Baseball's Johnny Appleseed

Bruce Jr. sent a copy of the notes, along with his own accompanying narrative to Cooperstown, but by 1968 it was nowhere to be found. The Cartwright descendants had all died or left Hawaii, and considerable tracking was required to establish that great-grandson William Edward Cartwright was alive and trying to popularize a new sport called ski bobbing (SI, Feb. 17).

William Cartwright did have the last remaining copy of Bruce Cartwright Jr.'s version of the journal and would send it along "as soon as my wife, Anne, can type a copy." He added casually, "My son, Alexander Joy Cartwright IV, is following in his great-great-grandfather's footsteps as a member of the ' Indians' team of the Rincon Valley Little League. He is quite good, too."

Even incomplete, Cartwright's journal turned out to be a remarkable document. Baseball seemed new, alive and exciting then. How much so can be judged from a contemporary description: "It is a game which is peculiarly suited to the American temperament and disposition; the nine innings are played in the brief space of two and one half hours, or less. From the moment the first striker takes his position and poises his bat, it has an excitement and vim about it, until the last hand is put out in the ninth inning. There is no delay or suspense about it, from beginning to end; and even if one feels disposed to leave the ground, temporarily, he will generally waive his desire, especially if it is a close contest, from fear of missing some good point or clever effort of the trial.

"An American assemblage cannot be kept in one locality for the period of two or three hours, without being offered something above the ordinary run of excitement and attraction. They are too mercurial and impulsive a race not to get drowsy and dissatisfied with anything which permits their natural ardor to droop even for a brief space of time."

Alexander Cartwright was a simpler writer, but the sentiment was his. And what of the sentiment today? What is the living heritage of the game Cartwright devised? How is baseball flourishing in the country through which he passed? Is it dead or dying? Is ardor drooping? This is the story of the hunt for traces of Cartwright the individual, and a cross-country look at the state of baseball now in the cities and towns along the way.

Alexander Cartwright's party left Newark on March 1, 1849. The man in charge was a Dr. D'Arcy, called General D'Arcy by Cartwright. One member of the party was Cyril Grey, a New York reporter, one was a New York varnish dealer, one a laborer and the professions of the others are unidentified. They took the train to Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH. Here, where Cartwright started walking in 1849, there is no statistical record of baseball before the Civil War. In 1866 a returned Union soldier, Al Pratt, started the first organized club, the Enterprise. Formed soon after were the Olympics, who, in 1869, took on the professional Cincinnati Red Stockings, already a year old. It was a widely publicized match. Sad to say, the beloved Olympics lost 54-2.

Pittsburgh eventually formed a team of paid professionals of its own, the Alleghenies. The club retained that name for more than 20 years until—as the result of a freebooting career that saw them buy out most of the Columbus team in 1884, jump the old American Association to take over the National League's Kansas City franchise in 1886 and raid the Philadelphia Athletics in 1891—they began being called "the Pirates" around the league.

Today, Memorial Day, the 1968 Pirates are at home to the Metropolitans of New York—a team named for, but not directly descended from, a club contemporary with the old Knickerbockers. There is a kind of poetic justice in the fact that the gentle Metropolitans won both games, particularly since the Pittsburgh management had elected to start a doubleheader at the bizarre hour of 10:30 a.m. on a field the approximate consistency of cold porridge.

CADIZ, OHIO. West from Pittsburgh (see map, page 56) lies little Cadiz among fresh green New England hills. Federal business blocks surround the ornate green-copper-domed courthouse, mist blows through the great elms and around sleepy Victorian houses. Among notices of ice-cream socials and portraits of high school seniors, store-window placards advertise a Decoration Day with all the traditional trimmings: band music, a march to the cemetery, orations, a chicken fry, to be followed by.... Well, almost traditional: the baseball feature is a Little League game. Alas, Alick, grown men here no longer play baseball.