Autumn Years Summer 2024

Acme Athletic Club of Wallington.

Lodi Athletic Club’s champion players, 1907.

Baseball grows According to John Zinn, author of A Cradle of the National Pastime: New Jersey Baseball 1855–1880 , “After 1870, there were so many teams at the ama teur/semi-pro level that it’s al most impossible to follow all of them.” In Bergen County, nearly every town and hamlet had a team. Of the many baseball clubs, to name just a few, there were the

Coytesville (part of Fort Lee) hosted the Riverside Club of Fort Lee. Described as “a fine game,” the Riverside boys “decid edly outplayed their opponents,” win ning 51 to 21. • In Rutherford, there was the Eutaw Club which, in November 1869, invited their friends, the Caledonian Club of New York, to their grounds in Ruther ford. There, a mixed game was played. The married men of both teams played against the bachelors. In the seventh inning, the single men quit as they were being beaten 53 to 13. • Before the dawn of the next decade, the Clipper Club was organized in Lodi on September 10, 1869.

Oradell baseball team, 1893.

Olympics of Lodi played the Hacken sack Osceolas on their home field for Game One of the Bergen County cham pionship. There was “Joy in Mudville” when the Hackensack team won 15 to 5. The second game was played a week lat er. The Olympics lost the series despite having hired four of the best players in Paterson to join the team for that game. A silver ball was the trophy. Competition was fierce, and in 1882 it was rumored that the Hackensack team had hired professional pitchers and catchers. To address the problem of “ringers,” the amateur teams joined the National Association of Amateur Ath letes, which had a rule stating that no team should benefit from a player who had played for another team within the past three months.

Burlesque Base Ball Club of Edgewater, Lodi Fly-aways, Athletic Base Ball Club of Hackensack, Knickerbocker Baseball Club of Closter, Garfield Clippers and the Unions of Carlstadt. Even the small towns of Norwood and Northvale had teams. Oradell had two teams: one with the new name of the borough, and the other with the town’s old name: Delford. One of the most popular teams was the Hackensack Wheelmen, a bicycle club that had a strong baseball team. Many of these teams doubled as social clubs, holding balls, dinners, picnics . . . and marching in parades. On New Year’s Eve 1885, the Essex Baseball Club of Lodi held its second annual “social hop.” Naturally, there were championships. On September 12, 1877, the visiting

Midland Park Athletic Club, 1910.

38 AUTUMN YEARS I SUMMER 2024