Baseball in the Arizona Territory, 1863-1912

Between the founding of Arizona as a territory in 1863, when the nation was in the midst of the Civil War, and 1871, when the nation was in the midst of the Indian Wars of the American West, baseball had been transformed from a gentleman’s amateur game to a professional game for the masses with an official league and salaried players. During those eight years the American army fought an active war against Apache, Yavapai, and Hualapai Indians of the Arizona Territory to provide a safer place of opportunity for miners, farmers, ranchers, and settlers. Like other westerners, the men settling Arizona were probably spending their scant leisure time drinking or gambling but they most likely played the occasional “pickup” game at holiday celebrations.

In January 1873, a Prescott paper, the Arizona Miner reported one of the first games played in the territory, a Christmas day match at Camp Grant. “In the forenoon, an exciting game of base ball took place. This occupied the attention, [ of] both of the combatants, until one o’clock, when the welcome call to dinner was wafted to our ears, and readily responded to.” No score or outcome of the game was reported. With the first professional league organized in the East in 1871, and baseball being played in the far corners of the Western Territories, the game of baseball was on its way to becoming ingrained in America’s consciousness as the national pastime.

By the time the Apache wars ended in September 1886, two transcontinental railroads had been built through the territory, attracting more American settlers and immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Latin America to seek their opportunity in Arizona. Town boosters, newspaper editors, and moneyed investors promoted the territory and the future wealth of the region. While professional baseball was decades away from being organized in the Southwest, baseball in Arizona would follow New York’s evolutionary progression from pickup teams, amateur clubs, and semi-pro squads to professional teams and leagues.

As communities in Arizona Territory developed in the 1870s and early 1880s around mining camps or agricultural centers, baseball became evident in many of Arizona’s young communities as a fixture at Fourth of July celebrations and on Christmas Day, or as a leisure activity in mining and military camps. With the heat of the Sonoran Desert dictating much of day-to-day life in the lower elevations of Arizona, early baseball matches in the territory tended to be played in the winter or early spring. Christmas seemed to be an especially favorite day for baseball.

Baseball appears in the records of the early years of Yuma, Prescott, and Phoenix. Yuma was witness to one of the earliest matches with a game played on Main Street in February 1874. In Phoenix, following a Christmas Eve of dancing, celebrating, and feasting, the Norvall Club of McDowell and the Phoenix Club played on Christmas Day 1880, with Phoenix winning 13 to 9. The game was described as “well played by both clubs, and was witnessed by a large audience, many of whom were ladies.” A box score accompanied the brief article. The organization of baseball clubs in the youthful burg of Phoenix was fleeting for the following year there is no mention of a baseball match on Christmas Day.

In 1880, Arizona Territory had a scant 40,441 residents, less than half of the 118,430 located in its eastern neighbor, New Mexico. In the West, only Idaho (32,611), Montana (39,157), and Wyoming (20,788) had fewer settlers. As Arizona grew in the 1880s, so did the organization of baseball clubs across the territory. Baseball and the creation of local clubs became one of the cultural icons of Americanization in territorial Arizona and baseball teams organized in Prescott, Phoenix, Tombstone, Tucson, and Yuma.

One match in Phoenix in April 1887 appears to have been inspired by a championship series in St. Louis. On April 8, 1887, the Arizona Gazette reported that a baseball championship series had begun in the “Gateway City” between St. Louis and Chicago. At the first game over 8,000 kranks (as 19th century fans were nicknamed) were present at the match with Chicago winning 6 to 3.

On April 12, 1887, the Arizona Gazette reported that on Sunday, April 10, the Phoenix baseball club, with a number of its players from Ft. McDowell, played Fort Lowell from Tucson at the territorial fair grounds with an audience of around 200 people. Scheduled to begin at two o’clock, a severe wind and sand storm delayed the match for a half hour, and blowing sand remained a problem during the first few innings. The Phoenicians, outfitted with “considerable good material here in ball tossers” defeated the “boys in blue” 14 to 7. At one point in the eighth inning, the crowd, surrounding the field, made so much noise, the local players couldn’t hear their coaches’ directions and instead of scoring a possible three runs only marked a single tally. The box score reported players’ last names, positions played, runs scored, score by innings, and the name of the umpire and scorers.

The excitement which surrounded such a successful match, in which the paper anticipated more games at the Fall fair, ended in tragedy. Three Phoenix players came from Fort McDowell and upon return to their camp on Tuesday morning, one of the men, Muntz, who had played third base, was thrown from his galloping horse, which had slipped on a steep incline after crossing the bridge across the Maricopa canal. The shortstop, Cody, also on horseback and the second baseman Casey and his wife followed in a carriage. Unfortunately, Muntz suffered a terrible blow to the head which proved to be a mortal wound.

From 1890 to 1900, Arizona remained a territory struggling to become a state. For baseball promoters in Arizona, the national pastime remained a very competitive club sport which saw communities around the territory playing each other in popular challenge matches. Professional baseball scores from around the country were regularly published in the newspapers and in most springs, baseball clubs organized around the state. Town leaders issued challenges between rival communities, usually settling the grudge-match on the Fourth of July. By the end of the decade, however, amateur football had also become popular across the United States, and in Phoenix, football replaced baseball as the traditional game played on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

From 1900 to 1912, baseball in Arizona operated on a semi-pro and amateur level, albeit irregularly. While the major leagues had started spring training on the West Coast in 1903, the Pacific Coast League established new standards for minor league competition in the nation. The national scores were even published on the front pages of Arizona newspapers. In one instance, local baseball clubs held a charity game to raise money for the residents of San Francisco after the devastating earthquake of April 18, 1906. Organized professional leagues, legitimate or outlaw, were infrequent in the Southwest in the first decade of the twentieth century. Local clubs operated in most of the Arizona’s towns and they continued to play competitive challenges with inter-city and intra-state rivals.

In 1912, the year of Arizona and New Mexico statehood, every region of the country had a recognized minor league baseball circuit except the youthful Southwest. Leaders of both states knew the importance of baseball to their communities and the national publicity their communities would receive in the nation’s papers and pool halls with a minor league in their states. Leaders in Douglas clamored for a professional team but promoters in New Mexico succeeded in joining the first professional league in the Southwest.

The Rocky Mountain League, a “D” class circuit was located along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in east-central Colorado. Initially, New Mexico did not have any entries into this ill-fated league, but as teams ran into financial difficulties, the Canon City Swastikas moved their home to Raton, New Mexico on June 4, 1912. The Colorado Springs Millionaires also moved to Dawson, New Mexico, on June 15th. The two other teams, the La Junta Railroaders and the Pueblo/Trinidad/Cheyenne Indians, made up the remainder of the league, which collapsed and folded on July 15, 1912. While unsuccessful in their first venture, New Mexican boosters were ready to try again and so were Arizonans. They would soon receive their second chance when baseball promoter and founder of the Texas League, John McCloskey, conceptualized the Rio Grande Association for the youthful mining and agricultural communities of the Desert Southwest, a “D” class circuit that would begin play in 1915.

Baseball developed into a popular community sport during Arizona’s territorial years. As the game developed and established itself in the urban and mining communities of Arizona, baseball became integral to community identity. In the decades following statehood, baseball in the Grand Canyon state would continue to grow in popularity and remain a constant source of rivalry and organized competition.

Jeb Stuart Rosebrook, M.A., Ph.D./abd, (Arizona State University), is currently the Research Editor of Arizona Highways Magazine. His three articles and many of the historic baseball photos in this book are adapted from his dissertation, “Diamonds in the Desert: Professional Baseball in the Southwest, 1915-1958.”