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1862.104 Ballplaying Featured on 1862 Letterhead for Camp Doubleday
Location:
Age of Players:
[A] John Thorn:
"Abner Doubleday
has become a joke among us baseball folks. "He didn't invent baseball; baseball invented him." This letterhead, from 1862 ,may give pause even to hardened skeptics." John also notes that the game depicted does not resemble base ball, or wicket, or cricket.
[B]David Block:
The 1862 letters of Lester Winslow, of the 76th NY, at the National Archives, feature stationary printed with the heading "Camp Doubleday -- 76th New York" and show soldiers playing a bat-ball game. On this David Block writes:
"In the foreground of the illustration two soldiers face each other with bats, one striking a ball. Since no other players are involved, the only game that seems to correlate to the image is, in fact, drive ball. If not for Abner Doubleday's association, we would pay this little heed, but it is a matter of curiosity, if not amusement, to place baseball's legendary noninventor in such close proximity to a game involving a bat and ball."
Sources:
[A] John Thorn, tweet (showing the letterhead) on 2/2/22.
[B] David Block, Baseball before We Knew It (U Nebraska, 2005), page 198. See also the brief Protoball Glossary entry on the game of Drive Ball.
Warning:
This coincidence is not taken as evidence that Abner Doubleday "invented" base ball.
Comment:
Camp Doubleday is described in an 1896 source as "just outside Brooklyn city limits." See:
https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/artillery/5th-heavy-artillery-regiment/prison-pens-south; Other sources locate it on Long Island, NY.
A third source locates Camp Doubleday in Northwest Washington DC: https://www.northamericanforts.com/East/dc.html#NW
So which location is depicted on this letterhead?
[1] From John Thorn email, 2/5/2022; "Camp Doubleday appears to be in DC. It was also known as Fort Massachusetts. [SOURCE: HISTORY OF THE SEVENTY-SIXTH REGIMENT NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS; WHAT IT ENDURED AND ACCOMPLISHED ; CONTAINING DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS TWENTY -FIVE BATTLES ; ITS MARCHES ; ITS CAMP AND BIVOUAC SCENES ; WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF FIFTY - THREE OFFICERS, AND A COMPLETE RECORD OF THE ENLISTED MEN . BY A. P. SMITH, LATE FIRST LIEUTENANT AND Q. M. , SEVENTY- SIXTH N. Y. VOLS. ILLUSTRATED WITH FORTY -NINE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD, BY J. P. DAVIS & SPEER, OF NEW YORK ; AND A LITHOGRAPH , BY L. N. ROSENTHAL, OF PHILADELPHIA . CORTLAND, N. Y. PRINTED FOR THE PUBLISHER. 1867]"
[2] From Bruce Allardice email, 2/5/2022:
"The Camp Doubleday mentioned is the one near Washington DC. The 76th regiment was not stationed near Brooklyn in 1862, but was stationed in/near DC. It was in a brigade commanded by Abner Doubleday, hence the 'Camp Doubleday' designation."
---
David Block suggests the drawing (see below: game is shown near the image's center) shows Drive Ball, a fungo game. See Baseball Before We Knew It ,(2005), page 198. See also the sketchy Protoball Glossary entry on Drive Ball.
--
One auction house in 2015 claimed "This is perhaps the very first piece of American stationery depicting Union soldiers playing baseball. Amazingly, this lithograph has it all by showing Union soldiers at play in Camp Doubleday which, of course, was named after the game's creator Abner Doubleday!"
--
From John Thorn, 2/22/22: "Lithographer is Louis N. Rosenthal of Philadelphia. Born 1824." See https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A79709
Query:
Is it clear why someone would create such a letterhead?
Can we find a fuller description of drive ball?
How does Protoball give a source for John's Tweet for later users who want to see it?
Year
1862
1867.27 Union Club Offers Season Tickets in Washington Paper
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Union Base Ball Club, of Lansingburg, New York, will arrive here today and play a match game with the Nationals, near the State Department, on Wednesday afternoon. Season tickets may be had at Cronin's, or at James Nolan's at No. 372 Pennsylvania Avenue, near Sixth Street. The price of a single admission ticket for a gentleman and ladies is fixed at twenty-five cents."
Sources:
Daily Morning Chronicle, September 3, 1867.
Comment:
From Bob Tholkes, 11/2/2021: "First reference I've seen in '67 for sale of season tickets...seller not named, though likely the Nationals. Innovation?"
Note: Peter Morris' fine A Game of Inches: The Story Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball (Ivan R. Dee, 2006), section 15.1.1, notes that the White Stockings charged $10 for a season ticket in 1870. Like the 1867 Washington offering, the Forest Cities of Cleveland in 1871 noted that a $10 season ticket would admit both a gentleman and lady, but the club also sold season tickets for individual entrants at $6.
Query:
Is earlier use of season tickets known?
Year
1867