Base Ball: The Philadelphia Story

I wrote this story for the 2026 All-Star Game Media Guide. The site is Philadelphia, as MLB’s part in commemorating America’s 250th birthday.

“Base Ball Players Practicing,” by Thomas Eakins; batting is Wes Fisler of the Athletics, who started in townball

Philadelphia is first in so many things American: religious tolerance, personal freedom, democracy itself and — suiting the purview of this story, baseball. But beware, this is a twisty tale. Under other names, a four-base game, pitched to the bat, between teams taking turns, had been played before 1776, in colonial days.

Abner Doubleday and Alexander Cartwright both went to their graves not knowing they had invented baseball. Henry Chadwick — yet another described as “Father of the Game” — declared in 1883, on the 50th anniversary of the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia, that this body of players had been, unquestionably, the first baseball club.

The Olympic Base Ball Club House in the 1860s; their founding date is in the pediment

And yet, in 1833, the date of its founding, the Olympic Ball Club had played a variant form of the game that we call townball. The question is thus begged: how old is baseball? It is older than Major League Baseball’s first game, which took place in this city on April 22, 1876. Nor is it the game played in 1871, when the Philadelphia Athletics won the championship of the first professional league.

No, baseball is defined neither by its equipment nor its rules, but by its Homeric circuit of four safe havens (bays or bases), with a perilous journey home. This definition permits the English to describe their 18th-century game — played without a bat and by both genders — as “base-ball,” from which our game surely evolved. Likewise, Philadelphia’s version of townball, played on a field of 360 degrees, and the game enjoyed in New England, with its runners retired by throwing the ball at them, are both … baseball.

Olympic Ball Club Constitution, 1837

The Philadelphia Story begins before MLB yet extends to this week’s All-Star Game. Starting with townball, which impelled young men to form clubs, it evolved by the start of the Civil War to the “New York Game” which, after nearly annual modifications, we still play today. Regional variants — protoball, as scholars have termed such games — fell to the wayside.

A key development in the city’s history in baseball was a game on September 24, 1860. The top area clubs, new to the New York Game, constructed a “picked nine” — the very concept echoing the All-Star Game! — to play the visiting Excelsiors of Brooklyn, led by pioneer pitcher Jim Creighton. The Brooklynites won by a score of 15 to 4, and Philly’s adoption of the New York rules was ensured.

Watercolor of the Olympic baseball ground in 1865 by Augustus Köllner (courtesy Philadelphia Free Library)

The Athletic Ball Club had been founded in 1859 to play townball, but in 1860 reestablished itself to play New York’s version of the game. So did the Olympics themselves; unlike the Athletics, however, whose clubhouse bore a slightly revised birthdate of 1860, the Olympics embraced their history, emblazoning their structure with an origin of 1833.

Brooklyn Atlantics vs Philadelphia Athletics on grounds of latter at 15th and Columbia, 1866; glorious litho by J.L. Magee

The A’s went on to become a principal club of the 1860s and 1870s, playing important matches before thousands of spectators. That club entered the National League in 1876 and, like the New York Mutuals, played the full season until a late road trip beckoned, promising financial failure. Both clubs declined to play out the schedule and were expelled for 1877. For years, as the nation endured economic hardship, the fledgling league struggled to stay afloat without entries in its two most populous cities.

The Athletics of 1874 who, with the Boston Red Stockings, brought the new game back to the Old Country

Then, in 1882, prospects turned. A rival to the National League felt emboldened to spring up: the American Association, which placed a reorganized Athletics in Philadelphia. And the National League, burdened with impoverished clubs in Troy and Worcester, at season’s end replaced them with new clubs in New York (the Giants) and Philadelphia (the Phillies) for 1883.

The Phillies’ Opening Day, 1889

The Athletics continued for the ten-year life of the American Association, enduring rival teams in the Union Association of 1884 (the Keystones) and the Players’ League of 1890 (also named the Athletics). Both circuits are recognized today as major leagues. Then, after a ten-year absence, the Athletics of Connie Mack became a charter franchise of a new challenger circuit, the American League. While the Phillies are, today, MLB’s second oldest franchise continuously in the same city (trailing only the Cubs), the A’s have been peripatetic, relocating from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland to, ultimately, Las Vegas.

MLB has, since 1969, recognized rival leagues as majors, such as the Union Association, the Players’ League, and the Federal League (which had no entry in the city). Their statistics reside in the official records. Then, in 2020, MLB likewise welcomed seven Negro Leagues of 1920–1948. Philadelphia was a hub for Black baseball in this period, anchored by the Hilldale Club (based in nearby Darby) and the Philadelphia Stars.

Philadelphia Giants, 1905–06 with Rube Foster, Sol White, Pete Hill, Charlie Grant

But before 1900 — the use of “Base Ball” in the title reflects the early orientation of my Philadelphia Story — outcast clubs had included the Pythians, Orions, Gorhams, National Excelsiors, Mutuals, and Giants. Their stats are unrecorded by MLB, but they have stories all their own.