Welcome to my 19th Century Knoxville Baseball Blog

William "Doc" Hardy, Ramsey House
Kelsey T. Dillow, Kelsey Tiara Photo

In the fall of 2013, I joined the Knoxville Holstons, an East Tennessee vintage baseball club that was one of six new clubs to become members of the Tennessee Association of Vintage Base Ball in 2014 (TAOVBB's second season). There were four primary reasons why I decided to play barehanded base ball (often printed as two words until the 1880s). First, although I am rabid fan of a number of sports, I never had the opportunity to play organized baseball or, any organized sport, as a child and this was, in a sense, an opportunity to fill that void while also playing alongside a number of great friends and others that I was familiar with due to their work in the field of history as teachers and public historians. Second, I desperately needed the physical activity, even if playing nine seasons didn't seem to yield the results that I had hoped to see. Third, this gave my kids an opportunity not only to see their "old man" compete, but also provided for some quality family time in a family-friendly environment where they met, played, and made friends with kids their own ages. Finally, as a historian of the 19th century, more specifically the Civil War era, I thought that there might be an opportunity for me to get something "professionally" out of playing vintage base ball, such as a scholarly manuscript, whether it be a book or an article. Even if it took nine years, I have finally achieved that goal! 

This blog is meant to be a companion piece to my upcoming article, "'A Perfect Mania': The Origins of Base Ball in Knoxville, Tennessee," which will appear in the next volume of the Journal of East Tennessee History scheduled to be published in May/June 2023.

Beginning February 13, each Monday will feature a brief biography of one of the 50 original baseballists that I have been able to confirm via various primary sources who played for either the Knoxville Knoxvilles or the Holston Club of Knoxville between 1867-1868. Moreover, here you will find a more detailed history of Knoxville's two original base ball clubs than the article afforded space, as well as box scores and other relevant materials. 

There is much more work to be done on amateur baseball in the antebellum and postbellum South. It is my hope that baseball and Civil War historians will continue to work towards filling what is a glaring gap in the literature of nineteenth-century American popular culture. My study of baseball in a post-Civil War southern mountain city is but a small contribution toward that goal.