1820s.20

From Protoball
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Chronologies
Scroll.png

Prominent Milestones

Misc BB Firsts
Add a Misc BB First

About the Chronology
Tom Altherr Dedication

Add a Chronology Entry
Open Queries
Open Numbers
Most Aged

Horace Greeley Lacks the Knack, Fears Getting Whacked

Salience Noteworthy
Tags Famous
City/State/Country: Poultney, VT, United States
Immediacy of Report Retrospective
Age of Players Youth
Text

"Ball was a common diversion in Vermont while I lived there; yet I never became proficient at it, probably for want of time and practice. To catch a flying ball, propelled by a muscular arm straight at my nose, and coming so swiftly that I could scarcely see it, was a feat requiring a celerity of action, an electric sympathy of eye and brain and hand . . . . Call it a knack, if you will; it was quite beyond my powers of acquisition. 'Practice makes perfect.'  I certainly needed the practice, though I am not sure that any amount of it would have made me a perfect ball-player."

 

Sources

Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life (J. B. Ford, New York, 1869), page 117. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 30. 

This book was accessed 11/15/2008 via Google Books search "greeley recollections owen."

Comment

Tom Altherr places the time as the early 1820s. Greeley, born in New Hampshire in 1811, was apprenticed a Poultney VT printer in about 1825.

Poultney VT is on the New York border, about 70 miles NNW of Albany NY. Greeley does not mention the games of wicket or round ball or base ball. 

Edit with form to add a comment
Query Edit with form to add a query
Submitted by Tom Altherr



Comments

<comments voting="Plus" />