Part 2 The Civil War and the First Baseball Game in the Gem City

On that pleasant summer Saturday late afternoon in 1866, hundreds of spectators gathered to watch Quincy’s first baseball game, which was an immediate success. The sport became a sensation in the area, and shortly after that first game, several new clubs were formed. A small article appeared in the July 7, 1866, Daily Quincy Herald mentioned the possibility of a new club for the “ancients” of the city saying, “[We] hope that our young men will go to work in earnest and not be outdone in the matter of playing base ball by the patriarchs of the city.” The original group was officially called “The Occidental Baseball Club of Quincy,” often referred to as The Occidentals. Among the officers for the club were Charles Bull, president, and Osborn, Parker, and Nehemiah Bushnell as directors.

Soon after that first game “The Quincy Baseball Club” was formed with William Marsh as president and Henry Head, A.O. Grubb, and John Wood Jr. as directors. Several additional clubs followed suit including the Dexters, Baltics, Olympics, Essex, and the Quincys. The Quincys were made up of older players, so they were chidingly referred to as “The Grey Beards.” All of the early clubs had fields on different sections of Alstyne’s Prairie. The Baltics players were firemen and molders from Quincy’s south side who practiced on a field in that part of town, but they too played their games on the Prairie. The Olympics and Essex were made up of younger players and were eventually merged into a club called the Young Occidentals which later saw tremendous success not only in Illinois, but in the entire region. An article in the August 22, 1868 Quincy Whig complimented the Young Occidentals who played the Mutual Juniors of Warsaw in Warsaw resulting “in a good victory for our young champions.”

Each baseball club was organized into a first, second, third, and sometimes even fourth nine teams. The newspapers covered those early games and included statistics for each contest. The stats for individual players were recorded by name in the scores; it was very uncommon for third and fourth nine players to be listed by name, however. The rudimentary box scores only included outs and runs for each player, although home runs were sometimes included in the statistics, similar to how they are recorded in baseball box scores today. 

Matches were organized into a three-game series, and the final scores in those first games in 1866 were comical by modern standards. The box score for the first inter-city game covered by a newspaper was published on July 15,1866, in the Quincy Daily Herald. The game pitted the Occidental First Nine against the Occidental Second Nine, with the First Nine winning by a score of 49-41. The first game covered by the newspaper featuring teams from opposing clubs occurred on August 21,1866. In that game, the Occidental Second Nine defeated the Quincys First Nine, 61 to 32. The Occidentals defeated the Quincys again on August 24, deciding that match. The Baltics defeated the Dexters 74-59 on September 12, 1866 in game one. The Dexters won game two, and the Baltics failed to show for game three for some unreported reason, so the Dexters won that match.

In that inaugural season, the game that drew the most interest was played on September 25. The Occidentals of Quincy challenged the Hardins from Jacksonville. More than 2,000 people attended the contest on Alstyne’s Prairie that day. The Occidentals were victorious 21 to 14, behind strong individual performances from the Castle brothers who combined to score six runs and E.J. Parker who scored two. According to the box score, even though there were 35 runs scored by the two teams, the game was completed in just one hour and 45 minutes. The victory was considered a true feat at that time because the Hardin Club from Jacksonville had more experience and had been very successful in Central Illinois. 

The final game covered in the newspaper in that first season of Quincy baseball occurred on November 3, 1866. The Olympics First Nine defeated the Dexters Third Nine 39 to 30. This game marked the only time Third or Fourth Nine players were listed in the paper in 1866.

The year 1866 provided a watershed moment for baseball in the Gem City. The sons of the town’s founding fathers populated the box scores that summer with names like Richardson, Woodruff, Bushnell, and Wood, and the game became a real community phenomenon, with men and boys of all ages and from all families joining clubs and participating in games. It is obvious that the moment Civil War veteran E.H. Osborn laid the home plate on Alstyne’s Prairie in that summer of 1866, a love affair began between the City of Quincy and the national game—and it is one that continues to this very day.

Sources

“Base Ball.” Daily Quincy Herald, June 21, 1866, 4.

“Base Ball.” Daily Quincy Herald, July 7, 1866, 4.

“The City.” Quincy Whig, August 22, 1868, 4.

“Harden vs. Occidental.” Daily Quincy Herald, September 25, 1866.

“Local News.” Daily Quincy Herald, June 23, 1866, 4.

“Local News.” Daily Quincy Herald, September 25, 1866, 4.

“Miscellaneous.” Quincy Weekly Whig, December 4, 1869, 1.

“Occidental Base Ball Club.” Daily Quincy Herald, July 15, 1866, 4.

“The Old Reporter Lights His Pipe.” Quincy Daily Herald, April 26, 1923, 6.

“The City.” Quincy Whig, August 22, 1868, 4.