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I
<p>"A boy named Plaff was killed at West Chester, Pa., by being hit under the ear by a ball-club."</p> +
E
<p>"And it is a fact known to very few, that away back in the early history of Evansville, ball was the most popular game. But it was then called town ball. On every Saturday at 12 o'clock the great majority of the wholesale and retail houses closed their doors and the merchants would go to a large vacant common which now is filled up by Chandler Avenue, Blackford Avenue and Mulberry street, there to engage in a game of town ball. Among the best players of that time were John Wymond, who for many years was in the paper business here, William E. Hollingsworth, Thomas J. Hollingsworth, Edward E. Law, Dr. I. Haas, the late Wiley Little, Samuel E. Gilbert, Henry Dodge, Billy Caldwell, Billy Baker, John S. Hopkins and a number of others who were the leading men of Evansville in those days. The players used a large rubber ball, solid and almost the same size as the league ball now in use. To catch the ball on the bounce or after it had hit the ground the first time, was considered perfectly fair. This would be a joke at present. There was only one base or home plate where the batter stood. There was only one batter of course and no catcher and the game was simply like batting flies for practice at any league park, with this exception. Whenever the fielder (and they were all fielders except the man who stood at the bat,) caught the ball either before it struck the ground or before it struck the ground the second time, he marched in, took his place at the bat and tossing up his own ball (for there were no pitchers), knocked it as far as he could. The great point of skill was in knocking the ball so that it would not bounce. In other words, in knocking grounders or in knocking it as far as he could, so that the fielders could not catch it on the bounce from where they were stationed. I remember that my father, the late Samuel E. Gilbert, took a great interest in the game and would as soon have missed the Sunday morning choir as he could his Saturday afternoon ball game and he imagined that he was a great catcher, but one day he got directly under a high fly which slipped through his hands and struck him exactly on the bridge of the nose and for two weeks he had about the worst pair of black eyes ever seen in the city of Evansville. This club played for several years and even after base ball had gotten a start some of these old timers imagined that the new game would be equally as simple as the old one. So on a certain afternoon a lot of the old merchants, all of whom had been town ball players, challenged the clerks for a game. This was pie for the clerks, but the old timers did not know it. We all went to the park and I suppose through having a relative in the game, I was selected as pitcher and used nothing but a plain drop ball, but there was not one of those old timers who hit any closer than about one foot from it, and they actually had the nerve to order me from the plate on the grounds that I was not playing fair. When their turn came to pitch, what we did to those straight balls was good and plenty. I do not remember the score, but I do remember that that was the last time the old timers ever challenged any of the younger generation. They seemed to realize that things had changed since their day. It was in the '50s that Charlie Wentz a dashing young college graduate from the east, came here and was appointed agent of the Adams Express Company, which was then in Chandler block where the barber shop now is. He was the first one to introduce the regular game of base ball in this city and was assisted by the late Emerson B. Morgan, also an eastern man, and George Bartlett, the young member of the firm of John H. Bartlett & Co., who were in the dry goods business here.</p>
<p>This was in the year 1866. I do not remember just where they first played but it was on the open grounds and a huge back stop of boards was put up just behind the catcher. The game at that time was new, even in the east and the rules far different from what they are at the present. The pitcher had a great deal better show as did the batter and such scores as two to one or even 10 to 5 were unheard of. They generally ran between the 20's and the 50’s."</p>
<p>Gilbert, History of Evansville pp 106-108</p>
1
M
<p>"Barton ad Flamborough" = The clubs of Barton and West Flamborough?</p> +
S
<p>"Before baseball became popular among Nicaraguans, the British, who occupied the Atlantic Coast, introduced cricket. However, a businessman from the U.S. named Albert Addlesburg who lived in Bluefields in the 1880s became fed up with local sports authorities and convinced two cricket teams to switch to baseball instead. The two baseball teams had their first game in 1887, and the first official games took place in Managua in 1891." http://cultureboxes.unm.edu/countries/Nicaragua/resources/Culture-Box-of-Nicaragua.pdf</p> +
H
<p>"Brooklyn E.D." was an old name for Williamsburg and Greenpoint, annexed by Brooklyn in 1854. The older Brooklyn was called the Western District.</p> +
C
<p>"But the trophy baseballs preserved in the Hall of Fame’s collection come from three baseball games Miller played closer to home. Written on each baseball is the date and score of the game in which the ball was used.</p>
<p>Two baseballs come from a pair of matchups between the Peterboro and Cazenovia clubs. The first game, which was played in Cazenovia, N.Y. on Aug. 6, 1864, resulted in a 23-17 victory for Peterboro and, according to accounts, a dominant pitching performance from Miller.</p>
<p>“The ‘Home’ nine also did well and owe their defeat, in our opinion, entirely to the terrific pitching of Miller, whose style of delivering balls is new to country players and require some practice to hit,” the <em>Cazenovia Republican</em> wrote."</p> +
E
<p>"East New York" is an alternate name for the town of New Lots, on Long Island, which was annexed by Brooklyn in 1886. [ba]</p> +
G
<p>"Gift is a German word for "poison." Thus it is conceivable that the German game derived from the French game of Balle Empoisonee. One can speculate that players were put out when a ball touched them.</p>
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1
<p>"It seems to me that sky-ball was a trapball-type game." -- Tom Altherr, 2.19.2021</p>
<p>A gable is an end-wall of a structure. Tom suggests that the first game reported may have been barn ball.</p>
<p> </p> +
-
<p>"More recent art from elsewhere in China shows polo-like games being played on horseback with sticks"</p>
<p> evidence for ball games in Eurasia from ca. 3000-year-old Yanghai tombs in the Turfan depression of Northwest China Patrick Wertmanna,⁎,</p>
<p>"'We cannot determine based on current evidence that these balls can be linked with polo,' says Jeffrey Blomster, an archeologist at George Washington University . . . 'the fact that all three are nearly the same size suggests a similar use for all three.'"</p>
<p>For comments on the game played with these balls see <em>Supplemental Text, </em>below.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>[] For information on balls found from even earlier times, in Egyptian tombs from 2600 BCE, see [[-2600c.1]]</p>
<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en"> </h1>
<p> </p>
<p> </p> +
I
<p>"Old Jacksonborough" is about 19 miles west of Charleston in Colleton County.</p> +
R
<p>"Rock City" was a nickname for Nashville in the 19th century. See the book "Nashville, Tennessee: The Rock City of the Great and Growing South," published around 1900. http://books.google.com/books?id=nCptNQEACAAJ</p>
<p><br/>There was also a separate Rock City club located in Culleoka, TN at a later period.</p> +
E
<p>"The Eckfords disbanded as a base ball club in November of 1872 but remained a club until 1965." -- Eric Miklich (email of 11/13/2020).</p> +
<p>"The Field" side was allowed 11 players and were given six outs each inning. Future impact player, Al Reach played second for "The Field" and his brother, Bob, played centerfield. "The Field" side hit four home runs (one each by the Reach brothers) to the "First Nine's" one.</p>
<p>Note that Henry Chadwick is listed as a member or the Atlantic of Brooklyn Club.</p> +
B
<p>"The Green" is described in The Sporting News as "north of 12th street and near 3rd avenue"</p> +
J
<p>"The Julien Base Ball Club disbanded and a new club formed called the "Excelsior."" - Dubuque Daily Herald, Apr. 21, 1867</p> +
1
<p>"The Thistle," Aug. 4, 1807, p. 4, notes the following: "our forefathers used to play, under trees, the game of Mall and Ball, the same game that the learned Students of Harvard call Bat and Ball."</p>
<p>Mall and Ball seems to be a variant name for the game Pall Mall, a precursor of croquet. So is Harvard "bat and ball" croquet, rather than a baseball-like game? [ba]</p> +
T
<p>"The Tuscaroras allege that unfair means were used by the Senecas in putting on fresh men at the end of every game, which with the Tuscarorasis not an ancient custom."</p> +
1