Existing comment:
Early Baseball Classics
The Mercantile Base Ball Club of Philadelphia was established in 1859. One of the team's founding members was John Zebley, a salesman in a hosiery and glove store on Chestnut Street. Zebley's outstanding composition, the "Home Run Quick Step," [image 1] has been described musically as the most original and haunting of the early baseball classics. Not long afterwards, also in Philadelphia, "Baseball Polka," [image 2] by Jas. M. Goodman was published. This extremely rare imprint is one of the premier nineteenth-century baseball display pieces by virtue of its extraordinary full-color lithographic cover, picturing a game in progress.
Jas. M. Goodman. "Baseball Polka." Sheet music. Philadelphia: C. F. Escher, 1867. |