Thursday, December 18, 2014

Ringing Out, Ringing In

It's hard for me to believe that A Manly Pastime will reach its third anniversary in February.  The blog began because it seemed to be the best way to start writing about 19th New Jersey base ball.  With minimal forethought, it then expanded into describing the adventures and misadventures of the Flemington Neshanock Base Ball Club seasoned with related historical reflections.  Other topics also found their way on to the "page," especially Brooklyn Dodger history and, more recently, second looks at what well known players considered to be their "greatest day in baseball."  All of this along with an interest in doing more work on the early days of the pre-professional period made it only natural to modify the blog's subtitle, formalizing both the expanded interests and possible future changes.


Article from the Jersey City Daily Sentinel of September 9, 1856, noting that two-thirds of the Eagle Club of New York's lineup in an upcoming match were originally members of Jersey City's first two base ball clubs

Earlier in 2014, in response to some compliments about a series of posts, I explained I was doing a lot of research and the more research, the more blog content.  Most of that work  was concentrated on working my way through all the extant 19th Century New Jersey newspapers.  It was a big job, made significantly simpler due to the large number of weekly newspapers and the high percentage held at Rutgers' Alexander Library.  The research not only confirmed how the game spread throughout the state's 21 counties between 1855 and 1870, but also generated most of the aforementioned blog content.  Much of the data has been entered on the Protoball web site and a goal for 2015 is to finish entering at least all of the club names. Reflecting on this especially in light of the recent SABR symposium on 19th century base ball in the greater New York area has made further study of the 1845-1860 period a future priority.  While that work will still have a heavy New Jersey focus, looking at greater New York as a region is, I believe, extremely important.



Rare box score from the Elizabeth Daily Mercury of July 29, 1869 of a match between two African-American Clubs.  

A subset of this is continued emphasis on African-American clubs through at least 1870.  To say original source material is scarce, is a vast understatement, but some combination of hard work and hard thinking should shed further light on the subject.  Coverage of the Neshanock will resume earlier in 2015 as I understand opening day had been pushed back into March (brr!).I'm also far from done with "My Greatest Day in Baseball," as there are a number of entries from the Deadball Era that merit further attention.  The entries in all three editions, of what was for me a foundational base ball history book, were originally published in the Chicago Daily News.  At some point, I'd love to take a look at the paper in some detail especially to see if there were more articles than the roughly 60 that were incorporated into book form.  To my knowledge, the papers is not available online, but regardless, it's not something I will get to in 2015.


Charles Ebbets in his prime 

I say that with certainty because of a much larger project which will take up most of the next two years, researching and writing a full length biography of Charles Ebbets.  It's a prospect that is more than a little daunting as Ebbets' Dodger career lasted more than 40 years including more than a quarter of a century as club president and primary owner which may partially explain why there are no earlier biographies of Ebbets.  At the same time, I've been interested in Ebbets for a long time and have always wanted to try my hand (and mind) at a biography.  Now with the much appreciated faith of McFarland & Company, I'm about embark on that journey.  Ebbets' years with the Dodgers span my two favorite eras, the 19th century and the Deadball Era and offer the opportunity for an in depth look at base ball club ownership during those periods.  As an added benefit, I'm confident the Ebbets' research will provide interesting content for this blog, so stay tuned.

This is the last post of 2014 and the blog will be back around the middle of January as the batteries need some recharging.  Thanks to all those who read along throughout the year and especially those who took the time to offer feedback, comments and advice.  The first post of 2015 will focus on base ball games where the biggest meteorological concern was whether or not it would be cold enough!  Until then best wishes for the holidays and all of next year.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Poems, Plays and Paterson Base Ball Clubs

Analyzing the spread of base ball in New Jersey requires looking not just at where the game took root, but also at where it didn't.  One of the most important places in the latter category is Paterson, the state's third largest city in 1860, located only about 20 miles from New York and 15-20 miles from Newark and Jersey City.  Yet in spite of its proximity to the cities where New Jersey's first clubs were formed in 1855, the earliest documented clubs in Paterson didn't take the field until 1860, some five years later.  While this is somewhat surprising, it's further evidence of the relationship between the game's growth and a railroad connection to Newark since unlike more rural Somerville and Morristown, a railroad link between Paterson and Newark didn't exist in the ante bellum period.  However, even though young men from Paterson got a later start than their urban neighbors, they finally got organized in 1860 and formed two clubs with the unlikely names of the Unknown and Flora Temple clubs.


Civil War era Paterson 

Not surprisingly the war slowed down the organization of other new teams in Paterson with no further club formations until 1863 (four clubs) and 1864 (another four).  Among the 1864 vintage was the Olympic Club which became Paterson's premier team of the 1860's only to go out of existence at the end of the decade before being re-incarnated in the 1870's and sending four players to the major leagues including future Hall of Famer, Mike "King" Kelly.  As with the rest of the country, the post war period then saw rapid growth in Paterson with 26 teams formed in both 1866 and 1867.  Each of these teams, of course, needed a name many of which came from the categories identified by George Kirsch in his book Baseball and Cricket: The Creation of American Team Sports, 1838-1872 including the use of patriotic/national monikers as well as those claiming some level of athletic ability.  Especially popular in Paterson were names endowing its members, at least figuratively, with superior mental and physical traits such as having a "quickstep," being "active" and "alert" or in such command they "neversweat."  Interestingly  another Unknown club was formed in 1866 with the name also adopted by one of the old-fashioned clubs that played in the summer of 1867.


Flora Temple in a Currier and Ives print

Given the number of teams formed in 1866 and 1867 alone, club organizers had to exercise a degree of creativity in choosing a name.  Some apparently decided to try to replicate some of the country's distinguished clubs like the Atlantics and Mutuals, but at least two other teams followed the example of the Flora Temple Club organizers by going outside of the mainstream.  In 1860 the most casual observer recognized the name Flora Temple and even today, it's an easy name to research.  Born in Oneida County, New York in 1845, Flora Temple was reportedly the famous "bob tailed nag" of Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races."  Originally named Flora, the relatively small mare (14 hands or 56 inches) wasn't recognized for her racing ability until 1852 when renamed Flora Temple, she defeated a horse named Brown Jim.  Over the next nine years, the trotter won 92 races, came in second 14 times and was the first horse to break the 2:20 mile.  Over the course of her career,Flora Temple raced throughout the eastern half of the United States and was immortalized by numerous Currier and Ives lithographs.  Less than two months before an 1860 account of a Flora Temple Club base ball match appeared in the New York Sunday Mercury, Flora Temple swept a best of five heat race against George M. Patchen, another famous horse before 4000 fans in Philadelphia.  It's no wonder these young men from Paterson (home to its own horse racing track) aimed to replicate the speed, strength and heart of the champion race horse.



Currier and Ives print of Mazeppa

Seven years later, another group of Paterson ball players also chose a name with an equestrian connection, but this time with a literary twist, deciding to call themselves the Mazeppa Club.  Unlike, Flora Temple, however, its less likely the average reader of the Paterson Daily Press immediately picked up on the allusion to an 1809 narrative poem by the English poet Lord Byron.  The work tells the story of Ivan Mazeppa, a Ukrainian page at the Polish court who has an affair with the young wife of a much older count.  Outraged when he learns of the incident, the nobleman has Mazeppa tied naked to a wild horse which is then released into the wilderness.  The bulk of the poem describes the long hazardous journey during which Mazeppa almost dies twice but ultimately survives and returns to his native Ukraine.  Unlike the founders of the Flora Temple Club, the reason for the Mazeppa Club member's choice is less clear.  It may be nothing more than a literary joke or possibly an attempt to compare their endurance on the ball field with Mazeppa.  Perhaps there is also a subconscious desire to share his amorous affair with a different end result.



Although the Mazeppa Club members get some points for obscurity, their efforts paled in comparison with the Michael Erle's, one of the old fashioned base ball clubs which sprang up in Paterson in 1867.  The only reference discovered to date is a play called "Michael Erle, the Maniac Lover or the Fayre Lass of Lichfield," by the English author, Thomas Egerton Wilks (1812-1854).  Reportedly one of many plays by Wilks, the text of "Michael Erle" survives, but Internet searches have revealed next to nothing about Wilks beyond an interesting connection to a much better known English author.  In 1837 Wilks edited the memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, a famous British clown which he submitted to Bentley's Miscellany magazine for publication.  Apparently not completely satisfied with the text, Bentley's asked a young, but promising writer named Charles Dickens to finish the job.   Apparently a fan of Grimaldi's from his youth, Dickens undertook the project even though he was hard at work at what would become Oliver Twist.  Given the apparent literary inclinations of the men in Paterson, it's surprising that by the 1860's, at least one new club didn't choose a name from Dickens like the Fezziwigs or the Cheerybles.  Drawing on Dickens' works was left for a group of Jersey City players who opted to call themselves the Dolly Vardons after a character from Barnaby Rudge, one of Dickens lesser known novels.  Although none of these clubs produced memorable results on the ball field, they certainly chose club names that are hard to forget.