Edgar Edward Cuthbert (June 20, 1845 – February 6, 1905) was an American
professional baseball
Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world.
Mod ...
outfielder
An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...
.
Career
Cuthbert's baseball career began in 1865 with the Keystone Club of Philadelphia. After two seasons as a
second baseman and outfielder with the Keystones, he moved across town to the West Philadelphia club, playing only four games for them before joining the
Philadelphia Athletics
The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oaklan ...
. With Cuthbert, the Athletics won national championships in 1867 and 1868. A solid batsman and outfielder, Ned jumped to the
Chicago White Stockings in 1870.
Cuthbert was with a number of teams in the
National Association and its successor, the
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
, playing in Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati.
After game-fixing allegations surfaced as part of the Brown Stockings 1877 season, Brown Stockings ownership officially withdrew from the National League and folded the team. In time for the 1878 season, Cuthbert and four other former players of the Brown Stockings spent the next few years (1878–1881) playing as a reorganized, semi-professional baseball team, filling vacant positions with the best of the St. Louis amateur players. Cuthbert played with the semi-professional Brown Stockings (1878, 1879, and 1881) and the St. Louis Red Stockings (1880). It was Cuthbert who, while working at his saloon during these years, convinced grocery and saloon owner
Chris von der Ahe to invest in the Brown Stockings and return them to professional baseball status. Von der Ahe purchased the Brown Stockings in 1880, changed their name to the Browns, and returned them to professional status in 1882.
In 1882, Cuthbert became the player/manager for the St. Louis team of the newly formed
American Association American Association may refer to:
Baseball
* American Association (1882–1891), a major league active from 1882 to 1891
* American Association (1902–1997), a minor league active from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997
* American Association of Profe ...
. The following year, he relinquished the managerial duties but continued with the Brown Stockings as a player before jumping to the
Baltimore Monumentals
The Baltimore Monumentals were an American baseball team in the short-lived Union Association. In their lone season of 1884, they finished fourth in the UA with a 58–47 record.
History
The team was managed by Bill Henderson. Their top-hitting ...
of the ill-fated
Union Association
The Union Association was a league in Major League Baseball which lasted for just the 1884 season. St. Louis won the pennant and joined the National League the following season.
Seven of the twelve teams who were in the Association at some poi ...
in 1884, his final season.
Reportedly, Cuthbert
stole the first base in organized baseball in 1865 while playing for the Philadelphia Keystones, simply by waiting for the
pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...
to be distracted and running from first to second base. However, according to Peter Morris' "A Game Of Inches", base-stealing was part of baseball well before 1865; the earliest explicit account of stealing a base goes back to 1856.
Cuthbert died of
endocarditis
Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves. Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, or the ...
in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, Missouri, and was laid to rest at
Bellefontaine Cemetery
Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit, non-denominational cemetery and arboretum in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine is home to a number of architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as the ...
.
See also
*
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Founded in 1869, it is composed of 30 teams. Each team in the league has a manager, who is responsible for team strategy and leadership on and off ...
*
List of Major League Baseball annual stolen base leaders
Major League Baseball recognizes stolen base leaders in the American League and National League each season.
American League
National League
American Association
Federal League
Players' League
National Association
See also
*Lis ...
References
External links
Baseball Almanac
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuthbert, Ned
1845 births
1905 deaths
19th-century baseball players
Major League Baseball left fielders
Major League Baseball player-managers
Philadelphia Keystones (NABBP) players
Philadelphia Athletics (NABBP) players
Chicago White Stockings (NABBP) players
Philadelphia Athletics (NA) players
Philadelphia White Stockings players
Chicago White Stockings players
St. Louis Brown Stockings (NA) players
St. Louis Brown Stockings players
Cincinnati Reds (1876–1879) players
St. Louis Browns (AA) managers
St. Louis Browns (AA) players
St. Louis Brown Stockings (AA) players
Baltimore Monumentals players
Indianapolis Blues (minor league) players
Baseball players from Philadelphia
Deaths from endocarditis
Burials at Bellefontaine Cemetery