Phillies First Owner Honored with State Historical Marker!

The State of Pennsylvania has honored Alfred James Reach, the man who brought the Philadelphia Phillies to the City of Brotherly Love and served as the team’s owner and president for 20 years, with a historical marker. He is the first Phillies’ official honored by the state with a marker, and it will be installed at 1820 Chestnut Street, the former site of Reach’s sporting goods store. The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission approved the marker, which are allowed only for individuals who had a meaningful impact on their times of statewide or national significance. Reach’s well-established accomplishments in baseball history warrant this accolade, as the marker states:

 

 

Alfred J. Reach (1840-1928)

 

Pioneer baseball professional; a great early 2nd baseman. Played for the Philadelphia Athletics, 1865-1875. Phillies’ first owner & president, 1883- 1902. Published “Official Base Ball Guide.” His A.J. Reach & Co., maker of sporting goods, was here.

 

 

A Biographic Sketch of A.J. Reach

Early Years as a Player and Businessman

A.J. Reach was born in London, England on May 25, 1840, the son of a cricketer. He came to the United States at the age of one and was raised in Brooklyn. Reach spent his teen years working in an iron factory, toiling as an iron molder with heavy tools and near hot furnaces. When he wasn’t working, Reach played baseball. He was a member of the Brooklyn Eckfords in his early twenties, a prominent team in the New York area. During a series in Philadelphia, Reach attracted the attention of Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald, manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, another prominent baseball team during the Civil War era. Fitzgerald lured Reach to join the Athletics by offering the star second baseman a contract and a full-time salary. By accepting the proposal, Reach became the first man to accept pay openly to play baseball and earned his status as the first professional baseball player. Fitzgerald’s money was well spent. Reach joined the Athletics in 1865 and quickly became the team’s leading hitter.

In 1871, a new professional baseball league, the National Association of Professional Base-Ball Players was formed, and the Philadelphia Athletics became a member. The Athletics won the first National Association pennant, with Al Reach batting a highly respectable .353. Reach continued to play for the Athletics through 1875, also serving as the team’s manager in 1874-75. When the National Association folded after the 1875 season—to be replaced the next year by the National League—Reach’s active participation in major league baseball came to an end temporarily.

While playing for the Athletics, Reach, who had since moved to Frankford, began his off-the-field business endeavors by opening a cigar store at 404 ½ Chestnut Street. He ran the store before and after games, and it became a hangout for sporting types. More importantly, Reach also noticed around that time the increasing demand for baseballs, bats, and associated equipment as the National Pastime grew rapidly in popularity. Seeing a need to supply the growing marker, Reach opened a sporting goods store at 6 South Eighth Street in 1874 as his playing days were winding down.

His business prospered, and by 1881, Reach moved to a large store at 23 South Eighth Street. He also took in a partner Benjamin F. Shibe, an expert on leather who had gone from the manufacture of whips to producing baseballs and gloves. Shibe was also destined for long-lasting connotations in baseball, but that would come later. Soon the men opened a manufacturing plant at Palmer and Tulip Streets.

Reach Establishes the Phillies

Philadelphia’s first entry into the National League—the Philadelphia Athletics—had been expelled from the league after the 1876 campaign for failing to make its final western trip of the season to stem financial losses. Philadelphia remained absent from the National League through the 1882 season. Another major league, the American Association of Base Ball Clubs, was organized in 1882, and it invited the Philadelphia Athletics—an independent club since 1877—to join. The Athletics eagerly accepted.

President A.G. Mills of the National League knew that his circuit should be represented in Philadelphia if it was going to compete against the American Association. He was well acquainted with Al Reach, both having played pre-Civil War baseball—Reach for the Brooklyn Eckfords and Mills for the Washington Nationals. Mills was anxious to move the ailing Worcester, Massachusetts franchise to Philadelphia and asked Reach if he would take over as its owner and president. Reach eagerly agreed to head the new Philadelphia National League franchise. The team was christened the “Phillies” because, Reach said, “It tells you who we are and where we’re from.” On May 1,1883, the Phillies had their first Opening Day.

Creating the team was only the beginning of Al Reach’s contributions to the Phillies. He developed the club into one of the cornerstones of the National League. In his 20 years as owner and president, Reach built two ballparks for the team—Recreation Park (1883-1886) and Philadelphia Base Ball Park (later called National League Park and, ultimately, Baker Bowl) (1887-1938). The Phillies finished in the first division 14 times during Reach’s 20-year tenure. A number of future Hall of Famers joined the team under Reach’s tenure including Nap Lajoie, Ed Delahanty, and Elmer Flick. Indeed, it was Reach who paid the staggering sum—at that time—of $1,900 dollars for the rights to Delahanty.

As important, Reach did not become discouraged after the Phillies posted a disastrous record of 17-81 in their first year. Friends urged Reach to drop the club as an unprofitable venture. Instead, he persevered, declaring:

“We spent a year finding ourselves. Of course, it was expensive; we made mistakes, but we learned from our experiences. Philadelphia has the population and interest to support two clubs (the American Association’s Athletics being the second), and some day the Philadelphia National League club will be famous—more famous—than the Athletics.”

 

Since that first Opening Day in 1883, 118 more Opening Days have come and gone for the Phillies, while the Athletics have faded into history. Time has proven the accuracy of Al Reach’s forecast, and the Phillies remain a bedrock of the National League.

The A.J. Reach Company continued to flourish during the 1890s. The company opened another plant in Branford, Ontario and moved its store to a large building at 1820 Chestnut Street—where the historical marker will be located. Reach and Shibe’s partnership stayed strong. When the new American League was formed in 1901, Reach recommended that his partner become president of the Philadelphia franchise. Shibe agreed, but the rest of the story is tinged with irony.

Selling the Phillies and Reach’s Final Years

Shibe became president of the new Philadelphia Athletics, and the A.J. Reach ball became the official baseball of the American League. The Athletics and other American League teams, however, conducted player raids on the Phillies to stock their own teams with talent. The Phillies lost many star players, including Lajoie, Delahanty and Flick, and Reach suffered financially crippling losses. What had been a perennially contending Phillies club plummeted into 7th place in the 1902 season because of key player losses.

In his 60s and weary of dealing with player raids and other fractious league issues, Reach sold the Phillies after the 1902 season for $170,000. Later, he sold his sporting goods store. Reach’s plant continued to produce baseballs, gloves and other sporting goods equipment, and for a number of decades, it published the official American League Reach Baseball Guide. In the early 1920s, Reach sold his plant to rival A.G. Spalding Company and retired. He lived his final years in Atlantic City, dying there on January 14, 1928.

Reach’s Life in Perspective

A.J. Reach’s contribution to baseball was summarized by Francis C. Richter, editor of the Sporting News, who, in 1909 in a story titled, Fathers of Base Ball, wrote:

“The career of A. J. Reach in base ball, reads like a romance, has had but one parallel in the history of the game, and will never be equaled or excelled, inasmuch as the same conditions will never again exist. He was in at the birth of base ball, was a rising player in the sporadic days of the sport, a star in the early days of professionalism, one of the first to see and utilize the business end of the game, and a dominant factor in the establishment of the sport as the National Game. To top all, his services to the local public, as magnate, as advocate of “popular priced ball,” and as a representative of all that is clean, honest, and dignified in the game, have been of inestimable value.”