is. So you can understand why they wouldn't want to laud women who are able to excel at sports like baseball because then it sort of detracts from what the men are doing. Meanwhile, many women were being told that they weren't physically capable of being athletes.

These women were actually risking their lives to play baseball. At least if they believed what physicians of the day were telling them. There were physicians that were actually teaching that if women engaged in vigorous physical or even intellectual activity after puberty, they could become sterile. They would actually be in danger of dying if they used too much of their vital energy studying books or doing sports like baseball. So it was somewhat frightening for young women to do these vigorous sports because if they believed what the doctors were saying, they were taking their lives in their hands. In the 1890s, another Pennsylvania pioneer, Elizabeth Stride Warner, known as Lizzie Arlington, became the first woman to sign a minor league

contract and play professionally with men. She really wowed audiences, but even Frances Richter in the pages of the Sporting Life basically just said about her, for a woman she did nicely. And that's pretty typical of the kind of writing we see about women players, even the very talented ones. Because of that coverage, or the lack thereof, Burton says, each new generation of girls and women that were playing baseball didn't realize that they were actually following in the footsteps of girls and women who had played baseball in previous decades. So that's one reason I think that the game was able to sustain this gendered identity.

And the other reason is because the journalists themselves, men like Francis Richter, in 1885 he wrote an article and said that the women fans are very active and engaged. They bring their pencils and their scorecards, and they're following the game closely and cheering wildly. So he appreciated women fans, but he didn't like women players. And so I find it really interesting that he was willing to hire a woman to cover the game. Now, I'm respectable working girl.

I have no time to dally. We don't know the terms of Ella's arrangement, how much she was paid, what she was instructed to write about, even whether she was supposed to be a weekly correspondent or just earned more rope when her initial letters resonated with readers. From the start, she wrestled with whether she should write freely on a wide range of baseball subjects as any of Sporting Life's male correspondents would, or whether she should confine herself to the so-called woman's view. She began her first column by claiming

that more women would attend games in Pittsburgh, proportionally speaking, than in any other city, and forecasting which league the ladies would support. The girls will be about equally divided in their patronage if all other things are equal, but I understand the players club will make a special effort to secure their presence, as it is well known the men will willingly go where the fair sex is to be found in the largest numbers. Ella went on to weigh in on particular players who were favorites with the women,

before reeling herself in and pivoting to less gender-specific commentary. But all this talk about what the women will like will not interest your readers, Mr. Editor, so I had better change the subject. This push and pull between women's matters and broader baseball commentary was a staple of Ella's coverage throughout the season. Her ability to offer a female perspective was the differentiating factor that seemingly got her a gig that otherwise would have been unobtainable. But she didn't want to be boxed in to only certain kinds of coverage, as so many female journalists

were. So especially early on, before she'd established herself as a baseball authority, she'd lead with an update on female fans before shifting to general interest topics. When Ella did discuss women though, she offered a singular perspective. Generally Ella stood up for female fans, not as ladies' day decorations whose presence at the park could entice men to attend, but as baseball diehards in their own right. Although comic writers see fit to poke fun at a woman's knowledge of the game, I must say that the Pittsburgh ladies who are regular attendants here are thoroughly posted on all the mysteries of the sport and can detect a canary-colored play as quickly as any male fan.

And the club that plays the best game in the city will draw the largest share of feminine spectators. Those who are present at every game can nearly all score as well as the best-posted habitué of the press box and can appreciate a good play better than many of the sterner sex who were sitting around them. In her second column, Ella chronicled the creation of a group called the Young Ladies of the Diamond, which was formed by 16 local female fans and soon grew to 24.

Like Major League Baseball itself, the group was fractured. Half of the women supported the Players League, and half were loyal to the National League. The women decided that they'd flip a coin to determine which game to go to on opening day. They then continued to attend that team's games until it lost, at which point they would patronize the park of the other team in town. Ticket costs for each game would be paid by the women who supported the team the group wasn't seeing that day. Ella declared herself for the players league club and felt confident about coming out ahead.

She chose wisely. The burgers would finish 60 and 68 with three ties, in sixth place in the 18 players league. The Alleghenies went 23 and won 13 with two ties, trailing only the notorious 1899 Cleveland Spiders for the worst winning percentage of all time among Major League teams with at least 100 games played. In addition to reporting on the doings of female fans, Ella illuminated the behind-the-scenes influence of the players' spouses and paramours. What an amount the women have had to do with the stand taken by many of the players in this fight.

It seems to have been a fact that when any of their wives took an interest in the sport, the men always went according to the wishes of their wives. Ball players were beginning to be celebrities, and Ella cautioned women against idolizing the new heartthrobs. Girls are beginning to be as romantic and foolish over ball players as they were formally over actors. And one class is just about as undeserving of it as the other. I have heard a great deal of the heroes on the diamond.

And I think if the girls would see some of them off the field, chewing tobacco, using bad grammar, acting tough, or rather acting naturally, it would take some of the romance out of them in very short order and cause them to pull these men from the high pedestal where they had placed them. Yet Ella had no problem with the women ogling the men from afar. One of the young ladies of the diamond had a house near Recreation Park where Pittsburgh's NL team played in 1890. Ella describes how the group gathered at the back windows to watch the team practice as

the season approached. We had a splendid chance to see them all, and a pair of opera glasses gave the girls an opportunity to compare the looks of the new men with those in last year's club. The comparison was not favorable to the present team, for an almost total absence of mustaches, whiskers, etc. gives its members a decidedly babyish look that did not cause the girls to enthuse over them to any great extent. For you know, there is nothing a woman loves as she does a mustache. Or even better, a mustachioed man in a tight shirt such as Paul Hines, whom the women warmly received when he joined the NL club. He has always been a favorite here, and many of the girls are badly gone on his shape. I will never forget the sensation he created here last season when he came on the field one day

wearing a shirt that fit him like a kid glove. Paul is by no means an attenuated specimen of mankind, and his appearance in that shirt would have brought a blush to the face of many a fair maid. Professor Martha Patterson, our expert on new womanhood, marvels at Ella's frank descriptions of the thirsting that took place. What's fascinating to me is that she seems to be asserting herself not only as a writer but you know as she's commenting on male bodies, you know, she's kind of a sexualized, fully human sexual being commenting on them as well. Although seven of Ella's first eight columns had titles that referred to her sex,

such as A Woman's View, Feminine Fancies, or Only a Woman, only one of the last 31 did. That may be the best testament to her skill and popular appeal. Richter no longer needed to dress up her columns as a curiosity to drive readership. Whatever Ella wrote about, her words drew attention. Or as her fellow Pittsburgh correspondent Circle said, this Ella Black stories have caused considerable talk. Some of that talk was quite complimentary, as evidenced by the following responses from readers and fellow writers who chimed in from as far away as Birmingham, England. I desire to congratulate the sporting life upon having for one of its correspondents,

and a good one at that, the first woman I ever heard of who could write a readable article upon the national game. In fact, I consider her the peer of a large percentage of the male correspondents who figure weekly in certain publications. The advent of ladies in sporting journalism is pleasant to see. May Miss Black have lots of company in the future, and far be it for me to pen a line that would cause her a pang of pain. I've read Miss Ella Black's letters for my night of city with great deal of interest,

and I must congratulate her on the success of her efforts. Her letters are right to the point, and she seems to have filled a long-felt want. Ella was heartened by all the attagirls she got. Since I made my first attempt at writing for publication, I have received many kind words of encouragement from the boys who write. I never thought much of my own work, but now that others are evincing so much interest in it, I am afraid I will begin to grow conceited. The owner of the American Association, St. Louis Browns, even invited her to the team's home opener,

though the misdirected letter didn't reach her until June. But along with the unreserved compliments came the backhanded kind, like this one. While paying compliments, I wish to say that I never miss reading the letters of your correspondent from Pittsburgh who signs herself Ella Black. The young lady is not entirely in touch with baseball affairs, but that does not appear to be due to any lack of intelligence, but rather to inexperience and to the fact that a woman cannot always keep tab on the swiftly moving events of the baseball world. I desire to congratulate Ms. Black and say without flattery that her letters are full of interest, well written, and her discussions of baseball topics show a knowledge of the subject remarkable for a woman. To judge from the way some experts talk, they evidently think a woman's brain not

strong enough to comprehend baseball. Billy Hoy, who played for Buffalo's Players League club, was deaf and semi-mute, but that didn't stop him from passing a note to Circle that said, is Ella Black a man or woman? When Circle responded, Hoy wrote, she seems well posted on baseball, for a woman. Others took things further. Instead of saying Ella was remarkable for a woman, they questioned whether she could be a woman. After Ella mentioned using opera glasses to watch the NL club's practice, another writer,

Wren Mulford, relayed the team's doubts and jokes at her expense. Not one of them knows her. Mr. Wilcox thinks Ella is a myth. Her opera glass descriptive of the practice days brought out many inquiries after fine plays that ran so. Were you in on that, Ella? Or did that catch come within range of your spyglass? Mike King Kelly, who played for and managed the Players League champion Boston Reds, was baseball's first true mainstream star.

A handsome man who put his name to the first player autobiography, was the subject of a hit song, and starred in vaudeville. Ella wasn't impressed by Kelly's managing, which made Kelly suspicious, as Tim Murnane reported. Captain Kelly says that no woman ever inspired the criticism of him that appeared in Ella Black's letter last week. He says no lady ever could have had the heart to castigate him, even on paper, for he has always been too great a favorite with the fair sex.

He will stake everything that Miss Black's information was of the male gender, who generally looks at things through glasses. Ha! There, Ella, I'm on to you. Mulford, Murnane, and Kelly weren't the only ones who thought they were on to Ella. So, an Eastern paper has announced that another of our local writers is the party responsible for my letters. Well, if they only keep it up long enough, they will have all the Pittsburgh writers

blamed for doing it. In the meantime, I am compelled to stand to one side and see others get the credit for my poor efforts. There were Ella skeptics to the West as well, such as St. Louis writer Joe Pritchard, who also simultaneously praised and disparaged her. Ella Black, your able lady correspondent at Pittsburgh, is being copied extensively in the Western country. It is difficult to pick up a Western paper nowadays without seeing L.L. Black in the sporting life has this to say about so-and-so. The ladies' letters are well-written, and I always read them with a great deal of pleasure. But Mr. Editor, are you right sure that L.L. Black is not the nom de plume of some gentleman

correspondent in the gas city? The letters are too newsy for a lady to compose. However, I congratulate Miss Ella on her good work. In her next column, Ella came out swinging. His insinuation that I am sailing under false colors is rather amusing to those who know me, but is apt to create a false impression among strangers. Why is it that a woman has such hard work to get credit for anything she may do? I never claim to be particularly brilliant, but after trying to do my best, I hate to see my efforts

belittled as Mr. Pritchard did last week by trying to make out that a woman is not able to write news. I only wish I had the privileges of a man. Then I would give the St. Louisian an idea of how much superior to some men a woman could be." Then there were the men who had nothing, nice to say. Ms. Ella is the sweet victim of the pretty hallucination that settles upon all of your gentle sex who attempt to comprehend the fascinating mysteries of the elusive little sphere. Ella was quite capable of defending herself from the condescension and criticism.

I think I can take fun as well as anyone. And if I have seemed to be overly sensitive, you must make allowance. As I have not been in the ranks long enough to become used to the ways of the boys. Don't think I am so easily offended. But her skin wasn't so thick that some words didn't wound her. Ella's voice was so deep that it made me feel a cut more deeply than if I had more experience. One lady reader in Brooklyn who thought Ella was criticized too harshly sent in a poem

that was published in another Sporting Life Writer's column. Well, Ella, tell a feller what's the matter really? Why do men of shaky pen thus pursue you freely? Is every line a fake sublime that makes your columns? Tell me, or is it truth, as I think forsooth, too tersely told to suit, see? Ultimately one thing quieted the writers who doubted that Ella was a woman, the eyewitness testimony of another man. And not just any man, but Henry Chadwick himself. Historian Richard Hirschberger, author of Strike Four, the Evolution of Baseball, explains. Henry Chadwick was the father of baseball, just like about half a dozen other people. He is the only baseball journalist to be in the Hall of Fame proper, you know, the room with the plaques, and he has his own plaque.

He was a dominant figure in baseball in the 1860s, right smack dab in the middle of the baseball world. He was the chair of the Rules Committee for several years, but then he was around forever. He was an active writer for about half a century. He was a genuine authority. By 1890, Chadwick, whom we can credit for strikeouts being called K's, was an institution who had helped refine and popularize box scores and scorecards.

In terms of reputation and resume, he was everything that Ella, the rookie writer, wasn't. Yet Chadwick ushered her into the baseball writing profession that he had basically been a charter member of, writing in early April, Allow me to welcome to the list of the sporting life's correspondence the fair lady who signs herself Ella Black. Ella was moved. Well, I highly appreciate all the kind words that have been said of me since I began writing in the columns of The Sporting Life. There has not been any of these that touched me as much as the kindly mention given me last week by Mr. Chadwick. I have heard of him ever since I first heard of the game, and have been taught to regard him as the writer of all writers on that subject.

Now when he sees fit to find some merit worthy of mention in my work, I begin to feel that I may possibly succeed with my pencil. On a June trip to Brooklyn, Ella visited and took in a game with Chadwick, who wrote about meeting her and introducing her to team president Charles Byrne. I had the pleasure of a visit at my residence last week from your highly esteemed lady correspondent of Pittsburgh, Miss Ella Black, whom I found to be a talented and educated lady full of enthusiasm in regard to the game and of charming conversational powers and most genial disposition. Truly, Mr. Editor, Miss Ella was a capital journalistic find

for the sporting life, and I congratulate you on your acquisition. The positive impressions seemed to have been mutual, save for the faux pas Chadwick made with his first remark upon seeing Ella. Well, I almost thought Ella Black was a man. Pre-imagine, if you can, what my feelings were last Friday when Mr. Henry Chadwick said to me, well, I almost thought Ella Black was a man.

It is just such remarks as this, although so far as Mr. Chadwick was concerned he more than made up for it afterwards, that have oft times discouraged me. Because no one will give a woman credit for knowing how to hold a pencil hardly. Well, if she talks about writing, oh dear no, that's an utter impossibility. Chadwick was quick to correct the misimpression. I see that my fair friend, Miss Ella Black, has misunderstood a remark she attributes to me about my originally supposing her to be a masculine baseball writer in disguise.

I have never for a moment entertained the ridiculous notion that ladies cannot write. No, no, Miss Ella, my surprise was to find a lady writer so well posted in professional baseball matters, not because she was a lady writer. Ella accepted Chadwick's clarification. Later that summer, she wrote, When Mr. Chadwick met the undersigned, he treated her as a lady, also as if he thought it were possible for even a woman to comprehend some of the mysteries of baseball.

For 135 years, Chadwick's endorsement has been the strongest corroborating evidence that Ella was a woman. The central question with regard to the Ella Black story is, was he an 1890 credible? And I think that he absolutely was. On straightforward factual matters, if he said I was at this ball game and this is what I saw, he was extremely credible. And I put this in the same category.

If he says that he met with Ella Black and this is what they did, I absolutely believe him. So the argument that she must be a hoax was never anything other than just crude sexism. Chadwick's willingness to vouch for Ella helped convince other writers that she was a woman, but her credentials as a commentator were still up for debate. Interpersonal drama made good copy for sporting life readers, but the season long sniping from other writers placed an extra burden on Ella, even aside from its effect on her feelings.

In her 2005 book, Breaking into Baseball, Women in the National Pastime, the late Jean Hastings Ardell wrote, "'Such debates distracted Black from the business at hand. "'R Rather than writing about baseball, she found herself defending her right to do so, a practice that would continue for nearly a hundred years. But over 39 columns and roughly 80,000 words, basically a book's worth, Ella held forth on a multitude of topics. As a stat head, I can't help but

note that Ella was sort of sabrometrically minded. She frequently expressed sentiments about baseball that would be borne out by research a century or so later. She even provoked the same sort of responses from insiders that moneyball-era outsiders would. Murnain, the former player, pulled the time-honored ex-athlete move of questioning someone standing to analyze a sport they didn't play professionally. I would respectfully suggest to Ms. Ella that she let teamwork as a study alone until she

has had more experience as a player. But Ella Black knew ball. For instance, she defended the Bergers' future Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin, who on the surface seemed to have his worst season ever that year. Ella observed something she said no other writer had noticed. Galvin had gotten poor support from his fielders. She was right. Although he allowed a lot of runs,

many of them were what we would now classify as unearned. And defenders turned balls into play into outs behind him, less reliably than they did behind the burgers three other top starters. Modern defense independent stats say Galvin was still significantly better than average and sure enough he allowed far fewer runs the following year without appearing to pitch any better himself. Ella also

critiqued how often Pittsburgh's NL teams cycled through players and played the same players at different positions. No man is able to get used to the different positions when he is called on to change so often as it only serves to give him a smattering of several things and thorough knowledge of nothing. Recent studies have shown that switching positions can take a toll on a player's performance in the field. Ella also took issue with an article that claimed that Joe Visner was the most valuable burger's batter because he excelled at place-hitting, or controlling, where he hit the ball. She argued that hitting the ball harder, and thus actually getting more hits, was preferable, and that she'd rather have future Hall of Famer Jake Beckley, who clearly was the burger's best hitter. Of course, there are times

when a single or even a triple is productive of no results that are of any value. But in the majority of cases, a hit does some good, and the man that has the ability to make the largest number of them is the man who is of the greatest value. Sounds simple, but elementary truths like that eluded a lot of the era's sports pundits, including some who tried to mansplain why she was wrong. Ella was opposed to small ball in other forms too, including some sacrifice bunting. With no one out, and a man on first, it strikes me as being the height of folly

to try to sacrifice. It took until the 21st century for a lot of teams to get that message. And if we give credit to Ella for Laura's writing, then she was advocating for the long ball before Babe Ruth was born. It has always been a wonder to me that there are so few home runs made

when it is so glorious to gain a victory in the last half of the ninth by merely knocking the ball over the fence. This would be much nicer than making a hit so short the poor fellow has to slide on the bosom of his pantaloons to make second base. Although Ella was remarkably clear-eyed and forward-thinking when it came to baseball, she wasn't a very vocal activist for women's rights, which wasn't uncommon among women in the sport, according to Debbie Shaddock-Burton. I assumed that the women who played it were really trying to make a women's rights statement, but that is not what I discovered as I did the research. I scoured the journals of women's rights activists from the day,

thinking that surely they will jump on this as an example of how women are using baseball to make a women's rights statement. But that was not the case at all. On the other hand, just by virtue of playing the game, they showed themselves and others that some of these constraints that were being put on women as far as rigorous physical activity or rigorous mental activity were false narratives. And so in that sense, they were making a woman's right statement, just not one regarding suffrage. Like a lot of women who were seen as transgressors in traditionally male domains, Ella may have been wary of wearing out whatever welcome she had. As Scott Peterson notes, she was rocking the boat just by being there. She couldn't be too strident. I mean, she was already

fighting an uphill battle when people for the longest time didn't believe that she was who she said she was as a woman writing sports. So yeah, I think she was very savvy in her treading that difficult line that she chose for herself. But Ella didn't pull punches in her commentary on mismanaged teams and underperforming players. She was willing to let them have it. Here's a mashup of her one line zingers, most of which came at the expense of Pittsburgh's hapless National League club.

Mr. Mulford and others have been poking fun at the female baseball team that hails from Cincinnati, but I fail to see where it could do much worse than either of the combinations that call this city their home. Such is the result of having the management of a club made up of men who can hardly tell a baseball from a football. It does not matter which one is in charge, as neither knows enough about the game as to ever be successful at it.

When he cannot find any greater fault with the new club than the costumes of its visitors, he should stop for a minute to think of some of the transactions he figured in during the past winter. No team in existence can make as many errors in so short a time and with as little effort as they can. Now, if every player who ever makes a complaint about his manager is to be given his release, it will not be long until all the clubs in the country are decimated. Then he began to strike out and has now so much experience at it

that he can do it better than any player in the league. One of our local writers insists that Mr. Spalding has an interest in the Pittsburgh National League club. Surely the Chicago magnet has too much good judgment to have made such a purchase as that. Prepare to be shocked. Get your smelling salts ready and then, while the office boy fans your fevered brow, have it broken to you gently. Our National League club has won a game. Ella would have been good on Twitter, but she wasn't just good with a quip. She showed considerable resourcefulness as a reporter too, even if she wasn't widely recognized as one.

The only regret I have over the opening day is that I cannot be one of the crowd of writers that will have an opportunity to pose in a carriage for the benefit of thronged sidewalks. That's one of the advantages my brethren in trousers have over me. It was far from the only one. In 1893, a young writer in London named Charlotte O'Connor Echols lamented, One is horribly handicapped in being a woman. A man meets other men at his club. He can be out and about without being thought bold and forward. He is not presumed to be capable of undertaking only a limited class of subjects, but is set to anything. Where a man finds one obstacle, we find a dozen.

In 1890, Ella bemoaned the same impediments. The writers of Mr. Mulford's sex can mix with the players and it is all right. But if a woman was to do so, people in general would not have a very good opinion of her. Women writers would be a strange sight, lounging around hotels and cigar stores. And while we might get more news, we certainly should lose the regard of those who do not believe in seeing a woman put herself in a position to become a subject of remark. That is why Mr. Mulford and his sex have the advantage of us, and why I have not a larger personal acquaintance among the players.

Thus, Ella was sometimes forced to speculate about the answers to questions that, had she been a man, she could have easily asked. Though, had she been a man, she might not have thought to ask them, because, she said, a woman's ideas are often different from those a man will have. I regret my inability to go and procure one of the regulation interviews as there are oftimes points that occur to me that I would like to ask about and do not seem to me to be thought about by the regular scribes. So Ella sniffed out news how and where she could, sometimes gathering gossip from other female fans or players romantic partners. For example she mentions having met Helen Dovere, the actress wife of players league leader John Montgomery Ward.

Ward thinks there is no one like her. And I've heard him say she had given him many good ideas and had been a great help when he was preparing his book. She is also a baseball enthusiast and can score a game as correctly as... well, as I can. Last time I shared an anecdote about how Ella had picked up some scuttlebutt from two executives who dismissed her as only a woman while she was riding the same streetcar. Just by being there, she was risking her reputation and well-being. Streetcars were one place where men known as mashers would harass unaccompanied women, and also a place where women were thought to try to pick up men. Later in the season, Ella corroborated a rumor about the NL club lowering ticket prices after again overhearing two executives, this time while she was waiting at the box office of

a local theater for a matinee. She was also the first to report that the members of the Cincinnati National League team had signed players league contracts for the following season, which Ren Mulford derided. This seems to be a season of sensational writing. One wild story after another has been sent forth through the medium of the various writers during the past few weeks, till the average reader has become so badly mixed up that he does not know what to look for. Yet, strange as it may seem, when I made public a report through the Sporting Life a couple

of weeks ago and only gave it as I had heard it without claiming it was a fact, I am so unfortunate as to have fake shouted at me. And I believe I am the only one that has been so unfortunate." Ella's report later seemed to be borne out, which was sweet vindication. I am more than proud to think that for once a woman was able to get a scoop on the masculine members of the profession. I put up at a swell hotel. She displayed her penchant for shoe leather reporting and creative thinking again in August of 1890, when she pointed out that both Pittsburgh teams

had downgraded their accommodations since the start of the season, which she took to be a bad sign. I regard the hotels at which the clubs stop as a sort of thermometer by which the observant public can tell something of the financial condition of the different bodies. Ella was right about the bottom lines

of both baseball clubs. By mid-season, they were struggling financially, as well as on the field. For the Players League, at least, the season had started with great promise, says Robert Ross, author of The Great Baseball Revolt, The Rise and, spoilers, fall of the 1890s season, all of the excitement was around the Players League, both because the ballparks were new and by all accounts more attractive, more convenient for fans, but also they had the best players. Players League support was especially strong in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was and to some extent still is a union town. For most cities, the Players League were smart in developing relationships with local labor unions and this

was definitely the case in Pittsburgh. In fact, John Ward came down from New York to meet with local labor leaders and so that made a huge difference in Pittsburgh where you have just minuscule numbers of people coming to Pittsburgh National League games, and you have, for the most part, support of unionized workers attending Pittsburgh games. The local press threw its weight behind the Brotherhood, and one newspaper poll found that fewer than 20% of Pittsburghers were loyal to the National League. As Ella put it in her first column, As matters stand now, if the Brotherhood does not succeed in Pittsburgh, it will be a failure

everywhere. But even before the season started, Ella had her misgivings. The National League has a big reserve fund and can afford to make a losing fight and still be in condition to try it again. On the other hand, the Brotherhood has no such fund but is backed by men who are new in the business and who would be very apt to withdraw their support and let the league fall to pieces if they had to stand heavy loss the first season. This is what the old club people are hoping for. They know the new club, with its big payroll and new

grounds to be paid for, cannot afford to to lose money or else it will have a good chance of going under. On opening day, the Players League club outdrew the National League club 8,500 to 950. That pattern persisted in Pittsburgh all season. All told, the Players League outdrew the National League by about 26%, according to the fairly unreliable official figures. But about half the difference between the two leagues attendance totals came from Pittsburgh, where the Bergers trounced the Alleghenies by more than a 7-1 margin.

The Bergers were the better team, and the Players League the better league, and the higher scoring one, which tends to attract fans. Players League teams outscored National League teams by more than a run per game, thanks to a possibly livelier ball, an extra 18 inches between the pitcher and the plate, newer, more spacious parks with more room for balls to fall for hits, and more talented players. Of the 126 players who appeared

in at least 10 Players League games, 80, or 63%, had played in the National League the previous year. Only 36 of 136 1890 National Leaguers, or 26%, could say the same. But even though the Players League had hotter tickets and superior players, it wasn't doing well. What a lot of the teams realized, and probably they could have anticipated this from the beginning, is that most of these cities couldn't hold two baseball clubs.

And even though the Players League was attracting more fans, they still weren't attracting as many as a team would have had there been just one team in each city. Even before the games began, Ella had known that neither Pittsburgh nor the nation was big enough for both leagues. Pittsburgh will always give a paying crowd to one club, but when it comes to a divide between two, it will be a very different matter. There is not enough of a crowd to give paying audiences to both. Even the young ladies of the diamond didn't last long, as the players league ladies no-showed when it was their turn to pay for a National League game. It now looks as though the female club that was organized for the purpose of attending the

local games was going to break up and become a thing of the past. In retrospect, that seems like an omen. The too many teams, not enough people problem was exacerbated by both leagues stubborn insistence on playing hardball, so to speak, and trying to put each other out of business rather than attempting to coexist. Before the 1890 season started, there was this sort of cat and mouse game around releasing the schedules. To make a long story short, the Players League scheduled just about all of its games simultaneous to nationally games. If you live in New York now, you can go to some Mets games, and then you can go to some Yankees games, and they often are not even in the same town at the same days. But in 1890 the players league went head to head with the National League and this was

intentional obviously. They wanted to really put it to the fans to choose and they were confident with good reason that they would prevail. But it also proved to be a money loser because if they had scheduled the games on alternate days, it's likely that each league would have garnered more fans and more money. Ella foresaw this outcome also, which she expressed in early April with her trademark combination of self-deprecation and prescience. They are all in it to make money and not to spite each other like a lot of children. That is not in my business, of course, and I have no right to say anything about it. But then you know a woman will poke into things even if they do not concern her.

I will try not to do it again. But I would be sorry to see the Brotherhood, when it has such a bright outlook ahead of it, deliberately go about to compass its own ruin. In May, the Bergers petitioned the Players League to alter their schedule so they wouldn't have to take on their rivals head to head. The request was voted down, although by July the Alleghenies were in such dire condition that they moved most of their games to opponents' parks or neutral territory.

Hall of Famer Albert Spalding, the former pitcher, National League co-founder, and sporting goods entrepreneur, was then the owner of the Chicago White Stockings, the future Cubs. In March, he'd vowed to fight until one of the leagues dropped dead, and as he doubled down months later, it looked like they both might. For the time being, the interest in baseball is is dead and no organization is drawing a cent. This condition of affairs will continue until one or the other of the organizations now fighting for supremacy goes to the wall. From this time out it will simply be a case of dog eat dog, and the dog with bulldog tendencies

will live the longest. Ella lamented the consequences of this macho game of chicken. The total attendance now is less than that of a year ago, and everywhere the excitement and enthusiasm over the sport has fallen off. If they would make an amicable arrangement and try to work harmoniously together, this could all be done away with, and every club in the two big leagues would have a profitable season, but not so long as the present cut throat policy is kept up. It is a great puzzle to me

why full-grown, supposed-to-be-sensible men should go on in such a deliberate, obstinate, pig-headed manner, just like a lot of little children might do. Initially, Ella had said she just wanted to see good games, but by the time the season started, she'd given the Players League club her qualified support. I am for the Brotherhood, but I think it is just as liable to have faults as any other organization, and it would only be for its own good to have them pointed out.

By the end of the season, she showed the zeal of the convert. I am about as strong a believer in the Brotherhood and in the Players League as there is to be found in the country. But even the strongest believer could not ignore reality. If the present schedules are played out to the end of the season, I cannot see anything but ruin and destruction ahead for both leagues and although I am heart and soul for the new body, I think it will get the worst of it. According to the secretary of the Players League, the

league lost a hundred twenty five thousand dollars. That was less than the NL lost, but still a sizable enough sum that most of the Players League clubs had trouble paying salaries late in the season. It must be admitted by both sides that they have been very heavy losers. And if the same thing is to be done over again next year, not one, but both of them will have to give up the ghost. The time is surely coming when a compromise will be made.

It will have to come, for the present state of affairs is suicidal. The compromise Ella envisioned would be on the Player's League's terms. Sounding like Spalding, except on the opposite side, she urged the Player's League to hold out for a favorable resolution. I am, I suppose, like most of my sex, very stubborn.

And I've always felt that if I was a man and got into a fight with anyone, not that I approve of fighting at all, I would push it just as far as I was able to. And if I could defeat my opponent, I would not leave him a single chance or hope of recovering. Now, I regard to this baseball war in just that same way. But the investors didn't heed her advice. In October of 1890, they bypassed the players and cut a deal with the ML owners. Ella was incensed and demoralized. With every move that is made, the men with the money are coming more and more to the front, while the players, who were the cause of the new league's formation and in whose interest it was started, are being pushed further and further into the background.

Someday it will be seen that the taking in of outside persons has been the ruin of the new body. Why, just think, after all the loud talk that has been done by the rival officials in this city, about the way they were going to knock each other out during the past twelve months, they are now holding conferences with each other as amicably as though they had been working together for years. The capitalists, though, have got money, and the consequence is they are anxious to get more just as soon as possible and do not care who has to suffer so long as they are satisfied. It now looks

very much as though these gentlemen would be willing to throw the players overboard and leave them in the lurch in order to save their own pockets. That's exactly what happened. The New York clubs consolidated first, and the other dominoes fell from there. John Ward conceded defeat, saying that stupidity, avarice, and treachery had done in the league he briefly led. It really was a surprise to the players, and this is, I think, maybe just naive on their part. It was a surprise that their backers sold them out, that they consolidated with the National League clubs because they were like, we're on the path to victory here, we're on the path to really being the game in town, but that's not how it worked out.

Had the financial men at the back of the new organization held out for a short time longer, they would have been able to dictate any terms they pleased to the National League people and could have placed their own organization on such a firm footing that nothing at all could have ever disturbed it. They turned around at the very moment of victory and surrendered to a defeated enemy. Ella's real-time read of what had happened and what could have happened holds up all these years later. It was this hesitation among the players league backers to look at the long term to try to imagine okay I'm not making a profit this year but I could in three or four or five or ten years.

If the backers had been a little bit more patient they could have very easily put the national league out of business and once it folded we had to wait 75 years for something similar to come along in terms of player mobility and player power over their contracts and their pay. But I could also just as easily envision the Players League succeeding and their investors not selling them out. And for the rest of the 1890s, the players league is the one dominant league. It will now be many a long year again before another revolt will be made, as this experience

is one that will be long remembered by both players and capitalists. Ella Black's last column ran on November 22nd, 1890, about 10 days after the Pittsburgh clubs consolidated on a 50-50 basis and drove another nail into the Players League's coffin. One week later, a victorious Albert Spalding danced on the League's grave in sporting life. The Players League is deader than the proverbial doornail. It is now undergoing the embalming process, and when this has been done, it will be respectfully buried. In about two weeks, we will strew immortals upon its grave

and build a nice new monument, sacred to the Revolution of 1890. Then, when the spring comes and the grass is green upon the last resting place of anarchy, the National Agreement will rise again in all its might and restore to America in all its purity its national pastime, the great game of baseball. Ella's byline was buried too.

And as Scott Peterson says, neither she nor the Players League actually got those promised monuments or flowers. In a written form, the Players League kind of leaves the picture pretty quickly. It's almost like Philip Roth's Patriot League and his novel, the Great American Novel, where there's this lost league that everybody forgets about. The Players League almost has that sort of just disappearance. So does Ella Black.

Ella didn't leave a lot of clues because the only subject she rarely reported or commented on was herself. Twice, she said in Sporting Life that she had only old photos of herself and that she planned to have a new one taken that she could share. But she never did. Once she mentioned having passed through Philadelphia on her way to and from Brooklyn But said she was in too great a hurry to stop at the sporting life office owing to a sick relative She never addressed her marital status, but she clearly had a long-term relationship with baseball. On occasion

She recalled players and teams from her youth which though she said it made her feel awfully old Suggested that she was still fairly young. The earliest baseball memory she mentioned was made in the mid-1870s, when she saw a game pitched by Al Pratt, who had previously started what some scholars deemed the first major league game. In another column, she reminisced nostalgically about a well-known minor league team that played in Pittsburgh in 1877, thereby proving that the practice of remembering some guys was well established in the 19th century. In that case, one of the guys she remembered was her dad.

I was a little girl then, in short dresses. But my father was one of the enthusiasts and gave me my first lessons in the sport. That year, he took me to nearly all the games and taught me how to score. It was some of those old score cards I discovered today, and what a flood of memories they brought back to me. That was many years ago, and the changes since then have been as many as the years.

The one who taught me the game is gone, and many of those whose names are on those old cards are gone too. Ella is long gone now also, but where did she go? gone now also. But where did she go? Next time on the conclusion of Only a Woman, Ella Black Lost and Found, it's time for the finding. Our mystery reaches its drawing room denouement, a la Agatha Christie, who by the way was born in 1890. As we identify Ella and lay out what we still don't know, take two other field trips to significant Ella locations, and we connect this tale to the present as we explore what came after Ella in both baseball and baseball writing.

I believe that history is about telling the truth. History is about including people who were there. I think she'd love it. I think she'd be disappointed it didn't happen sooner. But I'm sure she would love the fact that her story is finally getting a little more traction. As someone who grew up in Pittsburgh and loved Pittsburgh sports, I feel like this should be something that's highlighted all of the time. And the fact that I'm in the role I am now, I wouldn't even have the chance to be here without her.

So I'm so thankful for her and to her for everything she did. And if she was here right now, I'd want to give her the biggest hug. But that's just really kind of neat that there's an actual person in the family that is semi-famous. It's a very nice day to be wandering around the cemetery trying to find a grave that probably no one has visited in several decades. Well, that's the thing. I was thinking that too. There would be like no

no direct descendants. Right. Who would have been here? Yeah. There'd be no reason to go. You'd think. Until maybe we can put her on the map. ["Lost and Found"] Only a Woman, Ella Black Lost and Found is a production of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast. The series was written and narrated by me, Ben Lindberg,

edited and produced by Shane McKeon, and funded by Effectively Wild listeners on Patreon at patreon.com slash effectively wild, where we invite you to subscribe and support our work. You can contact us at podcast at vangraphs.com. Thanks to Ben Zimmer, David Grinnell, and Ryan Delano for research assistance, to Jacob Reed for tickling the keys, and to this episode's vocal cast. Our Ella, Ellen Adair of the Take Me Into the Ball Game podcast, Michael and Jesse Barber,

Chloe Montgomery, Michael Fazio, Raymond Chen, Casey Reed, Jeff Bramhall, Michael Mountain, Chris Hannell, Ari Levin, Russell Eason, Rob Deal, Jimmy Wilkinson, and Shane McKeon. Farewell, my Nanny. Don't fill your heart with pain. You know I've always loved you If I could never come back again. When Scott and Kellogg's streaming, And then, when thoughts and kill are dreaming, when I swing into light, And then I will be dreaming, the dreaming of you, sweet daddy mine.