I first became aware of the St. Louis Whites through the Old Judge baseball card set, which includes fourteen players from that team. David Nemec in The Beer and Whiskey League noted that “in the spring of 1888... Von der Ahe formed the St. Louis Whites as a kind of farm team to play in the Western Association." Peter Morris (A Game of Inches: The Game Behind The Scenes) wrote “St. Louis Brown Stockings owner Chris Von der Ahe operated the St. Louis Whites of the Western Association as a farm club, signing no fewer than twenty-nine players to 1888 contracts by December of 1887.” That's pretty much all I knew about the Whites for many years. However, after reading through the archives of newspapers from the late 1880s, such as the Post-Dispatch and the Globe Democrat, the full story of the Whites became clear. No longer just fourteen players on old baseball cards and a page on Baseball-Reference, these pages now tell the history of the club and their league, the Western Association, as pieced together from the papers of the time.The St. Louis Whites played in the Western Association for just part of one season, 1888, the first season for the league. The Western Association was formally organized in late October of 1887 with teams in Chicago, Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis and St. Paul. The St. Louis club - the St. Louis Whites - was owned by Chris Von der Ahe, who also owned the St. Louis Browns, the three-peat defending Champions of the American Association. Von der Ahe owned 50% of the club, with Whites' manager Tom Loftus and Browns star Charlie Comiskey splitting the remaining 50%. After the Western Association was organized in the fall of 1887, Von der Ahe and Loftus went on a signing spree, signing several dozen players for the Browns and Whites for the 1888 season. The St. Louis Republican published a list of 28 players in December, 1887 signed for the two St. Louis ball clubs. By Spring Training, this list had expanded to encompass 31 players.
The St. Louis Whites played their first exhibition game against the St. Louis Browns on March 25, 1888. Their first championship game was April 28, 1888, against Milwaukee, at Sportsman’s Park. Their first 11 games were at home, while the Browns were on a road trip. Two games were cancelled due to the poor spring weather, and the attendance was poor at the games that were played. By late May, as the club returned from it first road trip, there were already reports that Von der Ahe was trying to sell the club. After at least one sale fell through in early June, he disbanded the club on June 24, 1888 and sold or released the remaining players (with a few being transferred to the Browns). The club lasted under two months, with a final record of 14-27 (the final two losses being forfeits).
