Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Mound City Cricket Club

The members of the Mound City Cricket Club are requested to meet on Friday the 10th instant, at their regular playing ground on Gamble's addition and Twenty-second street, to play the first annual match of the season. The members are particularly requested to meet at ten o'clock A.M. which will be pitched at eleven o'clock precisely. By order J. Mitchell, Secretary.
-Missouri Republican, September 10, 1858


Cricket is obviously not baseball but the cricket references that we have from the 1850s gives us the best look at the culture of bat and ball games in St. Louis that we have for the period before the advent of the New York game in the city. We have clubs, grounds, matches, and crowds coming out to see the game. While I'm certain that a variant of baseball was being played in the city at the time, I haven't found this level of information about that game that I see with cricket.

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