"Base Ball in America" 1857 engraving of Eagles vs. Gothams game

The two links above lead to an 1857 woodcut engraving from Porter’s Spirit of the Times titled: "BASE BALL IN AMERICA. The Eagles and Gothams playing their great match at the Elysian Fields, on Tuesday, September 8th." The html pop-up window allows you to scroll to view the image, although it is low-resolution. The PDF version allows you to zoom in to see the fine details of the engraver’s work.

The following is an extract from a SABR-L posting, dated January 28, 2000, with the subject line “Re: Enclosed Base Ball Grounds and Cricket.” It is an updated article by Tom Shieber which describes the above illustration. It is presented here with permission of the author:

Regarding the earliest image of a baseball game, I include below a (slightly updated) copy of an article I published in the “SABR Pictorial History Committee Newsletter” in April of 1995 (Number 95:2).

Enjoy.

- Tom Shieber

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“The First Picture of a Baseball Game”

On Saturday, September 12, 1857, “Porter’s Spirit of the Times,” a weekly newspaper devoted to sports and theater, featured a woodcut that, as best as can be determined, was the first published image of a baseball game.

According to the caption, action was from a game between the Eagle and Gotham Base Ball Clubs played on Tuesday, September 8, 1857, at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. These two clubs were among the very earliest organizations devoted to the game, both being founded in the early 1850s.

The game was the “return” match of what was known as a “home-and-home” series. That is, it was the second game of a best of three series in which the first and second games were played at the home fields of the two contestants, and the third game (if necessary) was played at a neutral site. The Eagles, along with the Knickerbocker and Empire Clubs, had for some time used the Elysian Fields as their home field. And, in the spring of 1857, the Gotham Club, after a dispute with their landlord, left their former grounds in Harlem for a newly leveled field adjacent to that of the Eagles. Thus, all three of the games played in the 1857 home-and-home series took place in Hoboken.

The first meeting of the season between these prominent New York clubs took place on July 10th. Though down by 11 runs early in the game, the Eagles managed to pull within one run of the “Gothamites,” and as they headed into the bottom of the sixth the score stood 18-17. But over the final innings of the game the Eagles managed only 3 more runs, while the Gotham Club scored 25, and won the game 43-20.

The return match, the one pictured in “Porter’s,” was a different story. The contest was marked by excellent fielding on both sides and the Eagles emerged victorious, 15-9. As far as I have been able to document, this is the first game ever in which the Eagle Club defeated the rival Gothams.

The final meeting of the season between the clubs took place on October 9th. The Gotham Club scored 10 runs in their first inning and won 25-19 in seven innings (the game most probably shortened due to darkness).

Prior to the match of September 8, the Eagle Club had a record of 3-1, their only loss being the earlier meeting with the Gotham Club. The Gotham Club, on the other hand, had to this point played but one match in 1857, that being the victory over the Eagles.

While the drawing appears to be rather rudimentary, there are a number of interesting points worthy of note. However, one must at all times keep in mind that it is unknown how truly representative this drawing was meant to be.

The team in the field is the Eagles, as their uniform at the time was dark while the Gothams’ was light in color. The pitcher is Andrew J. Bixby, and the catcher is probably Marvin Gelston. However, Gelston was known as a short man and the bearded man behind home base appears to be, if anything, slightly taller than the rest of the players. Years later, Gelston traveled to San Francisco where he played for the Eagles of that city.

First baseman Winslow, second baseman Gilman, and third baseman Charles Place, Jr., stand very near their bags, as was the custom of the era. The shortstop is no where to be found, yet, contrary to popular modern-day opinion, the shortstop of the era played at a position very similar to that of his modern-day equivalent. The absence of this player, one Smith, is a mystery.

At the bottom left of the drawing are two individuals, one from each club, the gentleman in the Eagle uniform pointing something out to the gentleman of the Gothams. These are probably the umpires: John Mott for the Eagles and Gabriel Van Cott for the Gotham Club. Two umpires? Yes. At the time, the rules called for two umpires, one from each club, to officiate the game. Furthermore, they were to select a third, neutral official, known as the “referee” whose opinion was a tiebreaker in case of disagreements between the umpires. The referee of this game, Thomas Leavy of the Empire Club, is most probably the man in dark clothing and hat, sitting behind the table at the bottom left of the drawing.

Just one week after “Porter’s Spirit of the Times” published this picture of the Gotham-Eagle game, “The New York Clipper,” a rival, but far more successful weekly paper, published their own drawing of the very same match. In this picture, the Gothams are in the field. Once again the baseman are seen positioned essentially atop their respective bases: Wadsworth at first, Johnson at second, and McCosker at third. The Gotham shortstop, Commerford, is clearly seen positioned between the second and third base bags.

The Clipper drawing also shows the Gotham pitcher Thomas Van Cott and his catcher, Vail. This is the same Vail who was a member of the New York Ball Club of the 1840s. His name can be found in a boxscore of a game of "base” played October 21, 1845, that some historians consider the earliest published account of a baseball game.

Interestingly, while the left and center fielders for the Gotham Club are positioned as one might expect, the right fielder is shown playing in, between the first and second bags, essentially as a fifth infielder. This, however, is not surprising, given the rules of the era. The pitcher’s position was marked by a line 12 feet in length, 45 feet from home base. By pitching the ball from an extreme end of this line, the pitcher could influence the direction of the batter's hit much more easily than if the pitcher were required to deliver the ball from a fixed point within the diamond. Indeed, the “Clipper” picture shows that the batter is righthanded and with the rightfielder playing so far in, it is most likely that the pitcher was attempting to influence the batter to hit the ball toward the left side of the field.

According to Anton Grobani, Henry Chadwick’s “The Game of Baseball,” published in 1868, was the first hardcover book devoted to the game. In the book, Chadwick recalls witnessing a baseball game some time around 1856. However, it is entirely possible that the game he saw was the same as that depicted in the 1857 ‘Porter’s” woodcut: “I chanced to go through the Elysian Fields during the progress of a contest between the noted Eagle and Gotham Clubs. The game was being sharply played on both sides, and I watched it with deeper interest than any previous ball match between clubs that I had seen. It was not long before I was struck with the idea that base ball was just the game for a national sport for Americans.”