Springfield Senators, 1905 player-manager Frank Donnelly in center. However, the league did not resume in 1890. The Springfield Senators had finished second in the Central Interstate in 1889. Kinsella was among the early boosters of local minor-league baseball, starting at least in 1890, when a group of businessmen tried to raise money to support Springfield’s team in the Central Interstate League. He also operated Kinsella Paint and Varnish for more than 50 years in Springfield. He was a delegate to severaI Democratic national conventions, including serving as sergeant-at arms at the 1912 convention. Kinsella served on the Sangamon County Board of Supervisors and then was county treasurer from 1898 to 1902.
The Illinois State Journal hinted at his playing style in an 1897 story involving a feud between Kinsella and Springfield Mayor Marion Woodruff: “Kinsella has been a power in Democratic politics in Springfield ever since the days when he played baseball and the bleachers went wild over the manner in which he stole second (base).”
Kinsella played first base during his own on-field career, which apparently was spent with town teams businesses like the Illinois Watch Factory, Myers Brothers department store, local railroads and others sponsored teams during the period. He may also have been involved in McGraw’s signing of Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity Kinsella said he and McGinnity once played on the same team in Springfield. As a scout – at first, in fact, McGraw’s only scout – Kinsella discovered dozens of major-league baseball players, including Hall of Famers Carl Hubbell, Frankie Frisch, Freddie Lindstrom, Mickey Cochrane and Hack Wilson. (A sports writer reportedly once said “his eyebrows looked like fright wigs.”) Nonetheless, Kinsella was a tough, old-school baseball man. “Sinister Dick” got his nickname not because of skullduggery but because of his dark, bushy, intimidating eyebrows. McGraw, the Hall of Fame manager of the New York Giants from 1902 to 1932.
But he was famous nationally as the right-hand man of John J. Richard “Sinister Dick” Kinsella (1862-1939) was a semi-pro baseball player, owner of Springfield’s Three-I League team and a well-known local politician. Richard Kinsella (center, with moustache) and one of his teams.
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