[Ads-l] Antedating of "Balk" (Baseball)

Sat Aug 29 10:35:22 UTC 2026

I was initiallly told that the Yale copy of the 1848 rules was the only one in existence, but the great baseball historian John Thorn has now informed me that there is another copy owned by a private individual.  In any case, it was a thrill to hold the Yale copy in my hands.

The points made by Ben and Bill are reasonable.  But I am involved in studying the 1848 rules because the OED is apparently not accepting the 1845 rules as being citable, and they asked my wife to verify the 1848 document.  Note that there are a number of other baseball terms that in the past have been cited by the OED with the 1848 date when they could have been cited from 1845 on the assumption that later references to 1845 were accurate.  Also note that the OED does not cite the 1744 edition of A Little Pretty Pocket-Book as its first use of the word "baseball" because there are no existing copies of that edition.

The OED in modern times has been extremely rigorous in its dating practices, perhaps too rigorous in some instances.  They are clearly more rigorous than other historical dictionaries such as Green's Dictionary of Slang.  But I believe that the rigorous dating practices are the key to the OED's authority in a world that loves colorful false etymologies.

There are approaches that can be taken to maintain rigor without losing data about likely word-coinages.  In the "baseball" entry the OED does not cite the 1744 book but does mention it in a note.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben Zimmer <00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2026 23:32
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Balk" (Baseball)

To Bill's point, this is indeed a routine OED citational practice when
original documents are not available. The Knickerbocker Rules, in
subsequent printings and reproductions, indicate that they were adopted by
the Knickerbocker Club on Sept. 23, 1845. See e.g. the reproduction here:

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.baseball-almanac.com%2Frule11.shtml&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C0c8f2a253e3a4d72c53308df057e4e43%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639235712193971293%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=53OnlFGSy4Z6kqF9lqY0qt6f9B3a0Mnffmvnq2QtiCc%3D&reserved=0<https://www.baseball-almanac.com/rule11.shtml>

I wasn't aware that the 1848 printing held at Yale is the earliest extant
copy, and I presume the other copy of that is at the National Baseball Hall
of Fame Library in Cooperstown. But is there any reason to doubt that the
1848 printing faithfully reproduces the 1845 original? If baseball
historians think it's reliable, I don't see any problem with the OED using
1845 as the overall date and indicating that the cite is taken from the
1848 printing. That would be preferable to what the OED is currently using
for "balk," "pitcher," etc. -- a reproduction of the 1845 rules from
_Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia 1885_ (1886):

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fnewappletonsannu10newyuoft%2Fpage%2F76%2Fmode%2F2up&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C0c8f2a253e3a4d72c53308df057e4e43%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639235712194005657%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vM9m7HzzswPnbRZUY%2BUYu9V6peMrkJSdXdKhyE%2Bw7Rc%3D&reserved=0<https://archive.org/details/newappletonsannu10newyuoft/page/76/mode/2up>

Back to "balk"... I wrote a Wall Street Journal column on the term in 2022:

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fbalk-a-pitchers-feint-a-hindrance-or-a-hesitation-11663274556%3Fst%3DgWLhHx%26reflink%3Ddesktopwebshare_permalink&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C0c8f2a253e3a4d72c53308df057e4e43%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639235712194027853%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=akcVUqI2hsH0pfVThZlXdH71GrFty%2BkgLgx%2Fwx2acDA%3D&reserved=0<https://www.wsj.com/articles/balk-a-pitchers-feint-a-hindrance-or-a-hesitation-11663274556?st=gWLhHx&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>

Quoting that:

---
The "Knickerbocker Rules" of 1845, the sport's first such formal document,
noted that "a runner cannot be put out in making one base, when a balk is
made on the pitcher." [Richard] Hershberger notes that a "balk" rule could
have carried over from even earlier forms of baseball. In an 1847 article
in the Rondout Freeman, a newspaper in New York’s Hudson Valley, a writer
reminisces about playing the "game of base," including a rule that a runner
would be awarded a base "if the tosser made a balk to entice the individual
making the round from his post."
---

I linked to this page on the Protoball site with information on that 1847
cite:

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fprotoball.org%2FChronology%3AAntedated_Firsts%231830s.33_The_Balk_Rule_Existed_Before_the_1845_Knick_Rules&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C0c8f2a253e3a4d72c53308df057e4e43%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C639235712194044909%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=AhSkPmY%2F9V%2Ft0%2FQSG3onqkrxTztqgjf%2FiuhgL4LKD7o%3D&reserved=0<https://protoball.org/Chronology:Antedated_Firsts#1830s.33_The_Balk_Rule_Existed_Before_the_1845_Knick_Rules>
?

--bgz

On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 10:41 PM Bill Mullins <
000025b0424c936d-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> Doesn't the OED routinely use quotes from later material when the originals
> (such as letters) are not available?  Or am I remembering the practice from
> other historical dictionaries?
>
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 5:48 PM Shapiro, Fred <
> 00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > balk (OED, n1, 1867)
> >
> > 1848 By-laws and Rules of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club 13
> >
> > A runner cannot be put out in making one base, when a balk is made by the
> > pitcher.
> >
> > NOTE:  The OED's 1845 citation is not reliable, since there is no
> > surviving printing of the 1845 rules.  I found the 1848 citation by
> > examining the Yale University Library copy, one of only two known to
> exist.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
>

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