Property:Text

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This is a property of type Text.

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1862.25 +

"The question will naturally be asked, how came the Unions to score so well against Creighton's pitching? and the reply is, that they waited until they got a ball to suit them, Creighton delivering, on an average, 20 or 30 balls to each striker in four of the six innings played." +

1862.26 +

“The 13th Massachusetts played amongst themselves daily during April and May of 1862.” Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage Books, 2001), page 19. Millen cites S. Crockett, “Sports and Recreational Practices of Union and Confederate Soldiers, Research Quarterly October 1961, pp?. Crockett article is unprocured as of May 2009, and primary source is unknown. Note: It would be useful to know what game the regiment played, and how they named it. The regiment was reportedly at Ship Island, MS, in these months. +

1862.27 +

“’Every volunteer who has been in service, has realized the tedium of camp life . . . there is waste time, which might be used advantageously at such manly exercises as cricket, base ball, foot ball, quoit pitching, etc.’ That paper lamented the shortage of sporting goods available for the men and called for hardware dealers to supply quoits and also cricket and base ball bats. ‘For want of such things,’ it concluded, ‘the time of the soldier is mainly spent playing cars.’” Source: Charleston Mercury, April 3, 1862, page. 2, column. 1. Mentioned without citation in Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray (Princeton U, 2003), page 40. It seems interesting that cricket and base ball receive comparable emphasis in this article. +

1862.29 +

A Wisconsin newspaper sent a writer to the nearby Camp Randall, where 881 prisoners of war were just arriving. “Some of the men and boys, of the 55th Tennessee regiment were amusing themselves with playing ball.” The reporter notes that many prisoners had only light clothing that would provide little protection against northern winds. Many of the prisoners had been among 7000 men captured in the CSA’s surrender of Island Ten, a strategic position in the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri. The nature of the Tenneseeans’ ballplaying was not recorded. “Camp Randall,” Weekly Wisconsin Patriot (Madison), April 26, 1862. Accessed at Genealogybank on 5/21/2009. Camp Randall was the former fairground for Madison WI. See also Madison Journal, April 22, 1862, Milwaukee Daily News, April 24, 1862, Manitowac Weekly Tribune, May 14, 1862. The Boston Recorder, June 12, 1862, reports that Union Col. Whipple [Charles Whipple, Col. 19th Wisconsin Infantry] plays baseball with the POWs at Camp Randall. [ba] +

1862.30 +

“Sometimes the war disrupted these pastimes . . . . In the spring of 1862 a game between the Fifty-Seventh and Sixty-Ninth Regiments of New York Jacob Cole was lying on the ground watching the match when he heard a ‘rumbling noise.’ When Cole and his friend stood up they heard nothing, but when they put their ears to the ground Cole told his friend that ‘our boys are fighting.’ He remembered: ‘Hardly had I spoken before orders came to report to our regiments at once. So the ball game came to a sudden stop never to resume.’” Source: Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray (Princeton U, 2003), pages 41-42. Kirsch does not supply a primary source. It appears that Cole was in the 57th NY, and that the story of the interrupted ball game was carried in Jacob H. Cole, Under Five Commanders: or, A Boy’s Experience with the Army of the Potomac (News Printing Company, 1909), p. [?]. Accessed as snippet-view text May 31, 2009. Note: Can we confirm the source, determine where this game took place, and assess the credibility of Cole’s account? Per p. 30 of the Cole book, this took place May 31, 1862, near the battle of Seven Pines, VA, a few miles east of Richmond. [ba] +

1862.31 +

“The evening parade was an uncommonly nice one . . . . The new colors were all brought out and the effect was very pretty, as they were escorted out and back and saluted by all the officers and me. After parade came a game of base-ball for the captains and other officers, and in the sweet evening air and early moonlight we heard cheerful sounds all about us at the men sang patriotic songs, laughed and chatted, or danced jig to the sound of a violin.” Eliza Howland, “Diary of Eliza Newton Woolsey Howland, April 1862, in Letters of a Family During the War for the Union 1861-1865 [Pubr? Date?] Volume 1, page 360. Eliza Howland’s husband Joseph was an officer with the 16th New York Volunteers. The couple lived in Mattawan NY before the War. Provided by Jeff Kittell, 5/12/09. Available online at The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries Database, at <a href="http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/">http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/</a>. Note: can we determine the location of the event? Per p. 284 of the Howland book, this took place April 3, 1862, in the camp of Slocum's division, near Fairfax, VA. [ba] +

1862.34 +

The regimental history has four references to ballplaying. In July 1862, the unit arrived at Camp Lincoln at Newport News VA, where “the amusements at this camp were fishing for crabs, bathing, foraging and base-ball playing” [page 187]. Back at Newport News in March 1863, “the officers and men enjoyed themselves much in the innocent games of cricket and base-ball.” [page 290]. In May 1863, at a temporary camp near Somerset KY, “both officers and men enjoyed themselves hugely by playing at base ball in daytime between drill hours and at night by the performance of genuine negro minstrels, who were the field hands belonging to the neighboring plantations” [page 301]. Waiting in Annapolis for expected deployment to North Carolina in April 1864, “[b]ase ball is enjoyed by a large number of officers and men every afternoon, when the weather permits, and, I assure you, some very creditable playing is done – some that would do honor to any base ball club extant. [page 539]. Thomas H. Parker, History of the 51st Regiment of PV [Pennsylvania Volunteers] (King and Baird, Philadelphia, 1869). Accessed 6/2/09 on Google books via “’51st regiment’ parker” search. The regiment formed in Harrisburg in late 1861. +

1862.35 +

May: “One of the boys in a letter home vividly describes a hailstorm . . . ‘one day we had a regular hailstorm . . . The boys were out playing ball when it commenced sprinkling, and they thought it wasn’t going to be much of a shower, they kept right on playing, when all of a sudden came the [hail] stones, and the boys put for their tents . . . Queer weather here!’” July 4: “Some of the officers played baseball and drill was neglected.” Alfred S. Roe, The Twenty-Fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861-1866 (Twenty-Fourth Veteran Association, Worcester, 1907), pages 112 and 135. Accessed on Google books 6/2/09 via “twenty-fourth regiment” search. The regiment’s officers were mostly from Boston. The regiment, organized at Readville, 10 miles SW of Boston, and was at Seabrook Island SC on these dates. +

1862.47 +

Notes upon visiting a camp near Alexandria VA: “Here were in progress all the occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field. Some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers, some smoked cigars or pipes.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Fortress Monroe,” in I. Finseth, The American Civil War (CRC Press, 2006), page 398. Accessed in restricted view on Google Books 6/16/09. +

1862.49 +

“THE BIRTH OF BASE-BALL. Some of the men who went home on furlough in 1862 returned to their regiments with tales of a marvelous new game which was spreading though the Northern States. In camp at White Oak Church near Falmouth, Va., Kearny’s brigade played this ‘baseball,’ as it was known. Bartlett’s boys won this historic game.” F. Miller and R. Lanier, The Photographic History of the Civil War, Volume Eight, Soldier Life, (Review of Reviews Co., New York, 1911), plate following page 243. This text sits next to a photograph of men playing football in 1864. Note: can we locate the cited photo? +

1862.36 +

On a lay day during a long October 1862 march from Harper’s Ferry WV toward Fredericksburg VA, the 21st CT “indulged the natural propensity of the soldier for foraging.” To thwart that, the Captain “ordered the roll to be called every hour, so that it was difficult to get far from camp. The boys enjoyed a game of baseball, notwithstanding the march of the day before, and the prospect of a longer march the next day.” This is the only reference to ballplaying in the history. The Story of the Twenty-First Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, During the Civil War. 1861-1865 (Stewart Printing Co., Middletown, 1900). Accessed on Google books 6/2/09, via “story of the twenty-first” search. The regiment was recruited in Eastern CT in late summer 1862, with the most men enlisting from Groton and Hartford. +

1862.37 +

A soldier in the 18th CT, Charles Lynch spent Thanksgiving at a camp near Baltimore. “November. The most important event was our first Thanksgiving in camp. Passed very pleasantly. A good dinner, with games of foot and base-ball.” After Appomattox, Lynch wrote: June 5th: . . . Thank God the cruel war is over. Playing ball, pitching quoits, helping the farmers, is the way we pass the time while waiting for orders to be mustered out. We have many friends in this town and vicinity.” These are the only references in the diary to ballplaying. In June Lynch was stationed in Martinsburg WV, about 30 miles west of Frederick MD and 75 miles northwest of Washington. Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary 1862-1865 (private printing, 1915), page 11, page 154. Accessed on Google books 6/2/09 via “charles h. lynch” search. Lynch, and presumably much of the regiment, was from the Norwich CT area. Lead provided by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09. +

1862.39 +

Thanksgiving in Fairfax County in northernmost VA: “At 2 o’clock, the regiment turned out on the parade ground. The colonel had procured a foot ball. Sides were arranged by the lieutenant colonel and two or three royal games of foot ball – most manly of sports, and closest in its mimicry of actual warfare – were played. . . . Many joined in games of base ball; others formed rings and watched friendly contests of the champion wrestlers of the different companies . . . . It was a “tall time” all around.” George G. Benedict, “Letter from George Grenville Benedict, December 6, 1862,” Army Life in Virginia: Letters from the Twelfth Regiment (Free Press, Burlington, 1895), pp 80-81. Accessed 6/3/09 on Google Books via “army life in Virginia” search. Benedict, from Burlington, had been an editor and postmaster before the Civil War, and later became a state senator. The regiment appears to have been raised in the Burlington area. Submitted by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09. +

1862.48 +

“We had plenty of pork and hard tack to go with the beans. We amused ourselves when the weather would permit by having a game of baseball.” William A. Waugh, Reminiscences of the rebellion or what I saw as a private soldier on the 5th Mass. Light Battery from 1861-1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15 2009. Waugh is here describing life in winter quarters near Falmouth on the Virginia coast and east of Fredericksburg. +

1862.53 +

“On Christmas Day 1862 the officers of Manigault’s brigade had a footrace, and afterward the colonels ‘chose sides from among the officers and men to play base[ball].’” Larry J. Daniel, Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army (U of North Carolina Press, 1991), page 90. Daniel evidently attributes this quotation of a letter from James Hall to his father, December 25, 1862. His treatment of the name of the game, “base[ball], implies that the original letter read “base.” Manigault’s Brigade formed in Corinth, MS, in April 1862, comprising two South Carolina regiments and three from Alabama. We do not know the location of the brigade in December 1862, when Manigault was apparently elevated from colonel of the 10th SC to lead the brigade. The James Hall letter is cited more fully in Kevin Roberts, "We Were Marching on Christmas Day" p. 62: "We have tried to make a Christmas of it here. We have had foot races, wrestling and base[ball] playing ... {The colonels] chose sides from among their officers and met to play base[ball]." +

1862.44 +

“The report of musketry is heard but a very little distance from us . . . yet on the other side of the road is most of our company, playing Bat Ball and perhaps in less than half an hour, they may be called to play a Ball game of a more serious nature.” Attributed to “an Ohio private” who wrote home from Virginia in 1862, in Ward and Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (Knopf, 1994), page 13. No source is given. Note: can we find the original source and fill in some detail? Note: the private’s use of the term “bat ball” is unusual. “Bat ball” is found in much earlier times [it was banned in both Pittsfield and Northampton MA in 1791]. In this case, since the private is an observer, not a player, it may be that he is using an incorrect label for the game he observes in 1862. Still, it may possibly imply that the term “bat ball” was current in Ohio in the pre-war years (in the private’s youth?), if not later. +

1863.1 +

[A] "[In April 1863] the Third Corps and the Sixth Corps baseball teams met near White Oak Church, Virginia, to play for the championship of the Army of the Potomac." [B] "Ballplaying in the Civil War Camps increased rapidly during the War, reaching a peak of 82 known games in April 1863 -- while the troops still remained in their winter camps. Base ball was by a large margin the game of choice among soldiers, but wicket, cricket, and the Massachusetts game were occasionally played. Play was much more common in the winter camps than near the battle fronts." [C] Note: In August 2013 Civil War scholar Bruce Allardice added this context to the recollected Army-wide "championship game": "The pitcher for the winning team was Lt. James Alexander Linen (1840-1918) of the 26th NJ, formerly of the Newark Eureka BBC. Linen later headed the bank, hence the mention in the book. In 1865 Linen organized the Wyoming BBC of Scranton, which changed its name to the Scranton BBC the next year. The 26th NJ was a Newark outfit, and a contemporary Newark newspaper says that many members of the prewar Eurekas and Adriatics of that town had joined the 26th. The 26th was in the Sixth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, stationed at/near White Oak Church near Fredericksburg, VA. April 1863, the army was in camp. The book says Linen played against Charlie Walker a former catcher of the Newark Adriatics who was now catcher for the "Third Corps" club. "With all that being said, in my opinion the clubs that played this game weren't 'corps' clubs, but rather regimental and/or brigade clubs that by their play against other regiments/brigades claimed the Third and Sixth Corps championships. "Steinke's "Scranton", page 44, has a line drawing and long article on Linen which mentions this game. See also the "New York Clipper" website, which has a photo of Linen." +

1863.2 +

Apparently not liking either the New York Rules or Massachusetts Game Rules, the two formal sets available to them, the boys of the South Berkshire Institute, a prep school in New Marlborough, MA, drew up a hybrid game. Their version is rare in that its documentation has survived. +

1863.4 +

“Not even regular guard and fatigue duty, drill and digging in the trenches could exhaust all of the energies of thee Massachusetts boys, so they must needs organize a baseball club, a thing they had never done in the month of January, and company rivalry ran high. The nine from Company I beat that of Company C to the tune of fifty to twenty-nine. It goes without saying that this was in the days of old-fashioned ball, when large scores were not unusual, and a phenomenally small one by no means argued a superior game.” Alfred S. Roe, The Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Fifth Regiment Veteran Association, Boston, 1911) page 196 The book has no other reference to ballplaying. This passage appears in an account of late January 1863, and the camp was evidently near Newbern VA [a railroad terminus], about 45 miles SW of Roanoke in Southwest Virginia. Accessed at Google Books 6/609 via “fifth Massachusetts roe” search. The regiment comprised men from towns NW of Boston. The unit was at New Bern, NC in January 1863. [ba] +

1863.5 +

The regimental history, writing of winter camp on the Rappahannock River in late January,: “The duties of a soldier’s life in camp were resumed. Drill, dress parade, inspection, picket and guard duty, policing, building roads, were the usual occupations. Amusements were encouraged and chess, checkers, baseball and athletic exercises helped to while away tedious hours.” Camille Baquet, History of the First Brigade, New Jersey Volunteers (State of New Jersey, 1910), page 71. This is the only reference to ballplaying in the book, which covers 1861 to 1865. Accessed 6/6/09 on Google Books via “baquet ‘first brigade’’’ search. +

1863.6 +

The 1863 diary of George Brockway includes 10 entries on ballplaying from February 27 to April 17 1863. Most are terse, along the lines of the March 11 entry: “played ball.” On March 2 Brockway elaborated a little: “In the afternoon the Company played base ball. O yes made a batter club also.” Two entries cite extramural play. April 11: “The boys play a game of ball with the 77th N. Y. V and beat them 12 members.” April 14: “The boys play a match game of ball with the Jersey boys and got bet by 40.” There are no references to ballplaying after April 17, and Brockway’s diaries for his other 3.5 years as a soldier are not referenced. George F. Brockway, Diary of 1863. Unpublished. Provided by Michael Aubrecht May 15 2009. The diary does specify Brockway’s location in spring 1863. George F. Brockway of Auburn, NY was a saddler in Cowan's NY battery of artillery, attached to the VI corps. In early 1863 it was stationed near Fredericksburg, VA. Brockway moved to MI postwar. [ba] +

1863.7 +

In February 1863 the 48th PA took a steamboat to Newport News VA, where it camped for a month. From the regimental history: “Many amusements were indulged in during the stay at Newport News – horse racing, cricket matches, base-ball and the like. Leaves of absence became frequent.” This is the only reference to ballplaying. In late March the unit headed off to Lexington KY. Oliver C. Bosbyshell, The 48th in the War (Avil Printing, Philadelphia, 1895), pp 102-103. Accessed 6/7/09 on Google Books via “bosbyshell 48th” search. The regiment formed in Schuylkill County of PA in late 1861, an area about 40 miles west of Allentown and 85 miles NW of Philadelphia. +

1863.8 +

“March 2 [1863]. Jas Mitchell falls. Died while playing wicket.” Diary entry, presumably by Captain Milo E. Palmer, 12th Regiment, in Deborah B. Martin, History of Brown County Wisconsin (S. J. Clarke Publishing, Chicago, 1913), page 216. The 12th Wisconsin was near “Coliersville” [Collierville?] TN in early March, according to the diary entries. Collierville is about 15 miles SW of Memphis. The 12th WI seems to have been raised in the Madison WI area. The book was accessed 6/7/09 on Google Books via “of brown county” search. No other cited diary entries refer to ballplaying. Caution: It is unconfirmed that “playing wicket” in this case referred to ballplaying. It seems plausible that wicket was played in the 1850s-1860s in WI, but it hardly seems a mortally risky game, and it seems possible that “playing wicket” has a military meaning here. Input from readers on this issue is most welcome. +

1863.55 +

“The ‘first team’ of the Ninth New York Regiment beat the Fifty-first New Yorkers 31-34 [sic] at Yorktown Virginia, in 1863. But a few days later the ‘second nine’ of the two units played, with the Ninth Regiment triumphing by the fantastic score of 58-19!” Bell Irvin Wiley, The Common Soldier in the Civil War, Book One, “The Life of Billy Yank,” page 170. Unavailable online in full text June 2009. Wiley’s footnotes are complicated, but it seems most likely the this account comes from “diary of Charles F. Johnson, March 4, 8, 1863, manuscript Minn. Historical Society.” It is unclear that the 9th was near Yorktown in early March. Note: can we confirm or disconfirm this Wiley reference? [ba]--the book "The Long Roll" is the wartime journal of Charles F. Johnson, 9th NY, and undoubtedly is Wiley's source (or the same as Wiley's source). Pages 215-217 note these games, which were played in camp near Newport News, VA. "Frank Hughson, President of the Hawkins Zouaves Baseball club" accepted a challenge from the 51st NY. Wagers were made, and the games played March 4 and 8, 1863. Graham, "The Ninth Regiment, New York Volunteers" p. 405 and the published Letters of Edward King Wightman, p. 121, also mention these games. +

1863.9 +

The US had captured the Sea Island area of SC in 1861, and a group of anti-slavery advocates from Massachusetts ventured south to help educate former slaves in the region. In a letter home from “H.W.,” described as the sister of a Harvard man just out of college, wrote about seeing, on March 3, 1863, what she called “real war camps.” She listed daily work duties, and added, “in almost every camp we saw some men playing ball.” It appears the trip’s objective was “the 24th,” which seems to have been the 24th MA, where a cousin James was to be found. +

1863.10 +

The history of the Fifth MA Battery has four brief references to base ball from March 1863 to February 1864. Two soldiers’ diaries note games on March 11, March 29, and April 11 1863 in Falmouth VA. A Captain Phillips wrote from Rappahannock Station on February 23, 1864: “I am sitting at my desk with my door wide open, and the men are playing ball out of doors.” History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery [1861-1865] (Luther E. Cowles, Boston, 1902), pages 559, 564, 572, 774. Accessed . . . +

1863.11 +

“Mar 13 [1863] Wrote a letter to George and one to father. In the afternoon played a game of ball. Mar 14 Played a game of ball in the afternoon. Bill rode my horse on the forage guard.” James H. Cowan, “Cowan’s Civil War Diary,” transcribed by Juanita Lewis, accessed 6/7/098 at <a href="http://iagenweb.org/civilwar/regiment/cavalry/01st/cowan.html">http://iagenweb.org/civilwar/regiment/cavalry/01st/cowan.html</a>. The diary, noted as volume 2, covers from September 1862 through April of 1863. The website notes that Cowan was from northernmost Iowa. His location in early March is inferred, perhaps incorrectly, from towns named Springfield, Rollo (Rolla?), Salem in the Feb/March entries. Cowan was in the 1st Iowa Cavalry. [ba] +

1863.12 +

“What think you, man of pen and scissors, of our hardships and sufferings, including the rigors of a winter campaign and other poetical ideas, when I tell you that the line officers of our Regiment played a match game of base ball last Saturday. The contest was between the right and left wings for the purpose of ascertaining which party should pay the expenses of an oyster supper.” The Left Wing won, 24-21, in a game evidently played by NY rules – nine players played nine innings and with 27 outs. “From the 17th Maine Regiment,” Lewiston [Me] Daily Evening Journal, March 23, 1863, page 1. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The printed missive, signed “Right Wing,” is headed “Camp Pitcher near Falmouth, VA, March 15th 1863.” The full text of the Regiment’s history, The Red Diamond Regiment, by William Jordan, is not accessible online as of June 2009. Lewiston ME is about 35 miles N of Portland. +

1863.13 +

Lewis C. Paxson left Pennsylvania in 1862 to teach school in Lake City MN, joining the 8th MN in August of that year. He very briefly refers to “playing ball four times: on March 16th 1863, September 16, 1863, September 22, 1863, and March 2, 1864. His most expansive entries were his first, “There was ball playing upon the west camp” [p. 113], and that for September 22, “Played leap frog. Played ball.” He called the game “baseball” in the 1864 entry. Paxson also referred to wicket: On April 30 he wrote “We were mustered. Cronin hurt in playing wicket by being run against.” His entry for the next day was “The mail did not come. Cronin dies.” Caution: It is unconfirmed that “playing wicket” in this case referred to ballplaying. It seems plausible that wicket was played in the 1850s-1860s in MN, but it hardly seems a mortally risky game, and it seems possible that “playing wicket” has a military meaning here. Input from readers on this issue is most welcome. Source: Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Part II – Volume II (Tribune, Bismarck ND, 1908), pages 113, 115, 123, 132. It appears that Paxson’s service time from 1862 to 1865 was spent at Fort Abercrombie, ND, about 30 miles S of Fargo. The Fort, evidently meant to protect Minnesota territory, had been attacked by the Sioux in the Dakota War of 1862. +

1863.14 +

At Falmouth VA, excerpts from the diary of Sgt Earle of the 15th MA notes games of ball with the 34th NY on March 18 and again on April 16, 1863 in the regimental history. The historian, Andrew Ford, writes 35 years later that “during March and April ball playing is frequently mentioned in the diary. The game played in those days was the old-fashioned round ball. Practice games inside the regiment occurred almost daily, and there were several great games with the New York Thirty-Fourth. Our boys were so successful that the captain of the New York team gave up the contest with the admission that if they ‘had been playing for nuts his men wouldn’t even have the shucks.’ The interest taken in these games in the army as a whole almost rivaled that taken in the races, sparring matches, and cock-fights of Meagher’s troops.” Ford does not elaborate on how he concludes that round ball was played, or that the army as a whole was taking to base ball. Andrew E. Ford, The Story of the Fifteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry [1961-1864] (W. J. Coulter, Clinton [MA?], 1898), pages 242 and 244. Accessed 6/8/09 on Google Books via “’fifteenth Massachusetts’” search. The 15th MA drew significantly from Worcester County MA. The 34th NY regiment was known as the “Herkimer Regiment,” with roots in Herkimer County in Upstate New York; the town of Herkimer is about 15 miles east of Utica on the Mohawk River. The game in this area that preceded the NY game may have been round ball. +

1863.15 +

E. L. Tabler’s Civil War diary runs from January 1863 through May 1864. In March 1863 he was camped near Murfreesboro TN. On March 25 1863 he wrote: “the boys enjoy themselves very well playing at Ball & pitching Horseshoes.” Tabler notes that his regiment has been taken over by John C. McWilliams; a John C. McWilliams is listed at a Captain in the 51st Illinois, which was in the Murfreesboro area in March 1863. “1998 Transcription by William E. Henry of a Civil War Diary,” <a href="http://www.51illinois.org/TablerDiaryRaw1863.pdf">http://www.51illinois.org/TablerDiaryRaw1863.pdf</a>, accessed 6/8/09. +

1863.54 +

“On the 25th [of March 1863] all cartridges were taken up, and fresh ammunition issued. From this time till after the fist of April, ‘base ball’ was the popular amusement in camp, and a select nine from our regiment played many games and return games with the 32nd New York Regiment, the 27th winning a good share of the games. The sharp exercise put the men in good condition after the winter of idleness in their tents and cabins.” C. Fairchild, History of the 27th Regiment N. Y. Vols (Carl and Matthews, Binghamton NY, 1888), page 153. The regiment was camped near Falmouth VA. +

1863.16 +

The diary of Benjamin Franklin Hackett, of Rochester VT, describes ballplaying twice in the 7 months of his diary as a member of the 12th VT. On March 30, 1863, “near Wolf Run Shoals Va,” he wrote “very pleasant in afternoon. Boys played ball all the afternoon. In the same camp on April 14, he wrote “the boys are playing ball and are as cheerful as could be expected.” Diary of Benjamin Franklin Hackett, provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. An article based on the diary appears as Elna Rae Zeilinger and Larry Schweikart, ““’They Also Serve . . .’: The Diary of Benjamin Franklin Hackett, 12th Vermont Volunteers, Vermont History, Volume 51, Number 2 (Spring 1983), pp.89 ff. The article accessed on Google Books via “’benjamin franklin Hackett’” search. +

1863.17 +

John G. B. Adams of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment: “While in camp at Falmouth [VA] the base ball fever broke out. It was the old-fashioned game, where a man running the bases must be hit by the ball to be declared out. It started with the men, then the officers began to play, and finally the 19th challenged the 7th Michigan to play for sixty dollars a side. . . . The game was played and witnessed by nearly all of our division, and the 19th won. The one hundred and twenty dollars was spent for a supper . . . . It was a grand time, and all agreed that it was nicer to play base than minié [bullet] ball.” Capt. John G. B. Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment (Wright and Potter, Boston, 1899), pp 60-61. Accessed 6/8/09 on Google Books via “reminiscences nineteenth” search. The regiment arose in northern MA, near the NH border. +

1863.18 +

From April 1863 to May 1864, seven mentions of ballplaying – one of them a game of wicket – appear in the account of the 10th Massachusetts. In early April, “in the intervals between [snow] storms the boys found time and place for playing ball” [p. 173]. Later that month, “[i]n the midst of so much warlike preparation it was a relief to find the boys of the Tenth and those of the 36th New York playing a game of baseball and all must have quit good natured, since the game itself was a draw” [p. 177]. At camp at Brandy Station on April 18 1864 the 10th won a “hotly contested” game against the 2nd RI, and again on April 26 the two regiments competed, “but it was lose again for Rhody’s boys” [p.252]. On April 28th the officers of the 10th lost a “game of our favorite baseball” with the 37th [MA?] – p.252. The next day the 10th beat the Jersey Brigade, 15-13. [p253]. “Considering the momentous interests at stake and the dread record that was to be written for May, 1864, it seems not a little strange that the beautiful month was ushered in just as April went out, with baseball. While a game of ball and shell of terrible import was pending, these men of war, after all only boys of a larger growth, happily ignorant of the future, were hilariously applauding the lucky hits and the swift running of bases clear up to the day before the movement across the Rapidan. It was on [May] 3rd that Company I played Company G and won the game by twelve tallies, and with that day came orders to march in the morning at 4.00 a.m.” [p. 253]. The wicket games also occurred at Brandy Station in April 1864;“With the advance of the season came all the indications of quickening life, and athletics became exceedingly prevalent, and one item among many was a game of wicket on [April] 13th, between a picked team in the 37th [MA] and one drawn from the Tenth, resulting in a victory of two tallies for our boys” [p.251]. In a rematch 10 days later, the 10th won again [p.252]. Alfred S. Roe, The Tenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1861-1864 (Tenth Regiment Veteran Association, Springfield MA, 1909). Accessed 6/9/09 on Google Books via “’tenth regiment’ roe” search. The regiment was drawn from Springfield and Western Massachusetts, where wicket was evidently a not uncommon prewar pastime. Cf [[CW-57]], which also reflects the 10th MA.

1863.19 +

“[W]hile I played barn ball, one old cat and two old cat in early boyhood days, Cricket was my favorite game, and up to the time I enlisted in the army I never played a regular game of base ball or the New York game as it was then called. In my regiment we had eleven cricketers that had all played together at home and I was the leading spirit in getting up matches. We played a number of good matches but we were too strong for any combination that we could get to play against us, and we finally had to abandon cricket and + take up this so called New York game. I remember well the first game that I played. It was against the 27th NY Inf. at White Oak Church near Fredericksburg Va. In the Spring of 1863. I played occasionally during the remainder of the war, but after my discharge in 1865 I came to Washington and joined the American Cricket Club of this city. But I soon turned my attention to base ball + played with the Olympic Club of this city from 1866 to 1870.” Nicholas Young was born in Amsterdam NY in 1840, and thus was playing the named games in the 1850s. He was a member of the 32nd NY Infantry, which was at Falmouth VA in spring 1863. He led the NL from 1881 to 1903. +

1863.20 +

In letters home written on April 6, and April 10, 1863 from Acquia Creek, VA, officer Mason Tyler wrote: “When I arrived this afternoon [from Washington] I found all the officers with Colonel Edwards at their head out playing ball. Games are all the rage now in the Army of the Potomac. [page 78]” A few later he wrote: “[T]he wind is fast drying up the mud. Our camp is alive with ball-players, almost every street having its game. My boy Jimmie is so busy playing that he hardly knows how to stop to do my errands. He can play ball with the best of them, and pitching quoits he can beat anybody in my company, captain and all. [page 78]” “On November 20th [1863] there was a baseball game between the Tenth and Thirty-Seventh, and the Thirty-Seventh won. [page 125]” He wrote from Brandy Station VA in January 1864 to report on his recent reading, he added, “Sometimes we get up a game of ball, and now we have some apparatus for gymnastics, that occupies some of my time.” [page 131]” Mason W. Tyler, Memoir of Mason Whiting Tyler, in Recollections of the Civil War (Putnams, New York, 1912) page 78. Provided by Jeff Kittel, May 12, 2009. Accessed 6/6/09 at Google Books via “mason whiting tyler” search. Tyler was a new Amherst College graduate when he enlisted, and was shortly elected a 1st Lieutenant.. PBall file: CW-XX. Tyler was in the 37th MA. [ba] +

1863.21 +

In a diary extending from 1862 to 1864, Sgt. Franklin Horner referred to ballplaying only on April 11, April 13, and April 18, 1863. The entries are brief: the most informative is: “April 11 Saturday – Warm and pleasant . . . . no news from our armies all quiet in front the boys are enjoying themselves by playing ball the health of the men is good I am well.” Diaries of Franklin Horner, Company H, 12th PA reserves regiment volunteers. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The file states, “The diaries, in their original form, are part of the Curatorial Collection at the Gettysburg National Military Park. Their catalog numbers are as follows: 1862 Diary (GETT-6848), 1863 Diary (GETT-6850), 1864 Diary (GETT-6849).” It appears that in April 1863 the regiment camped in the Falls Church VA vicinity, a day’s march from Washington DC. The march to Gettysburg was ahead. +

1863.22 +

Chaplain Frank Hall of the 16th New York Infantry mentioned games of ball 10 times in his journal and letters home. [Note: we need to ascertain the range of actual dates; all seem to be for Feb. –April 1863.] All are passing references, like “Saturday, they had another splendid game of ball.” The men played on February 11, 1863, and Hall notes that “Gen. Bartlett came out . . . and played too & men from nearly the whole Brigade entered into the game. Col. Adams, shortly after Gen. Bartlett was called away & as he past on horseback someone threw the ball and it happened to pass right to his saddle bow. He caught it very gracefully & threw it back.” In an April 11 1863 letter to his wife he describes the scene at camp. “I thought I would just write out the sheet to try & give you a picture of things a bit. I am sitting in the tent by the table on one of the three legged stools which I fixed with straps the other day. The day is delightful. The wind is pleasantly flapping the tent. The Jersey band back of it has just finished a delightful air. On the hill in front, to the left of the camp, the boys are playing a game of ball & a few men are to be seen in camp who are excused from picket.” Frank Hall file, #BV-419-01, provided by Michael Aubrecht May 15, 2009. The 16th NY was drawn from northern counties, and included men from Plattsburg and Ogdensburg. The 16th was in northern VA in early 1863. +

1863.23 +

Sgt. Sewell G. Gray, 23, wrote in his diary entry for April 10, 1863: “. . . inspected at 1 o’clock p.m. by Captain Totten. This ended the duties of the day. I participated in a huge game of ball in the afternoon that proved disastrous to my powers of locomotion as it so lamed me that I can hardly stand on my pegs. Weather fine.” No other references to ballplaying are found. “Diary of Captain Sewell Gray 1862 to 1863,” page 12. The 6th Maine was at Falmouth VA at this time. Gray died at the second battle of Fredericksburg in May 1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. +

1863.24 +

Private Berea M. Willsey kept a diary in 1862, 1863, and 1864, and noted ballplaying succinctly 8 times, all in the month of April. In April 1863 there are entries for April 9th, 14th, 18th, 20th, and 22nd. On the 14th, when hostilities seemed near, he wrote “Eight days rations were given out to the different Regts & all surplus baggage sent away. Prepared myself as well as I could for the coming struggle & then had a good game of ball.” Willsey mentions a match against the 35th NY on April 20th and one against the 36th NY on April 22nd. The 10th was in a Virginia winter camp in this period. In 1864 Willsey reports on a match game with the 2nd RI on April 26 and another against the 1st NJ on April 30. “We have never been beat, he says. On April 23, he records a “game of ball” that was wicket. “The dust has been flying in clouds all day, yet it did not prevent the game of Ball from being played. Our boys were opposed by the 37th Mass at a game of wicket making 337 tallies, while the 37th only made 200.” In 1864 the Regiment was in the vicinity of Brandy Station VA. Jessica H. DeMay, ed., The Civil War Diary of Berea M. Willsey (Heritage Books, 1995), pp 84-86, 142-143. Full text unavailable online 6/10/09. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The 10th MA was from Western Massachusetts, and Willsey may have been from the North Adams area. Cf. [[CW-51]], which also depicts the 10th MA. +

1863.25 +

“Dear Wife . . . . The boys have had fine Sport this Spring, playing Ball pitching quarters and other Sports, it has been fine weather for some time and the ground dry and hard. Last Evening after Dress Parade I could not resist the temptation of joining with the men in there sports. After playing ball for some time I changed the sport by running a foot race with Lt. Murphy, which created a considerable fun after which the whole Redg. joined with the 127th Redg. in the same Sport, officers as well as men.” Letter from Ambrose F Cole to his wife, Jane Utley Cole, April 14, 1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. Note: can we determine where the 59th was formed, and where it was in April 1863? 59th mostly from NYC. Was in Army of the Potomac, in VA in April 1863. [ba] +

1863.26 +

“Falmouth April 27th, 63. Dear sister . . . we expect to move very soon perhaps to night other troops have been on the move all day the 19th Mass regt and the 7th Michigan have had a great game of ball to day the stakes were one hundred & ten dollars a side the Mass boys beat & won the money . . . write often.” Letter from James Decker to Francis Decker, April 1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. Other Decker letters suggest that Decker may have been from the Syracuse NY area. Note: identify Decker and his military unit? +

1863.27 +

“April 26th 1863. “Another day has passed and I have made a full day in the pay rolls. I heartily wish they were finished for I am tired of them. After parade played ball for half an hour . . . I think we will certainly march in a day or two: George French, Diaries for 1862 and 1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. French was a sergeant in the 105th NY. Note: we need to re-examine the context for this reference; where was the 105th in April, where was French from. The regiment had some soldiers from Rochester NY, including many Irish immigrants. The 105th was near Falmouth, VA that April. [ba] +

1863.28 +

Near Falmouth VA in April 1863, two companies of the 11th New Jersey Regiment played a ball game for which a box score was preserved. Each team was captained by, well, a Captain, and each Captain captain inserted himself as leadoff hitter. The box shows a nine-player, nine-inning game [or maybe eight] with a three-out side-out rule. [There seem to have been no outs recorded in one nine-run half-inning, but let’s not be picky.] Captain Martin’s D Company rushed out to an 18-2 lead and coasted to a 40-15 win over Captain Logan’s H Company. A handsome account of the game’s context, with the box score, is found in John W. Kuhl, “The Game,” Military Images, Volume 25, Number 3 (November/December 2003), pp. 19-22. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The article’s author reports that the box score appeared in the regimental history but does not give a further source. Sadly, both captains were to be killed at Gettysburg in a matter of weeks. The regiment’s history is Thomas D. Marbaker, The History of the Eleventh New Jersey Volunteers from its Organization to Appomattox (MacCrellish and Quigley, Trenton, 1898). It appears to be available online via the subscription site ancestry.com as of June 2009. +

1863.29 +

While the 11th New Jersey base ball match took place prior to Gettysburg, the third reference involved a game played several months after the battle, not long before Abraham Lincoln gave his historic speech at the new Gettysburg National Cemetery. Playing in the match were members of Battery B of the 1st New Jersey artillery, more popularly known as Clark's battery which served with distinction on both the second and third days at Gettysburg. The base ball connection came to my attention when my friend, Joe Bilby sent me a picture of a print of Clark's battery in camp at Brandy Wine Station, Virginia in November of 1863. The print shows members of the battery engaged in various camp activities including a group in the lower right hand corner playing base ball. Joe cautioned me that the picture was not in the public domain so I set out try to locate the original. My search took me to the Baseball Hall of Fame library which only has a copy and so couldn't give permission to use it. The library also passed on a link to an recent sale of a copy on eBay for about $425. (John Zinn) +

1863.30 +

The Herald headline for an April 1863 article about Hooker’s Army of the Potomac promised “Fun and Sports in the Army: Base Ball Match – New Jersey vs. New York.” Unfortunately, no corresponding text is in the article as retrieved online. The dispatch from Virginia is dated April 28. “Interesting from Hooker’s Army,” New York Herald, April 29, 1863. Accessed May 21, 2009 via subscription to Genealogybank. Note: can we locate the full text? +

1863.31 +

“A match game at Base Ball occurred between selected nines of the Fifth and Eighth New Jersey Regiments on Tuesday last, resulted in favor of the Eighth by a score of 50 to 15. . . . On the second innings the Eighth Regiment made 14 runs.” “Base Ball in the Army,” Trenton State Gazette, April 30, 1863. Accessed May 20, 2009 via Genealogybank subscription. According to a fellow named Abner Doubleday, the 5th NJ was part of a “brilliant Counter-charge at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 3: thus, the regiment and the match must have been in Virginia. [See A. Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (Scribners, New York, 1882), page 47.] An identical article appeared in the Newark Daily Advertiser on April 28, 1863 [provided by John Zinn on 3/10/09], and in the Daily State Gazette and Republican [City?] on 4/30/1864 [provided by John Maurath on 1/18/2009]. +

1863.32 +

“A match game of base ball was played near the banks of the Rappahannock on the 2nd inst., between selected nines of the 2d and 26th Regiments, and of the 2d New Jersey Brigade, resulting in favor of the former, 29 to 15. Among the players of the former were Lieuts. Linen [see file CW-65] and Neidisch [sic?] of the Eureka and Newark Clubs.” Newark Daily Advertiser, June 6, 1863. Provided by John Zinn, March 10, 2009. +

1863.33 +

“On Saturday the 11th inst., a match game of ‘base ball’ came off upon the drill ground of the 1st N. J. Brigade, in Virginia, between the players of the 2nd Regt., and the 26th, the former being the challengers. It was witnessed with much interest by most of the Brigade . . . . “A challenge from the 26th is expected soon, when the 2nd hope to carry off the palm.” “Local Matters. Base Ball in the Army,” Newark Daily Advertiser, April 15, 1863. Provided by John Zinn 3/10/09. Note: this game is also mentioned in passing in B. Gottfried, Kearney’s Own: the History of the First Jersey Brigade in the Civil War (Rutgers U Press, 2005), page 107. +

1863.35 +

“The health of the entire Army remains good, and the men enjoy themselves by athletic exercises and other amusements between parades and drills, pitching quoits, playing base ball and cricket, and horse racing are their every day pastimes.”“Penn,” [sic?] in “Our Army Correspondence,” [Pittsburgh?] Chronicle, Thursday, April 16, 1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. This long piece focuses some on the “three Pittsburgh and Alleghany regiments, viz. Sixty-Second, One Hundred and Twenty-Third, and One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth,” but the remark about recreation does not appear to apply to them only. The correspondent writes from a camp near Falmouth, VA. +

1863.36 +

“All We two Compnys do is to drill 1 and ½ hower in th mornig gon gard once in two Weaks We play ball pitch quoits the rest of the time. We play the New York Gam most of the time. Mass Game some We Changle other Regement and thay us the 25 Mass is the Best plays 46 next 44 next 51 Nex Battarys Next 5 R.I. Last some exciting games to. Have a Greesy pole Grees Pig all sorts of games you can think of Card Domonuse, &c. . . . But How are the girls in M [Marlboro NH] . . . the Boys have bases up & are in a stem to have me play ball I supose I must go. . . [resuming later:] My side got 10 tales. The other side got 7 talies the sam wons are going to try it to morrow.” Letter from Ora W. Harvey, April 15, 1863, from New Bern NC. Harvey, from Marlboro NH, was with the 46th MA. New Bern had been captured by the North in March 1862 and held for the entire war. Text and facsimile online via the Notre Dame rare book collection, accessed 6/14/09 via ”’msn/cw 5026-01’” search. Marlboro NH is just west of Keene NH, and about 20 miles north of the MA border. New Bern is near the Atlantic coast and is about 100 miles SE of Raleigh. +

1863.37 +

“Friday, April 17, 1863 Quite a fine day. Boys all playing ball. Co. drills in the afternoon. “Wednesday, April 22, 1863 Cool with some appearances of a storm. Played ball today and got somewhat tired.” G. S. Stuart and A. M. Jakeman, Jr., eds., John H. Stevens: Civil War Diary (Miller Books, Acton ME, 1997), page 127. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 1863. Note: we need to ascertain Stevens’ home and unit; the 9th PA lists a soldier by this name as a 1st Lt., as does the 5th MI, as does the 5th ME, which seems the most likely unit.. Text is not found via Google Books in June 2009. +

1863.38 +

“The parade ground has been a busy place for a week or so past, ball-playing having become a mania in camp. Officers and men forget, for a time, the differences in rank and indulge in the invigorating sport with a school-boy’s ardor. [The account lists two recent inter-company games.] The game is the fashionable “New York Game,” played by nine on a side, and nine innings making a game. An undecided game is now pending between the Tenth Massachusetts and Thirty-Sixth New York regiments.”Private Alpheris B. Parker, of the Tenth Massachusetts, on April 21, 1863, as cited [in part] in Ward and Burns, Baseball (Knopf, 1994), page 11. The original source is not there cited, but must be from a letter or diary written by Parker. The full quotation appears in J. K. Newell, Ours. Annals of 10th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in the Rebellion (C. A. Nichols, Springfield, 1875), page 199. The author of the history indicates that he “pirated” material from men’s accounts, sometimes without attribution, as seems to be the case with this passage. The 10th lists an “Alpheus Parker,” from Colrain in NW MA, on its Company G rolls. The Tenth’s winter camp in 1862-63 was near Falmouth VA, and In April it stood on the eve of the Chancellorsville battle.In April 1864 the 10th was camped near Brandy Station VA. Ours [page 256] suddenly lists ballplaying on seven days between April 13 and May 3. Wicket was played on April 13 [10th vs, 37th] and April 23rd [10th vs 37th]. Base ball was played on April 18 [10th vs. 2nd RI], April 26 [10thj vs, 2nd RI], April 28 [officers of 120th vs. officers of 37th], April 30 [10th vs. 1st NJ, and May 3 [Company I vs. Company I]. The next day they all left for the Battle of the Wilderness.Ours was accessed 6/14/09 at Google Books via “ours annals” search. The New York Sunday Mercury, April 26, 1863 reports on the 10th/36th game, played on the 20th in the rain to a 20-20 tie [ba].

1863.39 +

“April 22d pleasant. On wood detail this morning. This afternoon the 9 best base ball players of the 2 New York Troy regiment play with the best 9 Jerseymen in our brigade for 300.00. The Jersey boys beat 20 inings & a ining not played.” Heyward Emmell, Journal, April 22 1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. It would seem that Emmell was not familiar with base ball, or the game was played by unusual rules. A NPS research note places Emmell in the 7th NJ regiment, which may have been in the same brigade as the 2nd NY and 9th NJ. Note: the men were about to fight at Chancellorsville in VA, but we do not know the location of this game. The New York Herald, April 29, 1863, appears to report this game, in a letter datelined April 24 from "near the Rappahannock." The 2nd brigade, 2nd division, Army of the Potomac included 4 NJ regiments and the 2nd NY. A team from the 5th/7th/8th NJ played the 2nd NY for $100 a side and "betting ran high." NJ won. Gives a box score. +

1863.40 +

“[O]ur camp was made merry by the common prevalence of a variety of sports. Horse racing was quite extensively practiced, the presence of the paymasters enabling the officers to make up purses with much freedom. . . . In the Second Brigade of the Second division base ball became the popular amusement, and matches between regiments were of every day occurrence. The brigade counts for New Jersey regiments and one (the Second) from New York. The Jerseymen had played a number of matches between themselves, when the New Yorkers challenged the first nine from all the Jersey regiments to a match for $150 a side. The game was played on Tuesday, and attracted a large crowd. Betting ran high, with odds at the outset in favor of the New Yorkers. The playing was spirited on both sides; but the Jersey boys displayed the greater skill, and quickly turned the popular enthusiasm. They won the match on their eighth innings by twenty-three runs.” An elaborate box score is included. “Near the Rappahannock, April 24, 1863: Sports in Camp,” New York Herald, April 24, 1863. Provided by John Maurath, January 18, 2008. Note: our image is truncated in the middle of the box score, and more text may appear in the full article. The NJ nine comprised 5 players from the 8th NJ, 3 from the 7th NJ, and 1 player from the 5th NJ. The Trenton State Gazette carried a brief account of this game on May 2, 1863. It reported the final score as 34-14, the stakes were $100 a side, and noted that the 2nd NY was from Troy NY. +

1863.41 +

“I thought we should have been half way to Richmond before this time, but here we are all very much taken up with base ball playing recently. Yesterday the fifth N. Jersey played the rest of the Brigade for $100 a side and we beat them, to day we played the second New York on the same terms and beat them, and tomorrow the Eight New Jersey playes the second N.Y. for $300 a side, and then we play the Sickles Brigade.” Stanley Gaines, 7th NJ, to his sister from “Camp near Falmouth Va April 22d/63. In an earlier letter to a friend on April 14, 1863, Gaines had written, “Morality is certainly at a low ebb in the army, more preferring to play ball than to go to church, but a more generous open hearted and jolly crew than our soldiers it is hard to find.” Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. +

1863.42 +

[A] “The Rochester Evening Express published a letter from a soldier dated March 31, 1863, saying the Union Troops near what is now Leeland Station in Stafford were amusing themselves by running races and ‘playing ball, the latter being the favorite amusement or our correspondent. ‘We played nearly all day yesterday, our gallant Colonel looking on with as much pleasure as though he had a hand in . . . . (Quite a number of spectators assembled on our parade ground to witness the expertness of our officers, as they were practicing a match-game with the commissioned officers of the veteran 13th.) I learn that the 108th Regiment and the 14th Brooklyn Regiment were to play a match game of ball to-day for a purse of $25. . . . It may appear that we should be engaged in something else beside playing base ball, but I tell you it is one of the best things in the world to keep up the spirits of the men, , and not only that, but it is of vast importance to their health, and necessary to the development of their muscle . . . . The old veteran Joe (Gen. Joseph Hooker) himself can be seen out on the field encouraging the boys on as earnest as if he were on the battlefield.” [B] In a 2001 article, Allison Barash cites parts of this communiqué, and adds that the writer was “Captain Patrick H. “True Blue” Sullivan of the 140th New York Volunteers, who had played for Rochester’s Lone Stars Club before the war and was obviously hopelessly addicted to the game, left many written statements of Civil War ballgames.” She does note give a source for this passage or the other writings. +

1863.43 +

“William D. Rogers closed a letter to his parents by confessing he was stopping to ‘join the Boys in a game of Ball which has become a great amusement here.’” J. S. Sheppard, “’By the Noble Daring of Her Sons; The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee,” (PhD Dissertation, Florida State U, 2008), page 200. Sheppard’s citation: “William D. Rogers to Dear Papa and Mother, April 17, 1863. William D. Rogers Letters, 1862-1865.” Thesis accessed 6/15/09 via Google Scholar search “’noble daring’ Sheppard.’’ Rogers’ unit was evidently at winter quarters near Tullahoma TN then, about 80miles SE of Nashville and 245 miles N of the Alabama border. Rogers was from Alabama. +

1863.45 +

“Occasionally they indulged in the amusing and time-honored game of base-ball, but not infrequently they were called from this pleasure, to some arduous and important duty.” William Whitman and Charles True, Maine in the War for Union (Dingley, Lewiston, 1865), page 247. It seems clear from context that ballplaying was not infrequent. It is unclear from the phrasing whether they played the NY game or an old-fashioned form. The passage seems to imply that the game was played in 1862-1863 winter camp; the Tenth ME was at Stafford Court House VA from January to April 1863. +

1864.29 +

“During the winter the ground was occasionally covered with snow and battles with snow balls took place, different regiments challenging each other. When the weather was pleasant baseball became popular, and there were many excellent players on the Third Brigade. These games were watched by great crowds with intense interest. On April 18th, the 49th and 77th Regiments played a grand game on the parade ground.” F. D. Bidwell, History of the Forty-Ninth New York Volunters (J. B. Lyon, Albany, 1916), pages 28-29. Accessed on Google Books 6/27/09 via “forty-ninth new” search. The regiment formed in the Buffalo area, and was at Falmouth VA on April 18. +

1863.57 +

May 16th, 1863. “We have had a fine game of Town Ball which gave me good Exercise, and I was on the Side that beat.” May 28th, 1863. “We have [jus]t had a fine game of Town Ball and I was on the Beating Side. Nothing can beat me and Sergeant. Jones. He is a first rate man.” Letters from Corporal William Harden, Company G, 63rd Infantry Regiment, Georgia Volunteers, to his wife, written from just east of Savannah at “Thunderbolt.”. Accessed 6/26/09 at the Giamatti Center of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Civil War file. The 63rd formed in Savannah, and Harden had previously lived in Pike County, which is directly south of Atlanta. +

1863.58 +

“The civil war, however, arrested the development of the new game [base ball] for a time. It was played during the war in camps all over the south. Regiments and companies having their teams. Sergeant Dryden, of an Iowa regiment, relates that during the long waits in the trenches before Vicksburg, the Union and Confederate soldiers jokingly challenged each other to play baseball, and that during the brief truces the men of his company and the enemy played catch from line to line. “’We were throwing and catching the ball belonging to our company ne day,’ he relates, ‘when firing commenced afresh and the men dived into their holes. There was a big fellow named Holleran who, after we got to cover, wanted to go over and whip the ‘Johnny Reb’ who hd stolen our ball. The next morning during a lull in the firing, that ‘Reb’ yelled to us and in a minute the baseball came flying over the works, so we played a game on our next relief.’” The siege of Vicksburg MS occurred from late May to July 4 1863. Many Iowa regiments participated. +

1863.47 +

“Another favorite amusement in the corps was the game of base ball. There were many excellent players in the different regiments, and it was common for the ball-players of one regiment or brigade to challenge another regiment or brigade.’ He added: ‘These matches were watched by great crowds of soldiers with intense interest.’” George T. Stevens, Three Years in the Sixth Corps (Gray, Albany, 1866), page 183. Accessed on Google Books 6/15/09 via “’three years with the sixth’” search. (Part of this passage is cited in George B. Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray, (Princeton U Press, 2003), page 37). Stevens’ 77th NY was in winter camp at White Oak Church, near Falmouth VA, in 1862-63. Stevens was a regimental surgeon. Stevens [page 191] also reports that, awaiting the assault on Chancellorsville, even as the sounds of nearby clashes rolled in, “the thundering of the guns and the trembling of the earth seemed like a series of earthquakes. The spirit of our boys rose, and the battle on the right progressed, and there seemed to be indications of work for them. Groups might be seen at any time, when we were not standing in the line of battle, telling yarns, singing songs, playing ball, and pitching quoits, while they momentarily looked for the order to advance upon the heights, into the very jaws of death.” +

1864.1 +

Finding, on the Chancellorsville battlefield, a partly used diary in the abandoned knapsack of a Union soldier from the 87th NY, Robert T. Douglass started making entries in May 1864. “May 26 . . . Quite pleasant this afternoon. Played a game of ball with my friends in the 40th Va. Reg.” “May 27. . . . Relieved from guard this morning. Out in the field playing ball with a portion of the 40th Reg.” “May 28. . . . Played ball.” “May 30. . . . Played ball this evening for sport as I had nothing else to do. Bad news from home.” “June 2. . . . Played ball this afternoon. No news in camp of any importance.” “June 11 . . . . Played a game of ball called cat.” Douglass returned the diary to its original owner in 1867. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The diary is also found online: Google web search: “douglass diary morrisville.” Note: Douglass’ unit appears to have stayed near the Stafford/Chancellorsville area in May and June. His diary entries continue through 1863 but have no additional ballplaying references. Accessed online 6/15/09. +

1863.44 +

“Roddie Shaw wrote that baseball fever also swept through his regiment, mentioned ‘while I write the Regt. Is engaged in a game of town-ball one of our greatest sources of amusement.’”J. S. Sheppard, “’By the Noble Daring of Her Sons; The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee,” (PhD Dissertation, Florida State U, 2008), page 200. ’’ Sheppard’s citation: “Roddie Shaw to My Dear Sister, May 17, 1863. FSA, Tallahassee, FL.” Thesis accessed 6/15/09 via Google Scholar search “’noble daring’ Sheppard.” Shaw’s 4th FL unit was evidently at winter quarters near Tullahoma TN then, about 80miles SE of Nashville and 245 miles N of the Alabama border. Shaw was from Quincy, FL, which is about 20 miles NW of Tallahassee and about ten miles S of the Georgia border. +

1863.46 +

“A sergeant from the 62nd N.Y. Volunteers wrote to the New York Clipper sporting weekly on May 30 of 1863 to clarify the rules as he knew them: ‘That in making a home run in a game of baseball the runner is allowed to run 2’ either side of the bases without touching them. I claim that he is obligated to touch each base as he passes it; . . . To play now in N.Y. is to touch the base in all cases; so that the matter is settled, and the rules can now be interpreted correctly.’”Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage Books,2001), page 20. The 62nd NY, recruited from New York City, had fought at Chancellorsville in early May, sustaining its heaviest casualties, and Gettysburg was a month ahead. Note: can we obtain the article? +

1863.48 +

“That June a correspondent to the [New York] Clipper reported a match following the Massachusetts game rules played for $50 a side between Massachusetts’ Eleventh Regiment and the Twenty Sixth of Pennsylvania. He noted: ‘we have four clubs in our brigade, and there are several more in the division.’” George B. Kirsch, Base Ball in Blue Gray (Princeton U Press, 2003), page 39. The 26th had fought in the May 1863 Chancellorsville battle, seems likely to be in Virginia in June, perhaps back at Falmouth. Kirsch does not specify the date of the Clipper article. It seems unusual that a MA – PA game would have been featured in a New York paper. Note: can we locate this article? +

1863.49 +

“During the [Thanksgiving] holiday of 1863, twenty picked men from the brigade [2nd Brigade, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac] and some of the members of the old ‘Honey Run Club’ from the Germantown, Pennsylvania area reportedly played ball.” Patricia Millen, Passion to Pastime: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage Books, 2001), page 24. Millen cites the New York Clipper for November 14th and November 28, 1863. The location of the game is not indicated in the book. See also 1862.84. The Clipper of Nov. 14th indicates that the game would be town ball, played on the 25th at the parade ground of the 2nd brigade, 2nd division, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac, then stationed in VA. +

1863.50 +

“As Confederate soldier Corporal William Harding wrote while stationed in Georgia in 1863, ‘had a fine game of Town ball which gave me good exercise. . .’” Patricia Millen, Passion to Pastime: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage Books, 2001), page 19. Millen cites “Harding, John. Letter. Cooperstown, NY: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. 1863.” Note: can we obtain a facsimile of the letter, and determine Harding’s unit and the GA location of the game? +

1864.2 +

Isaac Clason, of Company B in the 2nd Minnesota Volunteers, made 10 minimal references to ballplaying from January 29 to April 16, 1864. No more appear to the June end of the record. A typical entry was “Had a fine game of ball this afternoon” [March 17]. On January 29: “Spent today playing ball, pitching anvils and everything to amuse myself.” On April 5: “Had a fine game of ball and in the evening went to the Boulten Minstrels performance. Not very good entertainment.” The diary refers to “Ringgold” [and to peach trees in bloom in March] and it would seem that Clason spent his winter in the area of Ringgold Gap, GA, where a September 1863 defeat had stalled the North’s incipient drive toward Atlanta until May 7 1864. Ringgold GA is about 15 miles SE of Chattanooga and about 6 miles south of the Tennessee border. Diary of Isaac W. Clason, accessed online at ancestry.com by Google web search “clason diary.” +

1864.3 +

In a diary extending from January 1864 through January 1865, James Lormor of the 103rd New York Infantry made passing reference to having a “game of ball” on three dates from January 27 to February 6. The least laconic: “Saturday February 6 – Got up at five as usual went to work and fixed our tent The 89 and our boys had a game of ball Weather warm and pleasant” He mentions shelling Charleston and serving as picket at Pawnee Landing – was he on the Carolina coast east of Charleston SC?Civil War Diary of James Cordin Lormor, 103rd New York Infantry, at civilwararchive.com, accessed 6/16/09 via Google web “stormo inlet” search. +

1864.4 +

In his diary for the year 1864, Lieutenant Lemuel Abbott [10th VT] includes six entries on ballplaying. One involved a challenge from the non-commissioned officers to the officers to play for an oyster dinner [January 29], and another in which his Company challenged the regiment to “play a game of ball for $50 [March 19]. One day he reports that “a game of ball came off this afternoon in which the commissioned offers won. Two more games are to be played Monday if a good day. [January 30]” All ballplaying entries appear between January 29 and April 29. Lemuel A. Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary 1864 (Free Press, Burlington, 1908), pages 13, 20, 28, 30, 41. The January entry is mentioned in Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray, page 41. Accessed 6/19/09 on Google Books via “recollections 1864” search. Abbott’s Company B was from Burlington VT. Their camp during early 1864 was near Brandy Station, VA, about 60 miles SW of Washington and about 75 miles NW of Richmond. See also Montpelier Daily Journal, Feb. 15, 1864, and Vermont Watchman, Feb. 19, 1864, for notice of the commissioned/non-commissioned officers game. +

1863.51 +

“[Horse] [r]aces were a favorite amusement of the men in this camp . . . . Foot-races among the men wre frequently indulged in, not for the purpose of developing any retreating qualities. These were always exciting, and usually afforded themes for discussion and conversation for one day at least. Base-ball and foot-ball were favorite amusements among the soldiers, and afforded recreation which was highly appreciated.” Rev. Geo. W. Bicknell, History of the Fifth Regiment Maine Volunteers (Hall L. Davis, Portland, 1871), page 298. Bicknell writes this of the 63/64 winter camp. The camp was at White Oak Church, near Falmouth VA – which is about 3 miles NE of Fredericksburg. +

1864.5 +

A CSA Chaplain wrote: “At leisure hours I frequently engaged with the young men on my regiment in a game of base-ball, for exercise in part, but principally to effect what it was ever my purpose to do, viz., to draw men out from their tents into the light of day, where evil practices are discouraged or corrected.Rev. A. C. Hopkins [Chaplain, 2nd Virginia Infantry], in “Appendix: Letters from Our Army Workers,” J. W. Jones, Christ in the Camp, or Religion in Lee’s Army (B. F. Johnson, Richmond, 1887), page 472. Accessed on Google Books 6/17/09 via “jones ‘in the camp’” search. Hopkins in this passage refers to the regiment’s winter camp “near Pisgah’s Church in Orange County [VA].The area is about 25 miles E of Fredericksburg and 60 miles NE of Richmond. +

1864.6 +

“February 12, 1864. Officers played a game of base ball this afternoon.” +

1864.7 +

“A game between the Eighth and the 114th Vermont Regiments near Franklin, Louisiana, in February 1864 was won by the former, 21 to 9.”Bell Irvin Wiley, The Common Soldier in the Civil War (Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1952) Book One, page 170. Wiley’s footnotes are clustered, and it difficult to determine source which is which. . The “diary of James F. Williams, Feb. 6, 1864” seems a possibility. The 114th New York was in camp near Franklin in early 1864, and seems the likely opponent of the Eighth VT. [There is no record of a 114th VT regiment.] The Eighth’s Regimental history does not mention any ballplaying, or a 114th regiment. The Eighth was recruited from northern VT. +

1863.52 +

“[T]he Thirty-Seventh provided liberal physical recreation. Nearly every pleasant day in the intervals between drills a game of base-ball or ‘wicket’ formed a center of attention for the unemployed members of the brigade; these games were becoming largely inter-regimental, a variety of ‘teams’ were organized throughout the brigade, some of which became very proficient. If a fall of snow prevented the regular pastime, it only furnished the opportunity for another, and many a battle of snow-balls was conducted. . . . ” James L. Bowen, History of the Thirty-Seventh Regiment, Mass. Volunteers (Bryan and Co., Holyoke), 1884), page 260. In winter 1863/1864 the regiment, and evidently its brigade, was at “Camp Sedgwick” on the Rapidan River in VA. The regiment was in a camp at Warren Station VA [near Petersburg], the 37th history [page 406] paints this early spring 1865 tableau: “As the warming weather of early succeeded the interminable storms of the severe winter, and the hoarse voice of the frog began to resound from the surrounding marshes, games of quoits and ball became possible on the color line and mingled with the good news of the collapsing of the rebellion in other directions.” +

1864.8 +

“March 1 . . . I played wicket ball, pitched quarters and stayed with Smith.” “March 2 . . . Helped get dinner, drilled, played ball, got some water to drink . . .”Alonzo Miller, “Diary of Alonzo Miller, March 1864,” in Alonzo Miller, Diaries and Letters, 1864-1865 (Alexander Street Press, 1958), page 122. Provided by Jeff Kittel, May 12 2009. Miller was with the 12th WI, which participated in Sherman’s Atlanta campaign in 1864. It might be inferred that Miller was from Prescott WI, which is on the Minnesota border and about 20 miles S or St. Paul. Available online via subscription June 2009. Note: can we confirm that Miller’s letters and diaries have no other ballplaying references? +

1864.9 +

[March 3] “Went on shore at 10 ½ o’clock this morning and played base ball for about 3 hours. At 3 p.m. practiced with revolver.” [March 10] “Went out in the afternoon and exercised my men in company drill. Played a game of ball.” J. Jones and E. Keuchel, eds., Civil War Marine: a Diary of the Red River Expedition, 1864 (US Marine Corps, 1975) page 34-35. Provided by Jeff Kittel, May 12, 2009. Church was a member of the small [3800 troops] Marine Corps sent from Cairo IL to support the Red River campaign, intended to liberate TX, AR, and LA [it didn’t]. The base ball entries preceded the March 13 start of fighting. Church’s diary covers three spring months of 1864. +

1864.10 +

“Monday, March 7, 1864. Warm again as usual to day. Great and exciting game of Ball in which Chaplain Rowlings figures conspiculously.”“Civil War Diary of Charles Lepley, 103rd Pennsylvania Infantry,” online at <a href="http://www.civilwararchive.com/">www.civilwararchive.com</a> as accessed 6/19/09 via “charles lepley” Google Web search. Lepley’s diary covers the first nine months of 1864. His camp was at Plymouth NC, near the Carolina coast and about 110 miles east of Raleigh. Lepley was captured in April and died of dysentery at Andersonville Prison in September. +

1864.11 +

March 28, 1864: “Supply train went to the station but did not get any soft bread. The 2nd Regt boys and a Massachusetts Battery had a game of base ball today. The 2nd Regt boys were the winners.” April 8, 1864: “Went to corps headquarters to see a base ball match between the 2nd Regt and the 77th New York. The New Yorkers did not appear.”Diary of Stephen Gordon, provided by Michael Albrecht May 15, 2009. The 2nd NJ, 77th NY, and 1st MA artillery were in the 6th corps of the Army of the Potomac, which was at Brandy Station VA in spring of 1864.The cancelled April 8th 1864 game was also noted in the New York Clipper of April 30, 1864. As noted in Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion (Heritage, 2001), page 22, Clipper correspondent W. B. Wilson complained that there was “great disappointment” among the gathered crowd when the match didn’t come off. +

1864.12 +

“7th [April, 1864]. Fine weather. Drilled. Great base ball game between ours and the 143rd Regiment.” Diary of John Bodler, 149th Pennsylvania, provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The 149th regiment’s history also records this game. “The first days of spring [1864] weather greeted the legions of the vast army gathered around Culpeper that March and the men found a new activity to enjoy: baseball. Letters and diaries recorded the great fun the game brought in camp. Men gathered after the evening meal to lay the game for pleasure but soon there were games of competition between companies. Samuel Foust admitted losing a $20 bet when the team of the 149th lost to the 143rd regiment [page 125].” The history also refers to baseball games when the regiment was in Washington [September 1862?; page 27] and in June 1863 [page 68]. Richard E. Matthews, The 149th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War (McFarland,1994). Accessed in limited preview format 6/19/90 via Google Books “149th pennsylvania” search. +

1864.13 +

“[Illeg. Date ] April 1864. Base ball match between the 9th NYSM and 14th Regt. Score 9th Regt [illeg.] and 14th Regt 59 runs. . . .” [Illeg. Date] April 1864. Return match between 9th NTSM and 14th Regiment score 9th Regt [illeg.] and 14th Regt 33 runs” Diary of Henry C. Sabine of the 14th NY Infantry, provided by Michael Aubrecht May 15, 1864. Sabine was near Culpeper VA on these dates. The Clipper ran box scores of these games, fixing the dates as April 20 and 25, 1864, and noting them as the regiments’ first matches of the season. The scores were Ninth 36, Fourteenth 29 in the first match, and Fourteenth 38, Ninth 33 in the second match. Facsimile supplied by Gregory Christiano, June 15 2009. “Ball Play in the Army,” New York Clipper, May 7, 1864. +

1864.14 +

“Soldier baseball must have been vigorous. One Yank noted after a contest in Tennessee, “We get lamed badly.” Bell Irvin Wiley, The Common Soldier in the Civil War (Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1952), page 170. Wiley’s footnotes are clustered, and hard to match to textual claims. His most likely source is “Edward L. Edes for his father, April 3, 1864.” Note: can we verify and enrich this account? Richard Welch’s The Boy General (Fairleigh Dickinson U, 2003), page 76) identifies an Edward L. Edes as a soldier in the 33rd Massachusetts.. In April 1864 the 33rd, apparently raised in Springfield, MA was on the outskirts of Chattanooga awaiting the start of the Atlanta campaign. +

1864.15 +

“Rappahannock Station, Va., April 18th 1864. Dear Wife, . . . . there is a move on the foot or I am no judge of Soldiering. Our Dr. seems to think we shall stay here this summer. It is nothing but play ball when we are in camp lately and I must stop for my arm is lame throwing. I thought I would write today for the Picket goes out tomorrow and it is my turn to go.” Letter from Eugene B. Kelleran, 20th Maine; provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15, 2009. The 20th was spared in the upcoming battle of Chancellorsville in May 1864 when it was quarantined for suspected smallpox. +

1864.17 +

“The boys are killing time in camp by playing ball, which is such good exercise that it will fit them for the fatiguing marches to be taken this summer. The Soldiers here are undoubtedly, at this time more lighthearted and like schoolboys than I ever saw them. Maj. Lash and Col. Badger often play ball with the men.” Letters from Washington Ives, 4th FL regiment, April 14, April 17, May 3, and May 7 1864, as noted in J. Sheppard, “’By the Noble Daring of Her Sons’: The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee,” (FSU Dissertation, 2008), pages 291-292. Some of these letters, and evidently another written by Archie Livingston on April 24, further describe a series of games involving the 1st FL, the 3rd FL, the 4th FL, the 6th FL, and the 7th FL regiments in this period. The Sheppard thesis was accessed 6/20/09 on Google Scholar via “’noble daring’ Sheppard” search. The regiments were camped at Dalton GA, about 30 miles SW of Chattanooga defending the route to Atlanta. +

1864.18 +

“We are enjoying our share of April showers . . . the soldiers prayer is that it may continue to rain until the 5th of June. When it is pleasant the boys are at their games of ball. Yesterday we had a game in our Regt 9 innings to a side. One side got 34 tallies the other 28. There was some fine playing. [4/15/1864].” Letter from Corporal Henry Blanchard, 2nd Rhode Island, as cited in an auction lot accessed online June 20, 2009, by a Google Web search for “’lot 281 civil war’ RI”. Blanchard was at Camp Sedgwick near Petersburg VA in April. He was killed three weeks later in the Battle of the Wilderness. One can infer that Blanchard was new to a nine-inning game, presumably the New York game, and he uses the term “tallies” usually seen in the New England game. +

1864.19 +

“Captain James Hall of the 24th Alabama Regiment observed his men playing [. . . ] ‘just like school boys’ while waiting for the advance of Union General Sherman.” Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion (Heritage, 2001), page 19. She cites B. I. Wiley, The Common Soldier in the Civil War (Grosset and Dunlap, 1960), page 170. L. J. Daniel, in Soldiering in the Army of the Tennessee (UNC Press, 1991), page 90, seems to identify this quote as taken from a letter from James Hall to his brother, April 19, 1864. +

1863.53 +

“A game between the ‘first 9’ of the 1st New Jersey and the 10th Massachusetts was also recorded in the New York Clipper as being played near Brandy Station [VA] on May 14, 1863 – the 1st New Jersey losing 15 to 13.” Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage Books,2001), page 26. Note: can we obtain the article? +

1864.20 +

“Orders to be in readiness to move were received every day . . . . From their very frequency the regiment soon came to regard these orders with serenity, and in the first days of June abandoned itself in unclaimed hours, to the pleasant pastime of cricket – a game very dear to Philadelphians– for which a complete outfit had been ordered some time before.” Lt.Col. Thomas Chamberlin, History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers (F. McManus, Philadelphia, 1905), page 106. Accessed 6/20/09 on Google Books via “bucktail brigade” search. The regiment was camped at White Oak Church, near Falmouth VA. The regiment has several companies from Philadelphia. +

1864.21 +

“When the Fourteenth Regiment returned to Brooklyn in June 1864 a comrade in arms from the Thirteenth Regiment wrote to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle: ‘Among the returned heroes of our gallant Fourteenth are some well known ball players who, while devoted to the use of more deadly weapons, have not forgotten the use of bat and ball, as the many games played by them during their three years service will prove.’ He proposed an ‘amalgamated match’ between the two regiments to inaugurate a new ball ground in Coney Island.”Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion (Heritage, 2001), pages 37-38. Millen does not indicate the date of the Eagle article, which is likely her main source for this passage. Note: can we locate the article, and discover whether the game was played? +

1864.22 +

“Vegetable and market wagons were allowed to visit them every morning; a pint of rice, a slice of bacon, and usually a small loaf of bread, with some salt, were allowed them as a daily ration; and a plot of ground where they could play ball and exercise themselves was set apart for their use.” H. E. Tremain, Two Days of War (Bonnell, Silver and Bowers, New York, 1905), page 218. Accessed 6/20/09 on Google Books via “two days of war” search. Tremain is apparently here describing the improved conditions that ensued after the Union troops threatened to treat rebel prisoners cruelly if inhumane treatment of Union prisoners continued. The location was Charleston SC, which was under bombardment in August 1864. +

1864.23 +

Perhaps the best documented instance of ballplaying in the Civil War occurred near Sandusky Ohio, site of the Johnson’s Island prison for southern officers. Beginning in about July 1864, apparently, matches were common. Accounts from 6 diaries give accounts of regular play. According to one diarist, the officers also had a cricket club and a chess club. In-depth coverage of base ball at Johnson’s Island is found in John R. Husman, “Ohio’s First Baseball Game: Played by Confederates and Taught to Yankees,” Base Ball, Volume 2, Issue 1 (Spring 2008), pp 58-65. Husman reports that while prior interclub play in OH is known, the prison saw the first match game. He also points out that at least some players knew the New York game from pre-war play in New Orleans. See also W. A. Nash, "Camp, Field and Prison Life" p. 234, 168. See also Benjamin Cooling, "Forts Henry and Donelson" p. 257, stating the POWs played town ball, which cites the prison journal of Captain John Henry Guy at the VA Historical Society; Curran, "John Dooley's Civil War..." p. 295, which has a diary entry on an Aug. 29, 1864 game. See also John Snead Lambdin's "Recollections of my prison Life," in the Magnolia (MS) Gazette Oct. 22, 1880. See also Diary of Lt. William Peel, 11th Mississippi, MS Dept of Archives and History, entries for July 29 and Aug. 28, 1864; D. R. Hundley diary, publsihed in 1874. +

1864.24 +

“Tuesday [September] 27 [1864] pleasant weather, I was detailed for Camp guard the A.M. we had a game of ball this afternoon, I stood two tricks of guard only.” Civil War Diary of Samuel Whitehead, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center MS collection, Ac #4248. Accessed 6/21 on Google Web search with “’samuel whitehead’ diary” search. The diary covers about May through November 1864. In September the 100th OH was at Decatur, GA, about 5 miles east of Atlanta. He was mortally wounded in November. +

1864.25 +

“The prison guard, Captain Hogendoble, struck by a foul ball from a prisoners’ baseball game, approached the batter, drew his pistol, and threatened to ‘blow their d-----d brains out.’” Benton McAdams, “Greybeards in Blue,” Civil War Times, February 1998. Accessed 6/21/09 via Google Web search: “’greybeards in blue’ hogendoble.” The article tells the story of the 37th Iowa, comprising many older men, who were assigned in May 1864 to the military prison in Alton, Illinois. The source for this recollection is not provided. +

1864.26 +

“[A] new person being put in command of the inside [of the Texas prison] about the 1st of October [1864], made suggestions which the commandant allowed him to carry out, and relieved us ever afterward. He gave us a fine ball ground which was well occupied and proved a blessing.” Major J. M. McCulloch, 77th Illinois, as quoted in Washington Davis, Camp-Fire Chats of the Civil War (Lewis Publishing, Chicago, 1888), page 70. Accessed on Google Books 6/21/09 via “’camp-fire chats’ davis” search. McCulloch does not elaborate on the nature of games played. He had been captured with troops from Ohio and Kentucky as well as Illinois. The prison was at Camp Ford near Tyler TX, about 100 miles E of Dallas. An escapee from Camp Ford arrived in Milwaukee in November and told the Sentinel about his adventure. “We used to pass time playing checkers, cards, and dominoes. We were let out by twenties on parole to play ball, but so many ran away that the privilege was taken from us.” “Prison Life in Texas – Narrative of an Escaped Prisoner, Milwaukee Sentinel, November 11, 1864.” Accessed 5/21/09 via Genealogybank subscription. +

1864.27 +

“During some portions of the winter of 1864-’65, in fine weather, the officers and men of the Eleventh often indulged in a friendly game of ball together. As they were playing one day, some general officers passed them on horseback, and one of them was overheard to remark, ‘That’s a good regiment, for the men and officers play ball together.’ Whoever that officer was, he never uttered truer words.” Leander W. Cogswell, A History of the Eleventh New Hampshire Regiment (Republican Press Assn, Concord NH, 18911), pages 396-397. From June 1864 to early April 1865, the 11th NH was part of the siege of Petersburg VA. The regiment formed in Concord NH. +

1865.2 +

“Washington March 29 65. . . . Put up fence round our Q’rs played wicket ball Evening bought cigars and smoked.” “Monday Apr. 3rd Lost and found my Pocket Book Played Wicket Traded watches.” “Tuesday Apr. 4th Played ball.” Milo Deering Dailey, Civil War Diary of 1865. Accessed 6/22/09 by Google Web search: “’milo deering dailey.’” The diary covers February through-June 1865. Dailey was with the 112th Illinois, which was organized in Peoria IL. The regiment was in North Carolina in early April, closing on Raleigh from the east. Washington NC is about 95 miles E of Raleigh. +

1865.3 +

“My dear wife, We were drawn up in line this afternoon and informed we would be discharged and sent to our Regiments in ten days. We had a gay old time playing ball. . . . You must send me five dollars without fail. I am almost distracted by the want of tobacco.” Letter home from Wheeling, West Virginia, by John R. Irving, May 4, 1865. Irving, in a Massachusetts Cavalry unit, was assigned to General Custer’s Division. Note: it is possible that the ellipsis in this rendering omits a bit more detail about the ballplaying. Accessed 6/22/09 by Google Web search “’john r irving’ ‘auction contents.’” The letter is descried under auction #2.1. +

1865.4 +

[Thursday May 4, 1865] “Not much to do in camp. Most of us playing ball.” Civil War Diary of Dr. William McKibbin, covering February to August 1865. Accessed via Genealogybank subscription 5/19/09. McKibbin wrote this entry in Carlisle PA. He mustered out of the service on the next day, and three days later “Ella and I married at 7:00 in the evening.” +

1865.5 +

“Wednesday [May] 17 [1865]: Laid in camp. Boys playing ball. Weather fine and warm with breeze. David reported captured.” Civil War Diary of William Johnston Dean, August 1862 – September 1865. This entry was written near Selma. Alabama. Diary accessed via Google Web search “’william johnston dean’ diary.” Dean was with the 9th Minnesota. +

1865.6 +

“Mr Reporter: The game of ball spoke of in the Gazette on June 5th, as between the Model School B. B. Club and the Veteran Corps, is a mistake. The players belonged to the Old Detachment N. J. Vols., and are men detached from different New Jersey Regiments in the field, and have been doing duty at Camp Perrine. The name taken for the organization is the Old Detachment Base Ball Club. W. H. Dodd, Sec’y.” Trenton State Gazette, June 7, 1865. Accessed via Genealogybank, 5/20/09. Camp Perrine was in Trenton. +

1865.7 +

“This afternoon I played ‘base ball’ for four hours a 1st baseman in a match game between the Officers of the 12th V.R.C. and the Officers of the 24th the game – after seven innings – standing in favor of the former club, the score being 53 to 23” Letter, October 2, 1865, from York Amos Woodward, 24th Veteran Reserves. A series of Woodward’s letters, written in October and November 1865, contain 9 references to base ball, including a report of a game between the National club of Washington and the Excelsior of Brooklyn [October 9]. Woodward appears to have been in Washington at the time. From an auction offering accessed via Google Web search on 5/19/09. +

1863.59 +

The regimental history of the First Rhode Island Artillery, covering 1861-1865, contains 13 references to ball-playing between August 1863 and January 1864. It also shows several other more general references to playing games, some of them pitting different regiments, starting in August 1861. A General Hayes is mentioned as watching several games, sometimes along with his wife. The most detailed of the ballplaying entries occurred on January 25, 1864, in winter camp near Brandy Station VA: :On the 25th we had a fine game of ball in honor of General Hays, who had sent to Washington for balls and bats to enable us to play to good advantage. When the general and his wife came galloping into camp, with a number of officers and ladies, our captain went out to greet them and said: ‘Ah! general, I suppose you would like to see the battery on drill.’ The general quickly replied: ‘No; I want to see them play ball, which they can do better than any men I ever saw.’” Few other entries are more than minimal references. A typical example is for August 21, 1863: “The 21st was another fine day. The men continued to engage in different sports, and there were ball games, jumping, putting the shot, and other amusements.” Thomas M. Aldrich, The History of Battery A: First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery (Snow and Farnham, Providence, 1904), pages 272-273. Accessed 6/28/09 on Google Books via “’history of battery a’ aldrich” search. In August 1863 the regiment was back in Virginia from the Battle of Gettysburg, and in January it was in winter camp near Brandy Station. The Hays passage appears without citation in Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray, page 41. Millen reports that Aldrich and a member of the 13th MA “believed or were thought to have believed, based on their track record of wins in the army, that their teams could have beaten any of the professional teams of the 1890. She does not give an original source for this, but cites L. Fielding, “Sport: The Meter Stick of the Civil War Soldier,” Canadian Journal of History of Sport, May 1978, pp 17-18.

1864.30 +

“One after another, the men rapidly died off. On the 26th of September, some of the prisoners obtained permission to play ball. One of them, in chasing the ball, ventured within a few feet of the camp lines, when he was short by the guards, and nearly killed.” “The Death of Lieut. Matthew Hayes, New York Times, January 1864. Accessed 5/21/09 via genealogy subscription. The story depicts health conditions in Camp Groce, near Houston TX. +

1863.60 +

“Saturday, November 21, 1863. Fine and cool. The Base Ball match comes off and the 91st gets beat by two runs and the[y] come home jolly.” From a telephone auction offering that has this description: “Fascinating personal journal was carried on the person of 91st New York Volunteer Infantry Private Edwin Keay during the Union Army campaign of 1863 through the bayous and battlefields of Louisiana. . . Diary is perhaps most valuable, however, for its several mentions of the game of baseball, which are all but impossible to find in journals from the war . . . . ‘Thursday, December 3 . . . The new bats and balls have come up and the match takes place this afternoon . . . the 91st gets beat.’” Accessed at the Giamatti Center of the Baseball Hall of Fame [Civil War file] on June 26, 2009. The auction clip is not dated. The 91st was organized in Albany. It was garrisoned at New Orleans for much of 1863 and early 1864. Note: does the December entry imply that the Union Army supplied bats and balls to the troops? Note: It appears that other baseball-related entries are in the diary. Can we find it? A copy of a Keay diray, possibly a later one, is reportedly held as item MDMS-5433 in the Maryland Manuscript Collection [Keay spent some of 1865 stationed in Baltimore]. +

1864.31 +

“657a Scarce Civil War era inscribed Massachusetts style trophy baseball . . . . Black leather 9” diameter four piece lemon peel style baseball with a period inscription on two side panels, ‘22nd MASS REGIMENT UNION Feb 2, 1864 U.S.A.’ The 22ndMass. Regiment fought in many of the War’s most important battles, including Chancellorsville, Gainsville [sic] and Gettysburg. . . .” The baseball may also be considered as a ‘true’ example of a ball created specifically under the rules of the ‘Massachusettsgame.’ In February 1864 it was camped at Beverly Ford VA, evidently near Brandy Station. From an undated and unidentified auction catalog page accessed 6/26/09 at the Giamatti Center of the Baseball Hall of Fame [Civil War file]. The 22nd MA formed north of Boston. Note: are we sure that the lemon peel style was closely associated with the MA game? +

1864.33 +

“I remember helping to organize for our own regiment as baseball nine which won the championship of the read-guard, defeating some active nines from Connecticut and Massachusetts. For our regimental team I served as pitcher and I believe as captain. “The baseball contests were, however, brought suddenly to a close through an unfortunate misunderstanding with the Rebels, upon whose considerateness in this matter of sports we had, it appeared, placed too much confidence. We found no really satisfactory ground for baseball within the lines of our fortifications and, after experimenting with a field just outside our earthworks, we concluded that risk of using a better field which was just outside the line of the pickets. It was, of course, entirely contrary not only to ordinary regulations but to special orders prohibiting any men from going through the picket lines. It was particularly absurd for men without arms to run any such risk. I do not now understand how the officers of the 176th, including the major commanding, could have permitted themselves to incur such a breach of discipline, but the thing was done and trouble resulted therefrom. “We were winning a really beautiful game from the 13th Connecticut, a game in which our own pickets, who were the only spectators, found themselves much interested. Suddenly there came a scattering fire of which the three outfielders caught the brunt: the centre field was hit and was captured, the left and right field managed to get into our lines. Our pickets fell forward with all possible promptness as the players fell back. The Rebel attack, which was made with merely a skirmish line, was repelled without serious difficulty, but we had lost not only our centre field but our baseball and it was the only baseball in Alexandria. G. H. Putnam, Memories of My Youth 1844-1865 (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1914), pp 48-49. Accessed 6/28/09 on Google Books via “’my youth’ putnam” search. The 176th was part of the Red River Campaign, and Alexandria LA is in mid-Louisiana, about equidistant from Baton Rouge and Shreveport. The 176th, raised in New York City, was at Alexandria LA from mid-April to mid-May of 1864. The 13th CT, organized in Hartford, was there April 30 to May 10. Kirsch and Millen both carry the meat of this colorful passage. Millen identifies Putnam with the 114th NY.

1864.34 +

“[The 10th and?] the 2nd RI are to have a grand match of Base Ball to day. a few days ago they played a game of Wicket with the 37th and our boys beat them handsomely . . . .[Source letter not available on Google Books.] “Our Regiment played another match game of Base Ball with the 2nd RI to day and beat them as usual. They played a second game of Wicket with the 37th last Saturday and beat them again worse than the first time. “I was out with the Officers of our Regt and the 7th this morning playing Wicket when I got hit in the eye with the ball which has blacked it most beautifully. My eye is ornamented with a black spot as big as a silver dollar, if you can remember the size of one of those, I had almost forgotten it.” The last two passages are from an April 26, 1864 letter home. Charles Harvey Brewster, When This Cruel War is Over: the Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster (UMass Press, 1992), pages 284 and 288. Accessed 7/709 on Google Books [in limited preview], via “brewster ‘when this cruel’” search. From the apparent context, this passage appears in a chapter covering March to June 1864, when the 10th MA was near Brandy Station VA. The regiment was from Springfield in western Massachusetts, and the 37th MA formed in Pittsfield MA. +

1862.50 +

“And the game might become so rough as to necessitate precautionary steps. ‘Frank Ezell was ruled out,’ wrote a Texas Ranger in his diary, because ‘he could throw harder and straighter than any man in the company. He came very neat knocking the stuffing out of three or four of the boys, and the boys swore they would not play with him.’” Bell Irvin Wiley, The Common Soldier in the Civil War (Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1952), Book Two, The Life of Johnny Reb, page 159. Wiley’s end-note is, evidently, “diary of D[esmond]. P[ulaski]. Hopkins, entry of March 15, 1862, typescript, University of Texas.” Neither Hopkins’ unit nor its March 1862 location is noted. +

1862.51 +

Over five years after the fact, the Ball Players’ Chronicle evidently dug up an old CW letter and published it: “Camp Crooke, July 20th 1862. We had a good afternoon’s sport here yesterday. The selected nine of the 4th N. Y. V. came to our camp, confident of victory, to play us a game of base ball. . . . They played a very strong game and had a tip-top pitcher and catcher, but they were outbatted , our boys doing some tall things in that line. Lieut. Fuller treated them handsomely, and they departed in good spirits, though feeling a little sore at their defeat, having hitherto beaten every other nine they have played against.” A box score of the regulation 16-11 game was included. The article also reports on an earlier match between the 13th’s right wing and left wing, and a shorter impromptu contest between the staff officers and line officers of the 13th, “the latter [game] was a rich match, full of all the attractive features of muffinism.” “Base Ball Reminiscences,” The Ball Players’ Chronicle, November 28, 1867. From the Giamatti Research Center at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Civil War folder, accessed June 2009. The 13th was evidently a three-month regiment that mustered out in September 1862. The 4th was from New York City. +

1862c.1 +

“There was, also, no lack of athletic sports, such as jumping, pitching quoits, wrestling, etc., with now and then, in the regiments favorably stationed in forts or on garrison duty, a game of base ball, although this game was not then, as now [1897], the craze of the day.” Asa. W. Bartlett, History of the Twelfth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers (Ira C. Evans, Concord NH, 1897), page 356. Accessed 7/8/09 on Google Books via “bartlett ‘twelfth regiment’” search. This passage is a generic account of camp life, and seems to have no time period associated with it; in fact, it is not entirely clear from this account that the 12th NH itself played the game. The 12th saw major battles including Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and ended the war in the trenches around Richmond. +

1862c.2 +

“The New Orleans boys also carried base balls in their knapsacks. A few of them found themselves in a Federal prison stockade on the Mississippi. The formed a club. Confederate prisoners from Georgia and South Carolina watched them, got the hang of it and organized for rivalry. In the East and West Series that followed the West won triumphantly by unrecorded scores.” Will Irwin, Collier’s Weekly, May 8, 1909, as attributed in A. G. Spalding, America’s National Game (American Sports Publishing, 1911), pp. 96-97. Kirsch also cites the Irwin source. Note: can we deduce what prison is described, and obtain an original source? Were the New Orleans soldiers prisoners [and the “West” team?] or prison guards? Are there clues [or other stories] to be found in the original Collier’s piece? +

1862c.3 +

“[A] wheelbarrow race and a contest to catch two greased pigs rounded out the Christmas Day festivities for a soldier from Maryland, after he witnessed the officers of his company play three innings of baseball.” Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage, 2001), page 23. Millen’s citation: John Cumming, Runners and Walkers: A Nineteenth Century Sports Chronicle (Regnary Gateway, Chicago, 1981), page 65. Full text of this book is unavailable online July 2009: a snippet view on Google Books via “’runners and walkers’ 1981” search does not include a reference to the officers’ game, nor indicate a time or year for a Christmas celebration. +

1863.61 +

A large drawing reposing in the Civil War file at the Giamatti Research Center at the Baseball Hall of Fame shows nine men in uniform playing a game conspicuously located on a diamond-shaped infield. The Caption: Camp of Battery B, 1st NJ Artil. Near Brandy Station Va.” The drawing, noted as “never-before published,” is reproduced opposite page 25 in Patricia Millan, From Pastime to Passion (Heritage, 2001). The ballplaying depiction is on the primitive side, and reveals little about the game played. There appear to be two balls in play, and one may be served to the batsman in a gentle toss from a soldier standing next to the batsman. The 1st NJ Artillery formed at Hoboken NJ in 1861. It fought mostly in Virginia, and its winter camp for ’63-’64 was near Brandy Station. +

1862.52 +

“On Roanoke Island Hawkins' Zouaves formed two scrub teams. A young volunteer pitcher won for his side by a weak, puzzling delivery which baffled the batsmen. It was Alphonse Martin, first in line of great American pitchers.” A. G. Spalding, America’s National Game (American Sports Publishing, 1911), page 97. Available online via Google Books. Roanoke Island is on the North Carolina Coast near Kitty Hawk NC, and about 80 miles SE of Norfolk VA.. Hawkin’s Zouaves were the 9th NY Regiment, which was organized in New York City and was at Roanoke Island in the early part of 1862. Alphonse “Phonney” Martin was then not yet 17. Known for throwing tricky pitches, “Old Slow Ball” Martin pitched for Troy, Brooklyn, and the New York Mutuals in 1872 and 1873. Spalding gives no source for this note, which may well have been received via personal communication. The New York Sunday Mercury, April 20, 1862 mentions a match on Roanoke by Company F of this regiment. Another match is reported in same, June 8, 1862.[ba] +

1863.34 +

Spring 1863: “The boredom became unbearable as the winter wore on. Mud was everywhere, limiting outside activities . . . . By the end of February, they walker a mile for wood, and the distance increased each day. During the long days the men also played chess, checkers, cards, and, when weather permitted, baseball and other athletic pursuits.” Spring 1864: “The men played baseball and football as the weather moderated. ‘The exercise will do more toward restoring health in the regiment than all the blue pills in the medical department,’ noted Lucien Voorhees. Some men secured boxing gloves, and daily fights were all the rage. Bradley M. Gottfried, Kearney’s Own: The History of the First New Jersey Brigade During the Civil War (Rutgers U Press, 2005), pages 100 and 157. Gottfried does not document these observations, other than briefly noting [p. 107] the 1863 game between the 2nd and the 26th Regiments noted in file [[CW-66]]. In 1863 the Brigade wintered at White Oak Church near Falmouth VA. Accessed 6/14/09 on Google Books via “’kearny’s own’” search; available in limited preview format. +

1864.16 +

“We went back to our camp and stayed there all winter and until late April 1864. Only doing picket duty on the banks of the [Rapidan] River and playing base ball. During the winter, we fought a snow-ball battle with the Brigade of North Carolina and Virginia.”Memoirs of W. P. Snakenberg, Wilson, North Carolina, Private, “Louisiana Tigers.” Provided by Michael Aubrecht May 15, 2006. Snakenberg was from Louisiana, and had been a member of the Hope Base Ball and LaQuarte Club, which played weekly in Gretna [across the river from New Orleans]. +

1864.32 +

From an auction listing: “Includes Civil Diary of H. E. Randell of Co. L, 3rd Regiment of the New York Cavalry . . . . The multi-page hand-written diary gives a highly literate soldier’s accounts of life in the field during the Civil War. Randell’s entry for February 2, 1864 reads, in part, ‘Played Base Ball nearly all day and experienced a ‘chapter’ of accidents. Got a severe blow with ball to the face, and a finger almost broken . . . for it is a healthful sport and quite exciting.’ Randell’s reference to being struck by the ball also corroborates the contention that the game, played between New York and Massachusetts regiments, was played under Massachusetts rules.” From an undated and unidentified auction catalog page accessed 6/26/09 at the Giamatti Center of the Baseball Hall of Fame [Civil War file]. The 3rd NY Cavalry formed in the Rochester/Syracuse region of upstate NY, where the old-fashioned game of ball[believed to be like the Massachusetts game] had been played before the War. The 3rd Regiment appears to have been in North Carolina in February 1864. Note: the diary is listed in the same lot as the trophy ball noted in file CW-140, and the cited diary entry [2/2/64] is the same as is written on that ball. The two items may be related, but the distance between the two regiments needs to be addressed. +

B

BC700c.1 +

"He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die . . . " Isaiah 22:18.The word "ball" appears only twice in the Bible, and the other one refers to the ball of the foot of a beast (Leviticus 11:27). The Isaiah usage was the inspiration for a January 1905 news article headed, "Isaiah's prophesies were written [in Hebrew] late in the eighth century BC. +

1

1470c.1 +

"In al this world nis a murier lyf/Thanne is a yong man wythouten a wyf,/For he may lyven wythouten strif/In every place wher-so he go. "In every place he is loved over alle/Among maydens grete and smale-/In daunsyng, in pipyngs, and rennyng at the balle,/In every place wher-so he go. "They leten lighte by housebonde-men/Whan they at the balle renne;/They casten ther love to yonge men/In every place wher-so they go. "Then seyn maydens, "Farewel, Jakke,/Thy love is pressed al in thy pak;/Thou berest thy love bihynde thy back,/In every place wher-so thou go." Robert Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English Lyrics (U of Illinois Press, 1994), page 141. Posted to 19CBB on 11/14/2008 by Richard Hershberger. Richard reports that Stevick dates this poem—#81 of the 100 collected in this volume—to c. 1470. He interprets the lyric's 'running at the ball' as 'stool ball, probably,' but stow ball [resembling field hockey] seems apter. Richard also points out that "for the sake of precision, it should be noted that this volume is intended for student use and normalizes the spellings." +

1189.1 +

There is "an unconfirmed report which was published in the beginning of the Century quoting one Joseph Iscanus, of Exeter, as having referred to stoolball in 1189, but no satisfactory evidence that this quotation was genuine." National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," page 2. This mimeo, available in NSA files, has no date or author, but has one internal reference to an 1989 source, so it must be fairly recent. It contains no hint on the source of the 1189 claim or how it has been assessed. Note: Is it now possible to further pursue this claim using online resources? The 1189 claim appears nowhere else in available writings about stoolball. However, some cite a Joseph Iscanus couplet: "The youth at cricks did play/Throughout the livelong [or "merry"] day/" as an indicator of early cricket. However, the online source of this rhyme does not give a source. Very murky, no? [The rhyme is quoted as early as the 1860 edition of The Cricketer’s Manual, and ten years earlier in Bell’s Life in a letter from “Alexis” on the subject “When Was Cricket Invented?” ] Query: what do leading cricket historians say of this alleged reference? +

1255.1 +

A thirteenth century Spanish drawing appears to depict a female figure swinging at a ball with a bat. The book Spain: A History in Art by Bradley Smith (Doubleday, 1971) includes a plate that appears to show "several representations of baseball figures and some narrative." The work is dated to 1255, the period of King Alfonso. +

1500s.2 +

According to a manuscript written in the 1600s, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and his "Trayne" "came to Wotton, and thence to Michaelwood Lodge . . . and thence went to Wotton Hill, where hee paid a match at stobball." Internal evidence places ths event in the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, which would be 1547-48. Elizabeth I named her close associate [once rumored to be her choice as husband] Dudley to became Earl of Leicester in the 1564, and he died in 1588. +

1300s.1 +

Trevithick, Alan, "Trapball," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 421. +

1478.1 +

While others see cricket as taking its name from the term for a staff, or stick, "[T]he famous New English Dictionary favors a word used as a [game's] target: criquet. Du Cange quotes this word in a manuscript of 1478: 'The suppliant came to a place where a game of ball (jeu de boule) was played, near to a stick (attaché) or criquet,' and defines criquet as 'a stick which serves as a target in a ball game.'" Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae ET Infimae Latinatis [Paris, 1846], Vol. 4: Mellat, Vol. 5 Pelotas. Per Henderson ref 48. +

1477.1 +

A Westminster statute, made to curb gambling by rowdy soldiers upon their return from battle, reportedly imposed sanctions for "playing at cloish, ragle, half-bowls, handyn and handoute, quekeborde, and if any person permits even others to play at such games in his house or yard, he is to be imprisoned for three years; as also he who plays at such game, to forfeit ten pounds to the king, and be imprisoned for two years." Observations Upon the Statutes, Chiefly the More Ancient, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-first [Year] of James the First, etc. (Daines Barrington, London, 1766), page 335. The author adds: "This is, perhaps, the most severe law which has ever been made in any country against gaming, and some of the forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly the handing and handoute, which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the term hands is still retained in that game [for what would later be known as innings]. An1864 writer expands further: "Half-bowls was played with pins and one-half of a sphere of wood, upon the floor of a room. It is said to be still played in Hertfordshire under the name of rolly-polly. Hand-in and hand-out was a ring-game, played by boys and girls, like kissing-ring [footnote 31]." John Harland, A Volume of Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), p 34. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google Books search ("court leet" half-bowls). "Roly-poly" and hand-in/hand-out are sometimes later described as having running/plugging features preserved in cat games and early forms of base ball. Thus, these prohibitions may or may not include games resembling baseball. Query: Can residents of Britain help us understand this ancient text? +

1478.2 +

An Act of Parliament forbade unlawful games as conducive to disorder and as discouraging the practice of archery. The games that were forbidden, under penalty of two years' imprisonment or a fine of ten pounds, were these: quoits, football, closh, kails, half-bowls, hand-in and hand-out, chequer-board. This Act is cited as Rot. Parl. VI, 188. Information provided by John Thorn, email of 2/27/2008. Caveat: The list of proscribed games is similar to the Edward III's prohibition [see #1363.1 above] adding "hand-in and hand-out" in place of a game translated as "club-ball" or "stick-ball." We are uncertain as to whether hand-in and hand-out is the ancestor of a safe-haven game. +

B

BC2400c.1 +

[A]“The earliest known references to seker-hemat (translation: “batting the ball”) as a fertility rite and ritual of renewal are inscribed in pyramids dating to 2400 BC.” Egyptologist Peter Piccione reads Pyramid Texts Spell 254 as commanding a pharaoh to cross the heavens and “strike the ball” in the meadow of the sacred Apis bull. [B]Piccione’s reading seems consistent with Robert Henderson’s identification of ancient Egypt as the source of ballplaying: “It is the purpose of this book to show that all modern games played with bat and ball descend from one common source: an ancient fertility rite observed by Priest–Kings in the Egypt of the Pyramids.” +

1

1310.1 +

According to an otherwise unidentified clip in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center, an AP article datelined Bucharest Romania [and which appeared in the Oneonta Times on March 29, 1990], the still popular Romanian game of oina can be traced back to a [unspecified] document dating to the year 1310. The game itself "was invented by shepherds in the first century." The article is evidently based on an interview with Cristian Costescu, who sees baseball as "the American pastime derived from the ancient game of oina." Oina reportedly has eleven players per side, an all-out-side-out rule, tossed pitches, nine bases describing a total basepath of 120 yards, plugging of baserunners, the opportunity for the fielding side to score points, and a bat described as similar to a cricket bat. Costescu is reported to have served as head of the Romanian Oina Federation in the years when baseball was banned in Romania as "a capitalist sport." The Oneonta Times headline is "Play Oina! Romanians Say Their Game Inspired Creation of Baseball." Note: Can we find additional documentation of oina's rules and history? Is the 1310 documentation available in English translation? Have others followed the recent fate of oina and the work of Costescu? +

B

BC1460.1 +

Wall inscriptions in Egyptian royal tombs depict games using bats and balls. According to Egyptologist Peter Piccione, "A wall relief at the temple of Deir et-Bahari showing Thutmose III playing under the watchful eye of the goddess Hathor dates to 1460 BC. Priests are depicted catching the balls . . . this was really a game." +

1

1450.1 +

David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It [page 165], cites the Myrc work, "early poetic instruction of priests," as "How thow schalt thy paresche preche," London. It warns "Bal and bares and suche play/ Out of chyrcheyorde put a-way." A note reportedly inserted by another author included among the banned games "tenessyng handball, fott ball stoil ball and all manner other games out churchyard." Note: can we determine when the "other author" wrote in "stoil ball? This may count as the first time "stool ball" [virtually] appeared. +

6

640s.1 +

Mulling on whether the ball came to England in Anglo-Saxon days, Joseph Strutt reports "the author of a manuscript in Trinity College, Oxford, written in the fourteenth century and containing the life of Saint Cuthbert, says of him, that when young, 'he pleyde atte balle with the children that his felawes [fellows] were.' On what authority this information is established I cannot tell." +

1

1200s.1 +

"The [1301 - see below] illustration is a very early depiction of the game we know as baseball, but it's probably not the first. In 1964, a writer named Harry Simmons cited an English bat and ball picture from a genealogical roll of the Kings of England up to Henry III, who died in 1269." Baltimore Sun article on the Ghistelle Calendar [see entry for 1301], April 6, 1999, page 1E. +

B

BC2000 to 1000ADc.1 +

Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians—play primitive ball games for recreation, as fertility rites and in religious rituals. +

BC750.1 +

The Greeks, famous for their athletics, played several ball games. In fact the Greek gymnasium ["palaistra"] was often known to include a special room ["sphairiteria"] for ballplaying . . . a "sphaira" being a ball. Pollux [ca 180 AD] lists a number of children's ball games, including games that loosely resemble very physical forms of keepaway and rugby, and the playing of a complicated form of catch, one that involved feints to deceive other players. The great physician Galen wrote [ca. 180 AD] especially fondly of ballplaying and its merits, and seems to have seen it as an adult activity. He advised that "the most strenuous form of ball playing is in no way inferior to other exercises." Turning to milder forms of ball play, he said "I believe that in this form ball playing is also superior to all the other exercises." His partiality to ballplaying stemmed in part from its benefit for the whole body, not just the legs or arms, as was the case for running and wrestling. As far as we are aware, Greek ball games did not include any that involved running among bases or safe havens, or any that involved propelling a ball with a club or stick (or hands). +

1

1393.1 +

According to a 2007 article in a Canadian magazine, there is poetry in which a milkmaid calls to another, "Oi, Rosie, coming out to Potter's field for a whack at the old stool?" The article continues: "The year was 1393. The place was Sussex . . . the game was called stoolball, which was probably a direct descendant of stump-ball". The article, by Ruth Tendulkar, is titled "The Great-Grandmother of Baseball and Cricket," and appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine. As of 2007, we have been unable to find additional source details from the author or the magazine. +

3

370c.1 +

In his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo - later St. Augustine - recalls his youth in Northern Africa, where his father served as a Roman official. "I was disobedient, not because I chose something better than [my parents and elders] chose for me, but simply from the love of games. For I liked to score a fine win at sport or to have my ears tickled by the make-believe of the stage." [Book One, chapter 10] In Book One, chapter 9, Augustine had explained that "we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown up games are known as 'business. . . . Was the master who beat me himself very different from me? If he were worsted by a colleague in some petty argument, he would be convulsed in anger and envy, much more so than I was when a playmate beat me at a game of ball." +

1

1100s.1 +

Henderson: "The testimony of Beleth and Durandus, both eminently qualified witnesses, clearly indicates that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the ball had found a place for itself in the Easter celebrations of the Church." In fact, Beleth and Durandus had both opposed the practice, seeing it as the intrusion of pagan rites into church rites. "There are some Churches in which it is customary for the Bishops and Archbishops to play in the monasteries with those under them, even to stoop to the game of ball" [Beleth, 1165]. "In certain places in our country, prelates play games with their own clerics on Easter in the cloisters, or in the Episcopal Palaces, even so far as to descend to the game of ball" [Durandus, 1286]. Note: This source appears to be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 37-38. Page 37 refers to an 1165 prohibition and page 38 mentions 12th and 13th Century Easter rites. Henderson identifies two sources for the page 38 statement: Beleth, J., "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," in Migne, J. P., Patrologiae Curius Completus, Ser 2, Vol. 106, pp. 575-591 [Paris, 1855], and Durandus, G., "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," Book VI, Ch 86, Sect. 9 [Rome, 1473]...Henderson does not say that these rites involved the use of sticks. +

1344.1 +

"A manuscript of 1344 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (No. 264) shows a game of club and ball. One player throws that ball to another who holds a vicious-looking club. He defends a round object which resembles a stool but with a base instead of legs. . . ". "In the course of time a second stool was added, which obviously made a primitive form of cricket. Now a stool was also called a "cricket" and it is possible that the name cricket came from the three-legged stool . . . " "We may summarize: The game and name of cricket stem back to ancient games played with a curved stick and ball, starting with la soule, and evolving in England through stoolball . . .". Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 130-131. Henderson's ref 17 is Bodleian Library, Douce MSS 264, ff 22, 44, 63. Cox's 1903 edition of Strutt includes this drawing and its reference. Note: do other observers agree with Henderson on whether and how stoolball evolved into cricket? +

1300s.3 +

"Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14th century, originating in Sussex [in southern England]. It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders. Traditionally it was played be milkmaids who used their milking stools as 'wickets.' . . ." Later forms of the game involved running between two wickets, but "[o]riginally the batsman simply had to defend his stool from each ball with his hand and would score a point for each delivery until the stool was hit. The game later evolved to include runs and bats." Source: Wikipedia entry on "Stoolball," accessed 1/25/2007. Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry 1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball. It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding date. The Wikipedia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not credit 1330 as the likely time of stoolball's appearance. +

1365.1 +

"The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III, exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; the throwing of stones, wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball, club-ball, and camucam, which I take to have been a species of goff . . . ." Edward III reigned from 1327 to 1377. The actual term for "club-ball" in the proclamation was, evidently, "bacculoream." This appears to be one of only two direct references to "club-ball" in the literature. See #1794.2, below. Caveat: David Block argues that, contrary to Strutt's contention [see #1801.1, below], club ball may not be the common ancestor of cricket and other ballgames. See David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 105-107 and 183-184. Block says that "pilam bacculoream" translates as "ball play with a stick or staff." Note: We seem not to really know what "camucam" was. Nor, of course, how club ball was played, since the term could have denoted a form of tennis or field hockey or and early form of stoolball or cricket. Edward II had issued a ban of his own in 1314, regarding football. +

1205.1 +

Scholars report that the Chronicle of Britain [1205] contained the words "Summe heo driuen balles wide . . ." which they see as "the first known use of the word ball in the sense of a globular body that is played with." The source? Old Norse, by way of Middle English. [Old High German had used ballo and pallo, but the English didn't use "ball" in those days.] The source does not say whether people in England used some other term for their rolling playthings prior to 1205. Source: Wikipedia entry on "ball," accessed 5/31/2006. +

B

BC2000c.1 +

"Recent excavations near Cairo, Egypt, have brought to light small balls of leather and others of wood obviously used in some outdoor sport, and probably dating back to at least 2000 years before Christ. These may be the oldest balls in existence. Hence Egypt maybe the birthplace of the original ball game whatever it was. We know, however that the Greeks and Romans played ball at a remote period. We do not know the exact nature of any of these ancient games, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman." +

1

1330.1 +

"Stoolball was played in England as early as 1330, when William Pagula, Vicar of Winkfield, near Windsor, wrote in Latin a poem of instructions to parish priests, advising them to forbid the playing of all games of ball in churchyards: "Bats and bares and suche play/Out of chyrche-yorde put away." Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 74. Note: The Vicar's caution was translated in 1450 by a Canon, John Myrc. Henderson's ref 120 is Mirk [sic], J., "Instructions to Parish Priests," Early English Text Society, Old Series 31, p. 11 [London, 1868]. A contemporary of Myrc in 1450 evidently identified the Vicar's targets as including stoolball. Block [p. 165] identifies the original author as William de Pagula. Writing in 1886, T. L. Kington Oliphant identifies "bares" as prisoner's base: "There is the term "bace pleye," whence must come the "prisoner's base;" this in Myrc had appeared as the game of "bares." Kington Oliphant does not elaborate on this claim, and does not comment on the accompanying term "bats" in the original. The 1886 reference was provided by John Thorn, 2/24/2008 +

1086.1 +

Stool ball, a stick and ball game and a forerunner of rounders and cricket, is apparently mentioned in the Domesday Book as "bittle-battle." +

1385.1 +

A letter written by Robert Braybroke laid out the palpable risks of ball-playing: "Certain [boys], also, good for nothing in their insolence and idleness, instigated by evil minds and busying themselves rather in doing harm than good, throw and shoot stones, arrows, and different kinds of missiles at the rooks, pigeons, and other birds nesting in the walls and porches of the church and perching [there]. Also they play ball inside and outside the church and engage in other destructive games there, breaking and greatly damaging the glass windows and the stone images of the church . . . .This they do not without great offense to God and our church and to the prejudice and injury of us as well as to the grave peril of their souls." And the sanction for such play? "We . . . proclaim solemnly that any malefactors whatever of this kind [including churchyard merchants as well as young ballplayers] whom it is possible to catch in the aforesaid actions after this our warning have been and are excommunicated . . . ." Crow, Martin M., and Clair C. Olson, eds., "Chaucer's World" [Columbia University Press, New York, 1948], pp. 48-49. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004. +

8

824.1 +

Ching Tsung was the new Chinese emperor at the age of 15. "As soon as he could escape from the morning levee, the young Emperor rushed off to play ball. His habits were well known in the city, and in the summer of 824 someone suggested to a master-dyer named Chang Shao that, as a prank, he should slip into the Palace, lie on the Emperor's couch and eat his dinner, 'for nowadays he is always away, playing ball or hunting.'" The prank was carried out, but those prankish dyers . . . well, they died as a result. +

1

1310c.2 +

A 1915 book on ancient British schools includes a drawing dated circa 1310. It shows two players, one clad in a garment with broad horizontal stripes. Both players hold clubs, and the player in stripes appears ready to swing at a melon-sized ball. The other player appears to be preparing to fungo the ball . . . or, conceivably, toss it with his left hand, to the striped player. The illustration's caption is "A Game of Ball, Stripes vs. Plain, c. 1310." The British Museum's documentation: MS Royal 10 E. iv, f. 94 b. Posted by Mark Aubrey to the 19CBB listserve on 1/10/2008. The 1915 source, available in full text on Google Books, is A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England (Macmillan, New York, 1915), on the unnumbered page following p. 140. +

1299.1 +

Cashman, Richard, "Cricket," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 87. +

1301.1 +

A manuscript obtained in 1999 by the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore appears to show a batted-ball game played by two young persons. The manuscript, called the Calendar of the Ghistelles Hours, dates from 1301. It is a small monthly calendar of saints' days from a monastery in the town of Ghistelles, in southwestern Flanders. The illustration is for the month of September. Schoettler, Carl, "The Old, Old, Old Ball Game," Baltimore Sun, April 6 1999, page 1E. +

9

900c.1 +

Mayan Indians play stick and ball games in ceremonial courts in Chichen Itza, Mexico Note: This source may be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 201. And Henderson's source may be his ref 53, Effler, L. R., The Ruins of Chichen Itza [Toledo, Ohio], pp 19 - 21. However, Henderson's account of the game played at Chichen Itza is not dated to 900 AD, or connected with a stick, so another source may be preferable. +

1

1500s.1 +

"Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with regard to games than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of the Cisterian College of St Bernard contemplated that permission might be obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for vespers. A sixteenth century code of statutes for the College of Tours, while recording the complaints of the neighbors about the noise made by the scholars playing ball ('de insolentiis, exclamationibus et ludis palmariis dictorum scholarium, qui ludent . . . pilis durissimis') permitted the game under less noisy conditions ('pilis seu scopes mollibus et manu, ac cum silentio et absque clamoribus tumultuosis.') Rait, Robert S., Life in the Medieval University [Cambridge University Press, 1912], p. 83. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004. +

B

BC2500c.1 +

Writing in 1891, Stewart Culin reported “the discovery by Mr. Flinders-Petrie of wooden ‘tip cats’ among the remains of Rahun, in the Fayoom, Egypt (circa 2500 B.C).” Culin infers that these short wooden objects, pointed on each end, were used in an ancient form of the game later know as Cat. +

BC1500c.1 +

According to SABR member César González, "There are remains of rubber balls found since the time of the Olmeca culture between 1500 and 700 BC." He reports that it is believed that one of the earliest Mesoamerican games was played with a stick. A dozen rubber balls dating to 1600 BCE or earlier have been found in El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan. +

1

1363.1 +

Edward III wrote to the Sheriff of Kent, and evidently sheriffs throughout England. Noting a relative neglect of the useful art of archery, the King said he was thereby, on festival days, "forbidding, all and single, on our orders, to toy in any way with these games of throwing stones, wood, or iron, playing handball, football, "stickball," or hockey, . . . which are worthless, under pain of imprisonment." The translator uses "stickball" as a translation of the Latin "pila cacularis," and suggests that it might have been an early form of cricket. We might also ask whether it was referring to early stoolball. A. R. Myers, English Historical Documents (Routledge, 1996), page 1203. [Viewed online 10/16/08]. Provided in email from John Thorn, 2/27/2008. Myers' citation is "Rymer, Foedera, III, ii, from Close Roll, 37 Edward III [Latin]." Caveat: The content of this entry resembles that of #1365.1 below, and both refer to a restriction imposed by Edward III. However that entry, stemming from Strutt, refers to "club-ball" instead of "stick-ball," and identifies the Latin as "pilam bacculoream," not "pila cacularis." It is possible that both refer to the same source. Strutt’s text reads: “The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III., exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; throwing of stones, wood, or iron….” The accompanying footnote reads: “Pilam manualtm, ptdinam, el bacculoream, et ad cambucam, etc.” Also: the letter to Kent is elsewhere dated 1365, which could be consistent with Edward III's 37th year under the crown, but Myers uses 1363. Note: this entry replaced the former entry #1365.1: "In 1365 the sheriffs had to forbid able-bodied men playing ball games as, instead, they were to practice archery on Sundays and holidays." Source: Hassall, W. O., [compiler], "How They Lived: An Anthology of Original Accounts Written Before 1485" [Blackwell, Oxford University Press, 1962], page 285. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.

1494c.1 +

"When Christopher Columbus revisited Haiti on his second voyage, he observed some natives playing with a ball. The men who came with Columbus to conquer the Indies had brought their Castilian wind-balls [wound from yarn] to play with in idle hours. But at once they found that the balls of Haiti were incomparably superior; they bounced better. These high-bouncing balls were made, they learned, from a milky fluid of the consistency of honey which the natives procured by tapping certain trees and then cured over the smoke of palm nuts. A discovery which improved the delights of ball games was noteworthy." 350 years later, after Goodyear discovered vulcanization [1839], "India rubber" balls were to be identified with the New York game of baseball. Holland Thompson, "Charles Goodyear and the History of Rubber," at <a href="http://inventors.about.come/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/rubber_2.htm">http://inventors.about.come/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/rubber_2.htm</a>, accessed 1/24/2007. +

B

BC2000c.3 +

The main chamber of Tomb 15 at Beni Hasan has a depiction of catching a ball, as well as throwing. Two women, each riding on the back of another woman, appear to be doing some form of ball-handling. The image of one woman pretty clearly depicts her in the act of catching ("fielding”) a ball, and the other is quite plausibly about to throw a ball toward her. +

1

1450.2 +

"[Stoolball] is mentioned in the classic book Don Quixote." +

1523.1 +

"Item, quod petrus frankeleyne vid posuit iiiixx ovesin le stoball field contra ordinacionem." Source: National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," [mimeo, author and date unspecified], page 2. This wording is reportedly found in "an extract from the rolls of the Court Baron of the Royal Manor of Kirklington, belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster (16th Century), under the heading of trespass." Note: We need a citation here, and a reason for assigning the 1523 date. The relation of stoball to stoolball remains under dispute, with many observers seeing stoball as an early golf-like game. Can we obtain a good translation and interpretation of this quotation? +

1533.1 +

"O lodre of Ipocrites/ Nowe shut vpp your wickets,/ And clappe to your clickettes/ A! Farewell, kings for crekettes!" "The Image of Ipocrisie" (1533) attributed to John Skelton. This verse is interpreted as showing no sympathy to Flemish weavers who settled in southern and eastern England, bringing at least the rudiments of cricket with them. Heiner Gillmeister and John Campbell noted publicly in June 2009 that this is relevant evidence of cricket's non-English origin. Note: the first written reference to cricket was nearly 70 years in the future in 1533. Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. Query: are cricket historians accepting this poem as valid evidence of cricket's roots? +

1538.1 +

"Certain types of ball games had a prominent place in heathen rituals and were believed to promote fertility. Even after Christianity had gained the ascendancy over the older religion, ball continued to be played in the churchyard and even within the church at certain times. In France, ball was played in churches at Easter, until the custom was abolished in 1538. In England, the practice persisted up to a much later date." The abolition in France is attributed to an act of the French Parlement. +

1540.1 +

Cary Smith [<a href="mailto:ZinnBeck@aol.com">ZinnBeck@aol.com</a>] has noted an alluring illustration in a 1540 publication, and we seek additional input on it. In a posting to the 19CBB listserve in March 2008, Cary wrote: "On the British Library web site in the turning pages section there is a book called the Golf Book, but it is labeled as 'Flemish Masters in Miniature.' On page seven of the book there is a small grisalle border at the bottom. It looks like what today would be considered a pitcher, catcher, and batter. The book is from 1540. To access the web site you will need to have Flash running. If on a Macintosh that is intel based you will need to click the Rosetta button in the info window of your web browser." Note: can you help us interpret this artwork? The URL is <a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html">http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html</a>. +

1550c.2 +

A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of Guildford includes a statement by John Derrick, then aged 59. According to a 1950 history of Guildford's Royal Grammar School, "[H]e stated that he had known the [disputed] ground for fifty years or more and that 'when he was a scholar in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellows did run and play there at cricket and other plays.' This is believed to be the first recorded mention of cricket." Cf [[1598.3 below.]] +

1550c.1 +

"The medieval origin of the national game of the English is beyond doubt, but not so its Island roots. There would have been ample opportunity for it to figure on the lists of banned games set out by their kings, but there is no written mention of it before 1550. It is, of course, not impossible that its forerunner was one of the many ball games played with unidentifiable rules, as for instance club ball." +

1555c.1 +

"To shote, to bowle, or caste the barre, To play tenise, or tosse the ball, Or to rene base, like men of war, Shall hurt thy study naught at all." Crowley, Robert, "The Scholar's Lesson," circa 1555, in J. M. Cowper, The Select Works of Robert Crowley [N. Truber, London, 1872], page 73. Submitted by John Bowman, 7/16/2004. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, see pages 230 and 312. Cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), pp. 188. +

1562.1 +

"The Malden Corporation Court Book of 1562 contains a charge against John Porter alias Brown, and a servant, for 'playing an unlawful game called "clycett."'" Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the Game and its Players Through the Ages (Newton Abbot, 1978), page 16, as cited in Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29. +

1564.1 +

"1564 - complaints were made to the justices sitting at the midsummer session, at Malden, Surrey, that the constable (himself possibly an enthusiast with the stool and ball) suffered stoolball to be played on Sunday." M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Surrey is the adjoining county to Sussex. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references. +

1565.1 +

"We had paused right in front of [the Flemish artist] Bruegel the Elder's "Corn Harvest" (1565), one of the world's great paintings of everyday life . . . .[M]y eye fell upon a tiny tableau at the left-center of the painting in which young men appeared to be playing a game of bat and ball in a meadow distant from the scything and stacking and dining and drinking that made up the foreground. . . . There appeared to be a man with a bat, a fielder at a base, a runner, and spectators as well as participants in waiting. The strange device opposite the batsman's position might have been a catapult. As I was later to learn with hurried research, this detain is unnoted in the art-history studies." From John Thorn, "Play's the Thing," Woodstock Times, December 28, 2006. See <a>thornpricks.blogspot.com/2006/12/bruegel-and-me_27.html,</a> accessed 1/30/07. +

1567.1 +

"The stoole ball, top, or camping ball/If suche one should assaye/As hath no mannour skill therein,/Amongste a mightye croude,/Theye all would screeke unto the frye/And laugh at hym aloude." Drant, Thomas, Horace His Arte of Poetrie, Pistles, and Satyrs Englished, and to the Earle of Ormounte, [London], per David Block, page 166. There is no implication that Horace himself refers to a stool ball. +

1570c.1 +

"A few years later [than 1564], at the Easter Sessions in the same town [Malden, Surrey], one Edward Anderkyn and four others were indicted for playing stoolball on Sunday." M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Surrey is the adjoining county to Sussex. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references. +

1575.1 +

Gascoigne, George, The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour [London, Richard Smith], per Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 166. The key lines: "Yet have I shot at master Bellums butte/And throwen his ball although I toucht no tutte." +

1583.1 +

"Whereas this a great abuse in a game or games used in the town called "Gede Gadye or the Cat's Pallet, and Typing or hurling the Ball," - that no mannor person shall play at the same games, being above the age of seven years, wither in the churchyard or in any of the streets of this town, upon pain of every person so playing being imprisoned in the Doungeon for the space of two hours; or else every person so offending to pay 6 [pence] for every time. And if they have not [wherewithal] to pay, then the parents or masters of such persons so offending to pay the said 6 [pence] or to suffer the like imprisonment." (Similar language is found in 1579 entry [page 148], but it lacked the name "Typing" and did not mention a ball.) John Harland, editor, Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), page 156. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google Books search: "court leet" half-bowls. Note: The game gidigadie is not known to us, but the 1864 editor notes elsewhere (page 149, footnote 61) that was "not unlikely" to be tip-cat, and he interprets "typing" as tipping. As later described [see "Tip-Cat" and "Pallet" at <a href="http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Glossary.htm">http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Glossary.htm</a>], tip-cat could be played with a cat or a ball, and could involve running among holes as bases. Caveat: we do not yet know what the nature of the proscribed game was in Elizabethan times. +

1585c.1 +

In a 1600 publication attributed to Samuel Rowlands [died 1588], the fourth of six "Satires," presents a catalog of about 30 pastimes, including "play at stoole-ball," and "play at nine-holes." Other diversions include pitching the barre, foote-ball, play at base, and leap-frog. Rowlands, Samuel, The Letting of Humour's blood in the head-vein (W. White, London, 1600), as discussed in Brydges, Samuel E., Censura Literaria (Longman, London, 1808), p.279. Virtually the same long verse - but one that carelessly lists stoole-ball twice - is attributed to "Randal Holme of Chester" in an 1817 book: Drake, Nathan, Shakspeare and His Times (Cadell and Davies, London, 1817), pages 246-247. Drake does not suggest a date for this verse. Caveat: Our choice of 1585 as the year of Rowlands' composition is merely speculative. Note: This entry needs to be reconciled with #1630c.1 below. +

1586c.1 +

"A time there is for all, my mother often sayes When she with skirts tuckt very hie, with gyrles at stoolball playes" +

1586.2 +

In his entry for Rounders, W. C. Hazlitt speculates: "It is possible that this is the game which, under the name of rownes (rounds) is mentioned in The English Courtier and the Countrey Gentleman: A Pleasant and Learned Disputation, 1586 [printed by Richard Jones, London]. One source attributes this work of Nicholas Breton. Protoball has not located this book. Hazlitt, W. C., Faiths and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular Customs (Reeves and Turner, London, 1905), vol. 2, page 527. Note: Can we find this early text and evaluate whether rounders is in fact its subject? Caveat: It would startle most of us to encounter any species of rounders this early; the earliest appearance of the term may be as late as 1828 - see #1828.1 below. +

1591.1 +

Pericule [Percival], Richard, Bibliotheca hispanica: containing a graamar, with a dictionarie in Spanish, English, and Latine, gathered out of diuers good authors: very profitable for the studious of the Spanish toong [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 166. The dictionary's entries include "paleta - a trapsticke" and paletilla - a little trapsticke." +

1592c.1 +

"Time of recreation is necessary, I graunt, and think as necessary for schollers . . . as it is for any. Yet in my opinion it were not fit for them to play at Stoole-ball among wenches, nor at Mumchance or Maw with idle loose companions; not at trunks in Guile-halls, nor to dance about Maypoles, nor to rufle in alehouses, nor to carowse in tauernes, nor to steale deere, nor to rob orchards. Though who can deny that they may doe these things, yea worse." Attributed to Dr. Rainoldes in J. P. Collier, ed., The Political Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry [Constable and Co., Edinburgh, 1820], page 257. This passage is from the "ninth conversation" and covers low practices during the reigns of Elizabeth and of James I. Note: we need to ascertain the source, date, and context of the original Rainoldes material. It appears that Rainoldes' cited "conversation" with Gager took place in 1592. +

1592.2 +

"We present one Bottolph Wappoll, a continual gamester and one of the very lewd behaviour, who being on Mayday last at stoolball in time of Divine service one of our sidesmen came and admonished him to leave off playing and go to church, for which he fell on him and beat him that the blood ran about his ears." Source: National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," [author and date unspecified], page 2. The original source is not supplied but is reported to have been a presentation from the parish of St Paul in Canterbury to the Archdeacon of Canterbury. Note: can we find this source? +

1598.1 +

"After dinner all the youthes go into the fields to play at the bal…. The schollers of euery schoole haue their ball, or baston, in their hands: the auncient and wealthy men of the Citie come foorth on horsebacke to see the sport of young men." Stow, John, Survey of London [first published in 1598]. David Block [page 166] gives the full title as A Survey of London: Contayning the Originall, Antiquity, Increase, Modern Estate, and Description of that Citie: written in the yeare 1598 [London]. Block adds that the term "baston" is described by the OED as a "cudgel, club, bat or truncheon." +

1598.4 +

"People have often regarded Florio's expression in his Italian Dictionary (1598) cricket-a-wicket as the first mention (cf #[[1598.2]] and #[[1598.3]], above) of the noble game. It were strange indeed if this great word first dropped from the pen of an Italian! I have no doubt myself that this is a mere coincidence of sound. . . . [C]ricket-a-wicket must pair off with 'helter-skelter,' higgledy-piggledy, and Tarabara to which Florio gives gives cricket-a-wicket as an equivalent." +

1598.2 +

Florio, John, A world of wordes or Most copious, and exact dictionarie in Italian and English [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 167. This dictionary defines lippa as "a cat or trap as children use to play with." 1598.3 - First Known Appearance of the Term "Cricket" [Cf #1550c.2 above.] A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of Guildford includes a statement by John Derrick, then aged 59. According to a 1950 history of Guildford's Royal Grammar School, "[H]e stated that he had known the [disputed] ground for fifty years or more and that 'when he was a scholar in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellows did run and play there at cricket and other plays.' This is believed to be the first recorded mention of cricket." Brown, J. F., The Story of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, 1950, page 6. Note: it would be interesting to see the original reference, and to know how 1550 was chosen as the reported year of play. +

1600c.1 +

[A] H. Guarinoni describes a game he saw in Prague in 1600 involving a large field of play, the hitting of a small thrown ball ["the size of a quince"] with a four-foot tapered club, the changing of sides if a hit ball was caught. While not mentioning the presence of bases or of base-running, he advises that the game "is good for tender youth which never has enough of running back and forth." [B] "German Schlagball ["hit the ball"] is also similar to rounders. The native claim that these games 'have remained the games of the Germanic peoples, and have won no popularity beyond their countries' quite obviously does not accord with facts. It is enough to quote the conclusion of a description of "hit the ball" by H. Guarnoni, who had a medical practice in Innsbruck about 1600: 'We enjoyed this game in Prague very much and played it a lot. The cleverest at it were the Poles and the Silesians, so the game obviously comes from there.' Incidentally, he was one of the first who described the way in which the game was played. It was played with a leather ball and a club four-foot long. The ball was tossed by a bowler who threw it to the striker, who struck it with a club rounded at the end as far into the field as possible, and attempted to make a circuit of the bases without being hit by the ball. If 'one of the opposing players catches the ball in the air, a change of positions follows.'" +

1600c.2 +

"Shakespeare mentions games of "base" and "rounders. Lovett, Old Boston Boys, page 126." Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Caveat: We have not yet confirmed that Lovett or Shakespeare used the term "rounders." Gomme [page 80], among others, identifies the Bard's use of "base" in Cymbeline as a reference to prisoner's base, which is not a ball game. John Bowman, email of 5/21/2008, reports that his concordance of all of Shakespeare's words shows has no listing for "rounders" . . . nor for "stoolball," for that matter [see #1612c.1, below], 'tho that may because Shakespeare's authorship of Two Noble Kinsmen is not universally accepted by scholars.. +

1609.1 +

"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." +

1610.1 +

A match is thought to have been played between the men of North Downs and men of the Weald. Contributed by Beth Hise January 12, 2010. Beth is in pursuit of the original source of this claim. North Downs is in Surrey, about 4 miles NE of Guildford, where early uses of both "cricket" and "base-ball" are found. It is about 30 miles SW of London. The Weald is apparently an old term for the county of Kent, which is SW of London. +

1611.1 +

Dictionary-maker R. Cotgrave translates "crosse" as "the crooked staff wherewith boies play at cricket." "Martinet" [a device for propelling large stones at castles] is defined as "the game called cat and trap." Cotgrave, Randle, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues [London, 1611], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168. " Cricket historians Steel and Lyttelton: "Thanks to Cotgrave, then, we know that in 1611 cricket was a boy's game, played with a crooked bat. The club, bat, or staff continued to be crooked or curved at the blade till the middle of the eighteenth century or later: and till nearly 1720 cricket was mainly a game for boys." A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 6. +

1612c.1 +

A young maid asks her wooer to go with her. "What shall we do there, wench?" She replies, "Why, play at stool-ball; what else is there to do?" Fletcher and Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen [London], Act V, Scene 2, per W. W. Grantham, Stoolball Illustrated and How to Play It [W. Speaight, London, 1904], page 29. David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 170, gives 1634 as the publication date of this play, which was reportedly performed in 1612, and mentions that doubts have been expressed as to authorship, so Shakespeare [1564-1616] may not have contributed. Others surmise that The Bard wrote Acts One and Five, which would make him the author of the stoolball reference. See also item #1600c.2 above. Note: can we find further specifics? Russell-Goggs, in "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 320, notes that the speaker is the "daughter of the Jailer." +

1613.1 +

"Ward: Can you play at shuttlecock forsooth? Isabella: Ay, and stool-ball too, sir; I have great luck at it. Ward: Why, can you catch a ball well? Isabella: I have catched two in my lap at one game Ward: What, have you, woman? I must have you learn to play at trap too, then y'are full and whole." Dutton, Richard Thomas, Women Beware Women and Other Plays [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999], page 135. The play itself is generally dated 1613 or 1614. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/9/2004 +

1614.1 +

Breton, Nicholas, I Would, and Would Not [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168. Stanza 79 reads "I would I were an honest Countrey Wench/ . . . / And for a Tanzey, goe to Stoole-Ball-Play." Tansy cakes were reportedly given as prizes for ball play. +

1615.1 +

"And some dayes heare we stayed we shott at butts and bowe and arrows, at other tymes at stoole ball, and some tymes of foote ball William Baffin, from "The Fourth Recorded Voyage of Baffin," in C. M. Markham, ed., The Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622, [Hakluyt Society, 1881], page 122. This voyage started in March 1615, and the entry is dated June?? 19th, 1615. The voyage was taken in hope of finding a northwest passage to the East, but was thwarted by ice, and Baffin returned to England in the fall of 1615. Note: Ascertain the month, which is obscured in the online copy. Was location of play near what is now known as Baffin Island? +

1616c.1 +

Translator Chapman described a scene in which several virgins play stool-ball near a river while Ulysses sleeps nearby: "The Queene now (for the upstroke) strooke the ball/Quite wide off th' other maids; and made it fall/Amidst the whirlpools. Chapman, George, The whole works of Homer: prince of poets, in his Iliads, and Odysses [London, 1616], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168. Steel and Lyttelton indicate that Chapman's translation may date "as early as 1614," and say report that Chapman calls the fragment "a stoolball chance." See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 2. Note: The year of the translation needs to be confirmed;. It would be interesting to see how other translators have treated this scene. +

1617.1 +

Reacting to Puritans' denunciations of Sabbath recreations, James I in 1617 listed a large number of permitted Sunday activities -including no ball games - and cited as unlawful only "beare and Bull beatinge enterludes & bowlinge. . . ." Axon, Ernest, Notes of Proceedings. Volume 1 - 1616-1622-3 (Printed for the Record Society for the Publication of Original Documents, 1901), page xxvi. There was adverse reaction to this proclamation, which is said to have surprised the King. Another source lists the Sunday bans as "Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, interludes, and bowls:" Keightley, Thomas, The History of England, volume II (Whittaker and Co., London, 1839), page 321. One chruchman listed "bear-baiting, bull-baiting, common plays, and bowling:" Marsden, J. B., History of Christian Churches and Sects (Richard Bentley, London, 1856), page 269. Thus, unless "enterludes" then connoted a range of games or "common plays" that included ballplay, contemporary ballgames like stoolball and cricket - and cat games - remained unconstrained. +

1619.1 +

"It was the day of all dayes in the yeare/That unto Bacchus hath its dedication,/ . . . / When country wenches play with stoole and ball,/And run at Barley-breake until they fall:/And country lads fall on them, in such sort/That after forty weekes the[sic] rew the sport." Anonymous, Pasquils Palinodia, and His Progress to the Taverne; Where, After the Survey of the Sellar, You Are Presented with a Pleasant Pynte of Poeticall Sherry [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 169, who credits Henderson, page 74. Block notes that "Barley-Break" [not a ball game] was, like stoole ball, traditionally a spring courtship ritual in the English countryside. +

1621.1 +

Governor Bradford describes Christmas Day 1621 at Plymouth Plantation, MA; "most of this new-company excused them selves and said it wente against their consciences to work on ye day. So ye Govr tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them; but when they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye street at play, openly; some at pitching ye barr, and some at stoole-ball and shuch like sport. . . . Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly." +

1622.1 +

A Chichester churchwarden indicted a group of men for ballplaying, reasoning thus: "first, for it is contrarie to the 7th Article; second, for they are used to break the Church window with the balls; and thirdly, for that little children had like to have their braynes beaten out with the cricket batt." Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the game and its players through the ages (Newton Abbot, 1978), page 16, as cited in Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29. +

1629.1 +

Shirley, James, The Wedding. As it was lately acted by her Mauesties seruants at the Phenix at Drury Lane [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 170. A servant in the play describes his master as so mild in manner that "the last time he was in the field a boy of seven year old beat him with a trap-stick." +

1629.2 +

"In 1629, having been censured for playing 'at Cricketts,' the curate of Ruckinge in Kent unsuccessfully defended himself on the grounds that it was a game played by men of quality." Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29. Bateman does not provide his source for this anecdote. Note: Can we find and extend this story? +

1630c.2 +

"About 1630 a Puritan records that 'Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, where stoolball and other games were practiced on the Lord's Day." M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.. We need to sort out how this claim relates to the very similar wording in the quote by Reverend Wilson in entry #1672.1 below. +

1630c.3 +

"In the early seventeenth century, an Oxford fellow, Thomas Crosfield, noted the customs of Shrovetide as '1. frittering. 2. throwing at cocks. 3. playing at stooleball in ye Citty by women & footeball by men.'" Shrovetide was the Monday and Tuesday [that Tuesday being Mardi Gras in some quarter] preceding Ash Wednesday and the onset of Lent. +

1630c.1 +

"Any they dare challenge for to throw the sleudge,/To Jumpe or leape over dich or hedge,/ To wrastle, play at stooleball, or to Runne,/ To pitch the bar, or to shoote off a Gunne/ To play at Loggets, nine holes, or ten pins. . . .[list continues, mentioning stool ball once more at end.]" This verse, titled "Ancient Cheshire Games: Auntient customes in games used by boys and girles merily sett out in verse," is attributed to "Randle Holmes's MSS Brit Mus." Is in Medium of Inter-communications for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, Etc, July - December 1856, page 487. Note: Can we learn why is this account associated with 1630? This entry needs to be reconciled with #1585.1 above. Add online search detail? +

1631.1 +

"Page: You, sirrah sheep's-head/ With a face cut on a cat-stick, do you hear?/ You, yeoman fewterer, conduct me to/ the lady of the mansion, or my poniard/ Shall disembogue thy soul." "The Maid of Honour," Scene 2, in The Plays of Philip Massinger, Volume 1 (John Murray, London, 1830), page 327. Notes written in 1830 by W. Gifford: "Cat-stick. This, I believe, is what is now called a buck-stick, used by children in the game of tip-cat, or kit-cat." Query: Is it clear why an abusive address like this would employ a phrase like "cut on a cat-stick?" Does it imply, for instance a disfigured or pock-marked visage? +

1632.1 +

"The [preceding] reference to Fuchsius should be to Institutiones 2.3.4: . . . 'Whereby the habit of our German schoolboys is most worthy of reprehension, who never take exercise except immediately after food, either jumping or running or playing ball or quoits or taking part in other exercises of a like nature; so that it is no surprise, seeing they thus accumulate a great mass of crude humours, that they suffer from perpetual scabies, and other diseases caused by vicious humours':p. 337)" Burton, Robert E., The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. 4 [Clarenden Press, Oxford, 1989], page 285. [Note: We need to confirm date of the Fuschius quote; we're not sure why it is assigned to 1632.]. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004. +

1633c.1 +

"At stoole ball I have a North-west stripling shall deale with ever a boy in the Strand." Cited in W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs [Reeves and Turner, London, 1905], page 569. Hazlitt attributes this mysterious fragment to someone named Stickwell in Totenham Court, by T. Nabbes, appearing in 1638. Note: Can we guess what Stickwell was trying to say, and why? I find that Nabbes wrote this drama in 1633 or before, and surmise that "Stickwell" is the name of the fictional character who speaks the quoted line. Can we straighten out, or interpret, the syntax of this line? [The Strand, presumably, refers to the London street of that name?] +

1634.1 +

"In his visitation and reference to churchyards, he [Archbishop Laud, in 1634] is troubled because 'several spend their time in stoolball.'" M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Note1: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references. Another source quotes Laud as saying "This whole churchyard is made a receptacle for all ydle persons to spend their time in stopball and such lyke recreacions." OED, Abp Laud's Visit, in 4th Rep Hist. MSS Comm. App 144/1, provided by John Thorn, email of 6/11/2007. Note2: is this from the same source? +

1637.2 +

Shirley, James, Hide Park: A Comedie [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171. A beautiful young woman, to a servant who is fishing for a compliment: "Indeed, I have heard you are a precious gentleman/ And in your younger days could play at trap well." +

1637.1 +

Burton, Henry, and William Prynne, A Divine Tragedie Lately Acted [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171. In a denunciation of King Charles' approval of after-church play on Sundays, the authors cite as one of the "memorable examples of Gods judgements" a case in which youths "playing at Catt on the Lords day, two of them fell out, and the one hitting the other under the eare with his catt, he therwith fell downe for dead." Cited by David Block in Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171: Block notes that the weapon here was a cat-stick. +

1638.1 +

Bishop Mantague admonishes Norwich Churchmen to consider the churchyard as consecrated ground, "not to be profaned by feeding and dunging cattle . . . . Much less is it to be unhallowed with dancings, morrises, meetings at Easter, drinkings, Whitson ales, midsummer merriments or the like, stool ball, football, wrestlings, wasters or boy's sports." Barrett, Jay Botsford, English Society in the Eighteenth Century as Influence from Oversea [Macmillan, New York, 1924], page 221. Barrett cites this passage as Articles of Enquiry and Direction for the Diocese of Norwich, sigs. A3-A3v. 1638.2 - Archdeacon: Churchyards Are Not For Stoole-ball or "Other Profane Uses" "Have any playes, feasts, banquets, suppers, churchales, drinkings, temporal courts or leets, lay juries, musters, exercise of dauncing, stoole-ball, foot-ball, or the like, or any other profane usage been suffered to be kept in your church, chappell, or churchyard? Attributed to Mr. Dr. Pearson, Archdeacon of Suffolke, in Heino Pfannenschmid, Das Weihwasser [Hahn'sche Hofbuchhandlung, Hannover, 1869], page 74n. +

1640.1 +

"J. Smythe, in his Hundred of Berkeley (1640) gave the following admonition: 'Doe witness the inbred delight, that both gentry, yeomanry, rascallity, boyes, and children, doe take in a game called stoball. . . And not a sonne of mine, but at 7 was furnished with his double stoball staves, and a gamester thereafter.'" M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 320. John Smyth's three-volume Berkeley Manuscripts were published in 1883 by J. Bellows; Volume Three is titled "A description of the hundred of Berkeley in the County of Gloucester . . . ." Citation supplied by John Thorn, email of 1/30/2008. +

1648.1 +

"At Stool-ball, Lucia, let us play," offers the poet, then proposing that if he wins, he would "have for all a kisse." [Full text is in Supplemental Text, below.] +

1652.1 +

Taylor, John, A Short Relation of a Long Journey Made Round or Ovall [London], book 4, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 172. A versifier recounts his journey to Wales, where he notes a lack of religious fervor, "so that people do exercise and edify in the churchyard at the lawful and laudable games of trap, cat, stool-ball, racket, &c., on Sundays." +

1653.2 +

"So far as is known, the first mention [of the word "cricket"] occurs in Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of the works of Rabelais, published in London in 1653, where it is found enumerated as one of the games of the Gargantua." Editorial, "The Pedigree of Cricket," The Irish Times, 5/9/1931. Reprinted in The Times, 5/9/2001. From the MCC Library collection. Caveat: We now have at least four pre-1653 claims to the use of "cricket" and similar terms: see #1598.3, #1598.4, #1611.1, #1622.1, and #1629.2 above. Note: Rabelais' "games of Gargantua" is a list of over 200 games supposedly played at one sitting by the fictional character Gargantua. Urquhart's translation includes several familiar pastimes, including cricket, nine-pins, billiards, "tip and hurl" [?], prison bars, barley-break, and the morris dance . . . along with many games that appear to be whimsy and word-play ["ramcod ball," "nivinivinack," and "the bush leap"]. Not included are: club ball, stick ball, stoolball, horne billets, nine holes, hat ball, rounders, feeder, or base ball. Francis Rabelais - Completely Translated into English by Urquhard and Motteux (the Aldus Society, London, 1903), pp 68-71. Text chased down by John Thorn, email of 1/30/2008. +

1653.1 +

A character is asked how he might raise some needed money: "If my woodes being cut down cannot fill this pocket, cut 'em into trapsticks." Middleton, Thomas, and William Rowley, The Spanish Gipsie [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 172. Block observes that this snippet suggests that "trapstick" was by then commonly understood as a trap-ball bat. +

1656.3 +

Simon Rae writes that the "killjoy mentality reached its zenith under the Puritans, during the Interregnum, achieving an absurd peak when cricket was banned in Ireland in 1656 even though the Irish didn't play it." Evidently, hurling was mistaken for cricket. Simon Rae, It's Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber and Faber, 2001), page 46. Note: Rae does not document this event. +

1656.1 +

In October 1656 Director-General Peter Stuyvesant announced a stricter Sabbath Law in New Netherlands, including fine of a one pound Flemish for "playing ball," . . . cricket, tennis, ninepins, dancing, drinking, etc. +

1656.2 +

"The game [Stoolball] cropped up in 1656 in a pronouncement by the Counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland which said that "too much attention was being paid to 'shooting, playing at football, stoolball, wrestling.'" SRA website, accessed 4/11/07. Note: we need a fuller citation and perhaps further text and motivation for these pronouncements. +

1658.2 +

"Cricket was . . . emerging in a written sense, not through the form of a celebratory discourse, but as the target of Puritan and sabbatarian ire. Even in the first reliable literary reference to cricket - in The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence (1658) [a poem] by John Milton's nephew, Edward Philips - the game is represented as synonymous with brutality: 'Ay, but Richard, will you not think so hereafter? Will you not when you have me throw a stool at my head, and cry, "Would my eyes had been beaten out with a cricket ball ["batt?" asks Bateman], the day before I saw thee"'." Bateman, Anthony,"More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 30. Bateman does not give the original source for the Philips quotation. Note: Can we find the original Philips source? A few citations give the year of publication as 1685. +

1658.1 +

Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times in England [London, 1797], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 182. Included is an account from the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, from 1658: "Item to Richard May, 13 shillings for informing of one that played at trap-ball on the Lord's day." +

1659.1 +

"We shall interdict and forbid, during divine service on the [fasting] day aforesaid, all exercise and games of tennis, ball-playing, hunting, plowing and sowing, and moreover all unlawful practice such as dice, drunkenness . . ." proclaimed Peter Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant was Director-General of New Netherlands. Manchester, Herbert, Four Centuries of Sport in America (Publisher?, 1931). Email from John Thorn, 1/24/097. Query: Can we determine what area was affected by this proclamation? How does this proclamation relate to #1656.1 above? +

1660c.2 +

"That is the street which I could ne'er abide,/And these the grounds I play'd side and hide;/ This the pond whereon I caught a fall,/ And that the barn whereon I play'd at ball." The uncle of U.S. patriot Benjamin Franklin, also named Benjamin Franklin, wrote these lines in a 1704 recollection of his native English town of Ecton. The uncle lived from 1650/1 to 1727. Ecton is a village in Northamptonshire. Loring, J. S., The Franklin Manuscripts. The Historical Magazine, and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History, and Biography of America (1857-1875), Volume 3, issue 1, January 1859, 4 pages. Submitted by John Thorn, 4/24/06. +

1660c.1 +

The biography of a 17th century lord includes "a nostalgic description of the little town of Kirtling" by the lord's son Roger, born in 1651, as follows: "The town was then my grandfather's . . . it was always the custom for the youth of the town . . . to play [from noon when chores ended] to milking time and supper at night. The men [went to play] football, and the maids, with whom we children were commonly mixed, being not proof for the turbulence of the other party, to stoolball and such running games as they knew." Dale B. J. Randall, Gentle Flame: The Life and Verse of Dudley, Lord North (1602 - 1677 (Duke Univ. Press, 1983), page 56. The town of Kirtling is in Cambridgeshire, northeast of London. +

1661.1 +

The great scientist wrote, in a treatise discussing how the ball behaves in different ball games, including tennis: "Stool-ball, when they play in a stony way, . . . they do not trundle the ball upon the ground, but throw it, as if to pitch a quait. . . . . To make the ball stay, they hold it artificially with their hand uppermost, and it undermost, which in its delivery hath a contrary twirl or rolling conferred upon it by the fingers, by means whereof in its coming to the ground neer the mark it stays there, or runs very little forwards." (see Supplemental Text, below, for a longer excerpt, which also includes the effect of "cutting" balls in tennis as a helpful tactic.) +

1665.1 +

This translation of a French parody of Virgil's Aeneid includes these lines on the god Mercury: "Then in his hand he take a thick Bat,/ With which he us'd to play at kit-cat;/ To beat mens Apples from their trees, . . . " Ouch. Scarron, Paul, Scarronnides, or, Virgile travestie a mock poem [London], trans. Charles Cotton, Book Four, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 172. +

1666.1 +

"I was in the midst of a game of cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike the second time a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul which said, 'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven or have thy sins and go to hell?'" +

1669.1 +

"The writer who took most interest in popular pastimes was Shadwell, whose rococo play The Royal Shepherdess was produced before the king in 1669. It included country folk who danced and sand of a list of genuine English rural games, such as trap, keels, barley-break, golf [and] stool-ball . . . ." Hutton, Ronald, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: the Ritual Year, 1400-1700 (Oxford U Press, Oxford, 1994), page 235. Provided by John Thorn, email, 7/9/2004. Note: can we retrieve the full original list? +

1671.1 +

"Thus all our life long we are frolick and gay,/And instead of Court revels, we merrily play/At Trap, at Rules, and at Barly-break run:/At Goff, and at Foot-ball, and when we have done/These innocent sports, we'l laugh and lie down,/And to each pretty Lass/We will give a green Gown. Ebsworth, Joseph W., Westminster Drolleries, Both Parts, of 1671, 1672 [R. Roberts, Lincolnshire, 1875], page 28. Note: Yes, the player's method for turning the gown to green is what you suspect it is. We'll see this gown again at #1719.1, below. +

1672c.2 +

Warwickshire scientist Francis Willughby (1635-1672) compiled, in manuscript form, descriptions of over 130 games, including, stoolball, hornebillets, kit-cat, stowball, and tutball [but not cricket, trapball or rounders]. He died at 36 and the incomplete manuscript, long held privately, became known to researchers in the 1990s and was published in 2003. Willughby described stoolball as a game in which a team of players defended an overturned stool with their hands. Hornebillets, unlike stoolball and early cat games, involved using a bat, and also base-running [between holes placed 7 or 8 yards apart], but it used no ball - a cat was used as the batted object. A runner [running was compulsory, even for short hits] had to place his staff in a hole before the other team could put the cat in that hole. The number of holes depended on the number of players available. Stowball appears as a golf-like game. Kit Cat is described as a sort of fungo game in which the cats can be propelled 60 yards or more. +

1672.1 +

In his memoirs, the Rev. Thomas Wilson, a Puritan divine of Maidstone, England, states: "Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing, stool-ball, cricketts, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on the Lord's Day." Note: Henderson covers Wilson, but doesn't reference him. In the text, he says that Wilson wrote a memoir in 1700, but doesn't use a year for the events that were then recalled. I assume that the 1672 date is taken from date clues in the whole text. Henderson's source may be his ref #167: see Woodruff, C.H., "Origin of Cricket," Baily's Magazine [London, 1901], Vol. 6, p. 51. David Block [page 173ff] describes how "base ball" was substituted for "stool-ball" in later accounts of Wilson' s biography, which he cites as Swinnick, George, The Life and Death of Mr. Tho. Wilson, Minister of Maidstone [London]. +

1676.2 +

The chaplain assigned to three British ships at Aleppo [now in northern Syria] wrote this in his diary for May 6, 1676: As was the custom all summer long, this day [in May 1676] "at least 40 of the English, with his worship the Consull, rod [sic] out of the citty about 4 miles to the Greene Platt, a fine vally by a river side, to recreate them selves. Where a princely tent was pitched; and wee had severall pastimes and sports, as duck-hunting, fishing, shooting, handball, krickett, scrofilo . . . . and at 6 wee returne all home in good order, but soundly tyred and weary." A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 8. The passage is at Teonge, Henry, The Diary of Henry Teonge (Charles Knight, London, 1825), page 159. Accessed on Google Books, 12/28/2007. +

1676.1 +

The Mayor and Aldermen of New York that none should "att any Time hereafter willfully or obstinately prophane the Sabbath daye by . . . Playinge att Cards Dice Tables or any other Vnlawful Games whatsoeuer," banning "alsoe the disorderly Assemblyes of Children In ye Streets and other Places To the disturbance of Others with Noyse." Consequences? "Ye Person or Persons soe found drinkinge Gameing or Playing Either in Priuate or Publicke Shall forfeict Tenn Guildrs for Euery such offence." Note that ballplaying was not specifically prohibited. +

1677.1 +

"Young men and maids,/ Now very brisk,/ At barley-break and/ Stool-ball frisk." W. Winstanley, Poor Robin 1677. An almanack after a new fashion, by Poor Robin [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 174. +

1680.1 +

Anon., Honest Hodge and Ralph Holding a Sober Discourse in Answer to a late Scandalous and Pernicious Pamphlet, by "a person of quality" [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 174. The anonymous author of this tract sees the pamphlet as a tool used to trigger civil unrest in England, calling it "a mere trap-stick to bang the Phanaticks about." +

1680s.2 +

While the length of the cricket pitch [distance between wickets] was formally set at 22 yards in the 1744 rules, that distance is already "thought to have been 22 yards in the 1680's." [John Thorn points out that 22 yards is one-tenth of a furlong (and is also one-eightieth of a mile), and that a 22-yard chain was commonly used as a standard starting in the 1600's; in fact, the "chain" became itself a word for this distance in 1661; email of 2/1/2008.] Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia, 1990], page 16. Note: Scholefield does not provide a citation for this claim; keep an eye out! +

1683c.1 +

"We know that the first wicket, comprising two stumps with a bail across them, was pitched somewhere about 1683, as John Nyren recalled long afterward." Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (The Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960: reprint from 1935), page 31. Note: We should locate Nyren's original claim. Does this imply that cricket was played without wickets, or without bails, before 1683? +

1685.1 +

Aubrey, John, Natural History of Wiltshire [London, Nichols and Son, 1847], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 210. Folklorist Alice Gomme [see below] called this the earliest description of stool-ball. Aubrey says "it is peculiar to North Wilts, North Gloucestershire, and a little part of Somerset near Bath. They smite a ball, stuffed very hard with quills and covered with soale leather, with a staffe, commonly made of withy, about three feet and a half long. Colerne down is the place so famous and so frequented for stobbal playing. The turfe is very fine and the rock (freestone) is within an inch and a halfe of the surface which gives the ball so quick a rebound. A stobball ball is of about four inches diameter and as hard as stone. I do not heare that this game is used anywhere in England but in this part of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire adjoining." From A. B. Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1964 reprint of 1898 text [New York, Dover], page 217. +

1688.1 +

"It is reported that William III watched the game soon after he landed at Torbay, and that subsequently Queen Anne was an interested spectator." M. S. Russell-Goggs, page 320. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references; short of this, we need to confirm the date of the Torbay landing. A cursory Google search does not reveal confirming evidence of this anecdote. +

1690.1 +

Anon., The Pagan Prince: or a Comical History of the Heroik Atchievements of the Palatine of Eboracum [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 175. In this comical prose work, protection in battle was said to be provided by four Arch Angels - who, "when they see a Cannon Ball coming toward ye from any corner of the Wind, will catch it like a stool-ball and throw it to the Devil." +

1694.1 +

D'Urfey, Thomas, The comical history of Don Quixote [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 175. Block sees a "long, silly, bawdy rap song" in this play. It starts "Come all, great, small, short tall, away to Stoolball," and depicts young men and women becoming pretty familiar. It ends "Then went the Glasses round, then went the lasses down, each Lad did his Sweet-heart own, and on the Grass did fling her. Come all, great small, short tall, a-way to Stool Ball." Sounds like fun. +

1694.2 +

"With a relaxation of attitudes towards sports at the Restoration cricket began to emerge from its position of relative obscurity with the printed word beginning to define it, along with other folk games, as an element of the national culture. Edward Chamberlyne's Anglia Notitia, a handbook on the social and political conditions of England, lists cricket for the first time in the eighteenth edition of 1694. 'The natives will endure long and hard labour; insomuch, that after 12 hours of hard work, they will go in the evening to foot-ball, stool-ball, cricket, prison-base, wrestling, cudgel-playing, and some such vehement exercise, for their recreation.'" Source: Bateman, Anthony, "More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 30. Upon further examination, Protoball notes that Anglia Notitia actually has two ongoing areas of special interest. The first is the text above in part 1, chapter V, which had evolved through earlier editions - the 1676 edition - if not earlier ones - had already mentioned stow-ball [changed to "stoolball" as of 1694 or earlier], according to Hazlitt's Faith and Folklore. Cricket historian Diana Rait Kerr agrees that cricket was first added in the 18th edition of 1694. Another section of Anglia Notitia catalogued English recreations. Text for this section - part 3, chapter VII - is accessible online for the 1702, 1704, 1707, and later editions. These recreations were listed in three parts: for royalty, for nobles and gentry, and for "Citizens and Peasants." Royal sports included tennis, pell mell and billiards. The gentry's sports included tennis, bowling, and billiards. And then: "The Citizens and Peafants have Hand-ball, Stow-ball, Nine-Pins, Shovel-board [and] Goffe," said the 20th edition [1702]. In the 22nd edition [1707], cricket had been inserted as something that commoners also played. We find no reference to club ball, stick ball, trap ball, or other games suggested as precursors of baseball. The full title of Chamberlayne is Anglia Notitia, or the Present State of England: With Divers Remarks on the Ancient State Thereof. Chamberlayne's first edition apparently appeared in 1669; the 37th was issued in 1748. Another Chamberlayne excerpt is found at entry #1704.2 below. John Thorn supplied crucial input for this entry. Note: It would be interesting to see whether earlier and later editions of Chamberlayne cite other games of interest.

1697.1 +

The Foreign Post, July 7, 1697 reports that in Sussex, two sides of eleven each, eyeing a prize of 50 guineas, played "a great match at cricket." Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. +

1700.1 +

"Of course, there are many bare announcements of matches played before that time [the 1740's]. In 1700 The Postboy advertised one to take place on Clapham Common." Note: An excerpt from a Wikipedia entry accessed on 10/17/08 states: "A series of matches, to be held on Clapham Common [in South London - LMc] , was pre-announced on 30 March by a periodical called The Post Boy. The first was to take place on Easter Monday and prizes of £10 and £20 were at stake. No match reports could be found so the results and scores remain unknown. Interestingly, the advert says the teams would consist of ten Gentlemen per side but the invitation to attend was to Gentlemen and others. This clearly implies that cricket had achieved both the patronage that underwrote it through the 18th century and the spectators who demonstrated its lasting popular appeal." +

1700c.2 +

"Close of the 17th century: . . . The Common was always a playground for boys - wicket and flinging of the bullit was much enjoyed . . . . No games were allowed to be played on the Sabbath, and a fine of five shillings was imposed on the owner of any horse seen on the Common on that day. People were not even to stroll on the Common, during the warm weather, on Sunday." +

1704.2 +

"[T]he growth of a commercial London failed to raise the tone of sporting tastes. While the countryman exercised vehemently at football, stool-ball, cricket, pins-on-base, wrestling, or cudgel-playing, there was fiercer and more blood-stirring excitement for the Londoner. Particularly at Hockley-in-the-Hole, one could find bear-baiting, bull-baiting and cock-fighting to his heart's content." Chamberlayne, Edward, Anglia Notitia: The Present State of England [London, 1704 and 1748], page 51. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/9/04. +

1704.4 +

"[The following] text is, as far as we know, the earliest published rules of cricket that have come down to us. They are more than eighty years older than the first official Laws of Cricket, published in 1789." The ensuing text calls for the 4-ball over, unregulated runner and fielder interference, and has no rule to keep a batsman from deflecting bowled balls with his body. <a href="http://www.seatllecricket.com/history/1704laws.htm">http://www.seatllecricket.com/history/1704laws.htm</a>, accessed 10/2/02. The site offers no source. Most sources date the easiest rules to 1744; could this date stem from a typo? No source is given for the rules themselves. Beth Hise, on January 12, 2010, expressed renewed skepticism about the 1704 date. Caution: we have requested confirmation and sources from this website, and have not had a reply as of Feb. 2010. +

1704.1 +

Madame Knight, "in her inimitable journal of her ride from Boston to New York in 1704, speaks of ball-playing in Connecticut." "The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket Players," in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut, Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society, [n. p., 1909.] page 284. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/11/04. John notes 9/3/2005 that Seymour observes that Madame Knight does not specifically name the sport as wicket, but he excludes cricket as a possibility because cricket was not then known to have been played in America before 1725; however, John adds, we now have a cricket reference in Virginia from 1709. [See #1709.1, below.] +

1705.1 +

An account in the July 24 issue of The Postman reads, "This is to give notice that a match of cricket is to be plaid between 11 gentlemen of the west part of Kent, against as many of Chatham, for 11 guineas a man at Maulden in Kent on August 7th next." Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960; reprint of 1935), page 27. +

1706.1 +

Goldwin, William, In Certamen Pilae. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 15. Ford does not provide a full citation for this source. He reports the poem, written Latin, as "describing the early game and suggesting, perhaps, that it is becoming 'respectable.' He adds that "there was academic controversy over its translation in 1923." John Thorn offers that the poem was published in Goldwin's Musae Juveniles in 1706, and was translated by Harold Perry as "The Cricket Match" in 1922 [email of 2/1/2008]. John also sent Protoball the original text, for you Latin speakers out there. +

1706.2 +

[Author?] The Scotch rogue; or, The life and actions of Donald MacDonald, a Highland Scot [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 176. The [apparently fictional] hero recalls; "I was but a sorry proficient in learning: being readier at cat and doug, cappy-hole, riding the burley hacket, playing at kyles and dams, spangboder, wrestling, and foot-ball (and such other sports as we use in our country) than at my book." Block identifies "cat and doug," or cat and dog, as a Scots two-base version of the game of cat that was most commonly played in Scotland. It was the likely forbear of the American game of two-old-cat." +

1709.2 +

From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1697_to_1725_English_cricket_seasons">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1697_to_1725_English_cricket_seasons</a>, accessed 10/17/08: "The earliest known match involving county teams or at any rate teams bearing the names of counties. The match was advertised in the Post Man dated Saturday June 25, 1709. The stake was £50. "Some authors have suggested the teams in reality were "Dartford and a Surrey village", but this contradicts evidence of patronage and high stakes. It is likely that Dartford, as the foremost Kent club in this period, provided not only the venue but also the nucleus of the team, but there is no reason at all to doubt that the team included good players from elsewhere in the county. The Surrey team will equally have been drawn from a number of Surrey parishes and subscribed by their patron." The Wikipedia entry credits the website "From Lads to Lords: The History of Cricket 1300-1787", at <a href="http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html">http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html</a> +

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