als, of
Washington.

Enthusiasm in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts had become a hotbed of baseball, but the feeling had not
grown so intense and so partisan as in New York. There was no professional
baseball at all in Massachusetts, until a professional association was
started, as previously stated. This was not so elsewhere toward the close
of the sixties.

A good example of baseball of the old days is a game at Medway played
under the old Massachusetts rules. This lasted two days, occupying eleven
hours. Eighty innings were played, there being only one out to an inning,
and the final score was 100 to 56 in favor of the Excelsiors. It was
thought wonderful because sixteen consecutive innings were played without
a run on the second day.

The Trimountains, the crack club of the day, was organized in Boston in
1858. It played one match game that year, defeating the Portlands on
September 8, the score being 47 to 42. The Atwaters, of Westfield, were in
the field that season, with Reuben Noble as one of the players.

In 1859 the Trimountains beat the Portlands two games, and were beaten by
the Bowdoins, a new club of Boston, 32 to 26. The famous Lowells, of
Boston, named after John A. Lowell, were organized as a junior club, March
18, 1861. Their only match game that year was with the Medfords, whom they
beat, 17 to 10. Among the players were "Foxy" Wilder, catcher, and Jimmy
Lovett, short-stop.

Games in those days were mostly scrub affairs between the members of the
same club or by such players as were found on the Common, where the games
were usually played. The youngsters had the ground early in the afternoon,
and the young men afterward. The catcher stood near the Beacon Street
mall.

The contests were watched by large and interesting crowds. In 1862 the
Excelsiors, of Brooklyn, visited Boston and defeated the Bowdoins, 41 to
15, and the Trimountain-Lowell nine, consolidated for the occasion, 39 to
13.

The Famous Silver Ball Series.

The Lowells gained a signal victory in 1863 in their first match game with
the Trimountains, winning 37-1. The famous silver ball series was
inaugurated in 1864. On July 9 of that year the Lowells beat the Harvard
College nine, 55-25. The Lowells made their first trip this season, and in
Brooklyn were defeated, July 19, by the Resolutes, 33-14; July 20, by the
Atlantics, 45-17, and July 21 by the Excelsiors, 39-31. This was
considered a very good showing for the New Englande