Learn the ins and ‘outs’ of early baseball with talk, trolley tour at Green-Wood

Baseball historian teams up with Green-Wood’s historian to celebrate game’s earliest legends

September 23, 2015 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Baseball historian and author Thomas W. Gilbert.

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Baseball historian and author Thomas W. Gilbert will visit Green-Wood Cemetery’s Historic Chapel on Sept. 26 to celebrate his newly published book “Playing First: Early Baseball Lives at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.”

Gilbert is an expert in baseball’s 19th-century origins in New York City and Brooklyn, and an astounding number of early baseball innovators and players are interred at Green-Wood. “Playing First” is the culmination of Gilbert’s extensive research into the little-known and interconnected professional, political and military lives of these baseball pioneers.

Gilbert will reveal many of the book’s fascinating stories, including the truth about what actually killed famed baseball martyr and permanent Green-Wood resident James Creighton, and how a feud between baseball and cricket in early America changed Creighton’s legacy forever.

After the talk, Gilbert will sign books before leading a trolley tour with Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman, featuring the graves of baseball pioneers including “Father of Baseball” Henry Chadwick, Duncan Curry (who insisted he, not Chadwick, was the “father of baseball”), Civil War Gen. Joseph Pinckney and fitness guru Dr. Joseph Jones.

The event will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. at Green-Wood – 25th Street at Fifth Avenue (meet inside the Historic Chapel.)

The talk is free. The trolley tour is $20 and $15 for members of the Green-Wood Historic Fund and members of the Brooklyn Historical Society. Reservations are recommended.