“PLAY BALL” The Early Wisconsin Way: What team sports were Americans and Wisconsinites
playing at the time of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birth in 1867? There was, of course, baseball
but Americans were also playing the venerable old English game of cricket,
which was brought to Wisconsin by the many British immigrants who settled
here, with more than thirty state towns supporting cricket clubs in the
nineteenth century.
Visitors to this year’s Laura Days event will have an opportunity to personally
relive this little known aspect of Wisconsin sports history by joining in
the short, informal, 19th century cricket games that American cricket player
and historian Tom Melville will be conducting on Sunday, Sept. 13. The
activity is open to everyone, absolutely no experience required! So come
and discover what else “play ball” meant to Americans in 1867!