Interesting To Many Of Our Citizens

There will be a friendly match of Base Ball between the Commercial and Cyclone Base Ball Clubs, on Wednesday, September 4th, at 4 o'clock, P.M., on the Empire's Ground.  The game will be according to the United States Convention rules, now so extensively played in all our principal cities, and will undoubtedly be very interesting to many of our citizens who have never seen the game.  Were there a suitable ground in some of our public parks, it would be much more agreeable to lady spectators, and it is to be hoped our Common Council, or Park Commissioners, will give this their early attention.  Players will take the market street cars at a quarter after three o'clock and go to Twenty fourth or Twenty sixth street, thence south five blocks.

-Missouri Republican, August 26, 1860


Why wasn't this game played at Lafayette Park?  If the Cyclones had been playing at the park since their inception, one would think that the game would have been played on their grounds.  Why did they play it on the Empires' ground?

As I talked about last week, there's the very real possibility that Lafayette Park was not used as a baseball grounds until 1861 and I think this supports that idea.  The Republican writes about the need for a suitable baseball grounds in the public parks and, if the Lafayette Grounds existed in 1860, wouldn't that have been suitable for the lady spectators?

At this point, I'm not sure what to think.