Vintage Base Ball in Paterson, then (1867) and now (2008)

After finding that report of what appeared to be town ball in Newark in 1869, I was researching the Olympic Base Ball Club of Paterson in the Paterson Daily Press of 1867. In the August 2, 1867 issue of the paper, I found a lengthy account including box score of a match of “old fashioned base ball” between “selected elevens,” – the 1869 Newark game consisted of teams of 19 on a side.

Supposedly over a 1000 people attended this event (Paterson had a population of about 33,000 at that time). One interesting feature was that in this version of the game “there is a first base about a rod to the right and a little toward the front of where the batter stands; the second base is about twenty rods in front of him, in the centre of the field; the home base is about ten feet to the left of the batter. The person running must be put out by being hit with the ball when he is more than a pace from his base etc.”

Well known baseball historian John Thorn seems to think this was “the five-based game diagrammed by Chadwick as the pre-Knickerbocker game of New York.” Whatever it was it generated a lot of interest in Paterson in1867 as I have found at least six other accounts of similar games – eleven to a side and typically playing six innings. It seems like vintage base ball was alive and well in Paterson even then.

Speaking of vintage base ball in Paterson, I met this morning with Domenick Stampone, the Mayor of Haledon. He is organizing a vintage game based on the 1908 World Series as part of the town’s centennial. He hopes to make this the jumping off point for a Paterson vintage team based upon the 1896 Paterson Atlantic League team that had one Honus Wagner as its shortstop. It would be great if this happens as it would give us four vintage teams in New Jersey perhaps setting the stage for a New Jersey vintage base ball tournament.

The meeting also gave further evidence to something I have noticed this year. Frequently it seems that there isn’t much interest in New Jersey history, yet I am constantly finding groups that are interested in one aspect of our history. Baseball is just one example, this fall I will be convening a group to discuss how we might observe the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War in 2011. Clearly we need to bring these disparate groups together to give New Jersey history the place it deserves.