Finding Ella

I first learned of Ella Black when reviewing Jean Hastings Ardell's book, Breaking into Baseball. Ardell's book sent me to The Sporting Life, where I read Black's reports from Pittsburgh and was drawn into the story of the Brotherhood War. Black was an easy choice for one of the three sports journalists I used for my book, Reporting Baseball's Sensational Season of 1890. In contrast to Henry Chadwick, who favored the National League, and former major leaguer Tim Murnane, who backed the rival Players' League, Black was the most objective of the three in her observations, coverage, and analysis, despite being supportive of the players' efforts to create fairer labor practices. Like Chadwick and Murnane, Black was aware of baseball's public image problems with "the better class of patrons"—which included women—and cognizant of the growing role of sports journalism in selling more ticket to a wider audience.

What I didn't find in my research, however, was a sense of Black's day-today existence. Her account of her visit to Brooklyn to meet Henry Chadwick includes a description of the father of baseball at his home. After spending four months defending charges that she was a fake, Black mentions Chadwick's affirmation that she was indeed a woman and his praise for her knowledge of baseball—even if he claimed she was misguided in her support of the disloyal, spoiled players. Ultimately, however, Ella provided few other personal details of the meeting.

When I noticed that Black's voice disappeared from the pages of The Sporting Life in November of 1890, I began to search for more information. With the help of Jim Odenkirk, I conducted a census search that yielded no results, possibly due to Black's common name, which was most likely a pseudonym due to the dubious reputation of journalism in the late nineteenth century, and also due to the fact that the 1890 census was lost in a fire. With only the few biographical details from her columns, a biography would be difficult to produce. Still, Black's struggle to write baseball was a story I wanted to tell due to the triple dose of bias she experienced as an educated woman braving the wrath of nineteenth century American Victorianism to become a sports journalist.

So, after developing a thorough familiarity with Black's writing style—and her voice—in the process of writing my non-fiction book about the Brotherhood War, I turned to fiction to fill in the spaces between the sparse details. In the novel, which has the working title of Finding Ella, Black relates her experiences as a baseball reporter for The Sporting Life during the 1890 season. In particular, Black focuses on her interest in Billy Gumble, a character initially based on an actual Pittsburgh Allegheny pitcher, Billy Gumbert. In the excerpt that follows, Black travels to Cincinnati to cover Gumble's tryout against the Reds. The novel goes on to follow Black's reporting on Gumble's nine remaining games (with the scenes being based on Gumbert's actual performances in 1890) for the Alleghenys, who were on pace to set a new record for losses in a season. In addition to the backdrop of the Brotherhood War, Black's visit with Henry Chadwick is depicted, with cameo appearances by Albert Spalding, Sporting Life editor Francis Richter, long-time baseball fan Walt Whitman, and other players, managers, and owners.

The excerpt also depicts the challenges Ella Black faced as she travels alone from Pittsburgh to cover Gumble's first game, along with her notoriety as a credential-carrying writer for The Sporting Life. Further, the excerpt features Irene Meredith, an actual sportswriter for the Cincinnati Enquirer who founded a women's fan club like the one Black belonged to in Pittsburgh before the season started. Ren Mulford, the Cincinnati correspondent for The Sporting Life and a baseball writer for the Enquirer, is also present in the excerpt so that Black can dispel the doubts he aired publicly about her identity and the ability of a woman to write sports.

Ella Black is not...