Alfred H. Spink

Alfred Henry Spink (August 24, 1854 – May 27, 1928) was a Canadian-born American baseball writer and club organizer based mainly in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1886 he established a weekly newspaper, The Sporting News (TSN), that emerged from World War I as the only national baseball newspaper or magazine.

Born in the city of Quebec, Canada, Al Spink and his two brothers learned baseball's English cousin, cricket. The family of ten moved to Chicago after the American Civil War and the boys moved to baseball, whose boom was continental in scope. In 1869 or 1870, the Spinks founded the amateur Mutual club on the West Side, named after the professional Mutuals of New York. Probably there were dozens of amateur clubs in Chicago beside the professional White Stockings.

Older brother Billy (William C.) became sporting editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and persuaded Al to move to that city in 1875, where he was soon covering baseball for the Missouri, later St. Louis Republican. The city's first fully professional baseball team, the original were then in operation, contesting the championship of the U.S. in the National Association and then the National League.

Not long after the Browns went out of business in December 1877, the Spink brothers began thinking about how to restore professional baseball in their city. Unfortunately, spectator interest in the game had been damaged by the scandal that persuaded the Browns to drop out, and they struggled to organize a team of former pros playing cooperatively.

Al Spink helped turn the trick in 1881, establishing the Sportsman's Park and Club Association with Chris von der Ahe, whose first work was to acquire and renovate the old Grand Avenue ballpark (as Sportsman's Park). Spink organized a new Brown Stockings team and booked games with other western teams, especially one organized by Cincinnati baseball writer O.P. Caylor and billed as the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The success of independent commercial baseball in 1881, especially in St. Louis, inspired organization of the American Association league for 1882, with Sportsman's Park and Club its member from St. Louis. The writers Spink and Caylor remained influential although the clubs were owned by men of "greater substance".

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