Massachusetts Game

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Game	Massachusetts Game
Game Family	Baseball Baseball
Location	New England, WNY, Upper Midwest
Regions	US
Eras	1800s, Predecessor"Predecessor" is not in the list (Pre-1700, 1700s, 1800s, Post-1900, Contemporary) of allowed values for the "Game Eras" property.
Invented	No
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Description	This is the game played according to rules that were codified in May 1858 in Dedham Massachusetts. It featured short basepaths, an absence of foul ground, plugging of runners, a smaller and softer and lighter ball, wooden stakes in place of sascks as bases,winners definied as the first team to reach 100 “tallies,” and a one-out-side-out rule. It remains unclear how close these rules -- written 13 years after the Knickerbocker rules were codified -- were to round ball, goal ball, and/or base games played in MA for the previous 50-75 years. The Massachusetts Game declined fairly rapidly after 1860.
Sources	The Mass game rules appeared in Mayhew and Baker, Base Ball. A Manual of Cricket and Base Ball, With Rules and Regulations Illustrated. (Boston, Mayhew and Baker, 1858), pages20 - 24. For a more modern treatment, see John Thorn's Our Game blog at https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-game-that-got-away-a385699cd936
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
Comment	See the article on the Massachusetts game in the Origins Committee Newsletter, September, 2021. Edit with form to add a comment
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