1854.16
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The Eagle Club's Field Diagram - A Real Diamond
Salience | Noteworthy |
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Tags | Club Constitutions/BylawsClub Constitutions/Bylaws |
Location | Greater New York CityGreater New York City |
City/State/Country: | nyc, ny, us |
Modern Address | |
Game | Base BallBase Ball |
Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
Age of Players | AdultAdult |
Holiday | |
Notables | |
Text | John Thorn has supplied an image of the printed "Plan of the Eagle Ball Club Bases" from its 1854 rulebook.
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Sources | "Revised Constitution, by-laws and rules of the Eagle Ball Club," (Oliver and Brother, New York, 1854). |
Warning | |
Comment | It seems possible that he who designed this graphic did not intend it to be taken literally, but it sure is different. Folks around MIT here would call it a squashed rhombus. Using the diagram's own scale for 42 paces, and accepting the questionable guess that most people informally considered a pace to measure 3 feet, the four basepaths each measure 132 feet. But the distance from home to 2B is just 79 feet, and from 1B to 3B it's 226 feet (for football fans: that's about 75 yards). Foul ground ("Outside Range" on the diagram) leaves a fair territory that is not marked in a 90 degree angle, but at . . . wait a sec, I'll find a professor and borrow a protractor, ah, here . . . a 143 degree angle. Edit with form to add a comment |
Query | Do we have evidence that the Eagle preferred, at least initially, a variant playing field? Or did the Eagle Club just assign this diagramming exercise to some Harvard person? Is this image published in some recent source? Edit with form to add a query |
Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
External Number | |
Submitted by | John Thorn |
Submission Note | Emails of 9/2/2009 and 2/11/2010 |
Has Supplemental Text |
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