How Philadelphia became the unlikely epicenter of American cricket

FIRST PUBLISHED IN THEGUARDIAN.COM

The greatest bowler – arguably – in cricket’s long history was an American. Let that sink in for a moment.

Here’s another fact: cricket was America’s first modern team sport.

These may be strange words to write; even stranger to read them. The United States of America, as recently as the turn of the last century, possessed cricketing talent on par with England, Australia, and other cricket nations.

And then it all ended.
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On the eve of the Cricket World Cup final on Saturday, it’s worth exploring just how cricket was all but extinguished in America – and if there’s any route back for the sport in a country where once it reigned supreme.

Cricket’s American roots run deep and gnarled through the soil of American history. In fact, it predates the establishment of the United States by nearly a century, if not more. The first evidence of its existence comes from the secret diaries kept by Virginia planter William Byrd III. Byrd, an infamous bon vivant, was famous for establishing the first major horse race in the New World; something he arranged with other planters he knew. His involvement in American cricket is less well-known, but no less important, because it places it in the historical record.

That said: the cricket played by Byrd and his contemporaries wasn’t cricket as we now know it. It was deeply informal, played four-a-side and – because we’re talking about Byrd, in particular, and Virginia’s Cavalier aristocracy, in general – played for wagers. As far as we know, the only spectators were the friends and families of the players.

That quickly began changing, as cricket took hold across all the British colonies. The New York Weekly Gazette and Post Boy from 29 April 1751 has a report of a match played between New Yorkers and Englishmen. That match report tells us – over 250 years later – that the game was played in line with the “London method”; one supposes that this refers to the earliest written Laws of Cricket, which were first set down in London in 1744.

By the time the American Revolution began, there were already specific cricket clubs in operation – mostly in places like New York and Philadelphia, the leading cities of colonial America, though Richmond, Virginia had one as well. We also know that an American regional variant, wicket, was widely played. In his Military Journal, Ewing mentions that George Washington himself “playd a game at ‘wicket’ with a number of Gent of the Arty” while the Continental Army bivouacked at Valley Forge.

American cricket puttered along. It wasn’t until 1839, when the St George’s Cricket Club in New York City was established, that cricket in America entered a recognizable, “modern” phase. Four years later, the Union Club was established in Philadelphia. Within a decade, around 20 clubs were fielding teams; by the time of the Civil War, historical records show that cricket was played in around 20 states, in towns and cities as divergent as Baltimore, Savannah, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and even San Francisco, all the way in the far west of America.

In the midst of all that, the first international cricket match was played. On 24 and 26 September 1844, in what is now land occupied by the New York University Medical Center at 31st Street and First Avenue, but was then called Bloomingdale Park, the United States squared off against an all-Canada team. The origins of this match laid in an abortive trip to Toronto by the St George’s Cricket Club; they were meant to play the Toronto Cricket Club, but when the Americans arrived, their opponents had no idea they were supposed to play them.

A scratch game was played; the teams parted in goodwill, enough that a return trip was immediately planned. As events proceeded apace, the match evolved from a club match into a true international contest. American players from clubs in Washington, DC, Boston, and New York City – as well as Philadelphia – were recruited to play; likewise for the Canadians, who attempted to craft a truly national squad.

Canada won, by 23 runs. There were between 10,000 and 20,000 spectators and around $120,000 worth of bets were place – a sum worth around $3.92m in today’s dollars. It was the first international sporting event of any kind, preceding the first international soccer game by nearly 30 years. It continues, intermittently, to this day; the two countries compete for the KA Auty Cup, and the tournament has expanded from the original two-day test match to include a 50-over match and two Twenty20 matches.

Cricket was thriving, but why cricket? An excerpt from the 2 July 1859 edition of the New York Clipper provides a clue, quoting a player from Philadelphia:

    Look at the cricketers in their loose fitting, comfortable uniforms, their faces beaming with, good humour and ruddy health, engendered by exercise. Note the eager anxiety of the fielders, their mortification at an overthrow, or a chance for a catch not taken advantage of; see the high ascending ball, and hear the joyous shout of the triumph, as some unfortunate batsman gets permission to retire to the tent, and if you do not leave the ground impressed with the beauty and the utility of the game, why then-you were not cut out for a cricketer.

It was Philadelphia that became the center of American cricket. Why there, and not New York, for instance? That’s a complex question to answer, but in essence, it boils down to the fact that it was in Philadelphia where both the English desire to evangelize the sport and American receptiveness to it met as one. It was at Haverford College, located in a Philadelphia suburb, that the first cricket club exclusively created for Americans was established in 1833. That club was short-lived, but it led to the creation of the aforementioned Union Cricket Club in 1843, the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1854, and the creation of the Germantown and Young America clubs the following year.

That matters, because it meant that the sport was picked up by both immigrants and Americans across multiple levels of society. It also meant that as clubs were created – and just as quickly, vanished – the people who played and followed the sport remained. That situation differed from those in places like New York City, and interestingly, Newark, New Jersey. In New York, British expatriates weren’t keen in attracting Americans, preferring to keep the sport to themselves; in Newark, while English immigrants were happy to play cricket with Americans, the city’s monied class wasn’t especially eager to pick up what they considered a lower-to-middle-class sport.

Even as cricket flourished in Philadelphia, the seeds of its destruction were sown. Up until the Civil War, baseball was considered a children’s game. But as the war raged, and armies demanded recreation, baseball neatly fit the bill. In contrast to cricket, which demanded carefully maintained fields and where matches could last for days, baseball could be played in a simple clearing, and quickly, at that. It quickly shed its reputation as a children’s game, and cricketers quickly picked up the sport while serving in combat.

That continued after the war. Baseball showed no compunction in paying its players, or in encouraging its mass appeal. Cricket club after cricket club crossed over to baseball, leaving cricket behind. It wasn’t just the clubs, either. Cricket players and club administrators abandoned the sport for baseball. The first recognized professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, were instrumental in this. They recruited Harry Wright, a skilled young bowler from St George’s Club to both manage and play for them.

Wright brought all the skills, tactics, and techniques he’d learned as a cricketer to his new team. Playing centerfield, Wright led the 1869 Red Stockings to the only perfect season in baseball history; going 65-0, they were the first team to play on both the East and West Coasts. That team essentially nationalized the sport of baseball, in effect, turning it into “the national pastime”.

Meanwhile, cricket, whether in Philadelphia or elsewhere, was becoming more and more insular, retreating into gentlemanly amateurism. The creation of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club in 1872 was emblematic of this. The club, which is still in operation, was meant to be based on “the broadest and most liberal interpretation of the terms ‘gentlemen’ and amateur.”. In addition to the creation of clubs like Staten Island, cricket began to be picked up by East Coast colleges and universities outside of Philadelphia, like Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell.

The apex of amateur cricket came in 1897, when the Philadelphian cricket team toured England. This team featured the three greatest American cricket players ever: George Patterson, John Lester, and John Barton King. Although the tour was ambitious, and strictly first-class, the Philadelphians didn’t expect to win many matches, if any. In their tour, the Philadelphians wouldn’t just face off against the top county cricket teams in England, an imposing task by itself; they were also taking on the Marylebone Cricket Club, and the Oxford and Cambridge University teams.

At first, the Americans had a rough go of it. That changed on 17 June, when the Philadelphians played the full Sussex County team in Brighton. John Barton King unleashed the full fury of his majestic talents. In the first innings, he combined with John Lester for a fourth-wicket stand of 107 runs. King then bowled, taking seven wickets for 13 runs as the Philadelphians dismissed Sussex for 46 in less than an hour. King wasn’t done yet; in the second innings, he took took six wickets for 102 runs, and led his team to an eight-wicket victory.

King’s feats were replicated in a second tour by the Philadelphians in 1903. During that tour, the Philadelphians inflicted the worst defeat ever by an American cricket team over an English county team, defeating Gloucestershire by an innnings and 26 runs. King’s efforts on the field led luminaries like Sir Pelham Warner to describe him as “one of the finest bowlers of all time”. Exploits like that brought the inevitable comparisons by English cricket observers to Australian teams, leading American cricket fans to think that the United States was poised to explode onto cricket’s main stage.

It never happened.

That amateur insularity artificially capped interest in the sport, even in Philadelphia, where its decline was scarcely imaginable. Amateur cricket clubs were never just limited to cricket; they often featured sports like tennis and golf, and as they evolved into what we now recognize as country clubs, they left cricket behind. As they did so, the number of matches began to drop drastically, and with it, cricket-specific clubs began disbanding.

The last first-class cricket match in Philadelphia was played in 1913. The Belmont Cricket Club, where John Barton King had first made his mark, sold its grounds and officially disbanded in 1914. That upheaval and decline took its toll in the Philadelphians’ third and final tour of England, in 1908. The only highlight of the tour was, once more, King’s fantastical performance as a bowler; he set the season bowling record at 11.01. That record stood for 50 years, until Derbyshire’s Les Jackson edged it by posting an average of 10.99.

An even more telling blow was the creation of the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 as the governing body for world cricket. That organization – because it was meant for cricketing nations within the British Empire – left the United States frozen out of world cricket, while countries like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa could continue playing.

Like that, American cricket was snuffed out.

Despite fitful starts, it has yet to really recover. In rich irony, the United States of America Cricket Association was admitted to the International Cricket Council as an associate member in 1965. However, it remains a shambolic organization, shackled by lack of funds and ineffective leadership. As a result, it’s been repeatedly suspended by the ICC. Its latest efforts at rehabilitation are being over seen by the West Indies Cricket Board.

Even if it successfully does so, the sport faces daunting challenges in its adoption. There are but a few purpose-built cricket grounds in the United States – in places as random as Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Lauderhill, Florida. Lauderhill, in fact, is home to the only ICC-certified cricket stadium in the country.

Yet, in all that, there are dim signs of life. The Staten Island Cricket Club continues playing; moreover, in 2010, the United States Youth Cricket Association was launched, with the ultimate aim of broadening cricket’s appeal beyond expatriates and their families. The Compton Cricket Club – founded by a homeless rights activist and a Hollywood movie producer – continues its appeal to inner city residents in Los Angeles, and tours cricketing nations regularly; it was the first American cricket club to tour Australia.

Finally, American sports juggernaut ESPN is investing heavily in cricket. They broadcast the final of the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 competition, but their coverage has extended to the Indian Premier League, English County Championship matches, and international test cricket on its online broadcasting platform, ESPN3. And this year, they’ve made live coverage of the Cricket World Cup available to anyone through purchase of a package containing all the matches.

All that means that American cricket might yet enjoy a third renaissance; that the game’s ancient American roots might yet bear flower once more, as they did in Virginia, Valley Forge, and Philadelphia. And in due time, John Barton King might yet be surpassed by another, greater American.