Walt Whitman's baseball quote (surely not 1846!)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

"I see great things in baseball.  It's our game--the American game.  It will take people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a large physical stoicism.  Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set.  Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.
---Walt Whitman
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 23, 1846
(NEW YORK SUN, Tuesday, 6 July 2004, page 1, col. 2.)


I e-mailed the SUN that the quote surely has the wrong date. I told them that the BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE is available, free, full-text online. Also, the first baseball game was not on June 19,1846--the EAGLE has 1845!

Of course, there was no response and no correction.

The quotation is quite popular on web.  It's been everywhere from Ken Burns's BASEBALL to the halls of Congress to some publication called "A Way With Words" by Dave Wilton.

"Baseball" is a clue. It would be "base ball" in 1846.

There is a baseball citation in 1889, but it's different! Help us, Fred Shapiro!



(GOOGLE)
http://federalistnavy.com/poetry/WALTWHITMAN1819-1892hall/messages/119.html
Posted by Lord Dragon on April 20, 19103 at 10:09:31:

In Reply to: "I see great things in baseball." posted by Montgomery Evans on June 17, 1998 at 10:17:31:

It's from With Walt Whitman in Camden by Horace Traubel, vol.4, 508


(GOOGLE)
[PDF] A Way With Words, April 2002, Vol. 1, No. 2File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
... terms gives the first known use, notes on usage, and quotations of actual ... Baseball fans will enjoy the historical minutiae that he in- cludes, and wordsmiths ...
www.wordorigins.org/AWWW1-2.pdf - Similar pages


(GOOGLE GROUPS)
Archive-Name: gov/us/fed/congress/record/1999/jun/24/1999CRH4881C
[Congressional Record: June 24, 1999 (House)]
[Page H4881]
>From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr24jn99-89]

                                BASEBALL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, America has a long-standing
fascination with baseball.
  Perhaps only apple pie and the American flag can compete with its
association to this country.
  And with good reason.
  Baseball, like many team sports, is beloved in part because of the
unity it brings to our nation's communities.
  Poet Walt Whitman once wrote, ``I see great things in baseball. It's
our game--the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill
them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. (It will)
repair these losses and be a blessing to us.''

: Would anyone happen to know the source of this quote from Whitman?
: "I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous dyspeptic set. Repair these losses and be a blessing to us."


WITH WALT WHITMAN IN CAMDEN
January 21 to April 7, 1889
by Horace Traubel
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
1953
VOLUME FOUR

Pg. 508 (Sunday, April 7, 1889):
I said: "Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!" He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well--it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go fling, of the American atmosphere--belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."