William Shuttleworth

William Shuttleworth (1834 – March 3, 1903) was a Canadian baseball player and executive. He helped to develop the Young Canadians of Hamilton, the first known organized Canadian baseball team, in 1854, and was the club's president by 1860. Shuttleworth held the same role for the Maple Leaf club, and was vice-president of the Canadian Base Ball Association. Along with his executive roles and an extended playing career, he was an umpire in the 1860s. Shuttleworth has been inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Biography Early life and Young Canadians Canada's Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame list Shuttleworth's birth year as 1834, and the latter states that Brantford, Ontario was his birthplace. He was raised there, and in 1851 he resided in Hamilton. His brother James, a shoemaker, lived in the same city during at least part of the 1850s. A version of a "baseball-type game" was played in Canada as early as 1838. Baseball later became popular in the Southern Ontario region. Canadian baseball historian William Humber considers it likely, though not certain, that Shuttleworth played an informal variety of the sport in his childhood. In April 1854, the first known organized baseball club in Canada was formed. The team was the Young Canadians of Hamilton, and was one of several started in the 1850s in Ontario. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, Shuttleworth "was instrumental in its development." The team included men who worked various jobs in Hamilton, including clerks, Shuttleworth's profession. Early games in Ontario were primarily played under Massachusetts rules, with what author Brian Martin calls "some Canadian wrinkles." There were typically 11 players per team in these games, with the overhand pitching style allowed, a change from New York rules of the time. In addition, an entire playing roster had to make outs before a team lost its turn at bat in an inning. On May 24, 1859, the Young Canadians played a game against another club from Hamilton, Young America, under New York rules, which mandated nine-person teams. Shuttleworth did not play, and was resistant to changes from the style of play that had prevailed in Canada.