Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Board of Trade Scalpers

Seeing that one of the guys who helped make tradingpithistory.com possible plays in a very cool vintage baseball league based upon 1886 rules along with vintage equipment, uniforms and terminology I remembered some old CBOT related baseball stuff to put up here.

Click to enlarge

The above photo is a 1907 newspaper article which describes a game that will be played for charity between the CBOT vs Minneapolis Grain Exchange and it appears that the exchange had a ball team many years before.  A recent SEC comment letter (which is worth reading as well regarding post-flash crash implications) makes reference to the Board of Trade Scalpers and a game in 1870:

On a cloudy autumn afternoon in 1870, the Chicago White Stockings, a team that would evolve into the present day hapless Chicago Cubs, played an exhibition baseball game against a hastily assembled gang of amateurs calling itself the Board of Trade Scalpers. It was a rout. In nine innings of play at Dexter Park, next door to Chicago's new stockyards, the White Stockings crushed the Scalpers by a score of 30 to 2, likely the only time scalpers on the Chicago futures exchanges were so convincingly restrained.

Click to enlarge

The above photo from the Library of Congress shows a 1907 Cubs game and if you click to enlarge, the section in back of home plate is named and reserved for the Board of Trade Rooters which was a fan club for the team.  One thing that hasn't changed in over 100 years is that the traders are junkies for good seats at sporting events and occupy a good portion of the supply. 
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