Baseball History (star, game, manager, teams)

[greatgreatgranddaughter]

I recently found out that my grandfather's grandfather Dutch Dehlman played for the NL's St. Louis Brownstockings in 1876 and 1877 as their first baseman. Both of my son's play baseball and it is awesome to be able to look through our family history and see all Dutch accomplished in his short life.

[Fred314X]

Not only did he play for them, he was also the manager for the 1876 season. Absolutely fascinating stuff, baseball prior to the formation of today's major leagues!

[greatgreatgranddaughter]

thanks for the post! I am finding so much info about him! He had one son who was 6 years old when he died suddenly at 33 years old from Typhoid fever. This was my grandfather's father, William J. Dehlman. Herman Dehlman is now in 2 books published this year and many baseball history websites. It's incredible learning about him, we did find one picture and the family resemblence is striking.

[Catrick]

That is amazing! Sounds like your having fun finding out about him. And how great for your kids to know about this!

[CHIP72]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

Not only did he play for them, he was also the manager for the 1876 season. Absolutely fascinating stuff, baseball prior to the formation of today's major leagues!

Actually, as you may already know Fred314X, 1876 was the first year of the National League, so in a way the OP's great-great grandfather actually pitched at the beginning of today's major leagues (which I must say is pretty cool, especially considering the fact the OP has been excited about learning about her great-great grandfather and the baseball connection he has with her sons). Now having said that, based on a few baseball books I have read, some baseball historians believe the "modern" game of baseball was in place or close to being in place by sometime in the 1890s and really started to gain mass popularity (at least in terms of media coverage) around 1905 or so, give or take a year or two. Of course, the current National/American League setup came into being in 1901 when Ban Johnson modified his formerly minor Western League by putting teams into selected cities and going after selected National League star players of the day, perhaps most notably Napoleon Lajoie (who won the AL Triple Crown in 1901 with the Philadelphia A's).