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Every student of the exalted game of baseball knows that Abner Doubleday originated the game in 1839 in Cooperstown, N.Y. The game was between the Otsego Academy and the Cooperstown Green Select School, and according to the only man who remembered that game, one Abner Graves, Doubleday not only improved the game but changed its name from "Town Ball" to "Base Ball."
The whole thing is a bunch of malarkey. Doubleday, who went on to become a second-string Union general in the Civil War, was a cadet at West Point that year; besides, he once was asked what he liked to do when a child. He said he just loved to wander around the countryside drawing maps, or writing poetry or doing math problems at home. Ick! That was the inventor of the noble art of baseball?
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes remembered playing the game at Harvard when he went there in 1829, and an existing woodcut shows kids playing it on the Boston Common in 1834.
Base ball (two words then) was well established as an amateur sport in New York in the early 1840s. The real father of the game was probably Alex Cartwright, who, when gold was found in California in 1849, headed west with a prairie schooner laden with supplies and bats and balls. Wherever he stopped, mining camp or frontier settlement, he taught the game.
America's first intercollegiate game was played on July 1, 1859, between Williams and Amherst. Starting a fine tradition, the Williams team claimed the Amherst "feeder" (pitcher) was no student but a blacksmith hired for the occasion. He pitched, or "fed" continually for three and a half hours. Amherst won 73 to 32.
Any form of hand protection was frowned upon, but in 1875 an unnamed hero slipped a glove, fingerless, on his hand. Then, since the balls still stung, he shoved some rags into the palm of his glove. By the '80s gloves were being used all over the country. The catcher's mask and chest protector were both lifted bodily from the sport of fencing.
Named for Levi Lockling, the San Diego city engineer, Lockling Square was the baseball center of San Diego. Located next to the Horton House Downtown, it was simply a vacant lot equipped with a rude backstop.
While sandlot baseball was undoubtedly played here before and during the Civil War, the first notice of the sport in print did not come until July 15, 1871, when the "Lone Star" club was organized. The local version of Little League was also recognized with the organization of the boys' "Young American Base Ball Club," which lost the next year to the New Town Young Eagles. The score was 49 to 14.
One reason for the high scores was that the batter indicated to the pitcher where he wanted the ball; if it didn’t go exactly where he wanted it, the batter got a ball called. There were a lot of walks taken in those days.
In 1874, the "Bon Tons" beat the "Dolly Vardens," but it was not until the fall of 1878 that the game really caught on.
On Oct. 13 of that year, the Resolute Clubs won by two points and Capt. Patton held a banquet in the evening in honor of the victory. On the 20th, Bay City won by 11 runs and one of the rooters gave them an oyster supper at Horton House.
In preparation for the big playoff, the square was being cleaned up, and the paper reported, "the base ball grounds are being put in splendid shape. Fencing has been put up at street corners to keep heavy teams off the square and lines have been marked off."
Bay City won 10-7, and the umpire got a pat on the back. Then, like a bolt from Hollywood, came a challenge from the Los Angeles team, called the Academy Base Ball Club. It was proposed that the two teams play three games, with the final being played on Thanksgiving Day. The challenge was accepted, the two local teams merged their best players to make a San Diego team and the city waited.
The Los Angeles team arrived aboard the steamer "Orizaba" (there wasn’t any train service yet) Nov. 24. That afternoon several hundred spectators watched San Diego beat the visitors 29 to 24. It really wasn’t fair, since Los Angeles played one man shy, with eight players only.
Still with eight men on the team, Los Angeles lost the next one 9 to 34. For the Thanksgiving game, the Los Angeles team enlisted one Gus Jones, who played third base, an area left previously vacant.
"The time of the game was three hours and a quarter," the paper reported, "although the actual playing time was only two hours and a half, considerable time being taken up in explaining the rules the Los Angeles club thought had been misinterpreted."
The squabble was something about touching first base; however, the local team could afford to be generous; they clobbered L.A. 35-14.
"At the close of the game, the 'base ballists' repaired to the Horton House, where an elegant Thanksgiving dinner awaited them. Toasts were given (no training rules then), songs were sung and wit and humor abounded (Polish jokes?)."
Then the L.A. team, minus Gus Jones, staggered to the wharf and was poured aboard the "Orizaba" by the local team, who gave them "three cheers and a tiger" in the best Frank Merriwell tradition. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how baseball came to San Diego.
(Copyright by Bailey & Associates)
Longtime newspaperman Herbert W. "Woody" Lockwood has forgotten more about San Diego history than most historians remember. Retired from daily newspaper work, he might be researching a book on military food.
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