Baseball in Yarmouth has been an exciting part of the summer for more than 170 years.

In the 1840s and 50s, baseball increased in popularity in the United States. During the Civil War, soldiers played it whenever they could, and brought their love of the game home with them when the war was over. Yarmouth had a baseball team as early as 1867, called the Mattakeesetts. Try sewing those letters on the front of a shirt! We only know of one score - Cummaquid beat them 30-13 at the Barnstable Fair grounds. The fairgrounds were then on what is now Route 6A, just east of the Unitarian Church in Barnstable village.

In our archives is the scorebook of the Yarmouth baseball team from 1891-1903. This scorebook gives us great insight into how baseball was played during that time.

In the years from the Civil War until just before World War I, local teams were filled with boys and young men from the town. After that time, teams became more “semi-pro.” So what do we know about the Yarmouth ball club during this time? Prior to our scorebook, we only know that East Dennis beat Yarmouth 31-21 in 1880.

The number of games a year varied widely, from a low of four games in 1897 to 15 games the following year. Some years, the scorebook doesn’t seem to reflect all of the games played, although none of the pages are missing. The scoring is a best a bit loose – dates, places, even the name of opponents are sometimes not filled in. Final scores are not always easy to figure out, and sometimes the scorer only wrote what Yarmouth did, not the opponent. The name of the Yarmouth team nor that of any others was ever recorded in the scorebook.

First names were almost never used, except when the team split in two and played itself. Then, only first names were used. We know that the teams in an August 1900 game were married players vs single players, with the singles winning 24-15. The person who did the scoring didn’t always write down his name either, leaving the book sometimes in the hands of more than one person.

Who were these men that loved and played the game of baseball? In 1892, there were four Thachers who played on the team, along with four Cashes and two Nickersons. That year, more than 29 different players played for the Yarmouth team. The previous year, only ten men played during the entire season

Both Yarmouth and South Yarmouth fielded teams and played each other at least three times, with South Yarmouth winning all three games. In the 1892 season, five of the South Yarmouth team also played for the Yarmouth team.

Yarmouth players weren’t limited to one position. The four Cashes played 11 different positions among them. While A. Cash and Chas. Nickerson did much of the pitching in the games that were recorded in the scorebook, they never pitched more than twice in a week when there were four games. In fact, lots of different players appeared as pitcher at one time or another. Far fewer were catcher than pitcher, Ike Thacher being one of the catchers.

The team played a wide variety of local teams, including three off-Cape teams. These teams included Hyannis, Osterville, Craigville, West Barnstable, Barnstable, Wianno, Sandwich, West Harwich, Harwich, Orleans, West Dennis, South Dennis, Dennis, Nobscusset (the hotel), Chatham, as well as South Yarmouth. The off-Cape teams were Plymouth Business School, Brockton, and New Bedford.

Because these games took place before the advent of the automobile, the team traveled by train to some of the farther games but for games in the next town over Sam Thacher, whose father was a catcher for Yarmouth, remembers the players would meet at a local rendevous point, then pile in a wagon and drive together to the game. Alcohol was sometimes brought along and one man, Winnie Cahoon imbibed a little too much on one occasion. He recalled watching a ball fly up in the air and said “when I looked up there was three comin’ down and I picked the wrong one.’”

At least some of the games were played at racetracks. By some accounts, Cape Cod had ten race tracks in the years between 1870 and 1900. Many had baseball diamonds in the center of the racetrack, although the Wychmere racetrack had a saltwater pond in its center. While no games are recorded at the Falmouth racetrack, it’s likely that the Yarmouth team played there.

All of this raises the question – where did the team play when it was the home team at northside Yarmouth? There were a few locations around town, including a cow pasture east and behind the gas station at the corner of Union Street and 6A. The cows kept the grass low but the ground was uneven and playing was difficult, plus there were cow pies to avoid. Another field was located off the west side of Center Street, about three houses back from 6A.

The most runs ever scored by the Yarmouth team was 35 against West Dennis at the racetrack there on May 30, 1898. Yarmouth recorded three shutouts; against Nobscusset, Hyannis, and Sandwich. Could the shutout of “the Nobs” have been during their first year of play? It was the first time the records indicate they played each other. On the other hand, the Yarmouth team was never recorded in the scorebook as having been shut out. In fact, it had only one losing season!

Town team play began to fade after 1900. Hard financial times were the rule during the years the scorebook covered and in the last three years, the scorer scored other teams’ games as well - Barnstable vs Hyannis, Brockton vs South Yarmouth, and South Dennis vs Wianno. These were included in the Yarmouth scorebook. Unfortunately, Yarmouth’s 12-4 win over Barnstable in 1905 at the Fairgrounds isn’t included.

What a unique peek we have at how Cape Codders entertained themselves in the years before movies, radio, computers, and television. We are very fortunate that some Yarmouth person felt that these games were important enough to save as a record of our past.

For the record -

1891 – 6 games - won 4, lost 2

1892 – 13 games - won 7, lost 6

1893 – 9 games - won 5, lost 4

1894-96 – only 4 games scored – won 3, lost 2, tied 1

1897 – 4 games - won 1, lost 2 (one the team split in two)

1898 – 15 games - won 10, lost 5

1899 – 11 games - won 6, lost 2, tied 1, 2 not scored

1900 – 6 games - won 5, lost 1, (one the team played married vs singles)

Spotty records after 1900

Excerpted from an article written by Duncan Oliver, and interviews with Samuel Thacher conducted by Douglas Whynott.