20. Baseball & Glove

This baseball and glove – for the left hand of a right-handed fielder – was used by William Russell Brewer (1880-1941), who, according to newspaper reports, played second base in Rockville from at least 1900 to 1911. It was a 1997 gift of Brewer’s daughter, Virginia Brewer Cobey, who also donated a c.1905 portrait photo of the team with ten uniformed players.

A native of Rockville, Brewer attended and played ball for the Rockville Academy (its extant 1891 building is located at 103 S. Adams Street). After becoming a clerk at the Montgomery County Bank in 1900, he continued to play with former schoolmates, including his brothers and Eddie and Somervell Dawson, who grew up at the Beall-Dawson House. In 1901, the Washington Post described the team as “considerably elated” over beating the team from the Maryland Agricultural College (now the University of Maryland at College Park). Throughout the decade they played against other local towns, as well as Washington teams from the U.S. Marine Barracks, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, and Woodward & Lothrop’s department store. In 1909, they bested their predecessors, the Rockville Athletics of the 1890s, in a game held at the fairgrounds; the Post reported that “The game was a splendid one, and the old fellows showed that there is a whole lot of baseball still in them.”

This well-worn leather glove, with webbing between the thumb and first finger, was made by the A.J. Reach Co. of Philadelphia c.1910. Bare-handed fielding was the norm until padded gloves became accepted equipment in the 1880s. Established by Al Reach (1840-1928), a player who helped found the Philadelphia Phillies franchise, the Reach company was the largest manufacturer of sporting goods in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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