When Boston Brought Baseball to Britain (episode 273)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 73. That time when Boston brought baseball to Britain.
Hi, I’m Jake Spring in Boston means baseball this week.
I’m talking about the time in 18 74 when the Boston Red Stockings tried to bring America’s national pastime to Britain 100 20 years before the world baseball classic.
Boston’s biggest baseball promoter, did his level best to get the cricket fans in Jolly Old hooked on his game and the fact that he could sell them all the mits bats and gloves that they would ever need was just a happy accident.
I’m sure Red Stockings pitcher and future sporting goods magnate, Al Spalding led the team on the world baseball tour.
But would they actually be able to convert English strikers to batters and bowlers to pitchers and for the team with their nearly two month long diversion mean the end of their pennant race for 18 74.
I’ll answer those questions and more in just a moment. But before we talk about the 18 74 Red Stockings and the World Baseball Tour.
I just want to pause and say a big thank you to all the listener supporters who make it possible for me to make hub history.

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Music

Jake:
[3:19] Longtime listeners may remember hearing me talk about Cy Young and his special day back in episode 2 54 which aired last summer for anyone who listened to that episode.
It’s probably pretty clear that I’ve never been a sports type of person.
However, I’ve had baseball on the brain for the last couple of weeks because my new office is almost right next door to Fenway Park.
Of course, I couldn’t go and pick a relatively easy topic, like say the curse of the Bambino.
Instead I had to pick something a little bit more obscure, something from decades before the Red Sox were a gleam in C W Summer’s Eye.
When the Red Stockings were Boston’s team, the franchise’s name would change over the years to the Boston be the Rustlers.
And finally, the Braves and the team would eventually move from the south end grounds to Braves field on today’s B U campus to Milwaukee and finally to Atlanta.

[4:19] However, the Boston Red Stockings, the team that we know is the Atlanta Braves basically got its start in Boston in 18 71 making it the oldest franchise in Major League baseball.
From the beginning. The team was anchored by Al Spalding and Harry Wright with David Vot writing in 1970, in 18 71 the first Major League was launched and its brief five year history was a glorious era for New England fans, operating under the unwieldy title of the National association of professional baseball players.
The league was a jerry built structure that wheezed through five campaigns before succumbing to the National league coup of 18 76.
But while it lasted, the association was Boston’s pride at the birth of Major League baseball in 18 71 Boston’s mighty presence was felt from the start.
It was the Boston manager, William Henry Harry Wright, who helped to organize the league, then who guided the Boston Red Stockings to four consecutive pennants, narrowly missing a clean sweep of five in a row, in a 2005 book about the early history of baseball, Stefan Semansky and Andrew Zimbalist described how Harry Wright’s background led him to a game that was still brand new in the 18 seventies.

[5:41] Historians have often referred to the N A PB B P as Harry Wright’s League and Wright in many ways was its leading light.
He later demurred the title father of the game offered to him by William Holbert, but he did nurse the ambition to introduce baseball into England.
Wright himself was born in England, the son of a professional cricketer who immigrated to America where both father and son were paid to play for the ST George Cricket club of Staten Island.
He was still a cricket professional in 18 67 when he switched to try out the baseball code and played center field for Cincinnati in 18 69.

[6:21] Of course, a baseball team isn’t complete without a pitcher and Wright picked a star to lead the team with Vot continuing as his pitcher.
Wright selected Albert Goodwill Spalding the 19 year old prodigy of the Rockford team already acclaimed as one of the finest pitchers in the land.
The ambitious Spalding had captain Rockford in 18 70.
According to one writer, his control was deadly accurate and his jerky underhanded delivery was very deceptive.
Others wrote glowingly of his speed as having quote the precision and rapidity of a cannon shot at six ft one inch.
Spalding was one of the tallest men in the New league and his ambition exceeded his height, shrewd, calculating and a born promoter.
He viewed baseball as a stepping stone to a profitable career in the sporting goods industry.

[7:18] With Wright as player manager and Spalding on the mound. The Red Stockings were a force to be reckoned with in the early years of professional baseball.
The 18 78 edition of Spalding’s own guide to the game stated, in 18 71 the Boston Club was organized and contained nearly the same members for five years winning the championship four successive years from 18 72 to 18 75 inclusive.
Harry Wright and his little brother George, who the George Wright golf course on the Hyde Park.
Roslindale line is named after got their start when their immigrant father taught them to play cricket.
Harry got a job as a cricket pro in Cincinnati in 18 65 but he made the jump to baseball the next year as the new game’s popularity was really starting to take off by 18 69.
His Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first team to openly pay its players after two professional seasons, the team folded and Harry Wright took the name with him when he moved to Boston.
The book National Pastime by Semansky and symbolist focuses on the business of baseball and they noted that the franchise that Wright and Spalding led was almost immediately a very big business.

[8:37] The teams organized as joint stock companies with the wealthiest backers were able to hire the best players.
The average yearly salary of joint stock teams was $1200.
While that for teams organized as cooperatives was only $300.
The Boston team organizes a joint stock company paid an average salary of $1450 in 18 71 and 2050 in 18 75.
In 18 75 the Red Stockings pre Bambino curse record was 71 wins against only eight losses and 8 99 win percentage.
As baseball took the country by storm. Teams slowly realized that there was real money to be made by playing other teams outside their own city or region.
Starting in the 18 sixties, club teams started going on tour, kicked off by the Brooklyn Excelsior in 18 60 who played in seven towns around upstate New York.
In 18 67 the Washington Nationals went to Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, Saint Louis and Chicago and they made a killing.
The Cincinnati Red Stockings followed their lead and since they were paying their players, they could play at a higher level than the gentleman of leisure who played for other clubs and whose main qualifications seemed to be having enough money to be able to take summers off to play baseball.

[10:06] In the two years when they played professionally, the Cincinnati Club toured dozens of cities mostly in the Midwest and racked up a 70 nothing winning record.
Now, that manager Harry Wright was playing in Boston, he wanted to capture that same tour of magic for his new and newly dominant team.
But on a larger scale, right at the vision to take baseball to his father’s ancestral home in hopes of hooking cricket players.
And more importantly, fans on the new game.

[10:39] After all, he’d been a cricket player and he’d made the switch in national pastime, Semansky and Zimbalist.
Right in the spring of 18 74 Wright sent the young Al Spalding to England to negotiate a tour of England for the Boston Red Stockings and the Philadelphia athletics.
Spalding tells a delightful tale of how he managed to in an interview with the Dukes of the MC C, meaning the Marley Bone cricket club who owned and still owned Lord’s cricket grounds, which is basically the spiritual home of world cricket.
In his version, this 24 year old stood before the club committee whose luminaries included the Prince of Wales, the marquee of Hamilton and the Earls of Dudley Sefton and Clarendon, and explained that whereas the English have been sending many fine cricketers to America for some years, the Americans had now invented their own game and would like to send over a couple of teams to show the English how it was played, in his enthusiasm.
Spalding even suggested that some of the baseball players were familiar with cricket, with the endorsement of the pinnacle of cricket’s establishment.
The tourists were able to arrange a full calendar of dates around the British Isles for the summer of 18 74 including Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, Surrey and Dublin, as well as Lords.

[12:04] Boston learned about the ambitious plans that Spalding and Wright had worked out for their team when Spalding came back home in March of 18 74 tour details were announced in the March 23rd edition of the Boston Globe, as the time approaches for the opening of the regular baseball season.
The interest in the proposed European tour of the Boston and athletic clubs increases.
Mr Spalding’s skillful management has already ensured a successful trip and nothing remains but to settle the minor details of the excursion, the port from which the players will sail has not yet been determined, but they will leave this country either on July 16th or 18th, arriving in Liverpool by the 27th or 29th of the same month and play a baseball match the first or second day after landing, this of course will depend somewhat upon the condition of the players leaving Liverpool immediately after playing there.
They’ll probably take Manchester en route to London and give an exhibition game there and afterwards reach London by Saturday, August 1st, the following Monday will be the grand opening.
It’s a holiday in the city and advantage will be taken to that to improve the opportunity to the utmost.

[13:23] The season opened at home on May 2nd with a win over the New York Mutuals.
And with that, they were off to the races.
The Red Stockings won their 1st 13 games in a row and by July 15th, they were up to 30 and zero.
Their last game in the States before their international adventure kicked off was played in Philly where they picked up their opponents for the world tour.
The athletics predecessor club to the Oakland A’s on the eve of that last domestic game, the Chicago Daily Inter Ocean reported.
The athletics in Boston will sail for England Thursday and all the arrangements have been completed.
They will sail on the steamship Ohio of the American steamship line and expect to arrive at Liverpool in time to play their first game on July 30th, the day before their departure, they will play in Philadelphia and there is no doubt but the contest will be close.
We learned from a Philadelphia paper that President grant has been invited to attend.
Also, Governor John F Harran and mayor William S Stokely and other city and state officials, the officers of the steamship company and the officers of the steamship Ohio.

[14:39] Boston lost that last domestic game 4 to 6.
And the next morning, both teams boarded the steamer Ohio to cross the pond together, with them on the trip were a number of journalists who collectively wrote a bunch of stories about the journey, all of which they had to sit on until they got to England because this was long before email, satellite phones or even radio communication.
One of those stories was finally filed under a July 27th Dateline in the Boston journal before bidding goodbye to the little group of friends who accompanied us from Boston.
Mr Apollon, the president of the Boston baseball club called All into the Lady’s saloon and made a short address to the club stating that they were going abroad under the charge of one of their directors, Mr C H Porter and their captain Harry Wright, that the honor of the Boston Club was in the hands of the players by whom it would be maintained.
And in conclusion, he wished to state that while it had been rumored in certain quarters that the Boston and athletics were to win and lose.
Alternately, the management of the Boston club assented to no such thing, but the Red Stockings would always play to win.

[15:52] In his 1992 history of the National Association of baseball players, William Rezek describes what everyone knows was happening on board the Ohio while the reporters were writing stories about how the players spent their time reading the Bible and writing letters to their mothers and what have you, Reek Road during the 11 day trip across the ocean.
Harry Wright attempted to relieve the boredom by giving cricket instruction as well as could be managed in the limited confines of the ship.
Otherwise the men passed the idle hours by playing cards. Shuffleboard and chess.
This is what was reported 19th century ballplayers being what they were.
It’s likely that an abundant supply of liquor was brought aboard to speed along the chest and shuffle board.
The voyage was marked by agreeable weather and the player’s land legs sufficed to maintain their health at sea.
Only Sutton Barnes and Sinar turned even a pale sheet of green.
Although George Wright spent the entire trip complaining of seasickness, the Ohio finally tied up at the docks in Liverpool on July 27th.
And Herald reporter H S Kempton filed a lengthy story about the trip three days later.

[17:07] When our steamer anchored in the Mercy River last Monday night, two gentlemen from Philadelphia who’d been in the city a short time went out on the tug to meet the athletics, waving American flags and manifesting some enthusiasm.
If this can be called a reception, then the American ball players have been received.
But aside from this up to this afternoon, there has been no interest shown in our arrival.
And as it seems to me, very few persons are aware that two American ball clubs are in town.

[17:38] The other guests at the hotel have found out that the party comprises the American Baseballers and probably some others in town who have succeeded in finding the obscure posters announcing the game today or the very brief reference to the arrival of the clubs in some of the papers have become aware of the same fact, as Kempton reported, the tour seemed to be off to a bit of a rocky start with the teams not receiving the hero’s welcome that Al Spalding and led them to expect.
As Reek’s account describes, the Americans spent two days in the dreary industrial city, reacquiring their land legs, changing their dollars into pounds and wandering around in virtual anonymity.
None of the citizens had any inkling who the Americans were or why they were in Liverpool reporter H S Kemp Kempton’s lengthy Herald story from July 30th.
18 74 includes a few more details about how the baseball tourists spent those two days in virtual anonymity.
The first day here was spent by the boys and seeing some of the sights of the place singly or in small groups.
They visited the places of interest and amused themselves noting the novelties to be met with everywhere.
Saint George’s Hall, the exchange, the town hall and the parks came in for their share of attention and afforded considerable gratification.

[19:02] Two or three of the party who had accompanied the clubs in the steamer left for London, not caring to stay longer among the minor attractions of this place.

[19:11] In the afternoon, the boys rode out to the grounds upon which they were to play at Edge Hill near the pleasant Wavertree Park.
They are the grounds of the Liverpool cricket club and were found to be almost as smooth as a carpeted floor in extent, they are a third larger than the grounds of the Boston Club being nearly as wide as the latter are long.
Now that they had their land legs back, they’d seen the sights of Liverpool and they’d even had a chance to check out the local cricket grounds.
It was time to play some baseball.
Certainly after the blessing that Al Spalding had secured from the Cardinals of cricket and the demand he and Harry right saw in Britain, this would be baseball’s moment in the sun, right?
Well, not so fast.

[20:00] Reek’s book describes what the gate returns were like for the first game at Edge Hill on July 30th.
The two teams went to the playing field at 2 30 PM to lay out the grounds for their first game.
Roughly a dozen Spectators were on hand, Tim Murnane and Tommy Beals who were attending the ticket booths sat idly awaiting the crowds.
Harry Wright had envisioned by the time the game started, roughly 500 were in attendance, far less than might have been expected for a routine championship game in the United States.
The athletics won a high scoring 10 inning thriller by the score of 14 to 11.
The second game went to Boston 23 18 before a disappointing crowd numbering fewer than 200 Boston batted first in the first game and didn’t do well going three up and three down.
They got a couple of runs in the second and another in the third.
But then they allowed eight runs in the bottom of the third.
The A’s went up by one more in the seventh. The Reds closed the gap a bit in the last three innings evening up the score in the eighth and holding it there until the 10th when they went up by three runs, but then allowed Philly to score five in the bottom of the 10th making for a disappointing start to the tour.
Kim’s July 30th article continued.

[21:24] The first game of baseball has just been concluded and the Red Stockings lost by a score of 14 to 11 in 10 innings.
As the boys went upon the grounds at half past two o’clock this afternoon, the prospect was discouraging enough as there were less than a dozen Spectators upon the grounds.
Visions of the tour ending in failure flitted before the eyes of the managers while the boys treated the matter jokingly making facetious remarks about the crowd and offering their condolences to Mein and Beals who were on the gate and who found themselves with nothing to do.
Benches have been placed upon two sides of the ground, but the prospect of their being occupied was small enough.
An extent of canvas had also been placed across the lower end of the field to shut out the view of intruders.
But even the sight of intruders would have been welcome.

[22:16] They played another game in Liverpool the next day and the turnout was even worse.

[22:22] They played another game in Liverpool the next day and the turnout was even worse, but at least Boston won then they moved along to Manchester where the A’s took home.
The w the crowds didn’t get much better along the way, dipping down to 200 then back up to 2000.
One reason for the disappointing ticket sales had to be the persistent confusion among English sports fans as to just what exactly baseball was and how it differed from a local kids game before the Americans landed.
And during their visit, British newspapers published plenty of explanations of baseball’s rules like this one published in the London Daily News in early August.
The game of baseball has already been sufficiently described in our columns to give our readers a good idea of its plan.
In fact, it’s the old game of Rounders considerably elaborated.
The bases are at the angles of a square instead of being in a circle and the ball when fielded is returned to a man who stands at each base, the runner being put out if the ball is held by the baseman before he arrives there.
In addition, there’s a man who stands behind the striker and who acts pretty much as a wicketkeeper in cricket, except that he appears to be considerably more in danger of the striker’s club than of the ball, which is not a very formidable looking article.

[23:47] The game is played with nine on each side of whom for the side that is in can be playing at once while of course the whole nine of the other side are engaged in fielding.
The match yesterday was well played by both sides but the advantage remained with the Bostonians who both made and saved runs in excellent fashion.
The striking was exceedingly good and the fielding was worthy of all praise.
It is seldom even in the best cricket fields of England. The better catches of quicker returns are made.
These descriptions didn’t do much to sell tickets with Matthew Schloss writing in his 2013 masters essay about Abner double day during the 18 74 tour.
The English press were confused by the game.
One writer wondered why a man would want to be accused of stealing a base and why the umpire called ball one when four balls, meaning pitches had already been thrown.
The only way they seemed to be able to describe it to readers was that it resembled their schoolboy game of Rounders.
Rounders had a ball, a bat and four bases. So you can see how somebody might get the two confused.
Some variation of the game was played in the British Isles since roughly the 15 hundreds.
But by the mid 18 hundreds, the game was mostly associated with Children and even worse, mostly with girls.

[25:16] Much as the American sporting press tried to fight this uncool association.
Even Al Spalding’s own official baseball guide for 18 78 admitted that baseball had its roots in Rounders.
The Englishman who watched the American clubs in England and accused them of playing Rounders were not so far out of the way, the game unquestionably thus originated and brought itself gradually into the Massachusetts game out of which grew again, the New York game, the latter with its continual improvement has come to be the National game.
Though the changes from the Massachusetts game up to it can be pretty plainly traced and many libraries can be found.
The handbooks published in Boston about 18 57 giving the rules for the Massachusetts game with its softball, six ft stakes for bases and permission to put a man out by hitting him with the ball thrown.
Also the New York game with the same general ideas now, except that a fair ball caught on the first bound, gave out the former game died out or rather gave way to the latter.

[26:27] There’s probably enough material out there for a whole other podcast about the original Massachusetts rules for baseball, but I’m not gonna try and figure that out right now.
The similarity between Rounders and baseball made the new game feel more familiar, and familiarity breeds contempt.
The Brits considered cricket a refined game where gentlemen of leisure, delicately bold and elegantly defended their wickets while baseball was little more than a minor refinement on a kids’ game played by Commoners for Money.
In an essay titled That’s your way of playing Rounders, isn’t it?
Daniel Boyce explained how these similarities proved counterproductive for American baseball promoters.

[27:12] The limited coverage given to baseball drew comparison between it and the old English pastime of Rounders.
The Liverpool Daily Albion noted for example, that baseball must already be familiar to everyone who knows the game of Rounders.
The London Daily News published letters from readers who suggested that the new game the Americans were exhibiting was not new at all.
For example, one reader claimed that the so called American game of baseball is merely a modification of the game of Rounders, which is played in every village in Scotland at the present time.
It is worth noting that around this time Rounders was played in Gloucester, Merseyside, Scotland and South Wales in particular.
But according to Binion and Evans history of Rounders, there was little of an organized nature about the game played in these locations, in the years that followed the tendency to describe baseball in patronizing terms as Rounders in disguise as it were, became even more marked within the English press coverage of baseball matches.

[28:19] Finally, the tour reached London where the Red Stockings were scheduled to play the athletics at Lord’s cricket ground on August 3rd Lords was the heart and soul of British cricket.
So if baseball could make it here, it could make it anywhere.
As early as the first public announcement of the tour in the March 23rd globe.
It was clear that London was always meant to be the highlight of the trip.
A grand international cricket match we played at 11 AM American 22 versus English 11 1 innings to be played.
And at three P MA baseball match between the two American clubs, the next four noon, the cricket match will be concluded and followed in the afternoon by baseball English nine with an American pitcher versus American nine.
The former taking six outs to an inning.
All of the above games will be on the Lord’s cricket ground.

[29:17] William Reik described the welcome that the American players found both in the streets of London and on the grounds of Lords, the next stop was London, which proved to be the climax of the trip.
The tourists arrived on Sunday and Sunday ball being for bow and spent the day seeing the sights in the capital.
The Americans experienced the reception that they had expected when they walked down the gang plank of the Ohio.

[29:45] When they arrived at the Lord’s cricket grounds. The following day, the players were greeted with a large banner proclaiming welcome to England and a dozen other flags including the stars and stripes fluttering in the breeze.
There were 5000 denizens of the British Isles crowded into the ground to see the strange game of baseball either by design or good fortune.
Alcock had scheduled the opening game in London on a bank holiday on which virtually the entire city was excused from work.
The teams finally had the crowd that they’ve been led to expect.
But as these accounts make clear, there’s only one way to get cricket fans excited.
You have to actually, you know, play some cricket cricket exhibitions have been a feature at each stop along the tour.
So far, usually with a local club facing off against the best cricketers from the two American teams combined.
The Americans were always given the advantage of fielding extra players sometimes playing 18 against a standard 11 man cricket team.

[30:49] That pattern continued at the first game at Lords on August 3rd.
As reported in the next day’s globe, the American baseball players met the Marley Bone 11 today at cricket.
The game being played at Lord’s grounds, the Americans won the toss and sent the Marley Bones to the back.
Four of the English players were out for 42 runs when the game was adjourned for a lunch.
A game of baseball followed commencing at three o’clock resulting in a victory for the Boston’s after which cricket was resumed.
5000 Spectators were present.

[31:27] Al Spalding had oversold the cricket playing abilities of the American baseball players.
When he arranged the trip the previous winter, most of the Americans barely understood the rules of the game and their play was far from professional with a wire story that was printed in the Richmond Daily dispatch, noting, the bowling of the Americans in the game of cricket was weak.
The newspapers consider that the playing of the Americans of baseball and cricket alternately yesterday gives the Marley Bone Club an undue advantage and so much exertion must fatigue their opponents.

[32:02] The journals published long details of the game of baseball, giving full explanations, et cetera.
The beautiful catching of the Americans is particularly referred to unfortunately for Spalding and right and their hopes of hooking London on baseball.
The players didn’t perform much better at the American national pastime that night than they did at cricket.
In his book, William Reik describes how the hallowed ground of Lords itself conspired to keep the athletics and the Red Stockings from putting on a good show at Lord’s.
Unfortunately, it was not a skillful exhibition that these Londoners saw Joe Batton in particular had a rough day committing four of the athletics 11 errors.
The Red Stockings leased four home runs off mcbride and buried Philadelphia by an embarrassing 24 to 7 margin.
The turf at Lords was so hard that any drive hit into the gaps between the outfielders skipped past them for a home run.
In addition to the four Boston blasts, Adrian Anson connected for the athletics, in the two games at Liverpool, nine home runs had been hit a figure much higher than that achieved in domestic contests.
London was the high water mark of the trip. Not only was the attendance far beyond that realized in any other city, but the social highlight occurred when the Marley Bone Club hosted the Americans at a sumptuous banquet.

[33:30] After their exciting visit but lackluster performance at Lords.
The Americans played at the Crystal Palace in Croydon on August 11 with a report from that day’s London Daily News later reprinted in the August 24th Globe.
The American baseball teams who have been playing in various parts of the country since their arrival gave an exhibition of the skill and address in their national game at the Crystal Palace.
Yesterday, the contest which was between the Boston and Philadelphia teams took place in the cricket ground was witnessed by a very numerous assemblage of Spectators and by many members of the Crystal Palace Cricket club who appeared to take a great interest in the game.

[34:12] After London, the Americans moved on to Kennington, Sheffield and then back to Manchester on August 20th, attendance was lackluster at best, but the players remained in fairly high spirits.
After all, they were getting paid and none of these games counted toward the outcome of their seasons.
So they were probably having a pretty good time when crowds did come out.
They typically just came out for the cricket match and then it thinned out when the players traded in cricket clubs for baseball bats.
Schloss notes that there was one area where the British press were willing to give the Americans due credit yet they still couldn’t win over British Sports fans over and over again.
The press commented on how adept the Americans were at catching and throwing the ball.
Although they were impressed and thought cricket fielders could learn a thing or two from the American fielders.
Still, they thought that cricket’s focus on the hitter made the game more beautiful than baseball.
That the use of the bat is not the most important feature in baseball is at once evident.
Thus, one of the chief beauties of cricket is absent from the game.
Interestingly, the English cricketers had no interest in fielding quote.
You couldn’t get our fellows out to practice shying the ball.
This is looked on as the drudgery of the game.
It was done by the hirings of professionals.

[35:36] After almost a month of getting looked down on by gentlemen cricketers, the American Baseballers were probably relieved to leave England behind and try their MITS in Ireland.
Eric Mli published a very helpful essay about the 18 74 tour on mag.
And in it, he includes a few excerpts from Red Stockings left fielder.
Andy Leonard’s diary provided to Mli by Leonard’s grandson Charles mccarthy Friday.
August 21st played the second innings of cricket at Manchester left the city for Dublin at 10 45 AM.
Arrived in Dublin at 10 30 PM.
A pleasant trip across the channel.

[36:18] Two days later, Leonard’s diary gives a window into how the players spent their first days on the Emerald Isle, August 23rd went around the city in a jaunting car, visited Phoenix Park, Nelson’s monument on Sackville Street, Trinity College, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, royal barracks, exhibition buildings, et cetera, et cetera.
The last two games of the tour were played in Dublin and it seems like the players were getting just about ready to go back home.
They complained that their hotel wasn’t up to the usual standards and that their per diem for food wasn’t enough to pay for decent meals in the city before they could make a beeline home.
However, they had exhibitions of cricket and baseball to put on before the Irish sporting public on August 24th and 25th.
Kim’s latest article in the Herald kept sports fans back home up to date with how the Red Stockings were faring.

[37:17] To play against the American team and 11 have been got together from different parts of Ireland, consisting of gentlemen players, including some of the best bats on the island.
It was probably as strong a team as could have been got together and in fact, it was claimed to be such the ground selected for the playing was a very poor one.
It is known as the Irish Champion athletic club ground and was a rough unoccupied field only a year ago.
At the present time, it’s little better as the whole surface.
With the exception of a small circle in the center upon which the wicket is pitched is as uneven as a New England cow pasture on such a ground.
Anything like a fair exhibition of either cricket or baseball was out of the question.

[38:05] Only about 1500 total Spectators attended two days of cricket and baseball exhibitions though for at least one player, this was an important homecoming that provided a sense of redemption, that homecoming was for Andy Leonard, an Irish immigrant and survivor of the potato famine.
His diary entry again provided to Mick by Leonard’s grandson Charles mccarthy noted Tuesday, August 25th stopped at the Farnham Arms Hotel.
Cavan made 26 runs in cricket against the Irish 11 beaten by the athletics at baseball.
Mick’s essay also includes a note from grandson mccarthy. The notations for Tuesday the 25th are of great interest to us. Descendants.
Oral family history has been returning triumphantly to his hometown of Cavan as both an American champion ball and as a native born Irishman survivor of the great hunger who had battered the English cricket champion silly at their own game.

[39:09] Despite the disappointing ticket sales and other difficulties mccarthy is right, the Americans had beaten the English silly at their own game.
At the end of the tour, the Americans could claim to have not lost a single cricket match while they were in Britain.
Although this is probably due more to Al Spalding’s arrangement for them to play with far more than the standard 11 players on a side rather than any actual skill advantage over some of the best cricketers in the British Isles, Kemp’s reporting claims that the Americans could have beaten the Brits with only 11 men, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

[39:44] The Red Stockings could hold their heads up high on the baseball side having finished the exhibition series eight games to six.
Though of course, none of the victories in these exhibition games would count toward the pennant race back home.
Finally, it was time to board the train that would take them to the boat home with Kemp reporting.

[40:04] The flying Irishman as the rapid mail train is called left Dublin early in the evening and reached Cork with a tired party about two o’clock am, half a dozen hours sleep and breakfast at a hotel and then a ride of 12 miles brought us to Queenstown.
Here the entire day was spent waiting for the steamer from Liverpool in which we were to embark.
The boys got rid of what English money they had remaining, making purchases of such small souvenirs as they chanced to see, the time dragged heavily.
And everybody was glad when the tug left the wharf and the party approached the Abbotsford which had come to anchor in the mouth of the harbor.
As the party sat down to supper, the anchors were weighed, the engine set in motion and the Abbotsford was headed towards home in his book, Black Guards and Red Stockings.
William Reek noted the return ocean voyage was difficult as the ship encountered four days of rough seas and a violent storm.
One of the steerage passengers, not one of the baseball party died of consumption and had to be buried at sea.

[41:16] The last days of the journey, however, were marked by pleasant weather and board passengers as the players were nearly unanimous in having had their fill of Europe and sea travel.
The Abbotsford arrived at the Christian Street wharf in Philadelphia at seven PM on September 9th to a rousing welcome.
Kemp Kempton’s report adds detail to this description of the homecoming the steamer Abbotsford with the Boston’s and the athletics on board reached their wharf here by 8 15 PM.
She was met in the Delaware River and escorted to the city by a half a dozen tugboats filled with enthusiastic friends.
One boat contained a delegation from Boston which was warmly greeted by the Red Stockings.
The greatest enthusiasm was displayed by all and a splendid reception was given.
A large crowd is expected to witness the home match tomorrow.
Rei’s description notes that the best days of the world baseball tour were the day the players left home and the day they got back.

[42:20] When Johnny mcmullin leading both teams bounded down the gang plank, the multitude erupted in a joyous shout, July 16th and September 9th had perhaps been the highlights of the trip as the send off and reception in the United States far out did anything experienced abroad on the 10th, Boston beat Philadelphia in Philly.
Then Reik continues.
Two days later, the teams traveled to Boston on the New York Express over the Albany road where they’re greeted with strains of Yankee doodle Dandy when Johnny comes marching home and for Harry Wright hail to the chief.

[42:59] So what exactly did the tour mean for the future of British baseball?
Well, you might have noticed that our friends across the pond are not exactly considered baseball powerhouses though they did field a team for the World Baseball Classic in 2023 after qualifying for the first time, despite very negative stories by Kemp and other reporters about how the tour had been promoted.
Al Spalding wrote about the tour and his official baseball guide for 18 78 and at least by that time, he wasn’t totally convinced that the tour had been a failure.
Maybe the Brits just needed time to get some teams started in the summer of 18 74.
They together with the athletic club of Philadelphia undertook the trip to Europe and were quite successful in introducing our national game in England.
Games were played in London, Liverpool, Richmond, Sheffield, Manchester and Dublin and considerable interest was manifested in the game.
The fielding of the Americans was very highly praised, especially by the cricketers and it was acknowledged on all sides that nothing approaching it had ever before been seen in England.

[44:10] In addition to the baseball games, cricket matches were arranged for the prominent cricket clubs in the above named cities and it’s no small credit to the American baseball players that they won every game of cricket that they engaged in though it should be added that the Americans played 18 men against 12 cricketers.

[44:29] And that’s your way of playing rounders, isn’t it?
Daniel Boyce described the high expectations and great disappointments of the 18 74 world baseball tour.

[44:40] At the beginning of the tour, the Liverpool Daily Albion suggested that although it is extremely improbable that baseball is going to supplant cricket amongst us, the game is one that is now pretty sure to be introduced in England.
The Manchester Guardian shared this view stating that we shall be surprised if it does not speedily become naturalized amongst us.
The Boston Post went further suggesting that several baseball clubs have formed in the north of England.
However, evidence of the formation of these clubs cannot be found in the English press.
The exhibition matches had no direct success in stimulating competitive matches amongst the native population.
In his 1970 article arguing that the 18 seventies Red Stockings were the first major league baseball franchise.
David Vot describes how the team was able to get their season back on track after nearly two months on the wrong side of the Atlantic, back in the United States, the Chason missionaries of American baseball faced the task of finishing their 18 74 campaign to their earlier total of 20 victories.
They added 32 more enough for a 52 and 18 seasonal record, which was good enough to defeat their closest rivals, the New York Mutuals by 7.5 games.

[46:03] The Red Stockings were such a dominant team in the 18 seventies that it’s little wonder they were able to claw their way back to the top of the league.
However, that championship season did not translate into a profitable one.
In his overview of the tour, Eric Mli wrote, the game of baseball was not well received during the tour.
The tour was not successful financially and there was no residual effect to the game after the teams returned to America.
Both clubs combined for a total loss of about $2500.
The tour also affected each team’s profit margin for the 18 74 season with Boston breaking even and Philadelphia only making $800.
Al Spalding didn’t give up his dream easily, eventually organizing another baseball tour in 18 88. In 18 89.
On that tour, the teams played their way from Chicago to San Francisco, then traveled around the world from Hawaii to Australia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Italy, England, Ireland, and back to Brooklyn.

[47:12] However, that tour was led by the franchise we now know as the Chicago Cubs.
So I’ll leave that one to a Chicago History podcast in both the 18 74 tour and the later 18 88 true world tour rejection by the world only seemed to deepen the American nature of baseball as described in the book, National Pastime by Semansky and Zimbalist, as a means of promoting baseball in England.
The tour was a hopeless failure.
The English watched the games politely, but what they were really interested in was the Americans cricketing skills.
The English notably declined to take on the Americans. At baseball.
Years later, the Prince of Wales seemed to sum up the British view of baseball.
Baseball is an admirable game for Americans.

[48:06] Spalding himself wrote many years later. Cricket is a splendid game for Britons.
It is a genteel game, a conventional game and our cousins across the Atlantic are nothing if not conventional.
In an essay about the 18 88 tour Louis de Fritz wrote, for proponents of baseball failure and derision in Britain during the late 19th century, eventually served as a foil to better emphasize the distinct American character of the national pastime.
So while the Boston Red Stockings were not successful in their attempt to bring baseball to Britain, they may have been at least partially responsible for making.

Music

Jake:
[48:46] America fully embrace its homegrown version of Rounders.
To learn more about the 18 74 Red Stockings and their world tour.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 273.
You’ll find some cool engravings of the Boston Red Stockings on the field in England, as well as photos of Al Spalding and Harry Wright.
I’ll have links to all the sources I quoted from this week including the book’s national pastime, Black Guards and Red Stockings and Al Spalding’s Dime book, Spalding’s official baseball guide for 18 78.
I’ll also link to essays by Daniel Boyce, David Voit and Thomas Siler, as well as Matthew Schloss’s master’s thesis.
I like to Herald coverage of the 18 74 tour as compiled by Bill Nolan for his research for a book about the Red Stockings from Saber, as well as plenty of Boston Globe articles about the tour.
I took inspiration for this episode from Eric Mick’s articles about the 18 74 tour for the site 19 th century baseball, which I will of course, also link to with many thanks.

[50:01] Our version of Take me out to the ball game was recorded by Billy Murray and the Hayden quartet in 19 oh eight.
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Music

Jake:
[51:16] Apple Podcasts is still the most popular podcast app.
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Music

Jake:
[51:31] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.