Muffin Baseball

Muffin games are mentioned in passing in histories of early baseball but invariably receive scant attention. At first glance this seems appropriate to their humble origins as scrimmages between the weakest members of baseball clubs. The name muffin , calling attention to the amount of muffing that ensued, contributes to the perception. However, as this paper will suggest, muffin games came to play a very important role in ensuring baseball's popularity during a crucial period and initiated a tradition that continues to this day.

It was while researching the history of baseball in Michigan in the 1860s and 1870s that I came to view muffin games in a new light. The newspapers of the day included long accounts of muffin games between prominent members of the community and often had little to say about much better clubs. The public mirrored this preference and, especially in the critical transitional year of 1867, the popularity of such games stood in stark contrast to the struggles of those attempting to initiate professional baseball.

At first I thought this was just another example of the fickleness of contemporary taste, but gradually a more satisfying explanation occurred to me. These games functioned as parodies of the excesses of the new phenomenon of professional baseball, with the parody in turn serving both to temper those excesses and to render the rapidly changing sport more palatable to the general public. As such I believe that, in spite of the hilarity they produced, muffin games deserve more serious consideration.

This papers focuses on Michigan, a limitation that has advantages. Michigan had many talented clubs during the 1860s and 1870s but none on a par with the national powers developed in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, and Cincinnati. As a result baseball had to succeed or fail in Michigan on its own merits, not on the coattails of a single super-team. Michigan, therefore, is a much more representative example of how baseball became the national pastime.

The brand of "regulation" baseball played by the Knickerbockers of New York first appeared in Detroit in 1857 when the Franklin Club became one of the earliest clubs west of New York to adopt the new version. Regulation baseball had begun to make inroads in other parts of Michigan by the start of the Civil War in 1861. But baseball was in no sense new to the state—on the contrary, contemporary accounts make it clear that the Knickerbockers' game was immediately recognized as a variant of a very familiar game.

The difference was that the older version of baseball was entirely unstructured. Anyone who wanted to play could play, the rules were improvised upon as necessary, and the game could be ended or halted at any time. The Knickerbockers' revisions imposed structure—a set number of players per side, fixed rules, score keeping, and a specific end point for games. Not everyone welcomed these changes, particularly the rule that a runner could no longer be retired by being struck with a thrown ball. While the new regulation game soon became standard, it is important to remember that this older version was still fresh in everyone's minds.

Interest in regulation baseball took off immediately after the end of the Civil War. Between 1865 and 1867 a baseball boom occurred across the northern states that was frequently described as a fever or an epidemic. But as these terms suggest, many viewed the game as little more than a fad and expected that the enthusiasm would soon burn out. The game's earlier elements of ritual and ceremony had been replaced by naked ambition to win. Many saw the game headed in a dangerous direction, and grumbling could already be heard that baseball was no longer what it had once been.

Most troublesome was the perception that a game that had once been all about inclusiveness was now exclusive. The Knickerbockers' rules had put limitations on the number of participants and how they could participate...