BASEBALL TEAM: NORTH JERSEY MEDIA GROUP; CENTENNIAL: COURTESY OF HOBOKEN PUBLIC LIBRARY HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION
Atlantic Club of Brooklyn that drew an
estimated 20,000 fans. To capitalize on
the growing popularity of the sport, two
baseball parks with enclosed fences were
constructed in nearby Brooklyn, enabling
promoters to charge admission to games.
Consequently, the prominence of Elysian
Fields diminished and the parkland area
was eventually developed for housing.
After participating in annual baseball
games hosted by the Hoboken Historical
Museum to commemorate the anniversary of baseball’s birth, Stingone, a
Hoboken resident, decided to take things
a step further in 2012 by establishing the
Hoboken Nine Vintage Base Ball Club.
The team competes mostly in North
Jersey against other local vintage clubs
on weekends during baseball season
(April through October).
“We play baseball the way they did
[in 1846],” he says. “We’re not reenacting, we’re playing.”
Sponsored by the Hoboken Historical
Museum, the team is also an educational
resource for local residents, having made
appearances at schools and VFWs and
marched in Hoboken’s Memorial Day
Parade. Before games, the team hands
out pamphlets detailing the old rules by
which the game is played – including no
gloves – and answers questions from fans
about Hoboken’s place in baseball history.
To help raise money for expenses, the
team sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee
mugs, mouse pads and other merchandise, much of which includes its slogan,
“Where Baseball was Born,” an answer
to Cooperstown’s trademarked words,
“Birthplace of Baseball.”
This brings us back to that tiny village
in New York, where generations of baseball fans have been led to believe Civil
War hero Abner Doubleday invented the
game in the summer of 1839. Turns out,
the tale is, appropriately enough, not
even in the ballpark. A 2013 article
published on History.com points out
that Doubleday was still training at the
United States Military Academy at West
Point during that summer. Furthermore,
neither his diaries nor his New York
Times obituary contain any references to
baseball. His only link to the game is
testimony from mining engineer Abner
Graves, who claimed he had seen
WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN (Top) Sponsored by the Hoboken Historical Museum,
the Hoboken Nine Vintage Base Ball Club competes against other area clubs using 19th
century rules and equipment. Pictured are club members at a 2015 game in Paramus.
(Above) A plaque donated by General Foods Corp. is unveiled in Hoboken during a
1946 parade to mark the centennial anniversary of the first baseball game ever played.
Doubleday create a diagram of a baseball
field during the summer of 1839.
Consider the source, however: Graves
was only 5 years old in 1839, and years
later was committed to an institution for
the criminally insane after shooting his
wife.
“Baseball officials were trying to
decide where the game was invented
and used information that wasn’t true,”
Stingone says. “Doubleday was a Civil
War hero, not a baseball hero. There’s a
lot of debate about Cooperstown, while
Hoboken has a more concrete history.”
Despite the flimsy evidence, baseball
officials believed strongly enough in the
story to make Cooperstown, N.Y., the site
of its Hall of Fame, which opened in
1939. More than 75 years later, the town
and Doubleday are synonymous with
baseball’s birth, while Hoboken continues to boost awareness of its own right-
ful place in the sport’s history. Elysian
Cafe and Elysian Park in Hoboken serve
as reminders of the town’s once-famous
ball fields. To the west of Elysian Park at
the intersection of 11th Street and
Washington Street, in fact, is where the
original diamond is believed to have
been located. In 2003, the intersection
was renovated to include concrete and
bronze “base” monuments in the sidewalk corners, and a plaque detailing the
town’s connection to baseball history
was also added.
Cartwright’s contributions proved too
valuable for baseball to ignore, and
earned him induction into its Hall of
Fame in 1938. His plaque in
Cooperstown, N.Y., describes him as the
“Father of Modern Baseball.” On June 3,
1953, the 83rd United States Congress
officially declared him the inventor of
the modern game of baseball. ◆
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