Block:English Baseball in London/Suffolk on August 13 1874
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| English Baseball |
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| Data | On the same day as above, a letter entitled "The Game of Base Ball" appeared in another London paper: "Sir,--The notoriety recently acquired by our Transatlantic cousins in connection with the above game...(has) led to the belief on the part of many... that the game owes its origin to America...It may inform some and remind others that base ball is thoroughly English, and during the 16th century occupied a foremost place in the list of our national sports. It is alluded to by Shakespeare and other writers as an old rustic game, and was an indispensable accompaniment to the amusements provided for the festive May-day gatherings on village greens during the reign of the Merrie Monarch and...his successors...However, the game of base ball gradually lost its patrons, and is now known to a comparative few. The knowledge of the game...lingers chiefly in our most remote rural districts, including some villages in the county of Suffolk, where, more than thirty years since, it was a common game between the lads and lasses...In Cambridgeshire it is known by the name 'Tut'." |
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| Sources | Daily News (London), Aug. 13, 1874, p. 3 |
| Block Notes | Another rare recognition that baseball was originally English. Likely the writer was wrong about English baseball dating from the 16th century—confusing it with prisoner's base as have many since—but was unusually well informed in knowing that the game was still being played in rural districts, including Suffolk. This letter is also the only known historical source to equate English baseball and tut-ball, and by locating the latter game in Cambridgeshire expands southward the territory where it was known to be played. Interestingly, the day after this letter was published, a short article appeared in a Yorkshire newspaper, the Bradford Observer, in which the writer appeared to have merged the contents of this letter with the letter in The Times from “Grandmother.” The Yorkshire article lifted whole phrases from this letter, such as the stuff about the 16th century and the Merrie Monarch, as well as the Lady Hervey quotation from The Times' letter. |
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