1894 by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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Association flag, its outstanding 93-42, .689, record eight and one-half games better than a St. Louis Browns club that featured an outfielder soon to loom large in Boston baseball and the life of Hugh Duffy; Tommy McCarthy. But with the AA now in its death throes, no postseason inter-league championship was conducted.

Rather, for the second consecutive year, a major league circuit folded, leaving Duffy, McCarthy, and their ball playing brethren to fend for themselves.

For the moment, however, baseball was not Duffy’s primary concern. Hugh had matrimony on his mind. In October 1891, he married the “Belle of the Pawtuxet Valley,” the fetching, but consumptive, Katherine Gilland. The happy couple immediately took up residence in River Point, but their union was brief and childless, constantly beset by concern over Katie’s fragile health.

Another close but relatively brief union was formed late that year when both Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy signed contracts to play the upcoming season for the National League Boston Beaneaters. The two men, soon to be dubbed the “Heavenly Twins,”

were hardly look alikes. But they had much in common. Each was New England born from the same ethnic/religious stock; short but sturdily built men who batted and threw righty, were swift afoot, and played the same position, although Hugh would soon

1894