Volume 13 , Issue 13

History of Baseball

My brother-in-law, Lou Wagner, commented on Feature #5963 of last week's OkieLegacy Ezine, "Linda, since I was born in Detroit, I always had an interest in the Tigers and Ty Cobb. If asked how to understand life, I would answer 'Read the history of baseball.'"

So I went searching through Google Books in the search of the History of Baseball. I have not had time to read through all the books that I have found, but will get back to you on that as to what I discover in my reading.

Meanwhile, does anyone have any more information to help enlighten us about the History of Baseball?

What was the Old Professional National Association of the early 1870's, and also the National League from 1876 to 1902?

They say that the sport of sports for Americans, alike for men as for boys, is our National game of base ball. It is our National game of base ball which is now the permanently established field game of ball for the American people, and it occupies a position in public estimation which no other sport in vogue equals. Is that so?

some say that it is a noteworthy fact that base ball first taught us Americans the value of physical recreative exercise as an important adjunct to perfect work in cultivating the mind up to its highest point of excellence.

Was base ball considered the introduction as a national pastime that the growth of athletic sports in general in popularity was largely due? Was base ball pointed out to the mercantile community of our large cities that "All work and no play" is the most costly policy they can pursue?

The third year of the new century (1903) introduced us to the eighth decade of base ball history. The first regular base ball club of which we have any reliable record being in 1833. The club in question was the old Olympic Town Ball Club of Philadelphia, which began its first season of ball playing that year.

The game of town ball of that early period was an American modification of the old English game of rounders, known to English use in the 17th century. Town ball was played in Philadelphia by a few enthusiasts as early as 1831. Others of a dozen or more used to gather of an afternoon once a week on a field adjoining the upper part of Market Street, Philadelphia, near where the Episcopal church stood, to play the old game. Others would go over to the Camden fields to enjoy the sport.

I read that an old resident of Camden used to say that the players were laughed at in those days for playing ball, the prejudice against wasting time in that way being very prevalent in the Quaker City of that period.

It is also stated by New Englanders that town ball was played in Connecticut and Massachusetts a decade and more before the Philadelphians adopted it. The Olympic Club of Philadelphia played town ball from 1833 to 1859, when theater phase of base ball, known as the New York game, came into vogue.

The old game of town ball as played during the decade of the 1830's was known in the New England states as the Massachusetts game, in contradistinction to the form of playing base ball afterwards known as the New York game. The new york game coming into vogue in the decade of the 1850's. This latter phase of base ball was Americanized town ball, just as the latter was an American improvement of rounders.

The familiar game of those days known as one-old-cat, was simply the preliminary field exercise with a bat and ball which was engaged in each practice day before the regular base ball games began. It was played as practice before a sufficient number of members of the club had arrived on the ground to play the irregular game.

The basis of the old English game of rounders was the use of a bat and ball in a game which was played on a square infield having four bases besides an extra place for the batsman to stand when batting, and this was also the theory of American town ball. In the American game of the old Knickerbocker club of New York, with its diamond field in place of the square field of town ball, the old rounders rule of throwing base-runners out by hitting them with the ball while running between bases, was in vogue up to the time of the organization of the 1st National Base Ball Association in 1858.

There is one solitary field sport known to Americans that can justly claim to be in every respect an American game, and that is the old Indian game of lacrosse, played by the aborigines long before Columbus discovered America.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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