In the early 1800s it was unusual for Americans to be interested in sporting matters on their own shores. News from Europe was the only sporting news of merit, and publishing an American sporting journal was considered a risky use of capital.
The first attempt along these lines may have been in 1829 Baltimore, where John S. Skinner published a monthly magazine which focused on race horse pedigrees called The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine. Another early attempt was published in New York by the recognized writer and horseman Cadwallader R. Colden, whose organ was called The New-York Sporting Magazine and Annals of the American and English Turf, first published in 1833.
Among the most notable of the sporting press arrived in 1831, when William T. Porter and James Haw published the first issue of The Spirit of the Times, focusing on horse literature and sporting subjects. They had chosen the name for their broadsheet from a quotation in Shakespeare’s King John, “The spirit of the times shall teach me speed.” [Read more…] about The Spirit of the Times: A 19th Century Chronicle of American Sports
I often wish one of the great play-writes like Moss Hart or Arthur Miller, or a screenwriter like Billy Wilder, had been bigger baseball fans, as the game would often make a very funny script.
The Oneida County History Center will host a virtual talk by Lou Parrotta, the City of Utica Historian, on the history of baseball in the Mohawk Valley, and the local players who made it to the Major Leagues, set for Wednesday, August 12th. 
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site has announced a virtual presentation by Derrick Pratt of the Erie Canal Museum, who will discuss the Erie Canal’s many connections to the earliest days of professional baseball.