1871 Preview - Troy Haymakers

Upstate New York loves its baseball almost as much as it loves its crazy religious sects. In large part, that's how the Baseball Hall of Fame ended up there, and that also explains the fact that tiny Troy, NY, spent a decade trying to support a top-flight professional baseball team. Of course, this was always a stretch - Troy simply isn't large enough to support a competitive team, as is the case with Kansas City today. They ran out of money midway through 1872 and this version of the Troy club folded.

P - John "Lefty" McMullin - Depressingly little out there about him, considering that he was one of base ball's first left-handed pitchers.
C - Bill Craver - Craver was a Civil War veteran who had an unsavory reputation from the start. He started playing organized baseball in 1866, and was soon playing for top-flight teams in upstate New York. However, there were always stories about his association with gamblers, and ultimately he was banned for life because of his involvement in the infamous Louisville scandal of 1877.
1B - Clipper Flynn - He was from the Troy area, and didn't play in the big leagues for very long. He died in 1881 at the age of 32.
2B - Ed Beavens - Another player about whom little is known. Played for Troy and the Atlantic club of Brooklyn.
3B - Steve Bellan - I've always thought he was perhaps the most interesting guy in 1870s baseball. Bellan's actual first name was Esteban, and he was born in Havana, Cuba in 1850. The common practice among wealthy Cuban families of the day was to send their sons to Jesuit universities in the U.S. for their education, so Bellan was sent to Fordham University, which has a cool web page about Bellan. He started playing baseball while he was there, and after graduating in 1868 he joined some of the top amateur teams in New York. Ultimately, he played three seasons as a big league professional before returning to Cuba at the age of 24 or 25. In Cuba, he promptly joined the new baseball leagues starting up there, and in 1874 he played in the first organized baseball game in the nation. He then was the player-manager of the Havana club from 1878-86 and led them to a couple of Cuban League championships. He died at the age of 82 in Havana, nearly 30 years before Castro came to power.
SS - Dickie Flowers - Runner-up to Count Sensenderfer for best 1871 name. Born in Philly, and died there in 1892 at the age of 42. Beyond that I don't know much; he only played in the bigs for two years.
LF - Steve King - No, not the batshit crazy Iowa politician. He was a local boy who played for Troy for a couple years, and then never played top-level professional baseball again.
CF - Ed Connor - Again, short career and not much out there on him. He only played in the 1871 season.
RF - Lip Pike - Pike was the first great Jewish baseball player (great bio of him here). He started playing baseball at the highest levels in 1866, and was one of a group of three Philadelphia players to be accused that year of being a professional. When he escaped the incident without punishment, it went a long way toward making professionalism acceptable in baseball. By 1871, he had already played for most of the top teams - Athletic Club of Philadelphia, Mutual of New York, and Atlantic of Brooklyn. He was lured to Troy to become the captain (akin to a player-manager), and would ultimately play for many teams (oddly, usually very weak teams) throughout the 1870s. He also became famous for racing a horse around the bases in 1873 and winning. Following his playing days, he became a haberdasher in New York and died of heart disease in 1893.

In the simulation, Troy should be decidedly second-rate. Pike is very good, and some of the other players can hold their own, but they lack the star power of the richer teams.