Who was Cap Anson?

by David Fleitz 

Who was Adrian (Cap) Anson?

I get asked that question a lot.

I wrote the first full-length biography of Anson (Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball, published by McFarland and Company in 2005) since the player's own autobiography, which was released in 1900. 

When I tell people about my book, they usually have never heard of its subject, a man who began his career in professional baseball only six years after the end of the Civil War and finished it before the 19th century was over.

However, Cap Anson was the towering figure of early baseball, and played a major role in the development of the game, for better or worse.  I was surprised to discover that no one had written a biography of Anson, who proved to be a complex, interesting, sometimes frustrating character who was as popular and well-known in his day as Babe Ruth was a few decades later.  Anson has been in the Baseball Hall of Fame since 1939, and was one of the first 25 men inducted.

So, to answer the question, "Who was Cap Anson?" I put an outline of his accomplishments on this page.  To find out more about him, click here to check out my book.  It's available at Amazon.com, and also from the publisher.

• The first player to amass 3,000 hits (though the exact number is in dispute).
• The first player to win four batting titles (though some modern sources only give him two).
• The first manager to win five National League pennants, and the first to win three in a row (1880 to 1882).
• The all-time career leader in games played, times at bat, runs, hits, doubles, runs batted in, and wins by a manager at the time of his retirement.
• The only man in baseball history to play in 27 consecutive major league seasons (counting his five National Association years as major league).
• The second manager to win 1,000 games (Harry Wright was the first).
• The second man to hit three homers in a game (August 5, 1884).
• The first man to hit five homers in two games (August 5-6, 1884).
• The first man to bat .300 or better in 20 consecutive seasons (1871 to 1890).
• An outstanding billiards player, cricket player, trapshooter, and bowler.  He captained a 5-man bowling team that won the national title of the American Bowling Congress in 1904, making Anson one of the few athletes to win championships in two sports.  He also coached a semipro football team that won the Chicago city championship in 1908.
• The only baseball player to star in a play on Broadway.  It was titled, “A Runaway Colt,” and ran at the American Theater in New York for three weeks in December of 1895.
• The man who produced the first true baseball autobiography in 1900.
• The last major league first baseman to play without a glove.  He finally began to wear one in 1892.
• Upon his retirement, the all-time leader in nearly every category for the Chicago National League franchise now known as the Cubs.  More than 100 years later, he is still the team leader in runs, hits, doubles, and runs batted in, and stands second to Ernie Banks in games played and times at bat.
• The man who is largely, but not solely, responsible for the gradual segregation of baseball during the 1880s.
• The first pioneer child born in Marshalltown, Iowa, and still the most famous native of that city.  There is an Anson Middle School, an Anson Creek, and an Anson Street in Marshalltown, but those are named for the ballplayer's father Henry, the founder of the city.

Cap Anson: The Grand Old Man of Baseball, by David Fleitz, is the first biography of baseball’s greatest early star in more than 100 years.  Call the publisher, McFarland and Company, at 1-800-253-2187 or click here for details.