Q: "Earliest written reference to baseball"

Wed Mar 16 16:19:59 UTC 2011

Not sure just when the bat came in (maybe there were always batless and
batty varieties). But if you'd been used to the batless game (what we called
"punchball" in my grade-school glory years), the bat and the development of
batting skills would be pretty dramatic.

BTW, you whippersnappers, we didn't have none of these newfangled "pitchers"
on the old punchball diamond. Back then, we hadda be pitcher *and*
batter. You can't even imagine such a thing, kin you, what with yer iPods
and ePads and oPrahs....   We were tough then.

JL

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:49 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Q: "Earliest written reference to baseball"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Was Jon referring to early 19th-century vs. the 1798 and earlier "base
> ball"?
>
> Joel
>
> At 3/16/2011 11:14 AM, Dave Wilton wrote:
> >But the bat was a standard feature of townball and other bat and ball
> games
> >by 1839, so this wouldn't have raised eyebrows in Cooperstown at that
> time.
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> >Jonathan Lighter
> >Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 10:11 AM
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: Re: Q: "Earliest written reference to baseball"
> >
> >The introduction of the bat as a standard feature might be one
> >paradigm-blasting  difference between old and new baseball.
> >
> >JL
> >
> >
> >
> >On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:31 AM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
> > > Subject:      Re: Q: "Earliest written reference to baseball"
> > >
> > >
>
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >---
> > >
> > > Block's _Baseball Before We Knew It_ is the best account I know of the
> > > early
> > > history of the game. It's thorough and very readable.
> > >
> > > The Doubleday myth may not have been a hoax. There was an Abner
> Doubleday
> > > who lived in Cooperstown in 1839, a cousin of the famed Civil War
> general.
> > > What Abner Graves witnessed as a young boy may have been a barnstorming
> > > team
> > > playing a version of townball that was sufficiently different from the
> >game
> > > the town knew that it was remarked upon. The memories of the young
> Graves
> > > may have become muddled over the years, producing the belief that this
> was
> > > a
> > > brand new game instead of a variant of a familiar one and conflating
> the
> > > two
> > > Abner Doubledays.
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf
> > > Of
> > > George Thompson
> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 11:11 PM
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > Subject: Re: Q: "Earliest written reference to baseball"
> > >
> > >  I was internationally famous for about 72 hours in July, 2001, when
> the
> > > NYTimes reported that I had found a newspaper story alluding to a base
> >ball
> > > game in NYC in 1823 on a rich guy's country estate, on the west side of
> > > Broadway, between Washington Place and 8th street.  A few years later,
> >John
> > > Thorn found a village ordinance from the late 1790s forbidding boys
> from
> > > playing base ball too near the village hall, in Pittsfield -- it seems
> >that
> > > they were breaking windows with home runs.
> > > My game remains the earliest mention of baseball as a game played by
> >adults
> > > -- manly and athletic young men, to be exact.
> > >
> > > Jane Austen's reference to baseball in a manuscript written in the
> 1790s,
> > > though not published until the 1810s, if I recall, was in the original
> >OED,
> > > and appeared in a fascicle that was published well before the Abner
> > > Doubleday hoax was perpetrated. Since then, a few other mentions of
> base
> > > ball in 18th C England have turned up.
> > >
> > > The question of whether these were the same game as the baseball played
> in
> > > the mid and late 19th C has come to be a matter of considerable
> research
> > > these last 10 years.
> > > There is a description of the Englsh game of baseball in an
> encyclopedia
> >of
> > > the sports and games of the world compiled by a learned German in the
> > > 1790s.
> > > Other than this, I'm not hopeful of finding detailed descriptions of
> the
> > > games to offer definitive proof.
> > > However . . . . .
> > > First, I am an evolutionist, and suppose that just as the modern
> passenger
> > > jet evolved from the Wright Bros. biplane, however little they resemble
> >one
> > > another, and the modern horse evolved from eohippus, and modern folks
> > > evolved from knuckle-draggers, so modern baseball evolved from earlier
> > > sports.
> > > Second, I am fond of the "Sherlock's dog" style of reasoning, as I
> > > demonstrated here recently by arguing that the earliest meaning of
> "jazz"
> > > couldn't be obscene, because if it were, newspapers wouldn't have
> printed
> > > it
> > > without blushes as the name of a musical fad.  You will recall the
> Holmes
> > > story about a horrible murder in the dark of night.  Holmes refers
> > > trenchantly to the curious behavior of the dog that night.  Watson, the
> > > dunderhead, says, but Holmes, the dog did nothing that night.  Ah, says
> > > Holmes, that is what is so curious.  Just as I noted trenchantly the
> > > curious
> > > behavior of the newspaper editors confronted with the word "jazz", so I
> > > note
> > > the fact that the mid-19th C newspapers, when reporting on the new
> >sporting
> > > fad, baseball, didn't say, "don't mistake this game for the game that
> > > Grandad used to play".  They did not recognize it as an essentially
> > > different game from the one played in 1823.
> > >
> > > GAT
> > >
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> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
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