Road Trips 2018: Elysian Fields and the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club

From the desk of:  THE NEW YORK GAME

ROAD TRIPS 2018:

Cooperstown; Hoboken; Brooklyn: New Haven

ELYSIAN FIELDS

and the

NEW YORK KNICKERBOCKER

Base Ball Club

est. 1845

This a different kind of Road Trip which actually started back in 1977 when I was just a ten-year old baseball fan.  While perusing a local second hand shop along Church Avenue I asked my parents to purchase a book.  Somehow I got them to fork over $4.50 (in 1977 money) because they knew I would actually read it.  In short time I was in possession of The Encyclopedia of Sports (fourth revised edition; 1969; Barnes).  Once home, I flipped right through the history of angling and archery, then auto racing and badminton.  Finally with one more turn of the page for the very first time the original history of baseball lay before my eyes.

It is then I learned Abner Doubleday inventing the game of baseball wasn't true.  A fierce state of debate existed between Albert G. Spalding and (one of the Fathers of Baseball) Henry Chadwick since before the turn of the 20th century regarding this very matter.  It's no less amazing how the myth somewhat endures.  I like many proud native Brooklynites wear our Borough like a red badge of courage.  We know our history well.  However, that has not prohibited me from playing along where it concerns honoring the town of Cooperstown, Doubleday Field, and such faux baseball history.  In making my first trip to Cooperstown in 1990, I was just happy to be there and soaking it all in.  But I finally returned last year nearly forty years after purchasing that book with a wholly different perspective of our National Pastime - particularly the pioneer days of amateurism - because that's what you do when you get older!

This trip indeed started in earnest last summer at Cooperstown Museum and Baseball Hall of Fame, then resumed again this spring with a day trip to Hoboken, New Jersey.  After which, I spent many late afternoons right here in Brooklyn exploring Green-Wood Cemetery.  The final leg of this journey concluded at New Haven, Connecticut, where this past Sunday (Father's Day) I planted a small American flag at the grave of one of the true Fathers of Baseball.

Yet, even this quasi-myth endures ... 

According to the Official Historian for Major League Baseball John Thorn, 

everything on Alexander Cartwright's Hall of Fame plaque is baseless except for 

potentially carrying a baseball to the Pacific Coast and Hawaii (where he lay at rest).

John Thorn lists among the primary Fathers of Baseball:

William Wheaton ~ Doc Adams ~ Louis Fenn Wadsworth

Founded by Doc Adams and Alexander Joy Cartwright, the New York Knickerbockers are officially organized as a base ball club on Sept. 13, 1845, the first elected officers being Duncan Curry (president), William Wheaton (vice president), and William Tucker (secretary and treasurer).

On Sept, 23, 1945, a list of 20 match rules are adopted.

On Friday, June 19, 1846, at Hoboken's Elysian Fields, the New York Knickerbockers base ball club plays their first ever match game according to their adopted rules, and lose by a 23-1 margin in four innings, against a team generally referred to as the New Yorkers or New York Nine.  Alexander Cartwright serves as match umpire.

Truth is, Alexander Cartwright, Duncan Curry, William Wheaton, and William Tucker, all played baseball previously to forming the Knickerbockers.  It has been proven the New York Gothams, who at times also went by the name of the Washingtons, pre-date the Knickerbockers.

However, dissatisfied with a lack of uniform rules and varying standards of play, Cartwright, Wheaton, Curry, Tucker, and others broke away from the Gothams to form the Knickerbockers.  Through time they seem to have received all the notoriety for being the first officially organized baseball club.

Alexander Cartwright is credited with adjusting the Gotham's playing field design of 1842, into what essentially has become the modern baseball diamond we recognize today.  Otherwise, the first standardized rules to govern match play were left to William Wheaton, William Tucker, and Duncan Curry.  Only William Wheaton's and William Tucker's signatures appear on the Knickerbockers rules by-laws.

William Wheaton (1845-48)

Unmarked Grave of William H. Tucker (1845)

DUNCAN CURRY (1845-1854)

Father of Basbeall

First President

Knickerbocker Baseball Club

The First Ball Club Ever Organized

Wheaton is reported saying the rules he and William Tucker drafted for the Knickerbockers in 1845 were scarcely different from those he created for the Gotham club eight years earlier.  Duncan Curry said (Henry Chadwick) had nothing to do with the original rules.  "William Wheaton, William Tucker, and I drew up the first set of rules and that the game was developed by the people who played it and were connected to it."

KNICKERBOCKER RULES 

Only William Wheaton's and William Tucker's 

signatures appear on the rules by-laws.

Reading these rules is understanding they are a refined version of previous rules that differed from varying locations throughout the Northeast.  Henry Chadwick maintained the game evolved from Rounders and cricket, whereas A.G. Spalding desired to establish an American genesis to the game of baseball.  As such, the game was variously known as Town Ball; Base; Rounders; Old Cat; just to name a few.  The introduction of the Knickerbockers rules effectively inaugurated a version of baseball that came to be widely known as the New York Game.  The Knickerbocker rules would dominate match play until the 1857 convention of the National Association of Base Ball Players effectively tamed the Knickerbockers traditional sway.  By the late 1860s, amateurism no longer seems appealing to players and fans alike as the professional game emerges.

I present to you six of the nine Knickerbockers whom participated in the June 19, 1846 game against the New Yorks:

• see William H. Tucker pictured above.
• Ebenezer R. Dupignac, Jr. FOUNDER/OFFICER (1845-1855) is buried at Trinity Church; Wall Street and Broadway, New York City.

DOC ADAMS (Founder)

JOHN PAULDING (1846)

WALTER TITUS AVERY

(1846, 1857-61)

DANIEL TRYON (1846-54)

Unmarked CHARLES BIRNEY

(1846-47)

Club Flag ~ Knickerbocker Base Ball Club ~ HOF

HOF DISPLAY

The image off right is believed to be the first picture depicting competing clubs on a baseball field.

Standing at center in top hat and black coat is Doc Adams.

To his right ~ New York Knickerbockers.

To his left ~ Excelsiors of Brooklyn.

(1859)

LOUIS FENN WADSWORTH

Started his career with the early Gothams; Switched to Knickerbockers

He is credited with making baseball a nine inning game;

credited for establishing nine players per side.

JAMES WHYTE DAVIS

Began Knickerbocker Career in 1845

Knickerbockers President 1858-1860

His grave was previously unmarked.

He was interred wrapped in the team banner.

Two years ago (2016) SABR and MLB, Peter Nash,

and two great granddaughters of his teammate, Doc Adams, 

were among those responsible for dedicating this plaque in memory if him.

ELYSIAN FIELD PORTRAIT ~ HOF

The Knickerbockers conducted limited activities at the Red House Grounds at 2nd Avenue and 105 Street in Harlem.  By 1842 the Knickerbockers were stationed along 27th Street off Madison Square in Manhattan.  After which they moved to 3rd Avenue in Murray Hill.  But they would again need to relocate and came to call the Elysian Fields home.

Just beyond the waterfront, and behind the old Colonnade Hotel, stood the old cricket grounds and Elysian Fields.  Baseball had been played here on an informal basis since the 1830s by the aforementioned Gothams and others.  However, the famous game taking place between the Knickerbockers and New Yorkers on June 19, 1846 is considered the first match game between two competing clubs.  The Knickerbockers previously limited themselves to intramural games.

Central Park opened in 1857 replacing Hoboken as the park of choice, and the Elysian Fields vanished under new development (pictured below).  The site is considered the birthplace of modern baseball.

The June 19, 1846 marker sits within the traffic divider opposite above view.

Members of the

New York Knickerbockers

ALONZO SLOTE (1862-63, 1868)

ARCHIBALD GOURLIE (1845)

WALTER TITUS AVERY (1846)

CHARLES SCHYLER DeBOST

(1845-47, 1850-59, 1875)

Played catcher and was considered an All-Star of his day.

His epitaph reads:

"The Strife Is Over, The Battle Done, The Victory of Life Is Won."

FRALEY NIEBUHR 

Officer: 1848-49 

Vice President: 1850

President: 1853-54

Director: 1860

Player: 1848-58

HENRY T. MORGAN (1848)

JAMES WENNMAN (1850s)

shortstop

SAMUEL YATES (1850s-1860s)

Started with Knickerbockers; moved to New York Eagles Club

CONNECTIONS:

Arthur and older brother Edward Ebbets both played briefly for the New York Knickerbockers.  They are the first cousins once removed of Charles Ebbets (Brooklyn Dodgers).  They were grandsons to Charles Ebbets' great grandparents.  Like Alexander Cartwright, both brothers headed west in 1849 to partake in the California gold rush.

Resources:
The brilliant works and efforts of John Thorn; Thomas W. Gilbert author of Playing First: Early Baseball Lives at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery; Peter J. Nash author of Baseball Legends of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery; Base Ball Founders: The Clubs, Players, and Cities of the Northeast that Established the Game, edited by Peter Morris, William J. Ryczek, Jan Finkel, Leonard Levin, Richard Malatzky, whom collectively are revealing the true origins of baseball.  I would also like to thank the staff at Green-Wood Cemetery for all their kind assistance.