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BC 2,000,000c.1 Overhand Throwing Evolves in Primates
Location:
Age of Players:
"A suite of physical changes -- such as the lowering and widening of the shoulders, and expansion of the waist, and a twisting of the humerus -- make humans especially good at throwing . . . it wasn't until the appearance of Homo erectus, about 2 million years ago" that this combination of alterations came together.
Note: Chimpanzees can only throw like a dartboard-contestant or a straight-arm cricket bowler.
Stone-tipped spears only appeared about a half a million years ago. "That means that for about 1.5 million years, when people hunted, they basically had nothing more lethal to throw than a pointed wooden stick . . . . If you want to kill something with that, you have to be able to throw that pretty hard, and you have to be accurate. Imagine how important it must have been to our ancestors to throw hard and fast."
Sources:
Roach, N.T., Venkadesan, M., Rainbow, M.J., Lieberman, D.E., June 27, 2013. "Elastic energy storage in the shoulder and the evolution of high-speed throwing in Homo." Nature. volume 498, pp. 483-486. See https://scholar.harvard.edu/ntroach/evolution-throwing
Peter Reuell, "Right Down the Middle, Explained," Harvard Gazette, June 27, 2013.See http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/06/right-down-the-middle-explained/ (includes video of human throwing motion).
Comment:
The article asserts, without supporting detail, that straight-arm (cricket-style) throwing is less effective.
Query:
Do British researchers agree that cricket-style bowling would be less effective as a hunting technique?
Do published comments on this paper add insights?
Circa
2000000 B.C.
BC3000c.1 A Baserunning Ballgame in the Stone Age?
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1937 the Italian demography researcher Corrado Gini undertook to study a group of blond-haired Berbers in North Africa, and discovered that they played a batting/baserunning game in the sowing season.
They called the game Om El Mahag. It employed a "mother's base" and a "father's base, and baserunners were retired if their soft-toss pitch resulted in a caught fly or if they were plugged when running between bases.
[A] Contemporary experts were persuaded that the "blondness of the Berbers suggests that they brought the game with them from Europe" some fifty or more centuries earlier when cold northern climates drove civilization southward.
[B] For later accounts of this research and its interpretation, see below.
Sources:
[A] Erwin Mehl, "Baseball in the Stone Age (English translation), Western Folklore, volume 7, number 2 (April 1948), page 159.
[B] For a succinct recent summary, see David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It (UNebraska Press, 2005), pages 95-100. For a rollicking but undocumented take on possible very early safe haven games, including Om El Mahag, see Harold Peterson, The Man Who Invented Baseball (Scribner's, 1969), pages 42-46.
Warning:
Today's reader will want to determine how modern demography sees the advent of blond-haired Berbers and the evidence on the preservation of games and cultural rituals over scores of human generations.
Comment:
Peterson sees a striking resemblance of Om El Mahag to Guts Muths' "German game" as described in 1796.
Query:
Has this game been observed in other North African communities since 1937? Are alternative explanations of Om El Mahag now offered, including a much more recent importation from cricket-playing and baseball-playing areas?
Circa
3000 B.C.
-2600c.1 "The Ball Enters History"
Tags:
Age of Players:
When the ball finally enters history, it arrives as a bizarre and homoerotic form of polo played on the backs not of horses, but of humans. The account of this strange sport is fond in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first works of literature ever written. It was carved into cuneiform tablets around 2600BC. . . . "
[A translation of the text: "[(His) comrades are roused up with his ball (game), the young men of Uruk are continually disturbed in their bedrooms (with a summons to play)"]
Sources:
John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (Harper Perennial, 2012), page 36.
For the later Asian game, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-ancient-balls-xinjiang.
Warning:
Comment:
Fox places the setting for the Gilgamesh story in what is now southern Iraq.
John Fox observes (Fox, p. 37) that this ancient piggy-back ball game also is seen in Egypt's Middle Kingdom a few centuries later, and in ancient Greece, where it was known as ephedrimos.
He also reports that "the actual balls used in [Egyptian] games have turned up with some frequency in Egyptian tombs . . . . Stitched leather balls, bearing an uncanny resemblance to modern-day hacky-sacks, were stuffed with straw, reeds, hair, or yarn. Balls made of papyrus, palm leaves, and linen wound around a pottery core have turned up as well." (Fox, p. 39)
Note: In 2020, it was reported that around 1000 BCE stuffed leather balls were possibly used by Uighurs in what is now norther China, plausible in an ancient form of equestrian polo.
Query:
Do we know of speculation -- or evidence -- as to how this piggy-back ball game might have been played, and how it could have been made attractive to it players?
Circa
2600 B.C.
BC2500c.1 “Tip Cats" Found in Egyptian Ruins?
Age of Players:
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.
Sources:
Culin, Stewart, “Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, N.Y.,” Journal of American Folklore, Volume 4, number 14 (July-September 1891), page 233, note 1.
Query:
Do contemporary archeologists and/or historians agree that such items were evidence of play? Have they since found older artifacts that may be associated with cat-like games, or ball games? Can they suggest any rules for such games... Batting? Running? Fielding? Team Play?
Circa
2500 B.C.
-2500.2 Tale of Game in Sumer, Possibly Using Ball and Mallet.
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Gilgamesh was a celebrated Sumerian king who probably reigned 2800-2500 BCE. His legend appears in several later poems.
In one, he drops a mikku and a pukku, used in a ceremony or game, into the underworld.
One scholar, Andrew George, suggests that the objects were a ball and a mallet. George translates the game played as something like a polo game where humans are ridden instead of horses.
When the two objects are lost, Gilgamesh is said in this interpretation to weep;
'O my ball! O my mallet!
O my ball, which I have not enjoyed to the full!
O my mallet, with which I have not had my fill of play!'
Sources:
The Epic of Gilgamesh, dated as early at 2100 BCE.
Mark Pestana, who tipped Protoball off on the Sumerian reference, suggest two texts for further insight:
[1] Damrosch, David, The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007). For specific reference to the ball & mallet, page 232. Damrosch’s comment on the primacy of Andrew George’s interpretation: “For Gilgamesh, the starting point is Andrew George’s The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation. . . "This is the best and most complete translation of the epic ever published, including newly discovered passages not included in any other translation.” (Damrosch, page 295)
[2] George, Andrew, The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation (London, England: Penguin Books, 1999). This book includes a complete translation of the Standard version, a generous helping of fragments of the Old Babylonian version, plus the Sumerian “ur-texts” of the individual Gilgamesh poems. The quote I included describing the ball game is to be found on page 183.
In the Supplemental Text, below, we provide an excerpt from a translation by Andrew George from his "Gilgamesh and the Netherworld."
Comment:
Mark Pestana, who submitted this item to Protoball, observes, "Polo? Croquet? Golf? Rounders? I think it's interesting that the spot of the ball is marked at the end of the first day."
See Mark's full coverage in the Supplemental Text, below.
Query:
Have other scholars commented on Mr. George's ballplaying interpretation of the Gilgamesh epic?
Circa
2500 B.C.
BC2400c.1 Was Egypt the Well-Spring of Ballplaying? Text Has “Strike the Ball” Reference
Game:
[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.”
Sources:
[A] Piccione, Peter, “Pharaoh at the Bat,” College of Charlestown Magazine(Spring/Summer 2003), p.36. From a clipping in the Giamatti Center’s “Origins” file in Cooperstown.
[B]Henderson, Robert W.,Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], page 4.
Comment:
David Block [Baseball Before We Knew It, page 303 (note 1)] writes that Piccione’s identification of seker-hemat with baseball is “apparently speculative in nature.”
Query:
It would be good to confirm details in an academic source and to see whether Egyptologists have any other interpretations of this text – and how Egyptian rites employed the ball as a symbol of fertility.
Circa
2400 B.C.
BC2000 to 1000ADc.1 The Ball in Ancient Play
Game:
Age of Players:
Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians—play primitive ball games for recreation, as fertility rites and in religious rituals.
Sources:
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 8-21.
Query:
Did any of these games feature base-running? Batting? Has the last 65 years of scholarship added detail to this sweeping claim?
Circa
2000 B.C.
BC2000c.1 "Egypt May Be the Birthplace" of Ballplaying
Game:
Age of Players:
"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."
Sources:
William S. Walsh, A Handy Book of Curious Information (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1913), page 83. Available via Google Books search "to light small balls," 1/27/2010.
Query:
Does recent scholarship agree that these were balls, were used in sport, and date to 2000 BC? Is there further evidence about their role in Egyptian life?
Circa
2000 B.C.
BC1500c.1 Mexican Game Believed to Use Bat, Rubber Ball
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.
Sources:
[Haslip-Viera, Gabriel: Bernard Ortiz de Montellano; Warren Barbour "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs," Current Anthropology, Vol. 38, No. 3, (Jun., 1997), pp. 419-441]
Per email from César González, 12/6/2008.
Query:
Can we add specific sources for these points?
Circa
1500 B.C.
BC750.1 Ballplay in Ancient Greece
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Galen
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).
Sources:
Stephen G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources [University of California Press, 2004]: See especially Chapter 9, "Ball Playing." The Pollox quote is from pp. 124-125, and the Galen quote is from pp. 121-124. Special thanks to Dr. Miller for his assistance.
Query:
Did any of the Greek games share attributes with modern baseball?
Year
750 B.C.
BC700c.1 Ball-Pitching in the Bible?
"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.
Sources:
Isaiah 22:18.
"Played Baseball in Bible Times: The Prophet Isaiah Made the only reference to the Pastime to be Found in the Holy Writ." (The Hamilton [Ont] Spectator - from an unidentified clipping in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center in Cooperstown.)
A compilation of 15 English translations [accessed at http://bible.cc/isaiah/22-18.htm on 12/29/10] shows that most of them summon the image of an angry God hurling the miscreant, like a ball, far far away. (One exception, however, cites the winding of a turban, not a ball.) A literal translation is unrevealing: "And thy coverer covering, wrapping round, Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides—there thou diest."
Warning:
We have incomplete assurance that Isaiah actually referred to a ball, or even to the act of throwing.
A compilation of 15 English translations [accessed at http://bible.cc/isaiah/22-18.htm on 12/29/10] shows that most of them summon the image of an angry God hurling the miscreant, like a ball, far far away. (One exception, however, cites the winding of a turban, not a ball.) A literal translation is unrevealing: "And thy coverer covering, wrapping round, Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides—there thou diest."
Comment:
Protoball user Benjamin Roy has done some further digging in 2014 on the meaning of this text . . . see Supplemental Text, below.
Query:
Can other readers throw any more light on this ancient (and, to Protoball, handsomely obscure) text?
Circa
700 B.C.
BC100.1 Historian Dates Early Cricket to 100 BC - Others Disagree
In his 1912 article "The History of Cricket" [in Pelham and Warner, Imperial Cricket (London, 1912), p. 54] Andrew Lang "argued that cricket was played as far back as 100 BC, basing this on evidence supposedly provided by the ancient Irish epics and romances." According to Lang, "cricket was played by the ancestors of Cuchulain, by the Dalraid Scots from northern Ireland who invaded and annexed Argyll in about 500 AD." Modern writers do not accept this view.
Sources:
Bateman, Anthony," 'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ; 'Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), pp. 27 - 44.
Query:
It would be interesting to know what particular features of Irish lore gave Lang the feeling that cricket stemmed from ancient Irish sources.
Year
100 B.C.
370c.1 Saint Augustine Recalls Punishment for Youthful Ball Games
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Saint Augustine
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."
Sources:
Saint Augustine's Confessions, Book One, text supplied by Dick McBane, February 2008.
Query:
Can historians identify the "game of ball" that Augustine might have played in the fourth Century? Are the translations to "game of ball," "games," and "sport" still deemed accurate?
Circa
370
824.1 15-Year-Old Chinese Emperor Criticized for Excessive Ball-Playing
Age of Players:
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.
Sources:
Waley, Arthur, The Life and Times of Po Chu-I, 772-846 [Allen and Unwin, London, 1949], p. 157. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Query:
Do we know what Chinese "ballplaying" was like in the ninth century?
Year
824
1000c.1 America Sees First European "Games?"
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"Now winter was coming on, and the brothers said that people ought to start playing games and finding something amusing to do. They did so for a time, but then people started saying unpleasant things about each other, and they fell out with each other, and the games came to an end. The people in the two houses stopped going to see each other, and that was how things were for a great deal of the winter.
Sources:
Johan Grundt Tanum Forlag, "The Saga of the Greenlanders; Eirik the Red Takes Land in Iceland," Vinland the Good: The Saga of Leif Eiricsson and the Viking Discovery of America (Oslo, 1970), page 39.
Comment:
Three older siblings of Leif Ericksson travel to Vinland and occupy two houses built in an earlier Vinland journey by Leif's father, Eirik the Red.
Note: Accounts of Viking games state the among the games was a "stick and ball" variety. As of April 2, 2022, Protoball has not located a source for such a conclusion, or any details of how such a game was played (let alone whether it involved baserunning).
--
From Bruce Allardice, April 3, 2022:
"Outdoor games [among the Vikings] were greatly popular. Based on Viking warrior skills, there were competitions in archery, wrestling, stone throwing and sword play. Horse fighting was also popular; two stallions would be goaded into fighting. Occasionally mares would be tied up around the field, within the sight and smell of the stallions. The horses would battle until one was killed or ran away.
Vikings engaged in running, swimming, tug-of-war called toga-honk and wrestling. Vikings also played a ball game with stick and ball. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to get hurt or even killed, as Vikings played rough. Women did not participate in these games, but they would gather to watch the men.
Children played with wooden toys their parents carved, or they played ball and also engaged in child versions of adult games. Child-sized replicas of weapons such as swords, shield and spears were found buried with other grave goods."
The stick-ball game was Knattleikr (English: 'ball-game'), an ancient ball game similar to hurling played by Icelandic Vikings.
Query:
Are the Sagas taken as accurate by scholars of Viking exploits?
When did the three siblings live in Vinland? Were the houses built in what is now US or Canada?
When were the Sagas written?
Circa
1000
1086.1 Form of Stool Ball Possibly Found in Domesday Book in Norman England?
Tags:
Game:
Stool ball, a stick and ball game and a forerunner of rounders and cricket, is apparently mentioned in the Domesday Book as "bittle-battle."
Sources:
Note: This source is Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 75.
Comment:
Henderson doesn't exactly endorse the idea that the cited game, "bittle-battle," is a ball game [or if it is, could it be a form of soule?] He says that one [unnamed] author claims that bittle-battle is a form of stoolball. I saw only two Henderson refs to stoolball, ref 72 [Grantham] and ref 149 [London Magazine]. One of them may be Henderson's source for the 1086 stoolball claim. I don't see a Henderson ref to the Domesday text itself, but then, it probably isn't found at local lending libraries.
Henderson labels this claim "highly conjectural." [ba]
The Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect [1875] reportedly gives "bittle-battle" as another name for stoolball. It is believed that "bittle" meant a wooden milk bowl and some have speculated that a bowl may have been used as a paddle to deflect a thrown ball from the target stool, while others speculate that the bowl may have been the target itself.
Query:
Note: We need to confirm whether the Domesday Book actually uses the term "bittle-battle," "stool ball," or what. We also should try to ascertain views of professional scholars on the interpretations of the Book. Martin Hoerchner advises that the British Public Records Office may, at some point, make parts of the Domesday Book available online.
I've not found bittle-battle in the Domesday book [ba]
Year
1086
1255.1 Spanish Drawing Seen as Early Depiction of Ballplaying
Game:
Age of Players:
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.
Sources:
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 Spain's King Alfonso.
Email from Ron Gabriel, July 10, 2007. Ron also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention. 2007 Annotation: can we specify the painting and its creator? Can we learn how baseball historians and others interpret this artwork?
From Pam Bakker, email of 1/4/2022:
"Cantigas de Santa Maria,"or "Canticles (songs) of Holy Mary" by Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221-1284)
Comment:
Ron Gabriel also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention
From Pam Bakker, email of 1/4/2022:
"Cantigas de Santa Maria" (written in Galician-Portuguese) or "Canticles (songs) of Holy Mary" by Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221-1284) is a collection of 420 poems with musical notation in chant-style, used by troubadours. It has fanciful extra biblical stories of miracles performed by Mary and hymns of veneration. She is often presented doing ordinary things, intended to elevate her while showing her engaged in life. It was very popular in the early Christian world. The book has illustrations, one of which appears to portray a woman swinging at a ball with a bat."
Query:
Can we further specify the drawing and its creator?
Can we learn how baseball historians and others interpret this artwork?
Do we know why this drawing is dated to 1255?
Year
1255
1393.1 Disconfirmed Poetry Lines Said to Denote Stoolball in Sussex
Tags:
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.
Sources:
http://www.cnmag.ca, as accessed 9/6/2007.
Warning:
Caution: The editor of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine informed us on 1/10/2008 that the Tendulkar piece "was strictly an entertainment piece rather than an academic piece." We take this to say that the verse is not authentic. Email from Dale Sproule, Publisher/Editor.
Query:
Is "stumpball" actually a known game? Have we done adequate searches for this name?
Year
1393
1400c.1 Savior Son Wants "To Go Play at Ball"
Tags:
Age of Players:
A well-known and still-sung medieval English carol (in this case, not a Christmas carol), is The Bitter Withy (withy is the willow tree). The carol is dated to around 1400.
As it fell out on a holy day.
The drops of rain did fall, did fall.
Our Saviour asked leave of his mother Mary
If he might go play at ball.
To play at ball, my own dear son,
It's time you was going or gone,
But be sure let me hear no complain of you
At night when you do come home.
John Bowman reports that "The poem then tells how the boy Jesus tricks some boys into drowning and is spanked by his mother with a willow branch. Although I do not know what scholars have to say about the ball game, it is clear that the upper-class boys regard it as lower-class!"
The full selection, and John's email, are shown below.
Sources:
Norton Anthology of Poetry (third edition, 1983) page 99.
Query:
What, if anything, have scholars said about the nature of the game that Jesus played? A baserunning and/or batting game? More like soccer or field hockey? Other?
Circa
1400
1450.2 Stoolball Dated by NSA to 1450 in "Don Quixote"
Game:
"[Stoolball] is mentioned in the classic book Don Quixote."
Sources:
National Stoolball Association website, accessed April 2007.
Comment:
Since Cervantes' Don Quixote was published between 1605 and 1615, the above date should be changed to that date.... or to 1694 (see below). [ba]
Query:
Note: we need a fuller citation and the key text. Is it possible that this entry confuses D'Urfey's 1694 play about Don Quixote [see Entry #1694.1, below] with the Cervantes masterpiece?
Year
1450
1500s.2 Queen Elizabeth's Dudley Plays Stoolball at Wotton Hill?
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Lord Robert Dudley; Queen Elizabeth I
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.
Warning:
Caveat: "Stobbal" is usually used to denote a field game resembling field hockey or golf; thus, this account may not relate to stoolball per se.
Comment:
The Wotton account was written by John Smyth of Nibley (1567-1640) in his Berkeley Manuscripts [Sir John McLean, ed., Gloucester, Printed by John Bellows, 1883]. Smyth's association with Berkeley Castle began in 1589, and the Manuscripts were written in about 1618, so it is not a first-hand report.
Query:
Note: Is it possible to determine the approximate date of this event?
Decade
1500s
1538.1 Easter Ball Play at Churches Ends in France
Tags:
"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.
Sources:
Brewster, Paul G., American Nonsinging Games [University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK, 1953] pp. 79-89. Submitted by John Thorn, 6/6/04. Brewster gives no source for the French dictum, nor for the "later date" when Easter play ceased in England.
Bob Tholkes (email of 10/4/2017) found a later source: Dawn Marie Hayes, “Earthly Uses of Heavenly Spaces: Non-Liturgical Activities in Sacred Place”, in Studies in Medieval History & Culture, Francis G. Gentry, ed., Routledge, 2003, p. 64.
Query:
Can the actual text be retrieved?
Year
1538
1540c.2 Nobleman Recalls "Palm Play" in Royal Court
Game:
Age of Players:
So cruel prison how could betide,alas,
As proud Windsor [Castle]? Where I in lust [pleasure] and joy
With a king's son my childish years did pass
. . .
Where each of us did plead the other's right;
The palm play [handball?], where despoiled [disrobed] for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball and got sight of our dame,
[The full selection, and email notes by John Bowman, are shown below.]
Sources:
Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), So Cruel a Prison, Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd edition, 1983: from Songes and sonettes, written by the right honourable Lorde Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey (London, A. R. Tottel, 1557).
Comment:
We are not certain that "palm play" could have been a baserunning game. It may be an Anglicized form of jeu de paume, a likely French antecedent to tennis.
The reference to "large grene courtes" in the full ball-play stanza suggests a tennis or handball-type pastime.
Query:
Have scholars indicated the likely nature of "palm play?" Could it have involved the batting of a ball with the palm?
Circa
1540
1550c.2 Very Early Cricket Play Recalled at Southern England School.
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."
Sources:
Brown, J. F., The Story of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, 1950, page 6.
Comment:
Note: it would be interesting to see the original reference, and to know how 1550 was chosen as the reported year of play.
Note: Derrick would have been about 10 years old in 1550.
Query:
Is it possible that this source is the basis for the claim (see 1550c.1) that the term cricket ("crekett") is not known prior to 1550?
Circa
1550
1555c.1 English Poet Condones Students' Yens "To Tosse the Ball, To Rene Base, Like Men of War"
Age of Players:
"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.
Query:
Any idea what "rene base" might have meant in those days? Could it refer to a much older form of the team-tag game later known as prisoner's base?
Circa
1555
1586c.1 Sydney Cites Stoolball
Location:
Game:
Notables:
Lady Mary Dudley, Sir Philip Sydney
"A time there is for all, my mother often sayes
When she with skirts tuckt very hie, with gyrles at stoolball playes"
Sources:
Sir Philip Sydney, Arcadia: Sonnets [1622], page 493. Note: citation needs confirmation.
Comment:
Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586) died at age 31 in 1586.
As of October 2012, this early stoolball ref. is the only one I see that can be interpreted as describing baserunning in stoolball - but it still may merely describe running by a fielder, not a batter. (LMc, Oct/2012)
Sydney's mother was the sister of Robert Dudley, noted in item #1500s.2 above as a possible stoolball player in the time of Eliizabeth I.
Query:
Further interpretations are welcome as to Sydney's meaning.
Circa
1586
1598.4 Italian Dictionary's "Cricket-a-wicket" doubted as reference to the Game of Cricket
"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."
Sources:
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 6.
Query:
Note: do later writers agree that this was mere coincidence?
Year
1598
1600c.1 Austrian Physician Reports on Batting/Fielding Game in Prague; One of Two Accounts Cites Plugging, Bases
Game:
Age of Players:
[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.'"
Sources:
[A] Guarinoni, Hippolytis, Greuel der Verwustung der menschlichen Gesschlechts [The horrors of the devastation of the human race], [Ingolstadt, Austrian Empire, 1610], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 167-168. See also pp. 100-102 for Block's summary of, and a translation of the Guarinoni material.
[B] Source: from page 111 of an unidentified photocopy in the "Origins of Baseball" file at the Giamatti Center of the Baseball Hall of Fame, accessed in 2008. The quoted material is found in a section titled "Rounders and Other Ball Games with Sticks and Bats," pp. 110-111. This section also reports: "Gyula Hajdu sees the origin of round games as follows: 'Round games conserve the memory of ancient castle warfare. A member of the besieged garrison sets out for help, slipping through the camp of the enemy. . . . '" "In Hungary several variants of rounders exist in the countryside."
This unidentified source may be W. Andrei and L. Zolnay, Fun and Games in Old Europe [English translation from Hungarian] (Budapest, 1986), pp. 110-111, as cited in Block, fn 16, page 304.
Query:
What is the basis of the Andrei/Zolnay report of a circuit of bases in the Czech game?
Does Mehl's discussion of the Czech game add anything?
Can we verify the Gyula Hajdu source? Is it Magyar Nepraiz V. Folklor? Does Hungarian rounders Belong in this entry? If not, how do we date it?
Circa
1600
1630c.3 At Oxford, Women's Shrovetide Customs Include Stooleball
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"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.
Sources:
Griffin, Emma, "Popular Recreation and the Significance of Space," (publication unknown), page 36.
The original source is shown as the Crosfield Diary entry for March 1, 1633, page 63. Thanks to John Thorn for supplementing a draft of this entry. One citation for the diary is F. S. Boas, editor, The Diary of Thomas Crosfield (Oxford University Press, London, 1935).
Query:
Can we find and inspect the 1935 Boas edition of the diary?
Circa
1630
1630.4 Stoolball Played in Sherston, England
Game:
"Back in 2014 I contacted Wiltshire County Council as I found a reference on their website to stoolball being played in a village called Sherston in 1630. In their reply it's obvious it's 'stoball' not stoolball and they give the quote that I think you already have recorded. However, it's still an interesting reminder in terms of the ball."
Sources:
https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getfaq.php?id=644
Per-e Email from Anita Broad, Vice Chair, Stoolball England, January 23, 2018.
Warning:
We are uncertain whether the game was a running game or a field-hockey=-type game also called "stoball."
Comment:
Sherston, England is in the southwest of England, near the Cotswolds and about 20 miles NE of Bristol England.
Query:
Is the Wiltshire County website's URL available? Is it still operative?
Is the original source of the data given?
Year
1630
1656.1 Dutch Prohibit "Playing Ball," Cricket on Sundays in New Netherlands.
Tags:
Game:
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.
Sources:
Source: 13: Doc Hist., Volume Iv, pp.13-15, and Father Jogues' papers in NY Hist. Soc. Coll., 1857, pp. 161-229, as cited in Manual of the Reformed Church in America (Formerly Ref. Prot. Dutch Church), 1628-1902, E. T. Corwin, D.D., Fourth Edition (Reformed Church in America, New York, 1902.) Provided by John Thorn, email of 2/1/2008.
See also:Esther Singleton, Dutch New York (Dodd Mead, 1909), as 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. 190. [Pages ix and 202 and 302 in Singleton touch on "ball-playing" in this period.]
Warning:
The reference to cricket resulted from the translation of the Dutch word "balslaen" into "cricket." Others have apparently translated it as "tennis."Further, "ball-playing" is a translation from "kaetsen."
Comment:
Singleton notes on p. ix that "Shrovetide was the Saturnalia of the lower classes," citing "joyous pastimes as all kinds of racing, and ball-playing in the streets. . ." On p. 202 she cites a stern 1667 ordinance discouraging Sunday play of "ball playing, rolling nine-pins or bowls, etc." On p. 302 she cites a January 1656 proclamation forbidding "all labour, tennis-playing, ball-playing," among other activities. Protoball does not see a ref to cricket in these sections.
Query:
Note: It would be useful to ascertain what Dutch phrase was translated as "playing ball," and whether the phrase denotes a certain type of game. The population of Manhattan at this time was about 800 [were there enough resident Englishmen to sustain cricket?], and the area was largely a fur trading post. Is it possible that the burghers imported this text from the Dutch homeland?
Can anyone out there google in Dutch?
Year
1656
1660c.3 New Netherland (Later NYC) Bans "Balslaen" on the Sabbath
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
(summarizing rules of the Sabbath in the New Netherland colony)
" . . . exercises and amusement, drinking {themselves} drunk, frequenting taverns or taphouses, dancing, playing cards, ticktacken {backgammon}, balslaen {literally: "hitting the ball"}, clossen {bowling}, kegelen {nine pins}, going boating, traveling with barges, carts, or wagons, before, between, or during the Holy worship."
Note: one translator used the term "cricket" for "balslaen."
Sources:
Jaap Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America (Cornell U. Press: Ithaca, 2009), p. 244.
Pam Bakker, who reported this find, notes that Jacobs' sources include: B. Fernow (ed.) and E. B. O'Callahan (trans.), The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini (7 vols, New York 1897, 2nd ed. Baltimore 1976, 1:24-26); also Ch. T. Gehring (trans. and ed.), Laws and Writs of Appeal 1647-1663 (New Netherland Documents Series, vol. 16, part 1) (Syracuse 1991 and this on p. 71); and thirdly E. B. O'Callagham (trans.) Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1636-1674 (Albany 1868 on p. 259).
See her full find below under Supplemental Text.
Comment:
(Jacobs) says that unfortunately "balslaen" has been translated as cricket but it simply means hitting the ball.
Query:
Can we determine whether 17th-century balslaen was a batting/baserunning game, or was it in the field-hockey, or handball, or golf, families of games?
Was "New Netherland" confined to the Manhattan area or did it extend northward into the Hudson River valley?
Is "circa 1660" a defensible approximation for this find?
Was balslaen played in Holland? Could it have influenced English ballplaying, including cricket and English base ball??
Circa
1660
1661.1 Galileo Galilei Discovers . . . Backspin!
Tags:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Galileo
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.)
Sources:
Galileo Galilei, Mathematical Collections and Translations. "Inglished from his original Italian copy by Thomas Salusbury" (London, 1661), page 142.
Provided by David Block, emails of 2/27/2008 and 9/13/2015.
Comment:
David further asks: "could it be that this is the source of the term putting "English" on a ball?"
Query:
Can we really assume that Galileo was familiar with 1600s stoolball and tennis? Is it possible that this excerpt reflects commentary by Salusbury, rather that strict translation from the Italian source?
Year
1661
1666.1 John Bunyan is Very Seriously Interrupted at Tip-Cat, one of his Four "Chief Sins"
Tags:
"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?'"
Sources:
Bunyan, John, Grace abounding to the chief of sinners [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 173. Autobiographical account by Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim's Progress. David notes on 5/29/2005 that this reference was originally reported by Harold Peterson, but that Peterson had attributed it to Pilgrim's Progress itself.
Comment:
Writing of Bunyan in 1885, Washington Gladden revealed that as a youth, "[t]he four chief sins of which he was guilty were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tip-cat, and reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton." Letter to the Editor, The Century Magazine, Volume 30 (May-October 1885), page 334.
Query:
Bunyan was born in 1628. Are we sure that this event can be dated 1666, when he was nearly forty years old?
Year
1666
1680.3 John Bunyan's Son Yields to "Drunkenness, Card-playing, Stoolball," Maypole Dancing
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Bunyan repeatedly emphasized that children should be taught about hell, and that they are accursed. 'Upon the Disobedient Child is written strictly from the parents' point of view. 'The rod of correction....is appointed by God for parents to use' Bunyan had written in Mr Badman, 'that thereby they might keep their children from hell.' But flogging in this case was not successful. 'Since this young Badman would not be ruled at home', his father put him out as an apprentice to a good man of his acquaintance.This familiar seventeenth-century practice did not work either. Bunyan's own eldest son, John, though apparently properly flogged in childhood, was by 1680 mixing with bad company (including another son of a member of Bunyan's church) and later took to 'drunkenness, card-playing, stoolball', and dancing round the maypole."
Sources:
Christopher Hill, John Bunyan; A Turbulent, Seditious, and Factious People: John Bunyan and his Church (1989), page 270.
Another source attributes Hill's source as Particia Bell, "John Bunyan in Bedfordshire," in The John Bunyan Lectures (Bedfordshire Educational Service, 1978), pp. 35-36.
Comment:
John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a Baptist preacher and author of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678 and 1684).
Query:
So . . . the quote was, perhaps, from a 1680 lecture by John Bunyan himslef?
Year
1680
1700.1 One of the Earliest Public Notices of a Cricket Match?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"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."
Sources:
Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (The Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960; reprinted from 1935), page 27. Moult does not further identify this publication.
Warning:
Caveat: The Wikipedia entry is has incomplete citations and could not be verified.
Query:
Can we confirm this citation, and that it refers to cricket? Do we know of any earlier public announcements of safe-haven games?
Year
1700
1725c.1 Wicket Played on Boston Common at Daybreak
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Judge Samuel Sewell
"March, 15. Sam. Hirst [Sewall's grandson, reportedly, and a Harvard '23 man -- (LMc)] got up betime in the morning, and took Ben Swett with him and went into the [Boston MA] Common to play at Wicket. Went before any body was up, left the door open; Sam came not to prayer; at which I was most displeased.
"March 17th. Did the like again, but took not Ben with him. I told him he could not lodge here practicing thus. So he lodg'd elsewhere. He grievously offended me in persuading his Sister Hannam not to have Mr. Turall, without enquiring of me about it. And play'd fast and loose in a vexing matter about himself in a matter relating to himself, procuring me great Vexation."
.
Sources:
Diary of Samuel Sewall, in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Published by the Society, Boston, 1882) Volume VII - Fifth Series, page 372. As cited by 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), p. 190.
Comment:
While this is the first known reference to ballplaying on Boston Common, there are several later ones. See Brian Turner, "Ballplaying and Boston Common; A Town Playground for Boys . . . and Men," Base Ball Journal (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 21-24.
A letter in "The Nation," July 7, 1910, dates this play in 1726. Cites George Dudley Seymour's address to the CT Society of Colonial Wars. [ba]
Year
1726
1732.1 "Struck a Ball Over the (163-foot) Weather-cock" in New York
Game:
Age of Players:
"The same Day a Gentleman in this City, for a Wager of 10l [ten pounds] struck a Ball over the Weather-Cock of the English Church, which is above 163 Feet high. He had half a Day allow'd him to perform it in, but he did it in less than half the Time."
Sources:
American Weekly Mercury, Philadelphia, July 6, 1732, page 3, column 2;
from a series of paragraphs/sentences datelined *New-York, July 3. The preceding paragraph had begun "On Friday last."
Comment:
Protoball doesn't know of other early references to pop-fly hitting.
Query:
Is it fair to assume that the gentleman used a bat to propel the ball?
Are such feats known in England?
Is a 160-foot weather-vane plausible? That's well over 10 stories, no?
Year
1732
1733.1 Long Poem Describes Stool-Ball in Some Detail; First Evidence of Use of a Bat?
Tags:
Game:
David Block calls this account "the most complete and detailed portrayal of the game to date." It provides the earliest reference to the use of a bat, describes a game that does not involve running after the young [female] players hit the ball, and includes a description of the field and the assembled audience.
See Supplemental Text for more.
Sources:
The London Magazine, vol 2, December 1733 [London], page 637, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 177-8.
Comment:
Note: A bat had been described in Willughby's c.1672 account of hornebillets. See 1672c.2.
Query:
Some actual text should be added here, if it can be captured.
Year
1733
1747.1 Poet Thomas Gray: "Urge the Flying Ball."
Location:
Age of Players:
Sources:
Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," lines 28-30. Accessed 12/29/2007 at http://www.thomasgray.org.
Comment:
"Rolling circle" had been drafted as "hoop," and thus does not connote ballplaying . Cricket writers have seen "flying ball" as a cricket reference, but one Gray scholar cites "Bentley's Print" as a basis for concluding that Gray was referring to trap ball in this line. Steel and Lyttelton note that this poem was first published in 1747.
The phrase "urge the flying ball" is re-used in later writings, presumably to evoke cricket playing.
Query:
Do modern scholars agree with the 1747 publication date?
Is it fair to assume that Gray is evoking student play at Eton in this ode?
Year
1747
1749.2 Aging Prince Spends "Several Hours" Playing Bass-Ball in Surrey
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Lord Middlesex, Prince of Wales
"On Tuesday last, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and Lord Middlesex, played at Bass-Ball (sic), at Walton in Surry (sic); notwithstanding the Weather was extreme bad, they continued playing several Hours."
Sources:
Whitehall Evening Post, September 19. 1749.
David Block's 2013 find was reported at the SABR.org website on 6/19/2103, and it includes interview videos and links to related documentation. Confirmed 6/19/2013 as yielding to a web search of <block royal baseball sabr>.
Comment:
Block points out that this very early reference to base-ball indicates that the game was played by adults -- the Prince was 38 years old in 1749, further weakening the view that English base-ball was played mainly by juveniles in its early history.
The location of the game was Walton-on-Thames in Surrey.
Comparing the 1749 game with modern baseball, Block estimates that the bass-ball was likely played on a smaller scale, with a much softer ball, with batted ball propelled the players' hands, not with a bat, and that runners could be put out by being "plugged" (hit with a thrown ball) between bases.
Query:
Only two players were named for this account. Was that because the Prince and Lord Middlesex both led clubs not worthy of mentioning by name, or was there a two-player version of the game then (in the 1800s competitive games of cricket were similarly reported with only two named players)?
Year
1749
1750s.2 Town Ball and Cat Played in NC Lowlands?
Location:
Game:
"Of formalized games, choices for males [in NC] appear to have been 'town-ball, bull-pen,' 'cat,' and 'prisoner's base,' whatever exhibitions of dexterity they may have involved."
-- Biographer C. G. Davidson, on local pastimes in North Carolina
Sources:
Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont Partisan: The Life and Times of Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson (Davidson College, Davidson NC, 1951), page 20. 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 32.
Warning:
This is a very early claim for town ball, preceding even New England references to bat-and-ball, roundball or like games. It would be useful to examine C. Davidson's sources on town ball and cat. Are we content that these games were found in NC in the 1750s?
Comment:
Prisoner's base is not a ball game, and bull-pen is not a safe-haven game.
Query:
Note: Can we determine what region of NC is under discussion here? Text of the biography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/15/2008.
Decade
1750s
1750s.3 1857 Writer Reportedly Dates New England Game of "Base" to 1750s
Tags:
Game:
"Dear Spirit: . . .
"I shall state [here] that which has come under my observation, and also some of my friends, during the last four years of the ball-playing mania . . .
Base ball cannot date back to so far as [cricket], but the game has no doubt, been played in this country for at least one century. Could we only invoke the spirit of some departed veteran of he game, how many items of interest might we be able to place before the reader.
"New England, we believe, has always been the play-ground for our favorite game; and the boys of the various villages still play by the same rules their fathers did before them. We also find that many games are played, differing but little from the well-known game of Base.
" . . . Although I am a resident of State of New York, I hope to do her no wrong by thinking that the New England States were, and are, the ball grounds of this country, and that many of our present players were originally from those States.
"The game of Base, as played there, was as follows: They would take the bat, 'hand over hand,' as the present time, 'whole hand or none.' After the sides were chosen, the bases would be placed so as to form a square, each base about twenty yards from the other. The striker would stand between the first and fourth base, equi-distant from each. The catcher was always expected to take the ball without a bound and it was always thrown by a player who would stand between the second and third bases. A good catcher would take the ball before the bat cold strike it. A hand was out if a man was running the bases should be struck with the ball which was thrown at him while he was running. He was allowed either a pace or a jump to the base which he was striving to reach; or if a ball was caught flying or on first bound. There was no rule to govern the striker as to the direction he should knock the ball, and of course no such thing as foul balls. The whole side had to be put out, and if the last man could strike a ball a sufficient distance to make all the bases, he could take in one of the men who had been put out. The ball was not quite the same as the one in present use, and varied very much in size and weight, it also was softer and more springy.
"The bats were square, flat, or round -- some preferring a flat bat, and striking with it so that th4 edge, or small side, would come in contact with the ball. Another arrangement of bases is, to have the first about two yards from the striker (on this right), the second about fifty down the field, and the third, or home, about five. . . .
"Yours, respectfully, X"
Sources:
Base Ball Correspondence," Porter's Spirit of the Times, Volume 3, number 8 (October 24, 1857), page 117, column 2. The full text of the October 20 letter from "X" is on the VBBA website, as of 2008, at:
Warning:
The writer present no evidence as to the earliest dates of known play.
Comment:
The game described by "X" resembles the MA game as it was to be codified a year later except: [a] "a good catcher would frequently take the ball before the bat cold strike it," [b] the runner "was allowed either a pace or jump to the base which he was striving t reach," [c] the bound rule was in effect, [d] all-out-side-out innings were used, [e] the ball was "softer and more spongy" than 1850's ball, [f] the bats were square, flat, or round," and [g] there was a second field layout, with three bases. [This variation reminds one of cricket, wicket, and "long town or "long-town-ball, except for the impressive 150-foot distance to the second base]."
Query:
Can we interpret the baserunning rule allowing "a pace or jump to the base [the runner] was striving to reach?" Plugging didn't count if the runner was close to the next base," perhaps?
Decade
1750s
1758.1 Military Unit Plays "Bat and Ball" in Northern NYS
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1758, Benjamin Glazier recorded in his diary that "Captain Garrish's company played 'bat and ball'" near Fort Ticonderoga.
Sources:
Benjamin Glazier, French and Indian War Diary of Benjamin Glazier of Ipswich,1758-1760. Essex Institute Historical Collections, volume 86 (1950), page 65, page 68. The original diary is held at the Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem MA.
Note: Brian Turner notes, August 2014, that: "I've had to cobble together the above citation without seeing the actual publication or the original ms. The Hathi Trust allows me to search for page numbers of vol. 86, but not images of those pages, and when I put in "bat and ball" I get hits on p. 65 and p. 68. P. 65 also provides hits for "Ticonderoga" and "Gerrish's," so that would be the most likely place for all the elements to be cited. The original clue came from a website on the history of Fort Ticonderoga, but I can no longer find that website."
Comment:
Fort Ticonderoga is about 100 miles N of Albany NY at the southern end of Lake Champlain. Ipswich MA is about 10 miles N of Salem MA.
Query:
Can the date of the diary entry be traced?
Year
1758
1776.2 NJ Officer Plays Ball Throughout His Military Service
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Lt. Ebenezer Elmer, a New Jersey office, noted several instances of ball-playing in New York State in 1776 and in New Jersey in 1777. His initial entries cite the game of whirl, and later ones note that ball was played "again."
Sources:
"Journal of Lieutenant Ebenezer Elmer, of the Third Regiment of New Jersey Troops in the Continental Service," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society [1848], volume 1, number 1, pp. 26, 27, 30, and 31, and volume 3, number 2, pp.98. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 29.
Query:
What was the game of "whirl?"
Year
1776
1778.4 Ewing Reports Playing "At Base" and Wicket at Valley Forge - with the Father of his Country
Age of Players:
[A] George Ewing, a Revolutionary War soldier, tells of playing a game of "Base" at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: "Exercisd in the afternoon in the intervals playd at base."
Ewing also wrote: "[May 2d] in the afternoon playd a game at Wicket with a number of Gent of the Arty . . . ." And later . . . "This day [May 4, 1778] His Excellency dined with G Nox and after dinner did us the honor to play at Wicket with us."
[B]
"Q. What did soldiers do for recreation?
"A: During the winter months the soldiers were mostly concerned with their survival, so recreation was probably not on their minds. As spring came, activities other than drills and marches took place. "Games" would have included a game of bowls played with cannon balls and called "Long Bullets." "Base" was also a game - the ancestor of baseball, so you can imagine how it might be played; and cricket/wicket. George Washington himself was said to have took up the bat in a game of wicket in early May after a dinner with General Knox! . . . Other games included cards and dice . . . gambling in general, although that was frowned upon."
Valley Forge is about 20 miles NE of Philadelphia.
Sources:
[A] Ewing, G., The Military Journal of George Ewing (1754-1824), A Soldier of Valley Forge [Private Printing, Yonkers, 1928], pp 35 ["base"] and 47 [wicket]. Also found at John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. Volume: 11. [U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1931]. page 348. The text of Ewing's diary is unavailable at Google Books as of 11/17/2008.
[B] From the website of Historic Valley Forge;
see http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/067.htm, accessed 10/25/02. Note: it is possible that the source of this material is the Ewing entry above, but we're hoping for more details from the Rangers at Valley Forge. In 2013, we're still hoping, but not as avidly.
See also Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000)\, p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 236.
Comment:
Caveat: It is unknown whether this was a ball game, rather than prisoner's base, a form of tag played by two teams, and resembling the game "Capture the Flag."
Note: "Long Bullets" evidently involved a competition to throw a ball down a road, seeing who could send the ball furthest along with a given number of throws. Another reference to long bullets is found at http://protoball.org/1830s.20.
Query:
Is Ewing's diary available now? Yes, on archive.org. See https://archive.org/details/georgeewinggentl00ewin/mode/2up?q=george+ewing+diary
Year
1778
1779.2 Lieutenant Reports Playing Ball, and Playing Bandy Wicket
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Samuel Shute, a New Jersey Lieutenant, jotted down his reference to playing ball in central Pennsylvania sometime between July 9 and July 22, 1779; 'until the 22nd, the time was spent playing shinny and ball.' Incidentally, Shute distinguished among various sports, referring elsewhere in his journal to 'Bandy Wicket.' He did not confuse baseball with types of field hockey [bandy] and cricket [wicket] that the soldiers also played." Thomas Altherr.
Sources:
"Journal of Lt. Samuel Shute," in Frederick Cook, ed., Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779 [Books for Libraries Press, Freeport NY, reprint of the 1885 edition], p. 268. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 28. Also 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), p. 194.
On bandy: Alice Bertha Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Dover, 1964 (reprint: originally published in 1894), volume I. [Page not shone; listed games are presented alphabetically]
Comment:
Shinny, Wikipedia says, denotes field hockey and ice hockey. Thus, by "ball," Shute was not referring to field hockey. If he was not denoting handball, he may have been adverting to some early form of base ball.
According to Alice B. Gomme, Bandy Wicket refers to the game of cricket, played with a bandy (a curved stick) instead of a bat.
Query:
Can we locate and inspect Shute's reference to bandy wicket?
Year
1779
1781.1 Teen Makes White Leather Balls for British Officers' Ball-Playing
Tags:
Age of Players:
"These officers [British soldiers captured at the Battle of Saratoga] were full of cash and frolicked and gamed much. One amusement in which they indulged much, was playing at ball. A Ball-Alley was fitted up at the Court-House, where some of them were to be seen at almost all hours of the day."
"Whilst the game of ball was coming off one day at the Court House, an American officer and a British officer, who were among the spectators, became embroiled in a dispute."
The writer, Samuel Dewees, went on to describe how, as a teen, he had fashioned balls and sold them to the British for a quarter each.
Sources:
Hanna, John S., ed., A History of the Life and Services of Captain Samuel Dewees, A Native of Pennsylvania, and Soldier of the Revolutionary and Last Wars [Robert Neilson, Baltimore, 1844], p. 265- 266. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref #37: see p. 238.
For more on the ball-playing habits of the "Convention Army" of captured British soldiers from 1778 to 1781, see Brian Turner, "Sticks or Clubs: Ball Play Among the Route of Burgoyne's 'Convention Army,' Base Ball, volume 11 (2019), pp. 1-16.
Comment:
In the game of wicket, the "alley" included the space directly between the two wickets.
Query:
Is "alley" used by cricketers in the same way?
Year
1781
1782.3 NH Diarist Notes that Local Youths "Play Ball Before My Barn"
Game:
Age of Players:
"Caleb Washburn, young Benjamin Hall, Tom Wells the younger and El play ball before my barn."
Sources:
Stabler, Lois K., ed., Very Poor and of a Lo Make: The Journal of Abner Sanger (Peter E. Randall, Portsmouth NH, 1896), p. 416. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 245 and ref #77.
This somewhat cryptic journal entry is for April 27, 1782.
Comment:
The game could be barn ball, we could guess, although that game is typically described as two boys and a barn, with plugging.
Query:
Like, who is El?
Year
1782
1785.3 Men's Stool Ball Match Set in Kent: Winner to Receive 150 Guineas . . . and Some Roasted Lamb!
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Stool-Ball. To be played in Lynsted Park, near the Parish of Sittingbourn, For One Hundred and Fifty Guineas. On Monday, the 16th of this Instant May, A Game of Stool Ball. The players, on this Occasion, will be complemented with a LAMB ROASTED WHOLE, By Mr. Chapman. Homestall Lane is fixed on to divide the County. THE RETURNED MATCH is to be played at Boughton, when another Lamb will be given, at the WHITE HORSE, by Mr. Chapman, of Lynsted.
"The Gentlemen are required to to meet, in Consequence of the above Match, on Friday next, May 6, at the Swan, Greenstreet. [emphasis in original]"
Sources:
Kentish Gazette, May 4, 1785.
Comment:
-- "While mentions of stool ball in literature go back centuries, this is the earliest “serious” contest of the game I’m aware of. It’s especially interesting because the competitors were men. Of course, we have no idea what form of the game they were playing, but presumably it more closely resembled the structured form that women began playing in the 19th century as opposed to the milkmaid version of centuries past."
-- "Sittingbourn lies between London and Canterbury. The Swan is a pub that still operates, near Sittingbourn. Homestall Lane appears to be the dividing line between the Sittingbourne area and a second area to the east centered on the town of Boughten-under-Blean. Use of the term 'county' is a bit puzzling as it is obvious that this competition did not include participants representing the entire county of Kent."
"The White Horse Inn, the venue for the return match, is also still in operation today. Despite the fact that both the Swan and the White Horse are more than 235 years old, neither is listed among the top ten oldest public houses in Kent. Both sit astride the ancient London-Canterbury Road along which traveled the pilgrims documented by Chaucer in Canterbury Tales. Indeed, the White Horse Inn was mentioned in one of the tales (according to the inn's website.)"
-- "A guinea from 1785 is worth roughly $100 today." [So the stakes amounted to $15,000 in today's dollars?]
-- "I should have more important things than this to occupy me on a rainy [San Francisco] Sunday afternoon, but apparently not. Undoubtedly, we are scrutinizing this item more closely than it would ordinarily merit, but in Covid times I am happy for the distraction."
from David Block, emails of 12/14-15/2020
===
As of December 2020, Protoball's Chronology has over 65 references to stoolball prior to 1785, and 20 more from 1785 to 1860. Vey few of them cite male players, and fewer still cite male-only play or large stakes for winning.
Query:
Is the Homestall Lane ref meant to convey that the competing sides within the county are to be determined by a player's residence on one or the other of the lane? [See Block reply above.]
Year
1785
1786.1 "Baste Ball" Played at Princeton
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
From a Princetlon 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.
Comment:
This use of the tern "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.
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?
Year
1786
1787.1 Ballplaying Prohibited at Princeton - Shinny or Early Base Ball?
Tags:
Age of Players:
"It appearing that a play at present much practiced by the smaller boys . . . with balls and sticks," the faculty of Princeton University prohibits such play on account of its being dangerous as well as "low and unbecoming gentlemen students."
Sources:
Quoted without apparent reference in Henderson, pp. 136-7. Sullivan, on 7/29/2005, cited Warnum L. Collins, "Princeton," page 208, per Harold Seymour's dissertation.
Wallace quotes the faculty minute [November 26, 1787] in George R. Wallace, Princeton Sketches: The Story of Nassau Hall (Putnam's Sons, New York, 1894), page 77, but he does not cite Collins. The Wallace book was accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Book search for "'princeton sketches.'" The college is in Princeton NJ.
Warning:
Caveat: Collins - and Wallace -believed that the proscribed game was shinny, and Altherr makes the same judgment - see Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 35-36.
Comment:
Note: Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.
Query:
Can we determine why this "shiny" inference was made?
Year
1787
1787.2 VT Man's Letter to Brother Says "Three Times is Out at Wicket"
Location:
Game:
"Three times is Out at wicket, next year if Something is not done I will retire to the Green Mountains."
Sources:
Levi Allen to Ira Allen, July 7, 1787, in John J. Duffy, ed., (University Press of New England, Hanover NH, 1998), volume 1, p. 224. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 245 and ref #78.
Comment:
Levi Allen, in Vermont, wrote to Ira Allen, in Quebec.
Query:
Do we know how old the brothers were in 1787? Do we know where they might have become with wicket?
Three times of what? Is wicket known to have 3-out-side-out half-innings? I couldn't mean three strikes, right? Maybe three non-forward hits?
Year
1787
1790s.11 Future Ship Captain Chooses Reading Over Boyish Sports
Age of Players:
"[Reading] took precedence [over] Kites, Marbles, Balls, Shinny Sticks, and all other Boyish Sports.) -- John Hamilton, of Wilmington DE
Sources:
John Hamilton, "Some Reminiscences of Wilm't'n and My Youthful Days," Delaware History, v.1 no. 2 (July 1946), page 91.
Query:
What dates this reflection to the 1790s?
Decade
1790s
1797.1 Daniel Webster Writes of "Playing Ball" While at Dartmouth
Location:
Age of Players:
Daniel Webster, in private correspondence, writes of "playing at ball," while a student at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.
Sources:
Webster, Daniel, Private Correspondence, Fletcher Webster, ed. [Little Brown, Boston 1857], volume 1, p. 66. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p. 240 (ref #46).
On 7/31/2005, George Thompson added that "Volume 17, page 66 of the National Edition of his Writings and Speeches is supposed to have a reference by one Hotchkiss to Webster playing ball at Dartmouth."
Query:
Altherr [p. 27] puts this date "at the turn of the century." Do we know where the 1797 date originated? Was Webster at Dartmouth then?
Year
1797
1800c.1 Sports at Exeter Academy include "Old-Fashioned Bat and Ball". . . and Football
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"At the turn of the century ball-playing at Exeter was commonplace, according to a historian of that school. 'The only games seem to have been old-fashioned 'bat and ball', which, in the spring, was played on the grounds of the Academy building, and football. The former differed widely from the modern game of base ball, which was introduced later. The old game had fewer rules, and was played with a soft leather ball.'" -- Tom Altherr
Sources:
Cunningham, Frank H., Familiar Sketches of the Phillips Exeter Academy and Surroundings (James R. Osgood and Company, Boston, 1883), p. 281. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 245 and ref # 79.
Query:
Is there a way to check the approximate year that the historian is depicting in this passage?
Circa
1800
1800c.11 “Sky-ball”, “Cat and Ball” Remembered in Southern PA
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
“On this very spot I hit the ball against the gable; just there I often stuck the lever which sent the ball aloft in ‘sky-ball’; down yonder we played cat and ball . . .”
[A man in his 70's remembers ballgames played in his youth in south central PA]
Sources:
D. X. Junkin, The Reverend George Junkin, DD, LLD: A Historical Biography (Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1871), page 538.
Comment:
"It seems to me that sky-ball was a trapball-type game." -- Tom Altherr, 2.19.2021
A gable is an end-wall of a structure. Tom suggests that the first game reported may have been barn ball.
Query:
Any idea what 'cat and ball' might have been? In February 2021 Protoball does not find that phrase. It is conceivable that the author misheard his father's use of "bat and ball" as "cat and ball."
Circa
1800
1800c.12 Author Recalls Cricket and Base
Age of Players:
[From the preface] "The author of this [1842] book has lived in the world very nearly fifty years. He remembers very distinctly when, and where, how, and with whom he played cricket and base—football and tag—skating, sliding, kite-flying, snow-balling, wrestling, swimming, &c., &c.”
Sources:
The Two Ways and the Two Ends, a book published by the American Sunday School Union, 1842.
Query:
Any clues as to the location of recalled games?
Circa
1800
1802c.1 South Carolina Man Lists Ball-Playing Among Local Amusements
Location:
"[A]musements are few: consisting of dancing, horse racing, ball playing and rifle shooting."
Sources:
Drayton, John, A View of South-Carolina, As Respects Her Natural and Civil Concerns [W. P. Young, Charleston SC, 1854], p. 88. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 247 ref #87.
Query:
Can we determine the SC location recalled, why Tom dated it as circa 1802, or what form the ballplaying took?
Circa
1802
1805.2 Portland ME Bans "Playing at Bat and Ball in the Streets" in 1805, Retains Ban in 1824
Tags:
Location:
Game:
[A] "[N]o person shall play at the game of bat and ball or shall strike any ball with a bat or other machine in the streets, lanes, or squares of the town on penalty of fifty cents."
[B] "It is ordered by the town, That no person shall play at the game of bat and ball, or shall strike any ball with a bat or other machine, or throw any stones, brickbats, clubs or snow balls, in the streets, lanes, or squares of the town, on penalty of fifty cents for each offence [sic]."
Sources:
[A] By Laws of the Town of Portland, in the County of Cumberland, 2nd Edition (John McKown, Portland, 1805), p. 15. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball" (2000), reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see p. 244 and note #70.
[B] By-Laws of the Town of Portland, (Adams and Paine, printers, 1824).
Comment:
It seems plausible that the fuller language also appeared in the 1805 printing, but was not reported in Tom's 2000 account.
Query:
Can we imagine what "other machines" were employed to propel balls in the streets of Portland? Note: Additional origins researchers' comments on the meaning or "other machines" is shown in Supplemental Text, below.
Year
1805
1805.6 In SC, Some Slaves Use Sundays for Ballplaying
Tags:
Location:
"The negroes when not hurried have this day [Sunday] for amusement & great numbers are seen about, some playing ball, some with things for sale & some dressed up going to meeting." -- Edward Hooker
Sources:
Edward Hooker, Diaries, 1805-1830: MS 72876 and 72877, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford CT; 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), pages 29-30. Tom [ibid, page 29] describes Hooker as a recent Yale graduate who in 1805 was a newly-arrived tutor in Columbia, SC.
Comment:
Tom Altherr says "this may be the first recorded evidence of slaves [see p29/30] playing ball.
Query:
How about the evidence in 1797.5?
Year
1805
1805.8 Yale Grad Compares Certain English Ballgames to New England's
Location:
Age of Players:
"July 9 [1805, we think] . . . . The mode of playing ball differs a little from that practiced in New-England. Instead of tossing up the ball out of one's own hand, and then striking it, as it descends, they lay is into the heel of a kind of wood shoe; and upon the instep a spring is fixed, which extends within the hollow to the hinder part of the shoe; the all is placed where the heel of the foot would commonly be, and a blow applied on the other end of the spring, raises the ball into the air, and, as it descends, it receives a blow from the bat.
"They were playing also at another game resembling our cricket, but differing from it in this particular, that he perpendicular pieces which support the horizontal one, are about eighteen inches high, and are three in number, whereas with us they are only two in number, and about three or four inches high."
Sources:
Benjamin Silliman, Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland, Volume 1 (Boston, 1812 - 1st edition 1810), page 245. Accessed via Google Books, 2/12/2014 via search of <Silliman "journal of travels">.
Comment:
Protoball notes, circa 2010
The writer, Benjamin Silliman, thus implies that an American [or at least Connecticut] analog to trap ball was played, using fungo-style batting [trap ball was not usually a running game, so the American game may have been a simple form of fungo].
His second comparison is consistent with our understanding or how English cricket and American wicket were played in about 1800. However, it seems odd that he would refer to "our cricket" and not "our wicket" It is possible that a form of cricket - using, presumably, the smaller ball - was played in the US that retained the older long, low wickets known in 1700 English cricket.
Note that if the US wicket was only 3 or 4 inches high, a rolling ball would most likely dislodge the bail.
From David Block, 2/12/2014:
"This reference raises some questions, which may not be answerable. Was he implying that striking a ball, fungo-style, was the general method of ball-play in New England, or was he only making a more narrow comparison to how a self-serve type of ball game was played at home. If the latter, might this have been 'bat-ball'?"
"It appears that the author was previously unaware of English cricket. What he refers to as "our cricket" is obviously wicket. This was an educated man, but it was also apparently his first trip overseas. My first reaction was to be very surprised at his apparent ignorance of English cricket, but it may well be that things that seem like obvious knowledge to us today may not have been so in the America of two hundred years ago."
Query:
Can we find out more about the long, low wicket reportedly used in earliest forms of English cricket, and when the higher and narrower wicket evolved there?
Can we find out more about Silliman's life and his age when touring England?
Year
1805
1806.2 Children's Poem Traces Bouncing Ball
Age of Players:
THE VILLAGE GREEN. "On the cheerful village green,/ Skirted round with houses small,/ All the boys and girls are seen,/Playing there with hoop and ball/ . . . ./Then ascends the worsted ball;/ High it rises in the air;/Or against the cottage wall,/Up and down it bounces there."
BALL. "My good little fellow, don't throw your ball there/you'll break the neighbors's window I know/ . . . As the ball had popp'd in, so the neighbor popp'd out/ And with a good horsewhip he beat him about . . ."
Sources:
Gilbert, Ann, Original Poems, for Infant Minds, 2 volumes (Kimber, Conrad, Philadelphia, 1806), vol. 2, page 120; Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 242.
Query:
Altherr reports that "Gilbert described some sort of ball play as common on the village commons." (See Block, Ibid., page 241). Can we determine Gilbert's usage in calling such play common? Does the clue that the ball was "worsted" (woolen, or made of wool cloth?) add a helpful clue as to the nature of the game played?
Year
1806
1806.4 Minister from New England Plays Ball in Western Reserve [OH]
Age of Players:
April 8 [1806]: "Visited. Played at little ball."
May: "Rainy. Played ball some."
Volume 1 of this diary is not available via Google Books as of 11/15/2008. To view Volume 2, which has later New England references, use a Google Books "'robbins d. d.' diary" search.
Sources:
Increase Tarbox, ed., The Diary of Thomas Robbins, D.D. 1796-1854, Volume 1 (Boston, 1886) pages 285 and 287. 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 32.
Comment:
Tom Altherr writes : "This may be the earliest recorded evidence of ball play in Ohio." Note: Protoball knows of no earlier reference as of 2008.
(See #1796.2) regarding his earlier diary-keeping, and #1833.11 for later diary entries about.
Robbins was 33 years old in 1806.
In 1806, after leaving the Western Reserve, Robbins played again in Norwalk CT, and played there again in 1808.
Query:
It would be helpful to know where Robbins lived in the Western Reserve.
Year
1806
1807.3 Lost Poet Remembers College Ballplay, Maybe in Baltimore
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
Garrett Barry wrote in his sentimental verse "On Leaving College:"
"I'll fondly tract, with fancy's aid,/The spot where all our sports were made./ . . .
The little train forever gay,/With joy obey'd the pleasing call,/And nimbly urged the flying ball."
Sources:
Barry, Garrett, "On Leaving College," in Poems, on Several Occasions (Cole and Co., Baltimore, 1807), no page given: Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, see pages 240.
Comment:
2008 update: John Thorn [email of 2/3/2008] discovers that others have been unable to determine exactly who the poet was, as there were three people with the name Garrett Barry in that area at that time. One of the three, who died at thirty in 1810, attended St. Mary's College in Baltimore.
Query:
Can we determine from biographical information where and when Barry attended college? Is it significant that Barry reprises the phrase "urge the flying ball," seen as a cricket phrase in Pope [see #1730.1] and Gray [#1747.1]? Did Barry live/play in MD?
Year
1807
1809.1 Americans in London Play "A Game Called Ball," Seen as a "Novelty" By Locals
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"On Wednesday a match for 80 guineas, at a game called Ball. was played by Eight American Gentlemen, in a field on the side of the Commercial-road. The novelty of the game attracted the attention of the passing multitude, who departed highly gratified."
Sources:
Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser (London), June 23, 1809, page 2. See David Block, Pastime Lost: The Humble, Original, and Now Completely Forgotten Game of English Baseball (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), page 237.
Comment:
Block adds: "Other games besides baseball, of course, could have borne the label Ball on that occasion, but none seem obvious. Cricket, football, trap-ball, stool-ball, golf, and various games in the hockey family ,including bandy, hurling, and shinty, all had a presence in the British Isles in that era, but there is no reason the passing multitude in London that day would have considered any of them a "novelty."
Query:
Does the sum of 80 guineas as the game's stakes imply anything about the players?
Year
1809
1810c.1 "Poisoned Ball" Appears in French Book of Games
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
The rules for "Poisoned Ball" are described in a French book of boy's games: "In a court, or in a large square space, four points are marked: one for the home base, the others for bases which must be touched by the runners in succession, etc."
To See the Text: David Block carries a three-paragraph translation of text in Appendix 7, page 279, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
David notes that the French text does not say directly that a bat is used in this game; the palm may have been used to "repel" the ball.
Sources:
Les Jeux des Jeunes Garcons [Paris, c.1810]. Per Robert Henderson. Note: David Block's Baseball Before We Knew It, at page 186-187, dates this book at 1815, some of the doubt perhaps arising from the fact that the earliest [undated?] extant copy is a fourth edition.
Comment:
We have one other reference to poisoned ball, from about three decades later. See item 1850c.8.
Query:
This game has similarity to base ball; could a French-speaking digger take a few moments to sort out whether more is known about the rules, origins, and fate of the game?
Circa
1810
1810s.9 19th Century Glossarist Describes "Bat and Ball" Rules
Tags:
Game:
When Alfred Elwyn composed his 1859 glossary entry for “ball,” his example was “bat and ball” played in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he was born in 1804.
“The one we call ‘bat and ball’ may be an imperfect form of cricket, though we played this [cricket] in the same or nearly the same manner as in England, which would make it probable that the ‘bat and ball’ was a game of Yankee invention” (p.18).
“[S]ides were chosen, not limited to any particular number, though seldom more than six or eight. . . .The individual . . . first chosen, of the side that was in, took the bat position at a certain assigned spot. One of his adversaries stood at a given distance in front of him to throw the ball, and another behind him to throw back the ball if it were not struck, or to catch it. . . . After the ball was struck, the striker was to run; stones were placed some thirty or forty feet apart, in a circle, and he was to touch each one of them, till he got back to the front from which he started. If the ball was caught by any of the opposite party who were in the field, or if not caught, was thrown at and hit the boy who was trying to get back to his starting place, their party was in; and the boy who caught the ball, or hit his opponent, took the bat. A good deal of fun and excitement consisted in the ball not having been struck to a sufficient distance to admit of the striker running round before the ball was in the hands of his adversaries. If his successor struck it, he must run, and take his chance, evading the ball as well as he could by falling down or dodging it. While at the goals he could not be touched; only in the intervals between them.” (p.19)
Sources:
Alfred L. Elwyn, Glossary of Supposed Americanisms (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1859), pp. 18-20.
Comment:
Using stones for bases fits Carver’s 1834 description of “base or goal ball.” Elwyn also specifies that an inning was “one out, side out,” a feature of the Massachusetts game later codified in 1858. And, of course, that old New England favorite, “soaking.”
Query:
Do we have any way to tell the ages of the participants in the recalled game?
Decade
1810s
1812c.1 Young Andrew Johnson Plays Cat and Bass Ball and Bandy in Raleigh NC
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[At age four] "he spent many hours at games with boys of the neighborhood, his favorite being 'Cat and Bass Ball and Bandy,' the last the 'choyst' game of all."
Sources:
Letter from Neal Brown, July 15, 1867, in Johnson Mss., Vol. 116, No. 16,106.[Publisher?]
Query:
Listed Source seems incomplete or garbled. Help?
Circa
1812
1815c.2 US Prisoners of War in England Play Ball - at Great Peril, It Turned Out
Tags:
Age of Players:
A ball game reportedly led to the killing and wounding of many US prisoners in England's Dartmoor prison in April 1815:
"On the 6th of April, 1815, as a small party were amusing themselves at a game of ball, some one of the number striking it with too much violence, it flew over the wall fronting the prison and the sentinels on the other side of the same were requested to heave the ball back, but refused; on which the party threatened to break through to regain their ball, and immediately put their threats into execution; a hole was made in the wall sufficiently large for a man to pass thro' - but no one attempted it."
500 British soldiers appeared, and the prisoners were fired upon en masse.
Sources:
"Massacre of the 6th of April," American Watchman, June 24, 1815. Accessed via subscription search, 2/14/2009.
Other Accounts:
- "The Judicial Report of the Massacre at Dartmoor Prison," in John Melish, "Description of Dartmor Prison, with an Account of the Massacre of the Prisoners" (Philadelphia, J.Bioren, 1816) Per Altherr, ref #97.
- [Waterhouse, Benjamin], A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, Late a Surgeon on Board an American Privateer, Who Was Captured at Sea by the British in May, Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen, and Was Confined First, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, on England, and Last, at Dartmoor Prison (Rowe and Hooper, Boston, 1816), p. 186. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 247-249 and ref #92.
- "Journal of Nathaniel Pierce of Newburyport [MA], Kept at Dartmoor Prison, 1814 - 1815," Historical Collections of Essex Institute, volume 73, number 1 [January 1937], p. 40. Per Altherr's refs #91 - #98.
- [Andrews, Charles] The Prisoner's Memoirs, or Dartmoor Prison (private printing, NYC, 1852), p.110. Per Altherr's refs #93 and 95.
- [Valpey, Joseph], Journal of Joseph Valpey, Jr. of Salem, November 1813- April 1815 (Michigan Society of Colonial Wars, Detroit, 1922), p. 60. Per Altherr's ref #96.
- Herbert A. Kenny, Cape Ann: Cape America (J. B. Lippincott, 1971), pp. 83-4. (From The Centennial Address of Dr. Lemuel) See excerpt at Supplemental Text, below.
Comment:
Some observers assume that ballplaying was mainly a juvenile pastime in this time period. Clearly the players in this case, and in other instances of military play, were of age.
Query:
Can we be certain that this was a base-running game? Can we rule out that the game was a vigorous 1800's form of handball?
Circa
1815
1815.8 Eyewitness On the Massacre of Seven U.S Soldiers at Dartmoor Prison in England
Age of Players:
"Two days before this [the argument over bread shortages after which the prisoners helped themselves to the bread supplies], viz., April 6, 1815. Governor S [Shortland] returned to his station. On learning what had transpired on the evening of the 4th, he declared (as we were told) that he would be revenged on us. On this 6th day, P.M., some of the prisoners were playing ball in No. 7 yard. Several times the ball was knocked over the wall, and was as often thrown back by the soldiers when kindly asked to do so. Presently one of he prisoners cried out in quite an authoritative manner, 'Soldier, throw back the ball.' And because it failed to come, some of the ball-players said, 'We will make a hole in the wall and get it.' Two or three of them began pecking out the mortar with small stones. A sentinel on the wall ordered them to desist. This they did not do until spoken to again. I was walking back and forth by he place during the time, with others, but did not suppose they could make a hole with the stones they were using, or that anything touching that matter was of much or any importance. Aside from that trifling affair, the prisoners were as orderly and as obedient as at any time in the past."
[Bates then described the killing of the ball-playing prisoners and concluded that seven were killed and sixty wounded.] .
Sources:
Joseph Bates, The Autobiography of Elder Joseph Bates (Battle Creek, 1868), pp. 51-52, 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 39.
Query:
OK, was the game played a batting/baserunning game or a form of handball? Does the term "knocked" over the wall give any clue?
Year
1815
1816.4 "German ballgame" described in Berlin book
Flittner, Christian G., Talisman des Gluckes oder der Selbstlehrer fur alle Karten, Schach, Billard,Ball und Kegel Spiele [Berlin], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 187. This book's small section on ball games carries the Gutsmuths account of das Deutsche Ballspiel the German ballgame.
Query:
Query: Does the game appear to uses bases?
No. Like most forms of longball, there are a home line and a goal line at opposite ends of the field.
Year
1816
1818.4 Cricket Reported in Louisville KY?
Location:
Game:
"It is not unreasonable to speculate that as the immigrants came down the Ohio River . . . they brought with them the leisure activities hat had already developed in the cities along the Atlantic coast. There are reports of a form of cricket being played in the city as early at 1818."
Sources:
Bailey, Bob, "Beginnings; From Amateur Teams to Disgrace in the National League," [1999], page 1. Bob (email, 1/27/2013), further quotes Dean Sullivan's master's thesis, Ball-oriented Sport in a Southern City: A Study of the Organizational Evolution of Baseball in Louisville (George Mason University): "Ball-oriented sports had been reported in Kentucky as early as 1818, when travelers stumbled upon a primitive game of cricket."
Comment:
Note: The original source of the 1818 reference may have been lost. Bob reports that Dean Sullivan thesis cited Harold Peterson's The Man Who Invented Baseball (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), page 24. However, Peterson gives no source. A dead end?
Query:
Are there other sightings of this 1818 cricket account?
Year
1818
1818c.5 English Immigrants from Surrey See Cricket, Trap Ball in IL
Location:
"[S]ome of the young men were gone to a county court at Palmyra, [but] there was no cricket-match, as was intended, only a game of trap-ball." [1818]
"On the second of October, there was a game of cricket played at Wanborough by the young men of the settlement; this they called keeping Catherine Hill fair, many of the players being from the neighborhood of Godalming and Guildford." [1819]
"There have been [p.295/p.296] several cricket-matches this summer [of 1819], both at Wanborough and Birk Prarie; the Americans seem much pleased at the sight of the game, as it is new to them." [1819]
Sources:
John Woods, Two Years Residence on the Settlement of the English Prairie, in the Illinois Country (Longman & Co., London, 1822), pp. 148 and 295-296.
See also:
Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games, Base Ball, v. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2008), pages 32-33. Note: Tom's account includes the same quotes, but attributes them to the British lawyer Adlard Welby, and sets them in 1820.
Comment:
The settlement was in modern Edwards County.
Query:
Can we reconcile the conflicts in the two attributions?
Circa
1818
1818c.7 Franz Schubert Watches a "Game of Ball" Near Vienna
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
An artist produced a pen-and-ink watercolor drawing of composer Franz Schubert and friends attending a "Game of Ball" near Vienna Austria in 1817 or 1818.
Sources:
Described in a Schubert biography [Franz Schubert: A Biography, by Elizabeth Norman McKay. Oxford University Press, 1996. ]
See image at Ball Games at Atzenbrugg with Franz Schubert (1797-1828... (#219422) (meisterdrucke.us)
Comment:
Notes from Digger Mark Pestana, 7/29/2022:
"The game in question may be a simple game of catch but from the postures & gestures of the participants, it seems more like a game in which the ball is struck with the hand, back & forth between groups or individuals. There appear 5 people actively involved in the play, visually following a ball overhead on the right side of the image. Note, too, a man & woman in the lower left, both reaching for another ball on the ground. In the center foreground is a group of 4 men, one playing violin, one playing guitar, and the composer Schubert seated on the right, curly hair, glasses, and smoking a pipe.
The artist, Leopold Kupelwieser, was the brother of Joseph Kupelwieser, who wrote the libretto for an opera Schubert composed in 1823. Both brothers, and Schubert, were members of a group of about 20 Viennese artists who called themselves "The Nonsense Society." The group formed in April 1817 and disbanded in December 1818. The picture must have been made between those dates. Atzenbrugg is a small town just west of Vienna.
Interestingly, in the same biography, I found a "ball"-related quote from Schubert himself: "Man resembles a ball in play, subject to chance and passions." (from Schubert's diary, September 1816)."
Note: As of summer 2022 Protoball lists shlagball, kaiserball, imperial ball, and call ball as Austrian games. Bill Hicklin's summary of Schlagball is at https://protoball.org/Modern_rules_of_Schlagball. We don't know much about the other games, nor when they were played.
Query:
Is more known about Schubert's interest in ballplaying (if any)?
Do we know of baserunning games in the Vienna area in this era?
Circa
1818
1820s.12 Boys Are Attracted to Sports of "Playing Ball or Goal" in Bangor ME
Location:
But a day seems to have elapsed since meeting with our neighboring boys, we took delight in [flying kites and prancing our horses] or engaged ourselves in the more active sports of 'playing ball' or 'goal. -- Albert Ware Paine, telling of boyhood in Bangor Maine.
Sources:
Paine, Albert Ware, "Auto-Biography," reprinted in Lydia Augusta Paine Carter, The Discovery of a Grandmother (Henry H. Carter, Newton MA, 1920), p. 240. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see p. 245 and ref #80.
Query:
Note: Dean Sullivan [7/29/2004] observes that Harold Seymour puts the year of play at Bangor at 1836, citing both pages 198 and 240 of The Discovery of a Grandmother. But Payne was born in 1812, and was not a "boy" in 1836, so this event needs further examination.
Also:This item needs to be reconciled with #1823c.4, below.
Decade
1820s
1820s.18 Syracuse NY Ball Field Remembered as Base Ball Site
Location:
Game:
David Block reports: "In the lengthy 'Editor's Table' section of this classic monthly magazine [The Knickerbocker], the editor described a nostalgic visit that he and two old school chums had taken to the academy that they had attended near Syracuse. 'We went out upon the once-familiar green, as if it were again 'play time', and called by name upon our old companions to come over once more and play 'bass-ball.' But they answered not; they came not! The old forms and faces were gone; the once familiar voices were silent.'"
Sources:
"Editor's Table," The Knickerbocker (S. Hueston, New York, 1850), page 298. Contributed by David Block 2/27/2008.
Comment:
The Editor, Lewis Gaylord Clark, was born in 1810, and attended the Onondaga Academy. He was thus apparently recalling ball-playing from sometime in the 1820s. Onondaga Academy was, evidently, about 3 miles SW of downtown Syracuse.
Query:
Can we get better data on Clark's age while at the Academy?
Decade
1820s
1820.29 Base ball Seen as "Old-fashioned" Activity For English Girls
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"In 1820, another girl-oriented book, entitled Early Education, mentions 'base ball' among a footnoted list of appropriate 'old-fashioned' amusements that also includes 'hunt the slipper' and 'my lady's toilette."
Sources:
E. Appleton, Early Education (2nd Edition, 1821), page 384, cited in David Block, John Newberry Publishes A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, and With it Our First Glimpse of the game of English Baseball,Base Ball, volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), page 34.
Query:
Does the context of this passage clearly imply that girls played base ball?
Is the author suggesting that base ball was considered an "old-fashioned" pastime in 1821?
Where was Early Education published?
Year
1820
1821.5 NY Mansion Converted to Venue Suitable for Base, Cricket, Trap-Ball
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
In May and June 1821, an ad ran in some NY papers announcing that the Mount Vernon mansion was now open as Kensington House. It could accommodate dinners and tea parties and clubs. What's more, later versions of the ad said: "The grounds of Kensington House are spacious and well adapted to the playing of the noble game of cricket, base, trap-ball, quoits and other amusements; and all the apparatus necessary for the above games will be furnished to clubs and parties."
Richard Hershberger posted to 19CBB on Kensington House on 10/7/2007, having seen the ad in the June 9, 1821 New YorkGazette and General Advertiser. Richard suggested that "in this context "base is almost certainly baseball, not prisoner's base." John Thorn [email of 3/1/2008] later found a May 22, 1821 Kensington ad in the Evening Post that did not mention sports, and ads starting on June 2 that did.
Richard points out that the ad's solicitation to "clubs and parties" may indicate that some local groups were forming to play the mentioned games long before the first base ball clubs are known to have played.
Sources:
June 9, 1821 New York Gazette and General Advertiser
See also Richard Hershberger, "New York Mansion Converted -- An Early Sighting of Base Ball Clubs?," Base Ball Journal, Volume 5, number 1 (Special Issue on Origins), pages 58-60.
Query:
Have we found any further indications that 1820-era establishments may have served to host regular base ball clubs?
Year
1821
1821.7 1821 Etching Shows Wicket Game in Progress
Location:
Game:
This engraving was done by John Cheney in 1821 at the age of 20. It was originally engraved on a fragment of an old copper kettle. It is reported that he was living in Hartford at the time.
It is one of the earliest known depictions of wicket.
The etching depicts six players playing wicket. The long, low wickets are shown and two runners, prominently carrying large bats, are crossing between them as two fielders appear to pursue a large ball in flight. Two wicketkeepers stand behind their wickets.
Sources:
Biographical background from "Memoir of John Cheney," by Edna Dow Cheney (Lee and Shepherd, Boston, 1889), page 10.
For an account of Baseball Historian John Thorn's 2013 rediscovery and pursuit of this engraving, go to http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/02/05/the-oldest-wicket-game-newly-found/
Comment:
An interesting aspect of this drawing is that there appear to be four defensive players and only two offensive players . . . unless the two seated gentlemen in topcoats have left them on while waiting to bat. One might speculate that the wicketkeepers are permanently on defense and the other pairs alternate between offense and defense when outs are made. Another possibility is that all players rotate after each out, as was later seen in scrub forms of base ball.
Also note the relative lack of open area beyond the wickets. Perhaps, as in single-wicket cricket, running was permitted only for balls hit forward from the wicket.
Query:
We welcome other interpretations of this image.
Year
1821
1821.9 NYC "Ball Club" To Shift Next Meeting, at Broadway Hotel
Age of Players:
Sources:
John Thorn, email of 1/18/2023. The clip shown below is from the Post, 9/7/1821.
Comment:
John Thorn adds, 1/18/2023: "Some years ago George Thompson created a stir with his find (Note: see Protoball entry 1823.1) of a baseball game played at Jones' Retreat in NYC in April 1823. (Prior to Jones, The Retreat had been named for previous proprietors, first William Neilson and then W.B. Heyer.) Here, from the Post of June 5, 1821:
'THE RETREAT -- NEW HOTEL. � The subscriber begs leave to inform all those who wish to encourage him with their patronage, that the elegant house at the corner of Art street and Broadway, opposite Vauxhall, is now open for their reception. Gentlemen may be accommodated with Board by the week or month. He keeps a constant supply of Ice Cream, and parties may be accommodated with Coffee, Tea and Relishes of various descriptions. HEYER.'
N. B. The Retreat is opposite Vauxhall Garden. The proprietor has thought proper, with the advice of his friends, to issue a limited number of Tickets of Admission to this House, on the day of Mr. Guille's [balloon] Ascension, at twenty-five cents each, to be had in refreshments, such as Ice Cream, Cake, Punch, Lemonade, &c. &c."
Query:
[] Were there other pastimes in this era known as "ball clubs?" For Bowling? Wicket? Cricket? Other?
Year
1821
1821.99 "Ball Club" To Shift Next Meeting, at Broadway NYC Hotel
Age of Players:
Sources: John Thorn, email of 1/18/2023.
The clip shown below is from the Post, 9/7/1821.
Comment: John Thorn adds:
"Some years ago George Thompson created a stir (see Protoball entry 1823.1) with his find of a baseball game played at Jones' Retreat in NYC in April 1823. (Prior to Jones, The Retreat had been named for previous proprietors, first William Neilson and then W.B. Heyer.) Here, from the Post of June 5, 1821:
"THE RETREAT -- NEW HOTEL. � The subscriber begs leave to inform all those who wish to encourage him with their patronage, that the elegant house at the corner of Art street and Broadway, opposite Vauxhall, is now open for their reception. Gentlemen may be accommodated with Board by the week or month. He keeps a constant supply of Ice Cream, and parties may be accommodated with Coffee, Tea and Relishes of various descriptions. HEYER.
N. B. The Retreat is opposite Vauxhall Garden. The proprietor has thought proper, with the advice of his friends, to issue a limited number of Tickets of Admission to this House, on the day of Mr. Guille's [balloon] Ascension, at twenty-five cents each, to be had in refreshments, such as Ice Cream, Cake, Punch, Lemonade, &c. &c."
Query: [] Were there other pastimes in this era known as "ball clubs?" Bowling? Wicket? Cricket? Other?
Year
1821
1823.6 Students Play Ball Game at Progressive School in Northampton MA
Age of Players:
[A, B] In their recollections during the 1880s, John Murray Forbes and George Cheyne Shattuck describe playing ball during the years 1823 to 1828 at the Round Hill School in Northampton MA. This progressive school for young boys reflected the goals of its co-founders, Joseph Green Cogswell and George Bancroft; in addition to building a gymnasium, the first US school to do so, Round Hill was one of the very first schools to incorporate physical education into its formal curriculum.
--
[C] In 1825 Carl Beck, Latin and gymnastic instructor at Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, had translated F. L. Jahn’s Deutche Turnkunst (1816). Jahn had mentored the Turnerbund, a movement devoted to gymnastics. According to Beck’s original preface, “[T]hose who take an interest in the cause would be pleased to acquaint themselves with the exertions of Gutsmuths . . . years before Jahn came forward.” (Gutsmuths’ book on games provided David Block with the 1796 rules and diagram of a game called “Englische baseball,” in his 2005 Baseball before We Knew It.)
Round Hill School is renowned as the first school in the nation to include physical education in its curriculum. Translating Jahn, Beck wrote that in “games to be played without the precinct of the gymnasium, playing ball is very much to be commended.” Tellingly, where Beck inserted “playing ball,” Jahn himself recommended “the German ball game” (also in Gutsmuths and Block). Beck, however, changed the “German ball game” to “ball-playing” to suit his American audience. Also, given that the boys of Round Hill came from across the nation, Ball acknowledged regional variations: “The many variations in different parts, are altogether unessential and a matter of choice.” Ball-playing, Beck wrote, “unites various exercises: throwing, striking, running and catching.”
Sources:
[A] Forbes was writing his recollections in 1884, as reported in Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Sarah Forbes Hughes, editor [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1899], vol. 1, page 43.
[B] Shattuck is quoted in Edward M. Hartwell, Physical Training in American Colleges and Universities [GPO, 1886], page 22.
[C] Primary source: Carl Beck, Treatise on Gymnastics Taken Chiefly from the German of F. L. Jahn (Northampton, Mass., 1828).
Warning:
Query:
Are any reports available on the rules of the game as played at Round Hill?
Beck didn't give the game a particular name?
Year
1823
1824.6 Oliver Wendell Holmes Recalls Schoolboy Baseball and Phillips Academy in MA
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"[At Phillips] Bodily exercise was not, however, entirely superseded by spiritual exercises, and a rudimentary form of base-ball and the heroic sport of foot-ball were followed with some spirit."
Sources:
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "Cinders from the Ashes," The Works of Oliver Wendel Holmes Volume 8 (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1892), page 251. He went on to recollect visiting the school in 1867, when he "sauntered until we came to a broken field where there was quarrying and digging going on, our old base-ball ground." Ibid, page 255.
This essay originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly Volume 23 (January 1869). page 120.
Comment:
Note: see item #1829c.1 below for Holmes' Harvard ballplaying.
Query:
Are we sure we haven't got Holmes pere et fils confused? OWH Sr (1809-1894), the poet and novelist, attended Andover and Harvard in the 1820s. OWH Jr (1841-1935) attended Harvard in the 1850s, served in the Civil War and became a justice of the US Supreme Court.--WCH
Year
1824
1824.7 Bat and Ball, Cricket are Sunday Afternoon Pastimes
Game:
"on Sunday, after afternoon service, the young people joined in foot-ball and hurling, bat and ball, or cricket."
Sources:
London Anti-Gallican Monitor, April 11, 1824
Query:
Does the context of this excerpt reveal anything further about the region, circumstance, or participants in this ball-playing?
Year
1824
1825c.1 Thurlow Weed Recalls Baseball in Rochester NY
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"A baseball club, numbering nearly fifty members, met every afternoon during the ball playing season. Though the members of the club embraced persons between eighteen and forty, it attracted the young and old. The ball ground, containing some eight or ten acres, known as Mumford's meadow . . . ." -- Thurlow Weed
[Weed goes on to list prominent local professional people, including doctors and lawyers, among the players.]
The experience is also represented in a 1947 novel, Grandfather Stories. "[The game] was clearly baseball, not town ball, as the old man described the positioning of the fielders and mentioned that it took three outs to retire the batting side." -- Tom Altherr.
Sources:
Weed, Thurlow, Life of Thurlow Weed [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1883], volume 1, p. 203. Per Robert Henderson ref #159.
Samuel Hopkins Adams, Grandfather Stories (Random House, 1955 -- orig pub'd 1947), 146-149.
Query:
Did Weed advert to 3-out half innings, or did Adams?
Circa
1825
1826.3 Base Ball Associated with Boston Gymnasium Proposal?
Age of Players:
[See image, below]
Messrs. William Sullivan and John G. Coffin have petitioned the Councils of Boston for the use of a piece of public ground, for two years, for the establishment of a Gymnastic School–a measure of doubtful propriety, we apprehend. If a boy wants to play; let him play but do not spoil the fun by dictating the modus operandi–a game of base ball, or foot ball, is worth a dozen gymnassiums [sic], where the eye of surveillance is to check the flow of animal spirits.
Sources:
United States Gazette (Philadelphia) March 28, 1826
Comment:
Note that this find comes five years before town ball is seen in Philadelphia.
From Bruce Allardice, email of 6/9/2021:
"In the year 1823, Dr. John G. Coffin, established a journal in Boston entitled, "The Boston Medical Intelligencer, devoted to the cause of physical education, and to the means of preventing and curing diseases." The motto in the title page was as follows :- "The best part of the medical art, is the avoiding of pain." This journal some five or six years afterward, became the "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," "
Dr. John G. Coffin (1769-1828), married. Eliza Rice.
This is undoubtedly one of the petitioners for the gymnasium.
The mentioned William Sullivan is probably Judge William Sullivan (1774-1839), a prominent local politician and lawyer.
Query:
Does this item suggest that 'base ball' was a term used in Philadelphia in 1826? In Boston in 1826?
Was the Gymnasium actually established in Boston? Was ballplaying among its activities? Was gymnastics seen in the Commons in the early years?
Isn't this ref a very early appearance of the term foot ball in the US? Can we learn what rules may have applied?
Year
1826
1827.1 Brown U Student Reports "Play at Ball"
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
Brown College (Providence, RI) student Williams Latham notes in his diary:
On March 22: "We had a great play at ball today noon."
On April 9: "We this morning . . . have been playing ball, But I have never received so much pleasure from it here as I have in Bridgewater. They do not have more than 6 or 7 on a side, so that a great deal of time is spent in running after the ball, neither do they throw so fair ball, They are afraid the fellow in the middle will hit it with his bat-stick."
Sources:
"The Diary of Williams Latham, 1823 - 1827," quoted in W. C. Bronson, The History of Brown University 1764 - 1914 (Providence, Brown University, 1914), p. 245. Per Henderson, Bat, Ball, and Bishop (Rockport Press, 1947), p.147, ref # 101. See also Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 240; Cited in Peterson, "The Man Who Invented Baseball," p. 10-12 (1939)
Query:
"The fellow in the middle?" Does this suggest the lack of foul ground?
What/where is Bridgewater? Was Bridgewater MA Latham's home town, maybe?
Year
1827
1827.2 Story Places Baseball in Rochester NY
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
A story, evidently set in 1880 in Rochester, involves three boys who convince their grandfather to attend a Rochester-Buffalo game. The grandfather contrasts the game to that which he had played in 1827.
He describes intramural play among the 50 members of a local club, with teams of 12 to 15 players per side, a three-out-side-out rule, plugging, a bound rule, and strict knuckles-below-knees pitching. He also recalls attributes that we do not see elsewhere in descriptions of early ballplaying: a requirement that each baseman keep a foot on his base until the ball is hit, a seven-run homer when the ball went into a sumac thicket and the runners re-circled the bases, coin-flips to provide "arbitrament" for disputed plays, and the team with the fewest runs in an inning being replaced by a third team for the next inning ["three-old-cat gone crazy," says one of the boys]. The grandfather's reflection does not comment on the use of stakes instead of bases, the name used for the old game, the relative size or weight of the ball, or the lack of foul ground - in fact he says that outs could be made on fouls.
Sources:
Samuel Hopkins Adams, "Baseball in Mumford's Pasture Lot," Grandfather Stories (Random House, New York, 1947), pp. 143 - 156. Full text is unavailable via Google Books as of 12/4/2008.
Comment:
Adams' use of a frame-within-a-frame device is interesting to baseball history buffs, but the authenticity of the recollected game is hard to judge in a work of fiction. Mumford's lot was in fact an early Rochester ballplaying venue, and Thurlow Weed (see entry #1825c.1) wrote of club play in that period. Priscilla Astifan has been looking into Adams' expertise on early Rochester baseball. See #1828c.3 for another reference to Adams' interest in baseball about a decade before the modern game evolved in New York City.
Query:
We welcome input on the essential nature of this story. Fiction? Fictionalized memoir? Historical novel?
Year
1827
1827.3 First Oxford-Cambridge Cricket Match Held
Age of Players:
Per Stephen Green, interview at Lords Cricket Ground, 2006. Also noted in John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Query:
Was inter-college competition common in other English sports at this time? Rowing, maybe?
Year
1827
1827.4 Poisoned Ball Listed in French Manual of Games
Location:
Game:
Celnart, Elizabeth, Manuel complet des jeux de societe (Complete manual of social games) [Paris, Roret], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 192. The material on "la balle empoisonee" is reported as "virtually identical" to that of the 1810 Les Jeux des juenes garcons, above at 1810.
Query:
Does this manual cover other safe-haven games? Other batting games? Other games with plugging?
Year
1827
1828.2 Portland Newspaper Reports Boys Playing at "Bat-and-Ball."
Game:
Age of Players:
"A Portland newspaper referred to boys playing at "bat and ball" - Tom Altherr
Sources:
Anderson, Will, Was Baseball Really Invented in Maine? (private printing, Portland, 1992), p. 1. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 244 and ref #71.
Comment:
The fine announced in 1805.2 must not have persisted?
Query:
Can we find the source, and some text, for this?
Year
1828
1828.17 Man Recalls July 4th Game Sixty Years Earlier
Tags:
In May 1888, a Boston Globe story reflected the recollection of a game played on July 4, 1828 between the Typhoons and the Hurricanes. A man recalls that at age 20 he played short stop that day.
The article says the game was 6 a side, and played in Skowhegan, ME between the local team, and that of Orono. Gives the names of the players. [ba]
Sources:
Boston Globe, May 29, 1888, page 5. (Text not secured as of September 2018.)
Comment:
As of 2018, we do not know the location, game type, or rules for this game.
It is interesting that the man identified his position as short stop, perhaps indicating that predecessor baserunning games in New England had already developed skill positions' decades before the Knickerbocker club formed.
Query:
Can someone help us obtain the text of this newspaper piece?
Year
1828
1828.19 Game of Base Mentioned in Account of Life at Harvard
Tags:
Age of Players:
The Harvard Register, Feb. 1828; from an article entitled “Life in College.”
"There are some other features of college life we fain would sketch but our pen confesses its weakness in the attempt. Would we could call upon the Engine to give out a history of the
exertions of those who managed it in days of yore; or that we could contrive to make the Delta yield up a narrative of the sports it has witnessed. It could tell , before it took its
present gallows appearance, of Cricket - Base - and Foot ball; it could tell how many pedal members began the game with white, unspotted skins, but limped off at its conclusion
tinged with variegated hues.”
Sources:
The Harvard Register, Feb. 1828; from an article entitled “Life in College.”
Query:
"Pedal members"? A pretty good Harvard friend of Protoball can't explain this term.
"Delta"?
Year
1828
1828.20 Cricket and Base and Football at Harvard?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"There are some other features of college life we fain would sketch but our pen confesses its weakness in the attempt. Would we could call upon the Engine to give out a history of the exertions of those who managed it in days of yore; or that we could contrive to make the Delta yield up a narrative of the sports it has witnessed. It could tell , before it took its present gallows appearance, of Cricket - Base- and Foot ball; it could tell how many pedal members began the game with white, unspotted skins, but limped off at its conclusion tinged with variegated hues.”
Sources:
The Harvard Register, Feb. 1828; from an article entitled “Life in College.”
Query:
Can we assume that 'pedal members' pertained to the feet, and that it was thus foot ball, and not the two base-running games that caused the bruises?
Year
1828
1829c.1 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Plays Ball as a Harvard student.
Tags:
Age of Players:
Several sources report that Oliver Wendell Holmes playing ball at Harvard.
[actual Holmes text is still needed]
Sources:
Krout, John A, Annals of American Sport (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929), p. 115. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p. 240, ref 49. Richard Hershberger, posting to 19CBB on 10/8/2007, found an earlier source - Caylor, O. P., "Early Baseball Days," Washington Post, April 11, 1896. John Thorn reports [email of 2/15/2008] that Holmes biographies do not mention his sporting interests. Note: We still need the original source for the famous Harvard story. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play is unconfirmed.
See entry #1824.6 above on Holmes' reference to prep school baseball at Phillips Academy.
Comment:
We still need the original source for the famous Harvard story. Holmes graduated in 1829; the date of play as cited is unconfirmed. The Holmes story reportedly appears in JM Ward's "Base Ball: How to Become a Player," where he says OWH told it "to the reporter of a Boston paper." (Ward page citation?)
Query:
Small Puzzle: Harvard's 19th Century playing field was "Holmes Field;" was it named for this Holmes? Harvard is in Cambridge MA.
Circa
1829
1829.5 Town Ball Takes Off in Philadelphia?
Location:
Game:
A group of young rope makers is reported to have played a game of ball in 1829 at 18th and Race Streets.
William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning (McFarland, 2009), page 114. Ryczek cites a 2006 email from Richard Hershberger as the source of the location of the game. He identifies this game as perhaps the earliest known form of town ball, but Hershberger is unconvinced (see Warning, below).
Warning:
Citing the makeup of these players as differing from that of early town ball players' reports, and seeing the 1829 account as more of a morality tale than a reliable report, Richard Hershberger (email of 10/31/12) discounts this item as an account of the origins of Philadelphia town ball.
In 1831 two organized groups, which later merged, played town ball: for a succinct history of the origins of Philadelphia town ball, see Richard Hershberger, "A Reconstruction of Philadelphia Town Ball," Base Ball, volume 1 number 2 (Fall 2007), pp 28-29.
Query:
Can we find the source of this 1829 account?
Year
1829
1800s.11 "Bat and Ball" Can't Compete with Organ-Grinding
Age of Players:
Rhapsodizing about old organ-ground music, a father writes: "Oh! It makes me feel young again to hear it - for I cannot forget how I used to throw down my books and slate - yes, my very bat and ball, and scamper off to hear it."
Sources:
"The Grinding Organ," in Ladies Magazine (Putnam and Hunt, Boston, 1829), page 379. Posted to the 19CBB listserve February 17, 2010, by Hugh MacDougall. Accessed 2/18/2010 via Google Books search ("swiss or savoyard" "bonny doon").
Query:
It would be useful to know when and where the author's youth was spent; Hugh points out that the clip's reference to "muster day" implies that writer is likely depicting New England practices. If the "father" was in his thirties [pure conjecture] he is here reflecting on bat and ball play from the 1800-1810 period.
Year
1829
1830c.7 Boston Gent Recalls Old Game of "Massachusetts Run-Around"
Location:
T. King wrote to the Mills Commission in 1905. "Just a word in regard to the old game of Massachusetts Run-around. We always pronounced the name as if it were run-round without the "a," but I presume, technically that should be incorporated.
"This was the old time game which I played between 44 and 50 years ago [1855-1861 - LM.], and which I heard my father speak of as playing 35 to 40 years before that, carrying it back to the vicinity of 1830." [Actually, the arithmetic implies the vicinity of 1820.]
Sources:
T. King, Letter to the Mills Commission, November 24, 1905.
Query:
Notes: can we establish the age of King's father at King's birth?
Can we determine where the two Kings might have played?
Circa
1830
1830s.12 Watching Wicket Ball in Buffalo NY
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"[The Indians] would lounge on the steps of the 'Old First Church,' where they could look at our young men playing wicket ball in front of the church (no fences there then):, and this was a favorite ball ground."
" . . . the boys, who must always have their fun, did not always 'Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,' but would make a holiday of it by a vigorous game of ball, in some secluded spot in the suburbs of he town . . . "
Sources:
Samuel M. Welch, Home History: Recollections of Buffalo During the Decade from 1830 to 1840, or Fifty Years Since [P. Paul and bro., Buffalo, 1890], pages 112 and 220. Submitted by John Thorn 9/13/2006. Also see 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 38.
Query:
Are these Welch's own recollections?
Decade
1830s
1830s.13 "Baseball" Found in Several Works by Mary Russell Mitford
Submitted by Hugh MacDougall, Cooperstown NY, 12/6/2006:
"Everyone knows of Jane Austen's use of the term baseball in her novel Northanger Abbey (see item #1798.1). I recently came across, online, an 1841 anthology of works by the English essayist Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1865). A search revealed five uses of the work "baseball." What is intriguing is that every reference seems to assume that "baseball" whatever it is is a familiar rough and tumble game played by girls (and apparently girls only) between the ages of 6 and 10 or so.."
The "baseball" usages:
[] "The Tenants of Beechgrove:" "But better than playing with her doll, better even than baseball, or sliding and romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father's knee:
[] "Jack Hatch" see item #1828.9 above for two references.
[] "Our Village [introduction]": " . . . Master Andrew's four fair-haired girls who are scrambling and squabbling at baseball on the other." (See item #1824.3 above.)
[] Belford Regis: "What can be prettier than this, unless it be the fellow-group of girls . . . who are laughing and screaming round the great oak; then darting to and fro, in a game compounded of hide-and-seek and baseball. Now tossing the ball high, high amidst the branches; now flinging it low along the common, bowling as it were, almost within reach of the cricketers; now pursuing, now retreating, jumping shouting, bawling almost shrieking with ecstasy; whilst one sunburnt black-eyed gipsy throws forth her laughing face from behind the trunk of an old oak, and then flings a newer and gayer ball fortunate purchase of some hoarded sixpence among her happy playmates.
Comment:
David Block's forthcoming 2019 book may address the rules of English Base-Ball in this period.
Query:
MacDougall asks: "Mary Mitford seems to have a pretty good idea of what the girls are playing, when they play at 'baseball' but it seems to have little or nothing to do with the sport we now call by that name. Does anyone know what it was?"
Decade
1830s
1830s.20 In GA, Men Played Fives, Schoolboys Played Base and Town Ball
Location:
Game:
"Men as well as boys played the competitive games of 'Long Bullets' and 'Fives,' the latter played against a battery built by nailing planks to twenty-foot poles set to make the 'battery' at least fifty feet wide. The school boys played 'base,' 'bull-pen,' 'town ball' and 'shinny' too."
Sources:
Jessie Pearl Rice, J. L. M. Curry: Southerner, Statesman, and Educator (King's Crown Press, New York, 1949), pages 6-7. 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), pages 31-32.
The full text of the Rice biography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/15/2008.
Comment:
Long-bullets involved distance throwing, often along roadsides. Fives is a team game resembling one-wall hand-ball.
"Fives" seems to have been played in Beverly, WVa, around 1860. From Thomas J. Arnold's "Beverly in the Sixties":
"For amusement, the boys, young men, and a number of the middle-aged, late in the afternoon, would gather at the Courthouse - to the windows, of which, on the west side, where the Beverly Bank now stands, they had by public contribution placed shutters, and have a game of ball - different from any ballgame I have ever seen. It was called ball-alley, usually played by two or four to each side, the ball made of yarn wound over a small piece of rubber and covered with pig skin. The leader of one side would throw the ball against the side of the Courthouse - his opponents had to knock it back against the wall with open hand, either before it touched the ground or at the first bound from the ground, and hit the wall above the foundation, next play by opponent and so on, alternating. Failure to get the ball against the wall above the foundation scored. It was a good game and gave plenty of exercise. I don't know how many times the Court entered orders prohibiting the playing of ball against the Courthouse but the boys invariably over-ruled the Court - the latter finally quit making orders in disgust." The Beverly Heritage Center has one of these balls.
Curry's school was in Lincoln County GA, about 30 miles NW of Augusta.
Query:
Team hand-ball? Really? Wasn't it usually a one-on-one game?
Decade
1830s
1830c.26 Plymouth MA Boys Play Round Ball, Other Ballgames: Ballmaking Described
Location:
Writing about 70 years later, William Davis considers the range of pastimes in his boyhood: "After the hoop came, as now, the ball games, skip, one old cat, two old cat, hit or miss, and round ball. We made our own balls, winding yarn over a core of India rubber, until the right size was reached, and then working a loop stitch all around it with good, tightly spun twine. Attempts were occasionally made to play ball in the streets, but the by-laws of the town forbidding it were rigidly enforced."
Sources:
William T. Davis, Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian (Memorial Press, Plymouth MA, 1906), page 104. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search (plymouth octogenarian). Plymouth MA is about 35 miles SE of Boston on Cape Cod Bay.
Query:
Query: do we know the nature of the ball games of "skip" and "hit or miss?"
Circa
1830
1830c.27 Lenox Academy Students Play Wicket
Location:
Game:
Recalling a genial local sheriff, the author writes: "We well remember the urbanity of his manner as he passed the students of Lenox Academy, always bowing to them and greeting them with a pleasant salutation, which tended to increase their self-respect . . . .As he drove by us when we were playing 'wicket' - the game of ball them fashionable - he did not drive his stylish horse and gig over our wickets, as many took a malicious pleasure in doing, but turned aside, with a pleasant smile . . . ."
Sources:
J. E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield From the Year 1800 to the Year 1876 (C. W. Bryan & Co., Springfield MA, 1876), pp 401-402. Accessed 2/5/2010 via Google Books search <history pittsfield 1876>.
Comment:
Lenox Academy was in Lenox MA, about 7 miles S of Pittsfield, and about 35 miles SE of Albany NY.
Caveat: It is difficult to estimate a date for this anecdote.
Query:
The gentleman, Major Brown, lived in Pittsfield from 1812 to 1838. As the event seems to be the author's personal recollection, verifying if and when he attended the Lenox Academy may narrow the range of possibilities for the period he recalls playing.
Circa
1830
1830s.29 PA Schoolboys Recalled as Playing Town Ball and Long Ball
Age of Players:
"Here we played town ball, corner ball, sow ball and long ball. Sometimes we would jump, to see how high we could leap; then it was hop, step and jump. Once in a while we played ring, provided the girls would help, and generally they would..."
Sources:
Samuel Penniman Bates, Jacob Fraise, Warner Beers, History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Containing a History of the County, its Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania, Statistical and Miscellaneous Matter, etc. (Chicago: Warner, Beers and Company, 1887), page 300.
This observation is attributed to John B. Kaufman, a teacher turned surveyor in Franklin County, PA , reflecting on his childhood spent in a log school house in "50 odd years ago": Kaufman was born in 1827. Find confirmed 10/9/2014 via search of <"john b. kaufman" "long ball">
Comment:
Franklin County PA is in south central PA, on the Maryland border. Its population in 1830 was about 35,000.
Query:
"Sow Ball?"
Decade
1830s
1830c.30 "Old Boys" Play Throwback Game to 100 Tallies in Ohio
Tags:
Game:
Ball Playing -- Old Boys at it!
Base-ball was a favorite game of the early settlers at the gatherings which brought men and boys together -- such as raisings, bees, elections, trainings, Fourth of Julys, etc., etc., and we are glad to see that the manly sport is still in vogue, at least in 'benighted Ashtabula.' We learn by the Sentinel that a matched game came off at Jefferson on the 4th, fourteen selected players on each side, chosen by Judge Dann and Squire Warren. The party winning the first hundred scores was to be the victor. Judge Dann's side won the game by eleven scores. The Sentinel says:
There were thirteen innings without a tally. [This suggests that, at least by 1859, this game used one-out-side-out innings.] The highest number of scores was made by James R. Giddings, a young chap of sixty-four, who led the field, having made a tally as often as the club came to his hand. The game excited great interest, and was witnessed by a large number of spectators. The supper was prepared by 'our host' at the Jefferson House.
Note: Protoball's PrePro data base shows another reference to a group, including Giddings, playing this predecessor game in Jefferson; see http://protoball.org/In_Jefferson_OH_in_July_1859.
Sources:
Cleveland [Ohio] Daily Leader, Saturday July 9, 1859, First Edition.
See clipping at http://www.newspapers.com/clip/2414996/18590709_cleveland/.
Warning:
We have assigned this to a date of ca. 1830 on the basis that players in their sixties seem to have played this (same) game as young adults. Comments welcome on this assumption. Were the southern shores of Lake Erie settled by Europeans at that date?
Comment:
Ashtabula (1850 population: 821 souls) is about 55 miles NE of Cleveland OH and a few miles from Lake Erie. The town of Jefferson OH is about 8 miles inland [S] of Ashtabula.
"The Sentinel" is presumably the Ashtabula Sentinel.
Query:
Further commentary on the site and date of this remembered game are welcome.
Was the Ashtabula area well-settled by 1830?
Circa
1830
1830s.33 The Balk Rule Existed Before the 1845 Knick Rules?
Tags:
"A Balk is a Base."--Any one having a remembrance of the ball games of his youth must recollect that in the game of base, if the tosser made a balk to entice the individual making the round from his post, the latter had the right to walk to the next base unscathed. Pity it is that the Hudson folks engaged in the late political movement in Columbia County did not remember that "a balk is a base" in the games of children of a larger growth." (Note: This led into a lengthy diatribe on local politics that I did not attempt to make sense of. - David Block)
Sources:
Rondout Freeman , June 5, 1847:
Warning:
Dating this remembered practice to the 1830s is somewhat arbitrary, as the writer's age in 1847 is unknown. Locating the practice in NY State is also uncertain.
Comment:
[] "Here is another early example of baseball terminology being used to illustrate a non-sports topic."The text appeared in the June 5, 1847 issue of the Roundout Freeman (Roundout was a Hudson River community that has since been swallowed by the town of Kingston)."I had always supposed that the balk rule was introduced by the crafters of the New York game, but this passage suggests it began to be practiced at some earlier time."-- David Block, 11/12/2010[] "I wrote in my book [R. Hershberger. Strike Four, Rowman and Littlefield, 2019, page 37] that the balk rule seemed to be novel to the 1845 Knickerbocker rules. Evidently not. While this is two years later, it also is from [nearly] a hundred miles away in Kingston, NY, and presented as a homespun saying from the writer's youth." -- Richard Hershberger, 19CBB posting, 12/9/2020[] John Thorn, email of 1/31/2023: "This will testify to the antiquity of the balk rule and give a hint that it meant a feint." -- John Thorn, 1/31/2023[] As of February 2023, Protoball has no other data on pre-1845 balk rules. Richard Hershberger hasn't found any yet.[] Added Local color: "Rondout has been since 1870, an unincorporated hamlet within the city of Kingston (where I lived for decade; it was called "Rondout" because of its adjoining Roundout Creek, which fed into the Hudson River). The Rondout Freeman in its first incarnation may have indeed lasted till 1847 (founded 1845):https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86071034/."Hudson is a large city about 25 miles north of Kingston, on the other side of the Hudson River, in Columbia County. Today a bridge connects my hometown of Catskill (west bank) with Hudson (east bank). Taghkanic is the proper spelling of the tribe for whom today is named the Taconic Parkway."
-- John Thorn, email of 12/10/2020.
Query:
Is a balk rule -- or the "stolen" base -- known in cricket or English Base Ball? Or in any pre-1845 baserunning game?
Protoball welcomes further comment on the possible origin of the balk rule.
Decade
1830s
1830c.35 Pretty Darn Early Ballplaying Card
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Here is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, . . ."
Sources:
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2005/important-sports-memorabilia-and-cards-n08155/lot.266.html, accessed 2/2/22.
Comment:
From the Sotheby site:
[H]ere is the earliest known card of a bat and ball game, and the only example known. Included within a set of children’s educational game cards typical of those popular in the early part of the nineteenth century, it pictures three boys engaged in a game that is clearly an antecedent and close cousin to the sport that has evolved into baseball. The cards in the series measure 2 1/8" by 2 5/8" and each of the group of seventeen offered here features a different rhyming riddle. The bat and ball game shown here is akin to other known woodcut images depicting primitive baseball-like scenes dating from the period 1815-1830, most of them also showing an oddly-shaped end to the bat typical of the time before there was such a thing as a commercially manufactured bat. Significantly, the few other such known images all originated in books or pamphlets. The image presented here is the only example known to exist on a card.
The curved bat is suggestive of the bat used for the game of wicket in the US.
John Thorn indicates that this card was owned by our late SABR friend Frank Ceresi. Frank is not unlikely the source of the estimate of "around 1830" as when the card appeared.
Query:
Can we obtain a more precise estimate of when this card was made?
Can we determine whether the card was distributed in America or in England?
Circa
1830
1830s.38 "A Balk Is A Base"
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Any one having remembrance of the ball games of his youth, must recollect that in the game of base if the tosser made a balk to entice the individual making the round from his post, the latter had the right to walk tot he next base unscathed. Pity it is that the Hudson folks . . . did not remember that 'a balk is a base' in the games of children of a larger growth."
Sources: Rondout Freeman,June 5, 1847 (Kingston NY)
Warning: Dating this remembered practice to the 1830s is somewhat arbitrary, as the writer's age in 1847 is unknown. Locating the practice in NY State is also uncertain.
Comment: John Thorn, email of 1/31/2023: "This will testify to the antiquity of the balk rule and give a hint that is meant a feint."
Query: Do we have other evidence on the pre-Knickerbocker usage of a balk rule?
Decade
1830s
1830c.39 Report: "Groups of Full Grown Players At Base and Cricket" Recalled in New York
Tags:
Age of Players:
"The denizens of a large city have not the same opportunities of healthful exercise as are enjoyed by those who dwell in the country. A few years ago New York was, to some extent, an exception to this remark. Large open grounds, in different parts of the city, invited the inhabitants to athletick exercises, and groups of full grown players at base and cricket were to be seen on them every pleasant afternoon. Those open grounds are now compactly built up with lordly houses, and ballclubs, we believe, are extinct. But the means of agreeable and salutary exercise are still within the reach of
the dusty city, and the pale student and clerk. Fuller's Gymnasium supplies them, and at a cost much less than that which it saves from the physician and the apothecary. His establishment is conducted under his own superintendence,and is well conducted in every respect.”
Sources:
The Plaindealer, New York, April 15, 1837.
Comment:
David Block, 5/3/2021, on the idea that ballplaying clubs were though to be extinct in 1837: "Not quite extinct."
Tom Gilbert, 5/4/2021: "We knew -- largely indirectly -- that there were adult bb clubs and a thriving bb scene in NYC in the 1830s and probably earlier, but it is great to see confirmation, and by a contemporary source. This also underlines the importance of Stevens's Elysian Fields in helping to preserve the incipient sport from being snuffed out by rapid urban development, in a sort of incubator.
(And the connection between the gymnastics movement and the baseball movement is closer than might appear. We can identify Knickerbocker bbc club members, Excelsiors and others who exercised at NYC and Brooklyn gyms, including I believe Fuller's)."
Stephen Katz, (19CBB posting 5/4/2021) points out that ironically, 1837 is also the year claimed for the establishment of the Gothams. See Wheaton letter at 1837.1
Query:
Should our dating at circa 1835 be modified?
Circa
1830
1831.1 A Ball Club Forms in Philadelphia; It Later Adopts Base Ball, and Lasts to 1887
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia unites with a group of ball players based in Camden, NJ
Orem writes: "An association of Town Ball players began playing at Camden, New Jersey on Market Street in the Spring of 1831."
Orem says, without citing a source, that "On the first day but four players appeared, so the game was "Cat Ball," called in some parts of New England at the time "Two Old Cat." Later accounts report that the club formed in 1833, although J. M. Ward [1888] also dated the formation of the club to 1831.
Orem notes that "so great was the prejudice of the general public against the game at the time that the players were frequently censured by their friends for indulging in such a childish amusement."
* * *
In January 2017, Richard Hershberger reported (19CBB posting) that after more than five decades, the club disbanded in 1887 -- see Supplemental Text, below.
The Olympic Club played Town Ball until it switched to modern base ball in 1860. See Chronology entry 1860.64.
* * *
For a reconstruction of the rules of Philadelphia town ball, see Hershberger, below. Games were played under the term "town ball" in Cincinnati as well as Philadelphia and a number of southern locations (for an unedited map of 23 locations with references to town ball, conduct an Enhanced Search for <town ball>.
* * *
The club is credited with several firsts in American baserunning games:
[] 1833: first game played between two established clubs -- see Chronology entry 1833c.12.
[] 1837: first team to play in uniforms -- see Chronology entry 1837.14.
[] 1969: First interracial game -- See Chronology entry 1869.3.
* * *
Sources:
[Orem, Preston D., Baseball (1845-1881) From the Newspaper Accounts(self-published, Altadena CA, 1961), page 4.]
Constitution of the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia [private printing, 1838]. Parts reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 5-8.
Richard Hershberger, "A Reconstruction of Philadelphia Town Ball," Base Ball, Volume 1 number 2 (Fall 2007), pp. 28-43. Online as of 2017 at:
https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-reconstruction-of-philadelphia-town-ball-f3a80d283c07#.blta7cw82
For a little more on the game of town ball, see http://protoball.org/Town_Ball.
Warning:
The "firsts" tentatively listed above are for the US play of baserunning games other than cricket. Further analysis is needed to confirm or disconfirm its elements.
Comment:
Protoball would welcome an analysis of the US history of town ball and its variants.
It seems plausible that town ball was being played years earlier in the Philadelphia. Newspaper accounts refer to cricket "and other ball games" being played locally as as early as 1822. See Chronology entry 1822.3.
Query:
Notes:
Is it accurate to call this a "town ball" club? When was it formed? Dean Sullivan dates it to 1837, while J. M. Ward [Ward's Base Ball Book, page 18] sets 1831 as the date of formation. The constitution was revised in 1837, but the Olympic Club merged with the Camden Town ball Club in 1833, and that event is regarded as the formation date of the Olympics. The story of the Olympics is covered in "Sporting Gossip," by "the Critic" in an unidentified photocopy found at the Giamatti Research Center at the HOF. What appears to be a continuation of this article is also at the HOF. It is "Evolution of Baseball from 1833 Up to the Present Time," by Horace S. Fogel, and appeared in The Philadelphia Daily Evening Telegraph, March 22-23, 1908.
2 Are we certain that the "firsts" listed in this entry predate the initial appearance of the indicated innovations in American cricket?
Year
1831
1832c.2 Two NYC Clubs Known to Play Pre-modern Base Ball -- Use the Plugging of Runners
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "The history of the present style of playing Base Ball (which of late years has been much improved) was commenced by the Knickerbocker Club in 1845. There were two other clubs in the city that had an organization that date back as far as 1832, the members of one of which mostly resided in the first ward, the lower part of the city, the other in the upper part of the city (9th and 15th wards). Both of these clubs played in the old-fashioned way of throwing the ball and striking the runner, in order to put him out. To the Knickerbocker Club we are indebted for the present improved style of playing the game, and since their organization they have ever been foremost in altering or modifying the rules when in their judgment it would tend to make the game more scientific."
[B] John Thorn has added: "The club from lower Manhattan evolves into the New York Club (see entry 1840.5) and later splits into the Knickerbockers and Gothams. The club from upper Manhattan evolves into the Washington Club (see entry 1843.2) which in turn gives way to the Gothams."
Sources:
William Wood, Manual of Physical Exercises. (Harper Bros., 1867), pp. 189-90. Per John Thorn, 6/15/04. Note: Wood provides no source.
Reported in Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden (Simon and Schuster, 2011), pages 32 and 307.
Comment:
Wood was only about 13 years old in 1832, according to Fred E. Leonard, Pioneers of Modern Physical Training (Association Pres, New York, 1915), page 121. Text provided by John Thorn, 6/12/2007.
Query:
Does the lineage from these two clubs to the Knickerbockers and Gothams (but not Magnolias) stem from common membership rolls?
Can we find additional sources on the two 1832 clubs? Do we have any notion of Wood's possible sources?
Circa
1832
1833.3 Creation Wars Begin! English Author Takes on Strutt Theories on the Origins of Cricket and "Bat-and-Ball"
Game:
Age of Players:
David Block reports that in an 1833 book's short passage on cricket, "the author [William Maxwell] issues a criticism of theories raised by the historian Joseph Strutt in Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, published in 1801.
Maxwell scoffs at Strutt's comments that cricket originated from the ancient game of "club ball," and that the game of trap-ball predated both of these. Maxwell states that cricket is far older than Strutt acknowledged, and adds: 'The game of club-ball appears to be none other than the present, well-known bat-and-ball, which . . . was doubtless anterior to trap-ball. The trap, indeed, carries with it an air of refinement in the 'march of mechanism.' ' Maxwell suggests that a primitive rural game similar to tip-cat was actually the ancestor of cricket, a game that used a single stick for a wicket, another stick for a bat and a short three-inch stick for the ball. He is probably alluding the game of cat and dog, which other historians have credited as one of cricket's progenitors."
Sources:
Maxwell, William, The Field Book: or, Sports and Pastimes of the British Islands [London, Effingham Wilson], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 195.
Query:
Does Maxwell show evidence for his interpretation of cricket's progenitors?
Year
1833
1833.8 Untitled Drawing of Ball Game [Wicket?] Appears in US 1830s Songbook
Tags:
Game:
A songbook drawing shows five children - a tosser, batter, two fielders, and boy waiting to bat. The bats are spoon-shaped. The wicket looks more like an upright cricket wicket than the long low bar associated with US wicket.
Sources:
Watts' Divine and Moral Songs - For the Use of Children [New York, Mahlon Day, 374 Pearl Street, 1836], page 15. Accessed at the "Origins of Baseball" file at the Giamatti Center in Cooperstown.
David Block, (see Baseball Before We Knew It, page 196), has found an 1833 edition.
Comment:
Is it wicket? Base-ball?
Here's Block's commentary. " . . .an interesting woodcut portraying boys playing a slightly ambiguous bat-and-ball game that is possibly baseball . . . . A goal in the ground near the batter might be a wicket, but it more closely resembles an early baseball goal such as the one pictured in A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" (see #1744.2, above).
Query:
Is the drawing associated with a song that may offer a clue?
Year
1833
1835.6 US Book Describes "Barn Ball," "Base, or Goal Ball."
Boy's and Girl's Book of Sports [Providence, Cory and Daniels], pp 17-19, per Harold Seymour - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. The base ball material is taken from Carver (1835 entry, above).
Sources:
Also cited by David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 199.
Query:
Is there any indication that girls could or did play base ball in this text?
Year
1835
1835c.11 New Northeastern Chapbook Shows Cricket, Bat-and-Ball
Game:
This eight-page book shows cricket and "bat and ball" being played in the backgrounds of pastoral views.
Sources:
Happy Home [New York and Philadelphia, Turner and Fisher, ca 1835], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 199.
Query:
Are the players children?
Circa
1835
1835c.17 CT Lad Plays Base Ball Much of the Morning
Game:
Age of Players:
After buying a book that would hold his diary entries for the next year and beyond, 11 year old James Terry wrote in his first entry, dated April 4, 1835, "Then played base ball til noon, then went to get wintergreen . . . ."
Two days later he wrote "got my dinner; then went to watch the boys play ball; then went to the store." On June 1, 1836, he wrote that some local boys "went and played ball and I stood and looked on. I then went up to my chamber and stayed there a while."
Sources:
Unpublished journal of James Terry, written near what is now Thomaston CT.
Comment:
Thomaston, CT is about 10 miles N of Waterbury CT and about 20 miles SW of Hartford.
James Terry, son of a prominent clock manufacturer, later founded what became the well-known Eagle Lock Company.
Query:
Terry's initial diary entry April 4 entry begins "This morning I painted my stick: then thought I would begin to write a journal" just before recording his ballplaying. He adds that he later "went and see-sawed. and then I painted my stick again, then ate supper."
Is it possible that the stick was his base ball bat? Were painted bats common then?
Circa
1835
1835c.18 CT Boy "Played Base Ball til Noon"
Age of Players:
"I have a handwritten journal kept by a young boy for the years 1835 and 1836. This young man grew up to be a person of note in Connecticut but that is not what I am writing about. On the very first page of his two year journal, actually the very first sentence he states, 'this morning I painted my stick.' A few sentences later me mentions that he 'played base ball til noon.' He was 11 years old when he wrote this and ther are other mentions of base ball and his stick here and there and generically playing with the boys. There is no description of how they played the game. . .
"Respectfully, Ed Cohen"
Sources:
Email from Ed Cohen to Retrosheet, October 8, 2013.
Comment:
Protoball replied to Mr. Cohen, but communication was lost, and we are unable to add detail or context to this find, as of 11/22/2013.
Query:
Are there any contemporary references to "base ball" in CT before this?
Circa
1835
1835.19 An "Out-door Professor" is Appreciated by Former Student Ballplayers of Base, Cricket
Age of Players:
["A classics instructor and "great friend of school boys, he] "was a species of out-door Professor of Languages at the Academy; under him we were all Philosophers of the Peripatetic sect, walking constantly about the play grounds, and bestowing on Fives, Base, Cricket and Foot Ball the 'irreperabile tempus' due to the wise men of Greece. -- Hence he was quite a troublous fellow to the in-door Professors. They found nothing classical in his 'bacchant ar.' They loved him not, and wished him far away."
Sources:
[A] Long Island Farmer, and Queens County Advertiser [Jamaica, NY] , December 16, 1835, page 2, column 2. [B] Also found by David Block in Long Island Star, December 31, 1835.
Warning:
This reference can be taken as an indication that "base" was played years before 1835, possibly in the New York area, but the date it was played, and the location of play, is impossible to discern from this account.
Comment:
Note: In the following paragraph, the man is called "Joseph Haywood". This is a reminisce of a fellow student in boyhood, Jos. Haywood, at a school where one Ephraim Johnson was the teacher. It is probably fictional. Haywood loved to spout Greek and Latin and inspired his fellow students to apply Greek and Latin phrases to their schoolboy games. I've searched both names and can't find anything suitable in NY.
David Block, 6/1/2021: An "article extolling fellow student at an unnamed school."
Query:
Is there any way we can zero in on the date and location of this pastime?
Do we know what was meant by "Foot Ball" in the early 19th Century?
Can we determine what "the Academy" was, and the ages of its students?
Year
1835
1836.5 Yanks and British Play Baserunning Game with Plugging . . . in Canton, China
Age of Players:
[A] "One day it occurred to me that . . . we might have a Game of ball . . . . Well I had bats and a ball made, and we got up a sort of game; the next day some of the English found their way down to us and we have since had several games."
[B] In his March 1836 letter home, from Canton, China, the 23-year-old John Murray Forbes referred to playing ball with Englishmen there. He asked his wife to imagine him "throwing the ball at this man, running like mad to catch it, or, when my innings come, running the rounds jumping breast high to avoid being hit, or falling down to the ground for the same purpose."
He also noted: “We have been very steady at our ball exercise. Is it not funny the idea of a parcel of men going out to play like schoolboys? [ . . .] The English have one trait in which they differ widely from us; they keep up their boyish games through life. [. . .] Cricket and Ball of all sorts is played in England by men of all ages.”
[C] In a passage from his 1899 memoir about the same incident, Forbes reminded readers who were no longer familiar with retiring baserunners by "plugging" them that a runner could be "pelted by the hard ball as he tried to run in, for it was then the fashion to throw at the runner, and if hit he was out for the inning."
Sources:
[A] David Block, Pastime Lost (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), page 237. Block sites Brian Turner, Cogswell's Bat, pp 65-66 (source needed).
[B] Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., Letters (Supplementary) of John Murray Forbes [George H. Ellis Co., Boston, 1905] volume 1, page 25.
[C] Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1899] volume 1, page 86.
Submitted by John Bowman, 7/16/2004 and supplemented by Brian Turner, 7/23/2013.
Comment:
John Bowman adds: "Forbes was a Massachusetts man, and one supposes that when he played baseball at the Round Hill school in Northampton (see item #1823.6 above) , 'soaking' or 'plugging' was then a routine aspect of the game."
Query:
Can we clarify what game Forbes played (rounders? round ball?).
Reader Reply: I would suggest that this is reasonably persuasive evidence that Brits and Yanks were playing effectively the same game, under whatever name. No mention of rules disputes or confusion arises; and one gets the distinct impression, in parallel with ca. 1830s rules descriptions, that both national contingents set to without fuss and that there was little if any difference between English "rounders" and American "X-ball." --WCHicklin (date unspecified).
Year
1836
1836.13 "Errant Rogue," in Poem, Prefers Ball to Study
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
The Dissipated Collegian
"Tis said there was a certain wight,
Whose mother-wit was very bright,
An errant rogue, and even bolder
Than many rogues a good deal older; . . .
This wight of ours disdained to study
And hated books in soul and body;
His lessons, therefore, were neglected
Though he as often was corrected;
But when there was a chance to play,
Our rogue would slily run away;
Yet, had he given due attention,
(So powerful was his comprehension,)
He might have been the first of all
In science, as in playing ball;
He might have done as great exploits
In study as in pitching quoits; . . . .
Sources:
Selection of Juvenile and Miscellaneous Poems, Written or Translated by Roswell Park, (Desilver, Thomas ad Co., Philadelphia, 1836),. page 44.
Comment:
Roswell Park was born at Lebanon, Conn., in 1807, graduated at West Point, and at Union College in 1831. He died July 16, 1869. Whether he was an errant wight is not yet known by Protoball.
Query:
Was "collegian" a term for a university student, back then?
Year
1836
1837.13 German-English Dictionary Cites "Base-ball"
Game:
Age of Players:
An entry for "base-ball" in an 1837 English-to Greman dictionary uses the definition "s. dass Ball-spiel mit Freistätten." {n(oun) the ball-play with free places (safe havens?")}
Sources:
J. H. Kaltschmidt, A New and Complete Dictionary of the English and German Languages, Leipsic [sic], 1837, page 53.
Retrievable 7/14/2013 via <kaltschmidt base-ball> search.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger notes on 7/14/2013 that "[u]nfortunately, the second volume of German to English is not available on Google Books."
Query:
Is it possible that this entry reflects the 1796 report by Gutsmuths that English and German forms of base-ball coexisted? Protoball wonders if the 1837 book mistakenly dropped a word following the term "mit" (with). Gutsmuths called English game "ball "mit freystaten." The Protoball entry for Gutsmuths is at 1796.1
Is there a way to locate the German-to-English version of this 1837 book?
Year
1837
1837.14 The First Uniforms in US Baserunning Games?
Game:
Age of Players:
“In 1833, a group of Philadelphia players formed a team, the Olympics. By 1837, the team had a clubhouse at Broad and Wallace Streets, a constitution, records of their games, and uniforms - dark blue pants, a scarlet-trimmed white shirt, and a white cap trimmed in blue.”
Sources:
Murray Dubin, "The Old, Really Old, Ball Game Both Philadelphia and New York Can Claim As the Nation's First Team," The Inquirer, October 28, 2009.
See http://articles.philly.com/2009-10-28/sports/25272492_1_modern-baseball-baseball-rivalry-cities, accessed 8/16/2014. (Login required as of 2/20/2018.)
The article does not give a source for the 1837 description of the Olympic Club uniform.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger adds, in email of 2/20/2018:
"The entry lacks a source for the Olympic uniform. I don't have a description, but the club's 1838 constitution mentions the uniform several times: the Recorder, who is to have the pattern uniform, and duty of the members to provide themselves with said uniform, with a fine of 25 cents a month for failure to do so, with the Recorder noting these on the month Club Day."
Query:
What is the original documentation of this uniform specification?
Do we know if earlier cricket clubs in the US used club uniforms? In Britain? Are prior uniforms known for other sports?
Year
1837
1838.9 Asylum Inmates Kept Busy with Fishing, Fancy Painting, Bass Ball, Etc.
Game:
"The males are also engaged at bowls, quoits, bass ball, fishing, fancy painting, walking dancing, reading, swinging, and throwing the ring."
Sources:
"Lady Manners", "Moral Management of the Insane," The Friend: a Religious and Literary Journal, Volume 11, Number 38 (June 23, 1838), page 303. Submitted by John Thorn.
Comment:
This was originally from the report of the McLean Asylum in Charlestown, MA, published in the Boston Messenger, March 9, 1837.
Query:
Do we know a location for this report?
Year
1838
1838.14 Possible Game of Base Ball at School
Location:
Age of Players:
"On arriving at the school, Jim was let loose among the rest of the boys, to play. . . . By-and-by he was taken in to a game of ball; but, in five minutes, a round stone instead of the ball, was flung with such violence at one of the small boys, as to knock him down and inflict upon him a severe contusion. Jim protested that it was a mistake. Mr. Strap [his teacher] reasoned with him. He begged pardon and was forgiven."
Sources:
Originally from the New York Mirror, reprinted in the York (PA) Gazette, June 19, 1838.
Comment:
From Richard Hershberger, 2/11/2023: This appears not to be in Protoball. This is from "An Unwhipped Schoolboy" by "T. S. F." originally from the New York Mirror, reprinted in the York, Pennsylvania Gazette of June 19, 1838. It is a morality tale of the virtues of corporal punishment. Mr. Strap runs a school where they do not whip the students. Young Jim Gosling is a problem child. Mr. Strap assures Mrs. Gosling that he can get the boy into shape through sweet reason. She gives him one month. Here is his first day: "On arriving at the school, Jim was let loose among the rest of the boys, to play. He got into a game of marbles, but his antagonists soon perceived that he “cheated,” and turned him out. He then took to the top, but the “fellows,” found that he had brought into the arena a great, long-pegged thing, that cut their little, handsome tops to pieces. No reader that has ever been a boy, need be told that this play, consists in one top’s being spun in a circle, while the rest are spun down at it—sometimes splitting the mark in two. Jim’s top with his accurate aim, split two or three, and the boys protested against such unequal chances. One of them said it was like the horse crying “every one for himself!” when he danced among the chickens. By-and-by he was taken in to a game of ball; but, in five minutes, a round stone instead of the ball, was flung with such violence at one of the small boys, as to knock him down and inflict upon him a severe contusion. Jim protested that it was a mistake. Mr. Strap reasoned with him. He begged pardon and was forgiven."
Richard adds: "It [the story] goes downhill from there, and when the month is up Mr. Strap has reformed his thinking and embraced whipping. Personally, while Jim clearly is a total jerk, the other children seem pretty well adjusted. But of interest here is that the "game of ball" involves throwing the ball at players. They may have been other games that did this, but this likely was baseball."
Note: The term "Games of ball" sometimes apparently referred to what we might see as hand ball, base-running games like cricket, wicket, and stool ball, and field games like bandy and what we know as lacrosse. None is known to have involved featured throwing at participants.
Query:
The game of dodgeball involves throwing a ball at other participants. Protoball is unclear whether that sort of game was common in the early 19th Century. Are many other cites for dodgeball? Did primitive dodgeball have other names?
Year
1838
1840.16 "Town Ball" Noted by Traveler from Philadelphia to Cape Island NJ
Game:
"Having recently returned from a visit to Cape Island [now Cape May - LMc], I cannot forbear expressing the pleasure it has afforded me . . . [an account of several features follows]. For those who are fond of athletic exercise, some provision has been made; and to see a game of "town ball" played, awakens a desire to participate in the enjoyment . . . ."
Sources:
"Cape Island," North American and Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia PA, Sunday, July 25, 1840, Issue 416, column D.
Comment:
Chron serial#1840.16 was formerly assigned to stories of Abe Lincoln's ballplaying as a young man; see #1830s.16 for that item.
Query:
Is it safe to infer that Cape Island is on the NJ shore, near Cape May?
Year
1840
1840c.26 Schoolboy Game of "Three Base Ball" Recalled in Brooklyn
Game:
"Erasmus Hall academy [Brooklyn NY] had a fine play ground surrounding it. Here John Oakey and his school fellows played many a game of three base ball. The boys who played were called hinders, pitchers, catchers, and outers, and in order to put a boy out it was necessary to strike him with the ball. On one occasion John Oakey threw the ball from second base and put another boy out. The boy said he did not feel the ball and therefore he had not been put out. John made up his mind that the next time he caught that chap between the bases he would not say afterward that he did not feel the ball. It was only a few days after that an opportunity occurred. John let the ball go for all he was worth and caught the boy in the back. He went down in a heap, but instantly sprang to his feet and cried out, 'It didn't hit me; it didn't hit me.' But John Oakey and all the boys knew better. For a week after that boy had a lame back, but he would never acknowledge that the ball did it."
Sources:
"Sports in Old Brooklyn: Colonel John Oakey Tells of the Games of His Boyhood: How Some Well Known Men Amused Themselves in Bygone Days - Duck-on-the-Rock, Three Base Ball and Two Old Cat Good Enough for Them," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, vol. 54, number 292 (October 21, 1894), page 21, columns 4 and 5. Submitted 5/1/2007 by Craig Waff.
Comment:
See also 1837c.12
Craig reported that Oakey, 65 years old in 1894, had attended Erasmus Hall from 1838 to 1845.
David Dyte added details in a July 3, 2009 19CBB posting.
Query:
Does the full Daily Eagle article say more about two old cat and other safe-haven games?
Can we retrieve David's details in his posting?
Circa
1840
1840s.31 Lem: Juvenile Fiction's Boy Who Loved Round-ball
Location:
Age of Players:
Lem may be fiction's only round-ball hero.
On pages 93-97, the novel lays out the game that was played by Lem [born 1830] and his playmates, which seems to follow the customs of the Massachusetts game, but without stakes as bases. The passage includes a field diagram, some terminology ["the bases . . . were four in number, and were called 'gools,' a word which probably came from 'goals.'"], and ballmaking technique. Lem is, alas, sidelined for the season when he is plugged "in the hollow of the leg" while gool-running [Page 97] Other references:
On spring, pp 92-93: "Ball-playing began early in the spring; [p92/93] it was the first of the summer games to come out.
On Fast Day, p. 93: "I am afraid that Lem's only notion of Fast Day was that that was the long-expected day when, for the first time that year, a game of ball was played on the Common."
On the pleasant effects of a change in the path of the Gulf Stream, pp. 228-229: "no slushy streets, and above all, no cold barns to go into to feed turnips to the cold cows! A land where top-time, kite-[p228/229] time, and round-ball-time would always be in season. Think of it!"
On making teams for simulating Revolutionary War tussles, p. 107: "We can't all be Americans; and we have agreed to choose sides, as we do in round ball."
Sources:
Noah Brookes, Lem: A New England Village Boy: His Adventures and his Mishaps (Scribner's Sons, New York, 1901). Accessed 11/15/2008 via Google Books search "Lem boy."
See Supplemental Text, below, for Bill Lyons' description of the author and the work.
Comment:
As of Jan 2013, this is one of three uses of "gool" instead of "goal" in ballplaying entries, all in the 1850s and found in western MA and ME. [To confirm/update, do an Enhanced Search for "gool".] One of these, at 1850s.33 uses "gool" as the name of the game. See also Supplemental Text, below.
Query:
We welcome comment on the authenticity of Brooks' depiction of ballplaying in the 1840s, and whether how the game depicted compares to the MA game.
Decade
1840s
1840c.34 Ball-Playing at Marshall College in PA
Tags:
Age of Players:
"The College did not supply the students of that day with a gymnasium as an incentive to physical exercise; but they themselves naturally found out the kind of recreations they needed . . . . [In addition to local excursions], [s]ometimes ball-playing was the recreation, and sometimes it was leaping or jumping, that brought the largest crowd"
Sources:
Theodore Appel, Recollections of College Life, at Marshall College, Mercersburg, Pa., from 1839 to 1845 (Daniel Miller, Reading PA, 1886), pp. 167-168. 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 33 and ref #27. Mercersburg is about 60 miles SW of Harrisburg and about 10 miles from the border with Maryland. The text was accessed 11/16/2008 via a Google Books search <appel mercersburg>."
Query:
"Leaping and jumping games?
Circa
1840
1840s.45 Amherst Alum Cites Round Ball, Wicket, Cricket on Campus in the Past
Game:
Age of Players:
"Various athletic sports have always, to a greater or less degree, prevailed among the students. Prominent among these is, of course, the game of ball in its various forms of Base Ball, Cricket, and Wicket. . . 'Wicket' and 'Round Ball' were quite common once, though of late years [c1870], 'Base Ball' has entirely super[s]eded them."
Sources:
George Cutting, Student Life at Amherst College, Its Organizations, their Membership, and History (Amherst, Massachusetts, 1871), page 112.
Warning:
Dating this entry in the 1840s is highly arbitrary. It is included only because it suggests that round ball and wicket were locally seen as common past activities at this fine college as of 1871.
Comment:
Cutting is listed as a member of the Class of 1871, and thus probably had little direct knowledge of early campus sports. His impressions to round ball and perhaps wicket may have been relayed informally from older persons on campus.
Query:
Can we assess the accuracy of his summary? Is wicket known to be played in the vicinity or in other colleges?
Cutting p. 113 says the "wicket ground was in the rear of the chapel" thus confirming that wicket was played on the campus. [ba]
Decade
1840s
1840s.46 The Balk -- From the Knicks, Prior US Games, or Abroad?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] " 'A Balk is a Base' --Any one having a remembrance of the ball games of his youth, must recollect that in the game of base if the tosser made a balk to entice the individual make the round from his post, the latter had the right to walk to the next base unscathed. Pity it is that the Hudson folks engages in the late political movement n Columbia County did not remember that 'a balk is a base' in the children of a larger growth. When the frequent and flagrant outrages of the Taghkanic Anti Renters had apparently aroused the people of Columbia County to a true sense of their position and duty every friend of good order rejoiced."
[B] The ball is “dead,” to the extent of putting a player out, when either a “ball” or a “baulk” is called. The rule is the same as in cricket. For instance, a “no ball” in cricket can be hit by the batsman, and he can score a run on it, but if the ball be caught it is not considered an out. So in base ball when a baulk is called, and the striker chances to hit the ball and it be caught, he is not out, and he can take his base on it on the grounds of his being “a player running the bases,” which he is when he hits a ball that is not foul. The ball, though “dead” as regards putting a player out, is not “dead” so as to prevent the striker counting what he is entitled to count under the rule
.
Sources:
[A]"A Balk is a Base," Roundout Freeman, June 5, 1847 (volume II, issue 46), page 2. [Brad Shaw, email to Protoball 1/26/2017]
[B] New York Clipper, Saturday, September 8, 1866. See https://protoball.org/Clipping:Interpreting_the_dead_ball_on_a_ball_or_a_balk;_the_rule_the_same_as_in_cricket
Warning:
Dating this item as "1840s" is speculative, and turns on the ages of the Freeman Arguments for an alternative dating are welcome.
Comment:
Query:
Is it obvious why a balk is in some way considered comparable to a "flagrant outrage?"
Was the balk known in earlier baserunning games in England, or elsewhere?
Do histories of cricket shed further light on the origin, nature, or rationale for, automatic batter-runner advances despite catches of balls hit when a "no ball" has been called?
Do we often see early rule variants for players of different ages?
Decade
1840s
1841.10 Bloomfield CT Wicket Challenge: "One Shamble Shall Be Out"
Game:
"The Ball Players of Bloomfield and vicinity, respectfully invite the Pall Players of the city of Hartford to . . . play at Wicket Ball, the best in nine games for Dinner and Trimmings. The Rules to be as follows: [1] The ball to be rolled and to strike the once or more before it reaches the wicket. [2] The ball to be fairly caught flying or at the first bound. [3] The striker may defend his wicket with his bat as he may choose. [4] One shamble shall be out. [5] Each party may choose one judge or talisman."
Sources:
Hartford Daily Courant, June 23, 1841, page 3.
Comment:
Years ago, we had asked here: "Is the bound rule [2] usual in wicket? What is rule 3 getting at? What is rule 4 getting at?"
On 3/4/2022 Alex Dubois offered these clarifications:
"The bound rule [2] is indeed unusual compared to other rulesets, which almost always specify “flying balls only are out.” I still don’t understand rule [3], which shows up occasionally; the New Britain rules say that a batter may only strike the ball with his bat once, except “in defense of his wicket”; still trying to figure out what that means as an exception to the one-hit statement. Rule [4] regarding shambles I think is similar to the “shams” rule from the Litchfield Club. This occurs if the ball strikes any other part of the batsman/striker before the bat (i.e. kicked, hit with hand, elbow, etc.). Litchfield allowed for three shams=out, but maybe Bloomfield only had one shamble=out.
2022 Speculation: perhaps the "one swing" rule was meant to prevent batsmen from taking a second hack at a badly-struck ball, which might injure a fielder? We wonder if English cricket includes a rule on repeat swings. Is a "shamble" something like a leg before wicket infraction in cricket?
Query:
Year
1841
1841.11 Scottish Dictionary Calls "Cat and Dog" a Game for Three
Tags:
Game:
In cat-and-dog, two holes are cut at a distance of thirteen yards. At each hole stands a player with a club, called a "dog." [. . . ] His object is to keep the cat out of the hole. "If the cat be struck, he who strikes it changes places with the person who holds the other club, and as often as the positions are changed one is counted as won in the game by the two who hold the clubs.
Sources:
Jamieson, Scotch Dictionary (Edinburgh, 1841). As cited in A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 4.Detail provided by John Thorn, email of 2/10/2008.
Comment:
Note that this is not described as a team game. A winner is that player who most frequently puts a ball into a goal.
Query:
Does Jamieson describe other ballgames?
Year
1841
1841.12 Fond OH Editor on Youthful Ball-playing: "We Like It"
Game:
Age of Players:
"PLAYING BALL, is among the very first of the 'sports' of our early years. Who had not teased his grandmother for a ball, until the 'old stockings' have been transformed one that would bound well? Who has not played 'barn ball' in his boyhood, 'base' in his youth, and 'wicket' in his manhood?
There is fun, and sport, and healthy exercise, in a game of 'ball.' We like it; for with it is associated recollections of our earlier days. And we trust we will never be too old to feel and' take delight' in the amusements which interested us in our boyhood."
Sources:
Cleveland Daily Herald, April 15, 1841, provided by John Thorn, 2007.
Comment:
For same, see 1841.15
Query:
Note: Wicket was the main adult sport in Ohio?
Year
1841
1841.15 New Orleans Reprints Article on Wicket, Barn Ball, Base
Location:
Game:
"Who has not played 'barn ball' in boyhood, 'base' in his youth and 'wicket' in his adulthood?"
Sources:
New Orleans Picayune, 1841. This cite is found in Tom Melville, The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America (Bowling Green State U Press, Bowling Green, 1998), page 6. He attributes it, apparently, to Dale Somers, The Rise of Sports in New Orleans (LSU Press, Baton Rouge, 1972), page 48.
Warning:
It is not clear that this article reflects actual wicket play, or interest, in New Orleans in 1841.
The text appears have been 'borrowed' from a Cleveland paper: See 1841.17
However, 1844.13 shows that a New Orleans wicket club did call a meeting in 1844.
Comment:
Note: Melville is willing to identify the sport as the one that was played mostly in the CT-central and MA area . . . but it is conceivable that the writer intended to denote cricket instead?
From Bruce Allardise, December 2021: The original article is in the New Orleans Times Picayune, May 31, 1841, which references a reminisce in a {April 1841} Cleveland OH newspaper article. [bsa]
Query:
Do we have any other references to wicket in LA before 1844? Could the Picayune simply have copied an article from a distant newspaper.
Can we learn how broadly barn ball was played n the US? In other nations?
Year
1841
1842c.9 Haverford Students Form Cricket Team of Americans
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Haverford College [Haverford PA] students, however, played cricket with English hosiery weavers prior to 1842, the year the students formed the first all-American team."
Sources:
Lester, John A., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket (U of Penn Press, Philadelphia, 1951), pages 9-11; as cited in Gelber, Steven M., "'Their Hands Are All Out Playing:' Business and Amateur Baseball, 1845-1917," Journal of Sport History, Vol. 11, number 1 (Spring 1984), page 15. Lester cites "a manuscript diary kept by an unknown student . . . under the date 1834."
Comment:
Haverford is about 10 miles NW of downtown Philadelphia.
Query:
Iis Lester saying this is the first Haverford all-native team, first US all-native team, or what?
Can we resolve the discrepancy between 1834 and 18"before 1842" as the time that the club formed?
Circa
1842
1842.11 Rounders Reported at Swiss School
Game:
Age of Players:
An 1842 reference indicates that rounders was played at an international agricultural school near Bern.
"During a general game, in which some of the masters join (rounders I think the English boys called it) I have observed . . . "
Sources:
Letters from Hofwyl by a Parent on the Educational Institutions of De Fellenberg, (Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London, 1842), page 90.
Accessible on Google Books 11/14/2013 via <letters from hofwyl> search.
Comment:
From David Block: "Unless I'm forgetting something, this may be the earliest example we have of baseball or rounders being played outside of Britain or North America. (I don't count the 1796 description of English baseball by J.C.F. Gutsmuths because there is no evidence that the game was actually played in Germany.)
Query:
Was the game dissimilar from the European "battingball games" reported by Maigaard?
Can we determine whether the players were youths or juveniles?
Year
1842
1843.10 Juvenile Book's Chapter: "A Game at Ball": 'Cheating play never prospers'
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
“You may get that ball yourself, Allen Bates,” exclaimed a boy about twelve years of age, as he turned away from the play-ground; “for as to climbing that high fence to get into the stable-yard again, I am not the fellow that’s going to do it.”
“Do not be in a passion, Jimmy,” replied Allen, tauntingly. “Be calm, my lad,” added he, as he patted him provokingly on the shoulder.
“Hands off,” said James in a loud tone, “I will have no more to do with such a cheat. ‘Cheating play never prospers;’ and you have knocked the ball over that fence four times, on purpose to prevent me from getting the ball-club. I am sure the play-ground is large enough, and you strong enough to leave me but small chance of getting the ball and hitting you before you get back to your place, without cheating.
Sources:
"A Mother," Choice Medley. American Sunday School Union, 1843.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 1/13/2021:
[] It is exactly what one would expect. The first chapter is "Game at Ball." It is a morality tale about self-control. It opens with a fight nearly breaking out [see text, above.]
[] This (image) looks to me like old cat, the fielder trying to burn the batter, the two trading places if he succeeds. There also is a frontispiece illustrating the scene. I'm not sure if we can post images in this brave new (list-serve) format, but here goes. Note the forms of the bats. One looks to me like a wicket bat, the other like a hockey stick
Query:
[] It appears that the batsman is obliged to run to a second marker and then return; is that the way one-o-cat was commonly played? (It does appear to be the rule for barn ball.) -- Protoball functionary, 2/2/2021.
Year
1843
1844.6 Novel Cites "the Game of Bass in the Fields"
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"And you boys let out racin', yelpin,' hollerin,' and whoopin' like mad with pleasure, and the playground, and the game of bass in the fields, or hurly on the long pond on the ice, . . . "
Thomas C. Haliburton, The Attache: or Sam Slick in England [Bentley, London, 1844] no page cited, per William Humber, "Baseball and Canadian Identity," College Quarterly volume 8 Number 3 [Spring 2005] no page cited. Humber notes that this reference has been used to refute Nova Scotia's claim to be the birthplace of modern ice hockey ["hurly"]. Submitted by John Thorn, 3/30/2006.
Comment:
Note: Understanding the author's intent here is complicated by the fact that he was Canadian, Sam Slick was an American character, and the novel is set in Britain.
Query:
Is "bass" a ballgame, or was prisoner's base sometimes thought of as a "field game?"
Year
1844
1844.13 Wicket Play in New Orleans LA?
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The members of the New Orleans Wicket Club, are requested to meet at the Field, This Day, Thursday at 5 o'clock, PM, precisely."
Sources:
Times Picayune, November 7, 1844. Accessed via subscription search, March 27, 2009. Contributed by Richard Hershberger, March 8, 2009.
Query:
Adult play is suggested by choice of late-day meeting.
Year
1844
1844.15 Whigs 81 Runs, Loco Focos 10 Runs, in "Political" Contest Near Canadian Border
Game:
Age of Players:
"A matched, political game of bass Ball came off in this village on Friday last. Twelve Whigs on one side, and twelve Loco Focos on the other. Rules of the game, one knock and catch out, each one out for himself, each side one inns. The Whigs counted 81 and the Locos 10. The game passed off very pleasantly, and our political opponents, we must say, bore the defeat admirably."
Note: The Whigs were a major political party in this era, and the Loco Focos were then a splinter group within the opposing Democratic Party.
Sources:
Frontier Sentinel [Ogdensburg, NY], April 23, 1844, page 3, column 1.
Comment:
The Frontier Sentinel was published 1844-1847 in Ogdensburg (St. Lawrence County) NY.
Ogdensburg [1853 population was "about 6500"] is about 60 miles downriver [NE] on the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario. It is about 60 miles south of Ottawa, about 120 miles north of Syracuse, and about 125 miles SW (upriver) of Montreal. Its first railroad would arrive in 1850.
The HOF's Tom Shieber, who submitted this find, notes that this squib may just be metaphorical in nature, and that no ballplaying had actually occurred. But why then report a plausible game score?
Query:
Comment is welcome on the interpretation of the three cryptic rule descriptions for this 12-player game.
[1] "One knock and catch out?" Could this be taken to define one-out-side-out innings? Or, that ticks counted as outs if caught behind the batter? Or something else? Note: Richard Hershberger points out that 1OSO rules could not have likely allowed the scoring of 81 runs with no outs. That would imply that the clubs may have used the All-Out-Side-Out rule.
[2] "Each one out for himself?" Could batters continue in the batting order until retired? That too, then, might imply the use of an All-Out-Side-Out inning format
[3] "Each side one inns?" So the Whigs made those 81 "counts" in a single inning?
Richard Hershberger also surmises that the first two rules are meant to be conjoined: "One knock and catch out, each one out for himself." That would declare that [a] caught fly balls (and, possibly, caught one-bound hits?) were to be considered outs, and that [b] batters who are put out would lose their place in the batting order that inning; but were there any known variants games for which such catches would not be considered outs?
Year
1844
1844.16 In Bass Ball, Club is "Skinned from Top to Stem"
Game:
Age of Players:
"Messrs. Editors: A game of Bass Ball came off at this place day before yesterday. It was similar to the one alluded to in the last 'Sentinel", with this exception -- we skinned the coons from top to stem. So, hurra for Connecticut!
"Canton, 25th April, 1844."
See 1844.15 for the referenced Frontier Sentinel article.
Sources:
St. Lawrence Republican (Ogdensburgh, NY), April 30, 1844, page 2, column 7.
Comment:
Canton, NY is about 15 miles SE of Ogdensburg NY. Its population in 2000 was a bit over 10,000.
Ogdensburg [1853 population "about 6500"] is about 60 miles [NE] down the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario. It is about 60 miles south of Ottawa, about 120 miles north of Syracuse, and about 125 miles SW (upriver) of Montreal.
Query:
Can anyone make a guess at the meaning of "hurra for Connecticut" for a game played in the far north of NYS? Was the area known for its emigres from CT?
Answer: I believe the reference is to the gains the Whig Party made in the recent CT elections. Just as the local Whigs beat the Loco-Focos (Democrats) at base ball, the CT Whigs beat the Democrats at the polls. [ba]
Year
1844
1844.18 Springtime Ballplaying on the Common -- by Girls
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Girls of fourteen -- daughters of plebeians -- play round ball on the Common. It is a free exercise."
Sources:
Boston Post, April 24, 1844, page 2, column 2.
Comment:
By "plebeian," the writer presumably meant "not upper-class."
Query:
Did "It is a free exercise" mean roughly what it means today?
Year
1844
1844.20 The First Baseball Card, Arguably?
Game:
Age of Players:
"What's the first baseball card? (I say it's the invitation to the Magnolia Club's First Annual Ball ball in February 1844.)"
Sources:
John Thorn, FB Posting, 3/1/2022. [Right-side image, below] The announcement of the event appears in the New York Herald on February 8, 1844.
Comment:
[1] Another candidate as first baseball card is a photo of Sam Wright (with a cricket bat) and his son Harry, evidently used as on a souvenir ticket to a 1866 benefit for the Wrights.
Voigt writes "To finance the affair, a 25-cent admission charge was asked, and all comers were also encouraged to part with an extra 25 cents for a souvenir ticket . . . . Wright was more interested in his cash cut, which came to $29.65." David Vincent Voigt, American Baseball (University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), p. 28.
John Thorn points out that this event can be mainly viewed as a cricket event. Three games were planned as part of the affair, and two were cricket games. A base ball game was to follow, but it was rained out.
[2] Gary Passamonte observes: "This ["first base ball card"] debate has raged on for many years. I believe the 1886 Old Judge N167 set would be the first undisputed group of baseball cards. All earlier possibilities have detractors with good points."
[3] For more on the Magnolia Club, see his 2011 article at https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/magnolia-ball-club-predates-knickerbocker-af50771cd24b. In John's Baseball in the Garden of Eden (Simon and Shuster, 2011), pp 89-95, he describes his 2007 discovery of the club -- and the card. "[The ticket] cost a dollar , and, given its enamel-coated card stock and its commissioned rather than stock imagery, was likely intended to be saved as a memento of the event. The baseball scene on the card reveals three bases with stakes (not wickets), eight men in the field, a pitcher with an underarm delivery, possibly base-stealing . . . . This is, from all appearances, the original Knickerbocker game, and that of the New York Base Ball Club. . . . This ticket was the first depiction of men playing baseball in America, and it may be, depending upon one's taxonomic conventions, the first baseball card.
Query:
Is it time to define "baseball card" a bit more narrowly in declaring a first??
Year
1844
1845.10 German Book of Games Lists das Giftball, a Bat-and-Ball Game
Game:
Included among the games is das Giftball (the venomball, roughly). Block observes that this game "is identical to the early French game of la balle empoisonee (poison ball, roughly) and that an illustration of two boys playing it "shows it to be a bat-and-ball game." For the French game, see the 1810c.1 entry above.
Sources:
Jugendspiele zur Ehhjolung und Erheiterung (boys' games for recreation and amusement) [Tilsit, Germany, W. Simmerfeld, 1845], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 207.
Query:
Does Block link the two descriptions, or does the German text cite the French game
Year
1845
1845.16 Brooklyn 22, New York 1: The First-Ever "Modern" Base Ball Match?
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A]"The Base Ball match between eight Brooklyn players, and eight players of New York, came off on Friday on the grounds of the Union Star Cricket Club. The Yorkers were singularly unfortunate in scoring but one run in their three innings. Brooklyn scored 22 and of course came off winners."
[B] On 11/11/2008, Lee Oxford discovered identical text in a second NY newspaper, which included this detail: "After this game had been decided, a match at single wicket cricket came off between two members of the Union Star Club - Foster and Boyd. Foster scored 11 the first and 1 the second innings. Boyd came off victor by scoring 16 the first innings."
[C] "Though the [base ball] matches played between the Brooklyn and New York clubs on 21 and 25 October 1845 are generally recognized as being the earliest games in the "modern" era, they were, in fact, preceded by an even earlier game between those two clubs on October 12." [In fact this game was played on October 11.] Thanks to Tim Johnson [email, 12/29/2008] for triggering our search for the missing game. See also chron entries 1845.4 and 1845.5.
Sources:
[A] New York Morning News, Oct. 13, 1845, p.2.
[B]The True Sun (New York City), Monday, October 13, 1845, page 2, column 5. This text also appears in John Thorn's, Chapter 3, "The Cradle of Baseball," in Baseball in the Garden of Eden, page 78. On 11/16/2022, John submitted an image of the True Sun posted here.
[C] Earlier cited in Tom Melville, The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America (Bowling Green State University Press, 1998), page 168, note 38.
Comment:
[] Richard Hershberger adds that one can not be sure that these were the same sides that played on October 21/25, noting that the Morning Post refers here just to New York "players", and not to the New York Club.
[] See also 1845.4 for the October 21/25 games.
[] John Thorn, 11/16/2022, points out that "Eight to the side was the norm in 1845, as Adams had not yet created the position of shortstop."
[] In January 2023, a further question arose: Was this game played by modern rules? Could base ball's first known match game have been played in Brooklyn . . . . and on a cricket pitch? It was evidently played to 21 runs, and its eight players preceded the invention of a 9th, a shortstop.
Bob Tholkes, to Protoball, 1/30/2023: "It’s a judgement. Wheaton, the writer of the Knick rules umpired the later two [1845 matches] so I’ve assumed they were played by them…don’t know that about the first game."
Query:
Can we find more hints about the rules that may have governed this match game?
Year
1845
1845c.24 Future Congressman Plays Ball at Phillips Andover?
Age of Players:
"The Honorable William W. Crapo remembers walking often to Lawrence [MA] to watch the construction of the great dam. Now and then we hear, quite casually, of a game of 'rounders' or of a strange rough-and-tumble amusement called football; but . . . there were no organized teams of contests with other schools."
Sources:
C. M. Fuess, An Old New England School: A History of Phillips Academy, Andover (Houghton Mifflin, 1917), page 449.
Warning:
Note that this enigmatic excerpt does not directly attribute to Crapo these references to ballplaying.
Note that there is reason to ask whether these games, or the ones described in 1853.7, were known as "rounders" when they were played. As far as we know, his sources did not use the name rounders, and Fuess may be imposing his assumption, in 1917, that base ball's predecessor was formerly known as rounders. His book observes, elsewhere, that in warm weather students "tried to improve their skill at the rude game of "rounders," out of which, about 1860, baseball was beginning to evolve."
Comment:
If Fuess implies that these observations were made by Crapo, they could date to c. 1845, when the future legislator was a student at Phillips Andover at age 15. Crapo, from southern MA, was a member of the Yale class of 1852.
Query:
Did Crapo leave behind autobiographical accounts that we could check for youthful ballplaying recollections? Do we find contemporary usage of the term "rounders" in this area?
Circa
1845
1845.27 Early Town-Ball Mention
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
""Instead of the former amusements, which gave so much activity and health to those who partook of them, and gave so much offense to those who pretend to be the engineer of our morals, we have Billiards, Cricket matches, Town-Ball, Bowling-alleys, &c., for those who can spare the time to partake of the amusement."
Sources:
Spirit of the Times, May 3, 1845, p.106: a letter from a Philadelphia correspondent. Posted on 19cbb by David Ball, Aug. 27, 2007
Comment:
From John Thorn, email of 2/16/2023: "According to David Ball, 'The item is a letter from a correspondent in that city [Philadelphia], and the context is some sort of political reform movement intended to clean up popular amusements.'"
This isn't the first attestation of the term "town ball" but it's very early.
Protoball Note: As of February 2023, Protoball entries show about 100 references to town ball, including about 70 chronology items and 30 other refs in game accounts, club accounts, and news clippings. Some report local finds, but many and others reflect clarifying commentary by PBall data contributors. Very few mentions are found before 1835.
About 50 of these 100 refs are shown on PBall search maps. They show wide distribution across the US, but none are reported in the Greater New York area. (The two New Jersey mentions are not in northernmost NJ).
As far as we know, these collected town ball references have not been studied rigorously as of early 2023.
Query:
Richard Hershberger (email of 2/16/2023) has expressed doubt that the writer is from New York: "Do we know where the writer was from? It would be very surprising if he were from New York."
Is it generally known whether SOT generally favored reports from certain regions in the 1840??
Year
1845
1845.31 News Writer (Whitman, Perhaps?) Extols "Base," Cricket
Tags:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Walt Whitman
"Public Baths and Grounds for Athletic Exercises.–During many of the pleasant days we have had the past spring, persons walking by the Park, between noon and an hour later, must have observed several parties of youngsters playing “base,” a certain game of ball. We wish such sights were more common among us. . . . The game of ball, especially its best game, cricket, is glorious–that of quoits is invigorating–so is leaping, running, wrestling, &c. &c."
[Full text is seen at Supplemental Text, below.]
Sources:
The Atlas (New York), June 15, 1845.
Comment:
George Thompson, 1/13/21: "When New Yorkers said "the Park" in the first half of the 19th century, they meant the Park in front of City Hall. Not a big area, and today at least it's so cluttered with benches and a fountain that it doesn't seem possible to play a game that involves running about.
I will check my notes to see if there is an indication of whether the Park was more open then."
John Thorn, 1/13/21: "certain lines in the 1845 Atlas note were *also* used by Whitman in his now-famous "sundown perambulations of late" note of July 23, 1846!! . . . . Was Whitman the author of the 1845 Atlas note? Did he later plagiarize himself, or an unnamed other?"
Note: Whitman's text is at https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/opening-day-e5f9021c5dda. Whitman's appreciation of base ball is also shown at 1846.6, 1855.9, and 1858.25.
Query:
Extra credit for sleuthing the authorship of this item!
Year
1845
1846.16 Base Ball as Therapy in MA?
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
According to the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, when "useful labor" wasn't possible for inmates, the remedies list: "chess, cards, backgammon, rolling balls, jumping the rope, etc., are in-door games; and base-ball, pitching quoits, walking and riding, are out-door amusements."
Sources:
Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, December 1846. Posted to 19CBB on 11/1/2007 by Richard Hershberger.
Query:
Was "base-ball" a common term in MA then?
Year
1846
1846.21 A "Badly Defined" and Soggy April Game, In Brooklyn Alongside Star Cricket Club?
Location:
Age of Players:
"Brooklyn Star Cricket Club.–The first meeting of this association for the season came off yesterday, on their grounds in the Myrtle avenue. The weather was most unfavorable for the sport promised–a game of cricket between the members of the club, a base ball game between the members of the Knickerbocker Club, and a pedestrian match for some $20 between two aspirants for pedestrian fame. It was past 12 o’clock ere the amusements of the day commenced. Shortly after, a violent storm of wind, hail, and rain came on, which made them desist from their endeavors for some time, and the company, which was somewhat numerous, left the ground. Notwithstanding, like true cricketers, the majority of the club kept the field, but not with much effect. The wind, hail, rain and, snow prevailed to such extent that play was out of the question; but they did the best they could, and in the first innings the seniors of the club made some 48, while the juniors only scored some 17 or 18. The game was not proceeded with further. In the interim, a game of base ball was proceeded with by some novices, in an adjoining field, which created a little amusement; but it was so badly defined, that we know not who were the conquerors; but we believe it was a drawn game. Then succeeded the pedestrian match of 100 yards..."
Sources:
New York Herald, April 14, 1846.
Comment:
From Richard Hershberger, email of 9/2/16: "I believe this is new. At least it is new to me, and not in the Protoball Chronology."
"The classic version of history of this period has the Knickerbockers springing up forth from the head of Zeus and playing in splendid isolation except for that one match game in 1846. This version hasn't been viable for some years now, though it is the nature of things that it will persist indefinitely. This Herald item shows the Knickerbockers as a part of a ball-playing community."
Richard points out that the "novices" who played base ball were unlikely to have been regular Knick players, whose skills would have been relatively advanced by 1846 (second email of 9/2/16).
Note: Jayesh Patel's Flannels on the Sward (Patel, 2013), page 112, mentions that the Star Club was founded in 1843. His source appears to be Tom Melville's Tented Field.
In 1846, Brooklyn showed a few signs of base ball enthusiasm: about two months later (see entry 1846.2) a Brooklyn Base Ball Club was reported, and in the same month Walt Whitman observed "several parties of youngsters" playing a ball game named "base" -- see 1846.6.
Query:
Do we know of other field days like this one in this early period? Can we guess who organized this one, and why? Do we know if the Knicks traveled to Brooklyn that day?
Year
1846
1846.23 New Jersey Youths Spotted "playing 'base ball'"
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
We saw a number of youths engaged at playing “base ball,” last week, in the green between Hoboken and the Otto Cottage. “Base ball” is a fine, healthy game, but should not be allowed in such a crowded thoroughfare, where women and children are constantly passing and liable to be severely hurt.
Sources:
The Atlas (New York) May 31, 1846
Comment:
So -- base ball was not the exclusive practice of adult clubs in Manhattan.
Query:
"Otto Cottage?"
Year
1846
1846.25 Knicks Prepare for 1846 Season: Early Match Game in Brooklyn Rained out.
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "FIELD SPORTS--The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club commence playing for the season, on Tuesday next, at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken."
[B] "The weather was most unfavorable for the sport promised a base ball game between the members of the Knickerbocker Club . . ."
Comment:
John Thorn's comments, 12/18/2021: "This [exceedingly brief April 6 notice] is not the first appearance of baseball in the daily press, nor even of the Knicks, who came in for mention in the Herald's November 11, 1845 report of an intramural game of the New York Base Ball Club." See entry 1845.33.
"Interestingly, the Knicks visited the Stars in Brooklyn on April 13, 1846 to play what would have been their first match game, but were rained out. This was reported in the Herald of the following day.
"The April 6, 1846 notice is something that may have been overlooked."
Query:
Were there many known modern games played in Brooklyn prior to this rainout?
Is the expected opponent in the April 13 game known, or was it not really to be a match game?
If it was to be a match game, do we know that it would have employed the new Knick rules?
Year
1846
1847.7 Occupation Army Takes Ballgame to Natives In . . . Santa Barbara?
Tags:
Location:
The New York Volunteer Regiment reached California in April 1847 after the end of the Mexican War, and helped to occupy the province. They laid out a diamond [where State and Cota Streets now meet], made a ball from gutta percha, and used a mesquite stick as a bat. Partly because batted balls found their way into the windowless nearby adobes, there were some problems. "Largely because of the baseball games, the Spanish-speaking people of Santa Barbara came to look upon the New Yorkers as loudmouthed, uncouth hoodlums. . . . the hostilities between Californians and Americanos continued to fester for generations."
Walter A. Tompkins, "Baseball Began Here in 1847," It Happened in Old Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara National Bank, undated), pages 77-78.
Warning:
Caveat: Angus McFarland has not been able to verify this account as of November 2008.
Comment:
Note -- Actually, an earlier account of California ballplaying was recorded a month before this, in San Diego. See 1847.15.
Query:
Is there any indication of what Tompkins' source might have been?
Year
1847
1847.11 Curling is "Bass Ball," or "Goal," or "Hook-em-Snivy," on the Ice?
Location:
Game:
In response to an article from the Alabama Reporter belittling the sport of curling, the Spirit of the Times writer attempts to describe curling to Southerners like this: "What is 'Curling,' eh? Why, did you ever play 'bass ball,' or 'goal,' or 'hook-em-snivy,' on the ice? Well, curling is not like either. In curling, sides are chosen; each player has a bat, one end of which is turned up, somewhat like a plough-handle, with which to knock a ball on ice without picking it up as in the game of foot-ball, which curling resembles." Provided by David Block, email of 2/27/2008. "
Sources:
The Alabama Reporter, as reprinted in Spirit of the Times, January 16, 1847, page 559.
Comment:
David Block explains, 2/27/2008: "Clearly, the writer had curling confused with ice hockey, which was itself an embryonic sport that the time." Or maybe he confused it with ice-hurling, which actually employs a ball.
From Richard Hershberger, 12/8/09: "What makes this so interesting is that the response speaks of "bass ball" played on ice. This is a decade before such games were commonly reported, suggesting that the [later] practice by organized clubs was borrowed from older, informal play on ice."
Query:
Could gentle readers please enlighten Protoball on the nature and fate of "hook-em-snivy," in AL or the South or elsewhere? I asked Mister Google about the word, and he rather less helpfully and rather more cryptically than usual, said this: "My Quaker grandmother, born in Maryland in 1823, used [the word] in my hearing when she was about seventy years old. She said that it was a barbarism in use among common people and that we must forget it.
Year
1847
1847.13 "Boy's Treasury" Describes Rounders, Feeder, Stoolball, Etc.
Age of Players:
The Boy's Treasury, published in New York, contains descriptions of feeder [p. 25], Rounders [p. 26], Ball Stock [p. 27], Stool-Ball [p. 28], Northern Spell [p. 33] and Trap, Bat, and Ball [p 33]. The cat games and barn ball and town ball are not listed. In feeder, the ball is served from a distance of two yards, and the thrower is the only member of the "out" team. There is a three-strike rule and a dropped-third rule. The Rounders description says "a smooth round stick is preferred by many boys to a bat for striking the ball." Ball Stock is said to be "very similar to rounders." In stool ball, "the ball must be struck by the hand, and not with a bat."
The rules given for rounders are fairly detailed, and include the restriction that, in at least one circumstance, a fielder must stay "the length of a horse and cart" away from baserunners when trying to plug them out on the basepaths. For feeder and rounders, a batter is out if not able to hit the ball in three "offers."
Feeder appears to follow most rounders playing rules, but takes a scrub form (when any player is out he, he becomes the new feeder) and not a team form; perhaps feeder was played when too few players were available to form two teams.
Sources:
The Boy's Treasury of Sports, Pastimes, and Recreations (Clark, Austin and Company, New York, 1850), fourth edition. The first edition appeared in 1847, and appears to have identical test for rounders and feeder.
Warning:
Rounders and Feeder texts are cloned from 1841.1, as is 1843.3
Comment:
It seems peculiar that rounders and ball stock are seen as similar; it is not clear that ball stock was a baserunning.
Query:
We have scant evidence that rouunders was played extensively in the US; could this book be derivative of an English pubication?
:Apparently so: the copy on Google Books says "Third American Edition," and the Preface is intensely redolent of English patriotism (" the noble and truly English game of CRICKET... ARCHERY once the pride of England") Whicklin (talk) 04:08, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Year
1847
1847.14 Holiday Encroached by Round Ball, Long Ball, Old Cat
Tags:
"FAST. This time-hallowed, if not time-honored occasion, was observed in the usual way. The ministers preached to pews exhibiting a beggarly emptiness, upon the sins of the nation -- a frightful subject enough, heaven knows. The b-hoys smoked cigars, kicked football, payed [sic] round ball, long ball, an [sic] old cat, and went generally into the outward observances peculiar to the occasion."
Sources:
[A] Nashua Telegraph, as reported in New Hampshire Statesman, and State Journal (Concord, New Hampshire), April 30, 1847, column B.
[B] Nashua Telegraph, as reported (without the typos) in the Boston Courier, April 14, 1847
Comment:
[] Stephen Katz observes: "The "fast" referred to was probably Thanksgiving, celebrated on April 13, 1847."
[] "Long Ball" also cited, is generally known as a baserunning bat-and-ball game in Europe. However, Stephen Katz (email of 2/5/2021) notes that, according to an article in the Connecticut Courant, April 23, 1853, it was locally the name of something like a fungo game: "Reader, did you ever see a bevy of boys playing what they call long ball? One stands and knocks and the others try to catch the ball, and the fortunate one gets to take the place of the knocker."
[] "B-hoys?" Stephen Katz checked Wikipedia for us, and learned that "B'Hoy" was a slang word used to describe the young men "of the rough-and-tumble working class working class culture of Lower Manhattan in the later 1840's." He also pointed to various newspaper sources showing that its meaning evolved to refer generally to ruffians, or unwholesome or unsavory lads or young men.
Query:
Were Fast Day and Thanksgiving distinct holidays in 1847?
Year
1847
1847.17 US Traveler Sees Baseball-Like Game in Northeastern France
Age of Players:
A Boston newspaper published a letter from a Bostonian traveling in Rheims, France, about his visit to a boys' school there:
"They played all my old plays. There close to a triumphal arch under which Roman Emperors had passed; under the dark walls and gothic towers of a city older than Christianity itself . . . . these boys, as if to mock all antiquity and all venerable things, were playing all the very plays of my school-boy days, 'tag' and 'gould' and 'base ball' and 'fox and geese,' &c."
Rheims is about 90 miles NE of Paris
Sources:
Boston Olive Branch, January 9, 1847, page 3, "European Correspondence."
Comment:
Finder David Block's comment, 11/2015: "Hard to know what to make of this. Maybe he spied a game that resembled baseball (theque?). And what is gould? I've never heard of it before."
Query:
Comments, research tips, speculation welcomed.
And . . . what is the game called "gould?"
Year
1847
1847.18 Holiday Round Ball in NH
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Fast. This time-hallowed, if not time-honored occasion, was observed in the usual way. The ministers preached to pews exhibiting a beggarly emptiness, upon the sins of the nation -- a frightful subject enough, heaven knows. The b-hoys smoked cigars, kicked football, played round ball, long ball, and old cat, and went generally into the outward observances peculiar to the occasion. [Nashua (NH) Telegraph]."
Sources:
Nashua Telegraph, as reported in the Boston Currier, April 14, 1847
Comment:
Stephen Katz observes: "The "fast" referred to was probably Thanksgiving, celebrated on April 13, 1847."
Query:
"Long ball": See 1853.20.
"B-hoys": See 1847.14.
Can we determine the ages of the players?
Year
1847
1847.20 In Harlem, Men Play 330- Minute Game of Single Wicket for $100 Stake
Game:
Age of Players:
"CRICKET. A match of single wicket was yesterday played at the Red House, Harlem,
between Messrs. Sams and Conroy, for $100. The game lasted five hours and a half. . . ."
Sources:
New York Herald, October 16, 1847, p. 2, col. 3.
Comment:
In 2022, Bruce Allardice is collecting single wicket games in the US for the PrePro data base.
Query:
[] Do we know of SWC was played for stakes in England?\
Yes. See http://www.cricketweb.net/the-single-wicket-game/
[] Do we have any notion of the rules governing two-player cricket?
Yes. See the glossary of games entry for SWC. [ba]
Year
1847
1847.21 Knickerbocker Property at Hoboken is Robbed -- Three Coats Taken
Game:
Age of Players:
"ROBBERY.--Night before last, the room of the Knickerbocker Bass Ball Club, at Hoboken, was entered through one of the windows, and robbed of three new coats, a silver watch, and money to a considerable amount. No arrest.)"
Sources:
New York Sunday Dispatch July 11, 1847
Comment:
For a concise 2017 overview of the Knickerbocker club by John Thorn, including its use of Elysian Fields after being 'driven' from the Murray Hill grounds , see https://sabr.org/journal/article/new-yorks-first-base-ball-club/.
Query:
[] Query from Peter Mancuso, 8/6/22 posting to 19CBB:
"Apparently the Knickerbockers in addition to playing on some reserved field in Hoboken's Elysian Fields also maintained a more steady presence there with the rental of a room, apparently for exclusive use of the club's members. This taken a step further, begs the question of whether this was a unique relationship limited to the Knickerbockers, or did other clubs also have such an arrangement with the grounds' owners?"
[] Is it supposed that the Hoboken "room" served as a primitive clubhouse?
Year
1847
1848.5 New York "Boys' Book" of Games Covers Stoolball, Rounders, Wicket
Age of Players:
A large section of The Boy's Book of Sports, attributed to "Uncle John," describes more than 200 games, including, rounders (pp. 20-21), stool-ball (pp. 18-19), and wicket (labeled as cricket: page 73).
Rounders (pp.20-21) employs a two-foot round bat, a hard "bench ball," and four or five stones used as bases and arranged in a circle. Play starts when a "feeder" delivers a ball to a striker who tries to hit it and run from base to base without getting hit. There is a one-strike rule. The feeder is allowed to feign a delivery and hit a runner who leaves a base. Struck balls that are caught retire the batting side. There is a Lazarus rule.
Stoolball (pp. 18-19) is described as a two-player game or a game with teams. A stool is defended by a player by his hand, not a bat. Base running rules appear to be the same as in rounders.
David Block notes that "The version of rounders the book presents is generally consistent with others from the period, with perhaps a little more detail than most. Given the choice of games included [and, perhaps, the exclusion of familiar American games], he believes the author is English, "[y]et I find no evidence of its publication in Great Britain prior to [1848]." This 184-page section was apparently later published in London in 1850 and in Philadelphia in 1851.
The book includes an unusual treatment of wicket. The author states that "this is the simple Cricket of the country boys." In reporting on this book, Richard Hershberger advances he working hypothesis that wicket and cricket were used interchangeably in the US.
There is no reference to base ball, base, or goal ball in this book.
Sources:
Boy's Own Book of Sports, Birds, and Animals (New York, Leavitt and Allen, 1848), per David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, pages 209-210.
Warning:
While the preface to this book stresses that it is designed to be limited to "sports which prevail in our country," it includes sections on stoolball and rounders, neither known to have been played very widely here.
Can we rule out the possibility that this book reflects English play, and was written for an English readership? If so, why is cricket not included? Because cricket is for older players?
Comment:
The author's assertion that wicket was commonly played by boys is unusual. The reported heaviness of wicket's ball, and its heavy bat, seem to mark the game for older players.
Query:
One wonders whether an earlier English edition of this book was later published; it is not online as of February 2013.
Year
1848
1848.10 Ballgame Marks Anniversary in MA
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"In Barre, Massachusetts [about 20 miles northwest of Worcester], the anniversary of the organization of government was celebrated by a game of ball - round or base ball, we suppose - twelve on a side. It took four hours to play three heats, and the defeated party paid for a dinner at the Barre Hotel."
Sources:
North American and United States Gazette, June 7, 1848.
Trenton State Gazette (NJ), pg. 1, June 8, 1848.
Comment:
A team size of 12 and three-game match are consistent with some Mass game contests.
Query:
This seems to have been a Philadelphia paper; why would it carry - or reprint - this central-MA story?
Year
1848
1848.18 Litchfield CT Bests Wolcottville in Wicket
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"THOSE GAMES OF WICKET --
which Wolcottville challenged Litchfield to play, came off on our green, last Saturday afternoon; 25 players on a side; . . .
[Scoring report shows Litchfield winning over three innings, 232 to 150.]
"This is the first effort to revive "BANTAM," since the Bat and Ball, were buried (literally buried,) 10 years ago, after two severe floggings, by this same Wolcottville."
Sources:
Litchfield Republican, July 6, 1848, page 2.
Comment:
Litchfield CT (1850 pop. about 3,950) is about 30 miles W of Hartford. Wolcottville is evidently the original name of Torrington CT, which reports a population of about 1900 in 1850. Torrington is about 5 miles NE of Litchfield.
Query:
"Bantam" game?
Year
1848
1848.20 Knicks Begin the Year's Play Days at Hoboken, Cricket Club Chooses Manhattan.
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club opened the season last Thursday, at its ground in the Elysian Fields in Hoboken last Thursday. Its play days have been changed from Tuesday and Friday to Monday and Thursday of each week.
The St. George's Cricket Club will open the season on the 28th, with a day's play, on its ground at the Red House, on Third Avenue [Manhattan]."
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, April 9, 1848.
Comment:
"This is actually quite interesting, as any notice from the press is very rare at that time." --Richard Hershberger, 4/12/2021.
Query:
1848 was the year (see Baseball in the Garden of Eden, p. 35) that the Knickerbockers set out to re-consider their rules. Did they address playing rules, or just operational ones? Do we know what changes emanated?
Year
1848
1849.3 NY Game Shown to "Show Me" State of MO
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi may not have seen the game until 1849 when Alexander Cartwright, near Independence, Missouri, noted baseball play in his April 23rd diary entry: 'During the past week we have passed the time in fixing wagon covers . . . etc., varied by hunting and fishing and playing baseball [sic]. It is comical to see the mountain men and Indians playing the new game. I have a ball with me that we used back home.'"
Sources:
Altherr, Thomas L., "North American Indigenous People and Baseball: 'The One Single Thing the White Man Has Done Right,'" in Altherr, ed., Above the Fruited Plain: Baseball in the Rocky Mountain West, SABR National Convention Publication, 2003, page 20.
Warning:
Some scholars have expressed doubt about the authenticity of this diary entry, which differs from an earlier type-script version.
Query:
Is Tom saying that there were no prior safe-haven ball games [cricket, town ball, wicket] out west, or just that the NY game hadn't arrived until 1849?
Year
1849
1849.10 Ladies' Wicket in England?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"BAT AND BALL AMONG THE LADIES. Nine married ladies beat nine single ones at a game of wicket in England recently. The gamesters were all dressed in white - the married party with blue trimmings and the others in pink."
Sources:
Milwaukee[WI] Sentinel and Gazette, vol. 5, number 116 (September 4, 1849), page 2, column 2. Provided by Craig Waff, email of 8/14/2007.
Comment:
Beth Hise [email of 3/3/2008] reports that the wearing of colored ribbons was a much older tradition.
Note: One may ask if something got lost in the relay of this story to Wisconsin. We know of no wicket in England, and neither wicket or cricket used nine-player teams.
Query:
Was cricket, including single-wicket cricket, known in any part of England as "wicket?"
Year
1849
1849.15 Knickerbockers Lose Impromptu Match to Group of "Amateurs"
Game:
Age of Players:
RURAL SPORTS.--We can testify to a most superb game of old
fashioned base-ball at the Champs d'Elysses, at Hoboken, on
Friday of last week, and bear it in mind the more strongly from
the remaining stiffness from three hours play. While on the
ground, a party of the Knickerbocker Club arrived, and selected
another portion of the field for themselves. When they had
finished, the amateurs with whom we had taken a hand, challenged
the regulars to a match, and both parties stripped and went at it
till night drew the curtains and shut off the sport. At the
closing of the game the amateurs stood eleven and the
Knickerbocker four. On the glory of this result, the amateurs
challenged the regulars to a meeting on the same day this week,
for the cost of a chowder to be served up, upon the green between
them. When it is known that the editors of the American
Statesman and National Police Gazette played among the amateurs,
and particularly that Dr. Walters, the Coroner of the city kept
the game, the result will probably not produce surprise.
Sources:
National Police Gazette, June 9, 1849
Comment:
Finder Richard Hershberger lists the following followup comments and questions (his full email is shown below):
"There is a lot to digest here. Just a couple of quick thoughts
for now:
The Knickerbockers couldn't catch a break! I'll have to look up
when they first managed to win a game.
I don't have ready access to the Knickerbocker score book. What
appears there for this day?
Is this the first appearance of George Wilkes in connection with
baseball?
Sadly, the genealogy bank run of the Gazette is missing the June
16 issue. Is there another run out there?
You notice how early and how often baseball was characterized as
"old fashioned"? I would not take the use here as relating to
the rules used. There was a baseball fad in New York in the mid-1840s. It had
died out by 1849, with the Knickerbockers the only unambiguously
recorded organized survivor. Here we have an informal late
survival.
Query:
See above Comments.
Year
1849
1849.16 Two Eight-player Teams Play Bass Ball at Elysian Fields
Location:
Age of Players:
"An exciting game of Bass Ball came off at the Elysian Fields on Thursday last. The club was organized at the “Pewter Mug” (kept by that patriotic and devoted friend of the “Sage of Lindenwald,” the Widow Lynch), and proceeded to the ground; where Doctor Ingraham, of the Statesman, and John Midmer, Esq., were selected as captains.
Ingraham, having the first choice, selected Messrs Malbrun, Bouts, McConnell, Watson, Wells, and our friend, Captain Joe Cornell, of the sheriff's office.
Midmer made up his side with Messrs. John M.. Rue (the best player of the party), Chase, Alderman Fream, John Robbins, Aaron Butterfield, Car, and Burrett.
Doctor Walters, the coroner, was appointed game-keeper and judge—twenty-one ins the game. All things being in readiness, the sport commenced, and the game was warmly contested for about three hours, with various prospects of success. Night coming on, and there being no liquor in the neighborhood, the judge decided that neither party could win. The decision was cheerfully submitted to by all; and it was agreed, unanimously, to meet at the same place next Friday, and finish the game. With this understanding, the party made the best of their way to York, where the individual performances were duly discussed, and the sportsmen themselves amply refreshed—of course. The issue of this great game is certainly “highly important,” and we hope to be able to announce it next Sunday."
Sources:
New York Atlas, April 29, 1849 and May 6, 1849.
Note: Richard's full May 2019 19CBB posting appears in the Supplemental Text, below.
Comment:
We assume that the phrase"21 ins the game" means that the first side to score 21 runs was the game's winner.
Query:
Richard asks: "I don't recognize the individuals. These clearly are men of substance, so I expect they can be tracked down. The mention of "the club" is intriguing. Is this an actual organized club, with or without baseball as its primary purpose? Or is that an informal usage?"
Abijah Ingraham was a newspaper editor and Dem Party politician. [ba[
Year
1849
1850s.1 Accounts of Ballplaying by Slaves
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Sources:
Wiggins, Kenneth, "Sport and Popular Pastimes in the Plantation Community: The Slave Experience," Thesis, University of Maryland, 1979. Per Millen, notes #26-29.
Comment:
Note: the dates and circumstances and locations of these cases are unclear in Millen. One refers to plugging.
Query:
Can we find out details on the content of the Wiggins monograph>?
Decade
1850s
1850s.3 Cricket Club in Philadelphia, "Young America CC," Started for US-Born Only
Location:
Game:
Sources:
John Lester, ed., A Century of Cricket in Philadelphia [University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1951], page 23.
Query:
Can we determine the year the club formed? Was it a junior clcub?
Decade
1850s
1850s.4 New Orleans LA: Clubs Formed by German and Irish immigrants to play Base Ball
Location:
Game:
"Beginning in the 1850's, the Germans and the Irish took up the sport [baseball] with alacrity. In New Orleans, for example, the Germans founded the Schneiders, Laners, and Landwehrs, and the Irish formed the Fenian Baseball Club. . . . Baseball invariably accompanied the ethnic picnics of the Germans, Irish, French, and, later, Italians."
Sources:
Per Benjamin G. Rader, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Spectators [Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1983], page 93. No source provided.
Comment:
I've checked New Orleans newspapers 1855-1860 and found no mention of these asserted clubs, let alone that they played baseball. The first mention of a Landwehr BBC I've found is in 1884. The Fenian was formed in 1875. It is possible the source refers to a Squirrel Tales BBC headed by captains Schneider and Lauer. [ba]
Query:
Can we now determine when the these clubs formed, and details on their play and durability? Do we see ethnic clubs in other cities in the 1850s?
Decade
1850s
1850c.8 Poisoned-Ball Text Recycled in France
Game:
Age of Players:
The material on "la balle empoisonee" (poisoned ball) is repeated from Les jeux des jeunes garcons. See item #1810s.1 above.
Sources:
Jeux et exercises des Jeunes garcons (Games and Exercises of Young Boys) (Paris, A. Courcier, c. 1850), per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 213.
Query:
This game has similarity to base ball; could a French-speaking digger take a few moments to sort out whether more is known about the rules, origins, and fate of the game?
Circa
1850
1850s.13 Trap Ball, Stool Ball, Well Established in Louisville KY
Game:
Age of Players:
"Other forms of bat and ball games, like trap-ball and stool-ball, became well established in Louisville in the decade preceding the Civil War."
Sources:
Bob Bailey, "Chapter 1 - Beginnings: From Amateur Teams to Disgrace in the National League (mimeo, 1990)', page 1. Bob (email, 1/27/2013) notes that his source for this observation is The Boy's Own Book: A Complete Encyclopedia of all the Diversions, Athletic, and Recreative, of Boyhood and Youth (Louisville, Morton and Griswold, 1854), page 67.
Query:
Can we obtain original sources?
Decade
1850s
1850s.14 With Rise of Overarm Bowling, Padding Becomes Regular Part of Cricket
Game:
Age of Players:
"The early 19th century saw the introduction of pads for batsmen. The earliest were merely wooden boards tied to the batsman's legs. By the 1850s, as overarm bowling and speed became the fashion, pads were regularly used. Older players scorned their introduction, but by this time they were deemed essential."
Sources:
Peter Scholefield, compiler, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia, 1990], page 10.
Query:
It would be interesting to know how much velocity of deliveries increased with the change to overhand throwing.
Decade
1850s
1850s.18 Baseball's Beginnings at U Penn?
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"Baseball was first played by Penn students before the Civil War when the University was still located at its Ninth Street campus. The game was probably played casually by students in the 1850s."
"Baseball is one of the oldest major sports at the University of Pennsylvania, behind only cricket and rowing. Fragmentary records of student life at Penn show that baseball was played on Penn’s Ninth Street campus at least as early as 1864, with both class and University teams in existence by 1867."
Sources:
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/sports/baseball/1800s/hist1.html, as accessed 1/3/2008. No reference is supplied.
Comment:
This is not a reference to the "Penn Tigers" BBC, which appears to be a social club of adults.
Query:
Is there some way to discover the documentary basis for this report?
Decade
1850s
1850s.20 Town-ball Played in Ohio with "Lazarus" Rule
Location:
Game:
Notables:
1897-1904, Mark Hanna, Repubican Senator from Ohio
"Town-ball was base-ball in the rough. I recall some distinctive features: If a batter missed a ball and the catcher behind took it, he was 'caught out.' Three 'nips' also put him out. He might be caught out on 'first bounce.' If the ball were thrown across his path while running base, he was out. One peculiar feature was that the last batter on a side might bring his whole side in by successfully running to first base and back six times in succession, touching first base with his bat after batting. This was not often, but sometimes done; and we were apt to hold back our best batter to the last, which we called 'saving up for six-maker.' This phrase became a general proverb for some large undertaking; and to say of one 'he's a six-maker,' meant that he was a tip-top fellow in whatever he undertook, and no higher compliment could be passed. I have no definite recollection of he Senator's special success at ball, his favorite game; in the broad fields of subsequent life he certainly became a 'six maker.'"
Sources:
Source: Henry C. McCook, The Senator: A Threnody (George W. Jacobs, Philadelphia, 1905), page 208. This passage is excerpted from the annotations to a long poem written in honor the memory of Senator Marcus Hanna of OH. The likely location of the games was in Lisbon, in easternmost OH - about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh PA.. The verse itself: "Shinny and marbles, flying kite and ball, / Hat-ball and hand-ball and, best loved of all!-/ Town-ball, that fine field sport, that soon/ By natural growth and skilful change, became/ Baseball, by use and popular acclaim/ Our nation's favorite game" [Ibid. page 54]. McCook's note describes hat-ball as a plugging game, and hand-ball as a game for one sides of one, two, or three boys that was played "against a windowless brick gable wall."
Posted to 19CBB on 8/13/2007, by Richard Hershberger, supplemented by 8/14/2007 and 12/19/2008 emails.
Query:
Note: were "nips" foul tips?
Decade
1850s
1850s.24 In NYC - Did "Plugging" Actually Persist to the mid-1850s?
Location:
John Thorn feels that "while the Knick rules of September 23, 1845 (and, by William R. Wheaton's report in 1887, the Gothams practice in the 1830s and 1840s) outlawed plugging/soaking a runner in order to retire him, other area clubs were slow to pick up the point."
"Henry Chadwick wrote to the editor of the New York Sun, May 14, 1905: 'It happens that the only attractive feature of the rounders game is this very point of 'shying' the ball at the runners, which so tickled Dick Pearce [in the early 1850s, when he was asked to go out to Bedford to see a ball club at play]. In fact, it was not until the '50s that the rounders point of play in question was eliminated from the rules of the game, as played at Hoboken from 1845 to1857.'"
"The Gotham and the Eagle adopted the Knick rules by 1854 . . . but other
clubs may not have done so till '57."
Sources:
Henry Chadwick, letter to the editor, New York Sun, May 14, 1905. See also John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden (Simon and Schuster, 2011), page 112.
Query:
We invite further discussion on this point. The text of the Wheaton letter is found at entry #1837.1 above.
Decade
1850s
1850c.26 Needed: More Festival Days - Like Fast Day? For Ballplaying
Tags:
Location:
"[T]hey committed a radical error in abolishing all the Papal holidays, or in not substituting something therefore. We have Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July, and Fast-Day when the young men play ball. We need three times as many festivals."
Sources:
Arethusa Hall, compiler, Life and Character of the Reverend Sylvester Judd (Crosby, Nichols and Co., Boston, 1854), page 330. The book compiles ideas and views from Judd's writings. Judd was born in 1813 and died at 40 in 1853. John Corrigan (see #1850s.25) quotes a James Blake as capturing popular attitudes about Fast Day.
Writing of Fast Day 1851, Blake said "Fast & pray says the Governor, Feast & play says the people." John Corrigan, "The Anxiety of Boston at Mid-Century," in Business of the Heart: Religion and Emotion in the Nineteenth Century (University of California Press, 2002), page 45. Corrigan's source, supplied 10/31/09 by Joshua Fleer, is James Barnard Blake, "Diary, April 10, 1851, American Antiquarian Society.
Query:
What were the Catholic festivals that were eliminated? Were any tradfitionally associated with ballplaying?
Circa
1850
1850c.44 Twenty or So Cricket Clubs Dot the US
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"During the late 1840s there was an increase in the number of cricket clubs in New York and nationally. At least six clubs were formed in the metropolitgan area, [but most] survived for only a few years. . . . George Kirsch maintains that by 1850 at least twenty cricket clubs, enrolling perhaps 500 active payers, existed in more than a dozen American communities."
Sources:
Melvin Adelson, A Sporting Time (U. of Illinois Press, 1886), page 104. Adelson cites Kirsch, "American Cricket," in Journal of Sport Hstory, volume 11 (Spring 1984), page 28.
Query:
Do these estimates jibe with current assessments?
Circa
1850
1850.61 A Drawing of Ballplaying in New York -- in the area where Central Park would later be, possibly??
Age of Players:
This depiction of ballplaying appeared in a New York paper illustration on June 5, 1850. Its main subject is the activity of "Sunday Sports" -- idly smoking, gambling. In middle distance some form of ballplaying -- or conceivably base ball, conceivably an old-cat version . . . or perhaps a simpler fungo-based pastime? -- is under way among 3 or 4 players.
Sources:
The Universe, June 5, 1850.
Comment:
John Thorn, 11/15/2022: "Just now I stumbled upon a new (to me and I presume others) illustration of baseball play in New York, from The Universe, June 1, 1850 (a weekly) . . ."
He later surmised: "We are looking south toward the inhabited part of the city, so this may be the region that would become Central Park. The wights are smoking and gambling and otherwise violating the Sabbath, I expect . . . thus "Sunday Sports."
From David Block, 11/15/2022: "Excellent! This may be the earliest illustration of baseball to appear in an American newspaper. It is akin to the simple engravings of baseball-like activity found in chapbooks and school readers of the era."
From Bruce Allardice, 11/16/2022:
"Central Park was not even authorized until 3 years after this image was published.
"At best, it could be titled "baseball in the area that later became Central Park"--but even that is speculation as to the field portrayed. The "suburbs" title and absence of intervening bodies of water suggest that the view is looking south from somewhere in north Manhattan Island.
BTW could the bat-ball game portrayed be old cat rather than baseball?"
Query:
Do you have other interpretations of the game as depicted?
Could that object out near the tree be a baserunning post . . . or a even a wicket?
Year
1850
1851.2 Early Ballplaying on the SF Plaza (Horses Beware!)
Location:
From February 1851 through January 1852, there are six reports of ballplaying in San Francisco:
[1] February 4, 1851. "Sport -- A game of base ball was played upon the Plaza yesterday afternoon by a number of the sorting gentlemen about town."
[2] February 4, 1851. Sports on the Plaza. "The plaza has at last been turned to some account by our citizens. Yesterday quite a crowd collected upon it, to take part in and witness a game of ball, many taking a hand. We were much better pleased at it, than to witness the crowds in the gambling saloons which surround the square."
[3] February 6, 1851. "Base-Ball --This is becoming quite popular among our sporting gentry, who have an exercise upon the plaza nearly every day. This is certainly better amusement than 'bucking' . . . ."
[4] March 1, 1851. "Our plaza . . . has gone through a variety of stages -- store-house, cattle market, auction stand, depository of rubbish, and lately, playground. Numbers of boys and young men daily amuse themselves by playing ball upon it -- this is certainly an innocent recreation, but occasionally the ball strikes a horse passing, to the great annoyance of he driver."
[5] March 25, 1851. "There [at the Plaza] the boys play at ball, some of them using expressions towards their companions, expressions neither flattering, innocent nor commendable. Men, too, children of a larger growth, do the same things."
[6] January 14, 1852. "Public Play Ground -- For the last two or three evenings the Plaza has been filled with full grown persons engaged very industrially in the game known as 'town ball.' The amusement is very innocent and healthful, and the place peculiarly adapted for that purpose."
Sources:
[1] Alta California, Feb, 4, 1851
[2] "Sports on the Plaza," Daily California Courier, February 4, 1851.
[3] "Base-Ball," Alta California, February 6, 1851.
[4] "The Plaza," San Francisco Herald, March 1, 1851.
[5] "The Corral," Alta California, March 25, 1851.
[6] "Public Playground," Alta California, January 14, 1852.
See Angus Macfarlane, The [SF] Knickerbockers -- San Francisco's First Baseball Team?," Base Ball, volume 1, number 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 7-20.
Comment:
Angus Macfarlane's research shows that many New Yorkers were in San Francisco in early 1851, and in fact several formed a "Knickerbocker Association." Furthermore he discovered that several key members of the eastern Knickerbocker Base Ball Club -- including de Witt, Turk, Cartwright, Wheaton, Ebbetts, and Tucker -- were in town. "[I]n various manners and at various times they crossed each other's paths." Angus suggests that they may have been involved in the 1851 games, so it is possible that they were played by Knickerbocker rules . . . at a time when in New York most games were still intramural affairs within the one or two base ball clubs playing here.
Query:
What do we know about "the Plaza" in those days, and its habitués and reputation?
Year
1851
1851.7 Christmas Bash Includes "Good Old Fashioned Game of Baseball"
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"On Christmas day, the drivers, agents, and other employees of the various Express Companies in the City, had a turnout entirely in character. . . . There were between seventy-five and eighty men in the company . . . . They then went to the residence of A. M. C. Smith, in Franklin st., and thence to the Red House in Harlem, where the whole party has a good old fashioned game of base ball, and then a capital dinner at which A. M. C. Smith presided."
Sources:
New York Daily Tribune, December 29, 1851.
Comment:
Richard added: "Finally this is a very rare contemporary cite of baseball for this period. Between the baseball fad of the mid-1840s and its revival in the mid-1850s, baseball is rarely seen outside the pages of the Knickerbocker club books." John Thorn contributed a facsimile of the Tribune article.
Query:
Can we surmise that by using the term "old fashioned game," the newspaper is distinguishing it from the Knickerbocker game?
Year
1851
1852.2 Lit Magazine Cites "Roaring" Game of "Bat and Base-ball"
Age of Players:
The fifth stanza of the poem "Morning Musings on an Old School-Stile" reads: "How they poured the soul of gay and joyous boyhood/ Into roaring games of marbles, bat and base-ball!/ Thinking that the world was only made to play in, -/ Made for jolly boys, tossing, throwing balls!
Sources:
Southern Literary Messenger, volume 18, number 2, February 1852, page 96, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 214.
Query:
John Thorn interprets this phrase to denote two games, bat-ball and base-ball. Others just see it as a local variant of the term base-ball. Is the truth findable here? Note that Brian Turner, in "The Bat and Ball": A Distinct Game or a Generic Term?, Base Ball, volume 5, number 1, p. 37 ff, suggests that 'bat and ball" may have been a distinct game played in easternmost New England.
Year
1852
1852.10 Fictional "Up-Country" Location Cites Bass-Ball and Wicket
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Both houses were close by the road, and the road was narrow; but on either side was a strip of grass, and in process of time, I appeared and began ball-playing upon the green strip, on the west side of the road. At these times, on summer mornings, when we were getting well warm at bass-ball or wicket, my grandfather would be seen coming out of his little swing-gate, with a big hat aforesaid, and a cane. He enjoyed the game as much as the youngest of us, but came mainly to see fair play, and decide mooted points."
There is a second incidental reference to wicket: "this is why it is pleasant to ride, walk, play at wicket, or mingle in city crowds" . . . [i.e., to escape endless introspection]. Ibid, page 90.
Sources:
L.W. Mansfield (writing under the pseudonym "Z. P.," or Zachary Pundison) Up-country Letters (D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1852), page 277 and page 90.
Comment:
Provided by David Block notes: "This is a published collection of letters that includes one dated March 1851, entitled 'Mr. Pundison's Grandfather.' In it the author is reminiscing about events of 20 years earlier."
Query:
It might be informative to learn whether this novel has a particular setting (wicket is only known in selected areas) and/or where author Mansfield lived.
Is it clear that the setting is the United States?
Year
1852
1852.14 A Pleasant Beech Grove, Where the Boys Played Bass Ball
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"A little way from the school-house . . . was a pleasant beech grove, where the boys played bass ball, and where the girls carried disused benches and see-sawed over fallen logs."
Sources:
Alice Carey, Clovernook: or, Recollections of Our Neighborhood in the West (Redfield, Clinton Hall NY, 1852), page 280. G-Book search: <"beech grove" "alice carey">.
Comment:
The state or locality of this scene is not obvious.
Query:
Is this a recollection or a work of fiction?
Year
1852
1852.16 Two Wicket Groups Vie in Litchfield CT
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"That Game of Wicket,
Between the two Branches of Bantam Players (the Factory and Up-Town Branches,) came off on the Public Green in this Village, on Saturday last, with the following result"
[In three innings, the score was Factory Branch 141, Up Town Branch 111.]
Sources:
Litchfield Republican, July 8, 1852, page 2.
Query:
What were "bantam players?" Does the term suggest the ages of the players?
Year
1852
1853c.1 "Rounders" Said to be Played at Phillips Andover School
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "The game of "rounders," as it was played in the days before the Civil War, had only a faint resemblance to our modern baseball. For a description of a typical contest, which took place in 1853, we are indebted to Dr. William A. Mowry:"
[Nine students had posted a challenge to play "a game of ball," and that challenge was accepted by eleven other students.] "The game was a long one. No account was made of 'innings;' the record was merely of runs. When one had knocked the ball, had run the bases, and had reached the 'home goal,' that counted one 'tally.' The game was for fifty tallies. The custom was to have no umpire, and the pitcher stood midway between the second and third bases, but nearer the center of the square. The batter stood midway between the first and fourth base, and the catcher just behind the batter, as near or as far as he pleased.
'Well, we beat the eleven [50-37].' [Mowry then tells of his success in letting the ball hit the bat and glance away over the wall "behind the catchers," which allowed him to put his side ahead in a later rubber game after the two sides had each won a game.]
[B] "We had baseball and football on Andover Hill forty years ago, but not after the present style. Baseball was called round ball, and the batter that was most adept at fouls, made the most tallies. The Theologues were not too dignified in those days to play matches with the academy. There was some sport in those match games."
Sources:
[A] Claude M. Fuess, An Old New England School: A History of Phillips Academy, Andover [Houghton Mifflin, 1917], pp. 449-450.
Researched by George Thompson, based on partial information from reading notes by Harold Seymour. Accessed 2/11/10 via Google Books search ("history of phillips").
A note-card in the Harold Seymour archive at Cornell describes the Mowry recollection.
[B] William Hardy, Class of 1853, as cited in Fred H. Harrison, Chapter 2, The Hard-Ball Game, Athletics for All: Physical Education and Athletics at Phillips Academy, Andover, 1778-1978 (Phillips Academy, 1983), accessed 2/21/2013 at http://www.pa59ers.com/library/Harrison/Athletics02.html. Publication information for the Hardy quote is not seen on this source.
Warning:
It appears that Fuess, the 1917 author, viewed this game as rounders, but neither the Mowry description nor the Hardy reference uses that name. It is possible that Fuess was an after-the-fact devotee of he rounders theory of base ball. The game as described is indistinguishable from round ball as played in New England, and lacks features [small bat, configuration of bases] used in English rounders during this period. The placement of the batter, the use of "tallies" for runs, and the 50-inning game length suggests that the game played may have been a version of what was to be encoded as the Massachusetts Game in 1858.
Comment:
Wikipedia has an entry for prolific historian William A Mowry (1829-1917). A Rhode Islander, his schooling is not specified, but he entered Brown University in 1854, and thus may have been a Phillips Andover senior in 1853.
Hardy's 1853 reference to the "Theologues" is, seemingly, a local theological seminary -- presumably the nearby Andover Theological Seminary -- whose teams played many times from the 1850s to the 1870s against Phillips Andover. Hardy's note may thus mark the first known interscholastic match of a safe haven ballgame in the United States.
A prestigious preparatory school, Phillips Academy is in Andover MA and about 20 miles N of Boston.
Query:
Can we identify the seminary with the rival club, and determine whether it has any record of early ballplaying?
Circa
1853
1853.3 B is [Still] For Bat and Ball
Game:
Age of Players:
Under an illustration of trap-ball play, we find in an 1853 children's book: "My name is B, at your beck and call,/ B stands for battledore, bat, and ball;/ From the trap with your bat, the Tennis ball knock,/ With your battledore spin up the light shuttlecock."
Sources:
The Illuminated A, B, C (New York, T. W. Strong, 1853), per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 215.
Comment:
The use of a tennis ball in a description of a batting game is unusual.
In 1853, the modern game of lawn tennis had not been invented, and most tennis was played for centuries [as players of "Real Tennis" now do] on indoor, walled courts with hard balls that strongly resemble modern baseballs. It is not clear that the old form of tennis was played in the US in the 1850s.
Query:
Could this be an American printing of an English volume?
Year
1853
1853.4 School Reader has Description of Bat and Ball
Game:
Age of Players:
Sanders, Charles W., The School Reader; First Book (Newburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, assorted publishers). This is another Sanders reader (see entries above for 1840, 1841, 1846), this one with an illustration of four boys playing a ball game at recess. A drawing is titled "Boys Playing at Bat and Ball."
Oddly enough, two of the four boys seem to be carrying bats. One appears to have hit the ball toward a boy in the foreground, and a second boy stands near to him, with a bat in hand, watching him prepare to catch the ball. "[H]e will catch the ball when it comes down. Then it will be his turn to take the bat and knock the ball."
No bases or wickets are apparent in the drawing. No pitching or baserunning is mentioned.
Sources:
per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 215.
Comment:
In 2013, David Block notes that the 1858 edition of this book includes a different image, where a fifth player appears, and three of them hold bats: see below: "In the newer [1858] edition, all five of the boys are standing around a tree . . . . The bats, especially in the 1858 illustration, appear to be flat-faced, though not as broad as a cricket bat. There are no visible wickets or bases . . . It is impossible to know what sort of game(s) the artists were trying to represent, although my impression is of some sort of fungo game, with one player hitting the ball in the air and the others trying to catch or retrieve. The one who succeeds gets to bat next. Just a guess.
(Email from David Block, 2/7/2013.)
Query:
Is it possible that this is a fungo-style game? Is it possible that may other "plaing ball" references denote fungo games?
Do we know of any other fungo games in which more than a single bat is used?
Year
1853
1853.6 When Boys Collect, A Spontaneous Game of Ball is Possible
Age of Players:
" . . . when they [the 'little fellows'] asked the men where the town-meeting was, they were told that it was in the church. So it is for the men, but that the boys' town-meeting is out [outdoors?] where you can buy peanuts and gingercake, and see all your cousins from almost everywhere, and stand around and find out what is going on, and play a game of ball with the boy from Oysterponds, and another from Mattitue, on the same side."
Sources:
New York Times, April 26, 1853.
Query:
"Mattitue?" "Oysterponds?"
Year
1853
1853.8 If Balls and Bats Were Coinage, They Were Millionaires
Game:
Age of Players:
Several boys are having trouble raising money needed to finance a project. "If base-balls and trap-bats would have passed current, we could have gone forth as millionaires; but as it was, the total amount of floating capital [we had] was the sum of seven dollars and thirty-seven and a half cents."
Sources:
"School-House Sketches, in The United States Review, (Lloyd and Campbell, New York, July 1853), page 35.
Query:
Would it be helpful to find what time period the 1853 author chose for the setting for this piece?
Year
1853
1853.14 Base Ball Hits the Sports Pages? Sunday Mercury, Spirit of the Times Among First to Cover Game Regularly
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "The Sunday Mercury reportedly began coverage on May 1,of 1853]"
[B] "On July 9, 1853, The Spirit of the Times mentioned baseball for the first time, printing a letter reporting a game between the Gotham and Knickerbocker Clubs."
[C] Spirit of the Times began to cover cricket in 1837 . . . . Not until July 9, 1853, however, did it give notice to a baseball match . . . the same one noted in the fledgling [New York] Clipper one week later."
Sources:
[A] Email from Bob Tholkes, 2/12/2010 and 2/18/2012.
[B]William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning (McFarland, 2009), page 163.
[C] John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden (Simon and Shuster, 2011), page 104.
Query:
Has someone already analyzed the relative role of assorted papers in the first baseball boom?
Year
1853
1853c.15 Scholar Ponders: Why Were the Knickerbockers So Publicity-Shy?
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Robert Henderson helps us understand why the Knickerbocker Club made no apparent effort to engage in friendly contests with other teams [from 1845 through 1851]: the club itself was on the verge of collapse in the early years because many of its members failed to show up for scheduled practices.
" . . . There was no mention of baseball in the press until 1853, with the exception of a few references to the New York Club in 1845. . . . The failure of he Knickerbockers to ensure public recognition of their organization probably indicated a defensive posture toward involvement in baseball. Given their social status and the prevailing attitude toward ballplaying, their reaction is not surprising; after all, they were grown men of some stature playing a child's game. They could rationalize their participation by pointing to the health and recreational benefits of baseball, but their social insecurities and their personal doubts concerning the manliness of the game inhibited them from openly announcing the organization."
Sources:
Melvin Adelman, A Sporting Time: New York City and the Rise of Modern Athletics, 1820-1870 (U of Illinois Press, 1986), page 124.
Adelman's reference [page 325] to the unpublished Henderson piece: Robert Henderson, "Adams of the Knickerbockers," unpublished MS, New York Racquet and Tennis Club.
Comment:
Adelman does not mention that until 1854 there were few other known clubs for the KBBC to challenge to match games.
Query:
[A] Was it common for sporting or other clubs to seek publicity prior to 1853?
[B] What evidence exists that the Club felt ashamed to play "a child's game," or that earlier varieties of base-running games were not played by older youths and adults? This chronology has numerous accounts of adult play before 1853.
Circa
1853
1853.19 Boston Clubs Play for Ten Boxes of Cigars
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Aurora Ball Club and Olympic Ball Club will play best 3 in 5 games at Base ball on Tremont street mall on Friday next at half past 5 o'clock for 10 boxes of Havana Cigars. The public are invited to be present. A sufficient force will be in attendance to prevent confusion." [Full Item]
Sources:
Boston Herald, September 7, 1853;
see also:
Boston Herald, September 18, 1854; Boston Daily Bee, July 30 and September 10, 1853.
Warning:
The rules for this match are not known.
Protoball suggests that this game was played by early Mass Game rules, based on the use of the best-of-five format, but this is mere speculation.
Comment:
Four years later, the Olympic Club's written rules show similarity to the Dedham rules for the Massachusetts Game that appeared in 1858.
Best-of-three and best-of-five formats are later seen in matches in MA and upstate NY; the "best-of" format may have been common in the game or games that evolved into the Mass Game.
==
2021 Note: earlier, we had asked, "Do we know any more about the Aurora Club?"
On 10.6/2021, the ever-vigilant Richard Hershberger wrote:
"Protoball 1853.19 reports an upcoming game between the Aurora and Olympic Clubs of Boston, and asks if we know anything more about the Auroras.
The Boston Daily Bee of July 30, 1853 reports on the club's commencing exercises on the Boston Common and claims 60 members. They are a morning club, which likely explains the name, meeting at 4:30 a.m.
The Boston Daily Bee of September 10, 1853 reports the results of the game with the Olympics, the O's winning 45-35 rounds in three successive games. This may hint that a game was to 15. You will be relieved to know that the Auroras paid the wager of ten boxes of Havana cigars.
The Boston Herald of September 18, 1854 reports that the Auroras are commencing their exercises for the season. The late date and the subsequent disappearance of the club suggests that they were in reality moribund.
Richard Hershberger"
==
Query:
Was a form of unpleasant "confusion" anticipated? Like what? Did the "sufficient force" imply that constables might be present to prevent a rumble?
Was this game given other newspaper coverage?
What do we know about where the "Tremont Street Mall" was? Was it not on Boston Common? [it is the Boston Common--ba]
Year
1853
1854.1 Three NY Clubs Meet: Agreed Rules Now Specify Pitching Distance "Not Less Than 15 Paces""
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] Concordance: The Knickerbocker, Eagle, and Gotham Club agree to somewhat expanded rules. Sullivan writes: "In 1854 a revised version of the original Knickerbocker rules was approved by a small committee of NY baseball officials, including Dr. (Doc) Adams. This document describes the first known meeting of baseball club representatives. Three years later, a much larger convention would result in the NABBP."
[B] Pitching: The New York Game rules now specify the distance from the pitcher's point to home base as "not less than fifteen paces."
[C] The Ball: "The joint rules committee, convening at Smith's Tavern, New York, increased the weight of the ball to 5½ to 6 ounces and the diameter to 2¾ to 3½ inches, (corresponding to a circumference varying from 8 5/8 to 11 inches)."
Sources:
[A] John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden (Simon and Schuster, 2011), page 83.The rules standardization was announced in the New York Sunday Mercury, April 2, 1854.
[B] The 17 playing rules [the 1845 rules listed 14 rules] are reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 (University of Nebraska Press, 1995}, pp. 18-19.
[C] Peverelly, 1866, Book of American Pastimes, pp. 346 - 348. Submitted by Rob Loeffler, 3/1/07. See "The Evolution of the Baseball Up to 1872," March 2007.
Query:
Do we know what pitching distances were used in games played before 1854?
Is it seen as merely coincidental that the specifications of a base ball were so close to those of a cricket ball?
Year
1854
1854.2 First New England Team, the Olympics, Forms to Play Round Ball
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The first regularly organized team in New England was the Boston Olympics of 1854. The Elm Trees followed in 1855 and the Green Mountains two years later."
Sources:
Seymour, Harold, Baseball: the Early Years [Oxford University Press, 1989], p. 27. [No ref given.]
It seems plausible, given similarity of phrasing, that this finding comes from George Wright's November 1904 review of baseball history. See#1854.3 below.
There is also similar treatment in Lovett, Old Boston Boys, (Riverside Press, 1907), page 129.
Query:
Is there any detailed indication, or educated guess, as to what rules the Olympics uses in 1854?
Year
1854
1854.5 Excelsior Club Forms in Brooklyn
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Constitution and By-Laws of the Excelsior Base Ball Club of Brooklyn, 1854. The Excelsior Club is organized "to improve, foster, and perpetuate the American game of Base Ball, and advance morally, socially and physically the interests of its members." Its written constitution, Seymour notes, is very similar in wording to the Knickerbocker constitution.
Sources:
Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
Query:
Is this the first base ball club organized in Brooklyn?
Year
1854
1854.8 Historian Describes Facet of 1850s "School Boys' Game of Rounders"
Location:
A cricket historian describes an early attribute of cricket"
" . . . the reason we hear sometimes of he Block-hole was . . . because between these [two] two-feet-asunder stumps [the third stump in the wicket had not yet been introduced] there was cut a hole big enough to contain a ball, and (as now with the school boy's game of rounders) the hitter was made out in running a notch by the ball being popped into [a] hole (whence 'popping crease') before the point of the bat could reach it."
Sources:
James Pycroft, The Cricket Field [1854], page 68.
Query:
Note: Pycroft was first published in 1851. See item #1851.1. Was this material in the first edition?
Year
1854
1854.11 The Game in Ontario Resembled the MA Game, with Variations
Location:
Game:
"Organized teams first appeared in Hamilton in 1854 and London in 1855. The game they played was described in the August 4 1860 issue of the New York Clipper as having several unique features. 'The game played in Canada,' the Clipper reported, 'differs somewhat from the New York game, the ball being thrown instead of pitched and an inning not concluded until all are out, there are also 11 players on each side.' It differed as well from the Massachusetts Game, in its strict adherence to 11 men on the field as opposed to the Massachusetts rules, which allowed 10 to 14.
"As well all 11 men had to be retired before the other team came to bat. Both games allowed the pitcher to throw the ball in the modern style, rather than underarm as in the New York rules."
Sources:
William Humber, "Baseball and the Canadian Identity," College Quarterly, Volume 8 Number 3 [Summer 2005]. Submitted by John Thorn 3/30/2006.
Query:
It would be interesting to know if this game included outs made by the plugging baserunners.
Year
1854
1854.16 The Eagle Club's Field Diagram - A Real Diamond
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
John Thorn has supplied an image of the printed "Plan of the Eagle Ball Club Bases" from its 1854 rulebook.
Sources:
"Revised Constitution, by-laws and rules of the Eagle Ball Club," (Oliver and Brother, New York, 1854).
Comment:
It seems possible that he who designed this graphic did not intend it to be taken literally, but it sure is different. Folks around MIT here would call it a squashed rhombus. Using the diagram's own scale for 42 paces, and accepting the questionable guess that most people informally considered a pace to measure 3 feet, the four basepaths each measure 132 feet. But the distance from home to 2B is just 79 feet, and from 1B to 3B it's 226 feet (for football fans: that's about 75 yards). Foul ground ("Outside Range" on the diagram) leaves a fair territory that is not marked in a 90 degree angle, but at . . . wait a sec, I'll find a professor and borrow a protractor, ah, here . . . a 143 degree angle.
Query:
Do we have evidence that the Eagle preferred, at least initially, a variant playing field? Or did the Eagle Club just assign this diagramming exercise to some Harvard person?
Is this image published in some recent source?
Year
1854
1854.22 "Greatest Game of Base Ball Ever Played in this Country"
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
An Old Fashioned Base-Ball Club
The Stoneham 'One Hundred and Fifty' Held the Championship Forty Years Ago
"Forty years ago Stoneham was the greatest base ball town in New England and the Kearsarge Base Ball Club held the championship. In these days base ball playing has dwindled down to such an insignificant proportion that it only takes nine men on a side to play a game, but forty years ago this Spring the Kearsarge Club had no fewer than 150 players and a club that could get the best of them in a game of 'three-year-old-cat' [sic] had to be pretty spry. The club had a reunion at Maker's Hotel last evening, and after dinner talked baseball as it ought to be played now and as it was played in the days when the club was the leading social as well as the only athletic club in Stoneham in addition to being champion of New England. The reunion was attended by about fifty of the oldest players. Myron J. Ferris was the orator of the occasion, and he talked until the umpire called him out. During his address he recalled to the minds of those present the events of the greatest game ever played in this country. It was the game between the Kearsarge and Ashland clubs, and was played on the Boston Common forty years ago.
"The Kearsarge team won, and when the members got back to Stoneham that evening they were given about as much an ovation as were the soldiers when they returned from the war. Richard Park was the umpire of that memorable game and he was present last evening and told how he helped the team win. Then he told of the base ball league that which was formed after the war. This was a wonderful league then, but what would the baseball public think now if the Stoneham, and Peabody then South Danvers, and Saugus with a few other little towns should get up a base ball league. The league was prosperous and the players had a good time. Other speakers gave interesting accounts of baseball forty years ago."
Sources:
Boston Evening Transcript, March 23, 1894, page 3.
Comment:
Variant uses of "base ball" and "baseball" are as printed.
Query:
Can readers provide insight as to what game was played on Boston Common in 1854, whether there was a post Civil War league in this area, and otherwise help us interpret this account?
Year
1854
1854.23 Ah, Spring! Base-ball! Wicket! Gould! (Gould?)
Age of Players:
"Go out into the glorious sunlight, little children, into the free warm air. Frolic and play, roll your hoops, and jump your rope, little girl, and throw the ball, and run races and play gould [sic] and base-ball, and over the house, and wicket, little boys. Be happy, and merry, and lively, and jolly, little children. Call back to your cheek the red flush of health and beauty. Be not afraid of the sunlight, though it darken the whiteness of your brow. Let the south wind play upon your cheek, though it brings a freckle upon your bright young face. A little while, and you can go out into the fields, and wander over the meadows and along the pleasant brooks, culling the wild flowers, and hearing the glad songs of the spring birds, as they sport among the branches of the trees above you. The glorious Spring Time is Come. There will be no more bleak storms, no more chill snows, no more cold north winds. The winter is over and gone. The time of glad blossoms and sweet flowers, and green leaves, is at hand."
Sources:
Daily Commercial Register (Sandusky, Ohio) April 27, 1854, quoting the Albany Register.
Comment:
From Brian Turner, 11/3/2020, on the nature of "gould":
"As best I can tell based on examples I've put together for an article I'm doing for Base Ball, "gould" (AKA "gool") are regional pronunciations of "goal." The region in which those terms occur includes western Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, mostly in rural communities where (I surmise) old-time game names may have survived into the 19th century. Peter Morris has identified two instances associated with Norway, Maine, where "gool" is used as synonymous with "base" as late as the 1860s, but when one of those the incidents was recalled in the 1870s, it's clear that the use struck the lads of Bowdoin attending the game as risible. The use of "goal" for "base" is consistent with Robin Carver's 1834 inclusion of the term in The Book of Sports. One must be cautious about anointing every use of "goal" or "gool" or goold" as synonymous with base and therefore "base ball," since, like base by itself, goal can be used to describe other sorts of games. By itself, "base" can refer to Prisoner's Base, a running game that seems to resemble tag. So too "goal" by itself.
Query:
Is it fair to suppose that the Register was published in Albany NY? There was a paper there of that name in the 1850s (per internet search of 11/2/2020).
Is wicket play by little boys known?
Year
1854
1855c.1 "Massachusetts Run-Around" Recalled
Tags:
Location:
"This [Massachusetts Run-Around] was ever a popular game with us young men, and especially on Town Meeting days when there were great contests held between different districts, or between the married and unmarried men, and was sometimes called Town Ball because of its association with Town Meeting day."
"It was an extremely convenient game because it required as a minimum only four on a side to play it, and yet you could play it equally as well with seven or eight. . . . There were no men on the bases; the batter having to make his bases the best he could, and with perfect freedom to run when and as he chose to, subject all the time to being plugged by the ball from the hand of anyone. It was lively jumping squatting and ducking in all shapes with the runner who was trying to escape being plugged. When he got around without having been hit by the ball, it counted a run. The delivery of the ball was distinctly a throw, not an under-hand delivery as was later the case for Base Ball. The batter was allowed three strikes at the ball. In my younger days it was extremely popular, and indulged in by everyone, young and old."
Sources:
T. King, letter to the Mills Commission, November 24, 1905; accessed at the Giamatti Center, HOF.
Comment:
The game of "run around" is mentioned in the Sycamore (IL) True Republican, May 29, 1878
Query:
Did King grow up in MA? Do we know why this ref. is dated c1855?
Circa
1855
1855.20 Base Ball Games Reach Really Modern Duration; Score is 52-38
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] Having more energy, apparently, than what it takes to score 21 runs, the [NJ] Pioneer Club's intramural game in September 1855 took 3 and a quarter hours, and eight innings. Final score: single men, 52, marrieds 38.
[B] In December, the Putnams undertook to play a game [intramurally]to 62 runs, and started at 9AM to give themselves ample time. But "they found it impossible to get through; they played twelve innings and made 31 and 36."
[C] "At East Brooklyn a new club, the Continentals, of which H. C. Law is president, played from 9 till 5 o'clock."
Sources:
[A] Spirit of the Times, Volume 25, number 31 (Saturday, September 15, 1855), page 367, column 3.
[B and C] Spirit of the Times, (Saturday, December 8, 1855), page 511, column 3.
Query:
Note: these results seems like deliberates exceptions to the 21-run rule; are there others? Was the 21-run rule proving too short for practice games?
Year
1855
1855.25 Text Perceives Rounders and Cricket, in Everyday French Conversations
Location:
Age of Players:
An 1855 French conversation text consistently translates "balle au camp" as "rounders." It also translates "crosse" to "cricket."
A double is seen in "deux camps," as "En voila une bonne! Deux camps pour celle-la" is translated as "That is a good one! Two bases for that."
Sources:
W. Chapman, Every-Day French Talk (J. B. Bateman, London, 1855), pages 16, 20, 21. Accessed 2/11/10 via Google Books search <"chapman teacher" "french talk" 1855>. The English titles for the translated passages are The Playground and Returning From School.
Comment:
It is unclear whether the original poems are the English versions or the French versions; if the latter, it seems plausible that these safe-haven games were known in France.
Query:
Would a French person agree that "balle au camp" is rounders by another name? Should we researcher thus chase after that game too? Perhaps a French speaker among us could seek la verite from le Google on this?
Year
1855
1855.33 Wicket Club Plays in Ohio -- Ladies Bestow MVP Prize
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"This evening members of the "Excelsior Wicket Club" contest for the prize of a boquet [sic], to be awarded the player who makes the most innings.
The ladies are to be on the club ground--the Huron Park--and award the prize to the winner. Happy fellow, he! May there be steady hands and cool heads that some nice young man shall win very sweet smiles as well as the sweet flowers."
Sources:
Sandusky Register, 5/12/1855.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, who dug up this notice, notes that this club was an early case of an organized wicket club.
New England generally was a late comer to organized clubs as the medium for team sports. Cricket is the exception, with some clubs in imitation of the English model and, from the 1840s on, clubs largely composed of English immigrants.
"Wicket followed a model of village teams, with no obvious sign of formal club structures of constitutions and officers and the like. We don't see that until the mid-1850s, and then more with baseball than with wicket. Even with what where nominally baseball clubs, I suspect that many were actually closer to the village team model, with a bit of repackaging."
Sandusky OH (1855 pop. probably around 7000) is in northernmost OH, about 50 miles SE of Toledo and about 50 miles W of Cleveland.
Query:
Do we know what "makes the most innings" means in the newspaper account?
Year
1855
1855.34 Sporting Press Notices Base Ball, Regularizes Reporting
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"There was little baseball reported in Spirit [of the Times] until 1855, and what did appear was limited to terse accounts of games (with box scores) submitted by members of the competing clubs. The primary [sports-page] emphasis was on four-legged sport and cricket, which often received multiple columns of coverage. Apparently, editor William Porter felt that baseball was less interesting than articles such as "The World's Ugliest Man." As interest in baseball grew, The Spirit's coverage of the sport expanded. On May 12, 1855, the journal printed the rules of baseball for the first time and soon began to report more frequently on games that took place in New York and its vicinity."
Sources:
William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning (McFarland, 2009), page 163.
Comment:
In its issue of November 11, 1854, Spirit of the Times complained that base ball game reports were not being received.
Query:
[A] Was this turn to base ball more conspicuous in other papers earlier?
[B] Has anyone tried to measure the relative coverage of base ball and cricket over time in these crossover years?
Year
1855
1855.35 New Jersey Club Comes Over to the NY Game
Location:
Age of Players:
[A] "[The Tribune] reports on a game of 9/25/1855 between the Fear Naught Base Ball Club of Hudson City, New Jersey and the Excelsior Club of Jersey City. They played five innings each with nine players on each side. The Excelsiors won 27-7. The item also notes that he Excelsiors intend to challenge the Gotham Club of New York. This is a very early game played by a New Jersey [based] club. It is also interesting because the Excelsiors are known to have also played a non-NY game version, making them a rare example of a club playing two versions in the same season."
['B] "The Excelsior Club of Jersey City was organized July 19, 1855."
Sources:
[A] New York Daily Tribune, September 27, 1855.
[B] New York Daily Tribune, July 20, 1855.
Comment:
The deployment of nine players is interesting because the none-player rule was not adopted until 1957; this may indicate that nine-player teams were already conventional beforehand.
Hudson City became part of Jersey City [1850 pop. about 6800; 1860 pop. about 22,000] in 1870.
Query:
Can we specify any of the rules in older game played earlier in 1855 by the Excelsiors?
Year
1855
1855.36 African American Clubs Play in NJ
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"BASE BALL -- A match game of Base Ball was played between the St. John's and Union Clubs (colored) yesterday afternoon. Two innings were played when it commenced to rain. The St. John's Club made ten runs and the Union Club only two. The game is to be played again on Friday at 2 o'clock, on the grounds of the St. John's Club, foot of Chestnut Street."
Sources:
Newark Daily Mercury, October 24, 1855.
Query:
Is this the first known report of African American club play of the New York game?
See Supplemental Text, below, for John Zinn's view on this question.
Year
1855
1855.37 Barre Club Challenge to Six Nearby MA Towns -- $100 Grand Prize Planned
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"August 11, 1855 -- Barre. The Gazette says the Barre boys will challenge their neighbors in he towns surrounding, to play a [at?] round ball.
"The Barre boys either have or are about to extend a challenge to one of the other of the adjoining towns for a grand game of round, of [or?] base ball, the victors to throw the glove to one of the other towns, and so on, till it is settled, which one of the seven shall be victor over the other six. A grand prize of one hundred dollars, more or less, to be raised, by general contributions and awarded to the party which shall be finally successful. The six surrounding and adjoining towns are Hardwick, Dana, Petersham, Hubbardstown, Oakham, and New Braintree. The seventh is Barre, which is in the centre, and equidistant from them all."
Sources:
Milford Journal.
Comment:
Barre MA (1855 pop. about 3000) is about 60 miles W of Boston. Hardwick, Hubbardstown, Oakham, New Braintree and Petersham are 8-10 miles from Barre. Poor Dana MA was disincorporated in 1938.
Query:
Do we know if this plan was carried out? How was the victor decided among participating towns?
Year
1855
1855.45 Unitarians' Christian Register Defends Base Ball on Fast Day
The Boston-based Christian Register, "Devoted to Unitarian Christianity," appeared to respond to critics of Fast Day ballplaying in an unsigned article titled "Why Give It Up?"
"A game of ball out-doors on Fast Day will not do those who play so much harm as the game of poker that they will play in-doors tomorrow . . . ."
"Fast Day -- by some collusion of the Governor with the prophets of the weather, is almost always pleasant. It is apt to be the first day that savors of Spring. And so, -- even serious men stray into their gardens before sunset, -- look at the peach buds, and show children where the corn is to be, and where the peas. . . . And those who are not serious, -- are hoping to murder one or two robins, or using the dried grass for the first game, so often the last, of base ball or foot ball."last,
Sources:
Christian Register, Boston, March 31, 1855
Comment:
We do not know the circulation of this 1855 paper beyond Boston. (We do know that it covered a Worcester MA story at entry 1849.6)
The reference to players playing poker suggests that they were adults.
Query:
Was the writer saying, in "so often the last" game, that base ball and/or foot ball was not played much after Fast Day?
Do we know what Boston-area foot ball like in 1855?
Year
1855
1855.47 Newark Club Hosts Jersey City -- Earliest Knick-rules Tilt in NJ?
Tags:
Age of Players:
A Newark club defeated the [Jersey City] club in July 1855 at the club's grounds in Newark. “The first match in New Jersey … some very spirited play on the part of the Newark club, …”)
Sources:
[1] "New-Jersey Base Ball, NYDT, July 18, 1855 [2] "Base Ball: Newark vs Olympic Club, Spirit of the Times, July 21, 1855 [3] "The Newark and Olympic Clubs, NYC {?}, July 1855.
For context, see also:
See https://protoball.org/Games_Tab:Greater_New_York_City#1855
https://protoball.org/Club_of_Newark, which includes 21 of the club's games, 1855-1864
PBall item 1855.35 New Jersey Comes over to the NY Game
PBall item 1855.36 African Americans Play in NJ
PBall item 1855.40 First Junior Base Ball Club Founded
Warning:
Note: as of January 2023, we are uncertain whether this game was played by modern (Knickerbocker) rules. See John Zinn's assessment, below.
Comment:
From leading NJ base ball researcher John Zinn, 1/10/2023
"For the moment, I'd recommend holding off on designating this or any other 1855 game as the first game New Jersey clubs played by New York rules. I believe the only things we know about the July game is there were nine on a side and the score was 31-10. If they were playing by New York rules the game should have ended when the Newark club reached 21, although it's possible they reached 31 in the top of an inning and so the game didn't end until the Oriental (later the Olympic Club) had their last at bat.
It seems pretty certain that in 1855 both the Newark and Jersey City clubs started out playing either a different "baseball" game or a hybrid of something they knew and the New York game. In the case of Jersey City, the early involvement of the New York clubs playing at Elysian Fields most likely got them on to the New York rules. How that happened in Newark is less certain, but by the end of the 1855 season, the teams from both cities were playing by the New York rules.
If these first New Jersey clubs started out playing by something other than New York rules, it suggests as far as New Jersey was concerned, Tom Gilbert's suggestion of New York/Brooklyn players moving someplace and taking the game with them doesn't apply. Otherwise, they would have started out playing by the New York rules.
In the relatively near future, I'll put sometime into applying some criteria to the limited information we have about the 1855 games and see if I can come up with a systematic approach to identifying the first game by New York rules. First, however, I want to spend a week or so intensely looking at whether I can find a feasible explanation or explanations as to how the New York game got from Manhattan to Newark."
Query:
[] Can we add any details, or context, for this early game?
[] Do we know whether it was played by Knick rules, in fact?
Year
1855
1856.5 New York Sunday Mercury and Porter's Spirit of the Times Term Base Ball the "National Pastime"
Tags:
Location:
Game:
The New York Sunday Mercury refers to base ball as "The National Pastime." Letter to the editor from "a baseball lover," December 5, 1856. Date contributed by John Thorn. Craig Waff adds that the letter was reprinted as a part of the long article, "Base Ball, Cricket, and Skating," Porter's Spirit of the Times, Volume 1, number 16 (December 20, 1856), pp. 260 - 261.
Query:
Is there a claim that this is the earliest appearance of the term "national pastime" to denote base ball?
Year
1856
1856.10 French Work Describes Poisoned Ball and La Balle au Baton
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Beleze, Par G., Jeux des adolescents [Paris, L. Hachette et Cie], This author's portrayal of balle empoisonee is seen as similar to its earlier coverage up to 40 years before; its major variant involves two teams who exchange places regularly, outs are recorded by means of caught flies and runners plugged between bases, and four or five bases comprise the infield. Hitters, however, used their bare hands as bats. Block sees the second game, la balle au baton, as a scrub game played without teams. The ball was put in play by fungo hits with a bat, and was reported to be most often seen in Normandie, where it was known as teque or theque.
Sources:
per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 217.
Comment:
The game of Grand Theque [big stick] is explored in "Les Jeux de plein air. La Grand Theque," la Revue des Sportes, Dec. 12, 1888, and in "un tres ancien jeu normand. La Teque," le viquet (1994). These French language sources claim that Teque is related to Rounders and Baseball, and also claim that Teque/Rounders is the predecessor game to baseball. See the Origins Committee Newsletter, May 2021, for more. [ba]
Query:
Is it significant that this book features games for adolescents, not younger children?
Answer: the articles cited in the comment make clear that Grand Theque, at least, was played by adults as well as children. [ba]
Year
1856
1856.11 New Reader Has Ballplaying Illustration
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
Town, Salem, and Nelson M Holbrook, The Progressive First Reader [Boston], This elementary school book has an illustration of boys playing ball in a schoolyard.
Sources:
per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 217-218.
Query:
What are the "other sources" for playing theque? Is it significant that this book features games for adolescents, not younger children?
Year
1856
1856.17 Letter to "Spirit" Describes Roundball in New England
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"I have thought, perhaps, a statement of my experience as to the Yankee method of playing 'Base,' or 'Round' ball, as we used to call it, may not prove uninteresting."
"There were six to eight players upon each side, the latter number being the full complement. The two best players upon each side -- first and second mates, as they were called by common consent -- were catcher and thrower. These retained their positions in the game, unless they chose to call some other player, upon their own side, to change places with them. A field diagram follows." [It shows either 6 or 10 defensive positions, depending on whether each base was itself a defensive station.]
"The ball was thrown, not pitched or tossed, as the gentleman who has seen "Base" played in New York tells me it is; it was thrown, an with vigor too . . . . "
"Base used to be a favorite game with the students of the English High and Latin Schools pf Boston , a few years ago . . . Boston Common affords ample facilities for enjoying the sport, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoons in the spring and fall, players from different classes in these schools, young men from fifteen to nineteen years of age used to enjoy it.
"Base is also a favorite game upon the green in front of village school-houses in the country throughout New England; and in this city [Boston] , on Fast Day, which is generally appointed in early April, Boston Common is covered with amateur parties of men and boys playing Base. The most attractive of these parties are generally composed of truckmen. . . the skill they display, generally attracts numerous spectators."
Other comments on 1850s Base/Roundball in New England.are found in Supplemental Text, below.
Sources:
"Base Ball, How They Play the Game in New England: by An Old Correspondent" Porter's Spirit of the Times, Dec. 27, 1856, p.276. This article prints a letter written in Boston on December 20, 1856. It is signed by Bob Lively.
Query:
The 1858 Dedham rules (two years after this letter) for the Massachusetts Game specified at least ten players on a team. The writer does not call the game the "MA game," and does not mention the use of stakes as bases, or the one-out-all-out rule.
Year
1856
1856.18 First Reported Canadian Base Ball Game Occurs, in Ontario
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"September 12, 1856 -"The first reported game of Canadian baseball is played in London, ONT, with the London Club defeating the Delaware club 34-33."
"London [ON], Sept. 15, 1856. Editor Clipper: Within the past few months several Base Ball clubs have been organized in this vicinity, and the first match game was played between the London and Delaware clubs, on Friday, the 12th inst." The box score reveals that the 34-33 score eventuated when the clubs stood at 26-23 after the first inning, and then London outscored Delaware 11-7 in the second inning.
Sources:
Charlton, James, ed., The Baseball Chronology (Macmillan, 1991), page 13
"Base Ball in Canada," The New York Clipper Volume 4, number 23 (September 27, 1856), page 183.
Query:
Is it likely that the New York rules would have produced this much scoring per inning . . . or was it set up as a two-inning contest? Can we confirm/disconfirm that this was the first Canadian game in some sense [keeping in mind that Beachville game report at #1838.4 above]?
Year
1856
1856.19 Five-Player Base Ball Reported in NY, WI
Game:
Age of Players:
Two games of five-on-five baseball appear in the Spirit of the Times, starting in 1856. The '56 game matched the East Brooklyn junior teams for the Nationals and the Continentals. The Nationals won 37-10. In 1857, an item taken from the Waukesha (WI) Republican of June 6, pitted Carroll College freshmen and "an equal number of residents of this village. They played two games to eleven tallies, and one to 21 tallies. The collegians won all three games. Neither account remarks on the team sizes. Other five-on-five matches appeared in 1858.
Sources:
Spirit of the Times, Volume 26, number 39 (Saturday, November 8, 1856), page 463, column 3.
Spirit of the Times Volume 27, number 20 (June 27, 1857), page 234, column 2.
Query:
Was 5-player base ball common then? Did it follow special rules? How do 4 fielders cover the whole field?
Year
1856
1856.20 Exciting Round Ball Game Played on Boston Common, Ends With 100-to-98 Tally
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "EXCITING GAME OF BASE BALL. - The second trial game of Base Ball took place on the Boston Common, Wednesday morning, May 14th, between the Olympics and the Green Mountain Boys. The game was one hundred ins, and after three hours of exciting and hard playing, it was won by the Olympics, merely by two, the Green Mountain Boys counting 98 tallies. . . . The above match was witnessed by a very large assemblage, who seemed to take a great interest in it."
The article also prints a letter protesting the rules for a prior game between the same teams. The Olympics explained that were compelled to play a game in which their thrower stood 40 feet from the "knocker" while their opponent's thrower stood at 20 feet. In addition, the Green Mountain catcher [sic] moved around laterally, and a special six-strike rule was imposed that confounded the Olympics. It appears that this game followed an all-out-side-out rule. The reporter said the Olympics found these conditions "unfair, and not according to the proper rules of playing Round or Base Ball."
[B] the Daily Atlas briefly mentioned the game, noting "There was a large crowd of spectators, although the flowers and birds of springs, and a wheelbarrow race at the same time . . . tended to draw off attention." A week later, the Boston Post reported that the Green Mountain Boys took a later contest, "the Olympics making 84 rounds to the G.M. Boys 119."
Sources:
[A] Albert S. Flye, "Exciting Game of Base Ball," New York Clipper Volume 4, number 5 (May 25, 1856), page 35. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.
[B] The Boston Daily Atlas, May 15, 1856.
Query:
Note: does this article imply that previously, base ball on the Common was relatively rare?
Year
1856
1856.21 Trenton Club Forms for "Invigorating Amusement"
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"BASE BALL CLUB. - A number of gentlemen of this city have formed themselves into a club for the practice of the invigorating amusement of Base Ball. Their practicing ground is on the common east of the canal. We hope that this will be succeeded by a Cricket Club."
Sources:
"Base Ball Club," Trenton (NJ) State Gazette (May 26, 1856) no page provided.
Query:
Is this the first known NJ club well outside the NY metropolitan area?
Year
1856
1856.32 Empire Club Fields Two Catchers at Elysian Fields
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
On August 30, 1856 the Knickerbocker and Empire clubs played to a 21-21 tie
in eight innings in a match at the Elysian Fields. While the Knicks
positioned themselves as a conventional nine--three "fielders," one
"behind," three basemen, a shortstop (the inventor Adams himself), and a
pitcher, their opponents elected to use no shortstop and TWO men playing
"behind."
Sources:
source not referenced
Query:
Was this taken from the Knickerbocker game accounts?
Year
1856
1856.35 Future Star Dickey Pearce Discovers the Decade-old No-Plugging Rule
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"I was working at my trade in 1856," said Dick, "and old Cale Sniffen, who was the pitcher of the Atlantic Club at that time, asked me to go out with him and see the club practice. I told him I did not know a thing about the game. 'Never mind that,' said Cale, "I'll show you.' So I went out with him one day to the old field where the Atlantics played in 1856, and which adjoined the Long Island Cricket Club's grounds. At that time I used to take a hand in with the boys in practicing old-fashioned base ball, in which we used to plug fellows when they ran bases, by putting out through throwing the ball at them. Well, I went out with Cale and he got me into a game, and the first chance I had to catch a fellow running bases, I sent the ball at him hot, and it hit him in the eye. Then I learned the new rule was to throw the ball to the base player and let him touch the runner."
Sources:
The Sporting Life, January 4, 1888.
For an overview of Pearce's baseball life, see Briana McKenna's article at http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/db8ea477.
Comment:
Finder Richard Hershberger adds that this account "has a couple interesting features. The New York game by 1856 was well into its early expansion phase, but we see here where it still wasn't really all that widely known, even in Brooklyn. Pearce also cuts through the nonsense about what baseball's, meaning the New York game, immediate ancestor was, and what it was called.
"There was in the 1880s a widespread collective amnesia about this, opening the way for Just So stories about Old Cat and such. Pearce correctly calls the predecessor game "base ball," just like they had at the time it was played."
Note: Pearce was born in 1836, and thus was nine when the Knickerbocker rule replacing plugging/soaking/burning had appeared. Eleven years later, lads in Brooklyn had evidently made the adjustment.
Query:
Do we have any additional information on where in Brooklyn Pearce and his friends were playing the old-fashioned game in the 1850s?
Year
1856
1856.38 IL Ballclubs Play Town Ball in 1856, 1858
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"There seems to be some doubt as to when the first baseball club was organized in Chicago, but it has been stated that a club called the Unions played town ball there in 1856. . . . we have a record of town ball being played at Alton IL on Saturday, June 19, 1858."
Sources:
Alfred H. Spink, The National Game (2nd Edition, Southern Illinois University Press -- First edition was 1910), page 63.
Comment:
Spink does not site a source for this item.
Note: As of 2023, Protoball has 9 entries for town ball in Illinois prior to 1856, including claims that Abe Lincoln: see
The following 1866 comparison of base ball and town ball from an Illinois source throws some light on town ball rules for that era:
"Base Ball resembles our old-fashioned favorite game of Town Ball sufficiently to naturalize it very quickly. It is governed by somewhat elaborate rules, but the practice is quite simple. Nine persons on a side, including the Captains, play it. Four bases are placed ninety feet apart, in the figure of a diamond. The Batsman, Ball Pitcher, and one Catcher, take the same position as in Town Ball. Of the outside, besides the Pitcher and Catcher, one is posted at each base, one near the Pitcher, called the “Short Stop,”—whose duty is the same as the others in the field—to stop the ball. The Innings take the bat in rotation, as in Town Ball,—and are called by the Scorer. The ball is pitched, not thrown to them—a distance of fifty feet. The Batsman is permitted to strike at three “fair” balls, without danger of being put out by a catch, but hit or miss, must run at the third “fair” ball. He may “tip” or hit a foul ball as often as the Umpire may call foul, so he be not caught out flying, or on the first bound. When he runs, he must make the base before the ball reaches the point to which he runs, or he is out. And three men out, puts out the entire side. Those who are put out may continue to strike and run bases until the third man is out.
"The Bases form a diamond, the angles of which are occupied by the Batsman and Catcher, and one of the outside at each angle. All putting out on the corners is by getting the ball there before the runner for the inside reaches the base, by catching the ball flying when a fair ball is struck, or by catching a foul ball after it is struck, either when flying or at first bound. A distinctive peculiarity of the game consists in the fact that when a ball is struck by the Batsman it must fly either on an exact angle, or inside of the angles formed by the base occupied by the Batsman, and the bases right and left of him. All balls deflecting from these angles are “foul.”
"The above is merely a general view of the game. It is very easy to learn, and is capital sport, barring the cannon ball which the players are expected to catch in rather soft hands. Ladies will enjoy the game, and of course are expected as admiring spectators."
Source
Daily Illinois State Journal, May 1866:
see https://protoball.org/Clipping:A_comparison_of_base_ball_and_town_ball, from the Hershberger Clippings Data Base.
Query:
Year
1856
1856.39 Town Ball Played in Chicago in 1856?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"There seems to be some doubt as to when the first baseball club was organized in Chicago, but it has been stated that a club called the Unions played town ball there in 1856. . . . we have a record of town ball being played at Alton IL on Saturday, June 19, 1858."
Sources:
Alfred H. Spink, The National Game (2nd Edition, Southern Illinois University Press: First edition, 1910), page 63.
Comment:
[] Spink did not report his sources for the Chicago or Alton town ball items.
--
[] Note: As of 2023, Protoball has 9 entries for Illinois town ball prior to 1856. See chron entries 1820s.5, 1820s.23, 1830s.16, 1830s.23, 1834.9, 1840s.41 1846.9, 1850s.30, and 1852.8. The following 1866 comparison of base ball and town ball from an Illinois source throws some light on regional town ball practices for that era:
"Base Ball resembles our old-fashioned favorite game of Town Ball sufficiently to naturalize it very quickly. It is governed by somewhat elaborate rules, but the practice is quite simple. Nine persons on a side, including the Captains, play it. Four bases are placed ninety feet apart, in the figure of a diamond. The Batsman, Ball Pitcher, and one Catcher, take the same position as in Town Ball. Of the outside, besides the Pitcher and Catcher, one is posted at each base, one near the Pitcher, called the “Short Stop,”—whose duty is the same as the others in the field—to stop the ball. The Innings take the bat in rotation, as in Town Ball,—and are called by the Scorer. The ball is pitched, not thrown to them—a distance of fifty feet. The Batsman is permitted to strike at three “fair” balls, without danger of being put out by a catch, but hit or miss, must run at the third “fair” ball. He may “tip” or hit a foul ball as often as the Umpire may call foul, so he be not caught out flying, or on the first bound. When he runs, he must make the base before the ball reaches the point to which he runs, or he is out. And three men out, puts out the entire side. Those who are put out may continue to strike and run bases until the third man is out.
--
[] An 1866 description from Illinois:
"The Bases form a diamond, the angles of which are occupied by the Batsman and Catcher, and one of the outside at each angle. All putting out on the corners is by getting the ball there before the runner for the inside reaches the base, by catching the ball flying when a fair ball is struck, or by catching a foul ball after it is struck, either when flying or at first bound. A distinctive peculiarity of the game consists in the fact that when a ball is struck by the Batsman it must fly either on an exact angle, or inside of the angles formed by the base occupied by the Batsman, and the bases right and left of him. All balls deflecting from these angles are “foul.”
"The above is merely a general view of the game. It is very easy to learn, and is capital sport, barring the cannon ball which the players are expected to catch in rather soft hands. Ladies will enjoy the game, and of course are expected as admiring spectators.
Source: Daily Illinois State Journal, May 1866:see https://protoball.org/Clipping:A_comparison_of_base_ball_and_town_ball, from the Hershberger Clippings data base.
--
[] On May20 2023, Bruce Allardice relayed his doubt about evidence of town ball in Chicago in the mid 1850s:
"Andreas' Chicago says the Union Base Ball Club was formed in 1856. Protoball has a cite I found from a local newspaper about the formation of this base ball club in 1856 add ref?. In the absence of better evidence to the contrary, we must assume that this club played base, not town, ball. And the game this Union Club played in 1858 was reported as base ball.
IMO the Spinks reference ("it has been stated") isn't exact enough to refute this.
I haven't found anything that suggests the 1856 Union BBC played town ball. It may have, but the club name and 1858 game create a rebuttable presumption that they played baseball."
[] In a series of Protoball searches on 5/20/2023, the only appearance of town ball in Chicago, other than that claimed by Spink, in is chronology entry 1864c.56, in which a Confederate prisoner said that prisoners "were allowed to play town ball."
--
[] An overview from Richard Hershberger, 5/22/2023: "
"There is much confusion of vocabulary here. As I have long preached, premodern baseball went by three major names, varying by region. 'Base ball' was used in New York state, New England, anglophone Canada, and the Great Lakes region. 'Town ball' was the standard term in Pennsylvania (apart from Erie), the Ohio River valley, and the South. 'Round ball' was used in New England, where it coexisted with 'base ball.' "Base ball" and "town ball" coexisted in the upper Mississippi River valley.
Premodern baseball, regardless of what it was called, was played throughout anglophone North America. So when was it introduced to Chicago? When there were enough White settlers to get up a game. Asking whether it was really town ball rather than base ball is meaningless: like asking whether you fuel your car with gas or with petrol. Asking if they played the 'Massachusetts game' is similarly fraught. What do we mean by this? If we mean the rules adopted by the Dedham convention in 1858, then suggesting it was played in Chicago in 1857 raises an obvious difficulty. If we mean something else by "Massachusetts game," what is this? How do we recognize it in the wild?
What we do know is that by 1858 there were a handful of clubs in Chicago playing some sort of baseball, and that on July 21 they held a convention and adopted the New York game rules. See the Chicago Tribune of July 9 and July 23. We don't know if some or all of these clubs were already using these rules, or how they learned the rules."
===
Query:
Could some Illinoian help us better understand the early importance of town ball in that fine state?
Year
1856
1857.5 The Tide Starts Turning in New England - Trimountain Club Adopts NY Game
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"BASE BALL IN BOSTON. - Another club has recently organized in Boston, under the title of the Mountain [Tri-Mountain, actually - Boston had three prominent city hills then - LMc] Base Ball Club. They have decided upon playing the game the same as played in New York, viz.: to pitch instead of throwing the ball, also to place the men on the bases, and not throw the ball at a man while running, but to touch him with it when he arrives at the base. If a ball is struck [next word, perhaps "beyond," is blacked out: "outside" is written in margin] the first and third base, it is to be considered foul, and the batsman is to strike again. This mode of playing, it is considered, will become more popular than the one now in vogue, in a short time. Mr. F. Guild, the treasurer of the above named club, is now in New York, and has put himself under the instructions of the gentlemen of the Knickerbocker. . . . "
A letter from "G.", of Boston, corrected this note in the following issue, on June 20: Edward Saltzman, an Empire Club member who had moved to that city, had founded the club and provided instruction.
Sources:
The New York Clipper, June 13, 1857 (per handwritten notation in clipping book; Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008) and June 20, 1857
Comment:
The Tri-Mountain Club's 1857 by-laws simply reprint the original 13 rules of the Knickerbocker Club: facsimile from "Origins of Baseball" file at the Giamatti Center in Cooperstown.
Query:
Note: does "place the men on bases" refer to the fielders? Presumably in the MA game such positioning wasn't needed because there was plugging, and there were no force plays at the bases?
Year
1857
1857.18 Porter's Project: Collect Rules of Play
Location:
Game:
"To Base Ball Clubs We will feel obliged if such of the Base Ball Club in this vicinity and throughout the country, as have printed Rules of Play, will send us a copy of the same."
Sources:
Porter's Spirit of the Times, September 26, 1857.
Query:
Our holy grail! Our lost ark! Is there evidence that replies were received and analyzed?
Year
1857
1857.20 Clerks Take on Clerks in Albany, Field 16-Player Teams
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"An exciting match of Base Ball was played on the Washington Parade Ground, Albany, on Friday, 29th alt., between the State House Clerks and the Clerks of City Bank - sixteen on a side. The play resulted in favor of the State House boys, they making 86 runs in three innings, against 72 made by the Bank Clerks."
Sources:
Porter's Spirit of the Times, vol. 40 number 14 (June 6, 1857).
Query:
Sixteen players? Three innings? Does this sound like the NY game to you?
Year
1857
1857.23 Princeton Freshmen Establish Nassau Base Ball Club
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"In the fall of '57, a few members of the [College of New Jersey, now Princeton University] Freshmen [sic] class organized the Nassau Baseball [sic] Club to play baseball although only a few members had seen the game and fewer still had played. [A description follows of attempts to clear a playing area, a challenge being made to the Sophomores, and the selection of 15 players for each side.] After each party had played five innings, the Sophomores had beaten their antagonists by twenty-one rounds, and were declared victorious." The account goes on to report that the next spring, "baseball clubs of all descriptions were organized on the back campus and 'happiness on such occasions seemed to rule the hour.'" The account also reflects on the coming of base ball: "in seven years [1857] a new game superseded handball in student favor - it was 'town ball' or the old Connecticut game."
Sources:
Source: "Baseball at Princeton," Athletics at Princeton: A History (Presbrey Company, New York, 1901), page 66. Available on Google Books. Original sources are not provided.
Warning:
Caution: The arrival of the New York style of play was still a year into the future.
Query:
Query: [1] "The old CT game?" Wasn't that wicket?
Year
1857
1857.29 Six-Player Town-ball Teams Play for Gold in Philly
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "TOWN BALL. - The young men of Philadelphia are determined to keep the ball rolling . . . On Friday, 20th ult. (10/20/1857 we think) the United States Club met on their grounds, corner of 61st and Hazel streets . . . each individual did his utmost to gain the prize, at handsome gold ring, which was eventually awarded to Mr. T. W. Taylor, his score of 26 being the highest." Each team had six players, and the team Taylor played on won, 117 to 82.
[B] "In 1858, a Philadelphia correspondent with the pen name 'Excelsior' wrote to the New York Clipper . . . about early ball play in New York, , and called town ball, the Philadelphia favorite, 'comparatively unknown in New York.'"
Sources:
[A] New York Clipper (November 1857--as handwritten in clippings collection; 1857, but no date is given).
[B] John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden (Simon and Schuster, 2011), page 26. The date of this Clipper account is not noted.
Query:
Do we now know any more about this event? Was it an intramural game? Was a six-player side common in Philadelphia town ball? Was a gold ring a typical prize for winning?
Year
1857
1857.31 Rounders "Now Almost Entirely Displaced by Cricket:" English Scholar
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Writing in 1857, "Stonehenge" noted that 'it [rounders] was [p. 232/233] formerly a very favourite game in some of our English counties, but is now almost entirely displaced by cricket.' . . . documentary evidence of it is hard to find before the chapter in William Clarke's Boys' Own Book of 1828."
Sources:
Tony Collins, et al., Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports (Routledge, 2005), pages 232-233.
Query:
Rounders made a comeback later, at least as a school yard game played mostly be female players. Is it clear whether the game was played significantly among men and boys before 1857?
Year
1857
1857.32 Daybreak Club Forms in Providence RI
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Base Ball at Providence - We have received a notification of the formation of the Aurora Base Ball Club at this place, and in accordance with their name, the members meet from 5 to 7 o'clock in the morning. They have been out seven times since March, notwithstanding the pluvious state of the atmospheric phenomena this season."
Sources:
Porter's Spirit of the Times, Saturday, May 9, 1857.
Query:
Is this item newsworthy because it is an early Providence ballclub, because it is a pioneering daybreak club, or neither?
Year
1857
1857.46 Hundreds Gather to Watch Exciting Game of Corner Ball
Game:
Age of Players:
"BALL MATCH --A great match at 'Corner Ball' came of at Strasburg on a recent Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of persons were on the ground to witness the play, and the greatest excitement prevailed. The match was between Lampeter and Strasburg, or rather the representatives of the respective townships. After a spirited contest, conducted in the best possible humor, the victor perched on the banner of Lampeter, and she was declared the victor. We are glad to notice the introduction of this healthy pastime, and hope the good practice will be continued. While it affords recreation and pastime to the weary son of toll, there is nothing in it to which the most stern advocate of morality can possibly object."
Sources:
"Out-Door Sports," Porter's Spirit of the Times," March 14, 1857.
Comment:
Lampeter PA is about 5 miles SE of Lancaster PA, about 60 miles NE of Baltimore MD, and about 20 miles N of the PA/MD border; it is the home of Lampeter-Strasburg High School. Its 2010 population was about 1700.
Corner Ball seems likely to be a plugging or "tagging" game resembling Dodge Ball. As of January 2016, Protoball lists 4 citations of Corner Ball; the other three are reported over two decades earlier, in the 1830s. For a bit more about the game, see http://protoball.org/Corner_Ball.
Query:
Can we speculate that the game was played by adults?
Year
1857
1858.2 New York All-Stars Beat Brooklyn All-Stars, 2 games to 1; First Admission Fee [A Dime] Charged
Tags:
Antedated Firsts, Business of Baseball, Championship Games, Newspaper Coverage, Post-Knickerbocker Rule Changes
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Great Base Ball Match of 1858, which was a best 2 out of 3 games series, embodies four landmark events that are pivotal to the game's history"
1. It was organized base ball's very first all-star game.
2. It was the first base ball game in the New York metropolitan area to be played on an enclosed ground.
3. It marked the first time that spectators paid for the privilege of attending a base ball game -- a fee of 10 cents gave admission to the grounds.
4. The game played on September 10, 1858 is at present [2005] the earliest known instance of an umpire calling strike on a batter." The New York Game had adopted the called strike for the 1858 season. It is first known to have been employed (many umpires refused to do so) at a New York vs. Brooklyn all-star game at Fashion Race Course on Long Island. The umpire was D.L. (Doc) Adams of the Knickerbockers, who also chaired the National Association of Base Ball Players Rules Committee. But see Warning, below.
These games are believed to have been the first the newspapers subjected to complete play-by-play accounts, in the New York Sunday Mercury, July 25, 1858.
The New York side won the series, 2 games to 1. But Brooklyn was poised to become base ball's leading city.
Sources:
Schaefer, Robert H., "The Great Base Ball Match of 1858: Base Ball's First All-Star Game," Nine, Volume 14, no 1, (2005), pp 47-66. See also Robert Schaefer, "The Changes Wrought by the Great Base Ball Match of 1858," Base Ball Journal, Volume 5, number 1 (Special Issue on Origins), pages 122-126.
Coverage of the game in Porter's Spirit of the Times, July 24, 1858, is reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908[University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 27-29.
The Spirit article itself is "The Great Base Ball Match," Spirit of the Times, Volume 28, number 24 (Saturday, July 24, 1858), page 288, column 2. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.
John Thorn, "The All-Star Game You Don't Know", Our Game, http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/07/08/the-all-star-game-you-dont-know/
Thomas Gilbert, How Baseball Happened, ( David R. Godine, 2020) pp 163-168.
For more context, including the fate of the facility, see William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning, McFarland, 2009), pp. 77-80.
See also John Zinn, "The Rivalry Begins: Brooklyn vs. New York", in Inventing Baseball: The 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century.(SABR, 2013), pp.10-12.
Warning:
Richard Hershberger (email of 10/6/2014) points out that the Sunday Mercury account of this game's key at bat "makes it clear that they were swinging strikes'[not called strikes].
Comment:
These games were reportedly most intensely-covered base ball event to date-- items on the planning and playing of the "Fashion Race Course" games began during the first week in June. Coverage can be found in both the sporting weeklies (New York Clipper, New York Sunday Mercury, Porter's Spirit Of The Times, The Spirit Of The Times) and several dailies (New York Evening Express, New York Evening Post, New York Herald, New York Tribune). Note --Craig Waff turned up 26 news accounts for the fashion games in Games Tab 1.0: see http://protoball.org/Games_Tab:Greater_New_York_City#date1859-9-7.
The Sunday Mercury's path-breaking play-by-play accounts were probably written by Mercury editor William Cauldwell and are enlivened with colorful language and descriptions, such as describing a batting stance as "remindful of Ajax Defying the lamp-lighter", a satire on the classical sculpture, Ajax Defying the Lightning.
This series of games has also been cited as the source of the oldest known base balls: "Doubts about the claims made for the 'oldest' baseball treasured as relics have no existence concerning two balls of authenticated history brought to light by Charles De Bost . . . . De Bost is the son of Charles Schuyler De Bost, Captain and catcher for the Knickerbocker Baseball Club in the infancy of the game." The balls were both inscribed with the scores of the Brooklyn - NY Fashion Course Games of July and September 1858. Both balls have odd one-piece covers the leather having been cut in four semi-ovals still in one piece, the ovals shaped like the petals of a flower." Source: 'Oldest Baseballs Bear Date of 1858,' unidentified newspaper clipping, January 21, 1909, held in the origins of baseball file at the Giamatti Center at the HOF.
Richard Hershberger (email of 10/6/2014) points out that the Sunday Mercury account of this game's key at bat "makes it clear that they were swinging strikes'[not called strikes].
Note: for a 2021 email exchange on claims of base ball "firsts" in this series of games, see below
==
Tom Shieber; 3;31 PM, 11/11/21:
The New York Atlas of August 13, 1859, ran a story about the August 2, 1859, baseball game between the Excelsior and Knickerbocker clubs that took place at the former club's grounds in South Brooklyn. (It was after this game that the well-known on-field photo of the two clubs was taken.) In the first paragraph of the story I find the following statement: "There was also a large number of carriages around the enclosure."
I believe that there is the general belief that the Union Grounds in Williamsburgh were the first enclosed baseball grounds. Should we rethink that?
Tom Gilbert, 4:29 PM:
I don't think so -- the mere existence of a rail fence surrounding or partially surrounding the Excelsiors' grounds in Red Hook does not make it a ballpark in any sense. the Union Grounds had stands, concessions, bathrooms, dressing rooms - and most important: it regularly charged admission - this was the key reason for the fence. the union grounds was the first enclosed baseball grounds in the only significant sense of the word.
John Thorn, 4:48 PM:
[sends image of 1860 game at South Brooklyn Grounds]
Gilbert, 4:54 PM:
Note the rail fence that might keep a carriage or a horse off the playing field-- but not a spectator.
Shieber, 8:34 PM:
Still, I think that in the future I'll refrain from referring to the Union Grounds as the "first enclosed park" and go with more enlightening and technically correct phrase "first to regularly charge admission," since, as you note, that is really the more important story.
Thorn , 8:52 PM:
Jerry Casway holds a brief for Camac Woods as "first enclosed"; but first paid admission is indeed the point here.
Richard Hershberger, 7:00 AM, 11/12/21:
Yes, but.... "Enclosed" was the term of art used at the time. The confusion in the 1859 cite is that this term of art was not yet established. Jump forward a decade and "enclosed ground" means a board fence. This usually implied the charging of admission, but not always. Occasionally it was for privacy. An example is the Knickerbockers, when they moved from the Elysian Fields to the St. George grounds. The St. George CC, for that matter, did not usually admit spectators, except for infrequent grand matches. The Olympics of Philadelphia had their own enclosed ground by 1864. They later started charging admission to match games, but initially this was a privacy fence. So it is complicated.
On the other hand, that was something of a one-off, its being a cricket ground ordinarily. This leads to the discussion of why we don't count the Fashion Course as the first.
Bob Tholkes, 7:53 AM, 11/12/21:
A ballpark for us is a place where baseball is played; even major league parks like the Polo Grounds were built originally for other purposes, and used for other purposes after baseball became their most frequent purpose.
More than one category of "first" is involved: first enclosure used for baseball, first enclosure built for baseball, first enclosure built for baseball for the purpose of charging admission.
Enclosure also affected play by placing a barrier in the path of the ball, and the fielder, necessitating a ground rule. That may also be of interest to a reader.
Jerry Casway, 4:19 PM, 11/13/21:
Larry, thanks for the current first "enclosed ballpark" debate. in SABR's Inventing Baseball volume( pp.32-3) - the 100 greatest games of the nineteenth-century. I discussed the criteria and responded with Camac Woods, 24 July 1860.
Bruce Allardice, 7:52 AM, 11/14/21:
I found a photo of Camac Woods, c. 1861, and it shows it had a fence all right--a rail fence, that people could see through or over if they wished. The link to the photo is now in Protoball's entry on Camac.
In a later zoom presentation, Tom Gilbert mentioned that the admission receipts were intended by Fashion Course operators to to cover the costs of cleanup after the games.
UPSHOT: While other playing fields may have been partly "enclosed" before (perhaps to keep horses and cows and humans to tromp on the grounds?), the 1858 NYC/Brooklyn game appears to stand as the first game that charged admission, opening a door to a promising new way to help finance professional clubs.
Further insights are welcome.
Query:
If this game did not give us the first called strikes, when did such actually appear?
Year
1858
1858.10 Four-day Attendance of 40,000 Souls Watch Famous Roundball Game in Worcester
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"One of the most celebrated games of roundball was played on the Agricultural Grounds in Worcester, Mass., in 1858. It was between the Medways of Medway and the Union Excelsiors. It was for $1000 a side. It took four days to play the game. The attendance was more than 10,000 at each day a play [sic]. In the neighboring towns the factories gave their employees holidays to see the game."
Sources:
"H. S.," [Henry Sargent?] of Grafton, MA, "Roundball," New York Sun, May 8, 1905, p.6. From an unidentified clipping found in the Giamatti Center. The clipping is noted as "60-27" and it may be from the Spalding Collection.
Warning:
David Nevard raises vital questions about this account: "I have my doubts about this item - it just doesn't seem to fit. 1) The club names don't sound right. The famous club from Medway was the Unions, not the Medways, and I haven't seen any other mention of Union Excelsiors. 2) Lowry's evolution of the longest Mass Game does not mention this one. He shows the progression (in 1859) as 57 inns, 61 inns, 211 inns. It seems like a 4 day game in 1858 would have lasted longer than 57 innings. 3) It's a recollection 50 years after the fact. $1000, 10,000 people." [Email to Protoball, 2/27/07.]
Comment:
The source also contains a lengthy description of "Massachusetts roundball", reprinted in Exposition in Class-Room Practice by Theodore C. Mitchell and George R. Carpenter, 1906, p. 239
Query:
Can we either verify or disprove the accuracy of this recollection?
Year
1858
1858.17 Atlantic Monthly Piece by Higginson Lauds Base-ball
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"The Pastor of the Worcester Free Church, the Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote an influential argument for sports and exercise which appeared in the March 1858 issue of a new magazine called The Atlantic Monthly.
Sources:
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Saints, and Their Bodies," The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1, number 5 (March 1858), pp. 582-595. It is online at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/sgml/moa-idx?notisid=ABK2934-0001-122.
See also item#1830s.22.
Comment:
Some commentary: His [Higginson's] comments on our national game are of great interest, for he welcomed the growth of 'our indigenous American game of base-ball,' and followed [author James Fenimore] Cooper's lead by connecting the game with our national character." A. Fletcher and J. Shimer, Worcester: A City on the Rise (Worcester Publishing, Worcester, 2005), page 11.
Query:
what did Cooper say about the link between base ball and national character?
Year
1858
1858.29 First Recorded College Game at Williams College
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"On Saturday last [May 29] a Game of Ball was played between the Sophomore and Freshmen Classes of Williams College. The conditions were three rounds of 35 tallies - best two in three winning. The Sophs won the first, and the Freshmen the two last. It was considered one of the best contested Games ever played by the students."
Sources:
"Williamstown [MA]," The Pittsfield Sun, vol. 58, number 3011 (June 3, 1858, page 2, column 5. Posted to 19CBB on 8/14/2007 by Craig Waff. The best-of-three format is familiar in the history of the Massachusetts game.
Query:
Does the final sentence imply that earlier games of ball had recently been played?
Year
1858
1858.31 Bristol CT Bests Waterbury in Wicket
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Bristol beat Waterbury by 110 runs in a wicket game on Bristol's Federal Hill Green on September 9, 1858. No game details appeared. "The game not only attracted attention in this section of the State, but it assumed such proportions that New Yorkers became interested and it was reported in much detail in the NY Sunday Mercury a few days later. The newspaper remarked at the time that Bristol had a wicket team to be proud of.
The New York newspapers had a chance to tell the same story twenty-two years later when the Bristols went to Brooklyn and defeated the club of that city"
Sources:
Norton, Frederick C., "That Strange Yankee Game, Wicket," Bristol Connecticut (City Printing Co., Hartford, 1907); available on Google Books.
Query:
Can we find the Mercury story and/or coverage in Bristol and Waterbury papers? Add page reference.
Year
1858
1858.39 San Francisco Organizes for Base Ball . . . Again
Location:
Game:
"BASE BALL CLUB: "a Club entitled the San Francisco Base Ball Club has been formed in San Francisco, California. . . . They meet every other Tuesday at the Club House, Dan's saloon." .
Sources:
Spirit of the Times, Volume 28, number 7 (Saturday, March 27, 1858), page 78, column 2
Query:
Is this the first club established in CA since 1851? [Cf #1851.2, #1852.7, #1859.5]
Year
1858
1858.40 Cricket Plays Catch-up; Plans a National Convention
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"CRICKET CONVENTION FOR 1858. - A Convention of delegates from the various Cricket Clubs of the United States will take place, pursuant to adjournment from last year, at the Astor House [on May 3]. Important business will be transacted."
Sources:
"Cricket and Base Ball," Spirit of the Times (Volume 28, number 4 (Saturday, April 10, 1858), page 102, column 3.
Query:
Note: Do we know the outcome? Was cricket attempting to counteract baseball's surge? If so, how? Why didn't it work?
Year
1858
1858.49 Nation Plays Nation - Senecas and Tuscaroras Have an Inter-tribal Game of Base Ball?
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"At 2 o'clock a grand annual National Base Ball play, on the [county fair] ground, for a purse of $50, between the Tuscarora and the Seneca tribes of Indians."
Sources:
Buffalo Daily Courier, September 22, 1858, reporting on the schedule of the Erie County agricultural exhibition. Posted to the 19CBB listserve [date?] by Richard Hershberger.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger adds: "I usually interpret the word 'national' in this era to mean the New York game." He asks if inter-tribal play was common then. Erie County includes Buffalo.
Note: Gene Draschner notes that the Senecas and Tuscaroras met to play "a game of ball" (lacrosse?) in 1842. Source: Alexandria (VA) Gazette, September 26, 1842, citing the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, date unspecified. See 1842 event description in the 19C Clippings data base at https://protoball.org/Clipping:THE_INDIAN_SPORTS.
Query:
So -- was inter-tribal play was common then?
Year
1858
1858c.57 Modern Base Ball Gets to Exeter Prep [from Doubleday's Home Town!]
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The present game [of baseball] was introduced by George A. Flagg, '62 [and three others and] Frank Wright, '62. Most enthusiastic of these early players was Mr. Flagg, who abandoned the Massachusetts style of baseball for the New York style. The ball then used was a small bag of shot wound with yarn, and could be batted much further than the present baseball. The men just named played among themselves and with town teams. Mr. Wright, of Auburn, New York, was perhaps more responsible than anyone else for bringing the game to New England."
Sources:
Laurence M. Crosbie, The Phillips Exeter Academy: A History (1923), page 233. Posted to the 19CBB listserve on [date?] by George Thompson. Accessible in snippet view 2/19/2010 via Google Books search (crosbie exeter flagg).
Query:
Is c1858 a creditable guess as to when lads in the class of '62 might have begun playing at Exeter? Is a full view available online? Phillips Exeter is in Exeter NH, about 50 miles N of Boston and about 12 miles SW of Portsmouth.
Circa
1858
1858.58 First Chicago Club Forms
Location:
Age of Players:
[A] "A team called the Unions is said to have played in Chicago in 1856, but the earliest newspaper report of a game is found in the Chicago Daily Journal of August 17, 1858, which tells of a match game between the Unions and the Excelsiors to be playing on August 19. A few other games ere mentioned during the same year."
[B] "Though baseball match games had been played in Illinois since the very early 1850's, the first Chicago Club, the Union, was not established until 1856."
[C] "There seems to be some doubt as to when the first baseball club was organized at Chicago, but it has been stated that a club called the Unions played town ball there in 1856."
[D] If these claims are discounted, modern base ball can dated in Chicago in 1858 when a convention of clubs takes place and the Knick rules are published.
Sources:
[A] Edwina Guilfoil, et. al., Baseball in Old Chicago (Federal Writers' Project of Works Project Administration, 1939), unpaginated page 4.
[B] John R. Husman, "Ohio's First Baseball Game," Presented at the 34th SABR Convention, July 2004.
[C] Alfred Spink, The National Game (Southern Illinois Press, 2000 -- first edition 1910), page 63.
[D] "A Knickerbocker," Base Ball, Chicago Press and Tribune, July 9, 1858.
Warning:
None of these sources gives a reference to evidence of the 1856 formation of the Union Club, so we here rely on the documented reference to a planned 1858 game.
Comment:
Jeff Kittel (email of 3/9/2013) notes that there is an August 1857 Chicago Tribune article on a cricket club called the Union Club; perhaps later memories confused the cricket or town ball clubs with a modern-rules base ball club?
Jeff also notes that "[A date of] late 1857/1858 fits the time frame for the spread of the game south and west of Chicago - into Western Iowa by 1858 and St. Louis by 1859, with hints that it's in central Illinois by 1859/60. That spread pattern also fits the economic/cultural spread model that we've kicked around."
Query:
Can we find any clear basis for the report of 1856 establishment of modern base ball?
[ba] Yes.
Andreas' Chicago, p. 613, says that the Union Base Ball Club organized Aug. 12, 1856.
Andreas' book claim is obviously referencing a notice in the Chicago Daily Democratic Press, Aug. 12, 1856, p. 3, col. 1:
"Union Base Ball Club.--A company of young men will meet this (Tuesday) evening at the Hope Hose Carriage House at 8 o'clock, to organize under the above name and elect officers for the year.
All active young men who need exercise and good sport, are invited to be present."
Year
1858
1858.61 IL "Base Ball and Wicket Club" Takes the Field for 3.6 Hour Game
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Base Ball -- Ottawa vs. Marseilles
"Some two weeks ago the Marseilles Base Ball Club challenged the Base Ball and Wicket Club of Ottawa to a trial of skill. - The challenge was promptly accepted, and Friday of last week fixed as the day and Marseilles the place for the game. At the time appointed, although the weather was intensely hot, the game was played with great spirit, yet with the utmost good feeling throughout, on both sides...
"J.H. Burlison, of Ottawa, and A.B. Thompson, of Marseilles acted as the Umpires. The time occupied in the game as 3 hours and 40 minutes.
"The Ottawa boys, it will be seen, came out 21 points ahead. The Marseilles boys took their defeat in great good humor, and had prepared a grand supper at the close of the contest, which however, owing to the late hour and their fatigue, the Ottawa boys did not remain to discuss".
---
A spare box score shows the Ottawa Club winning a three-inning contest, 230 to 207. It appears to have been a game of wicket.
Sources:
Ottawa Free Trader, June 26, 1858
Comment:
Jeff Kittel" -- "A spare box score shows the Ottawa Club winning a three-inning contest, 230 to 207. It appears to have been a game of wicket."
Query:
Jeff Kittel notes: "Protoball doesn't have any references to wicket clubs in Illinois during this period, although there is a reference to a 1857 club in Iowa. Ottawa and Marseilles are in LaSalle County, Illinois, on the Illinois River, about 50 miles southwest of Chicago. It's possible that the game experienced a period of popularity in central Illinois and Iowa. Clinton City, where the Iowa wicket club was located, is on the Mississippi, about sixty miles west of Ottawa and Marseilles. Now the headline says that this was a game of base ball, rather than wicket, but the box score, which I attached, is kind of odd - three innings, possibly playing first to 200 runs. Sadly, they don't give us any information on the number of players per side."
Year
1858
1858.67 Boston Area Ballgames Noted in 1858
Tags:
Age of Players:
[A] "It is interesting to note that on Fast Day, April 1858, there was a ball game played in Trapelo, Captain Lawrence's team defeating Capt. Lovejoy's team by a score of 50 points to 43.
"Later in the year a Mechanics Ball Club was organized [in Waltham] and played a game on the Common with the Olympics of Boston. They were beaten by a score of 54 to 21. Twelve men played on a side."
[B] "On Fast Day P.M., the young men of Waverly and Trapelo assembled, under the command of Captains Lovejoy and Lawrence, to enjoy a game at ball. . . . After a spirited and exciting contest, victory was declared in favor of Capt. Lawrence and his company, they having scored fifty points to forty-three of their opponents. The pleasant and agreeable game at ball, has of late been too much neglected, and we would urge upon those who participated on the occasion the propriety of forming a Base Ball Club."
Sources:
[A] Edmund L. Sanderson, Waltham as a Precinct of Watertown and as a Town 1630 - 1884. Waltham Hist. Soc., 1936, page 70.
[B] Waltham Sentinel, April 23, 1858, page 2.
Comment:
Trapelo is a neighborhood of Waltham, located near its border with Lexington.
Query:
Can we determine whether this game was played by the emerging Massachusetts rules or traditional local custom?
Year
1858
1858.68 Thoreau Ponders Manliness in the Church and Base Ball
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The church! It is eminently the timid institution, and the heads and pillars of it are constitutionally and by principle the greatest cowards in the community. The voice that goes up from the monthly concerts is not so brave and so cheering as that which rises from the frog-ponds of the land. The best 'preachers,' so called, are an effeminate class; their bravest thoughts wear petticoats. If they have any manhood they are sure to forsake the ministry, though they were to turn their attention to baseball*."
(*Note: "baseball" is an editor's choice of word-form: John Bowman reports that two Thoreau journal references themselves [see also chronology item #1830c.2] are written "base-ball" and "base ball").
Sources:
Henry David Thoreau, Journal entry for November 16, 1858, Journals.
Comment:
The thrust of Thoreau's entry has puzzled us a little.
John Bowman writes: "This is but a small excerpt from a journal entry that is all but rabid about organized religion and its churches, which Thoreau attacks for being afraid to confront the hard truths and realities of our lives.
Exactly what he means by that final phrase -- 'though they were to turn their attention to base ball' -- has been debated, but my interpretation is as follows: He seems to be saying that, in particular, its ministers/preachers are so cowardly as to be 'effeminate,' and if any of them were truly manly they would do better to leave the ministry and engage in some other activity -- even playing base ball, despite its questionable value, would be preferable.
But others may have read this differently."
Query:
Feel free to throw more light on what Thoreau is saying here.
Year
1858
1858.69 Challenge Match Played Among Manchester Printers on Fast Day
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Printers of this city, agreeably to the above [challenge receipt], came to the scratch (sic) at 8 1/2 o'clock [AM], Fast morning, and engaged in the healthy exercises of the ball for about an hour and a half. . . .
"The results of the playing was as follows: [Mirror members won two of three 25-run games, 25-3 "points", 17-25, and 25- 3.]
"The beaten party did the 'fair' thing n the evening, in the way of a supper. A flow of wit and humor closed the day to the satisfaction of the craft."
The formal challenge and its response appear in Supplemental Text, below.
Sources:
Dollar Weekly Mirror, Manchester NH, April 10, 1858.
Comment:
This match was also reported in Porter's Spirit of the Times: see https://protoball.org/Manchester_Mirror_printers_v_Other_Manchester_printers_on_6_April_1858.
Bruce Allardice notes that the game was also reported in the Manchester Daily Mirror of April 9, 1858.
Query:
Were the challenger's "subs" seen as non-employee ringers or as subordinate Mirror employees?
Is the 20 pace "limit of goals" the distance between bases? Was this variable commonly negotiated in 1858 matches?
This "best-of-3-games-to-25 format was commonly found in matches reported in Syracuse NY. Was it common around New England?
Year
1858
1858.73 1920 Newspaper Aware of '25 Or So' American Base Ball Clubs by 1858 [We Now List Ten Times More]
Tags:
Age of Players:
A Boston paper on baseball history suggested that by 1858 there were 25 or so base ball clubs in he United States.
Sources:
Boston Post, July 24, 1920
Comment:
As of July 2022, Protoball lists over 260 base ball clubs from that era.
Bruce Allardice adds, 7/30/2022: "the [Boston Post's] 25 number seems to come from the number of clubs that attended the 1858 convention."
Query:
Year
1858
1859.3 24,000 Attend US-England All-Star Cricket Match at Elysian Fields
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1859, over 24,000 attended a cricket match at Elysian Fields in Hoboken between an al-star American team and a touring English eleven.
Sources:
Benjamin Rader, American Sports; From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Spectators Prentice-Hall, 1983, page 91. Original source not given.
Query:
Can we find out more about this game?
Year
1859
1859.4 Base Ball Club Forms in Augusta GA: Town Ball Also Reported
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] A classified ad announcing the meeting of the "Base Ball Club of Augusta."
[B] "Baseball Club formed in Augusta in 1859"
[C] In 1860 it was reported that the Base Ball Club of Augusta had formed the previous year. It reported on this "noble and manly game" as played on November 7, 1860." "There were 6 innings. Doughty's side made 32 rounds; Russell's side made 20 rounds."
[D] "Town Ball. - On the 24th ult., the young men of Augusta, Ga., met on the Parade Ground, and organized themselves in two parties for enjoying a friendly game at this hearty game." They played two innings, and "W.D.'s side scored 43, squeezing the peaches on P. B.'s, who managed only 19.
Sources:
[A] The Augusta Daily Constitutionalist of December 21, 1859.
[B] see note #42 of Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage, 2001), page 80. From a 9/15/1985 clipping found at the Giamatti Center, Cooperstown.
[C] The Daily Chronicle and Sentinel [Augusta?] 1860, specific date unreported.
[D] Source missing at Protoball.
Comment:
This entry needs clarification and perhaps other work to add sources.
Query:
Is there any indication that Association rules were used by the reported base bal club?
Year
1859
1859.6 African-American Game is Played by "Henson Club" July 4 and/or November 15
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] Report of July 4 game between Henson and Unknown Clubs
[B] "November 15, 1859 - The first recorded game between two black teams occurred between the Unknowns of Weeksville and the Henson Club of Jamaica (Queens) in Brooklyn, NY."
Sources:
[A] New York Anglo-African, July 30, 1859. Per Dean Sullivan, pages 34-36.
[B] Email from Larry Lester; taken from his chronology of African American baseball, 8/17/2007.
Comment:
Chris Hauser, in an email on 9/26/2007, estimates that this notice appeared in the New York Anglo-African, and was referenced in Leslie Heaphy's Negro League Baseball.
Query:
Note: Can we get text from the sourced citation [A] , and a source for the text citation [B] ? Was this one game or two? How can we find out more about the "Henson club" and the Unknowns?
Year
1859
1859.35 Base Ball Community Eyes Use of Central Park
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
A "committee on behalf of the Base Ball clubs" recently conferred with NY's Central Park Commissioners about opening Park space for baseball. Under discussion is a proviso that "no club shall be permitted to use the grounds unless two-thirds of the members be residents of this city."
Sources:
"BASE BALL IN THE CENTRAL PARK," The New York Clipper (January 22, 1859), page number omitted from scrapbook clipping.
Comment:
This issue has been on the minds of baseball at least since the first Rules Convention. The sentiment is that other sports have access that baseball does not. See #1857.2 above.
According to the New York Times of December 11,1858, the Central Park Commission had referred the ballplayers' appeal to a committee. [Facsimile contributed by Bill Ryczek, 12/29/09.]
Query:
Is there a good account of this negotiation and its outcome in the literature? How and when was the issue resolved?
Year
1859
1859.41 First Game in Canada Played by New York Rules?
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"YOUNG CANADA vs. YOUNG AMERICA. - These two base ball clubs of Canada (the former of Toronto, the latter of Hamilton) played the first game of base ball that has ever taken place there, we believe, under the rules of the N. Y. Base Ball Association, on Tuesday, 24th ult., at Hamilton."
Sources:
The New York Clipper, June 11, 1859
Comment:
Young Canada prevailed, 68-41.
Query:
Are there earlier claims for the first Knicks-style game in Canada? Item #1856.18 above was likely a predecessor game, right?
Year
1859
1859.42 In Chicago IL, Months-old Atlantic Club Claims Championship
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Atlantic 18, Excelsior 16. This "well-played match between the first nines of the Atlantic and Excelsior took place on the 15th ult., for the championship. . . . The victorious club only started this spring . . . . They have now beaten the Excelsiors two out of three games played, which entitles them to the championship.
Sources:
" "Base Ball at Chicago," New York Clipper September 3, 1859, p. 160
Query:
So . . . was this construed as the 1859 city crown, just a dyadic rivalry crown, an "until-we-lose-it crown, or what?
Year
1859
1859.44 English Social Event Includes Base Ball as Well as Cricket
Location:
Game:
The activities at an August 1859 event of the Windsor and Eton Literary, Scientific and Mechanics Institute included a one-innings cricket match. In addition, "[a]rchery, trap and base ball, were included in the diversions on the firm-set land, as well as boat-racing open the pellucid flood."
Sources:
G. W. J. Gyll, The History of the Parish of Wraysbury, Ankerwycke Priory, and Magna Charta Island (H. G. Bohn, London, 1862), page 55. Posted to 19CBB by Richard Hershberger, 3/18/2008.
Comment:
Richard suggests that this is the last known published reference to home-grown "base ball" play in Britain. This area is about 20 miles west of London. The full list of diversions gives no indication that it was children who were to be diverted at this event, so adult play seems possible.
Query:
Would it be helpful to understand what the membership and purposes of the Institute were? Is "trap and base ball" to be construed here as "trap ball," rather than Austen-style base-ball, in this part of Victorian England?
Year
1859
1859.51 Girls Play Base Ball at Eagleswood School
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Francis Dana Gage
In 1859, the women's rights advocate and abolitionist Frances Dana Barker Gage wrote a letter from St. Louis to physician friends at the Glen Haven Water Cure in New York. She informed them of positive advancements in physical fitness for students at the Eagleswood School in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Among the games both male and female students were playing was base ball.
Gage concluded that she was planning to ask the principal at Dansville Seminary (in St. Louis?) to add baseball to its program for girls too.
Sources:
"Muscle Looking Up," Austin, Harriet, N., Dr. and Jackson, James. C., Dr., eds., The Letter-Box, Vols 1 and 2, 1858-9, (Dansville, NY: M. W. Simmons, 1859), 99.
Query:
Is this the first time, as far as we know, that females played base ball by modern rules?
Year
1859
1859.67 Debunking DeBost
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"We think the Knickerbockers were defeated (in their first fly game with the Excelsior of Brooklyn), through the foolishness, fancy airs, and smart capers of De Bost. Like a clown in the circus, he evidently plays for the applause of the audience at his 'monkey shines," instead of trying to win the game...But so long as the spectators applaud his tom-foolery, just so long will he enact the part of a clown."
Sources:
New York Atlas, July 3, 1859
Comment:
Knickerbocker catcher Charles DeBost, whether a clown or not, was acknowledged as the best catcher in the game in the 1850s. He had been selected to catch for the New York team in the Fashion Race Course games with Brooklyn in 1858. He was so incensed by the Atlas's criticism that he announced his retirement from the sport. Criticized for its criticism, the Atlas responded on its issue of July 31, 1859:
"The gentleman must recollect that a great deal is expected of a player of his reputation...We still fail to discover the extreme grace and refinement displayed, when a player in a match attempts to catch a ball with that portion of his body that is usually covered by his coat-tail...We shall not allow ourselves to be disturbed by any insinuations from those who are but the mouthpieces of two or three old fogy clubs."
Query:
Did DeBost actually stay retired at this point?
Year
1859
1859.73 Southern Militia Members Visit Elysian Fields on NY Tour
Game:
Age of Players:
"THE RICHMOND GRAYS. The members of this company, now on a visit to this city, were excused from military duty yesterday, and went where they pleased. Colonel Lefferts, of the National Guard, with several of his officers, took Captain Elliot and a party of the Grays to Greenwood Cemetery, where they passed a pleasant time in viewing the scenery and monuments. Quite a number of the Grays visited Hoboken, N.J., where they enjoyed themselves witnessing a match game between rival base ball clubs. To-day the Virginians will leave for home, and will be escorted to the place of embarkation by the Third and Seventh companies, National Guard, under the command of Captain James Price."
Sources:
New York Herald August 17, 1859
Comment:
Bill Hicklin, 10/5/20 points out that "Militia regiments in that period, especially in major East Coast cities and in the South, were as much social clubs as anything, organized mostly to hold balls and banquets. Compare the New York volunteer fire companies of the 1840s. A 'Road Trip to New York' would have been right up their alley."
Protoball had asked: Was it common for southern soldiers to travel to the north in 1859? Bruce Allardice: "This was not common. The cost was too great. The Richmond Grays were individually wealthy and could afford it. Drill competition between companies in various cities was common in 1859."
From Bruce Allardice, 10/5/20: "The unit was a famous unit of the Virginia volunteer militia, its members being among Richmond's 'elite.'. Captain Elliott became a Confederate army Lt. Colonel. The unit served in the war as part [Company A] of the 1st Virginia Infantry CSA." Bill Hicklin, 10/5/20, adds that it fought "right through to Appomattox."
Why the soldiers headed to a cemetery? Tom Gilbert pointed out, 10/5-6/20, that Green-wood Cemetery was even then a popular visitor attraction. "Green-wood cemetery in Brooklyn not only welcomed tourists but solicited them. The cemetery was designed with the goal of attracting the public. It imported the grave of Dewitt Clinton for that purpose. All of this predated the famous baseball grave monuments of course."
From Richard Hershberger, 10/4/2020: "Richmond is rich with abortive early connections with baseball. In actual practice, baseball took off in Richmond in the summer of 1866, right on schedule for its location, regardless of prior contact with the game."
Note: When base ball got to Richmond it really swept in: as of October 2020, Protoball shows no clubs prior to 1866, but 24 clubs prior to 1867. Some other Chronology entries touching on early base ball in Richmond include 1857.36, 1861.1, 1863.99, and 1866.17.
Query:
It would be interesting to know whether the Richmond group asked to see base ball played or it was recommended by New Yorkers.
Year
1859
1860.1 75 Clubs Playing Massachusetts Game in MA
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Sources:
Wilkes' Spirit of the Times, March 24, 1860. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
Warning:
According to the Boston Herald (April 9, 1860), the MABBP convention drew only 33 delegates from 12 clubs.
Comment:
The claim of 75 clubs appears in the MABBP's convention announcement.
Query:
Can this estimate be reconciled with #1859.40 above? The number of clubs doubled in one year?
Year
1860
1860.6 Chadwick's Beadle's Appears, and the Baseball Literature is Launched
Location:
Game:
The first annual baseball guide appears. It is emblematic, perhaps, of the transformation of base ball into a spectator sport. The 40-page guide includes rules for Knickerbocker ball, the new NABBP ("Association") rules, rules for the Massachusetts game, and for rounders. Chadwick includes a brief history of base ball, saying it is of "English origin" and "derived from rounders."
Block observes: "For twenty-five years his pronouncements remained the accepted definition of the game's origins. Then the controversy erupted. First John Montgomery Ward and then Albert Spalding attacked Chadwick's theory. Ultimately, their jingoistic efforts saddled the nation with the Doubleday Myth."
Sources:
Chadwick, Henry, Beadle's Dime Base-Ball Player: A Compendium of the Game, Comprising Elementary Instructions of the American Game of Base Ball [New York, Irwin P. Beadle].
Per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, (2005), page 221.
See also 1861.47.
Comment:
Chadwick emigrated from western England, and is reported to have been familiar with rounders there.
His claim that American base ball had evolved from English rounders was long refuted by fans of the American game.
In 1871 Chadwick identified Two-Old-Cat as the parent of American base ball. See 1871.20
Query:
Is it possible that English rounders itself had evolved from English base ball as played in the eighteenth century?
Year
1860
1860.20 Lincoln Awaits Nomination, Plays Town Ball . . . or Handball?
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Abraham Lincoln
[1] "During the settling on the convention Lincoln had been trying, in one way and another, to keep down the excitement . . . playing billiard a little, town ball a little, and story-telling a little."
A story circulated that he was playing ball when he learning of his nomination: "When the news of Lincoln's nomination reached Springfield, his friends were greatly excited, and hastened to inform 'Old Abe' of it. He could not be found at his office or at home, but after some minutes the messenger discovered him out in a field with a parcel of boys, having a pleasant game of town-ball. All his comrades immediately threw up their hats and commenced to hurrah. Abe grinned considerably, scratched his head and said 'Go on boys; don't let such nonsense spoil a good game.' The boys did go on with their bawling, but not with the game of ball. They got out an old rusty cannon and made it ring, while the [illeg.: Rail Splitter?] went home to think on his chances."
[2] Interview with Charles S. Zane, 1865-66: "I was present in the Illinois State Journal on the day when Lincoln was nominated: he was present & when he received the news of the 3d Ballot. Lincoln Said I Knew it would Come to this when I Saw the 2d. Ballot. . . . Lincoln played ball pretty much all the day before his nomination – played at what is called fives – Knocking a ball up against a wall that served as an alley – He loved this game – his only physical game – that I Knew of – Lincoln said – This game makes my shoulders feel well."
Sources:
[1] Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen [Current Literature Publishing, 1907], page 292.
[2] Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements About Abraham Lincoln (U Illinois Press, 1998), page 492.
[3] "How Lincoln Received the Nomination," [San Francisco CA] Daily Evening Bulletin vol.10 number 60 (Saturday, June 16, 1860), page 2 column 3.
Warning:
Richard Hershberger and others doubt the veracity of this story. He says [email of 1/30/2008] that one other account of that day says that Abe played hand-ball, and there is mention of this being the only athletic game that Abe was ever seen to indulge in. (But also see 1830s.16 on a younger Abe Lincoln and town ball in the 1830s).
Source [2] above contains other accounts of the nomination story. They support the idea that Lincoln "played ball" the day before the nomination, but it seems fairly clear that the game played was "fives," presumable a form of handball. For a very helpful submission from Steve Gietschier on the content of Herndon's Informants, see the Supplemental Text, below.
Comment:
A political cartoon of the day showed Lincoln playing ball with other candidates. It can be viewed at http://www.scvbb.org/images/image7/.
Thanks to Kyle DeCicco-Carey for the link.
Query:
Is the cartoon dated? Is a location given?
Is the content from source [3], from 1860, known?
Year
1860
1860.29 "Canadian Game" Espied in Ontario
Location:
Game:
"Despite early experimentation with Cartwright's game, Oxford County [ON] inhabitants persisted with their regional variation of baseball for over a decade. . . . In 1860 matches between Beachville's sister communities Ingersoll and Woodstock involved eleven, rather than nine, players, and used four, rather than three bases. This prompted the New York Clipper [of August 18, 1860] to refer to the type of baseball played in the region as being the "Canadian Game."
Sources:
N. B. Bouchier and R. K. Barney, "A Critical Examination of a Source on Early Ontario Baseball," Journal of Sport History Volume 15, number 1 (Spring 1988), page 85.
Comment:
The authors say that the extra positions were "4th base" and "backstop." They suggest that the game was still closer to the Massachusetts game than the NY game. Oxford County's ballplaying towns are roughly at the midpoint between Buffalo NY and Detroit, and roughly 50 miles from each.
Query:
Can we find that Clipper report? Does the use of two backstops imply the continued application of tick-and-catch rules?
Year
1860
1860.30 CT Wicketers Trounce CT Cricketers at Wicket
Location:
Game:
Was wicket an inferior game? "the game [of wicket] certainly reached a level of technical sophistication equal to these two sports [base ball and cricket]. This was clearly demonstrated during a wicket match at Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1860 when a team of local wicket players easily defeated a team of experience local cricket players."
Sources:
Tom Melville, The Tented Field: the History of Cricket in America (Bowling Green State U Popular Press, Bowling Green OK, 1998), page 10. Melville cites the source of the match as the Waterbury American (August 31, 1860), page 21.
Query:
Can we locate and examine this 1860 article? A: It is apparently not online.
Year
1860
1860.32 Milwaukee Press Not Unanimous About the "Miserable" New York Rules
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
|
In May 1860, The Milwaukee Sentinel quoted The [Daily Milwaukee] News as recently reporting that the Janesville Base Ball Club expected to challenge a Milwaukee club to "a friendly contest" that year. The News added: "Unfortunately however, the Janesville club plays the good old fashioned game of Base Ball, while our clubs play under the new code, (which we must here beg leave to say is, in our estimation, a miserable one, and in no way calculated to develope[sic] skill or excite interest . . .)" The previous day, the Milwaukee Sentinel had responded to the News piece calling the new rules "miserable" by writing that "We don't think much of the judgement of the News. The game of Base Ball, as now played by all the clubs in the Eastern States, is altogether ahead of 'the old fashioned game,' both in point of skill and interest." The Daily Milwaukee News of May 17, 1860 offered this: "Waiting for a ball to bound, instead of catching it on the fly . . . and various other methods of play adopted by this new-fangled game, looks to us altogether too great a display of laziness and inactivity to suit our notions of a genuine, well and skillfully conducted game of Base Ball. . . . We shall soon expect to hear that the game of Base Ball is played with the participants lying at full length upon the grass." Give us the 'old fashioned game' or none at all." |
Sources:
Daily Milwaukee News, May 15, 1860
Milwaukee Sentinel, May 16, 1860
Janesville Daily Gazette, September 1, 1860
Comment:
The Janesville WI ball club wasn't so sure about this new Eastern game, and apparently continued to play by the old rules: On September 1, 1860, the Janesville Daily Gazette carried a box score for a game between the Janesville Base Ball Club and the Bower City Base Ball Club of Janesville reporting a 'match game' on August 31.
|
Bower City won, 50 tallies to 38 tallies. The game, played to "first 50 tallies" listed 10 players per team and likely took 11 3-out innings. The account does not describe the rules in force for this contest. As of November 2020, Protoball shows one ballgame and six club entries that cite Bower City Clubs. |
Janesville WI is about 60 miles SW of Milwaukee.
Query:
What is the date of the Daily Milwaukee News piece in which the rules are described as "miserable"?
Year
1860
1860.34 Disparate Ball Games Seen in New Hampshire
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Sources:
Both NH game accounts are in The New York Clipper. May 19, 1860, p.37
Comment:
Intramural games are described for two clubs. In one, appearing on May 19, "the stars of the East" of Manchester played an in-house 28-23 game under National Association Rules - nine players, nine innings, the usual fielding positions neatly assigned. The other was a two-inning contest with twelve-player sides and a score of 70 to 63. This latter game does not resemble contours on the Massachusetts game - it's hard to construe it having a one-out-side-out rule -, but it's not wicket, for the club is named the "Granite Base Ball Club", also of Manchester. The run distribution in the box score is consistent with the use of all-out-side-out innings.
Query:
What were these fellows playing?
Year
1860
1860.43 Three Ball Clubs Form in VT Village
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"As if to anticipate and prepare for the dread exigencies of war, then impending, by a simultaneous impulse, all over the country, base ball clubs were organized during the year or two preceding 1861. Perhaps no game or exercise, outside military drill, was ever practiced, so well calculated as this to harden the muscles and invigorate the physical functions. . . .
"Three base ball clubs were formed in this town, in 1860 and 1861. . . . They were sustained with increasing interest until 1862, when a large portion of each club was summoned to war."
Sources:
Hiel Hollister, Pawlet [VT] for One Hundred Years (J. Munsell, Albany, 1867), pages 121-122. Available via Google books: search "base ball""pawlet".
Comment:
Pawlet VT [current pop. c1400] is on the New York border, and is about 15 miles east of Glens Falls NY. Chester VT's 3044 souls today live about 30 miles north of Brattleboro and 35 miles east of the New York border.
Query:
This is the first VT item on base ball in the Protoball files, as of November 2008; can that be so? Earlier items above [#178.6, #1787.2, #1828c.5, and #1849.9] all cite wicket or goal.
Year
1860
1860.48 "Veterans of 1812" Play OFBB . . . Annually?
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
One of the earliest instances of an apparent "throwback" game occurred in August 1860, when a newspaper reported that the "Veterans of 1812" held their "annual Ball play" in the village of Seneca Falls NY, east of Geneva and southeast of Rochester NY.
[A] The "old warriors," after a morning of parading through local streets, marched to a field where "the byes were quickly staked out," sides were chosen, and the local vets "were the winners of the game by two tallies."
[B] "...[they] seemed to be inspired with renewed energy by the memory of youthful days and the spirit (?) of boyhood, and displayed a degree of skill and activity in the noble game of base ball that showed they had once been superior players..."
Sources:
[A] Seneca Falls Reveille, August 18, 1860, reported by Priscilla Astifan.
[B] New York Sunday Mercury, August 19, 1860, reported by Gregory Christiano.
Comment:
We would presume that this was not modern base ball. It seems plausible that the vets had played ball together during their war service, and that this game was played in remembrance of good times past.
Query:
Further insight is welcome from readers.
Year
1860
1860.54 Yes, The Game Would Move Right Along . . . But Would it be Cricket?
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Whenever the cricket community realized that American participation and interest were low, they talked about changing the rules. Some Americans suggested three outs per inning and six innings a game."
Sources:
William Ryczek, Baseball's First Inning (McFarland, 2009), page 103. Attributed to the Chadwick Scrapbooks.
Query:
Were there really several such proposals? Can we guess what impediments required that it take another century to invent one-day and 20/20 cricket?
Year
1860
1860.61 Colored Union Club Beats Unknowns, 33-24, in Brooklyn
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Location:
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Age of Players:
"We, the members of the Colored Union Base Ball Club, return our sincere thanks to you for publishing the score of the game we played with the Unknown, of Weeksville on the 28th ult. [September 28, 1860]).
"We go under the name the "Colored Union," for, if we mistake not, there is a white club called the Union in Williamsburg at the present time."
The letter goes on to report a game against the Unknown Club on October 5, 1860. The Colored Union club eventually won with 6 runs in the ninth.
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, October 14, 1860, col. 5-6.
Comment:
Weeksville was a town founded by freedmen. Its population in the 1850s was about 500.
Year
1860
1860s.86 Ballplaying Remembered in Dedham Massachusetts
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Sixty-five years ago the boys had a ball club which was known as the "Winthrops" who played on a pasture lot beyond Mr. White's house on east Street. Ball playing was frequently enjoyed upon the fields of owners who were willing to allow public use to be made of such land. A record is here given of a game that took place at a time when the ball was thrown at the runner between bases to put him out. The score is here appended -- that the present [1930's] generation may know what a real ball game was like in the early days of the game [partial box score listed]. Masks were not invented then, so a cap pulled well down over the eyes have to do duty for a mask."
Sources:
Frank Smith, A History of Dedham Massachusetts (Transcript Press, 1936), page 358.
Query:
Does Smith reveal his source for the pre-1970 box score?
Decade
1860s
1860.87 Catcher Felled by Bat-Stick
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Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "SAD DEATH RESULTING FROM BASE-BALL PLAYING
"While the New Braintree Base-Ball Club was playing a game on the afternoon of the ninth inst., [June 1860], one of the players when about to bat the ball, threw the bat-stick back so far that he hit the catcher, Mr. John Carney, Jr., a very severe blow to the forehead. He was immediately carried home, and received every attention -- but after a week of severe suffering, he died on Friday night, leaving an especial request that his death and the cause of it might be inserted in the papers, as a caution to other papers."
[B] NEW BRAINTREE – On Saturday, June 9th, a boy named John Carney, Jr., aged about nineteen years, was accidentally injured by being stuck in the forehead with a bat in the hands of another boy, while playing ball. It seems that Carney, being too intent on catching the ball, got within swing of the bat, which the other boy used in a back-handed way to strike the ball. Young Carney was carried home immediately, and all proper care taken, but after several days’ severe suffering, he died last Friday night. He had many friends and was a favorite with the lads of the village.
Sources:
[A] Dedham Gazette, June 23, 1860, page 2.
[B] Barre MA Gazette, June 22, 1860, page 2.
Comment:
New Braintree MA (2000 pop. about 900) is about 60 miles W of Boston and about 20 miles W of Worcester.
In the previous year, there was reportedly dispute about the positioning of the catcher under Mass Game rules.
Paul Johnson reports that the victim was 18 years old, and that the official death record lists the cause of death as "accidental blow from a baseball club."
Query:
Should we assume that the club still played the Massachusetts Game?
Is it significant that the batter is said to "throw" the bat, not that he lost his grip on it?
Year
1860
1860.90 Atlantics' "Lucky Seventh" Yields Nine Runs; The Start of Some Base Ball Lore?
Tags:
Age of Players:
"That seventh inning, which was thereafter called 'the lucky seventh,' was a memorable one in the annals of the Atlantics' career, for a finer display of batting was never before seen in this vicinity."
(Trailing the Excelsior Club 12-6 after six, the Atlantics scored nine runs in the 7th.
For a fuller game description see Supplemental Text, below.
Sources:
New York Clipper, as cited in the Brooklyn Eagle of December 25, 1910.
Comment:
My researcher friends and I have gone around previously about the origins of the seventh inning stretch, so I'll not revisit that today. However, I can recall as a boy learning that the seventh was a lucky inning for the home team. Apart from the magical properties assigned to the number 7, here may be the origin of that notion in baseball. -- John Thorn, October 2016
Note: For some other ideas about the origins of "lucky seventh," see Paul Dickson, The Dicksom Baseball Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2009 Norton), page 513.
Query:
Do we know what is meant by the note that Creighton "batted out of the pitcher's position?"
(In reply, John Thorn (email, 10/4/16) writes, "For a while batting orders were constructed by numbered position, so that the lineup would be pitcher, catcher, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF. But I speculate. . . .")
Year
1860
1860.91 Base Stealing Frequency Before the Civil War
Game:
Age of Players:
"Just noticed an 1860 game summary from Rochester, NY that includes the number of times that the catchers threw to bases, a decent if not 100% indicator of the number of stolen base attempts, in this case a combined total of 37 in 8 innings.
"No, Ned Cuthbert didn't pioneer the stolen base in 1865. . ."
(19CBB Posting by Bob Tholkes, 2/6/2017.)
The game was played between the Live Oak and Lone Star club, the Lone Star scoring 30 runs and the Live Oaks 14 runs.
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, July 8, 1860
Comment:
Query:
(A) The Protoball PrePro data base in shows that 44 runs were scored in 8.5 innings in this July 4 game. That's nearly three runs per half-inning.
(See http://protoball.org/Lone_Star_BBC_Club_of_Rochester_v_Live_Oak_Club_of_Rochester_on_4_July_1860)
So there were lots of baserunners that day.
But there were reportedly only about 2 catcher throws to bases in each half-inning. If bases were stolen routinely in this gloveless era, wouldn't more throws be expected?
(B) Were catcher throws to the bases not similarly recorded in downstate games?
Year
1860
1860.93 Clipper Article Favors A Bare Alley Between Pitcher and Catcher
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Squinting at the new (1860) playing field laid out by the new Hudson River club in Newburgh, NY, the NY Clipper counseled:"It is requisite that the turf be removed from the pitcher's base to the position occupied by the catcher, a space six feet wide or more being usually cleared for this purpose, in order to give the ball a fair opportunity to rebound behind the striker."
Sources:
[A] NY Clipper, 7/21/1860.
[B] See also Peter Morris, "Pitcher's Paths", A Game of Inches (Ivan R. Dee, 2010), pp. 392-393: [Section 14.3.10.], and Peter Morris, Level Playing Fields (Nebraska, 2007), pp 115-116.
Comment:
In December 2021, Tom Gilbert asked: "I assume that this means that a groomed clay surface gave the barehanded catcher a better shot at stopping a bounced fast pitch than grass (which might cause skidding, bad hops etc.), a paramount defensive consideration in baseball 1860-style." But where did this habit come from?
Members of the 19CBB list-serve responded. John Thorn thought the bare alley came from cricket, which prefers a true bounce for balls hitting the ground before reaching the wicket. Steve Katz noted that no rule is to be found on the practice in the 1860 NABBP rules. Tom Gilbert added that some 1850's base ball was played on cricket fields may have suited base ballers too. Matt Albertson pointed out that the alley was actually a base path for cricket, so that grass may have been worn away for the whole span. Steve Katz found a Rob Neyer comment from 2011, citing Peter Morris' 2010 edition of A Game of Inches (which -- now try not to get dizzy here -- credits Tom Shieber's find from the 1860 Clipper, evidently sent out by Tom earlier.)
Peter noted: "Shieber's theory accounts for how how these dirt strips originated, but it doesn't explain why the alleys were retained long after catchers were stationed directly behind the plate. I think the explanation is simple: since it is very difficult to maintain grass in well-trodden areas represented the groundskeepers' best effort to keep foot traffic off the grass."
Tom Shieber (note to 19CBB, 12/9/2021) recalled:
"I believe I sent in the NY Clipper note about the path between catcher and pitcher to SABR-L back in the 1990s! I have never been particularly good about mining old SABR-L posts, but perhaps someone else knows how to do this if they want to try to track this down?
Anyway, I believe the theory I forwarded regarding the path was that if a baseball diamond was set up on an existing cricket pitch, the most logical way to do so was to put the pitcher at one end of the wicket, the catcher on the other end, and home plate ~45 feet from the pitcher. This works out quite well, as the length of the wicket was (and is) 66 feet. And, as noted, it allows for the area behind home to be quite level and give a true bounce to the ball so the catcher can more readily field his position. This is, of course, just a theory, but I believe it is the most plausible put forth. The theory that the path came about because pitchers and catchers wear it out by walking back and forth is clearly incorrect.
As noted, the theory does nothing to explain why the path remained well after baseball took off and baseball clubs began using facilities used primarily (or only) for baseball alone. While paths can be seen in images of baseball diamonds well into the 20th century, they were not universal. Many major league parks did not have such a path. My guess is that the path quickly became a “tradition” and that’s why it remained long after the cricket connection, though I certainly can’t say I am particularly satisfied with this theory.
That's what I recall. Best, Tom"
Peter Morris added that his 2007 book, Level Playing Fields:How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball notes how later field management practices dealt with grass that was disturbed by player foot traffic.
Query:
Do we know if and when baseball's rules mandated these "battery alleys?" Do we know when they were rescinded? (It is said that only Detroit and Arizona parks use then today.)
Are there other explanations for this practice in 1860?
Can someone retrieve Tom Shieber's original SABR-L posting?
Can we assume/guess that the 1860 Clipper piece was written by Henry Chadwick?
Year
1860
1860.94 The Term "Foul Line" Appears in Sunday Mercury Report on Excelsior-Atlantic Game
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Excelsior vs. Atlantic 8/9/1860] [Brainerd on third base, Reynolds on first] Flanly then struck a ball, which touching the ground inside of the foul line, bounded far off into the foul district, and had started for first base, while Reynolds ran to the second, when some outsider called “foul,” and Reynolds immediately returned from the second to the first base, where Flanly also remained, but off the base."
NABBP rules for 1861 specified the marking of lines in order to help game officials make fair/foul judgments.
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, August 12, 1860.
See:
[[1]], contributed by Richard Hershberger as part of his collected clippings.
Comment:
This issue was raised by Stephen Katz on the 19CBB list-serve, citing Peter Morris' A Game of Inches: "In 1861, the NABBP introduced into its rules the requirement that, “In all match games, a line connecting the home and first base and the home and third base, shall be marked by the use of chalk, or other suitable material, so as to be distinctly seen by the umpire.
Commenting on the rule, the New York Clipper (June 29, 1861) referred these as 'lines whereby foul balls can be judged.' Henry Chadwick, writing in Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player of 1860, declared that foul poles are 'intended solely to assist the umpire in his decisions in reference to foul balls…' (p. 18). So, it seems that, although the lines demarcate fair from foul territory, the focus was on determining when a ball was foul, and assisting the umpire in making that determination.
An early use of “foul line” appeared in the Cincinnati Gazette’s commentary on July 16, 1867, on a game between the Nationals of Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati’s Red Stockings. In the fifth inning, the Nationals’ third baseman, George Fox, tripled on a “fine ball just inside the foul line.” An earlier reference to “foul line” was in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of October 31, 1865, in an account of a game between the Atlantics of Brooklyn and Philly’s Athletics, although it is inconclusive as to whether it referred to the actual line between home and third or the track of the batted ball."
[]The NYSM account preceded the new NAABP rule, and as of January 2022 is Protoball's earliest known use of "foul line" is shown above. It thus appears that foul lines where known by that name (if not actually marked?) prior to the new rules.
[] The 1845 Knickerbocker rule 10 had simply stated: "A ball knocked out of the field, or outside the range of first or third base, is foul." As of January 2022 the NYSM usage is the earliest known to Protoball.
[] But why use "foul line" and not "fair line?" Richard gives linguistics interpretation in Supplemental Text, below.
Query:
Do we know whether and how Chadwick referenced foul territory prior to 1860?
Do we know of other prior usage of "foul lines"??
Year
1860
1861.1 Chadwick Wants to Start Richmond VA Team, but the Civil War Intervenes
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Bill Hicklin notes (email of Feb 4, 2016) that "Chadwick visited his wife's family frequently and was disappointed that, as of the verge of the Civil War, there appeared to be no base ball clubs there at all."
See discussion (by Chadwick?) of forming a bbc in Richmond, to play at the Fair Grounds, in New York Clipper, March 30, 1861. [ba]
Sources:
Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History [Knopf, 1994], p.12, no ref given.
Schiff, Millen, and Kirsch also cite Chadwick's attempt, but do not give a clear date, or a source.
Comment:
Tom Gilbert, 10/5/2020, notes "Henry Chadwick had close Richmond connections. His wife was from a wealthy and prominent Virginia family and he himself traveled to Richmond and was involved in early attempts to found a NYC- style baseball club there. Antebellum New Yorkers vacationed in Virginia in the 1850s and baseball clubs played there even before the famous Excelsiors tours."
To be more exact, Chadwick's wife was the daughter of Alexander Botts, or a prominent VA family, though Alexander and his family had moved to NYC. Her uncle was Congressman John Minor Botts, her first cousin was Confederate Colonel Lawson Botts, and her mother was a Randolph, one of Virginia's First Families (FFVs). [ba]
For more on Richmond base ball, see 1859.73
Query:
Is there a primary source for this claim?
Yes, NYC 3-30-61. [ba]
Year
1861
1861.4 Henry Chadwick Links Base Ball to Rounders - But It's More "Scientific"
Game:
"The game of base ball is, as our readers are for the most part aware, an American game exclusively, as now played, although a game somewhat similar has been played in England for many years, called 'rounders,' but which is played more after the style of the Massachusetts game. New York, however, justly lays claim to being the originators of what is termed the American Game, which has been so improved in all its essential points by them, and it scientific points so added to, that it does not stand second to either [rounders or the Mass game?] in its innate excellencies, or interesting phrases, to any national game in any country in the world, and is every way adapted to the tastes of all who love athletic exercises in the country."
Sources:
Chadwick article in The New York Clipper (October 26, 1861).
Comment:
This is an excerpt from a Hoboken game account.
In 1871 Chadwick identified Two-Old-Cat as the parent of American base ball. See 1871.20
Query:
"interesting phrases"?
Year
1861
1861.9 Buckeye BBC Forms in Cincinnati OH
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Buckeye Base Ball Club is the first institution of the kind organized in Cincinnati."
Sources:
The New York Clipper, April 20, 1861
Query:
does this imply that this club was the first in town to play the New York game?
Year
1861
1861.15 First Sunday in the Army: "Ball-playing, Wrestling, and Some Card-Playing"
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
In early May 1861, the new 13th Illinois Regiment assembled in East St. Louis IL. Writing of the first Sabbath in the camp, the veterans later said "There was drill: so the notion of the leaders ran. A better view obtains now. There was ball-playing and wrestling and some card-playing, but that [just the card-playing?] was generally regarded as out of order."
Sources:
Military History and Reminiscences of the Thirteenth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry (Woman's Temperance Publishing, Chicago, 1892), page 10. PBall file: CW-122.
Comment:
This may be the first recorded instance of ballplaying by Civil War soldiers.
Query:
The place is more probably Camp Dement, in Dixon, IL [ba]
Year
1861
1861.20 Confederate Soldier's Diary Reports on Town Ball Playing, 1861-1863
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
December 1861 (Texas?): "There is nothing unusual transpiring in Camp. The boys are passing the time playing Town-Ball."
January 1862 (Texas?): "All rocking along finely, Boys playing Town-Ball"
March 1863 (USA prison camp, IL?): The Rebels have at last found something to employ both mind and body; as the parade ground has dried up considerably in the past few days, Town Ball is in full blast, and it is a blessing for the men."
March 1863 (USA prison camp, IL?): "Raining this morning, which will interfere with ball playing, but the manufacture of rings 'goes bravely on,' and I might say receives a fresh impetus by the failure of the 'Town-ball' business."
Sources:
W. W. Heartsill, Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army: A Journal Kept by W. W. Heartsill: Day-by-Day, of the W. P. Lane (Texas) Rangers, from April 19th 1861 to May 20th 1865. Submitted by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09. Available online at The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries Database, at http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/. PBall file: CW10.
Comment:
Heartsill joined Lane's Texas Rangers early in the War at age 21. He was taken prisoner in Arkansas in early 1862, and exchanged for Union prisoners in April 1863. He then joined Bragg's Army in Tennessee, and was assigned to a unit put in charge of a Texas prison camp of Union soldiers. There are no references to ballplaying after 1863.
Query:
manufacture of rings?
POWs commonly fashioned hair or bone rings to while away the time [ba].
Year
1861
1861.26 Confederate Base Ball Players Finds Field “Too Boggy” in VA
Tags:
Age of Players:
“Confederate troops played townball as well as more modern versions of the game in their army camps. In November 1861 the Charleston Mercury of South Carolina reported that Confederate troops were stuck in soggy camps near Centreville, Fairfax County, [northern] Virginia. Heavy rains created miserably wet conditions so that ‘even the base ball players find the green sward in front of the camp, too boggy for their accustomed sport.’” Centreville is adjacent to Manassas/Bull Run. 40,000 Confederate troops under Gen. Johnson had winter quarters there [the town’s population had been 220] in 1861/62.
Source: Charleston Mercury, November 4, 1861, page. 4, column 5. Mentioned without citation in Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray (Princeton U, 2003), page 39.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 6
Query:
Duplicate of 1861.18?
Year
1861
1861.27 Second NJ 27, First NJ 10, in Virginia Camp
Location:
Age of Players:
A six-inning game of base ball was played at Camp Seminary on Saturday November 16, 1861. The 2nd NJ challenged the 1st NJ and prevailed. A member of the 2nd NJ sent a short report and box to the Newark newspaper.
Source: “A Game of Ball in the Camp,” Newark Daily Advertiser, November 20 1861. Facsimile submitted by John Zinn, 3/10/09. Camp Seminary was located near Fairfax Seminary in Alexandria VA, near Washington DC.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 7
Query:
Duplicate of 1861.16?
Year
1861
1861.30 Confederate Soldier’s Diary Reports on Town Ball Playing, 1861-1863
December 1861 (Texas?): “There is nothing unusual transpiring in Camp. The boys are passing the time playing Town-Ball.”
January 1862 (Texas?): “All rocking along finely, Boys playing Town-Ball”
March 1863 (USA prison camp, IL?): The Rebels have at last found something to employ both mind and body; as the parade ground has dried up considerably in the past few days, Town Ball is in full blast, and it is a blessing for the men.”
March 1863 (USA prison camp, IL?): “Raining this morning, which will interfere with ball playing, but the manufacture of rings ‘goes bravely on,’ and I might say receives a fresh impetus by the failure of the ‘Town-ball’ business.”
Source: W. W. Heartsill, Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army: A Journal Kept by W. W. Heartsill: Day-by-Day, of the W. P. Lane (Texas) Rangers, from April 19th 1861 to May 20th 1865. Submitted by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09. Available online at The Ameridcan Civil War: Letters and Diaries Database, at http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/. Heartsill joined Lane’s Texas Rangers early in the War at age 21. He was taken prisoner in Arkansas in early 1862, and exchanged for Union prisoners in April 1863. He then joined Bragg’s Army in Tennessee, and assigned to a unit put in charge of a Texas prison camp of Union soldiers. There are no references to ballplaying after 1863. Query: “manufacture of rings?”
Differences from Modern Baseball: 10
Query:
Duplicate of 1861.20?
Year
1861
1861.36 Confederate Soldier Reports “Several Kinds of Ball”
Location:
Age of Players:
“The troops enjoyed a variety of sports, ‘some of which are harder than any work I ever saw,’ observed a Louisiana soldier at Columbus. Among them were footraces, several kinds of ball, wrestling, climbing trees and a herculean game in which a cannonball was hurled into one of nine holes in the ground.”
Larry J. Daniel, Soldiering in the Army of the Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army (U of North Carolina Press, 1991), page 90. Daniel evidently attributes this to the New Orleans Crescent, October 29, 1861. He does not give the location or regiment involved. Note: There was a juvenile English game called None Holes.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 151
Query:
This was Columbus, KY where several LA units were stationed. The newspaper article, from a correspondent's (named I.G.) letter dated Oct. 23, and mentions in particular Kennedy's Battalion (5th LA Infantry Battalion).
Year
1861
1862.4 State Championship Base Ball Game in PA
Game:
Age of Players:
"Base Ball Match. - A grand base ball match will take place at the St. George's Cricket Ground, near Camac's Wood, for the championship of Pennsylvania, between the 'Olympic' and 'Athletic' Clubs, on next Saturday."
The New York Sunday Mercury reported on Oct. 12 that the Olympic won, 19-18, and that it was the first of a best two-of-three match.
Sources:
Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1862. Accessed via subscription search May 20, 2009.
Query:
On what authority did it convey championship status?
Year
1862
1862.13 Government Survey: Athletic Games Forestall Woes of Soldiers Gambling
Age of Players:
After examining nearly 200 regiments, the Sanitary Commission [it resembled today's Red Cross] was reported to have found that "in forty-two regiments, systematic athletic recreations (foot ball, base ball, &c) were general. In one hundred and fifty-six, there were none. Where there were none, card playing and other indoor games took their place. This invited gambling abuses, it was inferred.
Sources:
"War Miscellanies. Interesting Army Statistics," Springfield [MA] Republican, January 25, 1862. Accessed via Genealogybank, 5/21/09. PBall file: CW13.
Query:
is it worth inspecting the report itself in search of further detail? It is not available online in May 2009.
Year
1862
1862.22 Crowd of 40,000 Said to Watch Christmas Day Game on SC Coast
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"In Hilton Head, South Carolina, on Christmas Day in 1862, recalled Colonel A. G. Mills in 1923, his regiment, the 165th New York Infantry, Second Duryea's Zouaves, [engaged a?] picked nine from the other New York regiments in that vicinity.' Supposedly, the game was cheered on by a congregation of 40,000!" Mills eventually served as President of the National League and chair of the Mills Commission on the origins of baseball.
Sources:
Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War (Heritage Books, 2001), pp 21-22. Millen cites A. G. Mills, "The Evening World's Baseball Panorama." Mills Papers, Giamatti Center, Baseball HOF. The account also appears in A. Spalding, Americas' National Game (American Sports Publishing, 1911), pp 95.96. PBall file -- CW-30
Query:
Is this crowd estimate reasonable? Are other contemporary or reflective accounts available?
The crowd estimate is exaggerated. There weren't anywhere near 40,000 troops on the island at that time. [ba]
Year
1862
1862.23 Soldiers' Christmas in Virginia - Ballplaying "on Many a Hillside"
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
A correspondent near Fredericksburg VA told Philadelphia readers about "orders from head-quarters that Christmas day should be observed as a day or recreation. The men gladly availed themselves of this privilege, and on many a hill-side might be seen parties playing at ball, or busy at work dragging Christmas-trees to the quarters . . . ."
The article also reported that "Brown cricket jackets are now issued to the men instead of the brown blouses formerly issued. These jackets make a very comfortable garment . . . but they are very unmilitary-looking."
Sources:
"Christmas in the Army," Philadelphia Inquirer, December 29, 1862. Accessed via Genealogybank, 5/21/09. PBall file CW-31.
Query:
was a PA regiment involved?
Year
1862
1862c.56 Dime Admission Free Adopted at More Sites
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1862, a ten-cent admission fee is reported at the Union Grounds. In 1864, the some fee provided entry at the Capitoline Grounds.
Sources:
Sources?
Query:
Are these the only two other known collection of entry fees in the middle 1860s?
Circa
1862
1862.57 Games Between NY and MA Regiments Punctuated by Artillery
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Union General George McClellan
Members of the Massachusetts 22nd Regiment and the NY 14th squared off for two matches on April 15, 1862, in the vicinity of active fire, and "in sight of the enemy’s breastworks mounted with heavy 64’s and 32’s." A discarded boot supplied material for a new cover for the game ball. Union General McClellan passed by while play was in progress.
Additional details are provided in the supplemental text, below.
Sources:
Rochester Union and Advertiser, April 24, 1862.
Comment:
Undoubtedly, Game played near Yorktown, VA
Query:
Year
1862
1862.58 2nd Mass Troops Beat 3rd Wisconsin Regiment, 75 to 7
Game:
Age of Players:
The men of the Wisconsin 3d challenged our men to a game of base ball & this afternoon it was played & at the end the tally stood 75 for our side & 7 for theirs so I hardly think they will care to play a return match; we have some of the best players of quite a celebrated ball club from Medway & some of the play was admirable.
Sources:
Letter from Captain Richard Cary, 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, May 3, 1862. Reported in The Beehive, the official blog of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 5, 2012.
Comment:
Protoball wonders if the Mass Game was in fact unfamiliar in WI.
Medway was a leading MA-rules club before the War.
Query:
Do we know the location of these Regiments in May 1862? Who was Captain Cary writing to?
The 2nd MA and 3rd WI were at/near Harrisonburg, VA on May 3, 1862. This entry is based on the letters of Cary to his wife, at the MA Historical Society. [ba]
Year
1862
1862.102 First Inter-City AA Game?
Tags:
Age of Players:
The following appeared in the Newark Daily Advertiser on September 30, 1862:
"Considerable excitement was created among the "colored" boys of this city yesterday by a base ball match between the Hamilton Club of this city and the Henson Club of Jamaica, Long Island, both composed of the descendants of Ham. The match was played on the grounds on Railroad Avenue, [near today's Penn. Station], in the presence of a goodly number of the "gentler sex," and resulted in favor of the Hensons."
Curious if anyone knows of intercity games between black clubs prior to September 1862 and any thoughts on what claim this game might have as an earliest known. [John Zinn]
Sources:
Newark Daily Advertiser on September 30, 1862
Query:
Curious if anyone knows of intercity games between black clubs prior to September 1862 and any thoughts on what claim this game might have as an earliest known. [John Zinn]
Year
1862
1862.104 Ballplaying Featured on 1862 Letterhead for Camp Doubleday
Location:
Age of Players:
[A] John Thorn:
"Abner Doubleday
has become a joke among us baseball folks. "He didn't invent baseball; baseball invented him." This letterhead, from 1862 ,may give pause even to hardened skeptics." John also notes that the game depicted does not resemble base ball, or wicket, or cricket.
[B]David Block:
The 1862 letters of Lester Winslow, of the 76th NY, at the National Archives, feature stationary printed with the heading "Camp Doubleday -- 76th New York" and show soldiers playing a bat-ball game. On this David Block writes:
"In the foreground of the illustration two soldiers face each other with bats, one striking a ball. Since no other players are involved, the only game that seems to correlate to the image is, in fact, drive ball. If not for Abner Doubleday's association, we would pay this little heed, but it is a matter of curiosity, if not amusement, to place baseball's legendary noninventor in such close proximity to a game involving a bat and ball."
Sources:
[A] John Thorn, tweet (showing the letterhead) on 2/2/22.
[B] David Block, Baseball before We Knew It (U Nebraska, 2005), page 198. See also the brief Protoball Glossary entry on the game of Drive Ball.
Warning:
This coincidence is not taken as evidence that Abner Doubleday "invented" base ball.
Comment:
Camp Doubleday is described in an 1896 source as "just outside Brooklyn city limits." See:
https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/artillery/5th-heavy-artillery-regiment/prison-pens-south; Other sources locate it on Long Island, NY.
A third source locates Camp Doubleday in Northwest Washington DC: https://www.northamericanforts.com/East/dc.html#NW
So which location is depicted on this letterhead?
[1] From John Thorn email, 2/5/2022; "Camp Doubleday appears to be in DC. It was also known as Fort Massachusetts. [SOURCE: HISTORY OF THE SEVENTY-SIXTH REGIMENT NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS; WHAT IT ENDURED AND ACCOMPLISHED ; CONTAINING DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS TWENTY -FIVE BATTLES ; ITS MARCHES ; ITS CAMP AND BIVOUAC SCENES ; WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF FIFTY - THREE OFFICERS, AND A COMPLETE RECORD OF THE ENLISTED MEN . BY A. P. SMITH, LATE FIRST LIEUTENANT AND Q. M. , SEVENTY- SIXTH N. Y. VOLS. ILLUSTRATED WITH FORTY -NINE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD, BY J. P. DAVIS & SPEER, OF NEW YORK ; AND A LITHOGRAPH , BY L. N. ROSENTHAL, OF PHILADELPHIA . CORTLAND, N. Y. PRINTED FOR THE PUBLISHER. 1867]"
[2] From Bruce Allardice email, 2/5/2022:
"The Camp Doubleday mentioned is the one near Washington DC. The 76th regiment was not stationed near Brooklyn in 1862, but was stationed in/near DC. It was in a brigade commanded by Abner Doubleday, hence the 'Camp Doubleday' designation."
---
David Block suggests the drawing (see below: game is shown near the image's center) shows Drive Ball, a fungo game. See Baseball Before We Knew It ,(2005), page 198. See also the sketchy Protoball Glossary entry on Drive Ball.
--
One auction house in 2015 claimed "This is perhaps the very first piece of American stationery depicting Union soldiers playing baseball. Amazingly, this lithograph has it all by showing Union soldiers at play in Camp Doubleday which, of course, was named after the game's creator Abner Doubleday!"
--
From John Thorn, 2/22/22: "Lithographer is Louis N. Rosenthal of Philadelphia. Born 1824." See https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A79709
Query:
Is it clear why someone would create such a letterhead?
Can we find a fuller description of drive ball?
How does Protoball give a source for John's Tweet for later users who want to see it?
Year
1862
1862.113 A Different View of Alexander Cartwright
Game:
Notables:
Alexander Cartwright
Although honored with a plaque at Cooperstown as a key figure in the evolution of base ball, Cartwright's reputation after settling in Hawaii proved a bit speckled: An 1862 source view of Cartwright: "Has probably a better capacity for pulling wool over shipmasters' eyes than any other man in the community. . . . Is very vindictive, and does not scruple at anything where there is money to be made. Is generally disliked, and by many considered a dangerous man to confide in. . . . Is fond of display, courts popularity, and has a weakness for females."
Sources:
The Honolulu Merchants' Looking-Glass: To See Themselves As as Others See Them. (18 pages, 1862.)
Comment:
The treatise arrived by ship from San Francisco on New Year's Day, 1863, and soon caused a stir throughout the city. It begins with a brief preface revealing the author's intent allow his neighbors "to see themselves as others see them, so that 'in all their underhanded dealing, they may hesitate.'
For more on Cartwright's life, see Protoball friend Monica Nucciarone, Alexander Cartwright: The Life Behind the Baseball Legend (University of Nebraska Press, 2009). Monica's final chapter, "CONCLUSION: Alexander Cartwright, Father of Modern Baseball*", includes this generalization: "So, why isn't Cartwright's baseball legacy more clearly documented? . . . I feel Alexander Cartwright deserves to be honored as one of baseball's 'pioneers.' Yet to call him the sole 'Father of Modern Baseball' is more than a stretch."
Monica reports on the 1862 treatise on page 70. (Thanks to Tom Shieber for locating it.)
Query:
Is there further evidence on the suggestion that evidence for Cartwright's base ball leadership was lost in a fire after his death?
Year
1862
1862.115 Parolees play baseball at Camp Douglas
Game:
Age of Players:
Richard C. Hulse, Co. F, 5th New York Heavy Artillery
Camp Douglas, Oct. 20, 25, 1862:
We are to have a baseball match between our company and Company A that was taken prisoners with us. They are making great preparations about it.
We had a game of baseball between our two companies and our company came off boss.
Sources: (Spared and Shared 23)
Warning:
Comment:
Query:
Year
1862
1863.1 Ballplaying Peaks in the Civil War Camps
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[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."
Sources:
[A] History. The First National Bank of Scranton, PA (Scranton, 1906), page 37. This is, at this time (2011), the only known reference to championship games in the warring armies.
As described in Patricia Millen, On the Battlefield, the New York Game Takes Hold, 1861-1865, Base Ball Journal, Volume 5, number 1 (Special Issue on Origins), pages 149-152.
[B] Larry McCray, Ballplaying in Civil War Camps.
[C] Bruce Allardice, email to Protoball of August, 2013.
[D] (((add Steinke ref and Clipper url here?)))
Warning:
Note Civil War historian Bruce Allardice's caveat, above: "In my opinion the clubs that played weren't 'corps' clubs, but rather regimental or brigade clubs that by their play other regiments/brigades claimed the Third and Sixth Corps championships."
Query:
Is it possible that a collection of trophy balls, at the Hall of Fame or elsewhere, would provide more evidence of the prevalence of base ball in the Civil War?
Year
1863
1863.9 In Coastal SC: Union Men Played Ball “In Almost Every Camp”
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
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.
Sources:
Elizabeth Ware Pearson, Letters from Port Royal Written at the Time of the Civil War (W. B. Clarke, Boston, 1906), page 162. Accessed 6/7/09 on Google Books via “from port royal” search. Port Royal is about 15 miles north of Holton Head SC and about 40 miles NE of Savannah GA.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 42
Query:
Note: can we determine what Union Army units were deployed to Port Royal and the Sea Islands in early 1863?
Year
1863
1863.58 Ballplaying on the Lines at the Siege of Vicksburg
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
“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.
Sources:
J. Evers and H. Fullerton, Touching Second: The Science of Baseball (Reilly and Britton, Chicago, 1910), pages 21-22. Accessed 6/28 on Google Books via “touching second” search. This book provides no source for the Dryden passage.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 136
Query:
Note: can we locate an original source for the Dryden data?
I can't find a mention of this in any online newspaper. A Carlton Dryden, Sgt. in the 10th Iowa, is the likeliest candidate for the "Sgt. Dryden" mentioned.
Year
1863
1863.146 27th MA Plays Baseball Under Enemy Fire
Game:
Age of Players:
The soldiers of the 27th Massachusetts Infantry, during the March-April 1863 siege of Washington, NC, engaged "in base ball and kindred sports, and that in full view of the enemy and under fire of their guns."
Sources: Derby, "Bearing Arms in the 27th Massachusetts" p. 176.
Warning:
Query:
Year
1863
1863.200 New York soldiers have a BBC in KY
Game:
Age of Players:
A letter dated July 21, 1863, from a Union soldier in the 40th NY to the Watertown (NY) Reformer, the soldier explains his unit has a baseball club here. "Here" is Hickman Bridge (Camp Nelson) on the Kentucky River, about 3 miles south of the modern Vineyard, KY.
Sources: Watertown Reformer, July 25, 1863.
Query:
Year
1863
1864.6 Officers in 30th MA Play Base Ball In February 1864
Location:
Age of Players:
“February 12, 1864. Officers played a game of base ball this afternoon.”
Sources:
H.W. Howe “Diary of Henry Warren Howe, February 1864,” Passages from the Life of Henry Warren Howe ( Courier-Citizen, 1899), page 61. Provided by Jeff Kittel, 2009.
Differences from Modern Baseball: 91
Comment:
The 30th was stationed at Franklin, Louisiana at this time [Noted by Bruce Allardice]. Franklin is about 100 miles west of New Orleans, a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
Note: As of June 2018, Joshua Bucchioni is doing research on the 30th Massachusetts. See the Supplemental Text for some background on the regiment.
Query:
Do we the role of the 30th in February 1864?
Are there any indications as to whether NY or MA or other game rules were employed?
Year
1864
1864.53 General Hooker's Players "Pretty Badly Beat", 70-11
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
A: The match game of base ball between the staff, and orderlies of Gen. Hooker, and thirteen players from our regiment came off this forenoon, the result was in favor of our regiment, the innings stood seventy to eleven, pretty badly beat wasn't they. They will play another game this afternoon. Gen. Hooker ordered Col. Wood to postpone brigade drill, that they might play.
B:Nothing has been stirring for the last week except for ball playing and one brigade drill. We play ball about all the time now. We, or some of the officers, have received a challenge from Gen'l Hooker's staff and escort to play a match. Fourteen players have been selected to play against them, amongst whom is ELE< the letter writer>. Four of them are commissioned officers, the rest enlisted men. We have also had a challenge from the one hundred and thirty.sixth New York, bit I don't know if it will be played or not.
C: Major Lawrence with a skillful nine selected from Hooker's body guard, challenged the [33rd MA] regiment to match them in a manly game of base ball, and his nine got worsted. The New York regiment threw down the glove with a like result. The champion Sharon [MA] boys knew a thing or two about base ball, which they had learned in contests with the laurelled Massapoags at home.
Sources:
A: Letter of April 13, 1864 by Lt. Thomas Howland. Obtained via Massachusetts Historical Society, August 2015.
B: Letter home by E. L. Edes, April 1864. For full letter, see Supplemental Text, below.
C: A. B. Underwood, Thirty-Third Mass. Infantry Regiment, 1862 - 1865 (A. Williams and Co., Boston, 1881, page 199. Search string: <kershaw had a smart>.
Comment:
It seems likely that these games were played under Mass game rules.
General Sherman's winter camp was outside Chattanooga, and his march into GA started in the beginning of May 1864.
Millen, Baseball and the Civil War" p. xiii cites the George Rolfe diary, 154th NY, for this game.
Query:
The Massapoag Club of Sharon MA fielded 10-14 players for its pre-war games, which were subject to Massachusetts rules. Why would the regimental history, 17 years later, refer to "nines"?
Year
1864
1864.58 Early Use of "Battery" As Pitcher-Catcher Pairing
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[Active vs. Eureka 7/24/1864] "As regards the pitching, 'Walker's battery' proved to be very effective in aiding to achieve the result..."
from Richard Hershberger's 19CBB posting, September 21, 2017: "Walker was the pitcher for the Actives. I take the form 'Walker's battery' to be a riff off the military usage of the day of naming a unit by its commander, e.g. "Sykes' Division." Walker here is the commander of the battery, which consists of himself and Rooney, the catcher."
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury July 10, 1864
Comment:
Note:
A few days earlier, Richard had noticed the use of "battery" in a July 26 game report: see Supplementary Text, below.
The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, page 86, citing the Chadwick Scrapbooks, had the first use of "battery" as 1868 (third edition).
Query:
Is the reported date correct? A July 24 match was reported on July 10?
Year
1864
1864.98 POWs form Wicket, Cricket and Baseball Clubs
Age of Players:
The soldiers imprisoned at Camp Oglethorpe, in Macon, GA, in 1864, formed "wicket, cricket and baseball" clubs.
Sources: Derby, "Bearing Arms in the 27th Massachusetts" p. 414.
Comment:
Query:
Year
1864
1864.104 60th NY are Brigade Champions
Game:
Age of Players:
A letter from the 60th NY, dated April 28, 1864 from Stevenson, AL, says the 60th NY's base ball club is the champion of the brigade, having beaten clubs from the 62nd, 78th, 137th and 149th NY.
Sources: Ogdensburg Daily Journal, May 10, 1864
Query:
Year
1864
1865.8 First Integrated (Adult) Club Takes the Field?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Luther B. Askin of Florence, MA (a hamlet of fewer than 1500 souls lying about 2 miles W of Northampton and about 90 miles W of Boston) is thought to be the first adult of African lineage to play on an integrated team in a standard match game. The first baseman is listed in box-scores of the first 13 matches played by the Florence Eagles Club in 1865.
Sources:
Brian Turner, "America's Earliest Integrated Team?" National Pastime,Number 22 (2002), pages 81-90.
Brian Turner (email to Protoball, 2/1/2014), has supplementary data on early integrated play, and he reports that the 1865 game evidently remains the earliest known case of integrated adult play in a standard game.
Comment:
Florence is recalled as one of the centers of Anti-Slavery activism in those times. The next earliest known instance of integration occurred in 1869 in Oberlin, OH, also a center of Anti-Slavery activism (see Ryczek, When Johnny Came Sliding Home, 1998, page 102). Further instances of early integration might be found in communities that held similar views.
Brian notes in 2014 that juvenile clubs were apparently less unlikely to engage in integrated play, even prior to the Civil War. The son of Frederick Douglass, for instance, is known to have played on a white junior club in Rochester NY in 1859. Luther Askin also played on such juvenile teams prior to the Civil War.
Query:
Have any earlier instances of integrated adult clubs arisen in recent years?
Year
1865
1866.5 Modern Game Compared to Traditional Town Ball in IL
Tags:
"Base Ball resembles our old-fashioned favorite game of Town Ball sufficiently to naturalize it very quickly. It is governed by somewhat elaborate rules, but the practice is quite simple. Nine persons on a side, including the Captains, play it. Four bases are placed ninety feet apart, in the figure of a diamond. The Batsman, Ball Pitcher, and one Catcher, take the same position as in Town Ball. Of the outside, besides the Pitcher and Catcher, one is posted at each base, one near the Pitcher, called the “Short Stop,â€â€”whose duty is the same as the others in the field—to stop the ball. The Innings take the bat in rotation, as in Town Ball,—and are called by the Scorer. The ball is pitched, not thrown to them—a distance of fifty feet. The Batsman is permitted to strike at three “fair†balls, without danger of being put out by a catch, but hit or miss, must run at the third “fair†ball. He may "tip" or hit a foul.
The full article, with commentary from finder Richard Hershberger, is found below in the Supplemental Text section.
Sources:
Illinois State Journal, May 10, 1866.
Query:
() Any idea why this morsel hadn't turned up before 2014?
() By 1860, the modern game seems well-established in Chicago -- was it still unfamiliar elsewhere in IL as late as 1866?
() The writer seems unfamiliar with the modern force-out rule; wasn't that introduced prior in base ball prior to 1866?
() Is it possible that the absence of a comment about the modern no-plugging rule means that local town ball already used a no-plugging rule?
() Many throwback articles mention that the new ball is harder than traditional balls. Could local town ball have already employed hard balls?
Year
1866
1866.6 First Known Table-top Base Ball Game Appears
Game:
Age of Players:
John Thorn writes:
"Who is the Father of Fantasy Baseball? Most today will answer Dan Okrent or Glen Waggoner, but let me propose Francis C. Sebring, the inventor of the table game of Parlor Base-Ball. In the mid-1860s Sebring was the pitcher (clubs only needed one back then) for the Empire Base Ball Club of New York (and bowler for the Manhattan Cricket Club). At some time around the conclusion of the Civil War, this enterprising resident of Hoboken was riding the ferry to visit an ailing teammate in New York. The idea of making an indoor toy version of baseball came to him during this trip, and over the next year he designed his mechanical table game; sporting papers of 1867 carried ads for his “Parlor Base-Ball” and the December 8, 1866, issue of Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly carried a woodcut of young and old alike playing the game. A few weeks earlier, on November 24, Wilkes' Spirit of the Times had carried the first notice. (In a previous 2011 post I discussed other fantasy-baseball forerunners, from Chief Zimmer's game to Ethan Allen's: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2011/10/17/fathers-of-fantasy-baseball/)
Sources:
Our Game posting, June 2, 2014; see -- http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2014/06/02/first-baseball-table-game/. An illustrated advertisement for Parlor Base-Ball had appeared in Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, December 8, 1866.
Comment:
The game had spring-loaded mechanisms for delivering a one-cent piece from a pitcher to a batter and by a batter into a field with cavities: "a pinball machine is not very different," John observes.
For a short history of table-top games, see
baseballgames.dreamhosters.com/BbHistory.htm
Query:
[] are there other reliable published sources of the evolution of table-top games, besides John's 2011 blog?
[] is anyone known to be attempting to reconstruct and play this game, or others?
[] can we determine what game events are given in the field of this apparatus?
Year
1866
1866.9 New England Association Forms , Intends to "Ignore the New York Game"
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Convention of Base Ball Players --
"A convention of delegates from clubs that play the New England game, was held at the Parker House this morning, to organize a 'New England Association,' which shall ignore the New York game. Twenty gentlemen were present, and were presided over by Mr. Richard Parks of Stoneham, with Mr. C. A. Brown as Secretary. The clubs represented were:
"Excelsior of Upton, Wyoma of Lynn, Liberty of Danvers, Alpha of Ashland, Active of Salem, Wenuchess of Lynn, Union of Danvers, Warren of South Danvers, Warren of Randolph, Peabody of Danvers, and Kearsarge of Stoneham.
"The association was duly formed, and the following officers were chosen to serve till next April:
"Daniel A.Caskin, of Danvers, President; J. Albert Parker, of Ashland, and William Kinsley, of Randolph, Vice Presidents; Richard Park [sic], of Stoneham, Secretary; Moses Kimball, of Danvers, Treasurer.
"The constitution of the Massachusetts Club [sic] was taken as a basis, and all desirable alterations made in it, after which the meeting adjourned till next April."
Sources:
Boston Traveler, September 15, 1866. Note: In his article on the Kearsarge Club in Base Ball Founders (McFarland, 2013 -- pages 304-307), Peter Morris cites two other sources of this event: Boston Daily Advertiser, September 17, 1866, and Springfield Republican, September 18,1866, page 4.
Query:
[] Was there actually a single "Massachusetts Club" constitution in 1866 to draw from? Did it have the same playing rules as the New England rules adopted in 1858?
[] Richard "Parks" or Richard "Park"?
[] Do we have records of these 11 clubs playing in 1866, or earlier?
[] "Wenuchess" Club? Peter Morris' guess is "Wencehuse"
Year
1866
1866.10 Throwback Game of Cat-and-Dog Seen in Pittsburgh
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Cat and Dog -- An interesting trial of skill at this old time game was played at Pittsburgh Pa., on the 5th inst., between the Athletics, of South Pittsburgh, and the Enterprise of Mt. Washington. The game was witnessed by a large crowd of ladies and gentlemen.
[The printed box score shows three players on each side, a pitcher-catcher and two fielders. The result was the Athletics, 180 "measures" and the Enterprise 120 measures. There is no indication of the use of innings, side-out rule, or fly rule]
[This spare account leaves the impression of a one-time throwback demonstration.]
Sources:
New York Clipper, 15 September 1866.
Pittsburgh Commercial, September 6, 1866.
Query:
Protoball would welcome input on how the rules of this game differed, if at all, from other games using "cat" in their names.
Year
1866
1866.11 California Clubs Hold Conventions, View Championship Games
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"In 1866 . . . about a half dozen California baseball clubs sent representatives to first Pacific Base Ball Convention in san Francisco. This was primarily a San Francisco affair; only one team, the Live Oaks from Oakland, came from outside the city. This gathering of baseball tribes sought to standardize rules and organize a local championship."
A second SF convention was held the following year, and "twenty-five clubs from as far away as San Jose attended the meeting. One account claims that one hundred clubs" attended.
Sources:
P. Zingg and M. Medeiros, Runs, Hits, and an Era: The Pacific Coast League, 1903-1958 (University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1994), page 2. Cited in Kevin Nelson, The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball (California Historical Society Press, San Francisco, 2004), page 12.
Comment:
Is there an indication of what standardization was needed, and whether rules were discussed or adopted that wee at variance with New York rules?
Query:
Can we determine what original sources Zingg and Medeiros used?
Year
1866
1866.14 First Uniform with Graphic Design
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1866, the Live Oak Club of Cincinnati was the first to display a graphic design on the uniform shirt.
Sources:
http://www.threadsofourgame.com/1866-live-oak-cincinnati/
For more uniform firsts, see http://www.threadsofourgame.com/uni-firsts/#
Query:
Can we guess why this innovation came to Cincinnati and not, say, to New York?
Year
1866
1867.1 New York and Philly Colored Clubs Hold Championship -- Philly Win Is Disputed
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
From the New York Sunday Mercury, October 6, 1867:
THE COLORED CHAMPIONSHIP – The contest for the championship of the colored clubs played on October 3, on Satellite grounds, Brooklyn, attracted the largest crowd of spectators seen in the grounds this season, half of whom were white people. The Philadelphians brought on a pretty rough crowd, one of them being arrested for insulting the reporters. They also refused to have a Brooklyn umpire, and insisted upon an incompetent fellow’s acting whose decisions led to disputes in every inning. The Excelsiors took the lead from the start, and in the sixth inning led by a score of 37 to 24. But in the seventh inning the Brooklyn party pulled up and were rapidly gaining ground, when the Philadelphians refused to play further on account of the darkness. A row then prevailed.
The following particulars, as far as the reporters could record the contest, the black members of the organization imitating their white brethren in betting and partisan rancor which resulted from it:
EXCELSIOR [Philadelphia]: Price, 3b; Scott, c; Francis, 2b; Clark, p; Glasgow, 1b; Irons, cf; Hutchinson, lf; Brister, rf; Bracy, ss.
UNIQUE [Brooklyn]: Morse, cf; Fairman, p; H. Mobley, c; Peterson, 1b; Anderson, 2b; Bowman, 3b; D. Mobley, ss; Farmer, lf; Bunce, rf.
Excelsior – 42 Unique – 37 (7 innings)
Umpire: Mr. Patterson of the Bachelor Club of Albany
Scorers: Messrs. Jewell (Unique) and Auter (Ecelsiors)
---
In the same edition:
A GRAND DISPLAY BY THE COLORED CLUBS
The baseball organization among the colored population of Brooklyn, are in a fever of excitement over the advent of the celebrated champion Excelsior Club of Philadelphia, which colored nine will visit Brooklyn on October 3 to play two grand matches with the Eastern and Western Districts, the games being announced to come off on the Satellite Grounds on October 3rd and 4th. These organizations are composed of very respectable colored people well-to-do in this world, and the several nines of the three clubs include many first-class players. The visitors will receive due attention from their colored brethren of Brooklyn: and we trust, for the good name of the fraternity, that none of the “white trash” who disgrace white clubs, by following and bawling for them will be allowed to mar the pleasure of their social colored gathering.
---
Sunday Mercury, September 29, 1867:
CONTEST BETWEEN COLORED CLUBS
Arrangements have been made between the Excelsiors, of Philadelphia, and two Brooklyn clubs, all colored, to play two games for the colored championship of the United States at Satellite grounds, on the 3rd and 4th of October. We are informed that the contending clubs play a first-class game, and from the novelty of such an event colored clubs playing on an inclosed (sic) ground will excite considerable interest and draw a large crowd.
---
New York Clipper, October 19, 1867
EXCELSIOR VS. UNIQUE
The Excelsior Club of Philadelphia and the Unique Club of Brooklyn, composed of American citizens of African (de)scent, played a game at the Satellite Ground, Williamsburgh, on Thursday, October 3d. The affair was decidedly unique, and afforded considerable merriment to several hundred of the “white trash” of this city and Brooklyn. The game was a “Comedy of Errors” from beginning to end, and the decisions of the umpire – a gentlemanly looking light-colored party from the Batchelor Club of Albany – excelled anything ever witnessed on the ball field. Disputes between the players occurred every few minutes and the game finally ended in a row. At 5 ½ o’clock, while the Brooklyn club was at the bat, with every prospect of winning the game, the Excelsiors, profiting by the examples set them by their white brothers, declared that it was too “dark” to continue the game, and the umpire called it and awarded the ball to the Philadelphians. Confusion worse confounded reigned supreme for full an hour after this decision, and the prospect seemed pretty fair at one time for a riot, but the police, who were present in large force, kept matters pretty quiet, and the crowd finally dispersed…
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, September 29, 1867 and October 6, 1867
New York Clipper, October 19, 1867
A shorter account appeared in New York Sunday Dispatch, October 6, 1867
See also Irv Goldberg, "Put on Your Coats, Put on Your Coats, Thas All!," in Inventing Baseball: the 100 Greatest Games of the 19th Century (SABR, 2013), pp. 38-59.
Comment:
Was the October 4th game played between these African American clubs?
Query:
Is this game properly thought of as a national championship?
Year
1867
1867.5 Morrisania Club Takes 1867 Championship, 14-13
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
The Union Club of Morrisania won the 1867 Championship, winning its second game of the series, 14-13, over the Atlantic Club. Charlie Pabor is the winning pitcher. Akin at shortstop and Austin in center field make spectacular fielding plays.
Game played Oct. 10, 1867.
Sources:
Gregory Christiano, Baseball in the Bronx, Before the Yankees (PublishAmerica, 2013), page 75. Original sources to be supplied.
Query:
Can we add something about the first game, and the sites of each game? A bit more about interim game scoring?
Year
1867
1867.6 Batters' "Hits" First Appear in a Game Report
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
In the first issue of The Ball Players’ Chronicle, edited by Henry Chadwick, a game account of the “Championship of New England” between the Harvard College Club and the Lowell Club of Boston featured a box score that included a list of the number of “Bases Made on Hits” by each player. This was the first instance of player’s hit totals being tracked in a game.
Sources:
The Ball Players' Chronicle (New York City, NY), 6 June 1867: p. 2.
Comment:
Note: for a 1916 account of the history of the "hit," see the supplemental text below.
For a short history of batting measures, see Colin Dew-Becker, “Foundations of Batting Analysis,” p 1 – 9:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0btLf16riTacFVEUV9CUi1UQ3c/
Query:
Do we know if Hits were defined in about the way we would define them today?
Year
1867
1867.16 Baseball's Resemblance to English Rounders Discussed
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"I have mentioned base-ball as one of our principal out-door games. We play cricket, but base-ball is to our lads what cricket is to yours. It is the English ball game “rounders,” but developed into something much more interesting and important. It is preferred to cricket, because the play is more varied and less formal; but nevertheless it has become a very formidable and solemn game." Sydney Morning Herald, April 11, 1867, quoting the London Spectator
Sources:
[from “Yankee Pastimes” by “A Yankee”], Sydney Morning Herald April 11, 1867, quoting the London Spectator.
Comment:
Finder Richard Hershberger also notes, 6/3/2016:
The distinction between baseball as a developed version of rounders and baseball as a development from rounders is subtle, but I think it is important. In the first, baseball/rounders is perceived as a family of closely related games, some more and some less developed. In the second, baseball is a single game defined by an official set of rules, descended but distinct from rounders. The former emphasizes the similarities, the latter the differences. This is a necessary precursor to the later claim that baseball is completely unrelated to rounders.
This is a late example of the formula that baseball and rounders are the same game, albeit baseball a more developed form. You can find such statements in the 1850s, but by 1867 the more typical version was that baseball developed from rounders. Here is English commentary on the [1874] American baseball tourists:
"Baseball is an American modification, and, of course, an improvement of the old English game of rounders..." New York Sunday Mercury, August 16, 1874, quoting the London Post of August 1, 1874
Query:
Is Protoball correct in thinking that the unnamed American's quote had appeared in an earlier "Yankee Pastimes" column in the London Spectator, and was then cited in the Sydney (Australia?) Morning Herald of April 11, 1867?
Year
1867
1867.21 Wisconsin's First State Base Ball Tourney Lists $1500 in Prizes
Tags:
Game:
"FIRST ANNUAL STATE BASE BALL TOURNAMENT OF WISCONSIN, $1500 IN PRIZES TO BE AWARDED. There will be a State Base Ball Tournament at Beloit, Wis. commencing Tuesday, 30 September, 1867. Under the auspices of the Wisconsin Association of Base Ball Players.
"The following are the prizes to be awarded. . . ."
Sources:
"A New Baseball Discovery," John Thorn, June 17, 2013, posted at https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-new-baseball-discovery-a1d8f579388.
(John found the 7-foot broadside for the tournament at the Beloit Historical Society, and posted it in a short article about the experience.)
Comment:
Top first class prize -- $100 cash and $100 Gold Mounted Bat
Junior prizes (under age 18), "Pony Clubs" (under age 15)
Prizes for top out-of-state club, plus several "special" prizes: best pitcher, best catcher, most homers, best runner, best thrower.
From John Pregler: "The Beloit Free Press published the following complete list of the prizes awarded at the Beloit Base Ball Tournament:
Senior Clubs - First Class: 1st prize, Cream City of Milwaukee; 2nd prize: Whitewater of Whitewater; 3rd prize: Badgers of Beloit.
Second Class: 1st, Capital City Jr. of Madison; 2nd: Delavan of Delavan; 3rd, Eagle of Beloit.
Juniors: 1st, Badger Jr of Beloit; 2nd, Excelsior Jr of Janesville.
Pony: Rock River Jr of Beloit
Outside the State - Seniors: 1st, Phoenix of Belvidere, IL; 2nd, Mutual of Chicago" - Janesville Gazette, Sept. 19, 1867
Query:
[A] Is "Pony Club" a common term for teen clubs?
- - from John Thorn, 9/22/20: "The Clipper has citations for "pony team" from 1874 on, perhaps signifying junior team or just whippersnappers. Here, from Sept 8, 1888:"
BOSTON, Sept 2 . —Coming home with a record of seven victories in eight games is a far different thing from doing so after having won four games out of twenty. Add to this the fact that three straight victories were gained over New York on their own heath and that by what Boston fans look upon as a pony team, and it is little wonder that the warmest and most enthusiastic kind of a welcome was bestowed upon the Boston team on Thursday last and that cheer after cheer greeted the appearance of the nine and each man as he stepped to the bat.
---
[B] Wasn't $1500 a tidy sum in 1867?
-- from John Thorn, 9/22/20: "$1500 was a hefty prize: $27,783.73 in 2019 dollars (via Consumer Price Index adjustment)."
Year
1867
1867.22 Eureka! A Press Credential
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The plan introduced by the Eureka Club of having tickets for the regular reporters of the press, none other to occupy seats near the scorer, should be adopted by all our clubs and public ground proprietors."
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, June 23, 1867
Comment:
As of March 2021, this appears to be the earliest reference to a right -- in the form of special tickets -- to exclusive seating being bestowed to reporters.
Peter Morris discusses press coverage arrangements in Morris, A Game of Inches (Ivan Dee, 2006), section 14.5.3, pp 403 ff. He cites two Henry Chadwick sources of press areas in June and August 1867 at the Brooklyn Union Grounds and then the Capitoline and Irvington grounds.
Query:
Are earlier cases known?
Is it known whether these press accommodations were normally granted by a ball club, like the Eureka, or by the owner of the ballfield?
Year
1867
1867.24 A Cool Treat for Kansas Fans
Game:
Age of Players:
"Quite a number of ladies and gentlemen were present to witness the exercises, but they were compelled to seek the shade, owing to the extreme heat. An ice cream saloon was erected, and its refreshments were able to keep the audience cool."
Sources:
Fort Scott Weekly Monitor, July 31, 1867
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 5/4/2021: "New one to me, and I haven't got anything earlier."
As of 5/9/2021, Protoball shows:
[] an 1859 mention of ice cream at Rockford IL at https://protoball.org/Ballgame_in_Rockford_in_June_1859
[] an 1867 reference to ice cream at in IL https://protoball.org/Little_Vermillion_Club_of_LaSalle
Query:
We wonder what ice cream was like in 1859 and 1867, before cold storage was common.
Has anyone written about the evolution of comestibles for fans in the Origins Era?
Year
1867
1867.25 The End for the Massachusetts Game?
Tags:
"The Massachusetts Base Ball Association, composed of clubs playing what is know [sic] as the Massachusetts game, has been broken up, and most of the clubs are now practicing the National game."
Sources:
Boston American Traveler, July 20, 1867.
Comment:
Bob Tholkes, 5/6/2021: "Didn't know there was a funeral announcement."
Richard Hershberger, 5/6/2021: "I don't know of any report of the association meeting or otherwise showing any sign of life after the war."
In a 5/9/2021 search, Protoball doesn't find one after 1866 either.
Note: Protoball has an 1868 clipping of a throwback game (28 innings, score 24-23) played by Mass rules. See https://protoball.org/Clipping:The_Mohawk_Club_reverts_to_amateur.
Query:
Might the New England Base Ballist, still alive in 1868, show more about the final passing on the game?
All in all, does the Mass Game differ in major ways from English Base Ball as we now understand it?
Year
1867
1867.26 "Cavalry Base Ball" Illustration Printed in Pittsburgh
Game:
Age of Players:
"A CAVALRY GAME
The October number of one of the Comic Monthlies, contains an illustration of a Cavalry game of base ball, which it says is patented. On a large field is placed a picked nine, 'operating' on horse-back; the left field, centre field, and right field occupy appropriate positions. The pitcher has a cannon that looks like one of the Fort Pitt twenty-inch guns (this exceeds Pratt, the lightening pitcher), and is pitching a ball by means of it at one of the cavalrymen, whose bat is raised to stop it; home-runs, short-stops, and the other points of the game are well illustrated. The umpire occupies a block house, from which protrude two telescopes, and the picture generally has a military aspect. One of the chief advantages of the horse-back game is to be found in the ease with which the home-runs ae accomplished."
Sources:
Pittsburgh Daily Commercial, September 5, 1867, page 4.
Warning:
|
Note: Protoball is not familiar enough with 1860s humor to determine exactly how authentic this report is. Bare ball-shooting guns sound pretty iffy. But 1867 was the start of Base Ball Fever, and we guess someone might have tried mounted forms of the game. |
Query:
Are other baserunning games known that were to be played on horseback?
Do we know what "Comic Monthlies" were?
Year
1867
1867.27 Union Club Offers Season Tickets in Washington Paper
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The Union Base Ball Club, of Lansingburg, New York, will arrive here today and play a match game with the Nationals, near the State Department, on Wednesday afternoon. Season tickets may be had at Cronin's, or at James Nolan's at No. 372 Pennsylvania Avenue, near Sixth Street. The price of a single admission ticket for a gentleman and ladies is fixed at twenty-five cents."
Sources:
Daily Morning Chronicle, September 3, 1867.
Comment:
From Bob Tholkes, 11/2/2021: "First reference I've seen in '67 for sale of season tickets...seller not named, though likely the Nationals. Innovation?"
Note: Peter Morris' fine A Game of Inches: The Story Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball (Ivan R. Dee, 2006), section 15.1.1, notes that the White Stockings charged $10 for a season ticket in 1870. Like the 1867 Washington offering, the Forest Cities of Cleveland in 1871 noted that a $10 season ticket would admit both a gentleman and lady, but the club also sold season tickets for individual entrants at $6.
Query:
Is earlier use of season tickets known?
Year
1867
1867.28 First Detailed Set of Rules for Stoolball Appear
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"RULES OF STOOLBALL
1. The ball to be that usually known as best tennis, No. 3.
2. The [paddle-shaped] bat not to be more than 8 inches in diameter.
3. The wickets to be boards one foot square, mounted on a stake; the top of the wicket to be four feet nine inches from the ground. One of these wickets to be selected by the umpire as that to which the ball shall be bowled.
4. The wickets to be 16 yards apart, and the bowling crease to be eight yards from the striker's wicket.
5. The bowler shall bowl the ball, not throw it or jerk it, and when bowling the ball shall stand with at least one foot behind the crease.
6. The striker is out, if the ball when bowled hit the wicket.
7. Or, if the ball, having been hit, is caught in the hands of one of the opposite party.
8. Or, if while running, or preparing or pretending to run, the ball itself be thrown by one of the opposite party so as to hit the face of the wicket; or if any one of the opposite party with ball in hand touch the face of the wicket before the bat of either of the strikers touch the same.
9. Or, if the ball be struck and the striker willfully strike it again.
10. If the ball be hit by the striker, or pass the wicket so as to allow time for a run to be obtained, the strikers may obtain a run by running across from one wicket to the other.
11. If, in running, the runners have crossed each other, she who runs for the wicket whick is struck by the ball is out.
12. A striker being run out, the run which was attempted shall not be scored.
13. A ball being caught, so that the striker is out, no run shall be scored.
14. If "lost ball" be called, the striker shall be lowed three runs; but if more than three have been run before "lost ball" has been called, then the striker shall have all that have been run.
15. The umpires, one for each wicket, are the sole judges of fair or unfair play; and all disputes shall be settled by them, each at is own wicket; but n the case of any doubt on the part of an umpire, the other umpire may be by him requested to give an opinion, which opinion shall be decisive.
16. The umpires are not to order any striker out unless asked by one of the opposite party.
17. The umpires are not to give directions to either party when acting as umpires, but shall be strictly impartial.
N.B. The bat is in form similar to a battledore."
--
Note: These appear to be, other than Willughby's circa1672 of a non-running version of stoolball and and Strutt's 1801 general description, the first known full set of rules for stoolball, appearing over four centuries after the game's first known play.
Sources:
Andrew Lusted, Girls Just Wanted to Have Fun; Stoolball Reports to Local Newspapers 1747 to 1866, (Andrew Lusted, 2013), inside front cover.
These rules are attributed to William De St. Croix, 1819-1877.
See also Andrew Lusted, The Glynde Butterflies Stoolball Team, 1866-1887: England's first Female Sports Stars (Andrew Lusted, 2011).
Query:
As a set, do these rules resemble contemporary rules for cricket in the 1860s? Do they align with cricket rules in 1800?
Do we know what the ball was like? Presumably, tennis balls were hand-wound string in this era, and the ball may have resembled cricket balls and base balls for the era.
Year
1867
1868.1 Elizabeth Cady Stanton describes Female Baseball Game in Peterboro, NY
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
THE LAST SPORTING SENSATION
A FEMALE BASE BALL CLUB AT PETERBORO’ (sic, w/ apostrophe)
At Peterboro’, (sic, apostrophe) N. Y. the young ladies, jealous of the healthy sports enjoyed by the more muscular portion of mankind, have organized a base ball club, and have already arrived at a creditable degree of proficiency in play. There are about fifty members belonging to it, from which a playing nine has been chosen headed by Miss Nannie Miller, as captain. This nine have played several games outside the town and away from the gaze of the curious who would naturally crowd around such a beautiful display. Having thus perfected themselves, this nine lately played a public game in the town of Peterboro’ (sic, apostrophe), as may well be supposed, before a large and anxious multitude of spectators. The natures of the female playing nine are as follows, - Nannie Miller, catcher; Clara Mills, pitcher; Mary Manning, first base; Frank (sic) Richardson, second base; Bertha Powell, third base; Jennie Hand, short stop; Hattie Ferris, left field; Maggie Marshall, right field; Mary Frothingham, centre field.
This constitutes the Senior Nine, and on the occasion of their first exhibition they played the Junior Nine of the same club. Their dress consists of short blue and white tunics, reaching to the knees, straw caps, jauntily trimmed, white stockings and stout gaiter shoes, the whole forming a combination that is at once most easy and exceedingly beautiful. As the two nines came upon the ground it would be hard to tell which one of them had the greatest number of friends present, for loud and continuous cheers and clapping pf hands marked the entrance of either one.
Without loss of time Mrs. J. S. Smith was chosen umpire, and Miss Martin and Mrs. Benning as scorers. The penny was flipped to see who should first go to bat, and the Juniors won it. Hattie Harding took up the bat and the remainder of the nine stood ready to follow suit. But alas! Hattie was caught out on a fly, and before her friends had time to make a single score they were sent to the field. From the moment the Seniors went to bat they had things their own way. Notwithstanding the best efforts of the Juniors they would either foul out or knock the ball high, and innings after innings were given up without a run to mark their stay at bat.
Bertha Powell gave six runs by outrageous muffs in the third and fourth innings. With this exception, however, the Senior nine acquitted themselves well, and nearly every member showed some particular points of fine play. But the Juniors were sadly beaten and have much to learn yet, especially in the choice of balls to strike at. Mary Sterns played at second base very well, and we shall not be surprised to see her one of the Senior playing nine next year.
At the conclusion of the game a number of gentlemen invited both nine to sit down to a fine repast, after discussing which they enjoyed some good singing and participated in a little speech-making, wherein the beautiful sporting belles were complimented and extolled.
The score below tells the story of the game, - [box score]
Seniors: Miller, c; Mills p, Manning, 1b; Richardson 2b; Powell, 3b; Hand, ss; Ferris lf; Marshall, rf; Frothingham, cf. Total runs – 27
Juniors: Clark, c; Hare, p; Colwell (?), 1b; Sterns, 2b; Dyer, 3b; Lains (?), ss; Pratt, lf; Galluria, rf; Frothingham, cf. Total runs – 5
[no other information, article ends here]
Sources:
New York Clipper, August 29, 1868
Warning:
NOTE: DEB SHATTUCK HAS SUPPLEMENTAL DATA ON THIS EVENT AND WILL BE AMENDING THIS ENTRY ACCORDINGLY IN DECEMBER 2013.
Comment:
Peterboro, NY - if that was the site of the game, is about 25 miles E of Syracuse, and, not that you asked, about 50 miles NW of Cooperstown.
Query:
Did this club form at a ladies' school, a secondary school, a finishing school? What was the age of the players?
Year
1868
1868.7 "Longest Throw" Measured by Harry Wright -- 396 Feet
Age of Players:
Notables:
Harry Wright
"Yesterday we had some 'ball-tossing' on our ground, that, I believe has never been equalled in this country or in England. There had been some bets that Johnny Hatfield could not throw a base ball 127 years clear . . . . If he succeeded he would get a suit of clothes. [Six throws are listed, the longest for 132 yards.] . . . . This throw has not been equalled since."
Sources:
Letter from Harry Wright, quoted in Brooklyn Eagle February 12, 1872.
Comment:
From Richard Hershberger, 2/12/2022: "150 years ago in baseball: a discussion of the record for longest throw. This would pop up from time to time for years to come." [Face Book '150 Years Ago" posting.] . . . " The modern record is held by Glen Gorbous, at the significantly longer 445 feet, 10 inches. That was in 1957. I'm sure it could be beaten today, but I want it to be your (favorite) team's outfielder trying this, not mine."
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4756338367753519&set=a.1364749713579085&type=3 As accessed 2/12/2022.
Source is cited as a letter from Harry Wright from 1868. The ball is described as a regulation base ball. The location of the feat given as "our ground."
Query:
In July 1868, Wright's "ground" was where?
Has someone recorded 'longest baseball throws' records somewhere?
And what else do we know about Johnny Hatfield?
Year
1868
1868.8 Throwback ('Old-Fashioned') Game Planned in Rochester
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"BASE BALL ITEMS. A number of the old fashioned men are to have an old-fashioned game of base ball in [Jones?] Square in a few days. The respective sides have been chosen and a most enjoyable time is expected."
Sources:
The [Rochester] Daily Union and Advertiser, August 28, 1868.
Comment:
As of mid 2023, the Protoball Chronology includes about 40 entries alluding to Rochester NY from 1825 to 1868. Nearly half have been generously contributed by crack Rochester digger Priscilla Astifan. Most of the games reported appear to be base ball-like games, but 8 refer to cricket, wicket and trap ball. Ten entries refer to soldierly play during the Civil War.
Priscilla reported on 5/18/2023: "I haven't yet found any notice in the available newspapers of the game being played or not. But at least the intention was interesting."
Query:
Are other post-War throwback games seen in the area?
Year
1868
1870.4 Union Club of Morrisania Disbands
Game:
Age of Players:
"November 1870 -- Morrisania Unions Disband -- players scatter to different clubs. Pabos, Bass and Allison went to Forest City, Cleveland; Gedney, Holdsworth, Shelley, and Martin to Brooklyn to play for the Eckfords, now a professional club; Birdsall will play right field for Boston; Higham to the Mutuals; Simmons and Pinkham to the Chicago White Stockings; Bearman to the Fort Wayne Kekiongas."
(For more on the breakup of the Union Club, see Supplemental Text, below.)
Sources:
Gregory Christiano, Baseball in the Bronx, Before the Yankees (PublishAmerica, 2013), page 77. Original sources to be supplied.
Query:
Can we add any indication of why the club disbanded?
Year
1870
1870c.17 Rutherford Hayes Sees Harm to Hearing in Ballplaying
Game:
Age of Players:
MY DEAR BOY -- I see by the Journal you are playing base-ball and that you play well. I am pleased with this. I like to have my boys enjoy and practice all athletic sports and games, especially riding, towing, hunting, and ball playing. But I am a little afraid, from [what] Uncle says, that overexertion and excitement in playing baseball will injure your hearing. Now, you are old enough to judge of this and to regulate your conduct accordingly. If you find there is any injury you ought to resolve to play only for a limited time -- say an hour or an hour and a half on the same day. . . . We had General Sherman at our house Wednesday evening with a pleasant party."
Sources:
Cited in John Thorn, Our Game posting, February 2018, "Our Baseball Presidents."
This original source is not given here.
Query:
What is the source of the Hayes letter?
Year
1870
1870c.8 Base Ball Comes to Massachusetts Youth
Tags:
Age of Players:
"I well remember when baseball made its first appearance in our quiet little community."
[] Charles Sinnott writes that in early childhood "the little boys' ball game was either "Three-old-cats" or "Four-Old Cats," and describes both variations.
[] He recalls that "The game that bore the closest resemblance to our modern baseball was "roundstakes" or "rounders." In some communities it was know (sic) as "townball." He recalls this game as marked by the plugging of runners, use a soft ball, featuring stakes or stones as bases, compulsory running -- including for missed third strikes, an absence of foul territory, an absence of called strikes or balls, and teams of seven to ten players on a team. "It was originally an old English game much played in the colonies."
[] In describing the new game of base ball, he recalls adjustment to the harder ball ("it seemed to us like playing with a croquet ball"), gloves only worn by the catchers, an umpire who was hit in the eye by a foul tip, fingers "knocked out of joint" by the hard ball, a bloody nose from a missed fly ball, and "that we unanimously pronounced [base ball] superior to our fine old game of roundstakes."
SEE FULL CHAPTER TEXT AT "SUPPLEMENTAL TEXT," BELOW --
Sources:
Chapter 13, "The Coming of Baseball," in When Grandpa Was a Boy: Stories of My Boyhood As Told to My Children and Grandchildren, by Charles Peter Sinnott (four types pages; presumed unpublished; from the Maxwell Library Archives, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater MA).
Comment:
Protoball does not know of other use of "roundstakes" as a predecessor game in the US.
Duxbury MA (1870 population about 2300) is about 35 miles south of Boston.
Sinnott died in 1943. On the date of his hundredth birthday, in August 1959, his family distributed 100 copies of his boyhood memoirs.
Query:
[] Is the date "1870c" reasonable for the item? Sinnott was born in 1859, and writes that he was in his teens when he first saw base ball. His old-cat games would have come in the mid-1860s.
[] It is presumed that Sinnott stayed in or near his birthplace, Duxbury MA, for the events he writes of. Is that reasonable?
Circa
1870
1870.9 Lively Ball Suspected in Mutual-Olympic Game
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"It was supposed that a lively ball was played with, on account of the heavy batting [Mutual had 31 hits and 29 runs]. Both the Olympic games of yesterday and Monday were played with a ball that contained but half an ounce of rubber; the yarn and covering bringing it up to regulation weight."
Sources:
New York Tribune, September 14, 1870.
For a concise account of rules on baseballs, see Chapter 17 ("The Ball and Bat"), in Richard Hershberger, Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball, (Rowan and Littlefield, 2019, pp 121-126.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger annotation, 9/14/2020: "Missing from [the formal rule on ball makeup] is any discussion of relative proportions of rubber and yarn. In other words, how much rubber? Rubber is denser than yarn, so the size and weight requirements imply a range of legal proportions between the two. Some clubs were rumored to get around this, having illegal balls made with extra rubber, balanced by cork. . . . There were learned discussions of the merits of lively and dead balls, and arguments before the game started over what ball to use. Also, the occasional surreptitious switch mid-game."
Ball Four points out [pp 124-125) that a limit of one ounce of rubber was defined for a regulation ball in 1871. In 1876, the new National League addressed the issue by requiring clubs to use a standard Spalding ball in its games, thus lessening suspicion the club that provides a game ball thereby gains competitive advantage.
Query:
Were the weights and/or circumferences of balls subject to impartial tests at or before games?
Year
1870
1870.14 Boston, Other Towns Eye "First-Class Professional Nines" Like the Red Stockings
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[Beyond the Cincinnati-Chicago base ball rivalry] "The pecuniary success attendant upon of the Red Stocking Club -- the best managed club in the country -- has tempted other cities to try the professional nine experiment. The Boston Journal says that for some time past, gentlemen interested in the game of base ball have been considering the subject of securing for Boston a professional base ball nine who should do honor to the city. It seems to be one of the few notions in which Boston is lacking. The success of the Union Grounds as a pecuniary investment has shown that the thing is perfectly safe and feasible. . . . It is proposed to petition the next Legislature for a special charter as a base-ball club, with a capital stock of not less than $10,000, in shares of $100 each."
"Indianapolis is raising a first-class professional nine under competent management. Cleveland will again have a professional nine;: Troy, ditto, and an opposition tot he Athletics is organizing in Philadelphia. St. Louis, too is in the market, and also New Orleans.
Sources:
Brooklyn Eagle, November 17, 1870.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, "150 years ago in baseball" [FB posting, 11/17/2020:
"Rumors about new professional clubs for next season. Here we see an intermediate stage, combining the assumption that the Cincinnati Club will keep on doing what it does, along with early rumors of a new club on Boston. The Union Grounds mentioned here is not the one in Cincinnati or the one in Brooklyn, but the one in Boston, so named because it originated as a joint project of several local clubs. Its pecuniary success is in part due to the visits of the Cincinnati Club. The Boston baseball establishment has been paying attention. More developments will soon arise.
"As for the other predictions, they are a mixed bag. Cleveland and Troy will indeed have professional clubs next season, but the other proposals won't pan out, or at least not right away."
Query:
Do we know more about the fate of the Union Grounds and Boston sports?
Year
1870
1871.1 Base Ball Reaches River Town of Nauvoo IL
Game:
It is reported that Charles W. Welter and E. H. Reimbold introduced base ball to Nauvoo in 1871, having had played the game previously in New Orleans and St. Louis. The Nauvoo club later played in tournaments against Carthage, Dallas, and Fort Madison.
Nauvoo IL (2010 pop. about 1100) is about 100 miles E of Peoria on the Mississippi River. and is about 175 miles NW of St. Louis MO.
Sources:
Glenn Cuerden, Nauvoo.(Arcadia, 2006), page 88. The original source of this information is not given.
Comment:
We recall a claim that the Mormons, who bought and renamed the town in 1839, had played a baserunning ballgame there much earlier. [Confirmation needed.]
Query:
Are Carthage and Dallas and Ft. Madison nearby towns?
Year
1871
1871.4 National Association Urged to Adopt Modern Batting Average
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In a letter published in the New York Clipper on March 11, 1871, H. A. Dobson, a correspondent for the periodical, wrote to Nick E. Young, the Secretary of the Olympic Club in Washington D.C., and future president of the National League. Young would be attending the Secretaries’ Meeting of the newly formed National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, and Dobson urged him to consider a “new and accurate method of making out batting averages.”
“According to a man’s chances, so should his record be. Every time he goes to the bat he either has an out, a run, or is left on his base. If he does not go out he makes his base, either by his own merit or by an error of some fielder. Now his merit column is found in ‘times first base on clean hits,’ and his average is found by dividing his total ‘times first base on clean hits’ by his total number of times he went to the bat. Then what is true of one player is true of all…In this way, and in no other, can the average of players be compared.”
Dobson included a calculation, for theoretical players, of hits per at-bat at the end of the letter; the first published calculation of the modern form of batting average.
Sources:
Dobson, H.A. “The Professional Club Secretaries’ Meeting.” New York Clipper (New York City, NY), 11 March 1871: p. 888.
Comment:
While "hits per at-bat" has become the modern form of batting average, and was the only average calculated by the official statistician beginning in the inaugural season of the National League in 1876, the definition of a "time at bat" has varied over time. To Dobson, a time at bat included any time a batter made an "out, a run, or is left on his base." However, walks were excluded from the calculation of at-bats beginning in 1877, with a temporary reappearance in 1887 when they were counted the same as hits. Times hit by the pitcher were excluded beginning in 1887, sacrifice bunts in 1894, times reached on catcher's interference in 1907, and sacrifice flies in 1908 (though, they went in and out of the rules multiple times over the next few decades and weren't firmly excluded until 1954).
Consequently, based on Dobson's calculation, walks would have counted as an at-bat but not as a hit, so a negative result for the batter. This was the case in the first year of the National League as well, but was "fixed" by the second year. A fielder's choice would have been recorded as an at-bat and not a hit under Dobson's system, as it is today.
For a short history of batting measures, see Colin Dew-Becker, “Foundations of Batting Analysis,” p 1 – 9:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0btLf16riTacFVEUV9CUi1UQ3c/
Query:
Year
1871
1871.9 State-wide Base Ball Association for California?
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Age of Players:
"The Pacific Base-Ball Convention held an adjourned meeting last night . . . on Merchant street, Col. Harry Linden presided. . . .
"Messrs Gorman, Cashman, Linden were appointed a Committee to procure an elegant champion bat, regardless of cost, for future contests among Base-Ball Companies."
"It being suggested that the Constitution and By-laws needed revision, Messrs Hooks, Glascock and Calvert were appointed a Committee for that Purpose. . . .
Standing Committees for Judiciary, Credentials, Finance, Rules and Regulations, and Printing were named.
Sources:
San Francisco Examiner, February 4, 1871
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 2/4/2021:
150 years ago in baseball: the Pacific baseball convention. This is much like the state conventions we see at this time, but more of an independent affair. California was still, even with the trans-continental railroad, the far end of beyond, so the baseball institutions tended to develop in parallel with but independent of those to the east. The Pacific convention was more of a free-standing affair than the state associations in the east, which mostly existed to appoint delegates to the national convention. It also seems comfortable with the idea of a formal championship, though I question empowering a committee to purchase the trophy bat "regardless of cost."
Query:
Was the is first ever meeting of this group?
Did it intend to represent base ball throughout California?
Had other states established state-wide base ball associations by 1871?
Year
1871
1871.11 Pros' Leading Averages Reported In Buffalo Newspaper
Game:
Age of Players:
" BASE BALL. The Best Averages -- Names of Leading Players -- "
"All the leading professional clubs of the country have published their averages, and below we give the names of the players who occupy first, second, and third positions in the averages of first-base hits . . . ."
[For the Atlantic (Brooklyn), the Athletic (Philadelphia), Chicago, Cincinnati, Haymakers (Troy), Forest City (Cleveland) and other clubs, leading hitters' batting success per game was reflected in this format:]
"CINCINNATI
George Wright 4.27
Waterman 3.87
McVey 3.63"
Sources:
Buffalo Commercial, February 6, 1871.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 2/8/2021 (FB posting):
"150 years ago in baseball: batting averages. The idea of batting averages was borrowed from cricket, and at this point is not at all new to baseball. The details, however, have not yet taken their modern form.
The numerator mostly is the same. One might reasonably think that "First-Base Hits" means singles, but they actually are simply base hits, the later shortened form. The point of the "first-base" part is that the runner gets safely to at least first base, as contrasted with his hitting the ball but being put out before reaching first. Baseball vocabulary had not yet arrived at the contradiction of the batter hitting the ball without getting a hit. On the other hand, the concept of what was and was not an error, and how to account for it, was not yet fully developed.
It is the denominator that makes these averages look wacky. These are hits per game, not per at bat. Some scorers were starting to track plate appearances, but this was not yet universal. The problem with using games played is that not every player gets the same number of chances. There were, in theory, no substitutions at this time, so that wasn't the problem. In the modern game you typically figure that the top half will get about five plate appearances, and the bottom half about four. The high scores of the 1860s minimized this difference. Players saw more plate appearances, so the difference between the top and the bottom of the lineup wasn't as important. By the 1870s, however, scores are starting to drop to modern levels. The better scorers will soon start to use at bats as the denominator."
Protoball, 2/9/2021: "How were errors treated?"
Richard Hershberger, 2/9/2021: "Inconsistently. There were discussions of what were and were not errors and how this related to scoring base hits and earned runs, but not yet any consensus (stipulating that such a consensus exists even today). Probably the key is that these stats are from the clubs' own scorers. There was not yet a single official scorer. Each club had its own, resulting in two scores for the game. Since these season averages from from the individual clubs, I would assume homerism ran rampant."
See also 1871.4 for an earlier account of proper batting measures.
Query:
Have charts like this appeared before? Have writers been referring to such averages in plumbing the relative merits of batsmen?
Did each club send its data to interested news outlets?
Year
1871
1871.12 Pro Clubs to Meet in March, National Association Starts Its Fade
Game:
Age of Players:
"The appointed meeting of the Secretaries of the professional clubs, announced to take place in New York on the 17th of March, St. Patrick's Day, has been changed into a convention of the professionals, and the meeting will settle not only the dates of all the matches for the season, but also the championship question. The best thing they can do is to organize an association of professional clubs at once. . . .
"Mr. Chadwick resigned all connection to the National Association last October. . . . To the Excelsior club in this city [Brooklyn] is due the credit of inaugurating the movement for an amateur association . . . ."
Sources:
Brooklyn Eagle, February 28, 1871.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 2/28/2021: This column "tacitly acknowledges that the old National Association is dead. Or perhaps it is a nail in the coffin to make sure it stays that way. The National Association met last December just as it had for years. It adopted rules revisions, elected officers, and so on. From a procedural perspective, it is chugging along as always. But it is in fact dead. The corpse will twitch a little bit, but there will never be any discussion of holding the convention next December."
"The discussion of the upcoming meeting of March 17 is portentous. It was originally called by Nick Young, secretary of the Olympics of Washington, so the professional clubs could coordinate their schedules. The idea wasn't to set up a detailed schedule, but so that a club going to, for example, Chicago could be confident that the Chicago Club wasn't in Boston at the time. The secretary of the Chicago Club has suggested upgrading the meeting to also set up a formal championship system for the professionals."
From 150 Years Ago in baseball FB posting
Query:
Did the March 17 date hold up? Was it held in NYC?
Was St. Patrick's Day an extra special day in the 1870s?
Was Chadwick's departure a matter of controversy? Why?
Year
1871
1871.13 The Beginning of Base Ball Trivia?
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"Sports and Pastimes. Base Ball Matters. . . . The Athletics made twenty-five clean home runs in a game with the Nationals, of Jersey City, New Jersey, on the 30th of September 1865."
Sources:
Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, March 12, 1871.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, FB Posting '150 Years Ago', 3/21/2021:
"[B]aseball history trivia! Baseball had ample history by this time to support the endeavor. For those scoring at home, the final outcome of the game was Athletics 114, Nationals 2. But it wasn't as close as that makes it look."
Asked if such newspaper features were common, Richard replied, 3/12/2021: "This one is pretty typical. The big New York papers in earlier years had often had rules-related questions, but these were drying up by the 1870s."
Query:
Was this one of the first known uses of past base ball feats as fun trivia in base ball reportage?
Year
1871
1871.14 Rival Assn of Amateur Players Forms: Includes Clubs from NY, Philly, Baltimore, Boston.
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"THE CONVENTION OF AMATEUR CLUBS IN BROOKLYN
A NATIONAL SSSOCIATION OF AMATEUR BASE BALL PLAYERS IS ESTABLISHED
CLUBS FROM NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMORE AND BOSTON REPRESENTED
"Thursday, March 18, 1871 was an eventful day in the brief annals of the National game . . . there was a re-union of the amateur class of the fraternity . . ."
Participating clubs included Knickerbocker, Eagle, Gotham. Excelsior, Star, Olympic, Equity, Pastime and Harvard clubs."
Sources:
New York Clipper, March 25, 1871
Comment:
from Richard Hershberger, "150 Years Ago Today", 3/18/2021:
"[T]he formation of the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players. This is the long-talked-about splinter organization, spinning off from the old National Association, which is deemed to be thoroughly infested with professionalism cooties.
Spoiler alert: We won't be talking about the new NAABBP very much down the road. It will stumble along for several years, but will be essentially irrelevant the whole while. Why not? It isn't as if amateur baseball will ever go away. Professional baseball has never accounted for more than a tiny fraction of all baseball played. It just attracts nearly all the attention."
Note: for Richard's full commentary, see Supplemental Text, below.
Query:
Was this new NAABP destined to tinker with the rules of play?
Year
1871
1871.17 Philadelphia Claims Best 1870 US Record -- Over the Red Stockings? Really?
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"BASE BALL MATTERS: Answers to Correspondents:
[to] K. S. M. The Mutuals of New York city won the national championship last year, but the Athletics of this city had the best record. . . ."
Sources:
Philadelphia Sunday Mercury April 9, 1871; See Hershberger commentary, below/.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, FB Posting, April 9. 2021:
"150 years ago in baseball: a bit of historical revisionism via homerism by the Philadelphia sporting press. Thank goodness that no longer plagues us! For the record, the 1870 Mutuals went 68-17-3 while the Athletics went 65-11-1. Presumably the claim to a better record was based on winning percentage, rather than absolute number of games won. This criterion was not at all established at the time. The problem with claiming the moral, if not nominal, championship this way is that the Cincinnati Club went 67-6-1. Those records include both professional and amateur games. Perhaps the writer was thinking of just professional games? The Athletics went 26-11-1, while the Cincinnatis went 27-6-1. So while there is an argument to be made that the A's had a better record than the Mutuals, this is not at all the same as the A's having the best record. So it goes."
Query:
Did the Mutuals themselves claim the best 1870 record, or just the NABBP Championship, or what?
Year
1871
1871.18 First Pro League Game Doesn't Feature Offense
Game:
Age of Players:
"THE NATIONAL GAME -- The First Dose of 1871 -- A Whole Nest of Goose Eggs -- 000000000 -- Where Are We Now?"
(Cleveland newspaper headline for the 2-0 loss in Fort Wayne to the Kekionga Club by the visiting Forest City Club of Cleveland)
" . . . The play throughout was nearly perfect as could be imagined . . . the difficult pitching of [Cleveland's] Mathews kept our score down to a continual whitewash"
Sources:
Cleveland Leader May 5, 1871.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, FB posting of 5/5/2021:
"This is remembered today as the first game of the first professional league. So it was, but this account only barely hints at this being a momentous occasion. This was the first game only by accident, earlier scheduled games being rained out. But more to the point, few thought of this game as the beginning. The season has been ramping up for several weeks now. Nowadays we think of those earlier games as mere spring training, preparing for the real season. At the time they thought of a game such as this as yet another game, but one that happened to be for the championship. [Note: "for the championship" then meant "in a regular season game."]
The most modern aspect of this account is that Bobby Mathews, the Kekionga pitcher, is given at least partial credit for the shut out. Earlier on, the fielding would have gotten all the credit."
Query:
Year
1871
1871.20 Chadwick Agrees: The Parent of Base Ball is Two-Old-Cat . . . Not English Rounders, After All?
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Notables:
Henry Chadwick
"We do not believe that cricket will ever be naturalized here, but that its rival is destined for evermore to be the national game. To those who would object to our explanation that it is fanciful, we can only say that we believe it violates none of the known laws of reasoning, and that it certainly answers the great end of accounting for the facts. To those other objectors, who would contend that our explanation supposes a gradual modification of the English into the American game, while it is a matter of common learning that the latter is of no foreign origin, but the lineal descent of that favorite of boyhood, 'Two-Old-Cat,' we would say that, fully agreeing with them as to the historical fact, we have always believed it to be so clear as not to need further evidence, and that for the purposes of this article the history of the matter is out of place. We have throughout spoken of cricket as changing' into base ball, not because we suppose these words represent the actual origin of the latter, but to bring more vividly before the mind the differences between the two. He would indeed be an unfaithful chronicler who should attempt to question the hoary antiquity of Two-Old-Cat, or the parental relation in which it stands to base ball."
Sources:
Henry Chadwick, 1871 Base Ball Manual
Comment:
Bill Hicklin, 3/9/2016:
"It's one of the commonplaces of the old origins debate that led to the Mills Commission that Henry Chadwick was foremost among those arguing that baseball evolved directly from rounders, and indeed he said so many times. In opposition stood those patriotic Americans such as Ward who claimed an indigenous heritage from the Old Cat games."
Query:
David Block, et al: Could Chadwick have believed that Two-Old-Cat was also the parent of British Rounders? The term was known over there before rounders was, no?
Page and pub site of the 1871 Manual?
Year
1871
1872.1 Forest City Club Lists Player Duties, Role of Team Captain, Etc.
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"1. THE CAPTAIN. The captain of the club shall be elected by the board of directors and shall serve at their pleasure. . . .
3. No member of the club will be excused from practice or play unless upon a written certificate from Dr. N. B. Prentice . . .
6. No member of the club shall accept any gift of money to lose or assist in losing a game and violation of this rule and will subject the member to be expelled in disgrace. . . .
8. . . . No member will be allowed to use the uniform of another player without the permission of the owner.
Sources:
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/9/1872.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger posted the following, 3/10/2022:
150 years ago in baseball: the Rules and Regulations adopted by the Forest City Club of Cleveland for its players. It rather jumps out that they felt it necessary to specify that players weren't allowed to throw games for money, with the penalty of being "expelled in disgrace."
But the topic for today's sermon is the role of the captain. This touches on a persistent modern misunderstanding of the early professional era. Look at the list of the captain's responsibilities and this looks similar to the modern field manager. Look up the 1872 Forest City club and you will find two "managers" listed: Scott Hastings, going 6-14 and Deacon White going 0-2. (The team was, it turns out, not good, and won't last the season.) They actually were the captains. The "manager" in this era was a different role. The details varied, but the manager typically was in charge of the business side of things: supervised the gate on game day, made travel arrangements on the road, and so on. Sometimes the manager was in charge of hiring and firing players, making him more like the modern general manager.
The captain always was a player. The manager usually was not, but there were a few exceptions such as Harry Wright. Here in 1872 not all teams had a full time manager, the officers running things directly. Later this summer when the Forest City team goes on a trip, a report identifies the "manager" for that trip, meaning the guy who will corral the players get them from city to city. Within a few years the job will have grown to a full time position, nearly always held by someone hired specifically for that job.
The problem is that the modern listings of managers are a mess for the 19th century. We have this modern concept of what is a "manager"--Earl Weaver or Billy Martin and so on--and we try to impose this model on the past. So some researcher reads a report with the captain doing stuff we expect of a modern manager, and lists that guy as the manager. Or a researcher sees some other guy called the "manager" and lists him. This eventually got distilled down to a standard list, with the two roles jumbled together in an incoherent mess. The moral is that if we want to understand what was going on, we have to set aside modern understandings of how these things work.
Query:
Do we know if there are interesting variants in other clubs' rules?
Year
1872
1872.2 Pro Players Disparaged in Newspapers As Worthless, Dissipated, Buyable
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Age of Players:
"The professional player, aside from his personal character, is not precisely a majestic object . . . . Not to put too fine a point upon it . . . is usually a worthless dissipated gladiator; not much above the professional pugilist in morality and respectability. . . . It is only necessary for the gambler who has large sums at stake to buy him, in order to make certain of winning his bets."
Sources:
Base Ball: The Professional Player, Titusville (Pa.) Herald March 12, 1872. Ascribed to the the New York Times of March 8, 1872.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger' FB commentary, 3/12/2022:
"150 years ago in baseball: A discussion of professional ball players. It is not complimentary. It would take decades for this attitude to disappear entirely. Note in particular the assumption that of course a professional will throw a game if you pay him enough."
Richard Hershberger, subsequent email to Protoball, 3/12/2022: "Titusville adapted this from the NY Times of March 8. Some other papers also picked it up. T t is hard to say just how widespread this] the attitude was, but it certainly [was] in the air. In Zane Grey's [1906]novel The Shortstop, when the protagonist tells his mother he has decided upon a career as a professional baseball player, she bursts into tears at that ruination of her son."
Query:
Any idea who might have written this little barb at the NYT? Was it widely quoted in the US?
Year
1872
1872.4 Harry Wright Offers Game, Players, to Harvard
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Letter from Harry Wright, of the second-year Boston pro league club, to a representative of the Harvard club, March 18, 1872:
". . . would it be agreeable to play . . . Saturday April 6th . . . upon our grounds . . .
We propose having our first game played on Fast Day, weather permitting
Harry Wright, Secy"
Sources:
From the Spalding Collection at the New York Public Library
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 3/18/2022
"150 years ago today in baseball: Harry Wright is making arrangements with the Harvard ball team. If I am reading it correctly, the secretary of the Harvard club goes by "J. Cheever Goodwin." I hate him already. Wright proposes a date just two and a half weeks out. This is typical of scheduling in this era, done on the fly. It also was a major pain. A lot of Wright's correspondence consists of back and forth to find a date that works for both sides.
I'm not sure what is the story about the offer to let Harvard use the Boston grounds. Harvard had a field, but I don't know if it was enclosed at this period. You can't charge admission if there is no fence. This would explain the discussion here, where we can assume that the "satisfactory arrangements" he mentions is a discreet way to say "financial arrangements," with the Boston club getting a piece of the action.
Then there is the discussion of the Fast Day game. Fast Day is an obsolete New England holiday: a quasi-pagan fertility ritual where people were supposed to go to church and look solemn in order to ensure a good harvest. In practice they went to ball games. It was the traditional opening of the baseball season. This year it will be on April 4. Wright is arranging the "picked nine" the Bostons will trounce. Sometimes a picked nine was an impromptu affair, picking players from the crowd. This one is a bit more organized, with the players chosen ahead of time and publicized. Wright is offering three slots to Harvard. He doesn't specify which positions. This picked nine is not totally random, but neither is it totally organized."
Joanne Hulbert, FB posting, 3/18/2022:
"Yes, Richard, Fast Day was made obsolete by baseball. But who wants to eliminate a holiday off the annual schedule? No one. This is how Patriots Day, April 19 was added to replace Fast Day - and Patriot's Day is still to this day an important baseball day in Boston. It is the one day in Boston when there is always a Red Sox home game on the schedule."
Richard replied, 3/18/2022:
"My take is that Fast Day was made obsolete by New England's cultural shift, from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God to Walden Pond. But the point about Patriot's Day is entirely fair."
Bruce Allardice added, 3-19-2022:
"It was common for pro league teams to play amateur clubs, especially early in the year. The 1876 Chicago White Stockings played 2 local amateur clubs before their regular season started, as sort of a warm-up. They also played 30+ amateur, semi-pro and non-league pro clubs during the year.
The [Boston club] played the Tufts College club 4-24-72, winning 43-5 (Boston Herald 4-25-72).
The April 4th game was played, against a 'picked nine' of local amateurs that included several from the Harvard team. The Red Sox won 32-0. (Boston Journal, 4-5-72). The amateurs made only 3 hits off Spalding's pitching."
Query:
Asking, 3/18/2022:
Was it common for pro league clubs to play amateur clubs? (see BA response, above)
Did the game come off?
Asking, 3/19/2022:
Was the Boston club known as the Red Stockings in 1872?
Was the proposed game to amount to a pre-season warmup for the Boston pros?
Year
1872
1872.6 Umpiring Evolves As A Profession: Certification, Bipartisan Pay
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Age of Players:
"Having pointed out the evil of indiscriminate selection of umpires, we will now suggest a remedy.
And this is the appointment of certain persons by the annual convention to act as umpires, and who will receive a certain sum -- say $10 and their traveling expenses -- for every game they umpire . . . .
The contending clubs can each pay a moiety of the expenses, and it will fall heavily n neither."
Sources:
New York Sunday Dispatch, May 19, 1872.
Comment:
From Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago in baseball, May 19, 2022.
"The umpire question. Umpire selection in the early days was very informal. Sometimes arrangements would be made ahead of time, but even for important matches it was not unknown for the two captains to pick a guy out from the crowd. It would usually be someone they both knew, so it wasn't totally random, but if he had not shown up, they would have picked someone else.
Here in 1872 this system is wearing thin. This is the professional era and the stakes are higher. In today's excerpt, we see a radical suggestion: pay the guy. This will start happening soon. It will help, but won't solve the problem entirely. There still is the matter of finding someone both captains agree upon. The next decade or so will see endless overly elaborate schemes to come up with an equitable system. The underlying problem is that even once everyone agrees the umpire needs to be paid, no one wants to pay enough for this to be a full-time job. Employing part-timers means they are using local guys, with all this entails. The bickering will be endless. Or at least it will be until they finally bite the bullet and go with a full-time umpire corps employed by the league. That won't be until the 1880s. Here in 1872, the NA doesn't even have a league structure to run an umpire corps, much less the operating funds.
The article here suggests $10 per game. This won't be enough to persuade capable men to put up with grief for two hours. The going rate will settle in at $15. That is roughly equivalent to $300 to $400 in today's money."
Query:
What is a good general history of umpiring?
Year
1872
1872.8 Cleveland's NA Club Dissolves; League Financial Incentives to Blame?
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Age of Players:
"THE FOREST CITY CLUB -
The Cleveland paper speaks as follows in regard to the Forest City Club of that city: 'The management of the Forest City Club have wound up the concern. The nine is to have paid off today, and the contracts with the players cancelled' . . . . Probably the national game has seen its best days in Cleveland.'"
<See full clip in image below.>
Sources:
Boston Globe, August 12, 1872
Comment:
Richard Hershberger's comments in '150 Years Ago'. FB posting of 8/12/2022:
'The Cleveland Forest City Club is dead. Oddly enough, the Forest City team is not quite dead. It is still twitching, but this won't last.
The Forest City Club is not like the other defunct clubs of this season. It wasn't comically under capitalized, nor was it merely a regional semi-pro team with pretensions. It was a legit professional stock company baseball club. The team wasn't actually good, but it was better than its current 6-14 record suggests. Look at the roster and it is a perfectly plausible collection of players. They are playing below their ability, but also look at the complaint that there have been only three first-class games played in Cleveland. It actually was five, but the point stands. They have played the bulk of their games on the road. This can't help their win-loss record, but worse was what it did to their finances. Clubs typically retained two-thirds of the gate while at home, meaning that road games both incurred travel expenses and brought in less revenue.
One way to look at the NA was that its purpose was to force its members to travel. This broke down here for two reasons. First, there was not yet any central schedule. The clubs were to play a fixed number of games against each opponent, but the actual scheduling was left up to them. The second was that Cleveland was the westernmost club, as a secondary effect of the Great Chicago Fire the previous year. Stopping in Cleveland on the way to or from Chicago was one thing. Making an expensive trip just for Cleveland was another. Put these together and the eastern clubs simply didn't schedule games there. Presumably they would have eventually, had the club endured, but they kept putting it off. The result was that the club's finances collapsed, making the question moot.
At least mostly. The players are carrying on as a cooperative team, meaning they split their share of the game among themselves. This strategy rarely worked. Boston, in what looks to me like an act of charity, will shlep out there next week for two games, but these won't bring in enough to make it worth the players' time and the team will give up the ghost."
Query:
Do we know how Cleveland media covered this sad event?
Year
1872
1872.9 Innovator Harry Wright's Custom on Called Strikes
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Age of Players:
"Harry Wright went to bat and waited, as is his custom, until the umpire, Mr. Hanna, reminded him of his duty by calling a strike."
Sources:
Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 20, 1872
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 8/19/2022:
150 years ago today in baseball: "Boston at Cleveland, winning 12-7. This is the last gasp of the Cleveland team, but what interests me is this tidbit about Harry Wright's batting strategy, not swinging until the umpire calls a strike. This will later become a common approach. This is the earliest mention of it I know, making Harry a forward thinker in yet another area of baseball."
For Richard's 2014 summary of the called rules, see
Query:
Wright even passed on meatballs down the middle? Is that smart?
Year
1872
1872.10 Unofficial Scoresheets Evolve, K's Not Reported Yet
Location:
Age of Players:
"Scoring is not yet regulated on the league level. Individual clubs and scorers are still experimenting."
-- Comment by Richard Hershberger in 8/24/2022 FB posting.
Sources:
Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, August 25, 1872
Comment:
From Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago today in baseball: "Baltimore at Philadelphia where they beat the A's 12-8. . .
I am excerpting the box score because it is an interesting format. Notice how strike outs are only indirectly indicated. The reporter, Al Wright, is also the A's official scorer, so this is not merely some journalistic idiosyncrasy. Scoring is not yet regulated on the league level. Individual clubs and scorers are still experimenting."
Steve Colbert comments: "I have seen this format a couple of times while digging through box scores in the 1870 and 1871 seasons. When reviewing some of the play-by-play's, apparently missed 3rd strikes were recorded only as errors and not logged as strike outs anywhere that I can tell."
Query:
Is it noteworthy that only one walk occurred in this 12-8 game?
Year
1872
1872.11 In Rare Extramural Game, Knickerbockers Fade, Lose 26-17 in Base Ball Game with Cricketers
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"AMATEUR GAMES -- The Manhattan Cricket Club played baseball with the Knickerbockers on the 28th [August 1872] . . . . The game was close till the eight inning, when the cricketers got in a streak of batting and the Knicks had to field one short . . . "
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, September 1, 1872.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago today in baseball:
The Manhattan Cricket Club beats the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club 26-17. To be absolutely clear, they were playing baseball. Cricket and baseball clubs playing one another in one or both games was an established practice in this era. Generally the baseball team won at baseball and the cricket team won at cricket. When a team won at the other's game it usually was a case of ridiculously great disparity of athleticism. Imagine a modern MLB team, given a reasonable time to learn the rudiments, playing a rec league amateur cricket team. Or, taking it the other direction, an India Premier League team playing an American rec league baseball team.
This provides the explanation for the Knickerbockers' loss: They were really, really Not Good. Indeed, they never had been, except for a few years in the mid-1850s when their greater experience sufficed to make them respectable. In their defense, they weren't trying to be good. They were trying to combine exercise and socializing. They were generally successful at this. But on the rare occasions they played an outside game, the results could be ugly.
Query:
[] Do we recognize any Knickerbocker players in this 1872 line-up?
[] Was it common to call the club "The Knicks" in 1872?
Year
1872
1872.15 Late-season Pro-league Proto-standings
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1872 League records format.
Sources:
Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, October 27, 1872:
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, "150 years ago in baseball, 10/282022. "The not-quite final standings. The championship season runs through the end of the month, so we are pretty close. This is the standard format in the day, and I quite like it. It takes some getting used to, but it provides information absent from the modern format."
Note: Peter Morris' A Game of Inches, 2012 Edition, p. 477, gives an overview of the evolution of the box score, starting the what is seen as the first, the New York Herald account of the game between the NYBBC and a club from Brooklyn, played at Elysian Fields, Hoboken, in October 1845. He adds that Henry Chadwick with inventing it. "Chadwick is usually credited with being the inventor of the the box score. But the facts seem to suggest that, at most, Chadwick deserves credit, at most, with adding a few categories to it."
Query:
[] Are we seeing modern "standings" (perhaps with winning pct, games behind) any time soon? Why would they list teams alphabetically rather than by number of wins?
Richard Hershberger, 10/29/2022 -- "I'm not actually sure when we start to see the modern format. That passed by me without my consciously noting. Sometime in the 1880s, maybe?"
[] Is it likely that cricket already used box scores by 1845? Would that have influenced Chadwick and others v=covering base ball?
Year
1872
1872.16 British Base Ball Tour Is Planned
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[American base ball players] "propose to travel throughout England, playing against each other, or to play against any nine that will appear against them. They will also play cricket . . . "
Sources:
'Jackson's Oxford Journal', Oxfordshire, England, November 2, 1872:
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 11/2/2022: 150 years ago in baseball: "Talk of the Boston and Philadelphia teams visiting England. This idea has been floating around for several years now, only gradually coming together. It will eventually happen in 1874. We can take this item as early marketing, to get the idea out there."
Query:
Do we know more about Thomas "Tim" Hall's role in early Boston base ball?
Do we know why the named English gentlemen had come to the US beforehand?
Do we know the names of Boston and Philly players planning to go?
Year
1872
1872.17 Athletics Show Annual Expenses, Income for 1872
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The Philly Athletics released their 1872 income/expenses for about $26,000.
Sources:
Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, November 17, 1872
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 11/17/2022, 150 years ago in baseball: "The Athletic Club's financial statement for 1872. Professional baseball had not yet reached the point where it hid its books and claimed poverty. Here in 1872 the books were treated as a public matter, and the poverty was entirely genuine. This is an "inside baseball" discussion, but worth examining.
If you just look at the bottom line, the club came out just barely ahead for the year. It looks even better when you see that they paid out $3000 to retire debt. (For a debt of $5141? Perhaps there was some negotiated forgiveness. We are not told.) But look at the top line: Dues from members. The Athletics were not a stock company, but a club of the old fraternal model, which sponsored a baseball team. What is in it for the dues-paying members? They aren't meeting twice a week in the summer to take their exercise together. Those days are long past. They are essentially a booster club. The team won the pennant last year, so people are eager to associate themselves with it, and to secure premium seating. Spoiler alert: Boston will get this year's pennant.
The real question is can a club field a successful professional team based on gate receipts? There are a few odds and ends of additional revenue, but they are tiny. The answer we see here is "no." Take out the member dues, and even if we also take out the debt payment, the result is in the red. The largest expense by far is player salaries. (Harry Painter, in case you were wondering, is the "superintendent," i.e. the groundskeeper.) The challenge will be to lower this expense line. Another spoiler: Things will get worse before they get better. Baseball of the 1870s will be strewn with financial failures." ---
Stephen Dodson added: "This is fascinating. I was always outraged at the collusion to keep players' salaries down, but I never realized how tight the finances were. The other remedy would have been to charge more for admittance, but I guess they were already charging what the market would bear?"
Richard replied, in part: "The solution they found going into the 1880 season was the reserve system. This still exists in modified form, now via collective bargaining and for a limited portion of a player's career. Something like this was necessary. Even the more thoughtful players recognized this. When the Brotherhood formed after fifteen years after this excerpt, its position was to accept the reserve system. Selling or trading players without the player's consent was a different matter entirely. This was a line in the sand. In the excitement leading up to the Players' League war the distinction between the reserve and player sales was lost, but that was a matter of excited passions."
Query:
His anyone systematically tracked player salaries in he early pro years?
A: Baseball reference lists 13 players as being on the Athletics in 1871. Three of these played only 1 game. The standard roster of 10 players were paid an average of $1,500 apiece, per the article saying the players were paid $15,000 and change. [ba]
Year
1872
1873.11 Outfield Duties Evolve -- Red Stockings Credited
Game:
The old style of playing the outfield, in which all that was required of a player was to catch the ball whenever it came near to his position, has been superseded. . . . Now, ' headwork' is considered essential. . . ."
Sources:
New York Clipper, February 8, 1873
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, 2/9/2023, 150 years ago in baseball : "advances in outfield play. This is another in the series of innovations Harry Wright made in Cincinnati, working their way into the general baseball consciousness.
Think of a Little League team. Not one of the teams you see on TV in Williamsport, but a little kid team coached by one of dads. The kids put in the outfield have figured out their spot and have a sense of the territory they are responsible for. So they go out to their spot, and if the ball comes into their territory, they do their best. If it goes into someone else's territory, they stand and watch the show.
Part of getting good is moving past this, learning where to go and make themselves useful even when the ball doesn't come to them. This stuff all had to be figured out. This was a large part of why the Red Stockings were so good. They were further along the road of figuring this stuff out, giving them a fielding advantage over those guys standing and watching the play. Here in 1873, the good teams have all got this figured out, in principle if not necessarily in detail, but it is still new enough that it is being explained here to the general baseball public."
Query:
[] Is there a reason that the writer did not credit the Red Stockings as innovators here?
[] If the Red Stockings exhibited these types of innovations in swings to the East in 1868-1869, why are they noted only 4 or 5 years later in New York?
[] Why would RFers want to hug the right field foul line? Were hitters trying to looking for cheap hits by hitting soft liners just beyond first base?
A: Perhaps to better track down errant throws to 1st base? [ba]
[] What is our best source on Red Stocking innovations and how they spread?
Year
1873
1873.12 Ladies BB Club Forms in Kansas
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"Some of the young ladies of our city have organized a base ball club,and will soon be ready, we understand, to challenge the Arkansas valley club for the belt."
Sources:
Wichita City Eagle February 13, 1873.
Comment:
Richard Hershberger, (FB posting, 2/13/2023): 150 years ago in baseball: "A female baseball club. Or at least so it is reported. It often is hard to be sure about such things. Female clubs definitely existed, but the serious ones tended to be discreet about it, rather than put up with jackass men gawking. Was there a political aspect to this? I'm glad you asked! Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the women's rights activist, reportedly organized one. There also were very public female nines, where jackass men paying for the privilege of gawking was the whole point. These were invariably organized by men, typically shady operators, and were not serious baseball outfits. As for the club reported here, I know nothing else about it. The Arkansas Valleys were a local male club. I am skeptical of an intersex game taking place, but I'll keep an eye out for it."
Kansas had become a state in 1861. In 1870, Wichita's population numbered 689 souls.
Query:
Is there a good source for Elizabeth Cady Stanton's interest in 19C base ball?
Year
1873
1873.13 Ballpark Admission Fees To Be Set at Twenty-five Cents -- not higher -- for Pro Games
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"Manager (Nick) Young, of Washington, very wisely advocates the adoption of the twenty-five cent tariff of admission to professional contests this season, and the half-dozen professional clubs of the country had better adopt is advice. They will find it difficult to collect large audiences even at twenty-five cents this season . . . As for fifty cents, that is not a sum that will not be longer countenanced."
Sources:
New York Sunday Mercury, February 16, 1873.
Comment:
[A] From Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago in baseball (2/16/2023 FB posting): "The discussion over the price of admission. This discussion has been going on since 1866, when some clubs were delighted to discover that spectators were willing to pay the princely sum of 25 cents to see a game. This raised the question, might not they be willing to pay even more? Experiments ran all the way up to one dollar, but that clearly was overreach. The discussion settled into 25 versus 50 cents. It will go on, on these terms, into the 1890s. This seems curious from the modern perspective, but this was an era of essentially zero inflation. Inflation as a fact of life is really a post-WWII thing.
Speaking of inflation, what does this cost of admission translate to today [2023]? This is a bit tricky. First off, the basic admission is for standing room. Admission to the grandstand typically was another 25 cents. Various auxiliary bleacher sections will be added in future years, but here in 1873 things are still pretty basic. So if we assume the desire to sit down, we are really looking at 50 versus 75 cents. The next problem is that inflation calculators aren't really meaningful across widely separated eras. Labor was cheap, so even middle class households hired "help." Food was expensive, this being before the Green Revolution in agriculture. Housing was cheap, but you got what you paid for. We spend far more for transportation nowadays, with the ability (leading often to the necessity) to go vastly longer distances in relative comfort. Cell phone plans in the 1873s were very cheap, but the service was terrible. And so on. So simply punching this into an inflation calculator doesn't tell us as much as one might think. So taking this with a huge grain of salt, use a multiplier of x25. This is too low, in terms of daily life, since we have more disposable income today, but it gives a very rough idea. So that 50 cents to get in and get a seat translates conservatively to twelve dollars or so. I leave as an exercise for the student to compare this with prices today, but with the admonition to include the cheap seats in your analysis, not just the field level seats behind home plate, and to consider the physical characteristics of that seat (possibly with a cup holder, the greatest addition to ball parks within my lifetime), the sightlines, and the proximity and nature of restroom facilities."
[B] From John Thorn, email of 2/17/2023: "BTW, the National League's stand of 1876 (a 50-cent admission) nearly killed it in the cradle, but was vital to establishing it, in the longer run, as a professional entertainment."
Query:
[] Do we know how often 50-cent admissions were charged prior to 1873?
[] Was Young's recommendation in fact smoothly adopted for the 1873 season?
Year
1873
1886.1 First League Championship Trophy is Commissioned
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"The Wiman trophy, despite the doubts expressed above, was designed and created expressly to be awarded to the winner of the American Association pennant. Absolutely unique because it is the only trophy intended explicitly for an American Association championship club, it was commissioned by the owner of the New York Metropolitans, Erastus Wiman, in 1886.
Other trophies and pennants of the 19th century — the Hall Cup, The Police Gazette Trophy and Pennant, the (William Chase) Temple Cup, and The Pittsburg Chronicle–Telegraph Trophy — were exclusively awarded to National League champions. The 19th century (Helen) Dauvray Cup trophy and medals were reserved for the world champions and were awarded to the winning team at the conclusion of the World Series."
Sources:
Robert H Shaefer, "The Wiman Trophy, and the Man for Whom It was Named, Base Ball, Vol. I №2 (2007), p. 55.
[Reprised in John Thorn's Our Game blog, 2/14/2022]
see https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-wiman-trophy-and-the-man-for-whom-it-was-named-14c334840975.
Comment:
Erastus Wiman, Owner of the American Association's New York Metropolitan Club commissioned a silver trophy for the championship of the 1887 season of the American Association.
Query:
Is this indeed the first such trophy in base ball history?
Year
1886