1786.1
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"Baste Ball" Played at Princeton
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | College, Pre-Knicks NYCCollege, Pre-Knicks NYC |
| Location | |
| City/State/Country: | Princeton, NJ, United States |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | Base BallBase Ball |
| Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
| Age of Players | YouthYouth |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| Text | From a Princeton student's diary: "A fine day, play baste ball in the campus but am beaten for I miss both catching and striking the ball." |
| Sources | Smith, John Rhea, March 22 1786, in "Journal at Nassau Hall," Princeton Library MSS, AM 12800. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 240 (ref # 45). Also found in Gerald S. Couzens, A Baseball Album [Lippincott and Crowell, NY, 1980], page 15. Per Guschov, page 153.
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| Warning | |
| Comment | "Anticipating Pittsfield’s wish not to incur the cost of new glass panes, Dartmouth College— where wicket and cricket were the students’ games of choice — prohibited ball play near windows in 1780, and the University of Pennsylvania followed suit in 1784. Three years later, the faculty of Princeton (then known as the College of New Jersey) prohibited ball play: It appearing that a play at present much practiced by the smaller boys among the students and by the grammar scholars with balls and sticks in the back common of the College is in itself low and unbecoming gentlemen & students and in as much as it is an exercise attended with great danger to the health by sudden and alternate heats and colds as it tends by accidents almost unavoidable in that play to disfiguring and maiming those who are engaged in it for whose health and safety as well as improvement in study as far as depends on our exertions we are accountable to their Parents & liable to be severely blamed by them: and in as much as there are many amusements both more hon ourable and more useful in which they are indulged: Therefore the Faculty think incumbent on them to prohibit both the students & grammar scholars from using the play aforesaid. One year earlier, Princeton student John Rhea Smith (1767 — 1830) had noted in his diary for Wednesday, March 22, 1786: “A fine day; play baste ball in the campus, but am beaten for I miss both catching and striking the Ball.” Smith is portrayed above, some 15 years after his graduation, and below in silhouette in 1785, the year he went to Princeton, matriculating as a junior by examination. Smith used baste as a corruption of “base” in two separate contexts: “baste ball” and “prisoners’ baste,” a game of tag. This in my view renders the Princeton diary the first textual reference to a game we should regard as baseball, even if one not precisely so named, thus leaving Pittsfield with perhaps only an orthographic “first.” In any event, baseball was played in North America before either 1791 or 1786." (Our Game blog, Jan. 2, 2018) This use of the term "baste ball" precedes the first known use of "base ball" in the US: see protoball entry 1791.1. Note: Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896. Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | An article has appeared about Smith's journal. See Woodward, Ruth, "Journal at Nassau Hall," PULC 46 (1985), pp. 269-291, and PULC 47 (1986), pp 48-70. Note: Does this article materially supplement our appreciation of Smith's brief comment? Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
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| Has Supplemental Text |
1786.1 "Baste Ball" Played at Princeton"
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