Baseball in the West

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The game known as baseball definitely developed in the eastern United States, but it spread westward across the Mississippi River far sooner than most people think. Exact dates when baseball “nines” first appeared out West are sketchy, but then the very origins of the game on the Eastern seaboard have long been debated.

One thing is clear: Future Civil War General Abner Doubleday did not “invent” baseball in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839 — a myth that was not only accepted but also promoted by Major League Baseball for many years. Truth is nobody actually invented baseball. Stick-and-ball games were played in Europe centuries before there was a United States, and those games were carried across the Atlantic. In the 1820 and 1830s, various variations of baseball were being played in Philadelphia, New York and New England.  In 1845 Alexander Joy Cartwright organized the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, which first played games in Manhattan and then across the Hudson River in the Elysian Fields, outside Hoboken, N.J. Cartwright and his friends published a set of rules that became the foundation of modern baseball.

Cartwright, who had been a shipping clerk in New York City, joined the California Gold Rush in 1849. While traveling to the Far Coast, he is said to have taught the Knickerbocker (or New York) brand of baseball to a variety of people — including fellow 49ers, soldiers, saloon keepers and even a few Indians. In San Francisco he promptly organized a baseball club. Later in life, Cartwright would seek new adventure in Hawaii, and of course he spread the word about baseball to the islands as well.

In the 1850s, baseball was still mostly a pastime enjoyed in the East, although by the end of the decade it was said to be the most popular team sport in New Orleans. Texas has long been viewed as a hot bed for football, but baseball was played in Galveston and other Lone Star locations prior to the Civil War. In 1861 sports enthusiasts formed the Houston Base Ball Club and began promoting the game locally, much as Cartwright had done back in New York. During the Civil War, baseball was played by soldiers, mostly by Yankees but sometimes by Confederates. George A. Putnam, a Texas-based Union soldier, recalled that once during a baseball game in Alexandria, Texas, the Confederates attacked and the three outfielders were in mortal danger. The left fielder and right fielder managed to get back to friendly lines, but the center fielder was struck by a bullet and captured before the attack was repelled. After the war, soldiers and others in Texas continued to play ball, while many soldiers from the East brought their love for the game to the Western frontier.

In May 1866 the first known baseball team in the Northwest formed in Oregon — the Pioneer Baseball Club of East Portland. The Portland squad soon recorded a 77-46 victory over the Clackamas Club. Several years after the Civil War, a baseball game was played  at the San Jacinto battle grounds, near Houston, on April 21 — the anniversary of Sam Houston’s 1836 victory over Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s army that gave Texas its independence from Mexico. The baseball teams involved were obviously more influenced by the recent American Civil War than by the Texas Revolution. In a lopsided contest (as was the Battle of San Jacinto itself), the Houston Stonewalls blasted the Galveston Robert E. Lees, 35-2. Up in Kansas, the Frontier Baseball Club formed in Leavenworth early in 1867, and the game quickly spread to places like Lawrence and Topeka. On May 17, 1868, Captain Albert Barnitz wrote his wife from Fort Hays in western Kansas: “Have not been to church, because there was none to attend — but in lieu of this all the officers, including a half dozen from Fort Doge, who are here on a visit, participated in a social game of base ball.” That July Barnitz was at Camp Gibbs, where officers celebrated the Fourth of July by playing baseball.

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