Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
The Beginnings to 1918
Early History: English Roots
Like many ball games played in America, baseball had its roots in the English countryside. The English called their version "chunny," but the Irish, the Scottish, and later the German immigrants here called it "base ball." There is even a record of American soldiers playing a game called "base" on April 7, 1778, at Valley Forge. In 1886, Princeton students played "baste ball." But the most common term for the game just before the Civil War was "towne ball."
Historian John Hope Franklin noted that slaves certainly played their share of towne ball, using balls made of cloth bound around boiled chicken feathers. Local rules prevailed. In his massive and authoritative history of slave life, John Blassingame wrote of the testimony of Henry Baker, born in 1854 in Alabama, "At dat time we played what we called 'Town Ball.'... we had bases en we run frum one base tuh de udder 'cause ef de runner wuz hit wid de ball he wuz out. We allus made de ball out a cotton en rags. We played wid de niggers on de plantation."' They must have had some rough games indeed.
First Organizations
The first established team was formed in New York City by a well-financed, blueblooded group that called themselves the Knickerbockers. Organized by Alexander Cartwright, a bookshop owner, they sought to enforce a high standard of membership, rule enforcement, and amateurism. "[C]ommon laborers, poor immigrants, or black Americans need not have applied for membership," noted sports historian William J. Baker.
There were two competing styles of play: theMassachusetts and the New York. The Massachusetts style had the bases set in a diamond or oblong shape. Players ran up and back and were put "out" by being 11 plugged" or "soaked" -- hit by the ball. In the New York game the bases were set in a square pattern, and the runners had to touch the bases before a fielder touched that base or him. The New York style won out, and Cartwright eventually put the bases ninety feet apart, as they are today; he replaced "soaking" with tagging, determined that three outs forced a change of sides, allowed fielders to make outs by catching a ball in the air or on one bounce or touching a base, seated an umpire at a table along the third-base line, made the pitcher toss the ball underhanded from forty-five feet away, disallowed gloves, and decided that games ended when a team scored twenty-one runs. Not too different from today.
But the Knickerbockers lost their first game 23 to 1, so they found out quickly that social pedigree did not necessarily win games. Besides, clubs sprang up all over the map, and competition was keen. Urban ethnics took tremendous pride in their club squads. The Irish and German clubs began to treat the sport like an ethnic heirloom. Free blacks also formed sides and played against one another.
In 1858 the National Association of Baseball Players (NABBP) was formed and initially included blacks who played on some member clubs. There was opposition, but they still played. In 1859 the first college game was contested between Amherst and Williams. Then the Civil War spread the New York game even more far afield. On Christmas Day 1862, there was a game at Hilton Head Island witnessed by thousands.
After the war urban blacks formed clubs at a quick rate. Some were made up of social club members, and some were made up of men who worked at prestigious white clubs. In New Orleans, for instance, black employees of the Boston and Pickwick clubs played against other black teams with names like the Unions, Aetnas, Fischers, Orleans, and the Dumonts. They even organized a citywide Negro Championship. These games were frequently attended by the black elite to the accompaniment of brass bands. But more and more white players were playing as professionals, paving the way for a national effort.
The National Sport
At the end of the Civil War baseball was the divided nation's most popular sport. There were clubs everywhere, and officials began making rule changes to enhance spectator appeal. While the elite clubs in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia abhorred professionalism, the ethnics could care less about such niceties. They wanted to win and make money. The Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869 became the first all-professional team whose players derived their sole income from baseball.
Two years before the Red Stockings' debut, the NABBP decided to ban all blacks from participation. The Nominating Committee's statement left no doubt where its sentiments stood: "It is not presumed by your committee that any club who have applied are composed of persons of color, or any portion of them; and the recommendations of your committee in this report are based upon this view, and they unanimously report against the admission of any club which may be composed of one or more colored persons."' Strong stuff, though every club owner was a northerner. The pressure came from the Irish and German clubs to keep blacks out.
There was one positive bit of change in 1867: The "boxscore" was invented by Henry Chadwick as a means of cataloging the many statistics during games. He even started his own newspaper, The Chronicle, which carried the latest batting averages. These innovations came at a propitious time since more and more fathers were working at "wage" jobs rather than at a traditional family trade. Baseball was becoming a prime instrument of socialization for some of the nation's youth. But illegal gambling on games became rampant, and in some quarters the sport developed a seedy image. The New York Times called professional baseball players dissipated gladiators.
Blacks, meanwhile, played among themselves and sometimes advertised for competition. In Houston, Texas, the Daily Houston Telegraph of July 14, 1868, printed the following challenge from a side: "Black Ballers -- There is a Baseball club in this city, composed of colored boys bearing the aggressive title of 'Six Shooter Jims'...
A Hard Road To Glory: Baseball. Copyright © by Arthur Ashe. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
