to us that there were New York clubs that preceded the Knickerbockers but lacked their propensity to painstakingly record their deeds for posterity." By 1845, rapid urban development was claiming open spaces across the Hudson River in New York, prompting the Knickerbockers to choose the Elysian Fields, which was a 15-minute ferry ride from lower Manhattan, as their home grounds. In an un-bylined reminiscence, attributed to "an old pioneer" (later identified as Knickerbocker founding member William Wheaton), published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1887, the origins of the club and the playing fields in Hoboken were described: The new game quickly became very popular with New Yorkers, and the numbers of the club soon swelled beyond the fastidious notions of some of us, and we decided to withdraw and found a new organization, which we called the Knickerbocker. For a playground we chose the Elysian fields of Hoboken, just across the Hudson river. And those fields were truly Elysian to us in those days. There was a broad, firm greensward, fringed with fine shady trees, where we could recline during intervals, when waiting for a strike [i.e., a turn at bat], and take a refreshing rest. On June 19, 1846, the Knickerbockers faced off against the New York Ball Club. (Both clubs were offshoots of an earlier club, the New York Gothams.) This match is historically considered the first fully documented baseball game. Countless games had preceded this matchup; 37 prior matches at the Elysian Fields alone occurring before June 19, 1846, have been documented at Protoball.org. The Knickerbockers were simply the first to compile and preserve a batter-by-batter account of the action (arguably the game's first "scorecard"). In this match, New York defeated the Knickerbockers 23-1 in four innings. (It is worth noting that the Knickerbockers rarely challenged opposing clubs. "From 1845 through 1850, the club played over 200 games," wrote Tom Gilbert, "but only three of these were against other clubs. The rest were intramural games played between impromptu lineups made up of Knickerbocker members.") By the late 1850s, several of the premiere Manhattan-based member clubs of the amateur National Association of Base Ball Players, including the Gothams, Eagles, and Empires, as well as the Knickerbockers, were using the Elysian grounds as their home field. The Mutual Club of New York made the Elysian grounds their home field in 1857; in 1865 they renovated a diamond and