The Base Ball Convention of 1857

Abstract

In early 1857, a collection of baseball clubs in and around New York City held a con- vention called by the senior club, the Knickerbocker, for the purpose of revising the rules of the game. This event would come to be recognized as a seminal one in the history of organized baseball, and has received the attention it is due from baseball historians. I propose here to look at it from a different direction, as a snapshot of the state of baseball, both as a social construct with clubs interacting with one another, and how the game was played on the field.The Growth of Baseball to 1857The earliest extant baseball code, and the direct ancestor of the modern game, is that of the Knickerbocker Club from 1845. The newly formed Knickerbockers were part of an existing baseball community in New York, and it is likely that their rules were adapted from an earlier code, but these earlier rules are less well documented and in any case the line to the modern rules runs through the Knickerbockers.1 New York's baseball community of the 1840s collapsed, for unknown reasons, and disappears from the record following the 1846 season. The Knickerbockers were the sole organized survivor, while some individual players would regroup in the 1850s. The Knickerbockers remained active throughout this period, and even revised their rules in 1848.A club could exist indefinitely without outside competition because its purpose was for its members to meet regularly to take their exercise together two or three days a week, dividing themselves into teams for a ballgame in a socially congenial setting. The vast majority of baseball through the 1850s and '60s were such intramural affairs. Match games between clubs initially were rare highpoints to the season. They gradually grew more frequent and more important to the life of the club, with the intramural fading away into mere practice sessions.Baseball began a slow revival in 1851, and by the 1854 season there were about a half-dozen clubs in New York and Brooklyn. In December 1854 three of these, the Knickerbocker, Gotham, and Eagle clubs, met for a social dinner and ball, and to nego- tiate a common code for match games. The following spring, in a baseball first, this code was published by a newspaper.2 That season saw an explosion of baseball activity. A virtuous cycle formed, with increased newspaper coverage encouraging new clubs, which in turn led to yet more newspaper coverage. This resulted in an unprecedented level of interest. By the end of the 1856 season dozens of clubs were active in New York, Brook- lyn, and adjoining counties of New Jer- sey and New York.This sets the scene for several questions about the convention: Why hold a convention at all? Why was there a need for a major revision of the rules only two seasons after the previous revision?3 And what were the specific changes proposed, which were adopted, and why were some proposals rejected?The Need for a ConventionWhy did the baseball community in general, and the Knickerbockers in particular, feel a need for a convention at all? Even granting that rules revisions were needed, there were other ways they could have gone about it.The meeting of 1854 shows one possibility. This was a meeting of a limited number of clubs who played one another frequently, working the revisions out among themselves. As late as 1856 the Knickerbockers played match only with the Gotham, Eagle, and Empire clubs. If the Knickerbockers wanted yet more changes, they could have met with just their traditional competitive partners and let the rest of the baseball community follow or not.A more extreme possibility was that the Knickerbockers could have counted on their prestige as the senior club and unilaterally announced rules changes and only played match with clubs willing to follow these rules.There is a tradition of interpreting the Knickerbockers as would-be autocrats, striv- ing to dominate the baseball community, if not on the playing field then at least insti- tutionally. …