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 ...

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 ...

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

Career

See also

References

External links