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play [9 items], “Bat-Ball”
and “Bat-and-Ball” References [New: 20
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State Ballplaying [38 items],
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Cricket in North America [New: 126 entries], Famous People with
Links to Ballplaying [69 items], Female play [31
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Ballplaying [33 items], Ballplaying in the U.S. Military
[New: 25 items], Ballplaying as Reflected in Narrative Fiction
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Before the Knickerbockers [58 items], A Few Oddball Games [6
items], Ballplaying Outside
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items], English Rounders
[42 items], Ballplaying in the American South
[New:14 items], Ballplaying in St. Louis and Southern Illinois [New: 21 items], Stoolball [58
items], Town Ball
[46 items], the game of Wicket [57 items],
and Ballplaying in Wisconsin [New: 6 items]. New Entries Only: To browse the 190 newest [April 2010]
entries, go here. Re-ordered Version 10: For a
version of the 2008 Chronology that lists entries in chronological order
within the calendar years 1844-1861, go here. |
Version 11, updated April
2010
The Protoball Working Chronology of
Early Ball Play --
2500BC through 1862AD
Project History: This chronology originated with an initial listing by John Thorn and Tom Heitz, one that included about 70 entries. We took that popular set and had added another 200 entries by 2004, always adding formal citations where we could, so that investigators could recheck original data as needed. About 50 ofthese items came from previously uncollected references in a prize-winning paper by
Tom Altherr. In 2005, David Block’s landmark Baseball Before We Knew It was published, furnishing over 150 new entries for subsequent versions of the Protoball chronology. Researchers, many of them subscribers to the SABR “19CBB” listserve, have since added hundreds more. Version 11 adds about 190 new items, raising the total to about 1150 entries. Over 50 of these new entries are taken from Bill Ryczek’s new book, Baseball’s First Inning.
Scope: The Protoball list
includes entries for what we here term “safe haven” ball games
It’s a Work in Progress: This chronology is a work in progress. Your contributions are welcome in completing and emending it. Our hope is to ultimately create a searchable file of useful primary information on the evolution of safe-haven ballgames. For more information, to make suggestions, or to add to the chronology, contact Larry McCray at Lmccray@mit.edu.
Key: Serial numbers for the entries comprise the year of the reported event [for example, “1820s” means “in the 1820’s,” and “1823c” means “circa 1823”] and an identifying numerical suffix. The reader should note the unavoidable imprecision in assigning some dates; for example, if a memoirist who was born in 1813 reports that he played ball as a youth, the date is probably recorded as “1823c,” but could obviously be a few years off either way. The reader should habitually take caution in the long-time memories of the dates, if not the facts, of reflective accounts; after all, neurologists now tell us that the human memory is not an indelible digital storage device. Entries for any one year are not listed in chronological sequence.
Please Contribute Comments, Data, and Corrections: Reader comments are especially welcome to fill information needs for open queries that follow the term “Note:” within an entry.
Important Caveat on the Authenticity of Entries: The Protoball Project includes published claims for historical events associated with the evolution of baseball. Some of these claims have been questioned – and some ridiculed -- within today’s research community. Instead of withholding such claims [which lay forever unchallenged in published sources] , we include most of them, noting any current doubts as to their reliability in “Caution” and “Caveat” notations. The reader should not take the appearance of an item in the Chronology to imply our endorsement of the authenticity of that item. We welcome communications from you about listed claims that you find questionable in light of historical evidence.
Access to Protoball File Information: If you are writing about early ballplaying, for publication or for a term paper, say, we will be pleased to supply facsimiles of material from our paper files on our entries. For large requests, we ask that you cover our out-of-pocket expenses for photocopying and mailing. Upon request, we are also pleased to consult the contents of the Buzz McCray Collection of books, which amount to about 15 shelf-feet of books and papers, all of which are listed on Protoball’s Buzz McCray Bibliography on Early Ballplaying.
How the Chronology
Grew From 70 Entries to its Current Size
-----------------------------------------
The Protoball Chronology – Version 11
BC2500C.1 – “Tip cats” Found in Egyptian Ruins
Writing in 1891, Stewart Culin reported “the
discovery by Mr. Flinders-Petrie of wooden ‘tip cats’ among the
remains of Rahun, in the Fayoom,
Culin, Stewart, “Street Games of Boys in
BC2400C.1 – Egyptian Text Has “Strike the Ball” Reference
“The earliest known references to seker-hemat
Piccione, Peter, “Pharaoh at the Bat,”
BC2000.1 -- 2000 BC to 0 BC – The Ball in Ancient Play
Ancient cultures—Lydians, Persians, Greeks,
Romans, and Egyptians—play primitive stick and ball games for recreation,
fertility rites and religious rituals.
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport
Press, 1947], pp. 8-21
BC2000c.2 – 1913 Text: “
“Recent excavations near
William S. Walsh, A Handy Book of Curious
Information, (J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1913), page 83. .
Available via Google Books search “to light small
balls,” 1/27/2010. Query: Does recent scholarship agree that these
were balls, were used in sport, and date to 2000BC? Is there further evidence about their
role in Egyptian life?
BC1500C.1 – 1500 to 700 BC -- Mexican Game Believed to Use Rubber Ball, Bat
According to SABR member César González,
“There are remains of rubber balls found since the time of the Olmeca
culture between 1500 and 700 BC.”
He reports that it is believed that one of the earliest Mesoamerican
games was played with a stick.
Email from César
González, 12/6/2008 Note:
Can we add sources for these points?
BC1460.1 – Egyptian Tomb Inscriptions Show Bats, Balls
Wall inscriptions in Egyptian royal tombs depict games
using bats and balls.
According to Egyptologist Peter Piccione, “A
wall relief at the
Per Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport
Press, 1947], p. 20. Note:
BC750.1 -- 750 BC to 150 AD --
Ballplay in Ancient
The Greeks, famous for their athletics, played several
ball games. In fact the Greek
gymnasium ["palaistra”] was often known to include a special room
[“sphairiteria”] for ballplaying . . . a “sphaira”
being a ball. Pollux [ca 180 AD]
lists a number of children’s ball games, including games that loosely
resemble very physical forms of keepaway and rugby, and the playing of a
complicated form of catch, one that involved feints to deceive other players.
The great physician Galen wrote [ca. 180 AD]
especially fondly of ballplaying and its merits, and seems to have seen it as
an adult activity. He advised that
“the most strenuous form of ball playing is in no way inferior to other
exercises.” Turning to milder
forms of ball play, he said “I believe that in this form ball playing is
also superior to all the other exercises.” His partiality to ballplaying stemmed in
part from its benefit for the whole body, not just the legs or arms, as was the
case for running and wrestling.
As far as we are aware, Greek ball games did not
include any that involved running among bases or safe havens, or any that
involved hitting a ball with a club or stick
Source:
Stephen G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources, [
BC700C.1 – Pitching in the Bible?
”He will surely wind you around and around, and
throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die . . . “ Isaiah 22:18.
The word “ball” appears only twice in the
Bible, and the lesser one refers to the ball of the foot of a beast [Leviticus
11:27]. The Isaiah usage was the inspiration for a January
1905 news article headed, “Played Baseball in Bible Times: The Prophet Isaiah
Made the only reference to the Pastime to be Found in the Holy
Writ.” [The Hamilton [Ont] Spectator – from a
clipping in the Origins file at the
Isaiah’s prophesies were written [in Hebrew]
late in the eighth century BC. A
compilation of 15 English translations [accessed at http://bible.cc/isaiah/22-18.htm
on 12/29/10] shows that most of them summon the image of an angry God
hurling the miscreant, like a ball, far far away. [One exception, however, cites a wound
turban, not a ball.] A literal
translation is unrevealing: “And thy coverer covering, wrapping round,
Wrappeth thee round, O babbler, On a land broad of sides – there thou
diest.” Caveat: we have little assurance that Isaiah actually referred to a
ball, or even to the act of throwing. Query: could a Hebrew reader or a Bible scholar
among you clarify this question?
BC 100.1 – Historian Dates Early Cricket to 100BC – Others Disagree
In
his 1912 article “The History of Cricket” [in Pelham and Warner, Imperial
Cricket
Bateman,
Anthony,” ‘More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;
‘Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
370C.1 –
In his Confessions,
Augustine of Hippo – later
Saint
Augustine’s Confessions, Book
One, text supplied by Dick McBane, February 2008. Note:
Can historians identify the “game of ball” that Augustine might
have played in the fourth Century?
Are the translations to “game of ball,” “games,”
and “sport” still deemed accurate?
640s.1 – Medieval Writer: Saint Cuthbert [b. 634c] “Pleyde atte balle”
Mulling on whether the ball came to England in
Anglo-Saxon days, Strutt reports “the author of a manuscript in Trinity
College, Oxford, written in the fourteenth century and containing the life of
Saint Cuthbert, says of him, that when young, ‘he pleyde atte balle with
the children that his felawes [fellows] were.’ On what authority this information is
established I cannot tell.”
Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of
the People of England,
Note: The claim of this unidentified manuscript seems
weak. As Strutt notes, the
venerable Bede wrote poetic and prose accounts of the life of Cuthbert around
715-720 A.D., and made no mention of ballplaying. That a scholar would find evidence seven
centuries later would be surprising. Warton later cites the poem as from Oxford
MSS number Ivii, and he also places its unidentified author in the fourteenth
century, but he doesn’t the veracity of the story line. The poem describes an angel sent from
heaven to dissuade Cuthbert from playing such an “ydell” [idle]
pastime. Warton, Thomas, The History of English Poetry from the Close
of the Eleventh Century to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century
824.1 -- 15-Year-Old Chinese Emperor Criticized for Excessive Ball-playing
Ching Tsung, was the new Chinese emperor at the age of
15. “As soon as he could escape from the morning levee, the young
Emperor rushed off to play ball. His habits were well known in the city,
and in the summer of 824 someone suggested to a master-dyer named Chang Shao
that, as a prank, he should slip into the Palace, lie on the Emperor’s
couch and eat his dinner, ‘for nowadays he is always away, playing ball
or hunting.’” The prank was carried out, but those prankish
dyers . . . well, they died as a result.
Waaey, Arthur, The Life and Times of Po Chu-I, 772-846
[Allen and Unwin,
900.1 – Mayan Games Played
at
Mayan Indians play stick and ball games in ceremonial
courts in
Note: This
source may be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins
of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 201. And
1000C.1 –
“Batting” Games in
Is his 1941 paper “Battingball Games” [Reprinted as Appendix
6 in Block, Baseball Before We Knew it, pp. 261 ff], Per Maigaard wrote:
“The oldest complete account of a Battingball game is that of Gutsmuth in 1796. From older times we only hear about Batting without further explanation, the
oldest being from the 11th century in
The original source for Maigaard’s paper is given as Genus, volume 5 (December 1941), pages
57-72. The paper traces the
evolution and typology of batting/running games like rounders and longball,
which Maigaard sees as having taken advanced form in
1086.1 –
Form of Stool Ball Possibly Found in Domesday Book in Norman England
Stool ball, a stick and ball game and a forerunner of rounders and cricket,
is apparently mentioned in the Domesday Book as “bittle-battle.”
Note: This source is Henderson, Robert W., Ball,
Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p.
75. However,
Note: We need to confirm whether the Domesday Book actually uses the term “bittle-battle,” “stool ball,” or what. We also should try to ascertain views of professional scholars on the interpretations of the Book. Martin Hoerchner advises that the British Public Records Office may, at some point, make parts of the Domesday Book available online.
1100s.1 –
“Pagan” Ball Rites Observed in
Note: This
source appears to be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The
Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 37-38. Page 37
refers to an 1165 prohibition and page 38 mentions 12th and 13th
Century Easter rites. Henderson identifies two sources for the page 38
statement: Beleth, J., “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,” in Migne,
J. P., Patrologiae Curius Completus, Ser 2, Vol. 106, pp. 575-591
[Paris, 1855], and Durandus, G., “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,”
Book VI, Ch 86, Sect. 9 [Rome, 1473]...Henderson does not say that these rites
involved the use of sticks.
1189.1 –
“Unconfirmed” Report of a Stoolball Reference by Iscanus
There is “an unconfirmed report which was published in the
beginning of the Century quoting one Joseph Iscanus, of
National Stoolball Association, “A Brief History of
Stoolball,” page 2. This
mimeo, available in NSA files, has no date or author, but has one internal
reference to an 1989 source, so it must be fairly recent. It contains no hint on the source of the
1189 claim or how it has been assessed. Note: Is it now possible to further pursue
this claim using online resources?
The 1189 claim appears nowhere else in available writings about
stoolball.
However, some cite a Joseph Iscanus couplet: “The youth at cricks
did play/Throughout the livelong day/” as an indicator of early
cricket. However, the online source
of this rhyme does not give a source.
Very murky, no? Query: what do leading cricket
historians say of this alleged reference?
1200s.1 – Bat and Ball Game Illustration Appears in English Genealogical Roll
“The [1301 -- see below] illustration is a very
early depiction of the game we know as baseball, but it’s probably not
the first. In 1964, a writer named Harry Simmons cited an English bat and
ball picture from a genealogical roll of the Kings of England up to Henry III,
who died in 1269.”
Baltimore Sun
article on the Ghistelle Calendar [see entry for 1301]
1205.1 -- “Ball” Rolls into the English Language
Scholars report that the Chronicle of Britain
[1205] contained the words “Summe heo driuen balles wide . . .”
which they see as “the first known use of the word ball in the
sense of a globular body that is played with.” The source? Old
Norse, by way of Middle English. [Old High German had used ballo and
pallo, but the English didn’t use “ball” in those
days.] The source does not say whether people in
Source: Wikipedia entry on “ball,”
accessed
1255.1 – Spanish Painting Seen as Earliest Depiction of Ballplaying
The
book
Email
from Ron Gabriel, July 10, 2007.
Ron also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was
the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention. Note:
can we specify the painting and its creator? Can we learn how baseball historians and
others interpret this artwork?
1299.1 – Prince of Wales Plays “Creag,” Seen By Some as a Cricket Precursor
Cashman, Richard, “Cricket,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 87.
1300s.1 – Trapball Played
in the
Trevithick, Alan, “Trapball,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 421.
1300s.2 – Edward III Prohibits Playing of Club-Ball.
“The recreations prohibited by proclamation in
the reign of Edward III, exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified;
the throwing of stones, wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball,
club-ball, and camucam, which I take to have been a species of goff . . .
.” Edward III reigned from 1327 to 1377. The actual term for
“club-ball” in the proclamation was, evidently,
“bacculoream.”
This appears to be one of only two direct references
to “club-ball” in the literature. See #1794.2, below.
Caveat:
David Block argues that, contrary to Strutt’s contention [see #1801.1,
below], club ball may not be the common ancestor of cricket and other
ballgames. See David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages
105-107 and 183-184. Block says
that “pilam bacculoream” translates as “ball play with a
stick or staff.” Note: We seem not to really know what
“camucam” was. Nor, of course,
how club ball was played, since the term could have denoted a form of tennis or
field hockey or and early form of stoolball or cricket. It’s odd that no specific year is
assigned to this proclamation, and that Strutt cites no reference for it.
1300s.3 --
Stoolball Said to Originate Among
“Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14th
century, originating in
Source: Wikipedia entry on “Stoolball,” accessed
1/25/2007. Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry
1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball.
It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding date. The
Wikipedia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not
credit 1330 as the likely time of stoolball’s appearance.
1301.1 – Ghistelles Calendar Depicts Vigorous-Looking Bat/Ball Game
A manuscript obtained in 1999 by the
Schoettler, Carl, “The Old, Old, Old Ball
Game,”
1310.1 – Documents Said to Describe Baseball-like Romanian Game of Oina
According
to an otherwise unidentified clip in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center,
an AP article datelined Bucharest Romania [and which appeared in the Oneonta Times on March 29, 1990], the
still popular Romanian game of oina can be traced back to a [unspecified]
document dating to the year 1310.
The game itself “was invented by shepherds in the first
century.”
The article is evidently based on an interview with
Cristian Costescu, who sees baseball as “the American pastime derived
from the ancient game of oina.”
Oina reportedly has eleven players per side, an all-out-side-out rule,
tossed pitches, nine bases describing a total basepath of 120 yards, plugging of
baserunners, the opportunity for the fielding side to score points, and a bat
described as similar to a cricket bat.
Costescu is reported to have served as head of the Romanian Oina
Federation in the years when baseball was banned in
The Oneonta Times headline is “Play
Oina! Romanians Say Their Game
Inspired Creation of Baseball.”
Note: Can we find additional documentation of
oina’s rules and history? Is
the 1310 documentation available in English translation? Have others followed the recent fate of
oina and the work of Costescu?
1310c.2 – A Drawing of “A Game of Ball,” with a Player in a Batting Pose
A 1915 book on ancient British schools includes a
drawing dated circa 1310. It shows
two players, one clad in a garment with broad horizontal stripes. Both players hold clubs, and the player
in stripes appears ready to swing at a melon-sized ball. The other player appears to be preparing
to fungo the ball . . . or, conceivably, toss it with his left hand, to the
striped player. The
illustration’s caption is “A Game of Ball, Stripes vs. Plain, c.
1310.” The
Posted by Mark Aubrey to the 19CBB listserve on
1/10/2008. The 1915 source,
available in full text on Google Books, is A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England
1330.1 – Vicar of Winkfield Advises Against Bat/Ball Games in Churchyards; First Stoolball Reference?
“Stoolball was played in England as early as
1330, when William Pagula, Vicar of Winkfield, near Windsor, wrote in Latin a
poem of instructions to parish priests, advising them to forbid the playing of
all games of ball in churchyards: “Bats and bares and suche play/Out of
chyrche-yorde put away.”
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop:
The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 74. Note: The
Vicar’s caution was translated in 1450 by a Canon, John Myrc.
1344.1 -- Manuscript Shows a Club-and-Ball Game with Stool-like Object
“A manuscript of 1344 in the Bodleian Library at
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport
Press, 1947], pp. 130-131.
1363.1 -- Englishmen Forbidden to Play Ball; Archery Much Preferred
Edward III wrote to the Sheriff of
A. R. Myers, English
Historical Documents
Caveat: The
content of this entry resembles that of #1300s.2 above, and both refer to a
restriction imposed by Edward III. However that entry, stemming from Strutt,
refers to “club-ball” instead of “stick-ball,” and
identifies the Latin as “pilam bacculoream,” not “pila
cacularis.” It is possible
that both refer to the same source.
Also: the letter to
Note: this entry replaces the former entry #1365.1:
“In 1365 the sheriffs had to forbid able-bodied men playing ball games
as, instead, they were to practice archery on Sundays and holidays.” Source: Hassall, W. O., [compiler],
“How They Lived: An Anthology of Original Accounts Written Before
1485” [Blackwell, Oxford University Press, 1962], page 285.
Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
1385.1 -- English Boys Play Ball “To the Grave Peril of Their Souls”
A letter written by Robert Braybroke laid out the
palpable risks of ball-playing: “Certain [boys], also, good for
nothing in their insolence and idleness, instigated by evil minds and busying
themselves rather in doing harm than good, throw and shoot stones, arrows, and
different kinds of missiles at the rooks, pigeons, and other birds nesting in
the walls and porches of the church and perching [there]. Also they play
ball inside and outside the church and engage in other destructive games there,
breaking and greatly damaging the glass windows and the stone images of the
church . . . This they do not without great offense to God and our church and
to the prejudice and injury or us as well as to the grave peril of their
souls.” And the sanction for such play? “We . . .
proclaim solemnly that any malefactors whatever of this kind [including
churchyard merchants as well as young ballplayers] whom it is possible to catch
in the aforesaid actions after this our warning have been and are excommunicated
. . . .”
Crow, Martin M., and Clair C. Olson, eds.,
“Chaucer’s World” [Columbia University Press,
1393.1 – Disconfirmed Poetry Lines Said to Denote
Stoolball in
According to a 2007 article in a Canadian magazine,
there is poetry in which a milkmaid calls to another, “Oi, Rosie, coming
out to Potter’s field for a whack at the old stool?” The article continues: “The year was 1393. The place was
The article, by
Ruth Tendulkar, is titled “The Great-Grandmother of Baseball and
Cricket,” and appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine. We have been unable to find addition
source details from the author or the magazine.
Sourcehttp://www.cnmag.ca,
as accessed 9/6/2007.
Caution: The editor of The
Canadian Newcomers Magazine informed us on 1/10/2088 that the Tendulkar
piece “was strictly an entertainment piece rather than an academic
piece.” We take this to say
that the verse is not authentic.
Email from Dale Sproule, Publisher/Editor.
1450.1 -- John Myrc Repeats Warning Against Ball Play in the Churchyard, Including “Stoil Ball”
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It [page
165], cites the Myrc work, “early poetic instruction of priests,”
as “How thow schalt thy paresche preche,”
1450.2 – Stoolball Dated by NSA to 1450 in “Don
Quixote”
“[Stoolball] is
mentioned in the classic book Don
Quixote.”
Source: NSA website,
accessed April 2007. Note: we need a fuller citation and the
key text. It is possible that this
entry confuses D’Urfey’s 1694 play about Don Quixote [see Entry
#1694.1, below] with the Cervantes masterpiece.
1470c.1 –Editor Sees Stoolball in Verse on Bachelorhood
“In al this world
“In every place he is loved over alle/Among
maydens grete and smale-/In daunsyng, in pipyngs, and rennyng at the balle,/In
every place wher-so he go.
“They leten lighte by housebonde-men/Whan they
at the balle renne;/They casten ther love to yonge men/In every place wher-so
they go.
“Then seyn maydens, "Farewel, Jakke,/Thy
love is pressed al in thy pak;/Thou berest thy love bihynde thy back,/In every
place wher-so thou go."
Robert Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English
Lyrics
1477.1 – List of Banned Games May Include Distant Ancestors of Cricket?
A Westminster statute, made to curb gambling by rowdy
soldiers upon their return from battle, reportedly imposed sanctions for
“playing at cloish, ragle, half-bowls, handyn and handoute, quekeborde,
and if any person permits even others to play at such games in his house or
yard, he is to be imprisoned for three years; as also he who plays at such game,
to forfeit ten pounds to the king,
and be imprisoned for two years.”
Observations Upon the Statutes, Chiefly the More
Ancient, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-first [Year] of James the First (
The 1766 author adds: “This is, perhaps, the
most severe law which has ever been made in any country against gaming, and
some of the forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly
the handing and handoute, which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the
term hands is still retained in that
game [for what would later be known as innings]
An1864 writer expands further: “Half-bowls was played with pins
and one-half of a sphere of wood, upon the floor of a room. It is said to be still played in
Hertfordshire under the name of rolly-polly. Hand-in and hand-out was a ring-game,
played by boys and girls, like kissing-ring [footnote 31].” John Harland,
A Volume of Court Leet Records of the Manor of
1478.1 – Du Cange Mentions “Criquet” Game in his Glossary
While others see cricket as taking its name from the
term for a staff, or stick, “[T]he famous New English Dictionary
favors a word used as a [game’s] target: criquet, Du Cange
quotes this word in a manuscript of 1478: ‘The suppliant came to a place
where a game of ball
Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae ET Infimae Latinatis
[
1478.2 – Parliament Speaks: Jail or Fine for Unlawful Gameplaying
An Act of Parliament forbade unlawful games as
conducive to disorder and as discouraging the practice of archery. The games that were forbidden, under
penalty of two years’ imprisonment or a fine of ten pounds, were these:
quoits, football, closh, kails, half-bowls, hand-in and hand-out,
chequer-board.
This Act is cited as Rot. Parl. VI, 188. Information provided by John Thorn,
email of 2/27/2008.
Caveat: The list of proscribed games is similar to the Edward
III’s prohibition [see #1363.1 above] adding “hand-in and
hand-out” in place of agame translated as “club-ball” or
“stick-ball. We are uncertain
as to whether hand-in and hand-out is the ancestor of a safe-haven game.
1494c.1 -- Christopher Columbus and the Coefficient of Restitution
“When Christopher Columbus revisited
Holland Thompson, “Charles Goodyear and the
History of Rubber,” at http://inventors.about.come/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/rubber_2.htm,
accessed 1/24/2007. Note: We need better sources for the
1500s.1 -- Ballplaying Permitted
at
“Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with
regard to games than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of
the Cisterian College of St Bernard contemplated that permission might be
obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for
vespers. A sixteenth century code of statutes for the College of Tours,
while recording the complaints of the neighbors about the noise made by the
scholars playing ball
Rait, Robert S., Life in the Medieval University
[Cambridge University Press, 1912], page 83. Submitted by John Thorn,
10/12/2004.
1500s.2 –
Queen Elizabeth’s Dudley Plays Stoolball at Wotton Hill?
According to a manuscript written in the 1600s, Robert Dudley, the Earl
of Leicester and his “Trayne”
“came to Wotton, and thence to Michaelwood Lodge . . . and thence
went to Wotton Hill, where hee paid a match at stobball.”
Note: Is it possible to determine the
approximate date of this event?
Queen Elizabeth I named her close associate [once rumored to be her
choice as husband] Dudley to became Earl of Leicester in the 1564, and he died
in 1588. The Wotton account was written by John Smyth of Nibley somewhere in
his
1523.1 –
Baron’s Trespass Records Mention Stoball
“Item, quod petrus frankeleyne vid posuit iiiixx ovesin le stoball
field contra ordinacionem.”
Source: National Stoolball Association, “A Brief History of
Stoolball,” [mimeo, author and date unspecified], page 2. This wording is reportedly found in
“an extract from the rolls of the Court Baron of the Royal Manor of Kirklington,
belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster
1533.1 – Skelton Poem Traces Cricket to Flemish Immigrants?
“O lodre of Ipocrites/ Nowe shut vpp your
wickets,/ And clappe to your clickettes/ A! Farewell, kings for
crekettes!”
“The Image of Ipocrisie” (1533) attributed
to John Skelton. This verse is
interpreted as showing no sympathy to Flemish weavers who settled in southern
and eastern
1538.1 -- Easter Ball Play at
Churches Ends in
“Certain types of ball games had a prominent place
in heathen rituals and were believed to promote fertility. Even after
Christianity had gained the ascendancy over the older religion, ball continued
to be played in the churchyard and even within the church at certain
times. In
Brewster, Paul G., American Nonsinging Games [
1540.1 – A Pitcher, a Catcher and a Batter in a Golf History Book?
Cary Smith [ZinnBeck@aol.com]
has noted an alluring illustration in a 1540 publication, and we seek
additional input on it. In a
posting to the 19CBB listserve in March 2008,
“On the British Library web site in the turning
pages section there is a book called the Golf Book, but it is labeled as
‘Flemish Masters in Miniature.’ On page seven of the book there is a
small grisalle border at the bottom.
It looks like what today would be considered a pitcher, catcher, and
batter. The book is from 1540. To access the web site you will need to
have Flash running. If on a
Macintosh that is intel based you will need to click the Rosetta button in the
info window of your web browser.”
Note: can you help us
interpret this artwork?
The URL is http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html.
1550.1 – No English Reference Claimed for the Word ”Cricket” Found Before 1550
“The medieval origin of the national game of the
English is beyond doubt, but not so its
From an unidentified photocopy in the “Origins
of Baseball” file at the
1550c.2 – Cricket Play Recalled at
[Cf #1598.3 below.] A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of
Brown, J. F., The Story of the
1555c.1 -- English Poet Condones Students’ Yens “To Tosse the Ball, To Rene Base, Like Men of War”
“To shote, to bowle, or caste the barre,
To play tenise, or tosse the ball,
Or to rene base, like men of war,
Shall hurt thy study naught at all.”
Crowley, Robert, “The Scholar’s
Lesson,” circa 1555, in J. M. Cowper, The Select Works of Robert
Crowley [N. Truber, London, 1872], page 73. Submitted by John Bowman,
7/16/2004. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough
to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It,
see pages 230 and 312.
1562.1 -- Cricket Forerunner an “Unlawful Game?”
“The Malden Corporation Court Book of
1562 contains a charge against John Porter alias Brown, and a servant, for
‘playing an unlawful game called “clycett.”’”
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the Game and
its Players Through the Ages
1564.1 –
Formal Complaint in
“1564 – complaints were made to the justices sitting at the
midsummer session, at
M. S. Russell-Goggs, “Stoolball in
1565.1 -- Bruegel’s “Corn Harvest” Painting Shows Meadow Ballgame
“We had paused right in front of [the Flemish
artist] Bruegel the Elder’s “Corn Harvest”
From John Thorn, "Play's the Thing,"
1567.1 -- English Translation of Horace Refers to “the Stoole Ball”
“The stoole ball, top, or camping ball/If suche
one should assaye/As hath no mannour skill therein,/Amongste a mightye
croude,/Theye all would screeke unto the frye/And laugh at hym aloude.”
Drant, Thomas, Horace His Arte of Poetrie, Pistles,
and Satyrs Englished, and to the Earle of Ormounte, [
1570c.1 – Five Indicted for Stoolball Play on Sunday
“A few years later [than 1564], at the Easter
Sessions in the same town [Malden, Surrey], one Edward Anderkyn and four others
were indicted for playing stoolball on Sunday.”
M. S. Russell-Goggs, “Stoolball in
1575.1 -- Gascoigne’s Poem “The Fruits of War” Refers to Tut-ball
Gascoigne, George, The Posies of George Gascoigne
Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour [
1583.1 -- Pre-teens Risk Dungeon Time For Selves, or Their Dads, by Playing Ball
“Whereas this a great abuse in a game or games
used in the town called “Gede Gadye
or the Cat’s Pallet, and Typing or hurling the Ball,”
– that no mannor person shall play at the same games, being above the age
of seven years, wither in the churchyard or in any of the streets of this town,
upon pain of every person so playing being imprisoned in the Doungeon for the space of two hours; or
else every person so offending to pay 6 [pence] for every time. And if they have not [wherewithal] to
pay, then the parents or masters of such persons so offending to pay the said 6
[pence] or to suffer the like imprisonment.” [Similar language is found in 1579 entry
[page 148], but it lacked the name “Typing” and did not mention a
ball.]
John Harland, editor, Court Leet Records of the
Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), page
156. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google
Books search: “court leet” half-bowls. Note: The game gidigadie is not known to
us, but the 1864 editor notes elsewhere [page 149, footnote 61] that was
“not unlikely” to be tip-cat, and he interprets
“typing” as tipping. As
later described [see “Tip-Cat” and “Pallet” at http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Glossary.htm],
tip-cat could be played with a cat or a ball, and could involve running among
holes as bases. Caveat: we do not yet know what the
nature of the proscribed game was in Elizabethan times.
1585c.1 -- Stoole-ball, Nine Holes Included Among Country Sports
In a 1600 publication attributed to Samuel Rowlands
[died 1588], the fourth of six “Satires,” presents a catalog of
about 30 pastimes, including “play at stoole-ball,” and “play
at nine-holes.” Other
diversions include pitching the barre, foote-ball, play at base, and leap-frog.
Rowlands, Samuel, The Letting of Humour’s
blood in the head-vein
1586.1 –
“A time there is for
all, my mother often sayes/
When she with skirts tuckt
very hie, with gyrles at stoolball playes”
[Sir Philip?]
1586.2 – Possible Early Rounders Reference?
In his entry for Rounders,
W. C. Hazlitt speculates: “It is possible that this is the game which,
under the name of rownes
Hazlitt, W. C., Faiths
and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular
Customs
1591.1 -- Early Spanish-English Dictionary Mentions the “Trapsticke”
Pericule [Percival], Richard, Bibliotheca
hispanica: containing a graamar, with a dictionarie in Spanish, English, and
Latine, gathered out of diuers good authors: very profitable for the studious
of the Spanish toong [
1592c.1 –
Moralist Lists Things for Scholars to Avoid, Including Playing “Stoole
Ball Among Wenches”
“Time of recreation is necessary, I graunt, and think as necessary
for schollers . . . as it is for any.
Yet in my opinion it were not fit for them to play at Stoole-ball among
wenches, nor at Mumchance or Maw with idle loose companions; not at trunks in
Guile-halls, nor to dance about Maypoles, nor to rufle in alehouses, nor to
carowse in tauernes, nor to steale deere, nor to rob orchards. Though who can deny that they may doe
these things, yea worse.”
Attributed to Dr. Rainoldes in J. P. Collier, ed., The Political
Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry [Constable and
Co., Edinburgh, 1820], page 257.
This passage is from the “ninth conversation” and covers low
practices during the reigns of
1592.2 --
“We present one Bottolph Wappoll, a continual gamester and one of
the very lewd behaviour, who being on Mayday last at stoolball in time of
Divine service one of our sidesmen came and admonished him to leave off playing
and go to church, for which he fell on him and beat him that the blood ran
about his ears.”
Source: National Stoolball
Association, “A Brief History of Stoolball,” [author and date
unspecified], page 2. The original
source is not supplied but is reported to have been a presentation from the parish
of
1598.1 – Youth Ball Games Widespread at London Schools.
“After dinner all the youthes go into the fields to play at
the bal…. The schollers of euery schoole haue their ball, or baston, in
their hands: the auncient and wealthy men of the Citie come foorth on
horsebacke to see the sport of young men.”
Stow, John, Survey of London [first published
in 1598]. David Block [page 166]
gives the full title as A Survey of
1598.2 -- Italian-English Dictionary Includes Cat, Trap
Florio, John, A world of wordes or Most copious,
and exact dictionarie in Italian and English [
1598.3-- First Known Appearance of the Term “Cricket”
[Cf #1550c.2 above.] A 1598 trial in the Surrey town
of
Brown, J. F., The Story of the
1598.4 – Italian Dictionary’s “Cricket-a-wicket” doubted as reference to the Game of Cricket
“People have often regarded Florio’s
expression in his Italian Dictionary
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1600c.1 -- Austrian Physician
Reports on Batting/Running Game in
[A] Guarinoni, Hippolytis, Greuel der Verwustung
der menschlichen Gesschlechts [The horrors of the devastation of the human
race], [
[B] “German Schlagball [“hit the
ball”] is also similar to rounders.
The native claim that these games ‘have remained the games of the
Germanic peoples, and have won no popularity beyond their countries’
quite obviously does not accord with facts. It is enough to quote the conclusion of
a description of “hit the ball” by H. Guarnoni, who had a medical practice
in
Source: from page 111 of an unidentified photocopy in
the “Origins of Baseball” file at the
1600c.2 -- Shakespeare Mentions Rounders? Pretty Doubtful
“Shakespeare mentions games of
“base” and “rounders.
Lovett, Old Boston Boys, page 126.”
Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Caveat: We have not yet
confirmed that Lovett or Shakespeare used the term “rounders.” Gomme [page 80], among others,
identifies the Bard’s use of “base” in Cymbeline as a reference
to prisoner’s base, which is not a ball game. John Bowman, email of 5/21/2008, reports
that his concordance of all of Shakespeare’s words shows has no listing
for “rounders” . . . nor for “stoolball,” for that
matter [see #1612c.1, below], ‘tho that may because Shakespeare’s
authorship of Two Noble Kinsmen is not universally accepted by
scholars..
1609.1 – Polish Origins of
Baseball Perceived in
“Soon after the new year [1609], [we] initiated
a ball game played with a bat . . . . Most often we played this game on
Sundays. We rolled up rags to make
balls . . . Our game attracted the savages who sat around the field, delighted
with this Polish sport.”
The source is Zbigniew Stefanski, Memorial
Commercatoris [A Merchant’s Memoirs], (
“For your information and records, I am pleased
to inform you that after much research I have discovered that baseball was
introduced to
Letter from Matthew Baranski to the Baseball Hall of
Fame, March 23, 1975. [Found in the
Origins file at the
1610.1 – Very Early Cricket Match
A match is thought to have been played between the men
of
Contributed by Beth Hise January 12, 2010. Beth is in pursuit of the original
source of this claim. North
Downs is in
1611.1 -- French-English Dictionary Cites “Cat and Trap” and Cricket
Dictionary-maker R. Cotgrave translates “crosse” as “the
crooked staff wherewith boies play at cricket.”
“Martinet” [a device for propelling
large stones at castles] is defined as “the game called cat and
trap.”
Cotgrave, Randle, A Dictionarie of the French and
English Tongues [
Cricket historians Steel and Lyttelton: “Thanks to Cotgrave, then, we know
that in 1611 cricket was a boy’s game, played with a crooked bat. The club, bat, or staff continued to be
crooked or curved at the blade till the middle of the eighteenth century or
later: and till nearly 1720 cricket was mainly a game for boys.” A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1612c.1 -- Play Attributed to Shakespeare Cites Stool-ball
A young maid asks her wooer to go with her. “What shall we do there,
wench?” She replies, “Why, play at stool-ball; what else is
there to do?”
Fletcher and Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen [London], Act V,
Scene 2, per W. W. Grantham, Stoolball Illustrated and How to Play It
[W. Speaight,
1613.1 -- His and Her Stool-ball Banter: Play or Foreplay?
“Ward: Can you play at shuttlecock forsooth?
Isabella: Ay, and stool-ball too, sir; I have great
luck at it.
Ward: Why, can you catch a ball well?
Isabella: I have catched two in my lap at one game
Ward: What, have you, woman? I must have
you learn to play at trap too, then y’are full and whole.”
Dutton, Richard Thomas, Women Beware Women and
Other Plays [Oxford University Press,
1614.1 -- Poet Yearns to “Goe to Stoole-Ball-Play”
Breton, Nicholas, I Would, and Would Not [
1615.1 – Stoole Ball Goes North with Early Explorer
“And some dayes heare
we stayed we shott at butts and bowe and arrows, at other tymes at stoole ball,
and some tymes of foote ball
William Baffin, from
“The Fourth Recorded Voyage of Baffin,” in C. M. Markham, ed., The
Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622, [Hakluyt Society, 1881], page
122. This voyage started in March
1615, and the entry is dated June?? 19th, 1615. The voyage was taken in hope of finding
a northwest passage to the East, but was thwarted by ice, and Baffin returned
to
1616c.1 -- Translation of Homer Depicts Virgins Playing Stool-Ball,
Disturbing Ulysses’ Snooze
Translator Chapman
described a scene in which several virgins play stool-ball near a river while
Ulysses sleeps nearby: “The Queene now
Chapman, George, The
whole works of Homer: prince of poets, in his Iliads, and Odysses [
Steel and Lyttelton
indicate that Chapman’s translation may date “as early as
1614,” and say report that Chapman calls the fragment “a stoolball
chance.” See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1617.1 -- King James’ Controversial “Book of Sports” Omits Mention of Ballplaying
Reacting to Puritans’ denunciations of Sabbath
recreations, James I in 1617 listed a large number of permitted Sunday
activities –including no ball games – and cited as unlawful only
“beare and Bull beatinge enterludes & bowlinge. . . .” Axon, Ernest, Notes of Proceedings. Volume
1 – 1616-1622-3
Another source lists the Sunday bans as
“Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, interludes, and bowls:” Keightley, Thomas, The History of
England, volume II
1619.1 -- Bawdy Poem Has Wenches Playing “With Stoole and
Ball”
“It was the day of
all dayes in the yeare/That unto Bacchus hath its dedication,/ . . . / When
country wenches play with stoole and ball,/And run at Barley-breake
until they fall:/And country lads fall on them, in such sort/That after forty
weekes the[sic] rew the sport.”
Anonymous, Pasquils
Palinodia, and His Progress to the Taverne; Where, After the Survey of the
Sellar, You Are Presented with a Pleasant Pynte of Poeticall Sherry
[London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 169, who
credits Henderson, page 74. Block notes that “Barley-Break”
[not a ball game] was, like stoole ball, traditionally a spring courtship
ritual in the English countryside.
1621.1 – Some Pilgrims
“Openly” Play “Stoole Ball” on Christmas Morning in
Governor Bradford describes Christmas Day 1621 at
Plymouth Plantation, MA, “most of this new-company excused them selves
and said it wente against their consciences to work on ye day. So ye Govr
tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till
they were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them; but when
they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye street at play,
openly; some at pitching ye barr, and some at stoole-ball and shuch like sport.
. . . Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly.”
Bradford, William, Of
1622.1 – Bad, Bad Batts!
A
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the game and
its players through the ages
1629.1 -- Play Refers to Weakling Who Was “Beat . . . With a Trap Stick”
Shirley, James, The Wedding. As it was lately acted
by her Mauesties seruants at the Phenix at Drury Lane [
1629.2 – Curate Can’t Beat the Rap as Cricketer
“In 1629, having been censured for playing
‘at Cricketts,’ the curate of Ruckinge in
Bateman, Anthony,“’More Mighty than the
Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘
Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1630c.1 – “Ancient
“Any they dare
challenge for to throw the sleudge,/To Jumpe or leape over dich or hedge,/ To
wrastle, play at stooleball, or to Runne,/ To pitch the bar, or to shoote off a
Gunne/ To play at Loggets, nine holes, or ten pins. . . .[list continues,
mentioning stool ball once more at end.]”
This verse, titled “Ancient
Cheshire Games: Auntient customes in games used by boys and girles merily sett
out in verse,” is attributed to “Randle Holmes’s MSS Brit
Mus.” Is in Medium of Inter-communications for Literary Men, Artists,
Antiquaries, Genealogists, Etc, July – December 1856, page 487. Note: Can we learn why is this account
associated with 1630? This entry
needs to be reconciled with #1585.1 above.
Add online search detail?
1630c.2 – Stoolball Play Makes
“About 1630 a Puritan
records that ‘
M. S. Russell-Goggs,
“Stoolball in
1630c.3 – City Women’s Shrovetide Customs Include Stooleball
“In the early seventeenth century, an
1631.1 – Drama by Philip Massenger Refers to Cat-Stick
“Page: You, sirrah sheep’s-head/ With a
face cut on a cat-stick, do you hear?/ You, yeoman fewterer, conduct me to/ the
lady of the mansion, or my poniard/ Shall disembogue thy soul.”
“The Maid of Honour,” Scene 2, in The
Plays of Philip Massinger, Volume 1 (John Murray, London, 1830), page
327.
Notes written in 1830 by W. Gifford: “Cat-stick. This, I
believe, is what is now called a buck-stick,
used by children in the game of tip-cat, or kit-cat.” Query: Is it clear why an
abusive address like this would employ a phrase like “cut on a
cat-stick?” Does it imply,
for instance a disfigured or pock-marked visage?
1632.1 -- In
“The [preceding] reference to Fuchsius should be
to Institutiones 2.3.4: . . . ‘Whereby the habit of our German schoolboys
is most worthy of reprehension, who never take exercise except immediately
after food, either jumping or running or playing ball or quoits or taking part
in other exercises of a like nature; so that it is no surprise, seeing they
thus accumulate a great mass of crude humours, that they suffer from perpetual
scabies, and other diseases caused by vicious humours’:p. 337)”
1633c.1 – Ambiguous Reference to Stoole Ball Appears in a Drama
“At stoole ball I
have a North-west stripling shall deale with ever a boy in the
Cited in W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths
and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular
Customs [Reeves and Turner,
1634.1 – That Archbishop Laud, He Certainly
Doesn’t Laud Stoolball
“In his visitation
and reference to churchyards, he [Archbishop Laud, in 1634] is troubled because
‘several spend their time in stoolball.’”
M. S. Russell-Goggs,
“Stoolball in
Another source quotes Laud
as saying “This whole churchyard is made a receptacle for all ydle
persons to spend their time in stopball and such lyke recreacions.” OED, Abp Laud’s Visit, in 4th
Rep Hist. MSS Comm. App 144/1, provided by John Thorn, email of 6/11/2007. Note2:
is this from the same source?
1637.1 -- Conservative Protestants Decry Sunday Play, See Grave Danger in it
1637.2 -- Play Mentions Trap
Shirley, James, Hide Park: A Comedie [
1638.1 -- Bishop Sees Churchyard as Consecrated Ground: No Stool Ball, Drinkings, Merriments
Bishop Mantague admonishes Norwich Churchmen to
consider the churchyard as consecrated ground, “not to be profaned by
feeding and dunging cattle . . . . Much less is it to be unhallowed with
dancings, morrises, meetings at Easter, drinkings, Whitson ales, midsummer
merriments or the like, stool ball, football, wrestlings, wasters or
boy’s sports.”
Barrett, Jay Botsford, English Society in the
Eighteenth Century as Influence from Oversea [
1638.2 –
Archdeacon: Churchyards Are Not For Stoole-ball or “Other Profane
Uses”
“Have any playes,
feasts, banquets, suppers, churchales, drinkings, temporal courts or leets, lay
juries, musters, exercise of dauncing, stoole-ball, foot-ball, or the like, or
any other profane usage been suffered to be kept in your church, chappell, or
churchyard?
Attributed to Mr. Dr.
Pearson, Archdeacon of Suffolke, in Heino Pfannenschmid, Das Weihwasser
[Hahn’sche Hofbuchhandlung, Hannover, 1869], page 74n.
1640.1 – Stoolball Attracts Gentry, Rascals, Boys
“J. Smythe, in his Hundred
of Berkeley
M. S. Russell-Goggs,
“Stoolball in
1648.1 -- Short Herrick Poem Proposes a Wager on Stool-ball Game
“At Stool-ball, Lucia, let us
play,” offers the poet, then proposing that if he wins, he would
“have for all a kisse.”
Herrick, Robert, Hesperdes: or, the Works Both
Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq. [London], page 280, per David
Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 171.
1652.1 -- Traveler in Wales Reports “Laudable” Sunday Games of “Trap, Cat, Stool-ball, Racket &c”
Taylor, John, A Short Relation of a Long Journey
Made Round or Ovall [
1653.1 -- Play Refers to Trapsticks
A character is asked how he might raise some needed
money: “If my woodes being cut down cannot fill this pocket, cut ‘em
into trapsticks.”
Middleton, Thomas, and William Rowley, The Spanish
Gipsie [
1653.2 – Early Use of “Cricket” Seen in Rabelais Translation
“So far as is known, the first mention [of the
word “cricket”] occurs in Sir Thomas Urquhart’s translation
of the works of Rabelais, published in London in 1653, where it is found
enumerated as one of the games of the Gargantua.”
Editorial, “The Pedigree of Cricket,” The Irish Times, 5/9/1931. Reprinted in The Times, 5/9/2001.
From the MCC Library collection.
Caveat: We now have at least four pre-1653 claims to the use
of “cricket” and similar terms: see #1598.3, #1598.4, #1611.1,
#1622.1, and #1629.2 above. Note: Rabelais’ “games of
Gargantua” is a list of over 200 games supposedly played at one sitting
by the fictional character Gargantua.
Urquhart’s translation includes several familiar pastimes,
including cricket, nine-pins, billiards, “tip and hurl” [?], prison
bars, barley-break, and the morris dance . . . along with many games that
appear to be whimsy and word-play [“ramcod ball,”
“nivinivinack,” and “the bush leap”]. Not included are: club ball, stick ball,
stoolball, horne billets, nine holes, hat ball, rounders, feeder, or base
ball. Francis Rabelais – Completely Translated into English by Urquhard
and Motteux
1656.1 – Dutch Prohibit
“Playing Ball,” Cricket on Sundays in New
In October 1656
Director-General Peter Stuyvesant announced a stricter Sabbath Law in New
Netherlands, including fine of a one pound Flemish for “playing
ball,” cricket, tennis, ninepins, dancing, drinking, etc. Source: 13: Doc Hist., Volume Iv,
pp.13-15, and Father Jogues’ papers in NY Hist. Soc. Coll., 1857, pp.
161-229, as cited in Manual of the Reformed Church in America
Note: It
would be useful to ascertain what Dutch phrase was translated as “playing
ball,” and whether the phrase denotes a certain type of ballplay.
The population of
1656.2 – Two English Counties Agree: Stoolball Gets “Too
Much Attention.”
“The game [Stoolball]
cropped up in 1656 in a pronouncement by the Counties of Cumberland and
Westmoreland which said that “too much attention was being paid to
‘shooting, playing at football, stoolball, wrestling.’”
SRA website, accessed
4/11/07. Note: we need a fuller citation and perhaps further text and
motivation for these pronouncements.
1656.3 – Cromwellians
Needlessly Ban Cricket from
Simon Rae writes that the “killjoy mentality
reached its zenith under the Puritans, during the Interregnum, achieving an
absurd peak when cricket was banned in
Simon Rae, It’s Not Cricket: A History of
Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game
1658.1 -- English Parish Rewards Informant for Ratting on Sunday Trap-baller
Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Manners and
Expences of Ancient Times in England [
1658.2 –
“Cricket was . . . emerging in a written sense, not
through the form of a celebratory discourse, but as the target of Puritan and
sabbatarian ire. Even in the first
reliable literary reference to cricket – in The Mysteries of Love and
Eloquence
Bateman, Anthony,“More Mighty than the Bat, the
Pen . . . ;‘ Culture,,
Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1659.1 -- Stuyvesant: No Tennis, Ball-Playing, Dice on Fast Day
“We shall interdict and forbid, during divine
service on the [fasting] day aforesaid, all exercise and games of tennis,
ball-playing, hunting, plowing and sowing, and moreover all unlawful practice
such as dice, drunkenness . . .”
proclaimed Peter Stuyvesant.
Stuyvesant was Director-General of New Netherlands.
1660c.1 – Village Life: The Men to Foot-Ball, Maids and Kids to Stoolball
The biography of a 17th century lord
includes “a nostalgic description of the little town of
“The town was then my grandfather’s . . . it
was always the custom for the youth of the town . . . to play [from noon when
chores ended] to milking time and supper at night. The men [went to play] football, and the
maids, with whom we children were commonly mixed, being not proof for the
turbulence of the other party, to stoolball and such running games as they
knew.” Dale B. J. Randall, Gentle
Flame: The Life and Verse of Dudley, Lord North
1660c.2 -- Ben Franklin’s Uncle Recalls Ballplaying On an English Barn
“That is the street which I could ne’er
abide,/And these the grounds I play’d side and hide;/ This the pond
whereon I caught a fall,/ And that the barn whereon I play’d at ball.”
The uncle of
Loring, J. S., The
1661.1 – Galileo Galilei Discovers . . . Backspin!
The great scientist wrote, in a treatise discussing
how the ball behaves in different ball games, including tennis: “Stool-ball, when they play in a
stony way, . . . they do not trundle the ball upon the ground, but throw it, as
if to pitch a quait. . . . . To
make the ball stay, they hold it artificially with their hand uppermost, and it
undermost, which in its delivery hath a contrary twirl or rolling conferred
upon it by the fingers, by means whereof in its coming to the ground neer the
mark it stays there, or runs very little forwards.” Galileo Galilei, Mathmatical
Collections and Translations.
“Inglished from his original Italian copy by Thomas
Salusbury”
Provided by David Block, email of 2/27/2008. David further asks: “could it be
that this is the source of the term putting “English” on a
ball?”
1665.1 -- Poet Depicts Fleet-footed Mercury as Wielding a Kit-Cat Bat
This translation of a French parody of Virgil’s Aeneid
includes these lines on the god Mercury: “Then in his hand he take
a thick Bat,/ With which he us’d to play at kit-cat;/ To beat mens Apples
from their trees, . . . ” Ouch.
Scarron, Paul, Scarronnides, or, Virgile travestie
a mock poem [London], trans. Charles Cotton, Book Four, per David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, page 172.
1666.1 -- John Bunyan is Very Seriously Interrupted at Tip-Cat, a “Chief Sin”
“I was in the midst of a game of cat, and having
struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike the second time
a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul which said, ‘Wilt thou
leave thy sins and go to Heaven or have thy sins and go to
hell?’”
Bunyan, John, Grace abounding to the chief of
sinners [
Writing of Bunyan in 1885, Washington Gladden revealed
that as a youth, “[t]he four chief sins of which he was guilty were
dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tip-cat, and
reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton.” Letter to the Editor, The Century
Magazine, Volume 30 [May-October 1885), page 334. Q
1669.1 – Shadwell Play Said to List Rural Games, including Stool-ball.
“The writer who took most interest in popular
pastimes was Shadwell, whose rococo play The Royal Shepherdess was
produced before the king in 1669.
It included country folk who danced and sand of a list of genuine
English rural games, such as trap, keels, barley-break, golf [and] stool-ball . . . .”
Hutton, Ronald, The Rise and Fall of Merry
1671.1 -- Lusty Little Song Mentions Trap as “Innocent” Prelude to Heavy Petting
“Thus all our life long we are frolick and
gay,/And instead of Court revels, we merrily play/At Trap, at Rules, and at
Barly-break run:/At Goff, and at Foot-ball, and when we have done/These
innocent sports, we’l laugh and lie down,/And to each pretty Lass/We will
give a green Gown.
Ebsworth, Joseph W.,
1672.1 – Rev. Wilson Decries Sunday “Stool-Ball” and “Cricketts” Playing
In his memoirs, the Rev. Thomas Wilson, a Puritan
divine of Maidstone, England, states: “Maidstone was formerly a very
profane town, in as much as I have seen morrice-dancing, cudgel-playing,
stool-ball, cricketts, and many other sports openly and publicly indulged in on
the Lord’s Day.”
Note:
1672c.2 -- Francis Willughby’s “Book of Games” Surveys Folkways: First Stoolball Rules Appear
Warwickshire scientist Francis Willughby [1635-1672] compiled, in manuscript form, descriptions of over 130 games, including, stoolball, hornebillets, kit-cat, stowball, and tutball [but not cricket, trapball or rounders]. He died at 36 and the incomplete manuscript, long held privately, became known to researchers in the 1990s and was published in 2003.
Willughby described stoolball as a game in which a team of players defended an overturned stool with their hands. Hornebillets, unlike stoolball, involved batting and running [between holes placed 7 or 8 yards apart], but it used no ball – a cat was used as the batted object. A runner [running was compulsory, even for short hits] had to place his staff in a hole before the other team could put the cat in that hole. The number of holes depended on the number of players available. Stowball appears as a golf-like game. Kit Cat is described as a sort of fungo game in which the cats can be hit 60 yards or more. He does not mention cricket, trap, or other games.
David Cram, Jeffrey L. Forgeng, and Dorothy Johnston, Francis Willughby’s Book of Games: A Seventeenth Century Treatise on Sports, Games, and Pastimes [Ashgate Publishing, 2003].
1676.1 -- The “Citty of New Yorke” Sets a Fine for Sunday “Gameing or Playing: Ten Guilders
The Mayor and Aldermen of
1676.2 – Early Limeys Take
“Krickett” to Far
The chaplain assigned to three British ships at
As was the custom all summer long, this day [in May
1676] “at least 40 of the English, with his worship the Consull, rod
[sic] out of the citty about 4 miles to the Greene Platt, a fine vally by a
river side, to recreate them selves.
Where a princely tent was pitched; and wee had severall pastimes and
sports, as duck-hunting, fishing, shooting, handball, krickett, scrofilo . . .
. and at 6 wee returne all home in
good order, but soundly tyred and weary.”
A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1677.1 -- Almanac’s Easter Verse Mentions Stool-ball
“Young men and maids,/ Now very brisk,/ At
barley-break and/ Stool-ball frisk.”
W. Winstanley, Poor Robin 1677. An almanack
after a new fashion, by Poor Robin [
1680.1 -- Political Tract Uses Trap-stick Metaphor
Anon., Honest Hodge and Ralph Holding a Sober
Discourse in Answer to a late Scandalous and Pernicious Pamphlet, by
“a person of quality” [London], per David Block, Baseball Before
We Knew It, page 174. The anonymous author of this tract sees the
pamphlet as a tool used to trigger civil unrest in
1680s.2 -- Cricket Pitch Thought to be Established at 22 Yards
While the length of the cricket pitch [distance
between wickets] was formally set at 22 yards in the 1744 rules, that distance
is already “thought to have been 22 yards in the
1680’s.” [John Thorn
points out that 22 yards is one-tenth of a furlong
Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1683c.1 – Cricket’s First Wicket is Pitched
“We know that the first wicket, comprising two
stumps with a bail across them, was pitched somewhere about 1683, as John Nyren
recalled long afterward.”
Thomas Moult, “The Story of the Game,” in Thomas Moult, ed.,
Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket
Note: We should
locate Nyren’s original claim.
Does this imply that cricket was played without wickets, or without
bails, before 1683?
1685.1 -- Juicy Early Description of Stool-ball is Written, Then Unread for 162 Years
Aubrey, John, Natural History of Wiltshire [
1688.1 – New Royals Reportedly Watch Stoolball
“It is reported that
William III watched the game soon after he landed at
M. S. Russell-Goggs, page
320. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other
Russell-Goggs references; short of this, we need to confirm the date of the
1690.1 -- Literary Simile: “Catch it Like a Stool-Ball”
Anon., The Pagan Prince: or a Comical History of
the Heroik Atchievements of the Palatine of Eboracum [
1694.1 --Musical Play Includes Baudy Account of Stoolball
D’Urfey, Thomas, The comical history of Don
Quixote [
1694.2 – Thaw Arrives; Cricket Added to Old List of “Evening” English Pastimes
“With a relaxation of attitudes towards sports
at the Restoration cricket began to emerge from its position of relative
obscurity with the printed word beginning to define it, along with other folk
games, as an element of the national culture. Edward Chamberlyne’s Anglia
Notitia, a handbook on the social and political conditions of
Source: Bateman, Anthony, “More Mighty than the
Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘
Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
Upon further examination, Protoball notes that Anglia
Notitia actually has two ongoing areas of special interest. The first is the text above in part 1, chapter
V, which had evolved through earlier editions – the 1676 edition –
if not earlier ones -- had already mentioned stow-ball [changed to
“stoolball” as of 1694 or earlier], according to Hazlitt’s Faith
and Folklore. Cricket historian
Diana Rait Kerr agrees that cricket was first added in the 18th
edition of 1694.
Another section of Anglia Notitia catalogued
English recreations. Text for this
section – part 3, chapter VII -- is accessible online for the 1702, 1704,
1707, and later editions. These recreations were listed in three parts: for
royalty, for nobles and gentry, and for “Citizens and
Peasants.” Royal sports
included tennis, pell mell and billiards. The gentry’s sports included tennis,
bowling, and billiards. And then:
“The Citizens and Peafants have Hand-ball, Stow-ball, Nine-Pins,
Shovel-board [and] Goffe,” said the 20th edition [1702]. In the 22nd edition [1707],
cricket had been inserted as something that commoners also played. We find no
reference to club ball, stick ball, trap ball, or other games suggested as
precursors of baseball. The full title of Chamberlayne is Anglia Notitia, or
the
John Thorn supplied crucial input for this entry. Note: It would be interesting to see whether
earlier and later editions of Chamberlayne cite other games of interest.
1697.1 – “A Great Match at Cricket” for a Tidy Purse
The Foreign Post, July 7, 1697 reports that in
Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010.
1700.1 – First Public Notice of a Cricket Match?
“Of course, there are many bare announcements of
matches played before that time [the 1740’s]. In 1700 The Postboy advertised
one to take place on Clapham Common.”
Thomas Moult, “The Story of the Game,”
in Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A
New Book of Cricket
Note: A Wikipedia entry accessed on 10/17/08 states: “A series of matches, to be held
on Clapham Common [in
1700c.2 – Wicket Seen on
“Close of the 17th century: . . . The
Common was always a playground for boys – wicket and flinging of the
bullit was much enjoyed . . . . No
games were allowed to be played on the Sabbath, and a fine of five shillings
was imposed on the owner of any horse seen on the Common on that day. People were not even to stroll on the
Common, during the warm weather, on Sunday.”
Samuel Barber,
1704.1 – Traveler Observes Ball-Playing in CT
Madame Knight, “in her inimitable journal of her
ride from
“The Game of Wicket and Some Old-Time Wicket
Players,” in George Dudley Seymour, Papers and Addresses of the
Society of Colonial Wars in the State of
1704.2 -- While the Rurals Had Stool-ball and Cricket, the Londoner Had “Blood-Stirring Excitement”
“[T]he growth of a commercial
Chamberlayne, Edward, Anglia Notitia: The
Present State of England [
1704.4 -- Earliest Published Rules of Cricket [?]
“[The following] text is, as far as we know, the
earliest published rules of cricket that have come down to us. They are more than eighty years older
than the first official Laws of Cricket, published in 1789.” The ensuing text calls for the 4-ball
over, unregulated runner and fielder interference, and has no rule to keep a
batsman from deflecting bowled balls with his body.
http://www.seatllecricket.com/history/1704laws.htm,
accessed 10/2/02. The site offers no source. Most sources date the easiest rules to
1744; could this date stem from a typo? No source is given for the rules
themselves. Beth Hise, on January 12, 2010, expressed renewed skepticism about
the 1704 date. Caution: we have requested confirmation and sources from this
website, and have not had a reply as of Feb. 2010.
1705.1 – Early Cricket
Match “To Be Plaid . . . for 11
An account in the July 24 issue of The Postman
reads, “This is to give notice that a match of cricket is to be plaid
between 11 gentlemen of the west part of
1706.1 -- Poem Suggests Cricket is Becoming “Respectable”
Goldwin, William, In Certamen Pilae. Per
John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972],
page 15. Ford does not provide a full citation for this source. He
reports the poem, written Latin, as “describing the early game and
suggesting, perhaps, that it is becoming ‘respectable.’ He
adds that “there was academic controversy over its translation in
1923.” John Thorn offers that
the poem was published in Goldwin’s Musae Juveniles in 1706, and
was translated by Harold Perry as “The Cricket Match” in 1922
[email of 2/1/2008]. John also sent
Protoball the original text, for you Latin speakers out there.
1706.2 -- Book About a Scotsman Mentions “Cat and Doug” and Other Diversions
[Author?] The Scotch rogue; or, The life and
actions of Donald MacDonald, a Highland Scot [
1709.1 – A Form of [Two-man
and Four-man] Cricket Played in
In an April 25, 1709 diary entry, William Byrd, owner
of the
On May 6 of the same year he noted: “I rose
about 6 o'clock and Colonel Ludwell, Nat Harrison, Mr. Edwards and myself
played at cricket, and I won a bit [presumably an eighth of a Spanish
dollar]. Then we played at whist and I won. About
Wright, Louis B., and Marion Tinling, eds., The Secret
Diary of William Byrd of Westover 1709-1712 [Dietz Press,
1709.2 --
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1697_to_1725_English_cricket_seasons,
accessed 10/17/08:
“The earliest known match involving county teams or at
any rate teams bearing the names of counties. The match was advertised in the Post
Man dated Saturday June 25, 1709. The stake was £50.
“Some authors have suggested the teams in reality were
"Dartford and a
The Wikipedia entry credits the website “From Lads to
Lords: The History of Cricket 1300-1787”, at http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html
1709.3 -- Cat and Trap-ball Seen as Boys’ Games [The Men Play Foot-ball]
W. Winstanley and Successors, Poor Robin 1709. An
almanack after a new fashion [
1711.1 – Betty Was “a Romp at Stool-Ball”
“James before he beheld Betty, was vain of his
strength, a rough wrestler . . . ; Betty [was] a publick Dancer at May-poles, a
Romp at Stool-Ball. He was always
following idle Women, she playing among the Peasants; He a Country Bully, she a
Country Coquet.”
Steele, Spectator
number 71, May 22, 1711, page 2.
Provided by John Thorn, emails of 6/11/2007 and 2/1/2008. The implication of the passage appears to
be that women who played a game like stool-ball were unlikely to be chaste.
1712.1 -- Two Noblemen Blasted for Sunday Cricket Play, and for Betting Too
The Duke of Marlborough and Viscount Townsend are
publicly criticized for currying favor with electors by playing cricket with
children “on a Sabbath day,” and for wagering 20 guineas on the
outcome. Bateman cites and quotes from a broadsheet report on this match
at The Devil and the Peers, or a Princely Way of Sabbath Breaking
[source not otherwise identified] at Bateman, Anthony,“’More Mighty
than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘
Culture,, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1713.1 –
“I went on the Roof, and found the Spout next
Slater’s stopped . . . .
Thomas, M. H., ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewell 1674
– 1729, Volume II, 1710 – 1729 [Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1973], p. 718. Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play
Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref #
18. Sewall is known as the
“Salem Witch Judge.”
1715.1 – Men Top Over Women in “Merry-Night” of Stoole
Balle
“The Young Folks of
this Town had a Merry-Night . . . .
The Young Weomen treated the Men with a Tandsey as they lost to them at
a Game at Stoole Balle.”
T. Ellison Gibson, ed., Blundell’s
Diary, Comprising Selections from the Diary of Nicholas Blundell, Esq.
1719.1 -- Trap and Stool-ball Help Set the Mood . . . Again
“Thus all our lives we’re Frolick and
gay,/And instead of Court Revels we merrily Play/ At Trap and Kettles and
Barley-break run,/ At Goff, and at Stool-ball, and when we have done/ These
innocent Sports, we Laugh and lie down,/ And to each pretty Lass we give a
green Gown.”
D’Urfey, Thomas, Wit and Mirth: or Pills to
Purge Melancholy [
1720.1 – Puritans Thwarted Fun, “Even at Stool-ball”
In a strong
anti-Presbyterian tract, Thomas Lewis noted that among Puritans “all
Games where there is any hazard of loss are strictly forbidden; as Tennis,
Bowles and Billiards; not so much
as a Game at stool-ball for a Tansy, . . . upon Pain of Damnation.”
Thomas. Lewis, English
Presbyterian Eloquence: Or, Dissenters Sayings Ancient and Modern
1720.2 -- Holiday in
In 1907, a kindred spirit of ours reported [in a
listserve-equivalent of the day] on his attempts to find early news coverage of
cricket. He reports on a 1720
article he sees as “the first newspaper reference I have yet found to
cricket as a popular game:”
“The Holiday coming on, the Alewives of
Islington,
Alfred F. Robbins, “Replies: The Earliest
Cricket Report,” Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for
Literary Men, General Readers, Etc, September 7, 1907, page 191. Provided by John Thorn, 2/8/2008, via
email. He reports his source as Read’s
Weekly Journal, or British-Gazeteer, June 4, 1720, and advises that he has
omitted phrases not “welcome to the modern taste. Accessed via Google Books 10/18/2008.
1720.3 – Cricket in
A month later [see #1720.2, above], Islington was in
the news again. The Postman
reported on July 16, 1720 that:
“Last week a match was played in The White
Conduit Fields, by Islington, between 11 Londoners on one side and elevent men
of Kent on the other side, for 5s a head, at which time being in eager pursuit
of the game, the Kentish men having the wickets, two Londoners striving
[p.27/p.28] for expedition to gain the ball, met each other with such
fierceness that, hitting their heads together, they both fell backwards without
stirring hand or foot, and lay deprived of sense for a considerable time, and
‘tis not yet known whether they willl recover. The Kentish men were beat.” Thomas Moult, “The Story of the
Game,” in Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket
1722.1 – Scotch “Rogue” Prefers Cat/Dog Games to His Books
“In the Life of the Scotch Rogue, 1722,
p.7, the following sports occur:
‘I was but a sorry proficient in learning: being readier at Cat
and Doug, cappy-hole, riding the hurley hacket, playing at kyles and dams,
spang-bogle, wrestling, and foot-ball
Brand, John, Observations on the Popular
Antiquities of Great Britain
1725c.1 – Wicket Played on
“March, 15. Sam. Hirst [Sewall’s grandson,
reportedly, and a Harvard ’23 man] LMc] got up betime in the morning, and
took Ben Swett with him and went into the (
”March 17th. Did the like again, but took not Ben
with him. I told him he could not
lodge here practicing thus. So he
lodg‘d elsewhere. He grievously
offended me in persuading his Sister Hannam not to have Mr. Turall, without
enquiring of me about it. And
play’d fast and loose in a vexing matter about himself in a matter
relating to himself, procuring me great Vexation.”
Diary of Samuel Sewall, in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical
Society
Note:
Further comment on this entry is welcome, especially from wicket devotees;
after all, this may be the initial wicket citation in existence
1725.2 – Duke of
“In 1725, he [the Duke of Richmond] challenged
Sir William Gage in a two-a-side single-wicket competition. . . .”
Simon Rae, It’s Not Cricket: A History of
Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game
1726.1 -- Cricket Crowd is Eyed Nervously as Possibly Seditious
An
1727.1 -- First Documented Cricket Playing Rules Agreed to, for One-time Use
Two sides forged “Articles of Agreement”
that specify 12 players to a side, a 23-yard pitch, two umpires to be named by
each side, and “mentions catches but not other forms of
dismissal.” Per John Ford, Cricket:
A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 16. Note: Ford does not provide a citation
for this account.
1727.2 -- How To Score at Cricket, Olde Style
In order to score a run, a batsman/runner had to touch
a staff held by an umpire with his bat. The modern rule appeared in the
1744 rules.
Scholefield, Peter, Cricket Laws and Terms [Axiom
Publishing, Kent Town
1728.1 –
“James Gordon & I Plaid Trabbel against John
Horon and Th Horon for an anker of Syder We woun. We drunk our
Syder.”
Hancock, H. B., ed., “’Fare Weather and
Good Helth:’ the Journal of Caesar Rodeney, 1727 – 1729,” Delaware
History, volume 10, number 1 [April 1962], p. 64. Thomas L. Altherr,
“A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 19.
1730c.1 – Low Wicket and Circular Hole Said Still Found in Cricket
“In the infancy of the game [cricket] the
batsman stood before a circular hole in the turf, and was put out, as in
‘rounders,’ by being caught, or by the ball being put in this
hole. A century and a half ago this
hole was still in use, though it had on each side a stump only one foot high,
with a long cross-bar of two feet in length laid on top of them.”
Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto
and Windus, London, 1881), page 4, accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search
(“pastimes and players”).
MacGregor gives no source for this claim. Note that MacGregor does not say that
such practice was uniformly used in this period. Query:
have later writers specified in more detail when the hole and the low long
wicket disappeared from cricket?
1730c.2 – Cricket Play at
“I can’t say I am sorry I was never quite
a school-boy: an expedition against bargemen or a match at cricket may be very pretty
things to recollect; but thank my stars, I can remember things very near as
pretty.”
Letter from Horace Walpole to George Montagu, May 6,
1736. One interpretation of this
letter: “Horace Walpole was
sent to
1731.1 – Patient Thousands Watch First Known Drawn Match in Cricket
“The Great Cricket Match, between the Duke of
Source: The Daily Journal, August 25, 1731, as
uncovered by Alfred Robbins in his 1907 digging. Robbins finds the article of
“historical interest, for it is the earliest I have yet traced of a drawn
game.” Alfred Robbins,
“The Earliest Cricket Report,” Notes and Queries: A Medium of
Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc., September 7,
1907, page 192. Note: does this match still stand as
the first recorded drawn match?
1733.1 -- Long Poem Describes Stool-Ball in Some Detail; First Evidence of Use of a Bat
The London Magazine, vol 2, December 1733 [
1737.1 -- Surreymen Play Londoners in Cricket for 500 Pounds a Side
“On Wednesday next a great Match at Cricket is
to be play’d at Moulsey-Hurst in Surrey, between eleven Men of the said
County, chose by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and the same Number
chose out of the London Club by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, for 500
[pounds] a Side.” Country
Journal of The Craftsman
1737.2 – Doctor Writes of North Carolina Game Resembling Ireland’s Trap Ball
Brickell, an Irishman, writes of NC Indians:
“They have [a] game which is managed with a Battoon, and very much
resembles our Trap-ball.”
Brickell, John., The Natural History of
1737.3 – Cricket Played
A Journal of the Proceedings in Georgia, II, page 217, as cited in Lester, ed., A
Century of Philadelphia Cricket [U Penn, 1951], page 4. Lester cites this
account as the first mention of American cricket.
1739.1 -- First Known Picture of Cricket Appears
“The earliest known cricket picture was first
displayed in 1739. It is an
engraving call “The Game of Cricket”, by Hubert-Francois Gravelot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1739_English_cricket_season.
Another fan’s notes: “Art is immortal, and the M.C.C.
has acquired a new work of Art in connection with cricket. This is a drawing in pencil on grey
paper, representing a country game in the [eighteenth] century. . . . The two notched stumps with one bail are
only about six inches high, and the bowler appears to be
“knuckling” the ball like a marble. I have very little doubt that the artist
was Gravelot.” Andrew Lang,
“At the Sign of the Ship,” Longmans’ Magazine
On 2/24/10, an image was available via a Google Web
search (christies "gravelot (1699-1773)" cricket).
1740s.1 – Intervillage
Cricket Played by Women in Surrey and
Cashman, Richard, “Cricket,” in David
Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient
Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 88.
1740.2 -- Almanack Sees Time Wasted at Stool-ball
“Much time is wasted now away/ At pigeon-holes
and nine-pin play/. . . ./ At stool-ball and at barley-break,/Wherewith they at
harmless pastime make.”
W. Winstanley and Successors, Poor Robin 1740. An
almanack after a new fashion [
1740.3 – Lord Chesterfield Nods Approvingly at Cricket – and Trap Ball!
“Dear Boy: . . . Therefor remember to give
yourself up entirely to the thing you are doing, be it what it will, whether
your book or play: for if you have a right ambition, you will desire to excell
all boys of your age at cricket, or trap ball, as well as in
learning.” P.D.S.
Chesterfield, Lord Chesterfield’s Letters of His Son
Cited by Steel and Lyttelton, Cricket,
1741c.1 – Does Alexander Pope “Sneer” at Cricket in Epic Poem?
“The judge to dance his brother serjeant call,
The senator at cricket urge the ball”
Pope, “The Dunciad,” per Steel and
Lyttelton, Cricket,
Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, Complete in Four
Books, According to Mr. Pope’s Last Improvements
1743.1 – Editorial: Cricket is OK, But Only for Rural Holiday Play
“Cricket is certainly a very innocent and
wholesome, yet it may be abused if either great or little people make it their
business. It is grossly abused when
it is made the subject of publick advertisements to draw together great crowds
of people who ought all of them to be somewhere else.
“The diversion of cricket may be proper in
holiday time, and in the country, but upon days when men ought to be busy, and
in the neighbourhood of a great city, it is not only improper, but mischievous,
to a high degree. It draws number
of people from their employments to the ruins of their families . . . it gives
the most open encouragement to gaming.”
British Champion, September 8, 1743. Provided by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09, as reprinted in The Gentlemans Magazine, 1743. The piece appears, perhaps in its entirety, in W. W. Read, Annals of Cricket (St. Dunston’s Press, 1896), page 27ff [accessed 1/30/10 via Google Books search (“very innocent” “annals of cricket”)].
1743.2 – Three-on-Three Cricket Match, A Close One, Draws Reported 10,000 Fans
“July 11.
In the Artillery Ground.
Three of Kent – Hodswell, J. Cutbush, V. Romney vs. Three of
England – R. Newland, Sawyer, John Bryan.
Cited in Thomas Moult, “The Story of the
Game,” Thomas Moult, ed., Bat and Ball: A New Book of Cricket
1743.3 – When Cricket Still Had Foul Ground?
“We may see how the game was played about this time
from the picture, of date 1743, in the possession of the Surrey County
Club. The wicket was a
‘skeleton hurdle,’ one foot high and two feet wide, consisting of
two stumps only, with a third laid across.
The bat was curved at the end, and made for free hitting rather than
defence. The bowling was all along
the ground, and the great art was to bowl under the bat. All play was forward of the wicket, as
it is now in single wicket games of less that five players a side. With these exceptions, the game was very
much the same as it is today [1881].”
Robert MacGregor, Pastimes and Players (Chatto
and Windus, London, 1881), page 16.
Note that the circular hole, described in #1730.1, is not seen. Caveat:
It is not clear from this account whether forward hitting was common in the
1740s or whether MacGregor is simply drawing inferences about this single
painting.
1744.1 – First Laws of Cricket are Written
Includes the 4-ball over, later changed to 6
balls. [And to 8 balls in
Ford’s crisp summary of the rules:
“Toss for pitching wickets and choice of innings; pitch 22 yards; single
bail; wickets 22 inches high; 4-ball overs; ball between 5 and 6 ounces;
‘no ball’ defined; modes of dismissal -- bowled, caught, stumped, run
out, obstructing the field.” Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social
History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 17.
The rules are listed briefly at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1744_English_cricket_season
[as assessed 1/31/07]. The rules
were written by a Committee under the patronage of “the cricket-mad
Prince of Wales,” Frederickm, son of George II.
1744.2 – Newbery’s Little Pretty Pocket-Book Refers to “Base-Ball,” “Stooleball, “Trap-Ball,”
John Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket-Book,
published in England, contains a wood-cut illustration showing boys playing
“base-ball” and a rhymed description of the game: “The
ball once struck off,/Away flies the boy/To the next destined post/And then
home with joy.” . This is held to be the first appearance of the
term “base-ball” in print. Other pages are devoted to
stool-ball, trap-ball, and tip-cat [per David Block, page 179]. Block
finds that this book has the first use of the word “base-ball.”
Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the
Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly [
1744.3 -- Earliest Full Cricket Scorecard for the “Greatest Match Ever Known”
The match it describes: All England vs.
John Thorn [email of 2/1/2008] located an account of
the match: “Yesterday was
play’d in the Artillery-Ground the greatest Cricket-Match even known, the
County of
1744.4 – Poet: “Hail Cricket! Glorious Manly, British Game!
Writing as James Love, the poet and actor James Dance
[1722-1774] penned a 316-line verse that extols cricket. The poem, it may surprise you to learn, turns
on the muffed catch by an All England player [shades of Casey!] that, I take
it, allows Kent County to win a close
match. Protoball’s
virtual interview with Mr. Dance:
Protoball: Are you
a serious cricket fan?
Dance:" Hail, cricket! Glorious manly, British Game! /
First of all Sports! be first alike in Fame!” [lines 13-14]
PBall: Isn’t billiards a good game too?
Dance: “puny Billiards, where, with sluggish Pace /
The dull Ball trails before the feeble Mace” [lines 40-41]
PBall: But you do appreciate tennis, right?”
Dance:
“Not Tennis [it]self,
[cricket’s] sister sport can charm, /Or with [cricket’s] fierce
Delights our Bosoms warm".[lines 55-56] . . . to small Space confined,
ev’n [tennis] must yield / To nobler CRICKET, the disputed field.” [lines 60-61]
PBall: But doesn’t every country have a fine national
pastime?
Dance: “Leave the dissolving Song, the baby Dance, / To
Sooth[e] the Slaves of Italy and France: / While the firm Limb, and strong
brac’d Nerve are thine [cricket’s] / Scorn Eunuch Sports; to
manlier Games [we] incline” [lines 68-71]
PBall: Manlier?
You see the average cricketer as especially manly?
Dance: “He
weighs the well-turn’d Bat’s experienced Force, / And guides the
rapid Ball’s impetuous course, / His supple Limbs with Nimble Labour
plies, / Nor bends the grass beneath him as he flies.” [lines 29 – 32]
James Love, Cricket: an
Heroic Poem. illustrated with the Critical Observations of Scriblerus Maximus
1745c.1 -- John Adams Recalls Youthful Bat and Ball Play
Saying that his first fifteen years “went off
like a fairy tale,” John Adams [1735-1826] wrote fondly “of making
and sailing boats . . swimming, skating, flying kites and shooting
marbles, bat and ball, football, . . . wrestling and sometimes boxing.”
David McCullough, John Adams [Touchstone Books,
2001], page 31. Submitted by Priscilla Astifan, 11/17/06.
1747.1 – Poet Thomas Gray: “Urge the Flying Ball.”
“What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Thomas Gray, "Ode
on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” lines 28-30. Accessed 12/29/2007 at http://www.thomasgray.org. “Rolling circle” had been
drafted as “hoop,” and thus does not connote ballplay. Cricket writers have seen “flying
ball” as a cricket reference, but a Gray scholar cites
“Bentley’s Print” as a basis for concluding that Gray was referring
to trap ball in this line. Steel
and Lyttelton note that this poem was first published in 1747. Note:
is it fair to assume that Gray is evoking student play at
1747.2 – Well-Advertised Women’s Cricket Match Held, with 6-Pence Admission
In July 1747 two ladies’ sides from
This item was contributed by David Block on
2/27/2008. David notes that the
source is a large scrapbook with thousands of clippings from 1660 to 1840 as
collected by a Daniel Lysons: “Collectanea: or A collection of
advertisements and paragraphs from the newspapers, relating to various subjects. Publick exhibitions and places of
amusement,” Vol IV, Pt 2, page 227, British Library shelfmark
C.103.k.11. David adds,
“Unfortunately, Lysons, or whoever assembled this particular volume,
neglected to indicate which paper the clippings were cut from.”
1748.1 – Lady Hervey Reports Royals’ “Base-ball” in a Letter
Lady Hervey
“[T]he Prince’s family is an example of
innocent and cheerful amusements
All this last summer they played abroad; and now, in the winter, in a
large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have
been, schoolboys, are well acquainted with. The ladies, as well as gentlemen, join
in this amusement . . . . This
innocence and excellence must needs give great joy, and well as great hope, to
all real lovers of their country and posterity.”
[The last sentence may well be written in irony, as
Lady Hervey was evidently known to be unimpressed with the Prince’s
conduct.]
Hervey, Lady
1749.1 -- Early Cricket: Addington Club Takes On All-England, Five on Five
“A newspaper advertisement announced a match on
the [London Artillery] ground on
Joseph Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People
of England [
1750c.1 -- Cricket No Longer Played Only With Rolled Deliveries to Batsmen
“Originally bowling literally meant ‘to
bowl the ball along the ground’ as in the style of lawn bowls. By
1750, however, a mixture of grubbers and fully pitched balls were seen.”
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1750s.2 – Town Ball and Cat
Played in NC
One biographer has estimated: “Of formalized games, choices for
males [in NC] appear to have been ‘town-ball, bull-pen,’
‘cat,’ and ‘prisoner’s base,’ whatever exhibitions
of dexterity they may have involved” Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont
Partisan: The Life and Times of Brigadier-General William Lee Davidson
Caution: This is a very early claim for town ball, preceding even
1750s.3 – 1857 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 MA
game as it was to be codified a year later except: [a] “a good catcher
would frequently take the ball before the bat cold strike it,” [b] the
runner “was allowed either a pace or jump to the base which he was
striving t reach,” [c] the bound rule was in effect, [d] all-out-side-out
innings, [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].”
1751.1 – First Recorded US Cricket Match Played, “For a Considerable Wager,” in NYC
“Last Monday afternoon, a match at cricket was play’d
on our Common for a considerable Wager, by eleven Londoners, against eleven New
Yorkers: The game was play’d according to the London Method; and
those who got most notches in two Hands, to be the Winners: The New Yorkers
went in first, and got 81; Then the Londoners went in, and got but 43; Then the
New Yorkers went in again, and got 86; and the Londoners finished the Game with
getting only 37 more.” New York Gazette Revived,
This was the first recorded cricket match played in
1751.2 -- Cricket Lore: Ball Kills the Prince of Wales?
RIP, sweet Prince. [The prince was the father of King
George III.]
Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 17: “Death of Frederick Lewis, Prince of
Wales, as a result of a blow on the head from a cricket ball.” Ford does not give a citation.
Others attribute the Prince’s death to a tennis
incident; neither theory seems fully credible, as death was not immediate, and
“an abscess” of the lung was believed to be the proximal cause of
death.
1753.1 – NYS Traveler Notes Dutch boys “Playing Bat and Ball”
Gideon Hawley
Hawley, Gideon, Rev. Gideon Hawley’s Journal [
1754.1 -- Marylanders Play “Great Cricket Match for a Good Sum”
“We hear that there is to be a great cricket
match for a good sum played on Saturday next, near Mr. Aaron Rawling’s
Spring, between eleven young men of this city [Annapolis] and the same number
from Prince George’s County [now a Washington suburban community]”
Bradford’s Journal, August 1, 1754, as cited in Lester’s A
Century of Philadelphia Cricket UPenn Press,
1754.2 – Ben
Franklin Brings Copy of Cricket Rules Back to
Several sources, including the Smithsonian, magazine, report that
“The rules of the game on this side of the Atlantic were formalized in
1754, when Benjamin Franklin brought back from England a copy of the [ten year
old – LMc] 1744 Laws, cricket’s official rule book.” Simon Worrall, “Cricket,
Anyone?” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2006. The excerpt can be found in the seventh
paragraph of the article [as accessed 10/19/2008] at:
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2006/october/cricket.php:
Lester adds this:
“Benjamin Franklin was sufficiently interested in the game
[cricket] to bring back with him from
1755.1 -- Johnson Dictionary Defines Stoolball and Trap
Stoolball is simply defined as “A play where
balls are driven from stool to stool,” and trap is defined as “A
play at which a ball is driven with a stick.”
Johnson, Samuel, A dictionary of the English
language [
1755.2 -- Laws of Cricket are Revised
“1755: Minor revision of the Laws of
Cricket.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David
and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
1755.3 – Young Man Goes to
“Play at Base Ball” in
On the day after Easter in 1755, 18-year-old William
Bray recorded the following entry in his diary:
“After Dinner Went to Miss Seale’s to play
at Base Ball, with her, the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly
Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford, H. Parsons & Jolly. Drank tea and stayed till 8.”
The story of this 2007 find is told in Block, David,
“The Story of William Bray’s Diary,” Base Ball, volume , no. 2
Block points out that this diary entry, is among the
first four appearances of the term “base ball,” [see #1744.2 and
#1748.1 above, and #1755.4 below] shows adult and mixed-gender play, and that
“at this time, baseball was more of a social phenomenon than a sporting
one. . . . played for social entertainment rather than serious
entertainment.” [Ibid, page
9.]
1755.4 – Satirist Cites Base-Ball as “An Infant Game”
“. . . the younger Part of the Family,
perceiving Papa not inclined to enlarge
upon the Matter, retired to an interrupted
Party at Base-Ball,
Kidgell, John, The Card
1755.5 – Authoritative
Rules of Cricket Published Nationally in
The publication is The Game at Cricket; as Settled
by the Several Cricket-Clubs, Particularly that of the Star and Garter in Pall
Mall (
Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. Beth adds: “This is the first
discrete publication of the laws of cricket, a version of which was printed in
the New Universal Magazine, and as such enabled the laws to be widely
distributed. This is the version
generally regarded as containing the original laws of cricket.”
1756.1 -- First Recorded Game by Hambledon Cricket Club
“1756: The Hambledon Club plays its first
recorded game.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a source.
1760s.1 – Harvard Man Recalls Cricket, “Various Games of Bat and Ball” on Campus
Writing of the Buttery on the Harvard campus in
Sidney Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood
[John Bartlett,
1760.2 – Bat and Ball . . .
in
A description of Parisian sights: “The grand Walk forms a most beautiful
Visto, which terminates in a Wood called Elysian Fields, or more commonly known
by the name “La Cours de la Rein
1761.1 –
“A minute of the
Bentley, et. al., American College Athletics
[Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
1761.2 -- School Rule in PA; No Ballplaying in the College Yard, Especially in Front of Trustees and Profs
“None shall climb over the Fences of the College
Yard, or come in or out thro the Windows, or play Ball or use any Kind of
Diversion within the Walls of the Building; nor shall they in the Presence of
the Trustees, Professors or Tutors, play Ball, Wrestle, make any indecent
Noise, or behave in any way rudely in the College Yard or Streets
adjacent.”
Sack, Saul, History of Higher Education in
Pennsylvania, vol. 2 [Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,
1762.1 – Pirated Version of Little Pretty Book Uses Term “Base-ball.”
Note:
This version, published in 1762 by Hugh Gaine, was advertised in The New
York Mercury on
1762.2 –
“. . . no Person shall use the Exercise of
playing or kicking of Foot-ball, or the Exercise of Bat-and-Ball, or Cricket,
within the Body of the Town, under a Penalty of One Shilling and Six
Pence.”
By-Laws and Orders of the town of
1766.1 – Cricket Balls Advertised in US by James Rivington
In 1766 “James Rivington imported battledores
and shuttlecocks, cricket-balls, pillets, best racquets for tennis and fives,
backgammon tables with men, boxes, and dice.”
Singleton, Esther, Social New York Under the
Georges [
1766.2 -- Cricket [or Wicket?] Challenge in CT
“A Challenge is hereby given by the Subscribers,
to Ashbel Steel, and John Barnard, with 18 young Gentlemen . . . to play a Game
of BOWL for a Dinner and Trimmings . . . on Friday next.” Connecticut
Courant , May 5, 1766, as cited in John A. Lester, A Century of
Philadelphia Cricket [University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,
1951], page 6. Note: is “game of bowl” a common
term for cricket? Could this not have been a wicket challenge, given the
size of the teams?
1767.1 – [Item
#1767.1 has been moved to become 1754.1 above.]
1767.2 -- North-South Game of
Cricket in
“Whereas a Challenge was given by Fifteen Men
South of the Great Bridge in Hartford . . . the Public are hereby
inform’d that that Challenged beat the Challengers by a great
majority. And said North side hereby acquaint the South Side, that they
are not afraid to meet them with any Number they shall chuse . . .
.” Source: “
1768.1 -- “Old Boys of
“William Hickey plays in a match at Moulsey
Hurst for the old boys of
1770s.1 – British Soldiers Seek Amusements, Rebels Yawn
“the presence of large numbers of British troops
quartered in the larger towns of the [eastern] seaboard brought the populace
into contact with a new attitude toward play. Officers and men, when off duty, like
soldiers in all ages, were inveterate seekers of amusement. The dances and balls, masques and
pageants, ending in Howe’s great extravaganza in
“There is little indication, however, that the
British occupation either broke down American prejudices against wasting time
in frivolous amusements or promoted American participation and interest in games
and sports.”
Krout, John A., The Pageant of America: Annals of
American Sport
1770.2 – Three-on-Three Cricket Match Played on 100-Guinea Bet
“On Friday last a cricket match was played on Barnet
Common between Mess. Cock, and Draper and Athey, against Mess Grey, Langley,
and Tapiter, for 100 guineas, which was won with great difficulty by the
latter; they went against 44 notches, and beat by only one notch.”
Bingley’s Weekly Journal, Saturday, September 15, 1770. Contributed by Gregory Christiano,
12/2/09. Barnet is a borough of
1770c.3 – Future Professor Sneaks a Smoke When He Can’t Play Bat and Ball
“When Saturday afternoon chanced to be rainy,
and no prospect of bat and ball on the common, some half a dozen of us used now
and then, to meet in an old wood-shed, that we shall never forget, and fume it
away to our own wonderful aggrandizement.”
“Use of Tobacco from Dr. Waterhouse’s
Lecture before
1771.1 -- Dartmouth President Finds Gardening “More Useful” Than Ballplaying
Eleazar Wheelock, A Continuation of the Narrative
[1771], as quoted in W. D. Quint, The Story of Dartmouth College
1771.2 –
“[M]any disorders are occasioned within the town
of
“An Act to prevent and punish Disorders usually
committed on the twenty-fifth Day of December . . . ,“ 23 December 1771,
1771.3 – A Wider Bat? Even in Cricket, There’s Always a Joker
“There was no size limit [on a cricket bat]
until 1771, when a Ryegate batsman came to the pitch with a bat wider than the
wicket itself! A maximum measurement was then drawn up, and this has
remained the same since.” The Hambledon Committee new resolution,
appearing two days later, specified that the bat much be no wider than 4.25
inches. The rule stuck.
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishing, Kent Town
1771.4 – Newspaper Quotes
Odds for 2-Day
“On Wednesday and Thursday Last a grand match at
cricket was played in the Artillery ground, between the Duke of Dorset and ___ Mann, Esq; which, being a strong contest,
was won by his Grace, notwithstanding the odds on the second day were 12 to one
in favor of Mr. Mann.
Bingley’s Weekly Journal, Saturday, September 14, 1771. Contributed by Gregory Christiano,
12/2/09.
1773.1 -- Surrey/Kent Cricket Match Draws 12,000, Spawns Poetic Duel
Surrey beat
1773.2 -- “Best” Cricket Bats Sold for Four Shillings Sixpence
Pett’s of Sevenoaks was selling “best
bats” for 4s 6d. Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History
1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 18. Ford does not give a
citation for this account.
1773.3 – Ball-playing By Slaves is Eyed in SC
“We present as a growing Evil, the frequent
assembling of Negroes in the Town [
Tom Altheer, Originals, Volume 2, Number 11
(November 2009), page 1. Tom sees
this reference as “possibly the earliest which refers to African
Americans, slaves or also possibly a few free blacks, playing a baseball-type
game [although it is not clear if it involved any running], and playing
frequently.
1774.1 -- Cricket Rules Adjusted -- Visitors Bat First, LBW Added
A “Committee of Noblemen and Gentlemen of Kent,
Hampshire,
Writing in 1890, Steel and Lyttelton say that
“[t]he earliest laws of the game, or at least the earliest which have
reached us, are of the year 1774:”
See A.G. Steel and R. H. Lyttelton, Cricket,
1774.2 – Ah, The Good Ol’ Days: Cricket Now No Longer “Innocent Pastime”
“The game at cricket, which requires that utmost
exertion of strength and agility, was followed, until of late years, for manly exercise,
animated by a noble spirit of emulation. This sport has too long been perverted
from diversion and innocent pastime to excessive gaming and public
dissipation.” Morning
Chronicle and
1775.1 – Soldier in CT “Played Ball All Day”
“Wednesday the 6. We played ball all
day”
[Lyman, Simeon], “Journal of Simeon Lyman of
Sharon August 10 to December 28, 1775,” in “Orderly Book and
Journals Kept by Connecticut Men While Taking Part in the American Revolution
1775 – 1778,” Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society,
volume 7 [Connecticut Historical Society, 1899, p. 117. Per Thomas L.
Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David
Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 26. Lyman was near
1775.2 – Soldier in MA Played Ball
Thomas Altherr writes in 2008: “Ephriam [Ephraim? – TA]
Tripp, a soldier at
E. Tripp, “His book of a journal of the times in
the year 1775 from the 19th day,” Sterling Memorial Library
Manuscripts and Archives,
1776.1 -- Book on Juvenile Pastimes Comments on Trap Ball
Michel Angelo, Juvenile Sports and Pastimes [
1776.2 – NJ Officer Plays Ball Throughout His Military Service
Elmer, Ebenezer, “Journal of Lieutenant Ebenezer
Elmer, of the Third Regiment of New Jersey Troops in the Continental
Service,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society [1848],
volume 1, number 1, pp. 26, 27, 30, and 31, and volume 3, number 2, pp.98. Per
Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted
in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 29.
1776c.3 – Revolutionary War Officer Plays Cricket, Picks Blueberries
“The days would follow without incident, one day
after another. An officer with a
company of
1777.1 – Revolutionary War Prisoner Watches Ball-Playing in NYC Area
Sabine, William H. W., ed., The
1777.2 –
Held as a POW in
[Herbert, Charles], A Relic of the Revolution,
Containing a Full and Particular Account of the Sufferings and Privations of
All the American Prisoners Captured on the High Seas, and Carried to
1777.3 -- Cricket Gets Improved Wicket – A Third Stump Added
Says Ford: “Third
1778.1 – American Surgeon Sees Ball-Playing in English Prison
Coan, Marion, ed., “A Revolutionary Prison
Diary: The Journal of Dr. Jonathan Haskins,” New England Quarterly,
volume 17, number 2 [June 1944], p. 308. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A
Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 36.
1778.2 – Teamster Sees Soldiers Play Ball.
[Joslin, Joseph], “Journal of Joseph Joslin Jr
of South Killingly A Teamster in the Continental Service March 1777 –
August 1778, in “Orderly Book [sic?] and Journals Kept by Connecticut Men
While Taking Part in the American Revolution 1775 – 1778,” Collections
of the Connecticut Historical Society, volume 7 [Connecticut Historical
Society, 1899, pp. 353 - 354. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place
Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before
We Knew It, ref # 27.
1778.3 – MA Sergeant Found Some Time and “Plaid Ball”
Symmes, Rebecca D., ed., A Citizen Soldier in the
American Revolution: The Diary of Benjamin Gilbert of
1778.4 – Ewing Reports
Playing “At Base” and Wicket at
George Ewing, a Revolutionary War soldier, tells of
playing a game of “Base” at
Ewing also wrote: "[May 2d] in the afternoon
playd a game at Wicket with a number of
Ewing, G., The Military Journal of George Ewing
Also note:
“Q. What did soldiers do for recreation?
“A: During the winter months the soldiers
were mostly concerned with their survival, so recreation was probably not on
their minds. As spring came, activities other than drills and marches
took place. “Games” would have included a game of bowls
played with cannon balls and called “Long Bullets.”
“Base” was also a game – the ancestor of baseball, so you can
imagine how it might be played; and cricket/wicket. George Washington
himself was said to have took up the bat in a game of wicket in early May after
a dinner with General Knox! . . . Other games included cards and dice . . .
gambling in general, although that was frowned upon.”
From the website of Historic Valley Forge; see --
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/067.htm,
accessed 10/25/02. Note: it is possible that the source of this
material is the Ewing entry above, but we’re hoping for more details from
the Rangers at
1778.5 -- Cricket Game Played at
Cannon’s Tavern,
“The game of Cricket, to be played on Monday
next, the 14th inst., at Cannon’s Tavern, at Corlear’s Hook. Those
Gentlemen that choose to become Members of the Club, are desired to attend. The
wickets to be pitched at
Per John Thorn,
1778.6 -- NH Loyalist Plays Ball in NY; Mentions “Wickett”
The journal of Enos Stevens, a NH man serving in
British forces, mentions playing ball seven times from 1778 to 1781. Only
one specifies the game played in terms we know: “in the after
1779.1 – Cricket Played On Grounds near NY’s Brooklyn Ferry.
Per John Thorn,
1779.2 – Lieutenant Reports Playing Ball, and Playing Bandy Wicket
“Samuel Shute, a New Jersey Lieutenant, jotted
down his reference to playing ball in central Pennsylvania sometime between
July 9 and July 22, 1779; ‘until the 22nd, the time was spent
playing shinny and ball’ Incidentally, Shute distinguished among various
sports, referring elsewhere in his journal to ‘Bandy Wicket.’ He
did not confuse baseball with types of field hockey [bandy] and cricket
[wicket] that the soldiers also played.” -- Thomas Altherr. Note:
Gomme says that “bandy wicket” was a name for cricket in
[Shute, Samuel], “Journal of Lt. Samuel
Shute,” in Frederick Cook, ed., Journals of the Military Expedition of
Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779
[Books for Libraries Press, Freeport NY, reprint of the 1885 edition], p. 268.
Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,”
reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 28.
1779.3 – Revolutionary War Soldier H. Dearborn Reports Playing Ball in PA
Brown, Lloyd, and H. Peckham, eds., Revolutionary
War Journals of Henry Dearborn 1775 – 1783 [Books for Libraries
Press,
1779.4 – French Official Sees George Washington Playing Catch “For Hours”
Chase, E. P., ed., Our Revolutionary Forefathers:
The Letters of Francois Marquis de Barbe-Marbois during his Residence in the
United States as Secretary of the French Legation 1779 – 1785
[Duffield and Company, NY, 1929], p. 114. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A
Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 32.
1779.5 -- Army Lieutenant Cashiered for “Playing Ball with Serjeants”
Lieutenant Michael Dougherty, 6th Maryland
Regiment, was cashiered at a General Court Martial at Elizabeth Town on April
10, 1779, in part for a breach of the 21st article, 14th
section of the rules and articles of war -- “unofficer and
ungentlemanlike conduct in associating and playing ball with Serjeants on the 6th
instant.”
Fitzpatrick, John C., ed., The Writings of George
Washington from the Original Sources, 1745-1799, vol. 14 [USGPO,
1779.6 –
“If any student shall play ball or use any other
deversion [sic] that exposes the College or hall windows within three rods of
either he shall be fined two shillings . . . “ In 1782 the protected area was extended
to six rods. John King Lord, A History of
1780.1 -- NYC Press Cites Cricket Matches to be Played in Summer
A cricket match is advertised to be played on this
day, and continued every Monday throughout the summer, “on the Ground where
the late Reviews were, near the Jews Burying Ground.”
Per John Thorn,
1780.2 -- Challenges for Cricket Matches between Englishmen and Americans
On August 19, 11 New Yorkers issued this challenge:
“we, in this public manner challenge the best eleven Englishmen in the
City of
Royal Gazette,
1780.3 – [this entry was expanded and appears as #1779.6]
1780c.4 – “Round Ball” Believed to be Played in MA
“Mr. Stoddard believes that Round Ball was
played by his father in 1820, and has the tradition from his father that two
generations before, i.e., directly after the revolutionary war, it was played
and was not then a novelty.”
Letter from Henry Sargent, Grafton MA, to the Mills
Commission, May 23, 1905. Stoddard was an elderly gentleman who had
played round ball in his youth. Note: The Sargent letter also reports that
Stoddard “believed that roundball was played as long ago as
1780s.5 -- Diminished in its Range, Stoolball Still Played at
“The apparent former
wide diffusion of stoolball was reduced in the 18th century to a few
geographical survivals. It was
played in
John Lowerson,
“Conflicting Values in the Revivals of a ‘Traditional Sussex
Game,’
1780s.6 – Newell Sees Baseball’s Roots in MA
Writing on early baseball in the year 1883, W. W.
Newell says:
“The present scientific game . . . was known in
Newell, William W., Games and Songs of American
Children
1780c.7 –The Young Josiah Quincy of MA: “My Heart was in Ball”
Josiah Quincy was sent off to
Edmund Quincy, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts
1781.1 – Teen Makes White Leather Balls for Officers’ Ball-Playing
Hanna, John S., ed., A History of the Life and
Services of Captain Samuel Dewees, A Native of Pennsylvania, and Soldier of the
Revolutionary and Last Wars [Robert Neilson, Baltimore, 1844], p. 265-
266. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play
Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref
#37.
1781.2 – “Antient” Harvard Custom: Freshmen Furnish the Bats, Balls
“The Freshmen shall furnish Batts, Balls, and
Foot-balls, for the use of the students, to be kept at the Buttery.”
Rule 16, “President, Professors, and
Tutor’s Book,” volume IV.
The list of rules is headed “The antient Customs of Harvard
College, established by the Government of it.”
Conveyed to David Block, April 18, 2005, by Professor
Harry R. Lewis,
1781.3 – “Game at Ball” Variously Perceived at Harvard
-- And that no other person was present in said area,
except a boy who, they say was playing with a Ball -- From the testimony some
of the persons in the kitchen it appeared that the company there assembled were
very noisy --That some game at Ball was played --That some of the company
called on the Boy to keep tally; which Boy was seen by the same person,
repeated by running after the Ball, with a penknife & stick in his hand, on
which stick notches were cut --That a Person who tarried at home at Dr.
Appleton's was alarmed by an unusual noise about three o'clock, & on
looking out the window, saw in the opening between Hollis & Stoughton, four
or five persons, two of whom were stripped of their coats, running about,
sometimes stooping down & apparently throwing something . . .” Posted to 19CBB by Kyle DeCicco-Carey
[date?] Source: Harvard College
Faculty Records
1782.1—Cricket Match Scheduled for the Green, Near Shipyards,
Cricket is to be played on July 15th “on the
green, near the Ship-Yards.” Royal Gazette,
1782.2 – Ball Played at
Spear, John A., ed., “Joel Shepard Goes to
War,” New England Quarterly, volume 1, number 3 [July 1928], p.
344. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play
Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref #
38.
1782.3 – NH Diarist Notes that Local Youths “Play Ball Before My Barn”
Stabler, Lois K., ed., Very Poor and of a Lo Make:
The Journal of Abner Sanger [Peter E. Randall,
1784.1 – UPenn Bans Ball Playing Near Open University Windows
RULES for the Good Government and Discipline of the
SCHOOL in the
1784.2 –
“Rounders not a serious game until 1889 in
Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour
Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. Note: it would be good to
find such evidence soon.
1785.1 – Thomas Jefferson: Hunting is More Character-building Than Ballplaying
Thomas Jefferson [VA] letter to Peter Carr, August 19,
1785, in Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson [Princeton
University Press, 1953], volume 8, p. 407.
Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,”
reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 55.
1785.2 – Cricket, Long After Reaching Tazmania, Gets Past Hadrian’s Wall
“It is difficult to believe that the English
soldiers who flooded into
Another source reports that the Talbot/Atholl match
was played on September 8, 1785, for 1000 pounds per man. L. Stephen and S.
Lee, eds., Dictionary of National Biography
1786.1 – “Baste
Ball” Played at
“Baste Ball” is played by students on the
campus of
“A
fine day, play baste ball in the campus but am beaten for I miss both catching
and striking the ball.”
Smith, John Rhea,
An article has appeared about Smith’s
journal. See Woodward, Ruth,
“Journal at Nassau Hall,” PULC 46
1786.2 -- Game Called Wicket
Reported in
“The late game of Wicket was decided by an
extraordinary catch made by Mr. Lenox, to which he ran more than 40 yards, and
received the ball between two fingers.” Morning Post and Daily Advertiser
1787.1 – Ballplaying
Prohibited at
“It appearing that a play at present much
practiced by the smaller boys . . . with balls and sticks,” the faculty
of
Quoted without apparent reference in
1787.2 – VT Man’s Letter Says “Three Times is Out at Wicket”
Levi Allen to Ira Allen,
1787.3 – Marylebone Cricket Club, Later Official Custodian of the Game, is Founded
Interview with Stephen Green at Lords. Note:
needs verification. Also Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History
1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a
citation for this account.
1787.4 --
Thomas, Isaiah, publisher, The Royal Primer: or, An
Easy and Pleasant Guide to the Art of
1787.5 – NY Newspaper Prints “Laws of the Noble Game of Cricket”
“At the request of several of our
Correspondents, we insert the following Laws
of the noble Game of Cricket, which govern all the celebrated Players in
Independent
Journal [
1788.1 -- Cricketer Experiments with Round-Arm Bowling
Says John Ford: “Tom Walker is said to
have experimented with round-arm bowling.” John Ford, Cricket: A
Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford
does not give a citation for this account.
Caveat: The Encyclopedia
Brittanica on Nyren’s estimate of about 1790 for Walker’s
innovation; A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General
Information, Eleventh Edition,
1788.2 – Noah Webster, CT Ballplayer?
“
Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to
Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It;
see page 241. Altherr cites the
diary as Webster, Noah, “Diary,” reprinted in Notes on the Life
of Noah Webster, E. E. F Ford, ed.,
1789.1 -- A Tale of Two Cricket Traditions?
Ford reports that “A cricket tour to
1789.2 – New York Children’s Pastimes Recalled: Old Cat, Rounders Cited
“ . . . outside school hours, the boys and girls
of 1789 probably had as good a time as childhood ever enjoyed. Swimming and fishing were close to every
doorstep The streets, vacant lots,
and nearby fields resounded with the immemorial games of old cat, rounders,
hopscotch, I spy, chuck farthing and prisoner’s base . . . . The Dutch influence made especially
popular tick-tack, coasting, and outdoor bowling.”
Monaghan, Frank, and Marvin Lowenthal, This Was
1789.3 – Stoolball Played
at Brighthelmstone in
“From the ‘Jernal’ of John Burgess
of Ditchling (
The XVth (1938) Annual Report of the Stoolball
Association for
A web search doesn’t lead to this journal entry,
but does locate a similar one:
“[August 19, 1788] Went to Brighthelmstone to
see many Divertions on account of the Rial Family that is the Duke of Yorks
Berth day Cricketing Stool Ball Foot Ball Dancing &c. fire works
&c.” A side note was that
some estimated that 20,000 persons attended.
1790s.1 – Doctor in DE Recalls His “Youthfull Folley”: Included Ball-playing
Hancock, Harold B., ed., “William Morgan’s
Autobiography and Diary: Life in
1790s.2 –
Mason, Jonathan, “Recollections of a
Septuagenarian,” Downs Special Collection, Winterthur Library
[Winterthur, Delaware], Document 30, volume 1, pp. 20 – 21. Per Thomas
L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 81.
1790s.3 – Britannica: Stickball Dates to Late 18th Century?
“Stickball is a game played on a street or other
restricted area, with a stick, such as a mop handle or broomstick, and a hard
rubber ball. Stickball developed in the late 18th century from such
English games as old cat, rounders, and town ball. Stickball also relates
to a game played in southern
Britannica Online
search conducted 5/25/2005. Note:
No sources are provided for this unique report of early stickball. It
also seems unusual to define town ball as an English game. Caveat: We find no
reference to the term “rounders” until 1828. See #1828.1 below.
1790s.4 – Southern Pols Calhoun and Crawford: Ballplaying Schoolmates?
“These two illustrious statesmen [southern
leaders John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford], who had played town ball and
marbles and gathered nuts together . . . were never again to view each other
except in bonds of bitterness.”
J. E. D. Shipp, Giant Days: or the Life and Times
of William H. Crawford [Southern Printers, 1909], page 167. Caveat: Crawford was ten years older
than Calhoun, so it seems unlikely that they were close in school. Both leaders
had attended Waddell’s school [in GA] but that school opened in 1804 [see
#1804.1] when Crawford was 32 years old, so their common school must have
preceded their time at Waddell’s.
1790.5 John Adams Refers to
Cricket in Argument about
“Cricket was certainly known in
1790s.6 – Cricket as Played in
“[D]escriptions of the game [cricket] from
Hamburg in the 1790s show significant variations often quite similar to
outdated provisions of American “Wicket,” which may well not be due
to error on the part of the author, but rather to acute observation. For example, the ball was bowled
alternatively from each end
1790s.7 – In
1790.8 – British Paper
Snitches on Ringer Playing on a
“The Grand Match between the Noblemen of Mary-le
Bonne Club, and the
Their best batter, C. Foxton, does not live in
Middlesex, but in
“Cricket,” Morning Post and Daily
Advertiser, Monday June 21, 1790.
Contributed by Gregory Christiano, 12/2/09.
1790.9– Careful Scorer Starts “Complete Lists” of the Yearly Grand Cricket Matches
Example: Samuel Britcher, Scorer, Complete List of
All the Grand Matches of Cricket that Have Been Played in the Year of 1793,
with a Correct State of Each Innings
Beth Hise adds, January 12, 2010: “Britcher appears to have been the
first official MCC scorer. He
published small books annually between 1790 and 1803, with an additional volume
covering 1804/5. He recorded
matches that he attended, shedding considerable light onto the early days of
cricket. Those matches ranged
widely, from those between the Kennington and Middlesex Clubs, to one between
the One Arm and One Leg sides (won by the One Legs by 103 runs).
1791.1 –
“Bafeball” Among Games Banned in
In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to promote the safety of
the exterior of the newly built meeting house, particularly the windows, a by-law
is enacted to bar “any game of wicket, cricket, baseball, batball,
football, cats, fives, or any other game played with ball,” within eighty
yards of the structure. However, the letter of the law did not exclude the
city’s lovers of muscular sport from the tempting lawn of
“Meeting-House Common.” This is the first indigenous instance of
the game of baseball being referred to by that name on the North
American continent. It is spelled herein as bafeball. “
Per John Thorn: The History of
1791.2 –
“Both the meeting-house and the Court House
suffered considerable damage, especially to their windows by ball playing in
the streets, consequently in 1791, a by-law was enacted by which ‘foot
ball, hand ball, bat ball and or any other game of ball was prohibited within
ten rods of the Court House easterly or twenty rods of the Meeting House
southwesterly, neither shall they throw any stones at or over the said Meeting
House on a penalty of 5s, one half to go to the complainant and the rest to the
town.’”
J. R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Volume II
(
1791.3 –
“Puerile Sports usual in these parts of
The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Volume I (Essex Institute, Salem MA, 1905), pp
253-254. Contributed by Brian
Turner, March 6, 2009. Bentley
later noted that Bat & Ball is played at the time of year when “the
weather begins to cool.”
Bentley [1759-1819] was a prominent and prolific New England pastor who
served in
1792.1 -- Sporting Magazine Begins Its
Cricket Reports in
Ford reports that this 1792 saw “First
publication of the Sporting Magazine which featured cricket scores and
reports. . . . Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a citation for
this account, but John Thorn [email, 2/2/2008] found an ad announcing the new
magazine: “Sporting Magazine,” The General Evening Post
1793.1 -- Engraving Shows Game
with Wickets at
A copper engraving showing
Submitted by Scott Meacham 8/17/06.
1793.2 – Big Stakes for Cricket, Indeed
“A game of cricket for 1000 guineas a side
between sides raised by the Earl of Winchilsea and Lord Darnley.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social History
1770-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 19. Ford does not give a
source for this event.
1793.3 – “Curious
Cricket Match” Planned in
“CURIOUS CRICKET MATCH. A young nobleman, of great notoriety in
the [illegible: baut-ton? A corrupton of beau ton?], had made a match of a
singular nature, with one of the would-be members of the jockey club, for a
considerable sum of money, to be played by Greenwich pensioners, on Blackheath,
sometime in the present month. The
11 on one side are to have only one arm each; and the other, to have both their
arms and only one leg each. The
nobleman has not at present made his election, whether he intends to back the
legs or the wings – but the odds are considerably in favour of the
latter.”
Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, August 29, 1793, as taken from an unknown
1793.4 – [moved to 1790.9 in version 11]
1793.5 – Lady
Cricketers Play Again in
The married women and maids of Bury, in
The Morning Post, Wednesday, July 17, 1793. Contributed by Gregory Christiano,
December 2, 2009.
1794.1 --
“By 1794 the New York Cricket Club was meeting
regularly, usually at Battins Tavern at six o’clock in the evenings. Match games were played between
different members of the club, wickets being pitched exactly at
Holliman cites Wister, W. R., Some Reminiscences of
Cricket in
1794.2 -- Historian Cites “Club-ball”
David Block finds an earlier reference to
“club-ball” than Strutt’s. It is James Pettit Andrews, The
History of Great Britain
David explains“ that in Baseball Before We
Knew It, “I took the historian Joseph Strutt to task for making it
seem as if a 14th century edict under the reign Edward III [see
#1300s.2 above] offered proof that a game called “club-ball”
existed. It now appears that I may have done Mr. Strutt a partial injustice. A
history book published seven years before Strutt’s translates the Latin pilam bacculoreum the same way he did,
as club-ball
1795.1 –
By-Laws of the Town of
1795.2 -- Survey Reports Cricket
in
Winterbotham, William, An Historical, Geographical,
Commercial and Philosophical View of the American
1795.3 -- Playing Ball Cited as
Major
What are the diversions of the
Johnson,
1795.4 -
A long list of punishable offenses at
Marr, Harriet Webster, The Old New England
Academies Founded Before 1826 [Comet Press,
1795.5 –Playing At Ball in the Untamed West
“Wrestling, jumping, running foot races, and
playing at ball, are the common diversions.” W. Winterbotham, An Historical
Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American
1796.1 -- Gutsmuths describes [in German, yet] “Englishe Base-Ball”
Gutsmuths Johann C. F., Spiele zur Uebung und
Erholung des Korpers und Geistes fur die Jugend, ihre Erzieher und alle Freunde
Unschuldiger Jugendfreuden [
Gutsmuths, an early German advocate of physical
education, devotes a chapter to “Ball mit Freystaten
For Text: Block carries a four-page translation of this text in
Appendix 7, pages 275-278, in Baseball Before We Knew It.
Block advises [11/6/2005 communication] that Gutsmuths
provides “the first hard, unambiguous evidence associating a bat with
baseball . . . . We can only speculate as to when a bat was first employed in
baseball, but my intuition is that it happened fairly early, probably by the
mid-18th century.”
1796.2 –
Tarbox, Increase N., Diary of Thomas Robbins,
1796.3 --
Ford summarizes a bad day for Etonians:
“Eton were beaten by
1796.4 – Early Geographer
Sees Variety of Types
“Q:
What is the temper of the New-England people?
A: They are frank and open . . . .
Q: What are their diversions?
A: Dancing is a favorite of both sexes. Sleigh-riding in winter, and skating,
playing ball
Nathaniel Dwight, A Short But Comprehensive System
of Geography
1797.1 – Daniel Webster
Writes of “Playing Ball” While at
Daniel Webster, in private correspondence, writes of
“playing ball,” while a student at
Webster, Daniel, Private Correspondence,
Fletcher Webster, ed. [Little Brown,
1797.2 –
Bye-Laws of Newburyport: Passed by the Town at Regular
Meetings, and Approved by the Court of General Justice of the Peace for the
County of Essex, Agreeably to a Law of this Commonwealth [Newburyport, 1797], p. 1. Per Thomas L.
Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David
Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 68.
1797.3 –
Gilbert, Tom, Baseball and the Color Line,
[Franklin Watts, NY, 1995], p.38. Per Millen, note # 15.
1797.4 – “Grand Match” of Stoolball Pits
“A grand Match of Stool-ball,
between 11 Ladies of Sussex, in Pink, against 11 Ladies of Kent, in Blue
Ribands.”
Source: an undated
reproduction, which notes “this is a reproduction of the original 1797
Diversions programme.” The
match was scheduled for 10am on Wednesday, August 16, 1797. Provided from the files of the National
Stoolball Association, June 2007.
1797.5 –In NC, Negroes Face 15 Lashes for Ballplaying
A punishment of 15 lashes
was specified for “negroes, that shall make a noise or assemble in a
riotous manner in any of the streets [of
1798.1 – Jane Austen Writes of “Baseball” in Northanger
Abbey.
Jane Austen mentions
“baseball” in her novel Northanger Abbey, written in about
1798 but published in 1818, after her death. “Mrs. Morland was a
very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be;
but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones,
that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it
was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should
prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at
the age of fourteen, to books . . . . But from fifteen to seventeen she was in
training for a heroine; so read all such works as heroines must read. . .
“
Austen, Jane, Northanger
Abbey
1798.2 -- Cricket Rules Revised a Little
Rule changes: [A] Instead of requiring a single
ball to be used throughout a match, a new rule specified a new ball for each
innings. [B] Fielders can be substituted for, but the replacement players
cannot bat.
Peter Scholefield, Cricket Laws and Terms
[Axiom Publishers, Kent Town
In addition, Ford reports that “the size of the
wicket was increased to 24 inches high by 7 inches wide with two
bails.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 20. Ford does not give a citation for
this account.
1799.1 – English Novel Refers to Cricket, Base-ball
Cooke, Cassandra, Battleridge” an Historical
tale, Founded on facts. In Two
Volumes. By a Lady of Quality
A character recalls how, when his clerkship to a
lawyer ended, a former playmate took his leave by saying:
“Ah! no more cricket, no more base-ball, they
are sending me to
David Block [page 183) notes that Cooke was in
correspondence with Jane Austen in 1798, when both were evidently writing
novels containing references to base-ball. Also submitted 8/19/06 by Ian
Maun.
1799.2 -- NY Cricket Club Schedules Match Among Members
“A number of members of the Cricket Club having
met on the old ground on Saturday last, by appointment it was unanimously
agreed to meet on Thursday next, at the same place, at
Commercial Advertiser,
1800C.1 – Sports at
Cunningham, Frank H., Familiar Sketches of the
1800.2 – John Knox Owns a
“Ball Alley” and
Item from John Thorn, 6/25/04. Note: It
seems possible that a “ball alley” is for bowling, but wicket was
also played on what was termed an alley.
1800c.3 – Col. Jas. Lee Recalls Playing Baseball as a Youth.
Lee was made an honorary member of the Knickerbocker
Club in 1846, when he made this observation.
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop:
The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 150.
No ref given. Also referenced in Peterson, p. 68, but again without a
citation
1800c.4 – Four Old Cat and Three Old Cat Well Known in MA
“Four Old Cat and Three Old Cat were as well
known to
Letter from Henry Sargent,
1800.5 – History of North America: Cricket and Football are “Universally Practiced.”
“The athletic and healthy diversion of cricket,
football, etc. . . are universally practiced in this country.”
Edward Oliphant, History of North America
1800.6 -- Children’s Story Includes Promise to Provide Bats and Balls
A story in this popular children’s book includes
a character who, pleased with the deportment of some youths during a visit,
says, “If you do me the honour of another visit, I shall endeavor to
provide bats, balls, &c.”
The Prize for Youthful Obedience [
1800c.7 -- William Cullen Bryant Remembers Base-Ball
“I have not mentioned other sports and games of
the boys of that day -- which is to say, of seventy or eighty years since -
such as wrestling, running, leaping, base-ball, and the like, for in thee there
was nothing to distinguish them from the same pastimes at the present
day.”
William Cullen Bryant, “The Boys of my
Boyhood,” St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks,
December 1876, page 102. Submitted by David Ball
1800.8 -- Will Satan Snag the Sunday Player?
“Take care that here on Sunday/None of you play
at ball,/For fear that on the Monday/The Devil take you all.” --
Inscription oh the Church Wall of a small village in
1800c.9 -- Most English Counties Play Cricket
“Village cricket spread widely and by the end of
the century cricket had been recorded in most counties in
1800.10 --
“An ordinance to preserve the turf or soil on
the parade, and to regulate the sale of lamb in the city, and also to prevent
boys playing ball or hoop on Warren or Front streets, passed the 14th
June, 1800.”
Hudson [NY] Bee, April 19, 1803. Found by John Thorn, who lives 30
minutes south of the town: email of 2/17/2008.
1800c.1 – MA Man Recalls Games of Ball in Streets, with Wickets
“The sports and entertainments were very
simple. Running about the village
street, hither and thither, without much aim . . . . games of ball, not
base-ball, as is now [c1857] the fashion, yet with wickets – this was
about all, except that at the end there was always horse-racing [p.19]. ..But
as to sports and entertainments in general, there were more of them in those
days than now. We had more
holidays, more games in the street, -- of ball-playing, of quoits, of running,
leaping, and wrestling. [p.21]”
Mary E. Dewey, ed., Autobiography and Letters of
Orville Dewey, D.D.
1801.1 – Joseph Strutt Says
Stoolball Still Played in North of
Strutt, Joseph., The Sports and Pastimes of the
People of
1801.2 -- Chapbook Includes Engraving Depicting Trap-Ball
Youthful Recreations [
1801.3 – Book Portrays “Bat and Ball” as Inferior to Cricket
“CRICKET.
This play requires more strength than some boys possess, to manage the ball
in a proper manner; it must therefore be left to the more robust lads, who are
fitter for such athletic exercises.
Bat and ball is an inferior kind of cricket, and more suitable for
little children, who may safely play at it, if they will be careful not to
break windows.”
Youthful Sports
[
1801.4 -- Cricket Challenge in GA
A
1801.5 -- Sunday Ballplaying Eyed Everywhere: “Is This a Christian Country?”
“A few weeks ago I saw on a Sunday afternoon,
one party of boys playing at ball in Broad-street; another at the upper end of
Pearl-street; and a third in the Park. Is this a Christian country?
Are there no laws, human or divine, to enforce the religious observance of the
Sabbath? . . . . Are our Magistrates asleep, or are they afraid of losing their
popularity, if they should carry the laws into execution?”
New York Evening Post,
1802c.1 –
Drayton, John, A View of South-Carolina, As Respects
Her Natural and Civil Concerns [W. P. Young,
1802.2 – Wordsworth Seems to Laud “Englishness” of Cricket
“Here, on our native soil, we breathe once
more./The cock that crows, the smoke that curls, that sound/Of bells; those
boys that in yonder meadow-ground/In white-sleev’d shirts are playing;
and the roar/Of the waves breaking on the chalky shore/ -- All, all are English
. . .”
From Wordsworth’s sonnet “Composed in the
valley near
According to Bateman, this reference is shown to be
cricket because Wordsworth’s sister’s diary later contains a
reference to white-shirted players at a cricket match near
1803.1 –
[Playter, Ely], “Extracts from Ely
Playter’s Diary,” April 13, 1803, reprinted in Edith G. Firth, ed.,
The Town of York 1793 – 1815: A Collection of Documents of Early
Toronto [The Champlain Society, Toronto, 1962], p. 248. Per Thomas L.
Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David
Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 85.
1803.2 – Cricket Club Forms, Lasts a Year in NYC
An informal group called the “New York Cricket
Club” is headquartered in
Per John Thorn,
1803.3 – Cricket Reaches
“The first mention of cricket in
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia
1803.4 –
“To prevent, as far as possible, the damages
before enumerated, viz. breaking of glass, &c. the students in College and
members of the Academy shall not be permitted to play at ball or use any other
sport or diversion in or near the College-building.” A first offense brought a fine, a second
offense brought suspension.
“Of the location of Students, Damages, and
Glass,” in Laws of Middlebury-College in Midlebury [sic] in Vermont,
Enacted by the President and Fellows, the 17th Day of August, 1803, page
14. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “Chucking the
Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games,” Base
Ball, Volume 2, number 1
1803.5 –
A letter to the editor of the Green Mountain
Patriot takes issue with another writer who evidently thinks that
“the farmer, the mechanic, and the merchant” should do more dancing
when they attend local balls. They
attend for another reason – “the same reason, whether criminal or
lawful, that they meet together to play a game of ball, of quoits, or ride out
on horseback.” For
“pleasing amusement.”
The
1804.1 – SC School Opens,
At Moses Waddell’s “famous academy”
established in Wilkington in 1804, “instead of playing baseball or
football, boys took their recreation in running jumping, wrestling, playing
town ball and bull pen.”
Meriwether, Colyer, History of Higher Education in
1804.2 -- Another Chapbook, Another Trap-ball Engraving
Youthful Sports
[
1804.3 – A “Match at
Ball” in
In a listing of articles in North Louisiana History,
we spy this citation: Morgan
Peoples, “Caddoes Host ‘Match at Ball,” Volume 11, Number 3
(Summer 1980), pp. 353-36. Query: Can we retrieve the actual article and
discover the particulars? Caddo
Parish is just northwest of
1804.5 –
A subscription search yields a 20 column-inch printing
of cricket rules on May 8, 1804.
The paper is identified as The Bee, but no location is provided.
1805.1 – Williams College Bans Dangerous Ball-playing
The Laws of
1805.2 –
The By Laws of the Town of
1805.3 -- Book of Games Covers Cricket, Trap-Ball
Among the games described in this book are cricket and
trap-ball, which has this concise account, in the form of a dialog: “you
know, of course, that when I hit the trigger, the ball flies up, and that I
must give it a good stroke with the bat. If I strike at the ball and miss
my aim, or if, when I have struck it, either you or Price catch it before it
has touched the ground, or if I have hit the trigger more than twice, without
striking the ball, I am out and one of you take the bat, and come in, as it is
called.”
The Book of Games, or, a History of Juvenile Sports:
Practiced at the Kingston Academy [
1805.4 -- NY Gentlemen Play Game of “Bace:” Score is Gymnastics 41, Sons of Diagoras 34.
“Yesterday afternoon a contest at the game of
Bace took place on “the Gymnasium,” near
New York Evening Post,
1805.5 – The Term
“Bace” Not Related to Ballplaying, in
“BACE.
Prisoner’s bace
Jago, Fred W. P. The Ancient Language and the
Dialect of
1805.6 –In SC, Some Slaves Use Sundays for Ballplaying
“The negroes when not hurried have this day
[Sunday] for amusement & great numbers are seen about, some playing ball,
some with things for sale & some dressed up going to meeting.”
Edward Hooker, Diaries, 1805-1830: MS 72876 and 72877,
Connecticut Historical Society,
1805c.7 – NH Versfier
Recalls Ballplaying at
“Oh, then what fire in every vein, /What health
the boons of life endear’d, /How oft the call, / To urge the ball /
Across the rapid plain, / I heard.”
Jeremiah Fellowes, “Irregular Ode, Written Near
_____ [sic] Academy,” Reminiscences, Moral Poems, and Translations
1805.8 – Yale Grad Compares
“July 9 [1805, we think] . . . . The mode of
playing ball differs a little from that practiced in New-England. Instead of tossing up the ball out of
one’s own hand, and then striking it, as it descends, they lay is into
the heel of a kind of wood shoe; and upon the instep a spring is fixed, which
extends within the hollow to the hinder part of the shoe; the all is placed
where the heel of the foot would commonly be, and a blow applied on the other
end of the spring, raises the ball into the air, and, as it descends, it
receives a blow from the bat.
“They were playing also at another game
resembling our cricket, but differing from it in this particular, that he
perpendicular pieces which support the horizontal one, are about eighteen
inches high, and are three in number, whereas with us they are only two in
number, and about three or four inches high.”
Benjamin Silliman, Journal of Travels in
Silliman thus implies that an American [or at least
1805.9 –
“High Street, at
“Ball-playing
seems to have been extensively practiced in 1820. At the town meeting that
year, it was voted ‘that the game of ball, and the pitching of quoits
within [a specified area] be prohibited.”
Joseph Williamson, History of the City of Belfast
(Loring Short and Harmon, Portland, 1877), page 764. Accessed 2/2/10 via Google Books search
("
1806.1 – British Children’s Book Includes Scene of “Trap and Ball”
English, Clara, The Children in the Wood, an
Instructive Tale [Warner and Hanna, Baltimore, 1806], p. 29. Per
Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted
in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, ref # 56.
1806.2 – Children’s Poem Traces Bouncing Ball
“THE VILLAGE GREEN. “On the cheerful village green,/
Skirted round with houses small,/ All the boys and girls are seen,/Playing
there with hoop and ball/ . . . ./Then ascends the worsted ball;/ High it rises
in the air;/Or against the cottage wall,/Up and down it bounces there.”
Gilbert, Ann,
Original Poems, for Infant Minds, 2 volumes
1806.3 – Mister Beldham Really Loads One Up on Cricket Pitch
“Ball tampering has been around since time
immemorial. The first recorded
instance of a bowler deliberately changing the condition of a ball occurred in
1806, when Beldham, Robinson and Lambert played Bennett, Fennex, and Lord
Frederisk Beauclerk in a single-wicket match at Lord’s. It was a closely fought match, but Beauclerk’s
last innings looked to be winning the game. As Pycroft recalls in The Cricket
Field:
‘”His lordship had then lately introduced
sawdust when the ground was wet.
Beldham, unseen, took a lump of wet dirt and sawdust, and stuck it on
the ball, and took the wicket. This, I heard separately from Beldham, Bennett,
and also Fennex, who used to mention it as among the wonders of his long
life.’”
Simon Rae, It’s Not Cricket: A History of
Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the Noble Game
1806.4 –Minister from New
England Plays Ball in
Increase Tarbox, ed., The Diary of Thomas Robbins,
D.D. 1796-1854, Volume 1
April 8:
“Visited. Played a
little ball.”
May:
“Rainy. Played ball
some.”
Tom says:
“This may be the earliest recorded evidence of ball play in
1807.1 – Book Includes Promise to Bring Children “Bats, Balls &C”
The Prize for Youthful Obedience [Jacob Johnson,
1807.2 – Games Recalled at
In about 1889, Col. George Kent wrote this verse in
response to an inquiry about student games from 1807 at
“But pastimes and games of a much better sort,
Lent aid to our outdoor and innocent sport,
Such as marbles and foot ball, cat, cricket and base,
With occasional variance by a foot race.”
1807.3 – Lost Poet
Remembers College Ballplay, Maybe in
Garrett Barry wrote in his sentimental verse “On
Leaving College:”
“I’ll fondly tract, with fancy’s
aid,/The spot where all our sports were made./ . . .
The little train forever gay,/With joy obey’d
the pleasing call,/And nimbly urged the flying ball.”
Barry, Garrett, “On Leaving College,” in Poems,
on Several Occasions
1808.1 -- Wall Streeters Are Bearish on Ballplaying “and Other Annoyances”
The minutes of the NYC Common Council record a
“Petition of sundry inhabitants in Wall Street complaining against the
practice of boys playing ball before the Fire Engine House adjoining the City
Hall, and other annoyances . . . “
Minutes of the Common Council of the city of New
York, 1784-1831, April 18, 1808, page 95 [Volume V.] Volume eighteen of
manuscript minutes
1808.2 – First Cricket Club
in
The first formally organized cricket club is
established in
Per John Thorn, 6/15/04: The source is Chadwick
Scrapbook, Volume 20. John has found a meeting announcement for the club in the
Boston (MA) Gazette for November 17, 1808. Note:
Ryczek dates this event as 1809 in Baseball’s First Inning (2009),
page 101.
Richard Hershberger [email of 2/4/10] reports that the
last mention of the Club he has found is an 1809 notice that the club’s
annual dinner will take place the following day. Source:
1810c.1 – “Poisoned Ball” Appears in French Book of Games
The rules for “Poisoned Ball” are
described in a French book of boy’s games: “In a court, or in a
large square space, four points are marked: one for the home base, the others
for bases which must be touched by the runners in succession, etc.”
Les Jeux des Jeunes Garcons [
To See the Text: David Block carries a three-paragraph translation of text in
Appendix 7, page 279, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
1810.2 – Children’s Book Describes Trap Ball and its Benefits
Youthful Amusements [Johnson and Warner,
1810.3 – Children’s Book Recommends Regular Play with “Trap, Bat, Ball,” etc.
Youthful Recreations [Jacob Johnson,
1810.4 –
“Union Students were playing a baseball-like
game with a stick and ball of yarn in the old
Somers, Wayne, Encyclopedia of Union College
History [Union College Press,
1810s.5 – Harvard Library Worker Recalls Bi-racial Ball Play in Harvard Yard
“During my employment at
William Croswell, letter drafted to the Harvard
Corporation, December 1827. Papers
of William Croswell, Call number HUG 1306.5, Harvard University Archives. Supplied by Kyle DeCicco-Carey,
8/8/2007. Kyle notes that Croswell
was an 1780 Harvard graduate who worked in the college library 1812-1821.
1810.6 – Cricket a
“Popular Recreation” in
“Cricket had become a more popular recreation by
1810. . . . [The 1810 proclamation
naming
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia
1810c.7 – Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison Plays Ball as Barefoot Youth
“[T]he lovely old town of Newburyport,
Massachusetts, in which he spent the fist twenty-five years of his life, was
ever dear to him. As a boy,
barefoot he rolled the hoop through the streets, played a marbles and at bat
and ball, swam in the
Wendell Phillips Garrison, “William Lloyd
Garrison’s Origin and Early Life, The Century Illustrated Monthly
Magazine Volume 30 (1885), page 592.
Accessed via Google Books search 2/2/10 ("garrison's
origin").
1810c.8 – Future Lord Prefers Studies to Rounders, Cricket
Young Thomas Babbington Macaulay “did not take
kindly, his co-temporaries tell us, to foot-ball, cricket, or a game of
rounders, -- preferred history to hockey, and poetry to prisoner’s
base.”
H. G. J. Clements, Lord Macaulay, His Life and
Writings (Whittaker and Co., London, 1860), page 16. Accessed 2/2/10 via Google Books search
(macaulay "2 lectures").
1811.1 – Book Printed in
The Book of Games; Or, a History of the Juvenile
Sports Practiced at
1811.2 -- NYCC Calls Meeting -- First Cricket Meeting Since 1804?
The notice was signed by G. M’Enery, Secretary.
New York Evening Post,
1811.3 – NY Paper Carries Notice for “English Trap Ball” at a Military Ground
“At Dyde’s Military Grounds. Up the
Broadway, to-morrow afternoon, September 14, the game of English Trap Ball will
be played, full as amusing as Crickets and the exercise not so violent:”
New York Evening Post,
Three days later: “The amusements at
Dyde’s to-morrow, Tuesday the 17th September, will be Rifle
Shooting for he prize, and English Trap Ball. The gentlemen who have
promised to attend to form a club to play at Trap Ball are respectfully
requested to attend.”
New York Evening Post,
And four days later, notice was made that “Trap
Ball, Quoits, Cricket, &c.” would be played at the ground.
However, more space is now given to rifle and pistol shooting contests.
New York Evening Post,
1811.4 -- Chapbook Shows Baseball-like Game Under “Trap-ball” Heading
Remarks on Children’s Play [
1811.5 -- Bat-ball Recalled at
“Next to football, baseball has always been the
most popular sport at
Crosbie, Laurence M., The Phillips Exeter Academy:
A History [1923], page 233. Submitted by George Thompson,
1811.6 -- Women Cricketers Play for Large Purse
Two noblemen arrange for eleven women of
Ford, John, Cricket: and Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], pp. 20-21. Ford does not give a reference for
this event.
1812c.1 – Young Andrew
Johnson Plays Cat and Bass Ball and Bandy in
[At age four]
“he spent many hours at games with boys of the neighborhood, his favorite
being ‘Cat and Bass Ball and Bandy,’ the last the
‘choyst’ game of all.” Letter from Neal Brown, July 15,
1867, in Johnson
Mss., Vol. 116, No.
16,106. [Publisher?]
Submitted by John Thorn,
1812.2 – Soldier Van
Smoot’s Diary Notes Playing Catch at
Peter Van Smoot, an Army private present at the Battle
of New Orleans, writes in his diary: “I found a soft ball in my
knapsack, that I forgot I had put there and started playing catch with
it.”
Note: Citation
needed. John Thorn, 6/15/04: “I don’t recognize this
one”
1812.3 -- NYC Council Finds Ball Playing Among “Abounding Immoralities”
“Your Committee will not pretend to bring before
the Board the long and offending catalogue of abounding immoralities . . . but
point out some . . . . Among the most prevalent on the Lords Day
called Sunday, are . . . Horse Riding for pleasure . . . Skating
[‘] Ball playing, and other Plays by Boys and Men, and even
Horse-racing.” Minutes of the Common Council of the city of New
York, 1784-1831, March 18, 1812, page 72 [Volume VII.] Submitted by John
Thorn
1813.1 -- Newburyport MA Reminder -- “Playing Ball in the Streets” is Unlawful
“Parents and Guardians are also requested to
forbid, those under their care, playing Ball in the streets of the town; as by
this unlawful practice much inconvenience and injury is sustained.”
1813.2 – War of 1812 General
in OH Said to Play Ball with “Lowest” Soldiers
General Robert Crooks was in
“Extract of a Letter dated
1815c.1 – US Prisoners in
Fairchild, G. M., ed., Journal of an American at
1815c.2 – US Prisoners in
[1] [Waterhouse,
Benjamin], A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, Late a Surgeon on
Board an American Privateer, Who Was Captured at Sea by the British in May,
Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen, and Was Confined First, at Melville Island,
Halifax, then at Chatham, on England, and Last, at Dartmoor Prison [Rowe
and Hooper, Boston, 1816], p. 186. Per Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place
Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before
We Knew It, ref # 88. [2] “Journal of Nathaniel Pierce
of
A ball game reportedly led to the killing of nine US
prisoners in April 1815: “On the 6th of April, 1815, as a
small party were amusing themselves at a game of ball, some one of the number
striking it with too much violence, it flew over the wall fronting the prison
and the sentinels on the other side of the same were requested to heave the ball
back, but refused; on which the party threatened to break through to regain
their ball, and immediately put their threats into execution; a hole was made
in the wall sufficiently large for a man to pass thro’ – but no one
attempted it.” 500 British
soldiers appeared, and the prisoners were fired upon en masse.
“Massacre of the 6th of April,”
American Watchman, June 24, 1815.
Accessed via subscription search 2/14/2009.
1815.3 -- German Book Apparently Shows a Batting Game
Taschenbuch fur das Jahr 1815 der Liebe und
Freundschaft [Frankfurt am Main] per
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 186. Block reports
that the April section of this yearly book has an engraving of children playing
a bat-and-ball game. Note: Does the game appear to use bases?
1815.4 – Six-Hour
“Wicket” Match Played in
“On the 29th May, a grant [sic] Match
of Wicket was played at
“The winners challenge any eleven gentlemen in
the state of
Mechanics’
Gazette and Merchants’ Daily Advertiser, June 9,1815, reprinting from the
1815c.5 – RI Boy Did A Little Ball-Playing
Adin Ballou grew up in a minister’s home, and
his amusements were of the “homely and simple kinds, such as hunting,
fishing, wrestling, wrestling, jumping, ball-playing , quoit-pitching . .
.Card-playing was utterly disallowed.
“W. Heywood, ed., Autobiography of Adin Ballou, 1803-1890
1815.6 – Group at
1815c.7 – New Englander
Writes of Ballyards in
“I saw a young man betted upon, for five hundred
dollars, at a foot race. Indeed
every thing is decided by a wager . . . .
What would a northern man think, to see a father, and a sensible and
respected one, too, go out with a company, and play marbles? At some cross-roads, or smooth shaven
greens, you may a wooden wall, high and broad as the side of a church, erected
for men to play ball against.”
“Arthur Singleton” (Henry Cogswell
Knight), “Letters from the South and West,”
1816.1 –
On
Otsego Herald,
number 1107,
1816.2 –
“Ball-playing” in the streets of
Worcester, MA Town Records, May 6, 1816; reprinted in
Franklin P. Rice, ed., Worcester Town Records, 1801 – 1816, volume X
[Worcester Society of Antiquity, 1891], p. 337. Also appears in
1816.4 -- “German
ballgame” described in
Flittner, Christian G., Talisman des Gluckes oder
der Selbstlehrer fur alle Karten, Schach, Billard,Ball und Kegel Spiele [
1816.5 -- In “The Year Without a Summer,” CT Lads Play Ball on Christmas Day
“My father [Charles Mallory] arrived there [
Baughman, James, The Mallorys of Mystic: Six
Generations in American Maritime Enterprise [Wesleyan University Press,
1972], page 12. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/19/2004.
1816.6 – [Moved to 1820c.27 in version 11]
1816.7 – Lambert’s Cricket Rules Published
Lambert, William, Instructions and Rules For
Playing the Noble Game of Cricket
Bateman notes that 300,000 copies of this book were
sold by 1865. Bateman,
Anthony,“’More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;‘ Culture,, Hegemony, and the
Literaturisaton of Cricket,” Sport
in History, v. 23, 1
1816.8 --
“[N]o person or persons shall play ball, beat knock
or drive any ball or hoop, in, through, or along any street or alley in the
first, second, third, or fourth wards of said city; and every person who shall
violate either of the prohibitions . . . shall, for each and every such
offense, forfeit and pay the penalty of ten dollars.”
Laws and
Ordinances of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonality, of the City of
1816.9 –
“[A]ny person who shall be convicted of sliding
down any hill on sleighs, sleds, or boards . . . between Thomas Hinkley’s
dwelling house & Mr. Vaugh’s mill . . . or any who shall play at ball
or quoits in any of the streets . . . shall, on conviction, pay a fine of fifty
cents for each offence . . . .”
Hallowell [ME] Gazette, December 25, 1816. Hallowell is about 2 miles south of
1816.10 –
Richard Hershberger [emails of 1/28/09 and 2/4/10]
reports seeing advertisements in the American Beacon for a Norfolk
Cricket Club from 1816 to 1820:
“CRICKET CLUB. A meeting of the Subscribers to this
Club, will be held at the Exchange Coffee
House, this evening at 6 o’clock, for the purpose of draughting Rules
and Regluations for the government.”
American Beacon
(
Note: In The
Tented Field, Tom Melville writes that a 1989 book has the Norfolk Club
being founded in 1803 in imitation of English customs (page 164, note 10). Patricia Click, in Spirit of the
Times (UVa Press, 1989), page 119, cites the October 1, 1803 issue of the
“
1817.1 – Visitor to Philly Tells of Cricket Play There
“Being a commercial people, they have but few
amusements: their summer pastimes are . . . fishing, batching, cricket, quoits,
&c; . . . .”
John Palmer, Journal of Travels in the
1817.2 -- Riddle Game Cites “Fourteen Boys at Bat and Ball”
The Gaping, Wide-mouthed, Waddling Frog [
1817.3 – Ball Play Banned
in
“
Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough to
Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It,
page 245. Altherr’s citation
[page 320]: “A law relative
to the Park, Batery, and Bowling-Green,” in Laws and Ordinances Ordained and Established by the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Commonality of the City of
1817.4 – In
“No student shall, in or near any College
building, play at ball, or use any sport or diversion, by which such building
may be exposed to injury, on penalty of being fined not exceeding twenty cents,
or being suspended if the offence be often repeated.”
Of
Misdemeanors and Criminal Offences, in
Laws of
1818.1 – Yale Student Reports Cricket on Campus
A student at
Lester, ed., A Century of Philadelphia Cricket
[U Penn Press,
1818.2 -- In Cricket, Well, It’s . . .”One Man Out”
Ford notes that “[William] Lambert, the leading
professional of the time, banned from playing at Lord’s for accepting
bribes.” Per John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835
[David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for
this account.
1818.3 -- “Baseball” at West Point NY?
“Although playing ball games near the barracks
was prohibited, cadets could play ‘at football’ near
Pappas, George S., To The Point: The
1818.4 -- Cricket Reported in
“It is not unreasonable to speculate that as the
immigrants came down the Ohio River . . . they brought with them the leisure
activities hat had already developed in the cities along the Atlantic coast.
There are reports of a form of cricket being played in the city as early at
1818.”
Bailey, Bob, “Beginnings; From Amateur Teams
to Disgrace in the National League,” [1999], page 1. Note: The
original source of the 1818 reference may have been lost. Bob reports
that he got the item from Dean Sullivan’s master’s thesis on
baseball in
1818c.5 – English
Immigrants from
“There have been [p.295/p.296] several
cricket-matches this summer [of 1819], both at Wanborough and Birk Prarie; the
Americans seem much pleased at the sight of the game, as it is new to
them.” John Woods, Two
Years Residence on th Settlement of the English Prarie, in the
On page 148 of the book: “On the second of October, there
was a game of cricket played at Wanborough by the young men of the settlement;
this they called keeping Catherine Hill fair, many of the players being from
the neighborhood of Godalming and
1819.1 – British Science Text Uses “Base-ball” Heuristic Example
“Emily: In playing at base-ball, I am obliged to
use al my strength to give a rapid motion to the ball; and when I have to catch
it, I am sure I feel the resistance it makes to being stopped; but if I did not
catch it, it would soon stop of itself.
“Mrs B.: Inert matter is as incapable of
stopping itself as it is of putting itself in motion. When the ball
ceases to more, therefore, it must be stopped by some other cause or power; but
as it is one with which your are as yet unacquainted, we cannot at present
investigate its powers.”
Jane H. Marcet, Conversations on Natural Philosophy
[Publisher?, 1819], page? Note: Mendelson, a retired
professor at
1819.2 – Scott’s Ivanhoe Mentions Stool-ball
[The Jester speaks] “I came to save my master, and if
he will not consent, basta! I can
but go away home again. Kind
service can not be checked from hand to hand like a shuttle-cock or
stool-ball. I’ll hang for no
man . . . .”
Scott, Walter, Ivanhoe; A Romance
1819.3 –
Herefordshire: “Large
Parties” Play Wicket
[Writing of the yeoman of the county:] “notwithstanding their inclination
to religion, they meet in large parties upon Sunday afternoons to play
foot-ball, wicket
Source: “Manners and Customs of Herefordshire,”
The Gentleman’s Magazine, February
1819. Submitted by Richard
Hershberger 8/6/2007.
1819.4 – In
In a report on the new session of the Connecticut
legislature: “In Hartford and the region about the same, those who
usually play ball during the day and dance at night on such occasions, did not
at this time wholly abandon the ancient uses of Connecticut.”
Indiana Central,
June 8, 1819, reprinting an article datelined
1819.5 – Irving Surveys
Pastimes at
“As to sports and pastimes, the boys are
faithfully exercised in all that are on record: quoits, races, prison-bars,
tip-cat, trap-ball, bandy-ball, wrestling, leaping, and what-not.”
Washington Irving [writing as Geoffrey Crayon],
Bracebridge Hall: Or, The Humourists (Putnam’s, New York, 1888: written
in 1819), page 332. Contributed by
Bill Wagner, email of March 25, 2009.
Accessed via 2/3/10 Google Books search (bracebridge tip-cat). The
setting is
1819.6 – Ball Games
Recalled in
At the close of the Civil War, a dispute on the actual
age Joseph Crele, who claimed to be 139 years old, reached
1820.1 – Bat/Ball Game Depicted in Children’s Amusements
A woodcut illustration of boys playing with a bat and
ball appears in a book entitled Children’s Amusements [
1820.2 – Round Ball played
in
1820.3 – English Cricketers Play Two-Day Match Again New Yorkers
“The most outstanding cricket matches of the
period were those in
Holliman cites the New York Evening Post
1820.4 -- Another English Chapbook Cites Trap-ball
School-boys’ Diversions: Describing Many New and
Popular Sports [
1820s.5 – Town Ball
Recalled in
“In the early times, fifty or sixty years ago,
when the modern games of croquet and base-ball were unknown, the people used to
amuse themselves with marbles, “town-ball” – which was
base-ball in a rude state – and other simple pastimes of a like
character.
The History of
1820c.6 – Modified Version
of Rounders Played in
“About 1820 a somewhat modified version of the
old English game of rounders was played on the
Barbour, Ralph H., The Book of School and College
Sports [D. Appleton and Co.,
1820c.7 -- Another English Chapbook, Another Engraving of Trap-ball
Juvenile Recreations [
1820c.8 -- Another Chapbook -- This One Celebrates the Fielder
Juvenile Sports or Youth’s Pastimes [
1820s.9 – In
Delaney, ed., Life in the Connecticut River Valley
1800 – 1840 from the Recollections of John Howard Redfield
[Connecticut River Museum, Essex CT, 1988], p. 35. Per Thomas L. Altherr,
“A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, ref # 82.
1820s.10 – Philadelphians
Play Ball, But Only Over in
A group of Philadelphians who will eventually organize
as the Olympic Ball Club begin playing town ball in
1820s.11 -- Cricket is Gradually “Cleaned Up;” Club Play Strengthens
Writing of this period, Ford summarizes:
“Much single-wicket cricket was played, and wager matches continued, but
from the mid 1820s both these features gradually disappeared from the scene as
cricket was ‘cleaned up.’ Of equal importance the game at
club level spread and grew strong.” John Ford, Cricket: A Social
History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 22. Ford does not
give citations for this account.
1820s.12 – Boys Are
Attracted to Sports of “Playing Ball or Goal” in
Paine, Albert Ware, “Auto-Biography,”
reprinted in Lydia Augusta Paine Carter, The Discovery of a Grandmother
[Henry H. Carter,
1820c.13 – A Wry View of Cricket Match on Yale Campus
“On the green and easy slope where those proud
columns stand,
In Dorian mood, with academe and temple on each hand,
The foot-ball and the cricket-match upon my vision
rise
With all the clouds of classic dust kicked in each other’
eyes.”
This verse is incorporated without attribution in
Brooks Mather Kelley, Yale: a History
1820s.14 –
Alfred Holbrook was born in 1816. His autobiography, Reminiscences of
the Happy Life of a Teacher
“The [school-day] plays of those times, more
than sixty years ago, were very similar to the plays of the present time. Some
of these were “base-ball,” in which we chose sides, “one hole
cat,” “two hole cat,” “knock up and catch,”
Blackman,” “snap the whip,” skating, sliding down hill,
rolling the hoop, marbles, “prisoner’s base,”
“football,” mumble the peg,” etc. Ibid. page 35. Note:
was “knock up and catch” a fungo game, possibly?
“Now, it was both unlawful and wicked to play
ball on fast-day, and none of my associates in town were ever known to engage
in such unholy enterprises and sinful amusements on fast-days; [p 52/53] but
other wicked boys, with whom I had nothing to do, made it their special delight
and boast to get together in some quiet, concealed place, and enjoy themselves,
more especially because it was a violation of law. Not infrequently, however, they found
the constable after them. . . .” “Soon after, this blue law,
perhaps the only one in the Connecticut Code, was repealed. Then the boys thought no more of playing
on fast-days than on any other.”
Ibid, pp 52-53.
1820c.15 – Ballplaying at
Nehemiah Cleaveland and Alpheus Spring Packard, History
of
“The student of earlier years had not the
resources for healthful physical recreation of the present day [1880s]. We had
football and baseball, though the latter was much less formal and formidable
than the present game” [Page 96].
Note: the precise time
referenced here is hard to specify; but the authors graduated in 1813 and 1816,
and the context seems to suggest the 1810-1830 period.
Only one of the book’s many sketches of alumni,
however, mentions ballplaying of any type.
The sketch for James Patten, Class of 1823, includes this: “He
entered college at the mature age of twenty-four, was a respectable scholar,
spoke with a decided brogue, and played ball admirably. . . . When last heard
from he was an acting magistrate and a rich old bachelor.” [Page
276] The sketch for Longfellow, who
in 1824 wrote of constant campus ballplaying [see #1824.1], does not allude to
sport.
1820.16 –
On June 19, 1820, the Union and Mechanic Cricket Clubs
played two matches in
Posted to 19CBB by Richard Hershberger,
7/31/2007. Richard noted: “this
is the earliest example I know of named cricket clubs, and is not mentioned in
Tom Melville’s history [The Tented Field.] In am 1/30/2008 email, Richard added
that this game was also reported in the New York Columbia of June 19,
1820 as having “all Europeans” on both sides. Note:
does the David Sentence book cover this game? Do we know of any earlier club play; for
instance, did the Boston Cricket Club [see #1808.2 above] ever take the field
in 1808?
1820.17 – “The Game
of Ball” Banned in Area of
“Ballplaying seems to have been extensively
practiced in 1820. At the town
meeting of that year, it was voted that ‘the game of ball, and the
pitching of quoits, within the following limits {main Street to the beach, etc]
be prohibited.’ High Street, at Hopkins Corner, was the favorite
battle-ground for ball-players as early as 1805.” Joseph Williamson, History of the
City of
1820s.18 --
David Block reports: “In the lengthy
‘Editor’s Table’ section of this [The Knickerbocker]
classic monthly magazine, the editor described a nostalgic visit that he and
two old school chums had taken to the academy that they had attended near
Syracuse. ‘We went out upon
the once-familiar green, as if it were again ‘play time’, and
called by name upon our old companions to come over once more and play
‘base-ball.’ But they
answered not; they came not! The
old forms and faces were gone; the once familiar voices were
silent.’” Source:
“Editor’s Table,” The Knickerbocker
1820s.19 – Ball-Playing in
"Contrary to the once
commonly held belief that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839, a form of
the game existed in Oxford County [ON] during the early decades of the
nineteenth century that used a square playing field with four bases and eleven
players a side." Nancy B. Bouchier, For the Love of the Game:
Amateur Sport in Small-Town
1820s.20 -- Horace Greeley Lacks the Knack, Fears Getting Whacked
“Ball was a common diversion in
Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life
1820s.21 – College Prez Was a Klutz at Ball and Cricket
“I could not jump the length of my leg nor run
as fast as a kitten . . . . At ball and cricket I ‘followed in the chase
not like a hound that hunts, but one that fills up the cry.’”
Harriet Raymond Lloyd, ed., Life and Letters of
John Howard Raymond, Late President of
1820s.22 – MA Boy Played One Old Cat, Base Ball in Early Childhood
“In my early boyhood I was permitted to run at
large in the [Williamstown MA] street and over broad acres, playing ‘one
old cat,’ and base ball
Keyes Danforth, Boyhood Reminiscences: Pictures of
New England in the Olden Times in Williamstown
1820s.23 – Town Ball Came
to
“This game [bullpen, the local favorite] was, in
time, abandoned for a game called “town ball;” the present base
ball being town ball reduced to a science.”
The History of Menard and
1820c.24 –
“after the ‘raising’ of this
building, at which, as was customary on such occasions, there was a large
gathering of people who came to render voluntary assistance, the assembled
company adjourned to the adjacent meadow (now owned by Charles Frost) for a
game of baseball, and that certain excellent old ladies were much scandalized
that prominent Baptists, among them Deacon Porter, should show on such an
occasion so much levity as to take part in the game.”
Joseph Anderson, ed., The Town and City of
Waterbury, Connecticut, from the Aboriginal Perioed to the Year 1895, Volume
III (Price and Lee, New Haven CT, 1896), page 673n. Accessed 2/3/10 via Google Books
search (
1820s.25 – In
“’Election Day’ was, however, the
universal holiday, and the prevailed amongst the farmers that corn planting
must be finished by that day for its enjoyment. It was a day of general
hilarity, with no prescribed forms of observation, though ball playing was
ordinarily included in the exercises, and frequently the inhabitants of
adjacent towns were pitted against one another in the game of wicket. Wrestling, too, was a common amusement
on that day, each town having its champions.”
Charles J. Taylor, History of Great
1820c.26 – Octogenarian Recalls Frequency of Play, How Balls Were Made in NY
“If a base-ball were required, the boy of 1816
founded it with a bit of cork, or, if he were singularly fortunate, with some
shreds of india-rubber; then it was wound with yarn frm a ravelled stocking,
and some feminine member of his family covered it with patches of a soiled
glove.”
Charles H. Haswell, Reminiscences of An
Octogenarian of the City of
Haswell also reflected on Easter observances of the
era. They were subdued, save for
the coloring of eggs by some schoolboys.
“For a few weeks during the periods of Easter and Paas, the
cracking of eggs by boys supplanted marbles, kite-flying, and base-ball.”
1820c.27 --
“Of those [students] of
Haswell recalls the Battery grounds as “very
nearly the entire area bounded by Whitehall and State Streets, the sea wall
line, and a line about two hundred feet to the west; it was of an uniform
grade, fully five feet below that of the street, it was nearly uniform in
depth, and as regular in its boundary as a dish.”
Charles Haswell, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian
of the City of
1820c.28 –
A “rambling” railway passenger reflects as
he passes through the English countryside:
“The rambler sees a pretty white spire peeping out of the woodland
before him . . . . The road leads
to Stoke Green. Alas! We may lament
for what is no more, and the name is a mockery. There was a village green some twenty years ago . . . . and the cheerful spot where the noise of
cricket and bass-ball once gladdened the ear on a summer eve is now
silent.”
Ah, the good old days. “Railway Rambles,” Penny
Magazine, Oct 23, 1841, page 412. Accessed 2/11/10 via Google Books search
("railway rambles" penny 1841). The location is evidently about 20 mi
W of London. Source: Tom Altherr, “Some Findings on Bass Ball,” Originals,
February 2010, page 2.
1821.1 --
Little Ditties for Little Children [
1821.2 -- Cricket Not New in SC
“The members of the old cricket club are
requested to attend a meeting of [sic?] the Carolina Coffee House tomorrow
evening.”
1821.3 --
The Schenectady City Council banned “playing of
Ball against the Building or in the area fronting the Building called City Hall
and belonging to this corporation . . . under penalty of Fifty cents for each
and every offence . . . .” Note: citation needed. Submitted by David Pietrusza via John
Thorn, 3/6/2005.
1821.4 – A Three-Times-and-Out Rule in ME Cricket?
“’Three times and out’ is a maxim of
juvenile players at cricket.”
Maine Gazette,
November 20, 1821; submitted by Lee Thomas
1821.5 – NY Mansion Converted to Venue Suitable for Cricket, Base, Trap-Ball
In May and June 1821, an ad ran in some NY papers
announcing that the
Richard Hershberger posted to 19CBB on Kensington
House on 10/7/2007, having seen the ad in the June 9, 1821
1821.6 – Fifty-cent Fine in
“Any person, who shall, after the first day of
July next, play at ball, or fly a kite, or run down a hill upon a sled, or play
any other sport which may incommode peacable citizens and passengers in any
[illegible: street?] of that part of town commonly called the
“By-Laws for the Town of
1822.1 – Round Ball Played
in
“Timothy Taft, who is living in
Letter from Henry Sargent,
Note: do we
have that Mills Commission release that
1822.2 -- Round-Arm Bowling Disallowed at Lord’s Cricket Ground
Ford reports that “John Willes of
1822.3 -- Cricket Clubs,
“Other Ball Clubs” Welcomed at
In an advertisement about an outdoor recreation
establishment run by John Carter Jr. on the western bank of the Schuylkill
River near Philadelphia PA is included the sentence “Gentlemen are
informed that the grounds are so disposed as to afford sufficient room and
accommodation for quoit and cricket and other ball clubs.” It
doesn’t say what these “other ball clubs” are playing. Saturday
Evening Post, June 22, 1822, Vol. 1, Issue 47, page 003. Submitted by
Bill Wagner
1822.4 – Trap Ball
Advertised at
“TRAP BALL.
This entertaining game and pleasing exercise may be enjoyed every Monday
afternoon, at the Traveller’s Rest, in
Saturday
Evening Post [running ad, summer 1822]. Provided by Richard Hershberger, email
of June 26, 2007. The location is
1822.5 – Ball-playing Disallowed in Front of Hobart College Residence
“The rules for Geneva Hall in 1822 are still
preserved. The residents were not
allowed to cut or saw firewood, or play ball or quoits, in front of the
building.”
Warren Hunting Smith, Hobart and William Smith; the
History of Two Colleges (
1823.1 – National Advocate Reports “Base Ball” Game in NYC
The National Advocate of April 25, 1823, page 2, column 4, states: “I was last Saturday
much pleased in witnessing a company of active young men playing the manly
and athletic game of ‘base ball’ at the Retreat in Broadway
National Advocate,
1823.2 – Base-ball Listed
Among Games Played in
Moor, E.,
1823.3 -- Don’t Play Ball Inside the House!
Good Examples for Boys [
1823c.4 – Young Man Recalls “More Active Sports of ‘Playing Ball’ or ‘Goal.’”
“Really time flies fast. Tis but a day it
seems since we three were boys . . . . But a day seems to have elapsed since
meeting with our neighboring boys, we . . . engaged ourselves in the more
active sorts of “playing ball” or “goal.”
Carter, L. A., The Discovery of a Grandmother
[H. H. Carter, Newtonville MA, 1920], pp 239-240. Per Seymour, Harold
– Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library
Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809. From this
note, the excerpts appear to be from a journal kept in 1835-1836 by Albert Ware
Paine, born 1813. Note: This item needs t be reconciled with #1820S.12
above.
1823.5 --
“The Town of
In August 2007, Craig Waff [email of 8/17/2007]
located the actual ordinance:
“Whereas, from the practice of playing ball in
the streets of the town, great inconvenience is suffered by the inhabitants and
others: . . . no person shall be permitted to play at any game of ball in any
of the publick streets or highways within the limits of this town.”
Rhode-Island
American and General Advertiser
Volume 15, Number 60
1823.6 -- Students Play Baseball
at
In their recollections during the 1880s, John Murray
Forbes and George Sheyne Shattuck describe playing baseball during the years
1823 to 1828 at the
Forbes was writing his recollections in 1884, as
reported in Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Sara Forbes
Hughes, editor [Houghton Mifflin,
1823.7 – Ditty: “You Take the Bat, and I’ll carry the Ball”
“Now bright is the morning, how fair is the
day,/Come on little Charlie, come with me and play/And yonder is Billy,
I’ll give him a call,/Do you take the bat, and I’ll carry the
ball./But we’ll make it a rule to be friendly and clever/Even if we are
beat, we’ll be pleasant as ever,/’Tis foolish and wicked to quarrel
in play,/So if any one’s
angry, we’ll send him away.”
Little Ditties for Little Children
1823.8 – “Impoisoned
Ball” Described in
“THE IMPOISONED BALL. Eight should play at this game; and the
method is as follows: --
“Make a hole, and mark it so as to know it
again; then draw, to see who is to throw the ball; that done, he must endeavor
to put it into one of the holes, and the person’s hole it enters must
take the ball and throw at a player, who will endeavor to catch it; the person
touched must throw it at another, and he who fails in either of these attempts,
or he who is touched, is obliged to put into the hole which belongs to him, a
little stone, or a piece of money, or a nut, or any thing to know the hole by. This is called a counter. He who first happens to have the number
of counters fixed upon, is to stand with his hand extended, and every player is
to endeavor to strike the hand with the ball.”
School-boys’ Diversions: Describing the Many New and Popular
Sports
1823c.9 –Kentucky Abolitionist Played Base-ball
“I had ever been devoted to athletic sports
– riding on horseback . . . playing base-ball, bandy, foot-ball and all
that – so I had confidence in my prowess.” C. Clay, The Life of Cassius
Marcellus Clay; Memoirs, Writings and Speeches, Volume 1
1824.1 – Longfellow on Life
at
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, then a student at
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, letter to his father
Stephen Longfellow, April 11, 1824, in Samuel Longfellow, ed., Life of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow with Extracts from His Journals and Correspondence
[Ticknor and Company, Boston 1886],volume 1, p. 51. Per Seymour, Harold
– Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library
Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
Reprinted in Andrew Hilen, ed., Henry Wadsworth
Longefellow, the Letters of Henry
1824.2 -- Children’s Book Calls Cricket “Noblest Game of All,” and Trap-ball is Pleasing Too
Juvenile Pastimes or Sports for the Four Seasons [
1824.3 -- English Novel Cites Base-ball as Girls’ Pastime, Limns Cricket Match
Mitford, Mary Russell, Our Village [
Bateman also states that Our Village, which was
initially serialised in The Lady’s
Magazine between 1824 and 1832, contains the first comprehensive prose
description of a cricket match.”
See Bateman, Anthony,“’More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . .
. ;‘ Culture,, Hegemony, and
the Literaturisaton of Cricket,”
Sport in History, v. 23, 1
1824.4 – Fondly Remembering the First Ballplaying Richie Allen
Stanzas to the Memory of Richard Allen; The
Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines
“What! School-fellow, art gone? . . .
Thou wert the blithest lad, that ever/ Haunted a wood
or fish’d a river,/ Or from the neighbour’s wall/ Filch’d the
gold apricot, to eat/ In darkness, as a pillow treat, -- / Or ‘urged the
flying ball!’”/ Supreme at taw! At prisoner’s base/ The
gallant greyhound of the chase!/ Matchless at hoop! -- and quick,/ Quick as a
squirrel at a tree . . .
1824.5 -- Ballplaying Now
Condoned at
During 1824 the
1824.6 – Great Jurist
Recalls Schoolboy Baseball and
“[At Phillips] Bodily exercise was not, however,
entirely superseded by spiritual exercises, and a rudimentary form of base-ball
and the heroic sport of foot-ball were followed with some spirit.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
“Cinders from the Ashes,” The Works of Oliver Wendel Holmes
Volume 8
This essay originally appeared in The Atlantic
Monthly Volume 23
1825c.1 – Thurlow Weed
Plays Base-Ball in
“A baseball club, numbering nearly fifty
members, met every afternoon during the ball playing season. Though the
members of the club embraced persons between eighteen and forty, it attracted
the young and old. The ball ground, containing some eight or ten acres,
known as Mumford’s meadow . . . .“ Weed goes on to list
prominent local professional people, including doctors and lawyers, among the
players.
Weed, Thurlow, Life of Thurlow Weed [Houghton
Mifflin,
1825.2 – Bass-Ball
Challenge Issued in
The following notice appears in the July 13, 1825
edition of the Delhi Gazette: “The undersigned, all
residents of the new town of Hamden, with the exception of Asa Howland, who has
recently removed into Delhi, challenge an equal number of persons of any town
in the County of Delaware, to meet them at any time at the house of Edward B.
Chace, in said town, to play the game of Bass-Ball, for the sum of one dollar
each per game . . . .”
Delhi NY Gazette, July 12, 1825, reprinted in
Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History
of Baseball, 1825 – 1908 [University of Nebraska Press, 1995], pp. 1
– 2. Note: George
Thompson has conducted research on the backgrounds of the listed players:
personal communications, 11/3/2003.
He found a range of players’ ages from 19 to the
mid-30’s. It is held in PBall
file #1825.2.
1825.3 -- Writer Follows Strutt’s Theory That Club-ball Was the Source Game
Aspin, J., Picture of the Manners, Customs, Sports
and Pastimes of the Inhabitants of
1825c.4 – John Oliver Plays
Base Ball in
“John W. Oliver recalls having baseball in
Full text of Mills Commission summary of information
from John W. Oliver, Editor, Yonkers Statesman, under date of September
26, 1905. From the
1825.5 – Base Ball Called One of the College Sports as Early as 1825.
“What we know as Base Ball was played in its
primitive form as far back as the beginning of the last [19th]
century, and many of the oldest inhabitants remember seeing it played. It
was one of the college sports as early as 1825.”
Francis C. Richter, Richter’s History and
Records of Base Ball; The American Nation’s Chief Sport [McFarland,
2005], page 4. Originally published
in 1914. Cited as Richter, History and Records , page 12, by
Harold Seymour – Notes in the Seymour Collection at
1825c.6 -- Cricket Played at Southern Outings
In the South, “cricket was played even at the
end of house raisings and trainings. The game was played along with
quoits and other games of skill and strength. Parties were formed to go
on fishing trips and picnics, and during the outing, cricket was one of the
games played.” -- Jennie Holliman, American Sports 1785 - 1835
Holliman here cites The American Farmer, vol. 8, no
143
1825c.7 -- American Chapbook Reprises Couplets on Cricket, Trap-ball
Sports and Pastimes for Children [Baltimore, F. Lucas, Jr.], per David Block, Baseball
Before We Knew It, page 191. The verse for cricket and trap-ball is
taken from the English Juvenile Pastimes [1824, above].
1825.8 -- Wicket Bat Reportedly
Long [and Still?] Held in
The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association reported
that, as of 1908, it retained a wicket bat dating from 1825-30. Submitted
by John Thorn, 1/13/2007. Note: John is trying to ascertain
whether the bat remains in the collection.
1825.9 -- Ballplaying Planned on
Saturdays in
“BALL PLAYING: There will be Ball playing in
1825.10 – Cricket Reaches
References to Tasmanian cricket date back to 1825, the
year the colony gained its independence from
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia
1825.11 – Cricket Prohibited On or Near English Highways, We Mean It
Among many column-inches listing things that should
never happen on or near a highway, we find: “or fire or let off or throw any
squib, rocket serpent, or other firework whatsoever, within eighty feet of
the center of such road; or shall bait or run for the purpose of baiting any
bull, or play [p. 167/168] at football, tennis [an indoor game then, as far as
we know -- LMc] , fives, cricket, or any other game or games upon such road, or
on the side or sides thereof, or in any exposed situation near thereto, to the
annoyance of any passenger or
passengers . . . “ Wm. Robinson, The Magistrate’s Pocket-Book;
or, and Epitome of the Duties and Practice of a Justice of the Peace
1825c.12
–
Writing in 1866, a man
“W,” “The Game of Base Ball in the
Olden Time,” Rochester Evening Express
1825.13 – 1906 Baseball History Sees Rounders in US, 1825-1840
“’Rounders,’ from which modern
baseball is generally believed to have derived its origin, was a very simple
game – so simple, in fact, that girls could play it. It was played with a ball and bats and
was practiced in this country as early as 1825 [p. 437] . . . Rounders was
popular between 1825 and 1840, but meantime there had been many other forms of
ball playing. [.p 438]”
George V. Tuohey, “The Story of Baseball,”
The Scrap Book (Munsey, New York, 1906), pp. 437ff. Caution: Tuohey gives no evidentiary support for
this observation, and the Protoball sub-chronology [http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Sub.Rounders.htm]
for rounders shows no firm evidence that a game then called rounders was
popular in the
1825c.14 – Future Ohio Governor is “Best Ball Player at the College”
John Brough was the Governor of Ohio from 1864 to
1865. At the age of 11 his father
died and he took on work as a type-setter.
In 1825 he “entered the
1826.1 – Christian Visitor
to
“Monday [June] 26th. I breakfasted at this place. In Harmony there are about 900 souls.
They make no pretensions to religion . . . . I shall only add, that Sunday is a
holiday, they have two public balls a week, one every Tuesday and every
Saturday night, that the men played ball all yesterday afternoon, that their
cornfields and vineyards are overrun with weeds, their school children are half
of the time out of school.”
“Extract from the Correspondence of a Young
Gentleman Traveling in he Western States,” American Advocate,
September 9, 1826. The location was
New Harmony IN, a settlement organized by the utopian thinker Robert Owen in
1824. New Harmony is near the
southern tip of IN, and is on the Wabash River, about 130 miles east of St.
Louis and about 120 miles east of Louisville KY. Accessed by subscription search May 20,
2009.
1826.2 – Ballplaying Said
Documented in
“
The Sporting News, November 14, 1940. Posted
by Tim Wiles on the 19CBB listserve on November 18, 2009. Tim enlisted Peter Morris in an effort
to find confirmatory details. The
result:
Under the heading “A fourth of July in 1826 [the
Nation’s 50th birthday, and the day that John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson both died] is an account of the festivities, including a fusillade,
patriotic readings, a dinner of pork and beans and bread and pumpkin pies, and
“[f]ollowing this was the burning of more powder [cannon volleys?], and a
game of base-ball, in which [19 names listed] and other participated.” Peter determined that two of the players
had sons who played for the Franklin Club in later years.
1827.1 – Brown U Student Reports “Play at Ball”
Latham, Williams, The Diary of Williams Latham,
1823 – 1827, quoted in W. C. Bronson, The History of Brown
University 1764 – 1914 [Providence, Brown University, 1914], p.
245. Per
1827.2 – Story Places
Baseball in
Samuel Hopkins Adams, “Baseball in
Mumford’s Pasture Lot,” Grandfather Stories
This story, evidently set in 1880 in
1827.3 – First Oxford-Cambridge Cricket Match Held
Per Stephen Green, interview at Lords. Also noted in John Ford, Cricket: A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford does not give a citation for this account.
1827.4 -- Poisoned Ball Listed in French Manual of Games
Celnart,
1827.5 -- Science of Trap Construction Revealed
Paris, J. A., Philosophy in Sport Made Science in
Earnest, Being an Attempt to Illustrate the First Principles of Natural
Philosophy by the Aid of the Popular Toys and Sports of Youth [London,
Longman], 3 volumes, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page
192. Block notes that detailed illustrations of the trap are included,
but mentions no other games.
1827.6 – A Tip for Good Health: Cricket for the Blokes, Bass-ball for the Lasses
“With the same intention [that is
children’s health], the games of cricket, prison bars, foot ball, &c.
will be useful, as children grow up, and are strong enough to endure such
exercise.
“With regard to girls, these amusements may be
advantageously supplanted by bass-bal, battledore and shuttlecock, and similar
and playful pursuits.”
William Newnham, The Principles of Physical,
Intellectual, Moral, and Religious Education, Volume 1
1827.7 – NY Boy Celebrates Releasement from School By Playing Ball
“In consequence of a dismission from school this
afternoon, I play at ball . . . and perhaps you will say that I might have been
better employed . . . If so are
your thoughts, I can tell you, that you are much mistaken. If you have ever been confined to a
study where every exertion of intellect was required, for any length of time,
you must, upon releasement therefrom, have felt the pleasure of
relaxation.”
Nathaniel Moore, “Diaries 1827-1828,”
Manuscript Division,
1827.8 – Lithograph Shows
Ballplaying in
John Thorn [emails of 9/1/2009] has unearthed an
engraving of
The lithograph, titled “The Park, 1827,”
is published as the frontispiece Valentine’s Manual for the Corporation
of the City of
1827.9 –
“CITY OF
1828.1 – Boy’s Own
Book [
The Boy’s Own Book is published in
Clarke, W., Boy’s Own Book [
For Text:
David Block carries more than a page of text, and the field diagram, in
Appendix 7, pages 279-238, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
1828.2 –
Anderson, Will, Was Baseball Really Invented in
1828c.3 –Author Carried
Now-Lost 1828 Clipping of Ball Game in
“Your article on baseball’s origins
reminded me of an evening spent in
“Even then we knew that the attribution to Abner
Doubleday was a myth. Sam Adams capped the discussion by pulling from his
wallet a clipping culled from a
Letter from Frederick L. Rath, Jr, to the Editor of
the New York Times,
Adams’ biography also notes the author’s
doubts about the Doubleday theory: asked in 1955 about his novel Grandfather
Stories, which places baseball in Rochester in 1827 [sic], he retorted
”’I am perfectly willing to concede that Cooperstown is the home of
the ice cream soda, the movies and the atom bomb, and that General Doubleday
wrote Shakespeare. But,” and
he read a newspaper account of the [1828?]
1828c.4 – NH Man Recalls Boyhood Habit of Playing Ball
Cyrus Bradley, born in 1818 in rural NH, refers in
1835 to his boyhood habit of playing ball.
“Journal of Cyrus P. Bradley,” Ohio
Archeological and Historical Society, Volume XV [1906], page 210. Per
Seymour, Harold – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University,
Kroch Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
1828c.5 –
“The big boys had great times playing goal, and
other noisy and running games, and the elm trees by our yard were the goals . .
. “
History of Samuel Paine, Jr., 1778-1861 and His Wife
Pamela
1828.6 -- Cricket Allows Species of Round-Arm Bowling
Says Ford: “Compromise reached permitting
round-arm bowling to the level of the elbow.” John Ford, Cricket:
A Social History 1700-1835 [David and Charles, 1972], page 21. Ford
does not give a citation for this account.
1828.7 -- Ballplaying in
[Note: Need to recover lost attachment
submitted by John Thorn,
1828.8 – View of NYC Ballplayers “A Worse Menace Than Traffic”
“Let anyone visit Washington Parade, and he will
find large groups of men and boys playing ball and filling the air with shouts
and yells.”
Evening Post
editorial -- no date given. This quote comes from Berger, Meyer,
“In the Ball Park Every Man’s a King,”
1828.9 --
“Then comes a sun burnt gipsy of six . . . . her
longing eyes fixed on a game of baseball at the corner of the green till she
reaches the cottage door . . . . So the world wags until ten; then the little
damsel gets admission to the charity school, her thoughts now fixed on
button-holes and spelling-books -- those ensigns of promotion; despising dirt
and baseball, and all their joys.”
From “Jack Hatch,” taken from the Village
Sketches of Mary Russell Mitford, The
Submitted by Bill Wagner
1828.10 – Trap Ball Scam Reported!
“Two young lads were taken before the police of
1828.11 -- Ballplaying Boys in NYC Perturb the Congregations in Church
A “mob of boys, constantly engaged in playing
ball [so that] . . . on the Sabbath, while Congregations are in Church, there
is more noise and clamour in the vicinity than on any other day [from this]
squad of loungers, commencing their daily potations and smoking.”
Commercial Advertiser (NY), January 28, 1828, page 2, column 4. Contributed by George Thompson, email of
January 9, 2009.
1828.12 – Police Nine 1, Men and Boy Sabbath-Breakers 0
It is reported that Alderman Peters of NY’s
Ninth Ward, “together with High Constable Hays, at the head of eight or
ten of the peace Officers . . . arrest a number of men and boys for breaking
the Sabbath by playing ball in a vacant lot.:
New York Evening Post, December 22, 1828, page 2, column 2: and Commercial
Advertiser, December 23, 1828, page 2, columns 2-3. Contributed by George Thompson, email of
January 9, 2009.
1828.13 – In Christian Story, a Young Girl Chooses Batting Over Tatting
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 Gipsey
Girl,” in The Amulet, Or Christian and Literary Remembrancer (W.
Baynes and Son, London, 1828), pp 91-104.
This short moral tale is set in
Reported by Tom Altherr, “Some Findings on Bass
Ball,” Originals, February 2010. This story was reprinted as
“The Gipsy Girl,” in The Cabinet Annual: A Christmas and New
Year’s Gift for 1855
1828.14 –
A newspaper article reminded all not to “in any
street, lane, alley, or other public place [within a mile of the court house]
throw any stones, bricks, snow-balls or dirt, or play at ball or any other game
in which ball is used; or play at game whatsoever for money; or smoke any pipe,
or cigar.”
“Notice,” New-Hampshire Gazette,
July 14, 1828. Accessed via
subscription search May 5, 2009. Query: this is not a new ordinance; can
we find the original date for this language, in Section 4 of the police
by-laws? How does it relate to the
1829c.1 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Plays Ball as a Harvard student.
Krout, John A, Annals of American Sport [
1829.2 – Round Ball Played in MA
From a letter to the Mills Commission:
“Mr. Lawrence considers Round Ball and Four Old Cat one and the same
game; the Old Cat game merely being the they could do when there were not more
than a dozen players, all told. . . . Mr. Lawrence says, as a boy, he played
Round Ball in 1829. So far as Mr. Lawrence’s argument goes for
Round Ball being the father of Base Ball it is all well enough, but there are
two things that cannot be accounted for; the conception of the foul ball, and
the abolishment of the rules that a player could be put out by being hit by a
thrown ball. No one remembers the case of a player being injured by being
hit by a thrown ball, so that cannot be the reason for that change. The
foul rule made the greatest skill of the
Henry Sargent Letter to the Mills Commission,
1829.3 – Small
14 year old Charles Henry Dana, later the author of Two
Years Before the Mast and a leading abolitionist, found the playing grounds
at his new
Robert Metdorf, ed., An Autobiographical Sketch
1829.4 – In Upstate NY, A Teen’s Death on the Ballfield
“As a number of the students at
New-York Spectator, October 30, 1829, page 2, column 5; taken from the Herkimer Herald. Posted by George Thompson to the 19CBB
listserve on January 3, 2010.
The
1829.5 – Town Ball Takes
Off in
“Town ball was pioneered in
William Ryczek, Baseball’s First Inning
(McFarland, 2009), page 114. Ryczek
cites a 2006 email from Richard Hershberger as the source of the location of
the game. In 1831 two organized
groups, which later merged, played town ball: for a succinct history of the
origins of Philadelphia town ball, see Richard Hershberger, “A Reconstruction
of Philadelphia Town Ball,” Base Ball, volume 1 number 2 (Fall
2007), pp 28-29.
1829.6 – Bat and Ball Can‘t Compete with Organ-Grinding
Rhapsodizing about old organ-ground music, a father
writes: “Oh! It makes me feel young again to hear it – for I cannot
forget how I used to throw down my books and slate – yes, my very bat and
ball, and scamper off to hear it.”
“The Grinding Organ,” in Ladies
Magazine (Putnam and Hunt, Boston, 1829), page 379. Posted to the 19CBB listserve February
17, 2010, by Hugh MacDougall.
Accessed 2/18/2010 via Google Books search ("swiss or
savoyard" "bonny doon").
Query: It would be useful to
know when and where the author’s youth was spent; Hugh points out that
the reference to “muster day” implies that writer is likely
depicting
1829.7 – While Playing Peacefully, “Wisdom Stole His Bat and Ball”
The poem “Childhood and His Visitors,”
evidently first printed [anonymously] in 1829 and appearing in many other
places in the ensuing decades, turns on the line “Then Wisdom stole his
bat and ball” which signifies the moment when childhood ends and manhood
begins. Wisdom then, the verse
continues, “taught him . . . why no toy may last forever.” One interpretation may be that Childhood
was using his bat and ball while “hard at play/Upon a bank of blushing
flowers:/ Happy – he knew not whence or why” when Wisdom finally
paid her visit. Thus, an image of
bat and ball symbolizes immaturity.
The poem was referenced by Hugh MacDougall in a
positing to the 19CBB listserve on 2/17/2010.
A possible initial source is The Casket, a
Miscellany, Consisting of Unpublished Poems (John Murray, London, 1829),
pages 21-23. Accessed 2/19/2010 via
Google Books search ("the casket a miscellany"). In 1865 the piece, dated 1829, appears
in The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Volume I (Widdleton, New York,
1865), pages 370-372. Accessed 2/19/2010 via Google Books search ("bat and
ball" 1865 widdleton).
Assuming that Praed was the actual author, as his wife thought, the poem
had appeared during the year when, at age 27, the young Romantic turned away
from thoughts of blushing flowers and toward a career as a British lawyer and
Tory politician.
1830.1 – Children’s Amusements Describes Bat/Ball Play for Brits and Yanks
The book Children’s Amusements,
published in Oxford
Children’s Amusements, [
1830c.2 – Thoreau Associates “Fast Day” with Base-Ball Played in Russet Fields
“April 10 [1856]. Fast-Day. . . . . I
associate this day, when I can remember it, with games of baseball played over
beyond the hills in the russet fields toward Sleepy Hollow, where the snow was
just melted and dried up.
Submitted by David Nevard. On
1830.3 – Union General Joseph Hooker Plays Baseball as a Boy
Hooker is recalled as having been enthusiastic about
baseball in about 1830. [Note: Hooker was about 16 then.] “[H]e
enjoyed and was active in all boyish sorts. At baseball, then a very
different game from now [1895], he was very expert; catching was his
forte. He would take a ball from almost in front of the bat, so eager,
active, and dexterous were his movements.”
Franklin Bonney, “Memoir of Joseph
Hooker,”
1830.4 – School Boys Play
Base Ball Regularly at
Letter from J. A. Mendum to Albert Spalding, My 17,
1905.. From Henderson, pp. 149-150, no ref given. John Thorn on 3/4/2006
notes that the letter included a clip from the New Hampshire Gazette
titled “Origin of Baseball. Mr. Mendum Played the Game in
1830s.5 -- Wicket Played in The
“How far the
1830s.6 – Players Drink
Egg-Nog in Base Ball Intervals in
Brewster, Charles W., Rambles About
1830c.7 –
T. King wrote to the Mills Commission in 1905.
“Just a word in regard to the old game of Massachusetts Run-around. We
always pronounced the name as if it were run-round without the “a,”
but I presume, technically that should be incorporated.
“This was the old time game which I played
between 44 and 50 years ago [1855-1861 – LM.], and which I heard my
father speak of as playing 35 to 40 years before that, carrying it back to the
vicinity of 1830.” [Actually, the arithmetic implies the vicinity
of 1820.] Note: can we establish the age of King’s father at
King’s birth?
T. King, Letter to the Mills Commission,
1830c.8 -- Chapbook Illustrates Trap-ball
Juvenile Pastimes in Verse [
1830c.9 -- Indoor Batsman Reappears in Publication
My Father [
1830c.10 -- Baseball-like Scene Reappears in Children’s Book
Sports of Childhood [
1830s.11 -- In MO, the Slowly Migrating Mormons Play Ball
“Ball was a favorite sport with the men, and the
Prophet frequently took a hand in the sport.”
John Doyle Lee, Confessions of John D. Lee:
Mormonism Unveiled [1877], Chapter 8.
Submitted by John Thorn,
1830s.12 -- Wicket Ball in
“[The Indians] would lounge on the steps of the
‘
Samuel M. Welch, Home History: Recollections of
1830s.13 -- “Baseball” Found in Several Works by Mary Russell Mitford
Submitted by Hugh MacDougall, Cooperstown12/6/2006:
“Everyone knows of Jane Austen’s use of
the term baseball in her novel Northanger Abbey [see item
#1798.1]. I recently came across, online, an 1841 anthology of works by
the English essayist Mary Russell Mitford
“Mary Mitford seems to have a pretty good idea
of what the girls are playing, when they play at “baseball” -- but
it seems to have little or nothing to do with the sport we now call by that
name. Does anyone know what it was?
The “baseball” usages:
[] “The Tenants of Beechgrove:” --
“But better than playing with her doll, better even than baseball, or
sliding and romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father’s
knee:
[] “Jack Hatch” -- see item #1828.9 above
for two references.
[] “Our Village [introduction]”: “ .
. . Master Andrew’s four fair-haired girls who are scrambling and
squabbling at baseball on the other.”
[] Belford Regis: “What can be
prettier than this, unless it be the fellow-group of girls . . . who are
laughing and screaming round the great oak; then darting to and fro, in a game
compounded of hide-and-seek and baseball. Now tossing the ball high, high
amidst the branches; now flinging it low along the common, bowling as it were,
almost within reach of the cricketers; now pursuing, now retreating, jumping
shouting, bawling -- almost shrieking with ecstasy; whilst one sunburnt
black-eyed gipsy throws forth her laughing face from behind the trunk of an old
oak, and then flings a newer and gayer ball -- fortunate purchase of some
hoarded sixpence -- among her happy playmates.
1830.14 –
The Sydney
Gazette [date not supplied] reported on a match between a military club and
the Australia Cricket Club, comprising native-born members. They played at “the
Racecourse” at
Egan, Jack, The Story of Cricket in Australia
1830s.15 – In
Writing over 50 years later, Samuel Welch
recalled”
“the fish I bought as a small boy at that time
[1830-1840], at one cent per pound, mainly to get its noses for cores for our
balls, to make them bound, to play the present National Game.”
Welch also recalls the local enthusiasm for
ballplaying: “the boys, who must have their fun, did not always
‘Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,’ but world make a
holiday of it by a vigorous game of ball, in some secluded spot in the suburbs
of the town.”
Welch, Samuel L., Home History. Recollections of Buffalo during the
Decade from 1830 to 1840, or Fifty Years Since
1830s.16 –
James Gurley knew Abraham Lincoln from 1834, when
“We played the old-fashioned game of town ball
– jumped – ran – fought and danced.
The previous Protoball entry listed as #1840s.16: "He [Abraham Lincoln in the 1840s]
joined with gusto in outdoor sports -- foot-races, jumping and hopping
contests, town ball, wrestling”
Beveridge, Albert J., Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858.
[Houghton Mifflin Company,
1830.17 – NYS Squirrel Hunters Stop for Ballplaying
From an account that appeared 53 later, involving a
25-year-old who lived about 20 miles south of
“Mr. Wickham had a great taste for hunting, and
he relates the incidents of a squirrel hunt that took place in Collins in 1830.
Two sides were chosen, consisting of eight hunters on a side, and the party
that scored the most points by producing the tails of the game secured, were
declared the victors. . . . About 4 o’clock P.M. the hunters came in and
the scores counted up and it was found that Timothy Clark’s side were
victorious by over one hundred counts and the day’s sport wound up by an
old fashioned game of .base ball, in which Timothy Clark’s men again came
off victorious.”
Erasmus Briggs, History of the
1830.18 –At PA Ballfield, Man Asks English Question, Receives American Answer
“I have spent an hour in a beautiful grove in
this borough [West Chester PA] witnessing the sports of its denizens. All attorneys, editors, physicians, were
engaged in playing ball, while the Judge of the County was seated calmly by,
preserving an account of the game!
I asked a very respectable gentleman to whom I had been introduced, who
were the principal men in the town present; and he answered, that there were no
principal men in the town --all were equalized, or attained no superiority save
that of exertions fro the public weal . . .”Adams Sentinel
1830s.19 -- NH Lad Had Happy Games of Ball
“I had many happy hours with the village boys in
games of ball and I spy. ” A.
Andrews, ed., Christopher C. Andrews: Recollections: 1829-1922
1830s.20 –In GA, Men Played Fives, Schoolboys Played Base and Town Ball
“Men as well as boys played the competitive
games of ‘Long Bullets’
and ‘Fives,’ the latter played against a battery built by nailing
planks to twenty-foot poles set to make the [p31/32] ‘battery’ at
least fifty feet wide. The school
boys played ‘base,’ ‘bull-pen,’ ‘town ball’
and ‘shinny’ too.”
Jessie Pearl Rice, J. L. M. Curry: Southerner, Statesman, and Educator
Per Thomas L. Altherr,
“Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American
Ball Games,” Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1
1830s.21-- Future OH Senator Has No Interest in Playing Ball
“Notwithstanding his studious habits as a boy
[Clement Vallandigham] was fond of out-door sports, although never very fond of
what the youngsters call playing. He much preferred going out gunning or
fusing, to playing ball, or any of the other games so eagerly pursued as a
general thing, by boys.”
James L. Vallandigham, A Life of Clement L.
Vallandigham
1830s.22 –Ballplaying Recurs in Abolitionist’s Life
You may think of Thomas Wentworth Higginson [b. 1823]
as a noted abolitionist, or as the mentor of Emily Dickenson, but he was also a
ballplayer and sporting advocate [see also #1858.17]. Higginson’s autobiography includes
several glimpses of MA ballplaying:
-- at ten he knew many Harvard students –
“their nicknames, their games, their individual haunts, -- we watched
them at football and cricket [page 40]”
-- at his
-- he and his friends “played baseball and
football, and a modified cricket, and on Saturdays made our way to the tenpin
alleys [page 36]”.
--once enrolled at
-- in his early thirties he was president of a cricket
club [and a skating club and a gymnastics club] in
Source:
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays
1830s.23 – In
“The bull pen, town ball, and drop the
handkerchief were among the sports indulged in on the school grounds, and the
teacher usually joined in with the sports.”
A. T. Strange, ed., Historical Encyclopedia of
Illinois, Volume 2 (Munsell, Chicago, 1918), page 792. Contributed by Jeff Kittel, January 31,
2010. Accessed 2/5/10 via Google
Books search (“town ball and drop).
Jeff’s comments:
“The author is talking about the history of education in
1830s.24 – Union Cricket
Club Gains Strength in
“No city took to the sport [cricket] with more
avidity than
William Ryczek, Baseball’s First Inning, McFarland, 2009), page 105. No source is cited. Ryczek goes on to say that Englishmen who moved to work in the city’s wool industry was one root cause of cricket’s success there.
1830.25 – Proud Father Lauds Son’s Ballplaying Prowess
“My son Roger is a rare lad . . . He can run
like a deer, jump like a catamount, wrastle like a bear . . . . He can pitch quates like all
creations, he can play ball like a cat o’ nine tails, and throw a stone
where you could never see it again.”
“Parental Partiality. My Son Roger,”
1830c.26 –
Writing about 70 years later, William Davis considers
the range of pastimes in his boyhood:
“After the hoop came, as now, the ball games, skip, one old cat,
two old cat, hit or miss, and round ball.
We made our own balls, winding yarn over a core of India rubber, until
the right size was reached, and then working a loop stitch all around it with
good, tightly spun twine. Attempts
were occasionally made to lay ball in the streets, but the by-laws of the town
forbidding it were rigidly enforced.”
William T. Davis, Plymouth Memories of an
Octogenarian (Memorial Press,
Plymouth MA, 1906), page 104.
Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search (
1830c.27 –
Recalling a genial local sheriff, the author writes:
“We well remember the urbanity of his manner as he passed the students of
Lenox Academy, always bowing to them and greeting them with a pleasant
salutation, which tended to increase their self-respect . . . .As he drove by
us when we were playing ‘wicket’ – the game of ball them
fashionable – he did not drive his stylish horse and gig over our
wickets, as many took a malicious pleasure in doing, but turned aside, with a
pleasant smile . . . .”
J. E. A. Smith, The History of
1831.1 – Ball Club Forms in
The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia unites with a group
of ball players based in
Constitution of the Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia [private printing, 1838]. Parts reprinted in
Dean A. Sullivan, Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History
of Baseball, 1825-1908 [
1831.2 -- “Base” and Cricket Listed in Book of US Pastimes
Horatio Smith, Festivals, Games and Amusements,
Ancient and Modern [
1831.3 -- Should Boys Prefer Bats over Books?
“Is it wonderful that the school-boy should so
often prefer his ball-club to his book, and the rod of correction to his
task.”
The Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1 [January 1831], page 31.
Submitted by Bill Wagner
1831.4 – As His Mom Sobs Tenderly, NH Lad Rushes Out to Play Ball
In
1832.1 – Union Cricket Club
of
Per John Thorn,
1832.2 – Two NYC Clubs Play Base Ball
"The history of the present style of playing Base
Ball
John Thorn added:
The club from lower
William Wood, Manual of Physical
Exercises.
1832.3 – Mary’s
Book of Sports [
A miniature 8-page book shows four boys playing at
ball. “What more boys at play! I should not think you could
see at play. Oh, it is too late to play at ball, my lads. The sun
has set. The birds have gone to roost. It is time for you to seek
your homes.”
Mary’s Book of Sports. With Beautiful Pictures [S. Babcock,
1832.4 -- American Chapbook Reuses “Playing at Ball” Woodcut
William Johnson; or, The Village Boy [
1832.5 --
The Child’s Own Book [
1832.6 -- Reading Book Contains a Story, “Playing at Trap Ball”
Trimmer, Sarah, Easy Lessons; or Leading Strings to
Knowledge [
1832.7 - Playing Ball on the Prairie
“It was quite amusing to witness the pastimes of
the soldiers, when off from duty -- one group was playing ball -- another base,
and a third playing cards . . . “
Ellsworth, Henry
1832.8 –
Nobody knows when baseball was first played in
Overfield, Joseph, 100 Seasons of
“Be it ordained by the Mayor, Aldermen and
Common Council of the city of Norwich . . . That if any person or persons
should play at ball, cat ball, or sky ball, or at ball generally . . . in any
of the public streets of said city, the person or persons so offending shall
forfeit and pay . . . the sum of two dollars; and when any minor or apprentice
shall be guilty of a violation of this by-law, the penalty may be recovered
from the parent or guardian.”
The fine also applied to bowling, kite-flying, and hoops. Norwich Courier, Volume 11, Issue
8
1833.1 -- Book on Flowers [Yes, Flowers] Shows Overhand Pitch
Breck, Joseph, The Young Florist: or, Conversations
on the Culture of Flowers and on Natural History [
1833.2 --
Olney, J., The Easy Reader; or Introduction to the
National Preceptor [
1833.3 -- Creation Wars Begin! English Author Takes on Strutt Theories on the Origins of Cricket and “Bat-and-Ball”
Maxwell, William, The Field Book: or, Sports and
Pastimes of the
1833.4 -- Another CT Chapbook, Another Recycled Woodcut
The Picture Exhibition [
1833.5 -- Yes, Another Chapbook from Mister Babcock, with That Same Old Woodcut
The Picture Reader; Designed as a First Reading Book,
for Young Masters and Misses [
1833.6 -- NY Chapbook: Jack Hall Will Play at Ball
“Who’ll play at Ball/ I, says Jack Hall,/
I am nimble and tall,/ I’ll play at Ball./ Here is Jack Hall, With his
Bat and Ball.”
A Pleasing Toy for Girl or Boy [
1833.7 --
Stories for Emma; or, Scripture Sketches [
1833.8 – Untitled Drawing of Ball Game [Wicket?] Appears in US Songbook
Watts’ Divine and Moral Songs – For the
Use of Children [
A drawing shows five children – a tosser,
batter, two fielders, and boy waiting to bat. The bats are spoon-shaped.
The wicket looks more like a cricket wicket than the long low bar in
wicket. Is it wicket? Base-ball? Here’s Block’s
commentary. “ . . .an interesting woodcut portraying boys
playing a slightly ambiguous bat-and-ball game that is possibly baseball . . .
. A goal in the ground near the batter might be a wicket, but it more
closely resembles an early baseball goal such as the one pictured in A
Little Pretty Pocket-Book”
1833.9 – A Morale Tale:
“Lazy
A children’s reader includes a short cautionary
story about an indolent lad who just sucked his thumb while “the rest
were playing ball.” An
illustration shows several lads appearing to reach for a fly ball, while
another holds a crooked bat, having perhaps hit the fly.
Olney, J., The Easy Reader
1833.10 – Letter to Student Refers to “That Beautiful game – Base Ball”
“I suppose nowadays you play ball
considerably. If I can judge by our
condition up here, it is the time of year [March] to play ball. I think it was a great pity that we
couldn’t teach these lazy rascals to play that beautiful game –
Base Ball.”
Letter from Charles C. Cain to William Butler at
Nathaniel Hall, Nathanial [sic] County PA, as reported in a syndicated column
by Grantland Rice on July 7, 1949.
Posted to 19CBB by John Thorn on 11/5/2007.
1833.11 – MA Clergyman Notes “Usual” Fast Day Defections For Ballplaying
As one of his several diary references to ballplaying
[see also #1796.2 and #1806.4] Thomas Robbins D.D. in 1833 wrote this diary
entry about Fast Day in Mattapoisett MA:
“Fast. Meetings well
attended . . . . A part of the people were off playing ball, according to their
usual practice . . . . Am very much fatigued. The afternoon exercise was very
long. Read.”
On December 28, 1829 at
Increase
1833c.12 –
In
John Shiffert, Base Ball in Philadelphia
(McFarland, 2006), page 17. The
game was a form of town ball.
1834.1 – Carver’s The
Book of Sports [
Rules for “’Base’ or ‘Goal
Ball’” are published in
Carver’s Chapter 3 is called “Games with
Balls.” In an introductory
paragraph, he explains that “The games with the bat and ball are
numerous, but somewhat similar. I
will mention some of them, which I believe to be the most popular with
boys.” [Page 37.] Other games describes are Fives,
Nine-Holes, or Hat-Ball [a game with running/plugging but no batting],
Catch-Ball [also a running/plugging game], Rackets, and Cricket.
Carver, Robin, The Book of Sports [
For Text:
David Block carries a full page of text, and the accompanying field diagram, in
Appendix 7, page 281, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
1834.2 -- Book on Farming Contains Ad for Carver Book
Fessenden, Thomas G., The Complete Farmer and Rural
Economist [Boston, Lilly Wait and Co.], per David Block, Baseball Before
We Knew It, page 197. The only ball playing in this book is an ad for
Carver’s The Book of Sports
1834.3 -- US Chapbook in German Reprises 1832 Woodcut
Deutsches A B C -- und Bilder Buch fur Kinder
1834.5 -- Cricket Play Begins at
“The first cricket club of entirely native-born
American youth was founded at
John A. Lester, ed., , A Century of Philadelphia
Cricket [UPenn Press,
1834.6 -- In Wicket, It’s Hartford CT 146, Litchfield CT 126
The contest took three “ins.”
“Thus, it appears that the ‘Bantam Players’ ‘barked up
the wrong tree.’ The utmost harmony existed, and every one appeared
to enjoy the sport.”
Connecticut Courant, volume 70, Issue 3618, page 3 [probably reprinted from the
1834.7 -- Magazine Cites “Principle Sports of the Day,” One With “Rattllng” Ball-Clubs
An article on what appear to be Scottish games refers
to the “report of the guns or the rattle of the ball-clubs,” and
concludes that shooting guns and some form a game with a ball-club are
“both the principle sports of the day.”
North American Magazine Volume 3, Issue 15, page 198. Submitted by Bill
Wagner
1834.8 – The First Baseball Fatality?
“A young man named Geo. Goble, residing near
Rhode Island
Republican, vol. 25, number 3
1835.1 – Boy’s Book of Sports Describes “Base Ball” [Town Ball?].
Boy’s Book of Sports: A Description of The
Exercises and Pastimes of Youth [
In its section on “base ball,” this book
depicts bases in the form of a diamond, with a three-strike rule, plugging, and
teams that take the field only after all its players are put out. The
terms “innings” and “diamond” appear [Block thinks for
the first time] and base running is switched to counter-clockwise.
For Text: David Block carries a page of text, and the field diagram, in Appendix
7, pages 282-283, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
1835.2 – Round-arm Bowling Officially Permitted in Cricket
Cashman, Richard,
“Cricket,” in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia
of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press,
1996], page 87. Per John Thorn,
1835.3 – Van Cott Source Recalls Diamond-Shaped Field in 1835
W. H. Van Cott was one of the organizers of the
Gothams in 1852 and was later President of the NABBP. He reported on a
conversation with a somewhat forgetful senior citizen in 1905.
“I and II. He played the first game of Ball when
he was 14 years old, 70 years ago. Called Base Ball because of
running from base to base, and the field was in the shape of a diamond; 4 bases
in all, counting the place of starting as the last one. He believes that
the name originated with the game. III. He played Two Old Cat game, but
no other . . . . IV and V. He does not remember ever to have played
Rounders, but VI. He has an indistinct recollection of the game. VII. He cannot
remember any rules.”
W. H.
1835.4 – A Ballplayer’s Progress: “Bound and Catch,” “Barn Ball,” “Town Ball”
H. H. Waldo told the Mills Commission: “I
commenced playing ball seventy years ago
“A few years later the school boys played what
was called “Town Ball.” That consisted of a catcher, thrower,
1st goal, 2nd goal and home goal. The inner field
was diamond shape: the outer field was occupied by the balance of the players,
number not limited. The outs were as follows: Three strikes,”
“Tick and catch,” ball caught on the fly, and base runner hit or
touched with the ball off from the base. That was sometimes modified by
“Over the fence and out.” [Note: this places Town Ball at
about 1840 or so.]
Letter from H. H. Waldo,
1835c.5 – Base Ball
Recalled as Very Popular at
“The games of bat-and-ball in former years were
various, but most popular were “four old cat” and base ball. The
latter alone survives to this day [1883], and in a very changed condition. . .
. A very large proportion of the students participated in the sport; and
the old residents will readily recall with what regularity. Fast day used
to be devoted to the base ball of the period.”
Charles H. Bell, Phillips Exeter Academy in New
Hampshire: A Historical Sketch
1835.6 –
Boy’s and Girl’s Book of Sports [Providence, Cory and Daniels], pp 17-19, per Harold
Seymour – Notes in the Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch
Library Department of Rare and Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
The base ball material is taken from Carver (1835 entry, above). Also
cited by David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 199.
1835.7 --
The First Lie, or Falsehood Its Own Punishment [
1835.8 --Old Woodcut, New Caption Uses the Term “Knock”
Sports of Youth; a Book of Plays [
1835.9 -- Woodcut from Mary’s is Inked Up Again
Two Short Stories, for Little Girls and Boys [
1835c.10 -- Ubiquitous Woodcut
Pops Up in
The Child’s Song Book [
1835c.11 -- New Northeastern Chapbook Shows Cricket, Bat-and-Ball
Happy Home [
1835c.12 -- Oops, He Missed It; Will He Be Called “Old Butter Fingers?”
Rose of Affection [
Block notes that the term was used for clumsy persons
as far back as 1615.
1835c.13 – MA Gents Recall Boyhood Games in 1830s: Cat, Wicket, OFBB
As reported in 1886, a reunion of men who played
together in East Granville MA held a reunion and reflected on their youthful
play. The account, which first
appeared in a CT paper, The Winsted
Herald, noted:
“These old fellows were born before the era of
the national game opened. They
doubtless knew how to play one, two, and three old cat, and wicket, and the old
fashioned kind of base ball when a foul was known as a tick; when a ball, which
was not an instrument of torture as now, was thrown at a runner instead of to the
baseman . . . “
The story is told in Genovese, Daniel L, The Old
Ball Ground: The Chronological History of Westfield Baseball (2004), page
12. Genovese cites the Times and News Letter [City?], July 21,
1886, which had reprinted the Winsted
Herald piece. Note: Can we obtain the original article? It seems difficult to distinguish the
men’s reflections from the notions of the 1886 reporter.
1835c.14 – Eagle Article Describes Early Ball-Making
“BASE BALLS. Manner and Extent of the Manufacture in
this Country – How they were Made Fifty Years Ago – Gradual
Progress of the Business,” Brooklyn Eagle, February 3rd 1884.
“Half a century ago such base balls as are in
use at the present time were entirely unknown. The balls then used were made of rubber and
were so lively that when dropped to the ground for a height of six or seven
feet they would rebound ten or twelve inches. A blow with the bat would not
drive them so far as one of the balls now in use can be driven with the same
force, but when they struck the ground they were generally much more difficult
to stop on account of their bounding propensities. . . .
“Many balls then in use – in fact nearly
all of them – were home made.
An old rubber overshoe would be cut into strips a half inch wide and the
strips wound together in a ball shape.
Over this a covering of woolen yarn would be wound and a rude leather or
cloth cover sewn over the yarn.
Sometimes the strips of leather were put in a vessel of hot water and
boiled until they became gummy, when they would adhere together and form a
solid mass of rubber. This, after
being would with yarn and covered with leather by the local shoemaker, was a
fairly good ball and one that would stand considerable batting without
bursting.
“In the lake regions and other sections of the
country where sturgeon were plentiful, base balls were commonly made of the
eyes of that fish. The eye of a
large sturgeon contains a ball nearly as large as a walnut. . . . They made a lively ball, but were more
like the dead ball of the present than any ball in use at that time.”
Reference and article provided by Rob Loeffler, 10/21/2008. Note: The balls of 1835 were reportedly smaller and lighter [and commonly perceived, at least, to be softer] than regulation balls of the 1850’s and later. They would thus “carry” less, and like a tennis ball today, lose more velocity when hit or thrown than a heavier ball.
1835c.15 – Grown Man Mourns
as
A Trenton NJ commentator pauses to rue the destruction
of a favorite old tavern, adding that in the last twenty years “[w]e have
seen whole streets spring up as if by magic, The fields where we played ball
are now filled with machinery.”
“Local Items,”
1835c.16 – Graduate Grimly
Recalls Rounders at
The memories aren’t pleasant. “We endured hunger, cold, and
cruelty.” Exercise was taken
mainly in gymnastics: “As there was no cricket-field, our amusements were
much curtailed, a poor game of rounders being the only source of amusement in
that line.”
“Greenwich School Forty Years Ago,” Fraser’s
Magazine Volume 10 (1874), page 246.
Accessed 2/5/10 via Google Books search (“poor game of rounders”).
1836.1 –
“Old-fashioned ‘Ball’” Popular in
“Baseball and foot ball did not, in those days,
ensnare the athletic sympathies and activities of [p36/p37] college boys, but
old-fashioned ‘ball’ and quoits were popular.”
Asahel C. Kendrick, Martin B. Anderson: A Biography
1836.2 -- German Book of Games Copies Gutsmuths’ Base-ball Piece
Werner, Johann A. L., Die reinst Quelle
jugendlicher Freuden (The Purest Source of Joy for Youngsters) [
1836.3 -- Little Learners Chapbook Shows Trap-ball
Little Lessons for Little Learners [
1836c.4 – The Ballgames
“Old Cat” and “Base” Played in
[Continuing a list of games that boys played:] “
. . . various games of ball. These games of ball were much less
scientific and difficult than the modern games. Chief were four old-cat,
three old-cat, two old-cat, and base.”
Hoar, George F., Autobiography of Seventy Years
Volume 1 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1905), page 52. Hoar
was ten years old in 1836. Per Seymour, Harold – Notes in the
Seymour Collection at Cornell University, Kroch Library Department of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, collection 4809.
1836.5 -- Yanks Burn British
Runners . . . in
“Sometimes we raced our boats [against the
English] to the baseball grounds . . . . In out-of-doors sorts the
Englishman has perforce to drop his insular dignity and become democratic, and
he never does it by halves. [A runner could be]] pelted by the hard ball
as he tried to run in, for it was then the fashion to throw at the runner, and
if hit he was out for the inning.
Sara Forbes Hughes, ed., Letters and Recollections
of John Murray Forbes [Houghton Mifflin,
1836.6 – Georgetown U Students “play Ball”
In a letter to a friend in 1836, a Georgetown Student
wrote, “the Catholics think it no harm to play Ball, Draughts, or play
the Fiddle and dance of a Sunday . . . “
Cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “A Place Leavel
Enough to Play Ball,” reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We
Knew It, page 316, as follows: Georgetown Student Letter, August 27, 1836,
quoted in Betty Spears and Richard Swanson, History of Sport and Physical
Activity in the United States, Second Edition (William C. Brown, Dubuque,
1983), page 85.
1836.7 – Scots Still Play “Ball Paces,” a Type of Trap Ball with Running
“’The
Ball Paces’ was formerly much played, but is now almost extinct. In this game a square was formed; and each
angle was a station where one of the party having the innings was posted. A hole was dug in the ground, sufficient
to hold the ball, which was placed on a bit of wood, rising about six inches
above the ball. The person at the
hole struck the point of this with his bat, when the ball rose; and in its
descent [p116/p117] was struck with the bat to as great a distance as
possible. Before the ball was
caught and thrown into the batman’s station, each man at the four angles
ran from one point to another, and every point counted one in the
game.” George Penny, Traditions
of
David’s accompanying comment: “From the description it appears
to be a remarkable hybrid of trap-ball and the multiple goal version of
stool-ball described by Strutt. . . .
This is the first trap-ball type game I’ve ever come across that
features baserunning.”
Penny also mentions cricket: “Cricket
was never much practiced in
1836.8
–
In June the
town wrote new by-laws:
“Section
Eighth: No person shall play at ball, fly a kite, or slide down hill upon a
sled, or play at other game so as to incommodate peaceable citizens or
passengers, in any street, lane, or public place in this town, under a penalty
not exceeding one dollar for each offence.”
“By-Laws
of the Town of
1836.9
--
“In April
1892 the
Posting to the
19CBB listserve by Dennis Pajot, January 3, 2010. In 1946 a journalist speculated that the
N-old-cat games were what was likely played in 1836 Dennis cites the April 19, 1892
issues of the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel.
1837.1
– A Founder of the Gothams Remembers “First Ball
Organization in the
William R. Wheaton, who would several years later help
found the Knickerbockers, described how the Gothams were formed and the changes
they introduced. “We had to have a good outdoor game, and as the
games then in vogue didn’t suit us we decided to remodel three-cornered
cat and make a new game. We first
organized what we called the Gotham Baseball Club. This was the first ball organization in
the
“The first step we took in making baseball was
to abolish the rule of throwing the ball at the runner and ordered instead that
it should be thrown to the baseman instead, who had to touch the runner before
he reached the base. During the [earlier] regime of three-cornered cat
there were no regular bases, but only such permanent objects as a bedded
boulder or and old stump, and often the diamond looked strangely like an
irregular polygon. We laid out the ground at
“ . . . it was found necessary to reduce the new
rules to writing. This work fell to my hands, and the code I them
formulated is substantially that in use today. We abandoned the old rule
of putting out on the first bound and confined it to fly catching.”
“The new game quickly became very popular with
New Yorkers, and the numbers of clubs soon swelled beyond the fastidious notions
of some of us, and we decided to withdraw and found a new organization, which
we called the Knickerbocker.“
Brown, Randall, “How Baseball Began, National
Pastime, 24 [2004], pp 51-54. Brown’s article is based on the
newly-discovered “How Baseball Began – A Member of the Gotham Club
of Fifty Years Ago Tells About It, San Francisco Daily Examiner,
November 27, 1887, page 14. The
full text of this article is here. Note:
How does Brown know that the unsigned article was written by
1837.2 – Ball Game Described in Fictional Account of Western Indians
Captured by Native Americans, a youth see them playing
a game of ball. The “ball” was part of a sturgeon’s
head covered with deerskin strips, the club was of hickory, some number of
safe-haven bases were formed by small piles of stones, and there was
plugging. “Their principal object seemed to be, to send the ball as
far as possible, in order for the striker of it, to run around the great space
of ground, which was comprised within the area formed by the piles of
stones.” There is no mention of a pitcher, and if a batter-runner
was put out, he would replace the fielder who made the putout. Some games
would last for days.
Female Robinson Crusoe, A Tale of the American
Wilderness [J.
For Text: David Block carries three paragraphs of text from this story in
Appendix 7, page 283, of Baseball Before We Knew It.
1837.3 –
“[March 1837,
Whitney, Josiah D., letter to his sister, March 1837,
reprinted in E. T. Brewster, Life and Letters of Josiah Dwight Whitney
[Houghton Mifflin,
1837.4 -- Trap-ball Found in Book of “Many Exercises and Exercises for Ladies”
Walker, Donald, Games and Sports; Being an Appendix
to Manly Exercises and Exercises for Ladies [
1837.5 -- “One-Old-Cat” Appears in Children’s Story
Gallaudet, Edward, The Jewel, or, Token of
Friendship [
1837.6 -- Constitution Written
for Olympic Ball Club of
This constitution is reprinted in Dean A. Sullivan,
Compiler and Editor, Early Innings: A Documentary History of Baseball, 1825
– 1908 [
1837.7 –
Section 36 of the
“any person who shall on the Sabbath day play at
bandy, cricket, cat, town-ball, corner-ball, over-ball, fives, or any
other game of ball, in any public
place, shall . . . “ [be fined one dollar].
http://www.illinoisancestors.org/fulton/1871_canton/pages95_126.html#firstincorporation,
as accessed 1/1/2008. Information
provided by David Nevard 6/11/2007.
See also #1837.8, below.
On January 31, 2010, Jeff Kittel indicated that he has
found the text in another source: History of Fulton County, Illinois
(Chapman & Co., Peoria, 1879), pp 527-528. Accessed 2/6/10 via Google Books search
("history of
“It seems that they had a lively community of
ballplayers in
1837.8 – Well, As Goes
Section 34 of an
“Any person who shall on the Sabbath day play at
cricket, bandy, cat, town ball, corner ball, or any other game of ball within
the limits of the corporation, or shall engage in pitching quoits or dollars in
any public place therein, shall on conviction pay the sum of one dollar for
each offense.”
1837. 9 –
“Young men that go to
1837.10 – In Recession,
Doughty Ex-Workers Play Ball,
“One of the most interesting places in New
England for the beauty of its scenery the extent of its manufactories, and the
industry of its inhabitants, is the town of
“New England Girls and Young Men,”
1837.11 – “Wide
Strike Zone” Fails to Level Lords-vs-Commoners Cricket Match in