"The Steele Box" - 1880's / 1890's Baseball

[Mforder]

These two ledgers are a pair in a sense. One has an agreement in it (the smaller of the two) where the primary team members had to sign and abide by. The second ledger has a list of games played throughout multiple seasons and years.

I will list the images separate so that each page will have it's own "Reply". This way you may be able to see what's on them. I have not taken photos of all of the pages. I can at some point but for now I have taken photo's of a few that I wanted to point a few things out on.

[Mforder]

Found inside of the smaller of the two ledgers.

[Mforder]

If you look to August 3rd it looks like the Newton team has played a game with a team named "The Blue Stockings" what I do not know if this is in fact the Toledo Blue Stocking which was a part of the American Association of baseball?

[Mforder]

It was late last night and I though I only took photos of pages that were of interest. As for this on I can't seem to find anything that stands out. If you see anything then please point it out if you can.

[Mforder]

About halfway down on the left side of this image there is a line that says "Black Diamond Game", does anyone one what that may be referring to? Is that a team, league or something else?

[Mforder]

In this section I see "The Red Stockings Game", I also see another game with them in a different section of the ledger. Unfortunately I cannot pinpoint the exact year. I will need to go back and look. I don't know if they whad anything to do with the Boston Team of the Cincinnati team at all. I'd have to see if I could make a connection through other papers, or maybe someone here could see something that can tell us.

What I also notice here is that there was a Ladies Base Ball Club too. I cannot say for sure if this was paid for by the Newton team or if they actually played a game against them.

[bgar3]

Mark, I think this is a very nice historical archive that deserves all the time you can spare to organize as best you can. Just my opinion, but before spending an enormous amount of time checking out individual entries or items, I think you should prioritize the organization. Then some questions will be answered as you go, like the confirmation of Esterbrook. Nice by the way. Caution, saying it has historical significance does not always translate to enormous value. This grouping as it is has real value and it only grows as you add to it, but if you can put it all together I think that will enhance it. Again, just an old timer’s opinion. Are you even close to finding all the baseball stuff? Really excellent, thanks again.
Who knows, you may actually become a collector.