Long Eddy had its first organized baseball team around 1890. The team played neighboring towns of Acidalia, Basket, East Branch, Roscoe, Hankins, Callicoon and bitter rival Fishes Eddy. Games were played at the Long Eddy school (now Dedeco).
Pictured above are: Back row, Milton Armstrong, Charles Clark, Jerry Ryan, Joseph Lanahan, Charles Gould, Levi (Putt) Knapp; Front row, Harley Misner, Morgan McKoon, Eddie Kenney, Clarence Armstrong and William Gordon.
"Each boy got his mother to make him a pair of knee pants from dark gray cotton flannel, with strips of bright red tape down the outside seams from waist to knee, and elastic around the knee to hold up stockings. He then borrowed from sister or mother a pair of black stockings.... We had made the balls we used. A piece of rubber for the center, and a ball of white cord ...tightly wound, and sewed so it would not unwind.... We saved our pennies and had sent to Spaulding's for a ball costing $1.25, and a mask at 75 cents. Crude bats made from a hoe handle or from a branch of a tree, or whittled from a barrel stave. My catcher's mitt was made from a piece of sweat pad from a work harness."
"Charlie Peake could throw an out-curve and an out-drop. We challenged a bunch of boys from the Basket to play us...Peake's curves had them swinging wildly and Long Eddy won."
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Morgan McKoon
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