Early Ballplay in New England : A Working Chronology

Last March 10, 2010

Early Ballplay in New England States:

A Working Chronology

Note: This list was derived from version 11 of the full Protoball Chronology, which was uploaded in April 2010. (Search terms: MA, round, round ball, run-round, CT, RI, ME, NH, VT) In order to focus on the evolution of what became known as the “Massachusetts Game, entries were excluded that denote wicket or cricket as the game played. Additional relevant entries may have been added to any later versions of the full Chronology; not all entries on this subchronology are necessarily identical to those on the most recently updated full Chronology. Readers are encouraged to suggest or perform updates. Please send notes about omissions, mistakes, typos, etc, to lmccray@mit.edu.

-----

1704.1 – Traveler Observes Ball-Playing in CT

Madame Knight, “in her inimitable journal of her ride from Boston to New York in 1704, speaks of ball-playing in Connecticut.”

“The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket Players,” in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut, Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society, [n. p., 1909.] page 284. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/11/04. John notes 9/3/2005 that Seymour observes that Madame Knight does not specifically name the sport as wicket, but he excludes cricket as a possibility because cricket was not then known to have been played in America before 1725; however, John adds, we now have a cricket reference in Virginia from 1709.

1760s.1 – Harvard Man Recalls Cricket, “Various Games of Bat and Ball” on Campus

Writing of the Buttery on the Harvard campus, Sidney Willard later recalled that “[b]esides eatable, everything necessary for a student was there sold, and articles used in the play-grounds, as bats, balls, &c. . . . [w]e wrestled and ran, played at quoits, at cricket, and various games of bat and ball, whose names perhaps are obsolete.”

Sidney Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood [John Bartlett, Cambridge, 1855], volume 1, pp 31 and 316. Per Altherr ref # 44.

1771.1 -- Dartmouth President Eyes Gardening as “More Useful” Than Ballplaying

Dartmouth College’s founding president Eleazar Wheelock thought his students should “turn the course of their diversions and exercises for their health, to the practice of some manual arts, or cultivation of gardens and other lands at the proper hours of leisure.” That would be “more useful” than the tendency of some non-Dartmouth students to engage in “that which is puerile, such as playing with balls, bowls and other ways of diversion.” Dartmouth is in Hanover NH.

Eleazar Wheelock, A Continuation of the Narrative [1771], as quoted in W. D. Quint, The Story of Dartmouth College [Little, Brown, Boston, 1914] , page 246. Submitted by Scott Meacham, 8/21/06.

1775.1 – Soldier in CT “Played Ball All Day”

“Wednesday the 6. We played ball all day”

[Lyman, Simeon], “Journal of Simeon Lyman of Sharon August 10 to December 28, 1775,” in “Orderly Book and Journals Kept by Connecticut Men While Taking Part in the American Revolution 1775 – 1778,” Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, volume 7 [Connecticut Historical Society, 1899, p. 117. Per Altherr, ref # 26. Lyman was near New London CT.

1778.6 -- NH Loyalist Plays Ball in NY; Mentions “Wickett”

The journal of Enos Stevens, a NH man serving in British forces, mentions playing ball seven times from 1778 to 1781. Only one specifies the game played in terms we know: “in the after noon played Wickett” in March of 1781. C. K. Boulton, ed., “A Fragment of the Diary of Lieutenant Enos Stevens, Tory, 1777-1778,” New England Quarterly v. 11, number 2 (June 1938), pages 384-385, per Altherr reference #33. Tom notes that the original journal is at the Vermont Historical Society in Montpelier VT.

1778.3 – MA Sergeant Found Some Time and “Plaid Ball”

Benjamin Gilbert of Massachusetts and New York [New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, 1980], pp. 30 and 49; and “Benjamin Gilbert Diaries 1782 – 1786,” G372, NYS Historical Association Library, Cooperstown. Per Altherr ref # 30.

1779.6 – Dartmouth College Fine for Ballplay – Two Shillings

“If any student shall play ball or use any other deversion [sic] that exposes the College or hall windows within three rods of either he shall be fined two shillings . . . “ In 1782 the protected area was extended to six rods. John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College 1815-1909 (Rumford Press, Concord NH, 1913), page 593. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games,” Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 35. See also #1771.1. Dartmouth is in Hanover NH.

1780c.4 – “Round Ball” Believed to be Played in MA

“Mr. Stoddard believes that Round Ball was played by his father in 1820, and has the tradition from his father that two generations before, i.e., directly after the revolutionary war, it was played and was not then a novelty.”

Letter from Henry Sargent, Grafton MA, to the Mills Commission, May 23, 1905. Stoddard was an elderly gentleman who had played round ball in his youth.

1781.2 – “Ancient Harvard Custom: Freshmen Furnish the Bats, Balls

“The Freshmen shall furnish Batts, Balls, and Foot-balls, for the use of the students, to be kept at the Buttery.”

Rule 16, “President, Professors, and Tutor’s Book,” volume IV. The list of rules is headed “The antient Customs of Harvard College, established by the Government of it.”

Conveyed to David Block, April 18, 2005, by Professor Harry R. Lewis, Harvard University, Cambridge MA. Dr. Lewis adds, “The buttery was a sort of supply room, not just for butter. Who is to say what the “Batts” and “Balls” were to be used for, but it is interesting that any bat and ball game could already have been regarded as ancient at Harvard in 1781.”

1781.2 – “Ancient Harvard Custom: Freshmen Furnish the Bats, Balls

“The Freshmen shall furnish Batts, Balls, and Foot-balls, for the use of the students, to be kept at the Buttery.”

Rule 16, “President, Professors, and Tutor’s Book,” volume IV. The list of rules is headed “The antient Customs of Harvard College, established by the Government of it.”

1787.2 – VT Man’s Letter Says “Three Times is Out at Wicket”

Levi Allen to Ira Allen, July 7, 1787, in John J. Duffy, ed., Ethan Allen and His Kin, Correspondence, 1772 – 1819 [University Press of New England, Hanover NH, 1998], volume 1, p. 224. Per Altherr ref # 75.

1790s.7 – In Boston, “Boys Played Ball in the Streets?”

Boston, with only 18,000 inhabitants, was sparsely populated. “Boys played ball in the streets without disturbance, or danger from the rush of traffic.” Edmund Quincy, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts (Fields, Osgood and Company, 1869), page 37. Writing 70 years later, the biographer here is painting a picture of the city when his father Josiah finished school and moved there at 18. He does not document this observation. One might speculate that Josiah had told Edmund about the ballplaying. Accessed on 11/16/2088 via Google Books search for “’life of josiah quincy.’”

1791.1 – “Bafeball” Among Games Banned in Pittsfield MA – also Cricket, Wicket

In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to promote the safety of the exterior of the newly built meeting house, particularly the windows, a by-law is enacted to bar “any game of wicket, cricket, baseball, batball, football, cats, fives, or any other game played with ball,” within eighty yards of the structure. However, the letter of the law did not exclude the city’s lovers of muscular sport from the tempting lawn of “Meeting-House Common.” This is the first indigenous instance of the game of baseball being referred to by that name on the North American continent. It is spelled herein as bafeball. “Pittsfield is baseball’s Garden of Eden,” said Mayor James Ruberto.

Per John Thorn: The History of Pittsfield (Berkshire County),Massachusetts, From the Year 1734 to the Year 1800. Compiled and Written, Under the General Direction of a Committee, by J. E. A. Smith. By Authority of the Town. [Lea and Shepard, 149 Washington Street, Boston, 1869], 446-447. The actual documents themselves repose in the Berkshire Athenaeum. ||16||

1791.2 – Northampton MA Prohibits Downtown Ballplaying (and Stone-Throwing)

“Both the meeting-house and the Court House suffered considerable damage, especially to their windows by ball playing in the streets, consequently in 1791, a by-law was enacted by which ‘foot ball, hand ball, bat ball and or any other game of ball was prohibited within ten rods of the Court House easterly or twenty rods of the Meeting House southwesterly, neither shall they throw any stones at or over the said Meeting House on a penalty of 5s, one half to go to the complainant and the rest to the town.’”

J. R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Volume II (Northampton, 1902), page 529. Contributed by John Bowman, May 9, 2009.

1791.3 – Salem MA Diary Covers “Puerile Sports” Including Bat & Ball, and “Rickets”

“Puerile Sports usual in these parts of New England . . . . Afterwards the Bat & Ball and the Game at Rickets. The Ball is made of rags covered with leather in quarters & covered with double twine, sewed in Knots over the whole. The Bat is from 2 to 3 feet long, round on the back side but flattened considerable on the face, & round at the end, for a better stroke. The Ricket is played double, & is full of violent exercise of running.”

The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Volume I (Essex Institute, Salem MA, 1905), pp 253-254. Contributed by Brian Turner, March 6, 2009. Bentley later noted that Bat & Ball is played at the time of year when “the weather begins to cool. Bentley [1759-1819] was a prominent and prolific New England pastor who served in Salem MA. Query: Any idea what the game of rickets/ricket was?

1793.1 -- Engraving Shows Game with Wickets at Dartmouth College

A copper engraving showing Dartmouth College appeared in Massachusetts Magazine in February 1793. It is the earliest known drawing of the College, and shows a wicket-oriented game being played in the yard separating college buildings. The game appears to be wicket, but College personnel ask whether it is not an early form of cricket. See:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/Library_Bulletin/Nov1992/LB-N92-KCramer2.html;

Submitted by Scott Meacham 8/17/06.

1796.2 – Williams College Student Notes Ballplaying in Winter Months

Tarbox, Increase N., Diary of Thomas Robbins, D. D. 1796 – 1854 [Beacon Press, Boston, 1886], volume 1, pp. 8, 29, 32, 106, and 128. Per Altherr ref # 54. The college is in Williamstown MA.

1796.4 – Early Geographer Sees Variety of Types of New England Ballplaying

“Q: What is the temper of the New-England people?

A: They are frank and open . . . .

Q: What are their diversions?

A: Dancing is a favorite of both sexes. Sleigh-riding in winter, and skating, playing ball (of which there are several different games), gunning and fishing . . . “

Nathaniel Dwight, A Short But Comprehensive System of Geography (Charles R. and George Webster, Albany NY) 1796), page 128. Provided by John Thorn, 2/17/2008 email.

1797.1 – Daniel Webster Writes of “Playing Ball” While at Dartmouth

Daniel Webster, in private correspondence, writes of “playing ball,” while a student at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.

Webster, Daniel, Private Correspondence, Fletcher Webster, ed. [Little Brown, Boston 1857], volume 1, p. 66. Per Altherr, ref # 45. Altherr [p. 27] puts this date “at the turn of the century.” On 7/31/2005, George Thompson added that “Volume 17, page 66 of the National Edition of his Writings and Speeches is supposed to have a reference by one Hotchkiss to Webster playing ball at Dartmouth.”

1800c.4 – Four Old Cat and Three Old Cat Well Known in MA

“Four Old Cat and Three Old Cat were as well known to Massachusetts boys as Round Ball. I knew both games in 1862, and Mr. Stoddard tells me that his father knew them and played them between 1800 and 1820. They bore the same relation to Round Ball that “Scrub” does to Base Ball now. The main thing to be remembered is that Four and Three Old Cat seem to be co-eval with Massachusetts Round Ball, and even considered a modification of Round Ball for a less number of players than the regular game required.”

Letter from Henry Sargent, Grafton, MA, to the Mills Commission, May 31, 1905.

1800c.11 – MA Man Recalls Games of Ball in Streets, with Wickets

“The sports and entertainments were very simple. Running about the village street, hither and thither, without much aim . . . . games of ball, not base-ball, as is now [c1857] the fashion, yet with wickets – this was about all, except that at the end there was always horse-racing [p.19]. ..But as to sports and entertainments in general, there were more of them in those days than now. We had more holidays, more games in the street, -- of ball-playing, of quoits, of running, leaping, and wrestling. [p.21]”

Mary E. Dewey, ed., Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. (Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1883), pages 19 and 21. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games,” Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 38. Accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search for “’letters of orville.’” Orville Dewey was born in Sheffield MA in 1794 and grew up there. Sheffield is in the SW corner of MA, about 45 miles NE of Hartford Connecticut. Note: [1] the “game of ball” may have been wicket. [2] There were more holidays in 1800 than in 1857?

1803.4 –Middlebury College VT Bans Ballplaying

“To prevent, as far as possible, the damages before enumerated, viz. breaking of glass, &c. the students in College and members of the Academy shall not be permitted to play at ball or use any other sport or diversion in or near the College-building.” A first offense brought a fine, a second offense brought suspension.

“Of the location of Students, Damages, and Glass,” in Laws of Middlebury-College in Midlebury [sic] in Vermont, Enacted by the President and Fellows, the 17th Day of August, 1803, page 14. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games,” Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 35.

1803.5 – Vermont Paper Associates Adult Tradesmen with Ballplaying

A letter to the editor of the Green Mountain Patriot takes issue with another writer who evidently thinks that “the farmer, the mechanic, and the merchant” should do more dancing when they attend local balls. They attend for another reason – “the same reason, whether criminal or lawful, that they meet together to play a game of ball, of quoits, or ride out on horseback.” For “pleasing amusement.”

The Green Mountain Patriot (Peachum, VT), August 17, 1803.

1805.1 – Williams College Bans Dangerous Ball-playing

The Laws of Williams College [H. Willard, Stockbridge, 1805], p. 40. Per Altherr ref # 42. The college is in Williamstown MA.

1805.2 – Portland ME Bans “Playing at Bat and Ball in the Streets”

The By Laws of the Town of Portland, in the County of Cumberland, 2^nd Edition [John McKown, Portland, 1805], p. 15. Per Altherr note #69.

1805.8 – Yale Grad Compares England’s Ballgames with New England’s

“July 9 [1805, we think] . . . . The mode of playing ball differs a little from that practiced in New-England. Instead of tossing up the ball out of one’s own hand, and then striking it, as it descends, they lay is into the heel of a kind of wood shoe; and upon the instep a spring is fixed, which extends within the hollow to the hinder part of the shoe; the all is placed where the heel of the foot would commonly be, and a blow applied on the other end of the spring, raises the ball into the air, and, as it descends, it receives a blow from the bat.

“They were playing also at another game resembling our cricket, but differing from it in this particular, that he perpendicular pieces which support the horizontal one, are about eighteen inches high, and are three in number, whereas with us they are only two in number, and about three or four inches high.”

Benjamin Silliman, Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland, Volume 1 (Boston, 1812 -- 1^st edition 1810), page 245.

Silliman thus implies that an American [or at least Connecticut] analog to trap ball was played, using fungo-style batting [trap ball was not usually a running game, so the American game may have been a simple form of fungo]. His second comparison is consistent with our understanding or how English cricket and American wicket were played in about 1800. However, it seems odd that he would refer to “our cricket” and not “our wicket: possibly a form of cricket – using, presumable, the smaller ball – was played in the US that retained the older long, low wickets known in 1700 English cricket.

1805.9 – Belfast ME Had Ballplaying as Early as 1805

“High Street, at Hopkins’s Corner, was the favorite battle-ground for ball-players, as early as 1805.”

“Ball-playing seems to have been extensively practiced in 1820. At the town meeting that year, it was voted ‘that the game of ball, and the pitching of quoits within [a specified area] be prohibited.”

Joseph Williamson, History of the City of Belfast (Loring Short and Harmon, Portland, 1877), page 764. Accessed 2/2/10 via Google Books search ("hopkins's corner" ball).

1810s.5 – Harvard Library Worker Recalls Bi-racial Ball Play in Harvard Yard

“During my employment at Cambridge [MA] the College yard continued without gates. The Stage passed through it; and though I was very attentive to the hour, I could not always avoid injury from the Stage horn. Blacks and Whites occasionally played together at ball in the College yard; “

William Croswell, letter drafted to the Harvard Corporation, December 1827. Papers of William Croswell, Call number HUG 1306.5, Harvard University Archives. Supplied by Kyle DeCicco-Carey, 8/8/2007. Kyle notes that Croswell was an 1780 Harvard graduate who worked in the college library 1812-1821.

1810.7 – Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison Plays Ball as Barefoot Youth

“[T]he lovely old town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in which he spent the fist twenty-five years of his life, was ever dear to him. As a boy, barefoot he rolled the hoop through the streets, played a marbles and at bat and ball, swam in the Merrimack . . .”

Wendell Phillips Garrison, “William Lloyd Garrison’s Origin and Early Life, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine Volume 30 (1885), page 592. Accessed via Google Books search 2/2/10 ("garrison's origin"). Newburyport MA is about 35 miles north of Boston and near the New Hampshire border.

1813.1 -- Newburyport MA Reminder -- “Playing Ball in the Streets” is Unlawful

“Parents and Guardians are also requested to forbid, those under their care, playing Ball in the streets of the town; as by this unlawful practice much inconvenience and injury is sustained.” Newburyport [MA] Herald, May 4, 1813, Volume 17, Issue 10, page 1 [classified advertisement]. Submitted by John Thorn 1/24/07.

1815.6 – Group at Dartmouth Ponders Worth of Ballplaying, Nocturnal Cowhunting

Dartmouth College in Hanover NH had a religious society, the Religiosi. “In April, 1815, at one of the meetings, a ‘conversation was held on the propriety, or rather the impropriety, of professed [Christians – bracketed in original] joining in the common amusement of ballplaying with the students for exercise.’” Shortly thereafter “there were many spirited remarks on the subject of nocturnal cowhunting, and the society was unanimous in condemning it.” John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College 1815-1909 (Rumford Press, Concord NH, 1913), page 564. Accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search of “’history of Dartmouth.’” Note: Did they condone diurnal cowhunting?

1816.2 – Worcester MA Ordinance Bans “Frequent and Dangerous” Ball Playing and Hoops”

“Ball-playing” in the streets of Worcester, Massachusetts is forbidden by ordinance.

Worcester, MA Town Records, May 6, 1816; reprinted in Franklin P. Rice, ed., Worcester Town Records, 1801 – 1816, volume X [Worcester Society of Antiquity, 1891], p. 337. Also appears in Henderson, p. 150 [No ref given], and Holliman, per Guschov. ||25||

1816.5 -- In “The Year Without a Summer,” CT Lads Play Ball on Christmas Day

“My father [Charles Mallory] arrived there [Mystic CT] on Christmas Day and found some of his acquaintances playing ball in what was called Randall’s Orchard.”

Baughman, James, The Mallorys of Mystic: Six Generations in American Maritime Enterprise [Wesleyan University Press, 1972], page 12. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/19/2004.

1816.9 – Maine Town Outlaws Ball, Quoits, Sledding

“[A]ny person who shall be convicted of sliding down any hill on sleighs, sleds, or boards . . . between Thomas Hinkley’s dwelling house & Mr. Vaugh’s mill . . . or any who shall play at ball or quoits in any of the streets . . . shall, on conviction, pay a fine of fifty cents for each offence . . . .”

Hallowell [ME] Gazette, December 25, 1816. Hallowell is about 2 miles south of Augusta and 50 miles NE of Portland.

1817.4 – In Lewiston ME, Bowdoin College Sets 20-cent Fine for Ballplaying

“No student shall, in or near any College building, play at ball, or use any sport or diversion, by which such building may be exposed to injury, on penalty of being fined not exceeding twenty cents, or being suspended if the offence be often repeated.”

Of Misdemeanors and Criminal Offences, in Laws of Bowdoin College (E. Goodale, Hallowell ME, 1817), page 12. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 315.

1818.1 – Yale Student Reports Cricket on Campus

A student at Yale University reports that cricket and football are played on campus [need cite]. Lester, however, says that he doubts the student saw English cricket, and that, given that the site is CT, it was probably wicket. Lester notes that wicket involved sides of 30 to 35 players, and was played in an alley 75 feet long, and with oversized bats.

Lester, ed., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 7.

1819.4 – In Hartford CT: Legislative Session Associated with Ball-playing?

In a report on the new session of the Connecticut legislature: “In Hartford and the region about the same, those who usually play ball during the day and dance at night on such occasions, did not at this time wholly abandon the ancient uses of Connecticut.”

Indiana Central, June 8, 1819, reprinting an article datelined New Haven CT from May 5.

1820.2 – Round Ball played in Upton, Massachusetts.

Henderson, p. 137, attributes this to Holliman, but has no ref to Holliman or to George Stoddard, who reported the game to the Mills Commission. Also quoted at Henderson, p. 150.

1820c.6 – Modified Version of Rounders Played in New England.

“About 1820 a somewhat modified version of the old English game of rounders was played on the New England commons, and twenty years later the game had spread and become “town ball.” In 1833 the first regularly organized ball club was formed in Philadelphia with the sonorous title of “The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia.” About 1850 the game gained vogue in New York.”

Barbour, Ralph H., The Book of School and College Sports [D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1904] page 143. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Thanks to Mark Aubrey for locating a pdf of the baseball section of this text, June 2007. Barbour does not provide sources for his text.

1820s.12 – Boys Are Attracted to Sports of “Playing Ball or Goal” in Bangor ME

Paine, Albert Ware, “Auto-Biography,” reprinted in Lydia Augusta Paine Carter, The Discovery of a Grandmother [Henry H. Carter, Newton MA, 1920], p. 240. Per Altherr ref # 77. Note: Dean Sullivan [7/29/2004] observes that Harold Seymour puts the year of play at Bangor at 1836, citing both pages 198 and 240 of The Discovery of a Grandmother. Payne was born in 1812, and was not a “boy” in 1836, so this event needs further examination. This item needs to be reconciled with #1823c.4 below.

1820c.13 -- Cricket Match Seen on Yale Campus

“And on the green and easy slope where these proud columns stand,/ In Dorian mood, with academe and temple on each hand,/ The football and the cricket match upon my vision rise,/ With all the clouds of classic dust kicked in each other’s eyes.”

Attributed to William Cromwell, a student at Yale College in New Haven CT from 1818-1822, by John Lester in John Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [UPenn Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page7. Lester does not provide a source.

1820c.15 – Ballplaying at Bowdoin College

Nehemiah Cleaveland and Alpheus Spring Packard, History of Bowdoin College with Biographical Sketches of the Graduates (Osgood and Company, Boston, 1882). Per Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games,” Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 32.

“The student of earlier years had not the resources for healthful physical recreation of the present day [1880s]. We had football and baseball, though the latter was much less formal and formidable than the present game” [Page 96]. Note: the precise time referenced here is hard to specify; but the authors graduated in 1813 and 1816, and the context seems to suggest the 1810-1830 period.

Only one of the sketches of alumni, however, mentions ballplaying of any type. The sketch for James Patten, Class of 1823, includes this: “He entered college at the mature age of twenty-four, was a respectable scholar, spoke with a decided brogue, and played ball admirably. . . . When last heard from he was an acting magistrate and a rich old bachelor.” [Page 276] The sketch for Longfellow, who in 1824 wrote of constant ballplaying on the ME campus [see #1824.1], does not allude to sport.

1820c.24 – Waterbury CT Jaws Drop as Baptist Deacon Takes the Field

“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).

1820s.25 – In Western MA, Election Day Saw Town vs. Town Wicket Matches

“’Election Day’ was, however, the universal holiday, and the prevailed amongst the farmers that corn planting must be finished by that day for its enjoyment. It was a day of general hilarity, with no prescribed forms of observation, though ball playing was ordinarily included in the exercises, and frequently the inhabitants of adjacent towns were pitted against one another in the game of wicket. Wrestling, too, was a common amusement on that day, each town having its champions.”

Charles J. Taylor, History of Great Barrington (Bryan and Co., Great Barrington MA, 1882), page 375. Accessed 2/3/10 via Google Books search (taylor great barrington). Note: this passage is not clearly set in time; “1820s” is a guess, but 1810s or 1830s is also a possibility.

1821.6 – Fifty-cent Fine in New Bedford for Those Who Play at Ball

“Any person, who shall, after the first day of July next, play at ball, or fly a kite, or run down a hill upon a sled, or play any other sport which may incommode peaceable citizens and passengers in any [illeg.] of that part of town commonly called the Village of Bedford” faces a fifty-cent penalty.

“By-Laws for the Town of New-Bedford,” New Bedford [MA] Mercury, August 13, 1821. Accessed by subscription search May 5, 2009.

1822.1 – Round Ball Played in Worcester

“Timothy Taft, who is living in Worcester, October 1897, played Round Ball in 1822. The game was no new thing then. I think Mr. Stoddard is right about the game being played directly after the close of the Revolutionary War [see c1780 entry]. At any rate, if members of your Commission question the antiquity of the game (Round Ball) we have Mr. Taft still living who played it 83 years ago, and we have corroborative testimony that it was played long before that time.”

Letter from Henry Sargent, Worcester MA, to Mills Commission, June 10, 1905. Henderson, on page 149, quotes the Commission’s press release as referring to a Timothy Tait, which seems likely a reference to Taft. Note: do we have that Mills Commission release that Henderson cites? In this letter Sargent also reports that in Stoddard’s opinion, “the game of Round Ball or Base ball is one and the same thing, and that it dates back before 1845.”

1823.5 -- Providence RI Bans “Playing Ball” in the Streets

“The Town of Providence have passed a law against playing ball in any of their public streets; the fine is $2. Why is not the law enforced in this Town? Newport Mercury, April 26, 1823, Vol. 62, Issue 3185, page 2. Submitted by John Thorn 1/24/2007.

In August 2007, Craig Waff [email of 8/17/2007] located the actual ordinance:

“Whereas, from the practice of playing ball in the streets of the town, great inconvenience is suffered by the inhabitants and others: . . . no person shall be permitted to play at any game of ball in any of the publick streets or highways within the limits of this town.”

Rhode-Island American and General Advertiser Volume 15, Number 60 (April 25, 1823), page 4, and Number 62 (May 2, 1823), page 4.

1824.1 – Longfellow Reports Popularity of Ballplaying at Bowdoin

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, then a student at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, writes: “This has been a very sickly term in college. However, within the last week, the government seeing that something must be done to induce the students to exercise, recommended a game of ball now and then; which communicated such an impulse to our limbs and joints, that there is nothing now heard of, in our leisure hours, but ball, ball, ball.”

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, letter to his father Stephen Longfellow, April 11, 1824, in Samuel Longfellow, ed., Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with Extracts from His Journals and Correspondence [Ticknor and Company, Boston 1886],volume 1, p. 51. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.

Reprinted in Andrew Hilen, ed., Henry Wadsworth Longefellow, the Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, vol. 1 1814 - 1836 [Harvard University Press, 1966], page 87. Submitted by George Thompson, 7/31/2005.

1824.5 -- Dartmouth College Note Condones Ballplaying

During 1824 the village of Hanover NH authorized “the playing at ball or any game in which ball is used on the public common in front of Dartmouth College, set apart by the Trustees thereof among the purposes for a playground for their students.” John K. Lord, A History of the Town of Hanover New Hampshire [Dartmouth Press, Hanover NH, 1928], page 23. Submitted by Scott Meacham 8/21/2006.

1825.9 -- Ballplaying Planned on Saturdays in Hartford CT

“BALL PLAYING: There will be Ball playing in Washington Street, a few rods South of the College, every Saturday afternoon, through the season, the weather permitting, Bats Balls and Refreshments provided by Emmons Rudge.” American Mercury [Hartford CT] , April 12, 1825. Submitted by John Thorn, 9/29/2006.

1827.1 – Brown U Student Reports of “Play at Ball”

Brown University (Providence, RI) student Williams Latham notes in his diary: “We had a great play at ball today noon [March 22].” On April 9: “We this morning . . . have been playing ball, But I have never received so much pleasure from it here as I have in Bridgewater. They do not have more than 6 or 7 on a side, so that a great deal of time is spent in running after the ball, neither do they throw so fair ball, They are afraid the fellow in the middle will hit it with his bat-stick.”

Latham, Williams, The Diary of Williams Latham, 1823 – 1827, quoted in W. C. Bronson, The History of Brown University 1764 – 1914 [Providence, Brown University, 1914], p. 245. Per Henderson ref # 101. ||32||

1828c.4 – NH Man Recalls Boyhood Habit of Playing Ball

Cyrus Bradley, born in 1818 in rural NH, refers in 1835 to his boyhood habit of playing ball.

“Journal of Cyrus P. Bradley,” Ohio Archeological and Historical Society, Volume XV [1906], page 210. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.

1828c.5 – Vermont Schoolboy Recalls Playing Goal, With Elm Trees as Goals

“The big boys had great times playing goal, and other noisy and running games, and the elm trees by our yard were the goals . . . “

History of Samuel Paine, Jr., 1778-1861 and His Wife Pamela (Chase) Paine, 1780-1856, of Randolph VT and Their Ancestors and Descendants, compiled and edited by their grandson Albert Prescott Paine, 1923. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.

1828.7 -- Ballplaying in Pawtucket RI

[Note: Need to recover lost attachment submitted by John Thorn, 7/23/2005 -- see 1828 folder.]

1829c.1 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Plays Ball as a Harvard student.

Krout, John A, Annals of American Sport [Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929], p. 115. Per Altherr ref # 49. Richard Hershberger, posting to 19CBB on 10/8/2007, found an earlier source – Caylor, O. P., “Early Baseball Days,” Washington Post, April 11, 1896. Note: We still need the original source. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play is unconfirmed. Harvard is in Cambridge MA.

1829.2 – Round Ball Played in MA

From a letter to the Mills Commission: “Mr. Lawrence considers Round Ball and Four Old Cat one and the same game; the Old Cat game merely being the they could do when there were not more than a dozen players, all told. . . . Mr. Lawrence says, as a boy, he played Round Ball in 1829. So far as Mr. Lawrence’s argument goes for Round Ball being the father of Base Ball it is all well enough, but there are two things that cannot be accounted for; the conception of the foul ball, and the abolishment of the rules that a player could be put out by being hit by a thrown ball. No one remembers the case of a player being injured by being hit by a thrown ball, so that cannot be the reason for that change. The foul rule made the greatest skill of the Massachusetts game count for nothing – the batting skill – the back handed and slide batting. Mr. Stoddard told me that there were 9 of the 14 Upton batters who never batted ahead.”

Henry Sargent Letter to the Mills Commission, June 25, 1905.

1830.4 – School Boys Play Base Ball Regularly at Portsmouth NH Grammar School

Letter from J. A. Mendum to Albert Spalding, My 17, 1905.. From Henderson, pp. 149-150, no ref given. John Thorn on 3/4/2006 ntes that the letter included a clip from the New Hampshire Gazette titled “Origin of Baseball. Mr. Mendum Played the Game in Portsmouth in 1830.” XXX request scan from John Thorn

1830s.6 – Players Drink Egg-Nog in Base Ball Intervals in Portsmouth NH

Brewster, Charles W., Rambles About Portsmouth, Second Series [Lewis Brewster, Portsmouth, 1869], p. 269. Per Altherr ref # 67.

1830c.7 – Bostonian Recalls Old Game of “Massachusetts Run-Around”

T. King wrote to the Mills Commission in 1905. “Just a word in regard to the old game of Massachusetts Run-around. We always pronounced the name as if it were run-round without the “a,” but I presume, technically that should be incorporated.

“This was the old time game which I played between 44 and 50 years ago [1855-1861 – LM.], and which I heard my father speak of as playing 35 to 40 years before that, carrying it back to the vicinity of 1830.” [Actually, the arithmetic implies the vicinity of 1820.] Note: can we establish the age of King’s father at King’s birth?

T. King, Letter to the Mills Commission, November 24, 1905.

1830s.22 –Ballplaying Recurs in Abolitionist’s Life

You may think of Thomas Wentworth Higginson [b. 1823] as a noted abolitionist, or as the mentor of Emily Dickenson, but he was also a ballplayer and sporting advocate [see also #1858.17]. Higginson’s autobiography includes several glimpses of MA ballplaying:

-- at ten he knew many Harvard students – “their nicknames, their games, their individual haunts, -- we watched them at football and cricket [page 40]”

-- at his Cambridge school “there was perpetual playing of ball and fascinating running games [page 20]”.

-- he and his friends “played baseball and football, and a modified cricket, and on Saturdays made our way to the tenpin alleys [page 36]”.

--once enrolled at Harvard College [Class of 1841] himself, he used “the heavy three-cornered bats and large balls of the game we called cricket [page 60].” Note: sounds a bit like wicket?

-- in his early thirties he was president of a cricket club [and a skating club and a gymnastics club] in Worcester MA. [Pages 194-195

Source: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1898). Per Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games,” Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 33-34. Accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search for “’cheerful yesterdays.’”

1830c.26 – Plymouth MA Boys Play Round Ball, Other Ballgames

Writing about 70 years later, William Davis considers the range of pastimes in his boyhood: “After the hoop came, as now, the ball games, skip, one old cat, two old cat, hit or miss, and round ball. We made our own balls, winding yarn over a core of India rubber, until the right size was reached, and then working a loop stitch all around it with good, tightly spun twine. Attempts were occasionally made to lay ball in the streets, but the by-laws of the town forbidding it were rigidly enforced.”

William T. Davis, Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian (Memorial Press, Plymouth MA, 1906), page 104. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search (plymouth octogenarian). Plymouth MA is about 35 miles SE of Boston on Cape Cod Bay. Query: do we know the nature of the ball games of “skip” and “hit or miss?”

1830c.27 – Lenox Academy Students Play Wicket

Recalling a genial local sheriff, the author writes: “We well remember the urbanity of his manner as he passed the students of Lenox Academy, always bowing to them and greeting them with a pleasant salutation, which tended to increase their self-respect . . . .As he drove by us when we were playing ‘wicket’ – the game of ball them fashionable – he did not drive his stylish horse and gig over our wickets, as many took a malicious pleasure in doing, but turned aside, with a pleasant smile . . . .”

J. E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield From the Year 1800 to the Year 1876 (C. W. Bryan & Co., Springfield MA, 1876), pp 401-402. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search (history pittsfield 1876). Lenox Academy was in Lenox MA, about 7 miles S of Pittsfield, and about 35 miles SE of Albany NY. Caveat: It is difficult to estimate a date for this anecdote. The gentleman, Major Brown, lived in Pittsfield from 1812 to 1838. As the event seems to be the author’s personal recollection, verifying if and when he attended the Lenox Academy may narrow the range of possibilities.

1834.1 – Carver’s The Book of Sports [Boston] describes “Base, or Goal Ball”

Rules for “’Base’ or ‘Goal Ball’” are published in Boston, in the The Book of Sports by Robin Carver. Carver’s book copies the rules for rounders published in England’s “The Boy’s Own Book” (see #1828.1 entry, above). A line drawing of boys “Playing Ball” on Boston Common is included. David Block in Baseball Before We Knew It, page 196-197, reports that this is the “first time that the name “base ball” was associated with a diamond-shaped infield configuration.” As for the name of the game, Carver explains: “This game is known under a variety of names. It is sometimes called ‘round ball.’ But I believe that ‘base’ or ‘goal ball’ are the names generally adopted in our country.” According to Carver, runners ran clockwise around the bases. Note: Do we have other accounts of clockwise baserunning?

Carver, Robin, The Book of Sports [Boston, Lilly Wait Colman and Holden], pp 37-40. Per Henderson ref 31. Reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825 – 1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], p.3ff

1836.1 – “Old-fashioned ‘Ball’” Popular in Waterville ME

“Baseball and foot ball did not, in those days, ensnare the athletic sympathies and activities of college boys, but old-fashioned ‘ball’ and quoits were popular.”

Martin B. Anderson [Pub? Date?], pp 36-37. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Seymour’s note implies that the section heading in which this text appears is “(1836) “Ball” at Waterville.” The name A. C. Kendrick appears, and may be the author or publisher. A note says that Waterville is later Colby University. Note: Now findable on the web?

1836.8 – New Bedford MA: “No Person Shall Play at Ball”

In June the town wrote new by-laws:

“Section Eighth: No person shall play at ball, fly a kite, or slide down hill upon a sled, or play at other game so as to incommodate peaceable citizens or passengers, in any street, lane, or public place in this town, under a penalty not exceeding one dollar for each offence.”

“By-Laws of the Town of New Bedford,” New Bedford [MA] Mercury, September 30, 1836. Accessed via subscription search May 5, 2009. Note: See #1821.6 above: this by-law simply adds “public places,” and doubles the penalty, for the rule made 15 years earlier.

1837.3 – Yale Student Sees College Green Covered With Ballplaying

“[March 1837, New Haven CT] It is about time now for playing ball, and the whole green is covered with students engaged in that fine game: for my part, I could never made a ball player. I can’t see where the ball is coming soon enough to put the ball-club in its way.”

Whitney, Josiah D., letter to his sister, March 1837, reprinted in E. T. Brewster, Life and Letters of Josiah Dwight Whitney [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1909. Per Altherr ref # 50.

1837.10 – In Recession, Doughty Ex-Workers Play Ball, Leave Town for Home

“One of the most interesting places in New England for the beauty of its scenery the extent of its manufactories, and the industry of its inhabitants, is the town of Haverhill Mass. At Haverhill more shoes are made, Lynn excepted, than at any place in this country. Nine-tenths of the mechanics, not long since, in consequence of the hard times, were thrown out of employ. The assembled together, laughed at their misfortunes, marched through the streets, played ball for a day and as soon as possible exchanged the shoe-shop for the farm house.”

“New England Girls and Young Men,” Jamestown [NY] Journal, July 19, 1837. This story is evidently based on a report in the Haverhill Gazette. Accessed via subscription search May 20, 2009. Haverhill MA is about 30 miles north of Boston and near the NH border. A serious recession gripped the US economy in 1837.

1840s.4 – Form of Base Ball Introduced to College Campuses

Per Rader, page 74: no citation given. Rader says that the game was brought to the campuses in the 1840s and 1850s by “boys from the eastern academies.”

1840c.27 – NH Farm Boy Plays Baseball, Two Old Cat, Drive

The [farm] work did not press, usually, and there was plenty of time to learn shooting . . . and for playing the simple games that country boys then understood. Baseball, for instance, -- not the angry and gambling game it has since become, -- and the easier games of ‘one old cat,’ ‘two old cat,’ and ‘drive,’ played with balls . . . . In such games girls did not join; and the game of cricket, which has long prevailed in England, and in which girls in school now [1905] take part, never was domesticated in New England.”

F. B. Sanborn, New Hampshire Biography and Autobiography (private printing, 1905), page 13. Accessed 2/9/10 via Google Books search (sanborn "hampshire biography"). Sanborn was born in 1831 and spent his boyhood in Hampton Falls, NH, which is near the Atlantic coast and about 10 miles south of Portsmouth NH.

1840s.30 – Ballplayer Recalls Boyhood Matches, Ballmaking, Adult Play

On Fast Day [page 68]: “The town meeting was succeeded in April by Fast Day, appointed always for a Thursday. For some unknown reason Thursday in New England was an almost sacred day, a sort of secular Sabbath . . . . Boys were not generally compelled to attend the Fast Day religious service. It had ceased to be as strictly kept as before. In villages and towns there was customarily a match game of ball, very unlike the current [1910] base ball. Boys played [p68/69] with boys and men with men. The New England bootmakers, of whom there were some in most villages, were the leaders in these games.”

On ball-making, and on plugging [page 174] : “Our ingenuity was exercised in weaving watch chains in various patterns with silk twist; in making handsome bats for ball, and in making the balls themselves with the raveled yarn of old stockings, winding it over a bit of rubber, and sewing on a cover of fine thin calf skin. This ball did not kill as it struck one, and, instead of being thrown to the man on the bases was more usually at thee man running between them. He who could make a good shot of that kind was much applauded, and he who was hit was laughed at and felt very sheepish. That was true sport, plenty of fun and excitement, yet not too serious and severe. The issue of the game was talked over for a week. I did my daily stint of stitching with only one thing in mind, to [p174/175] play ball when through; for the boys played every afternoon. When there was to be a match game the men practices after the day’s work was done.”

On bootmakers [page 170]: “The smaller [bootmaking] shops were the centers for the gossip, rumors, and discussions which agitated the community. There men sharpened their wits upon each other, played practical jokes, sang, argued the questions of that [p170/171] day, especially slavery, and arranged every week from early spring to late autumn a match game of ball either among themselves or the bootmakers of neighboring towns for Saturday afternoon, which was their half holiday.”

John Albee, Confessions of Boyhood (R.G. Badger, Boston, 1910). Albee was born in 1833 and grew up in Bellingham MA, about 30 miles SW of Boston and in the heart of Round Ball [Mass game] territory, with neighboring towns of Holliston, Medway, Sharon, and Dedham. The book is found via a “confessions of boyhood” search via Google Books, as accessed 11/14/2008.

1840c.39 – Cricket [or Maybe Wicket] Played by Harvard Class of 1841

“Games of ball were played almost always separately by the classes, and in my case cricket prevailed. There were not even matches between classes, so far as I remember, and certainly not between colleges. . . . The game was the same then played by boys on Boston Common, and was very unlike what is now [1879] called cricket. Balls, bats, and wickets were all larger than in the proper English game; the bats especially being much longer, twice as heavy, and three-cornered instead of flat. . . . What game was it? Whence it came? It seemed to bear the same relation to true cricket that the old Massachusetts game of base-ball bore to the present ‘New York’ game, being less artistic, but more laborious.”

Member of the Class of 1841, “Harvard Athletic Exercises Thirty Years Ago,” Harvard Advocate [Cambridge MA], Volume 17, number 9 (June 12, 1879), page 131. Accessed 2/9/10 via Google Books search ("wickets were all larger" "harvard advocate").

1841.2 -- Boston Common Ballplaying Scene Appears on Writing Tablet

Specimens of Penmanship [Bridgeport, CT, J. B. Sanford], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 206. The image first appeared in Carver’s Book of Sports (see 1834 entry).

1841.13 – At Yale, Wicket Now Seen as “Ungenteel”

Commenting on the lack of exercise at Yale, a student wrote:

“The is one great point in which the English have the advantage over us: they understand how to take care of their health . . . every Cantab [student at Cambridge U] takes his two hours’ exercise per diem, by walking, riding, rowing, fencing, gymnastics, &c. How many Yalensians take one hour’s regular exercise? . . . The gymnasium has vanished, wicket has been voted ungenteel, scarce even a freshman dares to put on a pair of skates, . . .

Yale Literary Magazine, vol. 7 (November 1841), pages 36-37. as cited in Betts, John R., “Mind and Body in Early American Thought,” The Journal of American History, vol. 54, number 4 (March 1968), page 803. Provided by John Thorn, email, 7/10/2007. Note the absence of cricket as a university activity at both schools. Yale is in New Haven, CT.

1842.3 – Harvard Man George Hoar Writes of Playing “Simple Game Called Base”

George F. Hoar, a student at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, writes: “The only game which was much in vogue was foot-ball. There was a little attempt to start the English game of cricket and occasionally, in the spring, an old-fashioned simple game which we called base was played.”

Hoar, George F. Autobiography of Seventy Years [Pubr?, 1903], page 120. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.

1843.4 – On Yale’s Green, Many a “Brisk Game of Wicket”

“Were it spring or autumn you should see a brave set-to at football on the green, or a brisk game of wicket.” Ezekiel P. Belden, Sketches of Yale College (Saxton and Miles, New York, 1843), page 153. Yale is in New Haven CT.

1844.1 – “Round Ball” Played in Bangor ME: Cony’s Side 50, Hunt’s Side 49

The playing of round ball, as the game was formerly called, but since changed to “base ball,” was, in 1844, much in vogue, and was an exhilarating and agreeable amusement . . . .

“Baseball in ’44,” Wheeling WV Register, September 20, 1885, reprinted from the Bangor Whig, presumably from 1844.

The article continues to detail a match of round ball played on Wadleigh field, near Bangor ME, between neighborhood teams representing Samuel Cony [later Governor] and Samuel Hunt. There are few on-field details: the match was to play played to “fifty scores,” the sides tossed “for inning,” and when suppertime intruded on the hungry players with the score Hunt 45, Cony 40, “the expedient was adopted of finishing the game by pitching coppers,” so Cony and Hunt went inside and got their last “scores” that way. Cony flipped more heads than Hunt, but c’est la guerre. Thanks to John Thorn for located the text of the article [email of 2/10/2008.

1845.22 – Barre MA Skips the “Old Annual Game of Ball” on Election Day

“’Old Election’ passed over the town on Wednesday, with as little notice as any crusty curmudgeon might wish. A few people were abroad with ‘clean fixens’ on and there was an imposing parade of ‘boy’s training.’ Even the old annual game of ball was forgotten, and the holiday was guiltless of any other display of unusual mirth.”

“Old Election,” Barre Gazette, May 30, 1845. Accessed via subscription search, 2/14/2009. Query: How common a custom was it to celebrate Election Day with a ballgame? When did the custom start, and when did it die out? Can we start it up again?

1846.7 – Amherst Juniors Drop Wicket Game, 77 to 53: -- Young Billjamesian

“Friday, October 16. At prayers as usual. Studied Demosthenes till breakfast time. After breakfast came off the great match between our class and the juniors. We beat them 77 to 53. They had on the ground nineteen men out of twenty-nine, and we thirty out of thirty-five. Had the remainder of both classes been there, at the same rate we should have beaten them 90 to 81. As a class they were completely used up. Their players, however, averaged about 0.23 each more than ours. The whole was played out in about an hour. The victory was completely ours, a result different from what I expected. Got a lesson in Demosthenes and went to recitation.” On October 3, the MA diarist had written: “played a game of wicket, with a party of fellows . . . . Had a fine game, though I, knowing little of the rules, was soon bowled out. Then came home and wrote journal till 5PM. Then to prayers and afterward to supper.”

Hammond, William G., Remembrance of Amherst: An Undergraduate's Diary, 1846-1848. [Columbia University Press, New York, 1946], page 26. Per John Thorn 7/04/2003. Note: is it conclusive from this excerpt’s context that the MA students were playing wicket on October 16?

1846.8 – Amherst Alum Recalls How Wicket Was Played

Dr. Edward Hitchcock gives this account of the game of wicket in his MA college:

"In my days baseball was neither a science nor an art, but we played ‘wicket’. On smooth and level ground about 20 feet apart were placed two 'wickets,' pine sticks 1 inch square and 8 to 10 feet long, supported on a block at each end so as to be easily knocked off. The ball was made of yarn, covered with stout leather, about six inches in diameter and bowled with all the power of the wicket tender at each end. The aim was to roll it as swiftly as possible at the opposite wicket and knock it down if possible. This was defended by the man with a broad bat, 3 feet long, and the oval about 8 inches [across], who must defend his wicket. If the bowler could by [bowling] a fair ball, striking twice between the wickets, knock down the opposite wicket, the striker was out. But if the batter could by a direct or sideways hit send the ball sideways or overhead the outside men, they [ i.e. ., the batter and his teammate at the opposite end] could run till the ball was in the hands of the bowler. But the bowler to get the batter out must with the ball in his hand knock the wicket outwards before the batter could strike his bat outside a line three feet inside the wicket . . . . This game was played on the lowest part of the 'walk' under the trees which now extends from chapel to the church."

Hitchcock, Edward, “Recollections,” in George F. Whicher, ed., Remembrance of Amherst: An Undergraduate's Diary, 1846-1848. [Columbia University Press, 1946], page 188. Per John Thorn 7/04/2003.

1846.19 – One-Horse Wagon’s Driver 1, Wicket Players 0

A man drives his wagon along a road in Great Barrington MA, passing though was a dozen wicket players think of as their regular playing grounds. A throw hits the man in the pit of his stomach [now remember, wicket balls were darned heavy]. Naturally, he sues the players for trespass.

The defendants’ case: “at the time of the accident, Fayar Hollenbeck, on of the defendants, whose part in the game was to catch the ball after it had been struck, and to throw it back to the person whose business it was to roll it, was stationed in a northeasterly direction from the latter, who was atone of the wickets. The plaintiff had passed the wicket a little, and was west of a direct line from Hollenbeck to the person at the wicket. At this moment, Hollenbeck threw the ball with an intention to throw it to the person at the wicket; but the ball being wet, it slipped in his hand, when he was in the act of throwing it, and was thus turned from the intended direction, and struck the plaintiff.”

In the fall of 1848, the MA Supreme Court found for the traveler, saying, but much less succinctly, that the roads were built for travelers and that wicket was obviously too dangerous to play there.

Luther S. Cushing, Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Volume 1 (Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1865), pp. 453-457. Accessed 2/10/10 via Google Books search (cushing "vosburgh vs. john").

1847.12 – Mainers’ Bat and Ball Leads to Delayed Catharsis

“A very pleasant incident occurred in one of our public schools a day or two since. It seems that the boys attending the school, of the average age of seven years, had in their play of bat and ball, broken one of the neighbors windows, but no clue of the offender could be obtained.”

The neighbor came to the school to complain, and later a boy confessed, and then the rest of the players said they would chip in to pay for damages. “A thrill of pleasure seemed to run through the school at the display of correct feeling.”

New-Hampshire Gazette, May 11, 1847; the story is there credited to the Bangor [ME] Whig.

1848.16 – Fast-Day Notice to NH Subscribers

“Next Thursday being “Fast Day,” we shall issue our paper as usual on the following Tuesday, although our compositors will doubtless take a game with bat and ball.”

New-Hampshire Gazette, April 11, 1848. Accessed May 4, 2009 via subscription search.

1849.6 -- Inmates Play Base Ball at Worcester MA “Lunatic Hospital”

“[O]utdoor amusements consist in the game of quoits, base ball, walking in parties . . . “

“State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester,” The Christian Register, Volume 28, Issue 6 [February 10, 1849], page 6. Submitted by Bill Wagner 6/4/2006 and David Ball, 6/4/2006. Bill notes that the same article appears in Massachusetts Ploughman and New England Journal of Agriculture, Volume 8 Issue 20 [February 17, 1849], page 4.

1850.32 – NH Ballplaying Washed Out on Fast Day

“Fast Day. Disappointment fastened upon a thousand boys and girls, who calculated on a first rate, tall time on Fast Day. It seemed as if al the water valves in the clouds were opened, and we dare assert that rain never fell faster. The sun didn’t shine, the birds didn’t sing, the boys didn’t play ball . . . “

“Fast Day,” New-Hampshire Gazette, April 9, 1850. Accessed via 4/9/09 subscription search.

1850s.33 – Round Ball, Old Cat Played in Northwest MA Town

“There was, of course, coasting, skating, swimming, gool, fox and hounds . . . round ball; two and four old cat, with soft yarn balls thrown at the runner.”

G. Stanley Hall, “Boy Life in a Massachusetts Town Forty Years Ago,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society Volume 7 (1892), page 113. Accessed 2/10/10 via Google Books search ("g.stanley hall" "boy life"). Hall grew up on a large farm in Ashfield MA, which is in the NW corner of the commonwealth, and about 55 miles east of Albany NY. Note: it is interesting that the game of wicket is not mentioned. Query: “Gool?”

1850c.36 – Wicket Ball at Western MA School

“For exercise the students played wicket ball and shinny.”

The author here appears to be referring to the two sons of Edward Hitchcock, President of Amherst College from 1844 to 1854.

Alice M. Walker, Historic Homes of Amherst (Amherst Historical Society, Amherst MA, 1905), page 99. Accessed 2/10/10 via Google Books search (walker "historic homes"). Amherst MA is about 25 miles north of Springfield.

1852.5 -- Religious Chapbook Shows Action in Ball Play at Recess

Fernald, Benjamin C., My Little Guide to Goodness and Truth [Portland ME, Sanborn and Carter], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 214. This Sunday school reader has a detailed illustration of a game in progress.

1853c.1 – “Rounders” Played at Phillips Exeter, According to 1917 Account

“The game of “rounders,” as it was played in the days before the Civil War, had only a faint resemblance to our modern baseball. For a description of a typical contest, which took place in 1853, we are indebted to Dr. William A. Mowry:”

[Several students had posted a challenge to play “a game of ball,” and that challenge was accepted.] ‘The game was a long one. No account was made of ‘innings;’ the record was merely of runs. When one had knocked the ball, had run the bases, and had reached the ‘home goal,’ that counted one ‘tally.’ The game was for fifty tallies. . . . [T]he pitcher stood midway between the second and third bases, but nearer the center of the square . . . Well, we beat the eleven [50-37].’ [Mowry then tells of his success in letting the ball hit the ball and glance away over the wall “behind the catchers,” which allowed him to put his side ahead.]

Claude M. Fuess, An Old New England School: A History of Phillips Academy, Andover [Houghton Mifflin, 1917], pp. 449-450. Researched by George Thompson, based on partial information from reading notes by Harold Seymour. Note: It appears that Fuess saw this game as rounders, but Mowry did not use that name. The game as described is indistinguishable from the MA game.

1853.11 – Catcher Felled in ME

“Melancholy Accident. – In Pownal, on the 5^th inst Oren Cutter, 16 years of age, son of Reuben Cutter, Postmaster of Yarmouth, while ‘catching behind’ at a game of ball, was struck on the back of his head by a bat. Though suffering much pain, the lad was able to walk home, and after some external application, retired for the night, his friends not thinking or anything serious. In a short time, however, a noise was heard from the room, and on going to him he was found to be dying. The blow was received about sunset, and he died about 10.”

Portland Journal of Literature and Politics, May 21, 1853. Attributed to the Portland Mirror. Accessed 2/17/09 via subscription search.

1853c.13 – At Harvard, Most Students Played Baseball and Football, Some Cricket or 4 Old Cat

Reflecting back nearly sixty years, the secretary of the class of 1855 wrote: “In those days, substantially all the students played football and baseball [MA round ball, probably], while some played cricket and four-old-cat.”

“News from the Classes,” Harvard Graduates Magazine Volume 18 (1909-1910). Accessed 2/11/10 via Google Books search ("e.h.abbot, sec.").

1854.3 – Organized Round Ball in New England Morphs to The MA Game

“’Base Ball in New England.’ The game of ball for years a favorite sport with the youth of the country, and long before the present style of playing was in vogue, round ball was indulged in to a great extent all over the land. The first regularly organized Ball Club in this section was doubtless the Olympic Club, of Boston, which was formed in 1854, and for a year or more this club had the field entirely to themselves.

“In 1855 the Elm Trees organized, existing but a short time, however. In 1856 a new club arose, the ‘Green Mountains,’ and some exciting games were played between this Club and the Olympics. Up to this point the game as played by these clubs was know as the Massachusetts game; but it was governed by no regular code or rules”

Wright, George, Account of November 15, 1904, catalogued by the Mills Commission as Exhibit 36-19; accessed at the Giamatti Center in Cooperstown.

1854.13 – English Visitor Sees Wicket at Harvard

“It was in the spring of 1854 . . . that I stepped into the Harvard College yard close to the park. There I saw several stalwart looking fellows playing with a ball about the size of a small bowling ball, which they aimed at a couple of low sticks surmounted by a long stick. They called it wicket. It was the ancient game of cricket and they were playing it as it was played in the reign of Charles the First [1625-1649 -- LMc]. The bat was a heavy oak thing and they trundled the ball along the ground, the ball being so large it could not get under the sticks.

“They politely invited me to take the bat. Any cricketer could have stayed there all day and not been bowled out. After I had played awhile I said, “You must play the modern game cricket.” I had a ball and they made six stumps. Then we went to Delta, the field where the Harvard Memorial Hall now stands. We played and they took to cricket like a duck to water. . . .I think that was the first game of cricket at Harvard.” “The Boyhood of Rev. Samuel Robert Calthrop.” Compiled by His Daughter, Edith Calthrop Bump. No date given. Accessed 10/31/2008 at

http://www-distance.syr.edu/SamCalthropBoyhoodStory.html. Actually, Mr. Calthrop may have come along about 95 years too late to make that claim: see #1760s.1 above. Harvard is in Cambridge MA.

1855.26 – Tolland CT 265, Otis-Sandisfield MA 189 In Wicket Match

“The ball players of Sandisfield and Otis, thinking themselves equal for almost all things, send a challenge to the Tolland players for a match game in the former town, on Friday the 14th. Tolland accepted, and with twenty-five players on each side the game commenced, resulting in the complete triumph of he challenged or Tolland party, whose tally footed up 265 crosses, to 189 for the other side.”

The [Lowell MA?] Sun, September 27, 1855, attributed to the Springfield Republican. Accessed May 5, 2009 via subscription search. Tolland CT is about 20 miles NE of Hartford CT and 20 miles SE of Springfield MA. The two MA villages are about 30 miles W of Springfield.

In August, Barre MA arranged a game with players from Petersham MA and Hardwick MA. Barre Patriot, August 17, 1855. Barre MA is about 40 miles NE of Springfield, and the two other towns are about 7 miles from Barre.

1856.17 -- The Mass Game Explained

“I have thought, perhaps, a statement of my experience as to the Yankee method of playing ‘Base,’ or ‘Round’ ball, as we used to call it, may not prove uninteresting.

“The ball we used was, I should think, of the size and weight described by the Putnam rules, made of yarn, tightly wound round a lump of cork or India rubber, and covered with smooth calf-skin in quarters (as we quarter an orange), the seams closed snugly, and not raised, lest they should blister the hands of the thrower and catcher: the bat round, varying from 3 to 3.5 feet in length; a portion of a stout rake or pitchfork handle was much in demand, and wielded generally in one hand by the muscular young players at the country schools, who rivaled each other in the hearty cracks they gave the ball.

“There were six to eight players upon each side, the latter number being the full complement. The two best layers upon each side -- first and second mates, as they were called by common consent -- were catcher and thrower. These retained their positions in the game, unless they chose to call some other player, upon their own side, to change places with them.” Dated Boston, December 20, 1856. A field diagram followed. It shows either 6 or 10 defensive positions, depending on whether each base was itself a defensive station.

“Base Ball; How They Play the Game in New England, by An Old Correspondent” Spirit of the Times [date?] Submitted by John Thorn. Note: The Dedham rules of 1858 specified at least ten players on a team. The writer does not call the game the MA game, and does not mention plugging, the use of stakes as bases, the one-out-all-out rule -- conceivably because he thinks the NY shares their attributes?

1856.20 -- 100 to 98 Round Ball Game Played, After Sticky Rule Negotiations

“EXCITING GAME OF BASE BALL. – The second trial game of Base Ball took place on the Boston Common, Wednesday morning, May 14^th, between the Olympics and the Green Mountain Boys. The game was one hundred ins, and after three hours of exciting and hard playing, it was won by the Olympics, merely by two, the Green Mountain Boys counting 98 tallies. . . . The above match was witnessed by a very large assemblage, who seemed to take a great interest in it.” Albert S. Flye, “Exciting Game of Base Ball,” New York Clipper Volume 4, number 5 (May 25, 1856), page 35. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.

The article also prints a letter protesting the rules for a prior game between the same teams. The Olympics explained that were compelled to play a game in which their thrower stood 40 feet from the “knocker” while their opponent’s thrower stood at 20 feet. In addition, the Green Mountain catcher [sic] moved around laterally, and a special six-strike rule was imposed that confounded the Olympics. It appears that this game followed an all-out-side-out rule. The reporter said the Olympics found these conditions “unfair, and not according to the proper rules of playing Round or Base Ball.” Note: does this article imply that previously, base ball on the Common was relatively rare?

1856.23 – Olympics 100, Green Mountains 98, on Boston Common

News accounts of ballplaying in Boston at this stage were not common, but one example appears.

“Exciting Game of Ball. A trial game at ball took place on the Common this morning, between the members of the Olympic Ball Club and the Green Mountain Boys. One hundred tallies constituted the game, and after three hours of hard and exciting playing the victory was won by the Olympics, Their rivals counted 98 tallies.”

Boston Evening Transcript, May 14, 1856. Accessed via subscription search 2/17/2009. The Daily Atlas the next day also mentioned the game, noting “There was a large crowd of spectators, although the flowers and birds of springs, and a wheelbarrow race at the same time . . . tended to draw off attention.” A week later, the Boston Post reported that the Green Mountain Boys took the next contest, “the Olympics making 84 rounds to the G.M. Boys 119.”

1856.25 – Boston Paper Reports 192-187 Squeaker in Western MA

“A great game of ball, says the Berkshire Courier, cam off in that village on Friday last. The parties numbers 17 on a side, composed of lawyers, justices, merchants mechanics, and in fact a fair proportion of the village populations were engages wither as participants or spectators . . . . The excitement was intense . . . best of all the game was a close one, the aggregate count in [illeg: 8?] innings being 192 and 187.”

Boston Evening Transcript, April 18, 1856. Berkshire MA is about 5 miles NE of Pittsfield and about 10 miles E of New York state border. Note: this may have been a wicket match. One wonders why a Friday match would have been held.

1857.26 – The Tide Starts Turning in New England – Trimountains Adopt NY Game

“BASE BALL IN BOSTON. – Another club has recently organized in Boston, under the title of the Mountain [Tri-Mountain, actually – Boston had three prominent city hills then] Base Ball Club. They have decided upon playing the game the same as played in New York, viz.: to pitch instead of throwing the ball, also to place the men on the bases, and not throw the ball at a man while running, but to touch him with it when he arrives at the base. If a ball is struck [next word, perhaps “beyond,” is blacked out: “outside” is written in margin] the first and third base, it is to be considered foul, and the batsman is to strike again. This mode of playing, it is considered, will become more popular than the one now in vogue, in a short time. Mr. F. Guild, the treasurer of the above named club, is now in New York, and has put himself under the instructions of the gentlemen of the Knickerbocker. . . . “The New York Clipper (June 13, 1857 [per handwritten notation in clipping book]). Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008. Note: does “place the men on bases” refer to the fielders? Presumably in the MA game such positioning wasn’t needed because there was plugging, and there were no force plays at the bases?

1857.28 -- Boston Sees Eight Hour Match of the Massachusetts Game

“’BASE BALL’ – MASSAPOAGS OF SHARON VS, UNION CLUB OF MEDWAY. . . . The game commenced at 1 o’clock, and was to be the best 3 in 5 games, of 25 tallies each. A large crowd collected to witness the game, among whom were several of the Olympics.” But after one game it rained, and play resumed Monday morning. “after playing 8 hours the Union Club retired with the laurels of victory.” They won, 25-20, 8-25, 11-25, 25-24, 25-16.] Spirit of the Times, Volume 27, number 35 (Saturday, October 10, 1857), page 416, column 1. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.

1857.30 – Olympic Club’s Version of MA Game Rules Published

The Olympic Ball Club’s rules, adopted in 1857, appear in Porter’s Spirit of the

Times, June 27, 1857 [page?]. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.

The rules show variation from the 1858 rules [see #1858.3 below] that are sometimes seen as uniform practice for the Massachusetts game in earlier years. Examples: games are decided at “say 25” tallies, not at 100; minimum distance from 1B to 2B and 3B to 4B is 50 feet, and from 4B to 1B and 2B to 3B is 40 feet, not 60 feet in a square; pitching distance is 30 feet, not 35 feel; in playing a form of the game cited as “each one for himself” entails a two-strike at-bat and a game is set at a fixed number of innings, not the number of tallies; the bound rule is in effect, not the fly rule. The Olympic rules do not mention the size of the team, the size of the ball, whether the thrower or specify the use of stakes as bases.

1857. 32 – Daybreak Club Forms in Providence RI

“Base Ball at Providence – We have received a notification of the formation of the Aurora Base Ball Club at this place, and in accordance with their name, the members meet from 5 to 7 o’clock in the morning. They have been out seven times since March, notwithstanding the pluvious state of the atmospheric phenomena this season.”

Porter’s Spirit of the Times, Saturday, May 9, 1857. Facsimile contributed by Gregory Christiano, November 24, 2009. Query: Is this item newsworthy because it is an early Providence ballclub, because it is a pioneering daybreak club, or neither?

1858.3 – At Dedham MA, Team Representatives Formulate Mass Game Rules

The representatives of ten clubs meet at Dedham, Massachusetts, to form the Massachusetts Association Base Ball Players and to adopt twenty-one rules for their version of base ball. The Massachusetts Game reaffirms many of the older rule practices such as plugging the runner (throwing the ball at the runner to make a put-out). The Massachusetts Game rivals the New York Game for a time but eventually loses support as the popularity of the New York Game expands during the Civil War.

The Base Ball Player’s Pocket Companion [Mayhew and Blake, Boston, 1859], pp. 20-22. Per Sullivan, p. 22. Reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 26-27. See also David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 219:

To view the rules themselves, go to http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ruletown.shtml [Accessed 10/29/2008.]

The 36-page Mayhew/Baker manual covers the rules and field layouts for both games. It gamely explains that both game require “equal skill and activity,” but leans toward the Mass game, which “deservedly holds the first place in the estimation of all ball players and the public.” Still, it admits, the New York game “is fast becoming in this country what cricket is to England, a national game.”

The May 15 1858 Boston Traveller reported briefly on the new compact, adding “We congratulate the lovers of this noble and manly pastime.” On June 1, the Boston Herald reported on the first game played (before a crowd of 2000-3000 at the Parade Grounds) under the new rules, won in 33 innings by the Winthrops over the Olympics 100-27, and carried a box score.

1858.8 – Harvard Student Notes “Multitude” Playing Base or Cricket There

“[On] almost any evening or pleasant Saturday, . . . a shirt-sleeved multitude from every class are playing as base or cricket . . . “Mens Sana,” Harvard Magazine 4 (June 1858), page 201. Harvard is in Cambridge MA.

1858.28 – The MA Ball: Smaller, Lighter, “Double 8” Cover Design

Dedham Rules of the Massachusetts Game specifies that “The ball must weigh not less than two, nor more than two and three-quarter ounces, avoirdupois. It must measure not less than six and a half, nor more than eight and a half inches in circumference, and must be covered with leather.”

William Cutler of Natick, MA reportedly designs the Figure 8 cover. The design was sold to Harrison Harwood. Harwood develops the first baseball factory (H. Harwood and Sons) in Natick, Massachusetts. Baseballs that are manufactured at this facility include the Figure 8 design as well as the lemon peel design.

Submitted by Rob Loeffler, 3/1/07. See “The Evolution of the Baseball Up to 1872,” March 2007.

1858.29 – First Recorded Game at Williams College

“On Saturday last [May 29] a Game of Ball was played between the Sophomore and Freshmen Classes of Williams College. The conditions were three rounds of 35 tallies – best two in three winning. The Sophs won the first, and the Freshmen the two last. It was considered one of the best contested Games ever played by the students.”

“Williamstown [MA],” The Pittsfield Sun, vol. 58, number 3011 (June 3, 1858, page 2, column 5. Posted to 19CBB on 8/14/2007 by Craig Waff. The best-of-three format is familiar in the Massachusetts game. Note: does the final sentence imply that earlier games of ball had been played?

1858.45 – 1000 Watch November Base Ball in New Bedford MA. Brr.

The New Bedford Evening Standard (November 26, 1858) reported on the Thanksgiving Day ball game: “At the conclusion of the game, Mr. Cook, in a few appropriate remarks in behalf of the Bristol County Club, presented the Union Club with a splendid ball. Cheers were then given by the respective Clubs and they separated to enjoy their Thanksgiving dinners. About 1000 spectators were present.

“In the afternoon there were several ‘scrub’ games, that is games which the various Clubs unite and play together. The regular Ball season is considered to close with Thanksgiving, though many games will doubtless be played through the winter when the weather will permit.” Text provided by Kyle DeCicco-Carey, email of 1/14/2008.

1858.51 – At Harvard, Two Clubs Play Series of Games by New York Rules

The Lawrence Base Ball Club and a club from the Harvard Law School played “regular matches” on campus. The Lawrence Club’s 1858 Constitution stipulated that “the Game played by this Club shall be that known under the name of the ‘New York Game of Base Ball’” under its March 1858 rules, and that it would play no other game. The dates of the games against the law school and the nature of that club as not known, but accounts exist of intramural games in 1858.

“The Lawrence Base Ball Club,” The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, Volume 25 (March 1917), pp 346-350. Accessed 2/16/10 via Google Books search ("lawrence base").

1858c.57 – Modern Base Ball Gets to Exeter Prep [from Doubleday’s Home Town!]

“The present game [of baseball] was introduced by George A. Flagg, ’62 [and three others and] Frank Wright, ’62. Most enthusiastic of these early players was Mr. Flagg, who abandoned the Massachusetts style of baseball for the New York style. The ball then used was a small bag of shot wound with yarn, and could be batted much further than the present baseball. The men just named played among themselves and with town teams. Mr. Wright, of Auburn, New York, was perhaps more responsible than anyone else for bringing the game to New England.”

Laurence M. Crosbie, The Phillips Exeter Academy: A History (1923), page 233. Posted to the 19CBB listserve on [date?] by George Thompson. Accessible in snippet view 2/19/2010 via Google Books search (crosbie exeter flagg). Query: Is c1858 a creditable guess as to when lads in the class of ’62 might have begun playing at Exeter? Is a full view available online? Phillips Exeter is in Exeter NH, about 50 miles N of Boston and about 12 miles SW of Portsmouth.

1859.1 – First Intercollegiate Ballgame: Amherst 73, Williams 32

In the first intercollegiate baseball game ever played, Amherst defeats Williams 73-32 in 26 innings, played under the Massachusetts Game rules. The contest is staged in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a neutral site, at the invitation of the Pittsfield Base Ball Club.

Pittsfield Sun, July 7, 1859. Reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 32-34. Also, Durant, John, The Story of Baseball in Words and Pictures [Hastings House, NY, 1947], p .10. Per Millen, note # 35.

The two schools also competed at chess that weekend.

Amherst Express, Extra, July 1 - 2, 1859 [Amherst, MA], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 219. A two-page broadsheet tells of Amherst taking on Williams in both base ball and chess. Headline: “Muscle and mind!”

1859.8 – Sixty Play for Their Supper

“On Saturday last New Marlborough and Tolland played a game of ball for a supper – Tolland beat. There were 30 players on a side.”

Pittsfield Sun, June 23, 1859. Accessed via subscription search February 17, 2009. Tolland CT is about 20 miles NE of Hartford, and New Marlborough MA is in the SW corner of MA, about 25 miles S of Pittsfield. Looks like this was a game of wicket.

1859.9 – Excelsiors and Union Club play for $500 and MA Championship

New York Clipper, October 22, 1859. The two clubs were the Excelsior Club of Upton MA and the Union Club of Medway MA. The Excelsiors won, 100-56, and received $500 in gold. “The game, in which 80 innings were played, occupied nearly 11 hours, and proved quite a treat to those who witnessed it. In 1860 the two clubs would meet for a $1000 purse.

The New-York Tribune (October 12, 1859), page 5 column 2 reported that 5000 spectators attended the match, including “delegations from many of the clubs throughout the state.” Posted to 19CBB on 3/1/2007 by George Thompson.

Writing of this match nearly fifty years later, “H.S” [Presumably Henry Sargent] said it was his recollection that “The attendance was more than 10,000 at each day’s play. In the neighboring towns the factories gave their employees holidays to see the game.” “H. S.,” “Roundball: Baseball’s Predecessor and a Famous Massachusetts Game,” The New York Sun (Monday, May 8, 1905) page not known. The article features many other aspects of roundball.

Joanne Hulbert, David Nevard, John Thorn, and Craig Waff helped untangle previous versions of this material [H. S. had recalled the big game as taking place in 1858].

1859.10 – Philadelphia Man Interested in Forming MA Game Club

“We have already several clubs in the neighborhood who I presume play the same game as the New York clubs, which the New York Tribune call a “baby game” if as the article in the Tribune to-day indicates your Massachusetts game is the best we shall be glad to introduce it here.”

Letter from William Stokes, Philadelphia to Geo H. Stoddard, Pres., Excelsior Ball Club, Upton Mass, October 18, 1859. From the Mills Commission files at the HOF Giamatti Center.

1859.12 – MA Championship: Unions 100, Winthrop 71, in 101 Innings

Wilkes Spirit of the Times, October 15, 1859. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.

1859.14 – New York Tribune Compares NY Game and NE Game

“That [NY Tribune} article was a discussion, I believe, of the two games, the New York game and the Massachusetts round ball game, with a view to decide which was the standard game. So far as we know, this newspaper indicates that [text obscured] became a sport of national interest. The fact that the club of a little country town up in Massachusetts should be weighed in the balance against a New York club, in the columns of the first paper of the country marks a beginning of national attention to the game.”

New York Tribune, October 18, 1859, as described in Henry Sargent letter to the Mills Commission, [date obscured; a response went to Sargent on July 21, 1905, suggesting that the Tribune article had arrived “after we had gone to press with the other matter and consequently it did not get in.]. The correspondence is in the Mills Commission files, item 65-29.

George Thompson located this article and posted it to 19CBB on 3/1/2007. The editorial says, in part:

“The so-called ‘Base Ball’ played by the New York clubs – what is falsely called the ‘National’ game – is no more like the genuine game of base ball than single wicket is like a full field of cricket. The Clubs who have formed what they choose to call the ‘National Association,’ play a bastard game, worthy only of boys ten years of age. The only genuine game is known as the ‘Massachusetts Game . . . .’ If they [the visiting cricketers] want to find foes worthy of their steel, let them challenge the ‘Excelsior’ Club of Upton, Massachusetts, now the Champion club of New England, and which club could probably beat, with the greatest ease, the best New-York nine, and give them three to one. The Englishmen may be assured that to whip any nine playing the New-York baby game will never be recognized as a national triumph.”

A few days later, a gentleman from Albany NY wrote to the Excelsiors, saying he is “desirous of organizing a genuine base ball club in our city.” Letter from F. W. Holbrook to George H. Stoddard, October 22, 1859; listed as document 67-30 in the Spalding Collection, accessed at the Giamatti Center of the HOF.

1859.21 -- Porter’s: MA Game Will Surely Die

“This thing cannot last, and the Massachusetts game will surely die a natural death when the New England clubs come to realize the superiority of base ball, “The New York Game,” as played under the rules adopted by the NABBP.”

Editorial, Porter’s Spirit of the Times?? October 1859?? From the ninth segment of Rankin’s 1910 history??

1859.22 -- Worcester High School in MA Has First Secondary School Base Ball Team

“Worcester High School in Massachusetts has been traditionally recognized as the first secondary institution to form a team that competed against teams outside of the school.”

Source: Illinois High School Association website

1859.23 -- Base Ball Comes to Lowell MA, Town of Factories

“BASE BALL CLUB. We are glad to chronicle the formation of any club whose object is rational out-door amusement and exercise. In a place like Lowell, where a large portion of the working male population is confined eleven hours a day in close rooms, such exercise is especially needed . . . . [Company teams are encouraged.]

Lowell [MA] Daily Journal and Courier, August 1, 1859.

1859.40 – Devotion to MA Game Erodes Significantly

“BASE BALL. – Massachusetts has 37 clubs which play what is known as the Massachusetts game; and 13 which play the New York game.” Source: a NY paper, either The Clipper or the Spirit of the Times; from a clipping in the Mears Collection scrapbooks annotated “October” and hand and placed among the 1859 clippings. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.

1860.10 – Atlantics Are Challenged to Play MA Game for $1000 Stake, But Decline

“In a long talk with “Bill” Lawrence, who put up the money for the Upton-Medway game, and himself a player on the mechanics Club of Worcester, he tells me that just before the war – he thinks in 1860 – he went to New York with Mr. A. J. Brown (now dead), of Worcester, and challenged the Atlantics of Brooklyn to come to Worcester and play the Uptons for 1000 dollars; the game to be the “Massachusetts Game” and not the “New York Game,” which was the game played by the Atlantics. The winner to get the entire $1,000; the loser nothing. After a good deal of consideration the challenge was not taken up by the Atlantics, on the ground that the players could not spare sufficient time for the practice requisite for such an important match; the officials of the Atlantic Club at the same time scoffing at the idea that could beat the Uptons or any other Club.”

Letter from Henry Sargent, Worcester MA to the Mills Commission, June 25, 1905.

In a posting to 19CBB on 8/5/2005 [message 4], Joanne Hulbert reports on four articles from the Worcester Daily Spy [July 16, July 17, July 17, and August 4] that record the rumor of the “great match game of base ball,” as well as a return match in New York if Upton wins, and the Atlantics’ turndown, “probably on account of the expenditure of time and money . . . as well as to their objection to playing any but the New York game.”

1860.28 – New England Publication Admits New Dominance of NY Game

“BASE BALL. The game of Base Ball is fast becoming in this country what Cricket is in England, - a national game. It has a great advantage over the Gymnasium and other exercise, because it combines simplicity with a healthful exercise at a very trifling expense; bandit is universally acknowledged as a very exciting and also interesting sport. The so called "New York Game," established by the National Association of Base Ball Players, which meets annually at New York, is fast becoming popular in New England, and in fact over the whole country, not only as giving a more equal share in the game but also requiring a greater attention, courage, and activity than in the old game, sometimes called the Massachusetts Game. The first club established in New England to play this new game was organized under the name of "Tri-Mountain Base Ball Club of Boston," and for a long while they were the only club in this section of the country. It seemed hard to give up the old game, but the motto of the Tri-Mountain was "Success," and from time to time during the past two years, there have been similar clubs organized, until at the present time the number is quite flourishing; and the New York Game bids fair to supplant all others - Farmers Cabinet Volume 58, number 42 (May 16, 1860), page 2. Provided by Joanne Hulbert, email of 2/18/2008.

1860.43 –Three Ball Clubs Form in VT Village

“As if to anticipate and prepare for the dread exigencies of war, then impending, by a simultaneous impulse, all over the country, base ball clubs were organized during the year or two preceding 1861. Perhaps no game or exercise, outside military drill, was ever practiced, so well calculated as this to harden the muscles and invigorate the physical functions. . . .

“Three base ball clubs were formed in this town, in 1860 and 1861. . . . They were sustained with increasing interest until 1862, when a large portion of each club was summoned to war.”

Hiel Hollister, Pawlet [VT] for One Hundred Years (J. Munsell, Albany, 1867), pages 121-122. Available via Google books: search “base ball””pawlet”. Accessed 11/14/2008. Pawlet VT [current pop. c1400] is on the New York border, and is about 15 miles east of Glens Falls NY. Note: This is the first VT item on base ball in the Protoball files, as of November 2008; can that be so? Earlier items above [#1778.6, #1787.2,and #1828c.5] all cite wicket or goal. Chester VT’s 3044 souls today live about 30 miles north of Brattleboro and 35 miles east of the New York border.

1860.50 – A Truly “Grand” Game of Massachusetts Base Ball

The Excelsior Club of Upton MA and the Union Club of Medway agreed to meet for a purse of $1000 in September at the Agricultural Fair Grounds in Worcester.

“Worcester County Intelligence,” Barre Gazette, September 14, 1860. Accessed via subscription search, February 17, 2009.

1861.8 – Vermont Club Forms

A club formed in Chester, VT. The New York Clipper (date omitted from scrapbook clipping; “April 20, 1861” appears on adjacent item, perhaps from the same issue). Facsimile from the Mears Collection clippings provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.

1862.6 – Harvard Turns to the New York Game

“Base-Ball, the second in importance of [Harvard] University sports, is even younger than Rowing [which still prevailed]. It originated apparently, in the old game of rounders. Up to 1862 there were two varieties of base-ball – the New York and the Massachusetts game. In the autumn of 1862 George A. Flagg and Frank Wright organized the Base Ball Club of the Class of ’66, adopting the New York rules; and in the following spring the city of Cambridge granted use of the Common for practice. A challenge was sent to several colleges: Yale replied that they had no club, but hoped soon to have one; but a game was arranged with Brown sophomores, and played at Providence [RI] June 27, 1863. The result was Harvard’s first victory.”

D. Hamilton Hurd, compiler, History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (J. W. Lewis, Philadelphia, 1890), page 137. Accessed 2/18/10 via Google Books search ("flagg and frank" hurd). Flagg and Wright reportedly had played avidly at Phillips Exeter Academy.

1862.11 – Banned in Boston’s Public Garden: “Games of Ball, Foot-ball”

“Sect. 10. No person or persons shall, without the consent of the mayor or board of aldermen, engage in games of ball, foot-ball, or other athletic sports, upon the public garden.”

Ordinance and Rules and Order of the City of Boston (Mudge and Son, Boston, 1869), page 132. Accessed 2/18/10 via Google Book search ("ball, foot-ball" ordinances 1869). A note identifies this section as having been written in 1862, along with one that prohibits shaking carpets on public lands, including streets, lanes, alleys, etc.

1862.14 -- 22^nd MA beats 13^th NY in the Massachusetts Game

“Fast Day (at home) April 3, there was no drill, and twelve of our enlisted men challenged an equal number from the Thirteenth New York, to a game of base-ball, Massachusetts game. We beat the New-Yorkers, 34 to 10.”

J. L. Parker and R. G. Carter, History of the Twenty-Second Massachusetts Infantry (The Regimental Association, Boston, 1887), pages 79-80. Fast Day in MA was traditionally associated with ballplaying. The 22^nd MA, organized in Lynnfield MA (about 15 miles N of Boston), was camped at Falmouth VA in April, as was the 13^th NY. The 13^th was from Rochester and would likely have known the old-fashioned game. PBall file: CW-126.

1862.16 – 13th Massachusetts Plays Ball Near Officers, Dignitaries, Enemy Lines

“In the afternoons, after battalion drill, the game of base-ball daily occupied the attention of the boys. On one of these occasions, General Hartsuff riding by, got off his horse and requested permission to catch behind the bat, informing us there was nothing he enjoyed so much. He gave it up after a few minutes and rode away, having made a very pleasant impression.”

Charles E. Davis, Jr., Three Years in the Army: The Story of the Thirteenth Massachusetts Volunteers (Estes and Lauriat, Boston MA, 1894), page 56. The entry is dated May 6, 1862, when the regiment was in the vicinity of Warrenton VA. Also cited in Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray (Princeton U, 2003), page 41. There is no further detail on the version of base ball that was played. The full text was accessed on 6/1/09 on Google books via a search for “’charles e. davis’ three”

Davis also mentions a game of ball being played in April 1863 as large numbers of troops were awaiting a formal review by President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton near the Potomac River, “to the no small amusement of the lookers-on” [page 198]. In November 1863, still in Virginia, Davis reports that while awaiting an order to attack a nearby Confederate force, “Time dragged along, and no movement was made. We were all tired of the inaction and the heavy strain on the mind from hours of expectation, and so we had a game of ball to pass away the time. Occasionally the ball would be batted over the crest of the hill in front, in range of the rebel skirmishers, necessitating some one going after it. It was a risky piece of business and required quick work, but it was got every time.” [page 288.]

In March 1864, the 13^th played the 104^th NY and won 62-20. “As opportunities for indulging our love for this pastime were not very frequent, we got a deal of pleasure out of it.” [page 309.] Later that month, the regiment celebrated the escape and return the colonel of the 16^th Maine with base-ball, along with chasing greased pigs and a sack race. [Page 313.] PBall file: CW20.

1862.19 -- The 39^th Massachusetts Plays Ball

The regimental history of the 39^th MA has two passing references to ballplaying. On Thanksgiving Day of 1862, “There was a release from the greater part of camp duties and the time thus secured was devoted to baseball, football and other diversions so easily devised by the American youth” [p. 50]. The regimental camp was in southern MD, within 15 miles of Washington. April 2, 1863 “was the regular New England Fast Day, and a holiday was proclaimed by the Colonel . . . . [T]here was no failure in taking part in the races, sparring-matches, and various games, of at least witnessing them. The baseball game was between the men of Sleeper’s Battery and those selected from the 39^th with the honors remaining with the Infantry, though the cannoneers were supposed to be particularly skillful in the throwing of balls.” [page 64]. The regiment was now in Poolesville MD, about 30 miles NW of Washington.

Alfred S. Roe, The Thirty-Ninth Regiment. Massachusetts Volunteers 1862-1865 (Regimental Veteran Association, Worcester, 1914). Accessed 6/3/09 on Google Books via “’thirty-ninth’ roe” search. The regiment was drawn from the general Boston area. PBall file: CW-26.

Back to the Protoball Home Page

Back to the Protoball Chronologies