The Best in the West? Corinne, Utah's First Baseball Champions

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 52, 1984, No. 2

The Best in the West? Corinne, Utah's First Baseball Champions

BY LARRY R. GERLACH

AS THE DISPERSION OF DISCHARGED SOLDIERS and the rapid extension of telegraph and rail lines carried base ball (two words then) across the country after the Civil War, Utahns eagerly adopted the national game. The first recorded organized base ball games in Utah territory were played in October 1869 in Salt Lake City, an exhibition game between members of the Eureka Base Ball Club followed by a contest between the Eurekas and soldiers from Camp Douglas. By the spring of 1870 there were nine clubs in the territory: Box Elder County boasted three clubs — Corinne, North String, and a county team; Ogden, the Weber County seat, had two teams, the Junction No. 9 and the Red Sash; Salt Lake, the territorial capital and largest city between Denver and San Francisco, fielded four clubs — the Eurekas, the Alerts, the Step and Fetchits, and the Camp Douglas team. In 1871, teams appeared in Brigham City, Willard, Plain City, Hooper, Ophir, and Stockton. The purpose of this paper is to examine the origin of baseball in Utah as an organized sport for adults by means of a case study of the Corinne Base Ball Club, the first territorial champions.

The quintessential frontier boom town, Corinne was an unlikely hotbed of baseball. Founded in March 1869 where the Union Pacific Railroad crossed the Bear River, the tent-and-shanty town was hailed as the future "Chicago of the Rocky Mountains" and the "Queen City of the Great Basin" on the assumption that Corinne's location adjacent to the transcontinental railroad would make it the primary transfer point for freight and passengers headed to or from northern Utah, Idaho, and Montana. Within a year the bustling community became the second largest town in Box Elder County, its population of nearly a thousand residents swollen by itinerant throngs of teamsters, travelers, miners, and laborers. Struck by the rawness of a town filled with "whitemen armed to the teeth, miserable-looking Indians dressed in the ragged shirts and trousers furnished by the Central Government, and yellow Chinese with a business-like air and hard intelligent faces," a European visitor remarked that "no town in the Far West gave me so good an idea as this little place of what is meant by border-life, i.e., the struggle between civilization and savage men and things." Whether or not John Hanson Beadle, one of Corinne's earliest citizens and editor of the newspaper, was quantitatively correct in placing nineteen saloons, two dance halls, and "eighty nymphs du pave" in the "thriving country village" soon after its founding, there is no question that in a community where almost two-thirds of the residents were male and 40 percent of those were single men over twenty-one, drinking, gambling, brawling, and wenching were popular pastimes. So too, for a time, was baseball.

It is historically fitting that baseball was initially played in Utah with the greatest enthusiasm and expertise in Box Elder County in general, Corinne in particular. In July 1849 Alexander Joy Cartwright, the New York City bank clerk who four years earlier had drafted the rules that transformed traditional town ball into modern baseball, traversed the California Trail through the northwestern portion of what would later be Box Elder County, Utah, enroute to the gold fields. Far more important than the overland perambulations of the "father of baseball" was the passage through Corinne twenty years later of the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team composed entirely of salaried players. After defeating the best teams in the Midwest and East, the Red Stockings in September headed for San Francisco, the bastion of baseball on the Pacific Coast, on a trip only recently made possible by the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10 at Promontory, some twenty-eight miles west of Corinne."

The publicity accompanying the first transcontinental road trip in the history of the sport was the catalyst that produced organized baseball in Utah. It is probably not coincidental that Salt Lakers, who read about the Cincinnati trek in the Deseret Evening News, organized the first club in early October shortly after the Red Stockings left California. And although there is no direct evidence that the train carrying the Red Stockings actually stopped in Corinne, it seems likely that the town would have been a logical, even necessary, point for resting and refurbishing; in any event, Corinnethians, as residents liked to be called, were surely aware of the team passing through on or about September 22 and October 10 and immediately adopted the national game.

During the winter of 1869-70 Corinne "ballists" informally organized a baseball club. As soon as weather permitted in early March they began "preparing the ground for coming sport with bat and ball" and formed a permanent organization by adopting bylaws and electing officers. The Corinne club had at least eighteen (enough for two teams) and probably twenty-five to thirty members. It was a wholly amateur enterprise in that the club neither paid salaries to players nor charged admission to games; membership dues and private contributions defrayed expenses of travel and equipment.

Although organized for the primary purpose of playing baseball, the Corinne Base Ball Club (OB.B.C.) was a social club, a voluntary association no different in spirit or function from fraternal orders, mutual benefit societies, or civic improvement groups. The officers provide insight into the socioeconomic composition of the original club: President William W. Hull, 36, self-employed brickmason and plasterer from New York; Vice-president David R. Short, 36, real estate broker from Ohio; Treasurer Frank B. Hurlbut, 26, druggist and city councilman from Missouri; Secretary Edward M. Wilson, 22, printer from Oregon; and Captain John Q. Harnish, 24, store clerk from New Hampshire. (Hull was soon replaced as president by Irish-born Dennis J. Toohy, 38, the town's leading lawyer and city attorney.) Each of the original prime movers of Corinne baseball hailed from a hotbed of baseball and thus presumably was knowledgeable about the game; each was engaged in a white collar occupation or skilled trade that afforded both the money and the leisure time to participate in "gentlemanly sport"; and each was a bachelor for whom the club provided social intercourse. As befitting a middle-class social club, the OB.B.C. upon formal organization changed its meeting place from Fitzgerald's Saloon to a private hall in Short's business building."

The first organized baseball game in Corinne, which took place on March 25 as the featured event of the Pioneer Day celebration held to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the town, pitted the Corinne Base Ball Club against the upstart Pioneer Base Ball Club. The city artillery unit fired a one-gun salute at the end of each inning and a nine-gun volley at the end of the game. A local photographer halted the action to take a picture of the two clubs. The Corinne newspaper attached enough significance to the event to publish the first description of a baseball game and the first box score in Utah history. The reporter who covered the game waxed enthusiastic about the historic contest: "The spectacle presented by these young men as they performed their manly sports, reminds one of the physical perfection of the ancient athletes." Although "the nines went at it in good style," the match was no contest: after three hours and ten minutes the final score was Corinnes 79, Pioneers 20.

As suggested by the Pioneer Day exhibition of sport as spectacle, Corinnethians were infatuated with the national pastime. The club laid out a ball grounds northwest of town, and Judge N. A. Woodbury donated "a spendid set" of official scorebooks. J. M. Langsdorf, captain of the Corinne "second nine," presumptuously dispatched a challenge to the Cincinnati Red Stockings." More realistically, club members spent the spring developing their baseball skills. Acquiring athletic dexterity, particularly eye-hand coordination, was a difficult process that could be painful, as David Short discovered when his nose "for a moment or two resembled the eruption of a small volcano" after his "proboscis [came] in contact with a 'flyer' " during a practice game. Practices produced major alterations in the lineups. By the end of May, William A. Hodgman, 31-year-old owner of a harness and saddlery firm, took over as captain of the first nine; only three of the participants in the Pioneer Day game (Rupp, Hurlbut, and Elwell) remained on the first team. The discrepancy in talent became so great that to enliven practice games the first and second teams played "for a wager of value" with the first team giving the second stringers "the advantage of two or three outs." Much of the improvement in playing skills was due to newcomer Harry Taylor, partner in the Chicago mercantile firm of Taylor & Wright, who spent as much time instructing the Corinnes in the fine points of the game as in conducting business. He participated as catcher in intrasquad games and "by his skillful play gave our boys some valuable hints as to how things ought to be done."

The lure of competition prompted the Corinnes to test their prowess against other clubs in the area. On three successive Saturdays beginning May 28, the Corinnes whipped the visiting Box Elder Base Ball Club 90-50, won their first road and extra-inning game by defeating the Junctions in Ogden 46-44 in ten innings, and notched a victory over the North String Base Ball Club that was "not much credit" to the home team because the visitors were without all of their "first nine.'" 4 Elated by the three wins, the C.B.B.C. in mid-June announced a game on July 4 against Box Elder "for the Territorial championship and a prize."

Corinne's presumptuous arrangement of a championship elicited an immediate response from Salt Lake City. The Eurekas, the original club in the capital city, also had championship pretentions after first establishing local supremacy by defeating Camp Douglas 22-21 and the Alerts 35-27, and then, under the name "Ennea," humiliating the Junctions in Ogden 91-16 in the first intercity baseball game in Utah history. As early as May the officers of the Eureka and Corinne clubs had without success engaged in "a diplomatic correspondence" to arrange home-and-home games. But when the Corinnes defeated the Junctions and announced a match for the territorial championship with Box Elder, the Ennea on June 23 proclaimed themselves "champions of the Territory" and "willing to meet any other club within the limits of the Territory who wish to dispute the claim and contest for the same." The very next day the Corinnes agreed to meet the Salt Lakers in a best-of-three series, traditional for championship competition.

It was appropriate that Corinne and Salt Lake City, bitter rivals in virtually every aspect of life in the territory, should meet in the first baseball championship and that the series should commence on July 4. By July 1870 Corinne, the lone non-Mormon town in Utah, was the self-proclaimed Gentile capital of the territory. The town newspaper — "The OFFICIAL PAPER of the City, County, Territory, and the United States" — was relentless in its attacks upon Mormonism in general and the leadership of Brigham Young in particular; to the Reporter, the Mormon church was nothing more than an un-American cult of polygamists, its prophet a veritable theocratic despot. Moreover, the Corinnethean political establishment had initiated recent efforts to nominate a Gentile candidate for the post of territorial delegate to Congress, create the anti-Mormon Liberal party, and replace Salt Lake City as the seat of territorial government.'"July 4, 1870, was intended tobe more than a patriotic commemoration of national independence in Corinne: locally dubbed "Gentile day," the Fourth was viewed as a celebration of civil liberties and federal authority in a land of ecclesiastical tyranny.

While the Salt Lake press made no mention of the upcoming contest, the Corinne newspaper referred daily to the game. The Reporter waxed eloquent in hyping "the day the covetous champions come together," and in anticipation of "a red-hot game," William Ellis and Franklin Winschell, "the beer king," agreed to supply the players "with the best of lager" during the game. Unfortunately, the much publicized contest itself is a veritable mystery because of the unavailability of any issues of the Reporter for three days after the game; the Salt Lake Herald simply noted that Corinne defeated the Enneas by a score of 42-31 in a "closely contested" game in which the lead changed hands several times.

The triumph excited the nascent community striving for respect and recognition. With civic pride the Reporter proclaimed: "Base Ball is a popular game; aye, a national game, and a popular pastime, and Corinne, ever alive to her popular interests, is evidently taking a decided stand in the front rank of this popular, fashionable, national pastime." Worried that the "easy victory" over the Enneas would make the Corinnes "rather indifferent to the future efficiency," the paper soon exulted that the triumph had actually "awakened a lively interest among the boys of the bat" and that among the apparent champions of the territory "increased efforts to defeat any and everybody of the game's devotees are talked of, and not in a very modest manner either." The braggadocio increased after the Corinne club massacred the previously undefeated team from the Thirteenth Infantry on July 13 by a score of 62-41 in a game marred by a "hurricane" wind and "dust so thick that frequently the ball was lost when near by the fielders." Granting that the soldiers had the "disadvantage of arriving off of a four hundred mile march through the scorching sun and dust," the Reporter ungraciously justified running up the score in the middle innings: "we had to try and win the friendly game." Not even a formal remonstrance from the Enneas reminding the Corinnes that they were "not the Champion Club of Utah nor the Pacific Coast, unless they win the next game" curbed the arrogance. Replied the Reporter: "We admit we were a little hasty ... in claiming the championship until the next game is played, but does anyone doubt the Corinnes are the champions nevertheless?"

Corinne boosters should have known that the rematch would be no lark, for the Enneas would benefit from a decided home field advantage. Just as the first game was deliberately staged in Corinne on July 4, the second contest was intentionally scheduled in Salt Lake to coincide with the commemoration of the arrival of the main body of Mormon pioneers into the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847. (Because July 24 fell on Sunday, celebrations were held on Monday.) Although the Corinne-Ennea game was not part of the official schedule of events, the contest was sure to attract the attention of the throngs drawn for the "Mormon Day" activities.

Some 2,500 fans, including three excursion cars full of Corinnethians, gathered on the grounds north of the arsenal to watch the return match. To the astonishment of all, the Enneas thrashed the Corinnes 74-23. According to the Herald: "The masterly playing of the 'Enneas' surprised even the expectations of their most ardent supporters, while the continued 'muffing' and wild play of their opponents caused more than one long face among their adherents."

The cocky Corinnethians were demoralized by the stunning reversal. Owen D. Huyck, publisher of the Reporter, could bring himself to print only the score of the game, observing that "base ball enthusiasm" was "below par" in the town. The community was "sort of old fogyishly quiet" partly because the Ennea victory had caused "several thousand dollars" to change hands. The pallor was also due to the magnitude of the defeat. A visitor to Corinne a few days after the game noticed that a tombstone had been erected in the center of town, draped with a flag of mourning and inscribed with a sorrowful epitaph: "Base Ball Club No. 24 of Corinne, U.T. died July 24 [sic], 1870, at Great Salt Lake City, for the want of breath. The members of this deceased club are requested to wear a badge of mourning for thirty days."

A series of popular postmortem analyses testify to the depth of embarrassment caused by the Corinnes' first loss. Some residents, probably those who had lost wagers, were "prepared to make affidavit the game was thrown off." Other persons blamed "unfortunate circumstances" for the loss — "bad ground, injured men, and general disadvantage at the beginning of the play." Still others were fatalistic: "the boys were too confident; they ought to have been beat; it will learn them better the next time." But according to Huyck, there was a simple explanation for the "remarkable odds in the score" if not for the defeat itself. Harry Taylor, the Corinne catcher and "by common consent the best base ball player west of Cincinnati," had been forced to leave after a few innings because of "a felon on the middle finger of his right hand, which was painful and uncomfortable in the extreme." With Taylor on the bench, the Enneas promptly went on a scoring rampage after which the Corinne players "took but little interest in the game, except to entertain the vast number of spectators."

When the third game of the championship series, scheduled for neutral Ogden in early August, was postponed for nearly two months because of a smallpox epidemic in the Junction City, the Corinnes regrouped. A decision was made to reorganize the club under the supervision of Taylor, but in early August "Harry of base ball notoriety" returned to Chicago. Nevertheless, "quite a number" of personnel changes were made; throughout August the club held intrasquad games to sharpen skills, and in a tune-up for the upcoming championship game won two matches in September against the North String club, 41-40 and 58-38.

The Corinnes and Enneas met for the championship on Saturday, October 1. Despite the delay of nearly two months, popular interest in the title game remained high. A Salt Lake humor magazine in a rare note of seriousness remarked of the "considerable talk about base ball just now," and die-hard fans from Salt Lake and Corinne responded to pregame publicity by journeying to Ogden for the game. The Corinne and Salt Lake newspapers held their presses until receiving telegraphic word of the outcome; upon receiving the desired wire — "Kill the fatted calf. Corinne walks away with the championship. Corinne 12, Enneas 8" — the Reporter exclaimed: "It affords us unspeakable pleasure to be able to chronicle a complete victory for the young men of our city and county who compose the Corinne Club, and we congratulate them on their triumph of skill in the national method of proving the superiority of physical strength and activity."

The match was in every respect worthy of being the decisive game for the first territorial championship. Featuring excellent pitching and superb fielding, it was the lowest-scoring and best played game yet staged in the territory. With the lead changing hands five times and the score tied twice, the game, rated "even up" by gamblers, was a nip-and-tuck affair until Corinne bolted ahead with three runs in the bottom of the seventh. Each team was "whitewashed" (held scoreless) three times, and no less than nineteen "fly catches," daring maneuvers without gloves, were recorded. In commenting on the "magnificent exhibition of science and skill in base ball," the Reporter asserted that "the game is unequalled on base ball records west of Chicago to the Pacific, and the famous crack clubs of the East cannot boast of any superior games." The only discordant note came after the game when the Enneas, in an unprecedented display of poor sportsmanship, refused to congratulate the victors with "the accustomed tribute" or join the Corinnes in the traditional postgame dinner. Undaunted, the Corinnes returned home to a reception "that a successful army might be proud of." Bonfires, fireworks, artillery blasts, and "cheer after cheer" accompanied the champions en route to the Uintah House and a victory banquet that lasted until after midnight.

The composition of the championship team reveals important changes had occurred in the nature and organization of Corinne baseball during the first season. Within six months the C.B.B.C. had been transformed from a social club intended to promote physical activity into a sporting association geared to athletic competition. The membership changed dramatically as physical skills took precedence over social status: by October talented "outsiders" outnumbered townsmen on the first team. None of the charter members who played in the inaugural Corinne-Pioneer game in March participated in the championship game, and only two of the Corinnes who competed against Box Elder in May (Hodgman and Stone) played against the Enneas in October. More important, five members of the championship team were not residents of Corinne. That Herbert Orme, Lyman Barnard, Heber Loveland, Joseph Valentine, and James Young had played previously with the Box Elder and North String clubs indicates that the Corinnes added "ringers" from the county.

Although the championship series was played amid pervasive religious and political animosities, baseball was above bigotry. Of the Enneas' trip to Corinne the Mormon-owned Herald noted that "before, after and during the game, the Salt Lake visitors were treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness." Similarly, the anti-Mormon Reporter remarked of the return match in Salt Lake City that "the best feeling prevailed throughout the contest, and everything that could be done to make it pleasant for the Corinnes while in Zion was done." And in sharp contrast to its braggadocio before and after the first game, the Reporter's account of the championship contest contained no boasts, no derogatory religious references, and no implication that the contest was a confrontation between Gentile Corinne and Mormon Salt Lake City.

The Corinne-Salt Lake series was above religious partisanship for three reasons. First, organized sport was in its infancy in Utah and, as suggested by minimal newspaper coverage, the traditional notion of sport as play still obtained — i.e., games were nonserious leisure activities separate from everyday life. Second, as the Reporter observed, there was a genuine interest among advocates of the national pastime in "building up and maintaining an honorable base ball reputation for Utah." But it is difficult to believe that the Corinne paper, the pages of which were routinely filled with anti- Mormon invective, would not have tossed a few barbs at the Salt Lakers had it not been for the third factor: the majority of the Corinnes was Mormon. The C.B.B.C. was originally non-Mormon, but the five Box Elder men on the championship team — Barnard, Loveland, Orme, Valentine, and Young — were LDS as were second-teamers Joseph Whitworth and John Welch. The Enneas were also religiously integrated. The four stars of the club — Arick, the pitcher; Charles P. Huey, later a director of the Gentile "Deserets"; Don Wickizer, son of Joseph H. Wickizer, special agent for the U.S. Postal Department; and William N. "Billy" McCurdy, son of federal judge Solomon P. McCurdy — were not Mormon; George M. Snow was probably not LDS despite his traditional Mormon surname. In sum, both the Corinnes and Enneas were more concerned with athletic performance than theological presumptions.

Undisputed territorial champions with a record of nine wins and one loss, the Corinnes hoped to extend their claim to baseball supremacy. But just as earlier efforts to arrange a match with the Bryan City, Wyoming, team for regional honors failed, late season challenges to teams in Nevada, California, and Oregon to play for the Pacific Coast championship came to naught.

The C.B.B.C endured the winter of 1870-71 by meeting frequently around the hot stove to plan for the upcoming season. To show themselves "to good advantage," the club ordered "a splendid style" of gray flannel uniforms and caps from the leading manufacturer of baseball apparel in Philadelphia. The members also voted to adopt the name "Queen City Club," a "royal appelation" fitting for a team that intended to "carry off the laurels of a continent," but later decided to retain the more precise if less elegant "Corinnes." More substantive was the administrative reorganization of the club. Dennis Toohy, recently named editor of the Reporter, was reelected president, but the other officers were elected for the first time: Vice-president William H. Glascott, life insurance agent; Treasurer George T. Miles, co-owner of a hardware store; and Secretary Clarence M. White, merchant. Chosen to serve as a Board of Directors were Frank B. Hurlbut, city councilman and owner of a drug store; William T. Fields, head cashier of the Bank of Corinne and the city recorder; and John E. Stone, proprietor of Diamond Q Billiards. Hodgman was again selected to captain the first nine, while Glascott was charged with supervising the second team. Close connections with the business community ensured that the club would not lack financial support; nor, given Toohy's twin passions of Mormonbaiting and baseball, would the club want for publicity.

Indicative of the C.B.B.C.'s prominence in the community was its sponsorship of the social event of the year, the grand ball held at the Opera House on March 24 to launch the annual Pioneer Day celebration. The highlight of the evening was the presentation to the club of a banner sewn during the winter by the women of Corinne. The ensign, of "standard army size" attached to a "a splendid staff with a spear head in gold," was made of Emerald green silk accentuated by "heavy silver bullion fringe and tassels." Inscribed on the front in golden letters was "Corinne" Base Ball "Club," the two middle words "expressed allegorically, with the implements of our national sport." The acclaimed "Base Ball ball" brought community prestige to the team and a profit of $86.10 to the club treasury.

Sporting new uniforms and a club banner, the Corinnes eagerly awaited the 1871 season. After the club took to the "ball grounds" in March for the initial practice session of the year, Toohy chortled: "The boys have not forgotten how to do it." Actually, the team was stronger than the previous year, with two excellent players from Salt Lake City — Adam Aulbach, who had recently purchased the Reporter, and Charles P. Huey, former secretary and shortstop for the Enneas, who upon moving to town was promptly elected secretary of the Corinnes. The best of the North Stringers again joined the club, and the decision not to hold practices on Sunday may have been a concession to the Mormon members. And much to the relief of all, Herbert Orme, the "celebrated Pitcher," returned from Nevada just in time for the baseball season.

Hoping to start the new season where it had left off, the C.B.B.C. invited the Enneas of Salt Lake to a match game on Pioneer Day. But when the Enneas declined the invitation, the Corinnes treated "a vast assemblage of ladies and gentlemen" to an intrasquad "display of physical culture." Although the first team bested the second nine 34-19, the Reporter boasted that the skill of both squads demonstrated that the Corinnes "can hold in reserve a force sufficient to keep the rear well protected in case the champion nine should ever meet with a reverse — a thing most unlikely this side of the Atlantic Ocean."

Toohy's desire to "pit Boxelder [sic] county against the world" in baseball was genuine. On March 7 Secretary George Miles sent a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle proposing that the Corinnes travel to the Golden State during the summer to meet the California champions for "the championship of the coast." The Corinnes soon received a letter from the "Wide Awakes" of Oakland expressing "a hope to see the two organizations more intimately acquainted." The determination to achieve supremacy in the West was so keen that the Reporter began printing reports of California matches, and the C.B.B.C. in early May sent Aulbach to San Francisco to represent the club at the annual meeting of the Pacific Base Ball Association, the first time a Utah team had been involved in the regional organization. After watching the California championships, Aulbach commented: "I believe the Champion Nine of Corinne are the Champions of the Pacific Coast, and would make good that title in any game the so-called champions of the coast might see fit to engage in." Accordingly, he filed "the claims of the Corinnes to contest for the championship bat to be considered by the Pacific Base Ball Convention in July."

Meanwhile, the C.B.B.C. commenced its defense of the territorial title. The season opened with a pair of easy wins (28-13 and 21 -9) over the Willard City club. So great was community support for the team that "quite a number" of Corinnethians on horseback along with a Concord coach, a large hack, and six buggies "freighted with base bailers, and a merry party of ladies and gentlemen" traveled fourteen dusty miles to watch a game played on grounds which were "in primeval state, the diamond only having been cleared of sagebrush, and that was quite uneven." 47 The Corinnes then defeated the North Stringers 17-10 despite letting Orme pitch for the opposition to increase the competition. 48 A trip to Ogden on May 27 failed to test the team; Orme, pitching brilliantly and hitting an unprecedented four home runs, led a 81-9 rout of the Junctions, termed "a repetition of the merciless manner in which the champions walk away with the laurels."

With baseball virtually abandoned as an organized sport in Salt Lake City, the Corinnes found themselves without competition. Consequently, the self-proclaimed "best in the West" were reduced to playing exhibition games against pick-up teams in town. In early June the Corinnes played two games with the C.B.B.C. Juniors, the first youth club in Utah. The teenagers provided the stiffest challenge of the season, and the future for baseball in Corinne looked bright; as Toohy remarked of the youthful nine: "We have seldom seen the skill of some of them excelled." Later that month the Corinnes played the Alkali Blinders, composed of prominent middle-aged businessmen and professionals. The town fathers played with reckless abandon but minimal skill: Frank Evans "caught a fly in his mouth," Gumpert Goldberg took a "short hop in the region of the belt," and William Patterson, following a badly "muffed" throw, left the field "to get some beer."

But baseball was more than fun and games to the Corinnes, and the club desperately sought respectable competition during the summer. An empty challenge from Savannah, Georgia, typical of telegraphic boasts that publicized a club without the danger of an actual test on field, was dismissed as the Corinnes endeavored to enhance their regional reputation at the expense of Nevada clubs as a prelude to contesting for the West Coast championship. After more than two months of seeking a match with clubs from Carson City, Reno, Virginia City, or "any nine that Nevada can muster," the Corinnes dispatched a formal challenge to the reigning Nevada champions, the Silver Stars of Carson City, to meet in Elko (relatively equidistant between the two cities) "to decide the championship of the Great Basin." But the Stars would do no more than "consider" the challenge, leaving the Corinnes to drum up local competition.

Desperate for games, the C.B.B.C. eagerly accepted an invitation from the Enneas to participate in "a friendly game" in Salt Lake on July 4 and delighted the "large number of ladies and gentlemen" who attended the "social match" by coming from behind to win 28-21. The Corinnes then endured a month of inactivity when the anticipated meeting with the Ophir club failed to materialize because the Silver Heels were unsuccessful at "screwing up their courage to challenge the Corinne cusses to a strife for the belt."

Finally, in early August a match game was scheduled with the Echoes of Ogden, an all-star team drawn from the Junction and Red Sash clubs. Toohy had earlier scoffed at rumors of such a challenge, suggesting that a victory of the Ogdenites over "the champion base ball players of the West" would be "the wonder of the nineteenth century." That the Corinnes took the game lightly is understandable after stalwarts Hodgman and Stone, who played for the Enneas in a July 24 contest against the Echoes, brought back reports of the "exceedingly poor game" won by the hosts 55-54. Consequently, Captain Hodgman's appeal to the "championship nine" to report for nightly practices so that "they may not be caught napping" was to no avail. On August 12 the Echoes stunned the home team and a "large crowd" of spectators by whipping the Corinnes 46-38. The defeat could easily have been worse: The Echoes had tallied 15 runs in the top of the ninth inning when, with two outs, the game was called to allow the Weberites to catch a train back to Ogden. Chagrined, Corinnethians took solace from the fact that their club was without the services of three of its best players — Orme, Huey, and Miles.

While the Corinne players "took their defeat with a very good grace," Dennis Toohy did not. Outraged that the game had produced "a 'foul' blot on the hitherto untarnished record of our invincible players," Toohy argued that the absence of the three stars was no excuse for not having "made a better showing," and he was furious that "the old story of want of practice, no time to go out and play," was being offered as an excuse. That the club president's stinging rebuke had an immediate effect is evident from the subsequent announcement in the Reporter: "Practice of the Base Ball Club this evening at 6." To demonstrate that they were ready for the rematch, the Corinnes a week later traveled to Northampton and whipped the North String club 47-18 in a game that "the [Brooklyn] Eckfords or [Philadelphia] Athletics might be proud to emulate." Once again seized by "a fit of baseballomania," Corinne was ready for the showdown with the Ogdenites.

The return match took place on August 26 in Ogden. Excitement in Corinne was so great at the prospect of the locals winning back their "lost laurels" that the Central Pacific railroad offered special excursion rates to fans, and the Reporter dispatched a special correspondent to file an on-the-spot telegraphic report at the conclusion of the game. With Orme and Huey back in the line-up and the experienced Valentine substituting for Miles, the Corinnes scored three runs in the top of the first inning and were never headed en route to a 65-30 victory. The C.B.B.C. put on an awesome display of hitting, but the Ogden paper identified the major difference in the two teams: "From the start it was easily seen that the pitching of Mr. Oram [sic] . . . was too much for our boys."

Unfortunately, Corinne's supremacy in 1871 was more selfproclaimed than demonstrated despite a 7-1 record. First, the Ogden Junction denied that Corinne was the Utah champion. Contending that the Corinne-Ogden game of May 27 was a "social" exhibition instead of a match game, the paper argued that a third game was necessary to decide the titlist. But the Corinnes, considering themselves champions because they had twice defeated Ogden, declared the season at an end. 60 Both sides were technically correct: the first game was staged in conjunction with a Methodist church social, but the Corinnes did defeat the all-star squad that eventually became the Echo club. Although the Corinnes were decidely superior to the Echoes, the caveat tarnished their claim to the territorial title. Then the Nevada Register chided Toohy for declaring the Corinnes the champions of the Pacific slope because the Carson City club "would make the Corinnethians see (Silver) Stars." After Carson City, which had steadfastly refused to accept Corinne's "declaration of war," was defeated 67-30 by the nondescript Social Base Ball Club of Virginia City, the C.B.B.C.'s claim to superiority in the Intermountain region was bolstered if unproven on the field.

When word arrived in late August that the Chicago White Stockings might extend their western tour to California, the Corinnes began to dream of national recognition. Ecstatic about the prospect of meeting the professional powerhouse, Toohy was confident the Corinnes would "knock the snowy hose off the shins of the Suckers" and demonstrate the superiority of the "athletes of Utah" over the "dandy base-men of the East." "If Corinne does not walk away with Messrs. White Stockings," he crowed, "then Joe Smith was no prophet." But the Chicago team failed to cross the Missouri, and in mid-September Toohy announced: "Our champions of base ball have put away their armor for the year, no club in the country daring to pick up the glove."

Ironically, just when C.B.B.C. reached the zenith of success — strong community support, abundant financial resources, two consecutive territorial championships — interest in the national pastime abruptly dissipated in Corinne. As if to presage the demise of the club, the "entire pavillion" was "stolen" from the ball grounds during the winter. Spring saw the "juveniles" breaking out the bats and balls, but no club was organized. Pioneer Day and Independence Day passed without the traditional ball game. And while it was reported in early July that "base ball is revived here," the summer passed without an organized game being played. The following spring a baseball club was organized, largely at Toohy's insistence, and on May 17 the first practice game in almost two years was held.

"Of course the 'flies' were muffed and poor playing was consequent," commented the Reporter, "but taking into consideration the very long time that has elapsed since a game has been played, they did remarkably well." Then, with characteristic braggadocio, Toohy exclaimed: "Before the season is over a better and more athlete [sic] club will not tread with manly firmness the green playgrounds of the Pacific slope." At first such optimism seemed justified, as the club staged a "lively" intrasquad game later that month under the auspices of Captain Short. But by early June Toohy lamented that "the base-ball fever, which at one time threatened to envelop the youth and vigor of Corinne in an overwhelming sea of glory has 'gone glimmering through the dream of things that were."

That baseball remained dormant in Corinne during 1874 is suggested by renewed efforts to form a club in the spring of 1875. In announcing plans to organize participants in ad hoc games into a formal club, the Corinne Daily Mail reminded residents that the town "in former times had a Base Ball Club that was the acknowledged champion of the Pacific coast." But hopes of forming a club that would "equal the reputation of the former ones of the city" were illusory, for there is no evidence of any organized competition during the summer. However, some of the former members of the 1870-71 club in early September arranged for a game against soldiers stationed near the town. A "large crowd" witnessed first-hand just how far Corinne baseball had deteriorated. After "a desperate effort" by the civilians for eight innings, the Mail remarked that "the score according to our account stood 1 to 888 in favor of the soldiers." Although the margin of victory was surely meant to be taken figuratively, the Mail's assessment of the Corinne team was accurate: "All the spectators present except those religiously inclined, were of the opinion that the newly organized club, instead of playing base ball, had played h — 1 with their reputation."

By the spring of 1877 Corinnethians were struggling to no avail to recapture lost baseball glories. On the eve of Pioneer Day, the Corinne Record proclaimed: "Our base ball club holds itself in readiness to accept a challenge from any nine that can be scared up in Utah. Who wants to give them a rattle?" There were no challengers, baseball in Corinne having long since gone full circle from organized sport to sandlot game.

The demise of organized baseball in Corinne is attributable initially to socioeconomic conditions prevalent in the boom town. By 1872 Corinnethians increasingly had little time for systematic play as "scarcity of labor" was a constant complaint. The demand for workers both in town and on the railroad undoubtedly kept many men on the job and off the playing field. Moreover, the unstable, highly transient population took its toll on club membership: by 1872 ten Corinnes — including Aulbach, Huey, Robey, Orme, Stone, and Elwell — were gone, and when Toohy moved to Salt Lake in 1873 baseball lost its principal booster. Then, too, rapid community growth produced numerous social and athletic alternatives to a baseball club. Competition for the leisure time of ball players came not from fraternal organizations such as the Odd Fellows, Good Templars, and Masons, but from other sport clubs. During 1872 croquet matches sponsored by the West End Croquet Club replaced baseball games as the sporting passion. Although Toohy railed against "that anti-muscular pastime," there was no curtailing the popularity of "Presbyterian billiards"; by 1873 he admitted that "croquet has broken out all over town" and that the game was "the leading sport of youngsters." By the summer of 1873 regattas were the rage, with "many" rowing and yachting clubs vying for aquatic honors; for landlubbers, the Lacrosse Ball Club promoted the latest team sport. The reason baseball so suddenly lost its popularity in Corinne is uncertain. But whether because of the departure of key players or simple lack of interest, middle-class Corinnethians moved after 1871 toward other recreational pursuits and formed clubs for virtually every local sport including fishing, swimming, ice skating, roller skating, and gymnastics.

Local conditions notwithstanding, baseball in Corinne would have declined because of problems associated with organized sport on the frontier. First, as the infatuation with other sports suggests, baseball was a fad. Baseball lacked staying power in burgeoning western communities in part because early settlers, in an effort to achieve instant status and respectability, whimsically embraced the activities and behavior patterns of urban communities. Thus in nascent towns as diverse as Topeka, Kansas, and Salt Lake City, initial enthusiasm for the national pastime was followed by a period of waning interest in the sport. More important, it was difficult to maintain a team sport like baseball in a rural environment. Given the absence of formal leagues and the difficulty of traveling to distant towns, match games were played sporadically; without regular competition, baseball clubs could not sustain themselves on intrasquad games. Intercity competition in Utah virtually ceased for a decade after 1871, and no championship series was held until two Salt Lake City teams competed for the title in 1877.

Corinne never experienced a baseball revival as did Ogden and Salt Lake City because the Burg on the Bear went bust. Organized baseball is an essentially urban activity, and Corinne never became more than a frontier boom town. The chronological parameters of organized baseball in Corinne are instructive: the C.B.B.C. was formed in 1869 soon after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and the last match game was played in 1875 against soldiers sent to protect the community from a bogus "Indian scare." The beginning of the end for Corinne came in 1871 when the Mormons began building a narrow-gauge railroad north from Ogden through Cache Valley to Franklin, Idaho; the death blow came in 1877-78 when the Union Pacific took over the Utah Northern and extended the line north to the Montana Trail, thereby removing Corinne's raison d'etre. The town, already a shadow of its former self, was virtually abandoned: only 277 inhabitants, mostly LDS, were enumerated in the 1880 census. Within a decade the commercial Gentile capital of Utah had become a pastoral Mormon village.

Baseball, symbolized by the C.B.B.C, played a brief albeit important role in early Corinne. That several hundred spectators, mostly ladies and gentlemen, regularly attended home and away games demonstrated that the national pastime was regarded as a fashionable social event; that the newspaper gave the sport unusually extensive, often hyperbolic, coverage indicates that the club was a major source of civic pride. Corinne became obsessed with baseball because the team met important community needs. Participation in the national pastime fed the town's self-image as the outpost of national culture and authority in parochial Mormon society. The success of the C.B.B.C. fostered civic pride and brought positive publicity to an upstart community desperately seeking recognition and respectability. The club itself gave impetus to preferred community values — social stability amid transiency, wholesome physical recreation amid leisure-time debauchery. Finally, the C.B.B.C, the first formally organized social club in Corinne, set the pattern for a secular organization of social and recreational activity that contrasted with the church-directed social life of Mormon Utah. In short, the C.B.B.C. fostered community cohesion and chauvinism, fundamental but often ephemeral commodities in nascent frontier towns.

Although the C.B.B.C. caught the fancy of the entire community, a socioeconomic analysis of thirty-two players reveals that baseball most directly met the needs of a specific segment of the population. Because most Corinne males were engaged in bluecollar occupations (freighters, construction workers, day laborers), one would expect a blue-collar ball club in the frontier town. But a majority, twenty-one or 66 percent, of the C.B.B.C. held white-collar positions. The occupational profile shows the following class orientation: nine or 28 percent of the Corinnes were high white collar (businessmen, professionals); twelve or 38 percent were low white collar (clerks, bookkeepers); three or 9 percent were skilled blue collar (brickmasons, carpenters, printers); two or 6 percent were semi-skilled blue collar (painters); and six or 19 percent were unskilled blue collar (miners, farm laborers). If one excludes the five Box Elder County players, each of whom was a farm laborer, the white-collar level increases to 78 percent. The marital status of the members was also at variance with community norms. Whereas 62 percent of the Corinne males over twenty-one were single, a reasonable percentage for a frontier town, 78 percent of the ballplayers (25) were bachelors. Ethnically, the C.B.B.C. conformed to the general Utah profile: twenty-two or 69 percent of the Corinnes were natives of the United States, while the foreign-born members had a decidedly Anglo-Saxon configuration with five Britons, three Canadians, a Dane, and a South African. None of the Corinnes was a Utah native. The Corinnes were young adults, the average and median ages being twenty-five and twenty-four years respectively; almost one-third of the members (11) were twenty-four years old at the time of the 1870 census. In sum, the Corinne Base Ball Club was a middle-class organization that met the social and recreational needs of the town's rising mercantile and professional bachelor subculture.

Because the ultimate measure of a baseball club is performance, the question remains: How good were the Corinnes? Judging from the scores of their games, they would probably not have fared so well against better teams in the Midwest or East where single- or low double-digit tallies were the norm. But as Aulbach maintained after observing the California championships, the Utahns may well have been the best in the "bush leagues" of far western baseball. That the Corinnes were especially talented is suggested by their consistent domination of local opponents compared with the erratic performances of top teams in Nevada and California. Certainly Herbert Orme, the "Sampson of Box Elder," was one of the premier players in the region. Arguably the best in the West, the Corinne Base Ball Club unquestionably deserves historical recognition as the first territorial champions and the progenitors of the national pastime in northern Utah.

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