1805.4

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Enigmatic Report: NY Gentlemen Play Game of "Bace," and Score is Gymnastics 41, Sons of Diagoras 34.

Salience	Prominent
Tags	Pre-Knicks NYCPre-Knicks NYC
Location
City/State/Country:	New York, NY, United States
Modern Address
Game	BaseBase
Immediacy of Report
Age of Players	AdultAdult
Holiday
Notables
Text	"Yesterday afternoon a contest at the game of Bace took place on "the Gymnasium," near Tylers' between the gentlemen of two different clubs for a supper and trimmings . . . . Great skill and activity it is said was displayed on both sides, but after a severe and well maintained contest, Victory, which had at times fluttered a little form one to the other, settled down on the heads of the Gymnastics, who beat the Sons of Diagoras 41 to 34."
Sources	New York Evening Post, April 13, 1805, page 3 column 1. Submitted by George Thompson, 8/2/2005. George Thompson has elaborated on this singular find at George Thompson, "An Enigmatic 1805 "Game of Bace" in New York," Base Ball Journal (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 55-57. Our Game blog, Feb. 27, 2024. The game was played on Hudson Square.
Warning
Comment	Note: So, folks . . . was this a baserunning ball game, some version of prisoner's base (a team tag game resembling our childhood game Capture the Flag) with scoring, or what? John Thorn [email of 2/27/2008] has supplied a facsimile of the Post report, and also found meeting announcements for the Diagoras in the Daily Advertiser for 4/11 and 4/12/1805. David Block (see full text in Supplemental Text, below) offers his 2017 thoughts on this entry:  Email from David Block, 2/19/2017: "Gents, Just a quick note to follow up on John's blog post from last week about the 1805 "bace" game. My opinion on whether that game was baseball or prisoner's base has gone back and forth over the years. As of now I tend to lean 60-40 to baseball. Other than the example from Chapman that John cited, I've never come across a use of the term bace to signify either game. Even if I had it wouldn't mean much as the word "base" has been used freely over the years for both of them. The mention of a score in the 1805 article is significant. Rarely are scores indicated in any of the reports of prisoner's base (prison base, prison bars, etc.) that I've come across. Usually they just indicate one side or the other as winner. There are a couple of exceptions. I know of one English example from 1737 where a newspaper reported on a match of prison-bars between eleven men from the city of Chester against a like number from the town of Flint in Wales. "The Cheshire gentlemen got 11, and the Flintshire gentlemen 2," it noted. I've also seen another English report from 1801, also of prison-bars, where one side was said to have "produced a majority of five prisoners." Still, George's example is American, where I suspect that, even at that early date, baseball was probably the more popular game of the two. Regarding "baste," I have seen at least two dozen examples of the term "baste-ball" used in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's clear from context that this was an alternate spelling of base-ball, along with bass-ball. I don't doubt the same was true for the few instances of baste-ball's use in America. "My opinion on whether that game was baseball or prisoner's base has gone back and forth over the years. As of now I tend to lean 60-40 to baseball. Other than the example from Chapman that John cited, I've never come across a use of the term bace to signify either game. Even if I had it wouldn't mean much as the word "base" has been used freely over the years for both of them. The mention of a score in the 1805 article is significant. Rarely are scores indicated in any of the reports of prisoner's base (prison base, prison bars, etc.) that I've come across. Usually they just indicate one side or the other as winner." Best to all, David" John Thorn email of Feb., 25, 2024: "Hi, George. I found this thesis invaluable for my understanding of early ball play in New York, and thus for EDEN. Do you have it? Here's a Dropbox link [omitted] in case you don't. Once upon a time we had wondered about the location of the Gymnastic Ground, near Tyler's. I found this pretty compelling (before this pleasure ground was Tyler's, it was Brannon's): Some idea of the garden during Brannon's tenure can be gotten from scattered sources. In 1842, for a suit in the Court of Chancery involving the ownership of the Church Farm, a group of elderly men and women gave depositions describing this part of the city as they recalled it in the eighteenth century. Several testified that the garden was enclosed by a fence; one testified that Brannon maintained a ball alley; and another owned that between 1789 and 1793, during his days as a student at Columbia College (then located on Church Street between Barclay and Murray), he and "the collegians were in the habit of frequenting . . . Brannon's Garden." [“Chancery Reports (Sandford), 4:716, 724, & 730.] I also have bound volumes of these chancery reports, which to my knowledge have not been digitized; I suppose I could check! Also, I append an item possibly missed by all of us, from the New-York Herald (New York, New York) May 4, 1805 Note that the Columbia College clubs' game of bace is here rendered as basse. The mention of "hands in" fully persuades me that this is a game of bat and ball." the game report first appeared in the New-York Evening Post of May 1, and next in The Herald of May 4. David Block agrees           Edit with form to add a comment
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Source Image	[[Image:|left|thumb]]
External Number
Submitted by	George Thompson, David Block
Submission Note	19CBB Posting, Email to Protoball
Has Supplemental Text	Yes

1805.4 Enigmatic Report: NY Gentlemen Play Game of "Bace," and Score is Gymnastics 41, Sons of Diagoras 34."

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