Early baseball in Massachusetts/Club 40

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The Springfield (MA) Republican, June 13, 1870, marveled that: "Gloucester has 12,000 inhabitants and no base ball club!" The Gloucester "Cape Ann Advertiser" May 13, 1872 declared that "The base ball mania has never reached our town..." Same May 22, 1874, asked: "Have we a base ball club among us?" Evidently a club was forming. Same June 5, 1874: "A match game of base ball took place at East Gloucester on Saturday, between the Mutuals and the Eastern Club, of this city, the former winning by a score of 46 to 20." Charles Bevis, "The New England League: A Baseball History, 1885-1949" p. 38 says that in 1886 the Gloucester team dropped out of this league, which had been established the year before, due to lack of local interest. Gloucester is a fishing town northeast of Boston. I can only speculate that baseball interest was minimal here since most of the town's young men were usually out in the Atlantic fishing.

Gloucester MA (1890 pop. about 24,500) is about 30 miles NE of Boston. East Gloucester is a community of that city, on the eastern side of the bay.

Sources

Gloucester "Cape Ann Advertiser" June 5, 1874. Charles Bevis, "The New England League: A Baseball History, 1885-1949" p. 38; The Springfield (MA) Republican, June 13, 1870