American Treasures of the Library of Congress: Memory, Exhibit Object Focus

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Grand Baseball Match

4th of July 1879! Grand Base Ball Match!
Concord Base Ball Club.
Concord, Massachusetts
4th of July 1879! Grand Base Ball Match!
Concord: 1879
Broadside
Rare Book & Special Collections Division

Despite the establishment of the National League as the first major professional baseball league in 1876, most of the public's exposure to the game was still based on informally arranged matches played between the smaller amateur and semi-professional clubs that had proliferated throughout America in the years following the Civil War. Civic pride for the "local nine" played no small part in attracting spectators. Walt Whitman stated that baseball "has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere-belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."

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