"King" Kelly bash remembers old-time baseball

L.E. Crowley
Town Correspondent

Baseball followers today may not have heard of Mike “King” Kelly, but back in the 1880s, he was as famous as Babe Ruth or Alex Rodriguez—and he had the salary to prove it.

“In his time, he was the most famous ballplayer in America, and he was the highest paid,” said Suzanne Buchanan, director of Hingham’s Historical Society.

Unlike the infamous Babe Ruth trade that sent the most popular player in baseball to the hated New York Yankees, Kelly—the most popular player of his time--came to the Boston Beaneaters in a trade with the Chicago White Stockings for $10,000.

Buchanan says his Kelly's salary was about $10,000 a year. In addition, however, his Irish supporters loved him so much that they bought him a house in Hingham at 507 Main St., where the historical society and other organizations will host the second “King Kelly Baseball Bash" Saturday at the home of Moira and Cameron Congdon.

Moira said that when she bought the house four years ago, she didn’t know anything about its history, or the legend of King Kelly. “I jumped right on board when (the historical society) brought the idea to me,” Congdon said.

The party is a fund-raiser for the historical society and will include special guest Joanne Hulbert, a researcher for the Society for American Baseball Research, located in Cooperstown, N.Y., home of baseball’s Hall of Fame.

The party begins at 7 p.m. There will be a barbecue, live music, raffles, and a cash bar. Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door.

Hingham's 2-year-old vintage baseball teams, the Coopers and the Derbys, will entertain party-goers with an old-time baseball demonstration.

While Kelly’s legend lives on at the Hall of Fame and in Hingham, the man himself didn’t live past his 40th birthday.

According to Gary Nisbit, who started the Hingham vintage teams and has researched Kelly's life, the King died at age 36 in 1894 after he fell off a cruise ship and contracted pneumonia. The fall occurred after a night of prodigious drinking--an endeavor Kelly was as known for as baseball.