1845 to 1868 in baseball

Events
  • 1830s - The Gotham Club of New York is formed.
  • 1845 Summer – The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club is formed by breakaway members of the New York or "Gotham" Club, headed by Duncan Curry, Alexander Cartwright and William R. Wheaton.
  • 1845 September 10 – A baseball game is played that is described the following day in the New York Morning News, the earliest known game write-up.[1]
  • 1845 September 23 – The New York Knickerbockers draw up the earliest surviving set of baseball rules, the Knickerbocker Rules, which are written down by William R. Wheaton and William H. Tucker.[2]
  • 1845 October 11 – A club from Brooklyn defeats one from New York (i.e. Manhattan) at the Union Star Cricket Ground in Brooklyn, the home team winning 22-1. The game is reported in the New York Morning News and True Sun newspapers.
  • 1845 October 21 – A second baseball game is played between the New York and Brooklyn clubs at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, with New York prevailing 24-4, and the first known box score appears in the New York Morning News the following day.
  • 1845 October 25 – The rubber game is played between New York and Brooklyn at the Union Star Cricket Ground, New York taking the game and the series by a score of 34-19.
  • 1846 June 19 – The New York Knickerbockers play the "New York nine" at Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey.[3] The Knickerbockers lose to the New Yorks by a score of 23 to 1 in four innings of play.
  • 1850, April – The Eagle Club is formed. The Gotham Club is organized.[4]
  • 1852 – The Eagle Club publishes its rules.
  • 1854 – The Knickerbocker, Gotham and Eagle clubs agree on a unified set of rules. The pitching distance is defined for the first time, as "not less than 15 paces."
  • 1854 October 12 – The Empire club is formed in Manhattan but plays in Hoboken.
  • 1854 December 8 – The Excelsior club established in South Brooklyn.
  • 1855 – The Atlantic Club of Brooklyn is organized in Jamaica, Long Island.
  • 1855 May 1 The Newark Club established in New Jersey.
  • 1855 May – The Putnam Club established in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn.
  • 1855 June 4 – The Baltic Club of New York formed.
  • 1855 June 27 The Eckford club established in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
  • 1855 July 17 – The Union Club founded in Morrisania (now in the Bronx).
  • 1855 October – The Continental Club organized in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn.
  • 1856 March – The Harlem Club established.
  • 1856 June 28 – The Enterprise club founded in Bedford.
  • 1856 August 14 – The Atlantic of New York club established in Bedford.
  • 1856 October – The Star club organized in South Brooklyn.[5]
  • 1857 – The Mutual Club is founded in Manhattan and the Adriatic Club in Newark, NJ.
  • 1857 January – The Independent club founded in New York.
  • 1857 January 22 and February 25 – The National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) is formed in meetings of sixteen New York area baseball clubs, and promulgates revised rules including nine-inning games, nine-man teams and 90 feet between the bases.[6]
  • 1857 March – The Liberty club established in New Brunswick.
  • 1857 March 4 – The Metropolitan club organized in New York.
  • 1857 March 14 – The Champion club organized in New York.
  • 1857 March 23 – The Hamilton club established in Brooklyn.
  • 1857 April 28 – The St. Nicholas club organized in Hoboken.
  • 1858 – The first all-star games, and the first baseball games to charge admission, took place in Corona, Queens, New York, at the Fashion Race Course. [7] The called strike is introduced.
  • 1859 – The Potomac Club is formed in the summer and the National club in November in Washington, D.C.
  • 1859 July 1 – Amherst College defeats Williams College 73–32 in a game played in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.[8]
  • 1860 – Athletic of Philadelphia is formed. The Philadelphia Olympic Club changes from "Philadelphia rules" townball to New York (NABBP) rules. The Eureka Club of Newark starts playing other teams in the NABBP. The Union Club of Lansingburgh team is formed, which would later become the Haymaker Club of Troy in the NABBP. The first baseball almanac, Beadle's Dime Base-Ball Player edited by Henry Chadwick, begins publication.[9]
  • 1860 February 22 – First recorded baseball game played in San Francisco, California between the San Francisco Eagles and the San Francisco Red Rovers.[10]
  • 1860 September 28 – The first baseball game reported between two named black teams. At Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, the Weeksville of New York beat the Colored Union Club 11–0.
  • 1862 April – The Summit City Club is formed in Fort Wayne, Indiana (the club would reform as the Kekionga in 1866).
  • 1864 – The called ball and base-on-balls are introduced.
  • 1865 – The "fly rule" introduced: fair balls caught on the first bounce are no longer outs.
  • 1865 August 30 – President Andrew Johnson welcomes the Atlantic and National clubs to the White House in the first documented case of the long-standing tradition of inviting successful sports teams to meet with the President.[11]
  • 1865 October – The Cream City Club of Milwaukee team is formed.
  • 1866 – The Kekionga club is reformed in Fort Wayne after the end of the Civil War.
  • 1866–1868 – The Forest City Club of Rockford, Illinois features future superstars Albert Spalding and Ross Barnes.
  • 1866 June 23 – The Resolute Base Ball Club of Cincinnati, the future Red Stockings, is formed and plays four outside matches.
  • 1867 – The Cincinnati Base Ball Club plays in the NABBP.

Champions
The Atlantic of Brooklyn, "Champions of America", 1865

Season records

At its December 1868 annual meeting, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) permitted professional clubs. Twelve existing members did "go pro" and constitute the professional field for 1869.

1868 records of major clubs

Marshall Wright publishes 1868 season records for 98 teams, many of them incomplete ("(inc)" in the table). Bill Ryczek calls 15 of that season's teams "major" (not marked). This table covers all of those "majors" (not marked), all of the 1869 "pros" (*), all 14 member clubs with at least twelve wins on record, and a few others. For the seven listed clubs in Greater New York, no city is named in the first column; the comment gives their locales.

Club, City W L T comment
Atlantic 477 * Brooklyn
Athletic, Philadelphia 473 *
Union 376 (inc) Morrisania, New York
Cincinnati "Red Stockings" 367 *
Mutual 3110 * New York
Eckford 2312 * Brooklyn
Buckeye, Cincinnati 215 (inc)
Union, Lansingburgh 155 * the "Troy Haymakers"
Champion 147 Jersey City, New Jersey
Harvard, Cambridge 142 the college team
National, Albany 138
Olympic, Washington 12111 *
Tri-Mountain, Boston 129 (inc)
Maryland, Baltimore 126 *
—
Forest City, Cleveland 11111 *
Lowell, Boston 119
Forest City, Rockford 114
Star 910 Brooklyn
Excelsior, Chicago 781 (inc)
National, Washington 73 *
Keystone, Philadelphia 5101 (inc) *
Irvington 26 (inc) * Irvington, New Jersey

At least four Association clubs not listed here would someday try professionalism: Riverside of Portsmouth, Ohio (1870); Kekionga of Fort Wayne, Indiana (1871); Middletown of Mansfield, Connecticut (1872); Resolute of Elizabeth, New Jersey (1873).

Meanwhile, only two brand new professional baseball clubs would be established in the next three years, the Chicago White Stockings for 1870 and the Boston Red Stockings for 1871. Their commercial origins may be related to their survival alone by 1877, and on to 2010, while all of their rivals with older and amateur roots fell away.

1867 records of major clubs

Marshall Wright publishes 1867 season records for 89 teams, many of them incomplete ("(inc)" in the table). Bill Ryczek calls 17 of that season's teams "major" (not marked). This table covers all of those "majors", all 13 member clubs with at least fourteen wins on record, and a few others. For the nine listed clubs in Greater New York, no city is named in the first column; the comment gives their locales.

Club, City W L T comment
Athletic, Philadelphia 443 *
National, Washington 297 *
Quaker City, Philadelphia 289 maybe a one-season club
Mutual 2361 * New York
Keystone, Philadelphia 2161 *
Union 218 Morrisania, New York
Atlantic 1951 * Brooklyn
Geary, Philadelphia 196
Tri-Mountain, Boston 193
Cincinnati "Red Stockings" 171 *
Irvington 167 * Irvington, New Jersey
Oriental 153 Greenpoint, New York
Union, Lansingburgh 147 * the "Troy Haymakers"
—
Excelsior 115 Brooklyn
Olympic, Washington 115 *
Harvard, Cambridge 112 the college team
Excelsior, Chicago 101
Lowell, Boston 85 (inc)
Buckeye, Cincinnati 78
Eckford 6161 * Brooklyn
Star 64 (inc) Brooklyn
West Philadelphia, Phila. 512 (inc)
Eureka 38 (inc) Newark NJ

Star (*) marks ten clubs among twelve who would go pro in 1869. Excelsior of Chicago and Buckeye of Cincinnati are listed because they were probably the strongest teams in the west after the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

1866 records of major clubs

Marshall Wright publishes 1866 season records for 58 of 93 association members, said to be complete for games between two member clubs. Bill Ryczek calls 20 of that season's teams "major" including three old New York rivals of the Knickerbockers.

This table covers all of those "majors", all 14 members with at least eight wins on record, and a few others. For the fifteen listed clubs in Greater New York, no city is named in the first column; the comment gives their locales.

Club, City W L T comment
Union 253 Morrisania, New York
Athletic, Philadelphia 232 *
Atlantic 173 * Brooklyn
Excelsior 1361 Brooklyn
Active 106 New York
National, Washington 105 *
Mutual 102 * New York
Eckford 98 * Brooklyn
Eureka 97 Newark, New Jersey
Enterprise 96 Brooklyn
Irvington 96 * Irvington, New Jersey
Mohawk 93 Brooklyn
Star 86 Brooklyn
Americus 85 Newark, New Jersey
—
Keystone, Philadelphia 551 *
Empire 47 New York
Gotham 44 New York
Eagle 29 New York
Camden, Camden 25 Camden, New Jersey
Lowell, Boston 20
Harvard, Cambridge 15 the college team
Union, Lansingburgh * non-member; now in Troy, New York

Star (*) marks eight clubs among twelve who would go pro in 1869, three seasons later.

1865 and earlier clubs

For the preceding 1865 season Marshall Wright lists 30 members with supposedly complete records for most of them. Twenty-two of the thirty were in Greater New York. Bill Ryczek calls 19 teams "major" in the first season that he covers: sixteen of the members and three others (Lowell, Harvard, and Camden).

No one traveled much and membership was still depressed by the Civil War. There had been 59 delegates at the March 1860 annual meeting, and 55 at the next annual meeting that December (on a new baseball calendar), who thereby intended to play during the 1861 season that the war curtailed. Nine of 59 and eleven of 55 were from outside Greater New York.[12]

Births

1840s

1850s
  • 1850
Date of birth missing
Date of birth missing

1860–1868
Jim Adams
Frank Knauss
Sparrow McCaffrey
Ambrose McGann
Ed Pabst
Jim Powers
Kid Summers
Fred Truax

Deaths

1860s
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References
  1. "Baseball History: 19th Century Baseball: The Game". Retrieved October 15, 2009.
  2. "Knickerbocker Baseball Rules". Retrieved October 11, 2009.
  3. O’Reilly, Charles (May 24, 2005). "Birthplace of Baseball Monument, Hoboken, N.J." Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved July 4, 2009.
  4. This may refer to the existing New Yorks/Gothams adopting a formal constitution and by-laws.
  5. This may have been an offshoot of South Brooklyn's Star Cricket Club.
  6. The sixteen clubs were the Knickerbocker, Baltic, Eagle, Empire, Gotham, and Harlem of New York; Atlantic, Bedford, Continental, Eckford, Excelsior, Harmony, Nassau, Olympic and Putnam of Brooklyn; and Union of Morrisania
  7. All Star Games of 1858 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 16, 2013. Retrieved August 5, 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Accessed August 5, 2013
  8. "Cool Quiz! Trivia, Quizzes, Puzzles, Jokes, Useless Knowledge, FUN!: On The Way To Today... July 1st". Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2009.
  9. https://www.vbba.org/1860-beadles-full-text/
  10. Franks, Joel (2001). Whose baseball?: the national pastime and cultural diversity in California, 1859–1941. Scarecrow Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8108-3927-4.
  11. Neumann, Thomas (March 1, 2016). "Why White House visits by champions are a U.S. tradition". ESPN.com. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  12. Wright, 41–63.
  • Orem, Preston D. (1961). Baseball (1845–1881) From the Newspaper Accounts. Altadena, California: Self-published.
  • Ryczek, William J. (1998). When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom, 1865–1870. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0514-7.
  • Wright, Marshall D. (2000). The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857–1870. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0779-4.
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