10/29/2026
For 70 years, BYB has nurtured baseball within the Batavia community. Batavia's baseball roots date back almost 150 years, to shortly after the game was invented.
The pictured team of presumed high school age Batavians faced the Elgin Quicksteps in 1877, and an Elgin newspaper captured the passion of our community following the game -
"The Quicksteps went down to Batavia yesterday and amid the wildest noises ever heard in a civilized country, were taken in by the nine of that burg known as the 'Batavias'. An audience of about three hundred of the 'loudest mouthed' people of the wind(mill) city were on the premises, and from the time the playing began, until its close, every man, woman, and child yelled their loudest...we are informed by the members of the Quicksteps that their opponents out-played them both at the bat and in the field."
Here's to the next 70 years of baseball and BYB in Batavia. ⚾
(credit: Batavia Historical Society and the Batavia Library)
