D.A. Long Was Pioneer in Baseball and Journalism
by Roger Amsden, Weirs Times News Correspondent

     D.A. "Denny" Long, for whom the tavern at Funspot is named, grandfather of Funspot owners Bob and John Lawton, was an American original, a man who was both practical and visionary, a hard-headed, shrewd businessman who also demonstrated an optimistic idealism and a far-sighted grasp of what the future would bring. He was a pioneer in an age of pioneering optimists and made his mark in both baseball and journalism, rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers of his time and, despite what his contemporaries would call humble or modest beginnings, achieved his full share of the American Dream the old-fashioned way, through the hard work and persistence that enabled him to make full use of his quick mind, original insights and organizational skills. He will always be associated with two American "firsts," the first regularly scheduled night baseball game which was played 100 years ago in Wilmington, Delaware, and the first dual circulation Sunday newspaper, in which his Lowell Sunday Telegram was combined for sale with the Boston Post, producing good results for both papers in and around the Lowell area in the early part of this century.

     That lively sense of life's possibilities and the confidence that just about anything was achievable found its full expression in the Gilded Age of American history (1880-1900) and produced a lively, contentious, endlessly fascinating tableau in which fortunes were made and lost in a rough and tumble financial and business world and ostentatious displays of wealth held a great fascination for the American public. It was an age of success and of excess, in which the pursuit of wealth was more often glorified than stigmatized and in which the businessman and the spirit of business enterprise dominated the American scene as never before, or since, in our history. Horatio Alger stories of a sudden rise to fame and fortune were the staple of the day and the idea that opportunity was there for those with the grit and determination and the good idea or product that would have great popular appeal gripped just about every young man in America. It was a society of opportunity, attuned to business and reflecting its values, one in which wealth was seen as the just reward of effort and which spawned its own reaction in the age of progressive reform against the trusts, the railroads and monopolies which followed. It was an age of adventure and excitement in which the nation was still expanding across the continent and an internal migration from farms to cities was taking place at the same time that millions of immigrants reached our shores.

     D.A. Long moved from the Carlisle, Mass., farm where he was born and the village school he had attended, to the city of Lowell, long known as a center of manufacturing and world famous for its textile mills, becoming part of that great internal exodus from farm to city. His personality was so dynamic that he was elected president of his graduating class in high school, a sign of even bigger things to come. The bigger stage that he found when he moved from Carlisle to Lowell suited him just fine. Baseball was establishing itself as the national past-time and was becoming an immensely popular spectator sport. The first professional league, the National League, had been formed in 1876 with teams in cities like New York, St. Louis and Boston, eventually having 12 teams by 1890. But the nation's thirst for the sport seemed nearly unquenchable and the demand spread to smaller cities where lesser or "minor" leagues were formed. Long, who was a catcher in his high school days, had a sharp eye for baseball talent and a love of the game which continued all of his life. He owned the franchise of the Birmingham, Ala. club in 1893 and 1894 and from 1895 to 1898 held the franchise of the Toledo club, known throughout all of organized baseball as the Mudhens. In 1893 he and Ban Johnson, the strong-willed baseball legend who later became president of the American League, formed the Western League, which was destined to grow to major league status in 1900 and join with the rival National League in holding the first World Series in 1903. Long also held the franchise of the Reading, Pa. club in 1899 and later held financial interest in the New England League. But it was July 4, 1896, that he established baseball history when the club he managed, the Wilmington, Delaware club met the Patterson, New Jersey club, under the lights at Wilmington. There had been other night games before that in professional baseball, but none had been a regularly scheduled league game as was this Atlantic League encounter. This was a first!

     Long enjoyed quite a reputation for spotting talent and liked to bring along his young players, at one time having 15 pitchers on his Toledo Mudhens. And he was said to have sold more players to the big leagues than any other franchise owner. "I gave young players a better chance than any other team," Long recalled during a 1932 interview with the Evening Citizen which was conducted in the stands of the Pearl St. grounds (now Memorial Park) in Laconia during a game in which his son, Al, managed the Laconia team. His players were sold to Baltimore, which later became the New York American League franchise, as well as to Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. At the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898 Frank Bancroft of Cincinnati joked that "Denny Long has sold enough players to Cincinnati to free Cuba." One of the first players Long sold to a major league team was Joe Sugden, who caught for the Pirates, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Detroit in a 13-year major league career which spanned 1893-1905. Sugden later was the chief scout for the St. Louis Cardinals and worked with baseball legend Branch Rickey, founder of the farm system which came to dominate the way major league teams developed young players. Long said that the most money he ever received for any player that he sold was $1,750 for Andy Coakley, who went on to become a 20-game winner for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1905.

     D.A's other first, the combined sale of two Sunday newspapers, nearly came to fruition in Newark, New Jersey, instead of Lowell. But the sinking of the battleship "Maine" in Havana harbor sank that plan. Long conceived of the idea of a combination sale of a Newark paper and a New York daily for two cents an issue and was negotiating the details when the "Maine" was destroyed, creating such a demand for newspapers that the New York publishers resorted to hiring outside printers to keep up with the demand and the deal fell through. At that time New York papers sold for one cent in New York and two cents in New Jersey. Long had proposed buying New York papers for 40 cents a hundred and selling them along with his planned Newark newspaper for two cents. He then turned his attention to Lowell in 1899 and established the Lowell Sunday Telegram. When talks with the Boston Herald over the joint venture went nowhere, Long turned E.A. Grozier of the Boston Post, offering him one and a quarter cents per copy for the recently-started Sunday Post, which was selling for three cents a copy and had a circulation of 600 in Lowell. Grozier saw merit in the plan and decided to talk it over with his brother, but Long, not wanting to wait for protracted negotiations, took matters into his own hands and marched into Grozier's office with a huge pile of greenbacks in his hand. When Grozier told him that he hadn't yet talked with his brother, Long put the pile of bills on his desk and said "I will buy 204,000 copies of the Sunday Post at one and a quarter cents per copy and here's the cash. Count it." Grozier called his brother to have him come into the office and started counting the money. He said afterwards that the combination idea was a powerful one and greatly boosted the Sunday Post's circulation. At the height of the arrangement Long was buying 18,000 copies of the Post for distribution with his Sunday Telegram. "I never had anything in writing with Mr. Grozier but his word was better than a government bond and as a businessman I believe he had no equal among the heads of American newspapers." said Long.

     It was the golden age of American newspapers with competition flourishing and large cities supporting as many as a half dozen major publications in which the press flexed its newly-found muscle with lively, sometimes florid accounts of war, crimes, scandal and celebrity. William Randolph Hearst's patriotic tub-thumping produced charges of "Yellow Journalism" and the great muckraking publications were everywhere exposing official corruption and the abuses of giant corporations. Denny Long earned a reputation for his paper's aggressive coverage of civic matters and as "a restraining influence often upon official indiscretion," according to an editorial in the daily newspaper in Lowell written after his death in 1943. Long ran the Sunday Telegram from 1899 until 1922, building it into a $100,000 property, which he sold to Benjamin Pouzzner and which continued as a strong influence in Lowell for decades.

     An active and energetic man, shortly after World War I Long bought a summer home on Simpson Avenue at the Weirs and spent his summers in the area, making his mark as a fisherman and becoming involved in many summer activities in the area, In August of 1926 Long landed a seven and a half pound smallmouth bass near the Eagle Island buoy at the Weirs, pulling the prize in after a 40-minute struggle. It was up to that point the second largest small-mouth bass ever landed in Lake Winnipesaukee and was mounted and displayed at Irwin's Dance Garden for a number of years. It is now on display at the D.A. Long Tavern. Field and Stream magazine honored Long for landing the largest small-mouth bass taken in fresh water that year and he also was presented with the Boston Herald mug for the largest bass caught in New England. Long continued that success for a number of years, landing a seven and a quarter pounder off Jolly Island in 1936, the same day that his four-year-old grandson, Bobby, (Bob Lawton, Weirs Times publisher) landed a three and a quarter pound bass. He also continued his interest in newspapers and helped his grandson, John, land his first job in the Weirs at the age of nine. Appropriately enough that job entailed assembling the Sunday newspapers after they arrived at the Weirs on the Boston and Maine paper train early on Sunday mornings. The newspapers were then taken by boat to the islands in the lake where John sold them to the summer island dwellers.

     Long continued with his interests in gardening, golf, baseball, business and politics and was well-known in and around Laconia and the Weirs during his retirement years. His two grandsons, John and Bob, opened Funspot at the Weirs in 1964, and have been active in both state and local politics. Bob served in the legislature with his mother, Doris Thompson, D.A. Long's daughter, in the 1960s and 1970s and is best known for his legislation which put the state's "Live Free or Die" motto on New Hampshire license plates. Bob's son, Dave, is a state representative from Meredith and Center Harbor, and continues another family tradition as managing editor of the Weirs Times. Both he and his father now serve in the state legislature together, keeping alive two family traditions, of public service and of newspaper publishing, which date back nearly 100 years to D.A. "Denny" Long, the colorful and dynamic publisher and baseball franchise owner whose flair and enterprising spirit made him one of the most well-known and respected men of an unforgettable era of American history.