Fort Wayne Kekiongas

The Fort Wayne Kekiongas were a professional baseball team, notable for winning the first professional league game on May 4, 1871.

Kekionga - pronounced KEY-key-awn-guh - is the name of Chief Little Turtle's Miami Indian settlement where the St. Joseph River and the St. Marys River join to form the Maumee River. This was the largest settlement of the Miami tribe. General "Mad" Anthony Wayne erected Fort Wayne at that same confluence, and the modern city of Fort Wayne, Indiana grew up around the fort. In the language of the Miami tribe, kekionga means Blackberry Patch.

In April 1862, several young men gathered in Fort Wayne, Indiana to form the Summit City Club to play baseball. Banker Allen Hamilton donated land between major thorofares Calhoun and Clinton Street, south of Lewis Street, for a ball field. The field was eventually named Hamilton Field.

Play was short-lived, as members enlisted in the Grand Army of the Republic, some dying in the war. The club reorganized in 1866, and a second team, the Kekionga Base Ball Club of Fort Wayne, was formed that year as well.

The first game of the 1866 schedule saw the Kekiongas win against the Enterprise of Sydney by a score of 54-34. The game was played in Sydney on 24 Aug, 1866 with a time of 3 hours and 40 minutes. Charles Taylor and John Evans each hit a home run for the Kekiongas. Diehl was captain for this game. The club sent a challenge to "the champion club of the state", who were based in La Porte, Indiana for a match on 18 Sep 1866, but no results were recorded.

The Kekiongas defeated a local rival by a score of 66-40. The game was played in Fort Wayne in Oct, 1866. The Kekiongas second baseman, Lumbard, hit two home runs while the shortstop Bell hit one home run. John Hoagland was captain for this game.On 9 Nov, 1866, the Kekiongas played the last game of their season against the same Summit City ballclub, winning 80-29. Kekiongas hit twelve home runs during the game, with Bell accounting for four and Hoagland, Hadden, F.A. Gorham, Lumbard, Aveline, Diehl, C. Gorham and Shoaff each contributing one. Aveline was awarded a "huge cigar" for making the least number of outs while scoring the most runs (0 outs, 11 runs).

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