Photo by Mark Granieri
This past Saturday, the Flemington Neshanock were in Allentown, New Jersey for two games with the Hoboken Nine, New Jersey's newest vintage base ball team. The games were staged simultaneously with a Civil War re-enactment, all part of Allentown Fall's Festival. As advertised, I wasn't able to be there, but once again Mark "Gaslight" Granieri with some help from Brad "Brooklyn" Shaw supplied me with the results.
Photo by Mark Granieri
After the Neshanock played the Hoboken Club in Jersey City a few weeks ago, I wrote that even if the club was new, it was no muffin team. The results in Allentown proved the validity of that statement as again the two clubs split the two games. In the first, played by 1864 rules, the Flemington Club prevailed by a 14-5 count. In the second contest, 1870 rules were used and the "boys" from Hudson County won by 11-4. This was the direct opposite of the Jersey City results where Hoboken won the 1864 game while Flemington took the 1870 contest.
Photo by Mark Granieri
Since the Neshanock went into the day with a 23-22 record, the net result was to just mark time in the quest for a winning season. Now at 24-23 everything depends upon the results of the final matches this coming weekend (assuming these are the final matches). The schedule for this weekend is yet to be determined so once again, I ask our international following to stay tuned.
Photo by Mark Granieri
Allentown, New Jersey, which is less well known than its Pennsylvania counterpart, is only about 10 miles from Trenton, the state capital. Trenton also appears to have an interesting place in the spread of the New York game into New Jersey. Research thus far shows that Trenton was one of the first communities outside of Essex and Hudson Counties to have a base ball club with the Trenton Base Ball Club seeing some action in 1856. There appears to have been at least one other club in Trenton before the Civil War, but as far as I can tell, they played very few match games with each other and only one against an outside team - a visit from the Pastime Club of Brooklyn. Base ball activity in Trenton in 1856 is interesting because it seems like the game got there before clubs were formed in a number of communities closer to Newark such as Elizabeth and New Brunswick. Another subject for further research!
Photo by Mark Granieri
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