Slight Antedating of Modern Sense of "Baseball"

[Shapiro, Fred]

baseball (OED, 1.b., 1845 [23 Oct.])



1845 _Brooklyn Daily Eagle_ 21 Oct. 2/3 (Newspapers.com)  A GREAT MATCH AT BASE BALL. -- This afternoon, at 2 o'clock, the New York Bass Ball Club play a match at ball with the Brooklyn Club at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken.  The interest attached to this match will attract large numbers from this and the neighboring city.



Fred Shapiro

Editor

YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org