Game Changers: John Montgomery Ward

Thanks for reading the first ever Game Changers column! I appreciate you giving it a try…and Thomas Nelshoppen for providing me with the opportunity to contribute. I’m really looking forward to writing and thinking about baseball and APBA via this blog. As we move forward, I hope to shed light on interesting moments, milestones and turning points in baseball history through the lens of APBA baseball cards with the Game Changers column.

With “first ever” as a mini theme here, I thought it would be nice to go way back and start with Hall of Famer John Montgomery Ward and his 1883 card for a launching point.  Elected to the Hall in 1964, Ward is known for many things. He threw 587 innings in 1879. The next season he threw 595 innings! In 1880, he was the second pitcher to ever throw a perfect game. Two years later he pitched an 18-inning complete-game shutout when he beat the Detroit Wolverines 1-0. An intelligent man, while in the middle of his career, he even earned a law degree (1885) and a political science degree (1886) from Columbia University.

However, I realize none of these accomplishments are firsts. In my opinion, the most important accomplishment of John Montgomery Ward’s career was his fight for players’ rights and setting up the first-ever players’ union in 1885. This was the first attempt to challenge the player reserve clause—which bound players to a team upon a contract’s expiration. Baseball’s reserve clause would exist into the mid-1970s, until the eventual birth of free agency. As for Ward, his fight against the reserve clause culminated in the 1890 Players’ League, which included a profit-sharing system and no reserve clause.

Official APBA cards for John Montgomery Ward are rare. His 1883 APBA GO card shows his versatility. Not only is Ward a B pitcher, but he also plays everywhere except catcher and first base. As a matter of fact, after an arm injury in 1884, Ward played the rest of his 17-year career primarily as a shortstop. You might also find it strange to see zero SBs listed and yet two 11s, until you remember they didn’t keep track of stolen bases until 1886. (He led the league in 1887 with 111.) Based on my calculations, this card will perform better than a .255 average. Despite only one 14, the fourth 8 helps project the card closer to a .280 average—which is nearer to Ward’s .275 lifetime batting average.

After his playing career was over, Ward was the president of the Boston Braves and represented players from the National League. Once saying, “Players have been bought, sold and exchanged as though they were sheep instead of American citizens,” it’s apparent Ward was ahead of his time and an early baseball Game Changer.

Recommendation: If you’re interested in more about baseball’s labor history, check out Baseball’s Power Shift: How the Players Union, the Fans, and the Media Changed American Sports Culture by Krister Swanson. Not only is John Montgomery Ward discussed, but ’20 HoFer Marvin Miller is as well.