Disobeying One's Mother

Considering the strict limitations society played on women in the nineteenth century, it is no surprise the idea of women playing baseball found little if any favor.  If that was not bad enough, there was an added barrier because baseball first had to be justified as a suitable activity for adult males.  Early baseball promoters had to convince the public that baseball was no longer just a boy's game, but an appropriate activity for grown-up men.  It was necessary, therefore to stress the game's manly nature, and if baseball was manly, how could it be a game for women?  Yet, as we might expect, discouraging women from playing baseball was far easier than prohibiting them from doing so.  I've written before in this blog about early women's baseball in New Jersey and will cover some of the same ground in my forthcoming book, A Cradle of the National Pastime.  However, that book stops in1880 while the upcoming Morven exhibit on New Jersey baseball will go through 1915 allowing for further coverage of that part of the story.  In trying to understand women's baseball throughout this era, I owe a major debt, as do all baseball historians, to Debra Shattuck and her groundbreaking book, Bloomer Girls: Women Baseball Pioneers, a work, I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in baseball history.

Trenton Evening Times - October 12, 1883

Beginning in the 1870s, baseball's main storyline is the growth of the professional game, but women also played professionally during the same period, albeit in a different form.  Men's organized professional play really got started with the formation of the National Association in 1871, followed by the National League in 1876 as men's teams played in leagues, both major and minor, competing for championships.  Women's professional play, however, did not take place within structured leagues, but rather by barnstorming teams, sometimes playing in the same ballparks before larger crowds than the men attracted.  Played, for example, by teams of blondes and brunettes, the games were probably more theatrical than competitive.  Women's teams played at a variety of New Jersey locations including Camden, Trenton, New Brunswick, and Newark.  Unfortunately, too many of the teams were promoted by unscrupulous characters like Sylvester Wilson who took advantage of the women players in every way imaginable and some that are probably better not imagined.  In the end, Mr. Sylvester spent a fair amount of his life in prison.

Dollar Weekly News (Bridgeton, New Jersey) - July 28, 1883

Naturally, there was more than a little opposition to these games, sometimes through brief comments in the local press, but eventually in more formal ways like the song "Who Would Doubt That I'm a Man" warning women players they risked losing their femininity.  Even so, the games continued and by the 1890s sometimes took the form of women's teams playing against local men's teams.  One such barnstorming women's team took the name of the legendary Cincinnati Red Stockings, doubtless trying to claim they were following in the footsteps of the legendary 1869 men's club.  In the spring of 1893, the female version of the Red Stockings challenged the local baseball team of Bloomfield, New Jersey to a game with the admission fees to be divided between the two teams.  The young men agreed and the game was scheduled for May 6, 1893, in neighboring Glen Ridge which apparently had a more suitable ball field.  The game probably would have proceeded without incident until promoters put up handbills advertising the game, showing the female players in short skirts above the knee.

1894 Bloomfield baseball club - a year earlier four of those pictured here participated in the game with the female Cincinnati Red Stockings 

Naturally, the mothers of the Bloomfield players were infuriated and demanded their sons withdraw from the game.  Surprisingly, however, in this case, the young men refused to obey their mothers, and probably their fathers as well, and the game went on. Although "the good people [of Bloomfield and Glen Ridge] vowed that nobody who went to the show could have further title to respectability," some 1,000 people reportedly attended, about 600-700 paying the 25 cent admission charge with the rest watching from a nearby hill.  "The surprise of the day," however was the presence of "at least fifty young ladies of undoubted respectability," who were "accompanied by escorts in smart raiment."  For shame, indeed!  Nor was this the end of the scandalous behavior as "half a dozen fashionable carriages with coachmen" watched the game from their coaches without paying admission.  Although the Red Stockings had some of the country's best woman players, including Lizzie Arlington and Maud Nelson, the Bloomfield boys prevailed.  But in a very manly gesture, they gave the visitors 80% of the gate receipts.

New York Herald - May 7, 1893

Unfortunately for the mothers and other disapproving people in Bloomfield, word of the game spread far and wide, to the point the New York Herald, one of the country's leading newspapers sent a reporter to cover it.  That coverage, in turn, insured not just national, but international attention, including an article in a London newspaper which found the behavior of the players did not meet the highest standards of Victorian propriety.  Even so, the young men and the two communities seemed to have survived the experience and women's' barnstorming tours continued into the twentieth century when softball became the primary women's bat and ball game.  But women's success in playing baseball against ongoing opposition reminds us that baseball was the National Pastime because it appealed to such a broad range of people, no matter how much others tried to limit who got on the field.

The Pall Mall Gazette (London, England) - May 23, 1893 - Bloomington is clearly Bloomfield 

Speaking Schedule

Wednesday, April 17th, 7:00, Carlstadt Historical Society, Carlstadt Presbyterian Church, 457 Division Street, Carlstadt, New Jersey - A Cradle of the National Pastime: New Jersey Baseball 1855 to 1880

Tuesday, May 7th, 7:00, Bernards Township Library, 32 South Maple Avenue, Basking Ridge, New Jersey - History, Tragedy and Comedy: The Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field

Thursday, May 16th, 7:00, Burlington County Library, 18 East Union Street, Bordentown, New Jersey - A Cradle of the National Pastime

Saturday, June 15th, 2:00, Morven Museum & Garden, 55 Stockton Street, Princeton, New Jersey - A Cradle of the National Pastime

Thursday, June 27th, 6:00, Grand Central Branch, New York Public Library, 135 East 46 Street, New York City - Charles Ebbets: Builder of Ballparks, Ball Clubs and More 

A Clear Score With a Vengeance

Beadle's Dime Base-Ball Player - 1867 Edition 

It is much too early in the season to draw conclusions, but if the first two games are any indication, the weather that put such a damper on 2018 will be less of a problem this year.  After the nicest first weekend in memory, Saturday's game at the Somerset Patriots ballpark also took place under ideal, almost summer-like conditions.  Played as part of the Patriots annual fanfest, the game featured the Neshanock against long-time intra-state rival, the Elizabeth Resolutes.  The Resolutes are New Jersey's senior vintage club, but while there were some familiar faces in the lineup, team captain Paul Solomone has basically rebuilt the roster.  If today's match is any indication, Elizabeth will be a team to be reckoned with all season long.  Once again, Flemington started in the field, but this time the other side broke out on top, leading 2-0 going to the bottom of the second.  The Neshanock, however, tallied three times to take lead, only to see the Resolutes respond with two runs to regain the advantage at 4-3.  That lead didn't last long either, however, as Flemington put up another three runs to go ahead 6-4.

Photo by Mark Granieri

There wasn't a lot of scoring for the next few innings and the Neshanock held a  7-5 advantage heading to the bottom of the sixth.  During that turn at the striker's line, however, Flemington pushed four runs across, followed by two in the seventh while holding the Resolutes to only one additional tally for a 13-6 Flemington win.  The Neshanock attack featured not one, but two clear scores with both Joe "Mick" Murray and Chris "Low Ball" Lowry both accomplishing the feat, with Mick scoring all three times he was on base.  Danny "Lefty" Gallagher, Tom "Thumbs" Hoepfner, Brian "Spoons" LoPinto and Will "Cody" Wagner all had two hits apiece.  Although a newcomer, "Cody" showed plenty of power, belting out a double and a triple in three times at the striker's line.  Flemington's defense was much improved from last week behind the usual solid pitching of Bobby "Melky" Ritter for seven innings and Dave "Illinois" Harris for the last two.

Photo by Mark Granieri 

As noted, both "Mick" and "Low Ball" earned clear scores, the first of the 2019 season.  Clear scores are mentioned fairly frequently in this blog,  but with the beginning of a new season, it's probably worth explaining once more what they are all about.  Before batting averages, home runs and runs batted in became important offensive numbers, the key statistic was runs scored, to the point that once on base, it was considered the batter's responsibility to work his way around and score.  Probably for this reason, if a runner was put out on the bases, for example, by a force out, the out was charged to the runner, not to the batter who suffered no penalty which didn't matter since there were no batting averages.  The highest goal for an offensive player was a clear score - not being charged with a single out during the game including those on the bases where the runner might have no control of the situation.  On the surface, it doesn't seem reasonable which is probably why it was changed, but if you watch closely it's possible to understand the 1860s point of view.  An obvious example is when a batter walks, steals second and third before scoring on an out as "Lefty" did once in this game, but there are other instances such as another one on Saturday when "Jersey" Jim Nunn, on second, picked just the right time to advance on an out.

Photo by Mark Granieri 

 I haven't seen any studies on how frequently batters or strikers achieved clear scores so I decided to take a quick look at "Beadle's Dime Base Ball Player" for the 1865 and 1866 seasons, focusing on the top teams of the period.  In 1865, both the champion Atlantics and the Mutuals each recorded three clear scores.  Fred Crane, Dickey Pearce and Tom Pratt each performed the feat for Brooklyn while Ed Brown, Charles Hunt, and John Zeller did so for the Mutuals.  That same year, the former champion Eckford and the rapidly improving Athletics could manage only one as did New Jersey's top team, the Eureka.  A year later saw much higher numbers with the Athletics recording ten while the Union Club of Morrisania, one year away from a championship season, had eight.  Both numbers were, however, more than a little inflated by fairly weak schedules.  The Athletics, for example, opened the season by pounding the Alert Club of Danville, 92-2, took a break from championship competition in August to massacre the Alert Club of Philadelphia 100-5 and then closed out the season with a 73-7 rout of the Burlington Club from south Jersey.

Mark "Gaslight" Granieri after catching one of multiple foul bound outs

Photo by Mark Granieri 

More realistic numbers were produced by the once again champion Atlantics with three and the Eureka who managed four over the course of the season.  This renewed interest in clear scores is due to the story of a Eureka player which I found while working on my upcoming book on early New Jersey base ball - A Cradle of the National Pastime to be published by Morven Museum & Garden in June.  It occurred on August 14, 1866, during a match with the aforementioned Atlantic Club at the Newark club's grounds at the intersection of Ferry and Adams Streets, near today's Penn Station.  The Eureka had experienced nothing but frustration in prior encounters with the Atlantics, not an uncommon experience, but one taken to a new level by New Jersey's best team.  During the Atlantics undefeated 1865 championship season, the Eureka had come one heartbreaking run short, not once, but twice, first falling a run short in last-ditch last inning rally and then unable to hold a three run lead in the ninth inning of the return match.

Eureka page from Beadle's Dime Base Ball Player 1867 

Both teams had been struggling to some degree in 1866, the Atlantic had suffered some player defections and had been upset by the upstart Irvington Club in June.  The Eureka were also having attendance problems, not because of defections, but because the young men who had formed the club in 1860 had less time for baseball due to family and business responsibilities.  Clearly, the Eureka needed some new players and one of the new additions was Thomas Osborne, who, if I've identified him correctly, was 29, not exactly a youngster.  Prior to the Atlantic match, Osborne had played in four Eureka matches, but only one was against a top club, a game against the Mutuals where he made a pedestrian two runs.  Originally it was feared the game would be called off for bad weather, but when a "dispatch" at 2:00 indicated the Atlantics "might be expected on the next train," a large crowd, estimated at 5,000 gathered for the game.  The contest began with the Atlantics taking a 1-0 lead after one inning with the Eureka going out without a man reaching first base, not exactly a performance to inspire confidence in their fans who based on past experience had little reason for optimism.

Newark Daily Advertiser - August 15, 1866

Photo by Mark Granieri

Such fears received at least a temporary reprieve in the next inning when the Eureka erupted for 11 runs, keyed to some extent by Osborne, batting sixth, who reached base and scored twice.  At first, the Atlantics had a hard time offensively and the Eureka added six more runs for a 17-3 lead going to the sixth, two more of the runs again courtesy of Mr. Osborne.  In the sixth, however, the Atlantics scored six times to close within 17-9, by no means enough of a margin to dispel the doubts of the Eureka fans and perhaps, also the players.   This, however, was the Eureka's day, the Newark team tallied 10 times in the seventh and seven more in the eighth on the way to a 36-10 rout of the defending champions, their worst loss since 1860.  And Osborne had been in the middle of both rallies, scoring twice in the seventh and once in the eighth for a total of seven runs scored, including a home run, in seven at-bats without making a single out.  He thereby matched the 1866 clear score totals of three future major leaguers - Lipman Pike, Weston Fisler, and Joe Start. Osborne appears to have been one of the last surviving members of the Eureka Club, living into the 1920s, but it is safe to say he never forgot that memorable day more than 50 years earlier when batting seven times, he achieved the era's highest offensive goal against base ball's best team.  It was to borrow from Herman Melville, a clear score with a vengeance.

Article from "The Inside Game," the newsletter of SABR's Deadball Era Committee

On Not Being First

Baseball, like many things in life, doesn't lack for cliches and platitudes.  But no matter how trite they may sometimes seem, they frequently contain some degree of truth.  Take, for example, opening day.  The return of baseball supposedly simultaneously with nice weather makes almost all of us somewhat nostalgic about the game we love.  In recent years, however, the failure of the weather to keep up with the calendar has taken away some of the enjoyment or at least for me.  Whether it has been sitting in gale force winds high above Citi Field with Paul Zinn or being relieved at the decision not to open the vintage baseball season in winter-like weather, the experience hasn't been the same.  No one, however, at least in New Jersey's vintage baseball community, had grounds for complaining this year.  Saturday saw all five of New Jersey's clubs open the season under bright sunshine and blue skies in perfect temperatures.  While the Neshanock and Hoboken clubs opened the season in Dumont, the Elizabeth Resolutes and the Liberty Club met in Piscataway at the same time the Monmouth Furnace Club was taking on a group of students at Monmouth University.

Photo by Mark Granieri

The Flemington-Hoboken match was played in the Bergen County community as part of the opening of that town's Little League season.  Both teams had good turnouts and the game got underway only a few minutes late (a rare occurrence for Flemington) with the Neshanock in the field.  After retiring Hoboken in order, Flemington quickly got off to a 2-0 lead that grew to 7-1 after three innings keyed by two clutch hits from Dave "Illinois" Harris.  Had there been rbi's back in 1864, "Illinois" would have collected four in his first two at-bats of the season.  The Neshanock lead grew to 9-3 after four innings, but then Hoboken shut down the Flemington offense with defense that was steady throughout and stellar when necessary.  Indeed, the Hudson County team's fielders didn't make a single error throughout the entire match.  Hoboken then proceeded to chip away at the Neshanock lead aided by some especially untimely muffs by the Flemington defense.

Photo by Mark Granieri 

Hoboken finally tied the game in the top of the eighth at 10-10 only to see the Neshanock tally twice in the bottom of the inning.  Ahead by two runs going to the ninth, the Neshanock quickly retired the first two strikers which is when Flemington is always at its most vulnerable.  Sure enough, Hoboken rallied, scoring once and putting the tying and go-ahead runs on second and third.  The next striker hit a hard grounder to third, the throw to first was offline, but wily veteran that he is, "Illinois," came off the base, took the ball on the bounce and tagged the runner to end the game.  In addition to his defensive heroics, "Illinois" recorded four hits, matching Danny "Lefty" Gallagher, both Neshanock strikers were just one at-bat short of a clear score.  Tom "Thumbs" Hoepfner was next in the hit parade with three, followed by Rene "Mango" Marrero, Mark "Gaslight" Granieri, and Chris "Low Ball" Lowry with two apiece.  Bobby "Melky"Ritter handled most of the pitching chores while Matt Nunn and Gregg "Burner" Wiseburn provided steady defense in the outfield.  Brad "Brooklyn" Shaw was also present but somehow didn't perform "Casey at the Bat" even once.  Flemington came out ahead on the scoreboard, but both teams won because we were once again privileged to be back on the baseball field, playing the game we love.

Photo by Mark Granieri

This blog has been on sabbatical so that I could devote more time to my fifth (and final?) book which will be published by Morven Museum & Garden in June as a companion volume to an exhibit on New Jersey baseball.  The exhibit will cover baseball in the Garden State through 1915, but the book will focus exclusively on the period from 1855 to 1880.   One part of the book will look at baseball firsts in New Jersey including the first junior team, the first inter-scholastic game, the first game on ice, and, perhaps most interesting of all, the first game between African-American clubs.  While working on the end stages of the book, however, I've become increasingly sensitive to the danger of claiming anything as a baseball first.  This was brought home a few weeks ago when Richard Hershberger reported that he had found newspaper accounts of two baseball games between white and black teams that pre-dated the September 3, 1869 game between the Pythian and Olympic Clubs of Philadelphia that has long been considered the first integrated game.  That news prompted responses about even earlier integrated games, demonstrating that claims of having found a baseball first can, and likely will, prove to be short-lived.  Fortunately, this hit home before my manuscript was finished and "first" has pretty much been replaced by "earliest known."

Even before this, however, I was concerned about how to describe the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings who are typically referred to as the first all-professional team even though that's not correct.  Seeking guidance, I used the Society for American Baseball Research's nineteenth-century email list to find the best way to talk about this historic club.  There were a number of helpful responses, but the one that really made an impact was John Thorn's comment that the Red Stockings were the team that "made baseball famous nationwide."  I was well aware, of course, of the Cincinnati club's transcontinental tour, but John's email brought home how that incredibly arduous trip, 150 years ago this year, enabled baseball fans in both New Jersey and in San Francisco to say they had seen the best team in the country play in person.  It's an extraordinary accomplishment, the kind of thing that might not get due attention if there is excessive concentration on "firsts," especially since the latter may prove to be short-lived.  Something to think about as we begin another baseball season.