Back in 2019 I was the guest curator for an exhibit on early New Jersey baseball at the Morven Museum in Princeton. Some visitors to the exhibit asked why the Flemington Neshanock weren't mentioned. The answer, unfortunately, was that unlike Saturday's opponent, the New Brunswick Liberty, the original Neshanock weren't an historically significant team. The first Flemington club existed only briefly and their record was well below average. I was reminded of the Liberty's far more important role in early New Jersey baseball earlier this season by my friend Craig Brown (see his website on nineteenth century uniforms). Craig told me about a July 14, 1866 article in the New York Clipper that is the earliest contemporary account of a baseball team wearing knickers and the team in question was the Liberty Club. There was other interesting information about the Liberty Club in the same article which will be part of a blog post later this year. For the moment, suffice it to say that as the first team from outside of greater New York City to join the National Association of Base Ball Players, the Liberty played a part in baseball's early expansion.
Saturday's matchup consisted of two games, a nine inning contest by 1864 rules, followed by a seven inning match played by 1858 rules. Having lost the coin toss, the Neshanock went to the striker's line first and quickly put four tallies across the plate. Although the Liberty got two in the second, Flemington got three more in third and one in the fourth for a 8-4 lead as the game went to the fifth inning. While the Neshanock didn't have any more big innings, Flemington tallied three more times and led 11-5 going to the bottom of the eighth. The Liberty were not done, however, scoring twice, to cut the margin to four. Fortunately, the Neshanock added an insurance run and then blanked the home team in their last at bat for a 12-7 win. Flemington's offense was led by Dan "Sledge" Hammer and Tom "Thumbs" Hoepfner with three hits each, followed by Joe "Mick" Murray, Mark "Gaslight" Granieri, Tom "Hawk" Prioli and Bobby "Melky" Ritter with two apiece. "Melky" along with Dave "Illinois" Harris handled the pitching duties with their usual aplomb.
As usual, the two teams took a break before starting the second game. This time, however, the respite was used for more than rest and recuperation. As a community, the Flemington Neshanock have no shortage of creative talents, in this case, Kelly ("Lady Hawk" to some) Prioli who voluntarily created an Instagram page for the Neshanock. One of her first contributions was a short video explaining the warning both strikers and pitchers receive before a strike or a ball is called. Today Kelly informed us that the video has had one million views, slightly more than the average for posts on this blog. Given those numbers, we've decided to experiment with other videos to help explain the finer points of vintage baseball. Today we worked on a video on the fair/foul play that will be posted in the near future. Many thanks to Kelly and also today's volunteers "Mick," "Melky" and Jeff "Duke" Schneider.
Flemington began the seven inning second game with another quick start and led 5-0 after four. To that point, the Liberty didn't have a base hit, but the home team rebounded, scoring four times over the next two innings. However, Flemington was equal to the challenge and held on for a 7-4 win. "Sledge," "Mick," "Hawk" and Ernie "Shredder" Albanesius each had two hits. It was a good day of vintage baseball and special thanks are due to "Duke" plus his son and brother for manfully playing for the shorthanded Liberty in the first game. Bob Smith played a similar role in the second contest. The only sour note on the day was learning that Lawrence Major, the founder and captain of the Liberty, has decided to withdraw from the club at season's end in order to concentrate on his music career. Running a vintage baseball club is difficult enough, founding one is even more challenging and Lawrence did a great job of getting the Liberty started. The Neshanock wish him all of the best with his future endeavors and are glad we will share the field with him one more time before he steps down.
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