Kid Baldwin

Kid Baldwin
Catcher
Born: October 1, 1864(1864-10-01) Newport, Kentucky
Died: July 10, 1897(1897-07-10) (aged 32) Cincinnati, Ohio
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
July 27, 1884 for the Kansas City Cowboys
Last MLB appearance
September 16, 1890 for the Philadelphia Athletics
Career statistics
Batting average	.221
Home runs	7
Runs batted in	178 (incomplete)
Teams
Kansas City Cowboys (1884) Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies (1884) Cincinnati Red Stockings/Cincinnati Reds (1885-1890) Philadelphia Athletics (1890)

Clarence Geoghan "Kid" Baldwin (October 1, 1864(1864-10-01) – July 10, 1897(1897-07-10)) was a Major League Baseball catcher. He played seven seasons at the Major League level. In addition to playing catcher, Baldwin also played outfield, third base, second base and first base. He also pitched two games in the 1885 season.

Early life

Baldwin began to play baseball after his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he attracted attention catching for a local baseball club called the Stars.^[1]

St. Louis journalist Al Spink discovered Baldwin and a pitcher named Oberbeck on a North St. Louis lot one Sunday to fill in when a visiting team of semiprofessionals called the Eckfords who came in from Chicago, Illinois without a pitcher and catcher. Spink would later recall that Baldwin and Oberbeck were the best on the Eckfords roster.^[1]

Professional career

Northwestern League

A year or two after Baldwin was introduced to team baseball he entered the professional ranks playing for the Springfield, Illinois team of the Northwestern League in 1883, one of the first Minor League circuits. With Springfield he used his strong throwing arm as a pitcher rather than his traditional position, catcher. His stay in Springfield was so short that his statistics for the club were not listed in the Northwestern League's official records and not much is known of his first season in professional play. The Sporting News years later told a story of the cocky young Kid opening what he expected to be a note from a female admirer, only to find that it actually contained his release notice. Another, more hostile source said in 1884 that Baldwin had proven himself "a fair player in the Springfield Club" but that "with his mouth he came very near breaking up the nine. Then he was bounced."^[1]

After his release from Springfield in 1883, Baldwin joined the Quincy, Illinois ball club, which was a lackluster team on its way to a distant last-place finish in the Northwestern League. He soon took his revenge by pitching his new team to a victory over Springfield. At Quincy, however, he returned to the position that was to become his own, playing 53 of his 73 games as a catcher. He batted .237, a respectable number compared to the league average. Baldwin finished third at his position in fielding percentage and began to show a formidable natural talent at catching and throwing, making him one of the brighter lights on a team that finished last in the league both in batting and fielding.

"Jump ship" incident

Quincy reserved Baldwin for the 1884 season, but a new professional league, the Union Association, was challenging the established National League and American Association, refusing to accept the validity the reserve rule in those leagues. The head of the new organization was in St. Louis, where Henry Lucas, president of the St. Louis Maroons as well as the entire Union Association, was building his Maroons into the new league's powerhouse. In February of that year, Baldwin was reported on one page of the Sporting Life as having signed his Quincy contract, while a note on another page said that he had written Lucas denying he had signed with any club but the Maroons' reserve team, that he would get his release from Quincy as soon as possible and that if he liked, he would play for St. Louis in 1884. He was intended for the reserve team Lucas was organizing to play in his ballpark while the Maroons were on the road and serve as a kind of farm club for the big team.^[1]

"Then there is Kid Baldwin. He returned yesterday morning and denied running away, stating he had permission, which was untrue. He showed up a roll of money with a $100 note on the outside, and said he would have money when the club would be begging. Yesterday morning he was arrested for debt, and later a summons was served on him for a claim which he had not paid. In the afternoon, it is said, he spent his time in a disreputable house. The Kid is a 'bad egg.' Now that he is gone the Quincys may have a show of winning."^[1]

— The Quincy Herald quoted in Sporting Life: August 6, 1884

The Quincy ball club was still confident of holding him and refused Baldwin's offer to pay for his own release. In March the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that he was in Quincy and "some say he is enamored of a young lady there and cannot be driven from that city," but Baldwin himself was still writing that he would report for duty with St. Louis. He was said to have offered Quincy $500 for his release. This was the first in a long line of incidences. At this time, it was clear that he would not be able to play for the Maroons and assured Lucas that he would be able to repay the $200 salary advance he received from the Maroons only when he began drawing his Quincy pay. At the end of July it would still be said that the debt to Lucas had not yet been repaid.^[1]

As Quincy started the Northwestern League season strong, running near the top of the league standings, Baldwin's talents began to form. Through the first three months of the season he caught nearly every game and when he didn't catch he was in the lineup at third base or the outfield, even pitching a few games in relief. Despite the success of Quincy, the rest of the Northwestern League was in trouble, however. In a year when competition from the Union Association drove player salaries upward, the Northwestern's officials decided to add teams from smaller markets, possibly one of the reasons for its demise. In late July, teams began to collapse and there were rumors that Quincy was one of the teams that would not survive. On July 25 Baldwin made his last appearance in a Quincy lineup. The local media was not happy with Baldwin's decision to leave the team at a time of crisis.^[1]

His luggage was reportedly held in Quincy against an unpaid board bill. Yet there are reasons to believe Baldwin may have had legitimate reasons to feel disgruntled with his treatment by a financially challenged ball club that collapsed within two weeks of Baldwin's departure. As a result of breaking his contract, Baldwin was blacklisted by the Arbitration Committee later in 1885.^[1]

Kansas City Cowboys

Baldwin joined the Kansas City Cowboys of the Union Association in 1884. With the Cowboys, Baldwin batted .198 with six doubles and three triples. More controversy followed about the same time when Kansas City manager Ted Sullivan accused Billy Barnie, the manager of the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association, with having reportedly made a large but unsuccessful offer to Baldwin to switch teams again and finish the season with the Orioles. The claim was shortly debunked.^[1]

He also played one game with the Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies where in one at bat Baldwin got one hit.

Milwaukee Brewers

With the fall of the Union Association looming Baldwin appeared in a meeting of the Arbitration Committee that oversaw the organized leagues' National Agreement to ask the committee for reinstatement. The Committee took this application as an opportunity to declare, "This committee will never consent to the reinstatement of any player who has deserted, or may hereafter desert, any club identified with the National Agreement."^[1]

Baldwin signed with the Milwaukee, Wisconsin club, the Milwaukee Brewers, another Union Association club. Baldwin then headed south to New Orleans, Louisiana, a popular place for baseball players from the north where they would wait out the cold weather and make some money playing against local players and each other. Among the northerners in the New Orleans were several players from the Cincinnati Red Stockings and what they saw of Baldwin's play behind the bat left them impressed and regretful that he would be unable to play with a National Agreement club.^[1]

Reinstatement

O. P. Caylor, a journalist and club secretary who fulfilled the role of a modern general manager for the Red Stockings, later gave outfielder Charley Jones the largest share of the credit for pressing him to find a way to sign Baldwin. Caylor was previously one of the strongest opponents of Baldwin's and any other Union Association player's reinstatement under the National Agreement.^[1]

In the Spring of 1885 the Brewers changed leagues, one under the National Agreement unlike the Union Association. Baldwin, who was still blacklisted, would be unable to play for the Brewers in the coming season. However, O. P. Caylor learned that the former Quincy stockholders would be willing to help get him off the blacklist if they got money they claimed Baldwin owed his old club. Cincinnati gave them this money, counting it as an advance against Baldwin's 1885 salary with the Red Stockings.^[1]

"'Kid' Baldwin, who signed with the local club last October, and who begged and cried, because he had a mother to support, to secure $300 advance, which the management on account of his tears advanced him, has failed to return the same. His perfidious conduct ought to have made him keep his promises. Breaking his contracts is not his only forte. It appears Manager Loftus wired Caylor that if the money was not sent on at once he would make trouble for the 'Kid.' He will have him arrested and brought to Milwaukee for obtaining money under false pretenses."^[1]

— Sporting Life: March 25, April 22, April 29, and May 20, 1885

Word of Baldwin being reinstated caught the eyes of many ball clubs, including the Chicago White Stockings. Knowing Baldwin's past of contract breaking, Charley Jones took suggested he take Baldwin on a trip to a remote location where even the Chicago club's exceptionally aggressive agents would not find him. When he was reinstated by the Arbitration Committee, O. J. Caylor, who was attending a meeting, instructed Jones by telegraph to sign Baldwin immediately to a Cincinnati contract. National League president Nick Young also left the meeting room, to telegraph Chicago's club president Albert Spalding, as Caylor suspected, but long before Chicago's agents could locate Baldwin he was signed by Cincinnati.^[1]

Milwaukee, which still held a contract with Baldwin but could not enforce it effectively because Baldwin had signed before the team brought itself under the protection of the National Agreement. To add financial loss to injury, Milwaukee then had difficulties getting the always improvident Baldwin to repay a $300 salary advance given him when he signed his contract. In late-April it was reported that he had returned the money, but almost a month later another source said the club had not yet gotten it back. Milwaukee's Media was furious about the entire situation, blaming Baldwin for the financial weakening of the ball club.^[1]

Cincinnati Red Stockings/Cincinnati Reds

On arrival to Cincinnati, Baldwin was pegged as "tricky and deceitful" by the Cincinnati Enquirer because of his multiple issues including jumping three contacts in a year and being blacklisted. Baldwin soon found himself in trouble with team captain Pop Snyder, who had set many rules for players when they were on the road. Baldwin suggested it was jealousy from Snyder reportedly saying:

“	Say, Snyder, you're jealous of me. I'm catching too good ball for you; how you wish I wasn't on the nine; never mind, old vet, I'll have your scalp ere the season is over; I'll make you pack your grip and get back to Cincinnati before the leaves begin to fall.	”
—Unnamed Louisville Colonels player's accounts of what Kid Baldwin said to Pop Snyder.[1]

After another altercation between Baldwin and pitcher Will White where White attempted to give Baldwin advise on how to catch him, team captain Snyder decided to make Baldwin deputy captain because of the way he asserted himself.^[1] Due to Cincinnati's strong backstop position, Baldwin and fellow catcher Jimmy Peoples were forced to try their hand at another position, pitcher.

"Kid Baldwin says the chances of some one of the Cincinnatis dropping dead or breaking a leg are very slim, indeed, and that while he is resting he will buy a plug hat and join Tony Mullane in catching foul balls and doing the dude act in the grand stand. He says there is no use to practice when he does not have the opportunity to play."^[1]

— Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 13, 1885

Soon after that Baldwin was put to work practicing with Tony Mullane, one of the American Association's best players, who had been suspended for a year over irregularities in his signing with the Reds the previous fall. By Fall Baldwin was beginning to play more frequently, and in the postseason he caught Mullane several times in the pitcher's first appearances for Cincinnati. At the end of his first season, 1885, Baldwin hit .135 with 17 hits, one double, one home run and eight RBIs in 34 games.

With the addition of Tony Mullane it was generally predicted that the next season would see Cincinnati present a stiff challenge to the St. Louis Browns, which had run away with the 1885 American Association pennant. As Mullane's batterymate, the '85 benchwarmer Baldwin was expected to be an important part of the team, sharing most of the catching duties with Jim Keenan while the veteran Pop Snyder concentrated on leading the team as its captain. But the expectations soon turned to failure starting with the release of Larry McKeon, one of the most promising pitchers Cincinnati had. With early season losses came accusations that Tony Mullane was purposefully throwing games. 1886 soon seemed to prove it was all down hill from there.^[1]

O. P. Caylor's relationship with Baldwin started to sour. Baldwin and Caylor began the season with the agreement that Baldwin would turn his actions around, but that agreement soon fell by the wayside. Baldwin's love for the high-life and alcohol started to consume him. He was soon spending more money that he was making. As the season went on, Baldwin became an informer for the Cincinnati Enquirer, a fact of which Caylor was well aware of. This fueled a feud that Caylor and the Enquirer had for quite a while. Craylor soon used other media outlets to slam Baldwin. One instance was on June 13 at Louisville, where Baldwin was pressed into service at third base due to an injury to Hick Carpenter. When his two errors in three chances cost Cincinnati the game, the next day's Commercial Gazette headlined its game account, "Inexcusable Throws by Baldwin the Cause of the Defeat," which seemed like harsh treatment for a player who had been filling in at an unaccustomed position. As the season went on Caylor was replaced by Aaron Stern, former team president. This was good for Baldwin, thought the feud soon spilled over to Caylor's new ball club, the New York Metropolitans.^[1]

The new manager Aaron Stern would soon take Baldwin under his wing. In December, reportedly on his own initiative, Baldwin took a pledge not to drink until the end of the following season and Stern then declared his intention would give him an extra $100 if he carried through on his promise. Soon Baldwin found himself with little competition for the catching duties. The veteran Snyder was sold to the Cleveland Spiders and Jack Boyle, another backstop with potential, was packaged with cash in order to acquire outfielder Hugh Nicol from St. Louis in the first trade ever made between two major league teams. Only Keenan was left to share the catching with Baldwin. Baldwin did however have an early season slip up as he was caught in a raid of hundreds in a cock fighting ring. His punishment would be a $47 fine.^[1]

1887 was the best in Baldwin's career. Baldwin hit .253 with 15 doubles, 10 triples, one home run, 57 RBIs and 13 stolen bases. Baldwin set career highs in plate appearances with 398, at bats with 388, runs with 46, hits with 98, doubles, triples, RBIs, stolen bases, batting average and slugging percentage with a .351 clip. He also limited the off-field issues that plagued him in seasons past.

The next three seasons were a disappointment compared to the last season. In February 1888 he assaulted an umpire while playing winter ball in New Orleans, again showing his immaturity. Once the regular season began he started drinking and keeping late hours and his play failed to match the conduct of the previous year. Fines were reported and in early September when he was left home during a road trip. While teams in the 1880s routinely left a few benchwarmers at home to cut traveling expenses, this had never happened to Baldwin, and by mid-September Cincinnati media was speculating he might not return for the team in 1889.^[1]

"We have decided to give you your unconditional release. We have had opportunities to dispose of your services, but we wish you to have the benefit of anything that can be realized for same ...We were well satisfied with your work this season, and more than pleased with the manner [in which] you have conducted yourself."^[1]

— Cincinnati Reds owner Adam Stern on Kid Baldwin's release, 1890.

The speculation of Baldwin not returning was just that, speculation. Cincinnati gave Baldwin better pay than he had expected but required him to live at the same hotel as manager Gus Schmelz. Two-thirds of the catcher's money was held out each pay day, with the agreement that he would get it back at season's end with six percent interest. The reason for this was because of Baldwin's struggles with finances. Baldwin arrived in Cincinnati in March 1889 promising to take care of himself and "try the temperance plank one season at least." But his play was again disappointing, and he found himself in the middle of controversy when the Red Stockings were said to have considered selling him to the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. According to one later account the owner Stern had turned down an offer by the Bridegrooms of $2,000; another said that Cincinnati offered Baldwin to Brooklyn but was turned down.^[1]

When the Cincinnati Red Stockings switched to the National League and changed their name to the Cincinnati Reds in 1890, they replaced manager Gus Schmelz with Tom Loftus. In what may have been an effort by the club to help keep an eye on Baldwin, the new manager moved into a house in Cincinnati's West End with the Kid as a neighbor. His conduct, like seasons past, was immature and disruptive to the team. He was connected to the usual rumors of drinking and late-night carousing, this time with the heavyweight boxer Peter Jackson.^[1] In his final in season with Cincinnati, Baldwin hit .153 with 11 hits and 10 RBIs. He was released on July 28. In six seasons in Cincinnati Baldwin hit .224 with 312 hits, 49 doubles, 22 triples, seven home runs and 166 RBIs.

Philadelphia Athletics

On August 6, 1890 Baldwin was signed by the Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association. The A's offered him $400 a month, $50 more than he had been getting in Cincinnati and just $100 more for the remainder of the season than an offer from Brooklyn. Baldwin started well for the Athletics but his play soon deteriorated. The Athletics, early leaders in the Association pennant race, fell apart late in the season. During this time Baldwin himself later admitted that he was drinking heavily. In his final season at the Major League level Baldwin hit .233 with 21 hits, one double, two triples and 21 RBIs. He had a combined average of .198 on the season.

Payment controversy

On the evening of September 16, 1890 the Athletics roster stood outside of the office where the club's stockholders met. The A's owners were late on payments in since mid-July and no payments were made in September. The players were called in and told they could either stay with the ball club and take their chances on getting paid or accept their releases. Most of them, said they would leave, leaving only a few holdovers, Baldwin among them, who signed new one-month contracts to finish out the season.

A few days after the meeting, manager Billy Sharsig was to take the Athletics on a long western trip, supplementing his remaining players with new men picked up from disbanded Minor League teams. Just before the train pulled out of the station, Sharsig handed Baldwin his unconditional release. He had learned that Baldwin had been telling people he intended to revenge himself for the Athletics' broken promises and missed paydays by staying with the team until it reached his home town of St. Louis and then leaving the team. Instead, he now found himself hundreds of miles from home, without money to get back. A furious Baldwin denounced the Athletics' action to Philadelphia reporters and then, with the help of contributions from players of the Columbus Solons and the Baltimore Orioles he was able to rejoin his wife in Quincy, Illinois.

Western Association

"[Baldwin] promises that before the season is over that [sic] his good work will cause Major League managers to chase him around for his terms. Here is hoping that he will succeed. Kid was always his own worst enemy."^[1]

— Harry Weldon, Cincinnati Enquirer.

Early in 1891 Baldwin signed with the St. Paul, Minnesota ball club in the newly organized Western Association. The Players' League had folded, leaving eight fewer major league teams and tougher competition for roster spots in the Major Leagues. In early March Baldwin wrote from Quincy to Harry Weldon of the Cincinnati Enquirer, saying he was done drinking for good.^[1]

He joined St. Paul in the spring, but endured a rough season along with the rest of the Western Association, which was caught in the middle of a trade war between the National League and American Association. In June the St. Paul team was transferred to Duluth, Minnesota, and by late-August Duluth, too, was on its last legs and Baldwin moved farther west to Spokane, Washington.^[1]

Portland Webfeet

Early in 1892 Baldwin wrote Chris Von der Ahe, the mercurial owner of the St. Louis Browns, to tell him that he wanted to play for the Browns as a catcher and to play in his home town. He told Von der Ahe he had stopped drinking and would put up better ball than he ever had in Cincinnati. "To show you that I am in earnest," he told Von der Ahe, "I will come to St. Louis for a very reasonable salary and if you think I am as good as I represent you can raise my pay." Von der Ahe showed no interest in Baldwin.^[1]

Baldwin soon signed with the Portland Webfeet of the Pacific Northwest League.^[2] He played well until the mid-August collapse of the Pacific Northwest League.

Los Angeles Seraphs

The Los Angeles, California ball club, picking through the wreckage of the Pacific Northwest League for a pitcher and catcher to aid its pennant race, telegraphed offers to Baldwin and pitcher Pete McNabb as well as two stars of the Seattle team. The Seattle players priced themselves out of the market, according to the Los Angeles Times, leaving Baldwin and McNabb to sign at reasonable terms. Having already caught more than seventy games for Portland through August 21, he joined Los Angeles in September but still caught 67 during the latter stages of the long California League season and nine more in the playoffs.^[1]

Including the playoffs and exhibitions, he caught about 152 games. Staying that busy indicated that Baldwin had kept sober and maintained good hours; and in fact, he seems to have stopped drinking in January, 1891 according to his own claim. And as always when he behaved himself, he played well, too.^[1]

New Orleans Pelicans

Baldwin signed with the New Orleans Pelicans in 1893, a team that ran at about .500 for much of the season, then started losing and fell to tenth place in the twelve-team Southern League. Troubled by injuries and dissension, the Pelicans were losing money and unable to sign a reliable second catcher to share the workload with Baldwin.

Baldwin had reportedly started drinking again. When the New Orleans club and the Southern League collapsed soon thereafter, Baldwin was not among the players picked up by National League clubs. In April he had been quoted as saying that he regretted his past conduct and wanted to go back up to the big time. He caught 78 games, another impressive total in a season that ended in early-August, but his offensive production was modest: a .232 batting average. Baldwin sat out the rest of the 1893 season.^[1]

Pennsylvania State League

After spending most of the ensuing off-season without a contract he finally signed with the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ball club of the Pennsylvania State League, a Class-B circuit that was not granted the protection of the National Agreement until April 1894. Baldwin split the catching with one "Fat" Bill Smink. When spring came Baldwin received good notices for his catching during preseason exhibitions but then was benched due to eye problems. Late in May his play began to fall off and the Harrisburg club, losing and financially troubled, due to rainouts, quickly released him.^[1]

Legacy

For the next years after he played in the Pennsylvania State League, he remained in Pennsylvania, probably alone and without a playing berth, quite possibly drinking heavily, and he began to have more problems with his eyesight. Even before this time he may already have become estranged from his wife and on her accounts she said she had not seen her husband in four years.^[1]

After his release by Harrisburg, even his own family in St. Louis lost touch with him, so that the following March it was reported that his father had died and they wanted to get in touch with him but did not know how.^[1]

"It is seldom that you hear of whisky bringing a player absolutely to the gutter, as in the case of Kid Baldwin, once the noted catcher of the Cincinnati team, who was found maudlin in a 10-cent lodging house in Cincinnati."^[1]

— Washington Post: December, 1895.

Baldwin was still in Harrisburg in 1895 and his problems with his eyesight were now so severe that he was threatened with blindness. Members of the Philadelphia Phillies had raised money to send him to a hospital in New York and then to Philadelphia, where he underwent an operation. At the beginning of July he was reportedly recovered from surgery and on his way to join his family in St. Louis.^[1]

His eyesight had been saved, but the damage had been such that Baldwin could not hope to resume his playing career. He also continued his drinking and he soon left St. Louis and went on the road, living most of the time as a homeless man.^[1]

During that off-season of 1896 he was given a lift by Tom Loftus, the manager who had had released him from Cincinnati. Loftus was now in Columbus, Ohio, organizing a new franchise in the Western League, the strongest minor league in the country at the time, and it was reported that he had signed Baldwin as a groundskeeper for his new team. The job reportedly fell through for because Baldwin could not keep sober enough to retain it. By late-May, within a few weeks of the date he had been reported about to leave for Columbus, he turned up back in Cincinnati. Old friends and former admirers began to think of ways to help him; there was talk of a benefit game, but the fear was that he would just drink up the money.^[1]

Lew Wachenheim, who ran a saloon on Sixth Street in downtown Cincinnati, took on the task of straightening him out. He told Baldwin to get himself sober and if he was to stay that way for a while, and he would give him a job running his "whiskey house." By June 1 Baldwin turned up at a Reds game, looking dapper and prosperous in a new suit. Again in mid July he showed up to watch the Reds, telling reporters that he had turned his life around.^[1]

Baldwin soon fell back into his old habits, alcoholism. His final years were spent drinking up the money his friends would loan him. In February, 1897, Baldwin was reportedly beaten by a night watchman while trying to steal a ride in the railroad yards near Quincy. He was again seen in Cincinnati in the early-summer reportedly being lower than he had ever been.^[1]

In the early-summer of 1897 Mary Baldwin, Kid's wife, appeared before a judge in Quincy, Illinois, to request a divorce on grounds of desertion. She told the judge that she had seen nothing of her husband for four years.^[1]

"Clarence Baldwin, known in the baseball world as 'Kid' Baldwin, once a famous catcher, has been taken to the Cincinnati Hospital as a charity patient, a hopeless wreck from dissipation. He cannot live long."^[3]

— The New York Times: June 3, 1897.

Baldwin had been taken to the City Hospital about the beginning of June, 1897. Loftus and Wachenheim were not heard of now, and Baldwin told authorities his best friend was George Witte, a Sixth Street grocer who befriended him when he needed money or a place to sleep. He was described as a physical wreck and was not expected to recover. At the beginning of June, the Enquirer reported that in recent days he had been unable to sleep, until finally his mind gave way and he became violent. On July 3, 1897 Clarence Baldwin appeared in Probate Court to be examined by a judge to see if Baldwin should be sent to a mental hospital.^[1]

Though the cause of Baldwin's death was not well documented, he was committed to the Longview Insane Asylum.^[4] He died on 10 July 1897(1897-07-10) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was laid to rest in Longview Asylum Cemetery in Cincinnati.

In seven season, 1884 to 1890, Baldwin batted .221 with 371 hits, 56 doubles, 27 triples, seven home runs, 178 RBIs, 36 base on balls and 40 steals in 441 games.

Personal life

Baldwin was born in Newport, Kentucky, on the south bank of the Ohio River across from the city of Cincinnati. Born to Robert and Harriet Baldwin on November 1, 1864, he was the seventh of at least eight children. A few years after his birth, the family was living in St. Louis, Missouri, a move from one river town to another probably prompted by the Robert Baldwin's profession as a steamboat pilot.^[1]

On a number of occasions Baldwin had been reportedly been engaged. He finally got married in November, 1889, to Mary Killiger of Quincy, Illinois.^[1]

During the off-season after the 1891 season Baldwin made an unsuccessful try at sheep raising in the state of Washington.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au} Kid Baldwin Bio
2. ^ "The Minor Leagues". The Weekly Argus News. July 23, 1892. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=t4InAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CwQGAAAAIBAJ&pg=4078,2227892&dq=kid+baldwin&hl=en. Retrieved December 21, 2009. 
3. ^ "Kid" Baldwin Likely to Die Soon.nytimes.com
4. ^ NYTimes Archives, July 4, 1897 nytimes.com

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
• Baseball Almanac
• MLB

Persondata
Name	Baldwin, Kid
Alternative names	Baldwin, Clarence Geoghan
Short description	Baseball player
Date of birth	1864-10-01
Place of birth	Newport, Kentucky
Date of death	1897-07-10
Place of death	Cincinnatti, Ohio