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Showing 20 pages using this property.

1

1860c.27 +

Farnham was born in 1849. This account seems to imply that some minimum number of crossings from base to base was required to avoid an out. +

1845.27 +

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. +

1872.10 +

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." +

1872.6 +

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." +

B

Bittle-Battle +

From https://erenow.net/common/fourbritishfolkwaysinamerica1989/27.php "Another rule-bound version of an English folk sport was called town ball, the Massachusetts game or the New England game. It was played with a bat, a ball and four bases on a field sixty feet square, by eight to twenty players, each of whom kept his own individual tally. The New England game was also descended from a family of English traditional games, of which perhaps the nearest equivalent was called bittle-battle. Its rules were remarkably similar to modern baseball. Bittle-battle was played with four bases (each about a foot square) 48 feet apart. The pitcher stood 24 feet from home base, and each batter was out if the ball was caught, or if it touched a base before the batter reached it. The game of bittle-battle was played in southeastern England, particularly in Kent. It was brought to Massachusetts in the early seventeenth century, and became so common that by the eighteenth century it bore the name of the region." Bell-Irving, "Mayfield: The Story of an Old Wealden Village" (1903), p. 16, says the following: "Stoolball, an old Sussex game, . . . is played by girls, and is similar to cricket, the chief difference being that a round bat is held up against a wicket board one foot square, on a post between four and five feet in height. Tradition says it was originally played by milkmaids, holding up their stools for wickets, hence its name. Another name for the game was 'bittle-battle' (bittle, a wooden milk bowl, bat, a piece of wood)." [ba] +

M

Madison Square Park +

In other words, the New York Club’s grounds lay outside today’s Madison Square but within the pre-1844 park; the Parade, as Madison Square was called prior to its formal dedication as a public park in 1847, was originally a twenty-acre tract bounded by Third and Seventh avenues and Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth streets. The “roadside resort” was named the Madison Cottage but was also known as Thompson’s for its proprietor. (Our game blog, Dec. 20, 2021) +

U

Union Club of Lansingburgh +

Lansingburgh Weekly Chronicle, July 20, 1865, has an ad for the first annual picnic of this club, implying that it was existing at least as early as 1864. Early name Union BBC of Rensselaer County +

G

Goal Ball +

Note: For searches, "gool," "gould," and "gool ball" have sometimes given relevant results. +

L

Lenape Club of Delaware +

On last Friday afternoon, the anxiously looked for contest between the Lenape Base Ball Club of Delaware and the Mansfield Club took place on the Mansfield grounds in a large field adjoining Hedges' Grove on East Market Street. A large crowd estimated at not less than 2,000. The Mansfield Club beat the favored Lenape team by a count of 76 to 28. The batting of Messrs. R.H. Rowland and W. Dougherty was excellent, and the science displayed by L.A. Strong and James D. Bell, in catching showed they were not novices to it. Mansfield Herald, June 12, 1867 +

1

1845.32 +

Richard Hershberger, 2/3/2021 "I don't believe I have seen this before: An advertisement in the NY Atlas October 5, 1845, for the upcoming baseball game between New York and Brooklyn players. It is of particular interest as it lists both the first and last names of the Brooklyn players." "I take the two games as being, on the one side, a function of the New York BBC, and on the other side an unofficial function of some members of the Union Star CC. One of the accounts carefully distinguishes between the New York Club and Brooklyn players." Tom Gilbert, 2/3/2021: "Some known cricketers in there." John Thorn, 2/3/20211: <a>https://protoball.org/1845.32</a> <a>Protoball Chronology #1845.32</a> NY Atlas Advises: THE OLD GAME OF BASE REVIVED Salience Prominent City/State/Country: <a title="Brooklyn, NY">Brooklyn</a>, <a title="NY">NY</a>, <a title="United States">United States</a> Game <a title="Chronology:Base">Base</a> Age of Players <a title="Chronology:Adult">Adult</a> Text <div>"THE OLD GAME OF BASE REVIVED–There will be a game of Base come off on MONDAY, October</div> <div>5th, between eight New York players and eight of Brooklyn, on the U.S.C [Union Star] Club ground. The game will commence at 11 o’clock, weather permitting; if not, the first fair day. The following are the Brooklyn players:</div> <div> </div> <div>John Hunt,</div> <div>Theodore Foman</div> <div>Edward Hardy</div> <div>John Waley</div> <div>John Hyne</div> <div>Stephen Swift</div> <div>William Sharp </div> <div> Samuel Myers. " </div> Sources NY Atlas, October 5, 1845 Comment Richard Hershberger, 2/3/2021 "I don't believe I have seen this before: An advertisement in the NY Atlas October 5, 1845, for the upcoming baseball game between New York and Brooklyn players. It is of particular interest as it lists both the first and last names of the Brooklyn players." "I take the two games as being, on the one side, a function of the New York BBC, and on the other side an unofficial function of some members of the Union Star CC. One of the accounts carefully distinguishes between the New York Club and Brooklyn players." Tom Gilbert, 2/3/2021: "Some known cricketers in there." John Thorn, 2/3/2021: "Location of the match: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/ancient.html">http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/ancient.html</a>" Submitted by <a title="Richard Hershberger">Richard Hershberger</a> Submission Note 19CBB Posting, 2/3/2021

1872.9 +

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 https://protoball.org/Called_Pitches +

1872.11 +

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. +

M

Massachusetts Game +

See the article on the Massachusetts game in the Origins Committee Newsletter, September, 2021. +

1

1768.2 +

Still, it's fairly significant in that it becomes, by far, the earliest known appearance of baseball in a dictionary. The next earliest one we know of was almost 80 years later, in James Orchard Halliwell's 1847 "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words." It is quite interesting that "baseball" appears as one whole word, not the two-word "base ball," or hyphenated "base-ball" that were customary in the era. Also of note is the dictionary's indication that the word "base" was an alternate name for baseball. "A Society of Gentlemen" was the pseudonym under which the Encyclopaedia Britannica was first published, also in 1768. +

A

Akron BBC +

The Akron Base Ball Club will play a match game of base ball, with Mansfield Club, at 3 o'clock, P.M., on the farm of Peter Bell, on West Fourth Street. Mansfield Herald, July 10, 1867 The game of base ball between the Akron and Mansfield Clubs, took place on the farm of Peter Bell, near this place, on last Wednesday and was witnessed by a large crowd. The game resulted in the success of the Akron Club by a score of 63 to 34. Much dissatisfaction was expressed at the conduct of the Umpire who first superintended the game. Same July 17, 1867 +

I

Irish Rounders +

The GAA version of rounders is very similar to <a title="Softball" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softball">softball</a>, the main difference being that the game is played with baseball-sized bats, balls and field. However, baseball-style gloves are not allowed. The main differences between <a title="Baseball" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball">baseball</a> and the English version of the game are that the rounders bat is much shorter and is usually swung one-handed; misses or strikes are not called, so there are no walks or strike-outs; each batter receives only one good ball and must run whether they hit it or not. Other differences include the posts for marking the bases, which should be wooden, and are preferably encased in plastic sheaths, the layout of the pitch, especially the location of the last base; and the bowler's arm motion, which is an underarm pendulum action, as in softball. (from Wikipedia arrticle on Irish rounders) +

C

Club of Peterboro v Club of Oneida Castle on 13 August 1864 +

The final baseball in the collection comes from a matchup between Peterboro and Oneida Castle on Aug. 13, 1864. The game was called in the eighth inning due to rain, but the Peterboro club wrapped up another victory – albeit with a closer result this time at 18-13. According to the Cazenovia Republican, as a result of the victory, Peterboro “earned the title of the Champion club of the county.” Once again, Miller’s dominance was a highlight in the game. “G.S. Miller, captain of the Peterboro nine, [has] the reputation of being the best base ball player in this part of the country,” the Cazenovia Republican wrote." +

1

1859.49 +

The first “match” game in New Orleans between two different clubs was played August 12, 1859 between the Empire and Louisiana Base Ball Clubs, won by Empire [Times-Picayune, August 13, 1859]. [ba] Another pair of clubs followed closely. The Southern and Magnolia clubs played in early October. [John Husman, "Ohio's First Baseball Game," July 16, 2004, page 4 (no source given).] +

1829.4 +

The game played was wicket. See the Ilion Citizen, March 13, 1903: One Saturday afternoon, in the fall of 1829 while a party of academics were playing a game of wicket ball on the "green," Philo Petrie, a student, was hit by a bat and almost instantly fell dead. Ozias Nellis was at the wicket, defending it, and in his playing raised his bat to strike the fall; as it came he struck but missed the ball, and momentum of the blow swung Nellis and the bat around, raising the bat as it went, and hit Petrie, who was standing near, on the side of his head. Petrie suddenly clapped both hands to his head, and in a moment fell headlong to the ground. No blame was laid on Nellis; the blow was accidental, but fatal. +

R

Rocky Mountain Club of Virginia City v Rocky Mountain Club of Virginia City in 1866 +

The Montana Post (Virginia City) June 2, 1866, reports the game between the two nines of the "Rocky Mountain Base Ball Club", won by the first nine by "thirty-three points" (121 to 88). F. G. Heidt is captain of the first nine. A roster is given. This game was played "near the new burying-ground"--presumably Boot Hill, just north of town (at Jefferson and Main Sts.) or the "New" Cemetery just northeast of town.. [ba] +

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