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<p><strong>Note:</strong> So, folks . . . was this a baserunning ball game, some version of prisoner's base (a team tag game resembling our childhood game Capture the Flag) with scoring, or what?</p> <p>John Thorn [email of 2/27/2008] has supplied a facsimile of the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Post</span> report, and also found meeting announcements for the Diagoras in the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daily Advertiser</span> for 4/11 and 4/12/1805.</p> <p>David Block (see full text in <strong>Supplemental Text, </strong>below) offers his 2017 thoughts on this entry:</p> <p> <em>Email from David Block, </em>2/19/2017<em>:</em></p> <p>"Gents,</p> <p>Just a quick note to follow up on John's blog post from last week about the 1805 "bace" game. My opinion on whether that game was baseball or prisoner's base has gone back and forth over the years. As of now I tend to lean 60-40 to baseball. Other than the example from Chapman that John cited, I've never come across a use of the term bace to signify either game. Even if I had it wouldn't mean much as the word "base" has been used freely over the years for both of them. The mention of a score in the 1805 article is significant. Rarely are scores indicated in any of the reports of prisoner's base (prison base, prison bars, etc.) that I've come across. Usually they just indicate one side or the other as winner. There are a couple of exceptions. I know of one English example from 1737 where a newspaper reported on a match of prison-bars between eleven men from the city of Chester against a like number from the town of Flint in Wales. "The Cheshire gentlemen got 11, and the Flintshire gentlemen 2," it noted. I've also seen another English report from 1801, also of prison-bars, where one side was said to have "produced a majority of five prisoners." Still, George's example is American, where I suspect that, even at that early date, baseball was probably the more popular game of the two.</p> <p>Regarding "baste," I have seen at least two dozen examples of the term "baste-ball" used in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's clear from context that this was an alternate spelling of base-ball, along with bass-ball. I don't doubt the same was true for the few instances of baste-ball's use in America.</p> <p>"My opinion on whether that game was baseball or prisoner's base has gone back and forth over the years. As of now I tend to lean 60-40 to baseball. Other than the example from Chapman that John cited, I've never come across a use of the term bace to signify either game. Even if I had it wouldn't mean much as the word "base" has been used freely over the years for both of them. The mention of a score in the 1805 article is significant. Rarely are scores indicated in any of the reports of prisoner's base (prison base, prison bars, etc.) that I've come across. Usually they just indicate one side or the other as winner."</p> <p>Best to all,<br/>David"</p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">John Thorn email of Feb., 25, 2024: </span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">"Hi, George. I found this thesis invaluable for my understanding of early ball play in New York, and thus for EDEN. Do you have it? Here's a Dropbox link [omitted] in case you don't.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;"><br/></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">Once upon a time we had wondered about the location of the Gymnastic Ground, near Tyler's. I found this pretty compelling (before this pleasure ground was Tyler's, it was Brannon's):</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">Some idea of the garden during Brannon's tenure can<br/>be gotten from scattered sources. In 1842, for a suit in<br/>the Court of Chancery involving the ownership of the Church<br/>Farm, a group of elderly men and women gave depositions<br/>describing this part of the city as they recalled it in the<br/>eighteenth century. <strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Several testified that the garden was<br/>enclosed by a fence; one testified that Brannon maintained<br/>a ball alley; and another owned that between 1789 and 1793,<br/>during his days as a student at Columbia College (then located<br/>on Church Street between Barclay and Murray), he and<br/>"the collegians were in the habit of frequenting . . .<br/>Brannon's Garden."</span></em></strong> [“Chancery Reports (Sandford), 4:716, 724, & 730.]</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">I also have bound volumes of these chancery reports, which to my knowledge have not been digitized; I suppose I could check!</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">Also, I append an item possibly missed by all of us, from the </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">New-York Herald</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span></span>(New York, New York) May 4, 1805</p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">Note that the Columbia College clubs' game of bace is here rendered as <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>basse.</em></span></strong> The mention of "hands in" fully persuades me that </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">this is a game of bat and ball."</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;"><span>the game report first appeared in the New-York Evening Post of May 1, and next in The Herald of May 4.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">David Block agrees</span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>  
<p><strong>Note:</strong> The original source of the 1818 reference may have been lost. Bob reports that Dean Sullivan thesis cited Harold Peterson's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Man Who Invented Baseball</span> (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), page 24. However, Peterson gives no source. A dead end?</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> This book is in the form of a chronology. Barber gives no source for the wicket report.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> This describes a scrub form of tutball/rounders.  It suggests that all hitting was forward, thus in effect using a foul line, as would make sense with a single fielder.</p> <p>The claim that tutball and stoolball used the same rules is surprising; stoolball is fairly uniformly described as having but two bases or stools, and using a bat.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Understanding the author's intent here is complicated by the fact that he was Canadian, Sam Slick was an American character, and the novel is set in Britain.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> We need better sources for the Columbus story.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> see item #[[1829c.1]] below for Holmes' Harvard ballplaying.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> "Nines seems an unusual name for a ball game; do we find it elsewhere? Could he have been denoting nine-pins or nine-holes? John Thorn, in 2/3/2008, says he inclines to nine-pins as the game alluded to.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong>  </p> <p>A few days earlier, Richard had noticed the use of "battery" in a July 26 game report:  see Supplementary Text, below.</p> <p>The <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Dickson Baseball Dictionary</span>, page 86, citing the Chadwick <em>Scrapbooks</em>, had the first use of "battery" as 1868 (third edition).</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> A bat had been described in Willughby's c.1672 account of hornebillets.  See [[1672c.2]].</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Melville is willing to identify the sport as the one that was played mostly in the CT-central and MA area . . . but it is conceivable that the writer intended to denote cricket instead? </p> <p>From Bruce Allardise, December 2021: The original article is in the<em> New Orleans Times Picayune</em>, May 31, 1841, which references a reminisce in a {April 1841} Cleveland OH newspaper article.  [bsa]</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> it would be interesting to see the original reference, and to know how 1550 was chosen as the reported year of play.</p> <p> </p> <p>Note: Derrick would have been about 10 years old in 1550.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> those streets intersect a half block from the Hall of Fame, right?</p>  +
<p><strong>Note:</strong> we may want reassurance that the "Base-ball" poem appeared in the 1744 version. According to Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, the 1767 London edition also has poems titled "Stoolball" [p. 88] and Trap-Ball.[p. 91]. According Zoernik in the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Encyclopedia of World Sports</span> [p.329], rounders is also referred to [we need to confirm this, as Rounders does not appear in the 1760 edition or the one from 1790.]. There was an American pirated edition in 1760, as per Henderson [ref #107]; David Block dates the American edition in 1762. He also notes that a 1767 revision features engravings for the four games.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note</strong>: the dates and circumstances and locations of these cases are unclear in Millen. One refers to plugging.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note</strong>: the inconsistencies among the preceding cricket entries in Protoball (see [[1478.1]]) need to be resolved . . . . or at least addressed</p>  +
<p><strong>Note</strong><strong>: </strong>Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.</p>  +
<p><strong>Note</strong><strong>: </strong>Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.</p>  +
O
<p><strong>Ogden Park</strong>, also known as <strong>Ogden Skating Park</strong>, was a recreational facility on the near north side of <a title="Chicago" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago">Chicago</a> around the 1860s and 1870s. It was home to the Ogden Skating Club. It was on a piece of land east of where Ontario Street (at that time) T-ed into Michigan Avenue. Today's Ontario Street continues several blocks eastward, through the site of that old park.</p> <p>The first newspaper references to the park and the skating club appear in local newspapers in 1861, where its location was termed "the foot of Ontario Street". City directories for 1867 and 1869-70 give the location of "Ogden Skating Park" as "Ontario, corner Seneca." Seneca Street was one block east of St. Clair Street and two blocks east of Pine Street, which later became part of the extended Michigan Avenue. Seneca ran between Ontario Street and Illinois Street. It was erased as the land was developed. References to the park appear to cease after 1870. It was, of course, inside the burn zone of the <a title="Great Chicago Fire" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire">Great Chicago Fire</a> in the fall of 1871.</p> <p>With no skating possible in the summer, baseball games were played at the park. Most of them were between local amateur ball clubs, but there were occasional professional games. On July 31, 1869, the park was the neutral site for a match between the <a title="Cincinnati Red Stockings" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Red_Stockings">Cincinnati Red Stockings</a> and the <a title="Rockford Forest Citys" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockford_Forest_Citys">Rockford Forest Citys</a>. The Reds won 53-32. The game was close until Cincinnati score 19 in the sixth inning and 10 in the seventh.[Chicago <em>Tribune</em>, August 1, 1869, p.4] Several players on the teams, including Rockford pitcher <a title="Albert Spalding" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spalding">Albert Spalding</a>, would later become stars for Chicago.</p> <p>During 1870 the park was rented to the professional, then-independent baseball club, the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Chicago White Stockings (1870–89)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_White_Stockings_(1870%E2%80%9389)">Chicago White Stockings</a>, as a practice field and for a number of regulation games, usually against local or lesser-known opponents, or sometimes even college teams.</p> <p>Most of the ball club's "legitimate" games (as the <em>Chicago Tribune</em> termed them), against national professional teams (many of which would turn up in the <a title="National Association of Professional Base Ball Players" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Professional_Base_Ball_Players">National Association</a> the following year) were held at the <a title="Dexter Park (Chicago)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Park_(Chicago)">Dexter Park</a> race track near the stockyards.</p> <p>Overall, the White Stockings played about half their games at each venue, during a home season that ranged from late May to mid-November. [wikipedia]</p>  
F
<p>A "Sandford" was listed as third baseman in a July 1866, game. See http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038519/1866-08-01/ed-1/seq-3/.</p> <p>Listed as secretary at club's founding, but may have been replaced by Henry F. Roll later in the year. See <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038521/1866-12-01/ed-1/seq-5.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038521/1866-12-01/ed-1/seq-5.pdf</a></p>  +