Clipping:Indoor baseball 8

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Date Saturday, November 8, 1890
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Indoor base ball is becoming quite popular all over the country, but strange to say, has not yet affected Philadelphia. Chicago has many clubs, and the sport is rapidly gaining there. Winter base ball was invented by George W. Hancock and Augustus J. White, of the Farragut Boat Club of Chicago, in the year 1887, and has become a favorite amusement in the East. The game can be played in any form which allows the necessary space for the bases. It is played with a large soft ball, and a bat which resembles a billiard cue, being 2 ft. and 9 in. long and 1¼ in. in diameter. The four bases are 1½ ft. square. There are nineteen rules which govern the game as follows:

1—The pitcher's box shall be six feet long by three feet wide, and twenty-two feet from home base. 2—The bases shall be twenty-seven feet apart. 3—Eight or nine men may play on a side. 4—Only shoes with rubber soles can be sued. 5—Only straight arm pitching will be allowed. 6—A batted ball inside of foul line is fair. 7—A batter ball outside of foul line shall be foul. 8—Third strike caught is out. 9—A foul tip or fly caught is out. 10—Four unfairly pitched balls gives striker first base. 11—A pitched ball striking the batter is a dead ball, but does not give base. 12—A base-runner must not leave his base when the ball is in the pitcher's hand. 13—A runner must not leave his base on a ball not struck, until it has reached or passed the catcher. 14—A batted ball caught in rebounding from a wall is not out. 15—In over-runner first base the runner may turn back either way. 16—If a batter purposely kicked a ball he has batted he is out. 17—If a ball rebounds and strikes batter he is not out. 18—The game shall be judged by two umpires. The first will stand in the centre field and give judgments on the second and third bases. The other shall stand behind the catcher and just all points of the game. The two will change places at the end of every inning. They must not be members of either club in the game. 19—The umpires shall be sole judges of the game.

Indoor base ball was tried in Philadelphia in the State Fair building. It was not a success. Possibly some share of the want of success may be attributed to mismanagement and the inaccessibility of the building. Whether the game will spread or remain one peculiar to Chicago is a hard nut to crack. But it certainly has possibilities, although in many ways still crude. Time may evolve a great deal more than people imagine out of this latest variation of the national sport.

Source Sporting Life
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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