Volume 17 , Issue 32

What Is Origin of Baseball?

We looked back to 2 April 1905, in "The Galveston Daily News," Galveston, Texas to see what A. G. Spalding had written concerning the question: "What Is the Origin of Baseball." It comes from Spalding's official base ball guide for 1900.

Found on Newspapers.com

The news article begins ... Nineteen hundred and five completed the sixtieth year of the life of baseball, for it dates its birth from the organization of the original Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York City, Sept. 23, 1845, at which time the first playing rules of the game were formulated and published by that club.

There seemed to be a conflict of opinion as to the origin of baseball. The game had arrived at an age and at a point in it's development when this mooted question should be settled in some comprehensive and authoritative way and for all time.

Some authorities, notably Mr. Henry Chadwick, claimed that baseball was of English origin and was a direct descendant of the old English juvenile pastime called "rounders," while others claimed that it was entirely of American origin and had nothing whatever to do with rounders or any other foreign game.

While Spalding conceded that Mr. Chadwick's rounder theory was entitled to much weight because of his long connection with baseball and the magnificent work he had done in the upbuilding of the game for upward of fifty years, yet Spalding was unwilling longer to accept his rounder theory without something more convincing than his oft-repealed assertion that "baseball did originate from rounders."

Spaulding challenged the Grand Old Man of baseball to produce his proofs and demonstrate in some tangible way, if he could, that our National game derived its origin from rounders.

Mr. Chadwick, who, by the way, was of English birth, and was probably rocked in a "rounders" cradle, says, in support of his theory, that "There is but one field game now in vogue on this continent which is strictly American in its origin, and that one is the old Indian game of increase, now known as the Canadian National game. Baseball originated from the old English schoolboy game of rounders, as plainly shown by the fact that the basic principle of both games is the field use of a bat, a ball and bases." Spalding had been fed on this kind of "rounder pap" for upward of forty years, and he refused to swallow any more of it without some substantial proof sauce with it.

In 1874 Spalding visited England with the Boston and Philadelphia Athletic baseball clubs, and while these clubs were playing exhibition games before English audiences it was not uncommon to hear expressions like this: "Why, it's nothing but our old game of rounders that we used to play with the gals when we were boys."

Again, during Spalding's baseball trip around the world in 1888-89 we heard similar expressions in the English colonies of New Zealand, Australia, India and in Great Britain. Spaulding made many inquiries of many people about this game of rounders, but never could get a very intelligent explanation of it and seldom could find anyone that would admit that they had ever played the game.

After Spalding had seen and played in a game of rounders he could quite understand why it had been so difficult to find anybody that would admit that they had ever played rounders, and for a good deal of the same reason that a grouwnup man might be unwilling to admit that he had ever played "drop the handkerchief," "Copenhagen," "ring around the rosy" or any other of rounders' sister pastimes.

it came about in this way: When the around-the-world baseball party arrived in England in 1889 they were again taunted with the similarity of the game to Rounders, generally spoken in derision and intended to belittle baseball, and finally becoming desperate Spalding issued a public challenge in behalf of Chicago and All-American baseball teams to play a match game of rounders with any rounder club or such a game.

This challenge was accepted, and a game of rounders was arranged and played in Liverpool in March, 1889, between the champion rounder club of England and a picked team of American "baseball's," as they called them. Spaulding was the "feeder" for the team of eleven men.

A one inning rounder match (two innings constituted a full game), to be played under regular rounder rules, was arranged on condition that afterward we would play them a five-inning baseball match, under regular baseball rules.

Rounder rules permit (what we would call) the base runner to be put out by "soaking" him with the ball while running between the four boundary poles or posts, and this attractive feature was about the only rule of the game our players seemed to take any special interest in.

The game opened with the American eleven in the field, and as "feeder" Spalding was handed a ball about the size of a golf ball, covered with leather and comparatively soft, and the long-looked-for game of rounders was ready to commence.

The first rounder batsman took his position with a sort of a miniature cricket bat, or paddle - a cross between a potato masher and a penholder. With his left hand behind his back and his right grasping this so-called bat, he struck a sort of a John Hancock-signing-the-Declaration -of-Independence attitude, and the referee announced that the game was on. As a shoulder-high ball came over the plate he stuck out his flattened bat or paddle with about the same effort you would hand a friend a cigar, and the ball glanced off his bat, over the catcher's head and out of the ground. We insisted it was foul, but the referee said it was a good hit, and the batsman ran around the four boundary posts, which were about three feet high and the diameter of a broom handle, with a tiny blue flag on the top of each, and when he had completed the circuit the scorer announced that he had made four runs - a run being counted as each post was passed - and the audience applauded. The next batsman did the same thing, and the Englishmen had scored eight runs. Spaulding then had a conference and we decided that low balls close to the body might ten to make these faintly but effective over the fence hits less frequent.

It worked well, for after that they only made three runs, and that was caused by one of our American players trying to "soak" a rounder base runner, but missed his target. Their eleven players were all put out, which closed their first innings. Then the Americans took their innings and tried to hit the ball out as we would in baseball, but as it was permissible to use only one hand, it was found impossible to hit the ball any distance, but we finally succeeded in making eight runs before our eleven men were all put out. We were very desires of playing a full game of two innings, for we were just getting the hang of it, but the Englishman objected and insisted that the five inning game of baseball by played as previously arranged.

The English rounder players were quite as green, if not more so, at our game than we had been at theirs, for they made no runs in the first inning of baseball; in fact, all their men struck out, and the Americans made thirty-five runs, with nobody out, and the match was called off on account of physical exhaustion all around, and the first inning of baseball was never finished.

Having read from boyhood, principally the writings of Mr. Henry Chadwick that our American game of baseball originated from rounders, and having been taunted with this statement around the world, generally spoken in derision of our game, and having actually played in a game of rounders, Spalding was convinced that baseball did not originate from rounders any more than cricket originated from that asinine pastime.

About the on tangible argument that Spalding ever heard advanced by Mr. Chadwick or any other authority tending to prove that baseball did originate from rounders is the following:

In a recent letter to Spalding Mr. Chadwick said, "You cannot go back on the fact that baseball derived its origin form the old English game of rounders because the basic principle of both games is the field use of a bat, a ball and bases." Admitting that this is so as far as it applies to baseball, as a matter of fact this does not altogether apply to rounders, for his basic principle is the field use of "a bat, a ball, posts or stakes and a hole."

This kind of reasoning might as well apply and would prove quite as conclusively that cricket also originated from rounders, because the basic principle of both games is the field use of "a bat, a ball and stumps or stakes;" or that golf originated from rounders, because the basic principle of both games is the field use of "a bat, a ball and posts."
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