Numbers into Words

Back in January I visited the New York Public Library for some research in the Spalding Collection, a treasure trove of original material from the early days of base ball.  It was far from my first visit, but this time I had a different mission, seeking artifacts for the New Jersey base ball exhibit at the Morven Museum in Princeton now planned for June of 2019.  Of special interest were the score books of the 1860's, especially Henry Chadwick's which I had previously used to make a replica of his 1868 score book for use by the Flemington Neshanock vintage team.  We're now on our fifth volume which I will use in 2018 to score games by a system Chadwick evolved from a very basic approach to a much more sophisticated version.  On prior visits to the library, I had also studied the game book of the Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn, one of the era's top teams.  It was from the latter book that I was able to confirm that a "clear score," the highest offensive goal of the time, was achieved by not being put out even once while at bat or on the bases rather than tallying a run every time at the striker's line.

Spalding baseball collection. Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Although I was already familiar with both Chadwick's score books and those of the Atlantics, this was the first time that I looked at them not only on the same visit, but also for the same game.  Above, courtesy of the NYPL library, is a picture of the Eureka Club of Newark's at bats for an August 18, 1865 match with the Atlantics from Chadwick's book while below is the same page from the Brooklyn club's score book.  The game was played in Newark before a large crowd which saw their hopes for a major upset dashed when the home team's desperate ninth inning rally fell one heartbreaking run short. For obvious reasons, the two books reflect very different approaches to score keeping.  Looking at the Eureka's first at bat in the Atlantic club book below (click on pictures to enlarge), we see only the basic details of the inning, three runs for the Newark team, scored by Callaway, Thomas and Pennington while Littlewood, Rogers and Brientnall were all put out at first base.  Only the outs and runs were recorded because that was all the information the Atlantics needed.  Statistics like batting averages, runs batted in, etc hadn't been developed yet and there was little need for more detailed offensive numbers.

Spalding baseball collection.  Manuscripts and Archives Division.  The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations  

The same half inning in Chadwick's book, enlarged below, gives far more detail, most of which has little meaning without understanding Chadwick's system and even after years of trying to replicate that system, there are still things I don't understand.  Take Fred Callaway, the first Eureka striker, as an example.  The vertical line in the upper left hand corner is the symbol for a hit with the horizontal lines indicating the number of bases, two in this case.  To the right of the lines appears a one connected to a three with a dot over the line.  The dot over the line stands for a throwing error by player number one while trying to throw out the striker out at a base.  The natural assumption that the number one symbolizes a throwing error by the pitcher is incorrect because of the major difference between Chadwick's system and the modern approach.  Instead of today's symbols of 1 for a pitcher, 2 for a catcher, etc., Chadwick based the numbers for fielders by their place in the batting order.  By coincidence in this case, Joe Start, the Atlantic's first baseman was the third hitter so he keeps the number three, but the first batter was catcher Dickey Pearce and it was his throwing error, not that of the pitcher.  The dot in the lower left hand corner means Callaway scored a run, but I don't understand the 2 over the dot, nor the 4 over the Thomas' run or the 8 over Pennington's - obviously more research is in order.  The three outs in the inning all represent put outs at first, but as with the error, the assist (a term not used at the time) is based on the fielder's place in the batting order, the letter "A" is Chadwick's symbol for first base.

Spalding baseball collection.  Manuscripts and Archives Division.  The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Obviously, Chadwick recorded far more information because his responsibilities went beyond keeping track of runs and outs while the game was in progress.  His task was to tell the story of the match in a newspaper article read by far more people than actually saw the game in person. Or to put it another way, he had to convert those numbers and symbols into words.   Below is his description of the Eureka's first at bat as it appeared in the New York Clipper on August 26, 1865.   What's interesting to me is that Chadwick provided more information than appears in the score book such as descriptions of hits as "good," a defensive play as having "stopped a hot one well," and a player's"failure to return the ball."    It would be natural to think that Chadwick made notes somewhere in the score book, but there is nothing in the book itself beyond the page as shown above.  Unless he had a computer like memory, Chadwick must have used a notebook of some kind, probably one small enough to easily fit in his pocket, to record details he needed to write his newspaper accounts.

New York Clipper - August 26, 1865

My reason for exploring how Chadwick used numbers and symbols to tell a story is that I've decided to try something different this year in my blog posts about Neshanock games.  My plan is to write game accounts in the same manner matches were described in the New York Sunday Mercury and the New York Clipper, two leading sports weeklies of the day.  Chadwick, who is, of course, a household name in baseball history circles,wrote for the Clipper while the Mercury reporter and also the publisher was William Cauldwell. Although nowhere near as well known as Chadwick, Cauldwell was actually the pioneer in writing and promoting newspaper coverage of base ball and at one time hired Chadwick as a writer.  My goal is not to try to literally recreate their writing style, but their point of view.  I've gone through both papers for the 1864 season (the Neshanock most frequently plays games by 1864 rules) and there is definitely a pattern to how they wrote about games especially their emphasis on defense over offense.  My goal is to try to see games how they saw them and then describe matches to blog readers in the same manner these sports writing pioneers used over 150 years ago.  It's an experiment and we'll see how it goes, but I'm excited about trying to recreate another aspect of 19th century base ball.