Elysian Fields Discussion Topic One
As of October 2022, Protoball.org's PrePro Database includes about 200 contributed game accounts for New Jersey's Elysian Fields. A not-very thorough 3-hour/4-hour review of these data points leads to these rough impressions:
[] From late 1845 to 1853, most games were intramural contests among the Knickerbockers; over 100 such games are entered. I see only six games involving other clubs before 1853, two of which were intermural games for other clubs (Gothams in 1845, NYBBC in 1845). For this period, I see only 4 interclub games at EF, three in 1845-6 and one in in 1851 (K's v. Gothams).
Starting in 1853, the majority (roughly 90%) of 80 reported games) are interclub games.
[] Overall, 30 or 31 different clubs played at EF.
For interclub matches, the Eagle Club played in 34 of the listed games against 10 different opponents, starting in 1854. The Gotham/Washington/NYBBC club/clubs appeared in 25 interclub matches against 4 clubs from 1845 to 1861. The Knickerbocker Club appears in 22 interclub matches from 1845 to its last in August 1859. The Empire Club appears in 18 matches starting in 1854. The Mutual Club appears in 14 matches from 1858. Other matches featured the Eckford (9 games), the Excelsior (8), and the Alpine 9 (6) clubs (6). One account reported on two teams from a fire company.
[] Now. Aren't the Eckford (9 matches) , Excelsiors (8 matches) and Atlantic (two matches) and Enterprise (2 matches) all from Brooklyn? -- I think they only played non-Brooklyn opponents at EF. Maybe they had been invited by Manhattan club hosts? Are there any other distant visitors? Well, The Albany Knickerbockers do appear once (1864). A Hoboken club is seen twice, playing the Ecks and the Eagles in 1859.
[] A total of23 EF matches appear for 1860, 14 for 1861, and only 8 after that, the last in 1864. EF may have lost its tasted for crowds of fans in the later 1860s?
[] We have no reported matches for 1852, after only 6 in 1851. Cholera? Protoball data fumble? Other? Covid19?
Open issues:
Reminder: 'This is all just bean-counting -- it is not science. We have no reason to believe that matches entered in PBall are a representative sample of the matches actually played.
[] Would won-loss data be useful for our purposes? Not sure why it would.
[] Did other writers' write summaries that better meet our needs on this subject? (Feel free to suggest --or to perform --such!)
Larry M