Film Tells Story of How Covington Team Inspired Cincinnati to Give Reds Another Go

On a surface that is now the parking lot next to the Family Dollar on Madison Avenue in Covington, a baseball field existed 140 years ago where the first ever professional team in the city played its games.

 

That team was the Covington Stars. 

 

At 3 p.m. on June 14, filmmaker Cam Miller will premier his latest documentary Our Shining Stars: The Story of the Star Baseball Club in Covington, KY, at The Kenton County Public Library’s Bank of Kentucky Room in downtown Covington. Miller made a documentary last year about another professional baseball team in Covington called the Blue Sox and is also the creator of all of the videos at the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.  

 

The day chosen for the premier is special because  June 14, 1875, was the first ever professional home game in the history of Covington, so 140 years later at the exact same time, the story will be told.  

 

The Stars were an independent baseball team that started in 1875. Before becoming professional, they started out as one of the strongest amateur teams around.  

 

 

“You’ve got to understand that during that time frame it was right after the (Cincinnati) Red Stockings had disbanded. They ran out of money in 1870 and they decided that it just wasn’t worth their time to field a competitive team so there was no professional baseball in the area for five years. The Covington Stars kind of filled that void that the Red Stockings left and fans from Cincinnati would come watch the Stars, while they were still an amateur team,” Miller said.  

 

In 1875, they decided that they had enough good players that they could become a professional team. Fans packed into a park that was called the Star Baseball Grounds, located at 17th Street and Madison Avenue. It was a 400 x 400 lot which regularly saw crowds of 3,000, and on good nights, up to 6,000 people for the game.  

 

“There were all sorts of National Association teams which was the professional league of the time. They would come into town and play Covington because there was no Cincinnati team. This area was a hotbed for baseball. There was such great talent here. Of course they would come where the money is and fans would come and pay their twenty-five or fifty cents a ticket. They would pay their money, and pack it in and get a portion of the gate receipts. So the Stars were really, really successful and had a bunch of players that would go on to play major league baseball,” said Miller.

 

The success of the Stars reinvigorated the need for baseball back in Cincinnati and soon moves were made to get the Reds back up running.

 

“The people in Cincinnati didn’t understand how this little city–they always kind of looked down on Covington–how they could field this professional baseball team and be making all of this money. So a couple of the old Red Stockings baseball directors decided that it would be a good idea to reorganize the Reds, come back and kind of take over the area again,” Miller said. “In 1875, the Reds came back and played Covington and the first game in Covington between the two ended in  5-5 tie in a 12-inning game that was called because of darkness. It was during that time that Cincinnati thought that Covington really was good enough and a rivalry kind of began.”

 

The next year saw the birth of the National League where Cincinnati was invited, but Covington was not. Once in, Cincinnati made efforts to not only keep the Stars out, but crush them financially. A rule called the Five-Mile Clause prevented any National League team from playing any other team in a different league that was within five miles of a member city. That prevented teams like the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Stockings from playing the Covington Stars. 

 

“Pretty much, their objective in a nutshell was to make sure that the Stars couldn’t make money and therefore they would have to disband. About midway through the ’76 season, the Stars folded,” Miller said. 

 

They operated a few years after that as an amateur team but the amateur status was not exciting enough to keep the fans interest.

 

“You weren’t getting the big names, the Bostons and Chicagos, you were just getting the Newports, the Ludlows, and some of these other amateur teams and you’re not going to make any money that way,” Miller said. “So they were gone; Cincinnati, of course, would go on and the rest is history.”

 

The Blue Sox and Stars never overlapped since the Blue Sox didn’t begin until 1913.  

 

The Blue Sox still play an important role to the Stars because of Covington’s extreme fandom for baseball. In fact, the thirst for a pro team was still so strong in the area that an historic franchise very nearly relocated to Northern Kentucky.

 

“After the Stars left, they still went and watched the Stars amateur games, but they were really, really hoping for a professional team, and then they almost got one in 1900 when the American League began,” Miller explained. “The Chicago White Sox almost came to Covington, but their owner, Charles Comiskey, wanted a rivalry with Cincinnati and wanted a team in Covington. The American League, being separate from the National League, he thought he could get away with it, but unfortunately, baseball said no and was shutout of having his team come here.”

 

The Blue Sox team was later formed in the Federal League which was kind of a third major league. They lasted only half of a season. The Blue Sox were named in honor of the Covington Stars’ color scheme  which was blue and white, same as the Blue Sox.

 

 

Many of the Stars’ players went on to play with major-league teams and some of their contributions on those teams are still remembered today.

 

The Stars’ best player was named George Strief who is credited with later hitting the first home run in Pittsburgh Pirates franchise history in 1882. He also holds the major league record for the most triples in a game with four. Perhaps, his biggest claim to fame, though, is that he signed Cy Young to Cleveland at a minor league game where he discovered him and signed him on the spot.  

 

Frank Silver Flinte was a catcher in the 1875 season and then would go on to catch for the Chicago White Sox for 12 years and won several world championships with Chicago.  

 

The most controversial player the Stars had, who would go on to play with the St. Louis Brown Stockings who would later become the St. Louis Cardinals, was named Joe Blong who was a good pitcher, but was twice expelled for gambling. 

  

“The Stars kicked him off the team because they accused him of throwing games and being associated with gamblers, so he got kicked off the team, but he went on to play for St. Louis and they found out he was gambling again, so they kicked him out and finally baseball said that he was done, two strikes and you’re out in this case. He also holds the major league record for pitching 320 innings without ever giving up a home run in his major league career,” Miller said. 

 

As for the Stars’ field, it too had unique elements. It was one of the rare ballparks of its time to be totally enclosed with a wall rather than just being an open field like most teams played in during that era. Due to the conditions of the game, especially the softness of the baseball during what’s known as the Dead Ball Era, there are no stories of a home run leaving the ball park.  

 

 

“There is no evidence that any ball was ever hit 400 feet over the wall, but there were home runs hit where the ball would roll to the fence, the player would round all the bases.” 

 

The field was built in about a month’s time. It was one of the finest ball parks around and was fairly level, though there were a few spots that sloped. Miller says that if you go to that parking lot today, you can still see the sloping surface that was once between second and third bases.

 

“Some of the newspapers of the rival teams would complain about how the ballpark slopes a little bit, and it wasn’t perfect, but it was a pretty fine ball park,” Miller said. “The property was bought in 1887 and it was developed into subdivisions and housing and there was a garage that was put there over time and then it became a few stores.”

 

During the offseason, owners of the team needed ways to continue to make money to operate the team, so in the winter months they would flood the field and let it freeze to create an ice-skating rink. 

 

Miller says that he enjoys making the historical Covington baseball documentaries that he puts together in his down time and funds himself. He and the Kenton County Public Library have enjoyed working with each other to provide the public with a chance to view the films. 

 

“I’ve always had a great relationship with the Kenton County Public Libraries who have said that they would love to screen my films and last year they screened the Blue Sox documentary which was pretty successful and got some attention, and then they are going to do this one as well.”  

 

Those who come to the screening on June 14 will receive a free replica Covington Stars tobacco baseball card while supplies last.