Professional baseball player Joe Battin was born in West Bradford, Pennsylvania on November 11, 1852. He grew up in Chester County and started playing baseball as a young boy. Battin became a bricklayer in his early teens, but baseball was his goal and by age 16 he was a member of the Brandywine Base Ball Club.

He made his major league debut at 17 with the Cleveland Forest Citys (1871) but for only one game. In 1873 he joined the Philadelphia Athletics and played with them through 1874. He joined the St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1875 when he was 23 years old and played three seasons with the team until 1878, primarily at second and third base. A suggestion that he had bet against the Browns in August 1878 caused his release by the team and he spent the next twelve years playing for a series of minor and major league teams, ending his career in 1890 with the Syracuse Stars of the American Association. At age 34 his skills had eroded and after 29 games the Stars released him.

Battin briefly managed two baseball teams and umpired throughout the late 1880s and early 1890s but was out of baseball by 1892. He returned to his bricklaying trade in Chester County, appearing in a few minor league games in Reading and Easton. By 1910 he lived and worked as a policeman in West Chester with his wife of 36 years, Katherine, and their daughter Annette (33). Katherine died in 1911.

Joe Battin was a mediocre hitter and a good fielding infielder who, during the 1876 season with the Athletics, was the highest paid professional player earning $700/month. His career in professional baseball as player, umpire and manager spanned twenty-five years. Popular with his teammates and other players, Battin appeared on the Old-Timers Committee ballot and received one vote for the 1936 inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame balloting. He died of pneumonia on December 10, 1937, at age 84 while a resident of Akron, Ohio. He had no survivors.