The Base Ball Tournament during the week of the great exhibition is expected to be an interesting affair. Several good clubs from abroad have given assurances of their purpose to be here. The committee has arranged the order of the playing and have named the Dirigo vs. Etna to begin the games on the morning of the first day. On Monday evening, the Empires vs. Resolute; Tuesday, A.M., Olympic, of Carondelet, vs. Atlantic; Tuesday, P.M., Union, Jr., vs. St. Louis; Wednesday, A.M., the winning club of Monday A.M., vs. the winning club of Tuesday A.M.; Wednesday, P.M., Excelsior, of Chicago, vs. the Unions; Thursday, A.M., winning club of Wednesday, A.M., vs. winning club of Thursday, P.M. Thursday, P.M., winning club of Monday, P.M., vs winning club of Wednesday P.M.; Friday, the winning club of Thursday. The games will commence at 10 o'clock A.M. and 2 o'clock P.M., each day, and any club failing to appear at the time designated the club on the ground will be declared the winning club.
Col. A.R. Easton, Jno. Young, H.G. Smith, Walter Carr and W.B. Edgar were appointed by the Fair Association to arrange matters connected with the contests. It is to be regretted that the prizes offered were not published sooner. Had they been placed in the prize list of the Fair, there would have been many clubs from the East to engage in these games. It seems that only four or five days ago the news of the proposed tournament found its way to New York, for the papers of that city last Friday had a notice of them for the first time. It will be quite an interesting time for the clubs near St. Louis, and will afford a rare treat to many visitors of the Fair.
-Missouri Republican, October 2, 1868
I had to read that first paragraph a couple of times and still couldn't make sense out of the tournament schedule. It's transcribed exactly as it appeared in the Republican but the whole thing gets a bit confused when they start trying to explain the Thursday schedule. Not a big deal but let's just note that the paper probably messed things up.
The note about New York clubs playing in the tournament if they had gotten more notice is unrealistic and shows some ignorance of how these clubs scheduled games. They would have needed several weeks notice and certain assurances regarding the amount of money they would receive. Even with that, it's unlikely they would have made the long trip to St. Louis just to play a couple of games. The only reason the big Eastern clubs came to St. Louis during this era was because they were on long, multi-city tours that featured ten to twenty stops and twenty to forty games. They weren't coming to St. Louis just for a tournament. That's not the way things worked in 1868.
The note about New York clubs playing in the tournament if they had gotten more notice is unrealistic and shows some ignorance of how these clubs scheduled games. They would have needed several weeks notice and certain assurances regarding the amount of money they would receive. Even with that, it's unlikely they would have made the long trip to St. Louis just to play a couple of games. The only reason the big Eastern clubs came to St. Louis during this era was because they were on long, multi-city tours that featured ten to twenty stops and twenty to forty games. They weren't coming to St. Louis just for a tournament. That's not the way things worked in 1868.
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