The Third Anniversary Game

The Match Game of Base Ball between the married and single nines of the Empire Club, on Thursday, 16th instant, was won by the former by five runs.  

-Missouri Republican, April 19, 1863


This was the Empire Club's third anniversary game and was played at Gamble Lawn.  Unlike most of their other Civil War-era anniversary games, there were no problems or postponements.  For once, everything went smoothly.

On Empire Ground

A Match Game of Base Ball, between Excelsior and Commercial Juniors, will take place This Day, at 2 o'clock, P.M., on Empire ground.

-Missouri Republican, May 25, 1861

I'm pretty sure that "on Empire ground" means Gamble's Lawn. 

The Morning Stars Had A Junior Club

A base ball match will come off to-day on Gamble's Lawn, at one-half past 2, between the Morning Stars, jr., and the Empire, jr., base ball clubs.  Thursday, September 11, 1862.

-Missouri Republican, September 11, 1862

I've found evidence that the Morning Stars were still active in 1861 and this seems to suggest that they may have been active in 1862 as well.  If the Morning Stars, jr., was affiliated with the Morning Star Base Ball Club, which doesn't necessarily have to be true, then this is evidence that the club was active into 1862. 

Also, I think it's worth mentioning that Gamble Lawn appears to have been the most popular site for games during the war.  I'd have to go back through my notes to confirm this but I believe that more games were played there during the war than at Lafayette Park or the Fairgrounds.   

The Commercial Club At Gamble Lawn

The Commercial Base Ball Club have their regular field exercise on Gamble Lawn this Saturday afternoon.  Members are requested to be prompt in attendance, and Base Ball players generally are invited to the field.

-Missouri Republican, June 18, 1864


This is really interesting.  One of the last references to the Commercial Club in the Republican was in 1863 and it was in regards to their trying to get a clubhouse built at Lafayette Park.  That request was taken to the Common Council, where it was placed in the hands of a subcommittee who forwarded it to the Board of Improvements.  I'm not sure what happened after that.  However, here we find the club holding their practice days at Gamble Lawn and that leads me to believe that the club's request was turned down.  If they had been allowed to build a clubhouse at Lafayette Park, they would be playing at Lafayette Park.  But they're not.

Also of interest is the general invitation that the club extended to all ball players.  Why would they do that?  Was the club short players?  Was the war having a negative effect on the number of players in the city?  Or was it just courtesy?  Maybe they were just being nice but I'm not sure if I've ever seen an open invitation like that to a club's practice day.        

The Mound City Cricket Club

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.

-Missouri Republican, September 10, 1858

Cricket is obviously not baseball but the cricket references that we have from the 1850s gives us the best look at the culture of bat and ball games in St. Louis that we have for the period before the advent of the New York game in the city. We have clubs, grounds, matches, and crowds coming out to see the game. While I'm certain that a variant of baseball was being played in the city at the time, I haven't found this level of information about that game that I see with cricket.

A Few Thoughts On The Location Of Gamble Lawn

Tobias writes that Gamble Lawn "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." The problem here is that, as I wrote yesterday, there is no Gamble avenue nor is there a West Twentieth street in St. Louis. This makes identifying the location of Gamble Lawn difficult.

Twentieth Street in St. Louis runs north to south from East College Street just north of the Fairground down to Clark Avenue by Union Station. Also, there is a Gamble Street which runs for several blocks between Martin Luther King Drive and Jefferson Avenue. I speculated yesterday that Gamble may have, at some point, intersected with Twentieth. On the east side of Jefferson is Desoto Park, which is bordered by Twentieth on its eastern side, and if Gamble was extended to Twentieth, Desoto Park would be bisected and a large section would have been just south of Gamble and Twentieth.

The problem is that after looking at Pitzman's 1868 Map of St. Louis, it's clear that Gamble never intersected Twentieth. The layout of the Gamble Street neighborhood is almost exactly the same in 1868 as it is now. I really have no idea what Tobias means by "Gamble avenue and West Twentieth street." It's a set of directions that makes no sense.

The Missouri Republican, on September 10, 1858, makes reference to a cricket match at the "regular playing ground on Gamble's addition and Twenty-second street..." Now Twenty-second Street just happens to be the western boarder of Desoto Park and the reference to Gamble's addition is interesting. Gamble Street was named after Archibald Gamble, a prominent St. Louis attorney and businessman, and according to the St. Louis Steet Index it was part of the Stoddard Addition of 1851. I assume that the Stoddard Addition is the little subdivision west of Jefferson Ave.

I think it's safe to assume that we're in the right ballpark here (no pun intended). The grounds referred to as Gamble Lawn or Gamble's Lawn were most likely located just east of the Stoddard Addition, near the eastern terminus of Gamble Street and between Twentieth and Twenty-Second Street. Interestingly, this happens to have been the location of the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects (pictured above) and Desoto Park was built as part of that development rather than being a remnant of the Gamble Lawn grounds.

A Muffin Game

A match between the married and single men of the Empire Club, will come off this afternoon, on Gamble Lawn, at half past two o'clock.

-St. Louis Daily Press, June 1, 1865

Gamble Lawn, which was originally used as a cricket ground and was one of the first baseball grounds in St. Louis, was located at the intersection of Gamble Avenue and West Twentieth St. Looking at a map, there is no Gamble Avenue or a West Twentieth St. in St. Louis today. There is however a Gamble St. that, if continued a couple of blocks east, would intersect with N. 20th St. at what is today Desoto Park. This location also happens to be a block west of Carr Square Park, which was used as a baseball grounds by the Morning Star Club in the antebellum era. It's impossible to say for certain if Desoto Park was the location of the Gamble Lawn grounds but it's certainly a wide open space that was in the right neighborhood. I'll have to see if I can find an old map with the 19th century street layout on it and we'll know for sure.

A Cricket Match At Gamble's Lawn

A match took place yesterday at Gamble's grounds, between the Prairie Cricket Club of Chicago, and the St. Louis Cricket Club.  There was a large number of spectators present, and among them a goodly number of the fair sex, who appeared to be as anxious as the players themselves for the result of the game.  First innings, Chicago, 98.  First innings, St. Louis 115.  Second Innings of the Chicago, 85.  The game will be resumed today, and we will give our readers a full report of the match.

-St. Louis Daily Bulletin, May 3, 1860

Grand Cricket Match-The Prairie Cricket club of Chicago against the St. Louis Club-The St. Louis Boys Defeated.-A grand match commenced between eleven of the Prairie Club of Chicago, and eleven of the St. Louis Cricket Club, on Wednesday, at ten o'clock, at Gamble's Park, south of Clark avenue, and closed yesterday about one o'clock.  A large crowd was present both days, including many ladies, who watched the game with much interest.  The Chicago cricketers are all good looking young men, and seem to be familiar with the bat and ball.  Their uniform is white pants, blue frock shirt, white cap with blue trimming.  The dress of the St. Louis boys is similar, excepting the frock, which is white.  Most of our St. Louis cricketers are new at the game, yet it will be seen by the scoring that they played well.  The umpire for the Chicago club was S.P. Oldershame; scorer, C.J. Bloomfield; umpire of the St. Louis Club, Thomas Bennington; scorer E.M. Joel...

-St. Louis Daily Bulletin, May 4, 1860

The St. Louis club scored 48 in its second inning, ending the match.  

This is another example of Gamble Lawn, one of the earliest baseball grounds in St. Louis, being used for cricket.  Also of interest is the fact that this was a match between St. Louis and Chicago clubs.  While the St. Louis/Chicago baseball rivalry wouldn't begin until after the Civil War, this is evidence that sporting clashes between the two cities predated the war.    

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.