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A
<p>[A] A boys’ game reportedly played in Hawaii before the game of base ball was introduced in the 1860s. As described, its rules were consistent with those of [[wicket]], but no running or scoring is mentioned.</p>
<p>[B] See also item [[1855c.10]]:</p>
<p>"In 1855 the new game of wicket was introduced at Punahou [School] and for a few <a id="PXLINK_1_0_1" class="pxInta">years</a> was the leading athletic game on the campus. . . . [The] fiercely contested games drew many spectators from among the young ladies and aroused no common interest among the friends of the school."</p>
<p>"One game they all enjoyed was wicket, often watched by small Mary Burbank. Aipuni, the Hawaiians called it, or rounders, perhaps because the bat had a large rounder end. It was a forerunner of baseball, but the broad, heavy bat was held close to the ground."</p>
<p>[Through further digging, John Thorn suggests the migration of wicket to Hawaii through the Hawaii-born missionary Henry Obookiah. At age 17, Obookiah traveled to New Haven and was educated in the area. He may well have been exposed to wicket there. He died in 1818, but not before helping organize a ministry [Episcopalian?] in Hawaii that began in 1820.</p>
<p>See also John Thorn's 2016 recap is the supplementary text to [[1855c.10]].</p>
<p> </p> +
H
Games featuring baserunning and/or plugging (but no batting). +
B
Safe-Haven games featuring running among bases, a bat, pitching, and two distinct teams. +
A
<p>A hybrid cricket-baseball game reportedly introduced in Chicago in 1870. The game is described as generally having cricket rules, except with no LBW rule, and with the addition of a third base, so that the bases form a triangle with sides of 28-yards. We have no other accounts of this game.</p>
<p>Full text: </p>
<p>"A NEW AMERICAN GAME</p>
<p>The <em>Philadelphia Mercury</em> contains the following: 'A new game of ball has recently been introduced in Chicago, under the name of American cricket. The field is laid out like a cricket-field, and the striker wields the willow instead of the ash. The bowler, who stands twenty-two yards from the striker, bowls as in cricket. The striker, in making a tally, runs to first base and then to third (dispensing with the second), these being in the form of a triangle and at a distance of twenty-eight yards apart. There are no fouls to cause delays. There are none of the stupid and senseless six-ball 'overs.' 'Out leg before wicket' is dispensed with, a rule which, while in force, gives great annoyance to the umpire and general dissatisfaction to the batsman. The prominent and attractive features of both the English game of cricket and the American pastime of base-ball are taken and rolled into one, thereby making a magnificent game.'"</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> +
B
<p>In 1805 a game of “bace” was reportedly played among adult males in New York City. Its rules were not reported. The word “bace” is extremely rare in sport: it appeared in a 1377 English document, and, in a list of obsolete Cornish terms, for the game Prisoner’s Base in Cornwall in 1882. Unlike the usual case for prisoner’s base, however, a final score [41-35] was reported for this match.</p>
<p>"Bace" is also reported as an obolete term for a British game, the nature of which is not yet known. </p> +
<p>Elmore (1922) describes this as a game of attrition for ages 8-12 that involves throwing a ball against a wall. One player is named to catch it. If the player does, “stand” is shouted, and other players are to freeze in their places. If the player with the ball can plug someone, that player is out; if not, the thrower is out. This game has not batting or baserunning.</p> +
<p>per Perrin (1902). A school-time running game of one-on-one contests between a pitcher and a batter, who propels the tossed ball with the hand and runs bases while the pitcher retrieves the ball. Caught flies and a failure to reach third base before the pitcher touches home with the ball in hand are outs. Batters receive one point for each base attained, and five for a home run. Three-out half innings are used.</p> +
<p>per Block. The 1836 book Perth Traditions described Ball-Paces, by then almost extinct, as a game that used a trap to put a ball into play, at which point in-team runners at each of four bases run to the next bases, stopping only when the ball was returned to the original batsman’s station. There is no mention of plugging.</p> +
<p>per Dick, 1864. A team game like rounders, but having large safety areas instead of posts or bases. A feeder makes a short gentle toss to a batter, who tries to hit it. The batter-runner then chooses whether to run for a distant goal-line or a nearer one, for which there is a smaller chance of being plugged. The nearer station can hold several runners at once. Three missed swings makes an out, as does a caught fly. Versions of Ball-Stock are found in British and American boys’ books in the mid-Nineteenth Century.</p>
<p>From another source:</p>
<p>BALL-STOCK, or Ball-stick, is, as its name would indicate, a German game, but in some respects resembles our favorite English sport of "Rounders." The players are divided into two parties; six bases are then marked out, as in the accompanying Diagram; and for the first " innings" the players toss up.</p>
<p> C _l_l_l_l_l_l_l_ D</p>
<p> E (.) F</p>
<p> A _l_l_l_l_l_l_l_ B</p>
<p> l l l</p>
<p> c b a</p>
<p>The in-players occupy the "home" — A to B; the out-players station themselves as in Cricket, having one boy as feeder who stands at <em>a</em>, and another at <em>c</em> who acts as wicket-keeper, and tosses back the ball when tipped or missed. The striker stands at <em>b</em>. The ball having been thrown, and, we will suppose, well hit by the striker, he runs off to the base C — D, touching on his way at the resting base E — F; but if he has only tipped the ball, or struck it but a very short distance, or if it is stopped by one of the out-players, he should make off at once for the resting base E — F, and remain there until relieved by one of his fellow-players, whose fortunate hit may drive the ball so far out of range as to enable him to escape to C — D, or even run " home." If struck with the ball on his way from one base to another, he goes out. The other regulations are the same as in "Rounders."</p>
<p>From Elliott, <em>The Playground and the Parlour</em> (1868), p. 57</p>
<p>Translated as “rounders” in an 1855 translation of a French poem. Maigaard identifies it as a longball-type game with four bases [set in a line] and in which the ball is thrown into the field by a member of the in team to initiate play.</p> +
<p>A fungo-like game played in Elizabethan times in England. The ball was an inflated leather bag, and was knocked with the arm - sometimes aided by a wooden brace. Hitting for distance was evidently desired, but no running or fielding is described.</p>
<p>An illustration and description of "balloon ball" is in Hone, p. 96</p> +
<p>According to Gomme [1894], Bandy-Wicket is Cricket played with a bandy (a curved club) instead of a cricket bat. This name was evidently once used in Norfolk and Suffolk.</p>
<p>"Bandy Wicket" was also used in the US.</p> +
<p>A two-player game set against a wall or barn. The pitch is made from about ten feet away against the wall, and the batter tries to hit it on the rebound. If successful, he runs to the wall and back. If he misses the ball, and the pitcher catches the rebounding pitch on the fly or on one bound, the batter is out. Beard (1896) calls a similar game House Ball. It specifies a brick house, perhaps for the peace of mind of occupants.</p> +
H
Games for which the rules of play are not known and, and some that are commonly encountered by researchers but that are not safe-haven games (including shinty, bandy, and stow-ball). +
K
Safe-Haven games featuring running among bases, pitching, and two distinct teams (but no batting). +
F
Games featuring batting/hitting (but no baserunning). +
S
Safe-Haven games featuring running among bases, pitching, and a bat (but no teams). +
B
<p>Sometimes seen as a name for base ball. While some references to “base” most likely denote Prisoner’s Base (a team form of tag similar in nature to modern Capture the Flag and, perhaps, today’s Laser Tag), others denote a ball game. David Block reports that the earliest clear appearance of “base” as a ball game is from New England in 1831, and that his source groups base with cricket and cat as young men’s ballgames.</p> +
<p>Elmore (1922) describes this game as a form of Square Ball (Corner Ball) for 7th graders through high schoolers in which a player can prevent being called out by catching a ball thrown at him. An “indoor baseball” is used. The game involves no batting or baserunning.</p> +
<p>America’s national pastime since about 1860. Writing about rounders in 1898, Gomme mused that “An elaborate form of this game has become the national game of the United States.” The term “baseball” actually arose in England as early as 1748, referring to a simple game like rounders, but usage in England died out, and was soon forgotten in most parts of the country. The term first appeared in the United States in 1791.</p> +
<p>Baste, or baste ball, may simply be a variant spelling of base ball. The most famous US usage is in a Princeton student’s diary entry for 1786 (5 years before the first known use of "base ball" in the US), which reveals only that the game involves catching and hitting. <strong>Note</strong><strong>: </strong>Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.</p>
<p>As of February 2017, Protoball knows of only three US uses of the term Baste: the Princeton diary, in an account of President Benjamin Harrison's teen years around 1850, and in Tennessee in 1874. Further input is welcome.</p>
<p>In early 2017,David Block summarized his English research findings: "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>A superficial Google search for <baste pastime game> in February 2017 throws no further light on ballplaying forms of baste. A somewhat primitive tagging game for children -- Baste the Bear -- in Europe and England is known, but does not appear to be consistent with US finds reported to Protoball.</p> +
<p>We have references to bat-ball from 1791 (when it was banned in both Pittsfield and Northampton MA), but the basic rules of this game as first played are unclear. Writers have diversely compared it to bandy, to schlagball, and to punchball. It is clear that a club was not always required for hitting, as the ball could instead be slapped into play by the hand.</p> +
<p>All we know about Batton is that in 1851 boys played a game in the village of Norfolk, MA - about 20 miles SW of Boston.</p> +
<p>Baseball for blind players. The balls emit beeps, and a base buzzes once a ball is hit. Runners are out if the ball is fielded before they reach base. Sighted players serve as pitcher and catcher for the batting team, but cannot field. There is a national association for the game, and annual World Series have been held since 1976.</p> +
<p>per Fraser (1975) - A game played in Dundee, Scotland, in about 1900 and later understood as a “corruption of baseball.” Balls were hit with the hand instead of a bat, and the game evidently sometimes used plugging.</p> +
<p>A game called bittle battle is mentioned [[[as such?]]] (but not described) in the famous 1086 Domesday Book in England. Some have claimed that this game resembled Stoolball:</p>
<p>[A] In fact, Gomme [1894, ] describes Bittle-Battle as “the Sussex game of ‘Stoolball.,’ but does not link it to the Domesday Book.</p>
<p>[B] Similarly, Andrew Lusted reports that an 1875 source lists bittle battle as "another word for stoolball," </p>
<p>[C] Andrew Lusted also finds an 1864 newspaper account that makes a similar but weaker claim: "Among the many [Seaford] pastimes were bittle-battle, bell in the ring, . . . "</p>
<p>[D] From David Block: "<span>the source of the Domesday myth appears to be in an article entitled “The Game of Stoolball” by Mary G. Campion from the January 1909 issue of “The Country Home.” She wrote: <span style="font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Fira Sans', 'Droid Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">The game is an old one. It is mentioned in Domesday Book as Bittle Bat, and the present name of Stoolball is supposed to have originated from milkmaids playing it with their stools.” As you can see, she didn’t write '</span></span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Fira Sans', 'Droid Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">bittle-battle', she wrote “battle-bat.” Grantham cited her but changed the name to 'bittle-battle.' Here is a link to the publication; the Campion article starts on p. 153: <a href="https://www.stoolball.org.uk/media/4h2brgma/stoolball-illustrated-and-how-to-play-it.pdf">https://www.stoolball.org.uk/media/4h2brgma/stoolball-illustrated-and-how-to-play-it.pdf</a>."</span></p> +
<p>Maigaard (1941) notes they while most forms of rounders and longball are now lost, three - baseball, cricket, and bo-ball - remain vigorous. He places Bo-Ball in Finland. The only known source on this game, called Lahden Mailaveikot in Finnish, is a Finnish-language website, one that shows photographs of a vigorous game with aluminum bats, gloves, helmets, and much sliding and running but no solid hints for English-speakers about the nature of the game. Similarities to Pesapallo, including the gentle form of pitching, are apparent.</p> +
<p>per Perrin (1902) – Apparently an indoor game derived from baseball. A member of the in-team throws the ball to an area guarded by the pitcher, and runs if and when the ball passes through. There is tagging but no plugging.</p> +
<p>[A] per Bronner [1997]. Using three sidewalk squares, a “pitcher” throws the ball into the box closest to his opponent, who tries to slap the ball into the box closest to the pitcher. If he missed the box or the pitcher catches ball on the fly, it is an out. There is no baserunning. Also called “Boxball.”</p>
<p>[B] New York City streets are composed on concrete squares approximately [X?] feet square. Players would be separated by three squares. They would alternate pitcher/catcher and hitter depending on who was up. The pitcher had to have the ball bounce in the box closest to the batter. The pitcher would place the ball and fluke it in order to make it difficult to hit after the bounce. The batter was required to slap the ball so that it landed in the box closest tot he pitcher. If the pitcher caught the ball on a fly, it was an out. One bounce was a single, two a double, etc, The batter would try to hit the ball low and fast in order to get it past the pitcher.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> +
<p>A Swedish game, also played in Germany and Denmark. A batting and running game with four bases, this game involved fungo-style hitting to start a play. As in some forms of longball, a base can be occupied by more than one runner. A caught fly ball gives a point to the out team, but the runner is not thereby retired. Innings are timed. A home run is six points. A 90-degree fair territory is employed. This game may relate to Swedeball, a game reportedly played in the US upper midwest. It has been reported that that Brannboll is played in Minnesota, but no such references are known.</p> +
<p>per Brewster [1953]. “Basemen” stand at each corner of a bounded field of play, and try to plug other players inside the bounds. Each player has three “eyes” [lives]. A player loses an “eye” if plugged or if a target player catches a ball thrown at him. There is no batting or baserunning in this game.</p> +
<p>Bunt is downsized baseball. One reported Massachusetts version was a one-on-one game in which any hit ball that reached the not-distant field perimeter was an out. The batter ran out hit balls, and the pitcher fielded them, but thereafter base advancement was done by ghost [imaginary] runners. Terrie Dopp Aamodt reports playing a similar game as an adolescent girl.</p> +
<p>According to Gomme, a Lincolnshire glossary specifies that Bunting is a name for Tip-Cat.</p> +
<p>per Appel [1999]. Appel reports that the young Mike Kelly, growing up on Washington DC in the late 1860’s, first played Burn Ball, a form of base ball that included "plugging" or "burning" of baserunners by thrown balls.</p> +
C
<p>A game in which a ball is tossed up among players and one player’s name is then called out. That player must obtain the ball and try to hit fleeing compatriots with it. Newell [1883] notes that this game was played in Austria.</p> +
<p>per Jamieson (1825). A game known in County Fife. Two teams, armed with clubs, try to drive a ball into a hole defended by their opponents. This game may have resembled field hockey more than a safe-haven game.</p> +
<p>For a recent description of Cat/Old-Cat, see <strong>Supplemental Text below.</strong> </p>
<p>Per Culin. A batting game played with a six-inch, pointed wooden “cat.” The cat is pitched to a batter standing near a four-foot circle. The batter is out if he hits a caught fly or if the ball falls, unhit, into the circle. If put out, the batter goes to the end of the sequence of fielders, and the pitcher becomes the new batter. A batter can accrue points based on the distance from the circle to the where the hit ball lands. A version described by Newell[39] allows the batter to elevate and hit any cat that is pitched outside the circle.</p>
<p><strong>Note: </strong>A Dutch book printed in 1845 also describes "Kat:" See http://protoball.org/1845.29.</p>
<p>"The Kat is a piece of wood about 6 inches long, 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide at the midpoint and comes to a point at both ends making the form of a double cone. The Kat is placed on the ground in the middle of a big circle and a player uses a "ball stick" to hit one end of it to launch it into the air. As it comes down he tries to hit it out of the circle. If he fails to hit it or doesn't hit it out of the circle he steps off and the next player takes his turn. If he's successful he's assigned a certain number of points depending on how far he hit it." </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> +
<p>per Brand and Jamieson. All but one player stands by a hole, holding a stick [called a “cat.”] The last player, holding a ball, gives a signal, and the others run to place their stick in the next adjacent hole before a ball enters it, or he will become the thrower.</p>
<p>Gomme specifies that when before thrower tosses the ball, he gives a sign and all the (boy) players must scramble to a neighbor's hole to obstruct the ball from entering it. Her c. 1894 description:</p>
<p>"A game well known in Fife (a county northeast of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth), and perhaps in other countries. If seven boys are to play, six holes are made a certain distances. Each of the six stands at a hole, with a short stick in his hand; the seventh stands at a certain distance holding a ball. When he gives the word, or makes the sign agreed upon, all the six change holes, each running to his neighbour's hole, and putting his stick in the hole which he has newly seized. In making this change, the boy who has the ball, tries to put in into an empty hole. If he succeeds in this, the boy who had not his stick (for the cat is the Cat) in the hole to which he had run is put out, and must take the ball. There is often a very keen contest whether one will get his stick, and the other the ball, or Cat, first put into the hole. When the Cat <em>is in the hole,</em> it is against the laws of the game to put the ball into it -- Jamieson</p>
<p>Kelly, in his <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Scottish Proverbs</span> p. 325, says" 'Tine cat, tine game:' an allusion to a play called 'Cat i' the Hole', and the English 'Kit-cat.' Spoken when man at law have lost their principal evidence." [Originally published in 1721.]</p> +
<p>per Burnett. Burnett identifies Cat-and-Bat as a form of cricket that was played in Scottish streets in about 1860.</p> +
<p>A fungo game played in Manhattan in the 1950s. A fungo hitter is replaced by a fielder who catches a ball (or sometimes three balls) on the fly. Played when fewer than six kids were at the ballyard and a team game wasn’t possible.</p> +
<p>per “Boys’ Own Book” (1881). A game similar to Nineholes, but without the holes. A ball is thrown up, and a player named. If that player cannot catch it before it bounces twice, he must plug another player or lose a point.</p> +
<p>According to Maigaard, Cerkelspelen was “rounders without batting” as played in Flanders. The game evidently had five bases, with fielders near each one, but the infield area was occupied only by the in-team.</p> +
<p>In an email of 12/10/2008, Tom Altherr tells of the game of chermany, defined in a 1985 dictionary as “a variety of baseball.” Early usage of the term dates to the 1840s-1860s. Two sources relate the game to baseball, and one, a 1912 book of Virginia folk language, defines it as “a boys’ game with a ball and bats.” We know of but eight references to chermany [churmany, chumny, chuminy] as of October 2009. Its rules of play are sketchy. A Confederate soldier described it as using five or six foot-high sticks as bases and using “crossing out” instead of tagging or plugging runners to retire them.</p> +
<p>per Strutt. Strutt speculates that Club-ball was the ancient ancestor of many ball games. Its rules of play are not known. Hone book has 2 illustrations.</p>
<p>Collins, "Popular Sports" (1935) says (without citing a source) that club ball was similar to Single wicket cricket.</p> +
<p>According to Morrison (1908) this game is “practically identical with the game of “Rounders.” He goes on to describe a game with three bases set 50 yards apart, with plugging and crossing as ways to retire batters. Games are played to 50 or 100 counts. The game is depicted as “practically dead” in Uist (In the Outer Hebrides off Scotland) but formerly was very popular.</p> +
<p>This game, encountered in Upper Egypt in the 1850s, is briefly described: it is “played likewise with a ball; one tosses it, and another strikes it with his hand, and runs to certain limits, if he can, without being hit by a ‘fag’ who picks up the ball and throws in.”</p> +
<p>Evidently primarily a St. Louis pastime, Corkball is presumably derived from baseball, involving down-sized bats and balls. The ball is pitched overhand from a distance of 55 feet. There is no running, but imaginary runners advance on hits by succeeding batters. Hit balls are defined as singles, and sometimes as longer hits, depending on where they land. Caught flies are outs. The game is said to have originated over a century ago among brewery workers using broomsticks and the bungs [corks] used to seal beer barrels. Team sizes vary from two to five players. Annual tournaments have been held at least through 2012. Dedicated corkball fields are reportedly found in St. Louis.</p>
<p>When played with tennis balls, the game is sometimes called [[Fuzz-Ball]].</p>
<p>Some additional 2013 data from Corkball fan Jeff Kopp in St. Louis:</p>
<p>[] The game was reportedly first played in about 1890.</p>
<p>[] There are four active clubs in St.L, and pickup games appear on many Sundays at the Don Young Corkball Fields at Jefferson Barracks Park.</p>
<p>[] Special balls and bats are supplied by the Markwort Sporting Goods Company.</p>
<p>[] Isolated reports of corkball play are found in other US locations. Drummer Butch Trucks, a nephew of Tiger pitcher Virgil Trucks and founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, reportedly played corkball in Jacksonville FL and taught his band-mates the game. Another account places the game in an area from St. Louis "only" north to Springfield IL. A Chicago Corkball Club was reportedly active around 2010.</p>
<p>[] Another form of the game, played with bottle caps in place of balls/corks, is called [[Bottle Caps]]. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> +
<p>A plugging game that is closer to dodge ball than to safe-haven games. Some players, standing at designated corners or the perimeter of the playing area, pass the ball teammate to teammate in order to make it easier for one of them to plug anyone among group of players swarming around inside the field. If plugged, a player is out of the game.</p> +
<p>A reference to “crekettes” in a 1533 poem has been construed as evidence that the game of cricket originated in a pastime brought to England by Flemish weavers , who arrived in the 14th Century. A German scholar thinks that this earlier game originated in the Franco-Flemish border area as early as 1150. We have no faint notion of how this earlier game might have been played.</p> +
<p>is defined in the OED as “a kind of rounders.” Gomme equates Cuck-Ball with Pize Ball and Tut-Ball.</p> +
<p>per Gomme. Two holes are made about ten feet apart. A player on the out-team pitches a cat toward a hole, and its defender tries to hit it with his stick. He and his in-team mate then run between the holes. When more than four boys play the extra out-team players field as in cricket.</p> +
<p> </p>
<p><strong>"Curb ball</strong> - no baserunning - played with 1 -3 players per team on a side street directly under my (Bronx) bedroom window [which allowed me to participate whenever i wished because i could always hear the game organizing] - a 1 1/2 lane street separated the hitting curb from a 3 1/2 foot chain link fence beyond which was a 2 lane street beyond which was a small grassy rise - spaldeen was thrown against the curb - balls that missed the point of the curb and bounced off the building wall [~10 feet away] were foul balls but if caught on the fly were outs - balls that were thrown below the curb point were in play [but usually weakly hit]; balls hitting the point often went very far[or fast] - caught fly balls or caught grounders were outs, unfielded ground balls were singles - balls off the first fence were singles - balls over the first fence [where 2nd and 3rd players could be positioned] were doubles if not caught on the fly - balls on the rise were triples, balls over the walls were homers - major hazards were moving cars and mothers yelling out their windows for us to quiet down."</p>
<p>(Email from Raphael Kasper, February 3, 2020.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gregory Christiano describes curb ball as a game he played in the Bronx in the mid-1950s:</p>
<p>CURB BALL: Hit the 'spaldeen' against the sharp edge of the curb causing it to fly up as high as possible. The fielder must catch it on the fly to get an out...otherwise the number of bounces determines if it was a single, double, triple. Four bounces is a homer. There were no actual bases to run. The players would take turns when the inning was over. A regular nine-inning game was played.</p> +
D
<p>A game played from 1916 to 1926, when it transformed into Softball. Diamond ball was also known as women's baseball. Particularly popular in Sarasota FL, this game was played in the 1920s on sandy beaches (sometimes at night under lights) , and uses a 14-inch ball like used in indoor baseball. Games were played in less than an hour, affording lunch-hour play. </p> +
<p>According to an 1860 text, players sit on stools placed in a circle, and one player tosses or strikes a ball into the air. If he retrieves the ball and hits another player before that player reaches the next stool, the two players switch roles.</p> +
<p>[1] Drive ball: An 1835 book published in New Haven describes drive ball. David Block's summary: "In this activity, two boys with bats face each other, taking turns fungoing the ball. When one boy hits the ball, the other has to retrieve it as quickly as he can, then fungo it back from the spot he picked it up."</p>
<p>From the 1835 text: "'Drive Ball’ is a game for two players only, who are placed each with a bat, at some distance from, and facing each other. The ball is then knocked back and forth, from one to the other, each endeavoring to drive it as far as possible, where it must be picked up and knocked back to the other player, who is at liberty to advance as near as he pleases. If he advance too near, however, his opponent will be likely, with a vigorous stroke, to force him to retreat again. The space of ground passed over will readily show which is the victor."</p>
<p>A 1849 chapbook from Babcock also mentions drive ball as the last mentioned of six common games played with a ball, naming "base-ball, trap ball, cricket, up-ball, catch-ball and <span class="sought_text">drive ball."</span></p>
<p>--</p>
<p>[2] Drive: A ball game, listed along with the Old Cat games and Baseball, is mentioned in the memoirs of a New Hampshire man born in 1831. The rules of this game are not given. It may not have been a baserunning game.</p>
<p><em>Drive Ball’ is a game for two players only, who are placed each with a bat, at some distance from, and facing each other. The ball is then knocked back and forth, from one to the other, each endeavoring to drive it as far as possible, where it must be picked up and knocked back to the other player, who is at liberty to advance as near as he pleases. If he advance too near, however, his opponent will be likely, with a vigorous stroke, to force him to retreat again. The space of ground passed over will readily show which is the victor.</em></p> +
<p>A Scottish name for rounders as played by “Edinburgh street boys” in about 1880 and by schoolgirls in about 1900.</p> +
<p>This game, called “long out of date” in an 1867 newspaper article, seemed to resemble Long Ball but with three bases. A “tosser” lofted the ball and a nearby batter hit it, then ran to a base [a “bye”] a few feet away, then to a second base 25-30 feet distant, then home. Completing this circuit before the ball was returned by fielders to the tosser gave the striker another turn at bat. The account does not say whether this was a team game, whether it employed plugging, or whether runners could elect to stay on base. It seems possible that the adjective "dutch" indicated that the game came from Holland or Germany.</p> +
E
<p>A version of this game described in 1860 has players place their hats near a wall. One of them tosses a ball from 15 feet away, and if the ball lands in a player’s hat, he tries to quickly plug a fleeing compatriot or else he receives an “egg” [a small stone] in his hat. Three stones and you’re out of the game.</p> +
<p>per Gilbert (1910). Remembered as Town Ball, this game was a simple fungo game played in the 1850s in which a fielder who caught a hit ball on the fly or on one bounce became the fungo batter.</p> +
F
<p>per “The Boy’s Own Book.” A non-team form of rounders using three bases in which a player who is put out then takes on the role of feeder [pitcher]. An 1859 handbook describes feeder as a game with four or five stones or marks for bases. Plugging is permitted.</p>
<p>As of 2023, the Protoball chronology has 10 items of the game of feeder.</p>
<p>One, found at [[1841.1]], refers to clockwise baserunning. David Block's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Baseball before We Knew It,</span> cites the game at pages 24,138-9, 153, 205,, 207, 284-5.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> +
<p>Fielders catch fungo hits, with a caught fly worth 100 points, a one-bouncer 75 points, etc. A player who accrues 500 points becomes the hitter. In some versions, muffed catches deduct points, and the [[Hit-the-Bat]] option for returned throws is employed. Land’s review of schoolyard games includes two references to 500. It is also evidently called [[Twenty-One]] in some localities.</p> +
<p>Gregory Christiano recalls this as a fungo game for times where there were too few players for stick-ball in The Bronx, New York in the mid-1950s. A fielder who caught the ball on the fly went “up” to bat.</p>
<p>Gary Land quotes New York City resident Michael Frank: “Hardball? Never. Other baseball-related games we played included Stickball in the street and “Flies-Up” in the playground. The latter game is not further described, but could be a species of Fungo.</p> +
<p>Protoball's <em>Glossary of Games</em> includes many nonrunning games in which the ball (or cat, or other object) is put in play by a batter who gently lofts a ball and bats, or "fungoes," it to other players. Some better-known examples are Brannboll (Sweden), Catch-a-Fly (Manhattan), Corkball (St. Louis), 500, Half-ball, Indian Ball (MO), Sky Ball (CT), and Tip-Cat.</p>
<p>Some early references:</p>
<p>Culin (1891): A batter fungoes balls to a set of fielders. A fielder who first catches a set number of balls on the fly becomes the batter.</p>
<p>Chadwick (1884) describes Fungo as requiring the hitter to deliver the ball on the fly to the fielders, or he loses his place. This practice probably has had numerous local variant names such as Knock Up and Catch and Knocking Flies.</p>
<p>It is common for those coaching baseball to give outfielders practice in judging and fielding fly balls by hitting balls toward them fungo-style.</p> +
G
<p>Bowen (1970) writes that “Gate-ball (‘Thorball’), as found in the early Dutch and Danish accounts is “obviously but wicket [cricket], again.”</p> +
<p>per Perrin (1902). This game involves pitching a ball to a batter who hits it into a field where an opposing team’s fielders are. He tries to reach a goal line at the end of the playing area [80 feet away] and to return to the batting zone without being plugged by the ball. There is no mention of the possibility of remaining safely at the goal area. Three outs constitute a half-inning, and a team that scores 25 “points” [runs] wins the contest. The game resembles the family of "battingball" games reported by Maigaard.</p> +
<p>This game, described as an amalgam of Baseball and traditional German Schlagball, was introduced in 1986 by Roland Naul in the context of a revival of Turner games for German youth. In the mid-1990s, a one-handed wooden bat was developed especially for the game. As of October 2009, we are uncertain how the two sets of rules were blended to make this new game. The author mentions that the fielding team can score points as well as the batting team.</p>
<p>From 2012 searches, it is not clear that this game is still played.</p> +
<p>A 1921 handbook and a 1922 handbook depicts German Bat Ball as a team game that uses a ball like a volleyball and that has neither a bat nor pitching. A “batter” puts the ball in play by serving or “posting” it [as in schoolyard punchball] and then running around a post (Clark) or to a distant safe-haven area (Elmore/O’Shea). A run is scored if the runner can return to the batting base without being plugged. It is unclear whether the runner can opt to stay at the distant base to avoid being put out. A caught fly is an out, and a three-out-side-out rule applies.</p> +
<p>per Leavy. A biography of Sandy Koufax reports that he played “stickball, punchball, square ball, and Gi-Gi ball in his neighborhood. We don’t know what Gi-Gi Ball is.</p> +
<p>Court records from 1583 [Elizabeth I was in her 25th year as queen] show a dim view of this game. “Whereas there is great abuse in a game or games used in the town called ‘Gidigadie or the Cat’s Pallet . . . ‘ no manner persion shall play at the same games, being above the age of seven years, either in the churchyard or in any streets of the this town, upon pain of . . . being imprisoned in the Doungeon for the space of two hours . . . . Thus, Gidigadie may be another name for Cat’s Pallet.</p> +
<p>In Baseball Before We Knew It, [page 207] David Block describes a game in a German manual that “is identical to the early French game of la balle empoisonee,” and that an illustration of two boys playing it “shows it to be a bat-and-ball game." ''Giftball'' in German translates literally as "poison ball."</p> +
<p>Another name for early base ball, perhaps confined to certain areas. Usage of the name is known in New England. As of June 2012, the Protoball Chronology lists 10 references to the game of Goal Ball or Goal, or games in which bases are term "goals." All refer to play in the six New England states, and all but two are found before 1850. A new reference to the game "gould" in 2020 may denote the same game (see [[1854.23]]).</p>
<p>On 11/3/2020 Brian Turner added the following clarification: "<span>As best I can tell based on examples I've put together for an article I'm doing for <em>Base Ball</em>, "gould" (AKA "gool") are regional pronunciations of "goal." The region in which those terms occur includes western Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, mostly in rural communities where (I surmise) old-time game names may have survived into the 19th century. Peter Morris has identified two instances associated with Norway, Maine, where "gool" is used as synonymous with "base" as late as the 1860s, but when one of those the incidents was recalled in the 1870s, it's clear that the use struck the lads of Bowdoin attending the game as risible. The use of "goal" for "base" is consistent with Robin Carver's 1834 inclusion of the term in </span><em>The Book of Sports</em><span>. One must be cautious about anointing every use of "goal" or "gool" or goold" as synonymous with base and therefore "base ball," since, like base by itself, goal can be used to describe other sorts of games. By itself, "base" can refer to Prisoner's Base, a running game that seems to resemble a team form of tag. So too "goal" by itself."</span></p>
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<p>per Wieand. This is a game with pitching and batting but no running. A caught fly ball results in an out, and the batter then goes to the outfield, or grutz, to begin his rotation back to the batting position. If a ball is not caught, the fielder tries to return it to home through an arch made by the batter.</p> +
<p>An apparent non-running relative of tip-cat. A batter hits a gulli (a six-inch cat) with a danda, and is out if a fielder catches it. If it falls to the ground, a fielder throws it back, trying to hit the danda, which is laid on the ground. It is not clear if this is a team game, or if the gulli is pitched on simply fungoed. There is no running. The geographical range of its play is unclear.</p> +
H
<p>Thomason (1975) recalls Half-Rubber as a 1930s school recess game involving a sponge-rubber ball sliced cleanly in half and a sawed-off broomstick as a bat. Thrown side-arm, the ball had good movement, and was difficult to field. There was no running, but outs and innings were recorded and (virtual) base advancement depending on the lengths that the ball was batted.</p>
<p>(A 1997 newspaper article recalls a similar game recalled as Half-Ball being played in the Philadelphia area.)</p>
<p>This game emerged in about 1910 in the SC/GA area of the south, and retained strong popularity into the 1970s.</p> +
<p>per McLean. McLean notes that hand-in and hand-out was among the games banned by King Edward IV in 1477. She identifies it as “probably a kind of trick catch.” The 1477 ban spelled the game name as “handyn and handout.”</p> +
<p>A form of Roly Poly (or Roley Poley or Roll Ball) that substitutes hats for holes in the ground. Newell says this game was played among the Pennsylvania Dutch.Brewster says that Hat Ball variants are known in many countries, and include Petjeball [Dutch] and Kappenspiel [German].</p> +
<p>A fungo game in which a ball is hit to a group of fielders. If one of them can roll the ball back and hit the bat so that the ball hits the ground before the batter can catch the ricochet, the two exchange places.</p>
<p>Baserunning and pitching are not part of this fungo game.</p>
<p>[As recalled in Central New York in the 1950s]</p> +
<p>per Culin. A team game resembling Kick the Ball, but using a simple catapult to put into play a 3-inch stick instead of a ball. Fly outs retire the batsman. The bases are the four street-corners at an intersection.</p> +
<p>Our single reference to this game comes from an 1847 Alabama newspaper in its attempt to describe curling to southern readers: “Did you ever play ‘bass ball,’ or ‘goal,’ or ‘hook-em-snivy,’ on the ice?” Its nature is unknown. “Hookum-snivy” is slang for adultery, not that it matters.</p> +
<p>Only known from Francis Willughby’s 17th century <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Book of Games</span>, hornebillets is played with a cat (fashioned from animal horn), which is thrown toward holes defended by players with dog-sticks. When they hit the cat, batters run to the next hole, placing the stick in the hole before the cat can be retrieved and be put into the hole. The number of holes depends on the number of players on each team.</p> +
<p>per Jamieson (1825.) Two teams of two boys, defend their holes with a sticks, described as like a walking sticks, against a cat (“a piece of stick, and frequently a sheep’s horn”) thrown “at some distance” by their opposite numbers.</p> +
<p>Scotland - per MacLagan. The Scots name for the ordinary English game of Rounders. Pitched balls are struck by hand.</p> +
<p>Confected in 2009 at an unidentified school in Howland, Ohio, this game (“usually played from May to September”) melds baseball and rounders. Teams of six players populate an area with an infield in the form of an isosceles triangle [two sides are 83 feet long, and the base is 62 feet long, with home set at the angle at the right side of the base, and foul lines extending from home through the two running posts]. The counterparts to balls and strikes are influenced by whether a pitch lands in a net to the rear of the home square. Apparently, a batter cannot stay at a base, but must try to complete a round before the fielders can return the ball to the net. A local league is reported to play the game.</p> +
I
<p>Per Brewster, 1953: A down-sized, non-running baseball variant. Two teams of five players form. A regular softball is pitched underhand to the batter. Outs are recorded for caught fly balls and ground balls cleanly fielded inside the baselines. Unlimited swings are permitted. Three-out-side-out innings and five-inning games are prescribed. The playing field is represented in a figure showing a fair ground of less than 45 degrees.</p>
<p>See also the text of "Teach Your Kids to Play Indian Ball!," below. The variant of the non-running game Indian Ball described in this 2013 article entails pitching by a member of the batting team, strikes called on all balls that are not hit fair (including pitches not swung at), outs on short fair hits, home runs for suitably long fair hits, employment of a baseball or tennis ball, and ghost runners. The author, at playcorkball.com, stresses that players can play this game without adult supervision.</p>
<p>An account of Indian Ball as played in St. Louis in 2008 is found at <a href="http://www.stlmag.com/St-Louis-Magazine/July-2008/What-the-Is-Indian-Ball/">http://www.stlmag.com/St-Louis-Magazine/July-2008/What-the-Is-Indian-Ball/</a>. </p>
<p>The O'Leary article below has the "rules" of the game, and a diagram. The field is triangular, and the game is said to be a variant of stickball when you have less than 18 players, and with as few as three.</p>
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<p>Evolving from an 1887 innovation in Chicago involving a broomstick as a bat and a boxing glove as the ball, indoor baseball is described in a 1929 survey as particularly popular in gymnasiums in the US mid-west in the early 20th century. The game of softball traces back to indoor play.</p>
<p>Origins -- On Thanksgiving Day at te Farragut Club in Chicgo in 1887, a participant recalled, "[T]he fellows were throwing an ordinary boxing glove around the room, which was struck at by one of the boys with a broom. George W. Hancock suddenly called out, 'Bpys, let's play baseball!'" Hancock was later known as the Father of Indoor Baseball.</p>
<p> </p>
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<p>A name for Scrub used in Philadelphia in the 1930s and possibly before/after that.</p> +
<p>A communication received from Peadar O Tuatain describes what is known of the ancient game of Irish Rounders. Details of the old game are apparently lost to history, but some rules encoded in 1932 were used for a revival in 1956, and the revival version, which resembles baseball much more than it does English rounders, is still being played. It employs a hurling ball and a game comprises five three-out innings. The game is played without gloves and, perhaps unique among safe-haven games, batted balls caught in the air are not outs.</p> +
J
<p>Lowth (1855) describes Jellal, encountered among the people of Upper Eqypt, as resembling “in some of its parts our old game of Rounders” as he knew it in England. There was hitting and “getting home,” but a difference that he noted was that one boy hit the ball and another ran.</p> +
K
<p>According to Brewster, Kappenspiel is the German word for Hat Ball.</p> +
<p>per Brewster. A team form of Hat Ball. A player throws a ball to the other group, and runs toward it. If the receiving group can plug the thrower, he is captured, and the game continues until one side is depleted.</p> +
<p>An 1834 book on a tour to Abyssinia mentions this game, taken to be “the same game we call bat ball” in England.</p> +
<p>per Gomme. A game played at Sitxwold [huh?] resembling “Trap, Bat, and Ball.</p> +
<p>per Culin (1891). A team game generally resembling Kickball, but using a small rubber ball. There is no plugging; runners are out if they are between bases when the fielding team returns the kicked ball to a teammate near home. No mention is made of fly outs. There is a three-out-side-out rule, and a game usually comprises four innings. Johnson (1910) lists Kick the Ball as a Baseball game.</p> +
<p>per Culin. A game identical to Kick the Wicket [below] but using a can instead of a wicket.</p> +
<p>per Culin. The wicket is a piece of wood or a short section of a hose. Players kick the wicket, and then run among [usually four] bases. An “it” player tries to catch the ball, or to retrieve and reposition it while baserunners are between bases. The game is not described as a team game.</p> +
<p>A traditional school recess game in the U.S., Kickball has lately grown in popularity as a co-ed adult game. Kickball strongly resembles Baseball, but the large rubber ball is put in play by bowled delivery and struck by a kicker-runner, who then runs from base to base. Plugging below the neck retires a runner who not at a base. The rules of the World Adult Kickball Association, with 25,000 registered members, specifies 11 players per team, 60-foot basepaths, and a strike zone about 30 inches wide and one foot high.</p>
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<p>On kickball history: </p>
<p>"Kickball, originally called "Kicking Baseball" was claimed to have been invented as early as 1910 by Dr. <a title="Emmett Dunn Angell" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Dunn_Angell">Emmett Dunn Angell</a> in his noted book <em>Play: Comprising Games for the Kindergarten, Playground, Schoolroom and College : How to Coach and Play Girls' Basket-ball, Etc</em> (1910). His description and field illustration in this book is both the closest and earliest known precursor to the modern game of kickball. He also notes that "The game seems to afford equal enjoyment to the children and it gives a better understanding of the national game (Baseball), and at the same time affords them an exercise that is not too violent and is full of fun.".<sup id="cite_ref-Play_1-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickball#cite_note-Play-1">[1]</a></sup></p>
<p>A later documented inventor claim, as early as 1917, was by Nicholas C Seuss, Supervisor of Cincinnati Park Playgrounds in <a title="Cincinnati" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati">Cincinnati</a>, <a title="Ohio" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio">Ohio</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-ThePlayground1917_2-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickball#cite_note-ThePlayground1917-2">[2]</a></sup> Seuss submitted his first documented overview of the game which included 12 rules and a field diagram in <em>The Playground Book</em>, published in 1917. Kickball is referred to as "Kick Base Ball" and "Kick Baseball" in this book."<sup id="cite_ref-ThePlaygroundBook_3-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickball#cite_note-ThePlaygroundBook-3"><br/></a></sup></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Source: https://www.rookieroad.com/kickball/history/</p>
<p> </p>
<p>According to another source, "The game [of matball] is a derivative of kickball and in most situations follows similar basics. According to history (site not provided), kickball Also known as kick baseball was invested [sic] in 1917 by Nicholas C. Seuss." Seuss is described as working for Cincinnati Park Playgrounds.</p>
<p>Source: https://kickballzone.com/detailed-look-matball/</p>
<p>per MacLagan. A player stands at the center of 11 stations marked with a stone, and a player at each. At the central player’s signal, the other 11 must change positions, and he tries to strike one with the ball before they can complete their move. Each position can be occupied by but one player.</p> +
<p>Brand describes Kit-Cat as a game for two teams of three players each. Each player on the in-team stands near a hole with a two-foot stick. One is thrown a cat. If he hits it (and if it is not caught in the air for an out), the in-team runs from hole to hole, placing their sticks in each hole and counting the number passed. Outs can also be made by throwing a cat into an unoccupied hole, or by strikeout. The number of outs per half-inning, and the number of missed swings that constitute an out, are agreed in advance.</p> +
<p>An off-shoot of Indoor Baseball played early in the 20th Century. In 1920, 64 men's teams and 25 women's teams played regularly in the Twin Cities. Authorites changed the name of the game to diamond ball in 1922. In the 1930s, the game merged with sofball.</p> +