Archive for September, 2010

 

1860

The Excelsiors were so gung-ho about their new endeavor that they sent delegates to New York City to attend the meeting of the National Association of Base Ball Players, the first attempt to organize baseball clubs on a large scale, on March 14. The NABBP governed the game from 1857-1870. Eighteen Sixty was the first year teams joined the association from outside the New York-New Jersey area. Hervey Shriver, the Excelsiors’ second baseman and secretary, became the NABBP’s first officer that wasn’t a New Yorker. He was elected second vice-president. Two Washington D.C. teams also attended the meeting. The Nationals and Potomacs were both formed in the nation’s capital in the fall of 1859.

At the time, Baltimore was the fourth largest city in the country by population, 212,000.[i] Another 51,000 lived in Baltimore County. A total of 2200 slaves also inhabited the city, 3200 in the county. By the end of the decade, 267,000[ii] would live in the city.[iii]

On Wednesday June 6, 1860, the first intercity[iv] game in baseball history was played. The Excelsiors traveled to D.C. to play the Potomacs. Their field was located on a cow pasture south of the President’s Mansion, now called the White House. James Buchanan was in office at the time. The field became known as the White Lot or more popularly the Ellipse. A large crowd showed including several hundred women.[v]

Continuing a custom that would be the norm for years, the home team batted first. Each club scored three runs in the first inning. The score stood at 18-14 in the Potomacs’ favor when the Excelsiors came to bat in the sixth. Baltimore scored 13 that inning to take the lead and the ultimate victory with a final score of 40-24.

George Beam, 30, was the winning pitcher. The rest of the nine that day included: D. Woods, 24, catcher; Hazlitt, 36, first base; Shriver, 31, second base; Hank, 36, third base; Pittman, 28, shortstop; Williams, left field; Mitchell, 23, center field; A. Woods, 22, right field.

“At the close of the game, hearty cheers were given by both parties, one for the other, and the umpire was also cheered for his able and impartial decisions.”[vi] In the cordial atmosphere of the amateur era, speeches, a feast and entertainment were a part of the postgame festivities.

The Excelsiors put on a display of the new game at their field on July 4, during the city’s holiday festivities. “About daybreak on the morning of the Fourth, the members of the Excelsior Base Ball Club, comprising a number of our most respectable young men, proceeded to their favorite ground, lying near the Northern Avenue boundary, and devoted several hours to that most excellent game of baseball.”[vii] They played an intra-squad game. “The contest, which was quite animated, was witnessed by a large number of persons who were attracted to the spot.”[viii] Women attended baseball games in droves during the early years in Baltimore, often accounting for a large percentage of the attendance. When the park was enclosed, they were admitted free.

It wasn’t long thereafter that several new area teams popped up. The Waverly club, for example, was comprised of much younger players than the Excelsiors. Many were teenagers.[ix] Others of interest included Captain William C. Pennington[x], a 31-year-old local lawyer, and 41-year-old druggist Nicholas Popplein, father of future National Association player George Popplein and three other sons that played locally.[xi]

In July, the Continental club[xii] organized and rented the Excelsiors’ grounds on Tuesdays and Fridays. August saw the formation of the Olympic[xiii] and Maryland[xiv] clubs. All these clubs were from the western part of the city like the Excelsiors. They all played on Madison Avenue. The Belvidere[xv] and Oriental clubs popped up by the fall. The Monumental club formed in December, eagerly waiting the next spring.

In August, a highly attended military drill by the Chicago Zouaves took place on the Madison Avenue ball grounds. “On Saturday [September 1] afternoon the members of the Excelsior Base Ball Club, which organized more than a year ago, assembled on their grounds…and devoted a couple of hours to a spirited game. Both bowling[xvi] and batting were performed in such a manner as to show considerable skillfulness, while the physical and mental exercise, which the game calls for cannot but prove highly beneficial to young men, especially those of sedimentary habits. The members of the club appear in a neat and tasteful uniform.[xvii] On the above excursion about three hundred persons were present, a large proportion of which were ladies. The club have (sic) regular games on every Wednesday and Saturday evenings.”[xviii]

On Saturday September 15, the Madison Avenue grounds were “alive” with teams practicing. The Excelsiors were putting the final touches on their game in anticipation of soon hosting the Excelsiors of Brooklyn. They had recently tied the Waverly club. On Monday September 17, Waverly and the Excelsiors played a rematch. Waverly won 24-20 before 1000 spectators.[xix] Games accounts are few and far between in 1860 newspaper accounts.

The first enterprise in the city to specialize in baseball supplies was Merrill, Thomas and Company located at 239 Baltimore Street. Beginning in 1860, they placed classified ads promoting their line of “Cricket and Base Ball Implements.” Other companies offered products that fell in their line of business, such as, shoes, caps and pants. For example, one classified ad read, “Base ball players will find a new style of shoe at Levi Perry and Co., 179 Baltimore St., near Light.”[xx] The Eutaw Temple of Fashion also carried “base ball goods.”[xxi]

According to William Griffith, the ball in the 1860s was larger than the one we’re familiar with today. “At the time, we played with a ball one-third larger and heavier than the present [National] League ball, and it was composed largely of India rubber. It was a lively ball and when given a good whack with the old-fashioned hickory and ash bat went like a cannon ball.”[xxii]

Perhaps the true genesis of baseball in Baltimore, the spark that lit the everlasting flame, stems from one of the first barnstorming tours in the sport’s history. The aforementioned Excelsiors of Brooklyn, one of the top clubs in the game, embarked on a southern tour[xxiii] in September, playing teams in Baltimore and Philadelphia. In July, they had traveled through New York State amid great fanfare, the first team to display their talent on an extended trip outside its home area, a six-game, two-week jaunt. Some Baltimore baseball entusiasts traveled to Brooklyn to view an Atlantics-Excelsiors game in August, several of a massive crowd of 20,000.[xxiv] The invitation to play on Madison Avenue may have been extended at that time.

The earlier efforts by the Excelsiors of Baltimore had garnered some interest in the new game. The trip to D.C. was a plus but it in truth sparked little interest in Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun only gave it a terse one-sentence notice in the following day’s newspaper and no account was found in the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser. New Yorkers, rather than Baltimoreans, seemingly understood the significance of the event. The first intercity game in history sparked a good deal of notice in Gotham, a seasoned baseball town, with extended newspaper columns and box scores. The July-4 display on Madison Avenue had indeed attracted some interest locally; it put the ball in motion, so to speak. The Excelsiors’ series with Waverly also was a plus. An elaborate affair whereby the city hosted a New York top team and perhaps the best player in the game, Jim Creighton, drew the interest of the entire community, young and old, male and female. It would be the first intercity game in Baltimore.

The Brooklynites arrived at the President Street railroad depot in the early morning on Saturday September 22, on the 4 a.m. train from Philadelphia. Among the throng were the young, good-looking Creighton, and those familiar at least to some in the city, Joe Leggett and Henry Polhemus. A contingent from their Baltimore counterpart met them at the station and whisked them by four-horse carriage to Guy’s Monument House in Monument Square on North Calvert Street where they would be staying.

Other Baltimore Excelsior club members and local dignitaries funneled to Guy’s for breakfast at 9:30 and a reception. After eating, the visitors were driven around town in carriages and shown the sights of the city and then returned for lunch. Around 1:30 p.m., the entourage departed for the Madison Avenue grounds, escorted in an adorned city car[xxv] from Holliday Street. Over 1800, a good many of which were women, headed to Madison Avenue at the northern boundary, many following the ballplayers en route.[xxvi] The contest was played on the Waverly field.

Upon arrival, Asa Brainard, John Whiting and Thomas Reynolds of the Brooklyns were reprimanded for ogling the beautiful women in attendance. “The immense assemblage present… was one of the most respectable and fashionable gathering ever seen on a ball ground.”[xxvii] The crowd contained a number of baseball fans from Philadelphia and Washington D.C., including six members of the Washington Potomacs, and “was filled with equipages of many of the first families.”[xxviii]

The Baltimore team included: Beam, pitcher; Hazlitt, catcher; Sears, first base; Shriver, second base; Morris Orem,[xxix] third base; Mitchell, shortstop; A. Woods, center field; Pittman; right field.[xxx] The umpire hailed from the Bowdoin club of Boston.

The teams dressed in a clubhouse and then warmed-up briefly. As custom dictated, the visitors took the field first. As an omen of things to come, the Baltimoreans were turned back in order, 1-2-3. Brooklyn scored six in the bottom of the inning, as much as Baltimore would all day. “The Brooklyn Excelsiors astonished the visitors with the dexterity of skill displayed by several of their members in batting and catching.”[xxxi]

Both Creighton, the sport’s first dominant mound ace, and Brainard probably pitched for Brooklyn. Creighton is listed as the pitcher in the only found box score that lists positions.[xxxii] He also played the field. Brainard was a substitute pitcher. Game recaps show that the Brooklyn players changed positions quite a bit. “During the playing, one of the players of the Baltimore club, was struck by a ‘cannon ball’ by a thrower of the Brooklyn Excelsior. The blow, which was above the eyebrows, brought him to the earth, but he rose and reappeared in the game with a handkerchief bound about his head, which devotion elicited great applause.”[xxxiii]

Perhaps the highlight of the game was a triple play instigated by Creighton while in left field.[xxxiv] “By one of the handsomest backward single-handed catches ever made by Creighton, he took the ball to [third baseman] Whiting, who caught it, and threw quickly to Brainard, on second base, before either Sears or Patchen[xxxv] had time to return to their bases.”[xxxvi] The crowd roared with delight – in all likelihood after the intricacies of the action was explained to many.

Brooklyn won easily 51-6. The Baltimoreans were happy to have scored six off the top New York team. “The grace and ease of movement, surety in catching and holding the balls sent to them, their perfect discipline, and admirable skill shown in each and every position, marked [the Brooklyns] at once as masters in the game.”[xxxvii] In fact, the Baltimore novices were excited just be hosting a top club; they applauded each fine play made by their more-experienced counterparts. The Baltimoreans were certainly schooled in the crafts of the game that day, but in a good way. The Brooklynites’ visit to Baltimore shot the game to the forefront in the city. Brooklyn newsmen seemed to realize this before all others. “Indeed, there is now quite a future created in regard to base ball in Baltimore”[xxxviii] and in the South as a whole. “By next season, fully twenty or thirty clubs will have started, whose organization will have resulted from this grand match.”[xxxix] Baseball had arrived in Baltimore to stay. D.C. and Baltimore would be the model for other Southern cities for years to come.

Another game or two was played on the grounds by other clubs after the two Excelsiors played. The party then headed back to Guy’s House at 8 p.m. for a dinner and a reception with “money being of no value in the estimation of a Southerner when the entertainment of esteemed guests comes in question.”[xl] A huge banquet was arranged which treated them to many of the local flavors including oysters, crabmeat, Maryland duck, roast beef and liberal amounts of wine.[xli] Dr. Hank, then president of the Baltimore team, George Bream and Joe Leggett among others delivered speeches. Hanks made a faux pas when he heartily referred to the Brooklyn Excelsiors as the “Champion Club of the United States.” The New York Clipper corrected him, “Dr. Hanks was not aware that the champions are the [Brooklyn] Atlantics.”[xlii] The men partied until 11 p.m. The Excelsiors left on the 6 p.m. train on Sunday, headed for home. Along the way, they played in Philadelphia on Monday, winning 15-4.

On Wednesday October 17, the Excelsiors and Waverly played again, with Waverly winning 32-14.[xliii] They played an earlier game in which the Excelsiors fielded their second team with similar results, Waverly being victorious. The October 17-game was supposed to be the Excelsiors’ payback bringing the full force of their first team. Their game was off though; “The Excelsior is the oldest club in the city and up until yesterday was considered by the knowing ones to be the most skillful,”[xliv] The Excelsiors were indeed an old club and not just in terms of the organization’s age. The younger men on Waverly may very well have accounted for the difference. William Griffith, in his recollections, implied that Waverly was much faster and fitter on the field.

On Saturday November 10, Belvidere defeated the Oriental club. Maryland and Waverly teed off on Tuesday November 27 with Waverly again proving the superior team, a 23-16 victory.[xlv] Man Satterfield umpired many of the games in 1860.

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[i] Total includes total number of Caucasians and free African-American,

[ii] The 1870 Census lists Baltimore as the sixth largest city.

[iii] Numbers are approximate and taken from the relevant Censuses and the Baltimore Sun, 25 December 1860

[iv] Outside the then-separate boroughs of New York City

[v] New York Clipper, 23 June 1860

[vi] New York Clipper, 23 June 1860

[vii] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 5 July 1860, page 1

[viii] Baltimore Sun, 6 July 1860

[ix] William R. Presstman, 16; Alfred Egerton, 17; William Mallinckrodt, 18; Louis Mallinckrodt, 16; Charles Cherry, 18; Nicholas Popplein, 17; Julian Barroll, 14; Harry Howard, 18; Ages taken from the 1860 Census

[x] Pennington was president of the Pastimes in 1868 and a long-time first baseman for the club.

[xi] Other original members included: Phil Minis; William Egerton, 23; Captain William H. Murray; Clapham Murray; Thomas H. White; Charles White; J. Southgate Lemmon; Robert Lemmon; Andrew E. Lilly, 23; William Lilly; Neilson Poe, 26; William Remington; Dr. Thomas R. Brown; Eugene Van Ness; James M. Howard, 21; Charles E. Lewis. Ages taken from the 1860 Census

[xii] The Continental’s first officers included: William Yardley, president; Charles Krebs, vice president; J. Norris Myers; secretary; Charles W. Norris, treasurer.

[xiii] The Olympics’ first officers included: Edward A. Wilson, president; Spencer J. Robson, vice president; Robert Wilson, secretary; Oliver Cromwell, treasurer.

[xiv] The Marylands’ first officers included: Monroe F. Frush, president; William C. Blanford, vice president; William C. Vaughan, secretary; Charles W. Mason, treasurer.

[xv] The Belvidere club doesn’t seem to have operated in 1861.

[xvi] A cricket term

[xvii] Ballplayers of the era typically wore trousers and a stylish hat, usually made off straw. The Excelsiors were probably the first Baltimore club to don a uniform.

[xviii] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 3 September 1860, page 1

[xix] The rosters included – Waverly: Nicholas Popplein; William R. Presstman; James Howard; J. Southgate Lemmon; William Lilly; Phillip ?; Eugene Van Ness; William H. Murray; Thomas H. White. Excelsiors: William J. Walker; N.P. Chapman; William M. Shoemaker; Thomas J. Mitchell; John K. Sears; James Williams; Edward L. Pittman; Maurice Orem; James A. Courtney., Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, September 18, 1860, page 1

[xx] Baltimore Sun, 25 May 1867, page 3

[xxi] Baltimore Sun, 27 October 1866

[xxii] Baltimore Sun, 4 October 1894, page 8

[xxiii] The sport’s first southern venture

[xxiv] Brooklyn Eagle, 22 August 1860

[xxv] Decorated with flags and powered by four horses

[xxvi] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 24 September 1860, page 1

[xxvii] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xxviii] Carriages filled with many of the elite Baltimore families

[xxix] Formal name was William Morris Orem, a real estate developer, died of heart disease on March 10, 1900 at age 62, The Orem family, dry goods merchants, owned an estate near Druid Hill Park.

[xxx] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xxxi] Baltimore Sun, 24 September 1860

[xxxii] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xxxiii] Baltimore Sun, 24 September 1860

[xxxiv] For years it was thought to be the first triple play in baseball history. However, one has been discovered in the Brooklyn Eagle recap of the 16 April 1859 game between the New York teams – Neosho of New Utrecht and Wyandank of Flatbush.

[xxxv] Patchen, unknown first name, was a substitute

[xxxvi] New York Sunday Mercury, 30 September 1860

[xxxvii] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xxxviii] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xxxix] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xl] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xli] The hosting Baltimore Excelsiors spared no cost to entertain the visitors. The food bill itself topped $700.

[xlii] New York Clipper, 6 October 1860

[xliii] Rosters – Excelsiors: Woods (captain), catcher; Beam, pitcher; Mitchell, shortstop; Sears and Woods, third base; Hazlitt, first base; Walker, center field; Orem, right field; Shriver, second base; Williams, left field. Waverly: Presstman, pitcher; Pennington, first base; Minis, right field; Van Ness, catcher; N. Popplein, center field; White, second base; Lemmon, shortstop; Murray, left field; Cherry, third base.

[xliv] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 18 October 1860, page 1

[xlv] Rosters – Waverly: Van Ness, catcher; Presstman, pitcher; Lemmon, shortstop; Minis, right field; Popplein, center field; White, first base; Lilly, second base; Pittman, left field; Mallinckrodt, third base. Maryland: Green, catcher; Frush, pitcher; George Popplein, first base; Blanford, second base; Montague, third base; Griffin, shortstop; Caughey, left field; Andrew Popplein, center field; Benteen, right field.

 

MADISON AVENUE GROUNDS

Since the Excelsiors were the first club in Baltimore, it’s only natural that they laid out the first formal baseball diamond. Its location was in the southwestern portion of Druid Hill Park, which is underwater today in Druid Lake. The area was off Madison Avenue Extended known as Flat Rock, named for several large, flatly-shaped rocks, along a road which ran up to the Rogers family mansion and near a series of ponds and small water ways used for skating and to produce ice by the Frederick’s Ice Company. The diamond was set with the batter facing east.[i]

On September 27, 1860, the city purchased the land for Druid Hill Park, predominantly from the Rogers and Gardner families who had originally acquired the land during the early eighteenth century. Druid Hill became the third municipal park in the country after Central Park in New York and Fairmont Park in Philadelphia.[ii]

This actually places the diamond in Baltimore County as the boundary separating the city and county at the time was Boundary Avenue, now known as North Avenue – about a half mile south. The northwestern-most point of the city sat at North Avenue and Payson Street, not too far from the diamond. The official city lines were set in 1816 and would be extended twice, in 1888 and 1918.[iii]

Flat Rock was more of a spot than a larger geographic area as it has been referred to. The reference meant near the flat rocks. Even before the park was established, people used the spot for picnics, recreation, religious retreats and the like. One Baltimore Sun account even sets it as the selected site of a scheduled fistfight. The attractiveness of the area derived from its openness and the accessibility and beauty of the ponds. During the Civil War, Union soldiers established camps in the vicinity on more than one occasion beginning in June 1862.[iv]

The Flat Rock diamond wasn’t used for very long by the Excelsiors; Griffith suggests only a few months in 1859. He shows another diamond nearby belonging to the Continental club, laid out with a cemetery vault of the family of Captain William C. Pennington (a member of the Waverly club) standing in right field. A notation shows the Continental diamond being erected in 1861.

The main fields along Madison Avenue – that were used throughout the decade and into the 1870s – were located just inside the city limits. The “northern boundary” at the time was today’s North Avenue. The fields sat along Madison Avenue, just south of North Avenue, bound on the east by Linden Avenue. James Bready in his work Baseball in Baltimore unearthed a lithograph by Edward Sachse which shows the site circa 1869.

The Excelsiors’ diamond sat on the southwest corner of North and Madison Avenues, next to Jacob Hartzell’s Park House, an inn, restaurant and saloon.[v] The Pastimes built a clubhouse behind the Park House that was in use in 1863 and ’64. The Maryland club took over the Excelsiors’ diamond in 1861, when the Excelsiors and Waverlys merged. Across Madison Avenue[vi] stood a residence surrounded by three clubhouses – a two-story structure used by the Maryland club from 1861-1862, a one-story building used by the Pastimes from 1861-1862 and another by the same club in 1865. Below this plot was Waverly’s diamond, which was adopted by the Pastimes in 1861. Below the Waverly field was an orphanage on the other side of an old, unidentified road.[vii]

Baltimore’s omnibus system was in its infancy at the time. Stagecoach-like vehicles, pulled by horse on a rail system, sat approximately twenty at an initial cost of 3 cents a head for a ride. The Baltimore City Passenger Railway began in 1859, coinciding with the birth of baseball. One route ran up Madison Avenue to the ballparks, ending at the northern boundary. Eventually, independent rail companies joined the effort, effectively tentacling a bus system throughout the city.[viii]

A rail line did not extend past North Avenue to Druid Hill Park until May 1864. “Until it was incorporated in 1862, City Passenger was operating only on virtue of a franchise granted by the City of Baltimore. Thus its Madison Avenue line terminated at the county line…, a good half mile short of [Druid Hill Park].”[ix] Hence, the Druid Hill site proved just out of reach for travel by the large crowds at the beginning of the decade.

Quite a few clubs practiced and played along Madison Avenue. Contemporary accounts list multiple clubs with their own fields in the area. For example:

• “The Continental Base Ball Club have (sic) rented the fine grounds at the head of Madison Avenue,” July 1860[x]
• “Grounds of the Monumental Base Ball Club, Madison Avenue,” December 1860[xi]
• “…Druid Base Ball Club. Their ground for exercise is on Madison Avenue extended,” January 1861[xii]
• “The play ground of the [Peabody Base Ball Club] is on Madison Avenue,” February 1861[xiii]
• “Grounds of the Waverly club, on Madison Avenue,” April 1861[xiv]
• “Grounds of the Maryland club, Madison Avenue,” May 1861[xv]
• “…on the Oriental grounds, Madison Avenue,” July 1861[xvi]

This makes it sound like there were a lot of diamonds on the site but the clubs shared the fields, alternating practice and game dates and times. It’s probable that there were other locations along Madison Avenue where baseball was played. William Griffith suggests this as he lists the Maryland club with two diamonds in 1861. The Maryland club established grounds “adjoining the Orphans’ Asylum” when it first organized.[xvii] Griffith doesn’t depict this field in his drawings; the description may actually denote the Waverly field.

There was no mass seating at the field until temporary benches were installed in late 1865, and permanents ones in 1866. Many sat in carriages surrounding the diamond. Others fought for a view, establishing their space in unoccupied area ringing the field.

The Pastimes’ Grounds, originally built by the Waverly club, was enclosed in 1866 after the Civil War, becoming the first dedicated, enclosed baseball park in Maryland. Contemporary advertisements show an initial admission charge of 15 cents. Later that season, the club was charging 25 cents when a Philadelphia club visited the city. Ladies were admitted for free.[xviii] The Pastimes rented the grounds freely to other baseball clubs and various other organizations and for an array of local events. By the end of the decade, most ads indicate a ticket price of 25 cents.

The lithograph originally published in Sachse’s 1869 work Bird’s Eye View of Baltimore shows not only the exact location just below North Avenue but several interesting features of the enclosed grounds. Once again the batter faced east, presumable to keep the sun out of the fielders’ eyes. The park had separate entrances for men and women and an office near the gates. The American flag sat high above the field behind home plate. The grandstands ran from behind home, down the third base line and into left field. Well past left field on an adjoining lot sat several outbuildings, the clubhouses for the Pastimes and Marylands (and perhaps Enterprise), the top clubs at the end of the decade.

The basic layout matches a drawling by William Griffith. He points out that indeed two of the outbuildings belonged to the Pastimes and Marylands and he also shows the location of a skating pond beyond center field.[xix] Griffith also drew a square, ladies-only grandstand behind home plate towards first base. This appears to have been built after 1869.

Prior to games in the early years, the Excelsior players met at their club office above the Mount Vernon Hook and Ladder Company on Biddle Street near Ross Street and then traveled en masse to the ball grounds via an omnibus from Exchange Place. Along the way, fans would join the caravan to view the contests.[xx] The players would then put on their uniforms in the clubhouse, as would visiting opponents.

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[i] James H. Bready, Baseball in Baltimore, map on page 4

[ii] Eden Unger Bowditch and Anne Draddy, Druid Hill Park

[iii] Dr. Barry A. Lanman, Baltimore County: Celebrating a Legacy, 1659-2009, map on page 19

[iv] Baltimore Sun, 12 June 1862, page 1

[v] Hartzell sold slaves at the establishment until 1863, per various Baltimore Sun classified ads

[vi] On the southeast corner of North and Madison Avenues

[vii] Location of diamonds and clubhouses based on hand drawn map by William R. Griffith located within his 1897 work.

[viii] Gary Helton, Images of America: Baltimore’s Streetcars and Buses

[ix] Michael R. Farrell, The History of Baltimore’s Streetcars

[x] Baltimore Sun, 24 July 1860, page 1

[xi] Baltimore Sun, 18 December 1860, page 1

[xii] Baltimore Sun, 30 January 1861, page 1

[xiii] Baltimore Sun, 7 February 1861, page 1

[xiv] Baltimore Sun, 30 April 1861, page 1

[xv] Baltimore Sun, 24 May 1861, page 1

[xvi] Baltimore Sun, 2 July 1861, page 1

[xvii] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 13 August 1860, page 1

[xviii] Baltimore Sun, various classified ads: 6 June 1866, page 2; 6 October 1866, page 1; 20 October 1866, page 2

[xix] And like many 19^th century endeavors, a skating club was created with a full array of officers, etc.

[xx] Baltimore Sun, 11 August 1897, page 6

 

FYI, I mapped it out today and the Early Baltimore Baseball series will include 17 parts – one every three days.

 

WILLIAM GRIFFITH

William Ridgely Griffith was born in Baltimore on January 31, 1837, the son of a wholesale hardware merchant. As a teenager, he followed William Walker into Nicaragua on a private military expedition. At the time, a main transportation route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ran through the area, a half century before the Panama Canal was built. In 1855, one Nicaraguan political party invited Walker and his ‘mercenaries’ in to help it gain a stronghold. Walker eventually captured Granada and in effect became the president of the republic, recognized as such by American President Franklin Pierce.[i]

Griffith then entered into business in Kansas but returned to his native city in 1859, becoming involved in local business and Democratic politics. He sided with the Confederacy during the war but remained in Baltimore and accepted the northern control of the city – in effect helping to stabilize it.

Griffith originally learned to play baseball from the Peabody Base Ball Club while he was a member of an organization known as the St. Luke’s Club, of which not much is known. In 1861, he was listed as an officer with the Ivanhoe club. Later that season, he joined the Maryland club for a couple weeks before quitting and joining the newly-created Pastimes. He became the starting shortstop for the original Pastimes. He would later serve as president of the club, from 1864-1867, and for years was an officer in the Baseball Base Ball Association and the Maryland State Base Ball Convention during the amateur era.

In 1894, Griffith and Thomas Mitchell were interviewed by a Baltimore Sun sportswriter. Griffith presented such enthusiasm for and great stories of the early baseball era in Baltimore that the writer talked him into putting it to print. Griffith spent much of the next 2+ years interviewing old colleagues, examining their mementos, scorecards and such, researching old issues of local newspapers, reminiscing and sparking his memory and corresponding with old opponents such as U.S. Senator Arthur Gorman of the old Nationals of Washington D.C.

In 1897, he published a 93-page work titled The Early History of Amateur Baseball in the State of Maryland, 1858-1871. The work made Griffith the premier chronicler of the early game of baseball in Baltimore. None of the other early participants took the effort to do likewise.

A good bit of the work pulls from the Baltimore Sun and American which can be reviewed today. The key lies in the personal insights. He charts out the first fields in Baltimore in three separate maps which are the only sources on the matter. Baseball elicited only brief and to-the-point articles, for the most part, in the 1860s city newspapers. Griffith’s work fills in some of the blanks and provides an invaluable resource.

He died on October 22, 1910 in Baltimore.

1859

At that July 1859, the Excelsiors elected William D. Shurtz, a 41-year-old merchant, as president. George W. Tinges, a 44-year-old wealth commercial merchant, was named vice president and Hervey Shriver, a 30-year-old mercantile clerk,[ii] secretary. Beam, Addison K. Foard, a 35-year-old commercial merchant, and M.N. Howe were also made officers. Beam, with his vast experience with the game and enthusiasm was named team captain.[iii]

Earliest Located Reference (incomplete microfilm copy)

Besides the above, the initial membership of the Excelsior club included:

• Nicholas P. Chapman, 32, clerk
• Dr. John W.F. Hank, 33, physician[iv]
• James Hazlitt, 35, merchant
• Nicholas Huppman, 24, merchant
• Thomas Johnson
• Eugene Levering, 40, wholesale grocery merchant
• Thomas D. Loney, 31, merchant
• Thomas J. Mitchell, 22, merchant[v]
• Edward G. Pittman, 30,[vi] broker
• Phillip Rogers
• J. Man Satterfield, 20, clerk
• John K. Sears, 31, liquor merchant
• William Shoemaker, 43, engineer
• Jacob Weidner (perhaps Waidner), 24, clerk
• James Williams
• Alexander Woods, 21, merchant (brother of Daniel, nephew of Hiram)
• David C. Woods, 23 (brother of Alexander, nephew of Hiram)
• Hiram Woods, 33, sugar refiner (uncle of Alexander and David).[vii]

The Excelsiors included more men over thirty than below. The men needed to be available in the afternoons for recreation; hence, the members tended to be in occupations and financial circumstances that would allow this. Of note, many were involved in local politics and the Board of Trade. Griffith terms the group being formed from the “Merchants of the Wharf,” that is, many were employed in Exchange Place[viii], the center for importing and wholesaling grocery business. Many were colleagues of George Beam, a merchant of the wharf. On the whole, they tended to be wealthier than the average man – just the ones that would be expected to have sedimentary jobs. Generally, those that worked as laborers wouldn’t have the time or energy to partake in such an endeavor in the afternoons.

As no local competitors existed, the Excelsiors practiced and played games within the club that first season, usually on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. There are no known games from 1859 as Griffith declared in his work, “The scorebook of the club having been lost, and the old members having no recollection of any games played in 1859.”[ix] New York teams of the era typically had first and second nines and perhaps even juniors ones made up of younger members. It would take a year or two for this structure to develop in Baltimore. The Excelsiors paired off in such contests as Fats versus Slims, Benedicts versus Bachelors or any variety of combinations.[x]

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[i] Wikipedia.org, “William Walker (filibuster)”

[ii] Later identified as a grocery merchant, Baltimore Sun, 8 January 1872 and was an officer in the Citizen’s Passenger Railway Company (the local bus system), Baltimore Sun 2 March 1872

[iii] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 12 July 1859, page 1; Ages and occupations taking from the 1860 U.S. Census

[iv] John William Fletcher Hank, born in Jefferson County, Ohio March 11, 1826, died in Baltimore November 13, 1881, graduated Dickson College in 1846, medical degree from University of Pennsylvania, Baltimore City Assistant Health Commissioner, Medical Examiner of Maryland Life Insurance Company

[v] Mitchell was described as being of medium height and weighing 200 pounds – yet fast and agile – by P.C. Leary, Baltimore Sun, 16 April 1911, page 15.

[vi] Died in Baltimore on August 13, 1908 at age 79

[vii] Baltimore Sun, 4 October 1894, page 8; Ages and occupations, for the most part, taking from the 1860 U.S. Census

[viii] Located at the intersection of Commerce and Gay Streets

[ix] William Ridgely Griffith, The Early History of Amateur Base Ball in the State of Maryland, 1858-1871, page 5, Griffith did have access to the old scorebook of the Waverly club for his research

[x] James H. Bready, Baseball in Baltimore

 

Early Baltimore Baseball, Before the Professional Leagues

Like the known history and evolution of man, the beginnings of baseball are chronicled with a mixture of fact and assumption. Linkage between the various stages leads to the speculation. Gaps are as much evident as unexplained.

Baseball is a game, a sport. It doesn’t take much for an activity to be considered a game. Mix in a little physicality and you have a sport. Bat and ball games have been played for centuries and probably much longer than that; they were just conducted with sticks, planks, balls of cloth or various other materials, rocks, bones or any such available “equipment.” Factor in the basics – a little running, tossing of the orb and retrieval of it – and you have a forerunner of the modern game. The rules and names varied for such games – by community or even household. However they were conducted or identified, in all their forms they represent a link in the evolutionary chain.

Participants in Baltimore and all of Maryland played bat and ball games under varying names and rules like other communities throughout the country. They played simple catch, hit and base games to the more complex town ball, typically associated with Massachusetts. They did not however take any major steps toward formally organizing such sports by forming clubs, teams or associations or by standardizing the rules and equipment – except in the case of cricket, a short time before baseball.

The entire country took major strides to move from an agrarian society to an urban-dominated one during the nineteenth century. As the cities became more and more congested, the need for the healthful benefits of exercise and recreation, both physically and mentally, became more of a concern. Farmers gained their exercise and fresh air simply as a byproduct of their daily chores. In the urban centers, many men and women weren’t as active or healthy – those in sedimentary occupations.

By the mid 19^th century, the need for recreation and recreational areas became a pressing topic in urban centers. In this effort, it now became acceptable for adults to partake in sports traditionally seen as childish activities. A major leap in the evolution of baseball, a sport actually known as two words “base ball” until the tail end of the century, was the joining of men en masse to play the game under standardized rules and decorum.

Here, baseball had a forerunner, a major link in the chain, which has been scantly acknowledged and, in fact, intentionally ignored – cricket. It has been overlooked for several reasons but none more so than ethnocentric fervor. America was in the process of becoming a major world power. Few wanted to acknowledge that the national pastime stemmed, at least in part, from their English rivals. None less than Albert Spalding, a household name for his baseball exploits, world travel, early chronicling of the game and sporting good empire, insisted that baseball was a wholly American endeavor. He pushed for Major League Baseball to look into the matter, a questionable process which, voila, hailed a respected Civil War general as the founder of this uniquely American pastime.

The similarities and differences between baseball and cricket are readily identifiable on the field of play. More important for the discussion of the evolutionary process is the fact that men organized in cricket en masse before baseball. In the 1800s, Baltimore and Maryland, like the rest of the country, encompassed a large percentage of population that was born internationally or removed by only one generation or so – much of it from England, Ireland and surrounding countries. Cricket was played in the city and cricket clubs were organized along the traditions established in the old country. Furthermore, many baseball players in the early era had experience in cricket; as such, they had the necessary skill set, roughly, before playing the formalized version of the new game.

Baseball as we know it today is based on the New York rules. These were first formally put to print by the Knickerbockers of New York who established their grounds on or around the current site of Madison Square Garden. By the late 1850s, baseball was in high gear in New York City, Brooklyn and the various boroughs that make up the city today. Soon, the New York style would take hold throughout the country.

There are two separate, yet overlapping, stories of how and why the New York game took hold in Baltimore. Both involve the Excelsiors of Brooklyn. First, in the summer of 1858, 28-year-old Baltimore grocer George F. Beam[i] of Orendorf, Beam and Company visited Brooklyn on business. Beam and Samuel Orendorf formally went into business together in 1853 forming a “wholesale grocery and commission business” with a warehouse on the southeast corner of Baltimore and Howard Streets.[ii]

In Brooklyn, Beam was invited to a baseball contest by fellow grocer Joe Leggett, the famed catcher of the Excelsiors of Brooklyn. Beam was said to be immediately smitten with the game. He returned home to Baltimore and began talking up the experience with friends and associates. It’s not known whether Beam succeeded in gathering enough men to actually practice the game or play a contest in 1858 or early 1859, but he did succeed in forming the city’s first club, aptly dubbed the Excelsiors of Baltimore.

The Excelsiors of Baltimore were formed in early July 1859, probably on the 8^th or 9^th, at a meeting in the offices of Mess, Woods, Bridges and Company on Commerce Street near East Lombard Street. The men, mainly merchants from the western portion of the city, organized for the pursuit of “physical exercise and healthful recreation.”[iii]

Another reason for the New York game taking hold was espoused by William R. Griffith, an early ballplayer and executive. His assertion credits Henry Polhemus, a big outfielder with the Excelsiors of Brooklyn, with coaching and otherwise promoting the fledgling sport in Baltimore.

Polhemus was from a wealthy Brooklyn family. The 1860 U.S. Census shows the family holding $100,000 in real estate and employing four live-in servants and a cook. Henry was listed as a merchant. He was the Brooklyn supplier for Baltimore’s Woodberry Mills, a cotton/textile plant that was part of Horatio Gambrill’s local mill empire. As such, Polhemus occasionally traveled to Baltimore on business. Woodberry Mills wasn’t too far from the city’s main ballpark on Madison Avenue. This proximity and the encouragement of local baseball enthusiasts led Polhemus to venture out to the diamonds and offer his advice and assistance to the Excelsior players and others.

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[i] Beam died on January 16, 1866 at age 36, Baltimore Sun, 17 January 1866, page 1

[ii] Baltimore Sun, 10 January 1853, page 2

[iii] Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 12 July 1859, page 1

During the Players League era, ex-ballplayer and current sportswriter Tim Murnane recalled an early attempt to unionize – in 1872 or ‘73.

The PL and the union troubles were particularly disstressing to and vehemently opposed by Al Spalding – who turned the Chicago club over to Jim Hart shortly afterwards claiming he was in part disgusted with the profession.

Murnane indicates that Spalding was being hypocritical seeing that he was the first to undergo such an organizing effort of players.

Chicago Tribune 1/12/1890

Chicago Tribune 1/19/1890

 

I need to start boringly enough with the bibliography, which may need to change periodically as the work is still in progress.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Web Sites:

Ancestry.com

Baseballchronology.com

Baseballlibrary.com

Baseball-reference.com

Collphyphil.com

Familysearch.com

Heritagequest.com

Mdgovpap.net

Retrosheet.org

Robertedwardauctions.com

Sabr.org

Wikipedia.org

Newspapers:

Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 1859-1862

Baltimore Sun, 1854-1911

Baltimore Sunday Telegram, 1865-1866

Brooklyn Eagle, 1865-1870

New York Clipper, 1860, 1863

New York Sunday Mercury, 1860

New York Times, 1859-1870

Richmond Enquirer, Virginia, 1866

Richmond Examiner, Virginia, 1867

Sporting Life, 1916

Books and Articles:

Beirne, Francis F. The Amiable Baltimoreans. Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Tradition Press, 1968.

Bowditch, Eden Unger and Anne Draddy. Druid Hill Park: The Heart of Historic Baltimore. Charleston, South Carolina: The History press, 2008.

Bready, James, H. Baseball in Baltimore: The First 100 Years. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 

Cannon, Jessica, “Riots, Baltimore, 1861,” Mdoe.org 

Farrell, Michael R. The History of Baltimore’s Streetcars. Sykesville, Maryland: Greenberg Publishing Company, Inc., 1992.

Griffith, William Ridgely. The Early History of Amateur Baseball in the State of Maryland, 1858-1871. Baltimore: John Cox’s Sons, 1897. 

Helton, Gary. Images of America: Baltimore’s Streetcars and Buses. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2008. 

Kirsch, George B. The Creation of American Team Sports: Baseball and Cricket, 1838-72. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989. 

Kirsch, George B. Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime during the Civil War. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Lanman, Dr. Barry A. Baltimore County: Celebrating a Legacy, 1659-2009. Baltimore: Baltimore County Historical Society Inc., 2009.

Lieb, Frederick G. The Baltimore Orioles: The History of a Colorful Team in Baltimore and St. Louis. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1955.

McKenna, Brian, “Arthur Pue Gorman,” Society for American Baseball Research’s Biography Project

McKenna, Brian, “Bobby Mathews,” Society for American Baseball Research’s Biography Project

Morris, Peter. A Game of Inches: The Story Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball, One-Volume Edition. Chicago, Ivan R. Dee, 2010.

Payne, Marty, “The Business of Base Ball in Small Towns: The Eastern Shore of Maryland,” Newsletter of the Business of Baseball Committee, Volume X, Issue 4, Cleveland: Society for American baseball Research, Winter 2005

Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 19. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1918.

Ryczek, William J. Baseball’s First Inning: A History of the National Pastime through the Civil War. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009.

Simons, William M. The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2002. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2002.

Wright, Marshall D. The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000.