Page:America's National Game (1911).djvu/100

 Ball Players, in 1858, therefore marked a new era in the history of the game, for it was then that there was put in operation for the first time a code of rules, framed by a special committee of the new association for that express purpose.

The officers elected in 1858, when the National Association of Base Ball Players was formed, were: President, William H. Van Cott, of the Gothams; First Vice-President, L. B. Jones, of the Excelsiors; Second Vice-President, Thomas S. Dakin, of the Putnams; Recording Secretary, J. Ross Postley, of the Metropolitans; Corresponding Secretary, Theodore F. Jackson, of the Putnams; Treasurer, E. H. Brown, of the Metropolitans.

It will be observed that the Knickerbockers, despite their former greatness, had already begun to fade away. Representatives from that club were conspicuous by their absence in the official roster of the new association. Practical politics had entered the game.

The first season after the organization of the National Association of Base Ball Players saw several series of remarkable games between picked nines representing the foremost clubs of New York and Brooklyn. Prior to these contests, the regular matches of each recurring season had attracted assemblages numbering only a few hundreds; but these games, inviting local partisanship, proved to be great drawing cards, bringing out the largest crowds ever seen at ball games up to that year.

The contests were held on the Fashion Race Course, on Long Island, during July, August and September of 1858. The first of the series of three games was played