Biography by Jerrold Casway is located in the American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, 1999.

Alfred James Reach (25 May 1840-14 Jan. 1928), baseball player, sporting-goods manufacturer, and franchise owner, was born in London, England, the son of Benjamin Reach, a trading agent, and Elizabeth Dyball. His parents immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, when he was a year old. He had little formal education. Brought up with temperate values and a strong work ethic, Reach sold newspapers on Broadway and worked as a ship caulker. He became an ironmolder, "wielding heavy tools" twelve hours a day in a foundry (Ledger, 11 July 1915).

Following in his father's cricket-playing tradition, Reach discovered by the age of seventeen that he possessed a talent for the popular "New York-style" game of baseball. On the sandlots of Brooklyn he gained renown as a catcher and captain of the Jackson Juniors of Williamsburg. His move to the famous blue-collar Eckford Baseball Club of Brooklyn brought him to the attention of prominent teams bidding for the services of promising young players.

Impressed with the integrity and business sense of Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald, the president of the Philadelphia Athletics, Reach joined the Philadelphia club in 1865 as a second baseman and became one of the first "professional" baseball players. Although earning only $25 a week and commuting home to Brooklyn between games, Reach considered it the best decision he had ever made. This sentiment was reinforced at the start of the 1866 season, when Fitzgerald set him up in a downtown cigar-and-tobacco store. The site quickly became a popular gathering spot for the city's sportsmen. Before the year was out Reach began brokering tickets and merchandising baseball gear and uniforms. After his marriage on Christmas Day to Louise Betts of Brooklyn, with whom he had four children, the couple moved to Philadelphia.

For most of the next decade the veteran Reach, nicknamed "Pop" because of his maturity and the respect of his peers, became one of the sport's most popular and admired players. Fast and sure-handed, he set a standard for playing second base. He was known as the "scratcher" for his capability of "digging" up hard-hit balls (Item, 1 May 1898). According to Sporting Life, Reach was the first second baseman to station himself off the bag in shallow right field between first and second bases (12 Dec. 1888, p. 6). The 5' 6" 155-pound Reach hit left-handed with skill and power. His feats and gentlemanly behavior were lauded by the sporting press, which closely followed his playing career through the National Association baseball era, from 1871 to 1875. In 1874 Reach became the playing manager of the Athletics and visited England on baseball's first overseas tour. When the National League was formed two years later, Reach retired to devote his attention to his expanding business ventures. His peers acknowledged him as the best second baseman of his era.

The year of the English tour Reach anticipated an increased demand for baseball and sporting supplies and established a large retail store in Philadelphia. After seven prosperous years he expanded and took Ben Shibe, a local sportsman and leather manufacturer, as a partner. Later, Reach's son married Shibe's daughter. The New York Clipper credited Reach's entrepreneurial rise to his "temperate habits, general disposition . . . sterling integrity . . . [and] steady industry" (15 Apr. 1882). This reputation and Reach's background made him a natural candidate for rescuing the failing Worcester, Massachusetts, baseball franchise.
 
Joined by Colonel John I. Rogers, an attorney on Governor Pattison's staff, in 1883 Reach became the first president of the Philadelphia Phillies. With no players and nothing but the right of franchise, Reach renovated an old ball park and hastily assembled a team. To mark this inaugural season he also began publishing the annual Reach's Official . . . Baseball Guide, which contained summaries and statistics from the previous season, as well as previews of the upcoming year. After a dismal 1883 season (last in the eight-team league), Reach, who was accustomed to success, signed baseball's leading manager, Harry Wright. The team improved immediately, and within a few years the little ball park proved inadequate. Reach responded in 1887 by building a spacious state-of-the-art wooden baseball stadium at Broad and Lehigh streets for the unprecedented cost of $80,000.
 
These successes were accompanied by problems associated with the growth of professional sports. Faced with rising operational costs, Reach and other owners faced disputes over salaries and the players' reserve clause. In 1890 the players' union established its own baseball league. The subsequent litigation and feuding proved disturbing and expensive for Reach. But he had anticipated these problems by selling his retail outlets to his enterprising rival, Albert Spalding, for $100,000. Reach retained the company's name and the production side of the business. By the mid-1890s he met the growing demand for sportsware with larger factories in Philadelphia and in Brantford, Ontario. Reach's enduring manufacturing successes came partly from his development of a machine for winding baseballs. He and his brother Robert actually set up a school to train young men to make baseballs. Reach also prospered by his ability to anticipate physical fitness equipment needs.
 
Reach's direct interest in baseball diminished after an 1894 fire destroyed his new ball park. His huge insurance losses were compounded by the expense of rebuilding a new kind of baseball stadium that would eliminate the risk of fires, relegate obstructive posts to the rear of the pavilion, and use a new steel cantilever system for hanging decks and roofs. The astute businessman and promoter built a large lighted, banked asphalt bicycle track around the playing field. But by the end of the decade the contentious Colonel Rogers assumed the daily operations of the franchise. This shift did not improve the ailing finances of the luckless Phillies, who fared poorly in the post-1901 salary wars with the upstart American League. When Shibe acquired the Philadelphia American League franchise and signed leading players from the Phillies, such as Napoleon Lajoie, Reach was awarded the contract for the new league's baseballs. In 1904 Reach and Rogers sold their weakened ball club for $170,000 but retained the title to the stadium and its facilities.
 
Over the next decade Reach's son, George, and the Spalding Company together dominated the sporting-goods business. Reach, meanwhile, retired to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he died. Until his health failed, he had maintained an active interest in athletics. Reach's esteemed reputation and an estate valued at more than a million dollars testify to his role and success in the new age of American sports.

Bibliography

Contemporary accounts of Reach's career are in the Philadelphia Bulletin, Philadelphia Evening Item, Philadelphia Evening Ledger, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, Philadelphia Press, and New York Clipper. Other sources include articles published in Sporting Life and Sporting News. See also Albert Spalding, America's National Game (1911); Frederick Lieb and Stan Baumgartner, The Philadelphia Phillies (1953); Harold Seymour, Baseball: The Early Years (1960); David Q. Voigt, American Baseball, vol. 1 (1980); George B. Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports (1989); William Ryczek, Blackguards and Red Stockings (1992); and Rich Westcott and Frank Bilovsky, The New Phillies Encyclopedia (1993). Obituaries are in the Philadelphia Bulletin, 14 Jan. 1928, and the New York Times, 15 Jan. 1928.

Note from Ken Milano: While this biography does not mention it, A. J. Reach's company with Ben Shibe was located in Kensington (Fishtown) at Tulip & Palmer Streets. By clicking  "here"  you can see a Hexamer Survey of the company from the year 1893.