The oil industry rapidly expanded. Wealth from oil activities was once abundant in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Towns throughout the region, such as Franklin, Oil City, and Emlenton were prosperous due to the oil boom.
This prosperity was felt throughout the entire Oil Region, even in baseball.
Oil Fields To Outfields:
Baseball In The Oil Region
George Kopachko. 1947. Oil City Refiners.
Courtesy of the James D. Schwab estate.
Union Soldiers playing baseball in Salisbury, N.C. in 1862 during the Civil War. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Baseball became prominent in Venango County at the end of the Civil War. Soldiers played the game in the army. When Captain Robert H. Woodburn returned home from the war to Franklin, he organized a team called the Venango Baseball Club.
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Several Oil City residents quickly organized the Seneca Baseball Club to compete with Franklin. This was reportedly “the beginning of the rivalry” between Franklin and Oil City. In the following years, interest in baseball escalated across the region. Various leagues and countless teams were created throughout the Venango County area.
"The National Game. Three ‘Outs’ And One ‘Run’,” from Harper’s Weekly September 15, 1860.
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This political cartoon satirizes Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 election over Stephen Douglass, John Bell and John C. Breckinridge as a baseball game.
Early forms of baseball were played across England and America over 100 years before the Civil War.
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However, it was not until the 1850s that modern rules were established. Union soldiers introduced the game to Southerners throughout the war. Thousands of soldiers learned the game.
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When these soldiers returned home, the game spread to friends and neighbors in every region of the country, such as Pennsylvania’s Oil Region.
Baseball
& The Civil War
Baseball Comes
To The Oil Region
Before Captain Robert H. Woodard returned home to Franklin from the Civil War, baseball was mainly only played in unorganized games, usually on the street or in a park.
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One of the first records of a baseball game in the region was recorded in the August 17, 1866 issue of the Venango Spectator newspaper. The game was played between the Franklin team and the Young America Club at the Franklin fairgrounds.
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The first game between Franklin and Oil City–the Venangos vs. the Senecas–occurred only a few weeks later, on September 4, 1866. The game lasted three hours and fifty-five minutes. The Franklin Venangos defeated the Oil City Senecas 81 to 34. The Franklin and Oil City rivalry began that year.
Emlenton Baseball team 1904.
Franklin YMCA Junior Baseball Team. 1912.
Throughout all of Northwestern Pennsylvania, baseball’s popularity grew rapidly in the late 1800s, well into the 20th century.
In 1883, the rivalry between Franklin and Oil City intensified when a Franklin team scouted a professional pitcher and catcher in Pittsburgh. The Franklin team offered the professional players $25 (1883 value) each to play a game against Oil City. The Franklin team beat Oil City with their acquired talent.
Rivalry Intensifies
Emlenton native Claude Ritchey (1873 - 1951). Society of American Baseball Research.
Regional teams such as Franklin also boasted at the time yet-to-be baseball legend Claude Ritchey throughout the 1890s.
Ritchey was an Emlenton native who would go on to play in the major league as second base, shortstop, and outfield for the Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Doves, and Louisville Colonels at the turn of the 20th century.
Venango County's Talent
Emlenton Baseball team 1905.