Base Ball's 19th Century “Winter” Meetings 1857-1900: SABR Digital Library, #62

By Society for American Baseball Research

BASE BALL'S 19TH CENTURY "WINTER" MEETINGS looks at the business meetings of base ball's earliest days (not all of which were in the winter). As John Thorn writes in his Foreword, "This monumental volume traces the development of the game from its birth as an organized institution to its very near suicide at the dawn of the next century." 
BASE BALL'S 19TH CENTURY "WINTER" MEETINGS is one of three volumes – totaling more than 1,500 pages – devoted to the study of the business of baseball. Published previously were Baseball's Business: The Winter Meetings: 1901-1957 (released December 2016) and Baseball's Business: The Winter Meetings: 1958-2016 (published in December 2017.) This volume looks at the years from 1857 through 1900, thus completing SABR's study of the business meetings for a period spanning 161 years. 29 members of the Society for American Baseball Research collaborated on this book. John Thorn offers by way of conclusion: "SABR's essayists in this volume (as in the two that follow chronologically, although they were published first) clearly have advanced our knowledge of the period. This will become the great sourcebook for all future efforts to describe how the game grew, flourished, fought, nearly succumbed, and survived."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Society for American Baseball Research
• Release date: Dec 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781943816903

Book preview

Contents

Foreword by John Thorn

Acknowledgements by Jeremy Hodges

Part 1, 1857-1875

Jeremy K. Hodges, Editor-in-Chief

Len Levin, Copy Editor

Robert Tholkes, Associate Editor

Jim Frutchey, Associate Editor

William J. Ryczek, Associate Editor

Section One Introduction: The Baseball Winter Meetings of 1857 – 1865 by Robert Tholkes 1

1857: The First Baseball Convention by Richard Hershberger 2

Building on the Foundation: The 1858 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention

by Robert Tholkes 7

Growing Pains: the 1859 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention

by RobertTholkes 18

1860 Convention of the National Association of Base Ball Players by William J. Ryczek 25

National Association of Base Ball Players 1861 Annual Meeting: Held December 12, 1860

by John Zinn 28

Static Rules and the Great Conflict: the 1862 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention

by Eric Miklich 36

The Game Remains the Same: The 1863 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention

by Eric Miklich 42

To Fly or Not and Other Monumental Changes: The 1864 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention by Eric Miklich 49

National Association of Base Ball Players 1865 Annual Meeting: Held December 14, 1864

by John Zinn 56

Section Two Introduction: The Baseball Winter Meetings of 1866 – 1870 by Jim Frutchey 62

The 1866 National Association of Base Ball Players Winter Convention: Held December 13, 1865

by Julia Hodges 63

The A Challenge, An Opportunity, and a Threat: The 1867 Winter Meeting

by Marcus W. Dickson 67

"The Most Brilliant Season or A Lamentable Failure": The NABBP 1868 Meeting

by Jeffrey Koslowski 78

Pivot to Professionalism: The 1869 Winter Meetings by Mark Pestana 86

The Calm Before the Storm: The 1870 National Association of Baseball Players Convention, December 8, 1869, Boston by Bob LeMoine 97

Section Three Introduction: The Baseball Winter Meetings of 1871 – 1875 by William J. Ryczek 102

The Winter of Three National Associations: 1871: by Richard Hershberger 103

Inconsistencies and Ineligibles: The 1872 Winter Meetings by Mark Pestana 108

Avoiding the Issues: The 1873 Convention by William J. Ryczek 118

Nine Men Are Quite Enough: The 1874 National Association Convention by William J. Ryczek 121

The Force Case: The 1875 National Association Convention by William J. Ryczek 126

Note:The chronology of the meetings in Part 1 (1857-1875) differs from the chronology of subsequent meetings. In Part 1 the year of the meeting in the chapter titles is that of the offseason before a specific season, while starting with the 1876 season (the first year of the National League), the year of the meeting is that of the preceding offseason. Because of this anomaly, there are two conventions labeled 1875. The first was the National Association convention on March 1, 1875 (prior to the National Association season), and the second was the inaugural National League convention on February 2, 1876 (considered the winter of 1875-1876). Beginning in December 1876, the meetings were typically held – as today – in December, and chapter titles indicate the year in which the meetings were first held. Chapter 21 is thus the 1876 Winter Meetings, reflecting the December 1876 date.

Part 2, 1875-1900

Bill Nowlin, Editor-in-Chief

Len Levin, Copy Editor

Clifford Blau, Associate Editor

Maurice Bouchard, Associate Editor

Pulling Baseball from a Slough of Corruption and Disgrace: The Origin of the National League,

The 1875 Winter Meetings by Michael Haupert 132

In the Face of Crisis: The 1876 Winter Meetings by Michael Haupert 140

Scandals, New Rules, and Franchise Changes: The 1877 National League Winter Meetings

by Dennis Pajot 150

The National League Is Back to Eight Clubs: The 1878 Winter Meetings by Dennis Pajot 156

50-Cent Admission Price Main Issue of Sessions: The 1879 Winter Meetings by Dennis Pajot 161

The Most Harmonious of All the League Meetings: The 1880 Winter Meetings by Dennis Pajot 168

Entry, Reactions, and Innovations: The 1881 Business Meetings of Major League Baseball

by Michael R. McAvoy 171

1881: The Organizational Meetings of the American Association by Michael R. McAvoy 183

Reconciliation and Cooperation: The 1882 Business Meetings by Michael R. McAvoy 188

Boom and Entry: The 1883 Business Meetings by Michael R. McAvoy 202

The 1883-84 Winter Meetings of the Union Association by Barney Terrell 216

Collapse of the Union, Return of the Prodigals: The 1884 Winter Meetings by Mark Pestana 221

Peeling The Onion: The Union Association 1884 Season and Winter Meetings by Barney Terrell 232

A Temporary Stability: The 1885 Winter Meetings by Mark Pestana 237

Radical Changes to the Playing Rules: The 1886 Winter Meetings by Dennis Thiessen 247

Harmony After a Fire Sale: The 1887 Winter Meetings by Joel Rippel 260

The Wide World of Sports: The 1888 Winter Meetings by Richard Bogovich 266

The Establishment Responds: Winter Meetings 1889-1890 (NL/AA) by John Bauer 271

1890: Introduction and Context of the Players League Formation by Matt Albertson 281

Three Divides Into Two: 1890 Winter Meetings by John Bauer 288

The Making of the Big League: The 1891 Winter Meetings by John Bauer,

with contributions from Dennis Pajot 301

The Price of Monopoly and the Start of the Modern Game: The 1892 Winter Meetings

by John Bauer 313

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bunt: The 1893 Winter Meetings by John Bauer 322

The Empire Strikes Back: The 1894 Owners Meetings by William H. Johnson 331

The Magnates Expand Their Control: The 1895 Owners Meetings by William H. Johnson 337

The 1896–1897 National League Winter Meetings by Jamie Talbot 342

The 1897-1898 National League Winter Meetings by Jamie Talbot 349

The 1898-1899 National League Winter Meetings by Jamie Talbot 355

The National League Winter Meetings of 1899-1900 by Jamie Talbot 360

The National League Winter Meetings of 1900-1901 by Jamie Talbot 366

The American League Winter Meetings of 1899-1901 by Mike Lynch 373

Contributors 381

Foreword

By John Thorn

Welcome to my favorite century, when baseball symbolized the raging, tearing, booming times of American life. In the brief period enclosed between this book’s covers, the nation and its evolving pastime rocketed past innocence and experimentation to ruthlessness and greed. This monumental volume traces the development of the game from its birth as an organized institution to its very near suicide at the dawn of the next century.

Why should today’s students of baseball—so fraught with exit velocities, launch angles, and catch probabilities—care about aspects of the game that captivated men long dead? It is because of baseball’s endurance through unceasing challenges that a special quality of interest pertains to its early years. It is with institutions as with men, as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer wrote a century ago in another context, the greater their importance in adult life the greater is the interest that attaches to their birth and antecedents, the incidents of their youth, and the influence that molded their spirit and shaped their destinies. Baseball has always been with us, has helped to define us to ourselves—to understand what it has meant, and still means, to be an American.

Albert Goodwill Spalding declared: Baseball is the exponent of American Courage, Confidence, Combativeness; American Dash, Discipline, Determination; American Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm; American Pluck, Persistency, Performance; American Spirit, Sagacity, Success; American Vim, Vigor, Virility. Yet before such bluster, before the explosion of newspaper coverage and the creation of cardboard heroes, before league play, and before professionalism itself, a game for boys had begun to take shape and capture the fancy of young men. Although earlier games of bat and ball and base—including distinctly different variants each called base ball—had been played in North America for some time, 1857 is the appropriate starting point for this volume. That is the year in which clubs in New York and its environs convened, for the first time, to settle upon several vexing points left unaddressed by the rules of the Knickerbocker and New York (a.k.a. Gotham) clubs. How many men should take the field? How long a distance should a runner traverse to reach a base? And perhaps most importantly, how should a game end in such a way as to discourage playing for a draw? As Henry Chadwick wrote, in The Game of Base Ball—the very first book about the game that was more than an annual guide—As usual, with every thing imported, we do not possess it long before we endeavor to improve it, and as our old American edition of base ball, in vogue in New York some twenty-five years ago, was an improvement on Rounders, so is our present National game a great step in advance of the game of base ball as played in 1840 and up to 1857.

Richard Hershberger is first up in this volume, with his coverage of that 1857 meeting which led, in the ensuing year, to a convention of the newly formed National Association of Base Ball Players, described by Bob Tholkes. These are two of the finest researchers of baseball’s early years, and they are followed by dedicated SABR members—some of them credentialed academicians, others independent scholars—who are supported by brilliant editorship and impeccable scholarly apparatus; the endnotes alone are worth the price of admission. They take us on up through the advent of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, branched off in 1871; the National League in 1876; and the fascinating three rival major leagues of the 1880s and ’90s: the American Association (1882-1891), the Union Association (1884), and the Players’ League (1890).

By 1892 big-league baseball was reduced to a single circuit of 12 teams, obviating the need for a postseason championship series and permitting monopolistic unconcern for the dignity of the game and the favor of its fans. Amos Alonzo Stagg, famed for his football career but once the top collegiate baseball prospect in the land, refused to sign with a big-league club: The professionals . . . were a hard-bitten lot, about whom grouped hangers-on, men and women, who were worse. There was a bar in every ball park, and the whole tone of the game was smelly. In describing the winter meetings of 1897-1898 in this volume, Jamie Talbot writes of the increasingly foul language heard at the ballpark, driving away female spectators in particular:

The owners also crafted a letter to the League players, to make sure all who were under contract were aware of the new rules and to set expectations. The players were expected to sign and return the letter indicating they had read it. The letter discussed the enormity of this evil, the Board of Discipline and its composition, and the rationale behind protecting patrons from this villainously filthy language. Given the clarity and transparency of this missive, the magnates were confident that if any player suffers because of this law of reform and its penalties it will be his own fault.

This letter (Special Instructions to Players) was hand delivered to each player in the National League of 1898, so as to escape Federal prosecution for sending obscene materials through the mail, and survives in a single, shockingly blue, example. But bad language and behavior on the field was not all that was suppressing National League attendance. The monopolist’s sword—anticompetitive practices—had become turned against himself. Only the success of a new and unwelcome rival, the American League, would rescue the senior circuit from its own worst instincts.

One might wish that the nineteenth century’s baseball players and magnates had left us better records of their lives and works. Much of the game’s history in this period that has come down to us may be better understood as baseball lore or public-relations puffery, created by penurious scribes and stuffed-shirt mouthpieces. Recorded incidents on the field and off may be entertaining but most often have no detectable evidentiary base. Left to confirm or deny the authenticity of a fable—from Abner Doubleday and Alexander Cartwright to King Kelly and Cy Young—writers of an earlier day had no choice but to declare, in effect, That fact is too good to check.

But with the advent of digitized source materials a new path to knowledge has emerged, and often with it a fresh understanding. In her new biography of Babe Ruth, The Big Fella, Jane Leavy wrote of her trepidation as she set upon a road seemingly well-trod: There was a new story to tell, after all. And, as it turned out, there was a new way to get at it. The presumed disadvantage of writing about Ruth at such a remove proved to be an advantage. SABR’s essayists in this volume (as in the two that follow chronologically, although they were published first) clearly have advanced our knowledge of the period. This will become the great sourcebook for all future efforts to describe how the game grew, flourished, fought, nearly succumbed, and survived.

—John Thorn

Acknowledgements

By Jeremy Hodges

There are many nuances that go into trying to make something with great potential truly a great product. Such can be said of those pioneers who worked at perfecting the national game, as you will read about in this document. The same can be said of the many members of our team that have put together a review of offseason meetings from 1857 to 1900. The concept came from Peter Mancuso, chair of SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee, who solicited for volunteers to write a consolidated volume of the offseason meetings that informed each year of play during the nineteenth century. The idea evolved to start with coverage in 1857 (the year of the first convention), and end in 1900 (just before what is considered the modern era). From there, two parts were decided, 1857-1875 and 1876-1900, with a reasonable marker between the early organizations and the formal establishment of the National League. In July 2015, I started working with the cast of volunteers for the first part, 1857-1875. Another editor began work on the second part, through the end of the century. Our aim was to provide a single reference for fans and scholars that covered the important offseason decisions that shaped the game in its formative years.

Ten authors wrote the chapters covering 1857-1875: Richard Hershberger, Robert Tholkes, William Ryczek, John Zinn, Eric Miklich, Julia Hodges, Marcus Dickson, Jeffrey Koslowski, Mark Pestana, and Bob LeMoine. The second part of this volume was written by 13 authors: Matt Albertson, John Bauer, Richard Bogovich, Michael Haupert, William H. Johnson, Mike Lynch, Michael R. McAvoy, Dennis Pajot, Joel Rippel, Jamie Talbot, Barney Terrell, Dennis Thiessen, and, again, Mark Pestana. Among them are veteran writers and amateurs, period experts and novices, which sort of reflects the makeup of the baseball clubs they wrote about. The diversity of these perspectives, writing styles, and interpretations of source material, I think created an informative reading about the early history of the game.

After initial drafts were complete, several other members were heavily relied upon. Often the names of associate editors, proofreaders, and copy editors are left to the side as contributors, but make no mistake about how vital these members were to this project. Robert Tholkes, Jim Frutchey, and William Ryczek served as associate editors for the three sections of Part 1. They worked directly with authors and each other to review, edit, answer questions, and suggest revisions. They provided incredible expertise and support to me. The second part of the book struggled to gain momentum until Bill Nowlin took up the reins. He had just completed The Winter Meetings, 1958-2016, which SABR published in December 2017. Under his leadership, the final chapter drafts and sequencing were finished. Cliff Blau and Maurice Bouchard were the fact-checkers and associate editors for Part 2.

After clearing the associate editors, the chapters were passed to Andrew Milner, Paul Hunkele, Joe Towalski, and the late Bob Gregory for proofreading. Their support was exactly what the project needed. They provided fresh eyes to review, revise, and correct any errors that were missed in earlier drafts. I would be remiss if I did not add that I talked with Bob at the beginning of the project. (He was the only proofreader at the time.) He knew his health history was stacked against him, but told me he felt well enough and that he would help as long as he could. I’m very grateful for his attitude, diligence, and passion to work on this project.

Len Levin served as copy editor. Len is the only other person to read every word prior to publication. He is the editing authority for this volume, the person I leaned on most to handle review and revision. I absolutely could not have managed without him.

Finally, I am especially grateful to the Official Historian for Major League Baseball, John Thorn, for writing the foreword for this volume and supporting this project.

I am thankful for the leadership and hard work of SABR’s publication team and our volunteers in the Nineteenth Century Committee. I hope that you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you.

Section One Introduction: The Baseball Winter Meetings of 1857 – 1865

By Robert Tholkes

Like the parameters of the game itself, the pioneer offseason club meetings of 1857 to 1865 were comparatively modest affairs. The first, which predated the existence of even a nominally national organization for the supervision of interclub play, met because a surge in popularity had mushroomed the number of clubs in the Greater New York City area (the meeting attracted 14!), so that a revision of the rule set adopted by the five existing clubs in 1854 was felt necessary. Not felt necessary by the clubs at the 1857 meeting was the formation of a permanent organization.

Growth continuing, the old clubs in Greater New York (Knickerbocker, Gotham, Empire, and Eagle) called another meeting before the beginning of the season of 1858, which 23 clubs attended. Comparatively breathtaking revisions of the rules continued, with the introduction of called strikes and the single umpire (the 1857 meeting had adopted the 90-foot distance between bases and nine innings, rather than first-team-to-21-runs-scored, as the framework of a completed game). Addressing the lack of a governing body, the meeting, again consisting entirely of club delegates from Greater New York City, created a nominally national organization, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), in an effort to both better regulate the increasing degree of local competition and encourage baseball’s further growth as a national pastime by providing standard rules for play, perhaps spurred by reports in 1857 of efforts to play the New York Rules in other localities both far (Detroit and Minnesota Territory) and near (Boston and Buffalo). The presence of cricket as a strong competitor for players and public interest and the Association’s location in New York City, already a publishing center for nationally distributed publications, lent necessity and viability to the effort. The NABBP constitution prescribed annual meetings.

The gathering that preceded the 1859 season opened with 21 returning clubs and was immediately swelled by the admission of 16 new members. It enacted a compromise on the most contentious rules issue of the period, between advocates of the existing bound rule, allowing strikers to be put out if their hit was taken on the first bounce, and the annual advocacy by several clubs of the fly rule, requiring balls to be taken on the fly to be considered outs. The 1859 revision required baserunners to tag up, as in the modern game, before advancing on a fly catch, but not on a bound catch, with the object of encouraging fly catches. The first salvo over professionalism was also fired: players were enjoined from accepting compensation for play.

Continued strong prewar growth was reflected in the 60 member clubs attending the March 1860 meeting, which attracted clubs from other states. The group voted to change the meeting date to December, so that two meetings were held that year. The December meeting attracted 54 clubs. As at the March meeting, changes made to the rules were primarily attempts to clarify wording that had been found difficult to interpret.

Meetings continued to be held during the years of the Civil War, with reduced attendance. Two significant rules were nonetheless changed: a provision for called balls, for the 1864 season, and replacement of the bound rule with the fly rule, for 1865.

1857

1857: The First Baseball Convention

By Richard Hershberger

Early 1857 saw the first baseball convention, beginning a series that continues, in one form or another, to the winter meetings of today. What provoked it? Why did anyone bother to initiate such a gathering? The convention was called to fill a need. It was successful enough to merit a repeat the following year, while not as successful as to eliminate the need to reconvene. The task here is to identify the problems leading to the convention, the solutions it devised, and the loose ends resulting in subsequent annual meetings.

Baseball in 1856 was in the midst of rapid growth.¹ The Knickerbockers, the senior baseball club, had been founded in 1845, but had inspired few imitators in the early years. As late as 1854 there were only a half-dozen clubs, in New York City and Brooklyn. Then 1855 was the breakout year, with about two dozen clubs. These doubled every year up to the outbreak of the Civil War.² This growth changed the nature of how the game was played. The purpose of a club like the Knickerbockers was to provide a vehicle for young men in sedentary occupations to take their exercise together in a socially congenial setting. They met, usually twice a week during the season, to play a game among themselves. Two captains would be appointed, and they would divide up the members present into the two sides for the day.

A club could exist indefinitely with no competition with other clubs, since outside competition wasn’t the point. But boys will be boys. Where two clubs existed in proximity, they would inevitably seek to test their mettle against each other. The two clubs would each select their nine best players for a match game. Initially these were also grand social events, with one club the host and the other the guest, the host making grand displays of hospitality. This would, of course, be reciprocated, with the clubs reversing their roles for the return game.

The growth spurt beginning in 1855 changed the nature of the sport. The competitive aspects soon overtook the social. An early concession to competition was the addition of a third game, often on neutral ground, should the first two games be split.³ The more insidious effect was that clubs began looking for any edge. Even apart from this, the membership of the early clubs was small. Everyone knew everyone else, and oral traditions and social norms sufficed to fill in the gaps in the formal rules. As the game expanded this became less true, so the formal rules had to be expanded in response. Finally, the players got better with practice. Rules well adapted for poor players often prove unbalanced with adept players.

The early rules provided ample opportunity both for gamesmanship and confusion. The Knickerbockers’ rules had been drafted in 1845 for intramural play. They were slightly revised in 1848, and in 1854 the Knickerbockers had met with two other clubs, the Gothams and the Eagles, to draft another revision for match games. The 1854 meeting was necessary because the three clubs had slightly different rules, which needed to be reconciled. The competitive stew of 1855 made apparent the need for revisions. An attempt was made after the 1855 season to convene a convention to address the problem, but little seemed to come of it. A possible explanation was the conspicuous absence of the Knickerbockers.⁴ This changed a year later. The reasons for the club’s change of heart are not recorded, but we can infer that the situation was increasingly untenable. In December of 1856, the clubs issued a call for a convention to be held the following January, and the 1857 convention met in two sessions, on January 22 and February 25. The first session appointed a rules committee, which met on January 28. Fourteen clubs sent three delegates each to the first session. Two additional clubs sent delegates to the second session. Some clubs’ delegations from the first session did not return, so the full 16 clubs never actually met together. The first order of business was for the convention to organize itself with the election of officers. The senior status of the Knickerbocker Club was recognized when its president, Daniel Doc Adams, was elected president of the convention. Other clubs were then recognized through the election of a superfluity of officers: two vice presidents, two secretaries, and a treasurer, each from a different club.⁵

The next item was the revision of the rules. The Knickerbockers had prepared a draft set, which they proposed to the convention. Any hope of pushing it through quickly and intact was soon dashed. The convention decided instead to form a committee to consider the proposals. This led in turn to a discussion of how to constitute the committee, with suggestions running from the convention appointing five members, to the convention meeting as a committee of the whole. They finally settled on each club choosing one delegate. This was the committee that met six days later.

The purpose of the convention was next expanded by a discussion of the desirability of a baseball ground in the new Central Park, and a committee of five was appointed to lobby the Central Park commission. (They were unsuccessful in the short term, but parts of the park were opened to junior clubs several years later.) Three balls of varying size and weight were presented, an assessment of $2 per club was voted to defray the expenses of the meeting, and the meeting adjourned.

The rules committee met six days later. The committee elected William H. Van Cott of the Gotham Club chairman, and considered the draft rules presented by the Knickerbockers. Some proposals survived intact, some were amended, and some nixed entirely. The committee prepared a final draft and presented it to the second session of the convention, which made some additional amendments proposed from the floor and finally adopted the rules of 1857.

Some of the new rules were really clarification of existing practice. The bat was defined to be round. (The Knickerbockers proposed allowing one side to be flat, copying the cricket bat, but this idea did not make it out of the rules committee.) The dimensions of the diamond were more precisely defined. The previous rules had used the pace as the unit of measurement, but did not define its length. Plausible modern suggestions include 2½ feet, 3 feet, or the stride of a person actually pacing out the diamond. The new rule replaced the pace with the yard, removing the ambiguity. The pitcher was required to deliver the ball at least 15 yards from the batter, where previously no distance had been specified. The existing rules had included the balk, but had not defined what one was. The 1857 rules, however, stated, Whenever the pitcher draws back his hand with the apparent purpose or pretension to deliver the ball, he shall so deliver it, with a balk the penalty for failure to deliver the ball. The 1857 rules specified that an uncaught foul ball was dead, and that it was live when returned to the hands of the pitcher. The placement of the batter was specified, and the requirement that runners run directly to the base, which hints at previous extreme attempts at evading a tag. One particularly interesting clarification was setting a team at nine players. This often receives a lot of attention today, but it wasn’t actually new. Nine on a side had been the standard for match games throughout the 1850s. Intramural club games varied wildly, but match games were standardized, in fact, long before this was put into the rules. The new rules also provided for two umpires and a referee. This too had been standard practice, with each club appointing an umpire. Should they be unable to resolve any dispute between themselves, they would refer the matter to the referee. (The umpires took on the role of advocates rather than arbiters, which role proved superfluous at best. The system was soon abandoned in favor of a single, theoretically impartial umpire.⁶)

The ball was standardized at 6 to 6½ ounces and 10 to 10¼ inches in circumference. This is noticeably larger than the modern ball. Curiously, the 1854 rules had set the ball at very close to the modern size. It would be gradually shrunk back to its modern size over the course of the 1860s.

The most truly innovative new rule – and arguably the centerpiece of the convention – was the change in how the game ended. The old system had the game over at the end of the inning once one side had 21 runs. (Scoring was generally higher in that era, and 21 runs was not an absurd number.) The convention adopted the modern rule of ending the game after nine innings. Why make this change? The key is that it also adopted the modern rule that the game was official after five innings, even if called for darkness or rain. (These are not exactly like the modern rule. The inning had to be completed, even if the side batting second had the higher score.)

This was quite brilliant, but for a reason that is obscure to the modern American: the distinction between a tie and a draw. These terms mean the same thing today, but did not at the time (and still don’t in British English). To understand the distinction, we must turn to cricket. A cricket match, in its full traditional form of international test match competition, lasts two innings over five days. If at the end of these two innings the two sides have the same score, the result is a tie. This is very rare. If, at the end of the five days allotted to the match, the two innings have not been completed, then the result is a draw. In either case the effect is that neither side won or lost.

The implication is that, should one side over the course of the match come to the unhappy conclusion that it isn’t going to win, it can stall out the remainder of the game in its turn at bat. This is a legitimate strategy in cricket, and works due to the nature of the game. The stalling side bats extremely conservatively, batting not to score runs but merely to avoid getting out. Consider that the batsman is not required to run on groundballs, and the possibility of stalling indefinitely becomes clear. But the defending side still has the ability to put batsmen out: The batsman might make a mistake and hit the ball in the air, or he might miss the ball entirely and have his wicket knocked down. Even while stalling, the game is still being played.

The early baseball players adopted the concept of the drawn game from cricket. It seems to have been assumed, without any mention in the rules one way or the other. The problem was that baseball, as it existed in 1856, allowed the batting side to stall by simply refusing to swing at pitches. There was not yet a called strike, so there was no mechanism to force the batter to make a good-faith effort. The fielding side could also stall, by refusing to put the batter or runners out. This would run up the score, but the whole point of stalling was that the one side knew they weren’t going to win anyway.

Worst of all, these strategies were boring for everyone, players and spectators alike. This was a major – even existential – problem. A list published in late 1856 of 55 games played the previous season shows nearly one in five ended in a draw.⁷ Something had to be done.

The answer to this problem, adopted at the 1857 convention, was the nine-inning game, with the game official after five innings. The idea was that a team was unlikely to despair of victory and go into stall mode before the game was half over. The five-inning portion of the rule was not the afterthought it might appear, but in fact a critical feature.

Changing the game to nine innings was largely successful, as seen in the 1857 season. There were still situations where a team might have an incentive to stall. Suppose it batted first, and led after eight innings. Should the opposing side take the lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, the fielding side might suddenly find itself uninterested in getting the final out before the game was called on account of darkness, and the score reverted to the last complete inning. Such circumstances were far less frequent, however. More common was the batting strategy of the wait game, where once a runner was on base, the batter would refuse to swing at any pitch, since eventually one would get past the catcher, allowing the runner to advance. The solution to this would come later in the form of strikes. In the meantime, the rule successfully converted the problem of stalling from an existential threat to the game to a marginal issue.

There are still two questions about the nine-innings rule: why nine, and why innings at all? The game could have been kept at 21 runs with the victory given to the side with the most runs, should play be ended prematurely. The switch to innings seems to have been to more nearly standardize the time of play. The time spent per inning was more constant than the time spent per run, so a standard number of innings would result in a roughly predictable game length. The reason why nine was chosen is more of a mystery. The Knickerbockers’ draft rules set it at seven, and this is what came out of the rules committee. The change to nine was one of the amendments from the floor of the second general session. To add to the mystery, the amendment was proposed by Louis Wadsworth, one of the Knickerbockers’ delegates. This seems to have been an internal club dispute made public, but the arguments for the two sides are not recorded.⁸

Finally, the convention enacted a set of what might be called administrative rules governing player eligibility and taking a first stab at controlling gambling. Clubs were already starting to bring in ringers for important matches. The new rules required that all players be members of the club, and prohibiting any player from holding membership in more than one club, as well as anyone involved in the match from betting on the game. The code ended with a rather unrealistic rule that a side would forfeit the match if more than 15 minutes late to the ground, which proved unrealistic in the face of the umpires’ unwillingness to enforce such a draconian measure.

In addition to the rules enacted, there was one important rule that was not: the fly game. The old rules gave an out to a fielder catching a batted ball either on the fly or on the first bounce. This was known as the bound game. The Knickerbockers’ draft rules proposed changing this to giving an out only for a batted ball caught on the fly: the fly game.⁹

The fly-game proposal was hugely controversial. On the one hand, most clubs opposed the idea. They were happy with the bound rule and saw no reason to change it. On the other hand, some of the most prestigious clubs were included in the minority favoring the fly game. The idea was to make fielding more difficult, and therefore manlier, and thus the game more suitable for adults.

The proposal could not be dismissed out of hand, but neither was the rules committee willing to endorse it. It instead attempted to strike a compromise. It retained the bound out, but made a fly out more valuable. The previous game allowed baserunners to advance freely on any fair ball. That is, a fly ball that was caught was treated the same as a groundball into the outfield. Baserunners could move up without having to first tag up. The compromise the committee devised was to leave this rule intact for bound catches while prohibiting the runners from advancing at all on fly catches. A ball caught on the fly, whether fair or foul, was defined as being a dead ball, just as was an uncaught foul ball. This rule would two years later evolve into the modern rule of the runner returning to his base and tagging up. In the meantime, its intent was to give fielders an incentive for the more difficult fly catch.

The convention of 1857 was a watershed moment in baseball history. Later observers would often identify it as the origin of modern, organized baseball. This depends on how we define our terms; baseball history does not always allow for origin stories that are both simple and accurate. But 1857 is as good a candidate as any.

Part 1: Section One, 1857

Daniel Doc Adams

Courtesy of John Husman.

notes

1 The word baseball is used here to refer exclusively to the New York game, from which modern baseball descends. There were many other forms of baseball played at the time, but they are beyond the scope of this discussion.

2 Richard Hershberger, The Antebellum Growth and Spread of the New York Game, Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, v.8 (2014).

3 New York Herald, September 14, 1855; September 22, 1855.

4 New York Daily Tribune, December 10, 1855.

5 There are multiple newspaper accounts of the proceedings. The most useful are Porter’s Spirit of the Times, January 31, February 28, March 7, 1857; New York Herald, January 23, March 2, 1857; New York Evening Express, January 23 and 31, 1857.

6 Porter’s Spirit of the Times, January 2, 1858.

7 Porter’s Spirit of the Times, December 27, 1856.

8 The Porter’s and Herald accounts (probably written by the same person) state that Wadsworth was also the Knickerbockers’ delegate in the rules committee. This is most likely not true, and it was William Grenelle. The Express account names him, and records a self-deprecating speech from the committee meeting. The record of Wadsworth does not suggest that self-deprecation was among his personality traits.

9 This discussion was only with regard to fair balls. Foul balls caught on the bound were still outs under the Knickerbockers’ proposal. That discussion would come two decades later.

1858

Building on the Foundation: The 1858 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention

By Robert Tholkes

For baseball, 1857 had been a momentous year in its development into an organized sport for adults. The meetings of 14 Greater New York clubs in January and February introduced standardized rules that still form the game’s backbone: nine innings, nine players, 90 feet between bases. Furthermore, the list of rules was extensively modified:

What emerged from this (the 1857) convention looked like a fairly thorough overhaul. The 17 playing rules expanded to 28 rules (plus seven others that related to umpiring and player eligibility), with fewer than half of the 1854 rules remaining essentially unchanged.¹

Logically, the meeting before the 1858 season would concentrate on fine-tuning the 1857 changes after a season’s experience with them. Proposals not accepted in 1857 would resurface, among them the fly rule, called strikes, and the use of flat bats. Also, contentiousness over which was the champion club had broken out in 1857, when the Gotham of New York came up with several excellent reasons why it could not play the conquering match of its best-of-three series with the Atlantic of Brooklyn, for which it was roundly criticized in Brooklyn. Complaints continued also about playing off, attempts by clubs to avoid defeat by preventing the completion of a game before darkness. Reports and correspondence in Porter’s Spirit of the Times in December 1857 detailed quarrels over umpiring, player eligibility, and ungentlemanly behavior among the rising number of junior clubs. Porter’s, a Saturday weekly published in New York, was the publication providing the most extensive coverage of Knickerbocker Rules baseball, the ancestor of the modern game. Editor William T. Porter had covered the Greater New York sports scene for the original Spirit of the Times since 1838 before breaking away to start his own paper in 1856. The March-April 1858 convention would be his last; he died in July. The New York Sunday Mercury, another weekly, probably ranked with Porter’s in baseball coverage, but has no known source for 1857. The New York Clipper, the third sports weekly covering the game at this time (before Henry Chadwick joined the staff), concentrated on reporting scores.

Prominent in Porter’s coverage of the game during the 1857-1858 offseason were the X letters, which their anonymous author hoped would prove of some interest to your readers, as well as induce some prominent player to write or publish a book on the game.² The letters covered the origins of the game, commented on prominent clubs and players, provided a guide on playing the game and operating a club, discussed current issues, and advocated for improvements. Letter number 11, published on January 2, 1858, noted considerable speculation about whether to hold another convention, but insisted that:

It seems desirable that there should be one, if not to make any new laws, to amend or render a few points less obscure than they are at present; and a Convention of committees from all the Clubs, including all who have played under the rules now used, will tend to advance the game as much next season, as those adopted last Spring did for the season that has left us.

In the absence of a permanent organization, X suggested that a convention will, perhaps, have to name what clubs shall send their delegates, so that most of them will not interfere with the rules of the game.

And further, in Letter number 13, published on January 16, 1858:

It is right that the clubs, who were represented at the last Convention, should constitute the body this year; and that the clubs since formed be admitted by ballot: this will not be any slur on the newly-organized clubs, but will give the Convention control over those who, not belonging to any of the well-founded clubs, may seek to enter, merely to make trouble.

X had several suggestions for improving the current rules, which were also published in Letter number 13, concluding that, The game needs some few points to make it equal, if not superior, to all Summer out-door sports.

SEC. 1 regulates the size of the ball, and weight. While many are satisfied with the latter, they would prefer to have the ball from nine and three-quarters to ten inches in circumference, instead of the present size; it is a prettier ball to throw, pitch, or catch. SEC. 5 defines the position of pitcher; some few players desire to have it three or four yards further from the home base, say eighteen, or place the pitcher exactly in the middle of the square. SEC. 6 needs much alteration, and has always been unsatisfactory. The baulk should be more clearly defined; for, as it stands now, on the referee’s good judgment, depends the correct rendering of the section. SEC. 8, on foul balls, says, that the umpires shall declare all foul balls unasked. Experience has shown that the referee should call them, instead of umpires; and at all matches, the clubs have been in the habit of making this regulation. SEC. 13 should be erased, and another introduced, compelling all fair balls to be caught on the fly. It would improve the game very much. It is also the wish of most players, that the section should be altered. SEC. 16 forces the player running the bases to return to his base, if a fair ball is held on the fly, or on a foul ball. In one case he has a right to the base he returns to; in the other, he is obliged to hurry back, and run the risk of being put out. Should not the rules in both instances be the same, protecting the player back to the base he starts from?

SEC. 27 states, that in playing matches, each player shall have been a regular member for thirty days. While the observance of this rule will be correct, there should be some courtesy exhibited, when a club desires to play a member who has not been such for thirty days, but who is, and will be, for the season a regular member, and where there is no trick or fraud intended. ... All clubs play to win, if possible; but they should not force any to play second nine men in a first nine match, any more than they would like them to introduce first-nine men in second-nine matches.

Appearing as they did in a major publication of the game in the hometown sporting press, and though authored anonymously, undoubtedly produced by a knowledgeable member of the local baseball community, the X letters’ influence was apparent as the convention was opened: As recommended, only the 14 clubs which had participated in the 1857 meeting were seated. The 1858 convention’s first session convened on Wednesday evening, March 10, at the venerable Gotham Inn, 298 Bowery, in Manhattan, which also housed the clubroom of the Gotham Base Ball Club. The honor of calling the convention had been shared by the oldest clubs, the Knickerbocker, Gotham, Eagle, and Empire. The convention was called to order by Dr. Daniel Lucius Adams of the Knickerbocker Club.³ The New York Herald’s report on the convention, which appeared on March 14, succinctly summarized the first session’s actions:

Dr. ADAMS, President of last year, called the convention to order and nominated A.J. Bixby of the Eagle Club for temporary President, who was accordingly chosen. W.A. Sears of the Baltic and T.J. Voorhis of the Empire were chosen secretaries. E.H. Brown of the Metropolitan, the treasurer of last year, was re-elected.

Dr. ADAMS stated the object of the convention to be to provide some fixed and permanent plan of representation and to amend the rules for playing if necessary.

On motion of Mr. JACKSON a committee of five from the clubs represented last year was appointed to examine and report upon credentials, which was adopted. The Chair appointed the following gentlemen as members of that committee: -- Messrs. Jackson, Adams, Spadone, Place, and Tassie.

The Committee on Credentials reported that the following clubs, which appeared to be regularly organized and composed of men of suitable age, have sent delegates to this Convention, and the committee respectfully recommended their admission (Columbia, Osceola, Oriental, Stuyvesant, Hamilton, Pastime, Metropolitan, Monument, Amity, St. Nicholas) ...

That the following clubs appear to belong to the class commonly known as junior clubs, and the committee recommends that their credentials be returned, viz: -- Star, Ashland, Lone Star, Live Oak, Resolute, and Enterprise.

A minority report was submitted by Dr. ADAMS, admitting all the delegates.

Considerable discussion, pro and con, took place about the propriety of admitting young men from 17 to 21 years of age, or those who represented clubs composed chiefly of mere boys.

Mr. KEITH, of the Ashland, protested against the exclusion of the delegates from what were called junior clubs. He thought that boys of eighteen were as well qualified as older persons to decide what should be the rules of the game. Mr. Wadsworth, of Gotham, was opposed to admitting children. At length the question was taken by yeas and nays upon the motion to admit the younger members to a seat without a vote, which was carried. Yeas 34, nays 8.

A motion was now made by Mr. BARRY, to appoint a committee of five to nominate permanent officers of the Convention, which was amended by declaring the present officers permanent. The amendment was adopted.

On motion of Mr. JONES, a committee of five was appointed by the chair to draft a constitution and by-laws for the government of the Convention, and to report the same at the next meeting. The chair appointed as members of the committee Messrs. Jones, Grenelle, Jackson, Van Cott, and Voorhis.

On motion of Mr. DAWSON, a committee of nine was appointed to revise the rules for the government of the game of base ball. The following gentlemen were appointed upon that committee: -- Messrs. Dakin, Adams, Tassie, Place, Clark, Weeks, Barry, Leggett, and Brower.

Mr. BROWN, the treasurer, now moved to assess each member three dollars for expenses of the Convention. Adopted.

A DELEGATE stated the Cricketers had obtained the guarantee of a play ground in the Central Park, and moved the appointment of a committee of five to obtain the same permission for the Base Ball Club. Carried.

The Convention then adjourned to meet again in two weeks.

In all, 23 clubs of the 50 or so estimated to be in existence⁴ (perhaps including junior clubs) attended the first session. The plan to found a permanent organization had apparently emerged from preconvention discussions among the clubs rather than from the convention itself, as it was not the subject of a motion, and was not debated. William Cauldwell, Sunday Mercury editor/publisher and a convention delegate, evidently had voted in favor of admitting the juniors, as he sniffed in the Mercury’s report⁵ that the ‘little boys’ might see and be seen, but not be heard, but added that the juniors could trust the seniors to look after their interests. He also noted that the committee assigned to secure a playground in Central Park consisted of Messrs. Brown, Gregory, and Milliken (the latter, who did not live in Manhattan but in Morrisania, seems an odd choice). Besides feeling that much time had been wasted by the group, Cauldwell cautioned the rules committee:

... the less change they make in the present regulations the better. Simplify the rules as much as you please, but this business of altering and changing the rules every year is not very desirable.

The Clipper, in a brief commentary on March 20, also criticized the exclusion from participation of the juniors, calling it inexplicable.

Porter’s previewed on March 13 additional issues facing the new rules committee:

The first convention was ... to devise a new set of Rules and Laws for Base-ball. The call originated with the old Knickerbocker Club; and, with the co-operation of the Juniors and Freshmen, formed a code which, we hear, has not given unqualified satisfaction, nor worked as well as we could have expected. Some of the rules are said to be especially unpopular with the tyros – that of giving more than one man out, if the second man is not protected back to his base. This rule of the game has proven rather sharp practice, as the lawyers for the youngsters, and they don’t like it. Another, which is to be taken up for discussion, is, that a player can only be caught out by a fair ball on the fly. The rule which determines the game by innings, works well, and will be retained, and a strong effort will be made to have eleven fielders on each side.

Porter’s then subsided, but, perhaps remembering the simplicity of the game before it became a matter for adult attention, grumbled:

It may, however, be doubted whether too much legislation, and the discussion thereby exerted, does not tend rather to the development of talk, than to active exertion out-doors.

Backlash over the convention’s decision to allow juniors only as observers, besides the unfavorable comments in the Sunday Mercury and the Clipper, reappeared in Porter’s on the 20th, which, after reprinting without attribution the New York Herald’s convention report of March 14, published a letter signed INFANT BALL-PLAYER:

... (T)he Junior Clubs were denied either voice or vote in the subsequent meetings, under pretense that there were so many of them they would vote the old men down – a very palpable blunder; for if they were strong enough in votes to rule the meeting when in, they surely could not be voted out, and to try it would only show them their strength. I can only conclude that it was by an organized clique of men, who are old enough to know better than thus to abuse the purposes of the Convention, which, I believe, was to have the rules amended by all Clubs, and for the benefit of all who are interested in this noble and popular game.

Another excuse was, that the boys did not understand enough about the game to see what was wanting in the rules. Let me tell the old folks that we boys want to have a voice in that Convention, not to hear ourselves talk, but to keep up those points in the game which require the utmost physical exertion, and the exercise of skill and strength combined. We are only afraid of the legislation of those pseudo Senior Clubs, which are composed of apologies for men, who, with plenty of money, and a proportionate lack of strength of body and energy of spirit, wish to make the game a means of showing off their figures in fancy dresses, and their wealth in fancy dinners; who are so lazy, that, in a short time, they will become worse than some cricket clubs, who hire professional players to do the work, and they do the blowing.

Another objection was, that the Juniors were disposed to quarrel, and would delay and thwart the meeting. I think the conduct of the men at that Convention is a sufficient reply to that. I have attended a number of Junior B.B. meetings, but never one where there was so much dispute, and so little work done as there was there. I should respectfully recommend Jefferson’s Manual to some of the delegates who made themselves ridiculous by their confused ideas of their own importance, and the rules of meetings.

Now, gentlemen of the Convention, let the boys have a say in regard to this game, which they have always played, and which most of you have only just now taken out of their hands – unless you have no other way of showing the world that you are not children, except by refusing to have anything to do with boys who do not sport a plug, and who you call, with a patronizing air, Bub, in which case there may be a little excuse for you.

Not to be drawn by such callow argumentation, editor Porter suggested that the Juniors get up a Convention and organization of their own. It would, doubtless, have a good effect, and tend to enlarge the number of the ‘Infant’ clubs. A National Association of Junior Base Ball Players was eventually formed, before the 1861 season, but promptly became a casualty of the Civil War. The "boys’" points do echo Porter’s complaint that rule-making distracted attention from developments on the field, and repercussions from the juniors’ exclusion came quickly. The course of the protracted argument over adoption of the fly rule was doubtless affected, assuming, as seems reasonable, that the juniors would have favored it. And since the junior clubs were much more likely to be headed by players, their inclusion might have ameliorated the tendency that emerged in the next few seasons for rule-making to be influenced by senior players and muffin or nonplaying senior club officials (not to mention the soon-to-be-prominent reporter, Henry Chadwick), one result being gaps between the rules on paper and the conduct of clubs and umpires (who were all players) in the matches.

The same prompt, thorough reporting of the doings of the second session of the Convention, on Wednesday evening, March 24, again at the Gotham, was not forthcoming. Cauldwell explained in the Sunday Mercury on the 28th that he had not been able to attend, or to get a copy of the report of the committee on constitution and by-laws. The New York Herald’s summary, on March 25 was the most extensive:

BASE BALL CONVENTION. – An adjourned meeting of this Convention was held last evening at the Gotham, Mr. Bixby in the chair. The following additional delegates presented credentials and were admitted: Nassau – W.P. Powell, E.B. Coombs; Mutual – Anson B. Taylor, Jas. J. Kelso. Dr. Jones, from the committee appointed to draft a constitution and by-laws, reported the same. The constitution provides that the name of the association shall be The National Association of Base Ball Players; that it shall be composed of two delegates from each club, who shall hereafter be elected by a ballot of two-thirds; that a regular annual meeting shall be held on the second Wednesday of March of each year, and that each hereafter admitted shall pay $5 entrance fee and $5 annual dues.

The constitution was adopted after sundry amendments, and the by-laws, after having been adopted, were, upon motion, recommitted for the purpose of amending the same.

The association then proceeded to the election of officers. A motion to appoint a committee of five to nominate and report at the next meeting, was amended by providing that the nominations be made now in open meeting. The names of Mr. Jones, Dr. Adams, and Mr. Van Cott were proposed. Upon the first ballot, Mr. Jones received 16 votes, Van Cott 15, and Dr. Adams 8. Dr. Adams now declined the nomination, and wished his friends to vote for Mr. Van Cott. On the second ballot, Mr. Van Cott received 20 votes, Mr. Jones 17, and Dr. Adams 1. Mr. Van Cott was accordingly declared elected.

After electing the remaining officers the association adjourned until next week, when action will be had upon some important amendments relating to the rules of the game of base ball.

The presidential result was superficially a New York-Brooklyn split between William H. Van Cott of the Gotham, a judge, and Dr. Joseph B. Jones, a transplanted Manhattanite and president of the Excelsior Club of Brooklyn. Without a breakdown of the voting and a list of the delegates in attendance (39 of the potential 50 delegates voted), this cannot be confirmed. The newspapers were already fond of setting New York’s clubs and supporters against those of Brooklyn – the Fashion Race Course games between the two cities were only months away, and X had called for such a matchup in the letters published in Porter’s over the winter; and so it may be reasonably suspected.

Porter’s, in finally reporting in its issue of April 3, added detail on the convention’s workings. Describing the opening of the March 24 session:

Considerable desultory discussion ensured, until, in order to get rapidly to work with important business of the evening, a five-minute rule of oratorical display had to be adopted, which was conceded by the meeting, nomine contradicente. Dr. Jones then presented the report on the Constitution and the By-Laws. ...

Porter’s also provided the names of the other officers: Dr. J.B. Jones, Excelsior, first vice president; T.S. Dakin, Putnam, second vice president; J.R. Postley, Metropolitan, recording secretary; T.F. Jackson, Putnam, corresponding secretary; and E.H. Brown, Metropolitan, treasurer. Porter’s also reprinted both the 12 articles of the new Constitution, which stated that the objects of the association were to improve, foster, and perpetuate the American game of Base-Ball, and the cultivation of kindly feelings among the different members of Base-Ball Clubs, and the report of the rules committee, under the heading, RULES FOR MATCH GAMES, TO BE OBSERVED AT EXERCISE MEETINGS, over the signature of Dakin, the committee chair. Of the 36 sections, amendments to 15 from 1857 were proposed, and one section was new. Of the 15 amended sections, four contained substantive changes:

16. No ace or base can be made upon a foul ball, nor when a fair ball has been caught