The year was 1869. The day was June 1. The Cincinnati Red Stockings had rolled into town for an anticipated baseball match against the Mansfield Independents. Crowds gathered as the nation’s first fully professional team strode onto the field to face the Mansfield Independents.
The match was historic. Not because it turned out to be a drubbing for the local team and one of 80 straight wins for the Red Stockings, but because the event has often been regarded, albeit controversially, as the America’s first professional baseball game.
Since then, professional baseball has grown into a multi-billlion dollar Major League Baseball industry. The site would give way to modern development, leaving little trace of the historic site. In fact, locals now know the old field as the parking lot for the Mid-Ohio Conference Center. The Mansfield Independents, however, play on, thanks to the efforts of a few passionate, local baseball fans.
Independents coach and Mansfield resident, Tom Ford and his squad keep tradition alive as part of their friendly matches in the Vintage Baseball Association.
“We love baseball,” said Ford. He describes the matches as good-natured competitions with an emphasis on love for the American pastime and a little theater. The Mansfield Independents now hold about 16 – 19 local players and compete as part of the Vintage Baseball Association.
Teams in the association set up matches with one another and compete on open fields of all types. On August 4 at 1 p.m., Mansfield’s baseball history will make a return appearance in one of those meetings.
Two other vintage baseball teams, the Cincinnati Red Stockings and Cleveland Blues will meet the Independents on a grassy field just beside the historic Ohio State Reformatory. The teams will play a series of three matches.
The team’s will compete under similar rules that the 1869 teams would have competed under.
That means spectators can head to the game expecting things to be a little different than the modern game. Fans are called “cranks.” Players wear no gloves. When the call “Striker to the line” The ball is lofted underhand to batters coiling a wooden bat – a heavier more roughly shaped stick than the well-machined Louisville Sluggers of today. The same ball will be used until water-logged, battered, and torn to being unplayable. Foul balls that fly off of trees and land back into fair territory are still playable. A ball caught on one bounce will turn into an out rather than a base hit. Under the gentleman’s rules, runners take only two steps and will only steal upon a muff (dropped ball) by the catcher. Finally, all plays must run through the pitcher.
It’s a game that can be described and understood only through the respect and love for sport of those that play it.
“We want to have a good time.” emphasized Ford. The teams will compete on the field, but will share a meal after the game. Richland county residents can come to the field and relive a little bit of history for no admission cost.
For more on the historic match check out the video below:
Independent’s Day from Timothy McKee on Vimeo.
In 1869, when the Mansfield Independents were hosting the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the ball field that they used was on West Fourth Street next to the tracks of the B&O Railroad. The site was in the low land next to a steep hill on Fourth Street, between the railroad tracks and the banks of Touby’s Run.
The first game of the Red Stockings season was to be played on May 30 in Yellow Springs, Ohio, but the game was rained out. The same rainstorm that cancelled the Cincinnati team’s season opener also hit Mansfield, causing flood damage to the low-lying ball field where the two teams were to play, so the game was played instead on a field nearby that was higher and dryer. The site of the temporary venue was most likely where the large parking lot is today in front of the Mid-Ohio Conference Center on Fourth Street.
In the early 1900s a large grandstand was built for the ball field, paid for by the Davey Brothers who owned the Steel Mill, for use by the industrial leagues in Mansfield. Known for at least a generation as Davey Field, the sports field was used by the Mansfield High School Tygers for both Baseball and football games when the school was built nearby in 1927.
Fourth Street was eventually widened, and a large bridge was constructed over Touby’s Run and the B&O tracks that obliterated much of Davey Field. The Tygers played their games on borrowed sites, at the Fairgrounds and at Simpson School, until their new sports field was completed in 1947 at Arlin Field.
