early baseball

[George Thompson]

At about the time that the story about baseball in Pittsfield in the late 18th C was breaking, I posted the following to a site for the mildly demented about 19th century baseball, under the heading "the prehistory of baseball: New York City, 1805":

"A New York City newspaper of April, 1805 reported that a "game of Bace took place on 'the Gymnasium,' near Tyler's between the gentlemen of two different clubs for a supper and trimmings.  [The Gymnastics vs The Sons of Diagoras, though the latter was "not confined however to the number there".]  Great skill and activity it is said was displayed on both sides, but after a severe and well maintained contest, . . . the Gymnastics . . . beat The Sons of Diagoras 41 to 34."
"I read this on microfilm; all essential words are perfectly clear, except for the name of the proprietor of the grounds; but there was a Tyler who kept the Washington Garden about this time.  "Bace" is quite clear, including the "c".  Before I formally publish this, I will check the text in a paper file, which I believe (hope) is available in a library, perhaps in two libraries, here in NYC.
"I take it that these two clubs were social and athletic clubs, not exclusively devoted to the game of Base.  The club name "Gymnastics' speaks for itself, though it is worth noting that that word then meant athletic activities generally, and not the limited meaning usual today.  The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (2nd ed., 1989) says Diagoras was a famous boxer of Rhodes, from a family of athletes, and was mentioned by the poet Pindar.  This suggests that the members of this club were particularly fond of recreational prizefighting.  The expression "not confined however to the number there" may mean that The Sons of Diagoras made up their squad with a few men not members of their club."

This has prompted an interesting discussion of what sort of game the word "base" may have meant.  I have cut up passages from 4 or 5 submissions and will post them here when I have a change to edite the snippets into something readable.  But as a brief summary: Harold Seymour, the first historian to write a history of baseball, supposed that "base" was a bat and ball game precursor to baseball; the discussion that followed my posting to the baseball group has me convinced that "base" was a chasing game.  The correspondents compare it to tag, but perhaps a better analogy would be touch football or flag football, as a game that grown men could play earnestly and then eat a celebratory dinner afterwards.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.