HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Spring in Boston means baseball, and this week we’re talking about the time in 1874 when the Boston Red Stockings tried to bring America’s national pastime to Britain. 120 years before the World Baseball Classic, Boston’s biggest baseball promoter did his level best to get the cricket fans in “jolly old” hooked on his game… and the fact that he could sell them all the mitts, bats, and gloves they would need was just a happy accident, I’m sure. Red Stockings pitcher and future sporting goods magnate Al Spalding led the team on the World Baseball Tour, but would they be able to convert English strikers to batters and bowlers to pitchers? And for the team, would their nearly two month long diversion mean the end of their pennant race for 1874?

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/273/

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1874 World Baseball Tour

• Big thanks to Eric Miklich for his essay about the World Baseball Tour, which was the inspiration for this episode
• Zeiler, Thomas W. “Basepaths to Empire: Race and the Spalding World Baseball Tour.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, vol. 6, no. 2, 2007
• Szymanski, Stefan and Zimbalist, Andrew. National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer, Brookings Institution Press, 2005
• Schloss, Matthew David. “The Creation of the Doubleday Myth,” Masters Thesis, Department of History, University of Utah, 2013
• Ryczek, William J. Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of Baseball’s National Association, 1871-1875, McFarland, 1992
• Spalding, AG and Meacham, Lewis. Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide for 1878: A Complete and Practical Handbook of the National Game of America, AG Spalding & Bro, 1878
• Voigt, David Quentin. “The Boston Red Stockings: The Birth of Major League Baseball,” The New England Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 4, 1970
• Bloyce, Daniel. “That’s Your Way of Playing Rounders, Isn’t It? The Response of the English Press to American Baseball Tours to England, 1874-1924,” sportingTRADITIONS, vol 23, no 1, 2005
• “1874 Boston Herald coverage of the Red Stockings tour,” compiled by Bill Nowlin, in 2016, to accompany publication of the SABR book Boston’s First Nine: The 1871-75 Boston Red Stockings
• Boston Globe
  • March 23, 1874: British tour announced
  • August 4, 1874: baseball and cricket at Lord’s
  • August 24, 1874: baseball is “rounders considerably elaborated”
• Richmond Daily Dispatch, August 5, 1875: a game at Lord’s
• “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” Haydn Quartet, 1908

The Red Stockings at Lord’s 1874 Red Stockings The Red Stockings at Brompton Harry Wright Albert Goodwill Spalding