The Nashville Seraphs, often known as the Nashvilles, were a minor league baseball team that played in the Class B Southern League in 1895. They were located in Nashville, Tennessee, and played their home games at Athletic Park, later known as Sulphur Dell. The club won the Southern League pennant in their only season, becoming the city's first minor league baseball team to win a league championship.
The Nashvilles spent the majority of the season at or near the top of the league standings and held an above-.500 winning percentage on all but Opening Day. From August 15 to the season finale on September 3, the Seraphs won 20 consecutive games, which propelled them from seven games out of first place to a tie with the Atlanta Crackers atop the standings. Both teams possessed .670 records and asserted to be the rightful pennant winners. At the league's annual winter meeting that December, nearly four months later, Nashville was declared the Southern League champion for 1895.
The team was managed by George Stallings and included other former and future major league players Frank Butler, Art Herman, Lefty Marr, Tom McCreery, Sam Moran, Bert Myers, Jim Ritz, and Mike Trost. Butler and Moran were sold to the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates, respectively, during the season. Stallings and Moran, as well as George Cleve, played for the Nashville Tigers, the city's previous club, in 1894. Marr also played for the Nashville Americans, the city's first team, in 1885 and 1886.
History Formation
Professional baseball was first played in Nashville, Tennessee, by the Nashville Americans, who were charter members of the original Southern League from 1885 to 1886 and played their home games at Sulphur Spring Park, later renamed Athletic Park and Sulphur Dell. This ballpark was to be the home of Nashville's minor league teams through 1963. In 1887, the city's Southern League team was called the Nashville Blues. The Nashville Tigers competed in the same league from 1893 to 1894. The Southern League disbanded in July 1894, as the result of league-wide financial instability brought on by the expense of travel and poor attendance.
In the ensuing months, baseball leaders across the South considered which cities to include in the next iteration of the Southern League. Representatives met at The Read House Hotel in Chattanooga on January 14 to reorganize for the 1895 season. Membership was granted to clubs in Atlanta, Chattanooga, Evansville, Little Rock, Memphis, Montgomery, Nashville, and New Orleans, thus lessening the expense of travel incurred in the past with the inclusion of cities such as Charleston and Savannah. Each of the eight teams paid a US$1,000 deposit to guarantee they would play the entire season. They also pledged to pay dues of $100 per month plus 3% of total gate receipts for a sinking fund. Player salaries were capped at $1,000 per team. The Nashville Baseball Association elected R. L. C. White, physician and prominent figure in the Tennessee press, to serve as president of the Nashville club.
Nashville's team has come to be known as the Seraphs. Though there are no contemporary references to this moniker, the May 4, 1895, edition of the Nashville Banner referred to the team as "Stallings' cherubs". At the time, baseball clubs were often called only by the names of their cities. Newspapers generally referred to the team as simply Nashville, the Nashville club, or the Nashvilles.
Spring training
As early as October 1894, George Stallings, previously manager of the Nashville Tigers, began acquiring players for a new Nashville ball club. Stallings would serve as its player-manager. He filled the rest of the roster with men he found to be of good character and skilled ball players, some of whom had experience on major league teams. Stallings had played a few games for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in 1890. He signed Mike Trost of the 1890 St. Louis Browns and Jim Ritz, who had played one game for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1894. He also acquired the services of his former 1894 Tigers teammates George Cleve and Sam Moran.
With Stallings' players having gathered in the city, the Nashvilles commenced practice at Athletic Park, their home field, on March 18. In further preparation for the coming season, they participated in a number of exhibition games against amateur, collegiate, minor, and major league teams. The first such game was a 17–4 victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores on the campus of Vanderbilt University on March 26. On March 28, they defeated the Nashville Athletic Club's baseball team, 12–2, at Athletic Park. On April 10 and 11, Nashville beat Ted Sullivan's Dallas Steers of the Texas-Southern League, 19–3 and 9–1.
From late March to mid April, the Seraphs served as the spring training competition for several teams from the National League, the only major league at the time, who traveled south to prepare for their seasons in a warmer climate. On March 29 and 30, Nashville was defeated by the Cincinnati Reds, 7–0 and 16–3. The St. Louis Browns handed them two more losses, 14–4 and 7–2, on April 1 and 2. Nashville defeated the Cleveland Spiders, 12–10, on April 3, but lost the next day's game, 18–3. On April 5, pitcher Sam Moran out dueled Cleveland's Cy Young, their 28-year-old ace, in a 4–3 win. Nashville bested the visiting Louisville Colonels, 9–8, on April 13, before traveling to Louisville, where they lost the next afternoon, 22–5. In their final major league warmup, the Seraphs lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 19–2, at Athletic Park on April 15.
The season April to June
With over a month's practice under their belts and optimistic about the campaign to come, the Nashville Seraphs were set to open the Southern League championship season of 1895 at Evansville on April 25. Nashville's Opening Day roster consisted of pitchers Ed Daniels, Art Herman, and Sam Moran; catchers Daniel Sweeney and Mike Trost; first baseman/manager George Stallings; second baseman Henry Smith; third baseman Bert Myers; shortstop Jim Ritz; left fielder Frank Butler; center fielder Jack McCann; and right fielder George Cleve.
Prior to the season opener, both the Seraphs and their opponents, the Evansville Blackbirds, were paraded in carriages to the ballpark in a procession which included a brass band and a steam calliope. Contested under a light rain, both teams played poorly with only four of the game's 27 runs being earned and committing 12 errors between them, 10 by Nashville. Trost hit two over-the-fence home runs to help the cause of his batterymate Moran, who was hit hard and walked six batters while striking out six. Nashville lost, 17–10. For the benefit of hometown fans, telegraphed descriptions of the game were announced in downtown Nashville at the Merchants' Exchange and the Grand Opera House throughout the season.
The Seraphs fared much better in their second game on April 27, outscoring the Evansvilles, 19–9. Tied 7–7 after two innings, Stallings substituted Herman for Daniels on the mound to start the third. He allowed only two runs over the remaining seven innings as the Nashvilles scored 12 on the way to their first win. From this point forward, Nashville was a fixture at or near the top of the standings and maintained a winning record through the completion of the season. They wrapped up their opening series by taking the third game from Evansville on April 28, 9–2, in which Moran limited hitters to just two runs on four hits, improving over his first start.
The Seraphs returned to Nashville for their Athletic Park home opener on April 29. A large crowd gathered early in the day to welcome the teams which arrived to the park in a parade of open carriages accompanied by a marching band. Before the game, Mayor George Blackmore Guild gave a speech and tossed out the first pitch. The home team bested the visiting Evansvilles, 16–4, just as much on good hitting and fielding as on lackluster pitching by Fred Ossenberg. Only two of Nashville's 16 runs were earned; Ossenberg walked 11 batters and the Blackbirds committed five errors.
Catcher Mike Trost, known for emphatically encouraging his teammates, was named team captain in early May. An otherwise disappointing 2–4 road trip, begun on May 10, ended with Nashville sweeping the Chattanooga Warriors in a doubleheader on May 19. They went on to win the next seven games at Athletic Park through May 28 to make it nine consecutive wins—three against the Montgomery Grays and two each against the Little Rock Travelers and New Orleans Pelicans. The Memphis Giants ended the streak on May 30, and the Nashvilles closed out their first full month of competition tied for first place with Evansville at 19–8 (.703).
The Seraphs went five-for-five in an early June road trip, taking three games from Little Rock and two from Memphis, giving them sole possession of first place. Looking to keep his team at the top, Stallings released center fielder McCann on June 8. He had not played since June 2 following sporadic appearances after being hit by a pitch in the arm in late May. Stallings also planned to release shortstop Ritz, whose errors the team blamed for at least five losses. Stallings instead signed Patrick Lynch of the Bloomington, Illinois, Western Interstate League team to play short and moved Ritz to center field when Lynch joined the team on June 19. Ritz was later shifted to second, a position which he played much better, after Henry Smith, who exhibited poor fielding range and committed numerous errors on routine plays, was released after the game of June 29.
Nashville won three games in a single day in an exceedingly rare June 26 tripleheader against Little Rock at Athletic Park. The Tarvelers' manager refused to play the morning game after receiving a telegram from league president J. B. Nicklin informing him that playing more than two games in a day was optional. With only the home team taking the field, Daniels threw three strikes over the plate to Trost, and the umpire awarded Nashville the game on forfeit. Nashville won the afternoon and evening games, 17–7 and 8–5. The forfeited morning game was later removed from the record when the league's directors confirmed Nicklin's ruling that no team could be forced to play more than two games in a day.
By the end of June, approximately halfway through the season, Nashville was locked in a three-way tie for first place with Evansville and Atlanta, and the rest of the league was virtually out of contention.
July to September
On July 4, Art Herman flirted with a no-hitter against New Orleans in the first game of a doubleheader at Athletic Park before a paid attendance of 1,300 people. He held the visiting batters hitless for eight innings until Billy York singled softly between third and short. The Seraphs won the game, 12–0, and the afternoon's game, 9–4, with 3,200 in attendance. In conjunction with that day's Independence Day celebration, additionally scheduled festivities included a fireworks display, an exhibition of tricks by a "one-legged fancy bicycle rider", and footraces between Seraphs and Pelicans players.
With the team in a heated race for the pennant, a number of changes in late July and early August threatened to knock the Nashvilles out of the championship picture. On July 21 at Mobile, which had transferred from Chattanooga on July 19, Ed Daniels came down with a case of malaria keeping him out of action until August 5. On July 26, Butler was sold to the National League's New York Giants for $1,500. Butler was a skilled fielder and did well at the plate, but his throwing was deemed deficient and he was known for criticizing his teammates. The proceeds of his sale helped ensure the team would break even on the season and would help Stallings acquire more players.