Chronology:baseball
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1820c.24 Waterbury CT Jaws Drop as Baptist Deacon Takes the Field
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Age of Players:
"after the 'raising' of this building, at which, as was customary on such occasions, there was a large gathering of people who came to render voluntary assistance, the assembled company adjourned to the adjacent meadow (now owned by Charles Frost) for a game of baseball, and that certain excellent old ladies were much scandalized that prominent Baptists, among them Deacon Porter, should show on such an occasion so much levity as to take part in the game."
Joseph Anderson, ed., The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the Aboriginal Period to the Year 1895, Volume III (Price and Lee, New Haven CT, 1896), page 673n. Accessed 2/3/10 via Google Books search (Waterbury aboriginal III).
Circa
1820
1860.17 Base Ball vs. Cricket
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In a lengthy article, The Clipper (probably Henry Chadwick) explores the comparison of cricket to baseball, and the question of the suitability of baseball players as cricketers. Proposes matches between cricketers and baseballists. The Clipper returned to one point, the superiority of baseballists as fielders, in articles on Nov. 10 and Nov. 17, 1860.
Sources:
New York Clipper, April 28, 1860
Year
1860
1860.18 Juniors Organize in NYC
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[A] THE CONVENTION OF THE JUNIOR CLUBS.-- On Friday evening last,in accordance with an invitation from the Powhatan Club, of Brooklyn, a convention of delegates from the junior clubs was held at their rooms, for the purpose of forming an organization for the better regulation of matches...The following delegates were present from their respective clubs: (delegates from 31 clubs listed)
[B] THE JUNIOR CONVENTION.-- The second meeting of the delegates from the Junior Clubs was held , at Brooklyn, and the report of the Committee on Constitutions and By Laws was received and accepted. The Constitution of the Senior organization was accepted with...amendments...the Bylaws of the Seniors were adopted without amendment." The convention adopted the name "National Association of Junior Base Ball Players."
[C] The new association's first meeting convened in New York City on January 9, 1861.
Sources:
[A] New York Sunday Mercury, Oct. 7, 1860
[B] New York Clipper, Oct. 20, 1860
[C] New York Sunday Mercury, Jan. 20, 1861
Comment:
The Junior clubs had been excluded from membership in the National Association of Base Ball Players at the time of its formation in 1858.
Year
1860
1862.107 Army Commander Watches Baseball game
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Near Yorktown in April 1862, the 22nd MA played the 13th NY. Said one soldier of the 22nd, "I never enjoyed a game of ball better in my life..."
The army was in front of Yorktown at the time.
Army commander General George McClellan, and Corps commanders Heintzleman and Porter, rode by and witnessed the game.
Sources:
Cambridge Chronicle, May 3, 1862
Year
1862
1863.141 Drill, baseball and glee clubs
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In his famous memoir, "Recollections of a Private", Warren Lee Goss of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry recalls that in 1863, "Drill, baseball, glee clubs, besides the inevitable and never forgotten or omitted 'bluff' occupied our time [in camp]."
Sources:
Goss, "Recollections of a Private" p. 174.
Year
1863
1864.95 Union army garrison plays baseball at Fort Bartow
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A Georgia Historical Marker at "Fort Bartow" near Cartersville, GA, says that in 1864, the Union garrison played baseball in the field to the west of the fort.
Sources:
Georgia State Historical Marker
Year
1864
1867.17 First Multi-Racial Baseball Team?
Game:
The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Aug. 31, 1867, ran a box score on what may be the first reported baseball match in Hawaii, between the Pacific and Pioneer Clubs.
The players for the Pacifics included three non-Anglo names: J. Nakookoo, 2b; J. Naone, ss; and G. Laanui, rf. The Pacifics won the game 11-9.
Now, baseball had been played at the famed Punahou School for years and that school included pupils from prominent Polynesian-Hawaiian and Anglo-Hawaiian families.
This might be the first club integrated with Asians. Florence, MA in 1865 had a black player on their club.
The same issue of the newspaper included a report on the formation of a "pure Hawaiian" (presumably Polynesian-Hawaiian) team:
A new base ball club will soon be organized, to be composed entirely of pure Hawaiians.... The Pioneers and Pacifics [the 2 existing clubs, which played in the game above] will have to look out for their laurels."
Sources:
The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Aug. 31, 1867
Year
1867
1869c.4 Diana Base Ball Club of Northwestern Female Seminary
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In the fall of 1869, a number of newspapers reported on the existence of the Diana Female Base Ball Club at the "Northwestern Seminary" at Evanston. There has been some confusion in secondary sources about this team, with some scholars linking it to Northwestern University. This is incorrect. The Northwestern Female College (as it was known) was a separate institution from the University. The latter did not admit its first female student until Fall semester 1869. One female student could not have organized a baseball club. Further evidence that the Diana Base Ball Club was composed of younger girls, not college women, is the fact that a junior "pony club" of boys challenged them to a match game. (There is no evidence this game was ever played.) By way of further clarification, the Northwest Female College operated until 1871 when its trustees handed over responsibility for educating young women to the trustees of the newly-chartered Evanston College for Ladies. The original intent of the founders was to operate as the Women's Department of Northwestern University. This did not happen until 1874 when it became the Women's College of Northwestern University. Frances Willard, who would later gain international fame as head of the Women's Christian Temperance Union was a graduate of the Northwestern Female College and first president of the Evanston College for Ladies.
Sources:
Chicago Times (22 Oct 1869), p. 6. Quoted in: Robert Pruter, "Youth Baseball in Chicago, 1868-1890: Not Always Sandlot Ball," Journal of Sport History, 26.1 (Spring 1999): 1-28. Also, The National Chronicle (Boston) (30 Oct 1869), p. 259, “All Shapes and Sizes,” Bangor Daily Whig & Courier (8 Nov 1869), n.p., “The Playground: Our National Game,” Oliver Optic's Magazine: Our Boys and Girls (20 Nov. 1869): 639.
Circa
1869
1870c.17 Rutherford Hayes Sees Harm to Hearing in Ballplaying
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MY DEAR BOY -- I see by the Journal you are playing base-ball and that you play well. I am pleased with this. I like to have my boys enjoy and practice all athletic sports and games, especially riding, towing, hunting, and ball playing. But I am a little afraid, from [what] Uncle says, that overexertion and excitement in playing baseball will injure your hearing. Now, you are old enough to judge of this and to regulate your conduct accordingly. If you find there is any injury you ought to resolve to play only for a limited time -- say an hour or an hour and a half on the same day. . . . We had General Sherman at our house Wednesday evening with a pleasant party."
Sources:
Cited in John Thorn, Our Game posting, February 2018, "Our Baseball Presidents."
This original source is not given here.
Query:
What is the source of the Hayes letter?
Year
1870
1870.9 Lively Ball Suspected in Mutual-Olympic Game
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"It was supposed that a lively ball was played with, on account of the heavy batting [Mutual had 31 hits and 29 runs]. Both the Olympic games of yesterday and Monday were played with a ball that contained but half an ounce of rubber; the yarn and covering bringing it up to regulation weight."
Sources:
New York Tribune, September 14, 1870.
For a concise account of rules on baseballs, see Chapter 17 ("The Ball and Bat"), in Richard Hershberger, Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball, (Rowan and Littlefield, 2019, pp 121-126.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger annotation, 9/14/2020: "Missing from [the formal rule on ball makeup] is any discussion of relative proportions of rubber and yarn. In other words, how much rubber? Rubber is denser than yarn, so the size and weight requirements imply a range of legal proportions between the two. Some clubs were rumored to get around this, having illegal balls made with extra rubber, balanced by cork. . . . There were learned discussions of the merits of lively and dead balls, and arguments before the game started over what ball to use. Also, the occasional surreptitious switch mid-game."
Ball Four points out [pp 124-125) that a limit of one ounce of rubber was defined for a regulation ball in 1871. In 1876, the new National League addressed the issue by requiring clubs to use a standard Spalding ball in its games, thus lessening suspicion the club that provides a game ball thereby gains competitive advantage.
Query:
Were the weights and/or circumferences of balls subject to impartial tests at or before games?
Year
1870
1870.10 Philly Paper Lists Betting Odds for US Championship Match in Brooklyn
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"The Athletic Base Ball Club [of Philadelphia]has again been defeated, making the sixth thrashing [of 11-10] which they have received during the present season. This afternoon [September 15] they played on the Union Grounds, in Brooklyn, the deciding game for the championship of the United States, with the Mutual Club . . . . Bets were freely offered prior to the game of a hundred to fifty . . . but even at these heavy odds there were few takers." The crowd was reported as about three thousand persons.
Sources:
"Another Defeat," Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 1870. As reproduced on Richard Hershberger's Facebook posting, September 15, 2020
Comment:
"Note also how the betting line is featured prominently in the account. The baseball press routinely decried the influence of gambling on baseball, while carefully reporting the odds. Consistency was not a priority here.
"The crowd of three thousand seems a bit low. It is respectable for this era, but a really big game would draw a lot more. The Philadelphians claimed that that the A's held the championship, with this loss passing it to the Mutuals. No one outside Philadelphia really believed the A's held the championship, or more would have turned out today."
-- Richard Hershberger, 9/15/2020
Year
1870
1870.11 Chicago Switches to the Dead Ball, Starts Winning Again
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"Circumstances prevented any improvement in the organization of the [White Sox] nine until some weeks after their return from their disastrous [New York] tour; finally, however, the nine was re-organized . . . the muffin players' rubber ball was re-placed by a dead ball, and from the[n] . . .the Chicago club has been marked by a series of uninterrupted victories, the crowning triumph being the defeat of the strongest nine in the United States in two successive contests."
Sources:
New York Clipper October 29, 1870
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago in baseball, FB posting 10/29/2020:
Chadwick on the improvement of the Chicago Club. They wisely took his advice and switched from a lively to a dead ball. Success inevitably followed.
Much as I enjoy tweaking Chad for this sort of thing, in fairness it was pretty standard in this era. A newspaper would publish helpful advice to the local club. If the club did something that could plausibly be taken as consistent with the helpful advice, the paper would claim credit for the suggestion. Say what you will about modern sports talk radio, even those guys don't usually claim that the GM turns to them for trade ideas.
Does the claim about the deal ball make a lick of sense? It is classic Chad, but there is a kernel of truth. Good and poor fielding teams generally favored a dead or lively ball respectively, on the grounds that a dead ball gave the infielders a chance to show their stuff while a lively ball was more likely to get to the outfield. The Red Stockings revolution was mostly about improved fielding, so they favored a dead ball. As clubs' fielding caught up, they followed suit. The eventual consensus was a relatively dead ball, with later discussions being how live or not, within the range of a relatively dead ball. So as the White Stockings got their act together, it is entirely plausible that they moved to a dead ball. In other words, they didn't get getter because they switched to a dead ball; they switched to a dead ball because they got better. And certainly not because Chadwick convinced them.
Year
1870
1875.2 First female baseball team outside the US?
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The website of the famous Punahou school in Honolulu says that starting in 1872, "girls" athletics were popular. In 1875, two girls teams played each other.
"Punahou Nines beat Royal School Nines, two teams of female baseball players"
Is this the first all-female baseball game outside the U.S.? [Hawaii was an independent nation at this time]
Sources:
Punahou school website.
Year
1875
1876.1 MLB Is Established
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Notables:
William Hulbert
On February 2, 1876 Major League Baseball took shape.
Sources:
John Thorn, History Awakens: February 2, 1876 and the Founding of the National League: An Amazing New Discovery.
Comment:
John Thorn's comment: "[T]he story of how a player-based professional organization (the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, 1871–1875) gave way to one that was club-based (the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, 1876 to date) did not take place all on one day; it had commenced earlier, with considerable stealth.
A flummoxed Henry Chadwick termed this revolutionary idea — which is the very genesis of all of today’s professional sports leagues — a “coup d’état,” and he was right."
Year
1876