Bob Ferguson (infielder)

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Bob Ferguson (infielder) : biography

January 31, 1845 – May 3, 1894

National Association

In , Ferguson took over the Mutual team as the player-manager. In 33 games, he batted .241, while the team finished with a 16–17 record, which put them in fifth place at the season’s end. As manager, Ferguson insisted upon implicit obedience from his men, but was forced to leave following the season due to heavy rumors of gambling surrounding the team. For the season, Ferguson re-joined his Atlantics team, which was now a member of the National Association as well, and he would stay there through the season. In 1872, he was elected by the players to be the president of the National Association, an office he held through the season, the last season of the Association.

On September 1, , Ferguson arranged a benefit game for Al Thake, a 22-year-old left fielder for the Atlantics, who drowned during a fishing trip off Fort Hamilton, in New York Harbor. The old Brooklyn Atlantics and Members of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings played against each other in the benefit game.

While serving as a substitute umpire during a game between the Baltimore Canaries and Mutuals on July 24, , Ferguson received continuous, loud, verbal abuse from Mutuals catcher Nat Hicks. Ferguson and Hicks got into an altercation at the conclusion of the game, which Ferguson ended by hitting Hicks in the left arm with a bat, breaking his arm in two places. Ferguson required a police escort to leave the playing field, and Hicks refused to press charges and the two reconciled afterwards. During the final season of the Association, he played and managed the Hartford Dark Blues.

National League

The Dark Blues had turned to Ferguson to play for and manage the team because of his reputation as the most authoritarian captain in the game. He was an honest and upstanding citizen in a time when not many ballplayers could say the same. However, he was also a domineering, dictatorial captain with a violent streak. Team discipline did improve in his first season, but his overbearing ways proved divisive, causing the team to bicker amongst themselves. Ferguson’s temper would flare up often, even when the team was winning. The Chicago Tribune reported that if anyone on the Hartford nine committed an error, “Ferguson [would] swear until everything looks blue.” He was particularly rough on second baseman Jack Burdock, who on more than one occasion heard his captain publicly threaten “to ram his fist down Burdock’s throat.” Some players tolerated his behavior; others, however, refused to comply. Shortstop Tom Carey and center fielder Jack Remsen did not hesitate to yell back, while Burdock and pitcher Candy Cummings, on the other hand, often sulked. The situation in Hartford came to a head after a tough loss to the Red Stockings, a game in which Ferguson had committed several errors. Hartford’s main pitcher, Tommy Bond, suggested that Ferguson was "crooked". Ferguson denied the charge, and Bond quickly retracted his statement, claiming that he said it in anger. Bond then requested that he be able to leave the team because he could not play for Ferguson, a request that was granted by league president Morgan Bulkeley, a former owner of the Dark Blues.

Hartford finished third in both of its two seasons in the National League, and when the team folded, Ferguson became the new Chicago White Stockings player-manager. It would be his only season in Chicago. Al Spalding had hired Ferguson to captain his Chicago team because of his reputation, openly saying that he admired Ferguson’s style and leadership that made the Hartford teams successful. Ferguson personally had his most successful season as a player that season, as he batted .351, which was third in the league, led the league in on base percentage, tied for fourth in runs batted in, and ranked fourth in hits. Unfortunately, the White Stockings finished at .500, and in Spalding’s memoirs he called Ferguson "tactless" and hopelessly lacking any knowledge "of the subtle science of handling men by strategy rather than by force." Cap Anson would eventually take over that role in .

Ferguson again moved on, this time accepting the player-manager role with the new Troy Trojans team who began their time in the National League in 1879, and would stay in that role until the team folded after the season. In , he became the first manager in the history of the Philadelphia Phillies franchise, which was known at the time as the Quakers, but was relieved of command when the team won only four of its first 17 games. On August 21 of that season, his Quakers traveled to Providence, Rhode Island to play the Grays. To increase ticket sales, he gave the day’s pitching duty to Rhode Island native Art Hagan in hopes that Hagan’s appearance would attract more locals to come watch the game. The strategy worked, but Hagen surrendered 28 runs and the Quakers made 20 errors behind him and did not score a run. Financially sound decision as it was, a bad decision for public relations as Ferguson was labeled a sadist for not relieving Hagen.