While I was over hobnobbing with the shaken and moved of the southern part of our Easlakian neighbo(u)rhood, I have actual stuff to do. Base ball stuff as I wanted to research the Watertown tournament of 1874 given that there were references to it in the Kingston papers of the time. I had thought that they went to play but in fact it appears that they went to watch as they are not listed as a team in the schedule.
Kingston’s rivals of the day, the Guelph Maple Leaf, win the event held in late June and early July over eight days before pop up here after for a game on 7 July 1874. But there are other notes that make it very curious:
- There is a first and second class tournaments being played side by side making for a total of 14 teams. I do not know why you would have seven teams per class but there you have it.
- Being or rather not being “daunted” meant something in the mid-1870s as there is a second class team called “The Undaunted” of La Fargeville, NY and another second class team called “The Dauntless of Watertown, NY. Careful readers will know that there was also a team called Dauntless of Ogdensburg, NY which the Kingston St. Lawrence played on Friday 8 August 1874 in Ogdensburg as well as the Dauntless Club of Toronto that Kingston played in 1872 and 1873 .
- One team in the first class group was the Ku-Klux of Oneida, NY described as “the acknowledged champion club of Northern and Central New York” in the 29 June issue of the The Daily Times of Watertown. You will be comforted to know that the Maples Leaf of Guelph thumped them 13-4 and that the team was slagged in the paper as “the negro haters” who scored a “usual whitewash,” a “goose egg, ” a “cipher” and “skunked” in various innings.
- Certain players of the Nassaus of Brooklyn, NY and some Eastons of Easton, Pennsylvania were reported in the 6 July issue as having taken a wagon to Sackets Harbor on Sunday 4 July and returning in quite a state: “It would have been proper if the whole crowd could have been unloaded at the jail.” They apparently were driven through Public Square as they sand “Mulligan Guards” and kindred songs.
Thrilling stuff. Need to do a little cross referencing but it looks like the Eastons of the 1870s may have been a rival to the Philadelphia Athletics which are now the Oakland A’s.
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