Adrian Constantine Anson (April 17, 1852 – April 14, 1922), nicknamed "Cap", "Pop", and, early in his career, "Baby" and "The Marshalltown Infant", was an American professional baseball player who played a record 27 consecutive major-league seasons. Anson was regarded as one of the greatest players of his era and one of the first superstars of the game. He spent most of his career with the National League's Chicago franchise, serving as the club's manager, first baseman and, later in his tenure, minority owner. He led the team to six pennants from 1876 to 1886. Anson was one of baseball's first great hitters, and probably the first to tally over 3,000 career hits. In addition to being a star player, he innovated managerial tactics such as signals between players and the rotation of pitchers.
Anson played a role in establishing the racial segregation in professional baseball that persisted until the late 1940s. On several occasions, Anson refused to take the field when the opposing roster included black players. His demands may have been cited as representative of player attitudes by team owners of the International League when they voted on July 14, 1887 to ban the signing of new contracts with black players.
After retiring as a player, Anson briefly managed the New York Giants. He ran several enterprises in Chicago, including opening a billiards and bowling hall and running a semi-professional baseball team he dubbed "Anson's Colts". Anson also toured extensively on the vaudeville circuit, performing monologues and songs. Many of his business ventures failed. As a result, Anson lost his ownership stake in the Chicago franchise and filed for bankruptcy. In 1939, Anson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Anson was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. Beginning in 1866, he spent two years at the high-school age boarding school of the University of Notre Dame after being sent there by his father in hopes of curtailing his mischievousness. His time away did little to discipline him. Soon after he returned home, his father sent him to the University of Iowa, where his bad behavior resulted in the school asking him to leave after one semester.
Anson played on a number of competitive baseball clubs in his youth, and in 1871 began to play professionally for the Rockford Forest Citys in the National Association, primarily as a third baseman. While playing there, he gained the nickname "The Marshalltown Infant", because of his youth. He was a large and powerful man, standing 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall and weighing about 220 pounds (100 kg).
When the Rockford club folded at the end of the 1871 season, Anson signed with the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1872 and 1873, Anson finished in the league's top five in batting average, on-base percentage (OBP), and on-base plus slugging (OPS). His numbers declined slightly in 1874 and 1875, but he was still good enough that Chicago White Stockings secretary-turned-president William Hulbert sought him to improve his club for the 1876 season. Hulbert broke league rules by negotiating with Anson and several other stars while the 1875 season was still in progress, and ultimately founded the new National League to forestall any disciplinary action.
Anson, who had become engaged to a Philadelphia native in the meantime, had second thoughts about going west, but Hulbert held Anson to his contract and he eventually warmed to the Windy City.
The White Stockings won the first league title, but fell off the pace the following two seasons. During this time, Anson was a solid hitter, but not quite a superstar. Both his fortunes and those of his team would change after Anson was named captain-manager of the club in 1879.
His new role led to the nickname "Cap", though newspapers typically called him by the more formal "Captain Anson" or "Capt. Anson". Led by Anson, who now primarily played first base, the White Stockings won five pennants between 1880 and 1886. They were helped to the titles by new managerial tactics, including the use of a third-base coach, having one fielder back up another, signaling batters, and the rotation of two star pitchers. In the first half of the 1880s, aided by speedy players like Mike Kelly, Anson had his players aggressively run the bases, forcing the opposition into making errors. After the expression first became popular in the 1890s, he retroactively claimed to use some of the first "hit and run" plays.
Anson shares credit as an innovator of modern spring training along with the president of the Chicago club, Albert Spalding. They were among the first to send their clubs to warmer climates in the South to prepare for the season, beginning in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1886. On the field, Anson was the team's best hitter and run producer. In the 1880s, he won two batting titles (1881, 1888) and finished second four times (1880, 1882, 1886–1887). During the same period, he led the league in runs batted in (RBIs) seven times (1880–82, 1884–86, 1888). His best season was in 1881, when he led the league in batting (.399), OBP (.442), OPS (.952), hits (137), total bases (175), and RBIs (82). He also became the first player to hit three consecutive home runs, five homers in two games, and four doubles in a game, as well as being the first to perform two unassisted double plays in a game. He is one of only a few players to score six runs in a game, a feat he accomplished on August 24, 1886.
Anson signed a ten-year contract in 1888 to manage the White Stockings (which, because of a typographical error he failed to spot, ended after the 1897 season instead of 1898), but his best years were behind him. He led the league in walks in 1890 and garnered his eighth and final RBI crown in 1891. On the managerial front, he failed to win another pennant.
As the end of the 1880s approached, the club had begun trading away its stars in favor of young players, with the exception of the veteran Anson. Local newspapers had started to call the team "Anson's Colts", or just "Colts", before the decade was out. With the advent of the Players' League in 1890, what little talent the club still had was drained away, and the team nickname "Colts", though never official, became standard usage in the local media along with variants such as (Anson's) White Colts and (Anson's) Broncos.
He also mellowed enough that he became a fatherly figure and was often called "Pop". When he was fired as manager after the 1897 season, it also marked the end of his 27-year playing career. The following season, newspapers dubbed the Colts the "Orphans", as they had lost their "Pop".
Although the decision to ban black players from the National League and the International League was made behind the scenes by team owners, Anson was the most outspoken player and vociferously insisted on segregation even before the ban was official. As a star player and team manager, his influence was substantial. Baseball historian Kevin Blackistone opined that "I don’t think anyone has had a greater impact on baseball than Anson" for his role in baseball's racist discrimination. While not disputing the specific impacts of Anson's direct actions, baseball historian Bill James felt that this viewpoint overstated Anson's influence; he speculated that it is "enormously likely that Jim Crow would have come to baseball even had Cap Anson never been born."
On August 10, 1883, Anson refused to play an exhibition game against the Toledo Blue Stockings because their catcher, Moses Fleetwood Walker, was black. When Blue Stockings Manager Charlie Morton told Anson the White Stockings would forfeit the gate receipts if they refused to play, Anson backed down, but not before uttering the word nigger on the field and vowing that his team would not play in such a game again.
In 1884, Chicago again played an exhibition game at Toledo, which was then in the American Association, a major league. Walker sat it out, however, it is uncertain whether he did so to placate Chicago or due to injury; Jimmy McGuire instead did the catching. Both had sore hands, the Toledo Blade had said a few days earlier. Of the two catchers, Walker was seemingly the more injured, as he did not play in Toledo's second-most recent game. Among Anson's incidents, this one is unique in that private correspondence provides insight. Three months before the game, Chicago Treasurer-Secretary John A. Brown wrote Toledo manager Charlie Morton that "the management of the Chicago Ball Club have no personal feeling about the matter," while "the players do most decisively object and to preserve harmony in the club it is necessary that I have your assurance in writing that [Walker] will not play any position in your nine July 25. I have no doubt such is your meaning[;] only your letter does not express in full. I have no desire to replay the occurrence of last season and must have your guarantee to that effort."