A More Chronological Chronology
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
PART 1860.A – Items That Can
Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1860.21 –
NABBP Refines Rules on the Ball
The National Association of Baseball Players rules
specify that “The ball must weigh not less than five and three-fourths, nor
more than six ounces avoirdupois. It must measure not less than nine and
three-fourths, nor more than ten inches in circumference. It must be composed
of India rubber and yarn, and covered with leather, and, in all match games,
shall be furnished by the challenging club, and become the property of the
winning club, as a trophy of victory.” 1860 National Association of Baseball
Players, Rules and Regulations Adopted by the National Association of Baseball
Players -
http://wiki.vbba.org/index.php/Rules/1860
1860.1 – 75 Clubs Playing
Spirit of the Times, March 24, 1860. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript
Collections, collection 4809. Note: Can this estimate be reconciled
with #1859.40 above? The number of clubs doubled in one year?
1860.31 –
"BASE BALL IN
1860.34 – Disparate Ball Games
Seen in
In adjacent brief clippings in the Mears Collection
1860.35 –All-Out-Side-
“Town Ball at
1860.28 –
“BASE BALL. The game of Base Ball is fast becoming in
this country what Cricket is in
1860.32 –
The
The previous day, the Milwaukee Sentinel had
responded to a News piece calling the new rules “miserable” by writing
that “We don’t think much of the judgment of the News. The game of Base Ball, as now played by all
the clubs in the Eastern States, is altogether ahead of ‘the old fashioned
game,’ both in point of skill and interest.”
Facsimiles provided by Dennis Pajot, 6/23/2008.
1860.36 – In
“Cricket vs. Base Ball: A match game was played on the 21st
inst., between the first nine of the Detroit Base Ball Club and nine of the
first eleven of the Detroit Cricket Club. . . . No return game will be played,
as the cricketers find base ball too much like hard work.”
1860.20 --
“During the settling on the convention Lincoln had been
trying, in one way and another, to keep down the excitement . . . playing
billiard a little, town ball a little, and story-telling a little.”
Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen [Current
Literature Publishing, 1907], page 292.
A story circulated that he was playing ball when he
learning of his nomination: “When the
news of Lincoln’s nomination reached Springfield, his friends were greatly
excited, and hastened to inform ‘Old Abe’ of it. He could not be found at his office or at
home, but after some minutes the messenger discovered him out in a field with a
parcel of boys, having a pleasant game of town-ball. All his comrades immediately threw up their
hats and commenced to hurrah. Abe
grinned considerably, scratched his head and said ‘Go on boys; don’t let such
nonsense spoil a good game.’ The boys
did go on with their bawling, but not with the game of ball. They got out an old rusty cannon and made it
ring, while the [illeg.: Rail Splitter?] went home to think on his
chances.” Note: Richard Hershberger and others doubt the veracity of this
story. He says [email of 1/30/2008] that
one other account of that day says that Abe played hand-ball, and there is
mention of this being the only athletic that Abe was ever seen to indulge in.
“How
A political cartoon of the day showed
1860.25 – Wicket and Base Ball at
University
Quarterly [
[After a report on Kenyon’s base ball club] “The
heavier game of wicket has also had many admirers, and we doubt not but that
many of them will live longer and be happier men on account of wielding the
heavy bats.” Provided by Richard
Hershberger, email of 8/22/2007.
1860.37 –Late Surge Lifts
Douglas’ over Abe Lincoln’s Side in
“Base Ball and Politics. – We do not approve of their
thus being brought into contact, but as a match took place at
1860.38 – Base Ball in
“Base Ball in Alleghany. – A match game of base ball
was played between the
1860.39 – In Oberlin OH, It’s Railroad Club 49, Uptown Club 44.
“Base Ball at Oberlin O. – A match game between the
Railroad and Uptown Clubs, took place at Oberlin” . . . .
1860.7 – Excelsiors Conduct
Undefeated
“The Excelsiors
of Brooklyn leave for
In announcing the tour, a
News of the return of the Excelsiors appeared in “Base
Ball,” Spirit of the Times, Volume 30, number 24
1860.10 – Atlantics Are Challenged to Play MA Game for $1000 Stake, But Decline
“In a long talk with “Bill” Lawrence, who put up the
money for the Upton-Medway game, and himself a player on the mechanics Club of
Worcester, he tells me that just before the war – he thinks in 1860 – he went
to New York with Mr. A. J. Brown
Letter from Henry Sargent,
In a posting to 19CBB on 7/31/2005 [message 4], Joanne
Hulbert reports on four articles from the Worcester Daily Spy [July 16,
July 17, July 17, and August 4] that record the rumor of the “great match game
of base ball,” as well as a return match in New York if Upton wins, and the
Atlantics’ turndown, “probably on account of the expenditure of time and money
. . . as well as to their objection to playing any but the New York game.”
1860.13 – Town Ball Hangs on in
The New York Clipper of August 11, 1860, page
132, carries accounts of two July town ball games in
1860.29 – “Canadian Game” Espied
in
“Despite early experimentation with Cartwright’s game,
1860.30 – CT Wicketers Trounce CT Cricketers --at Wicket
Was wicket an inferior game? “the game [of wicket] certainly reached a
level of technical sophistication equal to these two sports [base ball and
cricket]. This was clearly demonstrated
during a wicket match at
1860.41 – Two Base Ball Tourneys
in
In September and October 1860, two tournaments
occurred in CA. The first saw SF’s Eagle
Club beat Sacramento twice, 36-32 and 31-17
It was noted that SF’s Gelston, a
leadoff batter and catcher, was from the Eagle Club in New York, and “the Sacs”
pitcher and leadoff batter Robinson was from Brooklyn’s Putnams. In addition to a $100 prize for the winning
team, the best player at each position received a special medal. The games took place in
In October, three teams –
1860.44 – Score it 7-5-4: “Three Hands Out in a Jiffy”
We now know that it wasn’t the first triple play ever
[see #1859.30 above], but it was a snazzy play.
“By one of the handsomest backward single-handed catches ever made by
[the gloveless LF] Creighton, he took the ball on the fly, and instantly, by a
true and rapid throw, passed the ball to [3B] Whiting, who caught it, and threw
quickly to Brainerd, on the second base, before either Sears or Patchen had
time to return to their bases.” The
trick “elicited a spontaneous mark of approbation and applause from the vast
assemblage [the crowd roared].”
“Out-Door Sports: Base Ball: The Southern Trip of the Excelsior Club,” Sunday
Mercury, Volume 22, number 40
1860.23 – NY Game Gets to ME
“The first documented
game of baseball to actually be played in
Anderson, Will, Was Baseball Really Invented in
1860.14 – Potomacs “Conquer”
Nationals in
“For many reasons this game has excited more interest
than any other ever played hereabouts.” The Evening Star carries a
full game account and box score. “Geo Hibbs, Dooley, and Beale of the
National, went into the “corking” line pretty largely, the latter leading the
score of his side.” It was the deciding game of the match.
“Base Ball:
1860.40 – “Championship” Game: Atlantic 20, Eckford 11
“Great Match for the Championship.
1860.42 – Shut Out Reported as the First Ever; Excelsiors 25, St. George Nine Zip
This game, played on the St. George grounds at
1860.5 – NY Game is Dominant in CA
Wilkes Spirit of the Times, December 1, 1860. Per Millen, note # 44.
PART 1860.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated Within
the Year
1860s.2 – NY game, Mass game, Cricket co-exist
The New York Game, the Massachusetts Game, and cricket
co-exist. Many athletes play more than one of these games. Varying forms of
baseball are now played in virtually every corner of the continent. The Civil
War years disrupt the organizational development of baseball to a degree but,
with the war and the great movement of soldiers that it brings, baseball’s popularity
is solidified. The New York Game emerges from the war years
1860.3 – NY Game Now Found in All the Larger Cities
Per Rader, page 110. No source given.]
1860c.4 – Four Teams of African-Americans, All in the NYC Area, Are Reported
See Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early
Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825-1908 [
1860.6 -- Chadwick’s Beadle’s Appears, and the Baseball Press is Launched
Chadwick, Henry, Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player: A
Compendium of the Game, Comprising Elementary Instructions of the American Game
of Base Ball [
1860.8 – Union Club of Former
Slaves Plays in
Malloy, Jerry, “Early Black Baseball/Charles Douglass:
http://mysite.verizon.net/brak2.0/antebell.htm,
accessed 6/2/04.
1860c.11 – Man Played Base Ball in CT Before the War
“I am a native of
Letter from Philip W. Hudson, Houston
Texas, to the Mills Commission, July 23, 1905.
1860.15 -- Adolescent Novel Describes Base Ball Game
Thayer William M., The Bobbin Boy; or, How Nat Got
His Learning
1860.16 -- Mercantile BB Club of
Owed 2 Base Ball in Three Can’t-Oh’s!
1860.17 --
Posting on 19CBB by Joanne Hulbert, 7/15/2005 [message
2].
1860.18 -- Granite and Quinnipiack Clubs Issue Their Rulebooks
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 224,
lists new constitutions for the Granite BB Club of
1860.19 -- Second Annual Chadwick Guide Prints Season Stats for the Year
Chadwick, Henry, Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player for
1861 [
1860.22 – Routledge’s
“Ball Games” Depicts Simplified Form of Stoolball
“This is an old English sport, mentioned by Gower
and Chaucer, and was at one period common to women as well as men. In the Northern parts of England,
particularly in Yorkshire, it is practiced in the following manner: -- A stool
being set upon the ground, one of the players takes his place before it, while
his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball, with the intention of
striking the stool. It is the former
player’s business to prevent this, by striking it away with the hand, reckoning
one to the game for every stroke of the ball; if, on the contrary, it should be
missed by the hand, and hit the stool, the players change places. The conqueror of the game is he who strikes
the ball most times before it touches the stool.”
Ball Games [George Routledge,
1860.24 – Mighty Nat at the Bat: A Morality Story
“[T]here was to be a special game of ball on Saturday
afternoon. Ball-playing was one of the
favorite games with the boys. . . . [Nat
comes to bat.] ‘I should like to see a ball go by him without getting a rap,’ answered Frank, who was now the
catcher. ‘The ball always seems to think
it is no use to try to pass him.’
“’ There, take that,’ said Nat, as he sent the all, at
his first bat, over the hands of all, so far that he had time to run round the
whole circle of goals, turning a somersault as he came in.”
The boys’ game is not further described. Thayer, William M., The Bobbin Boy; Or,
How Nat Got His Learning. An Example for
Youth
1860c.26 – British
Book Shows Several Safe-Haven Games – Cricket, Rounders, Feeder, Nine Holes,
Doutee Stool, and Stoolball
Ball Games with Illustrations
Doutee Stool: After a ball is thrown or struck, players try to reach
a stool further along a circle before the server can retrieve the ball and
strike one of them [page 41-42].
Egg Hat: Player A throws a ball into another player’s hat, say
Player B. Player B tries to retrieve the ball and hit one of the fleeing
others, or he is assessing an egg. Three eggs and you’re out [pages
42-44].
Feeder: Batter must complete a circle of bases [clockwise] before
the pitcher [feeder] retrieves the ball and hits him with it. Not
described as a team game [pages 44-46].
Nine-Holes: Egg Hat without hats [pages 54-56].
Rounders: “a most excellent game, and very popular in some of our
English counties.” One-handed batting; teams of five or more, stones or
stakes for bases, runners out be plugging or force-out at home, one-out-side-out,
three strikes and out, balks allowed, foul balls in play [pages 57-60].
Stool-Ball: “an old English sport, mentioned by Gower and Chaucer,
and was at one period common to women as well as men. Player defends against
thrown ball hitting his stool [pages 61 ff].”
Note: pages 58 and 62 missing from file copy. Can
we confirm c1860 as year of publication?
1860c.27 – Playing of Hole-less
Two-Old-Cat in
“Baseball, as now [in 1915] so popularly played by the
many strong local, national and international "nines," was quite
unheard of in my boyhood. To us . . .
the playing of "two old cat" was as vital, interesting and
captivating as the present so-well-called National Game. . . . Four boys made
the complement for that game. Having
drawn on the ground two large circles, distant about ten or twelve feet from
each other in a straight line, a boy with a bat-or ‘cat-stick,’ as it was
called -- in hand stood within each of those circles; back of each of those
boys was another boy, who alternately was a pitcher and catcher, depending upon
which bat the ball was pitched to or batted from. If a ball was struck and driven for more or
less distance, then the game was for the boys in the circles to run from one to
the other a given number of times, unless the boy who was facing the batter
should catch the ball, or running after it, should secure it, and, returning,
place it within one of those circles before the prescribed number of times for
running from one to the other had been accomplished; or, if a ball when struck
was caught on the fly at close range, then that would put a side out. The boys, as I have placed them in twos at
that old ball game, were called a side, and when a side at the bat was
displaced, as I have explained, then the other two boys took their positions
within the circles. It was a popular
game with us, and we enjoyed it with all the gusto and purpose as does the
professional ball player of these later days.”
Farnham, Joseph E. C., Brief Historical Data and
Memories of My Boyhood Days in Nantucket
1860.43 –Three Ball Clubs Form in VT Village
“As if to anticipate and prepare for the dread
exigencies of war, then impending, by a simultaneous impulse, all over the
country, base ball clubs were organized during the year or two preceding
1861. Perhaps no game or exercise,
outside military drill, was ever practiced, so well calculated as this to
harden the muscles and invigorate the physical functions. . . .
“Three base ball clubs were formed in this town, in
1860 and 1861. . . . They were sustained with increasing interest until 1862,
when a large portion of each club was summoned to war.”
Hiel Hollister, Pawlet [VT] for One Hundred Years
1861
PART 1861.A – Items That Can
Be Readily Dated Within the Year
1861.5 – 15,000 Watch Ice Base Ball in Bkn: Atlantic 37, Charter Oak 26.
“[A] novel game of base ball was played on the
skating-pond in the Eighth Ward, between the
1861.8 –
A club formed in
1861.9 – Buckeye BBC Forms in
“The Buckeye Base Ball Club is the first institution
of the kind organized in
1861.7 –
The year-old Young Canadian Base Ball Club [Woodstock,
ON] met in Spring 1861, elected officers, reported themselves “flourishing”
with forty members, and basked in the memory of a 6-0 1860 season. “At the last meeting of the club it was
resolved that they should practice the New York game for one month, and if at
the end of that time they liked it better than the Canadian game, they would
adopt it altogether. The
1861.10 – Atlantic 52, Mutual 27, 6 Innings: Chadwick is Wowed by 26-Run 3rd
Going into the 3rd inning, the
Henry Chadwick, “A Grand Exhibition,” Sunday
Mercury
http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/favorite%207.html
1861.4 – Alex Chadwick Links Base Ball to Rounders -- But It’s A Lot More Scientific
“The game of base ball is, as our readers are for the
most part aware, an American game exclusively, as now played, although a game
somewhat similar has been played in England for many years, called ‘rounders,’
but which is played more after the style of the Massachusetts game. New York, however, justly lays claim to being
the originators of what is termed the American Game, which has been so improved
in all its essential points by them, and it scientific points so added to, that
it does not stand second to either [rounders or the Mass game?] in its innate
excellencies, or interesting phrases, to any national game in any country in
the world, and is every way adapted to the tastes of all who love athletic
exercises in the country.” Chadwick
article in The New York Clipper
1861.6 – The Clipper Looks
Back at the 1861
The Clipper
The War: “[D]espite
the interruptions and drawbacks occasioned by the great rebellion [it] has been
really a very interesting year in the annals of the game, far more than was
expected . . . ; but the game has too strong a foothold in popularity to be
frowned out of favor by lowering brows of ‘grim-faced war,’ and if any proof
was needed that our national game is a fixed institution of the country, it
would be found in the fact that it has flourished through such a year of
adverse circumstances as those that have marked the season of 1861.”
Juiced Ball? On July 23, it
was Eagles 32, Eckfords 23, marking the Eckfords’ first loss since 1858. “The feature of the contest was the unusual
number of home runs that were made on both sides, the Eckfords scoring no less
than 11, of which Josh Snyder alone made four, and the Eagles getting
five.” 3000 to 4000 fans watched this
early slugfest.
PART 1861.B – Items that Cannot Readily Be Dated Within
the Year
1861.1 -- Chadwick Tries to Start
Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns, Baseball: An
Illustrated History [Knopf, 1994], p.12, no ref given. Note: John Thorn, email of 2/10/2008, suggests that
Beadle may have more detail. Schiff,
Millen, and Kirsch also cite Chadwick’s attempt, but do not give a clear date,
or a source.
1861.2 –Stoolball Played, in Co-ed Form
“Stoolball was played at Chailey [
1861c.3 – Town Ball in
“We boys, for hours at a time, played “town ball” [at
my grandfather’s estate] on the vast lawn, and Mr. [Abe]
Blair, whose grandfather was