Expert on 1845-1860 Era?

[TonyK]

We know that it is possible that in 1839 a game was played in Cooperstown, NY very similar to baseball. And we know that in 1845 the NY Knickerbockers developed a set of rules and some are still in use today.

My question is who spread the word between 1845 and 1860 to all the towns and cities in the Northeastern US on how to play baseball? For example, the city of Syracuse, NY formed it's first baseball team in 1857, I believe. Two small towns with less than 1,000 population each even played a game in 1860. It was well organized, and a box score was even reported in the paper. How did the word get spread? Was it at meetings, reading the base ball guides, or maybe watching a game in a larger city?

[ACrank]

in the book "Baseball In Erie" they show a picture of the 1885 Erie Olympics

organizated by Archie Miller, a man who helped introduce Atlanta to the national pasttime a few years earlier

(& thats not the first Erie town team listed in the book - they show a team from 1874 - the Keystones who faced the Philadelphias of the National Association and Candy Cummings in an exhibition)

i'm no expert on this era, but i suspect there are countless stories of many Archie Miller's who saw the game, fell in love with it, and spent their lives bringing it to other communities - who in turn had other people who saw a game and brought it back to their community, etc etc

[TonyK]

in the book "Baseball In Erie" they show a picture of the 1885 Erie Olympics



(& thats not the first Erie town team listed in the book - they show a team from 1874 - the Keystones who faced the Philadelphias of the National Association and Candy Cummings in an exhibition)

i'm no expert on this era, but i suspect there are countless stories of many Archie Miller's who saw the game, fell in love with it, and spent their lives bringing it to other communities - who in turn had other people who saw a game and brought it back to their community, etc etc

I am trying to imagine how thousands of towns in NY and PA organized teams between 1845 and 1860, before the Civil War, using almost the same rules. Wouldn't someone need the set of rules plus the equipment?

Many of the first players were either young businessmen or members of a club. Did they buy the first baseball guides and discuss forming a team? Somehow the game spread almost as fast in the rural areas as it did in the big cities, and communications weren't like they are today. What happened around say 1855 to make everyone want to form teams?

[hubkittel]

i read a theory that the game was spread by young men who went east to college, learned the game, and then brought it back to their local communities. a similiar idea was that clergy, who went to seminaries and theological schools in the east, played the same role.

the game, prior to the civil war, wasn't being played by the same set of rules everywhere. new york, new england, and philadelphia, for example, had different sets of rules. the national association of base ball players, founded in 1857, certainly played a role in the spread of the game and the acceptance of a uniformed set of rules. amateur baseball teams in st. louis, probably as a result of their involvement with the nabbp, started playing by the "national" rules by 1860.

the maturation of the railroad system in the 1850's certainly helped the spread of the game and the communication of a uniform set of rules in the northeast. travel and communication between places like new york and st. louis was much easier then it had been just a generation earlier. this was excellerated after the civil war as the railroad system continued to grow and reach even more isolated areas.

as for a lack of equiptment being a problem in the spread of the game, all you really needed to play the game in the 1850's was a bat and a ball. no gloves, no tools of ignorance, no batting helmets, etc. i would assume that there were plenty of balls and bats around because of all the various "ball games" that were played all around the country.

[TonyK]

i read a theory that the game was spread by young men who went east to college, learned the game, and then brought it back to their local communities. a similiar idea was that clergy, who went to seminaries and theological schools in the east, played the same role.

the game, prior to the civil war, wasn't being played by the same set of rules everywhere. new york, new england, and philadelphia, for example, had different sets of rules. the national association of base ball players, founded in 1857, certainly played a role in the spread of the game and the acceptance of a uniformed set of rules. amateur baseball teams in st. louis, probably as a result of their involvement with the nabbp, started playing by the "national" rules by 1860.

the maturation of the railroad system in the 1850's certainly helped the spread of the game and the communication of a uniform set of rules in the northeast. travel and communication between places like new york and st. louis was much easier then it had been just a generation earlier. this was excellerated after the civil war as the railroad system continued to grow and reach even more isolated areas.

as for a lack of equiptment being a problem in the spread of the game, all you really needed to play the game in the 1850's was a bat and a ball. no gloves, no tools of ignorance, no batting helmets, etc. i would assume that there were plenty of balls and bats around because of all the various "ball games" that were played all around the country.

hub: Good points and thanks. I'll go over how each one may have affected a city or a town in NY. Perhaps someone in New England, PA or elsewhere can discuss those areas?

College students/professors - there were very few colleges in NY that had a baseball team in the 1850's. It is possible that they did play ball on occasion and later on spread the word.

Clergy - I have not run across any mention of a priest/minister/church in NY that encouraged ball playing in the 1850's.

NABBP in 1857 - I can see cities such as Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo forming teams and joining the association. But what about those dozens of small towns near them who also had teams and had box scores of games put in the newspaper?

Railroads - A small group of businessmen in a town could have taken a train to watch teams play in the nearest city. Afterward, would they ask them for the rules and what kind of bats and balls they used?

This is what I am trying to find out...do we have any info on how a small town's young men first began playing the game before the Civil War? Did a team challenge them and then explain to them how to play? Did a player with a guide or written set of rules visit them and tell them how to get started? Did a few townsfolk take the train up to the city to watch a game and pick the brains of everyone? Did a local newspaper print the rules or tell readers where to get them? Or did they just order an 1850's base ball guide through the mail?

[hubkittel]

This is what I am trying to find out...do we have any info on how a small town's young men first began playing the game before the Civil War? Did a team challenge them and then explain to them how to play? Did a player with a guide or written set of rules visit them and tell them how to get started? Did a few townsfolk take the train up to the city to watch a game and pick the brains of everyone? Did a local newspaper print the rules or tell readers where to get them? Or did they just order an 1850's base ball guide through the mail?

i certainly don't think of myself as an expert on the era but i would think that all of the above were factors in the spread of the game. to get specific information you would have to limit your research to one city and trace the development of amateur clubs back as far as you can.

in the spirit of st. louis, peter golenbock writes that baseball was brought to st. louis by jere frain, a contractor from "the east". frain had played for "the highly regarded charter oak club of brooklyn before moving to st. louis" in the early 1850's. he showed people how to play the game (according to new york rules presumably) and laid out the first diamond. in 1864, frain was reported as being the captain of the empire club (who were one of the top amateur teams in st. louis in the 60's and 70's, along with the union and the red stockings).

you probably have stories like this for every city and town in american. someone comes from "the east"-be it a business man, returning college student, clergyman, or just someone with itchy feet-who had seen or played the game according to the new york rules. that city or town already has some version of a ball and bat game (town ball or three old cat or base, etc) and this person says "hey, we played a game like this out east but we played it this way. do you want to try it?" with the massive population movement that you had in the 19th century, it's not hard to imagine the game quickly spreading across the country like this. why it caught on and became so popular is another question entirely.

College students/professors - there were very few colleges in NY that had a baseball team in the 1850's. It is possible that they did play ball on occasion and later on spread the word.

Clergy - I have not run across any mention of a priest/minister/church in NY that encouraged ball playing in the 1850's.

i don't know about all colleges but i think that there is evidence that some form of the game was being played at eastern colleges in this era. there are references to college groups coming to new york, watching games, and, i think, participating. also there are some weird references at harvard about the "keeper of the bats and balls" that predate this era (edit: the reference to bats and balls at harvard is from 1781! there's a reference in wilke's spirit of the times in 1860 that mentions several eastern colleges attempting to schedule games amongst themselves; one inference from the reference is that if the college game is developed enough to be noted in spirit of the times then these clubs have probably been in existance for some time). as far as the spread of the game is concerned, i was thinking more along the line of some kid from keokuk, iowa going to school out east, playing the game, and then taking it back with him when he went home.

the clergy thing came up on 19cBB, a sabr related yahoo group. again, it fits the pattern of people who are travelling between east and west (ministers trained in new york and sent to rockford, illinois; priests from an eastern parish transfered to a diocese in ohio) and who could have carried information about the new york rules with them.

NABBP in 1857 - I can see cities such as Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo forming teams and joining the association. But what about those dozens of small towns near them who also had teams and had box scores of games put in the newspaper?

i think that the nabbp had a huge effect on the spread of a uniform set of rules-something along the lines of a "if you want to play with the big boys, you have to play by our rules" kind of thing. the nabbp started with something like 16 teams in 1857 and had grown to over 400 teams by the mid 1860's. certainly, the civil war had something to do with this, as hundreds of thousands of young men from all over the northern states were brought together. the number of people who learned the new york game in army camps during the war and then took it back home with them is incalculable.

Railroads - A small group of businessmen in a town could have taken a train to watch teams play in the nearest city. Afterward, would they ask them for the rules and what kind of bats and balls they used?

the development of the railroad system allowed the game to spread quickly. it's impossible to imagine the game spreading like it did without people having the ability to travel great distances relatively quickly. those people who had knowledge of the new york game would never have travelled to ohio, michagan, illinois, iowa, missouri, etc without the railroad. baseball was just riding on the back of commerce and migration patterns that were fueled by the development and maturation of the railroad system in the first half of the 19th century.

as to equipment, again i'd say that cities and towns already had it. people in america were playing variations of ball and bat games since colonial times so i would think that every town would have a few balls, bats, and bases. what is interesting about this period is that one form of a ball and bat game, because of all the reasons we're talking about, was able to become hugely popular and drive out all the others.

[TonyK]

i certainly don't think of myself as an expert on the era but i would think that all of the above were factors in the spread of the game. to get specific information you would have to limit your research to one city and trace the development of amateur clubs back as far as you can.

in the spirit of st. louis, peter golenbock writes that baseball was brought to st. louis by jere frain, a contractor from "the east". frain had played for "the highly regarded charter oak club of brooklyn before moving to st. louis" in the early 1850's. he showed people how to play the game (according to new york rules presumably) and laid out the first diamond. in 1864, frain was reported as being the captain of the empire club (who were one of the top amateur teams in st. louis in the 60's and 70's, along with the union and the red stockings).

you probably have stories like this for every city and town in american. someone comes from "the east"-be it a business man, returning college student, clergyman, or just someone with itchy feet-who had seen or played the game according to the new york rules. that city or town already has some version of a ball and bat game (town ball or three old cat or base, etc) and this person says "hey, we played a game like this out east but we played it this way. do you want to try it?" with the massive population movement that you had in the 19th century, it's not hard to imagine the game quickly spreading across the country like this. why it caught on and became so popular is another question entirely.



i don't know about all colleges but i think that there is evidence that some form of the game was being played at eastern colleges in this era. there are references to college groups coming to new york, watching games, and, i think, participating. also there are some weird references at harvard about the "keeper of the bats and balls" that predate this era (edit: the reference to bats and balls at harvard is from 1781! there's a reference in wilke's spirit of the times in 1860 that mentions several eastern colleges attempting to schedule games amongst themselves; one inference from the reference is that if the college game is developed enough to be noted in spirit of the times then these clubs have probably been in existance for some time). as far as the spread of the game is concerned, i was thinking more along the line of some kid from keokuk, iowa going to school out east, playing the game, and then taking it back with him when he went home.

the clergy thing came up on 19cBB, a sabr related yahoo group. again, it fits the pattern of people who are travelling between east and west (ministers trained in new york and sent to rockford, illinois; priests from an eastern parish transfered to a diocese in ohio) and who could have carried information about the new york rules with them.



i think that the nabbp had a huge effect on the spread of a uniform set of rules-something along the lines of a "if you want to play with the big boys, you have to play by our rules" kind of thing. the nabbp started with something like 16 teams in 1857 and had grown to over 400 teams by the mid 1860's. certainly, the civil war had something to do with this, as hundreds of thousands of young men from all over the northern states were brought together. the number of people who learned the new york game in army camps during the war and then took it back home with them is incalculable.



the development of the railroad system allowed the game to spread quickly. it's impossible to imagine the game spreading like it did without people having the ability to travel great distances relatively quickly. those people who had knowledge of the new york game would never have travelled to ohio, michagan, illinois, iowa, missouri, etc without the railroad. baseball was just riding on the back of commerce and migration patterns that were fueled by the development and maturation of the railroad system in the first half of the 19th century.

as to equipment, again i'd say that cities and towns already had it. people in america were playing variations of ball and bat games since colonial times so i would think that every town would have a few balls, bats, and bases. what is interesting about this period is that one form of a ball and bat game, because of all the reasons we're talking about, was able to become hugely popular and drive out all the others.

I would compare this to a glacier with very little exposed to us today, but obviously a lot more that happened that was never recorded. Kids and mens clubs were playing a variety of games, and one happened to evolve into baseball.

With 18 players needed for a game, it would have appealed to a one or two room schoolhouse containing 18 boys (or a few girls too?). It might also have appealed to a young men's social club with 18 members. I suspect that games like One O' Cat were played when the numbers of players dwindled down to only 5 or 6 perhaps when some players left for supper?

[hubkittel]

I would compare this to a glacier with very little exposed to us today, but obviously a lot more that happened that was never recorded. Kids and mens clubs were playing a variety of games, and one happened to evolve into baseball.

With 18 players needed for a game, it would have appealed to a one or two room schoolhouse containing 18 boys (or a few girls too?). It might also have appealed to a young men's social club with 18 members. I suspect that games like One O' Cat were played when the numbers of players dwindled down to only 5 or 6 perhaps when some players left for supper?

i think you have it exactly right when you compare it to a glacier and thankfully, with the research being down today, more and more of the glacier is being exposed.

it definately was an evolotionary process (dating back to the beginning of civilization and ancient ball and bat games). just in america in the 19th century, you have kids playing any variety of regional ball and bat games, adults playing the same in various organized clubs, and then the same adults in the same clubs playing under one "nationally accepted" set of rules. just to begin to understand and trace the origins of that one strand of the evolution, you can look at the influence of the spread of european culture in america, the civil war, 19th century commerce, etc. or you can look at how things just seemed to spring up organically (and independent of each other) in large eastern cities.

there's definately a lot more to it than "alexander cartwright invented the game" or "the knickerbockers invented the game". thankfully, we're moving away from things like that and towards a broader understanding of the origins of baseball.

[TonyK]

"there's definately a lot more to it than "alexander cartwright invented the game" or "the knickerbockers invented the game". thankfully, we're moving away from things like that and towards a broader understanding of the origins of baseball."

Speaking of Alexander Cartwright, he also played a Johnny Appleseed role in spreading the story of how to play baseball according to his biography. In 1849 he travelled for 160 days from NJ to San Francisco by train, wagon, and on foot to take part in the gold rush. He then sailed to Hawaii where he introduced the sport there.

Wherever he could find 18 volunteers along the Santa Fe Trail etc., he produced his rule book and ball and taught them how to play baseball. He kept a diary and he wrote letters home to fellow Knickerbockers telling how they played at nearly every stop along the journey. Settlers, miners, indians, mountain men, saloonkeepers, and army soldiers all learned from him how to play the game. His stops at Fort Osage, Fort Kearney and Fort Laramie introduced the game to hundreds of soldiers.

Army officers who attended college probably played baseball in the 1840's and 1850's and later brought their knowledge with them out west or to their armies in the Civil War.

[Buzzaldrin]

I went to university at Wesleyan, in Middletown Connecticut (home of the NA Middletown Mansfields), and while doing some university research back in the 80s, I came across references to Wesleyan's own Egalitarian Base Ball Club- going back to at least the early 1850s. I would imagine you'd have to hit individual university or college libraries to find more of that, but it's definitely out there.

Canada would be fun to look into too- the first mentioned Canadian game that we know of was in 1838 in Ontario (although we know of it only by a letter written 40 years or so later, so suspend disbelief, please), but there was certainly ball being played up there in the 50s too.

The college stuff should be easy enough to find- every college back then had an official and/or unofficial newspaper(s) or journal(s)- and those things will always be in archives. It's fun to spend a day reading old papers if you can get permission or if they've been put on microfilm. Just walk over to whatever institution is nearby (which is a lot trickier for me to do here in Sweden)

[TonyK]

I went to university at Wesleyan, in Middletown Connecticut (home of the NA Middletown Mansfields), and while doing some university research back in the 80s, I came across references to Wesleyan's own Egalitarian Base Ball Club- going back to at least the early 1850s. I would imagine you'd have to hit individual university or college libraries to find more of that, but it's definitely out there.

Canada would be fun to look into too- the first mentioned Canadian game that we know of was in 1838 in Ontario (although we know of it only by a letter written 40 years or so later, so suspend disbelief, please), but there was certainly ball being played up there in the 50s too.

The college stuff should be easy enough to find- every college back then had an official and/or unofficial newspaper(s) or journal(s)- and those things will always be in archives. It's fun to spend a day reading old papers if you can get permission or if they've been put on microfilm. Just walk over to whatever institution is nearby (which is a lot trickier for me to do here in Sweden)

Thanks for the information. Some colleges also had yearbooks too. I wonder if anyone has produced a list of when colleges first formed baseball teams or clubs? I counted only 5 or 6 colleges in NY State that formed teams by the late 1860's. I'm sure some of their students played ball recreationally before then. New England may have had more colleges playing baseball. My local college had their building burn down around 1900 so most of their archives and records were destroyed.

Adding information about baseball first being played in Canada can help understand how baseball spread. I'm not sure if I understand the rounders-town ball debate, but Canada's closer link to England would mean rounders should have been played up north.

[Ubiquitous]

In the book baseball by the numbers it mentions that most towns and areas had their own rules and regulations and that when the Knickerbockers codified their rules is when the game became more formalized. The rules got posted in newspapers across the country. AS well as others have said in which people who travel to the east coast and then come back to their home town and attempted to teach the east coast version of the game.

[rrhersh]

There is much confusion about the spread of the New York game, because of misconceptions about what went before. As has been noted upthread, there were versions of the baseball family played across the country. There was a general trend for adults to orgnize formal clubs. This was not merely true in New York. Partly I think the trend was pragmatic: an organized club would be a vehicle for regularly getting enough bodies together for a game. Partly it was ideological: a formal club gave respectability, which was an issue for grown men playing a boy's game.

The idea behind the early clubs was that they would meet regularly to play intra-club games: name two captains, and they would alternate picking players. But once you have more than one club in town, it is inevitable that they will test their mettle against one another. The next step is for the various clubs in town to sit down and agree on a unified code of rules, so that they don't need to discuss the matter every time they play a match game.

This process was developing in many areas The New York game didn't spread outside of the New York metro area until the late 1850s. There are known to have been by that time organized clubs playing local versions in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Detroit, Evansville, and western New York State. I strongly suspect that this list is incomplete. New England took the process the furthest, all the way to a regional convention of clubs. Philadelphia is my particular area of study. In 1859 there were not fewer than four competitive clubs playing the local game.

So the proper question is not how the various locales learned to play baseball. They had been playing baseball all along. It was part of the cultural heritage of the English-speaking peoples. The better question is how they were convinced to abandon their local, time-honored versions in favor of the version played in New York City.

This question is not settled. I don't think there is a single answer. But the timing of the spread is significant. When the National Association of Base Ball Players first met in 1857 the name was (to put it kindly) aspirational. The clubs were all from New York City and its immediate environs. A couple of years later there were delegates from as far away as Detroit. In the meantime the sporting press, based in New York, had been publicizing the New York game. Peter Morris in his book on early baseball in Michigan tells of a club that explicitly got the rules from a New York paper. New York was the cultural center of the nation, so when it claimed its version was the official national regulation game, people believed them. It was a bluff, but they pulled it off. They were also the commercial center. The New York game was introduced to Baltimore through a business contact. One of the early clubs playing the New York game in Philadelphia had a member who was a former Knickerbocker. There are also hints of conscious efforts by the New York baseball community to spread the game.

This is before we have any discussions of the merits of the games themselves. That is a tougher topic because usually little is known about the rules of the local versions. It is clear, though, that the modern foul lines were a New York peculiarity, and they allow spectators to get closer to the action. Ending an inning after three outs was also a peculiarity, and it can be argued that this format opens up interesting strategic situations. I am reluctant to take these arguments too far, as they are prone to the bias of Whiggish history. Also, this post is already too long, so I will quit now.

Richard Hershberger

[elktonbase_ball]

Base ball spread like wildfire in Maryland in 1867 due in large part to a company in Baltimore called the Baltimore Sports Emporium. In order to sell base ball equipment, what they did was send salesmen out to the Eastern Shore, western Maryland and central Maryland. These salesmen would go to the small towns and set up matches among the locals. On the Eastern Shore, one person alone was responsible for selling to just about every small town. Once it was introduced, each town wanted to have the finest club possible so that they could claim tourist dollars and notarity. Local businesses would chip in to make sure their local team had the best possible uniforms and could travel as close to first class as you could in 1867.
Some places in Maryland had base ball before this. Elkton and Cecil County and Delaware starting playing a full year before in the Summer of 1866 due to the close proximity of Philadelphia. The game also started to take root in Baltimore in 1866 too. 1867 though is generally the year it exploded in the state, thanks completely to the Baltimore Sports Emporium.

[Brian McKenna]

Serious baseball clubs and competition in Baltimore and throughout Maryland predates 1867 by at least two decades.

[rrhersh]

Serious baseball clubs and competition in Baltimore and throughout Maryland predates 1867 by at least two decades.

This would be astonishing.

The first baseball club in Maryland is traditionally held to the be Excelsior club of Baltimore, founding in (IIRC) 1858. I know of no evidence to contradict the usual account. The founder had a business contact who was a member of the Excelsiors of Brooklyn, and who took him to a game. There were a few other clubs founded in Baltimore soon thereafter.

As for smaller towns, the usual pattern was that baseball spread to them very soon after the close of the Civil War. What I have seen of Maryland baseball history is consistent with this. This pattern is widespread, so I'm not sure how much causality we can assign to that baseball emporium, but I am open to the idea that the emporium was the local vector by which baseball spread.

There was a regional form of ball in Maryland, just like everywhere else, but I have never been able to find any evidence of organized club play in Maryland. It seems to have been strictly a boy's game in Maryland. There was more-or-less organized cricket in Maryland as far back as the 1820s. I have seen accounts in Baltimore papers of cricket matches on the Fourth of July from the mid-1850s, but so sign of anything like baseball.

Richard Hershberger

[Brian McKenna]

Perhaps I should have said one decade. But are you saying that baseball wasn't being played prior to the 1858?

The emporium story is interesting and helpful in understand the spreading of the game. Were entrepreneurs doing the same in other states?

The Brooklyn Excelsiors tour before Creighton died sparked a lot of pride and interest in local teams at the onset of the 1860s. This indeed helped the game tentacle throughout surrounding areas.

[rrhersh]

Perhaps I should have said one decade. But are you saying that baseball wasn't being played prior to the 1858?

We have to be very careful with our language in this. I am saying that the New York game was unknown in Maryland prior to 1858. For that matter, it was unknown virtually everywhere prior to 1857. It began its spread outside of the New York metropolitan region that year, with a Boston club adopting the New York rules. (They had a member of New York who talked them into it.) The spread really got going in 1858, and most major cities in the U.S. had clubs playing it by 1860. Many people assume that the New York game spread gradually, with players learning it from other players in neighboring towns. This is not the case. The spread was sudden and rapid to the major cities, with a pause for the Civil War followed by consolidation with the game spreading to the smaller towns in the years immediately following the war.

This is not quite the same thing as saying that baseball was unknown in Maryland earlier on. There were innumerable regional forms played throughout the country, mostly informal schoolyard games. This certainly was played in Maryland from time immemorial. I have a couple of cites from Maryland in reminiscences.

The game was called "town ball" in Maryland, but this is unsurprising. There were various dialect words for the game, with Maryland solidly in the territory using "town ball". There were various regions where the local form was played by organized adult clubs: Philadelphia and Cincinnati are prominent examples of such regions, also within the "town ball" territory. Maryland seems not to have had any such clubs.

[rrhersh]

The Brooklyn Excelsiors tour before Creighton died sparked a lot of pride and interest in local teams at the onset of the 1860s. This indeed helped the game tentacle throughout surrounding areas.

I forgot to add, the Excelsiors made two tours in 1860: one up the Hudson river and one to Baltimore and Philadelphia. On both tours the Excelsiors played (and trounced) existing local clubs (or, in the case of Philly, a picked nine from local clubs). It is entirely likely that these tours spurred local interest, but they did not create it. The 1867 western tour by the Nationals was similar. These tours were an important part of the consolidation of the game's spread, but they are not an explanation for why the game spread in the first place.

Richard Hershberger

[Brian McKenna]

So in essense the NY game spread so quickly because teams were beginning to compete outside their immediate area and needed a standard code (NY rules) to go by?

Also, were 'town ball' associations and formal teams prevalent?

[Brian McKenna]

Mr. Hershberger,

I, for one, would find your posts to be very informative and helpful in understanding the beginnings of the game.

I think it would be great if you started more discussions perhaps as an aside to your research. I realize that few take part in the discussions in the 19th century forum but maybe an enlightened flow of information could change that.

Brian

[rrhersh]

So in essense the NY game spread so quickly because teams were beginning to compete outside their immediate area and needed a standard code (NY rules) to go by?

Also, were 'town ball' associations and formal teams prevalent?

No, just the opposite. The spread of the NY game was a precondition of inter-city competition. The Excelsiors toured alone, playing local clubs. Compare this with Spalding's world tour, where two teams toured playing exhibitions against each other. It is likely that the tours by the Excelsiors and later tours solidified local interest. Many contemporary observers assumed that the NY game would be a passing fad. I don't doubt that the opportunity to compete with outsiders is a big part of the reason why the phenomenon stuck.

As for associations, I take this to be asking about associations composed of clubs (as opposed to clubs composed of individuals). The only two associations known are those in New York and New England. You can have clubs competing against each other without any higher-level organization. That went on in various places.

[Brian McKenna]

Mr. Hershberger,

Can you talk a little about the effects of the Civil War and the linking (and construction) of the intercontinental railroad on the growth of the game?

[rrhersh]

Mr. Hershberger,

Can you talk a little about the effects of the Civil War and the linking (and construction) of the intercontinental railroad on the growth of the game?

Only if you stop calling me "Mr. Hershberger".

I have been working lately on the earlier period. The post-CW spread I actually know much less about. But I can certainly spew forth semi-informed opinions. In my defense, I try to be good about distinguishing which of my opinions are informed and which are not.

Oh, and thank you for your kind words. I do tend to drone on, so I am happy there is someone willing to claim to not being bored by it. I will start threads as the situation arises, but a lot of what I am doing right now is putting together a bunch of snippets, looking for patterns. This does not necessarily lend itself to posts: it would be rather like blogging solving a jigsaw puzzle.

You live in Maryland, right? I see the Chesapeake and Potomac vintage club has a game in Baltimore scheduled for September 9. I was thinking about getting to that. Drop me a line if you want to meet there. Email me at my user name at yahoo.com

Richard

[elktonbase_ball]

This would be astonishing.

The first baseball club in Maryland is traditionally held to the be Excelsior club of Baltimore, founding in (IIRC) 1858. I know of no evidence to contradict the usual account. The founder had a business contact who was a member of the Excelsiors of Brooklyn, and who took him to a game. There were a few other clubs founded in Baltimore soon thereafter.

As for smaller towns, the usual pattern was that baseball spread to them very soon after the close of the Civil War. What I have seen of Maryland baseball history is consistent with this. This pattern is widespread, so I'm not sure how much causality we can assign to that baseball emporium, but I am open to the idea that the emporium was the local vector by which baseball spread.

There was a regional form of ball in Maryland, just like everywhere else, but I have never been able to find any evidence of organized club play in Maryland. It seems to have been strictly a boy's game in Maryland. There was more-or-less organized cricket in Maryland as far back as the 1820s. I have seen accounts in Baltimore papers of cricket matches on the Fourth of July from the mid-1850s, but so sign of anything like baseball.



I actually know for a fact that there were established base ball clubs at least on the upper Eastern Shore. We did extensive research in putting together the history of our vintage base ball club the Elkton Eclipse. In 1866, the Elkton Base Ball Club, (later that year changing names to the Eclipse Base Ball Club of Elkton) posted a consitution and by laws as well as appointing specific officers of the club. It would meet and play each Tuesday and Friday. In doing research there was also clubs called the Olympic BBC of Middletown Delaware, the St. Georges BBC of Delaware, the Eureka BBC of Bohemia, the Nottingham Eureka Club just to name a few of the Eclipse's competition in 1866.
For more information on the spread of base ball along the Eastern Shore, Marty Payne from SABR did a comprehensive research study which explains the sporting goods store role in the spread of baseball.
You can go to the site: www.sabr.org/cmsFiles/Files/OTL2005-1.pdf

[Brian McKenna]

Nice reference - thanks Elkton.