Editor's Note: This is the second of a two-part series. Part one is available here.

The year 1865 ended with baseball comfortably ensconced in Norwich. Two clubs were well established, and sources speculated on the recrudescence of the NFA club and the appearance of a third new club.

Meanwhile, the Uncas club was debating the development of a gymnasium to maintain their physical conditioning, and the Chesters, emboldened by their sweep of the Uncas first nine, awaited spring and a possible match with the Charter Oaks. All signs indicated that 1866 would be a good year for Norwich baseball.

In the New Year both the Uncas and Chester clubs looked to improve their play and to engage with teams beyond the Norwich city limits. The dormant challenge by the Chesters was accepted by the Charter Oaks, and a two- game match scheduled.

The first game, sited in Hartford, was scheduled for Saturday, June 23. The Charter Oaks were a well established team, veterans of matches against experienced squads from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. In 1865 they won the Connecticut State Championship, and met the Harvard Club of Massachusetts for the New England Championship.

While they were defeated 35-13, they nevertheless represented a significant jump in competition for the sophomore Chesters. A special train was retained to carry the Chester club and its supporters to Hartford, and optimism reigned regarding their chances against the state champions.

The outcome was something less than hoped for. The Chesters suffered a 57-15 drubbing, although the Bulletin chose to emphasize the positive, cheerfully reporting that “the Chesters played handsomely, and have learned much from the contest.”

The Chesters’ left fielder, Potter, was lauded as an excellent defensive player, who compared favorably to Tate of the Charter Oaks, arguably the best at that position in the state, and was deemed his superior at the plate.

While a rematch with the Charter Oaks was scheduled for early August, an even more memorable match awaited both the Chesters and the Uncas Club. The Union Club of Morrisania (now part of the Bronx) was making one of its periodic trips through New England and proposed a stop in the Rose City. If not the strongest of the New York Clubs, the Unions were nonetheless a decent team used to playing the elite clubs of New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Like their peers, they used these outside appearances both to spread the gospel of the New York game, and to fatten their record at the expense of less skilled “country clubs.” The Unions were most noted for their sterling battery of pitcher Charlie Pabor and catcher Dave Birdsall. Pabor, known as “the laughing philosopher,” was an amiable, swift, albeit rather wild pitcher who threw a rudimentary curve ball. Birdsall was dour and tough, frequently playing with injuries and beset by a permanent foul mood, a condition that might have its genesis in Pabor’s wild pitching. They were like nothing the two Norwich teams had seen.

Two games were scheduled for July 21, the first against the Uncas Club and the second against the Chesters. Williams Park was the site of the first game, which proved a decidedly one-sided affair of 51-1 in favor of the Unions.

The Bulletin identified Pabor’s pitching as the deciding factor, classifying it as “a style that our Norwich Clubs have not had an opportunity to become accustomed to.”

Searching for positive accomplishments, the Bulletin lauded the Uncas defense for holding the Unions to an average of four runs an inning until the ninth, when hard batting secured them 19 runs. The next day’s game against the Chesters, played in a steady rain punctuated by lightning that made ball handling a challenge, proved a closer affair. An injured catcher Birdsall relinquished his post to a substitute, who proved far less adept at handling Pabor’s tosses, forcing the pitcher to moderate the velocity of his deliveries.

The Union infield also suffered several lapses with the short stop and first baseman guilty of multiple muffs. Neither was their hitting exceptional, while the Chesters proceeded to hold their own on defense and managed to rap out several good hits against a less aggressive Pabor. The final score of 45-25 was a triumph in the eyes of the Bulletin, and boded well for the Chesters’ chances against state competition.

The prescience of this statement was shortly to be revealed. The Chesters were scheduled to play the second game of their series with the Charter Oaks on July 30, and no one was predicting anything other than a replay of their previous 57-15 rout. For the first time the Bulletin mentions odds and betting on the game, noting odds of 10 to 5 and 25 to 5 on the Charter Oaks.

However, by the fourth inning, when the score stood 34-11 in favor of the Chesters what little betting there the odds were even. By the time the game was called after eight full innings, the score stood 51-32 in favor of the Chesters.

While the Chesters were peaking, the Uncas club was having trouble scheduling matches. Unlike modern scheduling, which is set well in advance, the 19th century often featured spur of the moment challenges. Weather, a dearth of players or bad communications all interfered with matches.

To cite only a few examples, the Uncas club’s attempts to complete matches in August and September against teams from Danielsonville and Greenville were postponed into October while a tilt with the Oceanics of Mystic went unconsummated until the end of September, when it was

played on the same day, Sept. 29, as the Chesters’ final match with the Charter Oaks in New Haven. The Chesters were forced to postpone an early September match against the Pequots of New London. When finally held, the Chesters easily overmatched the New London squad 42-25 the day before facing the Charter Oaks for a third and deciding game in New Haven.

Proposed games with New London and Mystic languished into October,and finally fell victim to the season’s end.

The most important match of the season was the final game in the three-game series with Hartford, now billed as the champions of Connecticut. Played on neutral ground in New Haven, the Chesters could not repeat their home victory, and lost by a score of 39 to 22. Also unlike the earlier game, the Bulletin reported “unlovely” play, and a complete absence of snap and animation. How much of this was fatigue due to the prior day’s game with New London went unexplored.

Nonetheless, as the 1866 season drew to a close, there was reason for continued optimism. Only two years into its existence, Norwich baseball was challenging for the state championship and performing admirably against strong clubs from within and without the state. The prospects for a successful 1867 season appeared good.

Unbeknownst to players and fans, 1867 would mark the swift decline of Norwich baseball.

According to the 1867 City Directory, there were 28 baseball clubs playing in Norwich. Superficially, the game seemed in good health. However, most of these teams received brief if any notice in the Bulletin, their rosters were not published, and their successes and failures remain largely unrecorded.

Prominent in their absence were the two teams most closely associated with serious baseball, the Chesters and Uncas Club.

During the winter, for reasons not disclosed in the press, the two clubs merged to form a new aggregation, the Riversides. The Riversides were members of the National Association of Baseball Players, and counted 40 members. Eschewing the bright reds and blues of the Uncas and Chester Clubs, the Riversides adopted a uniform featuring a shade of gray. As described in the Bulletin, the Riversides wore caps and pants of medium gray, and tight fitting shirts of lighter gray with an old English R upon the left breast.

The Riversides were the premier club in Norwich, but not the only club in the area. The Marvins of Norwichtown, named for Marvin Waite, the first commissioned officer from Norwich killed during the Civil War, were also members of the NABBP, but took a decidedly secondary role to that of the Riversides.

The Riversides were a competent team, besting the Marvins for the city championship, and performing adequately against the Unions when they again visited Norwich in September 1867.

The Unions played two games in one day, besting both the Pequots of New London and the Riversides on the fairgrounds by scores of 33-8, and 66-17 respectively.

Of the Riversides play, the Bulletin noted weakness in the outfield, and generally declared the Riversides to be a weak nine. Their catcher, Kinne, stopped balls quite well, but did not throw to the bases, allowing the Unions to walk to third with impunity. Likewise, there were numerous muffs at first. Some of these weaknesses might be due to the lack of playing time.

At least one game on the Riversides’ grounds was canceled because the grass was too long, delaying competition until the end of June. As it was, the Riversides played an abbreviated schedule, besting the Marvins for the “city championship” 30-20 and 42-17, in late June and early July, and between games with the Marvins losing to the Yale Club of New Haven 23-13 on July 4 and besting the Forest City’s of Middletown 23-19 in a five inning affair in Middletown.

This last contest was a tainted victory, the Riversides claiming that the game was called because of the unsatisfactory condition of the grounds, while the Middletown partisans claimed the game ended, unfairly, with the abrupt departure of the Norwich club who claimed they could not keep their steamboat waiting any longer.

This, combined with their loss to the Unions, gave the Riversides a 3-2 record. It was somewhat surprising then, that the Riversides declared themselves candidates for the state championship, and proceeded to challenge the Pequots of New London, the proclaimed champions, who were expected to play the Monitors of Waterbury to settle the issue of the champion’s laurels. The resulting match, played on Sept. 28, was the dismantling of the Riversides, 40-8 in what the Bulletin declared to be the “the poorest game they were ever guilty of.”

This low note marked the disappearance of the Riversides. Rumors circulated that they would regroup for the 1868 season, but nothing of the sort occurred. A single attempt was made to revive the club in order to accept a challenge from the touring Oriental Club of New York. With interest on the wane, a temporary aggregation composed of players from two defunct Clubs, the Riversides and the Oceanic club of Mystic, squared off against the Orientals on a muggy July day and meekly succumbed.

The Marvins also disbanded, leaving Norwich with no senior teams.

The Bulletin took note of this, commenting in June “the base ball epidemic has not broken out this season. Consequently masculine muscles go undeveloped, and thumbs and fingers escape strain.”

The reasons for this swift demise are, at this point speculative. The same fate befell the Oceanics and was attributed to the maturation of the players and their growing work and family responsibilities.

Similar circumstances might have sundered the Riversides. An equally plausible argument identified the rising professionalism of baseball as a contributing factor. First tier teams such as the Unions proclaimed their amateur status, and the National Association of Baseball Players insisted on it, but teams condoned surreptitious payments and questionable employment opportunities to retain star players.

Indeed, in 1869 the first admittedly professional team, the Cincinnati ed Stockings arrived on the stage and changed the nature of baseball, and in 1870 the National Association of Professional Baseball Players supplanted the amateur NABBA.

Teams like the Riversides, Marvins, Uncas, and Chester clubs, true amateur clubs, could not compete at this level using the decidedly non-professional nines available in a community of Norwich’s size, and no one at the time evinced an interest in subsidizing a professional club.

The disappearance of the first tier Norwich clubs did not portend the end of baseball in Norwich. At a less visible and arguably less aggressive level, amateur clubs continued to play baseball in city leagues and against neighboring community nines.

Professional baseball, albeit on the minor league level, appeared, disappeared, and reappeared periodically, most recently at Dodd Stadium. That lineage threatens to break in 2021 as major league baseball disengages from many minor leagues including the New York Penn League and its Norwich club.

While all these incarnations achieved some level of visibility, none has attracted the accolades and public awareness of the early clubs who introduced the New York game to the Rose City.

Bob Farwell is executive director of Otis Library in Norwich.

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