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<p>Describing ballplaying in the Confederate regiments during the Civil War, Wiley suggests that “the exercise might be of the modern version, with players running four bases, or it might be two-base town ball.” It is not clear whether he means “two-base town ball” as a formal name, or simply as a way to distinguish prior folk game(s) in the South. Long Ball and Long Town used two bases.</p> +
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<p>per Endrei and Zolnay. “We may be of the opinion that these ‘hitting’ games, which were universal in the Middle Ages, have disappeared entirely. This is far from true: in the Balkans they are still played by children . . . .” No other lead to the Balkan games is provided.</p> +
<p>per Guarinoni. This game, reportedly played in Prague circa 1600, involved two teams, pitching, and a small leather ball “the size of a quince.” The bat was tapered and four feet long. Caught balls caused the teams to change positions. Baserunning is not mentioned, according to David Block, but is at least inferred by Endrei and Zolnay: who say that the batter “attempted to make a circuit of the bases without being hit by the ball.” Guarinoni mentions that the Poles and the Silesians were the best players.</p> +
<p>per Endrei and Zolnay. “In Hungary several variants of rounders exist in the countryside.” No other lead to these variants is provided.</p> +
<p>The nature of this game is unknown. It is found an 1849 chapbook printed in Connecticut: “there are a great number of games played with balls, of which base-ball, trap ball, cricket, up-ball, catch-ball and drive-ball are the most common.”</p> +
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<p>A sport that claims 1500 players among the women of Queensland, Australia, Vigoro is a souped-up version of (slightly down-sized) cricket. A key point is that if a ball Is hit forward of the crease, running is compulsory.</p> +
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<p>Gomme (1898) compares Waggles to a game of four-player Cricket using cats instead of balls.</p> +
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<p>Author Martin Johns describes Welsh baseball as having evolved from rounders, and having been re-named baseball in 1892. It has been largely confined to Cardiff and Newport, and further to the working-class sections of those towns. Sixty neighborhood clubs were playing in 1921, and five Cardiff schools formed a baseball league in 1922.</p>
<p>In 2015, the Welsh Baseball website at http://www.welshbaseball.co.uk/ lists eight clubs in a Premier League, several of them evidently providing summer sport for local soccer clubs. </p>
<p>This game uses a smaller ball than is found in US baseball, and features a flattened bat, underhand pitching, eleven-player teams, no foul ground, an all-out-side-out rule, and two-inning games.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Note:</em></span> in 1927, the rules for Welch baseball and Liverpool baseball were evidently combined. See "British Baseball" at http://protoball.org/British_Baseball and at http://protoball.org/British_Baseball_(Welsh_Baseball). </p> +
<p>The game of wicket was evidently the dominant game played in parts of Connecticut, western MA, and perhaps areas of Western New York State, prior to the spread of the New York game in the 1850’s and 1860’s. Wicket resembles cricket more than baseball. The “pitcher” bowls a large, heavy ball toward a long, low wicket, and a batter with a heavy curved club defends the wicket. Some students of cricket note that it resembles cricket before it evolved to its modern form, with its higher narrower wicket.</p>
<p>A 1834 book published in Boston (See Robin Carver, below) includes, as a final word on cricket, an account of a simpler form of cricket, this view:</p>
<p>"This is, I believe, the old and original way of playing cricket. It is also played in a simpler way. Two wickets are placed at some distance from each other. The consist each of two short stakes fixed in the ground, and a cross stick places in notches, in the stakes about the height of the ball from the ground. Two bowlers stand at each wicket and roll the ball along the ground with the view of knocking off the cross stick. The striker strives to prevent this by hitting the ball with his bat: but if he strike it so that it is caught by any of the other players, he is out."</p>
<p>This very low wicket certainly resembles the target in the game called wicket in the Nineteenth Century.</p>
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<p>A Wiffle Ball is a hollow plastic ball with holes strategically placed in order to exaggerate sideways force, and thus enabling pitchers to produce severe curves and drops (and rises?). Competitive games of Wiffleball are known, some exhibiting team play. Few, we believe (as of September 2018), appear to involve active baserunning, and the Wiffle Ball company site's "suggested rules say that live running "has been eliminated."</p>
<p><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Note: </span>Wiffle Ball, Inc.</em>, which holds and protects key trade marks, has set out a set of rules at http://www.wiffle.com/pages/game_rules.asp?page=game_rules. However, many leagues, and tournaments, treasure their innovative rule options, including the doctoring of balls to make them curve more dramatically, and of bats that are dissimilar to those familiar thin yellow plastic cudgels you may think of. Multiple leagues and tournaments seem to claim that their championships produce the true national crown for wiffle ball. </p>
<p>The poem, <em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Wiffle Ball,</span></em> appears in he Supplemental Text below. It was furnished to Protoball by its author, Glenn Stout, on 8/17/2018. </p>
<p>A fine recollection of wiffle ball games is found in Glenn's "Wiffle Rules", at https://verbplow.blogspot.com/2018/08/wiffle-rules.html.</p>
<p>A September 2019 <em>Boston Globe </em>article by Billy Baker (cited below), features an account of the National Golden Stick Wiffle Ball championships (motto: "A backyard game taken way too far.")</p>
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<p>In this game opponents position themselves on the opposite sides of as wire strung over the street. Singles, doubles, etc., are determined by whether the ball hits the wire and whether it is caught by the out team as it descends. There is no running or batting in this urban game.</p> +
<p>Another label for the game [[Scrub]]/[[Move-Up]]: The available number of players is initially divided between several defensive positions and a smaller number of batters. A batter who is put out, becomes the fielder who is last in line to return to batting [right field, when there are enough fielders], and must work the way back position by position. A fielder to catches a fly ball exchanges places immediately with the batter. Because the small number of player precludes team play, “ghost runners” and special ground rules are sometimes required. Plugging is allowed when the ball is soft enough to permit that.</p> +
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<p>Cricket is not generally seen as a source of base ball. However, it shares many of base ball's key characteristics: base-running, batting, pitching (bowling), innings, etc. And the physical dimensions of the ball are close to that of base ball.</p>
<p>The game is (arguably) recorded in 1300 in England, and for sure in 1598. See Altham, "A History of Cricket" p. 18-19, and Green, "A History of Cricket" p. 12-13.</p>
<p>A game played in the United States, called wicket, bears some resemblance to cricket as it was played in the 1800s. Wicket is reported in many U.S. states, led by Connecticut and Massachusetts. It seems to have crested in the post Civil War era, and town vs. town matches, some using teams of as many as 30 players. See [[wicket]]</p>
<p>The English exported cricket to many of its colonies. To see how the game later evolved in a section of New Guinea, see the well-presented 53-minute clip at: </p>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYZFNRc9mKk.</p>
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A listing of resources by author's last name +
A list of resources by year +
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A listing of resources that can be accessed online +
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A listing of 326 available sources collected in the Buzz McCray Library at Protoball. (We don't lend them out, but we can usually inspect them on behalf of researchers and writers.) +
Tom Altherr has made many new finds of very early ballplaying. Protoball's Chronology is dedicated to Tom. +
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<p><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Note:</em></span> Protoball's PrePro data base includes data on 15 early clubs and 11 early games in the Rochester proper, as of August 2014. Other data for nearby play in Western New York has not been tabulated</em></p>
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<p><em>“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” - </em>Rogers Hornsby</p>
<p>Winters in Rochester are cold, snowy and very long. However, the worst part about winter here isn’t trying to cautiously navigate your car on interstate 490 during a whiteout – for many of us, the worst part is the absence of baseball.</p>
<p>One frigid night in the winter of 2007, a small group of Rochester baseball history enthusiasts met at the Webster home of noted baseball historian, Priscilla Astifan. Gathered around a fireplace, the group began to discuss ways to add a little baseball flame into the cold Rochester winter months. What eventually grew out of this meeting was The Rochester Baseball Historical Society (RBHS) – a kind of “hot stove” group.</p>
<p>Like most historical societies, it was decided that education would be central and because baseball has been an important Rochester tradition since the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, there is a lot to learn. The society’s mission is to research, preserve and interpret Rochester’s long, rich baseball heritage. To help accomplish this, the RBHS seeks to educate its members and the community through the exhibition of historically significant artifacts and through various meetings and programs designed to foster discussion. </p>
<p>Award winning sports reporter and columnist, Scott Pitoniak, has been one of the driving forces behind the society from the start. “The history of Rochester baseball is like one of Luke Easter’s legendary home runs – long and compelling – and it’s been a thrill to be a part of a fledgling group dedicated to bringing that history to life for past, current and future generations," says Scott, who has authored three books and scores of articles about Rochester baseball through the years. "It still boggles the mind to think the game was played here at least as far back as 1825 – a good 14 years before Abner Doubleday was supposed to have invented the sport and more than a century before the Red Wings took flight.”</p>
<p>Our city’s love affair with baseball is as old as the game itself. Many of Rochester’s founding fathers were among those playing baseball in the mid 1820s. They played in a pasture known as Mumford’s Meadow, located on the west bank of the Genesee River near the current day Andrews Street Bridge and just a few blocks from our current home for baseball, Frontier Field. In those early days of old fashioned baseball, perhaps brought here by settlers from New England, Rochester baseball pioneers recorded outs when a gloveless fielder successfully hit the runner with the ball as he tried to reach one of the four foot high stakes (instead of bases). If you were on the meadow back then, you might have also witnessed them skillfully swinging their homemade bats with one hand in an attempt to achieve accurate ball placement.</p>
<p>Many 19<sup>th</sup> century Rochester baseball pioneers are buried in the Mt. Hope Cemetery and one of the organization’s on-going research projects has been to search for and identify their resting places. The group plans to conduct tours in conjunction with the Friends of Mt. Hope, led by society members who will attempt to bring these players back to life through short biographies.</p>
<p>The RBHS is also presenting an exhibit at the Rundel Memorial Building of the Central Library, 115 South Avenue. The exhibit, entitled <em>Rochester Baseball – from Mumford’s Meadow to Frontier Field</em>, opens on April 1, 2013. <em>Rochester Baseball</em> accompanies the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s traveling exhibit, <em>Pride and Passion – the African-American Baseball Experience, </em>which opens on May 1, 2013. Both exhibits close on June 14, 2013. They are free and open to the public.</p>
<p>Members of the society have wide interests when it comes to learning and studying the various eras of baseball in the Flower City. Some are fascinated by the 19<sup>th</sup> century early amateur period while others are curious about the dead ball era which saw teams like the Rochester Broncos and the Rochester Hustlers. Of course the majority are passionate about the rich history of our current Rochester Red Wings.</p>
<p>RBHS member and vintage base ball player Tony Brancato has conducted extensive research on the nationally recognized 19<sup>th</sup> century team the Rochester Live Oak Base Ball Club. “I became interested in studying the Live Oak Base Ball Club, Rochester’s first city champions in 1858, after spending many summers playing for the modern Live Oaks in the vintage base ball program at the Genesee Country Village & Museum,” says Tony, a sure handed outfielder. “These men were among the many true baseball pioneers in Rochester. Their 1858 city championship helped spark local interest in the game back then.”</p>
<p>As our long winter gives way to spring and the ice begins to melt on the mighty Genesee, baseball once again returns to our great city. Our Red Wings fly north from Florida, home to Rochester once again. But in the minds and hearts of the Rochester Baseball Historical Society members, baseball never left. Their connection to the American past-time is year long.</p>
<p><em>To learn more about the Rochester Baseball Historical Society or to become a member visit them at http://www.RochesterBaseballHistory.org/</em></p>
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<p>César introduced several new finds in his “March, Conquest, and Play Ball: The Game in the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848,” Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, volume 5, number 1 (Fall 2011), pp 13 – 22.</p> +