Early baseball in Canada/Club 1
From SABR Encyclopedia
| Spread of baseball: Home -> Canada -> Early baseball in Canada/Club 1 |
| Location | Canada |
|---|---|
| Year | 1859 |
| Month | 4 |
| City | Hamilton |
| State | ON |
| Country | Canada |
| Nickname | Young American |
| First in Canada | Yes |
| Found by | Bill Humber |
"In 1959 the Hamilton Young American and the Toronto Young Canadian baseball clubs competed in Canada's first intercommunity baseball game using the New York rules."
In 1860, a Buffalo paper wrote that the Hamilton Club was the first in the Canada to adopt Association rules. Buffalo Daily Courier, August 29,1860.
D. Flaherty and F. Manning, The Beaver Bites Back? American Popular Culture in Canada (McGill-Queens Press, 1993), page 155.
Query: Can we find the original source for this cite?
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From William Humber's "Early Baseball in Canada" manuscript, 9/14/12:
The earliest formal baseball organization in Canada appears to be the Hamilton Young Canadians (later Maple Leafs) established in April 1854, playing on grounds between Bond Street (today’s Park Street) and Bowry (today’s Bay Street South) near the site of the newly built Central School. The team as described in the city’s directory of 1862-63 indicates that William Shuttleworth was President. Born in either 1833 or 1834 he is listed in census records as a salesman and owned a dry goods business until retiring in 1883. He later moved to Geneva, New York to live with his son James, and died there in 1903. James listed in the 1881 census as William’s 10 year old son was no doubt named after William’s late brother Jim, a fellow baseball enthusiast, who according to Bryan D. Palmer in Culture in Conflict had died in 1869 and was paraded to his grave site by his fellow shoemakers and other working-class men.
The New York Clipper, July 20, 1861: "Maple Leaf" Base Ball Club organized at Hamilton, Canada West, on the 15th [? newspaper blurred here] inst. Articles gives the names of the club's officers. [Bruce Allardice]
Sources
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