Baseball in Port Jervis

Baseball has been played in Port Jervis since the 1850's.  A field on Colonel Samuel Fowler’s Estate, Glenette, became known as the Main Street Ball Grounds or the Delaware Grounds.  The Main Street Ball Grounds were home to a number of teams in Port Jervis, such as the Actives and the Eries, but most notably the Delawares and the Red Stockings.  The Delaware Base Ball Club was founded in 1859 as an amateur baseball club.  Throughout their history, they were a successful team.  Early players, such as Stephen F. Ingram, Amos Van Etten, Jr. and Thomas Marchant saw a lot of success.  Over the years, they would see even greater talent.  In the 1870’s, their lineup included many players who would go on to play in the majors, such Fred Nyce, Michael Goodfellow, “Blondie” Purcell, Jack Lynch, Larry McKeon and hall of famer Mike “King” Kelley.  In 1877, the Delawares played the Louisville Grays of the National Association (the predecessor to the National League) team.  Louisville later became involved with a gambling scandal and four of their players were banned for life for intentionally losing games for money.  Louisville folded at the end of the 1877 season.  In 1877, the Delawares also played the Philadelphia Athletics, another charter member of the National Association, who had been expelled at the end of the inaugural season in 1876 for refusing to play a road game.  The Delawares, with the help of King Kelly beat the visiting team from Philadelphia 10 to 0.  The Port Jervis Red Stockings were a black baseball team, who also played at the Main Street Ball Grounds.  They played both white and black teams in the area, including the Goshen Water Lilies (the Occidental Hotel), the Newburgh Live Oaks and the Blue Stockings of Goshen (the Everetts). Robert Broadhead, the secretary and pitcher and left fielder for the team would later play for the New York Gorhams in 1890.  The Gorhams, were a member of the very short lived National Colored Base Ball League, the first Negro League, in 1887. Other players for the Gorhams were hall of famers, Sol White and Frank Grant and George Stovey, whom the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants) were reportedly interested in 1887