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"People have often regarded Florio's expression in his Italian Dictionary (1598) cricket-a-wicket as the first mention (cf #1598.2 and #1598.3, above) of the noble game. It were strange indeed if this great word first dropped from the pen of an Italian! I have no doubt myself that this is a mere coincidence of sound. . . . [C]ricket-a-wicket must pair off with 'helter-skelter,' higgledy-piggledy, and Tarabara to which Florio gives gives cricket-a-wicket as an equivalent."

"We know that the first wicket, comprising two stumps with a bail across them, was pitched somewhere about 1683, as John Nyren recalled long afterward." Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (The Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960: reprint from 1935), page 31.

Note: We should locate Nyren's original claim. Does this imply that cricket was played without wickets, or without bails, before 1683?

"Close of the 17^th century: . . . The Common was always a playground for boys - wicket and flinging of the bullit was much enjoyed . . . . No games were allowed to be played on the Sabbath, and a fine of five shillings was imposed on the owner of any horse seen on the Common on that day. People were not even to stroll on the Common, during the warm weather, on Sunday."

Madame Knight, "in her inimitable journal of her ride from Boston to New York in 1704, speaks of ball-playing in Connecticut."

"The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket Players," in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut, Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society, [n. p., 1909.] page 284. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/11/04. John notes 9/3/2005 that Seymour observes that Madame Knight does not specifically name the sport as wicket, but he excludes cricket as a possibility because cricket was not then known to have been played in America before 1725; however, John adds, we now have a cricket reference in Virginia from 1709. [See #1709.1, below.]

"In 1725, he [the Duke of Richmond] challenged Sir William Gage in a two-a-side single-wicket competition. . . ."

Simon Rae, It's Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber and Faber, 2001), page 57. Note: is there a fuller account for tis match? A primary source?

"March, 15. Sam. Hirst [Sewall's grandson, reportedly, and a Harvard '23 man -- (LMc)] got up betime in the morning, and took Ben Swett with him and went into the [Boston MA] Common to play at Wicket. Went before any body was up, left the door open; Sam came not to prayer; at which I was most displeased.

"March 17^th. Did the like again, but took not Ben with him. I told him he could not lodge here practicing thus. So he lodg'd elsewhere. He grievously offended me in persuading his Sister Hannam not to have Mr. Turall, without enquiring of me about it. And play'd fast and loose in a vexing matter about himself in a matter relating to himself, procuring me great Vexation."

.

"In the infancy of the game [cricket] the batsman stood before a circular hole in the turf, and was put out, as in 'rounders,' by being caught, or by the ball being put in this hole. A century and a half ago this hole was still in use, though it had on each side a stump only one foot high, with a long cross-bar of two feet in length laid on top of them."

Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto and Windus, London, 1881), page 4, accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search ("pastimes and players"). MacGregor gives no source for this claim. Note that MacGregor does not say that such practice was uniformly used in this period. Query: have later writers specified in more detail when the hole and the low long wicket disappeared from cricket?

"The earliest known cricket picture was first displayed in 1739. It is an engraving call "The Game of Cricket", by Hubert-Francois Gravelot (1699-1773) and shows two groups of cherubic lads gathered around a batsman and a bowler. The wicket shown is the "low stool" shape, probably 2 feet wide and 1 foot tall, with two stumps and a single bail." Received in an email from John Thorn, 2/1/2008. Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1739_English_cricket_season.

Another fan's notes: "Art is immortal, and the M.C.C. has acquired a new work of Art in connection with cricket. This is a drawing in pencil on grey paper, representing a country game in the [eighteenth] century. . . . The two notched stumps with one bail are only about six inches high, and the bowler appears to be "knuckling" the ball like a marble. I have very little doubt that the artist was Gravelot." Andrew Lang, "At the Sign of the Ship," Longmans' Magazine (London) Number LXIX, July 1888, page 332.

On 2/24/10, an image was available via a Google Web search (christies "gravelot (1699-1773)" cricket).

"We may see how the game was played about this time from the picture, of date 1743, in the possession of the Surrey County Club. The wicket was a 'skeleton hurdle,' one foot high and two feet wide, consisting of two stumps only, with a third laid across. The bat was curved at the end, and made for free hitting rather than defence. The bowling was all along the ground, and the great art was to bowl under the bat. All play was forward of the wicket, as it is now in single wicket games of less that five players a side. With these exceptions, the game was very much the same as it is today [1881]."

Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto and Windus, London, 1881), page 16. Note that the circular hole, described in #1730.1, is not seen. Caveat: It is not clear from this account whether forward hitting was common in the 1740s or whether MacGregor is simply drawing inferences about this single painting.

"Dear Spirit:  . . .

"I shall state [here] that which has come under my observation, and also some of my friends, during the last four years of the ball-playing mania . . .   

Base ball cannot date back to so far as [cricket], but the game has no doubt, been played in this country for at least one century.  Could we only invoke the spirit of some departed veteran of he game, how many items of interest might we be able to place before the reader.

"New England, we believe, has always been the play-ground for our favorite game; and the boys of the various villages still play by the same rules their fathers did before them.  We also find that many games are played, differing but little from the well-known game of Base.

" . . .  Although I am a resident of State of New York, I hope to do her no wrong by thinking that the New England States were, and are, the ball grounds of this country, and that many of our  present players were originally from those States.  

"The game of Base, as played there, was as follows: They would take the bat, 'hand over hand,' as the present time, 'whole hand or none.'  After the sides  were chosen, the bases would be placed so as to form a square, each base about twenty yards from the other.  The striker would stand between the first and fourth base, equi-distant from each.  The catcher was always expected to take the ball without a bound and it was always thrown by  a player who would stand between the second and third bases. A good catcher would take the ball before the bat cold strike it.  A hand was out if a man was running the bases should be struck with the ball which was thrown at him while he was running.  He was allowed either a pace or a jump to the base which he was striving to reach; or if a ball was caught flying or on first bound.  There was no rule to govern the striker as to the direction he should knock the ball, and of course no such thing as foul balls. The whole side had to be put out, and if the last man could strike a ball a sufficient distance to make all the bases, he could take in one of the men who had been put out. The ball was not quite the same as the one in present use, and varied very much in size and weight, it also was softer and more springy.  

"The bats were square, flat, or round -- some preferring a flat bat, and striking with it so that th4  edge, or small side, would come in contact with the ball.  Another arrangement of bases is, to have the first about two yards from the striker (on this right), the second about fifty down the field, and the third, or home, about five. . . .

"Yours, respectfully,  X"

"A Challenge is hereby given by the Subscribers, to Ashbel Steel, and John Barnard, with 18 young Gentlemen . . . to play a Game of BOWL for a Dinner and Trimmings . . . on Friday next." Connecticut Courant , May 5, 1766, as cited in John A. Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 6. Note: is "game of bowl" a common term for cricket? Could this not have been a wicket challenge, given the size of the teams?

"There was no size limit [on a cricket bat] until 1771, when a Ryegate batsman came to the pitch with a bat wider than the wicket itself! A maximum measurement was then drawn up, and this has remained the same since." The Hambledon Committee new resolution, appearing two days later, specified that the bat much be no wider than 4.25 inches. The rule stuck.

Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia, 1990], page 15.

A "Committee of Noblemen and Gentlemen of Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex, and London" agree on rule changes. Ford's summary: "Particular reference is made to the requirements of gambling. Ball between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces. LBW [leg-before-wicket, a form of batman interference - LM] for the first time; short runs; visiting side gets the choice of pitch and first innings. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a citation for this account.

Writing in 1890, Steel and Lyttelton say that "[t]he earliest laws of the game, or at least the earliest which have reached us, are of the year 1774:" See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4^th edition, page 12.

Says Ford: "Third (middle) stump introduced." Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a citation for this account.

[A] George Ewing, a Revolutionary War soldier, tells of playing a game of "Base" at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: "Exercisd in the afternoon in the intervals playd at base."

Ewing also wrote: "[May 2d] in the afternoon playd a game at Wicket with a number of Gent of the Arty . . . ." And later . . .  "This day [May 4, 1778] His Excellency dined with G Nox and after dinner did us the honor to play at Wicket with us."

[B]

"Q. What did soldiers do for recreation?

"A: During the winter months the soldiers were mostly concerned with their survival, so recreation was probably not on their minds. As spring came, activities other than drills and marches took place. "Games" would have included a game of bowls played with cannon balls and called "Long Bullets." "Base" was also a game - the ancestor of baseball, so you can imagine how it might be played; and cricket/wicket. George Washington himself was said to have took up the bat in a game of wicket in early May after a dinner with General Knox! . . . Other games included cards and dice . . . gambling in general, although that was frowned upon."

Valley Forge is about 20 miles NE of Philadelphia.

The journal of Enos Stevens, a NH man serving in British forces, mentions playing ball seven times from 1778 to 1781. Only one specifies the game played in terms we know: "in the after noon played Wickett" in March of 1781. 

"Samuel Shute, a New Jersey Lieutenant, jotted down his reference to playing ball in central Pennsylvania sometime between July 9 and July 22, 1779; 'until the 22^nd, the time was spent playing shinny and ball.'  Incidentally, Shute distinguished among various sports, referring elsewhere in his journal to 'Bandy Wicket.' He did not confuse baseball with types of field hockey [bandy] and cricket [wicket] that the soldiers also played." Thomas Altherr. 

Writing on early baseball in the year 1883, W. W. Newell says:

"The present scientific game . . . was known in Massachusetts, twenty years ago, as the 'New York game.' A ruder form of Base-ball has been played in some Massachusetts towns for a century; while in other parts of New England no game with the ball was formerly known except "Hockey." There was great local variety in these sports."

Newell, William W., Games and Songs of American Children (Dover, New York, 1963 - originally published 1883) page 184. Note: The omission of wicket - and arguably cricket - from Newell's account is interesting here. The claim that hockey was seen as a ball game is also interesting.

"These officers [British soldiers captured at the Battle of Saratoga] were full of cash and frolicked and gamed much.  One amusement in which they indulged much, was playing at ball.  A Ball-Alley was fitted up at the Court-House, where some of them were to be seen at almost all hours of the day."

"Whilst the game of ball was coming off one day at the Court House, an American officer and a British officer, who were among the spectators, became embroiled in a dispute."

The writer, Samuel Dewees, went on to describe how, as a teen, he had fashioned balls and sold them to the British for a quarter each.

"The late game of Wicket was decided by an extraordinary catch made by Mr. Lenox, to which he ran more than 40 yards, and received the ball between two fingers." Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (London), 6/27/1786. Provided by Richard Hershberger, email of 2/3/2008. Richard adds: "I know of only one other English citation of "wicket" as the name of a game. I absolutely do not assume that it was the same as the game associated with Connecticut."

"Three times is Out at wicket, next year if Something is not done I will retire to the Green Mountains."

"[D]escriptions of the game [cricket] from Hamburg in the 1790s show significant variations often quite similar to outdated provisions of American "Wicket," which may well not be due to error on the part of the author, but rather to acute observation. For example, the ball was bowled alternatively from each end (i.e. not in 'overs'). Moreover, the ball has to be 'rolled' and not 'thrown' (i.e., bowled in the true sense, not the pitched ball). And the striker is out if stops the ball from hitting the wicket with his foot or his body generally. There is no more reason to believe that there was uniformity in the Laws covering cricket in England, the British Isles, or in Europe than there was in weights and measures." Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of its Grown and Development Throughout the World (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1970), page 72. Note: Bowen does not give a source for this observation.

In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in order to promote the safety of the exterior of the newly built meeting house, particularly the windows, a by-law is enacted to bar "any game of wicket, cricket, baseball, batball, football, cats, fives, or any other game played with ball," within eighty yards of the structure. However, the letter of the law did not exclude the city's lovers of muscular sport from the tempting lawn of "Meeting-House Common." This is the first indigenous instance of the game of baseball being referred to by that name on the North American continent. It is spelled herein as bafeball. "Pittsfield is baseball's Garden of Eden," said Pittsfield Mayor James Ruberto.

An account of this find (a re-find, technically) is at John Thorn, "1791 and All That: Baseball and the Berkshires," Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Volume 1, Number 1 (Spring 2007) pp. 119-126. 

See also http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1799618.

"Both the meeting-house and the Court House suffered considerable damage, especially to their windows by ball playing in the streets, consequently in 1791, a by-law was enacted by which 'foot ball, hand ball, bat ball and or any other game of ball was prohibited within ten rods of the Court House easterly or twenty rods of the Meeting House southwesterly, neither shall they throw any stones at or over the said Meeting House on a penalty of 5s, one half to go to the complainant and the rest to the town.'"

A copper engraving showing Dartmouth College appeared in Massachusetts Magazine in February 1793. It is the earliest known drawing of the College, and shows a wicket-oriented game being played in the yard separating college buildings. College personnel suggest is an early form of cricket, given the tall wicket which is not known for the New England pastime of wicket.

Rule changes: [A] Instead of requiring a single ball to be used throughout a match, a new rule specified a new ball for each innings. [B] Fielders can be substituted for, but the replacement players cannot bat.

Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishers, Kent Town Australia, 1990], pages 14 and 9, respectively.

In addition, Ford reports that "the size of the wicket was increased to 24 inches high by 7 inches wide with two bails." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 20. Ford does not give a citation for this account.

Item from John Thorn, 6/25/04. Note: It seems possible that a "ball alley" is for bowling, but wicket was also played on what was termed an alley.

"July 9 [1805, we think] . . . . The mode of playing ball differs a little from that practiced in New-England. Instead of tossing up the ball out of one's own hand, and then striking it, as it descends, they lay is into the heel of a kind of wood shoe; and upon the instep a spring is fixed, which extends within the hollow to the hinder part of the shoe; the all is placed where the heel of the foot would commonly be, and a blow applied on the other end of the spring, raises the ball into the air, and, as it descends, it receives a blow from the bat.

"They were playing also at another game resembling our cricket, but differing from it in this particular, that he perpendicular pieces which support the horizontal one, are about eighteen inches high, and are three in number, whereas with us they are only two in number, and about three or four inches high."

"Ball tampering has been around since time immemorial. The first recorded instance of a bowler deliberately changing the condition of a ball occurred in 1806, when Beldham, Robinson and Lambert played Bennett, Fennex, and Lord Frederisk Beauclerk in a single-wicket match at Lord's. It was a closely fought match, but Beauclerk's last innings looked to be winning the game. As Pycroft recalls in The Cricket Field:

'"His lordship had then lately introduced sawdust when the ground was wet. Beldham, unseen, took a lump of wet dirt and sawdust, and stuck it on the ball, and took the wicket. This, I heard separately from Beldham, Bennett, and also Fennex, who used to mention it as among the wonders of his long life.'"

Simon Rae, It's Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber and Faber, 2001), page 199. Pycroft's account appears at John Pycroft, The Cricket Field: Or the History and Science of Cricket, American Edition (Mayhew and Baker, Boston, 1859), page 214 - as accessed via Google Books 10/20/2008.

"On the 29^th May, a grant [sic] Match of Wicket was played at Chippawa, Upper Canada, by 22 English ship wrights, for a stake of 150 dollars. The parties were distinguished by the Pueetergushene and the Chippawa party. The game was won in 56 runs by the former. It continued 6 hours.

"The winners challenge any eleven gentlemen in the state of New York, for any sum they may wish to play for. The game was succeeded by a supper in honor of King Charles, and the evening in spent [sic] with great hilarity."

Mechanics' Gazette and Merchants' Daily Advertiser, June 9,1815, reprinting from the Buffalo Gazette. Provided by Richard Hershberger, 7/30/2007. Note: It seems unusual for Englishmen to be playing wicket, and for wicket to field 11-man teams. Could this be a cricket match reported as wicket? Is it clear why a Buffalo NY newspaper would report on a match in "Upper Canada," or whereever Chippawa is? Do we know what a "grant match" is? A typo for "grand match," probably?

Adin Ballou grew up in a minister's home in Cumberland, RI, and his amusements were of the "homely and simple kinds, such as hunting, fishing, wrestling, wrestling, jumping, ball-playing , quoit-pitching . . .Card-playing was utterly disallowed." 

A student at Yale University reports that cricket and football are played on campus [need cite]. Lester, however, says that he doubts the student saw English cricket, and that, given that the site is CT, it was probably wicket. Lester notes that wicket involved sides of 30 to 35 players, and was played in an alley 75 feet long, and with oversized bats.

Lester, ed., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 7.

[Writing of the yeoman of the county:] "notwithstanding their inclination to religion, they meet in large parties upon Sunday afternoons to play foot-ball, wicket (an old-fashioned cricket), or other gymnastics."

Source: "Manners and Customs of Herefordshire," The Gentleman's Magazine, February 1819. Submitted by Richard Hershberger 8/6/2007.

"[In the summer] ball was the chief amusement, and if the weather permitted (and my impression is that it generally did permit) the open green about the meeting-house and the school-house was constantly occupied by the players, little boys, big boys, and even men (for such we considered the biggest boys who consented to join the game) . . . . These grown-up players usually devoted themselves to a game called 'wicket,' in which the ball was impelled along the ground by a wide, peculiarly-shaped bat, over, under, or through a wicket, made by a slender stick resting on two supports.  I never heard of baseball in those days."   -- John Howard Redfield

Writing of this period, Ford summarizes: "Much single-wicket cricket was played, and wager matches continued, but from the mid 1820s both these features gradually disappeared from the scene as cricket was 'cleaned up.' Of equal importance the game at club level spread and grew strong." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 22. Ford does not give citations for this account.

"Ball was a common diversion in Vermont while I lived there; yet I never became proficient at it, probably for want of time and practice. To catch a flying ball, propelled by a muscular arm straight at my nose, and coming so swiftly that I could scarcely see it, was a feat requiring a celerity of action, an electric sympathy of eye and brain and hand . . . . Call it a knack, if you will; it was quite beyond my powers of acquisition. 'Practice makes perfect.'  I certainly needed the practice, though I am not sure that any amount of it would have made me a perfect ball-player."

"'Election Day' was, however, the universal holiday, and the prevailed amongst the farmers that corn planting must be finished by that day for its enjoyment. It was a day of general hilarity, with no prescribed forms of observation, though ball playing was ordinarily included in the exercises, and frequently the inhabitants of adjacent towns were pitted against one another in the game of wicket. Wrestling, too, was a common amusement on that day, each town having its champions."

Charles J. Taylor, History of Great Barrington (Bryan and Co., Great Barrington MA, 1882), page 375. Accessed 2/3/10 via Google Books search (taylor great barrington). Note: this passage is not clearly set in time; "1820s" is a guess, but 1810s or 1830s is also a possibility.

In a charming 1867 volume, a father delivered an extended disquisition about ball games in his youth in New England. That was definitely before 1840 and more likely in the 1820s, or the 1830s at the latest. (The book had an 1860 copyright registration, so the author penned it in that year or in the 1850s). The detail of this recounting merits full excerpting:

“I think the boys used to play ball more when I was young than they do now.  It was a great game at that time, not only among the boys, but with grown-up people. I know that playing ball is getting into fashion again, but I don’t think it is as common even yet as it used to be. We had, I remember, a good many different kinds of ball. There was “barn-ball,” when there were only two boys to play, one to throw the ball against the barn and make it bound back, and the other to strike at it with his club. Then there was “two-hold-cat,” when there were four boys, two to be in and knock, and two to throw. Then there was “base-ball,” when there were a good many to play. In base-ball we chose sides, and we might have as many as we pleased on each side -- five or fifty, or any other number.

“Then there was “wicket-ball,” as we called it in the part of the country where I lived. In this game, two sticks, some five or six feet long, were laid on some little blocks near the ground, and the ball, which was a large one, was rolled on the ground, and the one that rolled it tried to knock off this stick, while the one that was in and had the bat or club, was to strike the ball and not let it knock the stick off.  If the stick was struck off, then the one knocker was “out.” Or if he hit the ball and raised it in the air, and any one on the other side caught it, he was “out.” I find that ball-playing changes some, and is different in different parts of the country, but it was a very wide-awake sport, and there was no game in which I took more delight. On ‘Lection-day, as it was called, of which I have spoken before, all the boys and young men, and even men who were older, thought they must play ball. On town-meeting days and training days, this game was almost always going on."

"'Three times and out' is a maxim of juvenile players at cricket."

Maine Gazette, November 20, 1821; submitted by Lee Thomas Oxford, 9/2/2007. Note: What can this reported rule possibly mean? Were beginning cricketers given three chances to hit the bowled ball in ME? John Thorn, email of 2/3/2008, points out that three swings was sometimes an out in wicket, and that the Gazette may have erred.

This engraving was done by John Cheney in 1821 at the age of 20.  It was originally engraved on a fragment of an old copper kettle.  It is reported that he was living in Hartford at the time.

It is one of the earliest known depictions of wicket.

The etching depicts six players playing wicket.  The long, low wickets are shown and two runners, prominently carrying large bats, are crossing between them as two fielders appear to pursue a large ball in flight.  Two wicketkeepers stand behind their wickets.

9Moor, E., Suffolk Words and Phrases [Woodbridge, England], p. 238. Per RH ref 123 and Chadwick 1867. The listed games played in Suffolk include cricket, base-ball, kit-cat, Bandy-wicket, and nine holes. Note:: But not trap-ball? Not rounders? Moor muses: "It is not unpleasing thus to see at a glance such a variety of recreations tending to excite innocent gaiety among our young people. He is no friend to his fellow creatures who desire to curtail them; on the contrary I hold him a benefactor to his county who introduce a new sport among us."

The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association reported that, as of 1908, it retained a wicket bat dating from 1825-30. Submitted by John Thorn, 1/13/2007. Note: John is trying to ascertain whether the bat remains in the collection.

John Thorn (emails of 9/1/2009) has unearthed an engraving of City Hall Park that depicts a ball game in progress in the distance. My best squint shows me pitcher, batsman, a close-in catcher, two distant fielders and three spectators (two seated). Old cat? Single-wicket cricket? Scrub base ball?

The lithograph, titled "The Park, 1827," is published as the frontispiece Valentine's Manual for the Corporation of the City of New York (1855). For a wee image, try a Google Web search of <"the park, 1827/McSpedon">.

"As a number of the students at Fairfield academy were amusing themselves with a game of ball, on the 19^th inst., a young man by the name of Philo Petrie, . . . of the town of Little Falls, was hit on the side of his head be a ball club and died almost instantly. He was about 17 years old."

New-York Spectator, October 30, 1829, page 2, column 5; taken from the Herkimer Herald. Posted by George Thompson to the 19CBB listserve on January 3, 2010. The Jamestown [NY] Journal reran the piece on November 4, 1829: accessed via subscription search on 2/17/2009. Fairfield NY is about 15 miles east of Utica in Central New York, and about 10 miles north of Herkimer and Little Falls.

"How far the Connecticut game of wicket has travelled I cannot say, but it is certain that when the Western Reserve region of Ohio was settled from Connecticut, the game was taken along. Our member [of the Connecticut Society of Colonial War], Professor Thomas Day Seymour of Yale, tells me that wicket was a favorite game of the students at Western Reserve College then located at Hudson Ohio . . . . 'Up to 1861,' he says, 'the standard games at our college were wicket and baseball, with wicket well in the lead. This game was in no sense a revival. A proof of this is the fact that young men coming to college [from?] all over the Reserve were accustomed to the game at home. My impression is that my father recognized the game as familiar to him his boyhood [probably in New England], but of this I am not absolutely certain. The ball was about 5 and a half inches in diameter; the wickets were about 4 inches above the ground, and about 5 feet long.  The bats were very heavy, -- of oak, about 50 inches long, with an almost circular lower end of (say) 8 inches in diameter.  The ball was so heavy that most bowlers merely rolled it with such a twist that they could impart; but some bowlers almost threw it.  Mark Hanna was a star player about 1860, and the rule had to be called on his that the ball must touch ghe ground three times before it struck the wicket.  The bats were so heavy that only the strong (and quick) batter dared to wait until the ball was opposite him and then strike.  I was always satisfied to steer the ball off to one side.  The rules favored the batter and many runns were made.'"

"[The Indians] would lounge on the steps of the 'Old First Church,' where they could look at our young men playing wicket ball in front of the church (no fences there then):, and this was a favorite ball ground."

" . . . the boys, who must always have their fun, did not always 'Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,' but would make a holiday of it by a vigorous game of ball, in some secluded spot in the suburbs of he town . . . " 

You may think of Thomas Wentworth Higginson [b. 1823] as a noted abolitionist, or as the mentor of Emily Dickinson, but he was also a ballplayer and sporting advocate [see also #1858.17]. Higginson's autobiography includes several glimpses of MA ballplaying:

- at ten he knew many Harvard students - "their nicknames, their games, their individual haunts, we watched them at football and cricket [page 40]"

- at his Cambridge school "there was perpetual playing of ball and fascinating running games [page 20]".

- he and his friends "played baseball and football, and a modified cricket, and on Saturdays made our way to the tenpin alleys [page 36]".

- once enrolled at Harvard College [Class of 1841] himself, he used "the heavy three-cornered bats and large balls of the game we called cricket [page 60]." Note: sounds a bit like wicket?

- in his early thirties he was president of a cricket club [and a skating club and a gymnastics club] in Worcester MA. [Pages 194-195]

See also #1858.17. 

Recalling a genial local sheriff, the author writes: "We well remember the urbanity of his manner as he passed the students of Lenox Academy, always bowing to them and greeting them with a pleasant salutation, which tended to increase their self-respect . . . .As he drove by us when we were playing 'wicket' - the game of ball them fashionable - he did not drive his stylish horse and gig over our wickets, as many took a malicious pleasure in doing, but turned aside, with a pleasant smile . . . ."

"Here is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, . . ." 

David Block reports that in an 1833 book's short passage on cricket, "the author [William Maxwell] issues a criticism of theories raised by the historian Joseph Strutt in Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, published in 1801.

Maxwell scoffs at Strutt's comments that cricket originated from the ancient game of "club ball," and that the game of trap-ball predated both of these. Maxwell states that cricket is far older than Strutt acknowledged, and adds: 'The game of club-ball appears to be none other than the present, well-known bat-and-ball, which . . . was doubtless anterior to trap-ball. The trap, indeed, carries with it an air of refinement in the 'march of mechanism.' ' Maxwell suggests that a primitive rural game similar to tip-cat was actually the ancestor of cricket, a game that used a single stick for a wicket, another stick for a bat and a short three-inch stick for the ball. He is probably alluding the game of cat and dog, which other historians have credited as one of cricket's progenitors."

A songbook drawing shows five children - a tosser, batter, two fielders, and boy waiting to bat. The bats are spoon-shaped. The wicket looks more like an upright cricket wicket than the long low bar associated with US wicket. 

As one of his several diary references to ballplaying [see also #1796.2 and #1806.4] Thomas Robbins D.D. in 1833 wrote this diary entry about Fast Day in Mattapoisett MA: "Fast. Meetings well attended . . . . A part of the people were off playing ball, according to their usual practice . . . . Am very much fatigued. The afternoon exercise was very long. Read."

On December 28, 1829 at Stratford CT, he wrote: "Last week the boys played ball." On May 28, 1839 [what was Abner Graves doing that day?] at Mattapoisett he wrote "Very pleasant. Thermometer rose to 70 [degrees]. Some playing ball."

The contest took three "ins." "Thus, it appears that the 'Bantam Players' 'barked up the wrong tree.' The utmost harmony existed, and every one appeared to enjoy the sport."

Connecticut Courant, volume 70, Issue 3618, page 3 (probably reprinted from the Hartford Times.) Submitted by John Thorn 9/29/2006.

As reported in 1886, a reunion of men who played together in East Granville MA held a reunion and reflected on their youthful play. The account, which first appeared in a CT paper, The Winsted Herald, noted:

"These old fellows were born before the era of the national game opened. They doubtless knew how to play one, two, and three old cat, and wicket, and the old fashioned kind of base ball when a foul was known as a tick; when a ball, which was not an instrument of torture as now, was thrown at a runner instead of to the baseman . . . "

The story is told in Genovese, Daniel L, The Old Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball (2004), page 12. Genovese cites the Times and News Letter [City?], July 21, 1886, which had reprinted the Winsted Herald piece. Note: Can we obtain the original article? It seems difficult to distinguish the men's reflections from the notions of the 1886 reporter.

"Fifteen young men of Salmon Brook and Mechanicville, Granby, challenge and are ready to meet the same number of young men, of Southwick village, to play the rub game at Wicket Ball, near C. Hayes' Hotel, Granby, to be determined upon by the parties, 2 weeks from today.

Capt D.C. Hays, R. G. Hillyer, Chas Holcomb, D. C. Roe

"Apart from rowing and track, baseball was the only other intercollegiate sport to generate much interest prior to 1869. Boys from the eastern academies introduced a version of baseball to college campuses in the 1840s and 1850s."

Benjamin Rader, American Sports (Prentice-Hall, 1983), page 74: no citation given. Caveat: Recent research calls this assertion into some question, as we now have many prior references to college ballplaying, including cricket and wicket. See http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Sub.College.htm.

"WICKET BALL - The ball players of this city [Hartford CT] met with those of Granville Mass. [about 12 miles east of Springfield] in accordance with a challenge from the latter . . . on Wednesday last, for the purpose of trying their skill at the game of 'Wicket.' The sides were made up of 25 men each, and the arrangement was to play nine games, but the Hartford players beating them five times in succession, the game was considered fairly decided, and the remaining four games were not played." Then th e two sides shared dinner.

Pittsfield Sun, Sunday, July 2, 1840; reprinted from the Hartford Times. Provided by Richard Hershberger, 6/19/2007. Note: It may be that the match was a best-of-nine set of games to a specified number of runs. Was this arrangement common in wicket?

Writing in 1879, a man who had lived in the area [about 20 miles NW of Hartford] until 1845 recalls the wicket of his youth.

"Wicket ball" is recalled as having baselines of 20 to 40 feet, an 8-10-foot-wide wicket, a yarn ball 6-10 inches in diameter, hitting "in any direction," and "a huge bat, heavy enough to fell an ox when swung by brawny arms." "It was a healthy, enjoyable game, but that huge ball, hurled with almost giant strength, often caused stomach sickness." Some games were played against teams from neighboring towns.

Lee, William Wallace, "Historical Address," Barkhamsted, Conn., and its Centennial - 1879 (Republican Steam Printers, Meriden CT, 1881), page 67. Text posted to 19CBB 8/13/2007 by Richard Hershberger. Note: The date recalled is merely surmised, and may be wrong. Advice on the period described is welcomed.

At upstate NY's Hobart College in Geneva, "Social events were among the few recreations available; there were no intercollegiate athletics, and no concerted sports at all. . . . wicket and baseball were played in summer, there was skating in winter, and that was about all." Warren Hunting Smith, Hobart and William Smith; the History of Two College (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva NY, 1972), page 123. Caveat: The author is imprecise about the date of this observation; this passage appears in the chapter "Student Life Before 1860," and our impression is that he refers to the 1840s . . . but the 1830s or 1850s cannot be ruled out. Provided by Priscilla Astifan, email of 2/4/2008. Priscilla notes that this book also details a number of somewhat destructive student pranks and drinking. "When I read about all the pranks and dissipation, carousing, etc., I see why base ball and other sports were considered a welcome diversion when they became popular." [Email of 10/22/2008.]

"Games of ball were played almost always separately by the classes, and in my case cricket prevailed. There were not even matches between classes, so far as I remember, and certainly not between colleges. . . . The game was the same then played by boys on Boston Common, and was very unlike what is now [1879] called cricket. Balls, bats, and wickets were all larger than in the proper English game; the bats especially being much longer, twice as heavy, and three-cornered instead of flat. . . . What game was it? Whence it came? It seemed to bear the same relation to true cricket that the old Massachusetts game of base-ball bore to the present 'New York' game, being less artistic, but more laborious."

"WICKET BALL -- The ball players of this city met those of Granville, Mass., in accordance with a challenge from the latter, at Salmon Brook, about 17 miles from here (half way between the two places) on Wednesday last, for the purpose of trying their skill at the game of 'Wicket.' The sides were made up of 25 men each, and the arrangement was to play nine games, but the Hartford players beating them five times in succession, the game was considered fairly decided, and the remaining four games were not played.  The affair, we understand, passed off very pleasantly, and the parties separated, with the utmost harmony, after partaking of a dinner provided for the occasion."

"Various athletic sports have always, to a greater or less degree, prevailed among the students.  Prominent among these is, of course, the game of ball in its various forms of Base Ball, Cricket, and Wicket. . . 'Wicket' and 'Round Ball' were quite common once, though of late years [c1870], 'Base Ball' has entirely super[s]eded them."  

"A CHALLENGE. The undersigned, Amateur (Wicket) Ball Players, of the Town of Chili, Monroe County, propose, within 20 players, to meet any other Club, or same number of men in this county, and play a game of three ins a side, any time between the first and fifteenth of July next. The game to be played at Chapman's corner, eight miles west from Rochester. . . . Chili, June 24, 1841." RochesterRepublican, June 18, 1841

Noted by Priscilla Astifan, 19CBB posting, 1/28/2007. Priscilla adds: "Pioneer baseball players' [in Rochester] memoirs have mentioned Wicket as one of baseball's early predecessors here and that some of the best pioneer baseball players had been skilled wicket players.

"The Ball Players of Bloomfield and vicinity, respectfully invite the Pall Players of the city of Hartford to . . . play at Wicket Ball, the best in nine games for Dinner and Trimmings. The Rules to be as follows: [1] The ball to be rolled and to strike the once or more before it reaches the wicket. [2] The ball to be fairly caught flying or at the first bound. [3] The striker may defend his wicket with his bat as he may choose. [4] One shamble shall be out. [5] Each party may choose one judge or talisman."

"PLAYING BALL, is among the very first of the 'sports' of our early years. Who had not teased his grandmother for a ball, until the 'old stockings' have been transformed one that would bound well? Who has not played 'barn ball' in his boyhood, 'base' in his youth, and 'wicket' in his 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 will never be too old to feel and' take delight' in the amusements which interested us in our boyhood."

Commenting on the lack of exercise at Yale, a student wrote:

"The is one great point in which the English have the advantage over us: they understand how to take care of their health . . . every Cantab [student at Cambridge U] takes his two hours' exercise per diem, by walking, riding, rowing, fencing, gymnastics, &c. How many Yalensians take one hour's regular exercise? . . . The gymnasium has vanished, wicket has been voted ungenteel, scarce even a freshman dares to put on a pair of skates, . . .

"Who has not played 'barn ball' in boyhood, 'base' in his youth and 'wicket' in his adulthood?"

A Cleveland OH newspaper writer was moved to respond to reader [Edith] who groused about "infantile sports:"

"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 his 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.

ClevelandDaily Herald (April 15, 1841). Posted to 19CBB on August 21, 2008 by Kyle DeCicco-Carey. Note: Are they playing wicket? Another game? What types of Clevelanders would have congregated on Water Street?

[Describing the unhappy lot of a boy prohibited from going out to recess:]

"the poor fellow could only look through the window, in perfect misery, upon the sports without - his favorite game of 'wicket,' or 'two old cat,' or 'goal,' or the 'snapping of the whip,' - and hear the shouts when the players were 'caught out,' or the wicket was knocked off, or someone had performed a feat of great agility."

"Schoolboy Days, "The New-England Weekly Review (Hartford, CT), Issue 5, column D, January 29, 1842. Posted by Richard Hershberger on 12/11/ 2007.

"Were it spring or autumn you should see a brave set-to at football on the green, or a brisk game of wicket." Ezekiel P. Belden, Sketches of Yale College (Saxton and Miles, New York, 1843), page 153.

"no ball playing has been going on during the past summer [1869] on the old ball ground at the south end of the park. . . . [I have?] spent many a happy hour ball-playing on that ground . . . . I have known that ground for twenty-five years and I have never known a serious accident to happen to passers-by."

"Ball Playing," Western Hampden Times, September 1869, written by "1843." As cited in Genovese, Daniel L, The Old Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball (2004), pages 1-2. Genovese concludes, "That would mean that baseball was played in Westfield at least as far back as 1844, and probably further [Genovese, page 2.]. Westfield MA is about 8 miles west of Springfield. MA. Note: Could the writer have played wicket or other ballgames at the old ground?

"The members of the New Orleans Wicket Club, are requested to meet at the Field, This Day, Thursday at 5 o'clock, PM, precisely."

[A]"The Base Ball match between eight Brooklyn players, and eight players of New York, came off on Friday on the grounds of the Union Star Cricket Club. The Yorkers were singularly unfortunate in scoring but one run in their three innings. Brooklyn scored 22 and of course came off winners."

[B] On 11/11/2008, Lee Oxford discovered identical text in a second NY newspaper, which included this detail: "After this game had been decided, a match at single wicket cricket came off between two members of the Union Star Club - Foster and Boyd. Foster scored 11 the first and 1 the second innings. Boyd came off victor by scoring 16 the first innings." 

[C] "Though the [base ball] matches played between the Brooklyn and New York clubs on 21 and 25 October 1845 are generally recognized as being the earliest games in the "modern" era, they were, in fact, preceded by an even earlier game between those two clubs on October 12." [In fact this game was played on October 11.]  Thanks to Tim Johnson [email, 12/29/2008] for triggering our search for the missing game. See also chron entries 1845.4 and 1845.5.

"'Old Election' passed over the town on Wednesday, with as little notice as any crusty curmudgeon might wish. A few people were abroad with 'clean fixens' on and there was an imposing parade of 'boy's training.' Even the old annual game of ball was forgotten, and the holiday was guiltless of any other display of unusual mirth."

"Old Election," Barre Gazette, May 30, 1845. Accessed via subscription search, 2/14/2009. Barre is in central MA, about 25 miles NW of Worcester. Great Barrington MA also associated Election Day with ballplaying - a game of wicket. See item #1820s.25. Query: How common a custom was it to celebrate Election Day with a ballgame? When did the custom start, and when did it die out? Can we start it up again?

A cricket match was reported in early September that lined up four players from the St. George Club on New York against four Philadelphians, for a purse of $500. The visiting Philadelphia quartet took a 27- 11 lead in the first innings, and held it for the win. Of the match's 46 runs, 23 were racked up as wide balls. Query: Was this style of rump match common? With only four fielders why was the scoring so low; this match must have been played according to the rules of single wicket, which employs a 180-degree foul line.

"Sporting Intelligence," New York Herald, Tuesday, September 2, 1845. Contributed by Gregory Christiano August 1, 2009.

"Friday, October 16. At prayers as usual. Studied Demosthenes till breakfast time. After breakfast came off the great match between our class and the juniors. We beat them 77 to 53. They had on the ground nineteen men out of twenty-nine, and we thirty out of thirty-five. Had the remainder of both classes been there, at the same rate we should have beaten them 90 to 81. As a class they were completely used up. Their players, however, averaged about 0.23 each more than ours. The whole was played out in about an hour. The victory was completely ours, a result different from what I expected. Got a lesson in Demosthenes and went to recitation." On October 3, the MA diarist had written: "played a game of wicket, with a party of fellows . . . . Had a fine game, though I, knowing little of the rules, was soon bowled out. Then came home and wrote journal till 5PM. Then to prayers and afterward to supper."

Hammond, William G., Remembrance of Amherst: An Undergraduate's Diary, 1846-1848. [Columbia University Press, New York, 1946], page 26. Per John Thorn 7/04/2003. Note: is it conclusive from this excerpt's context that the MA students were playing wicket on October 16?

Dr. Edward Hitchcock gives this account of the game of wicket at is MA college:

"In my days baseball was neither a science nor an art, but we played 'wicket'. On smooth and level ground about 20 feet apart were placed two 'wickets,' pine sticks 1 inch square and 8 to 10 feet long, supported on a block at each end so as to be easily knocked off. The ball was made of yarn, covered with stout leather, about six inches in diameter and bowled with all the power of the wicket tender at each end. The aim was to roll it as swiftly as possible at the opposite wicket and knock it down if possible. This was defended by the man with a broad bat, 3 feet long, and the oval about 8 inches [across], who must defend his wicket. If the bowler could by [bowling] a fair ball, striking twice between the wickets, knock down the opposite wicket, the striker was out. But if the batter could by a direct or sideways hit send the ball sideways or overhead the outside men, they [ i.e. ., the batter and his teammate at the opposite end] could run till the ball was in the hands of the bowler. But the bowler to get the batter out must with the ball in his hand knock the wicket outwards before the batter could strike his bat outside a line three feet inside the wicket . . . . This game was played on the lowest part of the 'walk' under the trees which now extends from chapel to the church."

Hitchcock, Edward, "Recollections," in George F. Whicher, ed., Remembrance of Amherst: An Undergraduate's Diary, 1846-1848. [Columbia University Press, 1946], page 188. Per John Thorn 7/04/2003.

"You speak . . . of Harrington, the express robber as being in prison here. This is incorrect. He isn't, neither has he been in jail since his arrival here, unless you can call the Eagle Hotel a jail. . . . [W]hen the weather has been pleasant, he has occupied his time in playing wicket in the public square; or playing the fiddle in his room . . . to solace and relieve the tedium of his boredom."

Rochester Police Officer Jacob Wilkinson letter of April 7, 1946, as quoted in "The Express Robbery," The National Police Gazette, Volume 1, Number 32 [April 18, 1846], page 277. Submitted by John Thorn, 9/2/2006. Note: It is possible to construe wicket as a daily Rochester occurrence from this snippet.

A man drives his wagon along a road in Great Barrington MA, passing though was a dozen wicket players think of as their regular playing grounds. A throw hits the man in the pit of his stomach [now remember, wicket balls were darned heavy]. Naturally, he sues the players for trespass.

The defendants' case: "at the time of the accident, Fayar Hollenbeck, on of the defendants, whose part in the game was to catch the ball after it had been struck, and to throw it back to the person whose business it was to roll it, was stationed in a northeasterly direction from the latter, who was atone of the wickets. The plaintiff had passed the wicket a little, and was west of a direct line from Hollenbeck to the person at the wicket. At this moment, Hollenbeck threw the ball with an intention to throw it to the person at the wicket; but the ball being wet, it slipped in his hand, when he was in the act of throwing it, and was thus turned from the intended direction, and struck the plaintiff."

In the fall of 1848, the MA Supreme Court found for the traveler, saying, but much less succinctly, that the roads were built for travelers and that wicket was obviously too dangerous to play there.

Luther S. Cushing, Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Volume 1 (Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1865), pp. 453-457. Accessed 2/10/10 via Google Books search (cushing "vosburgh vs. john").

"CRICKET. A match of single wicket was yesterday played at the Red House, Harlem,
between Messrs. Sams and Conroy, for $100. The game lasted five hours and a half. . . ."

A large section of The Boy's Book of Sports, attributed to "Uncle John," describes more than 200 games, including, rounders (pp. 20-21), stool-ball (pp. 18-19), and wicket (labeled as cricket: page 73).

Rounders (pp.20-21) employs a two-foot round bat, a hard "bench ball," and four or five stones used as bases and arranged in a circle. Play starts when a "feeder" delivers a ball to a striker who tries to hit it and run from base to base without getting hit.  There is a one-strike rule.  The feeder is allowed to feign a delivery and hit a runner who leaves a base.  Struck balls that are caught retire the batting side.  There is a Lazarus rule.

Stoolball (pp. 18-19) is described as a two-player game or a game with teams.  A stool is defended by a player by his hand, not a bat.  Base running rules appear to be the same as in rounders.

David Block notes that "The version of rounders the book presents is generally consistent with others from the period, with perhaps a little more detail than most. Given the choice of games included [and, perhaps, the exclusion of familiar American games], he believes the author is English, "[y]et I find no evidence of its publication in Great Britain prior to [1848]." This 184-page section was apparently later published in London in 1850 and in Philadelphia in 1851.

The book includes an unusual treatment of wicket.  The author states that "this is the simple Cricket of the country boys."  In reporting on this book, Richard Hershberger advances he working hypothesis that wicket and cricket were used interchangeably in the US.

There is no reference to base ball, base, or goal ball in this book.

Richardson, H. D., Holiday Sports and Pastimes for Boys [London, Wm S. Orr], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 211-212. This book's section "Games with Toys" includes two variants of rounders. Block's summary:

"The first of these is of a somewhat cricket-like game. A wicket of two 'stumps,' or sticks, with no crosspiece [bail], was set up behind the batter, with three other stumps as corners of an equilateral triangle in front of the batter. A bowler served the ball, as in cricket, and, if the batter hit it, he attempted to touch each of the stumps in succession, as in baseball. The batter was out if he missed the ball, if the struck ball was caught on the fly, of if a fielder touches one the stumps with the ball before a base runner reached it. It is noteworthy that this cricket-baseball hybrid did not include the practice of 'soaking' or 'plugging' the runner with the thrown ball.

"The book's second version of rounders is a more traditional variety, with no wicket behind the batter. It featured a home base and three others marked with sticks as in the previous version. The author distinguishes this form of rounders the other in its use of a 'pecker or feeder' rather than a 'bowler.' He also points out that 'in this game it is sought to strike, not the wicket, but the player, and if struck with the ball when absent from one of the rounders, or posts, he is out.' (Of all the known published descriptions of the game in the nineteenth century, this is the only one to use the term 'rounders' to denote bases. [DB]) This second version of the game also featured 'taking of the rounders,' which elsewhere was generally known as 'hitting for the rounder.' This option was exercised when all members of a side were out, and the star player then had three pitches with which to attempt to hit a home run. If he was successful, his team retained its at-bat."

Note: Were none of the other traditional English safe-haven games - cricket, stool-ball, etc., included in this book?

"We are glad to see the games of foot-ball and wicket so fashionable this spring, . ."

"Athletic Sports," Westfield News Letter, April 5, 1848; cited by Genovese, Daniel L, The Old Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball (2004), page 11; Genovese says that this article appears to be the News Letter's first reference to wicket.

"THOSE GAMES OF WICKET --

which Wolcottville challenged Litchfield to play, came off on our green, last Saturday afternoon; 25 players on a side; . . .  

[Scoring report shows Litchfield winning over three innings, 232 to 150.]

"This is the first effort to revive "BANTAM," since the Bat and Ball, were buried (literally buried,) 10 years ago, after two severe floggings, by this same Wolcottville."

"Indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi may not have seen the game until 1849 when Alexander Cartwright, near Independence, Missouri, noted baseball play in his April 23^rd diary entry: 'During the past week we have passed the time in fixing wagon covers . . . etc., varied by hunting and fishing and playing baseball [sic]. It is comical to see the mountain men and Indians playing the new game. I have a ball with me that we used back home.'"

"BALL PLAYING. A game of Wicket came off between the ball-players of Westfield and Granville MA on Thursday, at which the Westfield boys won the first three games by 10, 20, and 40 runs."

The Vermont Gazette, vol. 70, number 13 (July 19, 1849), page 1, column 2. Provided by Craig Waff, email, 8/14/2007.

Genovese, citing the Westfield News Letter of July 11, 1849, also writes of this contest. [Genovese, Daniel L, The Old Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball (2004), pages 17-18. He reports that over 1000 persons attended the match, that it was a best-of-five contest, and that Westfield did in fact have an easy time with the "science players" from Granville, which had played Hartford CT and Blandford MA [about 20 miles west of Springfield].

"BAT AND BALL AMONG THE LADIES. Nine married ladies beat nine single ones at a game of wicket in England recently. The gamesters were all dressed in white - the married party with blue trimmings and the others in pink."

"BALL-PLAYING -- Westfield vs. Granville --

"The match of wicket ball made between the players of Westfield and Granville, came off about midway between the two towns, yesterday. There were 30 on each side, and the winners in three of five games were to be awarded the victory.  On the first game, the Westfield boys led by about 10 ball; on the second about 20, and the third about 40; and so won the game.  The conquerors in many a well fought field were vanquished; or, as our correspondent expresses it, 'the Gibraltar of ball playing is taken.'  The Granville players were never beaten before but once, by a party from Hartford.

"Over 400 persons were on the ground, and the greatest excitement existed throughout the whole strife.  A supper followed the result.  The tables were set in a grove near Loomis's Hotel.  The beaten party paid the bills." 

"The immediate predecessor of baseball was wickets. This was a modification of cricket and the boys who excelled at that became crack players of the latter sport of baseball. In wickets there had to be at least eight men, stationed as follows: Two bowlers, two stump keepers or catchers, two outfielders and two infielders or shortstops. . . .

"The wickets were placed sixty feet apart, and consisted of two 'stumps' about six inches in height above the ground and ten feet apart. . . . The ball was as large as a man's head, and of peculiar manufacture. Its center was a cube of lead weighing about a pound and a half. About this were tightly wound rubber bands . . . and the whole sewed in a thick leather covering. This ball was delivered with a stiff straight-arm underhand cast . . . . Three out was side out, and the ball could be caught on the first bound or on the fly. . . .  if the ball could be fielded so as to throw the wicket over before [the batter] could touch the stumps, he was out."

The stumps are recalled as being ten feet long, so "the batsman standing in the middle had to keep a lively lookout."

"There was, of course, coasting, skating, swimming, gool, fox and hounds . . . round ball; two and four old cat, with soft yarn balls thrown at the runner."

A member of the class of 1849 recalls college life: "Athletics were not regularly organized, nor had we any gymnasium. We played base-ball, wicket ball, two-old-cat, etc., but there was not foot-ball."

"Cricket was undoubtedly the first sport to be organized in the University, as the Palladium for 1860-61 gives the names of eight officers and twenty-five members of the "Pioneer Cricket Club," while the Regents' Report for June, 1865, shows an appropriation of $50 for a cricket ground on the campus."

The college history later explains: "The game of wicket, which was a modification of cricket, was played with a soft ball five to seven inches in diameter, and with two wickets (mere laths or light boards) laid upon posts about four inches high and some forty feet apart. The 'outs' tried to bowl them down, and the 'ins' to defend them with curved broad-ended bats. It was necessary to run between the wickets at each strike."

"For exercise the students played wicket ball and shinny."

The author here appears to be referring to the latter years of service of Edward Hitchcock, President of Amherst College from 1844 to 1854.

GAME OF WICKET BALL --

"The Granville ball players challenged the Westfield players, recently, to a game of ball.  The challenge was accepted, and the game came off, on Saturday last, about one mile this side of East Granville.  They were to have thirty men on a side, the best in five to be declared victorious, and the defeated party to pay the suppers for all.  The following is the tally:

[Each club won two games, and the fifth game was listed as Westfield 112, Granville 25 . . . with only ten Granville players evidently on the field....]

"On the fourth [fifth?] game, the Granville players made but a few rounds, and becoming disheartened, declined to finish the game, and refused, also, to pay for the suppers.  Great excitement ensured, and we are sorry to learn that some personal collision was he consequence. Several blows were exchanged.  There was great excitement during the day, there being from 600 to 800 people upon he ground.  The Westfield players, not to lose their supper, paid for it themselves, and went home."

This depiction of ballplaying appeared in a New York paper illustration on June 5,  1850. Its main subject is the activity of "Sunday Sports" -- idly smoking, gambling.  In middle distance some form of ballplaying -- or conceivably base ball, conceivably an old-cat version . . . or perhaps a simpler fungo-based  pastime? -- is under way among 3 or 4 players.

"In a recent case which occurred at Great Barrington, an action was brought against some 12 or 15 young men, by an old man, to recover damages for a spinal injury received by him and occasioned by a wicket ball, which frightened his horse and threw him from his wagon. The boys were playing in the street. . . . . If this were fully understood, there would be less of the dangerous and annoying practice so common in our streets."

"Wicket, n. A small gate; a gate by which the chamber of canal locks is emptied; a bar or rod, used in playing wicket."

"Both houses were close by the road, and the road was narrow; but on either side was a strip of grass, and in process of time, I appeared and began ball-playing upon the green strip, on the west side of the road. At these times, on summer mornings, when we were getting well warm at bass-ball or wicket, my grandfather would be seen coming out of his little swing-gate, with a big hat aforesaid, and a cane. He enjoyed the game as much as the youngest of us, but came mainly to see fair play, and decide mooted points."

There is a second incidental reference to wicket: "this is why it is pleasant to ride, walk, play at wicket, or mingle in city crowds" . . . [i.e., to escape endless introspection]. Ibid, page 90.

"Wicket was played in various locations of the city [of Hartford CT] . . . .  But the best games of all in many respects were the early morning games, played by clerks . . . for four or five months [a year] on Main street . . . .

"It was customary for the first [clerk] who was first awake at 5 o'clock to dress, and make rounds of the [State House] square, knocking on the doors and shouting 'Wicket.'  By 5:30 enough would be out to begin playing, and soon with 15 to 20 on a side the game was in full swing.

"There was very little passing of teams and but little danger of beaking store windows, although cellar windows would be broken, and paid for.  Most stores had outside shutters to the windows, and were thus protected.  These games would end about 6:45, in time to open the stores at 7 o'clock.  It was good exercise, and very enjoyable, and I have no doubt that many of our older merchants and bankers will recall with pleasure the good old wicket games in State House Square in 1852-3-4."

"That Game of Wicket,

Between the two Branches of Bantam Players (the Factory and Up-Town Branches,) came off on the Public Green in this Village, on Saturday last, with the following result"

[In three innings, the score was Factory Branch 141, Up Town Branch 111.]

A cricket historian describes an early attribute of cricket"

" . . . the reason we hear sometimes of he Block-hole was . . . because between these  [two] two-feet-asunder stumps [the third stump in the wicket had not yet been introduced] there was cut a hole big enough to contain a ball, and (as now with the school boy's game of rounders) the hitter was made out in running a notch by the ball being popped into [a] hole (whence 'popping crease') before the point of the bat could reach it."

"It was in the spring of 1854 . . . that I stepped into the Harvard College yard close to the park. There I saw several stalwart looking fellows playing with a ball about the size of a small bowling ball, which they aimed at a couple of low sticks surmounted by a long stick. They called it wicket. It was the ancient game of cricket and they were playing it as it was played in the reign of Charles the First [1625-1649 - LMc]. The bat was a heavy oak thing and they trundled the ball along the ground, the ball being so large it could not get under the sticks.

"They politely invited me to take the bat. Any cricketer could have stayed there all day and not been bowled out. After I had played awhile I said, "You must play the modern game cricket." I had a ball and they made six stumps. Then we went to Delta, the field where the Harvard Memorial Hall now stands. We played and they took to cricket like a duck to water. . . .I think that was the first game of cricket at Harvard."

"A Game of Ball - People will have recreation occasionally, whether it be considered exactly dignified or not. Yesterday afternoon there was a game of ball played on J street which created no little amusement for several hundred persons. The sport lasted a full hour, until finally some unlucky hombre sent the ball through the window of a drug store, penetrating and fracturing a large glass jar, much to the chagrin of the gentlemanly apothecary, who had not anticipated such unceremonious a carronade."

"Go out into the glorious sunlight, little children, into the free warm air.  Frolic and play, roll your hoops, and jump your rope, little girl, and throw the ball, and run races and play gould [sic] and base-ball, and over the house, and wicket, little boys.  Be happy, and merry, and lively, and jolly, little children.  Call back to your cheek the red flush of health and beauty.  Be not afraid of the sunlight, though it darken the whiteness of your brow.  Let the south wind play upon your cheek, though it brings a freckle upon your bright young face.  A little while, and you can go out into the fields, and wander over the meadows and along the pleasant brooks, culling the wild flowers, and hearing the glad songs of the spring birds, as they sport among the branches of the trees above you.  The glorious Spring Time is Come.  There will be no more bleak storms, no more chill snows, no more cold north winds.  The winter is over and gone.  The time of glad blossoms and sweet flowers, and green leaves, is at hand."  

In 1880 the Brooklyn Eagle and New York Times carried long articles that include a description of the game of wicket, described as a Connecticut game not seen in Brooklyn for about 25 years:

[A] "Instead of eleven on a side, as in cricket, there are thirty, and instead of wickets used by cricketers their wickets consist of two pieces of white wood about an inch square and six feet long, placed upon two blocks three inches from the ground. The ball also differs from that used in cricket or base ball, it being almost twice the size, although it only weighs nine ounces. The bat also differs from that used in cricket and base ball, it being more on the order of a lacrosse bat, although of an entirely different shape, and made of hard, white wood. The space between the wickets is called the alley, and is seventy-five feet in length and ten feet in width. Wicket also differs from cricket in the bowling, which can be done from either wicket, at the option of the bowlers, and there is a centre line, on the order of the ace line in racket and hand ball, which is called the bowler's mark, and if a ball is bowled which fails to strike the ground before it reaches this line it is considered a dead ball, or no bowl, and no play can be made from it, even if the ball does not suit the batsman. The alley is something on the order of the space cut out for and occupied by the pitcher and catcher of a base ball club, the turf being removed and the ground rolled very hard for the accommodation of the bowlers."

[B] "The game of wicket, a popular out-door sport in Connecticut, where it originated half a century ago, was played for the first time in this vicinity yesterday.  Wicket resembles cricket in some respect, but it lacks the characteristics which mark the latter as a particularly scientific pastime.  In wicket each full team numbers 30 players instead of 111, as in cricket.  The wickets of the Connecticut game are also different, , being about 5 feet wide and only 3 inches above the ground, and having a bar of white wood resting on two little blocks.  The space between wickets measures 75 feet by 10 feet, and is termed the 'alley'. . . .  [No scorebook is use to record batting or fielding.]  The bat sued is 38 inches long, and bears a strong resemblance to a Fiji war-club, the material being well-seasoned willow.  The Ball, although much larger than a cricket ball, is just as light and no quite so hard. . . . If a delivered ball fails to hit the ground before the [midway] mark it is called a 'no ball' and no runs for it are counted.  The game was originated in the neighborhood of Bristol.

"Yesterday's match was played between the Bristol Wicket Club, the champions of Connecticut, and the Ansonia Company, of Brooklyn, on he grounds of the Brooklyn Athletic Club."

Bristol won the two-inning match 162-127.

[A] "In 1855 the new game of wicket was introduced at Punahou [School] and for a few years was the leading athletic game on the campus. . . . [The] fiercely contested games drew many spectators from among the young ladies and aroused no common interest among the friends of the school."

[B] "One game they all enjoyed was wicket, often watched by small Mary Burbank. Aipuni, the Hawaiians called it, or rounders, perhaps because the bat had a large rounder end. It was a forerunner of baseball, but the broad, heavy bat was held close to the ground."

[3] Through further digging, John Thorn suggests the migration of wicket to Hawaii through the Hawaii-born missionary Henry Obookiah. At age 17, Obookiah traveled to New Haven and was educated in the area. He may well have been exposed to wicket there.  He died in 1818, but not before helping organize a ministry [Episcopalian?] in Hawaii that began in 1820.

See also John Thorn's 2016 recap in the supplementary text, below. 

[A] "The ball players of Sandisfield and Otis, thinking themselves equal for almost all things, sent a challenge to the Tolland players for a match game in the former town, on Friday the 14th. Tolland accepted, and with twenty-five players on each side the game commenced, resulting in the complete triumph of the challenged or Tolland party, whose tally footed up 265 crosses, to 189 for the other side."

[B] In August, Barre MA arranged a game with players from Petersham MA and Hardwick MA.  Barre MA is about 40 miles NE of Springfield, and the two other towns are about 7 miles from Barre.

"This evening members of the "Excelsior Wicket Club" contest for the prize of a boquet [sic], to be awarded the player who makes the most innings. 

The ladies are to be on the club ground--the Huron Park--and award the prize to the winner.  Happy fellow, he!  May there be steady hands and cool heads that some nice young man shall win very sweet smiles as well as the sweet flowers."

"A great game of ball, says the Berkshire Courier, cam off in that village on Friday last. The parties numbers 17 on a side, composed of lawyers, justices, merchants mechanics, and in fact a fair proportion of the village populations were engages wither as participants or spectators . . . . The excitement was intense . . . best of all the game was a close one, the aggregate count in [illeg: 8?] innings being 192 and 187."

"BALL PLAYING - A game of Wicket was played at Gt. Barrington on the 11th inst., and a supper partaken at the Berkshire House in the evening.  C. M. Emerson, Esq. was the leader of one party and John Price, Esq. of the other.  The game was a close one; the aggregate count of three innings being 192 and 187.  The side of Captain Emerson beat."

Implying that wet weather had left a bit of a news vacuum, Porter's explained it would "give place to the following communications in relation to the game of 'Wicket,' of which we have ourselves no personal knowledge or experience."

What followed were [1] a request for playing rules a Troy, NY wicket club, and [2] an appeal:

"I would like to see the old game of Wicket (not Cricket) played. It is a manly game and requires the bowler to be equal to playing a good game of ten pins. The ground is made smooth and level, say six feet wide by sixty to ninety in length. The ball from five to five and a half inches in diameter, hand wound, and well covered. The bat of light wood, say bass. [A rough field diagram is supplied here] The wicket is placed at each end, and on the top of a peg drove in the ground just high enough to let the ball under the wicket, which is a very light piece of wood lying on top of the pegs. The rules are very similar to those of cricket. Can a club be started? Yours, Wicket. [New York]"

"In the fall of '57, a few members of the [College of New Jersey, now Princeton University] Freshmen [sic] class organized the Nassau Baseball [sic] Club to play baseball although only a few members had seen the game and fewer still had played. [A description follows of attempts to clear a playing area, a challenge being made to the Sophomores, and the selection of 15 players for each side.] After each party had played five innings, the Sophomores had beaten their antagonists by twenty-one rounds, and were declared victorious." The account goes on to report that the next spring, "baseball clubs of all descriptions were organized on the back campus and 'happiness on such occasions seemed to rule the hour.'" The account also reflects on the coming of base ball: "in seven years [1857] a new game superseded handball in student favor - it was 'town ball' or the old Connecticut game."

"BALL GAMES IN THE WEST. - It is with pleasure that we observe the gradual progression of these healthy and athletic games westward. A Wicket Club has recently been organized in Clinton City , Iowa, which is looked on with much favor by the young men of that locality."

"In the street, in front of [Hiram College] President Hinsdale's (which was then Mr. Garfield's house), is the ground where we played wicket ball; Mr. Garfield was one of our best players."

The school was then the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. It became Hiram College in 1867.

"BASE BALL"

Nor will the SPIRIT e'er forget thy names/Base Ball, and Cricket, noble, manly games,/Where Health herself beholds the wicket fall,/ and Joy goes flying for the bounding ball,/And the gay greensward, studded with bright eyes/Of maid, who mark the glorious exercise,/Clap their white hands, and shout for very fun,/In free applause of every gallant run.-- New Year's Address

"Protoball doesn't have any references to wicket clubs in Illinois during this period, although there is a reference to a 1857 club in Iowa. . . .  Clinton City, where the Iowa wicket club was located, is on the Mississippi, about sixty miles west of Ottawa and Marseilles.  Now the headline says that this was a game of base ball, rather than wicket, but the box score, which I attached, is kind of odd - three innings, possibly playing first to 200 runs. Sadly, they don't give us any information on the number of players per side."   

"Exercise clubs and gymnasia are spring up everywhere. The papers have daily records of games at cricket, wicket, base ball, etc."

"The great game of Wicket Ball between a party of the married and unmarried men of New Britain, came off on Saturday. There were 25 each on a side, and both sides were composed of the 'crack' players of the town." A large number of out-of-town attendees was noted. A box score was included.

Among the stated rules noted as differing from Hartford rules: wickets set 75 feet apart, "flying balls only out," no leading, "last [lost]  ball to count 4; but the strikers must make four crosses,' a nine-inch ball [another source specifies a 3.5 inch ball, and Alex Dubois notes on 3/4/2022 that the smaller size would be typical) , and a three-game format in which the total runs ("crossings") determined the victor.

Bristol beat Waterbury by 110 runs in a wicket game on Bristol's Federal Hill Green on September 9, 1858. No game details appeared. "The game not only attracted attention in this section of the State, but it assumed such proportions that New Yorkers became interested and it was reported in much detail in the NY Sunday Mercury a few days later. The newspaper remarked at the time that Bristol had a wicket team to be proud of.
The New York newspapers had a chance to tell the same story twenty-two years later when the Bristols went to Brooklyn and defeated the club of that city"

"Wicket was then about our only outdoor sport - and it was a good one, too - and I remembered that we challenged the whole University to a match game."

Local interest in wicket is seen has having crested in 1858 in western Connecticut. "Games were played annually with clubs from other towns in the state, and the day on which these meetings took place was frequently made a general holiday."

  "Base Ball -- Ottawa vs. Marseilles

  "Some two weeks ago the Marseilles Base Ball Club challenged the Base Ball and Wicket Club of Ottawa to a trial of skill. - The challenge was promptly accepted, and Friday of last week fixed as the day and Marseilles the place for the game.  At the time appointed, although the weather was intensely hot, the game was played with great spirit, yet with the utmost good feeling throughout, on both sides...

   "J.H. Burlison, of Ottawa, and A.B. Thompson, of Marseilles acted as the Umpires.  The time occupied in the game as 3 hours and 40 minutes.  

  "The Ottawa boys, it will be seen, came out 21 points ahead.  The Marseilles boys took their defeat in great good humor, and had prepared a grand supper at the close of the contest, which however, owing to the late hour and their fatigue, the Ottawa boys did not remain to discuss".

---
  A spare box score shows the Ottawa Club winning a three-inning contest, 230 to 207.  It appears to have been a game of wicket.

"On Saturday last New Marlborough and Tolland played a game of ball for a supper - Tolland beat. There were 30 players on a side."

Tolland CT is about 20 miles NE of Hartford, and New Marlborough MA is in the SW corner of MA, about 25 miles S of Pittsfield. Looks like this was a game of wicket.

[A] "That [NY Tribune] article was a discussion, I believe, of the two games, the New York game and the Massachusetts round ball game, with a view to decide which was the standard game. So far as we know, this newspaper indicates that [text obscured] became a sport of national interest. The fact that the club of a little country town up in Massachusetts should be weighed in the balance against a New York club, in the columns of the first paper of the country marks a beginning of national attention to the game."

George Thompson located this article and posted it to 19CBB on 3/1/2007. The editorial says, in part:

"The so-called 'Base Ball' played by the New York clubs - what is falsely called the 'National' game - is no more like the genuine game of base ball than single wicket is like a full field of cricket. The Clubs who have formed what they choose to call the 'National Association,' play a bastard game, worthy only of boys ten years of age. The only genuine game is known as the 'Massachusetts Game . . . .' If they [the visiting cricketers] want to find foes worthy of their steel, let them challenge the 'Excelsior' Club of Upton, Massachusetts, now the Champion club of New England, and which club could probably beat, with the greatest ease, the best New-York nine, and give them three to one. The Englishmen may be assured that to whip any nine playing the New-York baby game will never be recognized as a national triumph."

[B] This suggestion was met with derision by a writer for the New York Atlas on October 30: that northern game is known for it "ball stuffed with mush; bat in the shape of a paddle twelve inches wide; bases about ten feet apart; run on all kinds of balls, fair or foul, and throw the ball at the player running the bases." [Facsimile contributed by Bill Ryczek 12/29/2009.]

[C] A gentleman from Albany NY wrote to the Excelsiors, saying he was "desirous of organizing a genuine base ball club in our city."

"When Bristol played New Britain at wicket for the championship of the state before four thousand spectators in 1859, the Hartford Press reported that there prevailed 'the most remarkable order throughout, and the contestants treated each other with faultless courtesy.'"

A special four-car train carried spectators to the match, leaving Hartford CT at 7:30 AM.

"Do our [Buffalo] Base Ball Clubs play the game of the "National Association" - the New York and Brooklyn club game? If so they are respectfully informed by the New York Tribune [see item #1859.14] that the style of Base Ball - what is falsely called the "National" game - is no more like the genuine game of base ball than single wicket is like a full field of cricket. It says, the clubs who have formed what they choose to call the "National Association," play a bastard game, worthy only of boys of ten years of age.

We have not the least idea whether it is the "National Association" game or the "Massachusetts" game that our Clubs play, but we suppose it must be the latter, as we are certain their sport is no "child's play."

"Novel Ball Match - The Buffalo Dock Wicket Club have invited [the Buffalo Niagaras] to play a game of wicket, and a return game of base ball. It is intended, not as a trial of skill, (for neither club knows anything of the other's game, and it was expressly stipulated that neither should practice the other's) but merely for he novelty and sport of the thing; each club expecting to appear supremely ridiculous at the other's game."

"I am a native of Hartford, Conn., and have, from early boyhood, taken a great interest in all Out Door Sports that are clean and manly. As a boy I played One, Two, Three, and Four Old Cat; also the old game of "Wicket." I remember that before the Civil War, I don't remember how long, we played base ball at my old home, Manchester, Harford County, CT."

[After a report on Kenyon's base ball club, including "the great fever which has raged for the laudable exercise of ball playing:"] "The heavier game of wicket has also had many admirers, and we doubt not but that many of them will live longer and be happier men on account of wielding the heavy bats."

Was wicket an inferior game? "the game [of wicket] certainly reached a level of technical sophistication equal to these two sports [base ball and cricket]. This was clearly demonstrated during a wicket match at Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1860 when a team of local wicket players easily defeated a team of experience local cricket players."  

"As if to anticipate and prepare for the dread exigencies of war, then impending, by a simultaneous impulse, all over the country, base ball clubs were organized during the year or two preceding 1861. Perhaps no game or exercise, outside military drill, was ever practiced, so well calculated as this to harden the muscles and invigorate the physical functions. . . .

"Three base ball clubs were formed in this town, in 1860 and 1861. . . . They were sustained with increasing interest until 1862, when a large portion of each club was summoned to war."

Squinting at the new (1860) playing field laid out by the new Hudson River club in Newburgh, NY, the NY Clipper counseled:

 

"It is requisite that the turf be removed from the pitcher's base to the position occupied by the catcher, a space six feet wide or more being usually cleared for this purpose, in order to give the ball a fair opportunity to rebound behind the striker."

 

 

Private Jenkin Jones sprinkled 12 references to ballplaying in his Civil War Diary. They range from December 1862 to February 1865. Most are very brief notes, like the "played ball in the afternoon" he recorded in Memphis in February 1863 [page 34]. The more revealing entries:

· Oxford, 12/62: "The delightful weather succeeded in enticing most of the boys form their well-worn decks and cribbage boards, bringing them out in ball playing, pitching quoits,etc. Tallied for an interesting game of base ball" [pp 19/20]

· Huntsville, 3/64: "Games daily in camp, ball, etc." [p. 184]

· Huntsville, 3/64: "Played ball all of the afternoon" [p.193]

· Fort Hall, 4/64: "[Col. Raum] examined our quarters and fortifications, after which he and the other officers turned in that had a game of wicket ball." [p.203]

· Etowah Bridge, 9/64: "a championship game of base-ball was played on the flat between the non-veterans and the veterans. The non-veterans came off victorious by 11 points in 61." [p. 251]

· Chattanooga, 2/65: "The 6^th Badger boys have been playing ball with our neighbors, Buckeyes, this afternoon. We beat them three games of four.

James Madison Stone, "Personal Recollections of the Civil War" chapter 3 says that in mid-1862 "While at Newport News we had a rather pleasant time. We drilled a little, we played ball a good deal..."

Stone was with the 21st MA.

The Barre [MA] Gazette, June 13, 1862 prints a May 20th letter from a soldier in the 21st which says that each night closes with "a game of wicket."

[A]  John Thorn:

"Abner Doubleday

has become a joke among us baseball folks. "He didn't invent baseball; baseball invented him." This letterhead, from 1862 ,may give pause even to hardened skeptics."  John also notes  that the game depicted does not resemble base ball, or wicket, or cricket.

[B]David Block:

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."  

[A] "[In April 1863] the Third Corps and the Sixth Corps baseball teams met near White Oak Church, Virginia, to play for the championship of the Army of the Potomac."

[B] "Ballplaying in the Civil War Camps increased rapidly during the War, reaching a peak of 82 known games in April 1863 -- while the troops still remained in their winter camps.  Base ball was by a large margin the game of choice among soldiers, but wicket, cricket, and the Massachusetts game were occasionally played.  Play was much more common in the winter camps than near the battle fronts."

[C] Note: In August 2013 Civil War scholar Bruce Allardice added this context to the recollected Army-wide "championship game":

"The pitcher for the winning team was Lt. James Alexander Linen (1840-1918) of the 26th NJ, formerly of the Newark Eureka BBC. Linen later headed the bank, hence the mention in the book. In 1865 Linen organized the Wyoming BBC of Scranton, which changed its name to the Scranton BBC the next year. The 26th NJ was a Newark outfit, and a contemporary Newark newspaper says that many members of the prewar Eurekas and Adriatics of that town had joined the 26th. The 26th was in the Sixth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, stationed at/near White Oak Church near Fredericksburg, VA. April 1863, the army was in camp.  The book says Linen played against Charlie Walker a former catcher of the Newark Adriatics who was now catcher for the "Third Corps" club.

"With all that being said, in my opinion the clubs that played this game weren't 'corps' clubs, but rather regimental and/or brigade clubs that by their play against other regiments/brigades claimed the Third and Sixth Corps championships.

"Steinke's "Scranton", page 44, has a line drawing and long article on Linen which mentions this game. See also the "New York Clipper" website, which has a photo of Linen."

“March 2 [1863]. Jas Mitchell falls. Died while playing wicket.”

Diary entry, presumably by Captain Milo E. Palmer, 12^th Regiment, in Deborah B. Martin, History of Brown County Wisconsin (S. J. Clarke Publishing, Chicago, 1913), page 216. The 12^th Wisconsin was near “Coliersville” [Collierville?] TN in early March, according to the diary entries. Collierville is about 15 miles SW of Memphis. The 12^th WI seems to have been raised in the Madison WI area. The book was accessed 6/7/09 on Google Books via “of brown county” search. No other cited diary entries refer to ballplaying. Caution: It is unconfirmed that “playing wicket” in this case referred to ballplaying. It seems plausible that wicket was played in the 1850s-1860s in WI, but it hardly seems a mortally risky game, and it seems possible that “playing wicket” has a military meaning here. Input from readers on this issue is most welcome.

Lewis C. Paxson left Pennsylvania in 1862 to teach school in Lake City MN, joining the 8^th MN in August of that year.