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Last Updated December 2008
A More Chronological Chronology
Starting in about 1845, the items occurring are numerous enough that scanning the entries may convey the wrong impressions of what happened first that year. Re-arranging the items chronologically on the master chronology would introduce a nightmare of tangled internal cross references. Instead, we have produced this version in December 2008. For items that can be pinned to a day or month [many can’t], we have put them in the order in which they occurred.
1845
PART 1845.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1845.12 --
“[I]t shall be unlawful for any person or
persons to play at any game of Ball . . . whereby the grass or grounds of any
Pubic place or square shall be defaced or injured.” [Fine is $5 plus costs of prosecution.]
http://omp.ohiolink.edu/OMP/Printable?oid=1048668&scrapid=2742,
accessed /2/2008. This site refers
to an earlier ban: “Although
as earlier city ordinance outlawed the playing of baseball in the
On 3/6/2008, Craig Waff posted a note to 19CBB that in
1857 it was reported that “this truly national game is daily played in the
pubic square,” but that a city official suggested that it violated a
local ordinance [presumably that of 3/4/1845], and then reported that there in
fact was no such law.
“The crowd sent up a shout and renewed the game, which continued
until dark.” “Base Ball
in Cleveland, Porter’s Spirit of the Times, Volume 2, number 7
(April 18, 1857, page 109, column 1.
1845.1 – Knicks Adopt Club and Playing Rules on September 23
Led by Alexander Cartwright, the Knickerbocker Base
Ball Club of New York City organizes and adopts twenty rules for baseball
1845.2 – Knicks Play First Recorded [Intramural] Games By The New Rules
In an intrasquad game, seven Knickerbocker players win
11-7 over seven of their fellows; the umpire is William R. Wheaton, a
pioneering cricket and base ball player of the New York Base Ball Club who
helped to formulate the Knickerbocker rules. This is the first recorded game
employing the newly crafted Knickerbocker rules.
Per John Thorn,
Per John Thorn, 7/704: on
1845.17 – Intercity Cricket Match Begins in NY
“CRICKET MATCH.
1845.16 – Brooklyn 22,
“The Base Ball match between eight Brooklyn
players, and eight players of
New York Morning News, Oct. 13, 1845, p.2. Text provided 11/3/2008 by Richard
Hershberger via email. Earlier
cited in Tom Melville, The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America
1845.4 – NY and
The New York Base Ball Club and the Brooklyn Base Ball
Club compete at the Elysian Fields in
1845.5 -- Brooklyn and
“Brooklyn vs.
1845.8 -- Magazine Article Likens Ladies’ Gait to Ballplayers’ Screw Ball
Author[?], “The New Philosophy,” The
Knickerbocker, volume 26, November 1845 [
1845.18 – On “Second Anniversary,” The NY Club Plays Intramural Game
“
PART 1845B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1845c.6 – NY Man: ”We Used to Say Come Let Us Play Ball or Base Ball”
Andrew Peck writes: “We used to say them
come let us play Ball or Base Ball . . . . I used to play it at school
from 1845-1850 [Peck was about 9 in 1845]. We used more of a flat bat and
solid rubber ball. The balls we made ourselves [from strips of rubber overshoes
– ed.] . . . . I forget now as to many points of the game, but I do
remember that we used to run bases, and the opposite side to ours would try to
get the ball, and you would have to be hit with it before out while running
your base to get home.”
Letter from Andrew Peck,
1845c.7 – Former Catcher Recalls Ballgame with Soaking and “Fugleing” in NYS
“1845 to 1849 I caught for a village nine in
“The ball was yarn
Letter from Albert H. Pratt to the Mills Commission,
August 1905.
1845.9 -- Cover of Children’s Book Depicts Ball Play
Teller, Thomas, The History of a Day [
1845.10 -- German Book of Games Lists das Giftball, a Bat-and-Ball Game
Jugendspiele zur Ehhjolung und Erheiterung
1845.11 -- Bookman Babcock, He Just Keeps On Truckin’
Teller, Thomas, The Mischievous Boy; a Tale of
Tricks and Troubles [
1845c.13 -- Town-ball in IN Later [and Vaguely?] Recalled
“Town-ball is one of the old games from which
the scientific but not half so amusing “national game” of base-ball
has since evolved. . . . There were no scores, but a catch or a
cross-out in town-ball put the whole side out, leaving others to take the bat
or “paddle” as it was appropriately called.”
Edward Eggleston, “Some Western
School-Masters,” Scribner’s Monthly, March 1879. Submitted
by David Nevard, 1/26/2007. David notes that this is mainly a story about
boys tarrying at recess, and can be dated 1845-1850. In other games, a
“cross-out” denotes the retiring of a runner by throwing the ball
across his forward path.
Contemporary
1845.14 -- All-England Eleven
An All-England XI formed by William Clark makes
missionary journeys all over
Barclay’s [History of Cricket?] Section IV. XXX We need a minimally
competent citation or better source or better note-taking habits.
1845c.15 – Doc
Dr. D.L. Adams of the Knickerbocker team stated that
he produced baseballs for the various teams in
Item submitted by Rob Loeffler, 3/1/07. See
“The Evolution of the Baseball Up to 1872,” March 2007.
1845.19 – Painter Depicts Some Type of Old-Fashioned Ball?
A painting by Asher Durand [b. 1796] painting An
Old Man’s Reminiscences may include a visual recollection of a game
played long before. Thomas Altherr
describes the scene: “a
silver-haired man is seated in the left side of he painting and he watches a
group of pupils at play in front of a school, just having been let out for the
day or for recess. Although this
painting is massive, the details, without computer resolution, are a bit
fuzzy. But it appears that there is
a ballgame of some sort occurring.
One lad seems to be hurling something and other boys are arranged around
him in a pattern suspiciously like those of baseball-type games.” Tom surmises that the old man is likely
reflecting on his past.
1845.20 – Painting Shows Crossed Bats and Some Balls in School
The painting shows a five-year-old boy meeting his new
schoolmaster, is by Francis William Edmonds, and Thomas Altherr describes
it: “A pair of crossed bats
and at least four balls resting in a corner of the schoolroom foyer at the
lower right. The painting’s
message is some what ambiguous: Is the boy surrendering his play time to the
demands of studiousness, or are baseball and kite-flying the common recreations
for the [school] master’s charges?”
Francis William Edmonds, The New Scholar
-------------
1846
PART 1846.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1846.18 – NYC: Inky Mob of Ballplayers 1, Policeman 0
The scene: in the park in front of NYC's City Hall.
“A simultaneous convocation of the emphatically
"Young" Democracy occurred Friday about noon in the Park. Such an
assemblage of juvenile dirt and raggedness has not, we warrant, been before
seen even in New-York. The nucleus of this funny crowd was of course the
news-boys and the inky imps from the printing-offices in this quarter. Around
them were gathered all sorts of boys -- big boys, baker-boys, apple-boys,
rag-boys, and a sprinkling of "the boys" -- were on hand, and
constituted a formidable phalanx of fury. The occasion of this juvenile emeute
was a Policeman who had disturbed an important game of ball which was going
forward. He had several times remonstrated with the sportsmen and represented
the panes and penalties likely to be broken and suffered by them, but without
effect, and at length got possession of the Ball, which he "pocketed"
with the certainty of an old billiard-player. Instantly he was surrounded by a
mob of juvenility, hooting, jeering and laughing at him and which constantly
increased its numbers. He stood it very well, however, until a great strapping
urchin of fifteen, up to his elbows in printers' ink, came up and puffed a
cloud of vile cigar-smoke in the poor fellow's face. This gained the day. The
Ball was given up, the Policeman dove into the recesses of the City Hall and
the game proceeded. New-York
Daily Tribune, March 24, 1846, p. 1, col. 2., as posted to 19CBB by George
Thompson, 2/24/2008.
George’s comment: “This
NY park has always been a triangle, with its base in front of City Hall, and
tapering southward to a point. At present, a good part of the broadest part of
the Park is taken up by parking, which wouldn't have been the case then. There
is now a fountain in the middle of what's left of the park -- there was a
fountain then, too, though I don't know where exactly. I suppose that there
were trees here and there, as there are now. So whatever form of ball these
rascals were playing, it had to accommodate itself to an oddly shaped field,
with obstacles. But this is just the usual challenge that boys have always
faced.”
1846.11 -- Suspicious
“You speak . . . of Harrington, the express
robber as being in prison here. This is incorrect. He isn’t,
neither has he been in jail since his arrival here, unless you can call the
Eagle Hotel a jail. . . . [W]hen the weather has been pleasant, he has occupied
his time in playing wicket in the public square; or playing the fiddle in his
room . . . to solace and relieve the tedium of his boredom.”
Rochester Police Officer Jacob Wilkinson letter of
April 7, 1946, as quoted in “The Express Robbery,” The National
Police Gazette, Volume 1, Number 32 [April 18, 1846], page 277.
Submitted by John Thorn, 9/2/2006. Note: It is possible to
construe wicket as a daily
1846.13 – Spring Sports at Harvard: “Bat & Ball” and Cricket
“In the spring there is no playing of football,
but “bat & ball” & cricket.”
From “Sibley’s Private Journal,”
entry for August 31, 1846, as supplied to David Block by letter of 4/18/2005
from Prof. Harry R. Lewis at Harvard.
Lewis notes that the Journal is “a running account of Harvard
daily life in the mid nineteenth century.”
1846.1 – Knicks Play NYBBC
in First Recorded Match Game, in
The Knickerbockers meet the New York Base Ball Club at
the Elysian Fields of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the first match game played under
the 1845 rules. The Knickerbockers lose the contest 23-1. Some historians
regard this game as the first instance of inter-club or match play. XXX
Locate richest source.
1846.2 –
“A number of our most respectable young
men have recently organized themselves into a club for the purpose of
participating in the healthy and athletic sport of base ball. From the
character of the members this will be the crack club of the County. A meeting of this club will be held to-morrow
evening at the National House for the adoption of by-laws and the completion of
its organization."
"Brooklyn City Base Ball Club,”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat, vol. 5, number 162
1846.6 – Walt Whitman Sees
Boys Playing “Base” in
In July of 1846 a Brooklyn Eagle piece by Walt
Whitman read: “In our sun-down perambulations of late, through the outer
parts of
“City Intelligence,” Brooklyn Daily
Eagle and Kings County Democrat,
vol. 5 number 177
1846.10 --
“One summer day in 1846, Jones Wister, rummaging
through the attic at “Belfield,” found cricket balls, bats, and
stumps left behind by a visiting English soldier. Jones and his brothers
drove the sumps into the ground just about where La Salles’s tennis
courts now stand. One of the early cricket balls hit in the
XXX need to retrieve
full ref from website
1846.7 –
“Friday, October 16. At prayers as usual. Studied Demosthenes till breakfast
time. After breakfast came off the
great match between our class and the juniors. We beat them 77 to
53. They had on the ground nineteen men out of twenty-nine, and we thirty
out of thirty-five. Had the remainder of both classes been there, at the same
rate we should have beaten them 90 to 81. As a class they were completely used
up. Their players, however, averaged about 0.23 each more than ours. The whole
was played out in about an hour. The victory was completely ours, a result
different from what I expected. Got a lesson in Demosthenes and went to
recitation.” On October 3, the MA diarist had written:
“played a game of wicket, with a party of fellows . . . . Had a fine
game, though I, knowing little of the rules, was soon bowled out. Then came home and wrote journal till
5PM. Then to prayers and afterward to supper.”
1846.12 –
Reporting on Thanksgiving traditions:
“The religiously inclined went to church;
several companies went out of town upon target excursions; cricket and base
ball clubs had public dinners; people ate the best they could get . . . and everybody, of course, was very thankful
for everything, except the intense cold weather.”
The
1846.16 – Base Ball as Therapy in MA?
According to the
Annual Report of the Trustees of the
PART 1846B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1846.3 -- New Manual Includes Unique Slants on Rounders, Trap-ball
The Every Boy’s Book of Games, Sports, and
Diversions [
The book’s description of rounders is unique in
written accounts of the game. Rounders, it says, has holes instead of
bases, can have from four to eight of them, runners starting game at every base
[all with bats, and all running on hit balls], and outs are recorded if the
fielding team throws the ball anywhere between the bases that form a
runner’s base path. Concludes Block: “In its four-base form,
this version of rounders is remarkably similar to the American game of
four-old-cat. Yes, the very game that Albert Spalding classified in 1905
as the immediate predecessor to town-ball, and which was part of his proof that
baseball could not have descended from ‘the English picnic game of
rounders,’ was, at least in this one instance, identified [sic?- LM] as
none other than rounders.” Note: Does the book identify
rounders with old-cat games, or does Block so that?
1846.4 -- New Primer by Sanders Repeats Illustration from 1840 Reader
Sanders, Charles W., Sanders’ Pictorial
Primer, or, An Introduction to “Sanders’ First Reader [
1846.5 – Knicks Play Only Intramural Games Through 1850.
The Knickerbockers continue to play intramural matches
at Elysian Fields, but play no further interclub matches until 1851.
Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, Club Books 1854-1868, from
the Albert G. Spalding Collection of Knickerbocker Base Ball Club’s Club
Books, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library, Astor,
Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Per Gushov, p. 167.
1846.8 –
Dr. Edward Hitchcock gives this account of
the game of MA wicket:
"In my days baseball was neither a
science nor an art, but we played ‘wicket’. On smooth and
level ground about 20 feet apart were placed two 'wickets,' pine sticks 1 inch
square and 8 to 10 feet long, supported on a block at each end so as to be
easily knocked off. The ball was made of yarn, covered with stout leather,
about six inches in diameter and bowled with all the power of the wicket tender
at each end. The aim was to roll it as swiftly as possible at the opposite
wicket and knock it down if possible. This was defended by the man with a broad
bat, 3 feet long, and the oval about 8 inches [across], who must defend his
wicket. If the bowler could by [bowling] a fair ball, striking twice
between the wickets, knock down the opposite wicket, the striker was out. But
if the batter could by a direct or sideways hit send the ball sideways or
overhead the outside men, they [ i.e. ., the batter and his teammate at
the opposite end] could run till the ball was in the hands of the bowler. But
the bowler to get the batter out must with the ball in his hand knock the
wicket outwards before the batter could strike his bat outside a line three
feet inside the wicket . . . . This game was played on the lowest part of the
'walk' under the trees which now extends from chapel to the church."
Hitchcock, Edward, “Recollections,” in
George F. Whicher, ed., Remembrance of
1846.9 – Town Ball in
“I came West 59 years ago, in 1846, and found
“Town Ball” a popular game at all Town meetings. I do not recall an
instance of a money bet on the game; but, at Town meeting, the side losing had
to buy the ginger bread and cider.” [July]
“[Town Ball] was so named because it was mostly
played at “Town Meetings.” It had as many players on a side
as chose to play; but the principal players were “Thrower” and
“Catcher.” There were three bases and a home plate. The
players were put out by being touched with ball [sic] or hit with thrown ball,
when off the base. You can readily see that the present game
[1900’s baseball] is an evolution from Town Ball.” [April]
Letters from H. H. Waldo,
1846.14 – English Crew Teaches Rounders to Baltic Islanders
“In 1846 a three-master . . . from
Mehl [first name?], “A Batting Game on the
1846.15 – Umpires 1, Players 0
“The first recorded argument between a player
and an umpire. The umpire
wins.”
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/excerpts/rules_chronology.stm. The site gives no reference for this
item.
1846.17 – English Cricketers Form First National Team
[Sensing a large new audience, cricket entrepreneur
William] “
----------
1847
PART 1847.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1847.11 – Alabaman Mentions “Bass Ball,” Goal
In an article from the
1847.6 -- “Grand Match of Cricket” Planned in NYC
“On Thursday next, 1st July, as we
are informed, there will by a grand match of Cricket played on the
Anglo-American, A Journal of Literature, News, Politics,
the Drama, Fine Arts January 26, 1847
[
1847.2 – Soldier Sees
January Ball Games at Camp at
Adolph Engelmann, an
“The Second Illinois in the Mexican War: Mexican
War Letters of Adolph Engelmann, 1846-1846,” Journal of the Illinois
State Historical Society, Vol. 26, number 4 [January 1934], page 435. Per
Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University,
Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection
4809. César González
adds that
1847.10 – Ice Bowl
“Cricket
Match on the Ice. – A cricket match which afforded considerable
amusement to a large field of spectators, has been played during the week, in
Long Meadow, near
1847.7 – Occupation Army
Takes Ballgame to Natives In . . .
The New York Volunteer Regiment reached
“Baseball Began Here in 1847,” It
Happened in Old Santa Barbara [unidentified], pages 77-78. Found in
1847.9 – Li’l Prince’s Birthday Party Includes Cricket, Rounders.
Richard Hershberger relates: The Preston Guardian
PART 1847.B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1847c.1 – Henry Chadwick Plays a “Scrub” Game of Baseball?
“My first experience on the field in base ball
on American soil was in 1847, when one summer afternoon a party of young
fellows visited the Elysian Fields, and after watching some ball playing on the
old Knickerbocker field we made up sides for a scrub game . . . .”
Per Frederick Ivor-Campbell, “Henry
Chadwick,” in Frederick Ivor-Campbell, et. al, eds., Baseball’s
First Stars [SABR, Cleveland, 1996], page 26. No reference
given. Fred Ivor-Campbell provided a fuller reference on
1847.3 -- Tiny Book Has Odd Description of “Bat and Ball.”
The Book of Sports [
1847.4 -- Book of Children’s Tales Includes Recycled Illustrations of Ballplaying
Barbauld, Anna Leticia, Charles’ Journey to
France and Other Tales [
1847.5 -- Halliwell’s 960-Page Dictionary Cites Base-ball, Rounders, Tut-ball
Halliwell, James O., A Dictionary of Archaic and
Provincial Words [
1847.8 – Soldier Recalls Town-ball
“I often think of you and the many pleasant and happy
hours I passed at the old Hoffman school house, pelting each other with
snow-balls and playing town-ball.
[but the balls a soldier plies] are dangerous, and when they strike they
leave more painful marks than the ones you used to pitch or throw at me when
running to base . . . “
Oswandel, J. Jacob, “Notes of the Mexican War,
1846-1847-1848,”
----------
1848
PART 1848.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1848.2 -- Soldiers Play Ball During Western Trip
“Saturday March the 6th. We drilled
as before and through the day we play ball and amuse ourselves the best way we
can. It is very cool weather and clothing scarce.”
Smith, Azariah, The Gold Discovery Journal of
Azariah Smith [
1848.3 -- Teen Diarist in NY/NJ Records Ballplaying
The eighteen year old Edward Tailer “played
ball” in New York on March 25, at Hoboken on April 15th, and
at Hoboken on April 21st.
Edward Neuville Tailer, Diaries I -
1848.12 – Wicket Reported
as Fashionable in
“We are glad to see the games of foot-ball and
wicket so fashionable this spring, . .”
“Athletic Sports,” Westfield News Letter, April 5, 1848; cited by Genovese, Daniel L, The
Old Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball
1848.7 --
“DIMINUTIVE RIOT. A lot of boys from the 8th
ward were undergoing an examination at the police office this morning, on a
charge of having engaged in some riotous and disorderly proceedings, with which
they terminated at game of ball. . . . One of the young rioters mistook
another youth, Robert Pontin, for a ball, struck him a terrible plow on the
mouth with a large ball club, and injured him so much as to require the skill
of a dentist. We hope our neighbors of the rural wards are not often
disgraced with similar transactions.”
“Diminutive
Riot,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat, vol. 7, number 107
1848.13 – In
“[At a Pic Nic party] the company formed
themselves into two [five-player ]clubs, for the purpose of testing the new
game of Batt and Ball.” The
score was 92 to 77. “N.B.,
The trial match will take place in the course of a few days . . . . Three more
Gents wanted in each Club.”
“Pic Nic,”
1848.10 – Ballgame Marks Anniversary in MA
“In
North
American and United States Gazette,
June 7, 1848. Provided by John
Thorn, 10/12/2007. A team size of
12 and three-game match are consistent with some Mass game contests. Note: This seems to have been a
1848.11 – First Cricket Match With No Foreign Players?
“the Clipper
claimed the first all-American cricket match was played between
Gelber, Steven M., “’Their Hands Are All
Out Playing:’ Business and Amateur Baseball, 1845-1917,” Journal
of Sport History, Vol. 11, number 1
1848.4 -- The Knicks’ Defensive Deployment, Thanksgiving Day Game
In the Knickerbockers’ Thanksgiving Day, 1848,
intramural game, two squads of eight squared off. Each featured three
19CBB posting by John thorn, 7/23/2005. The
source is presumably the Knick scorebooks.
PART 1848.B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1848.1 -- Knickerbocker Rules and By-laws Are Printed; Original Phrase Deleted
The earliest known printing of the September 1845
rules. By-laws and Rules of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club [
1848.5 -- New York Book of Games Covers Trap-ball, Stool-ball, Rounders
Boy’s Own Book of Sports, Birds, and Animals [
1848.6 --
Richardson, H. D., Holiday Sports and Pastimes for
Boys [
“The first of these is of a somewhat
cricket-like game. A wicket of two ‘stumps,’ or sticks, with no
crosspiece, was set up behind the batter, with three other stumps as corners of
an equilateral triangle in front of the batter. A bowler served the ball,
as in cricket, and, if the batter hit it, he attempted to touch each of the
stumps in succession, as in baseball. The batter was out if he missed the
ball, if the struck ball was caught on the fly, of if a fielder touches one the
stumps with the ball before a base runner reached it. It is noteworthy
that this cricket-baseball hybrid did not include the practice of
‘soaking’ or ‘plugging’ the runner with the thrown
ball.
“The book’s second version of rounders is
a more traditional variety, with no wicket behind the batter. It featured
a home base and three others marked with sticks as in the previous
version. The author distinguishes this form of rounders the other in its
use of a ‘pecker or feeder’ rather than a
‘bowler.’ He also points out that ‘in this game it is
sought to strike, not the wicket, but the player, and if struck with the ball
when absent from one of the rounders, or posts, he is out.’
Note: Were
none of the other traditional English safe-haven games -- cricket, stool-ball,
etc., included in this book?
1848.8 -- Cricket Flourishes at Haverford College PA
“The College was closed in 1845. When it
reopened in 1848, cricket sprang up again under the leadership of an English
tutor in Dr. Lyons’ school nearby. Two cricket clubs, the Delian
and the Lycaean, were formed, and then a third the Dorian.”
John Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket
[UPenn Press,
1848c.9 --
[As a teenage student at Farmer’s College, near
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison [Sedgewood Publishing Company, 1892], page 53.
1848.14 – Game of Baseball Attains Dictionary Perch
“BASE.
A game of hand-ball.”
John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words
and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the
1848.15 English Novel Mentions Thread-the-Needle, “Base-Ball:” “Such Games!
“he gave Bessy his arm, and they went over to
----------
1849
PART 1849.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1849.6 -- Inmates Play Base Ball
at
“[O]utdoor amusements consist in the game of
quoits, base ball, walking in parties . . . “
“
1849.3 – NY Game Shown to
“Show Me” State of
“Indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi may
not have seen the game until 1849 when Alexander Cartwright, near Independence,
Missouri, noted baseball play in his April 23rd diary entry:
‘During the past week we have passed the time in fixing wagon covers . .
. etc., varied by hunting and fishing and playing baseball [sic]. It is comical
to see the mountain men and Indians playing the new game. I have a ball
with me that we used back home.’”
Altherr, Thomas L., “North American Indigenous
People and Baseball: ‘The One Single Thing the White Man Has Done
Right,’” in Altherr, ed., Above the Fruited Plain: Baseball in
the Rocky Mountain West, SABR National Convention Publication, 2003, page
20. Note: XXX need to add Tom’s footnote 5, which
references the diary. Is Tom saying that there were no prior
safe-haven ball games [cricket, town ball, wicket] out west, or just that the
NY game hadn’t arrived until 1849?
1849.1 -- Knicks Sport First Uniform -- White Shirt, Blue Pantaloons
“April 24, 1849: The first baseball uniform [but
see #1838c.8 above -- LM] is adopted at a meeting of the New York Knickerbocker
Club. It consists of blue woolen pantaloons, a white flannel shirt, and a
straw hat.”
Baseballlibrary.com, at
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/chronology/1849Year.stm,
accessed
6/20/2005. No source is given.
1849.7 -- Ball Play and Word Play
from
“The Boston Post in speaking [of] family
discipline, remarked the other day, that Mr. Peppercase[‘s] neighbor, in
his treatment of his children, reminded him of he game of ball -- he was
eternally batting them and they were always bawling.”
Brooklyn Eagle,
1849.9 –
“BALL PLAYING. A game of Wicket came off between the
ball-players of
The Vermont
Gazette, vol. 70, number 13
Genovese, citing the Westfield News Letter of July 11, 1849, also writes of this
contest. [Genovese, Daniel L, The
Old Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball
1849.10 – Ladies’
Wicket in
“BAT AND BALL AMONG THE LADIES. Nine married
ladies beat nine single ones at a game of wicket in
1849.8 -- NYC Firemen Find “A Little Excitement” in a Winter Game of Ball
“You may next find us on the common where the
party generally were engaged at an enthusiastic game of ball which served for a
little excitement, and, best of all, induced a smart appetite. But the
dinner bell has rung, and we rush off to Rensen’s.”
Brooklyn Eagle,
PART 1849.B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1849.2 – Doc
D.L. Adams
Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, Club Books 1854-1868,
from the Albert G. Spalding Collection of Knickerbocker Base Ball Club’s
Club Books, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library,
Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Linkage per John Thorn, 6/15/04, citation
Per Gushov, p. 167. Also described in John Thorn, “Daniel Lucas
Adams
1849c.4 – A. G. Mills, Friend Recall “Base Ball” Play at School
Mills to Cogswell: “Among the vivid
recollections of my early life at
Cogswell to Mills: “My recollection of the
game of Base Ball, as we played it for years at Union Hall, say from 1849 to
1856, is quite clear. “
“You are quite right about the three bases,
their location and the third base being home.
“The batsman in making a hit went to the first
base, unless the ball was caught either on a fly or on first bound. In running
the bases he was out by being touched or hit with the ball while further from
any base than he could jump. The bases were not manned, the ball being
thrown at a runner while trying for a base. The striker was not obliged
to strike till he thought he had a good ball, but was out the first time he
missed the ball when striking, and it was caught by the catcher either on the
fly or on the first bound. There was no limit to the number of players
and a side was not out till all the players had been disposed of. If the
last player could make three home runs that put the side back in again.
When there were but few players there was a rule against
“Screwing,” i.e., making strikes that would be called
“foul.” We used flat bats, and it was considered quite an art
to be able to “screw” well, as that sent the ball away from the
bases.
A. G. Mills letter to Colonel Wm S. Cogswell,
1849c.5 -- New Chapbook Names Several Games Played with Balls
Juvenile Pastimes; or Girls’ and Boys’
Book of Sports [
1849.11 – Character in New Fictional Autobiography Played Cricket, Base-Ball
“On fourths of July, training days and other
occasions, young men from the country around, at a distance of fifteen or
twenty miles, would come for the purpose of competing for the championship of
these contests, in which, in which, as the leader of the school, I soon became
conspicuous. Was there a game at
cricket or base-ball to be played, my name headed the list of the
athletae.” W.S. Mayo, Kaloolah,
or Journeying to the Djebel Kumri.
An Autobiography
----------
1850
PART 1850.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1850.6 -- Article in The Knickerbocker Mentions Bass-ball, N-Hole-cat, Barn-ball
The Knickerbocker, volume 35, January 1850 [
1850.22 -- British Trade Unionists Play Base Ball
Richard Hershberger found
an account of blue collar base ball in
PART 1850.B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1850s.1 – Accounts of Ballplaying by Slaves
Wiggins, Kenneth, “Sport and Popular Pastimes in
the
1850s.2 – Numerous Base Ball Clubs Active in NYC
Numerous clubs, many of them colonized by former
members of the
1850s.3 – Cricket Club in
John Lester, ed., A Century of Cricket in
Philadelphia [
1850s.4 –
“Beginning in the 1850’s, the Germans and
the Irish took up the sport [baseball] with alacrity. In
Per Benjamin G. Rader, American Sports: From the
Age of Folk Games to the Age of Spectators [Prentice Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, 1883], page 93. No source provided.]
1850.5 – “Boy’s Treasury” Describes Rounders, Feeder, Stoolball, Etc.
The Boy’s Treasury, published in
The Boy’s Treasury of Sports, Pastimes, and
Recreations [Clark, Austin and
Company,
1850.7 -- Englishman’s Book of Games Refers to Rounders, Feeder
Mallary, Chas D., The Little Boy’s Own Book; Consisting of Games and Pastimes . . . [Henry Allman, London1850], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 213-214. Block only mentions one passage of interest -- a section on “rounders, or feeder,” a shortened version of what had appeared in 1828 in The Boy’s Own Book [see item #1828.1].
1850c.8 -- Poisoned-Ball Text
Recycled in
Jeux et exercises des Jeunes garcons
1850c.9 -- Juvenile Story Book has Two Woodcuts with Ballplaying
Frank’s Adventures at Home and Abroad [
1850c.10 -- B is for Bat, B is for Ball
Grandpapa Pease’s Pretty Poetical Spelling Book [
1850c.11 -- Short Moral Tale Centers on Boy’s Bat and Ball
The Broken Bat; or, Harry’s Lesson of
Forgiveness [
1850c.12 -- Chapbook Reprises Illustration from Contemporary Book.
Louis Bond, the Merchant’s Son [
1850s.13 -- Trap Ball, Stool
Ball, Well Established in
“Other forms of bat and ball games, like
trap-ball and stool-ball, became well established in
Bob Bailey, “Chapter 1 -- Beginnings: From
Amateur Teams to Disgrace in the National League [mimeo, 1999]’, page 1.
1850s.14 -- With Rise of Overarm Bowling, Padding Becomes Regular Part of Cricket
“The early 19th century saw the
introduction of pads for batsmen. The earliest were merely wooden boards
tied to the batsman’s legs. By the 1850s, as overarm bowling and
speed became the fashion, pads were regularly used. Older players scorned
their introduction, but by this time they were deemed essential.”
Peter Scholefield, compiler, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1850s.15 --
“The Gunnery [School] in
Paula Krimsky, 19CBB posting,
1850s.16 -- Wicket Play in
“The immediate predecessor of baseball was
wickets. This was a modification of cricket and the boys who excelled at
that became crack players of the latter sport of baseball. In wickets
there had to be at least eight men, stationed as follows: Two bowlers,
two stump keepers or catcher, two outfielders and two infielders or shortstops.
. . .
“The wickets were placed sixty feet apart, and
consisted of two ‘stumps’ about six inches in height above the
ground and ten feet apart. . . . The ball was as large as a man’s head,
and of peculiar manufacture. Its center was a cube of lead weighing about
a pound and a half. About this were tightly wound rubber bands . . . and the
whole sewed in a thick leather covering. This ball was delivered with a
stiff straight-arm underhand cast . . . . Three out was side out, and the ball
could be caught on the first bound or on the fly.”
“Baseball Half a Century Ago,”
1850c.17 – Patch Base Ball
Played in Upstate
The autobiography of a Yale dropout [“because of
ill health”] attributes his later recovery to “playing the old
fashioned game of patch baseball.”
Skip McAfee [email, 8/16/2007] points out that “patch
baseball” is an early variation of baseball that uses plugging runners to
put them out.
Platt, Thomas C., The Autobiography of Thomas
Collier Platt
1850s.18 -- Baseball’s Beginnings at U Penn
“Baseball was first played by Penn students
before the Civil War when the University was still located at its
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/sports/baseball/1800s/hist1.html,
as accessed 1/3/2008. No reference
is supplied.
1850s.19 – Occupational, Company Teams Appear
“Starting in the 1850s and increasing slowly
through the 1880s, sporting papers carried stories and scores of teams composed
of men from the same occupation or men who worked in the same firm. Beginning with the Albany State House
clerks playing the City Bank clerks in 1857, the Clipper listed dozens of similar teams over the next twenty-five
years.”
Gelber, Steven M., “’Their Hands Are All
Out Playing:’ Business and Amateur Baseball, 1845-1917,” Journal
of Sport History, Vol. 11, number 1
Gelber also notes the rise of blue collar teams, the
most famous being the Eckfords in
1850s.20 – Town-ball
As Played in
“Town-ball was base-ball in the rough. I recall
some distinctive features: If a batter missed a ball and the catcher behind
took it, he was ‘caught out.’
Three ‘nips’ also put him out. He might be caught out on
‘first bounce.’ If the ball were thrown across his path while
running base, he was out. One peculiar feature was that the last batter on a
side might bring his whole side in by successfully running to first base and
back six times in succession, touching first base with his bat after batting.
This was not often, but sometimes done; and we were apt to hold back our best
batter to the last, which we called ‘saving up for six-maker.’ This
phrase became a general proverb for some large undertaking; and to say of one
‘he's a six-maker,’
meant that he was a tip-top fellow in whatever he
undertook, and no higher compliment could be passed."
Source:
Henry C. McCook, The Senator: A Threnody
1850s.21 -- “Shoddy” Lord’s Opts for Mechanical
Grass-Cutter
“The art of preparing a pitch came surprisingly late
in cricket’s evolution. . . .
[The grounds were] shoddily cared for . . . . Attitudes were such that in the 1850s,
when an agricultural grass-cutter was purchased, one of the more reactionary
members of the MCC committee conscripted a group of navies [unskilled workers]
to destroy it. This instinctive Luddism suffered a reverse with the death of
George Summer in 1870 and that year a heavy roller was at last employed on the
notorious Lord’s square.”
Simon Rae, It’s Not Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp
Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game
1850.23 -- English Novel Briefly Mentions Base-Ball
“Emma, drawing little
Charles toward her, began a confidential conversation with him on the subject
of his garden and companions at school, and the comparative merits of cricket
and base-ball.” Catherine Anne Hubback, The Younger Sister, Volume
I
1850s.24 – In NYC – Did “Plugging” Actually Persist to the mid-1850s?
John Thorn feels that
“while the Knick rules of September 23, 1845
“Henry Chadwick wrote to the editor of the New York Sun, May 14,
1905: ‘It happens that the only attractive feature of the rounders game
is this very point of ‘shying’ the ball at the runners., which so
tickled Dick Pearce [in the early 1850s, when he was asked to go out to Bedford
to see a ball club at play]. In fact, it was not until the '50s that the
rounders point of play in question was eliminated from the rules of the game,
as played at
“The
clubs may not have done so till '57.” Note: John invites
further discussion on this point. The
1850s.25 – If It’s May Day, Boston Needs Sam Malone!
“On the first of May each year, large crowds
filled the [
1850c.26 -- Needed: More Festival Days – Like Fast Day? -- for Playing
“[T]hey committed a radical error in abolishing
all the Papal holidays, or in not substituting something therefore. We have Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of
July, and Fast-Day when the young men play ball. We need three times as many festivals.” Arethusa Hall, compiler, Life and
Character of the Reverend Sylvester Judd
1851
PART 1851.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1851.2 --
“
A few weeks earlier, coverage had been more
favorable: “The plaza has at last been turned to some account by
our citizens. Yesterday quite a crowd collected upon it, to take part in
and witness a game of ball, many taking a hand. We were much better
pleased at it, than to witness the crowds in the gambling saloons which
surround the square.” “Sports on the Plaza,” Daily
1851.3 -- Wicket Players in MA Found Liable
“In a recent case which occurred at Great
Barrington, an action was brought against some 12 or 15 young men, by an old
man, to recover damages for a spinal injury received by him and occasioned by a
wicket ball, which frightened his horse and threw him from his wagon. The
boys were playing tin the street. . . . . If this were fully understood, there
would be less of the dangerous and annoying practice so common in our streets.”
“Caution to Ball Players in the Street,” The
Pittsfield Sun, Volume 51, Issue 2647 [
PART 1851.B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1851.1 -- Cricket Gets its First Comprehensive History Book
Pycroft, James, The Cricket Field; or, The History
and Science of Cricket [
1851.4 – First Known Game
in
“The first game in IL was in 1851 between
John Freyer posting to 19CBB, May 28 2007. John does not provide a source.
1851.5 – Robert E. Lee
Promotes Cricket at
A twenty-one year old cricket enthusiast visited West
Point from
“Colonel Lee said he would be greatly obliged to
me if I would teach the officers how to play cricket, so we went to the
library. . . .Lieutenant Alexander
asked for the cricket things. He
said, ‘Can you tell me, Sir, where the instruments and apparatus are for
playing cricket?’ The librarian know nothing about them and so our
project came to an end.” “The Boyhood of Rev. Samuel Robert Calthrop.” Compiled by His Daughter, Edith Calthrop
Bump. No date given. Accessed
10/31/2008 at http://www-distance.syr.edu/SamCalthropBoyhoodStory.html.
Note: Lee is reported to have become Superintendent of West Point
in September 1852; and had been in
1852
PART 1852.A – Items That
Can Be Dated Within the Year
1852.7 --
“For the last two or three evenings the Plaza
has been filled with full grown persons engaged very industriously in the game
known as ‘town ball.’ The amusement is very innocent and
healthful . . . . The scenes are extremely interesting and
amusing.”
“Public Play Ground,”
Angus also notes on
1852.2 -- Lit Magazine Cites “Roaring” Game of “Bat and Base-ball”
Southern Literary Messenger, volume 18, number 2, February 1852, page 96, per
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 214. The fifth
stanza of the poem “Morning Musings on an Old School-Stile”
reads: “How they poured the soul of gay and joyous boyhood/ Into
roaring games of marbles, bat and base-bal!/ Thinking that the world was only
made to play in, --/ Made for jolly boys, tossing, throwing balls! Also
submitted by David Ball, 6/4/2006. Note: John Thron interprets this prhase to
denote two games, bat-ball and base-ball.
Others justs see it as a local variant for base-ball. Is the truth
findable here?
1852.9 – Five Fined in
“Yesterday, quite a number of boys were
arrested by the police for ball
playing and other similar practices in the public streets . . . . [Three were
nabbed] for playing ball in front of the church, corner of Butler and Court
streets, during divine service.
They were fined $2.50 each this morning.” Two others were fined for the same
offense.
“Breaking the Sabbath,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, vol. 11 number
99
1852.8 --
“[N]ot a great while ago, [I] saw a number of grown
men, on a Sabbath morning, playing town-ball.”
Rev. E. B. Olmsted, The Home Missionary [Office
of the American Home Missionary Society] Volume 24, Number 1 [May 1852], page
188
PART 1852.B – Items that Cannot Be Dated Within the
Year
1852.1 – Cartwright Lays
Out First Base Ball Field in
From Frederick Ivor-Campbell, “Alexander Joy
Cartwright, Jr.
1852.3 -- Eagle Ball Club Rulebook Appears
The cover of this rulebook states that the club had
formed in 1840 [See item #1840.6 above.]. By-laws and Rules of the
Eagle Ball Club [
1852.4 -- Bass-ball “Quite Too Complicated” for Children’s Book on Games
Little Charley’s Games and Sports [
1852.5 -- Religious Chapbook Shows Action in Ball Play at Recess
Fernald, Benjamin C., My Little Guide to Goodness
and Truth [
1852.6 -- Exciting [Adult]
Rounders in the
Osborn, Lt Sherard, Stray Leaves from an Arctic
journal; or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions [London, Longman + Co],
page 77, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 214.
“Shouts of laughter! Roars of ‘Not fair, not fair! Run
again!’ ‘Well done, well done!’ from individuals leaping and
clapping their hands with excitement, arose from many a ring, in which
‘rounders’ with a cruelly hard ball, was being played.”
1852.10 – Fictional “Up-Country” Location Cites Bass-Ball and Wicket
“Both houses were close by the
road, and the road was narrow; but on either side was a strip of grass, and in
process of time, I appeared and began ball-playing upon the green strip, on the
west side of the road. At these times, on summer mornings, when we were getting
well warm at bass-ball or wicket, my grandfather would be seen coming out of
his little swing-gate, with a big hat aforesaid, and a cane. He enjoyed the
game as much as the youngest of us, but came mainly to see fair play, and
decide mooted points.”
L.W. Mansfield, writing under the pseudonym “Z.
P.,“ or Zachary Pundison, Up-country Letters
1853
PART 1853.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1853.6 -- When Boys Collect Outside NYC, A Spontaneous Game of Ball is Possible
“[T]he boys’ town-meeting is out where you
can buy peanuts and gingercake, and see all your cousins from almost
everywhere, and stand around and find out what is going on, and play a game of
ball with the boy from Oysterponds, and another from Mattitue, on the same
side.”
New York Times,
1853.5 -- Knicks, Gothams Play Season Opener on July 1 and July 5
“BASE BALL AT
Letter, 7/6/1853, to The Spirit of the Times,
Volume 23, number 21, Saturday July 9, 1853, page 246, column 1. Posted to 19CBB by David Block, 9/6/2006. SOT facsimile provided by Craig Waff,
September 2008.
1853.8 – Were Bats and Balls Coinage, They Were Millionaires
Several boys are having trouble raising money needed
to finance a project. “If base-balls
and trap-bats would have passed current, we could have gone forth as
millionaires; but as it was, the total amount of floating capital [we had] was
the sum of seven dollars and thirty-seven and a half cents.” “School-House Sketches, in The
United States Review,
PART 1853.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1853c.1 – “Rounders” Said to be Played at Phillips Exeter
“The game of “rounders,” as it was
played in the days before the Civil War, had only a faint resemblance to our
modern baseball. For a description of a typical contest, which took place
in 1853, we are indebted to Dr. William A. Mowry:”
[Several students had posted a challenge to play
“a game of ball,” and that challenge was accepted.] ‘The game
was a long one. No account was made of ‘innings;’ the record
was merely of runs. When one had knocked the ball, had run the bases, and
had reached the ‘home goal,’ that counted one
‘tally.’ The game was for fifty tallies. . . . [T]he
pitcher stood midway between the second and third bases, but nearer the center
of the square . . . Well, we beat the eleven [50-37].’ [Mowry then
tells of his success in letting the ball hit the ball and glance away over the
wall “behind the catchers,” which allowed him to put his side
ahead.]
Claude M. Fuess, An
1853.2 -- Dutch Handbook for Boys Covers “Engelsch Balspel,” Trap-ball, Tip-cat
Dongens! Wat zal er gespeld worden?
1853.3 -- B is [Still] For Bat and Ball
The Illuminated A, B, C [
1853.4 -- School Reader has Updated Description of Bat and Ball
Sanders, Charles W., The School Reader; First Book
[Newbergh, Chicago,
1853.7 – Didactic Novel Pairs “Bass-Ball” and Rounders at Youths’ Outing
“The rest of the party strolled about the field,
or joined merrily in a game of bass-ball or rounders, or sat in the bower,
listening to the song of birds.”
A Year of Country Life: or, the Chronicle of the Young Naturalists
As a way of teaching nature [each chapter introduces
several birds, insects, and “wild plants”] this book follows a
group of boys and girls of unspecified age [seriously pre-pubescent, we think]
through a calendar year. The
bass-ball/rounders reference above is one of the few times we run across both
terms in a contemporary writing.
So, now: are there two distinct games or just two distinct names
for the same game? Well, Murphy’s
Law, meet origins research: the syntax here leaves that muddy, as it could be
the former answer if the children played bass-ball and rounders separately that
[June] day.
Richard’s take: “It is possible that there were
two games the party played . . . but the likelier interpretation is that this
was one game, with both names given to ensure clarity.” David Block [email of 2/27/2008] agrees
with Richard. Richard also says
“It is possible that as the English dialect moved from “base
ball” to “rounders,” English society concurrently moved from
the game being played primarily played by boys and only sometimes being played
by girls. I am not qualified t say. [Note:
Protoball will review its evidence on that in version 11 of the
Chronology.]
Trap-ball receives one uninformative mention in the
book [Ibid, page 211], and, perhaps
being seen as a more central tenet of Christian knowledge, cricket receives
three references [Ibid, pages 75,
110, and 211]. The first of these,
unlike the bass-ball account, separates English boys from English girls after a
May tea party: ”Some of the
gentlemen offered prizes of bats and balls, and skipping-ropes, for feats of
activity or skill in running, leaping, playing cricket, &c. with the boys;
and skipping, and battledore and shuttlecock with the girls.” [Note: If you insist on using the number of
references as a yardstick of approved knowledge, you will want to know that
“tea” receives 12 mentions.]
1853.9 – Strolling Past a Ballgame in Elysian Fields
George Thompson has uncovered a long account of a
leisurely visit to Elysian Fields, one that encounters a ball game in
progress. Posting to 19CBB, March
13. 2008. Source: George G. Foster, Fifteen Minutes
Around
A few excerpts -- “We have passed so quickly
from the city and its hubbub, that the charm of this delicious contrast is
absolutely magical. [para] What a
motley crowd! Old and young, men
women and children . . . . Well-dressed and badly dressed, and
scarcely dressed at all – Germans, French, Italians, Americans, with here
and there a mincing Londoner, his cockney gait and trim whiskers. This walk in
“The centre of the lawn has been marked out into
a magnificent ball ground, and two parties of rollicking, joyous young men are
engaged in that excellent and health-imparting sport, base ball. They are without hats, coats or
waistcoats, and their well-knit forms, and elastic movements, as that bound
after bounding ball, furnish gratifying evidence that there are still classes
of young men among us as calculated to preserve the race from
degenerating.”
1853.10 – First Base Ball Reporters – Cauldwell, Bray, Chadwick, Kelly
Henry Chadwick may be the Father of Baseball and a
John Thorn sees the primacy claims this way: As for Chadwick, “He was not
baseball’s first reporter — that distinction goes to the little
known William H. Bray, like Chadwick an Englishman who covered baseball and
cricket for the Clipper
from early 1854 to May 1858
http://thornpricks.blogspot.com/2008/01/pots-pans-and-bats-balls.html
1854
PART 1854.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1854.13 – English Visitor Sees Wicket at Harvard
“It was in the spring of 1854 . . . that I stepped into the
“They politely invited me to take the bat. Any cricketer could have stayed there all day and not been bowled out. After I had played awhile I said, “You must play the modern game cricket.” I had a ball and they made six stumps. Then we went to Delta, the field where the Harvard Memorial Hall now stands. We played and they took to cricket like a duck to water. . . .I think that was the first game of cricket at Harvard.” “The Boyhood of Rev. Samuel Robert Calthrop.” Compiled by His Daughter, Edith Calthrop Bump. No date given. Accessed 10/31/2008 at http://www-distance.syr.edu/SamCalthropBoyhoodStory.html. Actually, Mr. Calthrop may have come along about 95 years too late for that claim: see #1760s.1 above.
1854.6 --In
“Wilson, a young sculptor of promise, has
executed a marble statue of Childhood, and has a fine statue of a boy engaged
in playing ball, modeled in plaster. He is about returning to
“From
1854.9 -- Van Cott Letter
Summarizes State of
“There are now in this city three regularly
organized Clubs [the Knickerbockers, Gothams, and Eagles], who meet semi-weekly
during the playing season, about eight months in each year, for exercise in the
old fashioned game of Base Ball . . . . There have been a large number of
friendly, but spirited trials of skill, between the Clubs, during the last
season, which have showed that the game has been thoroughly systematized. .
. The season for play closed about the middle of November, and on Friday
evening, December 15th, the three Clubs partook of their annual
dinner at Fijux’s . . . . The indications are that this noble game
will, the coming season, assume a higher position than ever, and we intend to
keep you fully advised . . . as we deem your journal the only medium in this
country through which the public receive correct information.” . .
.
William Van Cott, “The New York Base Ball
Clubs,” Spirit of the Times, Volume 24, number 10, Saturday,
December 23, 1854, page 534, column 1. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff,
September 2008. The full letter is
reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A
Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908
The New York Daily Times, vol. 4 number 1015
PART 1854.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1854.1 – NY Rules Now Specify Pitching Distance “Not Less Than 15 yards”
The New York Game rules now specify the distance from
the pitcher’s point to home base as “not less than fifteen
yards.”
The 17 playing rules [the 1845 rules number 14] are
reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A
Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [University of Nebraska Press,
1995], pp. 18-19. XXX Load here? Sullivan writes: “In
1854 a revised version of the original Knickerbocker rules was approved by a
small committee of NY baseball officials, including Dr. [Doc]
1854.2 – First New England
Team, the
“The first regularly organized team in
1854.3 – Organized Round
Ball in
“’Base Ball in
“In 1855 the Elm Trees organized, existing but a
short time, however. In 1856 a new club arose, the ‘
Wright, George, Account of
1854.4 – Was Lewis Wadsworth the First Paid Player?
In a 2004 19CBB listserve discussion of the earliest
professional players, John Thorn wrote: “For years, Reach had been
the player identified as the first to receive a salary and/or other
inducements, as his move from the Eckfords of Brooklyn to the Athletics could
not otherwise be explained. Over the last twenty years, though, the
“mantle” has more generally been accorded to Creighton and his
teammate Flanley, who were simultaneously “persuaded” to leave the
Star Club and join the Excelsiors. Your mention of Pearce – especially at
this very early date of 1856 – is the first I have heard.
“In the very early days of match play, before
the advent of widely observed anti-revolver provisions
John Thorn posting to 19CBB listserve group, July 5,
2004, 1:39 PM.
1854.5 – Excelsior Club
Forms in
The Excelsior Club is organized “to improve, foster,
and perpetuate the American game of Base Ball, and advance morally, socially
and physically the interests of its members.” Its written
constitution,
Constitution and By-Laws of the Excelsior Base Ball
Club of
1854.7 -- Empire Club Constitution Appears
Constitution, by-laws and rules of the Empire Ball
Club; organized
1854.8 -- Cricket Historian Describes Facet of Current “School Boy’s Game of Rounders”
“between tee two-feet-asunder stumps there was
cut a hole big enough to contain a ball, and
James Pycroft, The Cricket Field [1854], page
68. Submitted by John Thorn, 1/13/2007. Note: Pycroft
was first published in 1851 [see item #1851.1]. Was this material in the first
edition?
1854.10 -- Ball Played at
“Baseball in
Minor Myers, Jr., and Dorothy Ebersole, Baseball in
Geneva: Notes to Accompany An Exhibition at the Prout Chew Museum, May 20
to
1854.11 -- The Game in
“Organized teams first appeared in
“As well all 11 men had to be retired before the
other team came to bat. Both games allowed the pitcher to throw the ball
in the modern style, rather than underarm as in the
William Humber, “Baseball and the Canadian
Identity,” College Quarterly, Volume 8 Number 3 [Summer
2005]. Submitted by John Thorn
1854.12 – New Rules for Official Balls – A Little Bit Heavier
The joint rules committee, convening at Smith’s
Tavern,
Submitted by Rob Loeffler, 3/1/07. See
“The Evolution of the Baseball Up to 1872,” March 2007.
1855
PART 1855.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1855.19
– Clipper Editor: NYC Now Has
Five Clubs “in Good Condition”
In March 1855, the editor of the Clipper listed five teams that were
"in good condition" and the locations of their twice-a-week practices
– Gothams at Red House, Harlem; Knickerbockers, Eagle, and Empire at
Elysian Fields at
Articles published later in the New
York Clipper, the Spirit of
the Times, the New-York Daily
Times, and the Brooklyn Daily
Eagle announced the first appearance in print of the following 18 new clubs
in the Greater NYC region in 1855:
June - Jersey City
1855.4 -- NY Herald Previews Several June Games for Five Area Clubs
“BASE BALL. -- Our readers are perfectly aware
that the good old fashioned game of base ball is at present receiving much
attention among the lovers of sport and manly exercise. Five clubs are
organized and in operation in this city and
1855.13 -- Spirit Gives Season Plans for 5 Base Ball Clubs
The practice and match schedules for the
Knickerbockers, Eagles, Empires, Gothams and [
“Base Ball,” Spirit of the Times
1855.15 – 2000 Demurely
Watch Cricket at
“a most pleasing picture. It had a sort of old Grecian aspect
– yet it was an English one essentially. Nine-tenths of the immense number of
visitors, we guess from the universal dropping of their h’s were English.
But it is a game that a Yankee may be proud to play well. It speaks much for the moral effect of
the game, though we were on the ground some three hours, and not less than
2,000 were there, we heard not a rough or profane word, nor saw an action that
a lady might not see with propriety.”
1855.7 – Cricket Becoming “The National Game” in US
“Cricket is becoming the fashionable game
– the national game, it might be said.”
“New York Correspondence,” Washington
Evening Star,
1855.20 – Base Ball Game Reaches Really Modern Duration; Score is 52 to 38
Having more energy than what it takes to score 21
runs, the [NJ] Pioneer Club’s intramural game in September 1855 took 3 and
a quarter hours, and eight innings.
Final score: single men, 52,
marrieds 38. Note: this seems like an early exception to the 21-run rule; are
there earlier ones? Spirit of
the Times, Volume 25, number 31
In
December, the Putnams undertook to play a game to 62 runs, and started at 9AM
to give themselves ample time. But
“they found it impossible to get through; they played twelve innings and
made 31 and 36.” Spirit of
the Times,
1855.21 – Spirit Eyes Three-Year Knicks-Gothams Rivalry
The Spirit of the Times gave more than
perfunctory coverage to the September match-up between the Knickerbockers and
Gothams at Elysian Fields on Thursday, September 13. The box score remains rudimentary [only
runs scores are listed for the two lineups], but the reports notes that there
were “about 1000 spectators, including many ladies, who manifested the
utmost excitement, but kept admirable order [gee, thanks, ladies – LMc].” It must have felt a little like a World
Series game: “The Knickerbockers [who lost to the Gothams in June] came
upon the ground with a determination to maintain the first rank among the Ball
Clubs.”
Craig Waff suspects that this is the first time a base
ball attendance figure appears in a game report [email of 10/27/2008].
The Knicks won, 21-7, in only five innings. The Spirit tabulated the rivals’
history of all seven games played since July 1853. The Knicks won 4, lost 2, and tied one
[12-12 in 12 innings; Peverelly, pages 16 and 21, says that darkness
interceded]. The longest contest
went 16 innings [a Gothams home victory on 6/30/1854], and the shortest was the
current one. Spirit of the Times,
Volume 25, number 32
1855.22 – Search for Base Ball Supremacy Begins? It’s the Knicks, For Now
“These two Clubs [Knickerbocker and
PART 1855.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1855c.1 – “
“This [Massachusetts Run-Around] was ever a
popular game with us young men, and especially on Town Meeting days when there
were great contests held between different districts, or between the married and
unmarried men, and was sometimes called Town Ball because of its association
with Town Meeting day.”
“It was an extremely convenient game because it
required as a minimum only four on a side to play it, and yet you could play it
equally as well with seven or eight. . . . There were no men on the bases; the
batter having to make his bases the best he could, and with perfect freedom to
run when and as he chose to, subject all the time to being plugged by the ball
from the hand of anyone. It was lively jumping squatting and ducking in
all shapes with the runner who was trying to escape being plugged. When he got
around without having been hit by the ball, it counted a run. The
delivery of the ball was distinctly a throw, not an under-hand delivery as was
later the case for Base Ball. The batter was allowed three strikes at the
ball. In my younger days it was extremely popular, and indulged in by
everyone, young and old.”
T. King, letter to the Mills Commission, November 24,
1905; accessed at the
1855.2 – Town Ball Played
in
A woman in
Remarks of Mrs. Cynthia Miller Coleman,
1855c.3 – Wicket, Seen as a
CT Game, Played in
In 1880 the Brooklyn Eagle carried long articles
that include a description of the game of wicket, described as a
“Instead of eleven on a side, as in cricket,
there are thirty, and instead of wickets used by cricketers their wickets consist
of two pieces of white wood about an inch square and six feet long, placed upon
two blocks three inches from the ground. The ball also differs from that
used in cricket or base ball, it being almost twice the size, although it only
weighs nine ounces. The bat also differs from that used in cricket and
base ball, it being more on the order of a lacrosse bat, although of an
entirely different shape, and made of hard, white wood. The space between
the wickets is called the alley, and is seventy-five feet in length and ten
feet in width. Wicket also differs from cricket in the bowling, which can be
done from either wicket, at the option of the bowlers, and there is a centre
line, on the order of the ace line in racket and hand ball, which is called the
bowler’s mark, and if a ball is bowled which fails to strike the ground
before it reaches this line it is considered a dead ball, or no bowl, and no
play can be made from it, even if the ball does not suit the batsman. The
alley is something on the order of the space cut out for and occupied by the
pitcher and catcher of a base ball club, the turf being removed and the ground
rolled very hard for the accommodation of the bowlers.”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, vol. 41 number 239
1855.5 – Seven Base Ball Clubs Now Organized.
Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
Note:
1855.6 -- Jersey City Club is Set Up
Constitution and By-Laws of the Pioneer Base Ball Club
of Jersey City [
1855c.8 -- New British Manual of Sports Describes Rounders
Walsh, J. H.
1855.9 -- Whitman Puts
“Good Game of Base-Ball” Among Favorite
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass [
1855c.10 – Wicket Played in HI
“One game they all enjoyed was wicket, often
watched by small Mary Burbank. Aipuni, the Hawaiians called it, or
rounders, perhaps because the bat had a large rounder end. It was a
forerunner of baseball, but the broad, heavy bat was held close to the
ground.”
Ethel, Damon M, Sanford Ballard Dole and His Hawaii
[Pacific Books,
Through further digging, John Thorn traces the
migration of wicket to
1855c.11 -- Master Trap-ball, Meet Mister Window
Sports for All Seasons, Illustrating the Most Common
and Dangerous Accidents That Occur During Childhood . . . [
1855.12 -- Students Bring Cricket
to
“When the students returned to
Brian Flood,
1855c.14 -- Base Ball Comes to
“The first baseball club in
“Baseball Half a Century Ago,”
1855.16 – Scholar Deems
1855 the End of the Cricket Era in
“Cricket was
1855.17 – In Novel, a Girl is Chided for Preferring Playing Bass-Ball To Chores
A very strict school mistress scolds the title
character: “You can’t
say three times three without missing; you’d rather play at bass-ball, or
hunt the hedges for wild flowers, than mend your stockings.” A.M.H. [only initials are given],
“The Gipsy Girl,” in The Cabinet Annual: A Christmas and New
Year’s Gift for 1855
1855.18 – Stodgy Novel Makes Brief Mention of Former Ballplaying.
“The academy, the village church, and the
parsonage are on this cross-street.
The voice of memory asks, where are those whose busy feet have trodden
the green sward? Where are those whose
voices have echoed in the boisterous mirth or base-ball and shinny?” S. H. M.
1856
PART 1856.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1856.15 -- Excelsior Base Ball
Club Forms in
“
Porter’s Spirit of the Times,
1856.20 -- 100 to 98 Round Ball Game Played, After Sticky Rule Negotiations
“EXCITING GAME OF BASE BALL. – The second
trial game of Base Ball took place on the Boston Common, Wednesday morning, May
14th, between the Olympics and the Green Mountain Boys. The game was one hundred ins, and after
three hours of exciting and hard playing, it was won by the Olympics, merely by
two, the Green Mountain Boys counting 98 tallies. . . . The above match was
witnessed by a very large assemblage, who seemed to take a great interest in
it.” Albert S. Flye,
“Exciting Game of Base Ball,” New York Clipper Volume 4,
number 5
The article also prints a letter protesting the rules
for a prior game between the same teams.
The Olympics explained that were compelled to play a game in which their
thrower stood 40 feet from the “knocker” while their
opponent’s thrower stood at 20 feet.
In addition, the
1856.21 –
“BASE BALL CLUB. – A number of gentlemen
of this city have formed themselves into a club for the practice of the
invigorating amusement of Base Ball. Their practicing ground is on the common
east of the canal. We hope that
this will be succeeded by a Cricket Club” “Base Ball Club,” Trenton
1856.9 – Working Men Play
at Dawn on
A team of truckmen played on Boston Common, often at
New York Clipper,
1856.12 -- Gothams 21, Knicks 7; Fans Show Greatest Interest Ever
“Yesterday the cars of the Second and Third
avenue Railroads were crowded for hours with the lovers of ball playing, going
out to witness the long-talked of match between the “Gotham” and
“Knickerbocker” Clubs. We think the interest to see this game
was greater than any other match ever played.”
“Base Ball Match,” New York Daily Times,
The Times account includes a box score
detailing “hands out” and “runs” for each player.
The text uses “aces” as well as “runs,” and employs the
term “inning,” not “innings.” It notes players
who “made some splendid and difficult catches in the long field.”
1856.18 – First Reported Canadian Base Ball Game Occurs, in ON
“September 12, 1856 –“The first
reported game of Canadian baseball is played in
Craig Waff has identified the source for this
item: “Base Ball in
1856.16 -- Cricket -- “The
Great Match at
“The Great Match at
Porter’s Spirit of the Times, September 20, 1856. The American team was
spiced with English-born talent, including Sam Wright, father to Harry and
George Wright. Matthew Brady took photos. A crowd of 8,000 to
10,000 was estimated.
1856.14 -- Manly Virtues of Base Ball Extolled; 25 Clubs Now Playing in NYC Area
“The game of Base Ball is one, when well played,
that requires strong bones, tough muscle, and sound mind; and no athletic game
is better calculated to strengthen the frame and develop a full, broad chest,
testing a man’s powers of endurance most severely . .
.” I have no doubt that some twenty-five Clubs . . . could be
reckoned up within a mile or two of New-York, that stronghold of ‘enervated’
young men.”
“Base Ball [letter to the editor], New York
Times, September 27, 1856. Full text is reprinted in Dean A.
Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of
Baseball, 1825-1908 [
1856.8 – Knickerbocker Rules Meeting Held
At the close of 1856 it was decided that a revision of
the rules was necessary, and a meeting of the Knickerbockers was held and a new
code established. The outcome of this was the fist actual convention of
ball clubs.
The Tribune Book of Open-Air Sports, page 71, quoted in Weaver, Amusements and Sports,
page 98, according to Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection
at
John Thorn adds that the session was held December 6
at Smith’s Hotel at
PART 1856.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1856.1 -- The Wrights Both Are at
St. George CC;
Baseball Hall of Fame member Harry Wright is on the
first eleven of the St. George Cricket Club and his younger brother, George
Wright, age 9, also to become a baseball Hall of Famer, is the Dragons’
mascot.
The Manhattan Cricket Club is formed and includes
Per John Thorn, 6/15/04: The source
is Chadwick Scrapbooks, Vol. 20.
1856.2 -- Excelsiors Organized
Constitution and By-laws of the Excelsior Base Ball
Club
1856.3 -- Putnams Rules Arrive on the Scene
Rules and By-laws of Base Ball -- Putnam Base Ball Club [
1856.4 – Fifty-Three Games
Held in
1856.5 –
The New York Mercury refers to base ball as “The National Pastime.” Note: Cites needed. The Clipper
note is found at the baseballlibrary.com chronology at 1856.
1856.7 – First Official Use of the Term “Rounders” Appears?
Zoernik, Dean A., “Rounders,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 329. Note:
Whaaaat? See #1828.1 above, and the
Rounders Subchonology.
1856.11 -- New Reader Has Ballplaying Illustration
Town, Salem, and Nelson M Holbrook, The Progressive
First Reader [Boston], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It,
pages 217-218. This elementary school book has an illustration of boys
playing ball in a schoolyard. 1856.10 -- French Work Describes Poisoned Ball
and La Balle au Baton
Beleze, Par G., Jeux des adolescents [Paris, L.
Hachette et Cie], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page
217. This author’s portrayal of balle empoisonee is seen as
similar to its earlier coverage up to 40 years before; its major variant
involves two teams who exchange places regularly, outs are recorded by means of
caught flies and runners plugged between bases, and four or five bases comprise
the infield. Hitters, however, used their bare hands as bats. Block
sees the second game, la balle au baton, as a scrub game played without
teams. The ball was put in play by fungo hits with a bat, and was
reported to be most often seen in Normandie, where it was known as teque or
theque. Note: what are the “other sources” for
playing theque? Is it significant that this book features games
for adolescents, not younger children?
1856.13 -- General Base Ball Rules Are Published in NY
Rules and By-laws of Base Ball
1856.17 -- The Mass Game Explained
“I have thought, perhaps, a statement of my
experience as to the Yankee method of playing ‘Base,’ or
‘Round’ ball, as we used to call it, may not prove uninteresting.
“The ball we used was, I should think, of the
size and weight described by the Putnam rules, made of yarn, tightly wound
round a lump of cork or India rubber, and covered with smooth calf-skin in
quarters
“There were six to eight players upon each side,
the latter number being the full complement. The two best layers upon
each side -- first and second mates, as they were called by common consent --
were catcher and thrower. These retained their positions in the game,
unless they chose to call some other player, upon their own side, to change
places with them.” Dated
“Base Ball; How They Play the Game in
1856.19 – Five-Player Base Ball Reported in NY, WI
We’ve noticed two games of five-on-five baseball
in the Spirit, starting in 1856.
The ‘56 game matched the
1857
PART 1857.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1857.1 – Rules Modified to Specify Nine Innings, 90-Foot Base Paths, Nine-Player Teams
“The New York Game rules are modified by a group
of 16 clubs who send representatives to meetings to discuss the conduct of the
New York Game. The Knickerbocker Club recommends that a winner be declared
after seven innings but nine innings are adopted instead upon the motion of
Lewis F. Wadsworth. The base paths are fixed by D.L. Adams at 30 yards –
the old rule had specified 30 paces and the pitching distance at 15 yards. Team size is set at nine
players.” The
convention decided not to eliminate bound outs, but did give fly outs more
weight by requiring runners to return to their bases after fly outs.
Spirit of the Times,
1857.2 -- National Association of Base Ball Players Forms
William H. van Cott is elected NABBP President.
“Our National Sports,” Porter’s
Spirit of the Times,
Peter Morris notes that the NABBP commissioned five
men “to confer with the Central Park Commissioners in relation to a grant
of public lands for base ball purposes.
Morris, Peter, Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy
Brothers Shaped Baseball
1857.9 – Editor Calls for an American National Game
The editor of the Spirit of the Times: There
“should be some one game peculiar to the citizens of the
Porter’s Spirit of the Times,
1857.17 -- Base Ball in
Phil Lowry has information on a 3-inning game in
1857.24 –
A group of “youths and lads” were arrested
by a park constable for “playing at a game called rounders.” The Morning Chronicle, March 17,
1857, page? Posted to 19CBB by
Richard Hershberger on 2/5/2008.
1857.7 – Daily Base Ball
Games [NY-Style] Found in
“Base Ball at
1857.25 – Season Opens in
“OPENING OF THE SEASON IN
The Daily Chronicle report described a best of three games,
games decided at 25 tallies, twelve-man, one-out-side-out match between the
Olympics and
1857.15 -- Editor Promotes Cricket as the “National Game”
“Hitherto, one great obstacle to the progress of
the game [cricket] in this country has been the assertion made by certain
ignorant and prejudiced parties, the Cricket is only played by Englishmen. . .
. But it is not so.
“Cricket,”
1857.20 – Clerks Take on
Clerks in
“An exciting match of Base Ball was played on
the Washington Parade Ground, Albany, on Friday, 29th ult., between
the State House Clerks and the Clerks of City Bank – sixteen on a
side. The play resulted in favor of
the State House boys, they making 86 runs in three innings, against 72 made by
the Bank Clerks.”
Porter’s
Spirit of the Times, vol. 40 number
14
1857.26 – The Tide Starts
Turning in
“BASE BALL IN
1857.30 – Olympic Club’s Version of MA Game Rules Published
The Olympic Ball Club’s rules, adopted in i1857,
appear in Porter’s Spirit of the
Times, June
27, 1857 [page?]. Facsimile
provided by Craig Waff, September 2008.
The rules show variation from the 1858 rules [see
#1858.3 below] that are sometimes seen as uniform practice for the
1857.14 --
“The
Carl Wittke, “Baseball in its
Adolescence,” Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Volume
61, no. 2, April 1952, page 119. Wittke cites Porter’s Spirit,
1857.13 -- The First Game Pic?
“On Saturday, September 12, 1857,
‘Porter’s Spirit of the Times,’ a weekly newspaper devoted to
sports and theater, featured a woodcut that, as best can be determined, was the
first published image of a baseball game.?
VBBA site, http://vbba.org/ed-interp/1857elysianfieldsgame.html
1857.16 -- Early Use of
“Town Ball” in NY Clipper
The article reported a “Game of Town Ball”
in
1857.18 -- Porter’s Collects Rules of Play
“To Base Ball Clubs -- We will feel obliged if
such of the Base Ball Club in this vicinity and throughout the country, as have
printed Rules of Play, will send us a copy of the same.”
Porter’s Spirit of the Times,
1857.28 --
“’BASE BALL’ – MASSAPOAGS OF
1858.32 – Brooklynite Takes A Census – There Are 59 Junior Clubs in Flatbush
“Dear Spirit:-- . . . I have busied myself for a week or two past
in finding out the names of the different junior clubs, which, if you will be
kind enough to publish, will probably give information to some. The following are the names, without
reference to their standing: Enterprise, Star, Resolute, Ashland, Union,
National, Ringgold, Oakland, Clinton, Pacific, Active, Oneida, Fawn, Island,
Contest, Metropolitan, Warren, Pastime Jrs., Excelsior Jrs., Atlantic Jrs.,
Powhattan, Niagara, Sylvan, Independence, Mohawk, Montauk, Favorita, Red
Jacket, American Eagle, E Pluribus Unum, Franklin, Washington, Jackson,
Jefferson, Arctic, Fulton, Endeavor, Pocahontas, Crystal, Independent, Liberty,
Brooklyn Star, Lone Star, Eagle Jrs., Putnam Jrs., Contest, “Never Say
Die,” Burning Star, Hudson, Carlton, Rough and Ready, Relief, Morning
Star, City, Young America, America, Columbus, Americus, Columbia, Willoughby. The above are the names as I have
collected them from reliable persons . . . The above list consists of only the
junior clubs of
“Junior Base-Ball Clubs,” Porter’s
Spirit of the Times, Volume 5, number 7
1857.29 – Six-Player Town-ball Teams Play for Gold Ring in Philly
“TOWN BALL. – The young men of
Philadelphia are determined to keep the ball rolling . . . On Friday, 20th
ult. [10/20/1857 we think] the United Stats Club met on their grounds, corner
of 61st and Hazel streets . . . each individual did his utmost to
gain the prize, at handsome gold ring, which was eventually awarded to Mr. T.
W. Taylor, his score of 26 being the highest.” Each team had six players, and the team
1857.22 – Atlantics Become Base Ball Champs?
“The Atlantic Club defeats the Eckford Club,
both of
Charlton, James, ed., The Baseball Chronology
1857.12 -- The First Vintage Game?
John Thorn writes on 2/24/2006 that Porter’s
Spirit of the Times for November 14, 1857 [page 165] includes an account of
“the first regular match” of the ‘Knickerbocker Antiquarian
Base Ball Club
PART 1857.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1857.3 –
The Long Island Cricket Club is formed. The membership
includes baseball player John Holder of the Brooklyn Excelsiors. Note” add info on the
significance of this club?
1857.5 – Tri-Mountains Are First NE Club to Switch to the NY game.
By-Laws of the Tri-mountain Ball Club Embracing the
Rules of Order
1857.6 – Cricket Groups Meet to Try to Form US [National] Cricket Club
1857.8 – First Western
club, the Franklin Club, forms in
1857.10 – Rib-and-Ball Game
in the
Kane, Elisah Kent, Arctic Explorations: the Second
Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, 1853, ’54, ’55,
volume 2 [
1857.11 -- New Primer, Different Illustration**
Town,
1857.19 -- Writer Reportedly
Dates New
“an interesting report from a “Base Ball
Correspondent” which discusses the early
http://www.vbba.org/ed-interp/1857x1.html
The game described by “X” resembles the
Massachusetts game as it was to be codified a year later except: [a] “a
good catcher would frequently takethe 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, [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 layout variation, with three bases, one two yards to the batters
right, the next “about fifty [yards] down the field,” and the third
was “about five.” This
field variation reminds one of cricket, wicket, and “long town [or
“long-town-ball].”
1857.21 –
“The first organized, uniform team was the
Niagaras who played their first games in 1857 . . . . The Niagaras were, of course, strictly
an amateur nine. They played their first
games after ‘choosing up’ among themselves, and then [later] played
matches against other
Overfield, Joseph, 100 Seasons of
1857.23 – Princeton
Freshmen Establish
“In the fall of ’57, a few members of the
[Princeton University – Princeton NJ] a few members of the Freshmen [sic]
class organized the Nassau Baseball [sic] Club to play baseball although only a
few members had seen the game and fewer still had played. Description follows of attempts to clear
a playing area, a challenge made to the Sophomores, and selection of 15 players
for each side.] After each party
had played five innings, the Sophomores had beaten their antagonists by
twenty-one rounds, and were declared victorious.” The account goes on to report that the
next spring, “baseball clubs of all descriptions were organized on the
back campus and ‘happiness on such occasions seemed to rule the
hour.’” The account
also reflects on the coming of base ball:
“in seven years a new game superseded handball in student favor
– it was ‘town ball’ or the old
Note: old CT
game? Source: “Baseball at
1857.27 – Game of Wicket Reaches IA
“BALL GAMES IN THE WEST. – It is with
pleasure that we observe the gradual progression of these healthy and athletic
games westward. A Wicket Club has
recently been organized in
1857.31 – Rounders “Now Almost Entirely Displaced by Cricket:” English Scholar
“Writing in 1857, ‘Stonehenge’ noted
that ‘it [rounders] was [p. 232/233] formerly a very favourite game in
some of our English counties, but is now almost entirely displaced by
cricket.’ . . . documentary evidence of it is hard to find before the
chapter in William Clarke’s Boys’ Own Book of
1828.” Tony Collins, et al., Encyclopedia
of Traditional British Rural Sports
1858
PART 1858.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1858.6 – Clipper Calls for Truly National BB Convention
When the 1858 convention suggested forming the
National Association of Base Ball Players, according to the Clipper,
that was really a “misnomer” because there were “no
invitations to clubs of other states,” and no one under age 21 can
join.” “National indeed! Truth is a few individuals
wormed into the convention and have been trying to mould men and things to suit
their views. If real lovers of the game wish it to spread over the
country as cricket is doing they might cut loose from parties who wish to act
for and dictate to all who participate. These few dictators wish to ape
the New York Yacht Club in their feelings of exclusiveness. Let the
discontented come out and organize an association that is really national
– extend invitations to base ball players every where to compete with
them and make the game truly national.”
Clipper,
April 3, 1858, page 396, Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript
Collections, collection 4809. Note: text needs to be verified, as
1858.17 -- Atlantic Monthly Piece Lauds Base-ball
“The Pastor of the Worcester Free Church, the
Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote an influential argument for sports and
exercise which appeared in the March 1858 issue of a new magazine called The Atlantic Monthly.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
“Saints, and Their Bodies,” The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1,
number 5
Some commentary: His [Higginson’s] comments on our
national game are of great interest, for he welcomed the growth of ‘our
indigenous American game of base-ball,’ and followed [author James
Fenimore] Cooper’s lead by connecting the game with our national character.” A. Fletcher
and J. Shimer, Worcester: A City on the Rise
1858.38 – Brooklyn Base Ball Admirer Sizes up the 1858 Season
“. . . we think it would be an addition to every
school, that would lead to great advantages to mental and bodily health, if
each had a cricket or ball club attached to it. There are between 30 and 40
Base Ball Clubs and six Cricket Clubs on Long Island [Brooklyn counted as
1858.39 –
“BASE BALL CLUB: “a Club entitled the San
Francisco Base Ball Club has been formed in
1858.41 –
“The Niagara Club, of
1858.40 – Cricket Plays Catch-up; Plans a National Convention
“CRICKET CONVENTION FOR 1858. – A
Convention of delegates from the various Cricket Clubs of the
1858.3 – At
The representatives of ten clubs meet at
The Base Ball Player’s Pocket Companion [Mayhew and Blake,
To view the rules themselves, go to http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ruletown.shtml
[Accessed 10/29/2008.]
The 36-page Mayhew/Baker manual covers the rules and
field layouts for both games. It gamely explains that both game require
“equal skill and activity,” but leans toward the Mass game, which
“deservedly holds the first place in the estimation of all ball players
and the public.” Still, it admits, the
The May 15 1858 Boston Traveller reported
briefly on the new compact, adding “We
congratulate the lovers of this noble and manly pastime.” On June 1, the Boston Herald reported on the first game played
1858.29 – First Recorded
College Game at
“On Saturday last [May 29] a Game of Ball was played
between the Sophomore and Freshmen Classes of Williams College. The conditions were three rounds of 35
tallies – best two in three winning.
The Sophs won the first, and the Freshmen the two last. It was considered one of the best
contested Games ever played by the students.”
“Williamstown [MA],” The
1858.25 -- Your Base Ball Stringer, Mr. W. Whitman
Reporter Whitman wrote a workmanlike [all-prose]
account of a game [Atlantic 17, Putnam 13] for the
Walt Whitman, “On Baseball, 1858,” in John
Thorn, ed., The Complete Armchair Book of Baseball [Galahad Books,
1858.8 – Harvard Student Notes “Multitude” Playing Base or Cricket There
“[On] almost any evening or pleasant Saturday, .
. . a shirt-sleeved multitude from every class are playing as base or cricket .
. . “Mens Sana,” Harvard
Magazine 4
1858.16 -- Four Jailed for “Criminal” Sunday Play in NJ
“Report of the City Marshal -- City Marshal
Ellis reports that for the month ending yesterday, 124 persons were committed
to the City Prison, charged with the following criminal offences: Drunkenness,
79; assault, 6; picking pockets, 1; vagrancy, 9; playing ball on Sunday, 4,
felonious assault, 1 . . . . Nativity --
Jersey City Items,” New York Times,
1858.15 -- Base Ball Arrives in
Heaven? “No, This is
“John Liepa of Indianola presented a history of
early baseball and the origins of the game in the state. John has
pinpointed 1858 as the first reference to baseball in
From a report of the Field of Dreams SABR Chapter [the
1858.43 –
“Dear Spirit: The base-ball mania has attacked a
select few in
1858.42 – In Downstate
“BASEBALL IN
1858.30 – Playing Rules
Given for
“The great game of Wicket Ball between a party
of the married and unmarried men of
Among the stated rules noted as differing from
Hartford rules: wickets set 75 feet apart, “flying balls only out,”
no leading, “last ball to count 4; but the strikers must make four
crosses,’ a nine-inch ball, and a three-game format in which the total
runs “crossings” determined the victor.
“Ball-Playing at
1858.33 – Earliest Games in
[1] Downer’s Grove downs
[2] Excelsior downs
1858.19 -- First KY Box Score
Appears in
“The beginnings of [
“Not much is known about the Louisville Base
Ball Club. It was probably not more than a year or two old by the time of the
1858 box score.”
“Chapter 1 -- Beginnings: From Amateur Teams to
Disgrace in the National League,” mimeo, Bob Bailey, 1999, page 2.
Possible describing the same July game, but reporting
different dates, The New York Clipper
1858.7 -- Newly Reformed Game of
Town Ball Played in
Clippings from
The Clipper
carried at least four reports of
1858.20 -- Knicks Compose 17-Verse Song on Current Base Ball
Chorus: Then shout, shout for joy, and let the
welkin ring,/ In praises of our noble game, for health is sure to bring;/ Come,
my brave Yankee boys, there’s room enough for all,/ So join in Uncle
Samuel’s sport -- the pastime of base ball.”
The song was sung in honor of the Excelsiors at a
dinner in August 1858, and recaptured in Henry Chadwick, The Game of Base
Ball [1868; reprint, Camden House, 1983), pp. 178-180, per Dean Sullivan.
Reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A
Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [
1858.22
“We hail then with pleasure, the introduction in
our city of the game of base ball and the formation of the many clubs to enjoy
this healthful activity. It will
impart vigor, health and good feeling.
It is a manly sport . . . [and] will contribute as much to good morals as it does to pleasure. . . . The
stimulus of outdoor exercises will supplant the morbid and pernicious craving
for tobacco. . . . It is a luxury to see our young men together, in the
innocent enjoyment of a healthful sport.
Let a father who was once a ball player too . . . have the privilege of
looking on without the pain of hearing a profane word . . . Signed, X.“ “Field Sports,” Rochester
Democrat and American
1858.34 – Amusements at Duchess’ Birthday Party Includes Base Ball
August 17 was the 72nd birthday of the
Duchess of Kent, celebrated at
“Birthday of the Duchess of Kent,” Times of
1858.21 -- NYTimes Editorial: “We Hail the New Fashion
With Delight”
“We hail the new fashion [base ball fever] with
delight. It promises, besides it host of other good works, to kill out
the costly target excursions. We predict that it will spread from the
City to the country, and revive there, where it was dying out, a love of the
noble game; that it will bring pale faces and sallow complexions into contempt;
that it will make sad times for the doctors, and insure our well-beloved
country a generation of stalwart men, who will save her independence.”
From the concluding paragraph of “Athletic
Sports,” New York Times,
The
Norton, Frederick C., “That Strange Yankee Game,
Wicket,”
1858.2 – New York All-Stars Beat Brooklyn All-Stars, 2 games to 1; First Admission Fees Are Charged
“The Great Base Ball Match of 1858, which was a
best 2 out of 3 games series, embodies four landmark events that are pivotal to
the game’s history”
1.
It was organized base ball’s very first all-star game.
2.
It was the first base ball game in the
3.
It marked the first time that spectators paid for the privilege of
attending a base ball game.
4. The game played on September 10, 1858
is at present [2005] the earliest known instance of an umpire calling strike on
a batter.”
Schaefer, Robert H., “The Great Base Ball Match
of 1858: Base Ball’s First All-Star Game,” Nine, Volume 14,
no 1,
1858.18 -- Oldest Extant Base Balls Were Inscribed?
“Doubts about the claims made for the ‘oldest’
baseball treasured as relics have no existence concerning two balls of
authenticated history brought to light by Charles De Bost . . . . De Bost
is the son of Charles Schuyler De Bost, Captain and catcher for the
Knickerbocker Baseball Club in the infancy of the game.” The balls
were both inscribed with the scores of the
“Both balls have odd one-piece covers the
leather having been cut in four semi-ovals still in one piece, the ovals shaped
like the petals of a flower.”
“Oldest Baseballs Bear Date of 1858,”
unidentified newspaper clipping,
1858.35 --
The Boston
Herald article on this game is reprinted in Soos,
The New York Clipper
Mainers see the game thus: “It took awhile but this modern
game – and its popularity – moved steadily north. By 1858 we know it had arrived in
This watershed game was also noted in Wright, George,
“Base Ball in
"Anderson,
Will, Was Baseball Really Invented in
1858.32 – Ballplaying
Interest Hits
“Yet Another: A number of seamen, now in port, have
formed a Club entitled the ‘Sons of the Ocean Base Ball Club.’ They play on the City commons, on
Thursdays, and we are requested to state that the members challenge any of the
other clubs in the city to a trial either of
New Bedford
Evening Standard, September 13, 1858,
as referenced at “Early days of Baseball in
1858.36 – NY Rules Printed
in
The rules of the
From a 19CBB posting by Richard Hershberger,
7/23/2007. Details were supplied by
email of 1/18/2008.
1858.44 – NY Rules Printed
in
Without apparent explanation or comment, the rules of
baseball were printed in
1858.45 – 1000 Watch
November Base Ball in
The
“In the afternoon there were several
‘scrub’ games, that is games which the various Clubs unite and play
together. The regular Ball season
is considered to close with Thanksgiving, though many games will doubtless be
played through the winter when the weather will permit.” Text provided by Kyle DeCicco-Carey,
email of 1/14/2008.
1858.26 -- Wicket, as Well as
Cricket and Base Ball, Reported in
“Exercise clubs and gymnasia are spring up
everywhere. The papers have daily records of games at cricket, wicket,
base ball, etc.”
Editorial, “Physical Education,” Graham’s
American Monthly of Literature, art, and Fashion, Volume 53, Number 6
[December 1858], page 495. Submitted by John Thorn
1858.24 -- Editorial Rips Base Ball “Mania” as a “Public Nuisance”
“Ball Clubs,” The Happy Home and Parlor
Magazine, Volume 8, December 1, 1858 [
The author thinks base ball “has become a sort
of mania, and on this account we speak of it. In itself a game at ball is an innocent
and excellent recreation but when the sport is carried so far as it is at the
present time, it becomes a pubic nuisance.” His case: [1] gambling imbues it, [2]
the crowd is unruly and intemperate, [3] profanity abounds, [4] its players
waste a lot of time, [5] it leads to injury, and it distracts people from their
work. “For these reasons we
class ball-clubs, as now existing, with circus exhibitions, military musters,
pugilistic feats, cock-fighting &c; all of which are nuisances in no small
degree.”
PART 1858.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1858.1 – Fifty Clubs Said
Active in
1858.4 – NY Game Rules Changed – The Called Strike is In, Bound Rule is Out
The New York Game adopts the called strike, first
employed at a
1858.5 -- Seven More Clubs Publish Their Rules
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page
224, lists 7 clubs with new rulebooks. They include base ball clubs in
1858.10 – Four-day
Attendance of 40,000 Souls Watch Famous Roundball Game in
“One of the most celebrated games of roundball
was played on the Agricultural Grounds in
“H. S.,” [Henry Sargent?] of
Note: David Nevard raises vital questions about this
account: “I have my doubts about this item - it just doesn't seem
to fit. 1) The club names don't sound right. The famous club from Medway was
the Unions, not the Medways, and I haven't seen any other mention of Union
Excelsiors. 2) Lowry's evolution of the longest Mass Game does not mention this
one. He shows the progression
1858.11 -- British Sports Anthology Shows Evolved Rounders, Other Safe Haven Games
Pardon, George, Games for All Seasons [
1858.12 -- Base Ball, Meet Tin Pan Alley
Blodgett, J.
1858.13 -- New Reader: “Now, Charley, Give Me a Good Ball”
The Little One’s Ladder, or First Steps in Spelling and Reading [
1858.14 -- Adult Play [Finally!] Signaled in New Manual for Cricket and Base Ball
Manual of Cricket and Base Ball [
1858.23 -- “The Playground” Gives Insight into Rounders, Trap-ball, and Cricket Rules and Customs
George Forrest, The Playground: or, The Boy’s
Book of Games [G. Rutledge,
The manual covers rounders, cricket, and trapball
– but not stoolball.
Among the features shown: when only a few players were available, backward
hits were not in play; leading and pickoffs were used in rounders; the rounders
bat is three feet long; two strikes and you’re out in trapball; and when
a cat is used in place of a ball in rounders, plugging is not allowed. Note:
add page reference.
1858.27 -- Flour Citys First Base
Ball Club in
1858.28 – The MA Ball: Smaller, Lighter, “Double 8” Cover Design
Dedham Rules of the Massachusetts Game specifies that
“The ball must weigh not less than two, nor more than two and
three-quarter ounces, avoirdupois. It must measure not less than six and a
half, nor more than eight and a half inches in circumference, and must be
covered with leather.”
William Cutler of
Submitted by Rob Loeffler, 3/1/07. See
“The Evolution of the Baseball Up to 1872,” March 2007.
1858.37 – In English Novel, Base-Ball Doesn’t Occupy Boys Very Long
The boys were still restless – “. . . they
were rather at a loss for a game.
They had played at base-ball and leap-frog; and rival coaches, with six
horses at full speed, have been driven several times around the garden, to the
imminent risk of box-edgings, and the corner of flower beds: what were they to
do?” Anon., “Robert
Wilmot,” in The Parents’ Cabinet of Amusement and Instruction
1858.46 –
“Mr. George Beam, of Orendorf, Beam and Co.,
Wholesale Grocers . . . visiting New York City in 1858, was invited by Mr.
Joseph Leggett [a NYC grocer] to witness one of the games of the Old Excelsior
Base Ball Club, of New York City.
Mr. Beam became so much enthused, that on his return to
William Ridgely Griffith, “The Early History of
Amateur Base Ball in the State of
1859
PART 1859.A – Items That
Can Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1859. 35 – Base Ball
Community Eyes Use of
A “committee on behalf of the Base Ball
clubs” recently conferred with NY’s Central Park Commissioners
about opening Park space for baseball.
Under discussion is a proviso that “no club shall be permitted to
use the grounds unless two-thirds of the members be residents of this
city.” “BASE BALL IN
THE CENTRAL PARK,” The New York Clipper
1859.17 -- Club Forms at
“The Nassau Base Ball Club is organized on the
March 14, 1859, no citation given, http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ [go
to chronology for the year 1859].
Note: Some source say the
1859.36 – Annual Meeting of NABBP Decides: Bound Rule, No Pros
“Base Ball,” The
1859.30 – The First Triple Play, Maybe?
Neosho [New Utrecht] beat the Wyandank [Flatbush]
49-11, with one Wyandank rally cut short in a new way, one that capitalized on
the new tag-up rule.
“The game was played according to the new
Convention rules of 1859, under one of which it was observed that the Neosho
put out three hands of their opponents with one ball, by catching the ball
‘on the fly,’ and then passing it to two bases in immediate
succession so as at the same time to put out both men who were returning to
those bases.”
“First Base Ball Match of the Season,” The
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Volume 18 number 91
1859.37 – In
“FOX
1859.38 – Base Ball Noted
from
Not everyone in Philly played town ball. “PENN TIGERS BASE BALL CLUB.
– The Two Nines of this club played their first match on Monday, 13th
inst, at Philadelphia, Boyce’s party beating Broadhead’s by only
one run, the totals being 24 and 23.” Unidentified clipping in the Mears
collection; by context it may have appeared in late spring of 1859. Facsimile provided by Craig Waff,
September 2008.
1859.41 – First Game in
“YOUNG
1859.32 – Morning Express Supports Fly Rule, Opposes Tag-up Rule: More Runs!
Reporting on the imminent Knicks-Excelsiors game: “We believe that the rule, witch is
allowed by the Convention, of putting a man out, if the ball is caught on the
first bound, is to be laid aside in this match. The more manly game of taking the ball
on the fly, is alone to be retained. . . .. We do not know whether the men are
to return to their bases in the event of a ball being caught on the fly; but it
appears to us, that it would be as fair to one team as the other if the bases
could be retained, if made before the ball had got to there, [and] it would
cause more runs to be made, and a much more lively and satisfactory
game.”
1859.1 – First
Intercollegiate Ballgame:
In the first intercollegiate baseball game ever
played,
The two schools also competed at chess that weekend.
1859.6 – The First Reported African-American Game, July 4 and/or November 15
[A] The July 4 game between Henson and Unknown; New York Anglo-African, July 30,
1859. Per Sullivan, page. 34-36.
[B] “November 15, 1859 – The first
recorded game between two black teams occurred between the Unknowns of
Weeksville and the Henson Club of Jamaica
Note: Can we get text from the sourced citation, and a
source for the text citation? Was
this one game or two?
1859.24 -- CT State Championship in Wicket Attracts 4000
“When
A special four-car train carried spectators to the
match, leaving
John Lester, A Century of Philadelphia Cricket
[UPenn Press,
1859.23 -- Base Ball Comes to
“BASE BALL CLUB. We are glad to chronicle
the formation of any club whose object is rational out-door amusement and
exercise. In a place like
Lowell [MA] Daily Journal and Courier,
1859.43 – And It’s
In a game account from August 1859, the writer
observes, “with a spicing of
1859.39 – Club Organized in
“CLUB ORGANIZED, -- A base ball club was
organized in
1859.40 – Devotion to MA Game Erodes Significantly
“BASE BALL. –
1859.21 -- Porter’s: MA Game Will Surely Die
“This thing cannot last, and the
Editorial, Porter’s
Spirit of the Times? October 1859?? From the ninth segment of
Rankin’s 1910 history??
1859.9 – Excelsiors and Union Club play for $500 and MA Championship
The New-York Tribune
Writing of this match nearly fifty years later,
“H.S” [Presumably Henry Sargent] said it was his recollection that
“The attendance was more than 10,000 at each day’s play. In
the neighboring towns the factories gave their employees holidays to see the
game.” “H. S.,”
“Roundball: Baseball’s Predecessor and a Famous Massachusetts
Game,” The New York Sun
Joanne Hulbert, David Nevard, John Thorn, and Craig
Waff helped untangle previous versions of this material [H. S. had recalled the
big game as taking place in 1858].
1859.12 – MA Championship: Unions 100, Winthrop 71, in 101 Innings
Wilkes Spirit of the Times,
1859.18 -- Harper’s Suggests Plugging Used in Base-ball
“Base-ball differs from cricket, especially, in
there being no wickets. The bat is held high in the air. When the
ball has been struck the ‘outs’ try to catch it, in which case the
striker is ‘out;’ or, if they can not do this, to strike the strike
with it when he is running, which likewise puts him out.”
Harper’s,
October 15, 1859, as quoted by Richard Hershberger, Monday June 13, 2005, on
the SABR 19CBB listserve. [Note: procure this article; it is conceivable
that Harper’s intended to describe the tagging of runners.]
1859.26 – NY Herald Weighs Base Ball against Cricket
A detailed comparison of base ball and cricket
appeared in the New York Herald,
October 16, 1859, page 1, columns 3-5.
Some fragments:
“[C]ricket could never become a national sport
in
“The home base [in base ball] is marked by a
flat circular iron plate, painted white.
The pitcher’s point . . . is likewise designated by a circular
iron plate painted white . . . .”
“The art of pitching consists in throwing it
with such force that the batsman has not time to wind his bat to hit it hard,
or so close to his person that he can only hit it with a feeble
blow.”
“[The baseball is] not so heavy in proportion to
its size as a cricket ball.”
“Sometimes the whole four bases are made in one
run.”
“The only points in which a the base ball men
would have any advantage over the cricketers, in a game of base ball, are two
– first, in the batting, which is overhand, and done with a narrower bat,
and secondly, in the fact that the bell being more lively, hopping higher, and
requiring a different mode of catching.
But the superior activity and practice of the [cricket] Eleven in
fielding would amply make up for this.”
It occupies about two hours to play a game of base
ball – two days to play a game of cricket.” “[B]ase ball is better adapted for
popular use than cricket. It is
more lively and animated, gives more exercise, and is more rapidly
concluded. Cricket seems very tame
and dull after looking at a game of base ball.
“It is suited to the aristocracy, who have
leisure and love ease; base ball is suited to the people . . . . “
In the American game the ins and outs alternate by
quick rotation, like our officials, and no man can be out of play longer than a
few minutes.”
Posted to 19CBB on 3/1/2007 by George Thompson.
1859.27 – Reader Catches “A Slight Error” – Base Ball is English, not American
“Allow me to correct a slight error in a leading
article of to-day’s issue on the cricket match. It is there stated that the game of
“base ball” is an American game. It is played in every school in
1859.10 –
“We have already several clubs in the
neighborhood who I presume play the same game as the New York clubs, which the New
York Tribune call a “baby game” if as the article in the Tribune
to-day indicates your Massachusetts game is the best we shall be glad to
introduce it here.”
Letter from William Stokes, Philadelphia to Geo H.
Stoddard, Pres., Excelsior Ball Club, Upton Mass, October 18, 1859. From the
Mills Commission files at the
1859.14 –
“That [NY Tribune} article was a discussion, I
believe, of the two games, the
New York
Tribune, October 18, 1859, as
described in Henry Sargent letter to the Mills Commission, [date obscured; a
response went to Sargent on July 21, 1905, suggesting that the Tribune article
had arrived “after we had gone to press with the other matter and
consequently it did not get in.].
The correspondence is in the Mills Commission files, item 65-29.
George Thompson located this article and posted it to
19CBB on 3/1/2007. The editorial
says, in part:
“The so-called ‘Base Ball’ played by
the New York clubs – what is falsely called the ‘National’
game – is no more like the genuine game of base ball than single wicket
is like a full field of cricket.
The Clubs who have formed what they choose to call the ‘National
Association,’ play a bastard game, worthy only of boys ten years of
age. The only genuine game is known
as the ‘Massachusetts Game . . . .’ If they [the visiting
cricketers] want to find foes worthy of their steel, let them challenge the
‘Excelsior’ Club of Upton, Massachusetts, now the Champion club of
New England, and which club could probably beat, with the greatest ease, the
best New-York nine, and give them three to one. The Englishmen may be assured that to
whip any nine playing the New-York baby game will never be recognized as a
national triumph.”
A few days later, a gentleman from
1859.25 -- Buffalo Editor Demurs on NY Game -- “A Small Potatoe,” “Worthy Only of Boys”
“Do
our [
[The
Tribune] says: "The only genuine game is what is known as the
'Massachusetts Game,' and if the Englishmen [visiting cricketers] desire to be
fairly matched, they must not permit themselves to be deluded by any men
playing the small potatoe game recognized by the 'National Associates.'
It would be no more honor for the English Eleven to beat the best nine that
could be selected, playing the
We
have not the least idea whether it is the "National Association" game
or the "
Editorial,
“Base Ball -- Who Plays the Genuine Game?,”
1859.46 -- English Cricketers View the Bound Rule as “Childish”
On October 22, 1859, the touring English cricketers
played base ball at a base ball field, which is “about two miles from the
town, and had been enclosed at great expense. The base-ball game is somewhat
similar to the English game of “rounders,” as played by
school-boys. . . .Caffyn played exceedingly well, but the English thought catching
the ball on the first bound a very
childish game.” Fred
Lillywhite, The English Cricketers’ Trip to Canada and the United
States
1859.28 – New Yorker Dies Playing Base Ball
“Yesterday afternoon, THOMAS WILLIS, a young
man, residing at No. 46 Greenwich-street, met with a sad accident while playing
ball in the Elysian Fields,
1859.45 – In
“Base Ball – This game, now so popular in
the East, is about to be introduced in our own city. A very spirited impromptu match was
played on the Fair Ground, Spring Street Avenue, yesterday [on a late fall]
afternoon six on a side.”
As part of a 12/3/2007 VB posting about a December
2007 vintage game celebrating the 148th anniversary of Milwaukee
baseball, “Handlebar” Hetzel provided this language: “In
1859, Rufus King, the editor at the Milwaukee Sentinel, gathered up 13
of his friends, with bats and balls sent to him from a colleague in New York,
to play this new game on December 1st. The game was played at what is now the
In April 1860, the Sentinel reported another
“lively” game, and added, “The game is now fairly inaugurated
in
PART 1859.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated
Within the Year
1859.2 – Intercollegiate Game [First Played by NY Rules] Pits Xavier and Fordham
Per Sullivan, Dean A., Compiler and Editor, Early
Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [
1859.3 – 24,000 Attend US-England All-Star Cricket Match at Elysian Fields
Per Rader, page 91; no citation given
1859.4 – Base Ball Club
Forms in
“Baseball Club formed in
“Town Ball. – On the 24th ult.,
the young men of Augusta, Ga., met on the Parade Ground, and organized
themselves in two parties for enjoying a friendly game at this hearty
game.” They played two
innings, and “W.D.’s side scored 43, squeezing the peaches on P.
B.’s, who managed only 19.
Source: The New York
Clipper
1859.5 -- First [or Second?]
[Note: John Thorn, on July 11, 2004, advised
Protoball that “a challenge to the citation is a photo at the NBL of the
Bostons of
1859.7 – Southern Game Takes Place in Aristocratic Setting
1859.11 --
Keetz, Frank M., The Mohawk Colored Giants of
Schenectady [Frank M. Keetz,
1859.13 – First Tour of English
Eleven, to US and
Wisden, history of cricket 1966.
1859.15 -- Games and Sports Covers Rounders, Feeder, Trap-ball, Northern Spell
Games and Sports for Young Boys [
1859.16 -- Boy’s Own Toy-Maker Covers Tip-cat and Trap-ball
The Boy’s Own Toy-Maker [
1859.19 -- Phillips Exeter Academy Used Plugging in “Base-ball?”
“Baseball was played at
Crosbie, Laurence M., The Phillips Exeter Academy: A
History, 1923, page 233. Submitted by George Thompson, 2005. [Note:
Cilley himself does not attribute the 1859 injuries to plugging.]
1859.20 -- Two More BB Clubs Issue Rules
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page
224, lists new rules in 1859 for the Harlem BB Club in NY and the Mercantile BB
Club in
1859.22 --
“
Source:
1859.29 – NABBP Rule Change: We’re Anti-Pro
“No party shall be competent to play in a match
who received compensation for his services.”
Charlton, James, ed., The Baseball Chronology
1859.31 –
“
1859.33 – Prolix Lecturer Explains What Base Ball and Cricket Mean
“This, then, is what cricket and boating,
battledore and archery, shinney and skating, fishing, hunting, shooting, and
baseball mean, namely that there is a joyous spontaneity in human beings; and
thus Nature, by means of the sporting world, by means of a great number of very
imperfect, undignified, and sometimes quite disreputable mouthpieces, is
perpetually striving to say something deserving of far nobler and clearer
utterance; something which statesmen, lawgivers, preachers, and educators would
do well to lay to heart.” S.
R. Calthrop, A Lecture on Physical Development, and Its Relations to Mental
and Spiritual Development
1859.34 – Lexicographer: “Base Ball” is English!
“BASE. A game of ball much played in
From John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of
Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar to
the United States,
1859.42 – In
Atlantic 18, Excelsior 16. This “well-played match between
the first nines of the
1859.44 – English Social Event Includes Base Ball as Well as Cricket
The activities at an August 1859 event of the
1860