Chronology:Washington DC
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1860.14 Potomacs "Conquer" Nationals in Washington
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"For many reasons this game has excited more interest than any other ever played hereabouts." "Geo Hibbs, Dooley, and Beale of the National, went into the "corking" line pretty largely, the latter leading the score of his side."
Sources:
"Base Ball: Potomac vs. National: the Conquering Game," Washington [DC] Evening Star, October 23, 1860, page 3.
Comment:
The Evening Star carries a full game account and box score. It was the deciding game of the match.
Year
1860
1861c.3 Lincoln and Baseball: The Presidential Years
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Notables:
Abraham Lincoln
[A] "We boys, for hours at a time, played "town ball" [at my grandfather's estate in Silver Spring, MD] on the vast lawn, and Mr. [Abe] Lincoln would join ardently in the sport. I remember vividly how he ran with the children; how long were his strides, and how far his coat-tails stuck out behind, and how we tried to hit him with the ball, as he ran the bases."
[B] "Years after the Civil War, Winfield Scott Larner of Washington remembered attending a game played on an old Washington circus lot in 1862...Lincoln, followed by his son Tad...made his way up to where he could see the game...On departing Lincoln and Tad accepted three loud cheers from the crowd."
Sources:
[A] Recollection [c.1890?] of Frank P. Blair III in Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 (Lincoln Memorial Association, New York, 1900), page 88.
[B] The Evening Star (Washington, D. C.), July 12, 1914. Quoted in American Baseball: From Gentleman's Sport to the Commissioner System (university of Oklahoma Press, 1966), p.11.
Comment:
Blair, whose grandfather was Lincoln's Postmaster General, lived in Silver Spring, MD, just outside Washington. Blair was born in 1858 or 1859.
Circa
1861
1861.17 American Guard [71st NY Regt] 42, Nationals BB Club 13
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Game:
Age of Players:
"The National Base Ball Club requests the pleasure of your company on their grounds at the intersection of Maryland Avenue and 6th Street, East, on Tuesday, July 2d [1861], at twelve o'clock, to witness a match game with the 71st Regiment Base Ball Club"
Sources:
71st Regiment Veterans Association, "History of the 71st Regiment, N.G., N.Y.," (Eastman, New York, 1919), pages 157, 232, and 236-237. Accessed 5/30/2009 via Google Books search "71st regiment baseball." PBall file: CW-3.
Comment:
The 71st had the duty to protect the Nation's Capital against rebel incursions, and fielded a picked nine to play a National BBC nine. After three innings, they led 12-2, and coasted to victory. A familiar name for the 71st was 3b Van Cott, and for the Nationals French played 3b. The regimental history later reported that the game "was witnessed by a large number of spectators." The Philadelphia Inquirer announced the contest on July 1 under the headline "The New York Seventy-First Despairing of Work, Going to Play Ball." Note: Frank Ceresi reports [19CBB posting of 2/28/2009] that the French collection of the Washington Historical Society includes a handwritten scoresheet for the match, which describes a 41-13 Army victory.
The two sides played again a year later. On August 7, 1862, the Nationals won a rematch, 28-13. The regimental history says that "the game was played on the parade ground; the result was not as satisfactory to the boys as the year before. There was quite a concourse of spectators on the occasion, including a number of ladies . . . . At the close the players were refreshed with sandwiches and lager." On June 25th, 1862, and the regiment's company K took on the rest of the regiment and lost 33-11.
Year
1861
1861.35 Awaiting Deployment to Washington, the 44th NY Plays Ball Evenings
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Age of Players:
1861: While the regiment trained at an Albany facility in September, a local newspaper noted: “They are under drill six hours during the day . . . Their leisure hours are devoted in great part to athletic exercises, fencing, boxing, and ball-playing, while their evenings are passed in singing, a glee club having been formed.” [page 17]. In a Virginia camp near Washington, “Christmas day of 1861 was given up to the enlisted men. They played ball in the morning and in the afternoon organized a burlesque parade which was very comical” [page 56].
1863: The regiment was near Culpepper in September. “Capt. B. K. Kimberly was an experienced and skillful base ball player and took the lead in inaugurating a series of games of base ball” [page166].
Captain Eugene A. Nash, A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment, New York Infantry (Donnelley and Sons, Chicago, 1911).
1864: In a May 25th letter to his sister from “Near White’s Tavern,” Sgt Orsell Brown noted “Monday [May] 2d I felt poorly. . . . The officers of the Brigade had a great game of ball in the afternoon, in front of our Reg’t.” Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 124
Year
1861
1861.54 The "best players" of NYC and Brooklyn play in the army
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Age of Players:
The DC National Republican, June 28, 1861 prints a June 25th letter from Camp Wool [in DC] saying that Steers' nine (Company E) played Baldwin's nine (Company D), the two nines containing some of the best players of NYC and Brooklyn. The Washington Evening Star, July 1, 1861 reports that this was between 2 companies of the 14th New York, camped near 7th Street Park, and that Co. D won 39-17.
See also the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 5, 1861, which calls the soldiers in Co. D "many old and almost professional players." The regiment's colonel umpired the game.
Sources:
The DC National Republican, June 28, 1861
Year
1861
1861.65 4th Pennsylvania plays till dark
Location:
The Washington Evening Star, May 23, 1861 reports that the day before: "The men of the Fourth Pennsylvania amused themselves and a large number of lookers on with a game of ball in the wide space in front of their quarters at the Assembly Rooms. The activity of the players after a day of hard exercise in the school of the company was astonishing. They kept up the sport until it was too dark to see the ball in it flight."
Sources:
The Washington Evening Star, May 23, 1861
Year
1861
1861.77 White House Secretaries watch Zouaves play ball
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Age of Players:
"When John Hay and George Nicolay drove their rented buggy over to Camp Lincoln to say hello to their friend Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, they found him wearing his “blouzy red shirt” and enjoying that New York favorite: Base Ball. Most New York firefighters played the game, and among those involved was Ellsworth’s aide-de-camp, Captain John “Jack” Wildey.
Wildey played ball before he became a Fire Zouave. He played for the New York Mutuals, named for his own Mutual Hook and Ladder Company Number 1. The Mutuals were formed in 1857 and played amateur ball at the Hoboken Grounds, their home field. Many firefighters and city employees played in a variety of New York teams, but the Mutuals were reckoned the best. It was perfectly normal for a handmade ball, a bit larger and softer than today’s baseball, to be found in the knapsack of an 11th New York Fire Zouave."
Hay and Nicolai were Pres. Lincon's Secretaries, and Ellsworth was perhaps Lincoln's closest young friend. Hay later became Secretary of State.
Sources:
"Home Run Derby Star Captain "Jack" Wildey, The Emerging Civil War blog, July 16, 2018
Year
1861
1861.78 12th New York Plays the Nationals of DC
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Age of Players:
See the New York Sunday Mercury, June 30, 1861. Members of the 12th NY played a pickup team of the Nationals of DC, in DC, on "Tuesday last." Gives a box score.
Year
1861
1862.47 Hawthorne Sees Ballplaying at Washington-area Camp
Location:
Notes upon visiting a camp near Alexandria VA: “Here were in progress all the occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field. Some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers, some smoked cigars or pipes.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Fortress Monroe,” in I. Finseth, The American Civil War (CRC Press, 2006), page 398. Accessed in restricted view on Google Books 6/16/09.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 127
Year
1862
1862.85 76th NY plays baseball--or is it drive ball?
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Game:
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Note: this entry was, in February 2022, merged in Chronology item 1862.104.
The 1862 letters of Lester Winslow, of the 76th NY, at the National Archives, feature stationary printed with the heading "Camp Doubleday" "76th New York" and show soldiers playing a bat-ball game. On this David Block writes:
"In the foreground of the illustration two soldiers face each other with bats, one striking a ball. Since no other players are involved, the only game that seems to correlate to the image is, in fact, drive ball. If not for Abner Doubleday's association, we would pay this little heed, but it is a matter of curiosity, if not amusement, to place baseball's legendary noninventor in such close proximity to a game involving a bat and ball." David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It (U Nebraska, 2005), page 198. See entry on Drive Ball.
Camp Doubleday, named for brigade commander General Abner Doubleday, was a fort protecting DC, near where Fort Stevens is/was.
Year
1862
1862.89 71st NY enjoy themselves with a baseball game
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Age of Players:
The New York Sunday Mercury, June 29, 1862 reports on a baseball game between Co. K, 71st NY, and a picked nine from the rest of the 71st. The box score is given. Co. K lost 33-11, but they were all "enjoying themselves." Another game of the same regiment, same place, is reported in The New York Sunday Mercury, Aug. 3, 1862. The officers of the regiment gave a "splendid colaltion" after the match.
Comment:
Tenleytown was then MD, now part of DC.
Year
1862
1862.93 71st NY gets treated to beer after a match
Location:
The New York Sunday Mercury, Aug. 17, 1862 gives the box score of a game between the 71st NY and the Washington Nationals. The Nationals won 28-13. The ballgame attracted a large crowd, including numbers of the "fair sex." Both teams retired to "sandwiches and lager" after the game.
Year
1862
1865.7 Awaiting Release, Soldier in DC Plays and Watches Base Ball
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Age of Players:
“This afternoon I played ‘base ball’ for four hours a 1st baseman in a match game between the Officers of the 12th V.R.C. and the Officers of the 24th the game – after seven innings – standing in favor of the former club, the score being 53 to 23”
Letter, October 2, 1865, from York Amos Woodward, 24th Veteran Reserves. A series of Woodward’s letters, written in October and November 1865, contain 9 references to base ball, including a report of a game between the National club of Washington and the Excelsior of Brooklyn [October 9]. Woodward appears to have been in Washington at the time. From an auction offering accessed via Google Web search on 5/19/09.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 121
Year
1865
1873.13 Ballpark Admission Fees To Be Set at Twenty-five Cents -- not higher -- for Pro Games
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Location:
Age of Players:
"Manager (Nick) Young, of Washington, very wisely advocates the adoption of the twenty-five cent tariff of admission to professional contests this season, and the half-dozen professional clubs of the country had better adopt is advice. They will find it difficult to collect large audiences even at twenty-five cents this season . . . As for fifty cents, that is not a sum that will not be longer countenanced."
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, February 16, 1873.
Comment:
[A] From Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago in baseball (2/16/2023 FB posting): "The discussion over the price of admission. This discussion has been going on since 1866, when some clubs were delighted to discover that spectators were willing to pay the princely sum of 25 cents to see a game. This raised the question, might not they be willing to pay even more? Experiments ran all the way up to one dollar, but that clearly was overreach. The discussion settled into 25 versus 50 cents. It will go on, on these terms, into the 1890s. This seems curious from the modern perspective, but this was an era of essentially zero inflation. Inflation as a fact of life is really a post-WWII thing.
Speaking of inflation, what does this cost of admission translate to today [2023]? This is a bit tricky. First off, the basic admission is for standing room. Admission to the grandstand typically was another 25 cents. Various auxiliary bleacher sections will be added in future years, but here in 1873 things are still pretty basic. So if we assume the desire to sit down, we are really looking at 50 versus 75 cents. The next problem is that inflation calculators aren't really meaningful across widely separated eras. Labor was cheap, so even middle class households hired "help." Food was expensive, this being before the Green Revolution in agriculture. Housing was cheap, but you got what you paid for. We spend far more for transportation nowadays, with the ability (leading often to the necessity) to go vastly longer distances in relative comfort. Cell phone plans in the 1873s were very cheap, but the service was terrible. And so on. So simply punching this into an inflation calculator doesn't tell us as much as one might think. So taking this with a huge grain of salt, use a multiplier of x25. This is too low, in terms of daily life, since we have more disposable income today, but it gives a very rough idea. So that 50 cents to get in and get a seat translates conservatively to twelve dollars or so. I leave as an exercise for the student to compare this with prices today, but with the admonition to include the cheap seats in your analysis, not just the field level seats behind home plate, and to consider the physical characteristics of that seat (possibly with a cup holder, the greatest addition to ball parks within my lifetime), the sightlines, and the proximity and nature of restroom facilities."
[B] From John Thorn, email of 2/17/2023: "BTW, the National League's stand of 1876 (a 50-cent admission) nearly killed it in the cradle, but was vital to establishing it, in the longer run, as a professional entertainment."
Query:
[] Do we know how often 50-cent admissions were charged prior to 1873?
[] Was Young's recommendation in fact smoothly adopted for the 1873 season?
Year
1873