1895 Rochester (Rochesters, Brownies)

Left: This rendering is based on partial written documentation for uniform style and color. No visual documentation is known and an artist’s conceptualization is used to create the rendering.

Rendering accuracy:Year: documented    Team: documented

Right: This rendering is based on visual documentation for uniform style and written documentation for color. Minor details may be undocumented or difficult to determine. An educated guess is made to complete the rendering.

Rendering accuracy:Year: documented    Team: documented

Visual documentation on these uniforms:

Photo A

Dated April 1895 to early June 1895. Date range and year determined by appearance of manager Chapman. This was Chapman’s only year managing in Rochester and his stay was brief. A newspaper report dated June 13, 1895 said that Chapman had left Rochester and “assumed ownership of the Toronto franchise in the Eastern League. He will back the [Toronto] club with his own money.” It is likely the team photo was taken in April 1895 as most of the players shown were also listed in the boxscore for the opening game at Wilkes-Barre on April 29, 1895. Subsequently there were many roster changes throughout the season. A newspaper reported in May 1895 that “the releasing and signing of players [has] come so thick and fast that it keeps one guessing as to who will be next.” Players wore a dark-colored uniform in this photo, with dark stockings and a white “R” on the left breast. Newspaper reports from 1895 stated that the team’s “out-of-town wear” was brown with black stockings, with “a white R on the breast.” All of the shirts in this photo had three white buttons down the center and were fashioned with long sleeves. The player sitting in the middle row, far left, wore sleeve extensions that attached with white buttons.

Top row, from left: unidentified, J Wente (Roc 97, WB EL 97), J Duryea (95), C Hamburg? (95), P Smith (Roc 95, Pro 95, Tor 95, Bng 95) and F McPartin (Roc 95, 00, 01, Nor 95). Middle row: G Harper (95, 98), B Lush (95, 99-01), (J Chapman mgr Roc 95, Tor 95), T Shinnick (95) and H Payne (Roc 95, Tor 95). Front: unidentified and S Daly (95, 96). Identity of Wente based on similarities to a player in the 1897 Lancaster PA team photo, a team on which Wente also played. Years with team from baseball-reference.com. Chapman departure info from The Sporting Life, June 15, 1895. Report of roster changes from The Sporting Life, June 1, 1895.

Dated April 1895 to early June 1895. Detail view pf photo A. Detail view showed the white “R” on the left breast.

Written documentation on these uniforms:
March 1895: “Manager Chapman is selecting a team of young players. […] The [Rochester] ‘Union’ is printing the pictures of the players as fast as signed, and, taken altogether, they are a fine-looking lot of men.” From The Sporting Life, March 9, 1895.

April 1895: “In the selection of uniforms, it has been decided to use a brown one, trimmed with black, with a white R on the breast for out-of-town wear; and a light gray for home use. Later in the season a white uniform will be used in the home games.” From The Sporting Life, April 13, 1895. Research from Chuck McGill.

April 1895: “The Rochester uniform is brown trimmed with black, with a white R on the breast for the out-of-town wear, and a light gray for home use.” From the Syracuse Courier, April 15, 1895.

May 1895: “On Sunday, May 5, the Washington team of the National League will play a game here [in Rochester] against Chapman’s ‘Brownies,’ and as there are a number of old Rochester favorites on the visiting team, a good crowd should turn out to see the game.” From The Sporting Life, May 4, 1895. This was one of several reports in The Sporting Life from 1895 that called the team the “Brownies.” Resources differ on when this nickname initially came into use. A Rochester baseball history published in 1996 stated that it was 1896, not 1895, when Rochester management “nicknamed the team ‘Brownies’ in honor of George Eastman’s new locally produced Kodak cameras.” However, an online source says that the Kodak Brownie camera was introduced in February 1900. Based on the contemporary reports of The Sporting Life, it can be determined that the Brownies nickname was created in 1895 and that the name most likely came from the color of the team’s uniform. 1896 nickname info from Scott Pitoniak and Jim Mandelaro, Silver Seasons (1996). Brownie camera introduction date from wikipedia, retrieved November 4, 2018.

May 1895: “The crayon artist of this city [Rochester] has just completed a fine picture of the home club, and they are now displayed in a Main Street window.” From The Sporting Life, May 18 1895. It is speculation that the drawing mentioned in this report was made from the team picture, see photo A.

Team genealogy: Rochester 1895-1897
Rochester joined the Eastern League (EL) in 1895, their second entry into the league. The EL operated between 1891 and 1911 and became the International League in 1912. Rochester played in the EL between 1895 and July 16, 1897, when the team was transferred to Montreal. Information from Bill O’Neal, The International League (1992). Montreal transfer date from Baseball America, Inc., The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (1997).