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

Sat Aug 29 15:43:09 UTC 2026

Thanks to Fred for illuminating both the OED's rigorous dating practices
and the status of the Knickerbocker Rules. I guess that would make the 1847
citation on the Protoball site the leading antedating from the OED's
perspective. The cite was originally shared by David Block on SABR's 19cBB
mailing list in 2014. I confirmed the full text on Genealogybank.

---
Rondout Freeman (Kingston, NY), June 5, 1847, p. 2, col. 4
"A Balk is a Base." -- Any one having a remembrance of the ball games of
his youth, must recollect that in the game of _base_ if the tosser made a
balk to entice the individual making the round from his post, the latter
had the right to walk to the next base unscathed. Pity it is that the
Hudson folks engaged in the late political movement in Columbia County did
not remember that "a balk is a base" in the games of children of a larger
growth.
When the frequent and flagrant outrages of the Taghkanic Anti Renters had
apparently aroused the people of Columbia County to a true sense of their
position and duty, every friend of good order rejoiced.
[...]
The Columbia law and order people have made the _balk_ which gives the
disorganizers a _base_ -- which gives them one more step in the progress
towards immunity in the system of outrage and anarchy at which they seem to
be aiming.
[...]
And if the Anti Renters of Taghkanic do not make a vast stride towards
power after this blunder then we will say there are exceptions to the axiom
that "a balk is a base."
---

As noted by the Protoball folks, this suggests the balk long predated the
1845 formalization of rules by the Knickerbocker Club, at least in early
versions of baseball played in the Hudson Valley region. It's also telling
that by 1847 it was available to use as an extended political metaphor, so
it may be possible to find even further antedatings in that region of New
York.

--bgz

On Sat, Aug 29, 2026 at 6:35 AM Shapiro, Fred <
00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> 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://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://archive.org/details/newappletonsannu10newyuoft/page/76/mode/2up
>
> Back to "balk"... I wrote a Wall Street Journal column on the term in 2022:
>
>
> 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://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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