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(SPORTS--BASEBALL.) Smith, Brayton W. Diary of an avid early baseball player in Wisconsin and the University of Michigan. [364] manuscript diary pages. 12mo, original calf, moderate wear; daily long entries in a small and sometimes faint but tidy hand, perfectly legible with a magnifying glass, minimal wear to contents. Vp, 1 January to 31 December 1867
Brayton Wilmarth Smith (1850-1933) of Janesville, WI began this diary as a 16-year-old preparing for college at the nearby Beloit Academy, the preparatory branch of Beloit College. His father was a successful manufacturer of farm equipment. The heart of the diary, though, is Brayton's very active spring and summer playing baseball back in his home town. Janesville was an early baseball hotbed. Their early amateur teams have been profiled in Peter Morris's "Base Ball Pioneers, 1850–1870," page 267, and John Montgomery Ward played his first professional season there in 1877. Smith discusses the creation of a baseball nine at the Beloit Academy on 27 April and 1 May, resulting in a loss in their first game on 8 May. He joined the Olympians club of Beloit on 22 May, although he did not play on the first nine. A 25 May match against Whitewater generated so much excitement that a special excursion train was run into Janesville for the occasion. The Olympians won that match and an 8 June rematch, and then on 19 June defeated that Capitol City club for the championship of the state. Smith did not get much playing opportunity with the Olympians second nine, and on returning to Janesville for the summer he often participated in pickup games or filled in with other clubs. On 30 July he went with the Exclusive club on a trip to nearby Clinton Corners: "After breakfast I went downtown to hunt up some of the boys to get my uniform. I finally succeeded and we all got started at ten. We went out and practiced some before dinner. After dinner we waited around the hotel until around two, when the game commenced. The Clinton club is composed of large men while we are chiefly under eighteen. They told me I played splendidly on first base, not muffing a ball. I caught two fly balls and my score stood nine tallies and three outs. We beat them badly scoring eighty five to their thirty." On 1 August, he formally joined yet another team, paying a $2.00 membership fee for the Excelsior junior nine. On 18 September, Smith passed his examinations and was admitted conditionally to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He did not mention baseball for three entire days as he embarked on his studies, but a pickup game turned his head on 21 September: "As some of the base ball players were out playing . . . I stopped to see them play. They are considered the best nine in the state." On 3 October he noted "Some of the ball players had a meeting . . . to organize a ball club in the freshman class. There were only about 25 present, yet they organized and elected officers. There are two very fine ball players in our class, one of whom is now in the University Nine." On 19 October, Smith watched this freshman nine beat a local Ann Arbor team 37-35, and was itching to join. On 1 November, he wrote: "Had a game of ball which lasted until supper time. I managed to get on one side, so as to show the first nine boys that I could play, and I think I did, if it will not be boasting." His team (perhaps the freshman second nine) was beaten 43-42 by the law department's team on 14 November. Meanwhile he remained proud of his Janesville exploits. On 8 November he received a letter from an old teammate named Arthur: "The silver ball for which we went down to Beloit had been received at Janesville and was shown in one of Mrs. Dearborn's windows." More extensive notes on this lively early baseball diary are available upon request.
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