Two Newly Organized Clubs Of This City

A match of base ball was played on Sunday afternoon, September 27th, between two newly organized clubs of this city - Hope and Eclipse - which was a decided victory of the former.  Umpire, David Coyle; Scorers, J. Fountain and J.H. Teahen...

-Missouri Republican, September 28, 1863

This goes to what I was talking about yesterday.  Here we have two new clubs forming in September 1863, at the height of the Civil War, when our general theory about the effect of the war on the growth of the game would lead us to believe that this wouldn't be happening.  Among the eighteen players in this game, which the Hope won 26-21, I don't recognize one name.  So these were not the pioneer players of the antebellum years or guys who were playing in the first few years of the war.  These look like new players taking up the game and forming new clubs while St. Louis is under martial law and millions of men are fighting on battlefields across the country.

Again, I have to say that the evidence supports the idea that the war had little or no effect on the growth of the game in St. Louis.