I though I'd end the week with another short biography on a former Dodger who is certainly unknown to you. Featured above is an 1887 Old Judge tobacco card of an former Grays/Dodgers hurler named Stephen "Steve" John Toole. It was recently for sale at Bagger's Auctions, and closed at $220.00.
Born in New Orleans but reared in Pittsburgh, Steve Toole did as most lads were wont to do. He played games with the neighborhood kids and worked a job folding newspapers in order to contribute to the family coffers. Always the civic minded chap, he longed to cast his first vote and get involved in the community. He once said (via an 1904 article in The Pittsburgh Press),
"I thought I could do a lot for my friends if I ever had the chance, and because I hoped that I could do something to better the conditions of my neighbors and the part of town in which I lived."Soon enough he would fulfill that desire, but before getting into the wild world of politics he played some professional Base Ball. At the age of 27, Steve Toole would come to Brooklyn.
