[Ads-l] baseball in New York City 1805

[Shapiro, Fred]

It seems like some guy named George A. Thompson was involved in these discoveries.

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Peter Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Sunday, March 3, 2024 7:49 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: baseball in New York City 1805

This is isn't strictly linguistic evidence of "baseball" by that name, but about identifying an early description of the game we know as "baseball" played in New York decades earlier than previous evidence supported.

A recent post on twitter, by MLB's official historian, John Thorn, discussed a recent discovery of evidence of baseball being played in New York City in 1805 (although not by that name).  The word "base ball" is much older, but was used for a different game.  The 1805 examples refer to the game alternately as "base", "bace" or "basse."

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fthorn_john%2Fstatus%2F1762152156923113900&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C66a69905f5d14c9d999208dc3be4ea3e%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638451101574484001%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ufUjE0CEjbDA1K4hSKscYlWCL6nVHCB8I17KvvwInvY%3D&reserved=0<https://twitter.com/thorn_john/status/1762152156923113900>
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fourgame.mlblogs.com%2Fbaseball-in-new-york-in-1805-286c2da638f5&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C66a69905f5d14c9d999208dc3be4ea3e%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638451101574491344%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=dpcaJ%2BuFLfumfC%2BescndgvdehtmA8oiZlnNQHsCmGHE%3D&reserved=0<https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/baseball-in-new-york-in-1805-286c2da638f5>

Details in the recently discovered reference, referring to "hands in" (innings) have convinced baseball historians that the game described is actually something like American baseball, and not an earlier game with a similar name.

The new finds supplement earlier, ambiguous reference from the same year he had written about earlier, but which were not clearly what we know as baseball.
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fourgame.mlblogs.com%2Fan-enigmatic-1805-game-of-bace-in-new-york-a1929789f158&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C66a69905f5d14c9d999208dc3be4ea3e%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638451101574497515%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=zOybFVR%2BiKztg1FSALUKcQmm%2BrUqox4KN0sbES5kv%2Fw%3D&reserved=0<https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/an-enigmatic-1805-game-of-bace-in-new-york-a1929789f158>




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