Not Out? Cricket in America

Article by Charlie Thompson. Edited by Amy Calladine. Additional Research by Ellie Veryard.

When The Sporting Times printed an ‘affectionate remembrance of English cricket’, the international first-class game was already quite old. The first international cricket match took place not at Lord’s or the Melbourne Cricket Ground but in Manhattan in 1844, and was played between the United States and Canada. Around 5,000 people attended on the first day at Bloomingdale Park, and placed bets of $2,000,000 in today’s money. Cricket used to have a hold on part of the American public imagination in a way scarcely imaginable today. And for the record, the Canadians won by 22 runs, which the press attributed to poor American fielding.

In 1857 the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin was amazed at the cricket mania that swept the city that summer. ‘We shall not be soon surprised if cricket shall soon invade the nursery’, it sagely observed, ‘if babies in arms have bats, balls and wickets instead of rattles, for playthings, and if “cricket on the hearth”...shall be an established institution in every house in Philadelphia. They were happy to print reports of cricket matches, but without the space to print all the matches that took place, they had to ‘require proof that the match has been a bona fide one among good adult players.’

Of course, this did not last. During what Mark Twain dubbed the Gilded Age between the American Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century, Cricket lost out to America’s so-called national pastime, Baseball. This might superficially seem inevitable: how could a sport so upper class, so English and gentile, survive in a land of immigrant citizens and self-conscious republican equality? However, cricket was one of many ball games that existed in nineteenth century America, including three different precursors to baseball played in New York, Philadelphia, and Massachusetts. In an era before professional sports and codification of rules, it would have been much easier for a wider variety of popular local games to survive locally, including cricket, which was still able to compete for a spot in the American national consciousness.

Three things supposedly gave baseball a huge boost in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first was the formation of The National Association of Base Ball Players in 1857. Unlike cricket and the other local ball games, the so-called New York game, which would become baseball, had a national organisation to press for expansion. During the American Civil War, British and American relations were strained to the point that both nations were sometimes on the verge of declaring war on each other. This is traditionally the explanation given in national folklore, but it only makes sense if we impose on the past the modern association of cricket with England: if Americans played cricket regularly at home and grew up with it they may well not have associated it as being a British sport. However, without the need for a good wicket and boundary ropes baseball may have become more convenient during a formative period in American national identity.

The third factor was the way in which wily businessmen used history – and fabricated it – to personal advantage, as is often the way in America. Cricket was on the decline in America in the 1870s – baseball became popular enough (and had corporate backing) to go professional and pay players in a way cricket didn’t – but it was helped on its way by a nationalist popular myth that baseball was solely American and working-class, unlike effeminate English cricket. Albert Spalding, an American businessman, created the myth, gave it government approval from the United States Senate and allowed the real US soldier Abner Doubleday to take the credit for the sport Splading had invented. A cynic might connect this behaviour to the fact that Spalding did not just create baseball’s rules, he owned a business that sold baseball equipment. Governments use history to their advantage all the time, but Spalding’s ability to fabricate such a myth was quite extraordinary.

Despite the decision to exclude America from the Imperial Cricket Council in 1909, leaving it without a professional governing body to help boost organisation and popularity, baseball never quite bowled (or piched?) cricket out in America. Philadelphia had remained a cricket stronghold, allowing the sport to endure, with a large and prominent first-class side operating from the 1870s to the First World War, regularly touring England and receiving overseas visitors. Although the team dissolved in the 1920s, the club still exists as a country club for the Philadelphia elite. As late as 1926 the American team was considered for international test status, but lost out to the West Indies.

So while baseball might seem inevitably as inevitably American as apple pie, there was nothing inevitable about cricket’s demise. Without the populist manufactured history of baseball it might just have survived, just as it did in other diverse countries across the globe.

Three things supposedly gave baseball a huge boost in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first was the formation of The National Association of Base Ball Players in 1857. Unlike cricket and the other local ball games, the so-called New York game, which would become baseball, had a national organisation to press for expansion. During the American Civil War, British and American relations were strained to the point that both nations were sometimes on the verge of declaring war on each other. This is traditionally the explanation given in national folklore, but it only makes sense if we impose on the past the modern association of cricket with England: if Americans played cricket regularly at home and grew up with it they may well not have associated it as being a British sport. However, without the need for a good wicket and boundary ropes baseball may have become more convenient during a formative period in American national identity.

The third factor was the way in which wily businessmen used history – and fabricated it – to personal advantage, as is often the way in America. Cricket was on the decline in America in the 1870s – baseball became popular enough (and had corporate backing) to go professional and pay players in a way cricket didn’t – but it was helped on its way by a nationalist popular myth that baseball was solely American and working-class, unlike effeminate English cricket. Albert Spalding, an American businessman, created the myth, gave it government approval from the United States Senate and allowed the real US soldier Abner Doubleday to take the credit for the sport Splading had invented. A cynic might connect this behaviour to the fact that Spalding did not just create baseball’s rules, he owned a business that sold baseball equipment. Governments use history to their advantage all the time, but Spalding’s ability to fabricate such a myth was quite extraordinary.

Despite the decision to exclude America from the Imperial Cricket Council in 1909, leaving it without a professional governing body to help boost organisation and popularity, baseball never quite bowled (or piched?) cricket out in America. Philadelphia had remained a cricket stronghold, allowing the sport to endure, with a large and prominent first-class side operating from the 1870s to the First World War, regularly touring England and receiving overseas visitors. Although the team dissolved in the 1920s, the club still exists as a country club for the Philadelphia elite. As late as 1926 the American team was considered for international test status, but lost out to the West Indies.

So while baseball might seem inevitably as inevitably American as apple pie, there was nothing inevitable about cricket’s demise. Without the populist manufactured history of baseball it might just have survived, just as it did in other diverse countries across the globe.

****

The first and last first-class cricket matches played by the Philadelphia Cricket team were both against Australia in 1878 and 1913.

The team was made up of players from the four largest cricket teams in the city: Germantown, Merion, Philadelphia and Belmont.

“You have better players here than we have been led to believe. They class with England’s best.” Jack Blackham, Australian team Captain, 1878 to the Philadelphia cricket team.

United States Cricket Team became a member of the International Cricket Club in 1965.

In 2010 the American team played in Division Five of the World Cricket League, and were promoted to 2010 Division Four. They start 2010 promoted to Division Three and could contend for the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

There are only five proclaimed cricket pitches in America.

← Back to Volume 2

← Back to Issue 4