George Vanderbeck

George Arthur Vanderbeck
(Count)

• Born September 21, 1864 in Parma, NY USA
• Died April 9, 1938 in Los Angeles, CA USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

George Vanderbeck was an influential figure in baseball circles in the late 19th century as a team owner in the minor leagues. He was often called Van Derbeck, Von Derbeck or Van Der Beck in newspaper stories and nicknamed "Count".

He was not always fully above board in his business dealings and as a result was often involved in court procedures. He was the son of a small business owner who turned the profit of his work into ownership of a large farm in what is now Rochester, NY and built a large mansion in the town's business district. George began in life by working as a bookkeeper for A.A. Geroe and Son, a local fruit and produce merchant and eventually married the boss's daughter, However, the marriage did not last and he moved clear across the country to Portland, OR around 1888 where he purchased large tracts of lands to turn them into fruit farms.

In 1890, he helped to establish the Pacific Northwest League and owned the circuit's Portland Gladiators club. He sold his shares in 1891 and relocated to San Francisco, CA, where he tried unsuccessfully to merge the Pacific Northwest League with the California League, and that having failed, in 1892 created he first Los Angeles Angels team to play in that circuit. However, some of his business shenanigans soon turned his name to mud among league owners, who expelled him at a league meeting in December. After failing to regain his franchise, he applied for a team in the Western League and was awarded the Detroit Creams franchise in November 1893. That team would become the minor league Detroit Tigers in 1895 and is the ancestor of today's major league franchise of that name. He can therefore be considered the founder of the franchise.

Vanderbeck brought manager Bob Glenalvin and a number of players from his former California League team to form the heart of the Detroit team, but their initial season was not particularly successful. In 1895, he dismissed manager Con Strothers to briefly take the reins himself, but was not any more successful and retreated to the front office the next year. He also clashed with one of his best players, SS Monte Cross, running him out of town, and blamed the official scorer for denigrating the team in the press. Managers came and went over the next few seasons, until he settled on George Stallings in 1898. He was soon just as disliked by Western League owners as he had been by those in the California League, but he managed to stay in place. Among other trespasses he was fined $100 for player tampering in the spring of 1897. One of his best moves was the construction of a new ballpark, Bennett Park, which opened in 1896, replacing the inadequate Recreation Park used in the team's first two seasons. While the ballpark was no great shakes, its site was a good one, and that is where Tiger Stadium would eventually be built. In 1898, he went behind other league owners' backs in attempting to purchase the Cleveland Spiders of the National League to move them to Detroit, but the move failed.

Things finally caught up with him after the 1899 season, just as the Western League was making the move to becoming a major league under the leadership of Ban Johnson, renaming itself the American League for the 1900 season and replacing some of its smaller cities with those abandoned by the National League through contraction. That January, unpaid debts began to haunt Vanderbeck, especially following his divorce settlement with Mary Hamilton, as he was unable to pay her alimony. His ex-wife sued to obtain property of the team and its ballpark instead, and he barely managed to retain property by filing a bond on February 17, 1900. However, the game was up for him, as by then the league had expelled him, and he had to sell the team quickly. The buyer was manager Stallings and his business partner, saloon owner James D. Burns. The deal was completed on March 6th.

He never returned to baseball after that. He moved away from Detroit after a couple of years, returned to the fruit and produce wholesale business, remarried (that third marriage also ended up in divorce after a few years) and eventually moved back to Los Angeles where he was active in real estate. His name continued to appear in court cases from time to time after that, and he died there in 1938 at age 73.

Related Sites

• George A. Vanderbeck at the SABR Bio Project