"Ballists, Dead Beats and Muffins" by Robert Sampson

“It attacks old and young alike,” declared the Pike County Democrat in 1866. The Illinois newspaper wasn’t talking about a cholera epidemic but baseball fever.Robert Sampson details the game’s early popularity in Illinois in his new book, “Ballists, Dead Beats and Muffins: Inside Early Baseball in Illinois.”In the aftermath of the Civil War, papers up and down the state were singing the praises of this new phenomenon called base ball (two words back then).“(Baseball) is spreading like an epidemic,” the Chicago Tribune observed. “Everybody is batting balls and running bases—young, middle-aged and old,” stated the Cairo Democrat.“At Peoria, ballclubs sprouted everywhere,” wrote Sampson, editor of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, who identified Captain M.A. Stearns, an Army recruiter in Peoria as one of those who encouraged adoption of the game by organizing the Olympic Base Ball Club in town.Before he was shipped off to a new post in Fort Reno in the Montana Territory, Stearns did his best—as club president and as a pitcher—to help establish baseball in Peoria. Never mind that his team lost to the Celestial Club of Pekin by a 53 to 35 score.As for the title, ballists were what they called ball players back them while the Dead Beats was just one of the many figurative names that teams took in those early days (such as the Lively Turtles of Rock Island). Muffins were players that weren't all that accomplished, said Sampson, adding that games between teams made entirely of muffins often drew large crowds.Access to a train line was important for baseball teams that wanted to travel, Sampson told Steve Tarter. “With few exceptions, teams were in cities, towns and villages served by the growing railroad network in Illinois, soon to become the largest  system of all the states in the union,” he said.Peoria teams had the benefit of traveling by rail or river. “The Fort Clark Base Ball Club and supporters boarded a special car attached to a train for a match with Chillicothe while, a year earlier, Peoria’s club took the Peoria City Steamboat up the Illinois River to Lacon, promising passengers multiple recreation activities on board and on land,” Sampson noted.You had your early heroes in this new game. Pana attorney J.C. McQuigg would later be recognized as the Babe Ruth of his era, the author said, “striking the ball so hard it was termed a ‘hummingbird,’ posing a danger to fielders who got in the way."By 1870, the baseball craze had cooled. It had become established with more organized leagues taking over but the novelty was gone, said Sampson. So were the long accounts that newspapers had been running (that provided the basis for his book).