It’s not uncommon to hear people reminisce about the time during which Mark Twain lived, seemingly ignorant that part of this era was considered the Gilded Age, a term coined by the writer himself. While some profited richly from industry, others were dirt poor. Corruption was in abundance. Jim Crow laws were enacted.
It seems fitting that this week the Mark Twain House and Museum hosted a discussion about base ball in Twain’s time. Today, as Hartford grapples with violence and widespread poverty, for which no substantive solutions are being offered, the other Hartford remains oblivious to the nature of these issues.
At the same time as a special hearing was held about plans for a minor league baseball stadium, historians gathered in Asylum Hill to speak about 19th century base ball as an industry.
Then, methods of compensation for players fluctuated, both across time and from club-to-club. Some earned salary, others’ earnings were based on “gate money,” or ticket sales. The latter created issues for teams in smaller cities which had trouble drawing large audiences. The Middletown Mansfields, one of Connecticut’s three major league teams in the 1870s, was one of those that struggled to draw a crowd and struggled with the sport itself. That team ended up disbanding quickly.
John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, explained that some teams would refuse to take their final road trips of the season because they just did not want to travel.
In the 1860s, Hartford had a “colored club,” David Arcidiacono said, and it paid its players. Issues did arise when this team was scheduled to play a white team in Bushnell Park. He said that once the wrong people got wind of that, the game was “shut down.”
There was bitterness between New Haven and Hartford in this era, as the sport became more structured in the mid-1870s and a population minimum for cities was implemented. New Haven met the requirement, Hartford did not; yet, New Haven was not included in the National League, whereas Hartford had been.
That makes it sound as if Hartford is a natural as a base ball city, but the story does not stop or start there. Hartford broke some ground with the first Jewish base ball player, Lipman Pike. Candy Cummings, who is in the Hall of Fame for being the first to throw a curveball, was also on the team.
But, the Dark Blues had a reputation has having behavior issues until Bulkeley got involved. The Hartford Dark Blues joined the National League. The team’s owner, which also happened to be the league’s president — Morgan Bulkeley — moved the team to Brooklyn in 1877, making Hartford the first team to relocate.
The grounds abutting Wyllys Street were disrepair and subsequently dismantled when Hartford was “done with base ball” Gary O’Maxfield said. Morgan Bulkeley shortly after leased his land at Ward and Broad for a minor league team. O’Maxfield described this as a “pretty horrible base ball ground” that flooded easily, yet was used from 1883-1896.
As sentimental as one might be for a time when the game was less about making a buck (or a few million of them), Joe Williams said that “players never played for the love of the game.”
Betting on games was common, including in Hartford, where one of the finest players was falsely accused of throwing a game, and then sold to another team.
The panel shed light on Hartford’s changing relationship with the sport, while exploring Mark Twain’s own involvement in it. Though they could find no evidence of him playing base ball, Twain had invested in the 1887 Hartford team that folded before the season was even over. There is evidence that the writer attended games in Hartford, as he took out a notice in the Hartford Courant in 1875 reading: “TWO HUNDRED & FIVE DOLLARS REWARD — At the great baseball match on Tuesday, while I was engaged in hurrahing, a small boy walked off with an English-made brown silk UMBRELLA belonging to me & forgot to bring it back. I will pay $5 for the return of that umbrella in good condition to my house on Farmington avenue. I do not want the boy (in an active state) but will play two hundred dollars for his remains. Samuel L. Clemens.”