Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,745

This is the grave of Dan Brouthers.

Born in 1858 in Sylvan Lake, New York, Brouthers grew up in a Catholic immigrant family. This was a working class family; his father worked in a open pit iron mine. The family’s last name was originally Brooder, but it changed over time, landing on a couple of names while he was a kid. They moved around a lot early on, finally ending up in Wappingers Falls, New York and his father worked in a paper mill, which was a heck of a lot safer than the iron mines.

From the time he was a kid, Brouthers was a great baseball player. However, when he was just a kid, he killed a kid on the field in a home plate collision. He was 17 and playing on a semipro team in Wappingers Falls. He rounded the bases and absolutely destroyed the catcher. The kid whacked his head on the ground and died a few days later. This did not stop Brouthers from continuing to play.

He first appeared in professional leagues with the Troy Trojans in 1879. He played every year through 1896 for a whole lot of different teams–mostly the Buffalo Bisons, but a year or two on lots of teams, including the Detroit Wolverines, Boston Beaneaters (god I love that name, much better than what it became, the Braves), Boston Reds, Brooklyn Grooms, Baltimore Orioles, Louisville Colonels, and Philadelphia Phillies. He was a lefty hitting first baseman, although he threw with the right, always awkward at the position. He was very big man for his time, 6’2″, 207 pounds in his playing days.

Brouthers could absolutely rake. It’s fair enough that late 19th century statistics are weird and don’t compare well with the present. But he hit for a lot of power for the time, leading the majors in home runs twice, though with 8 and 11 homers. His career high in homers was 14, in 1884. He became a big star in 1881, with the Buffalo Bisons. Along with his teammates Jack Rowe, Hardy Richardson, and Deacon White, he was one of the Big Four in the media. All four were sold by the folding Bisons to the Detroit Wolverines, which was loaded with future Hall of Fame players, although they only came in second in 1886, 2 1/2 games behind the Chicago White Sox. That offseason, baseball players came together in their first attempt at forming something like a union. The Executive Council of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players had one Dan Brouthers as its VP, with John Montgomery Ward as president.

Brouthers helped lead the Wolverines to the title in 1887 and also that year, the National League agreed to meet with the Brotherhood for the first time, with Brouthers in attendance. His continued activism led him to be one of the leading players in creating the Players League in 1890. His Boston Reds won that league, but it only lasted one year and the Reds merged into the American Association. It would take a very long before players’ activism led to a strong union.

In the kind of amusing trivia that helps us love old time baseball, Brouthers demanded that his Irish setter named Kelly be in the dugout with him during each game.

Brouthers’ last great season was 1894. He hit .347/425/560 in 525 at bats. Even homered all of 9 times! But after that year, the Orioles traded him to Louisville Colonels and he was never the same. Basically, he was again. 1895 was his age 37 year and it happens. But this was not the kind of guy to give up the game one second before he had to. You have your major leaguers who go on as long as possible without retiring. Then you have the major leaguers who are great and are willing to keep playing in independent leagues for that one last shot. Rickey Henderson was the rare latter type. So was Brouthers. After the 1896 season, the Phillies cut him loose. He simply went back to the minors. He played for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1898 and led the league with a .415. Much later, in 1904, now 46 years old, he led the Hudson River League with a .373 average, playing for the mighty Poughkeepsie Colts. And he got his return to the majors. Sure, it was all of 5 at bats for the New York Giants. He went 0-5 and finally hung it up.

In 1889, Brouthers had 565 plate appearances. He struck out six times.

To put Brouthers career into context, he remained the major league record holder for slugging percentage until Babe Ruth revolutionized the game. Of course that career slugging was all of .520, but still. He also retired as second in all time triples with 205, third in RBIs with 1,296, and third in hits with 2,303. That’s an amazing career! His black ink stats (league leaders) are incredible: runs twice, hits three times, doubles three times, triples once, homers twice, RBIs twice, batting average five times, OBP five times, SLG seven times, and OPS+ eight times. Remarkable. According to Baseball Reference’s WAR stat, he led the league five times in that, with his best year being 1892, when he had a very impressive 8.8 WAR.

In the aftermath of his career, his old teammate John McGraw knew that Brouthers needed to be around the game in some fashion. So he had Brouthers run the press gate and do other duties just hanging around the team for the next twenty or so years.

Brouthers died in 1932 at his home in East Orange, New Jersey. He was 74 years old. There’s actually a biography of Brouthers, of some sort. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945.

Dan Brouthers is buried in Saint Mary’s Cemetery, Wappingers Falls, New York. There’s a little statue to him in the downtown too. Today, Wappingers Falls is just a gigantic strip mall on Route 9, but there is actually a nice old town if you get off the highway.

According to Baseball Reference’s JAWS stats, Brouthers remains the 7th best first baseman of all time, between Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas. That’s how dominant this guy was. If you would like this series to visit other first basemen, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Roger Connor, Brouthers’ contemporary who mostly played for the Giants and who is ranked 5th, is in Waterbury, Connecticut. You have to go pretty far down the list to find someone who isn’t either still alive or someone I haven’t already covered, including Johnny Mize at 9th and Willie McCovey at 14th. Then you have Thomas, Thome, Cabrera, Votto, Palmeiro, Helton, Murray, Goldschmidt, and McGwire. Finally, at 19th ranks Hank Greenberg, who is in Los Angeles. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.