The nation’s first organized baseball team gets celebrated during MLB All-Star weekend in Philly

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This Saturday, the Philadelphia Historic District’s “52 Weeks of Firsts” celebrates Philadelphia’s role in America’s pastime by commemorating the nation’s first organized baseball team, the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia.

The celebrations kick off with a free Firstival Saturday, July 11 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. outside Citizens Bank Park on 1 Citizens Bank Way. The family-friendly event has food, activities and entertainment, including storytelling from Historic Philly’s Once Upon a Nation. The week obviously coincides with this month’s MLB All Star Weekend celebrations in Philly.

“The game’s greatest stars, America’s past time, the birthplace of our country during our 250th anniversary, it doesn’t get any more surreal than that,” said Michael Harris, the Phillies’ Vice President of Marketing and Government Affairs. “So, hosting the All-Star Game is an honor and a privilege. We can’t wait to showcase our city, our state, our ballpark on a national and international stage. This initiative ties in perfectly with that.”

The ball club formed in 1833, but its gatherings are thought to have started two years earlier. While the first game that can be considered baseball was definitely not in Philly, the city had its first collective group playing here, decades before the first widely adopted rule set was written down in New York, and the evolution into one of the country’s biggest professional sports began. 

Before that, it was just a way for clerks and men with desk jobs to get outside and exercise together.

“I’m not really sure I would even characterize this as the first team. It’s really the first group,” Harris said. “Got together, played the game, and ultimately this is what over the next 30, 40, 50 years transitioned into what we know as Major League Baseball today.”

How did that version of baseball — or “base ball,” since the single word didn’t really get adopted until the early 20th century — differ from the modern game. We asked Matt Alberston, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research and member of the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia, which meets and plays using the 1864 ruleset of the game.

The Olympic Ball club played using Philadelphia Town Ball rules, which differs greatly from even the 1864 rules that eventually replaced it. Albertson said the Athletic Base Ball Club occasionally plays with town ball rules as well. 

The town ball rules were not written down, but the best attempt to surmise the town ball rules was by Richard Hershberger, a Maryland-based historian and baseball researcher.

The game would have been played on a 360-degree cricket style field, Albertson said. Several stakes were pounded into the ground in a 15-foot diameter circle and a pitcher in the center would pitch the ball to a catcher. After hitting the ball the batter had to make an entire circuit around the stakes, no stopping at bases. The fielders could get the batter out mainly by catching the ball out on the fly, after just one bounce, or by “soaking” the batter, throwing the ball at him and hitting him while he runs.

“This game is, I would say, an ancestor to what we would call baseball today, which was originally known as the New York game because it develops and becomes more concrete in 

Manhattan and Brooklyn, two different cities at the time. And the 1864 rules are an outgrowth of that,” Albertson said.

The biggest difference between today’s game and the older versions was that the balls didn’t have cork centers till the early 20th century and fielders didn’t have gloves until the 1870s. Alberston said he wouldn’t mind seeing the gloves off again.  

“I think the game would be more interesting if outfielders didn’t have this 13-inch leather glove strapped to their hand, because then there’s extra base hits,” he argued. “Making the catch on the fly is incredibly hard.”

Albertson says that the older versions of the game had far less inaction and time between big plays than modern baseball, because the game involved more guesswork than today, where athletes are in peak physical condition, armed with state-of-the-art equipment and stacks of data and tape of their opponents. With no strikes as we have them today, the pitcher also served more as a feeder for the hitter, making the main battle between the running batter and the fielders.

Harris said that getting the history as accurate as possible involved several conversations, meetings and vetting between the Phillies, Major League Baseball, the league’s official historian John Thorn, Mural Arts Philadelphia and artist David McShane, who painted the numeral 1 shaped sculpture that commemorates the week.

“I think it was educational for Major League Baseball as well. I think they actually learned some things as part of this process,” Harris said.

McShane, who has also been working on the new Philadelphia Stars Negro League Baseball mural in West Parkside and has a number of sports murals in in the ball park and around the city, painted the Olympic ball club’s statue.

He said that he kept the players he painted intentionally anonymous, partially because the record keeping for the teams wasn’t stellar, but also to fairly represent the 50-year history of the club. He did make sure to add a key part of the Olympic team’s history though, a nod to its game against the all-Black Philadelphia Pythians — founded by civil rights activist Octavius Catto — on Sept. 3, 1869.

“They were using baseball as a conduit to show that they’re equal in society, they can play baseball, too, and they’re trying to drive for social change through baseball,” Albertson said of the Pythians.

Albertson said the Society for American Baseball Research has a couple games between an all-Black team and an all-white team that predate this one, but this matchup was the first between two nationally-known teams.

“It’s this story that needs to be amplified for a lot of reasons and we want to make sure people know and learn more about these things,” McShane said.

Check out BP’s full guide to all of this year’s Firstivals below.

Completed

Week 1:  Successful balloon flight in America (1793)

Week 2: The Mummers parade, the nation’s first folk parade (1901)

Week 3: Volunteer fire company (1736)

Week 4: Professional basketball league (1898)

Week 5: Public Girl Scout cookie sale (1932)

Week 6: African Methodist Episcopal congregation (1794)

Week 7: Abolitionist society in America (1775)

Week 8: Authentic Chinese gate built in America (1984)

Week 9: Public protest against slavery in America (1688)

Week 10: Flower Show (1829)

Week 11: Women’s medical college (1850)

Week 12: Matchbook (1892)

Week 13: Medical school (1765)

Week 14: Stadium (1895)

Week 15: Circus performance (1793) 

Week 16: Botanical garden (1728)

Week 17: Postmaster (1737)

Week 18: American-made piano and sousaphone (1775 and 1893) 

Week 19: Mother’s Day (1908) 

Week 20: Hospital in America (1751)

Week 21: World’s Fair on American soil (1876) 

Week 22: Steamboat for passengers and freight (1787)

Week 23: American flag (1777)

Week 24: U.S. Army (1775)

Week 25: Annual Reminder demonstration (1965)

Week 26: Paper maker in America (1690)

Week 27: Bank of the United States (1791)

Upcoming

• Organized baseball team (1831)
July 11 (location TBD)

• Ice cream soda (Oct. 1874)
July 18, Franklin Fountain, 116 Market St. 

• American art school (1805)
July 25, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118-128 N. Broad St.

• Scientific Society of Natural History (1812)
Aug. 1, at Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway

• Zoo in America (1874)
Aug. 8, Philadelphia Zoo, 3400 W. Girard Ave.

• U.S. Mint (1793)
Aug. 15 (location TBD)

• Selfie (1839)
Aug. 22, Love Park, 1501 John F Kennedy Blvd.

• Slinky (1943)
Aug. 29, Philadelphia Art Museum, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway

• Signing of the Constitution (1787)
Sept. 5, National Constitution Center, 525 Arch St.

• Continental Congress (1774)
Sept. 12 at Carpenters’ Hall, 320 Chestnut St.

• Naming of the United States (1776)
Sept. 19, Independence Hall

• Ronald McDonald House (1974)
Sept. 26, Ronald McDonald House, 3925 Chestnut St.

• Penitentiary in America (1829)
Oct. 3, Eastern State Penitentiary, 2027 Fairmount Ave.

• The First Peoples
Oct. 10, Penn Museum, 3260 South St.

• U.S. Navy and Marine Corps (1775)
Oct. 17, Arch Street Meeting House, 320 Arch St.

• Public showing of a motion picture (1870)
Oct. 24, Philadelphia Film Society, 1412 Chestnut St.

• Modern detective story written (1841)
Oct. 31, Edgar Allan Poe House, 532 N. 7th St.

• Thanksgiving Day parade in America (1920)
Nov. 7, Benjamin Franklin Parkway

• University in America (1740)
Nov. 14, Houston Hall, The University of Pennsylvania, 3417 Spruce St.

• Children’s hospital in America (1855)
Nov. 21, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Main Building, 3401 Civic Center Blvd.

• Pencil with an attached eraser (1858)
Nov. 28, National Liberty Museum, 321 Chestnut St.

• Weather bureau (1870)
Dec. 5, The Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St.

• Electronic computer (1945)
Dec. 12, The University of Pennsylvania, 3451 Walnut St.

• Public lending library in America (1731)
Dec. 19, The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust St.

• Philly food firsts: Cheesesteaks (1930s), water ice (1932) and bubble gum (1928)
Dec. 26, Reading Terminal Market, 1136 Arch St.

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Editor’s note: WHYY President and CEO Bill Marrazzo serves as chair of the board of trustees for the Independence Historical Trust.