John Rogers (baseball)
baseball team owner from the United States, born 1844
John Ignatius Rogers (May 27, 1844, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – March 13, 1910, Denver, Colorado), was part-owner of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1883 to 1899, and majority owner from 1899 to 1903. He also owned the Philadelphia Phillies of the short-lived National Football League of 1902.
Rogers was born to Irish immigrant parents in Philadelphia on May 27, 1844. He earned his law degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the bar in 1865. Rogers was elected the city comptroller in 1880. As a member of the City Troop/(First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry), he participated in the quelling of the Pittsburgh riots during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Rogers was later appointed Judge Advocate General of the Philadelphia National Guard, with the rank of colonel.
A prominent attorney and politician in Philadelphia, Rogers came to the baseball business when former player and sporting goods magnate Al Reach consulted with him on a patent for a baseball. Rogers and Reach later teamed up to acquire the remnants of the Worcester Worcesters in 1883, winning the rights to the franchise via drawing of lots. Reach and Rogers relocated the franchise to Philadelphia, where they became known as the Quakers (they would later become the Phillies), entering the team as an expansion franchise in the National League in 1883.
The public source identifies “John Rogers (baseball)” as baseball team owner from the United States, born 1844. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Rogers and baseball.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Rogers (baseball)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.