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The Marstons: A California Family – Part 7
In the Days Before Crackerjacks
George Marston and the Boys of Summer
By Robin Lakin
July/August 2023
 Beloit Olympian Base Ball Club,1867; George W. Marston standing far right. Courtesy Beloit College
 Ball players at the Lockling lot in New Town, circa 1873-74; team uniforms had not yet made their appearance in San Diego. Courtesy San Diego History Center |
 George Marston in his San Diego Bay City Ball Club uniform in 1878. Upon organizing this club, he ordered uniforms from San Francisco. Courtesy SOHO Collection |
In 1866, sixteen-year-old George W. Marston was the youngest and smallest member of Wisconsin’s Beloit Academy Olympian Base Ball Club. The team wore red and white Zouave-style pantaloon uniforms, popular with some Union Army regiments during the recent Civil War, which claimed the lives of 90 Beloit students, and paid tribute to Greek Olympians. The Beloit Olympians were regarded as one of the best teams in the Midwest at a time when baseball was a rough and tumble sport often played with no protective gear.
Reflecting on his brief career with the Olympian Ball Club George wrote, “My position was a modest one - right field, but I was mighty proud to be anywhere in the Olympian first nine…I recall playing with the club in Milwaukee against the Cream City Baseball Club. I also remember a game we had with the Rockford Club... [Opponent and future sporting goods merchant] Al Spalding gave us our first taste of fast curveball. It was impossible for us to hit it.”
George left Beloit in 1868 to begin pre-med studies at the University of Michigan but moved to San Diego in 1870 due to his father’s health issues. The timing couldn’t have been better for George’s sporting life. Baseball was just coming to town.
San Diego’s first recorded baseball game was played May 6, 1871. Games were won and lost at Henry Keith’s racetrack in Old Town, and at Lockling’s Block, a vacant lot in New Town bounded by C, D, Sixth, and Seventh streets.
Match challenges between local teams, such as the Lone Stars, Bon Tons, Eckfords, and Dolly Vardens, were made through advertisements. Published game results rarely listed players, and “G. Marston'' first appeared on the Coronada Ball Club roster against the Loma Ball Club on July 4, 1874.
Soon after, baseball languished in San Diego until 1878, when George organized the Bay City Base Ball Club and served as club president. Later that year, the team’s players joined members of the Resolute Club to form the San Diego Base Ball Club. The new team played its first contest with the Academy Base Ball Club of Los Angeles on November 25, 1878, at the New Town lot.
Eventually, George broke his leg during a game. Temporarily forced to trade his uniform for a crutch, George, an ardent baseball lover, later stored the crutch and uniform in a cupboard, where they remained. Despite the serious injury, he never stopped loving baseball. George became a great financial supporter of the local team well into the 20th century, and of other recreational sports, as well. Recalling his baseball days, George wrote, “I have never done anything since so important and rewarding!”
Read the rest of the ongoing The Marstons: A California Story History Series.
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