1830c.39

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Report: "Groups of Full Grown Players At Base and Cricket" Recalled in New York

Salience	Prominent
Tags	Newspaper Coverage, Pre-Knicks NYCNewspaper Coverage, Pre-Knicks NYC
Location
City/State/Country:	Manhattan, NY, United States
Modern Address
Game
Immediacy of Report	Retrospective
Age of Players	AdultAdult
Holiday
Notables
Text	"The denizens of a large city have not the same opportunities of healthful exercise as are enjoyed by those who dwell in the country. A few years ago New York was, to some extent, an exception to this remark. Large open grounds, in different parts of the city, invited the inhabitants to athletick exercises, and groups of full grown players at base and cricket were to be seen on them every pleasant afternoon. Those open grounds are now compactly built up with lordly houses, and ballclubs, we believe, are extinct. But the means of agreeable and salutary exercise are still within the reach of  the dusty city, and the pale student and clerk. Fuller's Gymnasium supplies them, and at a cost much less than that which it saves from the physician and the apothecary. His establishment is conducted under his own superintendence,and is well conducted in every respect.”
Sources	The Plaindealer, New York, April 15, 1837.
Warning
Comment	David Block, 5/3/2021, on the idea that ballplaying clubs were though to be extinct in 1837:  "Not quite extinct." Tom Gilbert, 5/4/2021: "We knew -- largely indirectly -- that there were adult bb clubs and a thriving bb scene in NYC in the 1830s and probably earlier, but it is great to see confirmation, and by a contemporary source. This also underlines the importance of Stevens's Elysian Fields in helping to preserve the incipient sport from being snuffed out by rapid urban development, in a sort of incubator. (And the connection between the gymnastics movement and the baseball movement is closer than might appear. We can identify Knickerbocker bbc club members, Excelsiors and others who exercised at NYC and Brooklyn gyms, including I believe Fuller's)."   Stephen Katz, (19CBB posting 5/4/2021) points out that ironically, 1837 is also the year claimed for the establishment of the Gothams.  See Wheaton letter at 1837.1       Edit with form to add a comment
Query	Should our dating at circa 1835 be modified? Edit with form to add a query
Source Image	[[Image:|left|thumb]]
External Number
Submitted by	David Block
Submission Note	19CBB Posting, 5/3/2021
Has Supplemental Text

1830c.39 Report: "Groups of Full Grown Players At Base and Cricket" Recalled in New York"

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