The Gamble Lawn Grounds And Cricket

The members of the Mound City Cricket Club are requested to meet on Friday the 10th instant, at their regular playing ground on Gamble's addition and Twenty-second street, to play the first annual match of the season. The members are particularly requested to meet at ten o'clock A.M. which will be pitched at eleven o'clock precisely. By order: J. Mitchell, Secretary.

-Daily Missouri Republican, September 10, 1858


In his October 26, 1895 letter to The Sporting News, E.H. Tobias writes that the "first base ball grounds of any permanency was known as Gamble Lawn and was situated just south of Gamble avenue and West Twentieth street. It was a large vacant piece of property admirably suited for the purpose, the north side alone being in proximity to any buildings whatever, and the eastern end was blessed with a spring of clear cold water. It had long been used as a cricket ground and upon it the Empire Club laid the first claims, being shortly followed by several others."

This piece from the Republican verifies Tobias' assertion that the Gamble Lawn grounds had been previously used by the cricket clubs of St. Louis and is more evidence of how baseball in the city was built upon the infrastructure of cricket and town ball clubs.