18 July — Geelong Football Club is founded. Some believe that Geelong's set of rules may have been written before Melbourne's, and Graeme Atkinson claims a match was played in 1858 between Melbourne and Geelong using compromised rules.
A group in southern Ontario adopts the New York rules in place of the Canadian rules. The Niagara club of Buffalo, New York joins the National Association (by participating in the meeting) although it plays only locally.[1]
In Brooklyn, Jim Creighton moves from the local Niagara club to Star at midseason and on to Excelsior for next year, perhaps for monetary reward.
21, 22 & 23 July — in a remarkable all-round performance, V. E. Walker of Middlesex, playing for All-England ElevenversusSurrey at The Oval, takes all ten wickets in the Surrey first innings and follows by scoring 108 in the All-England second innings, having been the not out batsman in the first with 20. He takes a further four wickets in Surrey's second innings. All-England win by 392 runs.
7 September — departure of cricket's first-ever touring team. The team of English professionals went to North America and played five matches, winning them all. There were no first-class fixtures. A famous photograph was taken on board ship before they sailed from Liverpool (see above).
The Queen's Plate is initiated by the Toronto Turf Club and will be run for the first time in June 1860. The Queen's Plate is run over 11⁄4 miles by 3-year-old thoroughbred horses foaled in Canada and is the oldest race for thoroughbreds in Canada.
26 July — The third Harvard–Yale Regatta (a single race) is Harvard's third win, following 1852 and 1855. Lake Quinsigamond at Worcester, Massachusetts is the third site but it will be used exclusively through 1870. The event will now be annual with occasional interruptions, primarily during major wars.[5]
^The next two members by distance from the New York City meeting — the Union and Liberty clubs merely in Trenton and New Brunswick, New Jersey— also played no matches within the association. The other 47 of 50 members were from Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey and from modern New York City. Marshall D. Wright, The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857–1870, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2000, 31–40 (1859 data).
