Lynnteresting!

Little-known, interesting tidbits about this great city’s amazing history.

Somewhat Famous: Lynn Baseball

Lynn has a proud tradition of cheering on her children in Little League and the local high school baseball teams, and it is one more New England bedroom community with a long history of cheering for and complaining about the Boston Red Sox, but long ago, when baseball was being born, it was the biggest thing in town. It combined the spectacle of a visiting circus with the chest-thumping patriotism of a battle between armies. Let me take you through a modest little history of the birth of baseball in Lynn, told in nine innings:

1^st INNING: 1859 – Lynn shoeworkers began to enjoy outdoor activities as a welcome diversion to the long hours spent working indoors making shoes. Foot races, horse races, the English game of cricket, and a fairly new sport called baseball gave competitive people entertaining and potentially lucrative outlets. One observer noted in 1859, “Lynn seems to be just waking up to the importance of out-of-door sports. Since the fine appearance of the Crescent Club, on the fourth of July, two other cricket clubs have been formed, called the Bay State, and the Eagle, besides several baseball clubs.” It is difficult to say which baseball team was the very first in Lynn, but among the first was the Outahlanchet Base Ball Club (the name of an Indian chief in a popular comedy play of the day); it was stated in June 1860 that the club “has been in the field about a year and now turn out with full ranks and an increasing interest in the game.” Other sources tip their cap to the Granites as Lynn’s first baseball club. Enos H. Sawyer, a shoemaker, was their first captain. Other Lynn teams of the period included the Ellsworths and Independents. What is clear as the years rolled forward is that interest in the long-established game of cricket quickly dissolved as the popular new sport called baseball quickly took form.

2^nd INNING: 1860-1865 – With the outbreak of the Civil War, Lynn’s men quickly answer the call to fight. Several of the baseball clubs that had cropped up in Lynn since 1860 had to put down the bat and ball because many of their teammates had chosen to pick up the rifle and bullet; while the city’s newspapers reported the scores of five games in the summer of 1860, only one score appeared in the summer of 1861 (the Granites beat the Mechanics, 50-28). As the Outahlanchets, Independents, Ellsworths, Granites, and Mechanics baseball clubs struggled to maintain enough players for their teams, more military companies continued to be organized in Lynn throughout the war. Baseball in Lynn in the early years was played using the rules of what was then called the Massachusetts version of baseball, which included throwing the baseball at the base runner (hitting him out instead of throwing him out as is done today), no foul lines (all hits were fair balls in play, even when hit behind the catcher), and base runners could run all over the field to avoid the ball hitting them out. The winning team was the one that reached 100 runs first, but weather or darkness often made the game end sooner with scores like 83-37, 64-48, etc. Like the war that was being fought, early Lynn baseball involved a strong offense, running like crazy, and avoiding being hit.

3^rd INNING: 1869 - Baseball became especially popular after the war was over and was touted as a “healthy game” that “not only improves the health of young men, but … has a tendency to draw them away from the billiard-room, the grog-shop, and other places of questionable repute.” It was so popular, a game was gotten up on the ice at Flax Pond on Christmas day of 1869; the players wore skates and a large crowd gathered to watch the spectacle wherein “it was not at all difficult … to steal bases.”

A sport called football was introduced in Lynn that same fall. “Foot Ball Club No. 1” practiced daily in a field near one of the large shoe factories, and attracted “a large number” of spectators. It appeared to be a safer sport than the very rugged form that baseball was then playing and sparked the suggestion that “it is to be preferred to baseball, as there is quite as much exercise and excitement in it, without any great danger of serious results.” (Boy, have football and baseball changed!)

4^th INNING: 1874 – Lynn baseball has advanced into its next era: semi-professional competition with teams from far away. Lynn’s team, the Live Oaks, leased three acres of land near the stables of the Lynn and Boston Railroad Company at West Lynn, and enclosed the grounds with a substantial fence and seats to accommodate 500 spectators, although there would be many others still standing. “The field will be a superior one for the game, being level and easy of access by horse cars.” Admission to the games was 25 cents for adults, 15 cents for children. Anticipation for the first game in June on the new field was high and there was “a regular circus rush for tickets of admission to the grounds – probably over one thousand being sold.” Later that same month the Live Oaks hosted the Chicagos, a professional team. Over 1,200 spectators watched as Chicago walloped the Live Oaks 12-4. The sympathetic Lynn newspaper reported, “The Live Oaks were somewhat weakened by the absence of two of their nine, but nevertheless played an excellent game.” At least they looked good: “The uniform of the Live Oak club is much admired, and consists of white shirt and pants, red stockings and cap, with the words “Live Oak” on the breast.”

5^th INNING: 1875 – The proprietors of the Lynn Base Ball Grounds erected a grandstand with a seating capacity of about 800 more spectators. On 10 July 1875 the Live Oaks take the $450 First Prize at the Base Ball Tournament in Watertown, NY. They beat the Syracuse Stars 13-7; New York Flyways 11-5; Kingston 17-1, Guelph Canada Mapleleafs 6-3. They were given a grand reception upon their arrival home. They were received by a crowd which filled Central Square, after which a procession was formed, headed by the Lynn Brass Band, together with the Live Oak nine who carried bats over their shoulders, looking sharp in their team uniforms, and proceeded to march through the downtown streets, reminiscent of the triumphant soldiers who returned home from the war a decade earlier. They halted in front of J. N. Pike’s Base Ball Emporium on 111 Munroe Street. (Pike’s store, which alternately advertised itself as Pike’s Tobacco and Cigar Emporium and Pike’s Base Ball Emporium, according to what stock it was trying to promote at the time, included “a full line of baseball goods” and had developed local notoriety as the town’s headquarters for all things baseball.) At this stop words of praise and applause filled the air, then on to more parading. They were greeted with fireworks, bonfire, and celebratory decorations, and a party at the end of it all. J. N. Pike’s store was handsomely decorated with flags, suspended from one of which was the American Eagle, bearing two small flags in its claws. After this triumphant celebration, the Live Oaks quickly withered, losing several games.

6^th INNING: 1876 – Key players were being offered lucrative contracts by competing teams, so the Live Oaks (as well as all the other semi-pro and pro teams) were no longer a roster of hometown heroes. Interest in a game between the Live Oaks and the Syracuse (NY) Stars played on the Lynn Grounds brought out about 2,500 people. The reason for this interest was because the Stars were largely made up of last year’s Oaks, including Manager Brackett and Madden, McGlynn, Croscup, Dorgan, and Adams. The Live Oaks won the first game 8-3 and the Stars won the second, 17-7. In August, three Live Oaks players were induced to break their contracts and join other teams. Without any prospect to replace Bradley, their one pitcher, the Live Oaks had to disband. “The somewhat famous Live Oak Base Ball Club came to a rather unexpected close of its career this week, owing, principally, it is said, to a lack of the sinews of war, although Bradley, Caskins and Tipper had resigned to accept more remunerative positions in other clubs.” A new team, the Lynn Quicksteps was organized in the wake of the Live Oaks. The name came from the fast (running) march cadence that troops used as they approached battle. The Live Oaks did later reorganize.

7^th INNING: 1877 – Although some of the physical dangers of the game had been mitigated with the adoption of Nickerbocker Rules (the foundation of modern baseball rules) in place of the Massachusetts Game, there were still injuries happening. A Cambridge tinsmith made a catcher’s mask and it was first used by the visiting team from Harvard in a game in Lynn against the Live Oaks on April 12, 1877. The Live Oaks catcher adopted the new protective gear and during a game in the next season against the Charlestown Unas, a foul tip broke the Lynn catcher’s mask, and “one of the wires punctured a small hole just above the eye, making the blood run pretty freely, but nothing serious.”

8^th INNING: 1878 – The Live Oaks participated in another baseball first by integrating the game with its first black baseball player. John W. “Bud” Fowler had been pitching for an amateur team in Chelsea, Mass., when the Live Oaks invited him to take the place of their pitcher who had become ill. On May 17, 1878 Fowler pitched the Live Oaks to a 3-0 win over the Tecumsehs of London, Ontario, Canada. He pitched in only two more games with the Live Oaks, but the Fowler footnote for the Live Oaks is an important chapter in the history of baseball.

Lynn baseball continued its growing pains with some team members getting lucrative contracts for playing the game while others had to keep their day jobs. In March, George W. Brackett, manager of the Live Oaks, nearly had his right thumb severed while he worked at a sole cutting machine in a shoe factory. In the next month, the Springfield, MA team offered Phillips, the Live Oaks right fielder, a blank contract, “desiring him to fill it out at his own figures and sign it, thus offering a heavy temptation to Phillips to break his contract” with the Live Oaks. “Phillips, however, was too honorable and too sensible …”

To further refine its image and increase its revenue, the Live Oaks voted to admit ladies to the games, at ten cents each, but “it was also voted to exclude all women of questionable character.”

9^th INNING: 1879 – The 1870s decade in Lynn seems to have ended with a less robust support of baseball than it had started. In March one of the city’s newspapers moaned about money it was still owed for advertising and promoting baseball during the previous year, “And now they are talking of another baseball club for Lynn. Don’t gentlemen; pray don’t. If you have any money to throw away, please “chip in” and raise one hundred dollars toward paying us for the baseball printing of last year.”

Despite the newspaper’s lament, baseball survived the next 130 years. Lynn continues to play ball.

-- by Andrew V. Rapoza