Category: 1859

My Best Guess

3/10/2016

St. Louis in 1859

I can go on and on and on about the question of the first St. Louis baseball club and the fact that I've been working on a long-form piece on the subject for well over a year proves that. I haven't even really touched on Ed Bredell and the possibility of his having been exposed to the New York game while he was at Brown University. I haven't touched on the influence of Yankee merchants and the influx of Eastern immigrants into St. Louis in the antebellum era. I haven't mentioned the influence of railroads and newspapers and the new technologies that helped spread the game. I haven't mentioned how protobaseball games spread across the Trans-Appalachian West and how that spread pattern is very similar to settlement patterns and what those patterns tell us about the spread of the New York game. I haven't mentioned the importance of social clubs in antebellum America. It's an endlessly fascinating subject to me and it all ends with the spread of the game into St. Louis and the formation of the best baseball club in the city.

Instead of talking about all of that, I'm going to just put a cap on this and get back to the Baldwin Affair. And towards that end, I'm just going to tell you what I think happened. I think I've given you more than enough evidence to support what I'm going to tell you here and more than enough evidence so that you understand that this is all speculation. It is all speculation but it's also based on an understanding of the cumulative weight of all of the evidence I've gathered over the last decade. It's a guess but it's an educated guess.

The easiest thing to do would be to say that the Unknown Club was the first baseball club in St. Louis history. That's what the contemporary source material tells us. But the fact that I can't tell you for a fact that they were playing the New York game is a problem for me. The fact that they didn't form until August 1, 1859, is another. I can't say that they weren't the first club but the farthest I'm really willing to go with the Unknowns is to say that they are the first St. Louis baseball club I'm aware of to be mentioned in the contemporary source material. That's something but it's not everything.

I have four members of the Cyclone Club who claim that their club was the first baseball club ever formed in St. Louis. I have three members who claim the club formed in the summer of 1859. I have E.H. Tobias, who I have the utmost respect for, not contradicting that statement and, in a different source, stating the Cyclones formed in 1859. The predominance of the secondary source material supports the idea that the Cyclones were the first baseball club in St. Louis history and that they formed in the summer of 1859.

I believe that the weight of evidence supports the Cyclone Thesis. It is not conclusive. I do not have all of the evidence that I would like. I do not have a smoking gun that proves it. But after a decade of researching the subject, the Cyclone Thesis is the best argument I can put forward as to who the first club was and when they were formed.

I really don't have any doubt that the Cyclones formed before the Empires, the Unions, or the Commercials. I really don't have any doubt that the Cyclones were playing the New York game in St. Louis before the Morning Stars were. The only real questions I have - and I take these seriously - concern the type of game the Unknown Club was playing and whether or not the Cyclones formed prior to August 1, 1859. If the Unknowns were playing the local baseball variant then they were not the first St. Louis baseball club in the sense that we're using the term. If the Cyclones formed prior to August 1, 1859, then, again, the Unknowns were not the first club. So, in the end, it comes down to either the Cyclones or the Unknowns and, as I said, I believe the weight of the evidence supports the Cyclones claim to being the first baseball club in St. Louis history.

Given all of that, what do I think happened?

In the late 1850s, you had several clubs in the St. Louis area playing the local baseball variant. You had two clubs in Alton, the Morning Stars in St. Louis, and, possibly, the Unknowns. There may have been more that we're unaware of but the local variant was popular and was being played at various locations around the city.

Ed Bredell, Jr., went to Brown University, at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1855 and was still there in 1856. He may have been there the following year but I can't say that for certain. The important thing is that Bredell was probably exposed to the New York game while at university. Brown University played a significant role in the history of collegiate athletics and, specifically, in the history of collegiate baseball. Providence, itself, had a history of ball-playing that dated back, at least, to the 1820s, a baseball club was formed there in 1857, and Brown had baseball clubs by the early 1860s. I have little doubt that baseball was being played in Providence and at Brown when Bredell was there and it's likely that he first played the game while a university student. At the very least, Bredell most likely saw the New York game being played while a student in Providence.

This is significant because Bredell was the co-founder of the Cyclone Club. Everybody always talks about Merritt Griswold because his connection to the game in Brooklyn prior to his coming to St. Louis is known. Bredell's connection to the game is something that very few people are aware of and is an extremely important data point. He was more than likely exposed to the game and played the game while at university and then returns to St. Louis in the late 1850s with a knowledge and love of the game.

I think it's also important when you consider Bredell and Griswold's relationship. Bredell was Griswold's boss. He was the business manager of the Missouri Glass Company and while I describe the two men as co-workers, the fact is that Griswold worked for Bredell and his father. I like the description of the founding of the Cyclone Club in the 1895 Republic article that states that Griswold put the club together under the "exertions" of Bredell. That makes a lot of sense when you know that Bredell already had a knowledge of the New York game and that he was Griswold's boss.

So the Missouri Glass Company opens on May 29, 1859, and Bredell, Jr., is the business manager. Merritt Griswold arrives in St. Louis shortly thereafter and gets a job with the firm. He had been playing baseball in Brooklyn as late as October of 1858 and had been playing with various clubs in Brooklyn for several years. He was a baseball player and someone who loved the game. He comes to a town with a history of ball-playing and that had several clubs playing the local baseball variant. Griswold probably didn't realize it at the time but he had moved from one hotbed of baseball to another.

But Griswold quickly discovers that he had moved to a baseball town. He becomes aware of the Morning Stars and has discussions with them about the proper way to play baseball. I'm sure he quickly found out that the young business manager he worked with was a baseball fan who had played the New York game while at school in the East. Griswold and Bredell strike up a natural friendship through their mutual love of baseball. And the two decide to form a baseball club. This is how the Cyclone Club came about.

The major question is, again, when exactly this happened. It could not have happened prior to May 29, 1859. If we assume that Griswold began work with the Missouri Glass Company when it opened, he and Bredell could have easily formed the club in June of 1859, which fits perfectly with the summer of 1859 founding date given by former members of the club. That's a big assumption and is probably the biggest hole in the Thesis. But I think it makes sense.

My best guess is that Griswold was in St. Louis in May of 1859. My best guess is that he was working at the Missouri Glass Company when it opened. My best guess is that he and Bredell struck up a friendship at that time. Based on all of those assumptions and my understanding of the source material, my best guess is that the Cyclone Base Ball Club of St. Louis formed in June of 1859.

My best guess is that the Cyclones were playing the New York game by June of 1859 and that they were the first baseball club in the city to do so.

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Was The Summer of 1859 Even Possible?

3/9/2016

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In the summer of 1859 a meeting was held in the office of the old Missouri Glass Company, on Fifth street between Pine and Olive. M.W. Griswold, a clerk in the company's store, who had lately moved to St. Louis from Brooklyn, N.Y., an enthusiast on baseball, aided by the exertions of Ed Bredele, had gathered together the nucleus of a club...

-St. Louis Republic, April 21, 1895

One of the things that I don't know is specifically when Merritt Griswold got to St. Louis. I know that he was still living in Brooklyn in 1858. He's listed in the 1859 Brooklyn city directory, which was probably put together in the summer of 1858, and he was still playing with the Hiawathas in October of 1858. He was certainly in St. Louis by April of 1860, when he published the rules of the game in the Missouri Democrat. Also, he's listed in the 1860 St. Louis city directory that came out no later than March of that year. So sometimes between October of 1858 and March of 1860, Merritt Griswold moved to St. Louis. And given that the 1860 St. Louis directory was probably put together in the summer or early fall of 1859, I'm comfortable saying that he moved to St. Louis sometime between October of 1858 and October of 1859.

It's absolutely possible that Griswold was in St. Louis and working at the Missouri Glass Company by the summer of 1859, as the Missouri Glass Company opened for business on May 29 of that year.

The Missouri Glass Company's Works are situated in the First Ward of the city of St. Louis, west of the Arsenal. The Company was incorporated by an act of the Legislature and went into operation under their charter on the 29th day of May, and elected Edward Bredell, President, and Edward Daly, Secretary...

-Missouri Republican, December 26, 1859

The assumption is that Ed Bredell, Jr., and Merritt Griswold met while working together at the Missouri Glass Company. If this is true then the Cyclones could not have been formed before May 29, 1859. That's the earliest possible date that the club could have been formed, if this assumption is true.

In the summer of 1859 a meeting was held in the office of the old Missouri Glass Company, on Fifth street between Pine and Olive. M.W. Griswold, a clerk in the company's store, who had lately moved to St. Louis from Brooklyn, N.Y., an enthusiast on baseball, aided by the exertions of Ed Bredell, had gathered together the nucleus of a club...

-St. Louis Republic, April 21, 1895

So I think I've answered the question I posed in the title of this post. It's absolutely possible that the Cyclones could have formed in the summer of 1859, prior to the formation of the Unknown Club in August of that year. Leaving aside the question of what kind of baseball the Unknown Club was playing, it's possible that the Cyclones formed before they did and, therefore, were the first baseball club in St. Louis history.

What we're really looking at here is a window between the end of May 1859 and April 1860 for the formation of the Cyclone Club. At the moment that's as far as we can narrow this thing. The reality is that they probably formed either in the early or mid summer of 1859 or in the early spring of 1860. Either date allows for you to argue that they were the first club in St. Louis although the first date is really what the best argument is based on.

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The Griswold Letter

3/8/2016

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Alfred H. Spink
Author The National Game
St. Louis, Mo.,

Dear Sir-One of the reporters of "The Standard Union" of Brooklyn, N.Y., showed me a few days ago a book written by you entitled the history of baseball.

To start at the commencement of the game in its first introduction into Missouri I would refer you to the files of "The Missouri Democrat" for the Winter of 1859 and 1860, where in you will find published "the rules of the game," also a diagram showing the field and the position of each player made from a rough sketch I gave to Mr. McKee and Fishback, the publishers, or to Mr. Houser, at that time their bookkeeper, cashier and confidential office man (and, by the way, a mighty fine young man).

At this same time I was organizing the first baseball club, "The Cyclone," which name was suggested by one of its members, Mr. Whitney, of the Boatman's Savings Bank.

Other members of "The Cyclone" were John Riggin, Wm. Charles and Orvill Mathews (the latter the late Commodore Mathews of the U.S. Navy), John Prather, Fred Benton, (later captain under Gen. Custer), Mr. Fullerton, (later a General, U.S.A.), Mr. Alfred Berenda and his brother, Mr. Ferd Garesche, Mr. Charles Kearney (son of Gen. Kearney), Mr. Edward Bredell, Jr., and a number of other young men of St. Louis.

Soon after the organization of "The Cyclone" several others were started, viz: "Morning Stars," "The Empire," "The Commercial" and later on several others.

The first match game played between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, (if not to the Pacific Coast), was between "The Cyclone" and "The Morning Stars" and was played in 1860, just back of the Old Fair Grounds in North St. Louis, "The Morning Stars" winning the game, the score of the game I now have. It is 50 years old, and the ball used in that first match game was for years used as the championship trophy, it going from one club to the other, and the last the writer ever heard of it, it was in possession of the Empire Club. I personally sent to New York for the ball to be used in this first match, and after the game it was gilded in gold and lettered with the score of the game.

"The Morning Star Club" was a "town ball" club and played from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Tuesday and Friday mornings in Carr's Park, but after considerable urging and coaxing on my part they passed a resolution at one of their meetings that they would try the national rules for one morning if I would coach them, or more properly, teach them, which I consented to do if they would agree to stick to it for the full hour without "kicking," for as I told them they would no like it until after playing it for a sufficient length of time to become familiar with some of its fine points, all of which they agreed to and kept their word like good fellows as they were, but in ten minutes I could see most of them were disgusted, yet they stuck to it for their hour's play. At the breaking up of the game to go home they asked me if I would coach them one more morning as they began to "kindy like it." I was on hand their next play day, or rather play morning at 5. Result they never played "town ball" after that second inning and in their first match, as stated above, "waxed" my own club. I could give you many incidents up to the breaking out of the civil war and the disbanding of "The Cyclone" by its members taking part on one side or the other.

Hoping you will excuse my intruding with these little facts in regard to early ball playing in St. Louis, I am

Yours Respectfully
Merritt W. Griswold.

P.S.-Although I am now in my 77th year, I take just as much interest in that splendid game as when a kid at school in old Chautauqua Co., New York, or when a member of the "Putnams" of Brooklyn in 1857 and the "Hiawathas" of the same place in 1858-59 in which latter year I went to St. Louis.

Above, we find the Griswold letter in its entirety, as it appears in the second edition of The National Game, and the photo at the top of the post is, of course, Griswold's letter to the Missouri Democrat from April 1860.

I link those two together for one simple reason. The one thing - the publication of the rules - helps to verify the other - Griswold's letter to Spink. The one thing I have always liked about the Griswold letter is that there are numerous things in it that are verifiable. Griswold makes statements in the letter that you can prove are true. You can fact check Griswold and that lends support to the statements he makes that you can not verify.

The most important statement that Griswold makes in his letter is that he organized the first baseball club in St. Louis. It's an important statement. While poking holes in the Cyclone Thesis, I said that Griswold's testimony doesn't support the Thesis but I was really just exaggerating for effect. Griswold states that the Cyclones were the first baseball club in St. Louis history and that is exactly half of the Thesis. While his testimony does not support the Thesis' claim as to when the club was formed, it does support the idea that the Cyclones were the first club.

That is extremely important but unverifiable. I can not prove Griswold's statement to be correct. I have plenty of supporting testimony but no contemporary sources. And it's important to state Griswold was writing fifty years after the fact and he may not be remembering things correctly. The memory of man is fallible. But he gets a lot of things right in his letter.

Let's go through the things in Griswold's letter that I can prove:

-Publishing the rules of the game in the Democrat. He was off by a few months but Griswold did publish the rules of baseball in the Missouri Democrat in 1860.

-Mr. McKee and Fishback. William McKee and George Fishback were the publishers of the Missouri Democrat.

-Mr. Houser. Daniel Houser was the bookkeeper and, later, one of the co-owners of the Democrat.

- Mr. Whitney. Robert S. Whitney was a teller for Boatman's Bank.

-Members of the Cyclone Club. Members mentioned by Griswold who are also mentioned by other sources include Ed Bredell, John Riggin, Ferdinand Garesche, William Matthews, Orville Matthews, Griff Prather, and Joseph Fullerton. Griswold, himself, is mentioned as a member, officer, and co-founder of the club by several other sources.

-Other pioneer-era clubs.  Griswold mentions the Morning Stars, Empires, and Commercials by name and there is plenty of contemporary source material proving their existence. He also mentions that there were other clubs at this time and that is also provable.

-The first match game.  Griswold mentions that the match game between the Cyclones and the Morning Stars was the first in St. Louis history. There are contemporary sources that verify this claim.

-The gilded trophy ball.  There are actually a few sources that mention that the ball used in the first match game was gilded, engraved, and given as a trophy to the championship baseball club of St. Louis and Missouri.

-The Morning Stars. Richard Perry confirms that the Morning Stars played the local baseball variant prior to playing the New York game.

-The Civil War.  There is plenty of evidence showing that the members of the club were divided by the war, with members joining both sides. There is also no record of the club after April 28, 1861, and we know that several members of the club were in uniform at that time or shortly thereafter so I have no doubt the club broke up due to the outbreak of the war. It's really one of the most fascinating things about the club.

-Chautauqua Co., New York. It's a provable fact that Griswold was born in Chautauqua County on May 12, 1835.
-Playing baseball in Brooklyn.  I have box scores from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle showing Griswold playing with the Hiawathas in 1858. Bill Ryczek has a source, noted in Base Ball Founders, showing he was also a member of the Putnams.

That's a lot of stuff that I can prove. There are just a lot of things in Griswold's letter that are true and this lends credence to his testimony. Why do I believe Griswold when he says that the Cyclones were the first baseball club in St. Louis history? Because just about everything else he said was true.

There is really nothing in his letter that I can state is absolutely false. His testimony about how the Morning Stars came to play the New York game is contradicted by Richard Perry but I can't prove that it's not true. There is probably some truth to both of their versions of the story. I don't know. But my point is that there is a lot in the letter that is provable and that makes Griswold a great source.

The only thing Griswold gets wrong in the entire letter that I can point to is the dating of the founding of the club. He says the club was founded in the winter of 1859/1860 but his own statements place it in the spring of 1860 - sometime in late April of 1860, to be specific. Now, can you tell me what you were doing in April of 2006 - just ten years ago? What about April of 1996? April 1986? April 1976? Etc. Griswold was talking about events fifty years in the past and, more than likely, he got the dates wrong. Tobias, in some circumstances, did the same thing when he was dealing with the era but was writing a decade earlier and he had club records to look at. Griswold, off the top of his head and working from memory, got most of the facts correct. I just think he got the dates wrong. I think he just confused two events - the founding of the club and the publication of the rules of the game - and mixed them together.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the timeline and see if it was possible for the Cyclones to have been playing baseball in the summer of 1859.

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Did The Cyclone Club Play In 1859?

3/4/2016

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This is the big question. If you're trying to figure out who the first baseball club in St. Louis history was - and I think that's what I've been talking about - this is the question that has to be dealt with.

When it comes down to the question of who was the first club, I've boiled my thinking down to what I call the Cyclone Thesis. This is nothing new or groundbreaking but, rather, a restatement of what I believe the evidence suggests. Also, it restates all of this as a premise to be argued rather than as a fact to be understood. That's an important distinction because we simply don't have any kind of smoking gun that shows us, conclusively, who the first club in St. Louis history was. We have an abundance of evidence, some of which is stronger than others and some of which is contradictory. The Cyclone Thesis takes all of the evidence, weighs it, shifts it, and constructs the best possible argument in support of its conclusion.

So what is this thing?

The Cyclone Thesis posits the following: The Cyclone Base Ball Club of St. Louis was the first baseball club in St. Louis history and they began playing in the summer of 1859.

Like I said, nothing groundbreaking or unique. I'm not the first guy who's stated that the Cyclones were the first St. Louis baseball club. I do feel some responsibility, however, for pushing the idea out there. I've pushed the idea online and in print to the point that I feel that I've added to what has become conventional wisdom. I've seen people cite my work in support of the idea that the Cyclones were the first club and while I'm not claiming that I have some kind of strong influence on people's thinking about all of this, I do recognize that I have some kind of reputation as being an "expert" on 19th century St. Louis baseball. Whether that reputation is earned or not, I'll let others decide but what I haven't seen is my rethinking about the Cyclones and the earliest clubs in St. Louis, which has been going on for three years now, penetrate the conventional wisdom. It's a complicated thing that I'm doing - probably overly complicated - and that may be why it's not getting through. Also, I'm probably - and likely - not doing a good job of communicating it. I've been working on a long-form piece dealing with all of this for well over a year and I'm still not done. That's one of the reasons I'm talking about it now.

But what's important to understand here is that there is no smoking gun proving any of this. Everything is argument. I like to think that it's all based on reason and logic but the fact remains that it's argument rather than fact. Someone asked me the other week, when I was speaking at the History Museum, about the Cyclones being the first club and I basically hemmed and hawed my way through the answer. Well on one hand, this. On the other, this. There is no easy answer.

With all of that said and out of the way, let's get into this.

When writing about the Union Club last week, I said that Tobias stated that the club formed in 1859 and that was the earliest reference to a club formation that he mentioned. I don't know why I wrote that because it isn't exactly true. Tobias, in the October 29, 1895, issue of The Sporting News, wrote the following:

The Cyclone Club came into existence in 1859 and included in its membership some of the brightest young men of St. Louis, among them a number of whom have left the impress of their handiwork in almost every honorable calling.

So Tobias, who I always say is the best source we have on the pioneer era in St. Louis, states that the Cyclones formed in 1895.

We also have this, from the April 21, 1895, issue of the St. Louis Republic:

In the summer of 1859 a meeting was held in the office of the old Missouri Glass Company, on fifth street between Pine and Olive. M.W. Griswold, a clerk in the company's store, who had lately moved to St. Louis from Brooklyn, N.Y., an enthusiast on baseball, aided by the exertions of Ed Bredele, had gathered together the nucleus of a club, and after one or two preliminary meetings, the Cyclone Baseball Club was formed, the first in St. Louis, and the first west of the Alleghanies.

First, let me say that even if we accept a summer 1859 founding date for the Cyclones, they were not the first club west of the Alleghanies. Second, this article from the Republic is one of the best sources we have about the early history of the Cyclones and is based on the testimony of Leonard Matthews, Maurice Alexander, and Ferdinand Garesche, all members of the club. The other interesting thing about this source is that, in my opinion, it was written by Tobias. There is no byline, so I can't say for certain, but based on my familiarity with his writing, based on the subject matter, and based on the date when the article was published, I'm very comfortable stating that this is Tobias.

I think I've stated this before but the fact that Edmund Tobias is saying in two different sources that the Cyclones were founded in 1859 and, in one of them, that they were the first club in St. Louis history is significant. Despite his errors, Tobias is a trusted source. He lived in St. Louis during this period. He played with the Commercial Club during the war years and with the Empires during the post-war years. And we have him saying that the Cyclones were founded before two of the clubs he played with. If Tobias didn't believe that the Cyclones were the first club - if he believed the Commercials or Empires or whoever had formed first - I don't believe he would have written this. He was there. He was a witness to and participant in these events. Even if he's just basing his writings on the testimony of former Cyclone members, if Tobias had contradictory evidence or remembered things differently, I believe he would have mentioned it.

The other important source, regarding the formation of the Cyclone Club, is, of course, Merritt Griswold, who, in his letter to Al Spink, wrote the following:

At this same time [as he was publishing the rules of the game in a St. Louis newspaper] I was organizing the first baseball club, "The Cyclone," which name was suggested by one of its members, Mr. Whitney, of the Boatman's Savings Bank...

Soon after the organization of "The Cyclone" several others were started, viz: "Morning Stars," "The Empire," "The Commercial" and later on several others.

So this seems pretty clear cut. Griswold states that the Cyclones were the first baseball club ever formed in St. Louis. Other members of the club state the same. Tobias, implicitly, agrees. That's three different sources claiming that the Cyclones were the first club. Tobias also states that the club was formed in 1859. Three former club members state that the club was formed in the summer of 1859. And that's the Cyclone Thesis in a nutshell - the Cyclones were the first baseball club in St. Louis history and they formed in the summer of 1859. Open and shut. Cut and dried. Nothing to it. Right?

Well, not exactly. It is extremely necessary to look at all of this with a critical eye and that's what I'll do in my next post.

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Did They Play Baseball In St. Louis In 1859?

3/3/2016

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Short answer: Of course they did.

The more pertinent question is were they playing the New York game in St. Louis in 1859? And that question does not lend itself to a short, easy answer.

There is no doubt that a local baseball variant was being played in St. Louis in 1859. There is plenty of evidence to suggest this. There is contemporary evidence of two clubs in Alton in 1858 playing a local variant and if you had clubs in Alton, I always argue, than you had them in St. Louis. Richard Perry stated that the Morning Star club was playing "town ball" in St. Louis two years before the war, which I find believable, and Merritt Griswold stated that the Morning Stars were playing town ball when he first ran into the club. Also, there is a reference in the St. Louis Daily Bulletin, from June of 1860, that refers to the "good old social game of baseball, which we used so much to delight in when a student" and that, to me, implies that the game had been played in St. Louis for some time. On top of that, Tobias notes that "town ball" was popular in St. Louis prior to the advent of the New York game in the city. So we have plenty of evidence to support the idea that baseball was being played in St. Louis in 1859 and the years prior to that.

But we're talking about the New York game and none of that evidence proves that the game was being played in St. Louis in 1859. It does, however, support the idea. I've argued, in the past, that the fact that a local baseball variant was popular in St. Louis in the antebellum era and that there were clubs organized around the playing of that game made it easier for the New York game to take root in the city. Everything the New York game needed to take root was already in place. You had clubs, players, equipment, places to play, and an acceptance of and openness to adult men playing a ball game. There was already a familiarity with the game or, rather, a form of the game. St. Louis was fertile soil for the New York game and the immediate popularity of the game in the city is evidence of this. The fact that the game not only survived the war years but thrived during the Civil War also supports this.

And we also find this interesting little tidbit in the contemporary sources:

CLUB ORGANIZED, - A base ball club was organized in St. Louis, Mo, on the 1st inst. It boasts of being the first organization of the kind in that city, but will not, surely, long stand alone. It numbers already 18 members, officers as follows: President, C. D. Paul; Vice do, J. T. Haggerty; Secretary, C. Thurber; Treasurer, E. R. Paul. They announce their determination to be ready to play matches in about a month.

-New York Clipper, September 3, 1859

This is the earliest, contemporary reference we have to a St. Louis baseball club. It states that a baseball club was formed in St. Louis, possibly on September 1, 1859, but more likely on August 1, 1859. And there is no doubt that this was a St. Louis club as I can place Charles Thurber and the Paul brothers in the city in 1859. So this seems like solid evidence that baseball was played in St. Louis in 1859.

But nothing is ever easy and I have some problems with this source.

The biggest problem I have is that there is no evidence in this source to suggest that this unnamed club (who I usually refer to as the Unknown Club) played the New York game. Simply stating that this club played baseball is not evidence that they played the New York game. The local baseball variant in St. Louis was often called "base ball," as well as "town ball." And this is a problem we come across when dealing with the early source material. You may stumble across a reference to "base ball" or "ball" or a "ball game" or something like that and it really tells you nothing about what kind of ball game was being played. The 1858 Alton clubs, for example, were called base ball clubs but they weren't playing the New York game. Those clubs were playing a five-inning, thirteen-men-a-side game. That was a form of baseball but it wasn't "baseball." The Unknown Club may have been playing the New York game - and I think that this source coming from the Clipper lends some credence to that - but there is no way, based simply on this one source, to say that for a fact.

The other problem is that there is no evidence that this club ever actually played a game. Tobias does not mention this club in his early history of St. Louis baseball and I can't find any other source that mentions the club. I can't find any reference to Thurber, the Pauls, or Haggerty playing baseball in St. Louis. It's possible that they formed in the summer of 1859 and played intramural games. Most baseball games of this era were intramural games played within a given club. Match games, played between two clubs, were rare. And if they were the first St. Louis club, they wouldn't have had anyone to play anyway. So the lack of any kind of public, contemporary record regard games played is not a huge surprise but what is troubling is the complete lack of references to this club or its members in the secondary source material. Nothing in Tobias. Nothing in Spink. Nothing in any of the articles that appeared in the 1890s chronicling the pioneer era. Nothing.

There is also nothing about this club in the 1860 material. As little as I know about what was going on in 1859, I know pretty much everything about what was happening in the summer of 1860. And this club just isn't mentioned. I know the clubs that were playing in 1860. I know the officers of the clubs. I know what match games were played. There is no evidence that this club was playing in St. Louis in 1860. And that leads me to believe that this club did not survive very long. My best guess is that the Unknown Club formed on August 1, 1859, and did not reorganize for the 1860 season.

Were they playing the New York game? I just don't know and really don't have a good feel for it. I go back and forth on it. The fact the reference appeared in the Clipper is weak support for the idea that they were playing the New York game. But it is some kind of support. However, there is something that Merritt Griswold wrote in the Missouri Democrat in April of 1860 that rings in my ears. When he published the rules of baseball, as codified by the National Convention, in the Democrat that year, Griswold wrote that the "Convention recognizes no playing unless in strict conformity to these rules and regulations." What he was saying was that baseball is a game played according to these rules and only these rules. Anything else is not baseball. I think this was a message to all of the other baseball clubs and players in St. Louis at the time. I think it was a message to the Morning Stars and the Unknown Club and to any other club or players we currently don't know about. You guys, Griswold was saying, may be playing "baseball" but you're not playing baseball.

And that brings us to the real question about 1859. Was the Cyclone Club playing in 1859? I'll tackle that tomorrow. It may take a couple of days to cover it all.

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My Best Guess

Was The Summer of 1859 Even Possible?

The Griswold Letter

Did The Cyclone Club Play In 1859?

Did They Play Baseball In St. Louis In 1859?

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