August 17, 1868: Atlantics nip Mutuals in opening battle for coveted Gold Ball

On April 25, 1868, the New York Clipper, self-proclaimed “leading organ of all legitimate sports,” announced that it would award a Gold Ball to the team that successfully captured the championship of “the National Game of America.”1 Seven years earlier, that same tabloid had awarded a Silver Ball to the club whose members scored the most runs in a contest between picked nines chosen from New York and Brooklyn clubs2 – a gesture that helped turn silver-painted baseballs into the trophy of choice for all manner of competitions.3

The winners of that 1861 prize, the Atlantics of Brooklyn, had reason to believe they could add the Clipper’s flaxen orb to the lustrous mementos they’d earned for national championships in 1861, 1864, and 1865.4 Two weeks before the Gold Ball announcement, the Clipper identified the Atlantics as the “foremost” Brooklyn club for the coming season, putting them squarely among the favorites for the coveted sphere.5

Testing their mettle with a month-long early-summer Western tour, the Atlantics went 17-1 against the best that cities from Syracuse to St. Louis had to offer, outscoring their opponents by an average of more than 30 runs per game.6 Through August 14, the Atlantics had compiled a 33-2 record, with their only losses coming away from their home field, Union Grounds in Brooklyn.

On August 15, the Clipper reported that its 18-carat gold ball would be put on display “where he who runs may see it, if he thinks proper to look,” and on the facing page identified the Atlantics as a combatant in “the first grand match of the championship series.”7 As in previous years, the 1868 national championship was an event not endorsed by baseball’s governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), but rather an ad hoc round-robin series of contests pitting worthy challengers against one another with the expectation that one team would rise above the rest. The Atlantics’ opponent in this first of several championship series was a familiar foe, the Mutuals of New York, with series involving the Athletics of Philadelphia and Unions of Morrisania (New York) to follow.

Organized in the mid-1850s (as were the Atlantics), the Mutuals had been based at Hoboken’s Elysian Fields until the 1868 season, when they joined the Atlantics at Union Grounds as co-tenants. Contenders for the 1867 championship claimed by the Unions of Morrisania,8 the Mutuals had compiled a record of 19-3 thus far, outscoring opponents by 15 runs per game. Their record was comparable to the Atlantics’ against common opponents, going 12-2 versus 9-1 for their co-tenants.9 The two clubs had met once or more each year since 1859, with the Atlantics winning the last nine encounters. The Mutuals had last defeated the Atlantics on August 3, 1863, when they scored nine runs in the ninth inning to overcome an eight-run deficit.10

The “two strongest aspirants for the ‘whip pennant’” faced off on Monday, August 17, at Union Grounds, in front of what the New York Times estimated as 15,000 spectators. Some 10,000 to 12,000 had paid to enter William Cammeyer’s enclosure; another 1,000 “stole in over the fences”; and the rest watched free of charge from nearby “housetops, windows and embankments.”11 The Brooklyn Eagle called the crowd “the largest that ever gathered upon a ball field.”12 The pregame toss was won by the Mutuals, who had their rivals bat first.

Leadoff batter and shortstop Dickey Pearce, one of only two Atlantics remaining from the 1861 Silver Ball-winning nine, reached first against Mutual hurler Rynie Wolters, then stole his way to third base. With two out, Pearce tried to steal home on a Wolters pitch, but the Mutuals hurler “twig[ged] the dodge.” He rushed to the plate in time to receive the ball back from catcher Patsy Dockney – positioned several feet back of home plate – and tag Pearce out.13

The Mutuals jumped out in front, 1-0, in the bottom of the first on hits by Wolters and left fielder Lip Pike.14 That advantage proved short-lived as the Atlantics plated four runs in the next inning on hits by first baseman Joe Start, left fielder Jack Chapman, and catcher Charlie Mills, the latter listed as a “clean home run” in the Brooklyn Union box score.15

Atlantics pitcher George Zettlein retired the Mutuals in order in the bottom of the second but surrendered two runs in the third. Second baseman George Flanley (also spelled “Flanly” in various contemporary sources) led off with a single to right field, advanced on a single by right fielder Billy McMahon that bounced over Pearce’s head, and scored on a hit by Dockney. An error by second baseman Charlie Smith, the second-longest-tenured Atlantic behind Pearce, brought in McMahon.

The Atlantics clubbed three doubles to start their fourth turn at bat, the first a drive by Chapman into spectators lining the left-field boundary. A two-bagger by center fielder Fred Crane plated Chapman, and the third double, off the bat of Mills, brought Crane home. Mills stole third base and scampered home with the third run of the inning when Dockney’s throw sailed into left field. A single by third baseman Bob Ferguson and a two-out infield hit to the right side by Pearce put the Atlantics up 8-3.16 Pearce and company grew their lead by another two runs in the fifth inning on Start’s double, Crane’s single, and Mills’s groundout to the right side.

Staked to a seven-run lead, Zettlein applied the “whitewash brush” to the Mutuals in innings four through six.17 The Atlantics tacked on another run in the seventh, largely through the hustle of Start. In his seventh season with the club, “Old Steady” reached first when first baseman John Galvin (no relation to future Hall of Famer Pud Galvin) couldn’t handle a toss from the Mutuals third baseman. Start stole second, advanced to third on a passed ball, and scored on a single through the left side of the infield.

Down but not out, the Mutuals shaved three runs off the deficit in the seventh, two on a wallop by Pike that cleared the gatehouse, a three-story structure in center field.18 Ferguson countered with a home run of his own in the eighth, making the score 12-6 Atlantics heading into the ninth and final inning.

With one out in the ninth, the Mutuals turned a 4-6-3 double play on a grounder hit to Flanley, with shortstop Tom Devyr making the pivot. The stage was now set for a dramatic finish.19

The Mutuals’ prospects dimmed after Zettlein retired the first batter in the bottom of the ninth, but the thousands of Mutuals boosters in the crowd didn’t lose hope. “Amid great cheers,” reported the Brooklyn Eagle, Dockney doubled, Wolters singled, and Pike brought both runners home with a triple to right field. “Cries and cheers of exultation amid the greatest of excitement” brought Galvin to the plate.20 The throng silenced as the former Atlantic stroked the ball into left field, scoring Pike on what the Brooklyn Eagle called a ”solid blow” and the Brooklyn Times considered a muff by Ferguson at third.21 The Mutuals’ next batter – third baseman Pete Shreve in some accounts, Mahlon Stockman in others22 – stroked a ball that got past Start at first base. Galvin scored on the play, with Shreve/Stockman ending up on third base.

With the Mutuals now trailing 12-10, Devyr came to bat as the tying run but was retired on a grounder to short. The Mutuals were down to their last out. But center fielder Marty Swandell stroked the ball into the crowd in deep right-center field. By the time right fielder Jack McDonald was able to stop spectators from “kicking it about,” a run had scored and Swandell was on his way to third base.23

The Atlantics now clinging to a one-run lead, Mills called time out, ostensibly to check the score and the number of outs. After play resumed, a hushed crowd watched as Flanley “sen[t] up a sky-rocket ball in the left field” for what looked like a certain hit.24 But before the ball could fall to earth, left fielder Chapman raced over and snatched it out of the air, raising his arms in triumph. “The crowd gave one terrific yell, and in an instant the entire field was crowded,” reported the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury. “Thus, by one of the finest catches ever witnessed, was one of the most exciting and closely contested games ever played terminated.”25 

Eight weeks later, on October 12, the Mutuals turned the tables on the Atlantics, winning 25-22 in the second game of their championship series after surviving a furious Atlantics rally in the ninth.26 By that time the Atlantics had fallen out of contention for the Gold Ball after getting swept in a two-game set with the Athletics, as had the Unions.27 On October 14 the Mutuals “waxed the life out of the Athletics” in a six-inning affair, avenging a September loss to the Philadelphians in which they’d allowed a season-high 51 runs.28 But when challenged by the Athletics “to a new series of games,” they declined.29 

Dismayed with the Mutuals’ reticence, Clipper publisher Frank Queen elected to not award the Gold Ball in 1868, instead offering it to the winner of an Athletics-Mutuals series, should one be held the following season.30 In September of 1869 the clubs finally met, with the Athletics twice defeating the Mutuals to take home the Gold Ball.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Dickey Pearce, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Marshall D. Wright’s The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2000) as well as the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites.

Notes

1 “Grand Programme for 1868,” New York Clipper, April 25, 1868: 18.

2 “The Coming Great Match of Base Ball,” New York Clipper, October 19, 1861: 210; “Great Match at Hoboken,” Buffalo Commercial, October 24, 1861: 3; “The Late Grand Base Ball Match,” New York Clipper, November 2, 1861: 228.

3 Peter Morris, A Game of Inches (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010), 539. A Silver Ball appears to have first been offered as a prize for “[t]he best ball club” at the 1860 California state fair, then in early 1861 to the winner of a game played on ice. “Amusements at the State Fair,” Marysville (California) Appeal, September 9, 1860: 2; “Base Ball on the Ice,” Brooklyn Eagle, February 5, 1861: 3.

4 Eric Miklich, “Champions 1860-1869,” in 19th-Century Baseball, https://www.19cbaseball.com/champions-2.html, accessed August 24, 2025; “Ball’s Up,” New York Clipper, August 15, 1868: 146.

5 “New York and Brooklyn Clubs,” New York Clipper, April 11, 1868: 2.

6 The 1860 Excelsiors were the first Eastern club to go on an extended tour outside of their home region. Craig B. Waff, “July 1860: The Grand Excursion of the South Brooklyn Excelsiors,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-1860-the-grand-excursion-of-the-south-brooklyn-excelsiors/, accessed September 2025; “New York and Brooklyn Clubs”; Marshall D. Wright, The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2000), 191; “Return of the Atlantic Club,” New York Clipper, July 18, 1868: 114.

7 “Ball’s Up”; “First Grand Championship Match,” New York Clipper, August 15, 1868: 147.

8 “Base Ball,” Milwaukee News, August 7, 1868: 5; Miklich, “Champions 1860-1869.” The Mutuals entered the national championship picture in 1867 when on August 8 they ended the Athletics of Philadelphia’s 31-game winning streak. For an analysis of how the 1867 championship story unfolded see Richard Herschberger, “Did New York Steal the Championship of 1867 from Philadelphia,” The National Pastime, 2013, https://sabr.org/journal/article/did-new-york-steal-the-championship-of-1867-from-philadelphia/.

9 Their common opponents were the Nationals of Albany, Olympics of Philadelphia and Washington, Tri-Mountain of Boston, Mohawk, Eckford of Brooklyn, Oriental of Greenpoint, New York, Actives of Buffalo, and Star of Brooklyn.

10 “Grand Base Ball Match,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 4, 1863: 2.

11 “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” New York Times, August 18, 1868: 8; “Base Ball Items,” Brooklyn Times, August 18, 1868: 2; “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 18, 1868: 2.

12 “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle.

13 “Base Ball Items.”

14 “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Union, August 18, 1868: 1.

15 “First Grand Championship Match”; “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Union.

16 “The First Grand Championship Match,” New York Clipper, August 22, 1868: 155.

17 “Base Ball Items.”

18 “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Union. Also known as the pagoda, the building was used to hold lanterns for illuminating the ice-skating pond that covered the ballfield each winter. “The Union Grounds,” Covehurst, http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/union.html, accessed August 25, 2025.

19 “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle.

20 “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle; “Base Ball Items.” 

21 “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle; “Base Ball Items.” 

22 The identify of the Mutuals’ third baseman for this game is a mystery of sorts. The Brooklyn Union and New York Times box scores list substitute Pete Shreve as manning the hot corner, but the Brooklyn Times identified Mahlon Stockman at that position. The Brooklyn Eagle and New York Clipper refer to a “Tarbox” at that position – another name for Stockman, according to MLB historian John Thorn. The Eagle game account pointedly described how Shreve was the last Mutual to take his position at the game’s outset, and the Times noted that the game started 15 minutes late “after the usual delay for Stockman,” suggesting that some reporters couldn’t tell them apart. David Rader, @joestart4hof.bsky.social, May 5, 2025, https://bsky.app/profile/joestart4hof.bsky.social/post/3logq5wozo22o; “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle; “Base Ball Items.”

23 “Atlantic vs. Mutual,” Brooklyn Eagle.

24 “Base Ball Items”; John Thorn, “John Chapman – August 17, 1868; The Greatest Plays You Never Saw, No. 5,” Our Game blog, May 5, 2025, https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/john-chapman-august-17-1868-10e79aa34443.

25 Thorn, “John Chapman – August 17, 1868.”

26 “Base Ball: Defeat of the Champions,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 13, 1868: 2.

27 Brooklyn’s newspapers had a different perspective on the Atlantics’ standing. The Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Union and Brooklyn Times all declared the Atlantics champions after they’d toppled the Unions on October 6. “Base Ball: The Championship Returns to Brooklyn,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 7, 1868: 2; “Base Ball: The Grand Match at Tremont,” Brooklyn Union, October 7, 1868: 1; “Base Ball,” Brooklyn Times, October 8, 1868: 3.

28 “Mutual vs. Athletics,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 15, 1868: 2.

29 “The Clipper Gold Ball,” New York Clipper, November 14, 1868: 250.

30 The Clipper considered the Athletics to be the Gold Ball front-runner in November 1868 by virtue of having more wins and fewer losses than their three competitors. Mark Pestana, “Pivot to Professionalism: The 1869 Winter Meetings,” in Baseball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857-1900 (Phoenix: SABR, 2018), 86; “The Clipper Gold Ball.”