1870c.8
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Base Ball Comes to Massachusetts Youth
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | Pre-modern RulesPre-modern Rules |
| Location | |
| City/State/Country: | Duxbury?, MA, United States |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | |
| Immediacy of Report | Retrospective |
| Age of Players | YouthYouth |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| Text | "I well remember when baseball made its first appearance in our quiet little community." [] Charles Sinnott writes that in early childhood "the little boys' ball game was either "Three-old-cats" or "Four-Old Cats," and describes both variations. [] He recalls that "The game that bore the closest resemblance to our modern baseball was "roundstakes" or "rounders." In some communities it was know (sic) as "townball." He recalls this game as marked by the plugging of runners, use a soft ball, featuring stakes or stones as bases, compulsory running -- including for missed third strikes, an absence of foul territory, and an absence of called strikes or balls. "It was originally an old English game much played in the colonies." [] In describing the new game of base ball, he recalls adjustment to the harder ball ("it seemed to us like playing with a croquet ball"), gloves only worn by the catchers, an umpire who was hit in the eye by a foul tip, fingers "knocked out of joint" by the hard ball, a bloody nose from a missed fly ball, and "that we unanimously pronounced [base ball] superior to our fine old game of roundstakes." SEE FULL CHAPTER TEXT AT "SUPPLEMENTAL TEXT," BELOW -- |
| Sources |
Chapter 13, "The Coming of Baseball," in When Grandpa Was a Boy: Stories of My Boyhood As Told to My Children and Grandchildren, by Charles Peter Sinnott (four types pages; presumed unpublished; from the Maxwell Library Archives, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater MA). |
| Warning | |
| Comment | Protoball does not know of other use of "roundstakes" as a predecessor game in the US. Duxbury MA (1870 population about 2300) is about 35 miles south of Boston. Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | [] Is the date "1870c" reasonable for the item? Sinnott was born in 1859, and writes that he was in his teens when he first saw base ball. His old-cat games would have come in the mid-1860s. [] It is presumed that Sinnott stayed in or near his birthplace, Duxbury MA, for the events he writes of. Is that reasonable?
Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
| External Number | |
| Submitted by | Tom Shieber |
| Submission Note | Email of 2/23/2018 |
| Has Supplemental Text | Yes |
1870c.8 Base Ball Comes to Massachusetts Youth"
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Supplemental Text
Charles P. Sinnott, When Grandpa Was a Boy: Stories of My Boyhood as Told to My Children and Grandchildren; Chapter 13, pp.73 - 76, "The Coming of Baseball."
I well remember when baseball made its first appearance in our quiet little community. It was long before there was any National League or any American Association. I was a boy well into me teens before I ever saw the game. . . .
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