Base Ball in BROOKLYN EAGLE (21 October 1845)

[Dave Wilton]

>    The first baseball game (new rules) was supposedly played
> at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken on 19 June 1846.  These are
> the first citations in the online, full-text BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE.
>
> BASE BALL
>    21 October 1845, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 2:

This is not inconsistent. The rules for the modern game of baseball were
codified in the spring of 1846, but the roots of the game and the term
"baseball" are considerably older. The term dates to at least 1744, although
the game referred to in that early cite would probably not be recognizable
as the modern game:

"B is for
Base-ball
The Ball once struck off,
Away flies the Boy
To the next destin'd Post,
And then Home with Joy"

in John Newberry's "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book," 1744