"Base ball"

Mon Jul 19 20:40:32 UTC 2010

> Re baseball, I remember reading in one of Bill Bryson's books, that the
> lexical evidence for baseball is actually older than for rounders, his
> conclusion being that perhaps baseball came first and it is rounders
> that is the version.

That's David Block's conclusion.
> > >> >David Block, in his Baseball Before We Knew It

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
Date: Monday, July 19, 2010 1:38 pm
Subject: Re: "Base ball"
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> That OED entry about baseball being a version of rounders was clearly
> needling by the lexicographer/editor/publisher - whoever wrote it
> and/or let
> it go through. Brits love to tell Americans that the US national
> pastime is
> a UK little girls' game. They do that with many sports. For example,
> according to the Brits: Pool is dumbed-down, simplified snooker (bigger
> holes, smaller table); racquetball is dumbed-down, simplified squash (much
> bouncier ball that requires less running-after); US football is rugby
> for
> pansies (all the armor, rest times, etc.).
>
> Re baseball, I remember reading in one of Bill Bryson's books, that the
> lexical evidence for baseball is actually older than for rounders, his
> conclusion being that perhaps baseball came first and it is rounders
> that is
> the version. Dunno. George?
> DAD
>
>
>
> If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
> George Thompson
> Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 11:36 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Base ball"
>
>
>
> I've been modestly waiting for one of my fans here to mention that I was
> once famous -- internationally famous -- for 72 hours for finding a
> paragraph in a newspaper of 1823 referring to a base ball game played
> on a
> field once part of a rich guy's country estate, in Manhattan, on the west
> side of Broadway, between Washington Place and Eighth street.
> This was in 2001.  Since then I have sunk back into obscurity, (where
> I have
> recently been joined by Paris Hilton -- obscurity is a rather crowded
> spot:
> avoid it, if you can).
>
> Previous to my 1823 paragraph, the earliest reference to "base ball"
> in the
> U. S. was a letter to a newspaper of Delhi, N. Y in 1825, from 9 guys
> from
> Hamden, challenging the men of a neighboring village to a base ball game.
> The fact that this letter was from 9 guys does not signify that the
> rules of
> base ball then required a 9 man team.  There were only 9 guys in that
> village willing to spend the time to play base ball together, to say nothing
> of putting up a dollar each as bait to incentivize (ahem) the guys in
> the
> next village to take them up on the challenge.
> Since 2001, John Thorn has found a village ordinance from western Mass.,
> from the 1790s, forbidding boys to play base ball too near the village
> public building -- they were breaking the windows too often.  But my 1823
> paragraph remains the earliest reference to the game played by grown-ups.
>
> Block quotes from an encyclopedia of the games of the world, compiled
> in the
> 1790s by a learned Kraut, which has an entry on the English game of
> baseball, explaining how it was played (not the rules, since there was
> no
> board or association to formulate rules, and enforce them).
>
> As for the OED on baseball, please remember that that entry was produced
> when James Murray was but a youth -- and he was a Limey, at that.  What
> would he know?
>
> There are, I think, 4 occurrences of "base ball" in novels from ca 1790-1810
> by English women, Austen and 3 others, all referring to games played by
> rather young girls.
> Does this mean that a game for 10 or 12 year old girls, in being transported
> to the U. S., somehow became a game for grown men?  Maybe.  Or it
> means that
> only women novelists wrote with the sort of attention to children's life
> that would produce references to their playtime activities.  Or it means
> that that the neglected and forgotten novels by women were suppressed
> by
> patriarchy, and require rereading, to discover how wonderful they really
> are, while the novels by men of that era are neglected and forgotten because
> they are no good, and they deserve to stay that way, and their
> references to
> baseballwill never be noticed.  Or something else.
>
> The members of SABR devote themselves to, for instance, assembling and
> when
> necessary recreating the box scores of games played in earlier
> decades, not
> necessarily in the major leagues.  Baseball fans tend to regard them as
> harmless crackpots.
> Among the members of SABR are a group who devote themselves to the
> study of
> 19th century baseball.  The other members of SABR tend to regard them
> as
> harmless crackpots.  Among the members of SABR who are interested in
> 19th C
> baseball are a group who are interested in the prehistory of baseball.
>  The
> other members of the 19th C clique tend to regard them as harmless
> crackpots.
>
> There are hundreds of references from 18th and early 19th C newspapers,
> diaries, letter collections, &c to "playing at ball", "a game of ball"
> and
> other such phrases.
> In a few cases it's clear that they refer to a bat & ball game.  In a
> few
> cases it's clear that they refer to playing catch, or to handball -- "fives"
> (though there was a variation of fives which was played using a bat).
> Presumably, among the rest, there are some -- a few of them, most or them,
> ??? -- which refer to playing a bat & ball game, with base-running.
> The references in the newspapers from NYC to playing ball tend to come
> from
> angry letters objecting to it being done on Sundays, and the writers of
> these letters weren't concerned to state clearly the rules of the game
> they
> are frothing over.
>
> The supposition that the game of "base ball" played in New York in
> 1823 was
> not in principle very different from the game being played in New York
> in
> the 1850s is supported by the couple of references from the 1850s to "the
> good old-fashioned game of baseball".
>
> There were two basic variations on baseball in prehistoric times, one
> now
> referred to as the New York game and the other as the Massachusetts game.
> The NY game was played with 4 bases arranged in a square, with the beginning
> and ending base at one corner.  The Mass. game was played with the bases
> arranged in a square, but with 5 bases, the fifth, the beginning and ending
> point, being in the middle of one side of the square.
>
> A journal, Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, has in preparation
> a
> special issue devoted to the prehistory of the game, due, I believe, in
> 2011.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ.
> Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: Sunday, July 18, 2010 1:32 pm
> Subject: Re: "Base ball"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> > Is baseball an American game?  The modern rules were essentially laid
> > down
> > by Alexander Cartwright and his teammates in 1845.
> >
> > Is there any early description of the rules of Anglo-Irish
> > "base-ball"?  I
> > suspect that they were largely adlibbed by the kids who mainly played
> > it.
> >
> > IAC, I'd split the def. into two numbered senses.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > 1755 John Kidgell _The Card_  I (Dublin: Sam. Price) 8:
> > > The younger part of the Family, perceiving Papa not inclined to
> _enlarge_
> > > upon the Matter, retired to an _interrupted_ Party at _Base-Ball_
> (an
> > > _infant_ game, which as it advances in its _Teens_, improves into
> _Fives_,
> > > and in its State of _Manhood_ is called _Tennis_.
> > >
> > > I take the connection to tennis to be facetious.  Of interest is
> > that the
> > > game was evidently also known in Ireland at this date.
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
> wrote:
> > >
> >
> > >>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> > >>
> > >> A correspondent alleges the following references to "base ball" prior
> > >> to 1800.  Are these useful?  Useless?  Presumably unrelated to the
> > >> American game, but so -- I assume -- is the OED's c1815 Jane Austen
> > >> quote.  They would be at least instances of the use of the phrase.
> > >>
> > >> I would look in the ADS-L archives except that there are over 1800
> > >> messages with the word "baseball" in them -- and that's only since
> > 1999.
> > >>
> > >> Joel
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> >There are several references to base ball in England before  in
> > >> >writing  before 1800.
> > >> >
> > >> >David Block, in his Baseball Before We Knew It mentions them in
> > >> >several places, most notably in chapter10..
> > >>
> > >> [Apparently all the following are taken from Block and Wiles  GB,
> Preview.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> >A book intended for children, A Pretty Little Pocket Book, mentions
> > >> >a game for children in which they struck a ball and ran around bases.
> > >> >
> > >> >Lady Hervey ( aka Mary Lepel) writes of the royal children playing
> > >> >at base ball in a letter of November 1748. They played indoors with
> > >> >aristocratic children and lords and ladies in waiting, it is assumed.
> > >> >
> > >> >Then Jane Austen, writing in the 1790s, mentions that her heroine
> > >> >Catherine preferred baseball to studies.
> > >>
> > >> [I read, actually first published in 1817, although probably written
> > >> 1798-1799 and the OED cites c1815.]
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> >In 1875 , in Jolly Games for Happy Homes describes a game without
> > a
> > >> >bat but which included running around bases. It was a game girls
> could
> > >> play.
> > >> >
> > >> >Also mentioned is a quote from a character in a book of 1799,
> > >> >Battleridge in which a man bemoans being sent to Geneva because,
> "No
> > >> >more cricket, no more base-ball."
> > >>
> > >> Cooke, Cassandra.  Battleridge: an historical tale, founded on facts
> > >> ... By a lady of quality ... .  London, G. Cawthorn,
> > >> 1799.  [Apparently in ECCO.]
> > >>
> > >> Joel
> > >>
> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
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> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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>
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