Jul 17, 2023
If you were doing well in a profession, would you have the courage to try a different profession, and changing fields drastically? One St. Louis man did just that, walking away from a successful publishing career, and going out into the great unknown. ———
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Podcast Transcript: I’m Adam Kloppe, public
historian with the Missouri Historical Society, and Here’s History
on eighty-eight one, KDHX. ———
The idea of switching careers is exciting, but it generates all sorts of questions and anxieties. Do you have the experience you’ll need to find success? Will the change create financial hardships? Does starting over mean having to go to the bottom of the career ladder? ———
One has to wonder if questions like these were swirling around in the mind of St. Louisan Al Spink in 1890. By this point, Al had created quite a legacy for himself in publishing. He had moved to St. Louis around 1875 to pursue a career in journalism. He focused on covering sports, particularly baseball, and he quickly earned a name for himself as a reporter. In 1886, Al vaulted his career to new heights when he started his own sports publication—The Sporting News. This publication would become one of the most famous sports magazines in America, and its dedicated coverage of baseball even earned it the nickname “The Bible of Baseball.” ———
But back in 1890, Al wanted to try something new. He left the paper he founded to his brother and took his talents to a new stage. Literally. A longtime theater lover, Al had decided to try his hand at becoming a playwright. For the next three years, he worked on a play called The Derby Winner, a romantic comedy centered around St. Louis horseracing. The production was huge—the cast included over 40 people and several racehorses that were trained to run on treadmills during the racing scenes in the show. Needless to say, all of this was quite expensive. ———
The Derby Winner hit the stage of the Grand Opera House in St. Louis on August 25, 1894. The next day, the papers praised the show, but didn’t rave about it—the Post-Dispatch, for example, thought it was exciting and well-acted, but that it had a fairly corny plot. Still, the play turned into enough of a hit that Al and his co-producers decided to take the show on the road. ———
But The Derby Winner did not find success outside of St. Louis. Reviews for the show were decidedly mixed, and the crowds dwindled. By the time Al sold his stake in the play in 1896, he was reported to have lost over a quarter of a million dollars—that’d be over nine million dollars today. He eventually returned to St. Louis and went back to publishing, a field he knew he could find success in. ———
Here’s History is a joint production of KDHX and the Missouri Historical Society. I’m Adam Kloppe, and this is eighty-eight one, KDHX, St. Louis. ———