"ball" in baseball

[Jesse Sheidlower]

Perhaps one of the many baseball historians on this list
can help.

I'm interested in the earliest use of _ball_ in the usual sense
'a throw outside the strike zone at which the batter does not
swing'. Dickson dates this to 1845 in the original Knickerbocker
Club rules; Nichols' _Historical Dict. of Baseball Terminology_
also attributes it to the Knickerbocker Club rules but dates it
to 1854.

Whether or not this is Nichols' typo, I am unable to find this
sense in the online reproductions of the 1845 Rules. Can someone
tell me, for real, when this sense developed?

Thanks.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED