Chronology:Old Fashioned Game

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1860.32 Milwaukee Press Not Unanimous About the "Miserable" New York Rules

Tags:

Pre-modern Rules, Stats and Box Scores

Location:

Wisconsin

Game:

Base Ball, Old Fashioned Game

Age of Players:

Adult

 

In May 1860, The Milwaukee Sentinel quoted The [Daily Milwaukee] News as recently reporting that the Janesville Base Ball Club expected to challenge a Milwaukee club to "a friendly contest" that year. The News added: "Unfortunately however, the Janesville club plays the good old fashioned game of Base Ball, while our clubs play under the new code, (which we must here beg leave to say is, in our estimation, a miserable one, and in no way calculated to develope[sic] skill or excite interest . . .)"  The previous day, the Milwaukee Sentinel had responded to the News piece calling the new rules "miserable" by writing that "We don't think much of the judgement of the News. The game of Base Ball, as now played by all the clubs in the Eastern States, is altogether ahead of 'the old fashioned game,' both in point of skill and interest."  The Daily Milwaukee News of May 17, 1860 offered this: "Waiting for a ball to bound, instead of catching it on the fly . . . and various other methods of play adopted by this new-fangled game, looks to us altogether too great a display of laziness and inactivity to suit our notions of a genuine, well and skillfully conducted game of Base Ball. . . . We shall soon expect to hear that the game of Base Ball is played with the participants lying at full length upon the grass." Give us the 'old fashioned game' or none at all."

Sources:

Daily Milwaukee News, May 15, 1860

Milwaukee Sentinel, May 16, 1860 

Janesville Daily Gazette, September 1, 1860

Comment:

The Janesville WI ball club wasn't so sure about this new Eastern game, and apparently continued to play by the old rules: On September 1, 1860, the Janesville Daily Gazette carried a box score for a game between the Janesville Base Ball Club and the Bower City Base Ball Club of Janesville reporting a 'match game' on August 31.  

Bower City won, 50 tallies to 38 tallies.  The game, played to "first 50 tallies" listed 10 players per team and likely took 11 3-out innings.  The account does not describe the rules in force for this contest. As of November 2020, Protoball shows one ballgame and six club entries that cite Bower City Clubs.

Janesville WI is about 60 miles SW of Milwaukee.

Query:

What is the date of the Daily Milwaukee News piece in which the rules are described as "miserable"?

 

Year

1860

Item №

1860.32

Edit

1860.92 "Old Fashioned Game" Reported, and Disparaged, in Milwaukee

Tags:

Newspaper Coverage, Pre-modern Rules, Stats and Box Scores

Game:

Old Fashioned Game

Age of Players:

Adult

In May 1860, The [Milwaukee] Sentinel quoted The News as recently reporting that the Janesville Base Ball Club expected to challenge a Milwaukee club to "a friendly contest" that year. The  News added: "Unfortunately however, the Janesville club plays the good old fashioned game of Base Ball, while our clubs play under the new code, (which we must here beg leave to say is, in our estimation, a miserable one, and in no way calculated to develope[sic] skill or excite interest . . .)" 

The Sentinel argued back:  "We don't think much of the judgement of the News.  The game of Base Ball, as now played by all the clubs in the Eastern States, is altogether ahead of 'the old fashioned game,' both in point of skill and interest. Indeed, until the 'new code' was adopted here, it was impossible to excite interest enough to get up a club. Now we have two large clubs in full blast, and more coming.  The game is a very lively, attractive and manly, one, and is daily growing in popular favor." 

Sources:

Milwaukee Sentinel, May 16, 1860

Janesville Daily Gazette, September 1, 1860

 

Comment:

On September 1, 1860, the Janesville Daily Gazette carried a box score for a game between the Janesville Base Ball Club and the Bower City Base Ball Club of Janesville reporting a 'match game' on August 31.  

Bower City won, 50 tallies to 38 tallies.  The game, played to "first 50 tallies" listed 10 players per team and likely took 11 3-out innings.  The account does not describe the rules in force for this contest.

As of November 2020, Protoball shows 1 ballgame and 6 club entries that cite Bower City Clubs.

    

Year

1860

Item №

1860.92

Edit

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