To prevent a repetition of the crowding, an admission of one dollar was charged, the largest up to that time asked for a ball game, yet more than two thousand persons passed through the gates, while several thousand remained outside. The Athletics rolled up 31 runs to 12 of their opponents in seven innings, when the umpire called the game on account of darkness. A dispute about the gate money prevented the clubs from playing any more that season.
Baltimore became a great center of baseball in the very early days of the game. The Excelsiors were in the field in 1857, the Waverlys in 1858, and the Baltimores in 1859. Another club disputed the latter's right to the title, and in a game played for the name the first formed club won. As early as 1861 the Pastimes, of Baltimore, defeated the Nationals, of Washington.
Enthusiasm in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts had become a hotbed of baseball, but the feeling had not grown so intense and so partisan as in New York. There was no professional baseball at all in Massachusetts, until a professional association was started, as previously stated. This was not so elsewhere toward the close of the sixties.
A good example of baseball of the old days is a game at Medway played under the old Massachusetts rules. This lasted two days, occupying eleven hours. Eighty innings were played, there being only one out to an inning, and the final score was 100 to 56 in favor of the Excelsiors. It was thought wonderful because sixteen consecutive innings were played without a run on the second day.
The Trimountains, the crack club of the day, was organized in Boston in 1858. It played one match game that year, defeating the Portlands on September 8, the score being 47 to 42. The Atwaters, of Westfield, were in the field that season, with Reuben Noble as one of the players.
In 1859 the Trimountains beat the Portlands two games, and were beaten by the Bowdoins, a new club of Boston, 32 to 26. The famous Lowells, of Boston, named after John A. Lowell, were organized as a junior club, March 18, 1861. Their only match game that year was with the Medfords, whom they beat, 17 to 10. Among the players were "Foxy" Wilder, catcher, and Jimmy Lovett, short-stop.
Games in those days were mostly scrub affairs between the members of the same club or by such players as were found on the Common, where the games were usually played. The youngsters had the ground early in the afternoon, and the young men afterward. The catcher stood near the Beacon Street mall.
The contests were watched by large and interesting crowds. In 1862 the Excelsiors, of Brooklyn, visited Boston and defeated the Bowdoins, 41 to 15, and the Trimountain-Lowell nine, consolidated for the occasion, 39 to 13.