A Ball Players Career | Page 7

Ward argued that base-ball was evolved from the boys' game, as above stated, and was distinctly an American game, he plainly proving that it had no connection whatever with "rounders."
The game of base-ball probably owed its name to the fact that bases were used in making its runs, and were one of its prominent features.
There seems to be no doubt that the game was played in the United States as early at least as the beginning of the present century, for Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared a few years ago that base-ball was one of the sports of his college days, and the autocrat of the breakfast table graduated at Harvard in 1829. Along in 1842 a number of gentlemen, residents of New York City, were in the habit of playing the game as a means of exercise on the vacant lot at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, where Madison Square Garden now stands. In 1845 they formed themselves into a permanent organization known as the Knickerbocker Club, and drew up the first code of playing rules of the game, which were very simple as compared with the complex rules which govern the game of the present time, and which are certainly changed in such a way as to keep one busy in keeping track of them.
The grounds of this parent organization were soon transferred to the Elysian Fields, at Hoboken, N. J., where the Knickerbockers played their first match game on June 19th, 1846, their opponents not being an organized club, but merely a party of gentlemen who played together frequently, and styled themselves the New York Club. The New Yorks won easily in four innings, the game in those days being won by the club first making twenty-one runs on even innings. The Knickerbockers played at Hoboken for many years, passing out of existence only in 1882. In 1853 the Olympic Club of Philadelphia was organized for the purpose of playing town-ball, a game which had some slight resemblance to base-ball. The Olympic Club, however, did not adopt the game of base-ball until 1860, and consequently cannot claim priority over the Knickerbockers, although it was one of the oldest ball-playing organizations in existence, and was disbanded only a few years ago.
In New England a game of base-ball known by the distinctive title of "The New England game" was in vogue about fifty years ago. It was played with a small, light ball, which was thrown over-hand to the bat, and was different from the "New York game" as practiced by the Knickerbockers, Gotham, Eagle, and Empire Clubs of that city. The first regularly organized club in Massachusetts playing the present style of base-ball was the Olympic Club of Boston, which was established in 1854, and in the following year participated in the first match game played in that locality, its opponents being the Elm Tree team. The first match games in Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington were played in 1860. For several years the Knickerbocker Club was alone in the field, but after a while similar clubs began to organize, while in 1857 an association was formed which the following year developed into the National Association.
The series of rules prepared by a committee of the principal clubs of New York City governed all games prior to 1857, but on January 22d, 1857, a convention of clubs was held at which a new code of rules was enacted. On March 10th, 1858, delegates from twenty-five clubs of New York and Brooklyn met and organized the National Association of Base-ball Players, which for thirteen successive seasons annually revised the playing rules, and decided all disputes arising in base-ball.
The first series of contests for the championship took place during 1858 and 1859. At that time the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, N. J., were the great center of base-ball playing, and here the Knickerbockers, Eagle, Gotham and Empire Clubs of New York City ruled supreme.
A rival sprung up, however, in the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn, and its success led to the arrangement of a series of games between selected nines of the New York and Brooklyn Clubs in 1858. In these encounters New York proved victorious, winning the first and third games by the respective scores of 22 to 18, and 29 to 18, while Brooklyn won the second contest by 29 to 8. In October, 1861, another contest took place between the representative nines of New York and Brooklyn for the silver ball presented by the New York Clipper, and Brooklyn easily won by a score of 18 to 6. The Civil war materially affected the progress of the game in 1861, '62 and '63 and but little base-ball was played, many wielders of the bat having laid aside the ash to shoulder the musket.
The Atlantic and Eckford Clubs