Tradition carries us back as far as the year 1831 or 1832, when cricket was first played on the ground of George Ticknor, Esq., west of the old bridge below Fairmount, by a few Englishmen, who shortly afterward organized themselves under the name of the Union Club. Some of our older native cricketers remember taking their first lessons from the three brothers, George, Prior and John Ticknor, who, with Joseph Nicholls, William Richardson, John M. Fisher, John Herrod, George Parker, Samuel Dingworth, Jonathan Ainsworth, John Kenworthy and George Daffin, met on Saturday afternoons and holidays. In subsequent years a few enthusiastic spirits practiced with home-made bats on the Camden common, and thence we trace the feeble but growing interest in the game, until in 1854 the Philadelphia Cricket Club was organized, with J. Dickinson Sergeant (who still fills the office) as president, William Rotch Wister as secretary, and Hartman Kuhn (third), James B. England, Morton P. Henry, Thomas Hall, Thomas Facon, Dr. Samuel Lewis, William M. Bradshaw, Henry M. Barlow, R. Darrell Stewart, S. Weir Mitchell and (last, but not least) Tom Senior among its founders. Then came the Germantown Club, of native American boys, organized in 1855, whose highest ambition, for many years, was to play the Philadelphia Club, "barring Tom Senior," then the only fast round-arm bowler in the country. Next came the Olympian, the Delphian, the Keystone Cricket Clubs, and a host of lesser lights, whose head-quarters were at West Philadelphia; and soon after the now famous Young America Cricket Club was formed by the lamented Walter S. Newhall, partly as a training-club for the Germantown. Well did it fulfill its purpose until the breaking out of the war, when the members of the Germantown Club changed the bat for the sabre almost in a body, and the club went out of existence.
With calmer times the old love of cricket came back, and through the energy of Mr. Charles E. Cadwalader the Germantown Club was reorganized, and the esprit de corps was such that before the club had taken the field the roll showed more than twice its former numbers. Through the spirit of its patrons, and especially by the kindness of H. Pratt McKean, Esq. (part of whose country-seat was tendered for a cricket-ground), the new life of the Germantown Cricket Club was successfully inaugurated on the 17th of October, 1866, by a victory in its opening match with the St. George Club of New York. That was a red-letter day, when Major-General Meade, on behalf of the ladies of Germantown, and amid the huzzas of thousands of its friends, presented to the club a handsome set of colors, and, hoisting them to the breeze, alluded in his own graceful style to the memories of the past, and the achievements which he predicted the future would witness on this magnificent cricket-field.
But what is cricket? Descriptions of lively things are apt to be dull, and it is indeed no easy task to render a detailed description of cricket intelligible, much less entertaining, to the uninitiated. The veriest enthusiast never thought the forty-seven "laws of cricket" light reading, and, resembling as they do certain other statutes whose only apparent design is to perplex the inquiring layman, they would, if cited here, be "caviare to the general."
But come with us, in imagination, on a bright May-day to a great match—say on the Germantown cricket-ground. You will find a glorious stretch of velvet turf, seven acres of living carpet, level and green as a huge billard-table, skirted on the one hand by a rolling landscape, and hedged on the other by a row of primeval oaks. Flags flaunt from the flag-staffs, and the play-ground is guarded by guidons. The pavilion is appropriated to the players, and perchance the band: the grand stand is already filling with spectators. Old men and children, young men and maidens, are there—the latter "fair to see," and each predicting victory for her favorite club. For it must be known that on the Germantown ground party spirit always runs high among the belles, many of whom are good theoretical cricketers, and a few of whom always come prepared with blanks on which to keep the neatest of private scores. During the delay which seems inseparable from the commencement of a cricket-match some of the players, ready costumed in cricket apparel, "take care," if they do not "beware," of the aforesaid maidens; others, impatient for the call of "time," like jockeys cantering before the race, disport themselves over the field, practicing bowling, batting, and, in ball-players' parlance, "catching flies." The whole picture is one of beauty and animation, and that spirit must indeed be dull which does not yield to the exhilarating influences of such a scene.
Cricket is usually played by eleven players on each side, the tactics of each party being directed by a captain. Two umpires are appointed, whose decrees, if sometimes inscrutable, are always irreversible, and whose first duty it is to "pitch the wickets." Having selected the ground, they proceed to measure accurately a distance of twenty-two yards, and to erect a wicket at either extremity. Each "wicket" consists of three wooden "stumps," twenty-eight inches long, sharpened at the bottom, whereby they may be stuck perpendicularly in the ground, and grooved at the top, in order to receive two short sticks or "bails," which rest lightly across their tops. When pitched, the wickets face each other, and each presents a parallelogram twenty-seven inches high by eight inches broad, erect and firm-looking, while in fact the lightest touch of the ball or any other object would knock off the bails and reduce it to its elements. Each of these wickets is to be the locus in quo not only of a party rivalry, but also of an exciting individual contest between the bowler and the batsman, the former attacking the fortress with scientific pertinacity, and the "life" of the latter depending on its successful defence. The "popping-crease" and the "bowling-crease" having been white-washed on the turf—the one marking the batsman's safety-ground, and the other the bowler's limits—all is now ready for play. The captains toss a copper for choice of innings, and the winner may elect to send his men to the bat. He selects two representatives of his side, who, having accoutred themselves with hand-protecting gloves and with leg-guards, take position, bat in hand, in front of each wicket. All the eleven players on the out side are now marshaled by their captain in their proper positions as fielders, one being deputed to open the bowling. For a few moments the new match ball—than which, in a cricketer's estimation,
A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,
Were not a richer jewel—
is passed round among the fielders, just to get their hands in; which ball, we may mention, is nine inches in circumference, weighs five and a half ounces, is in color not unlike a carbuncle, and nearly as hard. The umpires take their respective position, and at the word "Play!" the whole party, like a pack of pointers, strike attitudes of attention, more or less graceful, and the game begins.
The bowler, stepping briskly up to his crease, delivers the ball, and, whether it be a "fast round-arm" or a "slow under-hand," his endeavor is so to bowl it that the ball shall elude the batsman's defence and strike the wicket. The batsman endeavors, first and foremost, to protect his wicket, and, secondly, if possible, to hit the ball away, so that he may make a run or runs. This is accomplished when he and his partner at the other wicket succeed in changing places before the ball is returned to the wicket by the fielders.
The several ways in which a batsman may be put out are these: 1. "Bowled out," if the bowler succeeds in bowling a ball which evades the batsman's defence and strikes the wicket. 2. "Hit wicket," if the batsman, in playing at the ball, hits his wicket accidentally with his bat or person. 3. "Stumped out," if the batsman, in playing at a ball, steps out of his ground, but misses the ball, which is caught by the wicket-keeper, who with it puts down the wicket before the batsman returns his bat or his body within the popping-crease. 4. "Caught out," if any fielder catches the ball direct from the striker's bat or hand before it touches the ground. 5. "Run out," if the batsman, in attempting to make a run, fails to reach his safety-ground before the wicket to which he is running is put down with the ball. 6. "Leg before wicket," if the batsman stops with his leg or other part of his body a bowled ball, whose course in the opinion of the umpire was in a line with the wickets, and which if not so stopped would have taken the wicket.
At every ball bowled, therefore, the batsman must guard against all these dangers: he must, without leaving his ground, and avoiding "leg before wicket," play the ball so that it will not strike the wicket and cannot be caught. Having hit it away, he can make a run or runs only if he and his partner can reach their opposite wickets before the ball is returned by the fielders and a wicket put down. All the fielders are in active league against the batsman, whose single-handed resistance will be of little avail unless he exceeds mere defence and adds his quota of runs to the score of his side. To excel in this requires, in addition to a scientific knowledge of the game, cool presence of mind, a quick eye, a supple wrist, a strong arm, a swift foot and a healthy pair of lungs. Thus the nobler attributes of the man, mental and physical, are brought into play. As the Master in Tom Brown's School-days remarks: "The discipline and reliance on one another which cricket teaches are so valuable it ought to be an unselfish game. It merges the individual in the eleven: he does not play that he may win, but that his side may."