by Joanne Hulbert
7/10/2012

July 1, 1910 – The Holliston Independents play in Millis Saturday afternoon.

July 5, 1910 – Yesterday afternoon a large crowd saw the Williams Shoe nine defeat the Brookline Independents on Shea’s field, 6 to 1, in one of the best games seen here this year. Nichols struck out 14 men and the batting of Leland and fielding of Garbutt were features of the game.

Saturday afternoon the Williams Shoe nine defeated a Lynn team, 19-2, the game being called in the sixth inning on account of darkness.

WALKOVER FOR HOLLISTON
July 5, 1910 – Williams Shoe Co. defeated Lynn 19 to 2 Saturday in five innings.
 Williams – Bromley c, Nichols p, G.Cayo 1b, Billedeau 2b, Hayes 3b, Haley ss, Supple lf, Leland cf, F.Cayo rf.
 Lynn – Barnes c, Collins p, Holden 1b, Craig 2b, Van Miller 3b, A. Thistle ss, H. Thistle lf, Garbutt cf, Holland rf.
 Innings 1   2   3   4   5   6
Williams 10  2   2   1   4       –   19
Lynn  0    0   0   0   2  0   –     2
 Hits, 16-4. Errors, 2-9. Umpire, W.Hayes.

HOLLISTON IS WINNER; TWO MEN ARE HURT
  July 11, 1910 – The Williams Shoe Co. nine trimmed the Roxbury White Sox Saturday afternoon, 6 to 0. The visitors only obtained one hit off Nichols. The game ended in the sixth inning when Jessie Bromley and M. J. Hayes of the locals both went after a pop fly and came together with a crash heard all over the field. Both were temporarily stunned and laid on the diamond bleeding from ugly cuts about the face.
 They were hurriedly carried from the field in A.A. Williams’ auto to the office of Dr. N.C.B. Haviland who, with Dr. A.R, Newhall, attended the injured men, each one having several stitches taken, after which they were taken heavily bandaged to their respective homes.
 Holliston – Supple rf, Leland cf, Bromley c, F.Cayo lf, Haley ss, Hayes 3b, Billadeau 3b, G.Cayo 1b, Nichols p.
 Roxbury – Murphy ss, Levrino 1b, Bresnahan lf, Galgary c, Sprague p, Neaton 2b, Chaisman 3b, McGinis cf, Plummer rf.
Innings  1   2   3   4   5  
Williams 0   2   0   0   4   –   6
 Runs made, by Hayes, Supple, Leland, Bromley, F. Cayo 2. Two-base hits, F.Cayo, Billadeau. Stolen base, Murphy. Case on balls, by Sprague 2. Struck out, by Nichols 5, by Sprague 2. Sacrifice hits, Haley, Bresnahan. Hit by pitched ball, Martin, Murphy. Umpire, Monteith. Time, 1h, 45 m. 

Fast forward 100 years:

From the New York Times, August 1, 2010, by Jordan Conn;

The Mudville Base Ball Club, from Holliston, Mass., took the field Saturday while Northern California’s Amador County Crushers prepared to hit. Before barely 100 spectators, they began a game aimed at settling two cities’ identities and more than a century of history.

The Crushers won Saturday, 10-4, in a game that featured players born in at least four decades, an umpire dressed in suspenders and a bow tie, a public-address announcer who read from the famous poem between innings, and two sets of archaic rules. The Holliston club, which fields players with an average age of about 55 and has competed in cities throughout the East Coast and Midwest, decided that the first three innings would be played according to 1861 rules, which featured underhanded pitching, no gloves and a rule by which players are out when the ball is caught after only one bounce.

The Crushers, who had home-field advantage, decided that the next three innings would be played by 1886 National League rules, which allowed for small mitts, overhand pitching and base-stealing. Because the Crushers led entering the seventh, the final inning was also played by their rules.

But the win did little to dispel the dispute over Mudville.

“This isn’t so much about determining who is Mudville as it is about two teams from different parts of the country getting together to play a great kind of baseball,” said Alton, the Crushers’ manager.

And so the rivalry continues.

“My feeling is that this can’t be settled until it goes both ways,” said Carl Damigella, a friend of the Holliston team and the squad’s figurehead owner. “Now it’s their turn to come to Holliston.”