For many baseball fans the 1860 season had been one of the most exciting yet. Many of the seasons games were high-scoring affairs but the season had many exciting surprises: from the first game that saw the defeat of the 1859 champion Brooklyn Eckfords at...

1860: Last Season Of Peace
Dark clouds were looming on the horizon as the 1860 baseball season began as concern about the impending US Federal election and the issue of abolition of slavery leading to secession of the southern states weighed heavy on many. Two new baseball clubs emerged in the last summer before the American Civil War. The first club was the Philadelphia Athletics. Town ball was the more popular game on the streets of Philadelphia but in 1860 the members of the Athletic...

Okay sorry all my blog pictures got whomped by server gods but I got it all straightened out and will be re-editing my blogs (yet again) to include the artwork with corrected urls. My apologies to all!

Eckfords Retake The Title
Despite the success on the field in 1859 the Brooklyn Atlantics found the need to replace two of their nine after 3B Tom Countryman and CF Bob Murray chose to leave the game. Also departing the field was Mutuals RF John Burns after only one season. The Eckfords nine remained unchanged since forming in 1856.

Of the three players only Murray was remarkable as he hit .429 in 1856 with a .629 OBP and slugging pct. of .714 but of course that was only...

1858: New York Mutuals Take The Field

The Mutual Base Ball Club of New York formed in 1858 and took to the field by playing the 1857 winner of the Battle of Brooklyn in a series that began on July 3rd. With the Mutuals as hosts at Elysian Field the Eckfords suffered a 5-4 loss. The next game was scheduled to be played on July 10th...