Joshua Bunce (May 10, 1847 – April 28, 1912) was an American

left fielder In baseball, a left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder who plays defense in left field. Left field is the area of the outfield to the left of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering system ...

and

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

who played in one game for the Brooklyn Hartfords in and was hitless in four

at bat In baseball, an at bat (AB) or time at bat is a batter's turn batting against a pitcher. An at bat is different from a plate appearance. A batter is credited with a plate appearance regardless of what happens during their turn at bat, but a batt ...

s. Born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Bunce had been a member of several amateur baseball clubs in the New York area, such as the Nassau Club and the Brooklyn Baseball Club. He served as captain of the Nassau Club. Bunce also served as an

in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

for seven games in 1877 – four of them prior to his sole appearance as a player and three after – and was umpiring amateur baseball games in the New York area as late as 1897. Bunce also worked for the

Brooklyn Fire Department The Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) was a professional fire department that provided fire protection and rescue services to the city of Brooklyn, New York, within modern-day New York City, from 1869 to 1898. The Brooklyn Fire Department, a paid ...

. He died of

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, hea ...

in his home on

Bedford Avenue Bedford Avenue is the longest street in Brooklyn, New York City, stretching and 132 blocks, from Manhattan Avenue (Brooklyn), Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Greenpoint south to Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Sheepshead Ba ...

at age 64.

Major league game

Bunce played one game for the National League Hartfords on August 27, ; the game was played at

Union Grounds Union Grounds was a baseball park located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The grounds opened in 1862, its inaugural match being played on May 15. It was the first baseball park enclosed entirely by a fence, thereby allowing ...

in Brooklyn. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', "The Hartfords were short the services of three of their best players—

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, Holdsworth, and Ferguson. Their places, however, were very acceptably filled by

Pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

and Bunce, two players, and Habridge, the regular substitute of the club." The Hartfords beat the

Cincinnati Red Stockings The Cincinnati Red Stockings of were baseball's first all-professional team, with ten salaried players. The Cincinnati Base Ball Club formed in 1866 and fielded competitive teams in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) 1867– ...

5–1. Terry Larkin was the winning pitcher and Amos Booth was the loser. Bunce played left field and made one

putout In baseball statistics, a putout (denoted by ''PO'' or ''fly out'' when appropriate) is awarded to a defensive player who (generally while in secure possession of the ball) records an out by one of the following methods: * Tagging a runner wit ...

. The reporter for the ''Times'' summarized, "The game was tedious and uninteresting, and was witnessed by about 200 persons.".

References

External links

Baseball Almanac
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunce, Josh 1847 births 1912 deaths Major League Baseball left fielders Hartford Dark Blues players Baseball players from Brooklyn 19th-century baseball players Brooklyn Chelsea players Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery