The Ball Player and the Bandit
R: Francis Ford. D: Harold Lockwood, Helen Case, Joe King, Shorty Hamilton, Francis Ford. P: Broncho Film Company. USA 1912

“It’s the usual fish-out-of-water scenario. He shows up in a suit, clutching a handkerchief, sneezing at the dust, and with an aversion to guns. All the cowhands give him looks. He gets a job as an accountant, but even the little Annie Oakley there (Helen Case, looking a bit like Carol Kane) pokes fun at him. He stifles some of this abuse by winning a fistfight with a rival, but he’s still not completely trusted. He doesn’t like guns? The hell? (…)
It’s not much of a story. But it is fun to come across a Hollywood movie that doesn’t glorify guns the way 99% of Hollywood movies do.”
erik lundegaard

“It seems that every baseball film has to include the star winning the championship, even when they’re made in 1912, they’re only 10 minutes long and the single pitch of the championship we see is shot on a field. The star of the show is Harry Burns, played by the star of many a film at the time, Harold Lockwood, who I’ve only seen opposite Mary Pickford in Tess of the Storm Country. (…) The other name of note here is Francis Ford, who directs and appears in one of the roles, though which one I have no clue. He’s the brother of John Ford, widely acclaimed as one of the greatest directors in history, especially when shooting in the west, and it was Francis who got him into the industry. This is 1912 so there’s not a lot of startling direction going on but his work is perfectly fine here.”
Hal C. F. Astell
Apocalypse Later Film Reviews

“There’s a bit of a mystery about the production of this movie. On-screen credits claim it comes from ‘Broncho Movie Company’ and there’s even an ‘S&A’ at the end with an Indian head, giving the impression that this was released by Essanay, the company that made the Broncho Billy movies. I thought perhaps it was an early release from their studio in Niles, California. But, so far as I know Francis Ford never worked for Essanay, and the imdb (admittedly an imperfect source) lists the producer as Thomas Ince. If that’s the case, Ince may have been deliberately trying to horn in on Essanay’s success with the ‘Broncho’ and ‘S&A’ references. Today, that’d get you a lawsuit, but in the freewheeling early days of film, a lot of things went unchallenged!”
Century Film Project

Another baseball film, three years before:

His Last Game
Dir. and actors unknown. P: Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America (IMP) [Carl Laemmle]. USA 1909

“A rather strange baseball flick has an Indian pitcher planning his final game, which just happens to be the championship. Before the game, gamblers from the other team try to make him throw the game but when he refuses, the gambler pulls a gun, which leads to a deadly confrontation. This is a very strange little film due to the subject matter and how the violence is played out. (…) It’s also worth noting that there are four scenes in the film and each of them are filmed as one long take so there’s no break in the action.” (From Kino’s Reel Baseball: Baseball Films of the Silent Era)
Michael Elliott
IMDb

“The story is painful. Bad guys threaten good guy, good guy shoots one of the bad guys, sheriff walks good guy to a hole in the ground, good guy gets leave to go play his championship game while the sheriff and the gravediggers wait for his return, he comes back, they shoot him dead into the grave and then everyone else arrives, from the messenger with an official reprieve to his team members who see him dead and wander off. The titles are few and far between and the end but you could write them yourself. ‘So we killed an innocent man? Never mind, he was just a Choctaw. Who’s buying?'”
Hal C. F. Astell
Apocalypse Later Film Reviews

“I.M.P. was one of the companies that later went into making Universal Pictures, and this movie was produced by Carl Laemmle, senior, the head of that operation. I.M.P. was also famous for defying the Edison Trust and operating independently, and this movie would have been shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the site of their operations and much of the American film industry at the time. They made movies for the burgeoning Nickelodeon market, and indeed Laemmle and his partners had started out as Nickelodeon theater owners. (…) The ‘noble savage’ story almost always had a tragic ending, however, and here Bill is killed by ‘swift Western justice’ that has no sympathy for his situation or ethical behavior. Bill’s relationship with alcohol is also interesting – he never actually drinks, but is repeatedly tempted by drink and appears eager to do so, each time realizing just in time that it would be a mistake. Also interesting was the decision to shoot the entire ball game from a single angle, one in which the players frequently obscure the action from the camera. Showing baseball to audiences was still a new thing at the time, and more sophisticated ways to demonstrate it were yet to be developed. Note that the scene of the two gamblers drinking shows the I.M.P. logo prominently – still a common practice at the time to discourage film piracy.”
Century Film Project