09.10.09
Dickson’s Baseball Dictionary
New Bedford will make an appearance in the next edition of the Dickson Baseball Dictionary and be noted with a first. The Dictionary is an amazing piece of work that any baseball fan would love. It contains over 7,000 entries of baseball definitions along with cross references, illustrations, etymology, notes and first usages.
The first that New Bedford is associated with is the earliest known print use of the phrases “New York Game” and “Massachusetts Game”.
On September 2 the New Bedford Republican Standard noted:
The Base Ball Club recently formed in this city, is progressing finely. Its members met on the City Common at 5 o’clock Monday morning, and had a very spirited game. They have assigned Monday and Wednesday mornings, at the hour mentioned, and Friday afternoons at half-past 4 o’clock, as the time for practice. The manner of playing is the New York mode, and not the one usually adopted in Massachusetts.
Then on September 13 the New Bedford Evening Standard reported:
A number of seamen, now in port, have formed a Club entitled the “Sons of the Ocean Base Ball Club.” They play on the City common, on Thursdays, and we are requested to state that the members challenge any of the other clubs in the city to a trial either of the New York or Massachusetts game.
I was surprised to learn that I had discovered the first known use of the phrases. I’m sure the phrases were not invented in New Bedford. But where did New Bedford hear of them? Where and when were they first used? The early usage of the phrases may help explain how the New York game spread.
For the record, according to the Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the previous noted first usage of the phrases was in the 1859 publication of the Base Ball Player’s Pocket Companion which was published in Boston.
Incidentally, New Bedford is mentioned in the current (3rd) edition of Dickson’s. Under the entry for “season” on pages 753-754 the November 26, 1858 Evening Standard is quoted as an example.
For all of you that are eager to get a look at this volume it looks like only one library in the area will be getting a copy of it. According to the library catalog the New Bedford Free Public Library has a copy on order.
08.11.09
Less Than 9
According to many baseball historians baseball didn’t always have 9 players. Actually depending on which version of baseball you are talking about it some times had as many as 20 or 30. But the version you know of today may have been played with 8-11 players. The codified rules of 1857 was the first time the rules mandated nine players. In the 1870s there was actually talk of adding an extra shortstop evening out the field to 10 players each (let’s not get in to the designated hitter here).
Playing modern day vintage baseball can leave some teams short of players at the last minute. I have played in a couple of games in which we were short a player for each team, limiting us to 8 players each. We managed to get by with the batting team supplying the catcher. (It really is an honest game.)
It appears that 19th baseball teams sometimes had problems fielding a full nine for games. In 1869 the Red Rover Base Ball Club of Fairhaven played the Union Base Ball Club also of Fairhaven. The Red Rover, using only eight players, beat the Union club by a score of 35 to 28. The box score for the game suggests that the Red Rover went without a left fielder. I would guess that they shifted their fielders around when they needed.
Probably one of the more unique games with less than nine involved the Riverside Base Ball Club of Acushnet and an “unattached nine” of New Bedford. Both clubs took the field with only 7 players. The unattached went without a right and left fielder while the Riverside club went with out a shortstop and center fielder.
Some how it seems that the Riverside club made the better choice in using two outfielders. But the unattached players beat them 45-22 in 5 innings. Unfortunately the newspaper at the time didn’t give any information about how the game was played with so few players other than the box score and line score:
Runs in each Inning.
Riverside, 0 0 8 10 4
Unattached, 9 14 12 3 7
A couple of weeks before this game the same two teams played. It is not noted in the papers of the time if both teams had their full 9 players for the game but these unattached fellows beat the Riverside club in that game 70-34. Not bad for “9″ guys without a team.
03.09.09
Muffin Baseball
A ‘muffin’ is a term that was applied to a new or inexperience ball player in the early 1860s. In the collections of the
Umass Dartmouth Archives and Special Collections is a booklet containing humorous illustrations of the type of play you may expect to see of a mid-19th century muffin. The booklet, Base Ball as Viewed By a Muffin, was published in 1867 and illustrated by Savillion Van Campen. Van Campen was the president of the Ironsides Base Ball Club based in New Bedford in 1858. At the time of publication he was secretary and a member of the Wamsutta Base Ball Clubs first nine. The previous year he had been a member of the Wamsutta Club’s muffin nine. For a guy who had been playing the New York game since at least 1858, it is not clear why he was on the muffin nine. Perhaps it was just for fun.
By the late 1860s muffin baseball had become popular in response to the professionalism of baseball. According to Peter Morris’ book, But Didn’t We Have Fun? muffin baseball spread rapidly during the late 1860s showing that baseball was meant to be played for fun. Rules were not taken seriously and in some cases old rules were reverted to such as the bound rule in which a player could be put out when his batted ball was caught on one bounce as opposed to catching it on the fly. In fact some muffin games forbid players from catching fly balls. They could only be caught on the bound. Muffin games often matched up teams based on appearance or marital status such as in games of fat vs. skinny players or married vs. single players. Other muffin games didn’t limit the number of players on the field. More than nine players could be on a side with two or more fielding one position.
On July 4, 1866 the Wamsutta Base Ball Club played in once such muffin game in which the club’s single men defeated the club’s married men 56-46. Shortstop and each of the outfield positions were manned by two players each and the box score listed a position called the Catcher’s Stop in addition to the catcher. This was most likely a second catcher or a back up to the catcher.
01.09.09
Team Names
The 19th century saw many names of baseball clubs in New Bedford. In my research I have noted roughly 60 different club names in New Bedford in a five year period. None of which I have found to have the name Sox included.
Here are a sample of 19th century area baseball team names. Teams were based in New Bedford unless noted otherwise:
Active Base Ball Club
Alaska Base Ball Club (Fairhaven)
Bay State Base Ball Club
Chicopee Base Ball Club
Clipper Base Ball Club
Eureka Base Ball Club
Franklin Base Ball Club
Independent Base Ball Club (Marion)
Ironsides Base Ball Club
Kit Kat Base Ball Club (Rochester)
Lowell Base Ball Club
Mattapoisett Base Ball Club (Mattapoisett)
Monohansett Base Ball Club (North Dighton)
Nautical Base Ball Club
Nobby Base Ball Club
Onward Base Ball Club
Red Rover Base Ball Club (Fairhaven)
Resolute Base Ball Club (Fall River)
Rising Sun Base Ball Club (later changed to Annawan Base Ball Club)
Riverside Baseball Club (Acushnet)
Rough and Ready Base Ball Club
Sons of the Ocean Base Ball Club
Star Base Ball Club
Wamsutta Base Ball Club
Young Tigers Base Ball Club
08.18.08
Lowell vs. Wamsutta
John Lowell, ca. 1861
One hundred forty years ago this week the Wamsutta Base Ball Club took on the mighty Lowell Club of Boston. The Lowell Club was one of the more talented baseball clubs in the area during that time. It was formed in 1861 by students of various Boston secondary schools at the suggestion of John A. Lowell and the Bowdoin Base Ball Club to play the New York game. The New York game was played in New England but it was facing competition from the Massachusetts game. In honor of Mr. Lowell, the club was named after him.
The Tri-Mountain Base Ball Club is widely considered to be the first club in New England formed to play the New York game. Formed in 1857, they didn’t play their first match against another club until early September of 1858 when they beat a club from Portland Maine. It remains a mystery as to why the Tri-Mountain club did not play the Ironsides Club of New Bedford which had been formed to play the New York game at that time.
The Lowell club quickly established their talent by winning their first game against Medford 17-10. Lowell played its second match in May of 1863 against the established Tri-Mountain club. Lowell won 37-1. In 1866 the Lowell club’s first nine would win every match they played.
In 1868 the Lowell Base Ball Club set out on tour of New England cities in an effort to reach out and be “neighborly”. While the tour lasted only during the month of June the Lowell club made a trip to New Bedford in August where they faced the Wamsutta club. The game lasted 3 hours and 25 minutes. It was painful 3 hours in 25 minutes for the Wamsuttas losing to the Lowells 62-6 in 7 innings.
New Bedford Republican Standard
August 20, 1868Base Ball. – The game between the Lowell and Wamsutta clubs at Myrick’s on Friday was concluded at the end of the 7th inning, with the following score:
Lowell. Wamsutta.
O. R. O. R.
Lovett, p., 1 9 N. E. Howland, 2. b., 3 0
Alline, 3. b., 3 7 J. H. Tallman, r. f.., 3 0
Dennison, 1. b., 0 8 O. N. Pierce, p., 1 1
Sumner, 2. b., 6 4 Walter Clifford, s. s., 3 0
Bradbury, c., 1 8 G. D. Gifford, c., 2 1
Rogers, c. f., 1 8 C. Almy, Jr., c. f., 3 0
Newton, l. f., 4 6 M. M. Howland, l. f. 2 2
Hawes, r. f., 3 6 F. W. Knowlton, 1. b., 2 1
Dillingham, s. s., 2 6 W. C. Gooding, 3. b., 2 162 6
Runs in each Inning.
1st. 2d. 3d. 4th. 5th. 6th. 7th.
Lowell, 5 9 1 10 6 11 20
Wamsutta, 1 0 2 1 1 0 1
06.02.08
Baseball in Mattapoisett or Heaven?
This must be the inspiration for Field of Dreams. To be fair it was the book Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella first published in 1982 that inspired the film. This is one of those rare cases where the movie was still good having read the book first. Unfortunatley people seem to know of the movie more than the book.
New York Times; Aug. 8, 1910
A HEAVEN WITH BASEBALL.
Preacher Believes It Will Be Found in a Spiritual Form.
Mattapoisett, Mass., Aug. 7 – “Baseball in Heaven,” was the subject of a sermon preached to-day by the Rev. C. Julian Tuthill, pastor of the Congregational Church. He said in part: “Heaven is but an evolution of this world. A Christian may love a ball game and loving it remain a Christian. Why, then, is it not safe to prophesy that even the game of baseball will have its place in some spiritual form in Heaven.”
Would this group have been opposed to the mixing of baseball and religion?
Boston Investigator; March 7, 1894
05.19.08
Hingham Historical Society Baseball
Here is an event I thought I would pass on. It is not too local, just about an hour away. Maybe there is a local historical society that would like to make vintage base ball part of their program. Read on…
Lace up your sneakers!! It’s time for Vintage Baseball with the Hingham Historical Society.
Come to the opening bash of the Hingham Vintage Baseball season at the home of Mike “King” Kelly, Hingham’s 1880’s Hall of Famer at 507 Main Street, Saturday, May 31, 2008 6:00 to 10:00 P.M. Who was King Kelly? At the height of his career in the 1880s, hitter and base-stealer extraordinaire Mike “King” Kelly was hired by the Boston Bean Eaters for the unheard of sum of $10,000. Kelly was then presented Kelly with a home on Main Street in Hingham, followed later that year by a carriage and two horses. To the bitter disappointment of Boston and Hingham fans, Kelly only stayed for a year before he left town to join the Cincinnati Reds. Even so, it was long enough for Kelly to make a colorful impression locally. He was known to promenade through town accompanied by his valet and a little pet monkey on his shoulder.
Historical Society members, and current owners of the “King” Kelly House, Moira and Cameron Congdon, will host this grand event. Originally built in the 1850s, the Kelly house contains many of the original fine details of its fine Neo-classical construction, in addition to Victorian-style furnishings that evoke “King” Kelly’s world. And no doubt keeping with the spirit of “King” Kelly, Moira confirms that the house “is a perfect place to have a party.”
And a party it will be. Revelers will enjoy live music, beer, barbecue, and a chance to meet sports writer and King Kelly biographer, Marty Appel, who will be on hand to sign copies of his book Slide, Kelly, Slide. Other attractions include raffles of sought-after prizes, including, Red Sox tickets, fresh lobsters, baseball artwork, hand-made bats and more. “King” Kelly himself will be on hand to give baseball tips to the Historical Society’s vintage players, the Coopers and the Derbys. Tickets are $35 each, $40 the day of the event. Tickets will be sold at the Hingham Historical Society office at 30 North street, 11-3pm Tuesdays – Saturdays, Dot Gallery, 112 North Street, Mondays through Saturdays, Henneseys (aka Hingham Liquors) 118 North Street, and The Sub Galley, 39 Station Street. Check the Hingham Historical Society website for other sale locations, www.hinghamhistorical.org.
Mike “King” Kelly, one of 19th century Hingham’s most colorful residents, was known as the “king” of baseball at the height of his career in the 1880s and 1890s. He was a superstar of the Victorian era: his picture was seen on billboards, cigarette packs, posters, and baseball cards across America. At his acquisition by the Boston Beaneaters in 1887, he was given a house on Main Street.
05.06.08
Childhood Ball Playing Clippings
Here are a couple of news clippings that mention ball playing. The first is children’s poetry from the New Bedford Mecury 200 years ago this month. The second (not local but fun anyway) is commentary from the Cleveland Daily Herald in 1841 on the fun of playing ball.
New Bedford Mercury
May 13,1808
SELECTED POETRY.
CHILDHOOD.
CHILDHOOD! happiest stage of life,
Free from care and free from strife,
Free from memory’s ruthless reign,
Fraught with scenes of former pain;
Free from fancy’s cruel skill,
Fabricating future ill;
Time, when all that meets the view,
All can charm, for all is new;
How thy long-lost hours I mourn,
Never, never to return!
Then to toss the circling ball,
Caught rebounding from the wall;
Then the mimic ship to guide
Down the kennel’s dirty tide;
Then the hoop’s revolving pace
Through the dusty street to chase;
O what joy! – it once was mine,
Childhood, matchless boon of thine!
How thy long-lost hours I mourn,
Never, never to return!
Cleveland Daily Herald
April 15, 1841
Playing Ball, is among the very first of the ’sports’ of our early years. Who has not teased his grandmother for a ball, until the ‘old stockings’ have been transformed into one that would bound well? Who has not played ‘barn ball’ in his boyhood, ‘base’ in his youth, and ‘wicket’ in this manhood? – There is fun, and sport, and healthy exercise, in a game of ‘ball.’ We like it; for with it is associated recollections of our earlier days. And we trust we shall never be too old to feel and to ‘take delight’ in the amusements which interested us in our boyhood.
If ‘Edith’ wishes to see ‘a great strike’ and ‘lots of fun,’ let her walk down Water Street some pleasant afternoon towards ‘set of sun’ and see the ‘Bachelors’ make the ball fly.
04.01.08
New Bedford High School Baseball, 150 Years Ago
Not only is this year the 150th anniversary of the first known baseball team in New Bedford (predating the Wamsutta Club’s claim by 8 years), it is also an anniversary year for the New Bedford high school team. In 1858 the New Bedford High School fielded a team making them the first high school or secondary school in the country to do so.
To verify this I have been searching for published works about the history of high school baseball but I haven’t had much luck. The only references to early high school baseball teams that I have found have been in the Illinois High School Association’s website which states “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.” It notes that their first game was against a club called the Eaglets which Worcester beat on October 12, 1859. Harold Seymour’s brilliant work Baseball: The People’s Game also notes Worcester High School as having the first high school baseball club. My source of New Bedford superseding the Worcester club comes from one line in the October 18, 1858 New Bedford Evening Standard:
The Old Hickory Base Ball Club have challenged the High School Base Ball Club to play the Massachusetts game.
The Massachusetts game was a competing form of baseball in Massachusetts with the New York game. It is important to note that the Massachusetts game is considered to be baseball and not a different bat and ball game such as rounders. Some differences in the games were:
Massachusetts Game New York Game
First club to score 100 wins Club ahead after 9 innings wins
Square shaped field, bases at 4 corners Diamond shaped field
Pitcher threw overhand Pitcher pitched underhand
Fielder can strike runner with ball for out- Fielder must tag runner or base
Ball must be caught in air for an out Ball can be caught on a bound
A look back New Bedford’s history of public education in the early 1800s shows hostility to funding public schools even though state law required localities to fund public education. Instead of public education for all of its citizens, New Bedford voted to fund their public school “to school the poor children in this town”. Presumably the rich hired private tutors or sent their children off to private schools. In 1827 a state law went in to effect requiring all towns in the Commonwealth with at least 500 families to open a high school. But in 1829 the town voted to close its high school. They were able to do this because the law was changed to give the towns the option to operate a high school. Although children under six years old could still attend the public school, the high school remained closed until 1837 when it reopened on a permanent basis. By 1858 the high school was operating as a four year course of study, preparing students admitted at age 12, for college.
Although sports teams may not have become the norm for high schools and colleges until later in the 19th century it is safe to say that school aged kids were playing ball in New Bedford in the first half of the century. An 1822 bylaw levied a fine to anyone who would “play at ball, fly a kite or run down hill upon a sled… in any street of that part of the town commonly called the Village of New-Bedford”. Thomas Rodman wrote about being “initiated into the mysteries of Foot-ball, Base and every game boys pursue” when he was a student at Friends Academy in the mid-1830s. When it became fashionable to form social clubs based on sports in the mid 1800s, young adults formed their own clubs as well.
But let’s get back to the high school club. The New Bedford game appears not to have taken place until the following month when the New Bedford Republican Standard reported that the High School club beat Charles Clifford’s Old Hickory club 100-73:
The New Bedford Republican Standard
November 18, 1858
Base Ball. – The match game we noticed a few days ago, took place on Saturday afternoon between the High School and Old Hickory Clubs. After playing about two hours and a half, the High School boys, the challenged party, were declared the victors, having scored 100. The Old Hickory Club scored 73. During the first half of the game the latter Club took the lead. Considerable interest was manifested by a large number of spectators. At the close the vanquished gave three cheers and the victors responded.
Those appear to be the only references to high school baseball in the 1858 New Bedford newspapers. It is not clear if this club was sanctioned by the high school as an extracurricular activity or if it was made up of high school students calling themselves the High School Base Ball Club. Harold Seymour notes that the Worcester club in 1859 was formed by students on their own. School officials at first protested calling the club a high school club before warming up to the idea of a high school baseball club and supporting it. If New Bedford high school officials had issues with the High School Base Ball Club it wasn’t reported on in the papers. It is hard to judge how long the 1858 edition of the high school team lasted. There were just a few mentions of baseball in the 1859 and 1860 New Bedford papers but nothing on the high school club. In fact there is no mention of baseball in the newspapers again until 1866. In that year, in addition to the Wamsutta and other clubs, the Howland Grammar School Association formed the Acushnet Base Ball Club. This association was formed by a Middle Street Grammar School student for the “prevention of profanity and vulgarity”.
High school baseball appears again in the New Bedford papers in 1867 when the High School club beat Friend’s Academy 33-17, presumably playing the New York rules which the Ironsides Base Ball Club introduced to New Bedford in 1858.
Here is to another 150 years of baseball in New Bedford and throughout the south coast of Massachusetts (and maybe high schools will go back to wood bats).
11.21.07
Thanksgiving Baseball
The Standard Times recently did a story about Thanksgiving traditions. One of those traditions began 22 years ago when SouthCoast football officials met for breakfast before the Thanksgiving Day games. It seems that football has become part of the Thanksgiving ritual for many people. For the record, I am not one of them and I do not know much about the history of football with Thanksgiving. According to the Detroit Lions website they have been playing Thanksgiving football since 1934. In 1890 Harvard proposed to Yale that football be played between the two schools on Thanksgiving. In 1855, William Sumner of Milton, Massachusetts had to withdraw from a game of football on Thanksgiving due to injuries he received from an assault the week before. Football was known on the south coast in the nineteenth century. Thomas Rodman, son of abolitionist Samuel Rodman of New Bedford, learned to play football at Friends Academy in the 1830s. In early December 1859 the staff of two newspapers, the Republican Standard and the Mercury played a best of five series. According to James D’Wolf Lovett, football at this time was a much different game. Play was continuous (unless the ball went out of bounds) until one team got the ball over their opponent’s boundary line. One goal ended the game. With the series tied at two games apiece both teams decided not to play the deciding game because as the Republican Standard noted, “the best of feeling prevailed”. It was baseball, not football that was the traditional Thanksgiving Day sport of choice as long as 150 years ago. On Thanksgiving Day 1858 the Union and Bristol County baseball clubs of New Bedford met on the City Common for a game. The Evening Standard began their report of the game “From time immemorial Thanksgiving and Fast days have been set apart for ball playing…” suggesting that perhaps baseball had long been established as a tradition on Thanksgiving in New Bedford. The report noted that “The regular Ball season is considered to close with Thanksgiving”. On Thanksgiving Day 1859 and 1860 the Franklin Base Ball Club played an inter-squad game at a location on the southern end of County Street. Both teams celebrated after the games with dinners of turkey and oysters.The Civil War most likely interrupted this ball playing tradition (or at least the local newspapers understandably decided it wasn’t important enough to report). By 1866 baseball was once again played in New Bedford in November and in 1867 Thanksgiving Day baseball games featured the New Bedford Boot and Shoe Manufactory, the Annawan Base Ball Club, the National Base Ball Club and the Wamsutta Base Ball Club.
I am not sure when the tradition of football replaced baseball as the Thanksgiving Day sport. Perhaps it gradually made the transformation as the ball became harder and wintry weather made play difficult as the rules evolved. Softball made its introduction in the 1880s in Chicago as in indoor sport at Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day 1887 a game of baseball was played on the Polo Grounds, presumably by these softball rules. Most likely people wanted a sporting diversion on Thanksgiving that could be played in rain or snow and football offered that diversion.
