Semantic search
1825.3 Writer Follows Strutt's Theory That Club-ball Was the Source Game
Aspin, J., Picture of the Manners, Customs, Sports and Pastimes of the Inhabitants of England [London, J. Harris] per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 191. Aspin's book reappeared in 1835 as Ancient Customs, Sports, Pastimes of the English, with the same material on ball play. Note: Are later games mentioned or listed by Aspin?
1825.5 Base Ball Called One of the College Sports as Early as 1825.
"What we know as Base Ball was played in its primitive form as far back as the beginning of the last [19th] century, and many of the oldest inhabitants remember seeing it played. It was one of the college sports as early as 1825."
Francis C. Richter, Richter's History and Records of Base Ball; The American Nation's Chief Sport [McFarland, 2005], page 4. Originally published in 1914. Cited as Richter, History and Records , page 12, by Harold Seymour - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Seymour notes that Richter was editor of Sporting Life in 1906.
1825.8 Wicket Bat Reportedly Long [and Still?] Held in Deerfield MA Collection
The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association reported that, as of 1908, it retained a wicket bat dating from 1825-30. Submitted by John Thorn, 1/13/2007. Note: John is trying to ascertain whether the bat remains in the collection.
1825.9 Ballplaying Planned on Saturdays in Hartford CT
"BALL PLAYING: There will be Ball playing in Washington Street, a few rods South of the College, every Saturday afternoon, through the season, the weather permitting, Bats Balls and Refreshments provided by Emmons Rudge." American Mercury [Hartford CT] , April 12, 1825. Submitted by John Thorn, 9/29/2006.
1825c.1 Thurlow Weed Recalls Baseball in Rochester NY
"A baseball club, numbering nearly fifty members, met every afternoon during the ball playing season. Though the members of the club embraced persons between eighteen and forty, it attracted the young and old. The ball ground, containing some eight or ten acres, known as Mumford's meadow . . . ." -- Thurlow Weed
[Weed goes on to list prominent local professional people, including doctors and lawyers, among the players.]
The experience is also represented in a 1947 novel, Grandfather Stories. "[The game] was clearly baseball, not town ball, as the old man described the positioning of the fielders and mentioned that it took three outs to retire the batting side." -- Tom Altherr.
Weed, Thurlow, Life of Thurlow Weed [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1883], volume 1, p. 203. Per Robert Henderson ref #159.
Samuel Hopkins Adams, Grandfather Stories (Random House, 1955 -- orig pub'd 1947), 146-149.
Did Weed advert to 3-out half innings, or did Adams?
1825c.12 Rochester Senior: "How the Game of Ball Was Played"
Writing in 1866, a man ("W") in Rochester NY described the game he had played "forty years since." That game featured balls made from raveled woolen stockings and covered by a shoemaker, a softer ball - "not as hard as a brick" than the NY ball, no fixed team size, soft tosses from the pitcher who took no run-up, "tick" hitting, the bound rule, plugging, a mix of flat and round bats. He suggests organizing a throw-back game to show 1860's youth "what grey heads can do."
"W," "The Game of Base Ball in the Olden Time," Rochester Evening Express (July 10, 1866), page 3, column 4. Provided by Priscilla Astifan, 2006. To read the full text, go here. Note: the writer does not say where he played these games, mentioning that he moved to Rochester three years before.
1825c.14 Future Ohio Governor is "Best Ball Player at the College"
John Brough was the Governor of Ohio from 1864 to 1865. At the age of 11 his father died and he took on work as a type-setter. In 1825 he "entered the Ohio University, at Athens, where he pursued a scientific course, with the addition of Latin . . . . He was fleet of foot and the best ball player at college."
Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Generals and Soldiers Volume 1 (Moore Wilstach and Baldwin, Cincinnati, 1868), page 1022. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search ("ohio in the war"). Athens OH is in Eastern Ohio near the WV border, and about 70 miles SE of Columbus.
1825c.4 John Oliver Plays Base Ball in Baltimore
"John W. Oliver recalls having baseball in Baltimore, Maryland. His family moved from England when he was three. "He remembers very distinctly having played the game of Base Ball when a boy. He states that his earliest recollection of the playing of the game was when he was about ten years of age, and at that time the game was played in this manner: The batter held the ball in one hand and a flat stick in the other, tossed the ball into the air and hit on the return, and then ran to either one, two, or three bases depending on the number of boys playing the game. If the ball was caught on the fly or the batter hit with the ball while running the bases, he was out. These bases, so called, at that time, were either stones or pieces of sod was removed [sic], or bare places where grass was scraped off. He remembers seeing the game played frequently while an apprentice boy, but always in this manner, never with a pitcher or a catcher, but sometimes with sides, which were chosen somewhat in the manner in which they are now chosen by boys; that is, by one catching a bat in his hand and another placing his hand on top, alternating in this manner until the last one had hold of the end of the bat, which he swung around his head. I never saw the game played with stakes or poles used for bases instead of stones or sods. Never heard of a game of Rounders. One Old Cat, Two Old Cat, Three Old Cat have seen played, but never have taken part in it myself."
Full text of Mills Commission summary of information from John W. Oliver, Editor, Yonkers Statesman, under date of September 26, 1905. From the Giamatti Center at Cooperstown. Note: we wish we could ascertain what were Oliver's own words, given the artlessness of this summary. Oliver was about 90 when debriefed in 1905.
See also 1825.15, 1827.9, 1835.3
1825c.6 Cricket Played at Southern Outings
In the South, "cricket was played even at the end of house raisings and trainings. The game was played along with quoits and other games of skill and strength. Parties were formed to go on fishing trips and picnics, and during the outing, cricket was one of the games played." Jennie Holliman, American Sports 1785 - 1835 (Porcupine Press, Philadelphia, 1975), page 68.
Holliman here cites The American Farmer, vol. 8, no 143 (1825), which John Thorn found online [email of 2/9/2008], and which does not make a strong case for cricket's ubiquity. This piece suggests that an ideal way to spend a Saturday near Baltimore is to have a fishing contest until dinnertime, and "after dinner pitch quoits, or play at cricket, or bowl at nine-pins." "Sporting Olio," American Farmer, Containing Original Essays and Selections on Rural Economics, July 22, 1825, page 143.
1825c.7 American Chapbook Reprises Couplets on Cricket, Trap-ball
Sports and Pastimes for Children [Baltimore, F. Lucas, Jr.], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 191. The verse for cricket and trap-ball is taken from the English Juvenile Pastimes [1824, above].
1826.1 Christian Visitor to Indiana Commune Unimpressed with Sunday Ballplaying There
"Monday [June] 26th. I breakfasted at this place. In Harmony there are about 900 souls. They make no pretensions to religion . . . . I shall only add, that Sunday is a holiday, they have two public balls a week, one every Tuesday and every Saturday night, that the men played ball all yesterday afternoon, that their cornfields and vineyards are overrun with weeds, their school children are half of the time out of school."
"Extract from the Correspondence of a Young Gentleman Traveling in he Western States," American Advocate, September 9, 1826. The location was New Harmony IN, a settlement organized by the utopian thinker Robert Owen in 1824. New Harmony is near the southern tip of IN, and is on the Wabash River, about 130 miles east of St. Louis and about 120 miles east of Louisville KY. Accessed by subscription search May 20, 2009.
1826.2 Ballplaying Said Documented in Troy Michigan on Nation's 50th
"Troy, a small hamlet in Southwestern Michigan, has documentary proof that a game was played there thirteen years before 1839 . . . . [T]he lineups of the two teams contesting in the game at Troy in 1826 are contained n a history of Oakland County."
The Sporting News, November 14, 1940. Posted by Tim Wiles on the 19CBB listserve on November 18, 2009. Tim enlisted Peter Morris in an effort to find confirmatory details. The result:
Under the heading "A fourth of July in 1826 [the Nation's 50th birthday, and the day that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died] is an account of the festivities, including a fusillade, patriotic readings, a dinner of pork and beans and bread and pumpkin pies, and "[f]ollowing this was the burning of more powder [cannon volleys?], and a game of base-ball, in which [19 names listed] and other participated." Peter determined that two of the players had sons who played for the Franklin Club in later years.
1826.3 Base Ball Associated with Boston Gymnasium Proposal?
[See image, below]
Messrs. William Sullivan and John G. Coffin have petitioned the Councils of Boston for the use of a piece of public ground, for two years, for the establishment of a Gymnastic School–a measure of doubtful propriety, we apprehend. If a boy wants to play; let him play but do not spoil the fun by dictating the modus operandi–a game of base ball, or foot ball, is worth a dozen gymnassiums [sic], where the eye of surveillance is to check the flow of animal spirits.
United States Gazette (Philadelphia) March 28, 1826
Note that this find comes five years before town ball is seen in Philadelphia.
From Bruce Allardice, email of 6/9/2021:
Does this item suggest that 'base ball' was a term used in Philadelphia in 1826? In Boston in 1826?
Was the Gymnasium actually established in Boston? Was ballplaying among its activities? Was gymnastics seen in the Commons in the early years?
Isn't this ref a very early appearance of the term foot ball in the US? Can we learn what rules may have applied?
1827.1 Brown U Student Reports "Play at Ball"
Brown College (Providence, RI) student Williams Latham notes in his diary:
On March 22: "We had a great play at ball today noon."
On April 9: "We this morning . . . have been playing ball, But I have never received so much pleasure from it here as I have in Bridgewater. They do not have more than 6 or 7 on a side, so that a great deal of time is spent in running after the ball, neither do they throw so fair ball, They are afraid the fellow in the middle will hit it with his bat-stick."
"The Diary of Williams Latham, 1823 - 1827," quoted in W. C. Bronson, The History of Brown University 1764 - 1914 (Providence, Brown University, 1914), p. 245. Per Henderson, Bat, Ball, and Bishop (Rockport Press, 1947), p.147, ref # 101. See also Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 240; Cited in Peterson, "The Man Who Invented Baseball," p. 10-12 (1939)
"The fellow in the middle?" Does this suggest the lack of foul ground?
What/where is Bridgewater? Was Bridgewater MA Latham's home town, maybe?
1827.10 "Base-ball, a nonsuch for (Girls') eyes and arms"
From the London Literary Gazette of March 24, 1827, in a negative review of a book on calisthenic exercises for ladies by one Signor Voarino:
[noting that the author is a foreigner] "Perhaps he was not aware...that we had diversions like these just mentioned, and many others of the same kind--such, for example (for our critical knowledge is limited,) as hunt the slipper, which gives dexterity of hand and ham; leap frog, which strengthens the back (only occasionally indulged in, we believe, by merry girls;) romps, which quicken all the faculties; tig, a rare game for universal corporeal agility; base-ball, a nonsuch for eyes and arms; ladies' toilet, for vivacity and apprehension; spinning the plate, for neatness and rapidity; grass-hopping (alias shu-cock,) for improving the physical powers; puss in the corner, and snap-tongs, for muscularity and fearlessness;--all these, and hundreds more, not so well known nor so much practised in London, perhaps, as in the county, we have had for ages..."
London Literary Gazette, March 24, 1827, per 19cbb post by Richard Hershberger, Oct. 26, 2010
1827.2 Story Places Baseball in Rochester NY
A story, evidently set in 1880 in Rochester, involves three boys who convince their grandfather to attend a Rochester-Buffalo game. The grandfather contrasts the game to that which he had played in 1827.
He describes intramural play among the 50 members of a local club, with teams of 12 to 15 players per side, a three-out-side-out rule, plugging, a bound rule, and strict knuckles-below-knees pitching. He also recalls attributes that we do not see elsewhere in descriptions of early ballplaying: a requirement that each baseman keep a foot on his base until the ball is hit, a seven-run homer when the ball went into a sumac thicket and the runners re-circled the bases, coin-flips to provide "arbitrament" for disputed plays, and the team with the fewest runs in an inning being replaced by a third team for the next inning ["three-old-cat gone crazy," says one of the boys]. The grandfather's reflection does not comment on the use of stakes instead of bases, the name used for the old game, the relative size or weight of the ball, or the lack of foul ground - in fact he says that outs could be made on fouls.
Samuel Hopkins Adams, "Baseball in Mumford's Pasture Lot," Grandfather Stories (Random House, New York, 1947), pp. 143 - 156. Full text is unavailable via Google Books as of 12/4/2008.
Adams' use of a frame-within-a-frame device is interesting to baseball history buffs, but the authenticity of the recollected game is hard to judge in a work of fiction. Mumford's lot was in fact an early Rochester ballplaying venue, and Thurlow Weed (see entry #1825c.1) wrote of club play in that period. Priscilla Astifan has been looking into Adams' expertise on early Rochester baseball. See #1828c.3 for another reference to Adams' interest in baseball about a decade before the modern game evolved in New York City.
We welcome input on the essential nature of this story. Fiction? Fictionalized memoir? Historical novel?
1827.3 First Oxford-Cambridge Cricket Match Held
Per Stephen Green, interview at Lords Cricket Ground, 2006. Also noted in John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Was inter-college competition common in other English sports at this time? Rowing, maybe?
1827.4 Poisoned Ball Listed in French Manual of Games
Celnart, Elizabeth, Manuel complet des jeux de societe (Complete manual of social games) [Paris, Roret], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 192. The material on "la balle empoisonee" is reported as "virtually identical" to that of the 1810 Les Jeux des juenes garcons, above at 1810.
Does this manual cover other safe-haven games? Other batting games? Other games with plugging?
1827.5 Science of Trap Construction Revealed
Paris, J. A., Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest, Being an Attempt to Illustrate the First Principles of Natural Philosophy by the Aid of the Popular Toys and Sports of Youth (London, Longman), 3 volumes. Per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 192. Block notes that detailed illustrations of the trap are included, but mentions no other games.
1827.6 A Tip for Good Health: Cricket for the Blokes, Bass-ball for the Lasses
"With the same intention [that is children's health], the games of cricket, prison bars, foot ball, &c. will be useful, as children grow up, and are strong enough to endure such exercise.
"With regard to girls, these amusements may be advantageously supplanted by bass-ball, battledore and shuttlecock, and similar and playful pursuits."
William Newnham, The Principles of Physical, Intellectual, Moral, and Religious Education, Volume 1 (London, 1827), page 123. Uncovered and provided by Mark Aubrey, email of 1/30/2008.
1827.7 NY Boy Celebrates "Releasement" from School By Playing Ball
"In consequence of a dismission from school this afternoon, I play at ball . . . and perhaps you will say that I might have been better employed . . . If so are your thoughts, I can tell you, that you are much mistaken. If you have ever been confined to a study where every exertion of intellect was required, for any length of time, you must, upon releasement therefrom, have felt the pleasure of relaxation."
-- Nathaniel Moore, Student at Clinton Academy, East Hampton, Long Island.
Nathaniel Moore, "Diaries 1827-1828," Manuscript Division, New York Public Library, 106-L-1, May 26, 1827. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 36 and ref #45.
1827.8 Lithograph Shows Ballplaying in City Hall Park, NY
John Thorn (emails of 9/1/2009) has unearthed an engraving of City Hall Park that depicts a ball game in progress in the distance. My best squint shows me pitcher, batsman, a close-in catcher, two distant fielders and three spectators (two seated). Old cat? Single-wicket cricket? Scrub base ball?
The lithograph, titled "The Park, 1827," is published as the frontispiece Valentine's Manual for the Corporation of the City of New York (1855). For a wee image, try a Google Web search of <"the park, 1827/McSpedon">.
We welcome other interpretations of the depicted ballgame.
1827.9 Baltimore MD Bans Ballplaying on Sundays and within City Limits
"CITY OF BALTIMORE. 36. AN ORDINANCE to restrain evil practices therein mentioned. . . .[Sec. 3] it shall not be lawful for any person to play at bandy or ball, to fly a kite or throw a stone or any other missile in . . . any street, lane, or alley opened for public use within the limits of the city." Section 7 covers Sabbath play, again including ball, and adding "pitching quoits or money." The penalty was $1.00. The ordinance is dated March 2, 1827.
Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser, March 13, 1827, page 3. Posted to the 19CBB listserve November 2009 by George Thompson. Note:
One type of ballplaying that was banned was that described by young John Oliver at entry #1825c.4, above.
1828.1 Boy's Own Book [London] Describes "Rounders," Stoolball, Feeder
The Boy's Own Book is published in London and contains a set of rules for "stool-ball," [p. 26], "trap, bat, and ball," [p. 27], "northern-spell," [p. 28], "rounders," [p.28], and "feeder" [p. 29]. The rounders entry states: "this is a favorite game with bat and ball, especially in the west of England." The entry for feeder, in its entirety: "This game is played with three bases only, and a player takes the place of feeder, who remains so until he puts one of the other players out, by catching his ball or striking him while running from base to base, as at Rounders; the one who is put out taking the place of feeder to the others, and thus the game goes on. There are no sides at this game." The entry for northern spell describes a game without running or fielding, in which the object is to hit the ball farthest - "this pastime possesses but little variety, and is by no means so amusing to the bystanders as Trapball."
Altherr uses a reference to an 1829 US version: The Boy's Own Book [Munroe and Francis, Boston, 1829], pp. 18-19, per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 65. David Block, page 192-193, describes the wide popularity of this text in England and the US, running through many editions through the 1880s, and also identifies this book as Henderson's key evidence in his refutation of the Doubleday theory of baseball's origin 11 years later.
Clarke, W., Boy's Own Book (London, Vizetelly Branston), 1828: second edition. This book is reportedly still available (Appleton Books, 1996), according to Tim Wiles at the Giamatti Research Library. Note:
Tom Altherr uses a reference to an 1829 US version: The Boy's Own Book (Munroe and Francis, Boston, 1829), pp. 18-19, per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, (Nebraska, 2005), pp. 229ff.
.
[] David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 192-193, describes the wide popularity of this text in England and the US, running through many editions through the 1880s, and also identifies this book as Robert Henderson's key evidence in his refutation of the Doubleday theory of baseball's origins 11 years later.
[] In 2021 Protoball asked David Block why the Boy's Own Book had not mentioned English base ball among ballplaying versions as late as 1828:
"English Baseball was omitted because it was an under-the-radar game even back then. It was largely unknown in London and thus largely unknown to Clark and, apparently, to anyone else who may have helped him write The Boy’s Own Book."
(Email from David Block, 9/21/21)
1828.10 Trap Ball Scam Reported!
"Two young lads were taken before the police of Glasgow about the 1st of May, for breaking a pane in a shop keeper's window in playing trap ball. Upon being questioned, they stated that they were employed by a glazier to break glass for him at the rate of a penny a pane, and that several other boys were in the same business. The glazier was of course taken into custody."
RochesterDaily Advertiser, June 24, 1828. Submitted by Priscilla Astifan. Note: Should we assume that the event happened in Glasgow Scotland and that the account was taken from a newspaper there?
1828.11 Ballplaying Boys in NYC Perturb the Congregations in Church
A "mob of boys, constantly engaged in playing ball [so that] . . . on the Sabbath, while Congregations are in Church, there is more noise and clamour in the vicinity than on any other day [from this] squad of loungers, commencing their daily potations and smoking."
Commercial Advertiser (NY), January 28, 1828, page 2, column 4. Contributed by George Thompson, email of January 9, 2009.
1828.12 Police Nine 1, Men and Boy Sabbath-Breakers 0
It is reported that Alderman Peters of NY's Ninth Ward, "together with High Constable Hays, at the head of eight or ten of the peace Officers . . . arrest a number of men and boys for breaking the Sabbath by playing ball in a vacant lot.:
New York Evening Post, December 22, 1828, page 2, column 2: and Commercial Advertiser, December 23, 1828, page 2, columns 2-3. Contributed by George Thompson, email of January 9, 2009.
1828.13 In Christian Story, a Young Girl Chooses Batting Over Tatting
A very strict school mistress scolds the title character: "You can't say three times three without missing; you'd rather play at bass-ball, or hunt the hedges for wild flowers, than mend your stockings."
A.M.H. [only initials are given], "The Gipsey Girl," in The Amulet, Or Christian and Literary Remembrancer (W. Baynes and Son, London, 1828), pp 91-104. This short moral tale is set in England, and the girl is described as being eight or nine years old. Accessed 2/4/10 via Google Books search ("amulet or christian" 1828).
Reported by Tom Altherr, "Some Findings on Bass Ball," Originals, February 2010. This story was reprinted as "The Gipsy Girl," in The Cabinet Annual: A Christmas and New Year's Gift for 1855 (E. H. Butler, Philadelphia, 1855) page 93ff:
1828.14 Portsmouth NH Reminder: No Ballplaying, Betting in Public Places
A newspaper article reminded all not to "in any street, lane, alley, or other public place [within a mile of the court house] throw any stones, bricks, snow-balls or dirt, or play at ball or any other game in which ball is used; or play at game whatsoever for money; or smoke any pipe, or cigar."
"Notice," New-Hampshire Gazette, July 14, 1828. Accessed via subscription search May 5, 2009. Query: this is not a new ordinance; can we find the original date for this language, in Section 4 of the police by-laws? How does it relate to the Portsmouth ban on cricket in entry #1795.1 above?
1828.15 1828 Advertisement for the Cricket Club in New Orleans
The New Orleans Louisiana Advertiser, Feb. 27, 1828, carries an ad saying "Weather permitting, the Cricket Club will meet on the 2d of March, at 10 a.m."
The New Orleans Louisiana Advertiser, Feb. 27, 1828
1828.16 Base-ball Cited as a Suitable "Nonsuch for Eyes and Arms" of Australian Ladies
Am Australian periodical saw limitations in a book on healthful activities for women and girls. The book is Calisthenic Exercises: Arranged for the Private Tuition of Ladies, is attributed to a Signor Voarino and was published in London in 1827.
"Signor Voarino, as a foreigner, perhaps was not aware that we had diversions like these just mentioned, and many others of the same kind — such, for example (for our crtical knowledge is limited) as hunt the slipper, which gives dexterity of hand and ham; leap frog, which strengthens the back (only occasionally indulged in, we believe, by merry girls;) romps, which quicken all the faculties; tig, a rare game for universal corporeal agility; base-ball, a nonsuch for eyes and arms ! [probably a typo for a semicolon--jt] ladies' toilet, for vivacity and apprehension; spinning the plate, for neatness and rapidity; grass-hopping (alias shu-cock) for improving in muscularity and fearlessness--all these, and hundreds more, we have had for ages; s[o] that it looks ridiculous to bring out as a grand philosophical discovery, the art of instructing women how to have canes or sticks laid on their backs."
The Australian (Sydney), May 14, 1828, page 4. This excerpt appears in a column called "British Sayings and Doings."
(In February 2017 David Block notes that he has seen a copy of the original issue of the "London Literary Gazette" in which the review of Signor Voarino's book first appeared.)
This book is also described in item 1827.10. Protoball is attempting to determine whether the Voarino book itself touches on other baserunning games in the 1820s.
1828.17 Man Recalls July 4th Game Sixty Years Earlier
In May 1888, a Boston Globe story reflected the recollection of a game played on July 4, 1828 between the Typhoons and the Hurricanes. A man recalls that at age 20 he played short stop that day.
The article says the game was 6 a side, and played in Skowhegan, ME between the local team, and that of Orono. Gives the names of the players. [ba]
Boston Globe, May 29, 1888, page 5. (Text not secured as of September 2018.)
As of 2018, we do not know the location, game type, or rules for this game.
It is interesting that the man identified his position as short stop, perhaps indicating that predecessor baserunning games in New England had already developed skill positions' decades before the Knickerbocker club formed.
Can someone help us obtain the text of this newspaper piece?
1828.18 In Brighton England, 'Women of the Mill' Play Stool Ball Alongside Cricketers
"The paper-makers played a match of cricket on Saturday last, whilst the women of the mill were engaged at stool ball. The novelty of the scene attracted a considerable concourse of people."
Brighton Gazette, July 18, 1828
1828.19 Game of Base Mentioned in Account of Life at Harvard
The Harvard Register, Feb. 1828; from an article entitled “Life in College.”
"There are some other features of college life we fain would sketch but our pen confesses its weakness in the attempt. Would we could call upon the Engine to give out a history of the
exertions of those who managed it in days of yore; or that we could contrive to make the Delta yield up a narrative of the sports it has witnessed. It could tell , before it took its
present gallows appearance, of Cricket - Base - and Foot ball; it could tell how many pedal members began the game with white, unspotted skins, but limped off at its conclusion
tinged with variegated hues.”
The Harvard Register, Feb. 1828; from an article entitled “Life in College.”
"Pedal members"? A pretty good Harvard friend of Protoball can't explain this term.
"Delta"?
1828.2 Portland Newspaper Reports Boys Playing at "Bat-and-Ball."
"A Portland newspaper referred to boys playing at "bat and ball" - Tom Altherr
Anderson, Will, Was Baseball Really Invented in Maine? (private printing, Portland, 1992), p. 1. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 244 and ref #71.
The fine announced in 1805.2 must not have persisted?
Can we find the source, and some text, for this?
1828.20 Cricket and Base and Football at Harvard?
"There are some other features of college life we fain would sketch but our pen confesses its weakness in the attempt. Would we could call upon the Engine to give out a history of the exertions of those who managed it in days of yore; or that we could contrive to make the Delta yield up a narrative of the sports it has witnessed. It could tell , before it took its present gallows appearance, of Cricket - Base- and Foot ball; it could tell how many pedal members began the game with white, unspotted skins, but limped off at its conclusion tinged with variegated hues.”
The Harvard Register, Feb. 1828; from an article entitled “Life in College.”
Can we assume that 'pedal members' pertained to the feet, and that it was thus foot ball, and not the two base-running games that caused the bruises?
1828.6 Cricket Allows Species of Round-Arm Bowling
Says Ford: "Compromise reached permitting round-arm bowling to the level of the elbow." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
1828.7 Ballplaying in Pawtucket RI
[Note: Need to recover lost attachment submitted by John Thorn, 7/23/2005 see 1828 folder.]
1828.8 View of NYC Ballplayers "A Worse Menace Than Traffic"
"Let anyone visit Washington Parade, and he will find large groups of men and boys playing ball and filling the air with shouts and yells."
Evening Posteditorial no date given. This quote comes from Berger, Meyer, "In the Ball Park Every Man's a King," New YorkTimes, April 14, 1935. Submitted by John Thorn, fall 2005.
1828c.3 Upstate Author Carried Now-Lost 1828 Clipping on Base Ball in Rochester
[A] "Your article on baseball's origins reminded me of an evening spent in Cooperstown with the author Samuel Hopkins Adams more than 30 years ago. Over a drink we discussed briefly the folk tale about the "invention" of baseball in this village in 1839.
"Even then we knew that the attribution to Abner Doubleday was a myth. Sam Adams capped the discussion by pulling from his wallet a clipping culled from a Rochester newspaper dated 1828 that described in some detail the baseball game that had been played that week in Rochester."
[B] Adams' biography also notes the author's doubts about the Doubleday theory: asked in 1955 about his novel Grandfather Stories, which places early baseball in Rochester in 1827 [sic], he retorted "'I am perfectly willing to concede that Cooperstown is the home of the ice cream soda, the movies and the atom bomb, and that General Doubleday wrote Shakespeare. But," and he then read a newspaper account of the [1828? 1830?] Rochester game."
[C] "Will Irwin, a baseball historian, tells us he was informed by Samuel Hopkins of a paragraph in an 1830 newspaper which notes that a dance was to be held by the Rochester Baseball Club."
[A] Letter from Frederick L. Rath, Jr, to the Editor of the New York Times, October 5, 1990.
[B] Oneonta Star, July 9. 1965, citing Samuel V. Kennedy, Samuel Hopkins Adams and the Business of Writing (Syracuse University Press, 1999), page 284.
[C] Bill Beeny, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, March 17, 1965.
Priscilla Astifan has looked hard for such an article, and it resists finding. She suspects the article appeared in a newspaper whose contents were not preserved.
1828c.4 NH Man Recalls Boyhood Habit of Playing Ball
Cyrus Bradley, born in 1818 in rural NH, refers in 1835 to his boyhood habit of playing ball.
"Journal of Cyrus P. Bradley," Ohio Archeological and Historical Society, Volume XV [1906], page 210. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
1828c.5 Vermont Schoolboy Recalls Playing Goal, With Elm Trees as Goals
"The big boys had great times playing goal, and other noisy and running games, and the elm trees by our yard were the goals . . . "
History of Samuel Paine, Jr., 1778-1861 and His Wife Pamela (Chase) Paine, 1780-1856, of Randolph VT and Their Ancestors and Descendants, compiled and edited by their grandson Albert Prescott Paine, 1923. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
1829.1 Philadelphians Play Ball
A group of Philadelphians who may eventually organize as the Olympic Ball Club begin playing town ball in Philadelphia, PA, but are prohibited from doing so within the city limits by ordinances dating to Colonial times. A site in Camden, New Jersey is used to avoid breaking the laws in Philadelphia. Caution: this unsourced item, retained from the original chronology of 70 items, has been seriously questioned by a researcher familiar with Philadelphia ballplaying. This group may correspond to the eighteen ropemakers whose ball play is cited in “A Word Fitly Spoken,” published in The American Sunday School Magazine of January 1830, pp. 3-5.
1829.2 Round Ball Played in MA
From a letter to the Mills Commission: "Mr. Lawrence considers Round Ball and Four Old Cat one and the same game; the Old Cat game merely being the they could do when there were not more than a dozen players, all told. . . . Mr. Lawrence says, as a boy, he played Round Ball in 1829.
"So far as Mr. Lawrence's argument goes for Round Ball being the father of Base Ball it is all well enough, but there are two things that cannot be accounted for; the conception of the foul ball, and the abolishment of the rules that a player could be put out by being hit by a thrown ball. No one remembers the case of a player being injured by being hit by a thrown ball, so that cannot be the reason for that change. The foul rule made the greatest skill of the Massachusetts game count for nothing - the batting skill - the back handed and slide batting. Mr. Stoddard told me that there were 9 of the 14 Upton batters who never batted ahead."
Henry Sargent Letter to the Mills Commission, June 25, 1905.
1829.3 Small Cambridge MA Schoolground Crimps Base and Cricket Play
his new Cambridge school too small. "[N]one of the favorite games of foot-ball, hand-ball, base or cricket could be played in the grounds with any satisfaction, for the ball would be constantly flying over the fence, beyond which he boys could not go without asking special leave. This was a damper on the more ranging & athletic exercises."
-- Richard Henry Dana, on the limitations of school ground play at his new school in Cambridge MA
Robert Metdorf, ed., An Autobiographical Sketch (1815-1842) (Shoe String Press, Hamden CT, 1953), pages 51-52. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 38. The text of the autobiography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/16/2008.
Richard Henry Dana, later the author of Two Years Before the Mast and a leading abolitionist, was 14 in 1829.
1829.4 In Upstate NY, A Teen's Death on the Ballfield
"As a number of the students at Fairfield academy were amusing themselves with a game of ball, on the 19th inst., a young man by the name of Philo Petrie, . . . of the town of Little Falls, was hit on the side of his head be a ball club and died almost instantly. He was about 17 years old."
New-York Spectator, October 30, 1829, page 2, column 5; taken from the Herkimer Herald. Posted by George Thompson to the 19CBB listserve on January 3, 2010. The Jamestown [NY] Journal reran the piece on November 4, 1829: accessed via subscription search on 2/17/2009. Fairfield NY is about 15 miles east of Utica in Central New York, and about 10 miles north of Herkimer and Little Falls.
The game played was wicket. See the Ilion Citizen, March 13, 1903:
One Saturday afternoon, in the fall of 1829 while a party of academics were playing a game of wicket ball on the "green," Philo Petrie, a student, was hit by a bat and almost instantly fell dead. Ozias Nellis was at the wicket, defending it, and in his playing raised his bat to strike the fall; as it came he struck but missed the ball, and momentum of the blow swung Nellis and the bat around, raising the bat as it went, and hit Petrie, who was standing near, on the side of his head. Petrie suddenly clapped both hands to his head, and in a moment fell headlong to the ground. No blame was laid on Nellis; the blow was accidental, but fatal.
1829.5 Town Ball Takes Off in Philadelphia?
A group of young rope makers is reported to have played a game of ball in 1829 at 18th and Race Streets.
William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning (McFarland, 2009), page 114. Ryczek cites a 2006 email from Richard Hershberger as the source of the location of the game. He identifies this game as perhaps the earliest known form of town ball, but Hershberger is unconvinced (see Warning, below).
Citing the makeup of these players as differing from that of early town ball players' reports, and seeing the 1829 account as more of a morality tale than a reliable report, Richard Hershberger (email of 10/31/12) discounts this item as an account of the origins of Philadelphia town ball.
In 1831 two organized groups, which later merged, played town ball: for a succinct history of the origins of Philadelphia town ball, see Richard Hershberger, "A Reconstruction of Philadelphia Town Ball," Base Ball, volume 1 number 2 (Fall 2007), pp 28-29.
Can we find the source of this 1829 account?
1829.7 While Playing Peacefully, "Wisdom Stole His Bat and Ball"
The poem "Childhood and His Visitors," evidently first printed [anonymously] in 1829 and appearing in many other places in the ensuing decades, turns on the line "Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball" which signifies the moment when childhood ends and manhood begins. Wisdom then, the verse continues, "taught him . . . why no toy may last forever." One interpretation may be that Childhood was using his bat and ball while "hard at play/Upon a bank of blushing flowers:/ Happy - he knew not whence or why" when Wisdom finally paid her visit. Thus, an image of bat and ball symbolizes immaturity.
The poem was referenced by Hugh MacDougall in a positing to the 19CBB listserve on 2/17/2010.
A possible initial source is The Casket, a Miscellany, Consisting of Unpublished Poems (John Murray, London, 1829), pages 21-23. Accessed 2/19/2010 via Google Books search ("the casket a miscellany"). In 1865 the piece, dated 1829, appears in The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Volume I (Widdleton, New York, 1865), pages 370-372. Accessed 2/19/2010 via Google Books search ("bat and ball" 1865 widdleton). Assuming that Praed was the actual author, as his wife thought, the poem had appeared during the year when, at age 27, the young Romantic turned away from thoughts of blushing flowers and toward a career as a British lawyer and Tory politician.
1829.9 Pupil in Class Seen to "Scamper like a Boy at Bass-ball"
Under the heading "School-boy Anecdote," this item tells of a "pupil in one of the common schools in New-York" who responded in an oral spelling quiz with an indistinct answer. The teacher pressed him on his answer: "Did you say 'a' or 'e'?"
"Why, you take ary [sic] one on 'em!" said the boy, and he scampered [to the front of the classroom] "like a boy at bass-ball, and placed himself at the head of the class."
Carried in the New-Hampshire Statesman and Concord Register, [Concord, NH], June 6, 1829, page 4, column 3: Attributed to the Berkshire American (no date given).
One source identifies the Berkshire American as being published in Pittsfield MA 1825-28.
Pittsfield is in westernmost MA and within 10 miles of the New York border. It is about 35 miles SE of Albany NY.
1829c.1 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Plays Ball as a Harvard student.
Several sources report that Oliver Wendell Holmes playing ball at Harvard.
[actual Holmes text is still needed]
Krout, John A, Annals of American Sport (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929), p. 115. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p. 240, ref 49. Richard Hershberger, posting to 19CBB on 10/8/2007, found an earlier source - Caylor, O. P., "Early Baseball Days," Washington Post, April 11, 1896. John Thorn reports [email of 2/15/2008] that Holmes biographies do not mention his sporting interests. Note: We still need the original source for the famous Harvard story. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play is unconfirmed.
See entry #1824.6 above on Holmes' reference to prep school baseball at Phillips Academy.
We still need the original source for the famous Harvard story. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play as cited is unconfirmed. The Holmes story reportedly appears in JM Ward's "Base Ball: How to Become a Player," where he says OWH told it "to the reporter of a Boston paper." (Ward page citation?)
Small Puzzle: Harvard's 19th Century playing field was "Holmes Field;" was it named for this Holmes? Harvard is in Cambridge MA.