Early baseball in Wisconsin/Club 5
From SABR Encyclopedia
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 | This record has been submitted recently, and has not yet been reviewed. This does not imply that the information is incorrect, but that it is not yet included in official datasets. This notice will no longer appear once the record has been reviewed. |
| Location | Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Year | 1866 |
| City | Janesville |
| State | Wisconsin |
| Country | USA |
| Found by | Dennis Pajot |
The first base ball club organized in Janesville in spring of 1860. The Janesville Daily Gazette of April 6, 1860 reported: “The Janesville base ball club will play a match game tomorrow afternoon, at 4 o’clock, on the court house hill.” The following week (April 13) the paper reported “The Janesville Base Ball Club is now fully organized and in good operations. The ‘boy’s propose to have a good time with this American game…”.
The club met a number of times during the spring and summer, (Janesville Daily Gazette 4-13-60, 4-17-60, 5-11-60, 6-1-60) and issued a challenge to the Bower City Base Ball Club—also of Janesville--for July 4th match, which was accepted. (Janesville Daiily Gazette 6-29-1860) It appears certain both these Janesville clubs played the old-fashioned game. The Janesville Daily Gazette of July 3, 1860, gave the results of the committee appointed to arrange the preliminaries of the game. Each club was entitled to 10 men, and were required to furnish a ball. Each club was to appoint an umpire, and then the two umpires chose a referee. “The game (old-fashioned-American) will be composed of three trials—best two in three—of 25 tallies each; the forfeit, a bat and ball.”
According to the Janesville Daily Gazette of July 5, 1860: “The Janesville club having the first innings, and winning the first game, and the Bower City club having the first innings of, and winning, the second and third games.” The scores were 25 to 18, 25 to 7, 25 to 14. The three games occupied three hours, and the players runs scored and outs made totals are listed in the Gazette. (Janesville Daily Gazette 7-5-60)
