Chronology: 1701 - 1780
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The chronology from 1700 up to 1800
BC 3500000 c.1 The Thumb Comes into Play
Ever try to throw a ball, even a non-breaking pitch, without using your thumb?
"The carpometacarpal joint of Australopithecus afarensis would have allowed he range of thumb movement necessary for both key grips used in baseball."
This extinct hominid (think Lucy), thought to be as close to Homo sapiens as any species then alive, lived in eastern Africa. Their hands weren't yet adapted to throwing, but their thumbs had evolved in that general direction.
Sources:
Richard W. Young, "Evolution of the human hand: the role of throwing and
clubbing,"Journal of Anatomy (2003), pp165–174.
Comment:
Four of our metacarpal bones are aligned in the back of our hands. This fifth is between our wrist and or thumb knuckle.
Circa
3500000 B.C.
BC 2,000,000c.1 Overhand Throwing Evolves in Primates
Location:
Age of Players:
"A suite of physical changes -- such as the lowering and widening of the shoulders, and expansion of the waist, and a twisting of the humerus -- make humans especially good at throwing . . . it wasn't until the appearance of Homo erectus, about 2 million years ago" that this combination of alterations came together.
Note: Chimpanzees can only throw like a dartboard-contestant or a straight-arm cricket bowler.
Stone-tipped spears only appeared about a half a million years ago. "That means that for about 1.5 million years, when people hunted, they basically had nothing more lethal to throw than a pointed wooden stick . . . . If you want to kill something with that, you have to be able to throw that pretty hard, and you have to be accurate. Imagine how important it must have been to our ancestors to throw hard and fast."
Sources:
Roach, N.T., Venkadesan, M., Rainbow, M.J., Lieberman, D.E., June 27, 2013. "Elastic energy storage in the shoulder and the evolution of high-speed throwing in Homo." Nature. volume 498, pp. 483-486. See https://scholar.harvard.edu/ntroach/evolution-throwing
Peter Reuell, "Right Down the Middle, Explained," Harvard Gazette, June 27, 2013.See http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/06/right-down-the-middle-explained/ (includes video of human throwing motion).
Comment:
The article asserts, without supporting detail, that straight-arm (cricket-style) throwing is less effective.
Query:
Do British researchers agree that cricket-style bowling would be less effective as a hunting technique?
Do published comments on this paper add insights?
Circa
2000000 B.C.
-2000000c.2 Humans Evolve as Runners
Location:
Age of Players:
"We are very confidence that strong selection for running" <occurred some two million years ago>
Sources:
D. Bramble and D. Lieberman, "XXX," Nature, November 18, 2018.
Circa
2000000 B.C.
BC3000c.1 A Baserunning Ballgame in the Stone Age?
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1937 the Italian demography researcher Corrado Gini undertook to study a group of blond-haired Berbers in North Africa, and discovered that they played a batting/baserunning game in the sowing season.
They called the game Om El Mahag. It employed a "mother's base" and a "father's base, and baserunners were retired if their soft-toss pitch resulted in a caught fly or if they were plugged when running between bases.
[A] Contemporary experts were persuaded that the "blondness of the Berbers suggests that they brought the game with them from Europe" some fifty or more centuries earlier when cold northern climates drove civilization southward.
[B] For later accounts of this research and its interpretation, see below.
Sources:
[A] Erwin Mehl, "Baseball in the Stone Age (English translation), Western Folklore, volume 7, number 2 (April 1948), page 159.
[B] For a succinct recent summary, see David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It (UNebraska Press, 2005), pages 95-100. For a rollicking but undocumented take on possible very early safe haven games, including Om El Mahag, see Harold Peterson, The Man Who Invented Baseball (Scribner's, 1969), pages 42-46.
Warning:
Today's reader will want to determine how modern demography sees the advent of blond-haired Berbers and the evidence on the preservation of games and cultural rituals over scores of human generations.
Comment:
Peterson sees a striking resemblance of Om El Mahag to Guts Muths' "German game" as described in 1796.
Query:
Has this game been observed in other North African communities since 1937? Are alternative explanations of Om El Mahag now offered, including a much more recent importation from cricket-playing and baseball-playing areas?
Circa
3000 B.C.
-2600c.1 "The Ball Enters History"
Tags:
Age of Players:
When the ball finally enters history, it arrives as a bizarre and homoerotic form of polo played on the backs not of horses, but of humans. The account of this strange sport is fond in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first works of literature ever written. It was carved into cuneiform tablets around 2600BC. . . . "
[A translation of the text: "[(His) comrades are roused up with his ball (game), the young men of Uruk are continually disturbed in their bedrooms (with a summons to play)"]
Sources:
John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (Harper Perennial, 2012), page 36.
For the later Asian game, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-ancient-balls-xinjiang.
Warning:
Comment:
Fox places the setting for the Gilgamesh story in what is now southern Iraq.
John Fox observes (Fox, p. 37) that this ancient piggy-back ball game also is seen in Egypt's Middle Kingdom a few centuries later, and in ancient Greece, where it was known as ephedrimos.
He also reports that "the actual balls used in [Egyptian] games have turned up with some frequency in Egyptian tombs . . . . Stitched leather balls, bearing an uncanny resemblance to modern-day hacky-sacks, were stuffed with straw, reeds, hair, or yarn. Balls made of papyrus, palm leaves, and linen wound around a pottery core have turned up as well." (Fox, p. 39)
Note: In 2020, it was reported that around 1000 BCE stuffed leather balls were possibly used by Uighurs in what is now norther China, plausible in an ancient form of equestrian polo.
Query:
Do we know of speculation -- or evidence -- as to how this piggy-back ball game might have been played, and how it could have been made attractive to it players?
Circa
2600 B.C.
BC2500c.1 “Tip Cats" Found in Egyptian Ruins?
Age of Players:
Writing in 1891, Stewart Culin reported “the discovery by Mr. Flinders-Petrie of wooden ‘tip cats’ among the remains of Rahun, in the Fayoom, Egypt (circa 2500 B.C).” Culin infers that these short wooden objects, pointed on each end, were used in an ancient form of the game later know as Cat.
Sources:
Culin, Stewart, “Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, N.Y.,” Journal of American Folklore, Volume 4, number 14 (July-September 1891), page 233, note 1.
Query:
Do contemporary archeologists and/or historians agree that such items were evidence of play? Have they since found older artifacts that may be associated with cat-like games, or ball games? Can they suggest any rules for such games... Batting? Running? Fielding? Team Play?
Circa
2500 B.C.
BC2400c.1 Was Egypt the Well-Spring of Ballplaying? Text Has “Strike the Ball” Reference
Game:
[A]“The earliest known references to seker-hemat (translation: “batting the ball”) as a fertility rite and ritual of renewal are inscribed in pyramids dating to 2400 BC.” Egyptologist Peter Piccione reads Pyramid Texts Spell 254 as commanding a pharaoh to cross the heavens and “strike the ball” in the meadow of the sacred Apis bull.
[B]Piccione’s reading seems consistent with Robert Henderson’s identification of ancient Egypt as the source of ballplaying: “It is the purpose of this book to show that all modern games played with bat and ball descend from one common source: an ancient fertility rite observed by Priest–Kings in the Egypt of the Pyramids.”
Sources:
[A] Piccione, Peter, “Pharaoh at the Bat,” College of Charlestown Magazine(Spring/Summer 2003), p.36. From a clipping in the Giamatti Center’s “Origins” file in Cooperstown.
[B]Henderson, Robert W.,Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], page 4.
Comment:
David Block [Baseball Before We Knew It, page 303 (note 1)] writes that Piccione’s identification of seker-hemat with baseball is “apparently speculative in nature.”
Query:
It would be good to confirm details in an academic source and to see whether Egyptologists have any other interpretations of this text – and how Egyptian rites employed the ball as a symbol of fertility.
Circa
2400 B.C.
BC2000 to 1000ADc.1 The Ball in Ancient Play
Game:
Age of Players:
Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians—play primitive ball games for recreation, as fertility rites and in religious rituals.
Sources:
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 8-21.
Query:
Did any of these games feature base-running? Batting? Has the last 65 years of scholarship added detail to this sweeping claim?
Circa
2000 B.C.
BC2000c.1 "Egypt May Be the Birthplace" of Ballplaying
Game:
Age of Players:
"Recent excavations near Cairo, Egypt, have brought to light small balls of leather and others of wood obviously used in some outdoor sport, and probably dating back to at least 2000 years before Christ. These may be the oldest balls in existence. Hence Egypt maybe the birthplace of the original ball game whatever it was. We know, however that the Greeks and Romans played ball at a remote period. We do not know the exact nature of any of these ancient games, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman."
Sources:
William S. Walsh, A Handy Book of Curious Information (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1913), page 83. Available via Google Books search "to light small balls," 1/27/2010.
Query:
Does recent scholarship agree that these were balls, were used in sport, and date to 2000 BC? Is there further evidence about their role in Egyptian life?
Circa
2000 B.C.
BC2000c.3 Egyptian Tomb Has Earliest Depiction of Catching (Fielding) a Ball?
Tags:
Game:
The main chamber of Tomb 15 at Beni Hasan has a depiction of catching a ball, as well as throwing. Two women, each riding on the back of another woman, appear to be doing some form of ball-handling. The image of one woman pretty clearly depicts her in the act of catching ("fielding”) a ball, and the other is quite plausibly about to throw a ball toward her.
Sources:
Henderson, Robert W.,Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], page 19; the image itself is reproduced opposite page 28.
Circa
2000 B.C.
BC1500c.1 Mexican Game Believed to Use Bat, Rubber Ball
According to SABR member César González, "There are remains of rubber balls found since the time of the Olmeca culture between 1500 and 700 BC." He reports that it is believed that one of the earliest Mesoamerican games was played with a stick. A dozen rubber balls dating to 1600 BCE or earlier have been found in El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan.
Sources:
[Haslip-Viera, Gabriel: Bernard Ortiz de Montellano; Warren Barbour "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs," Current Anthropology, Vol. 38, No. 3, (Jun., 1997), pp. 419-441]
Per email from César González, 12/6/2008.
Query:
Can we add specific sources for these points?
Circa
1500 B.C.
BC1460.1 Egyptian Tomb Inscriptions Show Bats, Balls
Age of Players:
Wall inscriptions in Egyptian royal tombs depict games using bats and balls.
According to Egyptologist Peter Piccione, "A wall relief at the temple of Deir et-Bahari showing Thutmose III playing under the watchful eye of the goddess Hathor dates to 1460 BC. Priests are depicted catching the balls . . . this was really a game."
Sources:
Per Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 20.
Comment:
Henderson's source may be his ref #127-- Naville, E., "The Temple of Deir el Bahari (sic)," Egyptian Exploration Fund. Memoirs, Volume 19, part IV, plate C [London, 1901]. Also, Batting the Ball, by Peter A. Piccione, "Pharaoh at the Bat," College of Charlestown Magazine (Spring/Summer 2003), p.36. See
also http://www.cofc.edu/~piccione/sekerhemat.html, as accessed 12/17/08.
Year
1460 B.C.
-1000s.1 Thirty Century-Old Leather-Covered Hardballs Found
Tags:
Age of Players:
In an excavation of burial grounds in 1970, "a leather ball, around the size of a human fist" turned up. That ball, and two others found in the area, have been dated as a little over 3000 years ago. "The results were published in the open-access Journal of Archeological Science: Reports.
"'We can now confirm that these three leather balls from Yanghai are the oldest leather balls in Eurasia,' says Patrick Wertmann, an archeologist at the University of Zurich and lead author of the recent study. "'They were life tools, used for play or useful training.'"
"The balls -- which are stuffed with wool and hair, wrapped in treated rawhide . . . are no joke. 'They're actually really hard,' Wertmann says. 'You could compare these leather balls from Yanghai with modern baseballs'"
Sources:
"Leather Balls and 3,000-Year-Old Pants Hint at a Ancient Asian Sport."
See https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-ancient-balls-xinjiang. Accessed 11/25/2020 via search of <Balls Yanghai Tombs>.
Patrick Wertmann,et al;, "New evidence for ball games in Eurasia from ca. 3000-year-old Yanghai tombs in the Turfan depression of Northwest China." Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep) Supplemental Text, below, for the
Comment:
"More recent art from elsewhere in China shows polo-like games being played on horseback with sticks"
evidence for ball games in Eurasia from ca. 3000-year-old Yanghai tombs in the Turfan depression of Northwest China Patrick Wertmanna,⁎,
"'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.'"
For comments on the game played with these balls see Supplemental Text, below.
[] For information on balls found from even earlier times, in Egyptian tombs from 2600 BCE, see -2600c.1
Decade
1000 B.C.s
BC750.1 Ballplay in Ancient Greece
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Galen
The Greeks, famous for their athletics, played several ball games. In fact the Greek gymnasium ["palaistra"] was often known to include a special room ["sphairiteria"] for ballplaying . . . a "sphaira" being a ball. Pollux [ca 180 AD] lists a number of children's ball games, including games that loosely resemble very physical forms of keepaway and rugby, and the playing of a complicated form of catch, one that involved feints to deceive other players.
The great physician Galen wrote [ca. 180 AD] especially fondly of ballplaying and its merits, and seems to have seen it as an adult activity. He advised that "the most strenuous form of ball playing is in no way inferior to other exercises." Turning to milder forms of ball play, he said "I believe that in this form ball playing is also superior to all the other exercises." His partiality to ballplaying stemmed in part from its benefit for the whole body, not just the legs or arms, as was the case for running and wrestling.
As far as we are aware, Greek ball games did not include any that involved running among bases or safe havens, or any that involved propelling a ball with a club or stick (or hands).
Sources:
Stephen G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources [University of California Press, 2004]: See especially Chapter 9, "Ball Playing." The Pollox quote is from pp. 124-125, and the Galen quote is from pp. 121-124. Special thanks to Dr. Miller for his assistance.
Query:
Did any of the Greek games share attributes with modern baseball?
Year
750 B.C.
-700c.1 First Known Written Depiction of Ball Play?
Tags:
Age of Players:
[A] "There is a famous scene in the Odyssey where a princess named Nausicaa goes down to the river bank with her attending maidens to wash come clothes. As their garments are drying in the sun, and while Ulysses is sleeping nearby in the bushes, the women engage in a game of ball. For eons, writers have cited this scene as the earliest literary reference to humans playing with a ball."
[B] ". . . Nausicaa/ With other virgins, did at stool-ball play;/ . . ./ The Queene now (for the upstroke) strooke the ball/Quite wide of the other maids; and made it fall/Amidst the whirlpooles. At which, out shriekt all;/And with the shrieke, did wise Ulysses wake."
Sources:
[A] David Block, Pastime Lost (U Nebraska Press, 2019), pp 53-54. See also pp 55-56.
[B] George Chapman (translator), The Whole Works of Homer, (London, 1606), p. 89.
Note: For one recent review of knowledge of very early ball play by humans, see John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (Harper, 2012), pp. 30-47.
Warning:
The date of the Odyssey, given here as circa 700 BCE, is not even generally agreed to by scholars. Don't take it literally; it is presented only because formatted chronology listings need to place an entry somewhere, or otherwise omit them entirely
Comment:
See also chronology entry 1788.3 for a later translation that uses "baste ball" instead of stool-ball as the game played by the women.
Non-written depictions of ball play also exist in various ancient art forms.
Some writers see the Odyssey verse as describing a game resembling dodgeball.
Circa
700 B.C.
BC700c.1 Ball-Pitching in the Bible?
"He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die . . . " Isaiah 22:18.
The word "ball" appears only twice in the Bible, and the other one refers to the ball of the foot of a beast (Leviticus 11:27). The Isaiah usage was the inspiration for a January 1905 news article headed, "Isaiah's prophesies were written [in Hebrew] late in the eighth century BC.
Sources:
Isaiah 22:18.
"Played Baseball in Bible Times: The Prophet Isaiah Made the only reference to the Pastime to be Found in the Holy Writ." (The Hamilton [Ont] Spectator - from an unidentified clipping in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center in Cooperstown.)
A compilation of 15 English translations [accessed at http://bible.cc/isaiah/22-18.htm on 12/29/10] shows that most of them summon the image of an angry God hurling the miscreant, like a ball, far far away. (One exception, however, cites the winding of a turban, not a ball.) A literal translation is unrevealing: "And thy coverer covering, wrapping round, Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides—there thou diest."
Warning:
We have incomplete assurance that Isaiah actually referred to a ball, or even to the act of throwing.
A compilation of 15 English translations [accessed at http://bible.cc/isaiah/22-18.htm on 12/29/10] shows that most of them summon the image of an angry God hurling the miscreant, like a ball, far far away. (One exception, however, cites the winding of a turban, not a ball.) A literal translation is unrevealing: "And thy coverer covering, wrapping round, Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides—there thou diest."
Comment:
Protoball user Benjamin Roy has done some further digging in 2014 on the meaning of this text . . . see Supplemental Text, below.
Query:
Can other readers throw any more light on this ancient (and, to Protoball, handsomely obscure) text?
Circa
700 B.C.
BC100.1 Historian Dates Early Cricket to 100 BC - Others Disagree
In his 1912 article "The History of Cricket" [in Pelham and Warner, Imperial Cricket (London, 1912), p. 54] Andrew Lang "argued that cricket was played as far back as 100 BC, basing this on evidence supposedly provided by the ancient Irish epics and romances." According to Lang, "cricket was played by the ancestors of Cuchulain, by the Dalraid Scots from northern Ireland who invaded and annexed Argyll in about 500 AD." Modern writers do not accept this view.
Sources:
Bateman, Anthony," 'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ; 'Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), pp. 27 - 44.
Query:
It would be interesting to know what particular features of Irish lore gave Lang the feeling that cricket stemmed from ancient Irish sources.
Year
100 B.C.
370c.1 Saint Augustine Recalls Punishment for Youthful Ball Games
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Saint Augustine
In his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo - later St. Augustine - recalls his youth in Northern Africa, where his father served as a Roman official. "I was disobedient, not because I chose something better than [my parents and elders] chose for me, but simply from the love of games. For I liked to score a fine win at sport or to have my ears tickled by the make-believe of the stage." [Book One, chapter 10] In Book One, chapter 9, Augustine had explained that "we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown up games are known as 'business. . . . Was the master who beat me himself very different from me? If he were worsted by a colleague in some petty argument, he would be convulsed in anger and envy, much more so than I was when a playmate beat me at a game of ball."
Sources:
Saint Augustine's Confessions, Book One, text supplied by Dick McBane, February 2008.
Query:
Can historians identify the "game of ball" that Augustine might have played in the fourth Century? Are the translations to "game of ball," "games," and "sport" still deemed accurate?
Circa
370
640s.1 Medieval Writer: Saint Cuthbert [born 634c] "Pleyde atte balle"
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Saint Cuthbert
Mulling on whether the ball came to England in Anglo-Saxon days, Joseph Strutt reports "the author of a manuscript in Trinity College, Oxford, written in the fourteenth century and containing the life of Saint Cuthbert, says of him, that when young, 'he pleyde atte balle with the children that his felawes [fellows] were.' On what authority this information is established I cannot tell."
Sources:
Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (Chatto and Windus, London, 1898 edition), p. 158.
Comment:
The claim of this unidentified manuscript seems weak. As Strutt notes, the venerable Bede wrote poetic and prose accounts of the life of Cuthbert around 715-720 A.D., and made no mention of ballplaying. That a scholar would find fresh evidence seven centuries later would be surprising. Warton later cites the poem as from Oxford MSS number Ivii, and he also places its unidentified author in the fourteenth century, but he doesn't support the veracity of the story line. The poem describes an angel sent from heaven to dissuade Cuthbert from playing such an "ydell" [idle] pastime. Warton, Thomas, The History of English Poetry from the Close of the Eleventh Century to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century (Thomas Tegg, London, 1840, from the 1824 edition), volume 1, page 14.
Decade
640s
824.1 15-Year-Old Chinese Emperor Criticized for Excessive Ball-Playing
Age of Players:
Ching Tsung was the new Chinese emperor at the age of 15. "As soon as he could escape from the morning levee, the young Emperor rushed off to play ball. His habits were well known in the city, and in the summer of 824 someone suggested to a master-dyer named Chang Shao that, as a prank, he should slip into the Palace, lie on the Emperor's couch and eat his dinner, 'for nowadays he is always away, playing ball or hunting.'" The prank was carried out, but those prankish dyers . . . well, they died as a result.
Sources:
Waley, Arthur, The Life and Times of Po Chu-I, 772-846 [Allen and Unwin, London, 1949], p. 157. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Query:
Do we know what Chinese "ballplaying" was like in the ninth century?
Year
824
900c.1 Mayan Games Played at Chichen Itza, Mexico
Mayan Indians play stick and ball games in ceremonial courts in Chichen Itza, Mexico
Note: This source may be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 201. And Henderson's source may be his ref 53, Effler, L. R., The Ruins of Chichen Itza [Toledo, Ohio], pp 19 - 21. However, Henderson's account of the game played at Chichen Itza is not dated to 900 AD, or connected with a stick, so another source may be preferable.
Year
900
1086.1 Form of Stool Ball Possibly Found in Domesday Book in Norman England?
Tags:
Game:
Stool ball, a stick and ball game and a forerunner of rounders and cricket, is apparently mentioned in the Domesday Book as "bittle-battle."
Sources:
Note: This source is Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 75.
Comment:
Henderson doesn't exactly endorse the idea that the cited game, "bittle-battle," is a ball game [or if it is, could it be a form of soule?] He says that one [unnamed] author claims that bittle-battle is a form of stoolball. I saw only two Henderson refs to stoolball, ref 72 [Grantham] and ref 149 [London Magazine]. One of them may be Henderson's source for the 1086 stoolball claim. I don't see a Henderson ref to the Domesday text itself, but then, it probably isn't found at local lending libraries.
Henderson labels this claim "highly conjectural." [ba]
The Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect [1875] reportedly gives "bittle-battle" as another name for stoolball. It is believed that "bittle" meant a wooden milk bowl and some have speculated that a bowl may have been used as a paddle to deflect a thrown ball from the target stool, while others speculate that the bowl may have been the target itself.
Query:
Note: We need to confirm whether the Domesday Book actually uses the term "bittle-battle," "stool ball," or what. We also should try to ascertain views of professional scholars on the interpretations of the Book. Martin Hoerchner advises that the British Public Records Office may, at some point, make parts of the Domesday Book available online.
I've not found bittle-battle in the Domesday book [ba]
Year
1086
1100s.1 "Pagan" Ball Rites Observed in France in 1100s and 1200s
Tags:
Henderson: "The testimony of Beleth and Durandus, both eminently qualified witnesses, clearly indicates that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the ball had found a place for itself in the Easter celebrations of the Church." In fact, Beleth and Durandus had both opposed the practice, seeing it as the intrusion of pagan rites into church rites. "There are some Churches in which it is customary for the Bishops and Archbishops to play in the monasteries with those under them, even to stoop to the game of ball" [Beleth, 1165]. "In certain places in our country, prelates play games with their own clerics on Easter in the cloisters, or in the Episcopal Palaces, even so far as to descend to the game of ball" [Durandus, 1286].
Note: This source appears to be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 37-38. Page 37 refers to an 1165 prohibition and page 38 mentions 12th and 13th Century Easter rites. Henderson identifies two sources for the page 38 statement: Beleth, J., "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," in Migne, J. P., Patrologiae Curius Completus, Ser 2, Vol. 106, pp. 575-591 [Paris, 1855], and Durandus, G., "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," Book VI, Ch 86, Sect. 9 [Rome, 1473]...Henderson does not say that these rites involved the use of sticks.
Decade
1100s
1189.1 "Unconfirmed" Report of a Stoolball Reference by Iscanus
Game:
There is "an unconfirmed report which was published in the beginning of the Century quoting one Joseph Iscanus, of Exeter, as having referred to stoolball in 1189, but no satisfactory evidence that this quotation was genuine." National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," page 2. This mimeo, available in NSA files, has no date or author, but has one internal reference to an 1989 source, so it must be fairly recent. It contains no hint on the source of the 1189 claim or how it has been assessed. Note: Is it now possible to further pursue this claim using online resources? The 1189 claim appears nowhere else in available writings about stoolball.
However, some cite a Joseph Iscanus couplet: "The youth at cricks did play/Throughout the livelong [or "merry"] day/" as an indicator of early cricket. However, the online source of this rhyme does not give a source. Very murky, no? [The rhyme is quoted as early as the 1860 edition of The Cricketer’s Manual, and ten years earlier in Bell’s Life in a letter from “Alexis” on the subject “When Was Cricket Invented?” ] Query: what do leading cricket historians say of this alleged reference?
Year
1189
1200s.1 Bat and Ball Game Illustration Appears in English Genealogical Roll
"The [1301 - see below] illustration is a very early depiction of the game we know as baseball, but it's probably not the first. In 1964, a writer named Harry Simmons cited an English bat and ball picture from a genealogical roll of the Kings of England up to Henry III, who died in 1269."
Baltimore Sun article on the Ghistelle Calendar [see entry for 1301], April 6, 1999, page 1E.
Decade
1200s
1205.1 "Ball" Rolls into the English Language
Scholars report that the Chronicle of Britain [1205] contained the words "Summe heo driuen balles wide . . ." which they see as "the first known use of the word ball in the sense of a globular body that is played with." The source? Old Norse, by way of Middle English. [Old High German had used ballo and pallo, but the English didn't use "ball" in those days.] The source does not say whether people in England used some other term for their rolling playthings prior to 1205.
Source: Wikipedia entry on "ball," accessed 5/31/2006.
Year
1205
1255.1 Spanish Drawing Seen as Early Depiction of Ballplaying
Game:
Age of Players:
A thirteenth century Spanish drawing appears to depict a female figure swinging at a ball with a bat.
The book Spain: A History in Art by Bradley Smith (Doubleday, 1971) includes a plate that appears to show "several representations of baseball figures and some narrative." The work is dated to 1255, the period of King Alfonso.
Sources:
The book Spain: A History in Art by Bradley Smith (Doubleday, 1971) includes a plate that appears to show "several representations of baseball figures and some narrative." The work is dated to 1255, the period of Spain's King Alfonso.
Email from Ron Gabriel, July 10, 2007. Ron also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention. 2007 Annotation: can we specify the painting and its creator? Can we learn how baseball historians and others interpret this artwork?
From Pam Bakker, email of 1/4/2022:
"Cantigas de Santa Maria,"or "Canticles (songs) of Holy Mary" by Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221-1284)
Comment:
Ron Gabriel also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention
From Pam Bakker, email of 1/4/2022:
"Cantigas de Santa Maria" (written in Galician-Portuguese) or "Canticles (songs) of Holy Mary" by Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221-1284) is a collection of 420 poems with musical notation in chant-style, used by troubadours. It has fanciful extra biblical stories of miracles performed by Mary and hymns of veneration. She is often presented doing ordinary things, intended to elevate her while showing her engaged in life. It was very popular in the early Christian world. The book has illustrations, one of which appears to portray a woman swinging at a ball with a bat."
Query:
Can we further specify the drawing and its creator?
Can we learn how baseball historians and others interpret this artwork?
Do we know why this drawing is dated to 1255?
Year
1255
1299.1 Prince of Wales Plays "Creag," Seen By Some as a Cricket Precursor
Tags:
Notables:
Prince of Wales
Cashman, Richard, "Cricket," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 87.
Year
1299
1300s.1 Trapball Played in the British Isles
Trevithick, Alan, "Trapball," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 421.
Decade
1300s
1300s.3 Stoolball Said to Originate Among Sussex Milkmaids
Tags:
Game:
"Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14th century, originating in Sussex [in southern England]. It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders. Traditionally it was played be milkmaids who used their milking stools as 'wickets.' . . ." Later forms of the game involved running between two wickets, but "[o]riginally the batsman simply had to defend his stool from each ball with his hand and would score a point for each delivery until the stool was hit. The game later evolved to include runs and bats."
Source: Wikipedia entry on "Stoolball," accessed 1/25/2007. Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry 1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball. It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding date. The Wikipedia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not credit 1330 as the likely time of stoolball's appearance.
Decade
1300s
1301.1 Ghistelles Calendar Depicts Vigorous-Looking Bat/Ball Game
A manuscript obtained in 1999 by the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore appears to show a batted-ball game played by two young persons. The manuscript, called the Calendar of the Ghistelles Hours, dates from 1301. It is a small monthly calendar of saints' days from a monastery in the town of Ghistelles, in southwestern Flanders. The illustration is for the month of September.
Schoettler, Carl, "The Old, Old, Old Ball Game," Baltimore Sun, April 6 1999, page 1E.
Year
1301
1310.1 Documents Said to Describe Baseball-like Romanian Game of Oina
Game:
According to an otherwise unidentified clip in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center, an AP article datelined Bucharest Romania [and which appeared in the Oneonta Times on March 29, 1990], the still popular Romanian game of oina can be traced back to a [unspecified] document dating to the year 1310. The game itself "was invented by shepherds in the first century."
The article is evidently based on an interview with Cristian Costescu, who sees baseball as "the American pastime derived from the ancient game of oina." Oina reportedly has eleven players per side, an all-out-side-out rule, tossed pitches, nine bases describing a total basepath of 120 yards, plugging of baserunners, the opportunity for the fielding side to score points, and a bat described as similar to a cricket bat. Costescu is reported to have served as head of the Romanian Oina Federation in the years when baseball was banned in Romania as "a capitalist sport."
The Oneonta Times headline is "Play Oina! Romanians Say Their Game Inspired Creation of Baseball." Note: Can we find additional documentation of oina's rules and history? Is the 1310 documentation available in English translation? Have others followed the recent fate of oina and the work of Costescu?
Year
1310
1310c.2 A Drawing of "A Game of Ball," with a Player in a Batting Pose
A 1915 book on ancient British schools includes a drawing dated circa 1310. It shows two players, one clad in a garment with broad horizontal stripes. Both players hold clubs, and the player in stripes appears ready to swing at a melon-sized ball. The other player appears to be preparing to fungo the ball . . . or, conceivably, toss it with his left hand, to the striped player. The illustration's caption is "A Game of Ball, Stripes vs. Plain, c. 1310." The British Museum's documentation: MS Royal 10 E. iv, f. 94 b.
Posted by Mark Aubrey to the 19CBB listserve on 1/10/2008. The 1915 source, available in full text on Google Books, is A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England (Macmillan, New York, 1915), on the unnumbered page following p. 140.
Circa
1310
1330.1 Vicar of Winkfield Advises Against Bat/Ball Games in Churchyards; First Stoolball Reference?
Game:
"Stoolball was played in England as early as 1330, when William Pagula, Vicar of Winkfield, near Windsor, wrote in Latin a poem of instructions to parish priests, advising them to forbid the playing of all games of ball in churchyards: "Bats and bares and suche play/Out of chyrche-yorde put away."
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 74. Note: The Vicar's caution was translated in 1450 by a Canon, John Myrc. Henderson's ref 120 is Mirk [sic], J., "Instructions to Parish Priests," Early English Text Society, Old Series 31, p. 11 [London, 1868]. A contemporary of Myrc in 1450 evidently identified the Vicar's targets as including stoolball. Block [p. 165] identifies the original author as William de Pagula. Writing in 1886, T. L. Kington Oliphant identifies "bares" as prisoner's base: "There is the term "bace pleye," whence must come the "prisoner's base;" this in Myrc had appeared as the game of "bares." Kington Oliphant does not elaborate on this claim, and does not comment on the accompanying term "bats" in the original. The 1886 reference was provided by John Thorn, 2/24/2008
Year
1330
1344.1 Manuscript Shows a Club-and-Ball Game with Stool-like Object
Game:
"A manuscript of 1344 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (No. 264) shows a game of club and ball. One player throws that ball to another who holds a vicious-looking club. He defends a round object which resembles a stool but with a base instead of legs. . . ". "In the course of time a second stool was added, which obviously made a primitive form of cricket. Now a stool was also called a "cricket" and it is possible that the name cricket came from the three-legged stool . . . " "We may summarize: The game and name of cricket stem back to ancient games played with a curved stick and ball, starting with la soule, and evolving in England through stoolball . . .".
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 130-131. Henderson's ref 17 is Bodleian Library, Douce MSS 264, ff 22, 44, 63. Cox's 1903 edition of Strutt includes this drawing and its reference. Note: do other observers agree with Henderson on whether and how stoolball evolved into cricket?
Year
1344
1363.1 Englishmen Forbidden to Play Ball; Archery Much Preferred
Tags:
Edward III wrote to the Sheriff of Kent, and evidently sheriffs throughout England. Noting a relative neglect of the useful art of archery, the King said he was thereby, on festival days, "forbidding, all and single, on our orders, to toy in any way with these games of throwing stones, wood, or iron, playing handball, football, "stickball," or hockey, . . . which are worthless, under pain of imprisonment." The translator uses "stickball" as a translation of the Latin "pila cacularis," and suggests that it might have been an early form of cricket. We might also ask whether it was referring to early stoolball.
A. R. Myers, English Historical Documents (Routledge, 1996), page 1203. [Viewed online 10/16/08]. Provided in email from John Thorn, 2/27/2008. Myers' citation is "Rymer, Foedera, III, ii, from Close Roll, 37 Edward III [Latin]."
Caveat: The content of this entry resembles that of #1365.1 below, and both refer to a restriction imposed by Edward III. However that entry, stemming from Strutt, refers to "club-ball" instead of "stick-ball," and identifies the Latin as "pilam bacculoream," not "pila cacularis." It is possible that both refer to the same source. Strutt’s text reads: “The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III., exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; throwing of stones, wood, or iron….” The accompanying footnote reads: “Pilam manualtm, ptdinam, el bacculoream, et ad cambucam, etc.” Also: the letter to Kent is elsewhere dated 1365, which could be consistent with Edward III's 37th year under the crown, but Myers uses 1363.
Note: this entry replaced the former entry #1365.1: "In 1365 the sheriffs had to forbid able-bodied men playing ball games as, instead, they were to practice archery on Sundays and holidays." Source: Hassall, W. O., [compiler], "How They Lived: An Anthology of Original Accounts Written Before 1485" [Blackwell, Oxford University Press, 1962], page 285. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Year
1363
1365.1 Edward III Prohibits Playing of Club-Ball.
Notables:
Edward III
"The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III, exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; the throwing of stones, wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball, club-ball, and camucam, which I take to have been a species of goff . . . ." Edward III reigned from 1327 to 1377. The actual term for "club-ball" in the proclamation was, evidently, "bacculoream."
This appears to be one of only two direct references to "club-ball" in the literature. See #1794.2, below.
Caveat: David Block argues that, contrary to Strutt's contention [see #1801.1, below], club ball may not be the common ancestor of cricket and other ballgames. See David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 105-107 and 183-184. Block says that "pilam bacculoream" translates as "ball play with a stick or staff." Note: We seem not to really know what "camucam" was. Nor, of course, how club ball was played, since the term could have denoted a form of tennis or field hockey or and early form of stoolball or cricket. Edward II had issued a ban of his own in 1314, regarding football.
Year
1365
1385.1 English Boys Play Ball "To the Grave Peril of Their Souls"
A letter written by Robert Braybroke laid out the palpable risks of ball-playing: "Certain [boys], also, good for nothing in their insolence and idleness, instigated by evil minds and busying themselves rather in doing harm than good, throw and shoot stones, arrows, and different kinds of missiles at the rooks, pigeons, and other birds nesting in the walls and porches of the church and perching [there]. Also they play ball inside and outside the church and engage in other destructive games there, breaking and greatly damaging the glass windows and the stone images of the church . . . .This they do not without great offense to God and our church and to the prejudice and injury of us as well as to the grave peril of their souls." And the sanction for such play? "We . . . proclaim solemnly that any malefactors whatever of this kind [including churchyard merchants as well as young ballplayers] whom it is possible to catch in the aforesaid actions after this our warning have been and are excommunicated . . . ."
Crow, Martin M., and Clair C. Olson, eds., "Chaucer's World" [Columbia University Press, New York, 1948], pp. 48-49. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Year
1385
1393.1 Disconfirmed Poetry Lines Said to Denote Stoolball in Sussex
Tags:
According to a 2007 article in a Canadian magazine, there is poetry in which a milkmaid calls to another, "Oi, Rosie, coming out to Potter's field for a whack at the old stool?" The article continues: "The year was 1393. The place was Sussex . . . the game was called stoolball, which was probably a direct descendant of stump-ball".
The article, by Ruth Tendulkar, is titled "The Great-Grandmother of Baseball and Cricket," and appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine. As of 2007, we have been unable to find additional source details from the author or the magazine.
Sources:
http://www.cnmag.ca, as accessed 9/6/2007.
Warning:
Caution: The editor of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine informed us on 1/10/2008 that the Tendulkar piece "was strictly an entertainment piece rather than an academic piece." We take this to say that the verse is not authentic. Email from Dale Sproule, Publisher/Editor.
Query:
Is "stumpball" actually a known game? Have we done adequate searches for this name?
Year
1393
1400c.1 Savior Son Wants "To Go Play at Ball"
Tags:
Age of Players:
A well-known and still-sung medieval English carol (in this case, not a Christmas carol), is The Bitter Withy (withy is the willow tree). The carol is dated to around 1400.
As it fell out on a holy day.
The drops of rain did fall, did fall.
Our Saviour asked leave of his mother Mary
If he might go play at ball.
To play at ball, my own dear son,
It's time you was going or gone,
But be sure let me hear no complain of you
At night when you do come home.
John Bowman reports that "The poem then tells how the boy Jesus tricks some boys into drowning and is spanked by his mother with a willow branch. Although I do not know what scholars have to say about the ball game, it is clear that the upper-class boys regard it as lower-class!"
The full selection, and John's email, are shown below.
Sources:
Norton Anthology of Poetry (third edition, 1983) page 99.
Query:
What, if anything, have scholars said about the nature of the game that Jesus played? A baserunning and/or batting game? More like soccer or field hockey? Other?
Circa
1400
1440c.1 Fresco at Casa Borromeo shows Female Ball Players
Tags:
Age of Players:
In a ground floor room at the Casa Borromeo in Milan, Italy is a room with wall murals depicting the amusements of Fifteenth Century nobility. One of the images depicts five noble women playing some sort of bat and ball game. One woman holds a bat and is preparing to hit a ball to a group of four women who prepare to catch the ball using the folds of their dresses. This Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs published an article about the Casa Borromeo frescoes in 1918 and included a black and white photo of the female ball players. A color version of the fresco is available online.
Sources:
Lionel Cust, "The Frescoes in the Casa Borromeo at Milan," The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 33, No. 184 (July 1918), 8. Link to color image: http://www.storiadimilano.it/Arte/giochiborromeo/giochiborromeo.htm
Comment:
Note: This drawing is listed as "contemporary" on the premise that it was meant to depict ballplaying in the 1400s.
Circa
1440
1450.1 John Myrc Repeats Warning Against Ball Play in the Churchyard, Including "Stoil Ball"
Game:
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It [page 165], cites the Myrc work, "early poetic instruction of priests," as "How thow schalt thy paresche preche," London. It warns "Bal and bares and suche play/ Out of chyrcheyorde put a-way." A note reportedly inserted by another author included among the banned games "tenessyng handball, fott ball stoil ball and all manner other games out churchyard." Note: can we determine when the "other author" wrote in "stoil ball? This may count as the first time "stool ball" [virtually] appeared.
Year
1450
1450.2 Stoolball Dated by NSA to 1450 in "Don Quixote"
Game:
"[Stoolball] is mentioned in the classic book Don Quixote."
Sources:
National Stoolball Association website, accessed April 2007.
Comment:
Since Cervantes' Don Quixote was published between 1605 and 1615, the above date should be changed to that date.... or to 1694 (see below). [ba]
Query:
Note: we need a fuller citation and the key text. Is it possible that this entry confuses D'Urfey's 1694 play about Don Quixote [see Entry #1694.1, below] with the Cervantes masterpiece?
Year
1450
1470c.1 Editor Sees Stoolball in Verse on Bachelorhood
Game:
"In al this world nis a murier lyf/Thanne is a yong man wythouten a wyf,/For he may lyven wythouten strif/In every place wher-so he go.
"In every place he is loved over alle/Among maydens grete and smale-/In daunsyng, in pipyngs, and rennyng at the balle,/In every place wher-so he go.
"They leten lighte by housebonde-men/Whan they at the balle renne;/They casten ther love to yonge men/In every place wher-so they go.
"Then seyn maydens, "Farewel, Jakke,/Thy love is pressed al in thy pak;/Thou berest thy love bihynde thy back,/In every place wher-so thou go."
Robert Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English Lyrics (U of Illinois Press, 1994), page 141. Posted to 19CBB on 11/14/2008 by Richard Hershberger. Richard reports that Stevick dates this poem—#81 of the 100 collected in this volume—to c. 1470. He interprets the lyric's 'running at the ball' as 'stool ball, probably,' but stow ball [resembling field hockey] seems apter. Richard also points out that "for the sake of precision, it should be noted that this volume is intended for student use and normalizes the spellings."
Comment:
For "stow ball," see Aspin, "Ancient Customs, Sports, and Pastimes of the English" (1832) p. 218.
Circa
1470
1477.1 List of Banned Games May Include Distant Ancestors of Cricket?
A Westminster statute, made to curb gambling by rowdy soldiers upon their return from battle, reportedly imposed sanctions for "playing at cloish, ragle, half-bowls, handyn and handoute, quekeborde, and if any person permits even others to play at such games in his house or yard, he is to be imprisoned for three years; as also he who plays at such game, to forfeit ten pounds to the king, and be imprisoned for two years."
Observations Upon the Statutes, Chiefly the More Ancient, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-first [Year] of James the First, etc. (Daines Barrington, London, 1766), page 335.
The author adds: "This is, perhaps, the most severe law which has ever been made in any country against gaming, and some of the forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly the handing and handoute, which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the term hands is still retained in that game [for what would later be known as innings].
An1864 writer expands further: "Half-bowls was played with pins and one-half of a sphere of wood, upon the floor of a room. It is said to be still played in Hertfordshire under the name of rolly-polly. Hand-in and hand-out was a ring-game, played by boys and girls, like kissing-ring [footnote 31]." John Harland, A Volume of Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), p 34. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google Books search ("court leet" half-bowls). "Roly-poly" and hand-in/hand-out are sometimes later described as having running/plugging features preserved in cat games and early forms of base ball. Thus, these prohibitions may or may not include games resembling baseball. Query: Can residents of Britain help us understand this ancient text?
Year
1477
1478.1 Du Cange Mentions "Criquet" Game in his Glossary
While others see cricket as taking its name from the term for a staff, or stick, "[T]he famous New English Dictionary favors a word used as a [game's] target: criquet. Du Cange quotes this word in a manuscript of 1478: 'The suppliant came to a place where a game of ball (jeu de boule) was played, near to a stick (attaché) or criquet,' and defines criquet as 'a stick which serves as a target in a ball game.'"
Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae ET Infimae Latinatis [Paris, 1846], Vol. 4: Mellat, Vol. 5 Pelotas. Per Henderson ref 48.
Year
1478
1478.2 Parliament Speaks: Jail or Fine for Unlawful Gameplaying
Tags:
An Act of Parliament forbade unlawful games as conducive to disorder and as discouraging the practice of archery. The games that were forbidden, under penalty of two years' imprisonment or a fine of ten pounds, were these: quoits, football, closh, kails, half-bowls, hand-in and hand-out, chequer-board.
This Act is cited as Rot. Parl. VI, 188. Information provided by John Thorn, email of 2/27/2008.
Caveat: The list of proscribed games is similar to the Edward III's prohibition [see #1363.1 above] adding "hand-in and hand-out" in place of a game translated as "club-ball" or "stick-ball." We are uncertain as to whether hand-in and hand-out is the ancestor of a safe-haven game.
Year
1478
1494c.1 Christopher Columbus and the Coefficient of Restitution
Tags:
Notables:
Christopher Columbus
"When Christopher Columbus revisited Haiti on his second voyage, he observed some natives playing with a ball. The men who came with Columbus to conquer the Indies had brought their Castilian wind-balls [wound from yarn] to play with in idle hours. But at once they found that the balls of Haiti were incomparably superior; they bounced better. These high-bouncing balls were made, they learned, from a milky fluid of the consistency of honey which the natives procured by tapping certain trees and then cured over the smoke of palm nuts. A discovery which improved the delights of ball games was noteworthy." 350 years later, after Goodyear discovered vulcanization [1839], "India rubber" balls were to be identified with the New York game of baseball.
Holland Thompson, "Charles Goodyear and the History of Rubber," at http://inventors.about.come/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/rubber_2.htm, accessed 1/24/2007.
Comment:
Note: We need better sources for the Columbus story.
Circa
1494
1500s.1 Ballplaying Permitted at College of Tours in France, If Done 'Cum Silentio'
Tags:
"Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with regard to games than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of the Cisterian College of St Bernard contemplated that permission might be obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for vespers. A sixteenth century code of statutes for the College of Tours, while recording the complaints of the neighbors about the noise made by the scholars playing ball ('de insolentiis, exclamationibus et ludis palmariis dictorum scholarium, qui ludent . . . pilis durissimis') permitted the game under less noisy conditions ('pilis seu scopes mollibus et manu, ac cum silentio et absque clamoribus tumultuosis.')
Rait, Robert S., Life in the Medieval University [Cambridge University Press, 1912], p. 83. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Decade
1500s
1500s.2 Queen Elizabeth's Dudley Plays Stoolball at Wotton Hill?
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Lord Robert Dudley; Queen Elizabeth I
According to a manuscript written in the 1600s, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and his "Trayne" "came to Wotton, and thence to Michaelwood Lodge . . . and thence went to Wotton Hill, where hee paid a match at stobball."
Internal evidence places ths event in the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, which would be 1547-48. Elizabeth I named her close associate [once rumored to be her choice as husband] Dudley to became Earl of Leicester in the 1564, and he died in 1588.
Warning:
Caveat: "Stobbal" is usually used to denote a field game resembling field hockey or golf; thus, this account may not relate to stoolball per se.
Comment:
The Wotton account was written by John Smyth of Nibley (1567-1640) in his Berkeley Manuscripts [Sir John McLean, ed., Gloucester, Printed by John Bellows, 1883]. Smyth's association with Berkeley Castle began in 1589, and the Manuscripts were written in about 1618, so it is not a first-hand report.
Query:
Note: Is it possible to determine the approximate date of this event?
Decade
1500s
1523.1 Baron's Trespass Records Mention Stoball
Game:
"Item, quod petrus frankeleyne vid posuit iiiixx ovesin le stoball field contra ordinacionem."
Source: National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," [mimeo, author and date unspecified], page 2. This wording is reportedly found in "an extract from the rolls of the Court Baron of the Royal Manor of Kirklington, belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster (16th Century), under the heading of trespass." Note: We need a citation here, and a reason for assigning the 1523 date. The relation of stoball to stoolball remains under dispute, with many observers seeing stoball as an early golf-like game. Can we obtain a good translation and interpretation of this quotation?
Year
1523
1533.1 Skelton Poem Traces Cricket to Flemish Immigrants?
"O lodre of Ipocrites/ Nowe shut vpp your wickets,/ And clappe to your clickettes/ A! Farewell, kings for crekettes!"
"The Image of Ipocrisie" (1533) attributed to John Skelton. This verse is interpreted as showing no sympathy to Flemish weavers who settled in southern and eastern England, bringing at least the rudiments of cricket with them. Heiner Gillmeister and John Campbell noted publicly in June 2009 that this is relevant evidence of cricket's non-English origin. Note: the first written reference to cricket was nearly 70 years in the future in 1533. Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. Query: are cricket historians accepting this poem as valid evidence of cricket's roots?
Year
1533
1538.1 Easter Ball Play at Churches Ends in France
Tags:
"Certain types of ball games had a prominent place in heathen rituals and were believed to promote fertility. Even after Christianity had gained the ascendancy over the older religion, ball continued to be played in the churchyard and even within the church at certain times. In France, ball was played in churches at Easter, until the custom was abolished in 1538. In England, the practice persisted up to a much later date."
The abolition in France is attributed to an act of the French Parlement.
Sources:
Brewster, Paul G., American Nonsinging Games [University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK, 1953] pp. 79-89. Submitted by John Thorn, 6/6/04. Brewster gives no source for the French dictum, nor for the "later date" when Easter play ceased in England.
Bob Tholkes (email of 10/4/2017) found a later source: Dawn Marie Hayes, “Earthly Uses of Heavenly Spaces: Non-Liturgical Activities in Sacred Place”, in Studies in Medieval History & Culture, Francis G. Gentry, ed., Routledge, 2003, p. 64.
Query:
Can the actual text be retrieved?
Year
1538
1540.1 A Pitcher, a Catcher and a Batter in a Golf History Book?
Cary Smith [ZinnBeck@aol.com] has noted an alluring illustration in a 1540 publication, and we seek additional input on it. In a posting to the 19CBB listserve in March 2008, Cary wrote:
"On the British Library web site in the turning pages section there is a book called the Golf Book, but it is labeled as 'Flemish Masters in Miniature.' On page seven of the book there is a small grisalle border at the bottom. It looks like what today would be considered a pitcher, catcher, and batter. The book is from 1540. To access the web site you will need to have Flash running. If on a Macintosh that is intel based you will need to click the Rosetta button in the info window of your web browser." Note: can you help us interpret this artwork?
The URL is http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html.
Comment:
It's not a "golf history" book. It's an illustrated prayer book, Called a "golf book" because on the bottom of page 1 is a scene of men playing golf (or colf, the Flemish counterpart). The bottom of page 7 is cut off in the website so I couldn't see the game played.
Golf was played by Scots as early as 1421 (cf. the Battle of Beauge, in France), and in 1457 King James II of Scotland banned golf play in order to get Scots to practice archery instead ("And that fut ball and golf be utterly cryit doune and not usyt"). Golf was played in Charleston and Savannah, USA in the late 1700s, but died out in the US until revived in the 1880s (cf. Oakhurst course, WV 1884, and St. Andrews near NYC, 1888. See https://www.pga.com/story/oldest-golf-courses-in-america). The first golf club in Canada was established in 1873.
The Dutch also claim to have "invented" golf, or Kolf, and claim that Flemish traders brought the game to Scotland. [ba]
Year
1540
1540c.2 Nobleman Recalls "Palm Play" in Royal Court
Game:
Age of Players:
So cruel prison how could betide,alas,
As proud Windsor [Castle]? Where I in lust [pleasure] and joy
With a king's son my childish years did pass
. . .
Where each of us did plead the other's right;
The palm play [handball?], where despoiled [disrobed] for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball and got sight of our dame,
[The full selection, and email notes by John Bowman, are shown below.]
Sources:
Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), So Cruel a Prison, Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd edition, 1983: from Songes and sonettes, written by the right honourable Lorde Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey (London, A. R. Tottel, 1557).
Comment:
We are not certain that "palm play" could have been a baserunning game. It may be an Anglicized form of jeu de paume, a likely French antecedent to tennis.
The reference to "large grene courtes" in the full ball-play stanza suggests a tennis or handball-type pastime.
Query:
Have scholars indicated the likely nature of "palm play?" Could it have involved the batting of a ball with the palm?
Circa
1540
1550c.1 No English Reference Claimed for the Word "Cricket" Found Before 1550
"The medieval origin of the national game of the English is beyond doubt, but not so its Island roots. There would have been ample opportunity for it to figure on the lists of banned games set out by their kings, but there is no written mention of it before 1550. It is, of course, not impossible that its forerunner was one of the many ball games played with unidentifiable rules, as for instance club ball."
Sources:
From an unidentified photocopy in the "Origins of Baseball" file at the Giamatti Center at Cooperstown. (Found c. 2006)
Comment:
Note: the inconsistencies among the preceding cricket entries in Protoball (see 1478.1) need to be resolved . . . . or at least addressed
Year
1550
1550c.2 Very Early Cricket Play Recalled at Southern England School.
A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of Guildford includes a statement by John Derrick, then aged 59. According to a 1950 history of Guildford's Royal Grammar School, "[H]e stated that he had known the [disputed] ground for fifty years or more and that 'when he was a scholar in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellows did run and play there at cricket and other plays.' This is believed to be the first recorded mention of cricket."
Sources:
Brown, J. F., The Story of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, 1950, page 6.
Comment:
Note: it would be interesting to see the original reference, and to know how 1550 was chosen as the reported year of play.
Note: Derrick would have been about 10 years old in 1550.
Query:
Is it possible that this source is the basis for the claim (see 1550c.1) that the term cricket ("crekett") is not known prior to 1550?
Circa
1550
1555c.1 English Poet Condones Students' Yens "To Tosse the Ball, To Rene Base, Like Men of War"
Age of Players:
"To shote, to bowle, or caste the barre,
To play tenise, or tosse the ball,
Or to rene base, like men of war,
Shall hurt thy study naught at all."
Crowley, Robert, "The Scholar's Lesson," circa 1555, in J. M. Cowper, The Select Works of Robert Crowley [N. Truber, London, 1872], page 73. Submitted by John Bowman, 7/16/2004. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, see pages 230 and 312. Cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), pp. 188.
Query:
Any idea what "rene base" might have meant in those days? Could it refer to a much older form of the team-tag game later known as prisoner's base?
Circa
1555
1562.1 Cricket Forerunner an "Unlawful Game?"
"The Malden Corporation Court Book of 1562 contains a charge against John Porter alias Brown, and a servant, for 'playing an unlawful game called "clycett."'"
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the Game and its Players Through the Ages (Newton Abbot, 1978), page 16, as cited in Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29.
Year
1562
1564.1 Formal Complaint in Surrey: Stoolball is Played on Sunday
Game:
"1564 - complaints were made to the justices sitting at the midsummer session, at Malden, Surrey, that the constable (himself possibly an enthusiast with the stool and ball) suffered stoolball to be played on Sunday."
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Surrey is the adjoining county to Sussex. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.
Year
1564
1565.1 Bruegel's "Corn Harvest" Painting Shows Meadow Ballgame
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Bruegel the Elder
"We had paused right in front of [the Flemish artist] Bruegel the Elder's "Corn Harvest" (1565), one of the world's great paintings of everyday life . . . .[M]y eye fell upon a tiny tableau at the left-center of the painting in which young men appeared to be playing a game of bat and ball in a meadow distant from the scything and stacking and dining and drinking that made up the foreground. . . . There appeared to be a man with a bat, a fielder at a base, a runner, and spectators as well as participants in waiting. The strange device opposite the batsman's position might have been a catapult. As I was later to learn with hurried research, this detain is unnoted in the art-history studies."
From John Thorn, "Play's the Thing," Woodstock Times, December 28, 2006. See thornpricks.blogspot.com/2006/12/bruegel-and-me_27.html, accessed 1/30/07.
Year
1565
1567.1 English Translation of Horace Refers to "the Stoole Ball"
Game:
"The stoole ball, top, or camping ball/If suche one should assaye/As hath no mannour skill therein,/Amongste a mightye croude,/Theye all would screeke unto the frye/And laugh at hym aloude."
Drant, Thomas, Horace His Arte of Poetrie, Pistles, and Satyrs Englished, and to the Earle of Ormounte, [London], per David Block, page 166. There is no implication that Horace himself refers to a stool ball.
Year
1567
1570c.1 Five Indicted for Stoolball Play on Sunday
"A few years later [than 1564], at the Easter Sessions in the same town [Malden, Surrey], one Edward Anderkyn and four others were indicted for playing stoolball on Sunday."
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Surrey is the adjoining county to Sussex. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.
Circa
1570
1575.1 Gascoigne's Poem "The Fruits of War" Refers to Tut-ball
Gascoigne, George, The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour [London, Richard Smith], per Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 166. The key lines: "Yet have I shot at master Bellums butte/And throwen his ball although I toucht no tutte."
Year
1575
1583.1 Pre-teens Risk Dungeon Time For Selves, or Their Dads, by Playing Ball
Tags:
"Whereas this a great abuse in a game or games used in the town called "Gede Gadye or the Cat's Pallet, and Typing or hurling the Ball," - that no mannor person shall play at the same games, being above the age of seven years, wither in the churchyard or in any of the streets of this town, upon pain of every person so playing being imprisoned in the Doungeon for the space of two hours; or else every person so offending to pay 6 [pence] for every time. And if they have not [wherewithal] to pay, then the parents or masters of such persons so offending to pay the said 6 [pence] or to suffer the like imprisonment." (Similar language is found in 1579 entry [page 148], but it lacked the name "Typing" and did not mention a ball.)
John Harland, editor, Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), page 156. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google Books search: "court leet" half-bowls. Note: The game gidigadie is not known to us, but the 1864 editor notes elsewhere (page 149, footnote 61) that was "not unlikely" to be tip-cat, and he interprets "typing" as tipping. As later described [see "Tip-Cat" and "Pallet" at http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Glossary.htm], tip-cat could be played with a cat or a ball, and could involve running among holes as bases. Caveat: we do not yet know what the nature of the proscribed game was in Elizabethan times.
Year
1583
1585c.1 Stoole-ball, Nine Holes Included Among Country Sports
Game:
In a 1600 publication attributed to Samuel Rowlands [died 1588], the fourth of six "Satires," presents a catalog of about 30 pastimes, including "play at stoole-ball," and "play at nine-holes." Other diversions include pitching the barre, foote-ball, play at base, and leap-frog.
Rowlands, Samuel, The Letting of Humour's blood in the head-vein (W. White, London, 1600), as discussed in Brydges, Samuel E., Censura Literaria (Longman, London, 1808), p.279. Virtually the same long verse - but one that carelessly lists stoole-ball twice - is attributed to "Randal Holme of Chester" in an 1817 book: Drake, Nathan, Shakspeare and His Times (Cadell and Davies, London, 1817), pages 246-247. Drake does not suggest a date for this verse. Caveat: Our choice of 1585 as the year of Rowlands' composition is merely speculative. Note: This entry needs to be reconciled with #1630c.1 below.
Circa
1585
1586c.1 Sydney Cites Stoolball
Location:
Game:
Notables:
Lady Mary Dudley, Sir Philip Sydney
"A time there is for all, my mother often sayes
When she with skirts tuckt very hie, with gyrles at stoolball playes"
Sources:
Sir Philip Sydney, Arcadia: Sonnets [1622], page 493. Note: citation needs confirmation.
Comment:
Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586) died at age 31 in 1586.
As of October 2012, this early stoolball ref. is the only one I see that can be interpreted as describing baserunning in stoolball - but it still may merely describe running by a fielder, not a batter. (LMc, Oct/2012)
Sydney's mother was the sister of Robert Dudley, noted in item #1500s.2 above as a possible stoolball player in the time of Eliizabeth I.
Query:
Further interpretations are welcome as to Sydney's meaning.
Circa
1586
1586.2 Possible Early Rounders Reference?
In his entry for Rounders, W. C. Hazlitt speculates: "It is possible that this is the game which, under the name of rownes (rounds) is mentioned in The English Courtier and the Countrey Gentleman: A Pleasant and Learned Disputation, 1586 [printed by Richard Jones, London]. One source attributes this work of Nicholas Breton. Protoball has not located this book.
Hazlitt, W. C., Faiths and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular Customs (Reeves and Turner, London, 1905), vol. 2, page 527. Note: Can we find this early text and evaluate whether rounders is in fact its subject? Caveat: It would startle most of us to encounter any species of rounders this early; the earliest appearance of the term may be as late as 1828 - see #1828.1 below.
Year
1586
1591.1 Early Spanish-English Dictionary Mentions the "Trapsticke"
Pericule [Percival], Richard, Bibliotheca hispanica: containing a graamar, with a dictionarie in Spanish, English, and Latine, gathered out of diuers good authors: very profitable for the studious of the Spanish toong [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 166. The dictionary's entries include "paleta - a trapsticke" and paletilla - a little trapsticke."
Year
1591
1592c.1 Moralist Lists Things for Scholars to Avoid, Including Playing "Stoole Ball Among Wenches"
Game:
"Time of recreation is necessary, I graunt, and think as necessary for schollers . . . as it is for any. Yet in my opinion it were not fit for them to play at Stoole-ball among wenches, nor at Mumchance or Maw with idle loose companions; not at trunks in Guile-halls, nor to dance about Maypoles, nor to rufle in alehouses, nor to carowse in tauernes, nor to steale deere, nor to rob orchards. Though who can deny that they may doe these things, yea worse."
Attributed to Dr. Rainoldes in J. P. Collier, ed., The Political Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry [Constable and Co., Edinburgh, 1820], page 257. This passage is from the "ninth conversation" and covers low practices during the reigns of Elizabeth and of James I. Note: we need to ascertain the source, date, and context of the original Rainoldes material. It appears that Rainoldes' cited "conversation" with Gager took place in 1592.
Circa
1592
1592.2 Canterbury Stoolballer Bloodies Pious Critic
Tags:
Game:
"We present one Bottolph Wappoll, a continual gamester and one of the very lewd behaviour, who being on Mayday last at stoolball in time of Divine service one of our sidesmen came and admonished him to leave off playing and go to church, for which he fell on him and beat him that the blood ran about his ears."
Source: National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," [author and date unspecified], page 2. The original source is not supplied but is reported to have been a presentation from the parish of St Paul in Canterbury to the Archdeacon of Canterbury. Note: can we find this source?
Year
1592
1598.1 Youth Ball Games Widespread at London Schools.
"After dinner all the youthes go into the fields to play at the bal…. The schollers of euery schoole haue their ball, or baston, in their hands: the auncient and wealthy men of the Citie come foorth on horsebacke to see the sport of young men."
Stow, John, Survey of London [first published in 1598]. David Block [page 166] gives the full title as A Survey of London: Contayning the Originall, Antiquity, Increase, Modern Estate, and Description of that Citie: written in the yeare 1598 [London]. Block adds that the term "baston" is described by the OED as a "cudgel, club, bat or truncheon."
Year
1598
1598.2 Italian-English Dictionary Includes Cat, Trap
Florio, John, A world of wordes or Most copious, and exact dictionarie in Italian and English [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 167. This dictionary defines lippa as "a cat or trap as children use to play with."
1598.3 - First Known Appearance of the Term "Cricket"
[Cf #1550c.2 above.] A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of Guildford includes a statement by John Derrick, then aged 59. According to a 1950 history of Guildford's Royal Grammar School, "[H]e stated that he had known the [disputed] ground for fifty years or more and that 'when he was a scholar in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellows did run and play there at cricket and other plays.' This is believed to be the first recorded mention of cricket."
Brown, J. F., The Story of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, 1950, page 6. Note: it would be interesting to see the original reference, and to know how 1550 was chosen as the reported year of play.
Year
1598
1598.4 Italian Dictionary's "Cricket-a-wicket" doubted as reference to the Game of Cricket
"People have often regarded Florio's expression in his Italian Dictionary (1598) cricket-a-wicket as the first mention (cf #1598.2 and #1598.3, above) of the noble game. It were strange indeed if this great word first dropped from the pen of an Italian! I have no doubt myself that this is a mere coincidence of sound. . . . [C]ricket-a-wicket must pair off with 'helter-skelter,' higgledy-piggledy, and Tarabara to which Florio gives gives cricket-a-wicket as an equivalent."
Sources:
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 6.
Query:
Note: do later writers agree that this was mere coincidence?
Year
1598
1600c.1 Austrian Physician Reports on Batting/Fielding Game in Prague; One of Two Accounts Cites Plugging, Bases
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] H. Guarinoni describes a game he saw in Prague in 1600 involving a large field of play, the hitting of a small thrown ball ["the size of a quince"] with a four-foot tapered club, the changing of sides if a hit ball was caught. While not mentioning the presence of bases or of base-running, he advises that the game "is good for tender youth which never has enough of running back and forth."
[B] "German Schlagball ["hit the ball"] is also similar to rounders. The native claim that these games 'have remained the games of the Germanic peoples, and have won no popularity beyond their countries' quite obviously does not accord with facts. It is enough to quote the conclusion of a description of "hit the ball" by H. Guarnoni, who had a medical practice in Innsbruck about 1600: 'We enjoyed this game in Prague very much and played it a lot. The cleverest at it were the Poles and the Silesians, so the game obviously comes from there.' Incidentally, he was one of the first who described the way in which the game was played. It was played with a leather ball and a club four-foot long. The ball was tossed by a bowler who threw it to the striker, who struck it with a club rounded at the end as far into the field as possible, and attempted to make a circuit of the bases without being hit by the ball. If 'one of the opposing players catches the ball in the air, a change of positions follows.'"
Sources:
[A] Guarinoni, Hippolytis, Greuel der Verwustung der menschlichen Gesschlechts [The horrors of the devastation of the human race], [Ingolstadt, Austrian Empire, 1610], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 167-168. See also pp. 100-102 for Block's summary of, and a translation of the Guarinoni material.
[B] Source: from page 111 of an unidentified photocopy in the "Origins of Baseball" file at the Giamatti Center of the Baseball Hall of Fame, accessed in 2008. The quoted material is found in a section titled "Rounders and Other Ball Games with Sticks and Bats," pp. 110-111. This section also reports: "Gyula Hajdu sees the origin of round games as follows: 'Round games conserve the memory of ancient castle warfare. A member of the besieged garrison sets out for help, slipping through the camp of the enemy. . . . '" "In Hungary several variants of rounders exist in the countryside."
This unidentified source may be W. Andrei and L. Zolnay, Fun and Games in Old Europe [English translation from Hungarian] (Budapest, 1986), pp. 110-111, as cited in Block, fn 16, page 304.
Query:
What is the basis of the Andrei/Zolnay report of a circuit of bases in the Czech game?
Does Mehl's discussion of the Czech game add anything?
Can we verify the Gyula Hajdu source? Is it Magyar Nepraiz V. Folklor? Does Hungarian rounders Belong in this entry? If not, how do we date it?
Circa
1600
1600c.2 Shakespeare Mentions Rounders? Pretty Doubtful
Tags:
Game:
"Shakespeare mentions games of "base" and "rounders. Lovett, Old Boston Boys, page 126."
Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Caveat: We have not yet confirmed that Lovett or Shakespeare used the term "rounders." Gomme [page 80], among others, identifies the Bard's use of "base" in Cymbeline as a reference to prisoner's base, which is not a ball game. John Bowman, email of 5/21/2008, reports that his concordance of all of Shakespeare's words shows has no listing for "rounders" . . . nor for "stoolball," for that matter [see #1612c.1, below], 'tho that may because Shakespeare's authorship of Two Noble Kinsmen is not universally accepted by scholars..
Circa
1600
1600.3 Stooleball popular in 1600
Game:
Behary, "The Prehistories of Baseball" (2016) p. 177, cites Besant (1903) who cites Furnivalle's notes on games popular in 1600: "To wrestle, play at Stooleball, or to runne.... to play at base..."
Sources:
Behary, "The Prehistories of Baseball" (2016) p. 177
Year
1600
1609.1 Polish Origins of Baseball Perceived in Jamestown VA Settlement
Game:
Age of Players:
"Soon after the new year [1609], [we] initiated a ball game played with a bat . . . . Most often we played this game on Sundays. We rolled up rags to make balls . . . Our game attracted the savages who sat around the field, delighted with this Polish sport."
A 1975 letter from Matthew Baranski letter to the HOF said:
"For your information and records, I am pleased to inform you that after much research I have discovered that baseball was introduced to America by the Poles who arrived in Jamestown in 1609. . . . Records of the University of Krakow, the oldest school of higher learning in Poland show that baseball or batball was played by the students in the 14th century and was part of the official physical culture program."
Sources:
The 1609 source is Zbigniew Stefanski, Memorial Commercatoris [A Merchant's Memoirs], (Amsterdam, 1625), as cited in David Block's Baseball Before We Knew It, page 101. Stefanski was a skilled Polish workingman who wrote a memoir of his time in the Jamestown colony: an entry for 1609 related the Polish game of pilka palantowa(bat ball). Another account by a scholar reported adds that "the playfield consisted of eight bases not four, as in our present day game of baseball." If true, this would imply that the game involved running as well as batting.
1975 Letter: from Matthew Baranski to the Baseball Hall ofFame, March 23, 1975. [Found in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center.] Matthew Baranski himself cites First Poles in America1608-1958, published by the Polish Falcons of America, Pittsburgh, but unavailable online as of 7/28/09. We have not confirmed that sighting.
See also David Block, "Polish Workers Play Ball at Jamestown Virginia: An Early Hint of Continental Europe's Influence on Baseball," Base Ball (Origins Issue), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pp.5-9.
Comment:
Per Maigaard's 1941 survey of "battingball games" includes a Polish variant of long ball, but does not mention pilka palantowa by name. However, pilka palantowa may merely be a longer/older term for palant, the Polish form of long ball still played today.
The likelihood that pilka palantowa left any legacy in America is fairly low, since the Polish glassblowers returned home after a year and there is no subsequent mention of any similar game in colonial Virginia
Year
1609
1610.1 Very Early Cricket Match
A match is thought to have been played between the men of North Downs and men of the Weald.
Contributed by Beth Hise January 12, 2010. Beth is in pursuit of the original source of this claim. North Downs is in Surrey, about 4 miles NE of Guildford, where early uses of both "cricket" and "base-ball" are found. It is about 30 miles SW of London. The Weald is apparently an old term for the county of Kent, which is SW of London.
Year
1610
1611.1 French-English Dictionary Cites "Cat and Trap" and Cricket
Dictionary-maker R. Cotgrave translates "crosse" as "the crooked staff wherewith boies play at cricket."
"Martinet" [a device for propelling large stones at castles] is defined as "the game called cat and trap."
Cotgrave, Randle, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues [London, 1611], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168. "
Cricket historians Steel and Lyttelton: "Thanks to Cotgrave, then, we know that in 1611 cricket was a boy's game, played with a crooked bat. The club, bat, or staff continued to be crooked or curved at the blade till the middle of the eighteenth century or later: and till nearly 1720 cricket was mainly a game for boys." A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 6.
Year
1611
1612c.1 Play Attributed to Shakespeare Cites Stool-ball
Game:
Age of Players:
A young maid asks her wooer to go with her. "What shall we do there, wench?" She replies, "Why, play at stool-ball; what else is there to do?"
Fletcher and Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen [London], Act V, Scene 2, per W. W. Grantham, Stoolball Illustrated and How to Play It [W. Speaight, London, 1904], page 29. David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 170, gives 1634 as the publication date of this play, which was reportedly performed in 1612, and mentions that doubts have been expressed as to authorship, so Shakespeare [1564-1616] may not have contributed. Others surmise that The Bard wrote Acts One and Five, which would make him the author of the stoolball reference. See also item #1600c.2 above. Note: can we find further specifics? Russell-Goggs, in "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 320, notes that the speaker is the "daughter of the Jailer."
Circa
1612
1613.1 His and Her Stool-ball Banter: Play, or Foreplay?
Tags:
Game:
"Ward: Can you play at shuttlecock forsooth?
Isabella: Ay, and stool-ball too, sir; I have great luck at it.
Ward: Why, can you catch a ball well?
Isabella: I have catched two in my lap at one game
Ward: What, have you, woman? I must have you learn to play at trap too, then y'are full and whole."
Dutton, Richard Thomas, Women Beware Women and Other Plays [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999], page 135. The play itself is generally dated 1613 or 1614. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/9/2004
Year
1613
1614.1 Poet Yearns to "Goe to Stoole-Ball-Play"
Tags:
Game:
Breton, Nicholas, I Would, and Would Not [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168. Stanza 79 reads "I would I were an honest Countrey Wench/ . . . / And for a Tanzey, goe to Stoole-Ball-Play." Tansy cakes were reportedly given as prizes for ball play.
Year
1614
1615.1 Stoole Ball Goes North with Early Explorer
Game:
"And some dayes heare we stayed we shott at butts and bowe and arrows, at other tymes at stoole ball, and some tymes of foote ball
William Baffin, from "The Fourth Recorded Voyage of Baffin," in C. M. Markham, ed., The Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622, [Hakluyt Society, 1881], page 122. This voyage started in March 1615, and the entry is dated June?? 19th, 1615. The voyage was taken in hope of finding a northwest passage to the East, but was thwarted by ice, and Baffin returned to England in the fall of 1615. Note: Ascertain the month, which is obscured in the online copy. Was location of play near what is now known as Baffin Island?
Year
1615
1616c.1 Translation of Homer Depicts Virgins Playing Stool-Ball, Disturbing Ulysses' Snooze
Game:
Translator Chapman described a scene in which several virgins play stool-ball near a river while Ulysses sleeps nearby: "The Queene now (for the upstroke) strooke the ball/Quite wide off th' other maids; and made it fall/Amidst the whirlpools.
Chapman, George, The whole works of Homer: prince of poets, in his Iliads, and Odysses [London, 1616], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168.
Steel and Lyttelton indicate that Chapman's translation may date "as early as 1614," and say report that Chapman calls the fragment "a stoolball chance." See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 2. Note: The year of the translation needs to be confirmed;. It would be interesting to see how other translators have treated this scene.
Circa
1616
1617.1 King James' Controversial "Book of Sports" Omits Mention of Ballplaying
Reacting to Puritans' denunciations of Sabbath recreations, James I in 1617 listed a large number of permitted Sunday activities -including no ball games - and cited as unlawful only "beare and Bull beatinge enterludes & bowlinge. . . ." Axon, Ernest, Notes of Proceedings. Volume 1 - 1616-1622-3 (Printed for the Record Society for the Publication of Original Documents, 1901), page xxvi. There was adverse reaction to this proclamation, which is said to have surprised the King.
Another source lists the Sunday bans as "Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, interludes, and bowls:" Keightley, Thomas, The History of England, volume II (Whittaker and Co., London, 1839), page 321. One chruchman listed "bear-baiting, bull-baiting, common plays, and bowling:" Marsden, J. B., History of Christian Churches and Sects (Richard Bentley, London, 1856), page 269. Thus, unless "enterludes" then connoted a range of games or "common plays" that included ballplay, contemporary ballgames like stoolball and cricket - and cat games - remained unconstrained.
Year
1617
1619.1 Bawdy Poem Has Wenches Playing "With Stoole and Ball"
Tags:
Game:
"It was the day of all dayes in the yeare/That unto Bacchus hath its dedication,/ . . . / When country wenches play with stoole and ball,/And run at Barley-breake until they fall:/And country lads fall on them, in such sort/That after forty weekes the[sic] rew the sport."
Anonymous, Pasquils Palinodia, and His Progress to the Taverne; Where, After the Survey of the Sellar, You Are Presented with a Pleasant Pynte of Poeticall Sherry [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 169, who credits Henderson, page 74. Block notes that "Barley-Break" [not a ball game] was, like stoole ball, traditionally a spring courtship ritual in the English countryside.
Year
1619
1621.1 Some Pilgrims "Openly" Play "Stoole Ball" on Christmas Morning: Governor Clamps Down
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Governor Willliam Bradford
Governor Bradford describes Christmas Day 1621 at Plymouth Plantation, MA; "most of this new-company excused them selves and said it wente against their consciences to work on ye day. So ye Govr tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them; but when they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye street at play, openly; some at pitching ye barr, and some at stoole-ball and shuch like sport. . . . Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly."
Sources:
Bradford, William, Of Plymouth Plantation, [Harvey Wish, ed., Capricorn Books, 1962], pp 82 - 83. Henderson cites Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856. See his ref 23. Full text supplied by John Thorn, 6/25/2005. Also cited and discussed by Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), p. 190
Comment:
Bradford explained that the issue was not that ball-playing was sinful, but that playing openly while others worked was not good for morale.
Note: From scrutinizing early reports of stoolball, Protoball does not find convincing evidence that it was a base-running game by the 1600s.
Year
1621
1622.1 Bad, Bad Batts!
A Chichester churchwarden indicted a group of men for ballplaying, reasoning thus: "first, for it is contrarie to the 7th Article; second, for they are used to break the Church window with the balls; and thirdly, for that little children had like to have their braynes beaten out with the cricket batt."
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the game and its players through the ages (Newton Abbot, 1978), page 16, as cited in Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29.
Year
1622
1629.1 Play Refers to Weakling Who Was "Beat . . . With a Trap Stick"
Shirley, James, The Wedding. As it was lately acted by her Mauesties seruants at the Phenix at Drury Lane [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 170. A servant in the play describes his master as so mild in manner that "the last time he was in the field a boy of seven year old beat him with a trap-stick."
Year
1629
1629.2 Curate Can't Beat the Rap as Cricketer
"In 1629, having been censured for playing 'at Cricketts,' the curate of Ruckinge in Kent unsuccessfully defended himself on the grounds that it was a game played by men of quality."
Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29. Bateman does not provide his source for this anecdote. Note: Can we find and extend this story?
Year
1629
1630c.1 "Ancient Cheshire Games" Include Stooleball, Nine Holes
Game:
"Any they dare challenge for to throw the sleudge,/To Jumpe or leape over dich or hedge,/ To wrastle, play at stooleball, or to Runne,/ To pitch the bar, or to shoote off a Gunne/ To play at Loggets, nine holes, or ten pins. . . .[list continues, mentioning stool ball once more at end.]"
This verse, titled "Ancient Cheshire Games: Auntient customes in games used by boys and girles merily sett out in verse," is attributed to "Randle Holmes's MSS Brit Mus." Is in Medium of Inter-communications for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, Etc, July - December 1856, page 487. Note: Can we learn why is this account associated with 1630? This entry needs to be reconciled with #1585.1 above. Add online search detail?
Circa
1630
1630c.2 Stoolball Play Makes Maidstone a "Very Profane Town"
Game:
"About 1630 a Puritan records that 'Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, where stoolball and other games were practiced on the Lord's Day."
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.. We need to sort out how this claim relates to the very similar wording in the quote by Reverend Wilson in entry #1672.1 below.
Circa
1630
1630c.3 At Oxford, Women's Shrovetide Customs Include Stooleball
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"In the early seventeenth century, an Oxford fellow, Thomas Crosfield, noted the customs of Shrovetide as '1. frittering. 2. throwing at cocks. 3. playing at stooleball in ye Citty by women & footeball by men.'" Shrovetide was the Monday and Tuesday [that Tuesday being Mardi Gras in some quarter] preceding Ash Wednesday and the onset of Lent.
Sources:
Griffin, Emma, "Popular Recreation and the Significance of Space," (publication unknown), page 36.
The original source is shown as the Crosfield Diary entry for March 1, 1633, page 63. Thanks to John Thorn for supplementing a draft of this entry. One citation for the diary is F. S. Boas, editor, The Diary of Thomas Crosfield (Oxford University Press, London, 1935).
Query:
Can we find and inspect the 1935 Boas edition of the diary?
Circa
1630
1631.1 Drama by Philip Massenger Refers to Cat-Stick
"Page: You, sirrah sheep's-head/ With a face cut on a cat-stick, do you hear?/ You, yeoman fewterer, conduct me to/ the lady of the mansion, or my poniard/ Shall disembogue thy soul."
"The Maid of Honour," Scene 2, in The Plays of Philip Massinger, Volume 1 (John Murray, London, 1830), page 327.
Notes written in 1830 by W. Gifford: "Cat-stick. This, I believe, is what is now called a buck-stick, used by children in the game of tip-cat, or kit-cat." Query: Is it clear why an abusive address like this would employ a phrase like "cut on a cat-stick?" Does it imply, for instance a disfigured or pock-marked visage?
Year
1631
1632.1 In Germany, Ballplaying Associated With Scabies, Other Diseases
Game:
"The [preceding] reference to Fuchsius should be to Institutiones 2.3.4: . . . 'Whereby the habit of our German schoolboys is most worthy of reprehension, who never take exercise except immediately after food, either jumping or running or playing ball or quoits or taking part in other exercises of a like nature; so that it is no surprise, seeing they thus accumulate a great mass of crude humours, that they suffer from perpetual scabies, and other diseases caused by vicious humours':p. 337)"
Burton, Robert E., The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. 4 [Clarenden Press, Oxford, 1989], page 285. [Note: We need to confirm date of the Fuschius quote; we're not sure why it is assigned to 1632.]. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Year
1632
1633c.1 Ambiguous Reference to Stoole Ball Appears in a Drama
Game:
"At stoole ball I have a North-west stripling shall deale with ever a boy in the Strand."
Cited in W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs [Reeves and Turner, London, 1905], page 569. Hazlitt attributes this mysterious fragment to someone named Stickwell in Totenham Court, by T. Nabbes, appearing in 1638. Note: Can we guess what Stickwell was trying to say, and why? I find that Nabbes wrote this drama in 1633 or before, and surmise that "Stickwell" is the name of the fictional character who speaks the quoted line. Can we straighten out, or interpret, the syntax of this line? [The Strand, presumably, refers to the London street of that name?]
Circa
1633
1634.1 That Archbishop Laud, He Certainly Doesn't Laud Stoolball
Tags:
Game:
"In his visitation and reference to churchyards, he [Archbishop Laud, in 1634] is troubled because 'several spend their time in stoolball.'"
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Note1: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.
Another source quotes Laud as saying "This whole churchyard is made a receptacle for all ydle persons to spend their time in stopball and such lyke recreacions." OED, Abp Laud's Visit, in 4th Rep Hist. MSS Comm. App 144/1, provided by John Thorn, email of 6/11/2007. Note2: is this from the same source?
Year
1634
1637.1 Conservative Protestants Decry Sunday Play, See Grave Danger in it
Burton, Henry, and William Prynne, A Divine Tragedie Lately Acted [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171. In a denunciation of King Charles' approval of after-church play on Sundays, the authors cite as one of the "memorable examples of Gods judgements" a case in which youths "playing at Catt on the Lords day, two of them fell out, and the one hitting the other under the eare with his catt, he therwith fell downe for dead." Cited by David Block in Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171: Block notes that the weapon here was a cat-stick.
Year
1637
1637.2 Play Mentions Trap
Shirley, James, Hide Park: A Comedie [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171. A beautiful young woman, to a servant who is fishing for a compliment: "Indeed, I have heard you are a precious gentleman/ And in your younger days could play at trap well."
Year
1637
1638.1 Bishop Sees Churchyard as Consecrated Ground: No Stool Ball, Drinkings, Merriments
Game:
Bishop Mantague admonishes Norwich Churchmen to consider the churchyard as consecrated ground, "not to be profaned by feeding and dunging cattle . . . . Much less is it to be unhallowed with dancings, morrises, meetings at Easter, drinkings, Whitson ales, midsummer merriments or the like, stool ball, football, wrestlings, wasters or boy's sports."
Barrett, Jay Botsford, English Society in the Eighteenth Century as Influence from Oversea [Macmillan, New York, 1924], page 221. Barrett cites this passage as Articles of Enquiry and Direction for the Diocese of Norwich, sigs. A3-A3v.
1638.2 - Archdeacon: Churchyards Are Not For Stoole-ball or "Other Profane Uses"
"Have any playes, feasts, banquets, suppers, churchales, drinkings, temporal courts or leets, lay juries, musters, exercise of dauncing, stoole-ball, foot-ball, or the like, or any other profane usage been suffered to be kept in your church, chappell, or churchyard?
Attributed to Mr. Dr. Pearson, Archdeacon of Suffolke, in Heino Pfannenschmid, Das Weihwasser [Hahn'sche Hofbuchhandlung, Hannover, 1869], page 74n.
Year
1638
1640.1 Stoolball Attracts Gentry, Rascals, Boys
Game:
"J. Smythe, in his Hundred of Berkeley (1640) gave the following admonition: 'Doe witness the inbred delight, that both gentry, yeomanry, rascallity, boyes, and children, doe take in a game called stoball. . . And not a sonne of mine, but at 7 was furnished with his double stoball staves, and a gamester thereafter.'"
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 320. John Smyth's three-volume Berkeley Manuscripts were published in 1883 by J. Bellows; Volume Three is titled "A description of the hundred of Berkeley in the County of Gloucester . . . ." Citation supplied by John Thorn, email of 1/30/2008.
Year
1640
1648.1 Short Herrick Poem Proposes a Wager on Stool-ball Game
Tags:
Game:
"At Stool-ball, Lucia, let us play," offers the poet, then proposing that if he wins, he would "have for all a kisse."
[Full text is in Supplemental Text, below.]
Sources:
Herrick, Robert, Hesperdes: or, the Works Both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq. [London], page 280, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171.
Year
1648
1652.1 Traveler in Wales Reports "Laudable" Sunday Games of "Trap, Cat, Stool-ball, Racket &c"
Game:
Taylor, John, A Short Relation of a Long Journey Made Round or Ovall [London], book 4, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 172. A versifier recounts his journey to Wales, where he notes a lack of religious fervor, "so that people do exercise and edify in the churchyard at the lawful and laudable games of trap, cat, stool-ball, racket, &c., on Sundays."
Year
1652
1653.1 Play Refers to Trapsticks
A character is asked how he might raise some needed money: "If my woodes being cut down cannot fill this pocket, cut 'em into trapsticks."
Middleton, Thomas, and William Rowley, The Spanish Gipsie [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 172. Block observes that this snippet suggests that "trapstick" was by then commonly understood as a trap-ball bat.
Year
1653
1653.2 Early Use of "Cricket" Seen in Rabelais Translation
"So far as is known, the first mention [of the word "cricket"] occurs in Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of the works of Rabelais, published in London in 1653, where it is found enumerated as one of the games of the Gargantua."
Editorial, "The Pedigree of Cricket," The Irish Times, 5/9/1931. Reprinted in The Times, 5/9/2001. From the MCC Library collection.
Caveat: We now have at least four pre-1653 claims to the use of "cricket" and similar terms: see #1598.3, #1598.4, #1611.1, #1622.1, and #1629.2 above. Note: Rabelais' "games of Gargantua" is a list of over 200 games supposedly played at one sitting by the fictional character Gargantua. Urquhart's translation includes several familiar pastimes, including cricket, nine-pins, billiards, "tip and hurl" [?], prison bars, barley-break, and the morris dance . . . along with many games that appear to be whimsy and word-play ["ramcod ball," "nivinivinack," and "the bush leap"]. Not included are: club ball, stick ball, stoolball, horne billets, nine holes, hat ball, rounders, feeder, or base ball. Francis Rabelais - Completely Translated into English by Urquhard and Motteux (the Aldus Society, London, 1903), pp 68-71. Text chased down by John Thorn, email of 1/30/2008.
Year
1653
1656.1 Dutch Prohibit "Playing Ball," Cricket on Sundays in New Netherlands.
Tags:
Game:
In October 1656 Director-General Peter Stuyvesant announced a stricter Sabbath Law in New Netherlands, including fine of a one pound Flemish for "playing ball," . . . cricket, tennis, ninepins, dancing, drinking, etc.
Sources:
Source: 13: Doc Hist., Volume Iv, pp.13-15, and Father Jogues' papers in NY Hist. Soc. Coll., 1857, pp. 161-229, as cited in Manual of the Reformed Church in America (Formerly Ref. Prot. Dutch Church), 1628-1902, E. T. Corwin, D.D., Fourth Edition (Reformed Church in America, New York, 1902.) Provided by John Thorn, email of 2/1/2008.
See also:Esther Singleton, Dutch New York (Dodd Mead, 1909), as cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), pp. 190. [Pages ix and 202 and 302 in Singleton touch on "ball-playing" in this period.]
Warning:
The reference to cricket resulted from the translation of the Dutch word "balslaen" into "cricket." Others have apparently translated it as "tennis."Further, "ball-playing" is a translation from "kaetsen."
Comment:
Singleton notes on p. ix that "Shrovetide was the Saturnalia of the lower classes," citing "joyous pastimes as all kinds of racing, and ball-playing in the streets. . ." On p. 202 she cites a stern 1667 ordinance discouraging Sunday play of "ball playing, rolling nine-pins or bowls, etc." On p. 302 she cites a January 1656 proclamation forbidding "all labour, tennis-playing, ball-playing," among other activities. Protoball does not see a ref to cricket in these sections.
Query:
Note: It would be useful to ascertain what Dutch phrase was translated as "playing ball," and whether the phrase denotes a certain type of game. The population of Manhattan at this time was about 800 [were there enough resident Englishmen to sustain cricket?], and the area was largely a fur trading post. Is it possible that the burghers imported this text from the Dutch homeland?
Can anyone out there google in Dutch?
Year
1656
1656.2 Two English Counties Agree: Stoolball Gets "Too Much Attention."
Game:
"The game [Stoolball] cropped up in 1656 in a pronouncement by the Counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland which said that "too much attention was being paid to 'shooting, playing at football, stoolball, wrestling.'"
SRA website, accessed 4/11/07. Note: we need a fuller citation and perhaps further text and motivation for these pronouncements.
Year
1656
1656.3 Cromwellians Needlessly Ban Cricket from Ireland
Tags:
Simon Rae writes that the "killjoy mentality reached its zenith under the Puritans, during the Interregnum, achieving an absurd peak when cricket was banned in Ireland in 1656 even though the Irish didn't play it." Evidently, hurling was mistaken for cricket.
Simon Rae, It's Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber and Faber, 2001), page 46. Note: Rae does not document this event.
Year
1656
1658.1 English Parish Rewards Informant for Ratting on Sunday Trap-baller
Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times in England [London, 1797], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 182. Included is an account from the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, from 1658: "Item to Richard May, 13 shillings for informing of one that played at trap-ball on the Lord's day."
Year
1658
1658.2 Milton's Nephew Eyes Cricket with Apprehension
"Cricket was . . . emerging in a written sense, not through the form of a celebratory discourse, but as the target of Puritan and sabbatarian ire. Even in the first reliable literary reference to cricket - in The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence (1658) [a poem] by John Milton's nephew, Edward Philips - the game is represented as synonymous with brutality: 'Ay, but Richard, will you not think so hereafter? Will you not when you have me throw a stool at my head, and cry, "Would my eyes had been beaten out with a cricket ball ["batt?" asks Bateman], the day before I saw thee"'."
Bateman, Anthony,"More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 30. Bateman does not give the original source for the Philips quotation. Note: Can we find the original Philips source? A few citations give the year of publication as 1685.
Year
1658
1659.1 Stuyvesant: No Tennis, Ball-Playing, Dice on Fast Day
Tags:
"We shall interdict and forbid, during divine service on the [fasting] day aforesaid, all exercise and games of tennis, ball-playing, hunting, plowing and sowing, and moreover all unlawful practice such as dice, drunkenness . . ." proclaimed Peter Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant was Director-General of New Netherlands.
Manchester, Herbert, Four Centuries of Sport in America (Publisher?, 1931). Email from John Thorn, 1/24/097. Query: Can we determine what area was affected by this proclamation? How does this proclamation relate to #1656.1 above?
Year
1659
1660c.1 Village Life: The Men to Foot-Ball, Maids and Kids to Stoolball
Game:
The biography of a 17th century lord includes "a nostalgic description of the little town of Kirtling" by the lord's son Roger, born in 1651, as follows:
"The town was then my grandfather's . . . it was always the custom for the youth of the town . . . to play [from noon when chores ended] to milking time and supper at night. The men [went to play] football, and the maids, with whom we children were commonly mixed, being not proof for the turbulence of the other party, to stoolball and such running games as they knew." Dale B. J. Randall, Gentle Flame: The Life and Verse of Dudley, Lord North (1602 - 1677 (Duke Univ. Press, 1983), page 56. The town of Kirtling is in Cambridgeshire, northeast of London.
Circa
1660
1660c.2 Ben Franklin's Uncle Recalls Ballplaying On an English Barn
Tags:
"That is the street which I could ne'er abide,/And these the grounds I play'd side and hide;/ This the pond whereon I caught a fall,/ And that the barn whereon I play'd at ball."
The uncle of U.S. patriot Benjamin Franklin, also named Benjamin Franklin, wrote these lines in a 1704 recollection of his native English town of Ecton. The uncle lived from 1650/1 to 1727. Ecton is a village in Northamptonshire.
Loring, J. S., The Franklin Manuscripts. The Historical Magazine, and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History, and Biography of America (1857-1875), Volume 3, issue 1, January 1859, 4 pages. Submitted by John Thorn, 4/24/06.
Circa
1660
1660c.3 New Netherland (Later NYC) Bans "Balslaen" on the Sabbath
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
(summarizing rules of the Sabbath in the New Netherland colony)
" . . . exercises and amusement, drinking {themselves} drunk, frequenting taverns or taphouses, dancing, playing cards, ticktacken {backgammon}, balslaen {literally: "hitting the ball"}, clossen {bowling}, kegelen {nine pins}, going boating, traveling with barges, carts, or wagons, before, between, or during the Holy worship."
Note: one translator used the term "cricket" for "balslaen."
Sources:
Jaap Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America (Cornell U. Press: Ithaca, 2009), p. 244.
Pam Bakker, who reported this find, notes that Jacobs' sources include: B. Fernow (ed.) and E. B. O'Callahan (trans.), The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini (7 vols, New York 1897, 2nd ed. Baltimore 1976, 1:24-26); also Ch. T. Gehring (trans. and ed.), Laws and Writs of Appeal 1647-1663 (New Netherland Documents Series, vol. 16, part 1) (Syracuse 1991 and this on p. 71); and thirdly E. B. O'Callagham (trans.) Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1636-1674 (Albany 1868 on p. 259).
See her full find below under Supplemental Text.
Comment:
(Jacobs) says that unfortunately "balslaen" has been translated as cricket but it simply means hitting the ball.
Query:
Can we determine whether 17th-century balslaen was a batting/baserunning game, or was it in the field-hockey, or handball, or golf, families of games?
Was "New Netherland" confined to the Manhattan area or did it extend northward into the Hudson River valley?
Is "circa 1660" a defensible approximation for this find?
Was balslaen played in Holland? Could it have influenced English ballplaying, including cricket and English base ball??
Circa
1660
1661.1 Galileo Galilei Discovers . . . Backspin!
Tags:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Galileo
The great scientist wrote, in a treatise discussing how the ball behaves in different ball games, including tennis: "Stool-ball, when they play in a stony way, . . . they do not trundle the ball upon the ground, but throw it, as if to pitch a quait. . . . . To make the ball stay, they hold it artificially with their hand uppermost, and it undermost, which in its delivery hath a contrary twirl or rolling conferred upon it by the fingers, by means whereof in its coming to the ground neer the mark it stays there, or runs very little forwards."
(see Supplemental Text, below, for a longer excerpt, which also includes the effect of "cutting" balls in tennis as a helpful tactic.)
Sources:
Galileo Galilei, Mathematical Collections and Translations. "Inglished from his original Italian copy by Thomas Salusbury" (London, 1661), page 142.
Provided by David Block, emails of 2/27/2008 and 9/13/2015.
Comment:
David further asks: "could it be that this is the source of the term putting "English" on a ball?"
Query:
Can we really assume that Galileo was familiar with 1600s stoolball and tennis? Is it possible that this excerpt reflects commentary by Salusbury, rather that strict translation from the Italian source?
Year
1661
1665.1 Poet Depicts Fleet-footed Mercury as Wielding a Kit-Cat Bat
This translation of a French parody of Virgil's Aeneid includes these lines on the god Mercury: "Then in his hand he take a thick Bat,/ With which he us'd to play at kit-cat;/ To beat mens Apples from their trees, . . . " Ouch.
Scarron, Paul, Scarronnides, or, Virgile travestie a mock poem [London], trans. Charles Cotton, Book Four, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 172.
Year
1665
1666.1 John Bunyan is Very Seriously Interrupted at Tip-Cat, one of his Four "Chief Sins"
Tags:
"I was in the midst of a game of cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike the second time a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul which said, 'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven or have thy sins and go to hell?'"
Sources:
Bunyan, John, Grace abounding to the chief of sinners [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 173. Autobiographical account by Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim's Progress. David notes on 5/29/2005 that this reference was originally reported by Harold Peterson, but that Peterson had attributed it to Pilgrim's Progress itself.
Comment:
Writing of Bunyan in 1885, Washington Gladden revealed that as a youth, "[t]he four chief sins of which he was guilty were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tip-cat, and reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton." Letter to the Editor, The Century Magazine, Volume 30 (May-October 1885), page 334.
Query:
Bunyan was born in 1628. Are we sure that this event can be dated 1666, when he was nearly forty years old?
Year
1666
1669.1 Shadwell Play Said to List Rural Games, including Stool-ball.
Game:
"The writer who took most interest in popular pastimes was Shadwell, whose rococo play The Royal Shepherdess was produced before the king in 1669. It included country folk who danced and sand of a list of genuine English rural games, such as trap, keels, barley-break, golf [and] stool-ball . . . ."
Hutton, Ronald, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: the Ritual Year, 1400-1700 (Oxford U Press, Oxford, 1994), page 235. Provided by John Thorn, email, 7/9/2004. Note: can we retrieve the full original list?
Comment:
The text of the play does not contain the words "barley" "game" or "stoolball." It is of course possible that a production of the play included visuals of the cited games. [ba]
Year
1669
1671.1 Lusty Little Song Mentions Trap as "Innocent" Prelude to Heavy Petting
Game:
"Thus all our life long we are frolick and gay,/And instead of Court revels, we merrily play/At Trap, at Rules, and at Barly-break run:/At Goff, and at Foot-ball, and when we have done/These innocent sports, we'l laugh and lie down,/And to each pretty Lass/We will give a green Gown.
Ebsworth, Joseph W., Westminster Drolleries, Both Parts, of 1671, 1672 [R. Roberts, Lincolnshire, 1875], page 28. Note: Yes, the player's method for turning the gown to green is what you suspect it is. We'll see this gown again at #1719.1, below.
Year
1671
1672.1 Rev. Wilson Decries Sunday "Stool-Ball" and "Cricketts" Playing
Game:
In his memoirs, the Rev. Thomas Wilson, a Puritan divine of Maidstone, England, states: "Maidstone was formerly a very profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing, stool-ball, cricketts, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on the Lord's Day."
Note: Henderson covers Wilson, but doesn't reference him. In the text, he says that Wilson wrote a memoir in 1700, but doesn't use a year for the events that were then recalled. I assume that the 1672 date is taken from date clues in the whole text. Henderson's source may be his ref #167: see Woodruff, C.H., "Origin of Cricket," Baily's Magazine [London, 1901], Vol. 6, p. 51. David Block [page 173ff] describes how "base ball" was substituted for "stool-ball" in later accounts of Wilson' s biography, which he cites as Swinnick, George, The Life and Death of Mr. Tho. Wilson, Minister of Maidstone [London].
Year
1672
1672c.2 Francis Willughby's "Book of Games" Surveys Folkways: Batting/Baserunning Game Described
Game:
Age of Players:
Warwickshire scientist Francis Willughby (1635-1672) compiled, in manuscript form, descriptions of over 130 games, including, stoolball, hornebillets, kit-cat, stowball, and tutball [but not cricket, trapball or rounders]. He died at 36 and the incomplete manuscript, long held privately, became known to researchers in the 1990s and was published in 2003.
Willughby described stoolball as a game in which a team of players defended an overturned stool with their hands.
Hornebillets, unlike stoolball and early cat games, involved using a bat, and also base-running [between holes placed 7 or 8 yards apart], but it used no ball - a cat was used as the batted object. A runner [running was compulsory, even for short hits] had to place his staff in a hole before the other team could put the cat in that hole. The number of holes depended on the number of players available.
Stowball appears as a golf-like game.
Kit Cat is described as a sort of fungo game in which the cats can be propelled 60 yards or more.
Sources:
David Cram, Jeffrey L. Forgeng, and Dorothy Johnston, Francis Willughby's Book of Games: A Seventeenth Century Treatise on Sports, Games, and Pastimes [Ashgate Publishing, 2003].
See also L. McCray, "The Amazing Francis Willughby, and the Role of Stoolball in the Evolution of Baseball and Cricket," in Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 17-20.
Circa
1672
1676.1 The "Citty of New Yorke" Sets a Fine for Sunday "Gameing or Playing: Ten Guilders
Tags:
The Mayor and Aldermen of New York that none should "att any Time hereafter willfully or obstinately prophane the Sabbath daye by . . . Playinge att Cards Dice Tables or any other Vnlawful Games whatsoeuer," banning "alsoe the disorderly Assemblyes of Children In ye Streets and other Places To the disturbance of Others with Noyse." Consequences? "Ye Person or Persons soe found drinkinge Gameing or Playing Either in Priuate or Publicke Shall forfeict Tenn Guildrs for Euery such offence." Note that ballplaying was not specifically prohibited.
Sources:
Dated November 13, 1676. Laws of the City of New York [Publication data?], page 27.
Year
1676
1676.2 Early Limeys Take "Krickett" to Far Mediterranean Coast
The chaplain assigned to three British ships at Aleppo [now in northern Syria] wrote this in his diary for May 6, 1676:
As was the custom all summer long, this day [in May 1676] "at least 40 of the English, with his worship the Consull, rod [sic] out of the citty about 4 miles to the Greene Platt, a fine vally by a river side, to recreate them selves. Where a princely tent was pitched; and wee had severall pastimes and sports, as duck-hunting, fishing, shooting, handball, krickett, scrofilo . . . . and at 6 wee returne all home in good order, but soundly tyred and weary."
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 8. The passage is at Teonge, Henry, The Diary of Henry Teonge (Charles Knight, London, 1825), page 159. Accessed on Google Books, 12/28/2007.
Year
1676
1677.1 Almanac's Easter Verse Mentions Stool-ball
Tags:
Game:
"Young men and maids,/ Now very brisk,/ At barley-break and/ Stool-ball frisk."
W. Winstanley, Poor Robin 1677. An almanack after a new fashion, by Poor Robin [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 174.
Year
1677
1680.1 Political Tract Uses Trap-stick Metaphor
Anon., Honest Hodge and Ralph Holding a Sober Discourse in Answer to a late Scandalous and Pernicious Pamphlet, by "a person of quality" [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 174. The anonymous author of this tract sees the pamphlet as a tool used to trigger civil unrest in England, calling it "a mere trap-stick to bang the Phanaticks about."
Year
1680
1680s.2 Cricket Pitch Thought to be Established at 22 Yards
While the length of the cricket pitch [distance between wickets] was formally set at 22 yards in the 1744 rules, that distance is already "thought to have been 22 yards in the 1680's." [John Thorn points out that 22 yards is one-tenth of a furlong (and is also one-eightieth of a mile), and that a 22-yard chain was commonly used as a standard starting in the 1600's; in fact, the "chain" became itself a word for this distance in 1661; email of 2/1/2008.]
Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia, 1990], page 16. Note: Scholefield does not provide a citation for this claim; keep an eye out!
Decade
1680s
1683c.1 Cricket's First Wicket is Pitched
"We know that the first wicket, comprising two stumps with a bail across them, was pitched somewhere about 1683, as John Nyren recalled long afterward." Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (The Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960: reprint from 1935), page 31.
Note: We should locate Nyren's original claim. Does this imply that cricket was played without wickets, or without bails, before 1683?
Circa
1683
1685.1 Juicy Early Description of Stool-ball is Written, Then Unread for 162 Years
Game:
Aubrey, John, Natural History of Wiltshire [London, Nichols and Son, 1847], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 210. Folklorist Alice Gomme [see below] called this the earliest description of stool-ball. Aubrey says "it is peculiar to North Wilts, North Gloucestershire, and a little part of Somerset near Bath. They smite a ball, stuffed very hard with quills and covered with soale leather, with a staffe, commonly made of withy, about three feet and a half long. Colerne down is the place so famous and so frequented for stobbal playing. The turfe is very fine and the rock (freestone) is within an inch and a halfe of the surface which gives the ball so quick a rebound. A stobball ball is of about four inches diameter and as hard as stone. I do not heare that this game is used anywhere in England but in this part of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire adjoining." From A. B. Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1964 reprint of 1898 text [New York, Dover], page 217.
Year
1685
1688.1 New Royals Reportedly Watch Stoolball
Tags:
Game:
"It is reported that William III watched the game soon after he landed at Torbay, and that subsequently Queen Anne was an interested spectator."
M. S. Russell-Goggs, page 320. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references; short of this, we need to confirm the date of the Torbay landing. A cursory Google search does not reveal confirming evidence of this anecdote.
Comment:
William of Orange (soon to be William III) landed at Torbay, Devon in November 1688. [ba]
Year
1688
1690.1 Literary Simile: "Catch it Like a Stool-Ball"
Tags:
Game:
Anon., The Pagan Prince: or a Comical History of the Heroik Atchievements of the Palatine of Eboracum [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 175. In this comical prose work, protection in battle was said to be provided by four Arch Angels - who, "when they see a Cannon Ball coming toward ye from any corner of the Wind, will catch it like a stool-ball and throw it to the Devil."
Year
1690
1694.1 Musical Play Includes Baudy Account of Stoolball
Tags:
Game:
D'Urfey, Thomas, The comical history of Don Quixote [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 175. Block sees a "long, silly, bawdy rap song" in this play. It starts "Come all, great, small, short tall, away to Stoolball," and depicts young men and women becoming pretty familiar. It ends "Then went the Glasses round, then went the lasses down, each Lad did his Sweet-heart own, and on the Grass did fling her. Come all, great small, short tall, a-way to Stool Ball." Sounds like fun.
Year
1694
1694.2 Thaw Arrives; Cricket Added to Old List of "Evening" English Pastimes
Game:
"With a relaxation of attitudes towards sports at the Restoration cricket began to emerge from its position of relative obscurity with the printed word beginning to define it, along with other folk games, as an element of the national culture. Edward Chamberlyne's Anglia Notitia, a handbook on the social and political conditions of England, lists cricket for the first time in the eighteenth edition of 1694. 'The natives will endure long and hard labour; insomuch, that after 12 hours of hard work, they will go in the evening to foot-ball, stool-ball, cricket, prison-base, wrestling, cudgel-playing, and some such vehement exercise, for their recreation.'"
Source: Bateman, Anthony, "More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 30.
Upon further examination, Protoball notes that Anglia Notitia actually has two ongoing areas of special interest. The first is the text above in part 1, chapter V, which had evolved through earlier editions - the 1676 edition - if not earlier ones - had already mentioned stow-ball [changed to "stoolball" as of 1694 or earlier], according to Hazlitt's Faith and Folklore. Cricket historian Diana Rait Kerr agrees that cricket was first added in the 18th edition of 1694.
Another section of Anglia Notitia catalogued English recreations. Text for this section - part 3, chapter VII - is accessible online for the 1702, 1704, 1707, and later editions. These recreations were listed in three parts: for royalty, for nobles and gentry, and for "Citizens and Peasants." Royal sports included tennis, pell mell and billiards. The gentry's sports included tennis, bowling, and billiards. And then: "The Citizens and Peafants have Hand-ball, Stow-ball, Nine-Pins, Shovel-board [and] Goffe," said the 20th edition [1702]. In the 22nd edition [1707], cricket had been inserted as something that commoners also played. We find no reference to club ball, stick ball, trap ball, or other games suggested as precursors of baseball. The full title of Chamberlayne is Anglia Notitia, or the Present State of England: With Divers Remarks on the Ancient State Thereof. Chamberlayne's first edition apparently appeared in 1669; the 37th was issued in 1748. Another Chamberlayne excerpt is found at entry #1704.2 below.
John Thorn supplied crucial input for this entry. Note: It would be interesting to see whether earlier and later editions of Chamberlayne cite other games of interest.
Year
1694
1697.1 “A Great Match at Cricket" for a Tidy Purse
The Foreign Post, July 7, 1697 reports that in Sussex, two sides of eleven each, eyeing a prize of 50 guineas, played "a great match at cricket."
Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010.
Year
1697
1700.1 One of the Earliest Public Notices of a Cricket Match?
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Of course, there are many bare announcements of matches played before that time [the 1740's]. In 1700 The Postboy advertised one to take place on Clapham Common."
Note: An excerpt from a Wikipedia entry accessed on 10/17/08 states: "A series of matches, to be held on Clapham Common [in South London - LMc] , was pre-announced on 30 March by a periodical called The Post Boy. The first was to take place on Easter Monday and prizes of £10 and £20 were at stake. No match reports could be found so the results and scores remain unknown. Interestingly, the advert says the teams would consist of ten Gentlemen per side but the invitation to attend was to Gentlemen and others. This clearly implies that cricket had achieved both the patronage that underwrote it through the 18th century and the spectators who demonstrated its lasting popular appeal."
Sources:
Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (The Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960; reprinted from 1935), page 27. Moult does not further identify this publication.
Warning:
Caveat: The Wikipedia entry is has incomplete citations and could not be verified.
Query:
Can we confirm this citation, and that it refers to cricket? Do we know of any earlier public announcements of safe-haven games?
Year
1700
1700c.2 Wicket Seen on Boston Common . . . But Never on Sunday (No Strolling, Either)
Tags:
Game:
"Close of the 17th century: . . . The Common was always a playground for boys - wicket and flinging of the bullit was much enjoyed . . . . No games were allowed to be played on the Sabbath, and a fine of five shillings was imposed on the owner of any horse seen on the Common on that day. People were not even to stroll on the Common, during the warm weather, on Sunday."
Sources:
Samuel Barber, Boston Common: A Diary of Notable Events, Incidents and Neighboring Occurrences (Christopher Publishing, Boston, 1916 - Second Edition), page 47.
Comment:
Note: This book is in the form of a chronology. Barber gives no source for the wicket report.
Circa
1700
1704.1 Traveler Observes Ball-Playing in CT
Game:
Madame Knight, "in her inimitable journal of her ride from Boston to New York in 1704, speaks of ball-playing in Connecticut."
"The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket Players," in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut, Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society, [n. p., 1909.] page 284. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/11/04. John notes 9/3/2005 that Seymour observes that Madame Knight does not specifically name the sport as wicket, but he excludes cricket as a possibility because cricket was not then known to have been played in America before 1725; however, John adds, we now have a cricket reference in Virginia from 1709. [See #1709.1, below.]
Year
1704
1704.2 While the Rurals Had Stool-ball and Cricket, the Londoner Had "Blood-Stirring Excitement"
Game:
"[T]he growth of a commercial London failed to raise the tone of sporting tastes. While the countryman exercised vehemently at football, stool-ball, cricket, pins-on-base, wrestling, or cudgel-playing, there was fiercer and more blood-stirring excitement for the Londoner. Particularly at Hockley-in-the-Hole, one could find bear-baiting, bull-baiting and cock-fighting to his heart's content."
Chamberlayne, Edward, Anglia Notitia: The Present State of England [London, 1704 and 1748], page 51. Submitted by John Thorn, 7/9/04.
Year
1704
1704.4 Earliest Published Rules of Cricket [?]
"[The following] text is, as far as we know, the earliest published rules of cricket that have come down to us. They are more than eighty years older than the first official Laws of Cricket, published in 1789." The ensuing text calls for the 4-ball over, unregulated runner and fielder interference, and has no rule to keep a batsman from deflecting bowled balls with his body.
http://www.seatllecricket.com/history/1704laws.htm, accessed 10/2/02. The site offers no source. Most sources date the easiest rules to 1744; could this date stem from a typo? No source is given for the rules themselves. Beth Hise, on January 12, 2010, expressed renewed skepticism about the 1704 date. Caution: we have requested confirmation and sources from this website, and have not had a reply as of Feb. 2010.
Year
1704
1705.1 Early Cricket Match "To Be Plaid . . . for 11 Guineas a Man"
An account in the July 24 issue of The Postman reads, "This is to give notice that a match of cricket is to be plaid between 11 gentlemen of the west part of Kent, against as many of Chatham, for 11 guineas a man at Maulden in Kent on August 7th next." Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960; reprint of 1935), page 27.
Year
1705
1706.1 Poem Suggests Cricket is Becoming "Respectable"
Goldwin, William, In Certamen Pilae. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 15. Ford does not provide a full citation for this source. He reports the poem, written Latin, as "describing the early game and suggesting, perhaps, that it is becoming 'respectable.' He adds that "there was academic controversy over its translation in 1923." John Thorn offers that the poem was published in Goldwin's Musae Juveniles in 1706, and was translated by Harold Perry as "The Cricket Match" in 1922 [email of 2/1/2008]. John also sent Protoball the original text, for you Latin speakers out there.
Year
1706
1706.2 Book About a Scotsman Mentions "Cat and Doug" and Other Diversions
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[Author?] The Scotch rogue; or, The life and actions of Donald MacDonald, a Highland Scot [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 176. The [apparently fictional] hero recalls; "I was but a sorry proficient in learning: being readier at cat and doug, cappy-hole, riding the burley hacket, playing at kyles and dams, spangboder, wrestling, and foot-ball (and such other sports as we use in our country) than at my book."
Block identifies "cat and doug," or cat and dog, as a Scots two-base version of the game of cat that was most commonly played in Scotland. It was the likely forbear of the American game of two-old-cat."
Sources:
David Block, Baseball Before Knew It (U Nebraska Press, 2007), page 176.
Comment:
For more on cat-and-dog, see http://protoball.org/Cat-and-Dog.
Year
1706
1709.1 A Form of [Two-man and Four-man] Cricket Played in Virginia
Location:
Game:
In an April 25, 1709 diary entry, William Byrd, owner of the Virginia plantation Westover, wrote: "I rose at 6 o'clock and said my prayers shortly. Mr. W-l-s and I fenced and I beat him. Then we played at cricket, Mr. W-l-s and John Custis against me and Mr. [Hawkins], but we were beaten. I ate nothing but milk for breakfast . . ."
On May 6 of the same year he noted: "I rose about 6 o'clock and Colonel Ludwell, Nat Harrison, Mr. Edwards and myself played at cricket, and I won a bit [presumably an eighth of a Spanish dollar]. Then we played at whist and I won. About 10 o'clock we went to breakfast and I ate some boiled rice." Another undated entry showed that cricket was not just an early-morning pastime: "About 10 o'clock Dr. Blair, and Major and Captain Harrison came to see us. After I had given them a glass of sack we played cricket. I ate boiled beef for my dinner. Then we played at shooting with arrows...and went to cricket again till dark."
Wright, Louis B., and Marion Tinling, eds., The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover 1709-1712 [Dietz Press, Richmond, 1941], pages 25-26 and 31. We have no page reference for the third mention of cricket, which appears in a short article on Smithsonian.com, as accessed 1/20/2007. Thanks to John Thorn for reference data [email of 2/1/2008].
Year
1709
1709.2 Cricket's First County Match?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1697_to_1725_English_cricket_seasons, accessed 10/17/08:
"The earliest known match involving county teams or at any rate teams bearing the names of counties. The match was advertised in the Post Man dated Saturday June 25, 1709. The stake was £50.
"Some authors have suggested the teams in reality were "Dartford and a Surrey village", but this contradicts evidence of patronage and high stakes. It is likely that Dartford, as the foremost Kent club in this period, provided not only the venue but also the nucleus of the team, but there is no reason at all to doubt that the team included good players from elsewhere in the county. The Surrey team will equally have been drawn from a number of Surrey parishes and subscribed by their patron."
The Wikipedia entry credits the website "From Lads to Lords: The History of Cricket 1300-1787", at http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html
Year
1709
1709.3 Cat and Trap-ball Seen as Boys' Games [The Men Play Foot-ball]
W. Winstanley and Successors, Poor Robin 1709. An almanack after a new fashion [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 176. A selection begins, "Thus harmless country lads and lasses/ In mirth the time away so passes:/ Here men at foot-ball they do fall;/ There boys at cat and trap-ball."
Year
1709
1711.1 Betty Was "a Romp at Stool-Ball"
Tags:
Game:
"James before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough wrestler . . . ; Betty [was] a publick Dancer at May-poles, a Romp at Stool-Ball. He was always following idle Women, she playing among the Peasants; He a Country Bully, she a Country Coquet."
Steele, Spectator number 71, May 22, 1711, page 2. Provided by John Thorn, emails of 6/11/2007 and 2/1/2008. The implication of the passage appears to be that women who played a game like stool-ball were unlikely to be chaste.
Year
1711
1712.1 Two Noblemen Blasted for Sunday Cricket Play, and for Betting Too
The Duke of Marlborough and Viscount Townsend are publicly criticized for currying favor with electors by playing cricket with children "on a Sabbath day," and for wagering 20 guineas on the outcome. Bateman cites and quotes from a broadsheet report on this match at The Devil and the Peers, or a Princely Way of Sabbath Breaking [source not otherwise identified] at Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 30. John Thorn identifies the broadsheet as having been published by J. Parker [email of 2/1/2008].
Year
1712
1713.1 Boston Magistrate Finds Trap Ball Clogging a Gutter
Tags:
"The Rain-water grievously runs into my son Joseph's Chamer . . . . I went on the Roof, and found the Spout next Slater's stopped . . . . Boston went up . . . came down a Spit, and clear'd the Leaden-throat, by thrusting out a Trap-Ball that stuck there."
Diarist Samuel Sewall (1652-1730)is known as a Salem Witch Judge. He later apologized.
Sources:
Thomas, M. H., ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewell 1674 - 1729, Volume II, 1710 - 1729 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973), p. 718. Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 18.
Comment:
Trap ball is not believed to be a baserunning game.
Year
1713
1715.1 Men Top Women in "Merry-Night" of Stoole Balle
Tags:
Game:
"The Young Folks of this Town had a Merry-Night . . . . The Young Weomen treated the Men with a Tandsey as they lost to them at a Game at Stoole Balle."
T. Ellison Gibson, ed., Blundell's Diary, Comprising Selections from the Diary of Nicholas Blundell, Esq. (Gilbert G. Walmsley, 1895), diary entry for May 14, 1715, page 134. Note: "Tandsey" presumably refers to tansey-cakes, traditionally linked to springtime games.
Year
1715
1719.1 Trap and Stool-ball Help Set the Mood . . . Again
Game:
"Thus all our lives we're Frolick and gay,/And instead of Court Revels we merrily Play/ At Trap and Kettles and Barley-break run,/ At Goff, and at Stool-ball, and when we have done/ These innocent Sports, we Laugh and lie down,/ And to each pretty Lass we give a green Gown."
D'Urfey, Thomas, Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy [London], Vol. 3, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 177. Note: This closely mimics the verse found above at #1671.1.
Year
1719
1720.1 Puritans Thwarted Fun, "Even at Stool-ball"
Game:
In a strong anti-Presbyterian tract, Thomas Lewis noted that among Puritans "all Games where there is any hazard of loss are strictly forbidden; as Tennis, Bowles and Billiards; not so much as a Game at stool-ball for a Tansy, . . . upon Pain of Damnation."
Thomas. Lewis, English Presbyterian Eloquence: Or, Dissenters Sayings Ancient and Modern (T. Bickerton, London, 1720), page 17. Citation provided by John Thorn, email of 2/1/2008.
Year
1720
1720.2 Holiday in Kent: Cricket, Stool-Ball, Tippling, Kissing
In 1907, a kindred spirit of ours reported [in a listserve-equivalent of the day] on his attempts to find early news coverage of cricket. He reports on a 1720 article he sees as "the first newspaper reference I have yet found to cricket as a popular game:"
"The Holiday coming on, the Alewives of Islington, Kentish Town, and several adjacent villages . . . . The Fields will swarm with Butchers'; Wives and Oyster-Women . . . diverting themselves with their Offspring, whilst their Spouses and Sweethearts are sweating at Ninepins, some at Cricket, others at Stool-Ball, besides an amorous Couple in every Corner . . . Much Noise and Cutting in the Morning; Much Tippling all Day; and much Reeling and Kissing at Night."
Alfred F. Robbins, "Replies: The Earliest Cricket Report," Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc, September 7, 1907, page 191. Provided by John Thorn, 2/8/2008, via email. He reports his source as Read's Weekly Journal, or British-Gazeteer, June 4, 1720, and advises that he has omitted phrases not "welcome to the modern taste. Accessed via Google Books 10/18/2008.
Year
1720
1720.3 Cricket in Kent; Londoners Beat Kent Eleven, But Two Are Konked Out
Tags:
A month later [see #1720.2, above], Islington was in the news again. The Postman reported on July 16, 1720 that:
"Last week a match was played in The White Conduit Fields, by Islington, between 11 Londoners on one side and elevent men of Kent on the other side, for 5s a head, at which time being in eager pursuit of the game, the Kentish men having the wickets, two Londoners striving [p.27/p.28] for expedition to gain the ball, met each other with such fierceness that, hitting their heads together, they both fell backwards without stirring hand or foot, and lay deprived of sense for a considerable time, and 'tis not yet known whether they willl recover. The Kentish men were beat." Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960 - reprint from 1935), pp 27-28.
Year
1720
1720c.4 Game of Base was "A Peculiar Favorite"
Game:
Age of Players:
"Notwithstanding bloody affrays [in war times] between the English and Indians, they were generally of familiar terms in times of peace, and often mingled together in athletic sports. The game of 'base' was a peculiar favorite with our young townsmen, and the friendly Indians, and the hard beach of 'Garrison Cove' afforded fine ground for it."
Sources:
W. Southgate, The History of Scarborough, 1633 - 1783, Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Volume III (Portland, 1853), page 148. G-Books search <"bloody affrays like these">, 4/2/2013.
Warning:
One wishes there was more evidence that this form of "base" was a ball-game, and not a game like tag or capture-the-flag. If "base" was a ball-game, this report of native American play nearly 3 centuries ago is certainly remarkable.
Comment:
Scarborough Maine is about 8 miles SW of Portland ME (then still a part of Massachusetts).
Circa
1720
1725.2 Duke of Richmond Issues Challenge to Play Single-Wicket Cricket
"In 1725, he [the Duke of Richmond] challenged Sir William Gage in a two-a-side single-wicket competition. . . ."
Simon Rae, It's Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber and Faber, 2001), page 57. Note: is there a fuller account for tis match? A primary source?
Year
1725
1725c.1 Wicket Played on Boston Common at Daybreak
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Judge Samuel Sewell
"March, 15. Sam. Hirst [Sewall's grandson, reportedly, and a Harvard '23 man -- (LMc)] got up betime in the morning, and took Ben Swett with him and went into the [Boston MA] Common to play at Wicket. Went before any body was up, left the door open; Sam came not to prayer; at which I was most displeased.
"March 17th. Did the like again, but took not Ben with him. I told him he could not lodge here practicing thus. So he lodg'd elsewhere. He grievously offended me in persuading his Sister Hannam not to have Mr. Turall, without enquiring of me about it. And play'd fast and loose in a vexing matter about himself in a matter relating to himself, procuring me great Vexation."
.
Sources:
Diary of Samuel Sewall, in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Published by the Society, Boston, 1882) Volume VII - Fifth Series, page 372. As cited by Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), p. 190.
Comment:
While this is the first known reference to ballplaying on Boston Common, there are several later ones. See Brian Turner, "Ballplaying and Boston Common; A Town Playground for Boys . . . and Men," Base Ball Journal (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 21-24.
A letter in "The Nation," July 7, 1910, dates this play in 1726. Cites George Dudley Seymour's address to the CT Society of Colonial Wars. [ba]
Year
1726
1726.1 Cricket Crowd is Eyed Nervously as Possibly Seditious
Game:
An Essex official worries that a local game of cricket was simply a way of collecting a crowd of disaffected people in order to foment rebellion. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 16. Ford does not provide a citation for this account.
Year
1726
1727.1 First Documented Cricket Playing Rules Agreed to, for One-time Use
Game:
Two sides forged "Articles of Agreement" that specify 12 players to a side, a 23-yard pitch, two umpires to be named by each side, and "mentions catches but not other forms of dismissal." Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 16. Note: Ford does not provide a citation for this account.
Year
1727
1727.2 How To Score at Cricket, Olde Style
In order to score a run, a batsman/runner had to touch a staff held by an umpire with his bat. The modern rule appeared in the 1744 rules.
Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia, 1990], page 22.
Year
1727
1728.1 Delaware Resident Writes of Playing Trap Ball, with Cider as Reward
"James Gordon & I Plaid Trabbel against John Horon and Th Horon for an anker of Syder We woun. We drunk our Syder."
Hancock, H. B., ed., "'Fare Weather and Good Helth:' the Journal of Caesar Rodeney, 1727 - 1729," Delaware History, volume 10, number 1 [April 1962], p. 64. Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 19.
Year
1728
1729.1 At Harvard, Batt and Ball "Stirs Our Bloud Greatly"
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
From Harvard College,
In a letter written from Harvard College dated March 30, 1729 to Nicholas Gilman, John Seccomb wrote: “The Batchelors Play Batt & Ball mightily now adays which Stirs our bloud greatly”
Sources:
Nicholas Gilman papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, as cited in Clifford K. Shipton, New England Life in the Eighteenth Century (Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 287.
Comment:
Brian Turner notes that this find "predates by 33 years the 1762 ban on bat-and-ball (along with foot-ball, cricket, and throwing snow-balls and stones in the streets of Salem -- see entry 1762.2). It also predates by two decades a reference in a 1750s French & Indian war diary kept by Benjamin Glazier of Ipswich." (See entry 1758.1)
Gilman was from a leading family of New Hampshire, mainly centered in Exeter, a bit inland from Portsmouth, where Elwyn gave a description of 1810's "bat & ball," in which he certainly seems to name a specific game. (See entry 1810s.9). Seccomb, also spelled Seccombe, was born and lived in Medford, Mass., and later in life wound up in Nova Scotia -- not because he was a Loyalist, but for other reasons.
Brian notes that "By “Batchelors,” Gilman probably means students pursuing a bachelor’s degree, hence the categorization of this entry under "Youth." For over two centuries, 14 was the age at which boys entered Harvard." (Email of 9/1/2014.)
Year
1729
1730c.1 Low Wicket and Circular Hole Said Still Found in Cricket
"In the infancy of the game [cricket] the batsman stood before a circular hole in the turf, and was put out, as in 'rounders,' by being caught, or by the ball being put in this hole. A century and a half ago this hole was still in use, though it had on each side a stump only one foot high, with a long cross-bar of two feet in length laid on top of them."
Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto and Windus, London, 1881), page 4, accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search ("pastimes and players"). MacGregor gives no source for this claim. Note that MacGregor does not say that such practice was uniformly used in this period. Query: have later writers specified in more detail when the hole and the low long wicket disappeared from cricket?
Circa
1730
1730c.2 Cricket Play at Eton Seen as Common
"I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a school-boy: an expedition against bargemen or a match at cricket may be very pretty things to recollect; but thank my stars, I can remember things very near as pretty."
Letter from Horace Walpole to George Montagu, May 6, 1736. One interpretation of this letter: "Horace Walpole was sent to Eton in 1726. Playing cricket, as well as bashing bargemen, was common at that time:" Pycroft, John, The Cricket Field; or, The History and the Science of the Game of Cricket, second edition (Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London, 1854), page 43.
Circa
1730
1731.1 Patient Thousands Watch First Known Drawn Match in Cricket
"The Great Cricket Match, between the Duke of Richmond and Mr. Chambers, 11 men on each side, for 200 Guineas, was begun to be played on Monday at two in the Afternoon, on Richmond Green. By agreement they were not to play after 7 o'clock. . . . when the Hour agreed being come, they were obliged to leave off, tho' beside the Hands then playing, they [chambers' side] had 4 or 5 more to have come in. Thus it proved a drawn Battle. There were many Thousand Spectators, of whom a great number were Persons of Distinction of both Sexes."
Source: The Daily Journal, August 25, 1731, as uncovered by Alfred Robbins in his 1907 digging. Robbins finds the article of "historical interest, for it is the earliest I have yet traced of a drawn game." Alfred Robbins, "The Earliest Cricket Report," Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc., September 7, 1907, page 192. Note: does this match still stand as the first recorded drawn match?
Year
1731
1732.1 "Struck a Ball Over the (163-foot) Weather-cock" in New York
Game:
Age of Players:
"The same Day a Gentleman in this City, for a Wager of 10l [ten pounds] struck a Ball over the Weather-Cock of the English Church, which is above 163 Feet high. He had half a Day allow'd him to perform it in, but he did it in less than half the Time."
Sources:
American Weekly Mercury, Philadelphia, July 6, 1732, page 3, column 2;
from a series of paragraphs/sentences datelined *New-York, July 3. The preceding paragraph had begun "On Friday last."
Comment:
Protoball doesn't know of other early references to pop-fly hitting.
Query:
Is it fair to assume that the gentleman used a bat to propel the ball?
Are such feats known in England?
Is a 160-foot weather-vane plausible? That's well over 10 stories, no?
Year
1732
1733.1 Long Poem Describes Stool-Ball in Some Detail; First Evidence of Use of a Bat?
Tags:
Game:
David Block calls this account "the most complete and detailed portrayal of the game to date." It provides the earliest reference to the use of a bat, describes a game that does not involve running after the young [female] players hit the ball, and includes a description of the field and the assembled audience.
See Supplemental Text for more.
Sources:
The London Magazine, vol 2, December 1733 [London], page 637, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 177-8.
Comment:
Note: A bat had been described in Willughby's c.1672 account of hornebillets. See 1672c.2.
Query:
Some actual text should be added here, if it can be captured.
Year
1733
1737.1 Surreymen Play Londoners in Cricket for 500 Pounds a Side
"On Wednesday next a great Match at Cricket is to be play'd at Moulsey-Hurst in Surrey, between eleven Men of the said County, chose by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and the same Number chose out of the London Club by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, for 500 [pounds] a Side." Country Journal of The Craftsman (London), July 16, 1737. Excavated by John Thorn, 2/1/2008. Note: So who won? And was the bet really paid off?
Year
1737
1737.2 Doctor Writes of North Carolina Game Resembling Ireland's Trap Ball
Location:
Brickell, an Irishman, writes of NC Indians: "They have [a] game which is managed with a Battoon, and very much resembles our Trap-ball."
Brickell, John., The Natural History of North Carolina [James Carson, Dublin, 1737], p. 336. Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 20.
Year
1737
1737.3 Cricket Played in Georgia Town Square
Location:
Game:
Georgia planter William Stephens: "Many of our Townsmen, Freeholders, Inmates, and Servants were assembled in the principal Square, at Cricket and divers other athletick Sports."
A Journal of the Proceedings in Georgia, II, page 217, as cited in Lester, ed., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn, 1951], page 4. Lester cites this account as the first mention of American cricket.
Year
1737
1738.1 Two New Yorkers Get Guard House Sentence for Ballplaying At Time of Religious Rites
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"Turning now from these serious offences against public order, we find accounts of numerous violations common to most communities, even at the present day. These acts varied in the degree of their gravity. From the court records we learn of such minor offenders as Joseph and Edward Anderson, who were arrested for grievously assaulting a watchman who was marching them to the guard house for playing with a bat and ball during the time of divine service.
(Thanks to Tom Dyja for reporting this very early evidence.)
Sources:
George Edwards, New York as Eighteenth Century Municipality (Columbia University Press, 1917), pp. 116-117
Edwards' citation: "Minutes of Quarter Sessions, May 4, 1738."
Comment:
As of January 2023, this appears to be one of Protoball's ten earliest reports of ballplaying in the United States, and the third to appear in what is now New York City. It may be the first know legal action taken against ballplaying.
Year
1738
1739.1 First Known Picture of Cricket Appears
"The earliest known cricket picture was first displayed in 1739. It is an engraving call "The Game of Cricket", by Hubert-Francois Gravelot (1699-1773) and shows two groups of cherubic lads gathered around a batsman and a bowler. The wicket shown is the "low stool" shape, probably 2 feet wide and 1 foot tall, with two stumps and a single bail." Received in an email from John Thorn, 2/1/2008. Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1739_English_cricket_season.
Another fan's notes: "Art is immortal, and the M.C.C. has acquired a new work of Art in connection with cricket. This is a drawing in pencil on grey paper, representing a country game in the [eighteenth] century. . . . The two notched stumps with one bail are only about six inches high, and the bowler appears to be "knuckling" the ball like a marble. I have very little doubt that the artist was Gravelot." Andrew Lang, "At the Sign of the Ship," Longmans' Magazine (London) Number LXIX, July 1888, page 332.
On 2/24/10, an image was available via a Google Web search (christies "gravelot (1699-1773)" cricket).
Year
1739
1740.2 Almanack Sees Time Wasted at Stool-ball
Game:
"Much time is wasted now away/ At pigeon-holes and nine-pin play/. . . ./ At stool-ball and at barley-break,/Wherewith they at harmless pastime make."
W. Winstanley and Successors, Poor Robin 1740. An almanack after a new fashion [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 178.
Year
1740
1740.3 Lord Chesterfield Nods Approvingly at Cricket - and Trap Ball!
Tags:
"Dear Boy: . . . Therefor remember to give yourself up entirely to the thing you are doing, be it what it will, whether your book or play: for if you have a right ambition, you will desire to excell all boys of your age at cricket, or trap ball, as well as in learning." P.D.S. Chesterfield, Lord Chesterfield's Letters of His Son (M. W. Dunne, 1901), Volume II, Letter LXXI, to his son. Citation provided by John Thorn, email of 2/1/2008.
Cited by Steel and Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890), pp 8 - 9.. Steel and Lyttelton introduce this quotation as follows: "When once the eighteenth century is reached cricket begins to find mention in literature. Clearly the game was rising in the world and was being taken up, like the poets of the period, by patrons."
Year
1740
1741c.1 Does Alexander Pope "Sneer" at Cricket in Epic Poem?
Tags:
"The judge to dance his brother serjeant call,
The senator at cricket urge the ball"
Pope, "The Dunciad," per Steel and Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 9. Steel and Lyttelton date the writing to 1726-1735. Their remark: "Mr. Alexander Pope had sneered at cricket. At what did Mr. Pope not sneer?"
Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, Complete in Four Books, According to Mr. Pope's Last Improvements (Warburton, London, 1749), Book IV, line 592, page 70. Note; This fragment does not seem severely disparaging. Is it clear from context what offense he gives to cricketers? It is true that this passage demeans assorted everyday practices, particularly as pursued by those of high standing. Book IV, the last, is now believed to have been written in 1741. Other entries that employ the "urge the ball" phrasing are #1747.1, #1805c.7, #1807.3, and #1824.4.
Circa
1741
1743.1 Editorial: Cricket is OK, But Only for Rural Holiday Play
"Cricket is certainly a very innocent and wholesome, yet it may be abused if either great or little people make it their business. It is grossly abused when it is made the subject of publick advertisements to draw together great crowds of people who ought all of them to be somewhere else.
"The diversion of cricket may be proper in holiday time, and in the country, but upon days when men ought to be busy, and in the neighbourhood of a great city, it is not only improper, but mischievous, to a high degree. It draws number of people from their employments to the ruins of their families . . . it gives the most open encouragement to gaming."
British Champion, September 8, 1743. Provided by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09, as reprinted in The Gentlemans Magazine, 1743. The piece appears, perhaps in its entirety, in W. W. Read, Annals of Cricket (St. Dunston's Press, 1896), page 27ff [accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search ("very innocent" "annals of cricket")].
Year
1743
1743.2 Three-on-Three Cricket Match, A Close One, Draws Reported 10,000 Fans
"July 11. In the Artillery Ground. Three of Kent - Hodswell, J. Cutbush, V. Romney vs. Three of England - R. Newland, Sawyer, John Bryan. Kent won by 2 runs."
Cited in Thomas Moult, "The Story of the Game," Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket (Sportsmans Book Club, London, 1960 - reprinted from 1935), page 29. Moult's commentary: "Several features of this match are to be emphasized [besides the fact that the score was reported, not simply the name of the winning side - LM]. The convention of eleven a side was not yet established . . . . Also the match was played before 10,000 spectators." Note: Moult does not cite the original source.
Year
1743
1743.3 When Cricket Still Had Foul Ground?
"We may see how the game was played about this time from the picture, of date 1743, in the possession of the Surrey County Club. The wicket was a 'skeleton hurdle,' one foot high and two feet wide, consisting of two stumps only, with a third laid across. The bat was curved at the end, and made for free hitting rather than defence. The bowling was all along the ground, and the great art was to bowl under the bat. All play was forward of the wicket, as it is now in single wicket games of less that five players a side. With these exceptions, the game was very much the same as it is today [1881]."
Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto and Windus, London, 1881), page 16. Note that the circular hole, described in #1730.1, is not seen. Caveat: It is not clear from this account whether forward hitting was common in the 1740s or whether MacGregor is simply drawing inferences about this single painting.
Year
1743
1744.1 First Laws of Cricket are Written in England
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] Ford's crisp summary of the rules: "Toss for pitching wickets and choice of innings; pitch 22 yards; single bail; wickets 22 inches high; 4-ball overs; ball between 5 and 6 ounces; 'no ball' defined; modes of dismissal - bowled, caught, stumped, run out, obstructing the field."
The 5-ounce ball is, likely, heavier than balls used in very early US ballplaying.
[B] Includes the 4-ball over, later changed to 6 balls. [And to 8 balls in Philadelphia in 1790 -LMc]. The 22 yard pitching distance is one-tenth of the length of a furlong, which is one-eighth of a mile.
Sources:
[A] John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 17.
[B] Cashman, Richard, "Cricket," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 87.
The rules are listed briefly at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1744_English_cricket_season [as accessed 1/31/07]. The rules were written by a Committee under the patronage of "the cricket-mad Prince of Wales" -- Frederick, the son of George II.
Comment:
For a recent review of the 1744 cricket rules and their relevance to base ball, see Beth Hise, "How is it, Umpire? The 1744 Laws of Cricket and Their Influence on the Development of Baseball in America," Base Ball (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 25-31.
Year
1744
1744.2 Newbery's Little Pretty Pocket-Book Refers to "Base-Ball," "Stooleball, "Trap-Ball," Cricket
Game:
Age of Players:
John Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, published in England, contains a wood-cut illustration showing boys playing "base-ball" and a rhymed description of the game:
"The ball once struck off,/Away flies the boy/To the next destined post/And then home with joy."
This is held to be the first appearance of the term "base-ball" in print. Other pages are devoted to stool-ball, trap-ball, and tip-cat [per David Block, page 179], as well as cricket. Block finds that this book has the first use of the word "base-ball."
Sources:
Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly [London, John Newbery, 1744]. Per Henderson ref 107, adding Newbery's name as publisher from text at p. 132. The earliest extant version of this book is from 1760 [per David Block].
Comment:
Note: we may want reassurance that the "Base-ball" poem appeared in the 1744 version. According to Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, the 1767 London edition also has poems titled "Stoolball" [p. 88] and Trap-Ball.[p. 91]. According Zoernik in the Encyclopedia of World Sports [p.329], rounders is also referred to [we need to confirm this, as Rounders does not appear in the 1760 edition or the one from 1790.]. There was an American pirated edition in 1760, as per Henderson [ref #107]; David Block dates the American edition in 1762. He also notes that a 1767 revision features engravings for the four games.
Year
1744
1744.3 Earliest Full Cricket Scorecard for the "Greatest Match Ever Known"
Tags:
The match it describes: All England vs. Kent, played at the Artillery Ground. The same year, admission at the Ground increased from tuppence to sixpence. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 17.
John Thorn [email of 2/1/2008] located an account of the match: "Yesterday was play'd in the Artillery-Ground the greatest Cricket-Match even known, the County of Kent again all England, which was won by the former [the score was 97-96 - LM] . . . . There were present the their Royal Highnesses the Princeof Wales and Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Richmond, Admiral Vernon, and many other Persons of Distinction." The London Evening-Post Number 2592, June 16-19, 1744, page 1 column 3, above the fold. Note: Is the scorecard available somewhere?
Year
1744
1744.4 Poet: "Hail Cricket! Glorious Manly, British Game!
Tags:
Writing as James Love, the poet and actor James Dance [1722-1774] penned a 316-line verse that extols cricket. The poem, it may surprise you to learn, turns on the muffed catch by an All England player [shades of Casey!] that, I take it, allows Kent County to win a close match. Protoball's virtual interview with Mr. Dance:
Protoball: Are you a serious cricket fan?
Dance:" Hail, cricket! Glorious manly, British Game! / First of all Sports! be first alike in Fame!" [lines 13-14]
PBall: Isn't billiards a good game too?
Dance:"puny Billiards, where, with sluggish Pace / The dull Ball trails before the feeble Mace" [lines 40-41]
PBall: But you do appreciate tennis, right?"
Dance: "Not Tennis [it]self, [cricket's] sister sport can charm, /Or with [cricket's] fierce Delights our Bosoms warm".[lines 55-56] . . . to small Space confined, ev'n [tennis] must yield / To nobler CRICKET, the disputed field." [lines 60-61]
PBall: But doesn't every country have a fine national pastime?
Dance: "Leave the dissolving Song, the baby Dance, / To Sooth[e] the Slaves of Italy and France: / While the firm Limb, and strong brac'd Nerve are thine [cricket's] / Scorn Eunuch Sports; to manlier Games [we] incline" [lines 68-71]
PBall:Manlier? You see the average cricketer as especially manly?
Dance: "He weighs the well-turn'd Bat's experienced Force, / And guides the rapid Ball's impetuous course, / His supple Limbs with Nimble Labour plies, / Nor bends the grass beneath him as he flies." [lines 29 - 32]
James Love, Cricket: an Heroic Poem. illustrated with the Critical Observations of Scriblerus Maximus(W. Bickerton, London, undated)" The poet writes of a famous 1744 match between All England and Kent [#1744.3, above.] Thanks to Beth Hise for a lead to this poem, email, 12/21/2007. John Thorm, per email of 2/1/2008, located and pointed to online copy. Note: Are we sure the versified game account is from the 1744 Kent/England match - not 1746, for example?
Year
1744
1745c.1 John Adams Recalls Youthful Bat and Ball Play
Tags:
Saying that his first fifteen years "went off like a fairy tale," John Adams [1735-1826] wrote fondly "of making and sailing boats . . swimming, skating, flying kites and shooting marbles, bat and ball, football, . . . wrestling and sometimes boxing."
Sources:
David McCullough, John Adams [Touchstone Books, 2001], page 31.
Circa
1745
1747.1 Poet Thomas Gray: "Urge the Flying Ball."
Location:
Age of Players:
Sources:
Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," lines 28-30. Accessed 12/29/2007 at http://www.thomasgray.org.
Comment:
"Rolling circle" had been drafted as "hoop," and thus does not connote ballplaying . Cricket writers have seen "flying ball" as a cricket reference, but one Gray scholar cites "Bentley's Print" as a basis for concluding that Gray was referring to trap ball in this line. Steel and Lyttelton note that this poem was first published in 1747.
The phrase "urge the flying ball" is re-used in later writings, presumably to evoke cricket playing.
Query:
Do modern scholars agree with the 1747 publication date?
Is it fair to assume that Gray is evoking student play at Eton in this ode?
Year
1747
1747.2 Well-Advertised Women's Cricket Match Held, with 6-Pence Admission
Tags:
In July 1747 two ladies' sides from Sussex communities played cricket at London's Artillery-Grounds, and the announced admittance fee was sixpence. At a first match, according to a 7/15/1747 news account, play was interrupted when "the Company broke in so, that it was impossible for the [match] to be play'd; and some of them [the players? - LM] being very much frighted, and others hurt . . . ." That match was to be completed on a subsequent morning . . . . "And in the Afternoon they wil play a second Match at the same Place, several large Sums being depended between the Women of the Hills of Sussex, in Orange colour'd Ribbons, and the Dales in blue!"
This item was contributed by David Block on 2/27/2008. David notes that the source is a large scrapbook with thousands of clippings from 1660 to 1840 as collected by a Daniel Lysons: "Collectanea: or A collection of advertisements and paragraphs from the newspapers, relating to various subjects. Publick exhibitions and places of amusement," Vol IV, Pt 2, page 227, British Library shelfmark C.103.k.11. David adds, "Unfortunately, Lysons, or whoever assembled this particular volume, neglected to indicate which paper the clippings were cut from."
Year
1747
1748.1 Lady Hervey Reports Royal 'Base-ball' in a Letter": Game Is 'Well Known to English Schoolboys'
Location:
Lady Hervey (then Mary Lepel) describes in a letter the activities of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales:
"[T]he Prince's family is an example of innocent and cheerful amusements All this last summer they played abroad; and now, in the winter, in a large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have been, schoolboys, are well acquainted with. The ladies, as well as gentlemen, join in this amusement . . . . This innocence and excellence must needs give great joy, and well as great hope, to all real lovers of their country and posterity."
[The last sentence may well be written in irony, as Lady Hervey was evidently known to be unimpressed with the Prince's conduct.]
Hervey, Lady (Mary Lepel), Letters (London, 1821), p.139 [Letter XLII, of November 14, 1748, from London]. Google Books now has uploaded the letters: search for "Lady Hervey." Letter 52 begins on page 137, and the baseball reference is on page 139. Accessed 12/29/2007. Note: David Block, page 189, spells the name "Lepel," citing documented family usage; the surname often appears as "Leppell." In a 19CBB posting of 2/15/2008, David writes that it is "George III, to whom we can rightly ascribe the honor of being the first known baseball player. The ten-year-old George, as [Prince] Frederick's eldest son, was surely among the prince's family members observed by Lady Hervey in 1748 to be 'divert[ing] themselves at base-ball.'"
Sources:
[A] Hervey, Lady (Mary Lepel), "Letters" (London, 1821), p.139 [Letter XLII, of November 14, 1748, from London]. Google Books now has uploaded the letters: search for "Lady Hervey." Letter 52 begins on page 137, and the baseball reference is on page 139. Accessed 12/29/2007.
[B] David Block, Pastime Lost: The Humble, Original, and Now Completely Forgotten Game of English Baseball (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), pp 17 ff.
Comment:
In a 19CBB posting of 2/15/2008, David Block writes: "it is George III, to whom we can rightly ascribe the honor of being the first known baseball player. The ten-year-old George, as [Prince of Wales] Frederick's eldest son, was surely among the prince's family members observed by Lady Hervey in 1748 to be 'divert[ing] themselves at base-ball.'"
Year
1748
1749.1 Early Cricket: Addington Club Takes On All-England, Five on Five
"A newspaper advertisement announced a match on the [London Artillery] ground on July 24th, 1749, between five of the Addington Club and an All England five. The advertisement gave the names of the players, and thus concluded: NB - The last match, which was played on Monday the 10th instant, was won by All England, notwithstanding it was eight to one on Addington in the playing.'"
Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England [Methuen, London, 1903], page 102. This edition of Strutt [originally published in 1801] was "much enlarged and corrected by L. Charles Cox;" the cited text was inserted by Cox.
Year
1749
1749.2 Aging Prince Spends "Several Hours" Playing Bass-Ball in Surrey
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Lord Middlesex, Prince of Wales
"On Tuesday last, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and Lord Middlesex, played at Bass-Ball (sic), at Walton in Surry (sic); notwithstanding the Weather was extreme bad, they continued playing several Hours."
Sources:
Whitehall Evening Post, September 19. 1749.
David Block's 2013 find was reported at the SABR.org website on 6/19/2103, and it includes interview videos and links to related documentation. Confirmed 6/19/2013 as yielding to a web search of <block royal baseball sabr>.
Comment:
Block points out that this very early reference to base-ball indicates that the game was played by adults -- the Prince was 38 years old in 1749, further weakening the view that English base-ball was played mainly by juveniles in its early history.
The location of the game was Walton-on-Thames in Surrey.
Comparing the 1749 game with modern baseball, Block estimates that the bass-ball was likely played on a smaller scale, with a much softer ball, with batted ball propelled the players' hands, not with a bat, and that runners could be put out by being "plugged" (hit with a thrown ball) between bases.
Query:
Only two players were named for this account. Was that because the Prince and Lord Middlesex both led clubs not worthy of mentioning by name, or was there a two-player version of the game then (in the 1800s competitive games of cricket were similarly reported with only two named players)?
Year
1749
1750c.1 Cricket No Longer Played Only With Rolled Deliveries to Batsmen
"Originally bowling literally meant 'to bowl the ball along the ground' as in the style of lawn bowls. By 1750, however, a mixture of grubbers and fully pitched balls were seen."
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia], page 34.
Circa
1750
1750s.2 Town Ball and Cat Played in NC Lowlands?
Location:
Game:
"Of formalized games, choices for males [in NC] appear to have been 'town-ball, bull-pen,' 'cat,' and 'prisoner's base,' whatever exhibitions of dexterity they may have involved."
-- Biographer C. G. Davidson, on local pastimes in North Carolina
Sources:
Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont Partisan: The Life and Times of Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson (Davidson College, Davidson NC, 1951), page 20. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 32.
Warning:
This is a very early claim for town ball, preceding even New England references to bat-and-ball, roundball or like games. It would be useful to examine C. Davidson's sources on town ball and cat. Are we content that these games were found in NC in the 1750s?
Comment:
Prisoner's base is not a ball game, and bull-pen is not a safe-haven game.
Query:
Note: Can we determine what region of NC is under discussion here? Text of the biography is unavailable via Google Books as of 11/15/2008.
Decade
1750s
1750s.3 1857 Writer Reportedly Dates New England Game of "Base" to 1750s
Tags:
Game:
"Dear Spirit: . . .
"I shall state [here] that which has come under my observation, and also some of my friends, during the last four years of the ball-playing mania . . .
Base ball cannot date back to so far as [cricket], but the game has no doubt, been played in this country for at least one century. Could we only invoke the spirit of some departed veteran of he game, how many items of interest might we be able to place before the reader.
"New England, we believe, has always been the play-ground for our favorite game; and the boys of the various villages still play by the same rules their fathers did before them. We also find that many games are played, differing but little from the well-known game of Base.
" . . . Although I am a resident of State of New York, I hope to do her no wrong by thinking that the New England States were, and are, the ball grounds of this country, and that many of our present players were originally from those States.
"The game of Base, as played there, was as follows: They would take the bat, 'hand over hand,' as the present time, 'whole hand or none.' After the sides were chosen, the bases would be placed so as to form a square, each base about twenty yards from the other. The striker would stand between the first and fourth base, equi-distant from each. The catcher was always expected to take the ball without a bound and it was always thrown by a player who would stand between the second and third bases. A good catcher would take the ball before the bat cold strike it. A hand was out if a man was running the bases should be struck with the ball which was thrown at him while he was running. He was allowed either a pace or a jump to the base which he was striving to reach; or if a ball was caught flying or on first bound. There was no rule to govern the striker as to the direction he should knock the ball, and of course no such thing as foul balls. The whole side had to be put out, and if the last man could strike a ball a sufficient distance to make all the bases, he could take in one of the men who had been put out. The ball was not quite the same as the one in present use, and varied very much in size and weight, it also was softer and more springy.
"The bats were square, flat, or round -- some preferring a flat bat, and striking with it so that th4 edge, or small side, would come in contact with the ball. Another arrangement of bases is, to have the first about two yards from the striker (on this right), the second about fifty down the field, and the third, or home, about five. . . .
"Yours, respectfully, X"
Sources:
Base Ball Correspondence," Porter's Spirit of the Times, Volume 3, number 8 (October 24, 1857), page 117, column 2. The full text of the October 20 letter from "X" is on the VBBA website, as of 2008, at:
Warning:
The writer present no evidence as to the earliest dates of known play.
Comment:
The game described by "X" resembles the MA game as it was to be codified a year later except: [a] "a good catcher would frequently take the ball before the bat cold strike it," [b] the runner "was allowed either a pace or jump to the base which he was striving t reach," [c] the bound rule was in effect, [d] all-out-side-out innings were used, [e] the ball was "softer and more spongy" than 1850's ball, [f] the bats were square, flat, or round," and [g] there was a second field layout, with three bases. [This variation reminds one of cricket, wicket, and "long town or "long-town-ball, except for the impressive 150-foot distance to the second base]."
Query:
Can we interpret the baserunning rule allowing "a pace or jump to the base [the runner] was striving to reach?" Plugging didn't count if the runner was close to the next base," perhaps?
Decade
1750s
1751.1 First Recorded US Cricket Match Played, "For a Considerable Wager," in NYC; New Yorkers Win, 167-80
Game:
Age of Players:
"Last Monday afternoon, a match at cricket was play'd on our Common for a considerable Wager, by eleven Londoners, against eleven New Yorkers: The game was play'd according to the London Method; and those who got most notches in two Hands, to be the Winners: The New Yorkers went in first, and got 81; Then the Londoners went in, and got but 43; Then the New Yorkers went in again, and got 86; and the Londoners finished the Game with getting only 37 more."
This was the first recorded cricket match played in New York City, and took place on grounds where Fulton Fish Market now stands, "by a Company of Londoners - the London XI - against a Company of New Yorkers." (The New Yorkers won, 167-80.)
Sources:
New YorkPost-Boy, 4/29/51. Per John Thorn, 6/15/04: John reports that the sources are multiple: clip from Chadwick Scrapbooks; see also, "the first recorded American cricket match per se was in New York in 1751 on the site of what is today the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan. A team called New York played another described as the London XI 'according to the London method' - probably a reference to the 1744 Code which was more strict that the rules governing the contemporary game in England. Also, and dispositively, from Phelps-Stokes, I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1922), Volume IV, page 628.Vol. VI, Index—ref. against Chronology and Chronology Addenda (Vol. 4A or 6A); [CRICKET] Match on Commons April 29, 1751; and finally, Phelps Stokes, V. 4, p. 628, 4/29/1751: "…this day, a great Cricket match is to be played on our commons, by a Company of Londoners against a Company of New-Yorkers. New-York Post-Boy, 4/29/51." The New Yorkers won by a total score of 167 to 80. New York Post-Boy, 5/6/51. This game is also treated by cricket historians Wisden [1866] and Lester [1951].
Also see New York Gazette, May 6, 1751, page 2, column 2, per George Thompson..
Comment:
Note: This match is also reported in item #1751.3
Year
1751
1751.2 Cricket Lore: Ball Kills the Prince of Wales, Pretty Slowly
Game:
Age of Players:
RIP, sweet Prince. [The prince was the father of King George III.]
[A] "Death of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, as a result of a blow on the head from a cricket ball."
[B] "It's generally said his late Royal Highness the Prince of Wales got a Blow on his Side with a Ball about two Years ago, playing at Cricket, which diversion he was fond of, and 'tis thought was the Occasion of his Death . . . ."
Sources:
[A] John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 17. Ford does not give a citation.
[B] London Advertiser, March 26, 1751.
Comment:
In Pastime Lost (U Nebraska Press, 2019, p 26), David Block writes that "Whether Frederick's death was the consequence of a lingering cricket injury has been the subject of debate ever since, with most modern observers . . . expressing skepticism." Today, some fans of the old game of Royal tennis believe that it was a (stuffed) tennis ball that felled the Prince.
Note: You've seen the Prince before, as a bass ball player. See 1749.2
Year
1751
1751.3 New Yorkers Beat London Players in "Great Cricket Match", 167-80
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
“…this day, a great Cricket match is to be played on our commons, by a Company of Londoners against a Company of New-Yorkers. New-York Post-Boy, 4/29/51.
The game played for “a considerable Wager,” there being 11 players on each side, and “according to the London Method: and those who got most Notches in two Hands, to be the Winners.” The New Yorkers won by a total score of 167 to 80. New York Post-Boy, 5/6/51.
Sources:
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1922), Volume IV, page 628.
Comment:
Note: This match is also reported in item#1751.1
Year
1751
1754.1 Marylanders Play "Great Cricket Match for a Good Sum"
Game:
"We hear that there is to be a great cricket match for a good sum played on Saturday next, near Mr. Aaron Rawling's Spring, between eleven young men of this city [Annapolis] and the same number from Prince George's County [now a Washington suburban community]"
Bradford's Journal, August 1, 1754, as cited in Lester's A Century of Philadelphia Cricket (UPenn Press, Philadelphia, 1951), page 5.
This game was at/near Annapolis. See the Annapolis Maryland Gazette, July 25, Aug. 8, Nov. 14, 1754. [ba]
Year
1754
1754.2 Ben Franklin Brings Copy of Cricket Rules Back to U.S.
Game:
Several sources, including the Smithsonian, magazine, report that "The rules of the game on this side of the Atlantic were formalized in 1754, when Benjamin Franklin brought back from England a copy of the [ten year old - LMc] 1744 Laws, cricket's official rule book." Simon Worrall, "Cricket, Anyone?" Smithsonian Magazine, October 2006. The excerpt can be found in the seventh paragraph of the article [as accessed 10/19/2008] at:
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2006/october/cricket.php:
Lester adds this: "Benjamin Franklin was sufficiently interested in the game [cricket] to bring back with him from England a copy of the laws of cricket, for it was this very copy which was presented to the Young America Club . . .on June 4, 1867." Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket (U Penn, 1951), page 5. Caveat: we have not located a contemporary account of the Franklin story.
Year
1754
1755.1 Johnson Dictionary Defines Stoolball and Trap
Tags:
Game:
Stoolball is simply defined as "A play where balls are driven from stool to stool," and trap is defined as "A play at which a ball is driven with a stick."
Johnson, Samuel, A dictionary of the English language [London, 1755], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 179.
Year
1755
1755.2 Laws of Cricket are Revised
"1755: Minor revision of the Laws of Cricket." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
Year
1755
1755.3 Young Diarist Goes to "Play at Base Ball" in Surrey
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
On the day after Easter in 1755, 18-year-old William Bray recorded the following entry in his diary:
"After Dinner Went to Miss Seale's to play at Base Ball, with her, the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford, H. Parsons & Jolly. Drank tea and stayed till 8."
Sources:
The story of this 2006 find is told in Block, David, "The Story of William Bray's Diary," Base Ball, volume , no. 2 (Fall 2007), pp. 5-11.
See also John Thorn's blog entry at http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/09/05/the-story-of-william-brays-diary/.
see also Sam_Marchiano_and_the_1755_Bray_Diary_Find for an interview with film-maker Sam Marciano, whose documentary Baseball Discovered led to this new find in 2005.
Comment:
Block points out that this diary entry is (as of 2008) among the first four appearances of the term "base ball," [see #1744.2 and #1748.1 above, and #1755.4 below]. It shows adult and mixed-gender play, and indicates that "at this time, baseball was more of a social phenomenon than a sporting one. . . . played for social entertainment rather than serious entertainment." [Ibid, page 9.]
William Bray is well known as a diarist and local historian in Surrey. His diary, in manuscript, came to light in England during the 2008 filming of Ms Sam Marchiano's award-winning documentary, "Base Ball Discovered." (As of late 2020, ITunes lists this documentary at https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/base-ball-discovered/id385353782. Its charge is $10. Another route is https://www.mlb.com/video/base-ball-discovered-c7145607)
As of 2019 the diary was missing again -- Block tells the sad story in Pastime Lost (U Nebraska Press, 2019), p. 37.
Year
1755
1755.4 Satirist Cites Base-Ball as "An Infant Game"
". . . the younger Part of the Family, perceiving Papa not inclined to enlarge upon the Matter, retired to an interrupted Party at Base-Ball, (an infant Game, which as it advances in its Teens, improves to Fives [handball], and in its State of Manhood, is called Tennis)."
Kidgell, John, The Card (John Newbery, London, 1755), page 9. This citation was uncovered in 2007 by David Block. He tells the story of the find in Block, David, "The Story of William Bray's Diary," Base Ball, volume , no. 2 (Fall 2007), pp. 9-11.
Year
1755
1755.5 Authoritative Rules of Cricket Published Nationally in England
The publication is The Game at Cricket; as Settled by the Several Cricket-Clubs, Particularly that of the Star and Garter in Pall Mall (London, 1755).
Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. Beth adds: "This is the first discrete publication of the laws of cricket, a version of which was printed in the New Universal Magazine, and as such enabled the laws to be widely distributed. This is the version generally regarded as containing the original laws of cricket."
Year
1755
1755.6 NYS Traveler Notes Dutch Boys Playing "Bat and Ball"
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Gideon Hawley (1727-1807), traveling through the area where Binghamton now is, wrote: "even at the celebration of the Lord's supper [the Dutch boys] have been playing bat and ball the whole term around the house of God."
Hawley, Gideon, Rev. Gideon Hawley's Journal [Broome County, NY 1753], page 1041. Collection of Tom Heitz. Per Patricia Millen, From Pastime to Passion [2001], page 2.
Comment:
Writing in 2011, Brian Turner discerns that "bat and ball" maybe the name of a defined game, and not just a generic term. See Brian Turner, "Bat and Ball: A Distinct Game or a Generic Term?", Base Ball Journal (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 37-40. He finds several uses of the phrase in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, most of them north and east of Boston.
Year
1755
1755c.7 Prominent Patriot Regrets Wasting Time Playing Cat (and Fives)
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Notables:
Benjamin Rush
"I have been ashamed, likewise, in recollecting how much time I have wasted when a boy in playing cat and fives and steal-clothes, &etc . . . . that might have been been more profitably employed in getting my lessons or reading instructing books . . . '
(Letter from Philadelphia dated April 21, 1812 from Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, to the young son of a friend.)
Sources:
"Letter of Dr. Benjamin Rush," The Weekly Register (Baltimore), July 24, 1813. Cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), p. 191.
Circa
1755
1756.1 First Recorded Game by Hambledon Cricket Club
"1756: The Hambledon Club plays its first recorded game." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
Year
1756
1758.1 Military Unit Plays "Bat and Ball" in Northern NYS
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
In 1758, Benjamin Glazier recorded in his diary that "Captain Garrish's company played 'bat and ball'" near Fort Ticonderoga.
Sources:
Benjamin Glazier, French and Indian War Diary of Benjamin Glazier of Ipswich,1758-1760. Essex Institute Historical Collections, volume 86 (1950), page 65, page 68. The original diary is held at the Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem MA.
Note: Brian Turner notes, August 2014, that: "I've had to cobble together the above citation without seeing the actual publication or the original ms. The Hathi Trust allows me to search for page numbers of vol. 86, but not images of those pages, and when I put in "bat and ball" I get hits on p. 65 and p. 68. P. 65 also provides hits for "Ticonderoga" and "Gerrish's," so that would be the most likely place for all the elements to be cited. The original clue came from a website on the history of Fort Ticonderoga, but I can no longer find that website."
Comment:
Fort Ticonderoga is about 100 miles N of Albany NY at the southern end of Lake Champlain. Ipswich MA is about 10 miles N of Salem MA.
Query:
Can the date of the diary entry be traced?
Year
1758
1760s.1 Harvard Man Recalls Cricket, "Various Games of Bat and Ball" on Campus
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Writing of the Buttery on the Harvard campus in Cambridge MA, Sidney Willard later recalled that "[b]esides eatable, everything necessary for a student was there sold, and articles used in the play-grounds, as bats, balls, &c. . . . [w]e wrestled and ran, played at quoits, at cricket, and various games of bat and ball, whose names perhaps are obsolete."
Sources:
Sidney Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood [John Bartlett, Cambridge, 1855], volume 1, pp 31 and 316. Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 44.
Decade
1760s
1760.2 Bat and Ball . . . in Paris?
Game:
A description of Parisian sights: "The grand Walk forms a most beautiful Visto, which terminates in a Wood called Elysian Fields, or more commonly known by the name "La Cours de la Rein (Queen's Course). This is the usual place where the Citizens celebrate their Festivals with the Bat and Ball, a Diversion which is much used here." Provided by David Block, 2/27/2008. Note: Is this the same location as what we now know as the Champs Elysee? Can we learn what bat/ball games were so popular the mid 1700s - Soule? Some form of street tennis? A form of field hockey? Not croquet, presumably.
Year
1760
1761.1 Princeton Faculty [NJ] Disparages "Playing at Ball"
Tags:
Age of Players:
"A minute of the Princeton faculty of May, 1761, frowns upon students "playing at ball."
Bentley, et. al., American College Athletics [Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, New York, 1929], pages 14-15. Submitted by John Thorn, 6/6/04.
Comment:
Note: Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.
Year
1761
1761.2 School Rule in PA; No Ballplaying in the College Yard, Especially in Front of Trustees and Profs
Tags:
"None shall climb over the Fences of the College Yard, or come in or out thro the Windows, or play Ball or use any Kind of Diversion within the Walls of the Building; nor shall they in the Presence of the Trustees, Professors or Tutors, play Ball, Wrestle, make any indecent Noise, or behave in any way rudely in the College Yard or Streets adjacent."
Sack, Saul, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania, vol. 2 [Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, 1963], page 632. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004. Note: do we know the college? UPa?
Year
1761
1761.3 School Trustees Prohibit Playing Ball and Other Diversions, Ignoring Advice of Ben Franklin
Tags:
Age of Players:
Notables:
" in Woody(ed.), "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsilvania, 1761, pp. 156-57.)
"But physical education as a consciously organized activity in the college program was almost completely lacking before the late nineteenth century. Viewed in many instances as a contributor to indecorous behavior, Minutes of Trustees, Educational Views of Benjamin Franklin, Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin
"A sound mind in a sound body is a maxim to which our collegiate forbears of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would probably have subscribed, I, March 10, Professors or Tutors, Wrestle, and as a possible source of distraction from the pursuit of serious study, and swimming, and to strengthen and render active their bodies, but about which they did little. Benjamin Franklin, etc." (Source: Benjamin Franklin, for example, in 1761, leaping, make any indecent Noise, or behave in any way rudely in the College Yard or Streets adjacent.'" (Source: College Academy and Charitable School, or come in or out thro the Windows, or play Ball or use any Kind of Diversion within the Walls of the Building; nor shall they in the Presence of the Trustees, play Ball, pp. 131 ff).
, tended to place a damper upon the exuberant spirit of youth: 'None shall climb over the Fences of the College Yard, the early tendency was to discourage rather than to foster participation in it. Thus, the rules for student deportment formulated by the trustees of the College, they be frequently exercised in running, urged that in order to keep the scholars of his proposed academy "in health, wrestling"A sound mind in a sound body is a maxim to which our collegiate forbears of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would probably have subscribed, but about which they did little. Benjamin Franklin, for example, urged that in order to keep the scholars of his proposed academy "in health, and to strengthen and render active their bodies, they be frequently exercised in running, leaping, wrestling, and swimming, etc." (Source: Benjamin Franklin, "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsilvania, " in Woody (ed.), Educational Views of Benjamin Franklin, pp. 156-57.)
"But physical education as a consciously organized activity in the college program was almost completely lacking before the late nineteenth century. Viewed in many instances as a contributor to indecorous behavior, and as a possible source of distraction from the pursuit of serious study, the early tendency was to discourage rather than to foster participation in it. Thus, the rules for student deportment formulated by the trustees of the College, Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia, in 1761, tended to place a damper upon the exuberant spirit of youth: 'None shall climb over the Fences of the College Yard, or come in or out thro the Windows, or play Ball or use any Kind of Diversion within the Walls of the Building; nor shall they in the Presence of the Trustees, Professors or Tutors, play Ball, Wrestle, make any indecent Noise, or behave in any way rudely in the College Yard or Streets adjacent.'" (Source: College Academy and Charitable School, Minutes of Trustees, I, March 10, 1761, pp. 131 ff).
Sources:
Saul Sack, History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania Volume: 2. (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg PA, 1963) , p.632.
Comment:
John Thorn adds (email of 9/25/16):
"Possibly of interest: Franklin had dissociated himself from the Academy of Philadelphia (the "college" in question) in 1756:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2536600519.html
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/upl/upl125.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Academy_and_College_of_Philadelphia
jt"
Year
1761
1762.1 Pirated Version of Little Pretty Book Uses Term "Base-ball."
Note: This version, published in 1762 by Hugh Gaine, was advertised in The New York Mercury on August 30, 1762, but no copy has been found. Per RH, p. 135. Henderson says that this is the first use of "base-ball" in an American source. In his note #107, RH gives 1760 as the year of publication.
Year
1762
1762.2 Salem MA Ordinance Outlaws Bat-and-Ball, Cricket
Game:
". . . no Person shall use the Exercise of playing or Kicking of Foot-ball, or the Exercise of Bat-and-Ball, or Cricket . . . within the Body of this Town, under a Penalty of One Shilling and Six Pence."
By-Laws and Orders of the town of Salem MA, July 26, 1762.
Sources:
December 13, 1768, The Essex Gazette (Salem, MA), Volume 1, Issue 20, p. 81.
(“Following is an Extract of the By-Laws and ORDERS of the Town of Salem, of the 26th of July, A.D. 1762, approved by His Majesty’s Court of General Sessions of the Peace holden at said SALEM in the same month, and now published by Order of the Select-Men, viz.)
(Detailed source received from Brian Turner, 8/31/2014.)
Comment:
Brian Turner, 8/31/2014, notes that the wording of this order could be taken to mean that the game itself was seen as a form of cricket, and was not a distinct game.
Year
1762
1766.1 Cricket Balls Advertised in US by James Rivington
Tags:
Game:
In 1766 "James Rivington imported battledores and shuttlecocks, cricket-balls, pillets, best racquets for tennis and fives, backgammon tables with men, boxes, and dice."
Singleton, Esther, Social New York Under the Georges [New York, 1902], page 265. [Cited by Dulles, 1940.] Caveat: Singleton does not provide a source at this location; however, from context [see pp. 91-92] her direct quotation seems likely to be taken from a contemporary Rivington advertisement. Caution: John Thorn is unable to find online evidence of cricket ball imports before 1772, per email of 2/2/2008.
Year
1766
1766.2 Cricket [or Wicket?] Challenge in CT
Game:
"A Challenge is hereby given by the Subscribers, to Ashbel Steel, and John Barnard, with 18 young Gentlemen . . . to play a Game of BOWL for a Dinner and Trimmings . . . on Friday next." Connecticut Courant , May 5, 1766, as cited in John A. Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 6. Note: is "game of bowl" a common term for cricket? Could this not have been a wicket challenge, given the size of the teams?
Year
1766
1767.2 North-South Game of Cricket in Hartford CT
Game:
"Whereas a Challenge was given by Fifteen Men South of the Great Bridge in Hartford . . . the Public are hereby inform'd that that Challenged beat the Challengers by a great majority. And said North side hereby acquaint the South Side, that they are not afraid to meet them with any Number they shall chuse . . . ." Source: "Hartford and Her Sons and Daughters of the Year The Courant was Founded," Hartford Daily Courant, 10/25/1914. The original Courant notice was dated June 1, 1767. Sleuthwork provided by John Thorn, email of 2/2/2008.
Year
1767
1768.1 "Old Boys of Westminster" Play Harrow in Cricket
"William Hickey plays in a match at Moulsey Hurst for the old boys of Westminster School against eleven old boys of Harrow." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
Year
1768
1768.2 Baseball in English Dictionary
Game:
Age of Players:
"BASEBALL, (From base and ball) A rural game in which the person striking the ball must run to his base or goal."
Additionally, the dictionary lists the following as one of its definitions for the word "base":
BASE "A rural play, also called baseball."
Sources:
"A General Dictionary of the English Language, Compiled with the Greatest Care from the Best Authors and Dictionaries Now Extant." Its authors are identified only as "A Society of Gentlemen." per 19cbb post by David Block, Dec. 2, 2011
Comment:
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.
Year
1768
1770s.1 British Soldiers Seek Amusements, Rebels Yawn
Tags:
Game:
"the presence of large numbers of British troops quartered in the larger towns of the [eastern] seaboard brought the populace into contact with a new attitude toward play. Officers and men, when off duty, like soldiers in all ages, were inveterate seekers of amusement. The dances and balls, masques and pageants, ending in Howe's great extravaganza in Philadelphia, were but one expression of this spirit. Officers set up cricket grounds and were glad of outside competition. . [text refers to cock-fighting in Philadelphia, horseracing and fox hunts on Long Island, bear-baiting in Brooklyn].
"There is little indication, however, that the British occupation either broke down American prejudices against wasting time in frivolous amusements or promoted American participation and interest in games and sports."
Krout, John A., The Pageant of America: Annals of American Sport (Oxford U Press, 1929), page 26.
Decade
1770s
1770.2 Three-on-Three Cricket Match Played on 100-Guinea Bet
"On Friday last a cricket match was played on Barnet Common between Mess. Cock, and Draper and Athey, against Mess Grey, Langley, and Tapiter, for 100 guineas, which was won with great difficulty by the latter; they went against 44 notches, and beat by only one notch."
Bingley's Weekly Journal, Saturday, September 15, 1770. Contributed by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09. Barnet is a borough of London located to the northwest of the city.
Year
1770
1770c.3 Future Professor Sneaks a Smoke When He Can't Play Bat and Ball
Age of Players:
"When Saturday afternoon chanced to be rainy, and no prospect of bat and ball on the common, some half a dozen of us used now and then, to meet in an old wood-shed, that we shall never forget, and fume it away to our own wonderful aggrandizement."
"Use of Tobacco from Dr. Waterhouse's Lecture before Harvard University," American Repertory, September 3, 1829 ("from the Columbian Centinel.") Accessed via subscription search, May 5, 2009. From internal references, this appears to be an account of the well-known public anti-smoking lecture by Professor Benjamin Waterhouse in November 1804.
Comment:
Caution: dating this reference requires some assumptions. Waterhouse was born in 1754, and thus, if this recollection is authentic, he speaks of a penchant for ballplaying [and smoking] he held in his teens. He was born at Newport, RI and remained there until 1780.
Circa
1770
1771.1 Dartmouth President Finds Gardening "More Useful" Than Ballplaying
Game:
Age of Players:
Dartmouth College's founding president Eleazar Wheelock thought his students should "turn the course of their diversions and exercises for their health, to the practice of some manual arts, or cultivation of gardens and other lands at the proper hours of leisure." That would be "more useful" than the tendency of some non-Dartmouth students to engage in "that which is puerile, such as playing with balls, bowls and other ways of diversion."
Sources:
Eleazar Wheelock, A Continuation of the Narrative [1771], as quoted in W. D. Quint, The Story of Dartmouth College (Little, Brown, Boston, 1914) , page 246. Submitted by Scott Meacham, 8/21/06. Dartmouth is in Hanover NH.
Year
1771
1771.2 Province of New Hampshire Prohibits Christmas "Playing With Balls" in the Streets
"WHEREAS as iit often happens that many disorders are occasioned within the town of Portsmouth . . . by boys and fellows playing with balls in the public street: . . . [when] there is danger of breaking the windows of any building, public or private, may be ordered to remove to any place where there shall be no such danger."
Sources:
"An Act to prevent and punish Disorders usually committed on the twenty-fifth Day of December . . . ," 23 December 1771, New Hampshire (Colony) Temporary Laws, 1773 (Portsmouth, NH), page 53. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 25.
Year
1771
1771.3 A Wider Bat? Even in Cricket, There's Always a Joker
"There was no size limit [on a cricket bat] until 1771, when a Ryegate batsman came to the pitch with a bat wider than the wicket itself! A maximum measurement was then drawn up, and this has remained the same since." The Hambledon Committee new resolution, appearing two days later, specified that the bat much be no wider than 4.25 inches. The rule stuck.
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishing, Kent Town Australia, 1990], page 15.
Year
1771
1771.4 Newspaper Quotes Odds for 2-Day London Cricket Match
"On Wednesday and Thursday Last a grand match at cricket was played in the Artillery ground, between the Duke of Dorset and ___ Mann, Esq; which, being a strong contest, was won by his Grace, notwithstanding the odds on the second day were 12 to one in favor of Mr. Mann.
Bingley's Weekly Journal, Saturday, September 14, 1771. Contributed by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09.
Year
1771
1772.1 Irish soldiers play Hurling in NYC
Game:
Age of Players:
"If the Hurling Classic is new to New York City, the game certainly is not. Hurling was recorded as far back as 1772, brought by Irish soldiers in the British Army. There was even an early form of "Ice Hurling" played on Collect Pond, where Chinatown is now located.
As the Irish poured into America in the wake of the famine, the sport became an important part of Irish-American life. New York's Irish Hurling and Football Club was established in 1857, and clubs were soon set up from Boston to San Francisco."
A Hurling Club was established in San Francisco in 1853. See Redmond, p. 288.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50395910
See also Redmond, "The Irish and the Making of American Sport, 1835-1920"
Year
1772
1773.1 Surrey/Kent Cricket Match Draws 12,000, Spawns Poetic Duel
Surrey beat Kent at Bourne Paddock, July 19-21, 1773. The Rev J. Duncombe described the match in a poem entitled "Surrey Triumphant; or, the Kentish-Men's Defeat. A New Ballad, Being a Parody on 'Chevy Chase'," which [cheeeeeky indeed] appeared in the Kentish Gazette of July 24. Then "a Gentleman" penned a reply, "Kentish Cricketers." This exchange is amply told in H. T. Waghorn, compiler, Cricket Scores, Notes, Etc. from 1730-1773 (Blackwood, London, 1899)pp 116 - 126. Accessed via Google Books 10/19/2008.
Year
1773
1773.2 "Best" Cricket Bats Sold for Four Shillings Sixpence
Pett's of Sevenoaks was selling "best bats" for 4s 6d. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1773
1773.3 Ball-Playing by Slaves Is Eyed in SC
Tags:
Location:
"We present as a growing Evil, the frequent assembling of Negroes in the Town [Beaufort, SC] on Sundays, and playing games of Trap-ball and Fives, which is not taken proper notice of by Magistrates, Constables, and other Parish Officers."
Tom Altherr, Originals, Volume 2, Number 11 (November 2009), page 1. Tom sees this reference as "possibly the earliest which refers to African Americans, slaves or also possibly a few free blacks, playing a baseball-type game [although it is not clear if it involved any running], and playing frequently. Beaufort SC is about 40 miles NE of Savannah GA, near the coastline.
Year
1773
1774.1 Cricket Rules Adjusted - Visitors Bat First, LBW Added
A "Committee of Noblemen and Gentlemen of Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex, and London" agree on rule changes. Ford's summary: "Particular reference is made to the requirements of gambling. Ball between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces. LBW [leg-before-wicket, a form of batman interference - LM] for the first time; short runs; visiting side gets the choice of pitch and first innings. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Writing in 1890, Steel and Lyttelton say that "[t]he earliest laws of the game, or at least the earliest which have reached us, are of the year 1774:" See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket, (Longmans Green, London, 1890) 4th edition, page 12.
Year
1774
1774.2 Ah, The Good Ol' Days: Cricket Now No Longer "Innocent Pastime"
"The game at cricket, which requires that utmost exertion of strength and agility, was followed, until of late years, for manly exercise, animated by a noble spirit of emulation. This sport has too long been perverted from diversion and innocent pastime to excessive gaming and public dissipation." Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (London) August 23, 1774, Column 1, seventh paragraph.
Year
1774
1775.1 Soldier in CT "Played Ball All Day"
Tags:
Location:
"Wednesday the 6. We played ball all day"
Lyman, Simeon, "Journal of Simeon Lyman of Sharon August 10 to December 28, 1775," in "Orderly Book and Journals Kept by Connecticut Men While Taking Part in the American Revolution 1775 - 1778," Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, volume 7 (Connecticut Historical Society, 1899), p. 117. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 26. Lyman was near New London CT.
Year
1775
1775.2 Soldier in MA Played Ball
Tags:
Thomas Altherr writes in 2008: "Ephriam [Ephraim? - TA] Tripp, a soldier at Dorchester in 1775, also left a record, albeit brief, of ball playing: 'Camping and played bowl,' he wrote on May 30. 'Bowl' for Tripp meant ball, because elsewhere he referred to cannonballs as 'cannon bowls.' On June 24 he penned: 'We went to git our meney that we shud yak when we past muster com home and played bawl.'" Note: Dorchester MA, presumably? Is it clear whether Tripp was a British soldier? May 1775 was some months before an American army formed.
E. Tripp, "His book of a journal of the times in the year 1775 from the 19th day," Sterling Memorial Library Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University: "Diaries (Miscellaneous) Collection, Group 18, Box 16, Folder 267. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 39.
Year
1775
1776.1 Book on Juvenile Pastimes Comments on Trap Ball
Michel Angelo, Juvenile Sports and Pastimes [London], 2nd edition. per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 179. The text decries the use of a broad flat bat instead of a thin round one, which had evidently been used formerly.
Year
1776
1776.2 NJ Officer Plays Ball Throughout His Military Service
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Lt. Ebenezer Elmer, a New Jersey office, noted several instances of ball-playing in New York State in 1776 and in New Jersey in 1777. His initial entries cite the game of whirl, and later ones note that ball was played "again."
Sources:
"Journal of Lieutenant Ebenezer Elmer, of the Third Regiment of New Jersey Troops in the Continental Service," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society [1848], volume 1, number 1, pp. 26, 27, 30, and 31, and volume 3, number 2, pp.98. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 29.
Query:
What was the game of "whirl?"
Year
1776
1776c.3 Revolutionary War Officer Plays Cricket, Picks Blueberries
Tags:
Game:
"The days would follow without incident, one day after another. An officer with a company of Pennsylvania riflemen [in Washington's army] wrote of nothing to do but pick blueberries and play cricket." David McCullough, 1776 (Simon and Schuster, 2005), page 40. McCullough does not give a source for this item. Provided by Priscilla Astifan, 19CBB posting of 8/5/2008 and email of 11/16/2008. McCullough notes that the majority of the army comprised farmers and skilled artisan [ibid, page 34].
Comment:
The army was near Boston at the time
Circa
1776
1776c.4 1851 Historic Novel Puts Game of Base at New York Campus
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"It was the hour of noon, on a fine spring day, in the year that troubles between the mother country and the colonies has seriously commenced that a party of collegians from Kiing's and Queen's College (now Columbia) were engaged in a game of base on 'the field.' "What is now the Park was then an open space of open waste grounds, denominated 'the fields,' where public meetings were held by the 'liberty boys ' of the day, . . . " One of the young men, whose turn at the bat had not come around, was standing aloof, his arms folded, and apparently absorbed in deep thought. 'Hamilton seems to be contemplative these few days past--what's the matter with him, Morris!, was the remark of one of he younger students to a senior. . . . .'
Sources:
Henry A Buckingham, King Sears and Alexander Hamilton,' Buffalo Morning Express, November 21, 1851, Buffalo NY. A 2022 source suggests that the text is from Buckingham's newspaper serial, :Tales and Traditions of New York." (See Jean Katz, William Walcutt, Nativism and Nineteenth Century Art ,2022).
Comment:
John Thorn, 1/31/2023: "I think [this] is awfully good despite its fictional setting and its date of 1851."
The article mentions the wrecking of James Rivington's press, which dates the incident (if it occurred) in 1775. [ba]
Circa
1776
1777.1 Revolutionary War Prisoner Watches Ball-Playing in NYC Area
Tags:
Age of Players:
Jabez Fitch, an officer from Connecticut, noted in March 1777, as a prisoner in British-held New York: "we lit [sic] a number of our Offrs . . . who were Zealously Engaged at playing ball . . . .
His diary mentioned two other times he saw comrades playing ball.
Sources:
Sabine, William H. W., ed., "The New York Diary of Lieutenant Jabez Fitch of the 17th (Connecticut) Regiment from August 22, 1776 to December 15, 1777 [private printing, 1954], pp. 126, 127, and 162. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see p.237.
Comment:
The numbers of players seems to weaken the suggestion that "playing ball" meant hand ball in these cases.
Year
1777
1777.2 Mass. Sailor Plays Ball in English Prison
Tags:
Age of Players:
Held as a POW in Plymouth, England, Newburyport MA sailor Charles Herbert wrote on April 2, 1777: "Warm, and something pleasant, and the yard begins to dry again, so that we can return to our former sports; these are ball and quoits . . . "
Sources:
A Relic of the Revolution, Containing a Full and Particular Account of the Sufferings and Privations of All the American Prisoners Captured on the High Seas, and Carried to Plymouth, England, During the Revolution of 1776 [Charles S. Pierce, Boston, 1847], p. 109. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It [ref # 35]; see p. 237
Year
1777
1777.3 Cricket Gets Improved Wicket - A Third Stump Added
Says Ford: "Third (middle) stump introduced." Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1777
1777.4 British POWs Linger in Colonies -- Did They Help Sew Base Ball's Seeds?
Tags:
Age of Players:
Nearly 5000 of British General Burgoyne's troops, surrendered in their 1777 loss at Saratoga, remained in American camps for several years. They were known to play the game of "bat and ball" as they were interned variously in Cambridge MA, Virginia, and central Pennsylvania, and to have maintained a store of hickory sticks, ostensibly for the purpose of such play. Nearly a third of them deserted over the years, some settling in America. Could they not have helped acquaint the new nation with their English game?
Sources:
Brian Turner, "Sticks or Clubs: Ball Play Along the Route of Burgoyne's "Convention Army", Base Ball, volume 11 (2019), pp. 1 -16.
Comment:
In 1778, a court-martial reviewed a claim that interned soldiers outside Boston possessed some dangerous weapons, and in defense "Burgoyne introduced into evidence a set of 'hickory sticks designed to play at bat and ball'."
Year
1777
1778.1 American Surgeon Sees Ball-Playing in English Prison
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"23rd [May 1778]. This forenoon as some of the prisoners was playing ball, it by chance happened to lodge n the eave spout. One climbed up to take the ball out, and a sentry without the wall seeing him, fired at him, but did no harm."
Sources:
Coan, Marion, ed., "A Revolutionary Prison Diary: The Journal of Dr. Jonathan Haskins," New England Quarterly, volume 17, number 2 [June 1944], p. 308. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 36; see pages 237-238.
Year
1778
1778.2 Teamster Sees Soldiers Play Ball.
Tags:
[Joslin, Joseph], "Journal of Joseph Joslin Jr of South Killingly A Teamster in the Continental Service March 1777 - August 1778, in "Orderly Book [sic?] and Journals Kept by Connecticut Men While Taking Part in the American Revolution 1775 - 1778," Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, volume 7 Connecticut Historical Society, 1899, pp. 353 - 354. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 27.
Year
1778
1778.3 MA Sergeant Found Some Time and "Plaid Ball"
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
Benjamin Gilbert, a Sergeant from Brookfield MA, mentioned ball-playing in his diary several times between 1778 and 1782. The locations included the lower Hudson valley.
Sources:
Symmes, Rebecca D., ed., A Citizen Soldier in the American Revolution: The Diary of Benjamin Gilbert of Massachusetts and New York (New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, 1980), pp. 30 and 49; and "Benjamin Gilbert Diaries 1782 - 1786," G372, NYS Historical Association Library, Cooperstown. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 30. (See page 236.)
Year
1778
1778.4 Ewing Reports Playing "At Base" and Wicket at Valley Forge - with the Father of his Country
Age of Players:
[A] George Ewing, a Revolutionary War soldier, tells of playing a game of "Base" at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: "Exercisd in the afternoon in the intervals playd at base."
Ewing also wrote: "[May 2d] in the afternoon playd a game at Wicket with a number of Gent of the Arty . . . ." And later . . . "This day [May 4, 1778] His Excellency dined with G Nox and after dinner did us the honor to play at Wicket with us."
[B]
"Q. What did soldiers do for recreation?
"A: During the winter months the soldiers were mostly concerned with their survival, so recreation was probably not on their minds. As spring came, activities other than drills and marches took place. "Games" would have included a game of bowls played with cannon balls and called "Long Bullets." "Base" was also a game - the ancestor of baseball, so you can imagine how it might be played; and cricket/wicket. George Washington himself was said to have took up the bat in a game of wicket in early May after a dinner with General Knox! . . . Other games included cards and dice . . . gambling in general, although that was frowned upon."
Valley Forge is about 20 miles NE of Philadelphia.
Sources:
[A] Ewing, G., The Military Journal of George Ewing (1754-1824), A Soldier of Valley Forge [Private Printing, Yonkers, 1928], pp 35 ["base"] and 47 [wicket]. Also found at John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. Volume: 11. [U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1931]. page 348. The text of Ewing's diary is unavailable at Google Books as of 11/17/2008.
[B] From the website of Historic Valley Forge;
see http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/067.htm, accessed 10/25/02. Note: it is possible that the source of this material is the Ewing entry above, but we're hoping for more details from the Rangers at Valley Forge. In 2013, we're still hoping, but not as avidly.
See also Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000)\, p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 236.
Comment:
Caveat: It is unknown whether this was a ball game, rather than prisoner's base, a form of tag played by two teams, and resembling the game "Capture the Flag."
Note: "Long Bullets" evidently involved a competition to throw a ball down a road, seeing who could send the ball furthest along with a given number of throws. Another reference to long bullets is found at http://protoball.org/1830s.20.
Query:
Is Ewing's diary available now? Yes, on archive.org. See https://archive.org/details/georgeewinggentl00ewin/mode/2up?q=george+ewing+diary
Year
1778
1778.5 Cricket Game To Be Played at Cannon's Tavern, New York City
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The game of Cricket, to be played on Monday next, the 14th inst., at Cannon's Tavern, at Corlear's Hook. Those Gentlemen that choose to become Members of the Club, are desired to attend. The wickets to be pitched at two o'Clock"
Per John Thorn, 6/15/04: from Phelps-Stokes, Vol. VI, Index—ref. against Chronology and Chronology Addenda (Vol. 4aA or 6A); also, Vol. V, p.1068 (6/13/1778): Royal Gazette, 6/13/1778. Later, the cricket grounds were "where the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground " Royal Gazette, 6/17/1780.
Sources:
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1068.
Phelps Stokes cites Royal Gazette, 6/13/1778 and that a later 1780 note that the cricket grounds were "where the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground" (Royal Gazette, 6/17/1780.)
Year
1778
1778.6 NH Loyalist Plays Ball in NY; Mentions "Wickett"
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
The journal of Enos Stevens, a NH man serving in British forces, mentions playing ball seven times from 1778 to 1781. Only one specifies the game played in terms we know: "in the after noon played Wickett" in March of 1781.
Sources:
C. K. Boulton, ed., "A Fragment of the Diary of Lieutenant Enos Stevens, Tory, 1777-1778," New England Quarterly v. 11, number 2 (June 1938), pages 384-385, per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, reference #33; see p. 337. Tom notes that the original journal is at the Vermont Historical Society in Montpelier VT.
Year
1778
1778.7 Cricket Club To Play at New York Tavern
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Vol. V, p.1068 (6/13/1778): “The game of Cricket, to be played on Monday next, the 14th inst., at Cannon’s Tavern, at Corlear’s Hook. Those Gentlemen that choose to become Members of the Club, are desired to attend. The wickets to be pitched at two o’Clock” Royal Gazette, 6/13/1778.
Later, the cricket grounds were “where the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground.” Royal Gazette, 6/17/1780.
Sources:
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1068.
Comment:
Corlear's Hook was a noted ship landing place along the East River. Today there's a Corlears Hook Park on the site.
Year
1778
1779.1 Cricket Played On Grounds near NYC's Brooklyn Ferry.
Tags:
Game:
August 9, 1779, match between Brooklyn and Greenwich Clubs: "A Set of Gentlemen" propose playing a cricket match this day, and every Monday during the summer season, "on the Cricket Ground near Brooklyn Ferry." The company "of any Gentleman to join the set in the exercise" is invited. A large Booth is erected for the accommodation of spectators:" New York Mercury, 8/9/1779
Sources:
|
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1922), Volume IV, page 1092. |
Year
1779
1779.2 Lieutenant Reports Playing Ball, and Playing Bandy Wicket
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Samuel Shute, a New Jersey Lieutenant, jotted down his reference to playing ball in central Pennsylvania sometime between July 9 and July 22, 1779; 'until the 22nd, the time was spent playing shinny and ball.' Incidentally, Shute distinguished among various sports, referring elsewhere in his journal to 'Bandy Wicket.' He did not confuse baseball with types of field hockey [bandy] and cricket [wicket] that the soldiers also played." Thomas Altherr.
Sources:
"Journal of Lt. Samuel Shute," in Frederick Cook, ed., Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779 [Books for Libraries Press, Freeport NY, reprint of the 1885 edition], p. 268. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 28. Also cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), p. 194.
On bandy: Alice Bertha Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Dover, 1964 (reprint: originally published in 1894), volume I. [Page not shone; listed games are presented alphabetically]
Comment:
Shinny, Wikipedia says, denotes field hockey and ice hockey. Thus, by "ball," Shute was not referring to field hockey. If he was not denoting handball, he may have been adverting to some early form of base ball.
According to Alice B. Gomme, Bandy Wicket refers to the game of cricket, played with a bandy (a curved stick) instead of a bat.
Query:
Can we locate and inspect Shute's reference to bandy wicket?
Year
1779
1779.3 Revolutionary War Soldier H. Records Regimental Ball-Playing PA
Tags:
Age of Players:
"In the spring of 1779, Henry Dearborn, a New Hampshire officer, was a member of the American expedition in northeast Pennsylvania, heading northwards to attack the Iroquois tribal peoples. In his journal for April 3rd, Dearborn jotted down . . . 'all the Officers of the Brigade turn'd out & Played at a game of ball the first we have had this yeare.'
On April 17th, he wrote: 'we are oblige'd to walk 4 miles to day to find a place leavel enough to play ball.'
Dearborn's two notations, meager as they were, suggests that the game of ball that they played was more than whimsical recreation."
Sources:
Brown, Lloyd, and H. Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn 1775 - 1783 Books for Libraries Press, Freeport NY, 1969 (original edition 1939), pp 149 - 150. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 1.
The above account is found in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), p. 193
Comment:
When don't know the nature of this game, nor whether it was a base-running game.
Year
1779
1779.4 French Official Sees George Washington Playing Catch "For Hours"
Age of Players:
"To-day he [George Washington] sometimes throws and catches the ball for whole hours with his aides-de-camp."
-- from a letter by Francois Marquis de Barbe-Marbois, September 1779. Observed at a camp at Fishkill NY.
Sources:
Chase, E. P., ed., Our Revolutionary Forefathers: The Letters of Francois Marquis de Barbe-Marbois during his Residence in the United States as Secretary of the French Legation 1779 - 1785 (Duffield and Company, NY, 1929), p. 114. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," Nine, v. 8, no. 2, (2000); reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see pp. 236-237.
Comment:
Note: An online source has Washington at Fishkill in late September 1778.
Year
1779
1779.5 Army Lieutenant Cashiered for "Playing Ball with Serjeants"
Age of Players:
Lieutenant Michael Dougherty, 6th Maryland Regiment, was cashiered at a General Court Martial at Elizabeth Town on April 10, 1779, in part for a breach of the 21st article, 14th section of the rules and articles of war "unofficer and ungentlemanlike conduct in associating and playing ball with Serjeants on the 6th instant."
Sources:
Fitzpatrick, John C., ed., The Writings of George Washington from the Original Sources, 1745-1799, vol. 14 [USGPO, Washington, 1931], page 378.
Year
1779
1780.1 NYC Press Cites Regular Monday Cricket Matches Again
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
A cricket match is advertised to be played on this day, and continued every Monday throughout the summer, "on the Ground where the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground."
Sources:
|
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1111, also citing New York Mercury, June 19, 1780. |
Comment:
Regular Monday matches had been noted in the previous summer: see Chronology entry 1779.1
The "Jews Burying Ground" refers to the first burial ground of the Shearith Israel Congregation, which existed 1683-1828. It was located at 55 St. James Place, near modern Chatham Square in Chinatown. [ba]
Year
1780
1780.2 Challenges for Cricket Matches between Englishmen and Americans
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
On August 19, 11 New Yorkers issued this challenge: "we, in this public manner challenge the best eleven Englishmen in the City of New York to play the game of Cricket . . . for any sum they think proper to stake." On August 26, the Englishmen accepted, suggesting a stake of 100 guineas. On September 6, the news was that the match was on: "at the Jew's Burying-ground, WILL be played on Monday next . . . the Wickets to be pitched at Two O'Clock." We seem to lack a report of the outcome of this match.
Sources:
Royal Gazette, August 19, 1780, page 3 column 4; August 26, 1780, page 2 column 2; and September 6, 1780, page 3 column 4.
Also cited in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1115.
Year
1780
1780c.4 "Round Ball" Believed to be Played in MA
Location:
"Mr. Stoddard believes that Round Ball was played by his father in 1820, and has the tradition from his father that two generations before, i.e., directly after the revolutionary war, it was played and was not then a novelty."
Letter from Henry Sargent, Grafton MA, to the Mills Commission, May 23, 1905. Stoddard was an elderly gentleman who had played round ball in his youth. Note: The Sargent letter also reports that Stoddard "believed that roundball was played as long ago as Upton became a little village." Upton MA was incorporated in 1735. Caveat: One might ask whether a man born around 1830 can be certain about ballplaying 50 years and 100 years before his birth.
Circa
1780
1780s.5 Diminished in its Range, Stoolball Still Played at Brighton
Game:
"The apparent former wide diffusion of stoolball was reduced in the 18th century to a few geographical survivals. It was played in Brighton to celebrate a royal birthday in the 1780s and by the early 19th century appeared to be limited to a few Kent and Sussex Wealden settlements."
John Lowerson, "Conflicting Values in the Revivals of a 'Traditional Sussex Game,' SussexAchaeological Collections 133 [1995], page 265. Lowerson's source for the 1780s report seems to be F. Gale, Modern English Sports [London, 1885], pages 8 and/or 11.
Decade
1780s
1780s.6 Newell Sees Baseball's Roots in MA
Writing on early baseball in the year 1883, W. W. Newell says:
"The present scientific game . . . was known in Massachusetts, twenty years ago, as the 'New York game.' A ruder form of Base-ball has been played in some Massachusetts towns for a century; while in other parts of New England no game with the ball was formerly known except "Hockey." There was great local variety in these sports."
Newell, William W., Games and Songs of American Children (Dover, New York, 1963 - originally published 1883) page 184. Note: The omission of wicket - and arguably cricket - from Newell's account is interesting here. The claim that hockey was seen as a ball game is also interesting.
Comment:
The early forms of "hockey" (aka Bandy) were what we today would call Field Hockey, and WERE played with a ball rather than a puck. See Giden et al., "On the Origin of Hockey" [ba]
Decade
1780s
1780c.7 The Young Josiah Quincy of MA: "My Heart was in Ball"
Age of Players:
Josiah Quincy was sent off to Phillips Academy at Andover MA in about 1778 at age six. It was a tough place. "The discipline of the Academy was severe, and to a child, as I was, disheartening. . . [p24/25]. I cannot imagine a more discouraging course of education that that to which I was subjected. The truth was, I was an incorrigible lover of sports of every kind. My heart was in ball and marbles." Note: Biographer Edmund Quincy sets this passage in direct quotes, but does not provide a source.
Sources:
Edmund Quincy, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts (Fields, Osgood and Company, Boston, 1869), pages 24-25..Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 36. Accessed on 11/16/2008 via Google Books search for <life of josiah quincy>. Also cited in Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 36.
Circa
1780
1780.8 Regular Monday NYC Cricket Matches Planned Again.
Game:
Age of Players:
A cricket match is advertised to be played on this day, and continued every Monday throughout the summer, “on the Ground where the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground.” New York Mercury, June 19, 1780
Sources:
|
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1111. |
Year
1780
1780.9 Americans and Englishmen Encouraged to Meet on NYC Cricket Field
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Challenges for cricket matches between ‘Americans’ and ‘Englishmen” are issued through the newspaper Royal Gazette, 8/19. 8/26, 1780.
The cricket field is at the Jews’ Burying ground.” Royal Gazette, 9/6/80.
Sources:
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1115.
Year
1780
1780.10 Dartmouth College Fine for Ballplay - Two Shillings
Age of Players:
"If any student shall play ball or use any other diversion that exposes the College or hall windows within three rods of either he shall be fined two shillings . . . " In 1782 the protected area was extended to six rods.
-- Dartmouth College, 1779.
Sources:
John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College 1815-1909 (Rumford Press, Concord NH, 1913), page 593. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 35 and refs #38 through 40. See also Chron entry #1771.1.
Year
1780
1781.1 Teen Makes White Leather Balls for British Officers' Ball-Playing
Tags:
Age of Players:
"These officers [British soldiers captured at the Battle of Saratoga] were full of cash and frolicked and gamed much. One amusement in which they indulged much, was playing at ball. A Ball-Alley was fitted up at the Court-House, where some of them were to be seen at almost all hours of the day."
"Whilst the game of ball was coming off one day at the Court House, an American officer and a British officer, who were among the spectators, became embroiled in a dispute."
The writer, Samuel Dewees, went on to describe how, as a teen, he had fashioned balls and sold them to the British for a quarter each.
Sources:
Hanna, John S., ed., A History of the Life and Services of Captain Samuel Dewees, A Native of Pennsylvania, and Soldier of the Revolutionary and Last Wars [Robert Neilson, Baltimore, 1844], p. 265- 266. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref #37: see p. 238.
For more on the ball-playing habits of the "Convention Army" of captured British soldiers from 1778 to 1781, see Brian Turner, "Sticks or Clubs: Ball Play Among the Route of Burgoyne's 'Convention Army,' Base Ball, volume 11 (2019), pp. 1-16.
Comment:
In the game of wicket, the "alley" included the space directly between the two wickets.
Query:
Is "alley" used by cricketers in the same way?
Year
1781
1781.2 "Antient" Harvard Custom: Freshmen Furnish the Bats, Balls
Tags:
Age of Players:
"The Freshmen shall furnish Batts, Balls, and Foot-balls, for the use of the students, to be kept at the Buttery."
Rule 16, "President, Professors, and Tutor's Book," volume IV. The list of rules is headed "The antient Customs of Harvard College, established by the Government of it."
Conveyed to David Block, April 18, 2005, by Professor Harry R. Lewis, Harvard University, Cambridge MA. Dr. Lewis adds, "The buttery was a sort of supply room, not just for butter. Who is to say what the "Batts" and "Balls" were to be used for, but it is interesting that any bat and ball game could already have been regarded as ancient at Harvard in 1781."
Comment:
Dr. Lewis has written a essay on early ballplaying at Harvard College; see Harry Lewis, "Protoball at Harvard: from Pastime to Contest," Base Ball Journal (Special Origins Issue), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 41-45.
Year
1781
1781.3 "Game at Ball" Variously Perceived at Harvard College
Tags:
Age of Players:
"And that no other person was present in said area, except a boy who, they say was playing with a Ball From the testimony some of the persons in the kitchen it appeared that the company there assembled were very noisy That some game at Ball was played That some of the company called on the Boy to keep tally; which Boy was seen by the same person, repeated by running after the Ball, with a penknife & stick in his hand, on which stick notches were cut That a Person who tarried at home at Dr. Appleton's was alarmed by an unusual noise about three o'clock, & on looking out the window, saw in the opening between Hollis & Stoughton, four or five persons, two of whom were stripped of their coats, running about, sometimes stooping down & apparently throwing something . . ."
Sources:
Source: Harvard College Faculty Records (Volume IV, 1775-1781), call number UAIII 5.5.2, page 220 (1781).
Posted to 19CBB by Kyle DeCicco-Carey [date?]
Year
1781
1781s.4 Long Ball in Vermont
Tags:
Age of Players:
The Rutland County Herald (Rutland, VT), July 19, 1848, referred to "long ball" being played in the 1700s at Fort Ranger in Rutland. The fort was the headquarters of the Vermont troops until 1781. Located near the center of town, it “naturally became the rendezvous of the town, the favorite resort of idlers, loungers, and loafers.” Townsfolk would gather there on the Sabbath to gossip and exchange their wares, “and here did the idle soldiery and congenial lazzarone exercise their skill and strength in the exciting games of long ball, &c.”
Sources:
Rutland County Herald (Rutland, VT), July 19, 1848.
Comment:
According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, "lazzarone" referred to "the homeless idlers of Naples who live by chance work or begging."
Decade
1781s
1782c.2 Ball Played at Albany During War
Tags:
Age of Players:
"We passed muster [late in the war] and layed about in Albany about six weeks . . . . The officers would bee a playing at Ball on the comon, their would be an other class piching quaits, an other set a wrestling."
-- Joel Shepard, a farmer in Montague MA.
Sources:
Spear, John A., ed., "Joel Shepard Goes to War," New England Quarterly, volume 1, number 3 [July 1928], p. 344. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, ref # 38; see page 239.
Circa
1782
1782.3 NH Diarist Notes that Local Youths "Play Ball Before My Barn"
Game:
Age of Players:
"Caleb Washburn, young Benjamin Hall, Tom Wells the younger and El play ball before my barn."
Sources:
Stabler, Lois K., ed., Very Poor and of a Lo Make: The Journal of Abner Sanger (Peter E. Randall, Portsmouth NH, 1896), p. 416. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 245 and ref #77.
This somewhat cryptic journal entry is for April 27, 1782.
Comment:
The game could be barn ball, we could guess, although that game is typically described as two boys and a barn, with plugging.
Query:
Like, who is El?
Year
1782
1782.4 Cricket To Be Played Near NYC Shipyards
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
Cricket is to be played “on the green, near the Ship Yards.” Royal Gazette, 7/13/1782
Sources:
I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 : compiled from original sources (New York, Robert H. Dodd), 1926), Volume V, page 1150.
Year
1782
1784.1 UPenn Bans Ball Playing Near Open University Windows
Location:
"[The college] yard is intended for the exercise and recreation of the youth . . . [but don't] "play ball against any of the wall of the University, whilst the windows are open."
Sources:
RULES for the Good Government and Discipline of the SCHOOL in the UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA (Francis Bailey, Philadelphia PA, 1784). Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p. 239 (ref #41.)
Comment:
Does it sound like hand ball ("fives") may be the troublesome type of play?
Year
1784
1784.2 Seymour Notation Adverts to Evidence that Town Ball Was Exported to England
Game:
"Rounders not a serious game until 1889 in Britain. But at least close resemblance. Evidence Town Ball introduced by Amer. to Br. 1784 - between Rounders and Base Ball."
Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Note: it would be good to find such evidence soon.
Year
1784
1785.1 Thomas Jefferson: Hunting is Better for Character-building Than Ballplaying
Tags:
Location:
"Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind."
Sources:
Thomas Jefferson [VA]. letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785, in Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson [Princeton University Press, 1953], volume 8, p. 407. Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 241.
Year
1785
1785.2 Cricket, Long After Reaching Tazmania, Gets Past Hadrian's Wall
"It is difficult to believe that the English soldiers who flooded into Scotland in 1745/1746 did not bring cricket with them, but evidence has not yet emerges. The well-known 'first cricket match in Scotland' took place at Earl Cathcart's seat at Schow Park, Alloa, in September 1785, when Hon. Colonel Talbot's XI played the Duke of Atholl's XI. . . . Most of the players were English: no further matches in Scotland followed from it. However, a Scot, the Duke of Hamilton, had already joined the MCC, and a traveler hoping to inspect Hamilton Place in 1785 found that 'as the Duke plays cricket every afternoon, strangers don't get admittance then.'" John Burnett, Riot, Revelry and Rout: Sport in Lowland Scotland before 1860 (Tuckwell Press, 2000), page 252. Burnett footnotes this passage The Scottish Antiquary, 11 (1897), 82. Note: we don't yet know which of the events are documented there.
Another source reports that the Talbot/Atholl match was played on September 8, 1785, for 1000 pounds per man. L. Stephen and S. Lee, eds., Dictionary of National Biography (Macmillan, New York, 1908), entry on Thomas Graham, Baron Lynedoch, page 359.
Year
1785
1785.3 Men's Stool Ball Match Set in Kent: Winner to Receive 150 Guineas . . . and Some Roasted Lamb!
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Stool-Ball. To be played in Lynsted Park, near the Parish of Sittingbourn, For One Hundred and Fifty Guineas. On Monday, the 16th of this Instant May, A Game of Stool Ball. The players, on this Occasion, will be complemented with a LAMB ROASTED WHOLE, By Mr. Chapman. Homestall Lane is fixed on to divide the County. THE RETURNED MATCH is to be played at Boughton, when another Lamb will be given, at the WHITE HORSE, by Mr. Chapman, of Lynsted.
"The Gentlemen are required to to meet, in Consequence of the above Match, on Friday next, May 6, at the Swan, Greenstreet. [emphasis in original]"
Sources:
Kentish Gazette, May 4, 1785.
Comment:
-- "While mentions of stool ball in literature go back centuries, this is the earliest “serious” contest of the game I’m aware of. It’s especially interesting because the competitors were men. Of course, we have no idea what form of the game they were playing, but presumably it more closely resembled the structured form that women began playing in the 19th century as opposed to the milkmaid version of centuries past."
-- "Sittingbourn lies between London and Canterbury. The Swan is a pub that still operates, near Sittingbourn. Homestall Lane appears to be the dividing line between the Sittingbourne area and a second area to the east centered on the town of Boughten-under-Blean. Use of the term 'county' is a bit puzzling as it is obvious that this competition did not include participants representing the entire county of Kent."
"The White Horse Inn, the venue for the return match, is also still in operation today. Despite the fact that both the Swan and the White Horse are more than 235 years old, neither is listed among the top ten oldest public houses in Kent. Both sit astride the ancient London-Canterbury Road along which traveled the pilgrims documented by Chaucer in Canterbury Tales. Indeed, the White Horse Inn was mentioned in one of the tales (according to the inn's website.)"
-- "A guinea from 1785 is worth roughly $100 today." [So the stakes amounted to $15,000 in today's dollars?]
-- "I should have more important things than this to occupy me on a rainy [San Francisco] Sunday afternoon, but apparently not. Undoubtedly, we are scrutinizing this item more closely than it would ordinarily merit, but in Covid times I am happy for the distraction."
from David Block, emails of 12/14-15/2020
===
As of December 2020, Protoball's Chronology has over 65 references to stoolball prior to 1785, and 20 more from 1785 to 1860. Vey few of them cite male players, and fewer still cite male-only play or large stakes for winning.
Query:
Is the Homestall Lane ref meant to convey that the competing sides within the county are to be determined by a player's residence on one or the other of the lane? [See Block reply above.]
Year
1785
1786.1 "Baste Ball" Played at Princeton
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
From a Princetlon student's diary:
"A fine day, play baste ball in the campus but am beaten for I miss both catching and striking the ball."
Sources:
Smith, John Rhea, March 22 1786, in "Journal at Nassau Hall," Princeton Library MSS, AM 12800. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 240 (ref # 45). Also found in Gerald S. Couzens, A Baseball Album [Lippincott and Crowell, NY, 1980], page 15. Per Guschov, page 153.
Comment:
This use of the tern "baste ball" precedes the first known use of "base ball" in the US: see protoball entry 1791.1.
Note: Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.
Query:
An article has appeared about Smith's journal. See Woodward, Ruth, "Journal at Nassau Hall," PULC 46 (1985), pp. 269-291, and PULC 47 (1986), pp 48-70. Note: Does this article materially supplement our appreciation of Smith's brief comment?
Year
1786
1786.2 Game Called Wicket Reported in England
Game:
"The late game of Wicket was decided by an extraordinary catch made by Mr. Lenox, to which he ran more than 40 yards, and received the ball between two fingers." Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (London), 6/27/1786. Provided by Richard Hershberger, email of 2/3/2008. Richard adds: "I know of only one other English citation of "wicket" as the name of a game. I absolutely do not assume that it was the same as the game associated with Connecticut."
Year
1786
1787.1 Ballplaying Prohibited at Princeton - Shinny or Early Base Ball?
Tags:
Age of Players:
"It appearing that a play at present much practiced by the smaller boys . . . with balls and sticks," the faculty of Princeton University prohibits such play on account of its being dangerous as well as "low and unbecoming gentlemen students."
Sources:
Quoted without apparent reference in Henderson, pp. 136-7. Sullivan, on 7/29/2005, cited Warnum L. Collins, "Princeton," page 208, per Harold Seymour's dissertation.
Wallace quotes the faculty minute [November 26, 1787] in George R. Wallace, Princeton Sketches: The Story of Nassau Hall (Putnam's Sons, New York, 1894), page 77, but he does not cite Collins. The Wallace book was accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Book search for "'princeton sketches.'" The college is in Princeton NJ.
Warning:
Caveat: Collins - and Wallace -believed that the proscribed game was shinny, and Altherr makes the same judgment - see Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 35-36.
Comment:
Note: Princeton was known as the College of New Jersey until 1896.
Query:
Can we determine why this "shiny" inference was made?
Year
1787
1787.2 VT Man's Letter to Brother Says "Three Times is Out at Wicket"
Location:
Game:
"Three times is Out at wicket, next year if Something is not done I will retire to the Green Mountains."
Sources:
Levi Allen to Ira Allen, July 7, 1787, in John J. Duffy, ed., (University Press of New England, Hanover NH, 1998), volume 1, p. 224. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 245 and ref #78.
Comment:
Levi Allen, in Vermont, wrote to Ira Allen, in Quebec.
Query:
Do we know how old the brothers were in 1787? Do we know where they might have become with wicket?
Three times of what? Is wicket known to have 3-out-side-out half-innings? I couldn't mean three strikes, right? Maybe three non-forward hits?
Year
1787
1787.3 Marylebone Cricket Club, Later Official Custodian of the Game, is Founded
Interview with Stephen Green at Lords. Note: needs verification. Also Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1787
1787.4 US Publisher Offers Books "More Pleasurable Than Bat and Ball"
The last page of a US-printed reader encourages the reader to come to Thomas' book store, where "they may be suited with Something ore valuable than Cakes, prettier than Tops, handsomer than Kites, more pleasurable than Bat and Ball, more entertaining than either Scating or Sliding, and durable as marbles."
Sources:
Thomas, Isaiah, publisher, The Royal Primer: or, An Easy and Pleasant Guide to the Art of Reading [Worcester], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 179.
Year
1787
1787.5 NY Newspaper Prints "Laws of the Noble Game of Cricket"
Tags:
"At the request of several of our Correspondents, we insert the following Laws of the noble Game of Cricket, which govern all the celebrated Players in Europe."
Independent Journal [New York], May 19, 1787. Accessed via subscription genealogybank.com search, 4/9/09. Note: the rules do not use the term "innings," and instead employ "hands."
Year
1787
1788.1 Cricketer Experiments with Round-Arm Bowling
Says John Ford: "Tom Walker is said to have experimented with round-arm bowling." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a citation for this account. Caveat: The Encyclopedia Brittanica on Nyren's estimate of about 1790 for Walker's innovation; A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, Eleventh Edition, (Encyclopeida Brittanica Company, New York, 1910) Volume VII, page 439, accessed 10/19/2008, as advised by John Thorn, email of 2/2/2008..
Year
1788
1788.2 Noah Webster, CT Ballplayer?
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Connecticut lexicographer and writer Noah Webster may have been referring to a baseball- type game when he wrote his journal entry for March 24-25, 1788: 'Take a long walk. Play at Nines at Mr Brandons. Very much indisposed.'"
Sources:
Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 241. Altherr cites the diary as Webster, Noah, "Diary," reprinted in Notes on the Life of Noah Webster, E. E. F Ford, ed., (privately printed, New York, 1912), page 227 of volume 1.
Comment:
Note: "Nines seems an unusual name for a ball game; do we find it elsewhere? Could he have been denoting nine-pins or nine-holes? John Thorn, in 2/3/2008, says he inclines to nine-pins as the game alluded to.
Year
1788
1788.3 New Interpretation of Homer Translations Cites ‘Baste-Ball’.
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
From a new interpretation of Homer's Odyssey, describing Princess Nausicaa:
"[S]he is the very pattern of excellence,…she drives four in hand and manages her whip with utmost skill, …she sings most charmingly, and, in fine, is not above playing a game of baste-ball with her attendants."
Sources:
"The Trifler," by Timothy Touchstone, Number XXIX, Dec. 13, 1788, p. 374
This passage is discussed in David Block, Pastime Lost (UNebraska Press, 2019), pp 53-55.
Comment:
"Baste-ball" is one of several alternate spellings of baseball that are found in 18th and 19th century writings.
"The Trifler" was a weekly satirical literary journal that ran for less than one year. Its authors, writing under the nom de plume Timothy Touchstone, were reputed to be two Cambridge students and two Oxford students, all under the age of 20.
An earlier (1616) translator used the term "stool-ball," a game well known in England, for the ballplaying scene. Block explains: "Stool-ball by then [1780s] was fading in popularity. Instead, girls and young women of he towns and villages of southern England were embracing the game of baseball." (Pastime Lost, page 56.)
Year
1788
1789.1 A Tale of Two Cricket Traditions?
Ford reports that "A cricket tour to France arranged, but cancelled at the last minute because of the French Revolution. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1789
1789.2 New York Children's Pastimes Recalled: Old Cat, Rounders Cited
Tags:
" . . . outside school hours, the boys and girls of 1789 probably had as good a time as childhood ever enjoyed. Swimming and fishing were close to every doorstep The streets, vacant lots, and nearby fields resounded with the immemorial games of old cat, rounders, hopscotch, I spy, chuck farthing and prisoner's base . . . . The Dutch influence made especially popular tick-tack, coasting, and outdoor bowling."
Monaghan, Frank, and Marvin Lowenthal, This Was New York: The Nation's Capital in 1789 (Books for Libraries Press, 1970 - originally published 1943 , Chapter 8, "The Woman's World," pages 100-101. Portions of this book are revealed on Google Books, as accessed 12/29/2007. According to the book's index, "games" were also covered on pages 80, 81, 115, 177, and 205, all of which were masked. The volume includes "hundreds of footnotes in the original draft," according to accompanying information. Caveat: We find no reference to the term "rounders" until 1828. See #1828.1 below.
Year
1789
1789.3 Stoolball Played at Brighthelmstone in Sussex
Game:
"From the 'Jernal' of John Burgess of Ditchling (Sussex) he wrote on Augest 17th 1789 that he went to Brighthelmstone 'to see many divertions which included Stoolball'."
The XVth (1938) Annual Report of the Stoolball Association for Great Britain [unpublished]. Provided by Kay and John Price, Fall 2009.
A web search doesn't lead to this journal entry, but does locate a similar one:
"[August 19, 1788] Went to Brighthelmstone to see many Divertions on account of the Rial Family that is the Duke of Yorks Berth day Cricketing Stool Ball Foot Ball Dancing &c. fire works &c." A side note was that some estimated that 20,000 persons attended.
Sussex Archaeological Society, Archaeololgical Collections, Volume XL. (1896), "Some Extracts from the Journal and Correspondence of Mr. John Burgess, of Ditchling, Sussex, 1785-1815," page 156. Accessed 1/31/10 via Google Books search ("john burgess" ditchling).
Year
1789
1790s.1 Doctor in DE Recalls His "Youthfull Folley": Includes Ball-playing
Age of Players:
"My sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth yeares were spent in youthfull folley. Fidling, frolicking, ball playing and hunting . . . . These are called inocent amusements and were not caried very far by me." -- Future Doctor William Morgan.
Sources:
Hancock, Harold B., ed., "William Morgan's Autobiography and Diary: Life in Sussex County, 1780 - 1857," Delaware History, volume 19, number 1 [Spring/Summer 1980], pp. 43 - 44. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 246 and ref # 84.
Decade
1790s
1790s.2 Boston Merchant Recalls "Playing Ball on the Common Before Breakfast"
Age of Players:
" [Five of us] were playing ball on the common before breakfast: and the ball fell into a hole where one of the booth's stakes had been driven the day before . . . putting the hand down something jingled and we found several dollars in silver . . . We were small boys then all of us, and I was the youngest." -- Jonathan Mason
Sources:
Mason, Jonathan, "Recollections of a Septuagenarian," Downs Special Collection, Winterthur Library [Winterthur, Delaware], Document 30, volume 1, pp. 20 - 21. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 246 and ref # 85.
Decade
1790s
1790s.3 Britannica: Stickball Dates to Late 18th Century?
Game:
"Stickball is a game played on a street or other restricted area, with a stick, such as a mop handle or broomstick, and a hard rubber ball. Stickball developed in the late 18th century from such English games as old cat, rounders, and town ball. Stickball also relates to a game played in southern England and colonial Boston in North America called stoolball. All of these games were played on a field with bases, a ball, and one or more sticks. The modern game is played especially in New York City on the streets where such fixtures as a fire hydrant or an abandoned car serve as bases."
Britannica Online search conducted 5/25/2005. Note: No sources are provided for this unique report of early stickball. It also seems unusual to define town ball as an English game. Caveat: We find no reference to the term "rounders" until 1828. See #1828.1 below.
Decade
1790s
1790s.4 Southern Pols Calhoun and Crawford: Ballplaying Schoolmates?
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"These two illustrious statesmen [southern leaders John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford], who had played town ball and marbles and gathered nuts together . . . were never again to view each other except in bonds of bitterness."
J. E. D. Shipp, Giant Days: or the Life and Times of William H. Crawford [Southern Printers, 1909], page 167. Caveat: Crawford was ten years older than Calhoun, so it seems unlikely that they were close in school. Both leaders had attended Waddell's school [in GA] but that school opened in 1804 [see #1804.1] when Crawford was 32 years old, so their common school must have preceded their time at Waddell's.
Decade
1790s
1790.5 John Adams Refers to Cricket in Argument about Washington's New Title
Tags:
Game:
"Cricket was certainly known in Boston as early as 1790, for John Adams, then Vice-President of the United States, speaking in the debate about the choice of an appropriate name for the chief officer of the United States, declared that 'there were presidents of fire companies and of a cricket club.'" John Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [UPenn Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 5.
Year
1790
1790s.6 Cricket as Played in Hamburg Resembled the U.S. Game of Wicket?
Game:
"[D]escriptions of the game [cricket] from Hamburg in the 1790s show significant variations often quite similar to outdated provisions of American "Wicket," which may well not be due to error on the part of the author, but rather to acute observation. For example, the ball was bowled alternatively from each end (i.e. not in 'overs'). Moreover, the ball has to be 'rolled' and not 'thrown' (i.e., bowled in the true sense, not the pitched ball). And the striker is out if stops the ball from hitting the wicket with his foot or his body generally. There is no more reason to believe that there was uniformity in the Laws covering cricket in England, the British Isles, or in Europe than there was in weights and measures." Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of its Grown and Development Throughout the World (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1970), page 72. Note: Bowen does not give a source for this observation.
Decade
1790s
1790s.7 In Boston, "Boys Played Ball in the Streets?"
Location:
Boston MA, with only 18,000 inhabitants, was sparsely populated. "Boys played ball in the streets without disturbance, or danger from the rush of traffic." Edmund Quincy, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts (Fields, Osgood and Company, 1869), page 37. Writing 70 years later, the biographer here is painting a picture of the city when his father Josiah finished school and moved there at 18. He does not document this observation. One might speculate that Josiah had told Edmund about the ballplaying. Accessed on 11/16/2088 via Google Books search for "'life of josiah quincy.'"
Decade
1790s
1790.8 British Paper Snitches on Ringer Playing on a County Cricket Club
"The Grand Match between the Noblemen of Mary-le Bonne Club, and the County of Middlesex, is put off, owing to the gentlemen going out of town."
Their best batter, C. Foxton, does not live in Middlesex, but in Surrey, which is unknown to the Noblemen."
"Cricket," Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, Monday June 21, 1790. Contributed by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09.
Year
1790
1790.9 Careful Scorer Starts "Complete Lists" of the Yearly Grand Cricket Matches
Example: Samuel Britcher, Scorer, Complete List of All the Grand Matches of Cricket that Have Been Played in the Year of 1793, with a Correct State of Each Innings (London), 26 pages. Included are one-page scoresheets for 25 games from May 13 to September 9, 1793. Provided by John Thorn, email of 1/17/2008. Each scoresheet includes the match's stake: 12 are played for 1000 guineas, 11 are for 500 guineas, one is for 50 guineas, and one is for 25 guineas. In four matches, a side of 22 men played a side of 11 men, in one match each side had three men, and one match was between just Mr. Brudennall and Mr. Welch. An All England club played in 5 matches, and the Mary-Le-Bone played in 9 matches. Three matches took 4 days, 8 took 3 days, 13 took two days, and one took one day. Now you know.
Beth Hise adds, January 12, 2010: "Britcher appears to have been the first official MCC scorer. He published small books annually between 1790 and 1803, with an additional volume covering 1804/5. He recorded matches that he attended, shedding considerable light onto the early days of cricket. Those matches ranged widely, from those between the Kennington and Middlesex Clubs, to one between the One Arm and One Leg sides (won by the One Legs by 103 runs).
Year
1790
1790.10 "Young Man's Amusements" Include "Bat and Ball"
Game:
Age of Players:
'[A]t the same time a game called simply 'bat and ball' began to be appear in English writings. A 1790 book listed a young man's amusements as including 'marbles, bat and ball [and] hop-step-and-jump.'"
Sources:
David Block, German Book Describes das English Base-ball, Base Ball, volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), page 51. The original source is Incidents of Youthful Life; or, the True History of William Langley (1790), page 94.
Year
1790
1790s.11 Future Ship Captain Chooses Reading Over Boyish Sports
Age of Players:
"[Reading] took precedence [over] Kites, Marbles, Balls, Shinny Sticks, and all other Boyish Sports.) -- John Hamilton, of Wilmington DE
Sources:
John Hamilton, "Some Reminiscences of Wilm't'n and My Youthful Days," Delaware History, v.1 no. 2 (July 1946), page 91.
Query:
What dates this reflection to the 1790s?
Decade
1790s
1791.1 "Bafeball" Among Games Banned in Pittsfield MA - also Cricket, Wicket
Tags:
Location:
In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in order to promote the safety of the exterior of the newly built meeting house, particularly the windows, a by-law is enacted to bar "any game of wicket, cricket, baseball, batball, football, cats, fives, or any other game played with ball," within eighty yards of the structure. However, the letter of the law did not exclude the city's lovers of muscular sport from the tempting lawn of "Meeting-House Common." This is the first indigenous instance of the game of baseball being referred to by that name on the North American continent. It is spelled herein as bafeball. "Pittsfield is baseball's Garden of Eden," said Pittsfield Mayor James Ruberto.
An account of this find (a re-find, technically) is at John Thorn, "1791 and All That: Baseball and the Berkshires," Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Volume 1, Number 1 (Spring 2007) pp. 119-126.
See also http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1799618.
Sources:
Per John Thorn: The History of Pittsfield (Berkshire County),Massachusetts, From the Year 1734 to the Year 1800. Compiled and Written, Under the General Direction of a Committee, by J. E. A. Smith. By Authority of the Town. [Lea and Shepard, 149 Washington Street, Boston, 1869], 446-447. The actual documents themselves repose in the Berkshire Athenaeum.
Comment:
While this apppears to be the first American use of the term "base ball," see item 1786.1 above, in which a Princeton student notes having played "baste ball" five years earlier. See item 1786.1.
The town of Northampton MA issued a similar order in 1791, but omitted base ball and wicket from the list of special games of ball. See item 1791.2. Northampton is about 40 miles SE of Pittsfield.
John Thorn's essay on the Pittsfield regulation is found at John Thorn, "The Pittsfield "Baseball" By-law: What it Means," Base Ball Journal (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, Number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 46-49.
Year
1791
1791.2 Northampton MA Prohibits Downtown Ballplaying (and Stone-Throwing)
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"Both the meeting-house and the Court House suffered considerable damage, especially to their windows by ball playing in the streets, consequently in 1791, a by-law was enacted by which 'foot ball, hand ball, bat ball and or any other game of ball was prohibited within ten rods of the Court House easterly or twenty rods of the Meeting House southwesterly, neither shall they throw any stones at or over the said Meeting House on a penalty of 5s, one half to go to the complainant and the rest to the town.'"
Sources:
J. R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Volume II (Northampton, 1902), page 529. Contributed by John Bowman, May 9, 2009.
Comment:
It is interesting that neither base-ball nor wicket is named in a town that is not so far from Pittsfield. See item 1791.1.
Year
1791
1791.3 Salem MA Diary Covers "Puerile Sports" Including Bat & Ball, and "Rickets"
Location:
Game:
"Puerile Sports usual in these parts of New England . . . . Afterwards the Bat & Ball and the Game at Rickets. The Ball is made of rags covered with leather in quarters & covered with double twine, sewed in Knots over the whole. The Bat is from 2 to 3 feet long, round on the back side but flattened considerable on the face, & round at the end, for a better stroke. The Ricket is played double, & is full of violent exercise of running."
The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Volume I (Essex Institute, Salem MA, 1905), pp 253-254. Contributed by Brian Turner, March 6, 2009. Bentley later noted that Bat & Ball is played at the time of year when "the weather begins to cool." Bentley [1759-1819] was a prominent and prolific New England pastor who served in Salem MA. Query: Any idea what the game of rickets/ricket was?
Year
1791
1792.1 Sporting Magazine Begins Its Cricket Reports in England
Ford reports that this 1792 saw "First publication of the Sporting Magazine which featured cricket scores and reports. . . . Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a citation for this account, but John Thorn [email, 2/2/2008] found an ad announcing the new magazine: "Sporting Magazine," The General Evening Post (London), Tuesday Octobver 23, 1792, bottom of column four. 21 topics are listed as the scope of the new publication, starting with racing, hunting, and coursing: cricket is the only field sport listed.
Year
1792
1793.1 Engraving Shows Game with Wickets at Dartmouth College
Tags:
Location:
Game:
A copper engraving showing Dartmouth College appeared in Massachusetts Magazine in February 1793. It is the earliest known drawing of the College, and shows a wicket-oriented game being played in the yard separating college buildings. College personnel suggest is an early form of cricket, given the tall wicket which is not known for the New England pastime of wicket.
Year
1793
1793.2 Big Stakes for Cricket, Indeed
"A game of cricket for 1000 guineas a side between sides raised by the Earl of Winchelsea and Lord Darnley." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1770-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a source for this event.
Year
1793
1793.3 "Curious Cricket Match" Planned in England Among Tripeds
"CURIOUS CRICKET MATCH. A young nobleman, of great notoriety in the [illegible: baut-ton? A corrupton of beau ton?], had made a match of a singular nature, with one of the would-be members of the jockey club, for a considerable sum of money, to be played by Greenwich pensioners, on Blackheath, sometime in the present month. The 11 on one side are to have only one arm each; and the other, to have both their arms and only one leg each. The nobleman has not at present made his election, whether he intends to back the legs or the wings - but the odds are considerably in favour of the latter."
Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, August 29, 1793, as taken from an unknown London newspaper. Posted to 19CBB 7/30/2007 by Richard Hershberger. John Thorn, email of 2/2/2008, found an identical account: "Curious Cricket Match," World, Monday, May 13, 1793, column two, at the fold. Perhaps the Independent found August to be a slow news month?
Year
1793
1793.5 Lady Cricketers Play Again in Sussex
Tags:
The married women and maids of Bury, in Sussex, are to play their return match of cricket, before the commencement of the harvest; and we hear that considerable bets are depending on their show of Notches, which at the conclusion of their lasst game, the umpires declared to be much in favour of the sturdy matrons."
The Morning Post, Wednesday, July 17, 1793. Contributed by Gregory Christiano, December 2, 2009.
Year
1793
1794.1 New York Cricket Club Meets "Regularly"
Tags:
Game:
"By 1794 the New York Cricket Club was meeting regularly, usually at Battins Tavern at six o'clock in the evenings. Match games were played between different members of the club, wickets being pitched exactly at two o'clock." Holliman, Jennie, American Sports (1785-1835) [Porcupine Press, Philadelphia, 1975], page 67.
Holliman cites Wister, W. R., Some Reminiscences of Cricket in Philadelphia Before 1861, page 5, for the NYCC data.
Year
1794
1794.2 Historian Cites "Club-ball"
David Block finds an earlier reference to "club-ball" than Strutt's. It is James Pettit Andrews, The History of Great Britain (Cadell, London, 1794.), page 438. Email from David, 2/27/08.
David explains" that in Baseball Before We Knew It, "I took the historian Joseph Strutt to task for making it seem as if a 14th century edict under the reign Edward III [see #1300s.2 above] offered proof that a game called "club-ball" existed. It now appears that I may have done Mr. Strutt a partial injustice. A history book published seven years before Strutt's translates the Latin pilam bacculoreum the same way he did, as club-ball (which I believe leaves the impression that the game was a distinct one, and not a generic reference to ball games played with a stick or staff.) I still hold Strutt guilty for his baseless argument that this alleged 14th century game was the ancestor of cricket and other games played with bat and ball. Andrews, in his history of England, cites a source for his passage on ball games, but I can not make it out from the photocopy in my possession."
Year
1794
1795.1 Portsmouth NH Bans Cricket and Other Ball Games
Tags:
Game:
In March 1795 Portsmouth NH imposed a fine of from 50 cents to $3.30 pus court costs for those who "play cricket or any game in which a ball is used."
Sources:
By-Laws of the Town of Portsmouth, Passed at their Annual Meeting Held March 25, 1795 (John Melcher, Portsmouth), pp. 5 - 6. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It. See page 244 and ref #67.
Year
1795
1795.2 Survey Reports Cricket in New England, Playing at Ball in TN
Location:
Game:
Winterbotham, William, An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 180. Coverage of New England [volume 2, page 17] reports that "The healthy and athletic diversions of cricket, foot ball, quoits, wrestling, jumping, hopping, foot races, and prison bars, are universally practiced in the country, and some of them in the most populous places, and by people of almost all ranks." The Tennessee section [volume 3, page 235] mentions the region's fondness for sports, including "playing at ball." Block notes that Winterbotham is sometimes credited with saying that bat and ball was popular in America before the Revolutionary War, and that adults played it, but reports that scholars, himself included, have not yet confirmed such wording at this point.
Year
1795
1795.3 Playing Ball Cited as Major New England Diversion
What are the diversions of the New England people? "Dancing is a favorite one of both sexes. Sleighing in winter, and skating, playing ball, gunning, and fishing are the principal."
Johnson, Clifton, and Carl Withers, Old Time Schools and School-Books [Dover, New York, 1963], page 41. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
Year
1795
1795.4 Deerfield's Fine for Playing Ball: Six Cents
Tags:
A long list of punishable offenses at Deerfield included six cents for "playing ball near school." This was a minor fine, the same sanction as getting a drop of tallow on a book, tearing a page of a book, or leaving one's room during study. In contrast, a one dollar assessment was made for playing cards, backgammon, or checkers, or walking or visiting on Saturday night or Sunday.
.
Sources:
Marr, Harriet Webster, The Old New England Academies Founded Before 1826 [Comet Press, New York, 1959], page 142.
Year
1795
1795.5 Playing At Ball in the Untamed West (Now Kentucky?)
Age of Players:
"Wrestling, jumping, running foot races, and playing at ball, are the common diversions."
Sources:
W. Winterbotham, An Historical Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American United States, Volume 3 (London, 1795), page 235. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 30-31. Volume 3 of this work is not accessible via Google Books as of 11/15/2008.
Comment:
Tom notes [ibid] that Winterbotham was writing about Federal territory south of the Ohio River. Note: KY, maybe?
Year
1795
1796.1 Gutsmuths describes [in German, yet] "Englische Base-Ball"
Location:
Game:
Johann Gutsmuths, an early German advocate of physical education, devotes a chapter of his survey of games to "Ball mit Freystaten (oder das Englische Base-ball)" that is, Ball with free station, or English base-ball. He describes the game in terms that seem similar to later accounts of rounders and base-ball in English texts. The game is described as one-out, side-out, having a three-strike rule, and placing the pitcher a few steps from the batsman.
Block advises [11/6/2005 communication] that Gutsmuths provides "the first hard, unambiguous evidence associating a bat with baseball . . . . We can only speculate as to when a bat was first employed in baseball, but my intuition is that it happened fairly early, probably by the mid-18th century."
Sources:
Gutsmuths Johann C. F., Spiele zur Uebung und Erholung des Korpers und Geistes fur die Jugend, ihre Erzieher und alle Freunde Unschuldiger Jugendfreuden [Schnepfenthal, Germany] per David Block, page 181.. This roughly translates as: Games for the Exercise and Recreation of Body and Spirit for the Youth and His Educator and All Friends of Innocent Joys of Youth.
For Translated Text: David Block carries a four-page translation of this text in Appendix 7, pages 275-278, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
Comment:
In 2011, David Block added to his assessment of Gutsmuth in "German Book Describes das Englische Base Ball; But Was it Baseball or Rounders?," in Base Ball Journal (Special Issue on Origins), Volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), pages 50-54. He notes the absence of the use of bats in base-ball in England, except in this single source, while rounders play commonly involved a bat.
Year
1796
1796.2 Williams College Student Notes Ballplaying in Winter Months
Location:
Age of Players:
A Williams College student's diary begun in 1796 (when he was 19) and continued for several years, includes a half dozen references to playing ball, but they do not describe the nature of the game. His first such entry, from April 22, 1796, is "I exercise considerable, playing ball."
Sources:
Tarbox, Increase N., Diary of Thomas Robbins, D. D. 1796 - 1854 (Beacon Press, Boston, 1886), volume 1, pp. 8, 29, 32, 106, and 128. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, (See page 241 and ref #55. The college is in Williamstown MA. He notes ballplaying later in Sheffield and Danbury CT
Year
1796
1796.3 Eton Cricketers Flogged at School for Playing Match. Ouch.
Ford summarizes a bad day for Etonians: "Eton were beaten by Westminster School on Hounslow Heath and on return to college were flogged by the headmaster; it would seem that this was for playing rather than for losing." See John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 20. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1796
1796.4 Early Geographer Sees Variety of Types New England Ballplaying
Location:
"Q: What is the temper of the New-England people?
A: They are frank and open . . . .
Q: What are their diversions?
A: Dancing is a favorite of both sexes. Sleigh-riding in winter, and skating, playing ball (of which there are several different games), gunning and fishing . . . "
Nathaniel Dwight, A Short But Comprehensive System of Geography (Charles R. and George Webster, Albany NY) 1796), page 128. Provided by John Thorn, 2/17/2008 email.
Year
1796
1797.1 Daniel Webster Writes of "Playing Ball" While at Dartmouth
Location:
Age of Players:
Daniel Webster, in private correspondence, writes of "playing at ball," while a student at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.
Sources:
Webster, Daniel, Private Correspondence, Fletcher Webster, ed. [Little Brown, Boston 1857], volume 1, p. 66. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p. 240 (ref #46).
On 7/31/2005, George Thompson added that "Volume 17, page 66 of the National Edition of his Writings and Speeches is supposed to have a reference by one Hotchkiss to Webster playing ball at Dartmouth."
Query:
Altherr [p. 27] puts this date "at the turn of the century." Do we know where the 1797 date originated? Was Webster at Dartmouth then?
Year
1797
1797.2 Newburyport MA Bans Cricket and Other Ball Games
Tags:
Game:
"Voted and ordered, that if any person shall play at foot-ball, cricket,or any other play or game with a ball or balls in any of the streets, lanes, or alleys of this town, . . ." a fine of 25 cents to one dollar was to be assessed.
Sources:
Bye-Laws of Newburyport: Passed by the Town at Regular Meetings, and Approved by the Court of General Justice of the Peace for the County of Essex, Agreeably to a Law of this Commonwealth (Newburyport, 1797), p. 1. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 244 and ref #68.
Year
1797
1797.3 Fayetteville NC Bans Sunday Ballplaying by African-Americans
Tags:
Location:
Gilbert, Tom, Baseball and the Color Line [Franklin Watts, NY, 1995], p.38. Per Millen, note # 15.
Year
1797
1797.4 "Grand Match" of Stoolball Pits Sussex and Kentish Ladies
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"A grand Match of Stool-ball, between 11 Ladies of Sussex, in Pink, against 11 Ladies of Kent, in Blue Ribands."
Source: an undated reproduction, which notes "this is a reproduction of the original 1797 Diversions programme." The match was scheduled for 10am on Wednesday, August 16, 1797. Provided from the files of the National Stoolball Association, June 2007.
Year
1797
1797.5 In NC, Negroes Face 15 Lashes for Ballplaying
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
A punishment of 15 lashes was specified for "negroes, that shall make a noise or assemble in a riotous manner in any of the streets [of Fayetteville NC] on the Sabbath day; or that may be seen playing ball on that day."
Sources:
North-Carolina Minerva (March 11, 1797), excerpted in G. Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina: A Social History (Chapel Hill NC, 1937), page 551; as cited in Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 29.
Year
1797
1797.6 "Ample Space" Allowed "For Cricket, For Bat and Ball . . . "
Game:
Age of Players:
"A 1797 newspaper article, praising the layout of a new school ground, noted "it affords ample space for cricket, for bat and ball, or any other school-boy exercise."
Sources:
David Block, German Book Describes das English Base-ball, Base Ball, volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), page 51. The original source is Westminster School, The Oracle and Pubic Advertiser (London), August 24, 1797.
Year
1797
1798.2 Cricket Rules Revised a Little
Rule changes: [A] Instead of requiring a single ball to be used throughout a match, a new rule specified a new ball for each innings. [B] Fielders can be substituted for, but the replacement players cannot bat.
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom Publishers, Kent Town Australia, 1990], pages 14 and 9, respectively.
In addition, Ford reports that "the size of the wicket was increased to 24 inches high by 7 inches wide with two bails." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 20. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1798
1799.1 Historical Novel, Set in About 1650, Refers to Cricket, Base-ball
Age of Players:
Notables:
Jane Austen, Oliver Cromwell
A fictional character in a novel set in the mid-17th Century recalls how, when his clerkship to a lawyer ended, a former playmate took his leave by saying:
"Ah! no more cricket, no more base-ball, they are sending me to Geneva."
Sources:
Cooke, Cassandra, Battleridge" an Historical tale, Founded on facts. In Two Volumes. By a Lady of Quality (G. Cawthorn, London, 1799).
Warning:
Block advises, August 2015:
That Cassandra Cooke, writing in the late 18th century, would have her readers believe that baseball was part of the vernacular in the early 17th century is certainly interesting, but since one contemporary reviewer labelled her book "despicable" there is absolutely no reason to think she had any more insight into the era than we do 216 years later.
Comment:
David Block (BBWKI, page 183; see also his 19CBB advice, below) notes that Cooke was in correspondence with her cousin Jane Austen in 1798, when both were evidently writing novels containing references to base-ball. Also submitted to Protoball 8/19/06 by Ian Maun.
Cooke, like Austen, did seem to believe that readers in the early 1800s might be familiar with base- ball.
Year
1799
1799.2 NY Cricket Club Schedules Match Among Members
Tags:
Game:
"A number of members of the Cricket Club having met on the old ground on Saturday last, by appointment it was unanimously agreed to meet on Thursday next, at the same place, at half past 2 o'clock. Wickets will be pitched at 3 o'clock exactly."
Commercial Advertiser, June 18, 1799, page 3 column 1. Submitted by George Thompson, 8/2/2005.
Year
1799
1799.3 Will Satan Snag the Sunday Player?
Age of Players:
"Take care that here on Sunday/None of you play at ball,/For fear that on the Monday/The Devil takes you all." Inscription on the Church Wall of a small village in Wales.
Sources:
Mercantile Advertiser, August 3, 1799, page 2, column 3.
Weekly Museum, April 19, 1800, Vol. 12, No. 27. page 2.
Comment:
We have no indication as to when the inscription was carved.
Year
1799
1800c.1 Sports at Exeter Academy include "Old-Fashioned Bat and Ball". . . and Football
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"At the turn of the century ball-playing at Exeter was commonplace, according to a historian of that school. 'The only games seem to have been old-fashioned 'bat and ball', which, in the spring, was played on the grounds of the Academy building, and football. The former differed widely from the modern game of base ball, which was introduced later. The old game had fewer rules, and was played with a soft leather ball.'" -- Tom Altherr
Sources:
Cunningham, Frank H., Familiar Sketches of the Phillips Exeter Academy and Surroundings (James R. Osgood and Company, Boston, 1883), p. 281. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see page 245 and ref # 79.
Query:
Is there a way to check the approximate year that the historian is depicting in this passage?
Circa
1800
1800.2 John Knox Owns a "Ball Alley" and Racquets Court in NYC, 1800-1803.
Game:
Item from John Thorn, 6/25/04. Note: It seems possible that a "ball alley" is for bowling, but wicket was also played on what was termed an alley.
Comment:
John Thorn has found an image of a "ball alley" in the New York Clipper, Feb. 27, 1858. It looks like a handball court.
Year
1800
1800c.3 Col. Jas. Lee Recalls Playing Baseball as a Youth.
Lee was made an honorary member of the Knickerbocker Club in 1846, when he made this observation.
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 150. No ref given. Also referenced in Peterson, p. 68, but again without a citation
Circa
1800
1800c.4 Four Old Cat and Three Old Cat Well Known in MA
Location:
"Four Old Cat and Three Old Cat were as well known to Massachusetts boys as round ball. I knew both games in 1862, and Mr. Stoddard tells me that his father knew them and played them between 1800 and 1820. They bore the same relation to Round Ball that "Scrub" does to Base Ball now. The boys got together when there was leisure for any game and if there were enough to make for a game even if they were 2 or 3 short of the regulation 14 on a side they played round ball. If there were not enough more than a dozen all told, they contented themselves with four old cat, or with three old cat if there were still less players. . . . The main thing to be remembered is that Four and Three Old Cat seem to be co-eval with Massachusetts Round Ball, and even considered a modification of Round Ball for a less number of players than the regular game required."
Letter from Henry Sargent, Grafton, MA, to the Mills Commission, May 31, 1905.
Circa
1800
1800.5 History of North America: Cricket and Football are "Universally Practiced."
Game:
"The athletic and healthy diversion of cricket, football, etc. . . are universally practiced in this country." Edward Oliphant, History of North America (Edinburgh, 1800), page? Cited in Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn, 1951], page 7.
Year
1800
1800.6 Children's Story Includes Promise to Provide Bats and Balls
A story in this popular children's book includes a character who, pleased with the deportment of some youths during a visit, says, "If you do me the honour of another visit, I shall endeavor to provide bats, balls, &c."
The Prize for Youthful Obedience [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 183. Note: Block notes that American editions of this book appeared in 1803 and thereafter: see #1807.1 below, for example.
Year
1800
1800c.7 William Cullen Bryant Remembers Base-Ball
Tags:
"I have not mentioned other sports and games of the boys of that day which is to say, of seventy or eighty years since - such as wrestling, running, leaping, base-ball, and the like, for in thee there was nothing to distinguish them from the same pastimes at the present day."
William Cullen Bryant, "The Boys of my Boyhood," St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks, December 1876, page 102. Submitted by David Ball 6/4/06
Circa
1800
1800c.9 Most English Counties Play Cricket
"Village cricket spread widely and by the end of the century cricket had been recorded in most counties in England." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 20.
Circa
1800
1800.10 Hudson NY Council Prohibits Boys' Ballplaying, Preserves Turf. Etc.
Tags:
"An ordinance to preserve the turf or soil on the parade, and to regulate the sale of lamb in the city, and also to prevent boys playing ball or hoop on Warren or Front streets, passed the 14th June, 1800."
Hudson [NY] Bee, April 19, 1803. Found by John Thorn, who lives 30 minutes south of the town: email of 2/17/2008.
Year
1800
1800c.11 “Sky-ball”, “Cat and Ball” Remembered in Southern PA
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
“On this very spot I hit the ball against the gable; just there I often stuck the lever which sent the ball aloft in ‘sky-ball’; down yonder we played cat and ball . . .”
[A man in his 70's remembers ballgames played in his youth in south central PA]
Sources:
D. X. Junkin, The Reverend George Junkin, DD, LLD: A Historical Biography (Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1871), page 538.
Comment:
"It seems to me that sky-ball was a trapball-type game." -- Tom Altherr, 2.19.2021
A gable is an end-wall of a structure. Tom suggests that the first game reported may have been barn ball.
Query:
Any idea what 'cat and ball' might have been? In February 2021 Protoball does not find that phrase. It is conceivable that the author misheard his father's use of "bat and ball" as "cat and ball."
Circa
1800
1800c.12 Author Recalls Cricket and Base
Age of Players:
[From the preface] "The author of this [1842] book has lived in the world very nearly fifty years. He remembers very distinctly when, and where, how, and with whom he played cricket and base—football and tag—skating, sliding, kite-flying, snow-balling, wrestling, swimming, &c., &c.”
Sources:
The Two Ways and the Two Ends, a book published by the American Sunday School Union, 1842.
Query:
Any clues as to the location of recalled games?
Circa
1800
1801.1 Joseph Strutt Says Stoolball Still Played in North of England; But He Slights Cricket
Game:
Strutt, Joseph., The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England [London, 1801]. Need page reference [is on page 102 of 1903 edition]. Strutt's account does not portray stoolball as a running game, or one that uses a bat. Strutt also treats cricket [but only cursorily], trap-ball, and tip-cat . . . but not rounders or base-ball. David Block [page 183] points out that Strutt views a game he calls "club ball" as the precursor to this set of games, but notes that modern scholars are skeptical about this proposition.
Year
1801
1801.3 Book Portrays "Bat and Ball" as Inferior to Cricket
Game:
"CRICKET. This play requires more strength than some boys possess, to manage the ball in a proper manner; it must therefore be left to the more robust lads, who are fitter for such athletic exercises. Bat and ball is an inferior kind of cricket, and more suitable for little children, who may safely play at it, if they will be careful not to break windows."
Sources:
Youthful Sports[London], pp 47-48., per David Block, page 184. An 1802 version of this book, published in Baltimore, is similar to the chapbook at #1801.2, but does not include trap-ball.
Year
1801
1801.5 Sunday Ballplaying Eyed Everywhere: "Is This a Christian Country?"
Tags:
"A few weeks ago I saw on a Sunday afternoon, one party of boys playing at ball in Broad-street; another at the upper end of Pearl-street; and a third in the Park. Is this a Christian country? Are there no laws, human or divine, to enforce the religious observance of the Sabbath? . . . . Are our Magistrates asleep, or are they afraid of losing their popularity, if they should carry the laws into execution?"
New York Evening Post, December 23, 1801, submitted 10/12/2004 by John Thorn. On 8/2/2005, George Thompson spotted a similar or repeat of this piece in the Evening Post, December 31, 1801, page 3 column 2.
Year
1801
1801.6 Baltimore school boys urged to stop playing bandy
Game:
Age of Players:
The Baltimore Telegraph, Nov. 11, 1801, urges school boys to stop playing bandy in the streets, as their struck balls endanger passers by. Otherwise, the police will have to put a stop to it.
See also 1825c.4, 15, 1827.9
Sources:
The Baltimore Telegraph, Nov. 11, 1801
Year
1801
1802c.1 South Carolina Man Lists Ball-Playing Among Local Amusements
Location:
"[A]musements are few: consisting of dancing, horse racing, ball playing and rifle shooting."
Sources:
Drayton, John, A View of South-Carolina, As Respects Her Natural and Civil Concerns [W. P. Young, Charleston SC, 1854], p. 88. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 247 ref #87.
Query:
Can we determine the SC location recalled, why Tom dated it as circa 1802, or what form the ballplaying took?
Circa
1802
1802.2 Wordsworth Seems to Laud "Englishness" of Cricket
Tags:
"Here, on our native soil, we breathe once more./The cock that crows, the smoke that curls, that sound/Of bells; those boys that in yonder meadow-ground/In white-sleev'd shirts are playing; and the roar/Of the waves breaking on the chalky shore/ All, all are English . . ."
From Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed in the valley near Dover on the day of Landing," [1802 and 1807] The Complete Poetical Works of Wiliam Wordsworth, Volume IV (Houghton and Mifflin, Boston, 1919), page 98 Accessed via Google Books on 10/20/2008..
According to Bateman, this reference is shown to be cricket because Wordsworth's sister's diary later contains a reference to white-shirted players at a cricket match near Dover. See Anthony Bateman,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 33, note 20: Bateman cites the diary entry as The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, vol. 2, E. de Selincourt, ed., (London, 1941), page 8. John Thorn [email of 2/3/2008] discovers that Dorothy Wordsworth's diary entry for July 10, 1820 observes: "When within a mile of Dover, saw crowds of people at a cricket-match, the numerous cambatants dressed in 'whitesleeved shirts,' and it was on the very same field where, when we 'trod the grass of England' once again, twenty years ago we has seen an Assemblage of Youths engaged in the same sport,so very like the present that all might have been the same! [footnote2:See my brother's Sonnet 'Here, on our native soil' etc.]"
Year
1802
1802.3 New England Woman Sees Ballplaying in Virginia, Perhaps by "All Colors"
Tags:
[A (April 25, 1802)] "Saw great numbers of people of all ages, ranks, and colours, sporting away the day -- some playing ball, some riding the wooden horses . . . . , others drinking, smoaking, etc."
[B (May 9, 1802)] "the inhabitants employed as they usually are on Sundays, some taking the air in coaches, some playing at ball, at nine pins, marbles, and every kind of game, even horseracing."
Diarist Ruth Henshaw Bascom had moved from New England to the Norfolk area in 1801.
Sources:
[A] A. G. Roeber, ed., A New England Woman's Perspective on Norfolk, Virginia, 1801-102: Excerpts from the Diary of Ruth Henshaw Bascom, (Worcester MA, American Antiquarian Society, 1979), pp. 308-309.
[B] A. G. Roeber, ed., A New England Woman's Perspective on Norfolk, Virginia, 1801-102: Excerpts from the Diary of Ruth Henshaw Bascom, (Worcester MA, American Antiquarian Society, 1979), pp. 311.
Comment:
Tom Altherr comments that while Mrs. Bascom disdained such activities on Sundays, she had "left valuable evidence of the seemingly commonplace status ball play had in her day in the South. Moreover, despite the ambiguity of her [May 9] diary entry, African Americans may have been playing ball, perhaps even with whites."
Year
1802
1802.4 Philadelphia Book: "Bat and Ball is an Inferior Kind of Cricket"
Game:
CRICKET. This play requires more strength than some boys possess. . . it must therefore be left to more robust lads, who are fitter. . . . Bat and ball in an inferior kind of cricket, and more suitable for little children . . . if they will be careful not to break windows."
Sources:
Youthful Sports (Jacob Johnson, Philadelphia, 1802), pp 47-48, per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000)\, p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 243.
Year
1802
1803.1 Ontario Diarist Reports Joining Men "Jumping and Playing Ball"
Location:
Age of Players:
"I went to Town [York, Ontario] . . . walk'd out and joined a number of men jumping and playing Ball, perceived a Mr. Joseph Randle to be the most active." -- Ely Playter, York tavernkeeper.
Sources:
[Playter, Ely], "Extracts from Ely Playter's Diary, April 13, 1803," reprinted in Edith G. Firth, ed., The Town of York 1793 - 1815: A Collection of Documents of Early Toronto (The Champlain Society, Toronto, 1962), p. 248. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 247 and ref #89.
Year
1803
1803.2 Cricket Club Forms, Lasts a Year in NYC
Tags:
Game:
An informal group called the "New York Cricket Club" is headquartered in New York City at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, No. 11 Nassau Street. The club flourishes for a year and then dies.
Per John Thorn, 6/15/04: The source is a Chadwick Scrapbook clip. "St. George was preceded in NYC by a club whose headquarters were at the Old Shakespeare in Nassau St.- This group was called the New York Club- it flourished for a year or so, then died." George Thompson has located an announcement of a club meeting in the Daily Advertiser, March 23, 1803, page 3 column 3, and another that appeared in the Commercial Advertiser on July 2 [page 3, column 2], July 7 [page 3, column 3], and July 8 [page 3, column 3. In early 1804, the Evening Post, February 10, [page 34 column 3] called another meeting at the same Nassau Street address. Submitted to Protoball 8/2/2005.
Year
1803
1803.3 Cricket Reaches Australia
Tags:
"The first mention of cricket in Australia is in the Sydney Gazette of 8 January 1804. 'The late intense weather has been very favourable to the amateurs of cricket who have scarce lost a day for the last month.'"
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia (ABC Books, 1987), page 6. It is believed that the players included officers and/or men from the Calcutta, which arrived in Sydney in December 1803. (Ibid., page 10.)
Year
1803
1803.4 Middlebury College VT Bans Ballplaying
Location:
Age of Players:
"To prevent, as far as possible, the damages before enumerated, viz. breaking of glass, &c. the students in College and members of the Academy shall not be permitted to play at ball or use any other sport or diversion in or near the College-building." [A first offense brought a fine, a second offense brought suspension.]
-- The Laws of Middlebury College, 1803.
Sources:
"Of the location of Students, Damages, and Glass," in Laws of Middlebury-College in Midlebury [sic] in Vermont, Enacted by the President and Fellows, the 17th Day of August, 1803, page 14. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 35 and ref #37.
Year
1803
1803.5 Vermont Paper Associates Adult Tradesmen with Ballplaying
Location:
A letter to the editor of the Green Mountain Patriot takes issue with another writer who evidently thinks that "the farmer, the mechanic, and the merchant" should do more dancing when they attend local balls. They attend for another reason - "the same reason, whether criminal or lawful, that they meet together to play a game of ball, of quoits, or ride out on horseback." For "pleasing amusement."
The Green Mountain Patriot (Peachum, VT), August 17, 1803.
Year
1803
1804.1 SC School Opens, Students Play Town Ball and Bull Pen
Location:
Game:
At Moses Waddell's "famous academy" established in Willington, SC in 1804, "instead of playing baseball or football, boys took their recreation in running jumping, wrestling, playing town ball and bull pen."
Meriwether, Colyer, History of Higher Education in South Carolina[Washington GPO, 1889], chapter II, page 39. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Note: The terminology in this source appears more current than 1804, and it would be wise to consider whether it accurately depicts 1804 events. In addition, Seymour's note does not make clear whether the play described occurred at the time of the establishment of the academy, or later in its history.
Year
1804
1804.2 Another Chapbook, Another Trap-ball Engraving
Youthful Sports[London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 185. Block reports that this book is quite different from the 1801 book by the same title.
Year
1804
1804.3 A "Match at Ball" in Northwest Louisiana?
Location:
In a listing of articles in North Louisiana History, we spy this citation: Morgan Peoples, "Caddoes Host 'Match at Ball," Volume 11, Number 3 (Summer 1980), pp. 353-36. Query: Can we retrieve the actual article and discover the particulars? Caddo Parish is just northwest of Shreveport LA. It appears that Caddo tribe was in this area, and we might speculate that the hosted games were Indian ballgames.
Year
1804
1805.1 Williams College Bans Dangerous Ball-playing
Location:
". . . the students in the College and scholars in the Grammar School, shall not be permitted to play at ball, or use any other sport or diversion, in or near the College Edifice, by which the same may be exposed to injury."
Sources:
The Laws of Williams College (H. Willard, Stockbridge, 1805), p. 40. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, p.239; ref #42.
Year
1805
1805.2 Portland ME Bans "Playing at Bat and Ball in the Streets" in 1805, Retains Ban in 1824
Tags:
Location:
Game:
[A] "[N]o person shall play at the game of bat and ball or shall strike any ball with a bat or other machine in the streets, lanes, or squares of the town on penalty of fifty cents."
[B] "It is ordered by the town, That no person shall play at the game of bat and ball, or shall strike any ball with a bat or other machine, or throw any stones, brickbats, clubs or snow balls, in the streets, lanes, or squares of the town, on penalty of fifty cents for each offence [sic]."
Sources:
[A] By Laws of the Town of Portland, in the County of Cumberland, 2nd Edition (John McKown, Portland, 1805), p. 15. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball" (2000), reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see p. 244 and note #70.
[B] By-Laws of the Town of Portland, (Adams and Paine, printers, 1824).
Comment:
It seems plausible that the fuller language also appeared in the 1805 printing, but was not reported in Tom's 2000 account.
Query:
Can we imagine what "other machines" were employed to propel balls in the streets of Portland? Note: Additional origins researchers' comments on the meaning or "other machines" is shown in Supplemental Text, below.
Year
1805
1805.3 Book of Games Covers Cricket, Trap-Ball
Among the games described in this book are cricket and trap-ball, which has this concise account, in the form of a dialog: "you know, of course, that when I hit the trigger, the ball flies up, and that I must give it a good stroke with the bat. If I strike at the ball and miss my aim, or if, when I have struck it, either you or Price catch it before it has touched the ground, or if I have hit the trigger more than twice, without striking the ball, I am out and one of you take the bat, and come in, as it is called."
The Book of Games, or, a History of Juvenile Sports: Practiced at the Kingston Academy [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 185.
Year
1805
1805.4 Enigmatic Report: NY Gentlemen Play Game of "Bace," and Score is Gymnastics 41, Sons of Diagoras 34.
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"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.
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
Year
1805
1805.5 The Term "Bace" Not Related to Ballplaying, in Cornwall
"BACE. Prisoner's bace (or base). A game so called. It is an ancient pastime mentioned in the records of Edward 3d (1327 to 1377.)"
Jago, Fred W. P. The Ancient Language and the Dialect of Cornwall (Netherton and Worth, Truro, 1882), page 101. Note: cf #1805.4, above. Can we find other reference books on usages in Surrey, Sussex, London, etc.?
Year
1805
1805.6 In SC, Some Slaves Use Sundays for Ballplaying
Tags:
Location:
"The negroes when not hurried have this day [Sunday] for amusement & great numbers are seen about, some playing ball, some with things for sale & some dressed up going to meeting." -- Edward Hooker
Sources:
Edward Hooker, Diaries, 1805-1830: MS 72876 and 72877, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford CT; per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 29-30. Tom [ibid, page 29] describes Hooker as a recent Yale graduate who in 1805 was a newly-arrived tutor in Columbia, SC.
Comment:
Tom Altherr says "this may be the first recorded evidence of slaves [see p29/30] playing ball.
Query:
How about the evidence in 1797.5?
Year
1805
1805c.7 NH Versfier Recalls Ballplaying at Exeter
"Oh, then what fire in every vein, /What health the boons of life endear'd, /How oft the call, / To urge the ball / Across the rapid plain, / I heard."
Jeremiah Fellowes, "Irregular Ode, Written Near _____ [sic] Academy,"
Sources:
Reminiscences, Moral Poems, and Translations (Exeter NH, 1824), pages 144-146. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base <, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 41. The poetry, dedicated to the Principal of Phillips Exeter Academy, was accessed 11/17/2008 via Google Books search <fellowes moral>."
Comment:
Fellowes, born in 1791, attended Exeter starting in 1803, and graduated from Bowdoin in 1810. The verse is about the Exeter Academy, and thus the poet is recalling events from c1805. See #1741c.1 for the first of several "urge the ball" usages.
Circa
1805
1805.8 Yale Grad Compares Certain English Ballgames to New England's
Location:
Age of Players:
"July 9 [1805, we think] . . . . The mode of playing ball differs a little from that practiced in New-England. Instead of tossing up the ball out of one's own hand, and then striking it, as it descends, they lay is into the heel of a kind of wood shoe; and upon the instep a spring is fixed, which extends within the hollow to the hinder part of the shoe; the all is placed where the heel of the foot would commonly be, and a blow applied on the other end of the spring, raises the ball into the air, and, as it descends, it receives a blow from the bat.
"They were playing also at another game resembling our cricket, but differing from it in this particular, that he perpendicular pieces which support the horizontal one, are about eighteen inches high, and are three in number, whereas with us they are only two in number, and about three or four inches high."
Sources:
Benjamin Silliman, Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland, Volume 1 (Boston, 1812 - 1st edition 1810), page 245. Accessed via Google Books, 2/12/2014 via search of <Silliman "journal of travels">.
Comment:
Protoball notes, circa 2010
The writer, Benjamin Silliman, thus implies that an American [or at least Connecticut] analog to trap ball was played, using fungo-style batting [trap ball was not usually a running game, so the American game may have been a simple form of fungo].
His second comparison is consistent with our understanding or how English cricket and American wicket were played in about 1800. However, it seems odd that he would refer to "our cricket" and not "our wicket" It is possible that a form of cricket - using, presumably, the smaller ball - was played in the US that retained the older long, low wickets known in 1700 English cricket.
Note that if the US wicket was only 3 or 4 inches high, a rolling ball would most likely dislodge the bail.
From David Block, 2/12/2014:
"This reference raises some questions, which may not be answerable. Was he implying that striking a ball, fungo-style, was the general method of ball-play in New England, or was he only making a more narrow comparison to how a self-serve type of ball game was played at home. If the latter, might this have been 'bat-ball'?"
"It appears that the author was previously unaware of English cricket. What he refers to as "our cricket" is obviously wicket. This was an educated man, but it was also apparently his first trip overseas. My first reaction was to be very surprised at his apparent ignorance of English cricket, but it may well be that things that seem like obvious knowledge to us today may not have been so in the America of two hundred years ago."
Query:
Can we find out more about the long, low wicket reportedly used in earliest forms of English cricket, and when the higher and narrower wicket evolved there?
Can we find out more about Silliman's life and his age when touring England?
Year
1805
1805.9 Belfast ME Had Ballplaying as Early as 1805
Tags:
Location:
"High Street, at Hopkins's Corner, was the favorite battle-ground for ball-players, as early as 1805."
"Ball-playing seems to have been extensively practiced in 1820. At the town meeting that year, it was voted 'that the game of ball, and the pitching of quoits within [a specified area] be prohibited."
Joseph Williamson, History of the City of Belfast (Loring Short and Harmon, Portland, 1877), page 764. Accessed 2/2/10 via Google Books search ("hopkins's corner" ball).
Year
1805
1806.1 British Children's Book Includes Scene of "Trap and Ball"
Age of Players:
"Edgar and Jane, the protagonists of a British children's book published in 1806 in Baltimore, The Children in the Wood, wanndered into a Briotish town where children were playing at trap and ball.
Sources:
English, Clara, The Children in the Wood, an Instructive Tale [Warner and Hanna, Baltimore, 1806], p. 29. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, See page 241 and ref #57.
Comment:
Trap and ball is not known to be a base-running game.
Year
1806
1806.2 Children's Poem Traces Bouncing Ball
Age of Players:
THE VILLAGE GREEN. "On the cheerful village green,/ Skirted round with houses small,/ All the boys and girls are seen,/Playing there with hoop and ball/ . . . ./Then ascends the worsted ball;/ High it rises in the air;/Or against the cottage wall,/Up and down it bounces there."
BALL. "My good little fellow, don't throw your ball there/you'll break the neighbors's window I know/ . . . As the ball had popp'd in, so the neighbor popp'd out/ And with a good horsewhip he beat him about . . ."
Sources:
Gilbert, Ann, Original Poems, for Infant Minds, 2 volumes (Kimber, Conrad, Philadelphia, 1806), vol. 2, page 120; Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 242.
Query:
Altherr reports that "Gilbert described some sort of ball play as common on the village commons." (See Block, Ibid., page 241). Can we determine Gilbert's usage in calling such play common? Does the clue that the ball was "worsted" (woolen, or made of wool cloth?) add a helpful clue as to the nature of the game played?
Year
1806
1806.3 Mister Beldham Really Loads One Up on Cricket Pitch
"Ball tampering has been around since time immemorial. The first recorded instance of a bowler deliberately changing the condition of a ball occurred in 1806, when Beldham, Robinson and Lambert played Bennett, Fennex, and Lord Frederisk Beauclerk in a single-wicket match at Lord's. It was a closely fought match, but Beauclerk's last innings looked to be winning the game. As Pycroft recalls in The Cricket Field:
'"His lordship had then lately introduced sawdust when the ground was wet. Beldham, unseen, took a lump of wet dirt and sawdust, and stuck it on the ball, and took the wicket. This, I heard separately from Beldham, Bennett, and also Fennex, who used to mention it as among the wonders of his long life.'"
Simon Rae, It's Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber and Faber, 2001), page 199. Pycroft's account appears at John Pycroft, The Cricket Field: Or the History and Science of Cricket, American Edition (Mayhew and Baker, Boston, 1859), page 214 - as accessed via Google Books 10/20/2008.
Year
1806
1806.4 Minister from New England Plays Ball in Western Reserve [OH]
Age of Players:
April 8 [1806]: "Visited. Played at little ball."
May: "Rainy. Played ball some."
Volume 1 of this diary is not available via Google Books as of 11/15/2008. To view Volume 2, which has later New England references, use a Google Books "'robbins d. d.' diary" search.
Sources:
Increase Tarbox, ed., The Diary of Thomas Robbins, D.D. 1796-1854, Volume 1 (Boston, 1886) pages 285 and 287. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 32.
Comment:
Tom Altherr writes : "This may be the earliest recorded evidence of ball play in Ohio." Note: Protoball knows of no earlier reference as of 2008.
(See #1796.2) regarding his earlier diary-keeping, and #1833.11 for later diary entries about.
Robbins was 33 years old in 1806.
In 1806, after leaving the Western Reserve, Robbins played again in Norwalk CT, and played there again in 1808.
Query:
It would be helpful to know where Robbins lived in the Western Reserve.
Year
1806
1807.1 Book Includes Hermit's Promise to Bring Children "Bats, Balls &c"
Age of Players:
"A hermit who had been watching some children playing ball games approved of their play and promised 'to provide bats, balls, &c' at his next visit."
Sources:
The Prize for Youthful Obedience (Jacob Johnson, Philadelphia, 1807), part II, page 16. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 242-3 and ref # 60. Note: This book is an American edition book earlier published in London see #1800.6 above.
Year
1807
1807.2 Games Recalled at Phillips Exeter Academy
Game:
In about 1889, Col. George Kent wrote this verse in response to an inquiry about student games from 1807 at Exeter:
"But pastimes and games of a much better sort,
Lent aid to our outdoor and innocent sport,
Such as marbles and foot ball, cat, cricket and base,
With occasional variance by a foot race."
Bell, Charles H., Phillips Exeter Academy [1883?], p. 102. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes. the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
Year
1807
1807.3 Lost Poet Remembers College Ballplay, Maybe in Baltimore
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
Garrett Barry wrote in his sentimental verse "On Leaving College:"
"I'll fondly tract, with fancy's aid,/The spot where all our sports were made./ . . .
The little train forever gay,/With joy obey'd the pleasing call,/And nimbly urged the flying ball."
Sources:
Barry, Garrett, "On Leaving College," in Poems, on Several Occasions (Cole and Co., Baltimore, 1807), no page given: Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, see pages 240.
Comment:
2008 update: John Thorn [email of 2/3/2008] discovers that others have been unable to determine exactly who the poet was, as there were three people with the name Garrett Barry in that area at that time. One of the three, who died at thirty in 1810, attended St. Mary's College in Baltimore.
Query:
Can we determine from biographical information where and when Barry attended college? Is it significant that Barry reprises the phrase "urge the flying ball," seen as a cricket phrase in Pope [see #1730.1] and Gray [#1747.1]? Did Barry live/play in MD?
Year
1807
1808.1 Wall Streeters Are Bearish on Ballplaying "and Other Annoyances"
Tags:
The minutes of the NYC Common Council record a "Petition of sundry inhabitants in Wall Street complaining against the practice of boys playing ball before the Fire Engine House adjoining the City Hall, and other annoyances . . . "
Minutes of the Common Council of the city of New York, 1784-1831, April 18, 1808, page 95 [Volume V.] Volume eighteen of manuscript minutes (continued) February 15, 1808 to June 27, 1808.
Year
1808
1808.2 First Cricket Club in Boston is Established, Then Fades
Game:
The first formally organized cricket club is established in Boston, Massachusetts.
Per John Thorn, 6/15/04: The source is Chadwick Scrapbook, Volume 20. John has found a meeting announcement for the club in the Boston (MA) Gazette for November 17, 1808. Note: Ryczek dates this event as 1809 in Baseball's First Inning (2009), page 101.
Richard Hershberger [email of 2/4/10] reports that the last mention of the Club he has found is an 1809 notice that the club's annual dinner will take place the following day. Source: New England Palladium, October 24, 1809.
Year
1808
1808.3 Students get 10 lashes for playing bandy
Game:
Age of Players:
Ruth W. Fink, "Recreational Pursuits in the Old South" (Research Quarterly, 1952) p. 36 says that in 1808 a school in Stokes County, NC punished students playing bandy at school with 10 lashes. Cites Coon, "North Carolina Schools..."
Year
1808
1809.1 Americans in London Play "A Game Called Ball," Seen as a "Novelty" By Locals
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"On Wednesday a match for 80 guineas, at a game called Ball. was played by Eight American Gentlemen, in a field on the side of the Commercial-road. The novelty of the game attracted the attention of the passing multitude, who departed highly gratified."
Sources:
Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser (London), June 23, 1809, page 2. See David Block, Pastime Lost: The Humble, Original, and Now Completely Forgotten Game of English Baseball (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), page 237.
Comment:
Block adds: "Other games besides baseball, of course, could have borne the label Ball on that occasion, but none seem obvious. Cricket, football, trap-ball, stool-ball, golf, and various games in the hockey family ,including bandy, hurling, and shinty, all had a presence in the British Isles in that era, but there is no reason the passing multitude in London that day would have considered any of them a "novelty."
Query:
Does the sum of 80 guineas as the game's stakes imply anything about the players?
Year
1809
1810c.1 "Poisoned Ball" Appears in French Book of Games
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
The rules for "Poisoned Ball" are described in a French book of boy's games: "In a court, or in a large square space, four points are marked: one for the home base, the others for bases which must be touched by the runners in succession, etc."
To See the Text: David Block carries a three-paragraph translation of text in Appendix 7, page 279, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
David notes that the French text does not say directly that a bat is used in this game; the palm may have been used to "repel" the ball.
Sources:
Les Jeux des Jeunes Garcons [Paris, c.1810]. Per Robert Henderson. Note: David Block's Baseball Before We Knew It, at page 186-187, dates this book at 1815, some of the doubt perhaps arising from the fact that the earliest [undated?] extant copy is a fourth edition.
Comment:
We have one other reference to poisoned ball, from about three decades later. See item 1850c.8.
Query:
This game has similarity to base ball; could a French-speaking digger take a few moments to sort out whether more is known about the rules, origins, and fate of the game?
Circa
1810
1810.2 Children's Book Describes Trap Ball and its Benefits
Game:
Age of Players:
A book published in Philadelphia and New York depicts trap ball, "one of the most pleasing sports that youth can exercise in. It strengthens the the arms, exercises the legs [but is not a running game], and adds pleasure to the mind."
Sources:
Youthful Amusements (Johnson and Warner, Philadelphia, 1810), pp. 37 and 40. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 243 and ref #62. The same text later appeared in Remarks on Children's Play (Samuel Wood and Sons, New York, 1819), p. 32. Per Altherr ref #64 in Block. This book describes thirty games and includes an engraving of trap-ball.
Comment:
Tom Altherr indicates that Remarks on Children's Play (Samuel Wood and Son, New York, 1819), "repeated the same comments of the 1810 Youthful Amusements book." See 1810.2.
Year
1810
1810.3 Children's Book Recommends Regular Play with "Trap, Bat, Ball," etc.
Age of Players:
"Youthful Recreations . . . [says] that it should be the right of every child to have an hour of recreation each day with sports, among bat and ball-type games." -- Tom Altherr
Sources:
Youthful Recreations (Jacob Johnson, Philadelphia, 1810), no pagination. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 243 and ref # 63.
Year
1810
1810c.4 Union College [Upstate NY] Students Play Baseball-Like Game
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Between the college building and Green Street [in Schenectady] was a large [Union] College play-ground. Their principal game was somewhat of a rudimentary type of base-ball, a crooked stick was used as a bat and a ball made of yarn took the place of the common ball now used."
Sources:
The [Union College] Concordiensis, Volume VI, number 8 (May 1883). page 203.
Cited as a game 'on the old West College playground' in Somers, Wayne, Encyclopedia of Union College History [Union College Press, Schenectady NY, 2003], page 89.
Comment:
This item appears to be a reminiscence by the 90-year old William K. Fuller, who had entered Union at age 13 (c. 1806) and graduated in 1810.
Circa
1810
1810s.5 Harvard Library Worker Recalls Occasional Bi-racial Ball Play in Harvard Yard
Tags:
"During my employment at Cambridge [MA] the College yard continued without gates. The Stage passed through it; and though I was very attentive to the hour, I could not always avoid injury from the Stage horn. Blacks and Whites occasionally played together at ball in the College yard."
Sources:
William Croswell, letter drafted to the Harvard Corporation, December 1827. Papers of William Croswell, Call number HUG 1306.5, Harvard University Archives.
Supplied by Kyle DeCicco-Carey, 8/8/2007.
Comment:
Finder Kyle DeCicco-Carey notes that Croswell was an 1780 Harvard graduate who worked in the college library 1812-1821.
Decade
1810s
1810.6 Cricket a "Popular Recreation" in Sydney
"Cricket had become a more popular recreation by 1810. . . . [The 1810 proclamation naming Sydney's Hyde Park noted that the area had been previously known as "'the Racecourse,' 'The Exercising Ground,' and 'The Cricket Ground,']"
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia (ABC Books, 1987), page 10. Egan does not give a reference for the proclamation itself.
Year
1810
1810c.7 Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison Plays Ball as Barefoot Youth
"[T]he lovely old town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in which he spent the fist twenty-five years of his life, was ever dear to him. As a boy, barefoot he rolled the hoop through the streets, played a marbles and at bat and ball, swam in the Merrimack . . ."
Wendell Phillips Garrison, "William Lloyd Garrison's Origin and Early Life, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine Volume 30 (1885), page 592. Accessed via Google Books search 2/2/10 ("garrison's origin"). Newburyport MA is about 35 miles north of Boston and near the New Hampshire border.
Circa
1810
1810c.8 Future Lord Prefers Studies to Rounders, Cricket
Tags:
Young Thomas Babbington Macaulay "did not take kindly, his co-temporaries tell us, to foot-ball, cricket, or a game of rounders, preferred history to hockey, and poetry to prisoner's base."
H. G. J. Clements, Lord Macaulay, His Life and Writings (Whittaker and Co., London, 1860), page 16. Accessed 2/2/10 via Google Books search (macaulay "2 lectures").
Circa
1810
1810s.9 19th Century Glossarist Describes "Bat and Ball" Rules
Tags:
Game:
When Alfred Elwyn composed his 1859 glossary entry for “ball,” his example was “bat and ball” played in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he was born in 1804.
“The one we call ‘bat and ball’ may be an imperfect form of cricket, though we played this [cricket] in the same or nearly the same manner as in England, which would make it probable that the ‘bat and ball’ was a game of Yankee invention” (p.18).
“[S]ides were chosen, not limited to any particular number, though seldom more than six or eight. . . .The individual . . . first chosen, of the side that was in, took the bat position at a certain assigned spot. One of his adversaries stood at a given distance in front of him to throw the ball, and another behind him to throw back the ball if it were not struck, or to catch it. . . . After the ball was struck, the striker was to run; stones were placed some thirty or forty feet apart, in a circle, and he was to touch each one of them, till he got back to the front from which he started. If the ball was caught by any of the opposite party who were in the field, or if not caught, was thrown at and hit the boy who was trying to get back to his starting place, their party was in; and the boy who caught the ball, or hit his opponent, took the bat. A good deal of fun and excitement consisted in the ball not having been struck to a sufficient distance to admit of the striker running round before the ball was in the hands of his adversaries. If his successor struck it, he must run, and take his chance, evading the ball as well as he could by falling down or dodging it. While at the goals he could not be touched; only in the intervals between them.” (p.19)
Sources:
Alfred L. Elwyn, Glossary of Supposed Americanisms (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1859), pp. 18-20.
Comment:
Using stones for bases fits Carver’s 1834 description of “base or goal ball.” Elwyn also specifies that an inning was “one out, side out,” a feature of the Massachusetts game later codified in 1858. And, of course, that old New England favorite, “soaking.”
Query:
Do we have any way to tell the ages of the participants in the recalled game?
Decade
1810s
1810c.10 Minister Reflects on Early Nineteenth Century Sports and Entertainments
Age of Players:
"The sorts and entertainments were very simple [around 1800] . . . games of ball, not base-ball, as is now [1880s?] the fashion, yet with wickets . . . "
"But as to sports and entertainments in general, there were more of them in those days than now. We had more holidays, more games in the streets -- of ball-playing, of quoits, of running, leaping, and wrestling."
--Orville Dewey
Sources:
m. Dewey, ed., Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D. D. (Boston, 1883), pp. 19 and 21. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 38.
Comment:
If these 1800-era memories were composed in around 1880, we should be cautious.
Wow, leaping again! Do we need a History of Leaping website?
Circa
1810
1810s.11 19th C. Glossarist describes "Base"
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
Base, or BASE. Prison base, or bars, was a game played by school-boys in our time, and is probably still played in New England; it is an old amusement, and is mentioned by Spenser and Shakspeare. It appears to exist still in England, and Nare's Glossary gives an account of it. Our manner of playing it was much changed from that of our ancestors. There were no opposite parties in our game, but the boys separated from a certain goal, or base, leaving one of their number at it; at a given signal he was to go in search of them, and pursue and if possible overtake one, who then took his place at the goal ; but if all got back to the base without being touched, then the same boy mast take his chance again. Its great amusement was in being a trial of speed. Strutt says that it was known as early as the time of Edward III.
Sources:
|
Elwyn, Alfred, Glossary of Supposed Americanisms. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1859 |
Decade
1810s
1811.1 Book Printed in Philadelphia Gives Details of Trap Ball in England
Age of Players:
"A ringing endorsement of trap ball . . . the most detailed description pf [trap ball] in the period." - Tom Altherr
Sources:
The Book of Games; Or, a History of the Juvenile Sports Practiced at Kingston Academy (Johnson and Warner, Philadelphia, 1811), pp. 15 - 20. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 243 and ref #64.
Comment:
Altherr explains that Kingston Academy is British.
This book appears to be a reprint of the 1805 London publication above at 1805.3.
Year
1811
1811.2 NYCC Calls Meeting - First Cricket Meeting Since 1804?
Tags:
Game:
The notice was signed by G. M'Enery, Secretary.
New York Evening Post, September 3, 1811, page 3 column 4. Submitted by George Thompson 8/2/2005..
Year
1811
1811.3 NY Paper Carries Notice for "English Trap Ball" at a Military Ground
Tags:
"At Dyde's Military Grounds. Up the Broadway, to-morrow afternoon, September 14, the game of English Trap Ball will be played, full as amusing as Crickets and the exercise not so violent:"
[Three days later] "The amusements at Dyde's to-morrow, Tuesday the 17th September, will be Rifle Shooting for the prize, and English Trap Ball. The gentlemen who have promised to attend to form a club to play at Trap Ball are respectfully requested to attend."
[And four days later] "Trap Ball, Quoits, Cricket, &c." would be played at the ground. However, more space is now given to rifle and pistol shooting contests.
Sources:
New York Evening Post, September 13, 1811, page 3 column 3. Submitted by George Thompson 8/2/2005.
New York Evening Post, September 16, 1811, page 3 column 3. Submitted by George Thompson, 8/2/2005.
New York Evening Post, September 20, 1811, page 3 column 3. Submitted by George Thompson, 8/2/2005. [This third cite is also found in Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 247 and ref #90.]
Comment:
Dyde's Hotel was "next door to the Park Theatre, facing the Park." W. Harrison Bayles, "Old Taverns of New York" (NYC, 1915), pp. 396-97. The "Park" referred to is presumably City Hall Park.
Year
1811
1811.4 Chapbook Shows Baseball-like Game Under "Trap-ball" Heading
Remarks on Children's Play [New York], per David Block, page 185-186. Block reports that the trap-ball page included the usual rules for trap-ball, but that the accompanying woodcut depicts a game in which a batter receives a pitched ball, with no trap in sight.
Year
1811
1811.5 Bat-ball Recalled at Exeter
Game:
Age of Players:
"Next to football, baseball has always been the most popular sport at Exeter. Alpheus S. Packard, who entered in 1811, mentions "bat-ball" as played in his day."
Sources:
Crosbie, Laurence M., The Phillips Exeter Academy: A History [1923], page 233. Submitted by George Thompson, 8/2/2005. Crosbie does not, evidently, give a citation for Packard.
Year
1811
1811.6 Women Cricketers Play for Large Purse
Tags:
Two noblemen arrange for eleven women of Surrey to play eleven women of Hampshire for a stake of 500 guineas a side.
Ford, John, Cricket: and Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], pp. 20-21. Ford does not give a reference for this event.
Year
1811
1811.7 Cause of Death: "Surfeit of Playing Ball"
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"DIED. Last Evening of surfeit, playing ball, M[r] John McKibben, merchant of this city."
Sources:
New York Spectator, September 11, 1811, page 2.
Comment:
John Thorn adds: "It is surely a coincidence that John McKibbin, Jr. was president of the Magnolia Ball Club of 1843, about which I have written. The Magnolias' McKibbin and his father were born in Ireland.
Year
1811
1812c.1 Young Andrew Johnson Plays Cat and Bass Ball and Bandy in Raleigh NC
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
[At age four] "he spent many hours at games with boys of the neighborhood, his favorite being 'Cat and Bass Ball and Bandy,' the last the 'choyst' game of all."
Sources:
Letter from Neal Brown, July 15, 1867, in Johnson Mss., Vol. 116, No. 16,106.[Publisher?]
Query:
Listed Source seems incomplete or garbled. Help?
Circa
1812
1812.2 Soldier Van Smoot's Diary Notes Playing Catch at New Orleans LA
Tags:
Location:
Peter Van Smoot, an Army private present at the Battle of New Orleans, writes in his diary: "I found a soft ball in my knapsack, that I forgot I had put there and started playing catch with it."
Note: Citation needed. John Thorn, 6/15/04: "I don't recognize this one"
Year
1812
1812.3 NYC Council Finds Ball Playing Among "Abounding Immoralities"
Tags:
"Your Committee will not pretend to bring before the Board the long and offending catalogue of abounding immoralities . . . but point out some . . . . Among the most prevalent on the Lords Day called Sunday, are . . . Horse Riding for pleasure . . . Skating ['] Ball playing, and other Plays by Boys and Men, and even Horse-racing." Minutes of the Common Council of the city of New York, 1784-1831, March 18, 1812, page 72 [Volume VII.] Submitted by John Thorn 1/24/07
Year
1812
1813.1 Newburyport MA Reminder - "Playing Ball in the Streets" is Unlawful
Tags:
Location:
"Parents and Guardians are also requested to forbid, those under their care, playing Ball in the streets of the town; as by this unlawful practice much inconvenience and injury is sustained." Newburyport [MA] Herald, May 4, 1813, Volume 17, Issue 10, page 1 [classified advertisement]. Submitted by John Thorn 1/24/07. Newburyport MA is about 35 miles north of Boston and near the New Hampshire border.
Year
1813
1813.2 War of 1812 General in OH Said to Play Ball with "Lowest" Soldiers
Tags:
General Robert Crooks was in Ohio during the War of 1812 to deal with Indian uprisings. One published letter-writer was not impressed: "These troops despise every species of military discipline and all the maxims of propriety and common sense . . . . Gen. Crooks would frequently play ball and wrestle with the lowest description of common soldiers, his troops were never seen on parade . . . "
"Extract of a Letter dated Marietta, Feb. 3, 1813," Washingtonian, May 5, 1813. Accessed via subscription search, 4/9/2009.
Year
1813
1815c.1 US Prisoners in Ontario at End of War of 1812 Play Ball
Tags:
Location:
Fairchild, G. M., ed., Journal of an American at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 (private printing, Quebec, 1090 (sic; 1900?), no pagination. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 87.)
Circa
1815
1815c.2 US Prisoners of War in England Play Ball - at Great Peril, It Turned Out
Tags:
Age of Players:
A ball game reportedly led to the killing and wounding of many US prisoners in England's Dartmoor prison in April 1815:
"On the 6th of April, 1815, as a small party were amusing themselves at a game of ball, some one of the number striking it with too much violence, it flew over the wall fronting the prison and the sentinels on the other side of the same were requested to heave the ball back, but refused; on which the party threatened to break through to regain their ball, and immediately put their threats into execution; a hole was made in the wall sufficiently large for a man to pass thro' - but no one attempted it."
500 British soldiers appeared, and the prisoners were fired upon en masse.
Sources:
"Massacre of the 6th of April," American Watchman, June 24, 1815. Accessed via subscription search, 2/14/2009.
Other Accounts:
- "The Judicial Report of the Massacre at Dartmoor Prison," in John Melish, "Description of Dartmor Prison, with an Account of the Massacre of the Prisoners" (Philadelphia, J.Bioren, 1816) Per Altherr, ref #97.
- [Waterhouse, Benjamin], A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, Late a Surgeon on Board an American Privateer, Who Was Captured at Sea by the British in May, Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen, and Was Confined First, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, on England, and Last, at Dartmoor Prison (Rowe and Hooper, Boston, 1816), p. 186. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 247-249 and ref #92.
- "Journal of Nathaniel Pierce of Newburyport [MA], Kept at Dartmoor Prison, 1814 - 1815," Historical Collections of Essex Institute, volume 73, number 1 [January 1937], p. 40. Per Altherr's refs #91 - #98.
- [Andrews, Charles] The Prisoner's Memoirs, or Dartmoor Prison (private printing, NYC, 1852), p.110. Per Altherr's refs #93 and 95.
- [Valpey, Joseph], Journal of Joseph Valpey, Jr. of Salem, November 1813- April 1815 (Michigan Society of Colonial Wars, Detroit, 1922), p. 60. Per Altherr's ref #96.
- Herbert A. Kenny, Cape Ann: Cape America (J. B. Lippincott, 1971), pp. 83-4. (From The Centennial Address of Dr. Lemuel) See excerpt at Supplemental Text, below.
Comment:
Some observers assume that ballplaying was mainly a juvenile pastime in this time period. Clearly the players in this case, and in other instances of military play, were of age.
Query:
Can we be certain that this was a base-running game? Can we rule out that the game was a vigorous 1800's form of handball?
Circa
1815
1815.3 German Book Apparently Shows a Batting Game
Game:
Taschenbuch fur das Jahr 1815 der Liebe und Freundschaft [Frankfurt am Main] per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 186. Block reports that the April section of this yearly book has an engraving of children playing a bat-and-ball game. Note: Does the game appear to use bases?
Year
1815
1815.4 Six-Hour "Wicket" Match Played in Canada
Location:
Game:
"On the 29th May, a grant [sic] Match of Wicket was played at Chippawa, Upper Canada, by 22 English ship wrights, for a stake of 150 dollars. The parties were distinguished by the Pueetergushene and the Chippawa party. The game was won in 56 runs by the former. It continued 6 hours.
"The winners challenge any eleven gentlemen in the state of New York, for any sum they may wish to play for. The game was succeeded by a supper in honor of King Charles, and the evening in spent [sic] with great hilarity."
Mechanics' Gazette and Merchants' Daily Advertiser, June 9,1815, reprinting from the Buffalo Gazette. Provided by Richard Hershberger, 7/30/2007. Note: It seems unusual for Englishmen to be playing wicket, and for wicket to field 11-man teams. Could this be a cricket match reported as wicket? Is it clear why a Buffalo NY newspaper would report on a match in "Upper Canada," or whereever Chippawa is? Do we know what a "grant match" is? A typo for "grand match," probably?
Comment:
Upper Canada is modern Ontario, and Chippewa is just across the Niagara River from New York and Buffalo. [ba]
Year
1815
1815c.5 RI Boy Did A Little Ball-Playing
Age of Players:
Adin Ballou grew up in a minister's home in Cumberland, RI, and his amusements were of the "homely and simple kinds, such as hunting, fishing, wrestling, wrestling, jumping, ball-playing , quoit-pitching . . .Card-playing was utterly disallowed."
Sources:
"W. Heywood, ed., Autobiography of Adin Ballou (Vox Populi Press, Lowell MA, 1896), page 13. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 30.
The autobiography was accessed 11/15/2008 via a Google Books search for "adin ballou."
Comment:
The book has no references to wicket, cricket or roundball.
Circa
1815
1815.6 Group at Dartmouth Ponders Worth of Ballplaying, Nocturnal Cowhunting
Location:
Dartmouth College in Hanover NH had a religious society, the Religiosi. "In April, 1815, at one of the meetings, a 'conversation was held on the propriety, or rather the impropriety, of professed [Christians - bracketed in original] joining in the common amusement of ballplaying with the students for exercise.'" Shortly thereafter "there were many spirited remarks on the subject of nocturnal cowhunting, and the society was unanimous in condemning it." John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College 1815-1909 (Rumford Press, Concord NH, 1913), page 564. Accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search of "'history of Dartmouth.'" Note: Did they condone diurnal cowhunting?
Year
1815
1815c.7 New Englander Writes of Ballyards in Virginia
Location:
"I saw a young man betted upon, for five hundred dollars, at a foot race. Indeed every thing is decided by a wager . . . . What would a northern man think, to see a father, and a sensible and respected one, too, go out with a company, and play marbles? At some cross-roads, or smooth shaven greens, you may a wooden wall, high and broad as the side of a church, erected for men to play ball against."
"Arthur Singleton" (Henry Cogswell Knight), "Letters from the South and West," Salem [MA] Gazette, July 30, 1824. This paper extracted portions of a new book, which had been written between 1814 and 1819, by Knight, who was reared in Massachusetts and graduated from Brown in 1812. Online text unavailable 2/3/10. Query: The ballplaying facility as described seems uncongenial for cricket or a baserunning game, unless it was a form of barn-ball. Isn't a form of hand-ball a more likely possibility? Was handball, or fives, common in VA at this stage?
Circa
1815
1815.8 Eyewitness On the Massacre of Seven U.S Soldiers at Dartmoor Prison in England
Age of Players:
"Two days before this [the argument over bread shortages after which the prisoners helped themselves to the bread supplies], viz., April 6, 1815. Governor S [Shortland] returned to his station. On learning what had transpired on the evening of the 4th, he declared (as we were told) that he would be revenged on us. On this 6th day, P.M., some of the prisoners were playing ball in No. 7 yard. Several times the ball was knocked over the wall, and was as often thrown back by the soldiers when kindly asked to do so. Presently one of he prisoners cried out in quite an authoritative manner, 'Soldier, throw back the ball.' And because it failed to come, some of the ball-players said, 'We will make a hole in the wall and get it.' Two or three of them began pecking out the mortar with small stones. A sentinel on the wall ordered them to desist. This they did not do until spoken to again. I was walking back and forth by he place during the time, with others, but did not suppose they could make a hole with the stones they were using, or that anything touching that matter was of much or any importance. Aside from that trifling affair, the prisoners were as orderly and as obedient as at any time in the past."
[Bates then described the killing of the ball-playing prisoners and concluded that seven were killed and sixty wounded.] .
Sources:
Joseph Bates, The Autobiography of Elder Joseph Bates (Battle Creek, 1868), pp. 51-52, per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 39.
Query:
OK, was the game played a batting/baserunning game or a form of handball? Does the term "knocked" over the wall give any clue?
Year
1815
1816.1 Cooperstown NY Bans Downtown Ballplaying Near Future Site of HOF
Tags:
Location:
On June 6, 1816, trustees of the Village of Cooperstown, New York enacted an ordinance: "Be it Ordained That no person shall play at Ball in Second or West Street (now Pioneer and Main Streets), in this village, under a penalty of one dollar, for each and every offence."
Sources:
Otsego Herald, number 1107, June 6, 1816, p. 3. The Herald carried the same notice on June 13, page 3. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 245 and ref #75.
Comment:
Note: those streets intersect a half block from the Hall of Fame, right?
Year
1816
1816.2 Worcester MA Ordinance Bans "Frequent and Dangerous" Ball Playing and Hoops"
Tags:
Location:
"[S]uch regulations as will prevent the playing Ball and Hoops in the public Streets . . . a practice so frequent and dangerous, that has occasioned many great and repeated complaints."
Sources:
Worcester, MA Town Records, May 6, 1816; reprinted in Franklin P. Rice, ed., Worcester Town Records, 1801 - 1816, volume X (Worcester Society of Antiquity, 1891), p. 337. Also appears in Henderson, p. 150 [No ref given], and in Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 244 and ref #72.
Year
1816
1816.4 "German ballgame" described in Berlin book
Flittner, Christian G., Talisman des Gluckes oder der Selbstlehrer fur alle Karten, Schach, Billard,Ball und Kegel Spiele [Berlin], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 187. This book's small section on ball games carries the Gutsmuths account of das Deutsche Ballspiel the German ballgame.
Query:
Query: Does the game appear to uses bases?
No. Like most forms of longball, there are a home line and a goal line at opposite ends of the field.
Year
1816
1816.5 In "The Year Without a Summer," CT Lads Play Ball on Christmas Day
Tags:
Location:
"My father [Charles Mallory] arrived there [Mystic CT] on Christmas Day and found some of his acquaintances playing ball in what was called Randall's Orchard."
Baughman, James, The Mallorys of Mystic: Six Generations in American Maritime Enterprise [Wesleyan University Press, 1972], page 12. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/19/2004.
Year
1816
1816.7 Lambert's Cricket Rules Published
Lambert, William, Instructions and Rules For Playing the Noble Game of Cricket (1816).
Bateman notes that 300,000 copies of this book were sold by 1865. Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 36.
Year
1816
1816.9 Maine Town Outlaws Ball, Quoits, Sledding
Tags:
Location:
"[A]ny person who shall be convicted of sliding down any hill on sleighs, sleds, or boards . . . between Thomas Hinkley's dwelling house & Mr. Vaugh's mill . . . or any who shall play at ball or quoits in any of the streets . . . shall, on conviction, pay a fine of fifty cents for each offence . . . ."
Hallowell [ME] Gazette, December 25, 1816. Hallowell is about 2 miles south of Augusta and 50 miles NE of Portland.
Year
1816
1816.10 Norfolk VA Cricket Club Reported
Game:
Richard Hershberger [emails of 1/28/09 and 2/4/10] reports seeing advertisements in the American Beacon for a Norfolk Cricket Club from 1816 to 1820:
"CRICKET CLUB. A meeting of the Subscribers to this Club, will be held at the Exchange Coffee House, this evening at 6 o'clock, for the purpose of draughting Rules and Regluations for the government."
American Beacon(Norfolk VA), October 25, 1816. Subsequent notices were for playing times.
Note: In The Tented Field, Tom Melville writes that a 1989 book has the Norfolk Club being founded in 1803 in imitation of English customs (page 164, note 10). Patricia Click, in Spirit of the Times (UVa Press, 1989), page 119, cites the October 1, 1803 issue of the "Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald" [likely then the "Norfolk Herald"] in reference to an observation [page 73] about the social makeup of cricket clubs. Query: can we find out what the 1803 paper actually says about cricket, if anything?
Comment:
The New York Clipper, Nov. 20, 1858, reports that a Norfolk Cricket Club has just been formed.
Year
1816
1816c.11 Jane Austen Writes of "Baseball" in Northanger Abbey.
Game:
Age of Players:
Jane Austen mentions "baseball" in her novel Northanger Abbey, published in 1818, after her death.
"Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books . . . . But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; so read all such works as heroines must read. . . "
Sources:
Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, (London, 1818), John Murray, Vol. I, p. 7.
Comment:
"Northanger Abbey was published posthumously in 1818, and while most scholars agree the first draft was written in the 1798-99 time period, there is no evidence that Austen's early draft included the baseball reference. It was submitted for publication in 1803 under the name “Susan,” but never went to press. The text was revised between 1816 and 1817, but did not get published until after Austen’s death that summer." (from David Block, 9/16/2020).
Circa
1816
1816.12 Oxfordshire Churchman Urges Base-Ball Fields for Girls
Tags:
Age of Players:
Base-ball, as an outdoor means of recreation for girls, was praised by an English churchwarden in a manuscript history of the Oxfordshire village of Watlington. The writer, John Badcock, made his point despite having it almost swallowed within an unusually convoluted sentence: “It is contrary to reason and common sense to expect that the most sober-minded, if wholly restrained from a game of cricket, or some other amusement--& the other sex from base-ball, or some recreation peculiar to themselves, & exclusively their own, would fill up every leisure hour of a fine summer's evening better, or perhaps so well, in any other way.” Mr. Badcock went on to argue that the lord of the manor, or some other landowner, should take a section of otherwise unusable land and create appropriate playing fields for boys and girls."
Sources:
An Historical & Descriptive Account of Watlington, Oxfordshire, by John Badcock (1816), handwritten manuscript in the collection of the Oxfordshire History Centre, PAR279/9/MS/1, (former reference: MSS.D.D.Par.Wat-lington c.11)
Year
1816
1817.1 Visitor to Philly Tells of Cricket Play There
Game:
"Being a commercial people, they have but few amusements: their summer pastimes are . . . fishing, batching, cricket, quoits, &c; . . . ."
John Palmer, Journal of Travels in the United States of America and in Lower Canada, Etc [London, 1818], page 283. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
Year
1817
1817.2 Riddle Game Cites "Fourteen Boys at Bat and Ball"
Game:
The Gaping, Wide-mouthed, Waddling Frog [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 187-188. This chapbook comprises a rhyme resembling the song "the Twelve Days of Christmas, and one verse includes "Fourteen Boys at Bat-and-Ball, Some Short and Some Tall." Block also reports that it contains an illustration of several boys playing trap-ball.
Year
1817
1817.3 Ball Play Banned in New York City's Park, Battery, and Bowling-Green
Tags:
"New York City outlawed ball play in the Park, Battery, and Bowling-Green in 1817." - Tom Altherr.
Sources:
"A law relative to the Park, Battery, and Bowling-Green," in Laws and Ordinances Ordained and Established by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonality of the City of New York (T. and J. Swords, New York, 1817), page 118. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 245 and ref #74.
Year
1817
1817.4 In Brunswick ME, Bowdoin College Sets 20-Cent Fine for Ballplaying
Location:
"No student shall, in or near any College building, play at ball, or use any sport or diversion, by which such building may be exposed to injury, on penalty of being fined not exceeding twenty cents, or being suspended if the offence be often repeated."
Sources:
Of Misdemeanors and Criminal Offences, in Laws of Bowdoin College (E. Goodale, Hallowell ME, 1817), page 12. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 239.
Comment:
The college is about 25 miles NE of Portland, and near the Maine coast.
Year
1817
1818.1 Yale Student Reports Cricket on Campus
Tags:
Location:
Game:
A student at Yale University reports that cricket and football are played on campus [need cite]. Lester, however, says that he doubts the student saw English cricket, and that, given that the site is CT, it was probably wicket. Lester notes that wicket involved sides of 30 to 35 players, and was played in an alley 75 feet long, and with oversized bats.
Lester, ed., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn Press, Philadelphia, 1951], page 7.
Year
1818
1818.2 In Cricket, Well, It's . . ."One Man Out"
Ford notes that "[William] Lambert, the leading professional of the time, banned from playing at Lord's for accepting bribes." Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1818
1818.3 "Baseball" at West Point NY?
Game:
"Although playing ball games near the barracks was prohibited, cadets could play 'at football' near Fort Clinton or north of the large boulder neat the site of the present Library. [Benjamin] Latrobe makes curious mention of a game call 'baseball' played in this area. Unfortunately, he did not describe the game. Could it be that cadets in the 1818-1822 period played the game that Abner Doubleday may have modified later to become the present sport?"
Pappas, George S., To The Point: The United States Military Academy 1802 - 1902 [Praeger, Westport Connecticut, 1993], page 145. Note: Pappas evidently does not give a source for the Latrobe statement. I assume that the 1818-1822 dates correspond to Latrobe's time at West Point.
Year
1818
1818.4 Cricket Reported in Louisville KY?
Location:
Game:
"It is not unreasonable to speculate that as the immigrants came down the Ohio River . . . they brought with them the leisure activities hat had already developed in the cities along the Atlantic coast. There are reports of a form of cricket being played in the city as early at 1818."
Sources:
Bailey, Bob, "Beginnings; From Amateur Teams to Disgrace in the National League," [1999], page 1. Bob (email, 1/27/2013), further quotes Dean Sullivan's master's thesis, Ball-oriented Sport in a Southern City: A Study of the Organizational Evolution of Baseball in Louisville (George Mason University): "Ball-oriented sports had been reported in Kentucky as early as 1818, when travelers stumbled upon a primitive game of cricket."
Comment:
Note: The original source of the 1818 reference may have been lost. Bob reports that Dean Sullivan thesis cited Harold Peterson's The Man Who Invented Baseball (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), page 24. However, Peterson gives no source. A dead end?
Query:
Are there other sightings of this 1818 cricket account?
Year
1818
1818c.5 English Immigrants from Surrey See Cricket, Trap Ball in IL
Location:
"[S]ome of the young men were gone to a county court at Palmyra, [but] there was no cricket-match, as was intended, only a game of trap-ball." [1818]
"On the second of October, there was a game of cricket played at Wanborough by the young men of the settlement; this they called keeping Catherine Hill fair, many of the players being from the neighborhood of Godalming and Guildford." [1819]
"There have been [p.295/p.296] several cricket-matches this summer [of 1819], both at Wanborough and Birk Prarie; the Americans seem much pleased at the sight of the game, as it is new to them." [1819]
Sources:
John Woods, Two Years Residence on the Settlement of the English Prairie, in the Illinois Country (Longman & Co., London, 1822), pp. 148 and 295-296.
See also:
Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games, Base Ball, v. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2008), pages 32-33. Note: Tom's account includes the same quotes, but attributes them to the British lawyer Adlard Welby, and sets them in 1820.
Comment:
The settlement was in modern Edwards County.
Query:
Can we reconcile the conflicts in the two attributions?
Circa
1818
1819.1 British Science Text Uses "Base-ball" Heuristic Example
Tags:
"Emily: In playing at base-ball, I am obliged to use al my strength to give a rapid motion to the ball; and when I have to catch it, I am sure I feel the resistance it makes to being stopped; but if I did not catch it, it would soon stop of itself.
"Mrs B.: Inert matter is as incapable of stopping itself as it is of putting itself in motion. When the ball ceases to more, therefore, it must be stopped by some other cause or power; but as it is one with which your are as yet unacquainted, we cannot at present investigate its powers."
Jane H. Marcet, Conversations on Natural Philosophy [Publisher?, 1819], page? Note: Mendelson, a retired professor at Marquette University, originally located this text, but attributed it to a different book by Mrs. Marcet. David Block found the actual 1819 location. He adds that while it does not precede the Jane Austen use of "base-ball" in Northanger Abbey, "I still consider the quote to be an important indicator that baseball was a popular pastime among English girls during the later 18th and early 19th centuries." David Block posting to 19CBB, 12/12/2006.
Year
1819
1819.2 Scott's Ivanhoe Mentions Stool-ball
Game:
[The Jester speaks] "I came to save my master, and if he will not consent, basta! I can but go away home again. Kind service can not be checked from hand to hand like a shuttle-cock or stool-ball. I'll hang for no man . . . ."
Scott, Walter, Ivanhoe; A Romance (D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1904), page 257. Reference provided by John Thorn 6/11/2007.
Year
1819
1819.3 Herefordshire: "Large Parties" Play Wicket ("Old-Fashioned Cricket")
[Writing of the yeoman of the county:] "notwithstanding their inclination to religion, they meet in large parties upon Sunday afternoons to play foot-ball, wicket (an old-fashioned cricket), or other gymnastics."
Source: "Manners and Customs of Herefordshire," The Gentleman's Magazine, February 1819. Submitted by Richard Hershberger 8/6/2007.
Year
1819
1819.4 In Hartford CT: Legislative Session Associated with Ball-playing?
Tags:
Location:
In a report on the new session of the Connecticut legislature: "In Hartford and the region about the same, those who usually play ball during the day and dance at night on such occasions, did not at this time wholly abandon the ancient uses of Connecticut."
Indiana Central, June 8, 1819, reprinting an article datelined New Haven CT from May 5. Accessed 4/9/09 via subscription search.
Year
1819
1819.5 Irving Surveys Pastimes at Fictional British School; Includes Tip-cat
Tags:
"As to sports and pastimes, the boys are faithfully exercised in all that are on record: quoits, races, prison-bars, tip-cat, trap-ball, bandy-ball, wrestling, leaping, and what-not."
Washington Irving [writing as Geoffrey Crayon], Bracebridge Hall: Or, The Humourists (Putnam's, New York, 1888: written in 1819), page 332. Contributed by Bill Wagner, email o f March 25, 2009. Accessed via 2/3/10 Google Books search (bracebridge tip-cat). The setting is Yorkshire. Note: if cricket, base-ball, rounders, or stoolball were played at the fictional school, it was relegated to "what-not" status.
Year
1819
1819.6 Ball Games Recalled in Southwestern WI
Game:
At the close of the Civil War, a dispute on the actual age Joseph Crele, who claimed to be 139 years old, reached Milwaukee newprint: "Beouchard . . . says he has known Crele for 40 years. In 1819, at Prarie du Chien, Crele was one of the most active participants in the games of base ball, town ball foot races, horse races, &c, and yet at that time, by the claim made for him, he must have been 93 years old."
MilwaukeeDaily Sentinel, April 4, 1865. As posted to the 19CBB listserve by Dennis Pajot, December 11, 2009. Prarie du Chien is about 90 miles west of Madison WI, on the Mississippi River. Note: it is interesting that Beouchard recalls two distinct games [and/or two distinct names of games] being played.
Year
1819
1820.1 Bat/Ball Game Depicted in Children's Amusements
Tags:
Age of Players:
A woodcut illustration of boys playing with a bat and ball appears in a book entitled Children's Amusements . The book contains an illustration of ball playing (page 9) and this text (page 10):
"Playing ball is much practised by school boys and is an excellent exercise to unbend the mind, and restore to the body that elasticity and spring which the close application to sedentary employment in their studies within doors, has a tendency to clog, dull or blunt. But, when practised as is the common method, with a club or bat great care is necessary, as sometimes sad accidents have happened, by its slipping from the hand, or hitting some of their fellows. We would therefore, recommend Fives as a safer play in which the club is not used and which is equally good for exercise. The writer of this, beside other sad hurts which he has been witness of in the use of clubs, knew a youth who had his skull broke badly with one, and it nearly cost him his life."
Sources:
Children's Amusements, [New York, Samuel Wood, 1820], p. 9.
Comment:
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 188, adds that it is unusual among chapbooks as "more space and detail are devoted to "playing ball" than to cricket, which at the time was a more established game."
While the text does not explicitly mention or show base-running, David Block thinks of this as an early account of English base ball.
Year
1820
1820.2 Round Ball played in Upton, MA
Location:
Henderson, p. 137, attributes this to Holliman, but has no ref to Holliman or to George Stoddard, who reported the game to the Mills Commission. Also quoted at Henderson, p. 150.
Year
1820
1820.3 English Cricketers Play Two-Day Match Again New Yorkers
Tags:
Game:
"The most outstanding cricket matches of the period were those in New York. In fact, the matches of note were played in that city. These contests took place between members of different clubs, and often the sport lasted for two days. Great was the interest if any English player happened to be present to participate in the sport. On June 16, 1820, eleven expert English players matched eleven New Yorkers at Brooklyn, the contest lasting two days." Holliman, Jennie, American Sports (1785 - 1835) [Porcupine Press, Philadelphia, 1975], page 68.
Holliman cites the New York Evening Post June 16, 1820. See also Lester, ed., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn, 1951], page 5. Tom Melville, The Tented Field (Bowling Green U, Bowling Green, 1998), page 7, adverts to a similar Englishmen/Americans match, giving it a date of June 1, 1820. He seems to cite The New York Evening Post of June 19, 1820, page 2 for this match, and so June 16 seems like a likelier date.
Year
1820
1820.4 Another English Chapbook Cites Trap-ball
School-boys' Diversions: Describing Many New and Popular Sports [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 189. The woodcut shows a trap and bat in the foreground.
Year
1820
1820s.5 Town Ball Recalled in Eastern IL
Location:
Game:
"In the early times, fifty or sixty years ago, when the modern games of croquet and base-ball were unknown, the people used to amuse themselves with marbles, "town-ball" - which was base-ball in a rude state - and other simple pastimes of a like character. Col. Mayo says, the first amusement he remembers in the county was a game of town-ball, on the day of the public sale of lots in Paris, in which many of the "young men of the period engaged."
The History of Edgar County, Illinois (Wm. LeBaron, Chicago, 1879), page 273. Contributed January 31, 2010, by Jeff Kittel. Paris IL is near the Indiana border, and about 80 miles west of Indianapolis.
Decade
1820s
1820c.6 Modified Version of Rounders Played in New England.
Location:
Game:
"About 1820 a somewhat modified version of the old English game of rounders was played on the New England commons, and twenty years later the game had spread and become "town ball." In 1833 the first regularly organized ball club was formed in Philadelphia with the sonorous title of "The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia." About 1850 the game gained vogue in New York."
Barbour, Ralph H., The Book of School and College Sports [D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1904] page 143. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Thanks to Mark Aubrey for locating a pdf of the baseball section of this text, June 2007. Barbour does not provide sources for his text.
Circa
1820
1820c.7 Another English Chapbook, Another Engraving of Trap-ball
Juvenile Recreations [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 189. Accompanying the Trapball engraving: "Then Master Batt he did decide,/That they might one and all,/Since Rosebud fields were very wide,/Just play Trap bat and ball,/Agreed said all with instant shout,/Then beat the little ball about."
Circa
1820
1820c.8 Another Chapbook - This One Celebrates the Fielder
Juvenile Sports or Youth's Pastimes [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 189. The accompanying text: "With bat and trap, the Youth's agre'd/To send the ball abroad with speed,/While eager with his open hands,/To catch him out his playmate stands."
Circa
1820
1820s.9 In Middletown CT, "Wicket" Recalled, but Not Base Ball.
Game:
"[In the summer] ball was the chief amusement, and if the weather permitted (and my impression is that it generally did permit) the open green about the meeting-house and the school-house was constantly occupied by the players, little boys, big boys, and even men (for such we considered the biggest boys who consented to join the game) . . . . These grown-up players usually devoted themselves to a game called 'wicket,' in which the ball was impelled along the ground by a wide, peculiarly-shaped bat, over, under, or through a wicket, made by a slender stick resting on two supports. I never heard of baseball in those days." -- John Howard Redfield
Sources:
Delaney, ed., Life in the Connecticut River Valley 1800 - 1840 from the Recollections of John Howard Redfield (Connecticut River Museum, Essex CT, 1988), p. 35. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, pp. 246-247 and ref #86.
Comment:
The description of field play of wicket seems a little odd; as if the stick-handlers's aim was to score by dislodging a wicket, and thus resembling field hockey. Were two separate games conflated in memory?
Decade
1820s
1820s.11 Cricket is Gradually "Cleaned Up;" Club Play Strengthens
Writing of this period, Ford summarizes: "Much single-wicket cricket was played, and wager matches continued, but from the mid 1820s both these features gradually disappeared from the scene as cricket was 'cleaned up.' Of equal importance the game at club level spread and grew strong." John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 22. Ford does not give citations for this account.
Decade
1820s
1820s.12 Boys Are Attracted to Sports of "Playing Ball or Goal" in Bangor ME
Location:
But a day seems to have elapsed since meeting with our neighboring boys, we took delight in [flying kites and prancing our horses] or engaged ourselves in the more active sports of 'playing ball' or 'goal. -- Albert Ware Paine, telling of boyhood in Bangor Maine.
Sources:
Paine, Albert Ware, "Auto-Biography," reprinted in Lydia Augusta Paine Carter, The Discovery of a Grandmother (Henry H. Carter, Newton MA, 1920), p. 240. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It; see p. 245 and ref #80.
Query:
Note: Dean Sullivan [7/29/2004] observes that Harold Seymour puts the year of play at Bangor at 1836, citing both pages 198 and 240 of The Discovery of a Grandmother. But Payne was born in 1812, and was not a "boy" in 1836, so this event needs further examination.
Also:This item needs to be reconciled with #1823c.4, below.
Decade
1820s
1820c.13 A Wry View of Cricket Match on Yale Campus
Tags:
Location:
Game:
"On the green and easy slope where those proud columns stand,
In Dorian mood, with academe and temple on each hand,
The foot-ball and the cricket-match upon my vision rise
With all the clouds of classic dust kicked in each other' eyes."
This verse is incorporated without attribution in Brooks Mather Kelley, Yale: a History (Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1974), page 214. Kelley's commentary: "[Cricket] may have been a sport at Yale then [in the Colonial period]. The first clear reference to it, owever, is in one stanza of a poem about Yale life in 1818 to 1822." Ibid. Is Yale shielding us from some racy student rhymes? Oh, not to worry: From a rival Ivy League source we see that Lester identifies the poet as William Cromwell - John A. Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket (U of Penn Press, Philadelphia PA, 1951), page7. Note: OK, so who was William Cromwell, and why did he endow so many chairs at Yale?
Circa
1820
1820s.14 New England Lad Recalls Assorted Games, Illicit Fast Day Ballplaying
Game:
Alfred Holbrook was born in 1816. His autobiography, Reminiscences of the Happy Life of a Teacher (Elm Street, Cincinnati, 1885), includes youthful memories that would have occurred in the 1820s.
"The [school-day] plays of those times, more than sixty years ago, were very similar to the plays of the present time. Some of these were "base-ball," in which we chose sides, "one hole cat," "two hole cat," "knock up and catch," Blackman," "snap the whip," skating, sliding down hill, rolling the hoop, marbles, "prisoner's base," "football," mumble the peg," etc. Ibid. page 35. Note: was "knock up and catch" a fungo game, possibly?
"Now, it was both unlawful and wicked to play ball on fast-day, and none of my associates in town were ever known to engage in such unholy enterprises and sinful amusements on fast-days; [p 52/53] but other wicked boys, with whom I had nothing to do, made it their special delight and boast to get together in some quiet, concealed place, and enjoy themselves, more especially because it was a violation of law. Not infrequently, however, they found the constable after them. . . ." "Soon after, this blue law, perhaps the only one in the Connecticut Code, was repealed. Then the boys thought no more of playing on fast-days than on any other." Ibid, pp 52-53.
Decade
1820s
1810s.10 Ballplaying at Bowdoin College
Tags:
Location:
Nehemiah Cleaveland and Alpheus Spring Packard, History of Bowdoin College with Biographical Sketches of the Graduates (Osgood and Company, Boston, 1882). Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 32.
"The student of earlier years had not the resources for healthful physical recreation of the present day [1880s]. We had football and baseball, though the latter was much less formal and formidable than the present game" [Page 96]. Note: the precise time referenced here is hard to specify; but the authors graduated in 1813 and 1816, and the context seems to suggest the 1810-1830 period.
Only one of the book's many sketches of alumni, however, mentions ballplaying of any type. The sketch for James Patten, Class of 1823, includes this: "He entered college at the mature age of twenty-four, was a respectable scholar, spoke with a decided brogue, and played ball admirably. . . . When last heard from he was an acting magistrate and a rich old bachelor." [Page 276] The sketch for Longfellow, who in 1824 wrote of constant campus ballplaying [see #1824.1], does not allude to sport.
Circa
1820
1820.16 Union vs. Mechanics - First Mention of Club Cricket?
Game:
On June 19, 1820, the Union and Mechanic Cricket Clubs played two matches in Brooklyn. According to an account [a box score was also provided] in the New York Daily Advertiser of June 21, "this manly exercise . . . excited astonishment in the spectators by their great dexterity . . . . A great number of persons viewed the sport."
Posted to 19CBB by Richard Hershberger, 7/31/2007. Richard noted: "this is the earliest example I know of named cricket clubs, and is not mentioned in Tom Melville's history [The Tented Field.] In am 1/30/2008 email, Richard added that this game was also reported in the New York Columbia of June 19, 1820 as having "all Europeans" on both sides. Note: does the David Sentence book cover this game? Do we know of any earlier club play; for instance, did the Boston Cricket Club [see #1808.2 above] ever take the field in 1808?
Year
1820
1820.17 "The Game of Ball" Banned in Area of Belfast ME
Tags:
"Ballplaying seems to have been extensively practiced in 1820. At the town meeting of that year, it was voted that 'the game of ball, and the pitching of quoits, within the following limits {main Street to the beach, etc] be prohibited.' High Street, at Hopkins Corner, was the favorite battle-ground for ball-players as early as 1805." Joseph Williamson, History of the City of Belfast in the State of Maine, From its First settlement in1770 to 1875 (Loring & Co., Portland, 1877), page 764. Note: Williamson does not provide original sources for the 1820 ordinance or for the 1805 claim.
Year
1820
1820s.18 Syracuse NY Ball Field Remembered as Base Ball Site
Location:
Game:
David Block reports: "In the lengthy 'Editor's Table' section of this classic monthly magazine [The Knickerbocker], the editor described a nostalgic visit that he and two old school chums had taken to the academy that they had attended near Syracuse. 'We went out upon the once-familiar green, as if it were again 'play time', and called by name upon our old companions to come over once more and play 'bass-ball.' But they answered not; they came not! The old forms and faces were gone; the once familiar voices were silent.'"
Sources:
"Editor's Table," The Knickerbocker (S. Hueston, New York, 1850), page 298. Contributed by David Block 2/27/2008.
Comment:
The Editor, Lewis Gaylord Clark, was born in 1810, and attended the Onondaga Academy. He was thus apparently recalling ball-playing from sometime in the 1820s. Onondaga Academy was, evidently, about 3 miles SW of downtown Syracuse.
Query:
Can we get better data on Clark's age while at the Academy?
Decade
1820s
1820s.19 Ball-Playing in Ontario
Location:
"Contrary to the once commonly held belief that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839, a form of the game existed in Oxford County [ON] during the early decades of the nineteenth century that used a square playing field with four bases and eleven players a side." Nancy B. Bouchier, For the Love of the Game: Amateur Sport in Small-Town Ontario, 1838-1895 (McGill-Queens University Press, 2003), page 100. Note: Dating this item to the 1820's is a best guess [we are asking the author for input], based on additional evidence from N. Bouchier and R. Barney, "A Critical Evaluation of a Source on Early Ontario Baseball: The Reminiscence of Adam E. Ford," Journal of Sport History, Volume 15 number 1 (Spring 1988). Players remembered as attending the 1838 event included older "greyheaded" men who reflected back on earlier play - one of whom was on the local assessment roll in 1812.
Decade
1820s
1820s.20 Horace Greeley Lacks the Knack, Fears Getting Whacked
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Ball was a common diversion in Vermont while I lived there; yet I never became proficient at it, probably for want of time and practice. To catch a flying ball, propelled by a muscular arm straight at my nose, and coming so swiftly that I could scarcely see it, was a feat requiring a celerity of action, an electric sympathy of eye and brain and hand . . . . Call it a knack, if you will; it was quite beyond my powers of acquisition. 'Practice makes perfect.' I certainly needed the practice, though I am not sure that any amount of it would have made me a perfect ball-player."
Sources:
Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life (J. B. Ford, New York, 1869), page 117. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 30.
This book was accessed 11/15/2008 via Google Books search "greeley recollections owen."
Comment:
Tom Altherr places the time as the early 1820s. Greeley, born in New Hampshire in 1811, was apprenticed a Poultney VT printer in about 1825.
Poultney VT is on the New York border, about 70 miles NNW of Albany NY. Greeley does not mention the games of wicket or round ball or base ball.
Decade
1820s
1820s.21 College Prez Was a Klutz at Ball and Cricket
Game:
Age of Players:
"I could not jump the length of my leg nor run as fast as a kitten . . . . At ball and cricket I 'followed in the chase not like a hound that hunts, but one that fills up the cry.'"
-- John Howard Raymond, later President of Vassar College.
Sources:
Harriet Raymond Lloyd, ed., Life and Letters of John Howard Raymond, Late President of Vassar College (Ford, Howard and Hulbert, New York, 1881), page 38. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 34. Accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search for <john howard raymond>. Raymond, born in New York in 1814, summered as a boy in Norwalk CT.
Decade
1820s
1820s.22 MA Boy Played One Old Cat, Base Ball in Early Childhood
Game:
"In my early boyhood I was permitted to run at large in the [Williamstown MA] street and over broad acres, playing 'one old cat,' and base ball (no scientific games or balls as hard as a white oak boulder in those days) excepted when pressed into service to ride the horse to plough out the corn and potatoes."
-- Keyes Danforth
Sources:
Keyes Danforth, Boyhood Reminiscences: Pictures of New England in the Olden Times in Williamstown (Gazlay Brothers, New York, 1895), page 12. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 38. The book was accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Books search <pictures of new>."
Comment:
Danforth, born in 1822, became a judge. Williamstown MA is in the NW corner of the commonwealth, and lies about 35 miles E of Albany NY.
Decade
1820s
1820s.23 Town Ball Came to Central IL in the 1820s.
Location:
Game:
"This game [bullpen, the local favorite] was, in time, abandoned for a game called "town ball;" the present base ball being town ball reduced to a science."
The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois (Baskin and Company, Chicago, 1879), page 252. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31, 2010. Jeff notes that the author was in this passage describing educational conditions in the early 1820s. The two counties are just north of Springfield IL.
Decade
1820s
1820c.24 Waterbury CT Jaws Drop as Baptist Deacon Takes the Field
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"after the 'raising' of this building, at which, as was customary on such occasions, there was a large gathering of people who came to render voluntary assistance, the assembled company adjourned to the adjacent meadow (now owned by Charles Frost) for a game of baseball, and that certain excellent old ladies were much scandalized that prominent Baptists, among them Deacon Porter, should show on such an occasion so much levity as to take part in the game."
Joseph Anderson, ed., The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the Aboriginal Period to the Year 1895, Volume III (Price and Lee, New Haven CT, 1896), page 673n. Accessed 2/3/10 via Google Books search (Waterbury aboriginal III).
Circa
1820
1820s.25 In Western MA, Election Day Saw Town vs. Town Wicket Matches
Tags:
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Game:
"'Election Day' was, however, the universal holiday, and the prevailed amongst the farmers that corn planting must be finished by that day for its enjoyment. It was a day of general hilarity, with no prescribed forms of observation, though ball playing was ordinarily included in the exercises, and frequently the inhabitants of adjacent towns were pitted against one another in the game of wicket. Wrestling, too, was a common amusement on that day, each town having its champions."
Charles J. Taylor, History of Great Barrington (Bryan and Co., Great Barrington MA, 1882), page 375. Accessed 2/3/10 via Google Books search (taylor great barrington). Note: this passage is not clearly set in time; "1820s" is a guess, but 1810s or 1830s is also a possibility.
Decade
1820s
1820c.26 Octogenarian Recalls Frequency of Play, How Balls Were Made in NY
Tags:
"If a base-ball were required, the boy of 1816 founded it with a bit of cork, or, if he were singularly fortunate, with some shreds of india-rubber; then it was wound with yarn from a ravelled stocking, and some feminine member of his family covered it with patches of a soiled glove." - Charles Haswell
(Haswell also reflected on Easter observances of the era. They were subdued, save for the coloring of eggs by some schoolboys. "For a few weeks during the periods of Easter and Paas, the cracking of eggs by boys supplanted marbles, kite-flying, and base-ball.")
Sources:
Charles H. Haswell, Reminiscences of An Octogenarian of the City of New York (1816 to 1860) (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1897), page 77. Accessed 2/2/2010 via Google Books search <haswell octogenarian>. See also Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-Type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic.." Nine, Volume 8, number 2 (2000), p. 15-49. Reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It – see page 245 and ref #81.
Circa
1820
1820c.27 Base-ball Recalled at New York's Battery Grounds
Tags:
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"Of those [students] of Columbia, I write advisedly - they were not members of a boat club, base-ball, or foot-ball team. On Saturday afternoons, in the fall of the year, a few students would meet in the 'hollow' on the Battery, and play an irregular game of football . . . As this 'hollow' was the locale of base-ball, "marbles," etc., and as it has long since been obliterated, and in its existence was the favorite resort of schoolboys and all others living in the lower part of the city, it is worthy of record"
Haswell recalls the Battery grounds as "very nearly the entire area bounded by Whitehall and State Streets, the sea wall line, and a line about two hundred feet to the west; it was of an uniform grade, fully five feet below that of the street, it was nearly uniform in depth, and as regular in its boundary as a dish."
Sources:
Charles Haswell, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian of the City of New York (1816 to 1860) (Harper and Brothers, New York, 1896), pages 81-82. Citation supplied by John Thorn, email of 2/3/2008. Accessed 2/4/10 via Google Books search <octogenarian 1816>.
Discussed in John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (Simon and Shuster, 2011), p. 62. For a 2009 discussion of available knowledge about US baseball history prior to the Knickerbockers, see John Thorn, "Origins of the New York Game," Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, vol. 3, no. 21 (Fall 2009), pp. 105-125.
Comment:
Haswell was 87 years old when this account was published in 1896.
Circa
1820
1820c.28 English Village Green Had Cricket, Bass-Ball
A "rambling" railway passenger reflects as he passes through the English countryside: "The rambler sees a pretty white spire peeping out of the woodland before him . . . . The road leads to Stoke Green. Alas! We may lament for what is no more, and the name is a mockery. There was a village green some twenty years ago . . . . and the cheerful spot where the noise of cricket and bass-ball once gladdened the ear on a summer eve is now silent."
Ah, the good old days. "Railway Rambles," Penny Magazine, Oct 23, 1841, page 412. Accessed 2/11/10 via Google Books search ("railway rambles" penny 1841). The location is evidently about 20 mi W of London. Source: Tom Altherr, "Some Findings on Bass Ball," Originals, February 2010, page 2.
Circa
1820
1820.29 Base ball Seen as "Old-fashioned" Activity For English Girls
Tags:
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Age of Players:
"In 1820, another girl-oriented book, entitled Early Education, mentions 'base ball' among a footnoted list of appropriate 'old-fashioned' amusements that also includes 'hunt the slipper' and 'my lady's toilette."
Sources:
E. Appleton, Early Education (2nd Edition, 1821), page 384, cited in David Block, John Newberry Publishes A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, and With it Our First Glimpse of the game of English Baseball,Base Ball, volume 5, number 1 (Spring 2011), page 34.
Query:
Does the context of this passage clearly imply that girls played base ball?
Is the author suggesting that base ball was considered an "old-fashioned" pastime in 1821?
Where was Early Education published?
Year
1820
1820c.30 Early African American baseball
Tags:
Game:
Excerpt of interview with "A Colored Resident. Henry Rosecranse Columbus, Jr."
"The bosses used to come and bet on the horses, and they had a great deal of fun. After the races they used to play ball for egg nog.”
Reporter—“Was it base ball as now played?”
Mr. Rosecranse—“Something like it, only the ball wasn’t near so hard, and we used to have much more fun playing.”
Sources:
Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman, August 19, 1881, "A Colored Resident. Henry Rosecranse Columbus, Jr. Some Incidents in the Life of an Old Resident of Kingston."
Recounted at http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2012/12/26/did-african-american-slaves-play-baseball/
Circa
1820
1820s.31 "Many Different Kinds of Ball" Remembered
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
In a charming 1867 volume, a father delivered an extended disquisition about ball games in his youth in New England. That was definitely before 1840 and more likely in the 1820s, or the 1830s at the latest. (The book had an 1860 copyright registration, so the author penned it in that year or in the 1850s). The detail of this recounting merits full excerpting:
“I think the boys used to play ball more when I was young than they do now. It was a great game at that time, not only among the boys, but with grown-up people. I know that playing ball is getting into fashion again, but I don’t think it is as common even yet as it used to be. We had, I remember, a good many different kinds of ball. There was “barn-ball,” when there were only two boys to play, one to throw the ball against the barn and make it bound back, and the other to strike at it with his club. Then there was “two-hold-cat,” when there were four boys, two to be in and knock, and two to throw. Then there was “base-ball,” when there were a good many to play. In base-ball we chose sides, and we might have as many as we pleased on each side -- five or fifty, or any other number.
“Then there was “wicket-ball,” as we called it in the part of the country where I lived. In this game, two sticks, some five or six feet long, were laid on some little blocks near the ground, and the ball, which was a large one, was rolled on the ground, and the one that rolled it tried to knock off this stick, while the one that was in and had the bat or club, was to strike the ball and not let it knock the stick off. If the stick was struck off, then the one knocker was “out.” Or if he hit the ball and raised it in the air, and any one on the other side caught it, he was “out.” I find that ball-playing changes some, and is different in different parts of the country, but it was a very wide-awake sport, and there was no game in which I took more delight. On ‘Lection-day, as it was called, of which I have spoken before, all the boys and young men, and even men who were older, thought they must play ball. On town-meeting days and training days, this game was almost always going on."
Sources:
Winnie and Walter’s Talks with Their Father about Old Times Boston: J.E. Tilton and Company, 1867[1860 copyright]), pp. 54-56.
Comment:
Tom’s Comments:
Allowing for the somewhat “in-my-day” tone, there are a few interesting items in this passage. Note the unusual spelling of two old cat or two o’cat. Was there some action of holding the ball, holding the bat, holding the runner that inspired the use of the word “hold?” The initial claim that ball play was more popular in his youth is at first a head-scratcher given the surge of popularity of baseball in the1850s and 1860s.
But what if he reckoning was accurate, if only for his part of New England? That would be interesting evidence for baseball historians trying to measure the trajectory of the game’s development. Did what he called “base-ball” more resemble town-ball, or did the word “base-ball” have a wider currency that we have suspected? The description of wicket-ball seems slightly askew from other accounts--regional variation or memory lapse? Last, the civic holidays that ball play accompanied were not always in clement seasons. Training days tended to be during milder or hot weather, but town meeting and election days often occurred in March and November. The author’s points about the importance of ball play may be stronger than at first glance, if the players did not let the prospect of foul weather discourage their zeal.
Bruce's comment: The author, Increase Niles Tarbox (yes, that was his name!) was born in East Windsor, CT in 1815, and was raised there and in Vernon, CT. After graduating from Yale, he became a pastor in Framingham, MA.
Decade
1820s
1820s.33 Harvard Man: "We had Baseball"
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"Boating[,] which now prevails so largely in Harvard, had not yet come, but we had baseball and football in their season."
-- James Freeman Clarke, Harvard Class of 1829
Sources:
E. Hale, ed., James Freman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary, and Correspondence (Boston, 1891), page 44.
Decade
1820s
1820s.34 Impromptu Ballplaying Recalled at Transylvania University
Tags:
Age of Players:
"Inter-collegiate or intramural sports in the college were almost nonexistent. There were periods of relaxation in the afternoons, and impromptu ballgames, or ice-skating, racing, walking, etc., but there was no gymnasium, and no organized or supervised physical education."
-- Albea Godbold, author, 1944
Sources:
John D. Wright, Transylvania: Tutor to the West (Lexington KY, 1975), p. 95. This material is footnoted to Albea Godbold, The Church College in the South (Durham, 1944), page 102 [not inspected by Protoball as of 2020]. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 33.
Comment:
Transylvania University was the first college located west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the first in Kentucky. One prominent graduate was Jefferson Davis [insert your joke here.]
This section of the book is evidently an account of life at the university in the 1820s.
Decade
1820s
1821.1 New York Book Has Bat and Ball Poem
Little Ditties for Little Children [New York, Samuel Wood and Sons], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 190. "Come on little Charley, come with me and play/And yonder is Billy, I'll give him a call,/ Do you take the bat, and I'll carry the ball . . . "
Year
1821
1821.2 Cricket Not New in South Carolina
Location:
Game:
Age of Players:
"The members of the old cricket club are requested to attend a meeting of [sic?] the Carolina Coffee House tomorrow evening."
Sources:
Charleston Southern Patriot, January 23, 1821, per Holliman, American Sport 1785 - 1835, page 68.
Year
1821
1821.3 Schenectady NY Bans "Playing of Ball Against the Building"
Tags:
The Schenectady City Council banned "playing of Ball against the Building or in the area fronting the Building called City Hall and belonging to this corporation . . . under penalty of Fifty cents for each and every offence . . . ." Note: citation needed. Submitted by David Pietrusza via John Thorn, 3/6/2005.
Year
1821
1821.4 A Three-Times-and-Out Rule in ME Cricket?
Game:
"'Three times and out' is a maxim of juvenile players at cricket."
Maine Gazette, November 20, 1821; submitted by Lee Thomas Oxford, 9/2/2007. Note: What can this reported rule possibly mean? Were beginning cricketers given three chances to hit the bowled ball in ME? John Thorn, email of 2/3/2008, points out that three swings was sometimes an out in wicket, and that the Gazette may have erred.
Year
1821
1821.5 NY Mansion Converted to Venue Suitable for Base, Cricket, Trap-Ball
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Age of Players:
In May and June 1821, an ad ran in some NY papers announcing that the Mount Vernon mansion was now open as Kensington House. It could accommodate dinners and tea parties and clubs. What's more, later versions of the ad said: "The grounds of Kensington House are spacious and well adapted to the playing of the noble game of cricket, base, trap-ball, quoits and other amusements; and all the apparatus necessary for the above games will be furnished to clubs and parties."
Richard Hershberger posted to 19CBB on Kensington House on 10/7/2007, having seen the ad in the June 9, 1821 New YorkGazette and General Advertiser. Richard suggested that "in this context "base is almost certainly baseball, not prisoner's base." John Thorn [email of 3/1/2008] later found a May 22, 1821 Kensington ad in the Evening Post that did not mention sports, and ads starting on June 2 that did.
Richard points out that the ad's solicitation to "clubs and parties" may indicate that some local groups were forming to play the mentioned games long before the first base ball clubs are known to have played.
Sources:
June 9, 1821 New York Gazette and General Advertiser
See also Richard Hershberger, "New York Mansion Converted -- An Early Sighting of Base Ball Clubs?," Base Ball Journal, Volume 5, number 1 (Special Issue on Origins), pages 58-60.
Query:
Have we found any further indications that 1820-era establishments may have served to host regular base ball clubs?
Year
1821
1821.6 Fifty-cent Fine in New Bedford for Those Who Play at Ball
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Location:
"Any person, who shall, after the first day of July next, play at ball, or fly a kite, or run down a hill upon a sled, or play any other sport which may incommode peacable citizens and passengers in any [illegible: street?] of that part of town commonly called the Village of Bedford" faces a fifty-cent penalty.
"By-Laws for the Town of New-Bedford," New Bedford [MA] Mercury, August 13, 1821. Accessed by subscription search May 5, 2009.
Year
1821
1821.7 1821 Etching Shows Wicket Game in Progress
Location:
Game:
This engraving was done by John Cheney in 1821 at the age of 20. It was originally engraved on a fragment of an old copper kettle. It is reported that he was living in Hartford at the time.
It is one of the earliest known depictions of wicket.
The etching depicts six players playing wicket. The long, low wickets are shown and two runners, prominently carrying large bats, are crossing between them as two fielders appear to pursue a large ball in flight. Two wicketkeepers stand behind their wickets.
Sources:
Biographical background from "Memoir of John Cheney," by Edna Dow Cheney (Lee and Shepherd, Boston, 1889), page 10.
For an account of Baseball Historian John Thorn's 2013 rediscovery and pursuit of this engraving, go to http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/02/05/the-oldest-wicket-game-newly-found/
Comment:
An interesting aspect of this drawing is that there appear to be four defensive players and only two offensive players . . . unless the two seated gentlemen in topcoats have left them on while waiting to bat. One might speculate that the wicketkeepers are permanently on defense and the other pairs alternate between offense and defense when outs are made. Another possibility is that all players rotate after each out, as was later seen in scrub forms of base ball.
Also note the relative lack of open area beyond the wickets. Perhaps, as in single-wicket cricket, running was permitted only for balls hit forward from the wicket.
Query:
We welcome other interpretations of this image.
Year
1821
1821.8 English Essayist Praises Youth Playing Bass-ball and Cricket
Tags:
"There is nothing to me more delightful than to see the young working people amusing themselves after the labours of the day. A village green, with its girls and boys playing at bass-ball, and its grown-up lads at cricket, is one of those English sights which I hope no false refinement will ever banish from among us."
Sources:
A Game at Skittles," (author identified as "Editor K."), published within a larger work entitled The Plain Englishman, Vol. II, London, 1821, Hatchard and Son, p. 267
Comment:
Note: This entry was formerly listed for 1844 from prior sources.
The location of the village play in not given.
Year
1821
1821.9 NYC "Ball Club" To Shift Next Meeting, at Broadway Hotel
Age of Players:
Sources:
John Thorn, email of 1/18/2023. The clip shown below is from the Post, 9/7/1821.
Comment:
John Thorn adds, 1/18/2023: "Some years ago George Thompson created a stir with his find (Note: see Protoball entry 1823.1) of a baseball game played at Jones' Retreat in NYC in April 1823. (Prior to Jones, The Retreat had been named for previous proprietors, first William Neilson and then W.B. Heyer.) Here, from the Post of June 5, 1821:
'THE RETREAT -- NEW HOTEL. � The subscriber begs leave to inform all those who wish to encourage him with their patronage, that the elegant house at the corner of Art street and Broadway, opposite Vauxhall, is now open for their reception. Gentlemen may be accommodated with Board by the week or month. He keeps a constant supply of Ice Cream, and parties may be accommodated with Coffee, Tea and Relishes of various descriptions. HEYER.'
N. B. The Retreat is opposite Vauxhall Garden. The proprietor has thought proper, with the advice of his friends, to issue a limited number of Tickets of Admission to this House, on the day of Mr. Guille's [balloon] Ascension, at twenty-five cents each, to be had in refreshments, such as Ice Cream, Cake, Punch, Lemonade, &c. &c."
Query:
[] Were there other pastimes in this era known as "ball clubs?" For Bowling? Wicket? Cricket? Other?
Year
1821
1821.99 "Ball Club" To Shift Next Meeting, at Broadway NYC Hotel
Age of Players:
Sources: John Thorn, email of 1/18/2023.
The clip shown below is from the Post, 9/7/1821.
Comment: John Thorn adds:
"Some years ago George Thompson created a stir (see Protoball entry 1823.1) with his find of a baseball game played at Jones' Retreat in NYC in April 1823. (Prior to Jones, The Retreat had been named for previous proprietors, first William Neilson and then W.B. Heyer.) Here, from the Post of June 5, 1821:
"THE RETREAT -- NEW HOTEL. � The subscriber begs leave to inform all those who wish to encourage him with their patronage, that the elegant house at the corner of Art street and Broadway, opposite Vauxhall, is now open for their reception. Gentlemen may be accommodated with Board by the week or month. He keeps a constant supply of Ice Cream, and parties may be accommodated with Coffee, Tea and Relishes of various descriptions. HEYER.
N. B. The Retreat is opposite Vauxhall Garden. The proprietor has thought proper, with the advice of his friends, to issue a limited number of Tickets of Admission to this House, on the day of Mr. Guille's [balloon] Ascension, at twenty-five cents each, to be had in refreshments, such as Ice Cream, Cake, Punch, Lemonade, &c. &c."
Query: [] Were there other pastimes in this era known as "ball clubs?" Bowling? Wicket? Cricket? Other?
Year
1821
1822.1 Round Ball Played in Worcester
Location:
"Timothy Taft, who is living in Worcester, October 1897, played Round Ball in 1822. The game was no new thing then. I think Mr. Stoddard is right about the game being played directly after the close of the Revolutionary War [see entry #1780c.4]. At any rate, if members of your Commission question the antiquity of the game (Round Ball) we have Mr. Taft still living who played it 83 years ago, and we have corroborative testimony that it was played long before that time."
Letter from Henry Sargent, Worcester MA, to Mills Commission, June 10, 1905. Henderson, on page 149, quotes the Commission's press release as referring to a Timothy Tait, which seems likely a reference to Taft. In this letter Sargent also reports that in Stoddard's opinion, "the game of Round Ball or Base ball is one and the same thing, and that it dates back before 1845."
Note: do we have that Mills Commission release that Henderson cites?
Year
1822
1822.2 Round-Arm Bowling Disallowed at Lord's Cricket Ground
Ford reports that "John Willes of Kent is "no-balled" for "throwing" at Lord's for round-arm bowling. Nevertheless William Lillywhite James Broadbridge and others continue this practice. John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
Year
1822
1822.3 Cricket Clubs, "Other Ball Clubs" Welcomed at Philadelphia PA Facility
Location:
Game:
In an advertisement about an outdoor recreation establishment run by John Carter Jr. on the western bank of the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia PA is included the sentence "Gentlemen are informed that the grounds are so disposed as to afford sufficient room and accommodation for quoit and cricket and other ball clubs." It doesn't say what these "other ball clubs" are playing. Saturday Evening Post, June 22, 1822, Vol. 1, Issue 47, page 003. Submitted by Bill Wagner 1/24/2007.
Year
1822
1822.4 Trap Ball Advertised at Inn
Location:
"TRAP BALL. This entertaining game and pleasing exercise may be enjoyed every Monday afternoon, at the Traveller's Rest, in Broad Street, between Chestnut and Walnut. Traps, Bats, and Balls may be had for select parties or promiscuous companies at any time. Refreshments of the first quality at the Bar."
Saturday Evening Post [running ad, summer 1822]. Provided by Richard Hershberger, email of June 26, 2007. The location is Philadelphia PA.
Comment:
To be exact, from May 25 to July 27, 1822, in this weekly. [ba]
Year
1822
1822.5 Ball-playing Disallowed in Front of Hobart College Residence
Location:
"The rules for Geneva Hall in 1822 are still preserved. The residents were not allowed to cut or saw firewood, or play ball or quoits, in front of the building."
Warren Hunting Smith, Hobart and William Smith; the History of Two Colleges (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva NY, 1972. Provided by Priscilla Astifan, email of 2/4/2008.
Year
1822
1822.6 Eastport bans "bat and ball"
Game:
The Eastport Sentinel, May 26, 1830 reprints the town's 1822 By-Laws, which ban playing "bat and ball" under penalty of a 50 cent fine.
Sources:
The Eastport Sentinel, May 26, 1830
Year
1822
1822.7 New Bedford Bans "Playing at Ball"
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Age of Players:
An 1822 bylaw levied a fine to anyone who would “play at ball, fly a kite or run down hill upon a sled… in any street of that part of the town commonly called the Village of New-Bedford”. Thomas Rodman wrote about being “initiated into the mysteries of Foot-ball, Base and every game boys pursue” when he was a student at Friends Academy in the mid-1830s.
Year
1822
1823.1 National Advocate Reports "Base Ball" Game in NYC
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Game:
Age of Players:
The National Advocate of April 25, 1823, page 2, column 4, states: "I was last Saturday much pleased in witnessing a company of active young men playing the manly and athletic game of 'base ball' at the (Jones') Retreat in Broadway [on the west side of Broadway between what now is Washington Place and Eighth Street]. I am informed they are an organized association, and that a very interesting game will be played on Saturday next at the above place, to commence at half past 3 o'clock, P.M. Any person fond of witnessing this game may avail himself of seeing it played with consummate skill and wonderful dexterity.... It is surprising, and to be regretted that the young men of our city do not engage more in this manual sport; it is innocent amusement, and healthy exercise, attended with but little expense, and has no demoralizing tendency."
(Full text.)
Sources:
National Advocate, April 25, 1823, page 2, column 4. This find is discussed by its modern discoverer George Thompson, in George A. Thompson, Jr., "New York Baseball, 1823," The National Pastime 2001], pp 6 - 8.
Year
1823
1823.2 Base-ball Listed Among Games Played in Suffolk
9Moor, E., Suffolk Words and Phrases [Woodbridge, England], p. 238. Per RH ref 123 and Chadwick 1867. The listed games played in Suffolk include cricket, base-ball, kit-cat, Bandy-wicket, and nine holes. Note:: But not trap-ball? Not rounders? Moor muses: "It is not unpleasing thus to see at a glance such a variety of recreations tending to excite innocent gaiety among our young people. He is no friend to his fellow creatures who desire to curtail them; on the contrary I hold him a benefactor to his county who introduce a new sport among us."
Year
1823
1823.3 Don't Play Ball Inside the House!
Good Examples for Boys [New York, Mahlon Day], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 190. A boy breaks a hand mirror with indoor ball play. With illustration.
Year
1823
1823c.4 Young Man Recalls "More Active Sports of 'Playing Ball' or 'Goal.'"
Location:
"Really time flies fast. Tis but a day it seems since we three were boys . . . . But a day seems to have elapsed since meeting with our neighboring boys, we . . . engaged ourselves in the more active sorts of "playing ball" or "goal."
Sources:
Carter, L. A., The Discovery of a Grandmother [H. H. Carter, Newtonville MA, 1920], pp 239-240. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. From this note, the excerpts appear to be from a journal kept in 1835-1836 by Albert Ware Paine, born 1813.
Note: This item needs to be reconciled with #1820s.12 above.
Circa
1823
1823.5 Providence RI Bans "Playing Ball" in the Streets
Tags:
Location:
"The Town of Providence have passed a law against playing ball in any of their public streets; the fine is $2. Why is not the law enforced in this Town? Newport Mercury, April 26, 1823, Vol. 62, Issue 3185, page 2. Submitted by John Thorn 1/24/2007.
In August 2007, Craig Waff [email of 8/17/2007] located the actual ordinance:
"Whereas, from the practice of playing ball in the streets of the town, great inconvenience is suffered by the inhabitants and others: . . . no person shall be permitted to play at any game of ball in any of the publick streets or highways within the limits of this town."
Rhode-Island American and General Advertiser Volume 15, Number 60 (April 25, 1823), page 4, and Number 62 (May 2, 1823), page 4.
Year
1823
1823.6 Students Play Ball Game at Progressive School in Northampton MA
Age of Players:
[A, B] In their recollections during the 1880s, John Murray Forbes and George Cheyne Shattuck describe playing ball during the years 1823 to 1828 at the Round Hill School in Northampton MA. This progressive school for young boys reflected the goals of its co-founders, Joseph Green Cogswell and George Bancroft; in addition to building a gymnasium, the first US school to do so, Round Hill was one of the very first schools to incorporate physical education into its formal curriculum.
--
[C] In 1825 Carl Beck, Latin and gymnastic instructor at Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, had translated F. L. Jahn’s Deutche Turnkunst (1816). Jahn had mentored the Turnerbund, a movement devoted to gymnastics. According to Beck’s original preface, “[T]hose who take an interest in the cause would be pleased to acquaint themselves with the exertions of Gutsmuths . . . years before Jahn came forward.” (Gutsmuths’ book on games provided David Block with the 1796 rules and diagram of a game called “Englische baseball,” in his 2005 Baseball before We Knew It.)
Round Hill School is renowned as the first school in the nation to include physical education in its curriculum. Translating Jahn, Beck wrote that in “games to be played without the precinct of the gymnasium, playing ball is very much to be commended.” Tellingly, where Beck inserted “playing ball,” Jahn himself recommended “the German ball game” (also in Gutsmuths and Block). Beck, however, changed the “German ball game” to “ball-playing” to suit his American audience. Also, given that the boys of Round Hill came from across the nation, Ball acknowledged regional variations: “The many variations in different parts, are altogether unessential and a matter of choice.” Ball-playing, Beck wrote, “unites various exercises: throwing, striking, running and catching.”
Sources:
[A] Forbes was writing his recollections in 1884, as reported in Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Sarah Forbes Hughes, editor [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1899], vol. 1, page 43.
[B] Shattuck is quoted in Edward M. Hartwell, Physical Training in American Colleges and Universities [GPO, 1886], page 22.
[C] Primary source: Carl Beck, Treatise on Gymnastics Taken Chiefly from the German of F. L. Jahn (Northampton, Mass., 1828).
Warning:
Query:
Are any reports available on the rules of the game as played at Round Hill?
Beck didn't give the game a particular name?
Year
1823
1823.7 Ditty: "You Take the Bat, and I'll carry the Ball"
"Now bright is the morning, how fair is the day,/Come on little Charlie, come with me and play/And yonder is Billy, I'll give him a call,/Do you take the bat, and I'll carry the ball./But we'll make it a rule to be friendly and clever/Even if we are beat, we'll be pleasant as ever,/'Tis foolish and wicked to quarrel in play,/So if any one's angry, we'll send him away."
Little Ditties for Little Children (Samuel Wood and Sons, New York, 1823), page 9. An illustration shows two players and one watcher. One player is using a spoon-shaped bat. No ball or trap is visible. From the Origins file at the Giamatti Center at the HOF.
Year
1823
1823c.9 Kentucky Abolitionist Recalls Playing Base-ball
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"I had ever been devoted to athletic sports - riding on horseback . . . playing base-ball, bandy, foot-ball and all that - so I had confidence in my prowess."
-- Cassius Marcellus Clay, on his outdoor activities at St. Joseph College in Kentucky in about 1823.
Clay (b. 1810) attended Madison Seminary, St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, KY around 1823.
Sources:
Cassius Marcellus Clay, The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay; Memoirs, Writings and Speeches, Volume 1 (Brennan and Co., Cincinnati, 1886), page 35. Per Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), page 31.
Raised in Nelson Counrty
Comment:
Clay's book, which seems to make no other reference to ball-playing, was accessed 11/15/2008 via a Google Books search for <life of cassius>.
Circa
1823
1823.10 Hagerstown bans ball playing at the Court House
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
The town of Hagerstown, bothered by "boys ... playing at ball against the Court-House," made this a punishable trespass.
Sources:
Hagerstown Herald, Dec. 9, 1823
Year
1823
1824.1 Longfellow on Life at Bowdoin College: "Ball, Ball, Ball"
Age of Players:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, then a student at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, writes: "This has been a very sickly term in college. However, within the last week, the government seeing that something must be done to induce the students to exercise, recommended a game of ball now and then; which communicated such an impulse to our limbs and joints, that there is nothing now heard of, in our leisure hours, but ball, ball, ball. . . . [S]ince, there has been a thorough-going reformation from inactivity and turpitude."
Sources:
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, letter to his father Stephen Longfellow, April 11, 1824, in Samuel Longfellow, ed., Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with Extracts from His Journals and Correspondence [Ticknor and Company, Boston 1886],volume 1, p. 51. Per Seymour, Harold - Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Also cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), p. 187.
Reprinted in Andrew Hilen, ed., Henry Wadsworth Longefellow, the Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, vol. 1 1814 - 1836 [Harvard University Press, 1966], page 87. Submitted by George Thompson, 7/31/2005.
Year
1824
1824.2 Children's Book Calls Cricket "Noblest Game of All," and Trap-ball is Pleasing Too
Juvenile Pastimes or Sports for the Four Seasons [London, Dean and Munday], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 191. For cricket: "Cricket's the noblest game of all,/ That can be play'd with bat and ball." For trap-ball: "This is a pleasing, healthy sport,/ To which most boys with glee resort."
Year
1824
1824c.3 English Writing Cites Base-ball as Girls'; Pastime, Limns Cricket Match
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
[A] "Better than playing with her doll, better even than base-ball, or sliding or romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father's knee."
[B]Bateman states that Our Village, a collection of short stories and vignettes, which was initially serialized in The Lady's Magazine in the late 1820's, contains the first comprehensive prose description of a cricket match."
Sources:
[A] Mitford, Mary Russell, Our Village [London, R. Gilbert], per David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, page 191. Block notes that this was published in New York in 1828, and Tom Altherr [email of April 2, 2009] adds that Philadelphia editions appeared in 1835 and 1841.
[B] Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 34.
Warning:
While this chron entry is dated circa 1824, the installation of sections of Our Village may have begun in 1826.
Comment:
"Our Village" was published over time in four volumes beginning in 1824. The second volume, published in 1826, includes the short story “The Tenants of Beechgrove” which contains this baseball quote on page 28. A year later, 1827, the story appeared in the Ladies’ Pocket Magazine, Vol. I, page 157. -- David Block, 9/25/2020
Circa
1824
1824.4 Fondly Remembering the First Ballplaying Richie Allen
Tags:
Stanzas to the Memory of Richard Allen; The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines (1817-1833), Boston, August 16, 1824, vol. 1, Issue 10, page 379.
"What! School-fellow, art gone? . . .
Thou wert the blithest lad, that ever/ Haunted a wood or fish'd a river,/ Or from the neighbour's wall/ Filch'd the gold apricot, to eat/ In darkness, as a pillow treat, / Or 'urged the flying ball!'"/ Supreme at taw! At prisoner's base/ The gallant greyhound of the chase!/ Matchless at hoop! and quick,/ Quick as a squirrel at a tree . . .
Year
1824
1824.5 Ballplaying Now Condoned at Dartmouth College
Tags:
Location:
During 1824 the village of Hanover NH authorized "the playing at ball or any game in which ball is used on the public common in front of Dartmouth College, set apart by the Trustees thereof among the purposes for a playground for their students." John K. Lord, A History of the Town of Hanover New Hampshire [Dartmouth Press, Hanover NH, 1928], page 23. Submitted by Scott Meacham 8/21/2006.
Year
1824
1824.6 Oliver Wendell Holmes Recalls Schoolboy Baseball and Phillips Academy in MA
Tags:
Game:
Age of Players:
"[At Phillips] Bodily exercise was not, however, entirely superseded by spiritual exercises, and a rudimentary form of base-ball and the heroic sport of foot-ball were followed with some spirit."
Sources:
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "Cinders from the Ashes," The Works of Oliver Wendel Holmes Volume 8 (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1892), page 251. He went on to recollect visiting the school in 1867, when he "sauntered until we came to a broken field where there was quarrying and digging going on, our old base-ball ground." Ibid, page 255.
This essay originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly Volume 23 (January 1869). page 120.
Comment:
Note: see item #1829c.1 below for Holmes' Harvard ballplaying.
Query:
Are we sure we haven't got Holmes pere et fils confused? OWH Sr (1809-1894), the poet and novelist, attended Andover and Harvard in the 1820s. OWH Jr (1841-1935) attended Harvard in the 1850s, served in the Civil War and became a justice of the US Supreme Court.--WCH
Year
1824
1824.7 Bat and Ball, Cricket are Sunday Afternoon Pastimes
Game:
"on Sunday, after afternoon service, the young people joined in foot-ball and hurling, bat and ball, or cricket."
Sources:
London Anti-Gallican Monitor, April 11, 1824
Query:
Does the context of this excerpt reveal anything further about the region, circumstance, or participants in this ball-playing?
Year
1824
1825c.1 Thurlow Weed Recalls Baseball in Rochester NY
Tags:
Location:
Age of Players:
"A baseball club, numbering nearly fifty members, met every afternoon during the ball playing season. Though the members of the club embraced persons between eighteen and forty, it attracted the young and old. The ball ground, containing some eight or ten acres, known as Mumford's meadow . . . ." -- Thurlow Weed
[Weed goes on to list prominent local professional people, including doctors and lawyers, among the players.]
The experience is also represented in a 1947 novel, Grandfather Stories. "[The game] was clearly baseball, not town ball, as the old man described the positioning of the fielders and mentioned that it took three outs to retire the batting side." -- Tom Altherr.
Sources:
Weed, Thurlow, Life of Thurlow Weed [Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1883], volume 1, p. 203. Per Robert Henderson ref #159.
Samuel Hopkins Adams, Grandfather Stories (Random House, 1955 -- orig pub'd 1947), 146-149.
Query:
Did Weed advert to 3-out half innings, or did Adams?
Circa
1825
1825.2 Bass-Ball Challenge Issued in New York State
Tags:
Game:
The following notice appears in the July 13, 1825 edition of the Delaware Gazette: "The undersigned, all residents of the new town of Hamden, with the exception of Asa Howland, who has recently removed into Delhi, challenge an equal number of persons of any town in the County of Delaware, to meet them at any time at the house of Edward B. Chace, in said town, to play the game of Bass-Ball, for the sum of one dollar each per game . . . ."
Sources:
Delaware Gazette, July 12, 1825, reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825 - 1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 1 - 2.
Comment:
Note: George Thompson has conducted research on the backgrounds of the listed players: personal communications, 11/3/2003. He found a range of players' ages from 19 to the mid-30's. It is held in PBall file #1825.2.
Year
1825