1609.1

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Polish Origins of Baseball Perceived in Jamestown VA Settlement

Salience Prominent
Location US South, VA
Game Xenoball
Age of Players Adult
Text

"Soon after the new year [1609], [we] initiated a ball game played with a bat . . . . Most often we played this game on Sundays. We rolled up rags to make balls . . . Our game attracted the savages who sat around the field, delighted with this Polish sport."

A 1975 letter from Matthew Baranski letter to the HOF said:

"For your information and records, I am pleased to inform you that after much research I have discovered that baseball was introduced to America by the Poles who arrived in Jamestown in 1609. . . . Records of the University of Krakow, the oldest school of higher learning in Poland show that baseball or batball was played by the students in the 14th century and was part of the official physical culture program."

 

Sources

The 1609 source is Zbigniew Stefanski, Memorial Commercatoris [A Merchant's Memoirs], (Amsterdam, 1625), as cited in David Block's Baseball Before We Knew It, page 101. Stefanski was a skilled Polish workingman who wrote a memoir of his time in the Jamestown colony: an entry for 1609 related the Polish game of pilka palantowa(bat ball). Another account by a scholar reported adds that "the playfield consisted of eight bases not four, as in our present day game of baseball." If true, this would imply that the game involved running as well as batting.

1975 Letter:  from Matthew Baranski to the Baseball Hall ofFame, March 23, 1975.  [Found in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center.]  Matthew  Baranski himself cites First Poles in America1608-1958, published by the Polish Falcons of America, Pittsburgh, but  unavailable online as of 7/28/09.  We have not confirmed that sighting. 

See also David Block, "Polish Workers Play Ball at Jamestown Virginia: An Early Hint of Continental Europe's Influence on Baseball," Base Ball (Origins Issue), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pp.5-9.

 

Comment

Per Maigaard's 1941 survey of "battingball games" includes a Polish variant of long ball, but does not mention pilka palantowa by name.

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Query

[If we hd a clear idea of the playing rules for pilka palantowa, we might see how they might have been conserved in base ball predecessor game.

The next Protoball reader finding himself/herself in Krakow might drop by the University and find out more? And/or could a Polish speaker try some online searches for pilka palantowa and its history?

Is the Polish game of [kwadrant shown in our Glossary of Games similar to palnt?

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