It took four years and a lot of roster and personnel change, but the Alleghenys finally achieved a winning season in 1885, thanks largely to the purchase of nearly the entire Columbus Buckeyes team, which folded after the 1884 season. in the American Association.

These Ohio transplants just barely eked out a 56-55 record, which stood as the team’s best record through four years of play. While the team lost a few pieces from that 1885 roster, most of the team did return to Recreation Park for 1886, including the majority of the former Columbus players.

Horace Phillips was still the manager as well, which is a lovely change from the constant managerial changes suffered by the team early on in their existence.

The only reported transaction during the offseason was the Alleghenys purchasing Sam Barkley from the (sort of) World Series Champion St. Louis Browns for an estimated $1,000.

The infielder had broken into the AA in 1884 with Toledo, where he hit a league leading 39 doubles on his way to a .306 batting average. Though he suffered a drop in consistency in his sophomore season, the power in that bat was still there.

St. Louis didn’t really feel the loss of Barkley. They were still the top dogs in the AA, ready to one up themselves after an 1885 run that saw them win the league pennant and ultimately be declared in a tie for the World Series that season.

But the team over in Allegheny City was gearing up for a good year of their own, however it took them a long time to get going.

Right before the season started, the Alleghenys banished Milt Scott off to Baltimore to be their new first baseman. Officially, Scott was “assigned” to the Orioles, but given the way the franchise was heading, it certainly feels more like a banishment.

The Alleghenys spent the entire month of April on the road, kicking off their season in St. Louis on April 18th, a day later than scheduled due to rain. A crowd of roughly 3,000 at Sportsman’s Park watched their hometown Browns defeat Allegheny City 8-4.

That day turned into a double header, and in the following game the Alleghenys lost 10-5. A reported crowd of 12,000 watched the second.

The following game saw the Alleghenys lost 10-5 in front of a crowd of reportedly 12,000 people. Not quite sure where that influx of spectators came from, but good for the Browns.

In all, St. Louis took three of four in the series, and a trip to Cincinnati saw the same results upend Allegheny City’s early hopes. Their final series of the month saw them take two of three from Louisville, which gave them so momentum coming home and opening May.

Their home lineup followed the same order that their road trip did; the Alleghenys first hosted St. Louis for a four game swing that was split. A series against Cincinnati saw them take three of four, which proceeded a split with the Louisville Colonels.

That home stand saw the Alleghenys get to just one game below .500 by the time it was over, and a trip to New York to visit the Metropolitans and Brooklyn finally got them over the plateau. A May 21st win in Brooklyn pushed the team past the .500 mark and they never looked back.

They entered June at 19-15 in a very tightly contested AA. Despite teams like Baltimore eventually finishing the year very much in the basement, no team was truly out of it during the first third of the season.

St. Louis was always the front runner, but teams like Allegheny City, Philadelphia, and even Brooklyn weren’t all that far behind them.

Meanwhile, the Alleghenys experienced a very streaky June. A three game winning streak early on set them up to a 23-17 record, but a four game losing streak later in the month brought them dangerously close to a .500 record again.

This losing streak was kicked off by another game in St. Louis against the Browns, who drew another big reported crowd of 10,000.

However, near the end of the month, the team rallied for a four game win streak and ended June at 31-25.

This hectic month also saw the Alleghenys get oh so close to the league lead.

A 6-5 win in Cincinnati saw Allegheny City get to just 1.0 game back of first place, which was actually Brooklyn at the time, not St. Louis. The Browns were 0.5 games back on that date, but this would be as close as the Alleghenys would get to the AA lead.

St. Louis would re-take the lead the following day, and the gap between them and any other team would continue to widen.

Opening July, the Alleghenys won five of their first seven games. Despite the strong start to the month, it didn’t put any dent in St. Louis’ league lead.

After a three game skid following that stretch, Allegheny City ripped off five straight wins, including a 4-1 win at Recreation Park over the New York Metropolitans. I mention this game in particular because it is the only home game of the 1886 season that had any sort of official attendance recorded, estimated to be 1,000 fans.

Of the four games of the Alleghenys’ season with official reported attendance on Baseball Reference, the rest of them came in St. Louis.

This season was also the first one to see start times of games regularly recorded. The official start time of games was listed in 81 of Allegheny City’s 140 games.

A 2-8 stretch saw the Alleghenys enter August needing to re-gain some momentum. They started with a 10-9 win in Brooklyn before hosting that same team at Recreation Park and murdering them 18-0, their largest win of the season.

They spent the middle of the month trading wins and losses before stringing together a nine game winning streak (with the first eight coming on the road). That streak snapped as the calendar turned, but September did see some interesting moments for the Alleghenys, including back to back ties on the 13th in Philadelphia and the 14th in Baltimore.

Their final road game saw them win 8-2 in Brooklyn, before spending their remaining 14 games back at Recreation Park.

In that final stretch, Allegheny City went 9-4-1, with their third tie of the season coming against Baltimore (again) and winning their final five games at home to finish the year at 80-57-3.

The 1886 season would be the team’s best year while they were officially known as Allegheny City, and their second place finish in the American Association would also be their highest placement in any league until they played as Pittsburgh. Both of these heights would finally be reached again in 1893.

Leading the batting department was 21-year old catcher Fred Carroll, who put up a .288 average and also had a team-leading 5 home runs.

But a lot of other leads belonged to second baseman Sam Barkley, who lived up to the bill that the Alleghenys paid for him, with a team leading 31 doubles, 69 RBI, and 58 walks with a .266 batting average.

The triples lead went to Bill Kuehne, who had 17 triples but an otherwise underwhelming season, batting just .204 overall.

Other solid batting performances included Otto Schomberg, who was playing in his rookie season in a major league. He batted .272 and was walked 57 times. Pitcher Pud Galvin also was decent at the plate, with a .253 average in 194 total at-bats.

And speaking of pitching, Galvin had a terrific year on the mound, with a 2.67 ERA and 29-21 record over 434.2 innings pitched. He was great, but he was just a step behind his tandem partner Ed Morris.

Morris had a 2.45 ERA and 41-20 record with a 2.76 K/BB ratio over 555.1 innings pitched.

Jim Handiboe (114.0 innings, 3.32 ERA) and John Hofford (81.0 innings, 4.33 ERA) also chipped in for starts on occasion, but Galvin and Morris were the guys for the Alleghenys this year.

As always, the full roster:

St. Louis ended up with a pretty healthy lead in the AA, being 12 games in front of Allegheny City at year’s end. The Alleghenys did lead the league in both team strikeouts, walks, and triples, but were essentially league average in everything else.

In pitching categories, the Alleghenys were behind only St. Louis in team ERA, and faired pretty well in other areas.

The Browns, after winning back to back AA pennants, made it back to the World Series for a rematch against the National League’s Chicago White Stockings. While the last one ended in controversy and ultimately a tie, St. Louis was able to claim the championship series 4-2.

This season served as Allegheny City’s farewell to the American Association. They would be one of several teams to jump ship to the more stable NL and remain even to this day as a living legacy of the idea of the AA.

(Featured photo of Sam Barkley’s baseball card from the Library of Congress)