A Ball Players Career | Page 7

of great
uncertainty, but the general opinion of the historians seems to be that
by some mysterious process of evolution it developed from the boys'
game of more than a century ago, then known as "one old cat," in
which there was a pitcher, a catcher, and a batter. John M. Ward, a
famous base-ball player in his day, and now a prosperous lawyer in the
city of Brooklyn, and the late Professor Proctor, carried on a
controversy through the columns of the New York newspapers in 1888,
the latter claiming that base-ball was taken from the old English game
of "rounders," while 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