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<p>NOTE: DEB SHATTUCK HAS SUPPLEMENTAL DATA ON THIS EVENT AND WILL BE AMENDING THIS ENTRY ACCORDINGLY IN DECEMBER 2013.</p> +
<p>None of these sources gives a reference to evidence of the 1856 formation of the Union Club, so we here rely on the documented reference to a planned 1858 game. </p> +
<p>Note Civil War historian Bruce Allardice's caveat, above: "In my opinion the clubs that played weren't 'corps' clubs, but rather regimental or brigade clubs that by their play other regiments/brigades <em>claimed</em> the Third and Sixth Corps championships."</p> +
<p>Note that while Wheaton calls his group the "first ball organization," in fact the Philadelphia club that played Philadelphia town ball had formed several years earlier.</p> +
<p>Note: Craig Waff asks whether clubs could formally claimed annual championships this early in base ball's evolution; email of 10/28/2008. He suggests that, under the informal conventions of the period, the Gothams [who had wrested the honor from the Knickerbockers in September 1856], held it throughout 1857.</p> +
<p>Note: as of January 2023, we are uncertain whether this game was played by modern (Knickerbocker) rules. See John Zinn's assessment, below.</p> +
<p>One wishes there was more evidence that this form of "base" was a ball-game, and not a game like tag or capture-the-flag. If "base" was a ball-game, this report of native American play nearly 3 centuries ago is certainly remarkable. </p> +
<p>Our dating of this reflection as c1850 is arbitrary. Parris writes only the the (unnamed) game was known before game the modern game arrived in 1864-65. This reflection was reported in 1945 -- 95 years after 1850, when Parris himself was in his mid-90s'</p> +
<p>Peter Morris'<em> A Game of Inches</em> finds other claims to the invention of the current figure 8 stitching pattern. See section 9.1.4 at page 275 of the single-volume, indexed edition of 2010.</p> +
<p>Richard Hershberger (email of 10/6/2014) points out that the <em>Sunday Mercury</em> account of this game's key at bat "makes it clear that they were swinging strikes'[not called strikes]. </p> +
<p>Richard Hershberger [email of 10/19/2009] notes that, in examining the article on the MA game, he found that the sides had ten players each, but seems otherwise to reflect Association rules. He notes that outside of match games, it was not unusual for clubs to depart from the having nine players on a side.</p> +
<p>Robert E. Lee is reported to have become Superintendent of West Point in September 1852; and had been stationed in Baltimore until then; can Calthrop's date be reconciled?</p> +
<p>SF early baseball specialist [[Angus Macfarlane]] points out that this game was not carried in any SF newspaper still extant, despite the fact that many were lauding the game just a few months later (email of 12/15/12). Another report (also lacking a local reference) of the foundation of a club, the San Francisco BBC, appeared in the <em>Spirit of the Times</em> on 3/27/1858. Images exist of a "Boston BBC of San Francisco" organized in 1857, but no further references are known. </p> +
<p>See 1860.38. Either the 1860 game in Allegheny was unknown, or not considered to have been played under National Association rules.</p> +