By Stuart Rosebrook

On January 11, 1873, The Arizona Miner newspaper reported one of the first baseball games played in the Arizona Territory, a Christmas day game at Camp Grant: “In the forenoon, an exciting game of base ball [sic] took place. This occupied the attention [of] both of the combatants, until one o’clock, when the welcome call to dinner was wafted to our ears, and readily responded to.” While The Arizona Miner didn’t report the game’s outcome, it reveals that two years after the first professional league, the National Association, was organized in the East, baseball was played in the remote West. Baseball was becoming the national pastime.