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Posted By: Jason Mishelow

The Little Pretty Pocket Book was the first time that the word baseball appeared in print. The book which is very, very rare was one of the first books to illistrate children's games. Each page of the book had an illistration of the game a "poem" about the game and a morality lesson (which was included so that the book would not be considered two frivolus). The page about baseball had an illistration with three boy's each standing by a stone post. one of the boy's appeared to be about to toss the ball to one of the boy's who looked as if he was about to swing at it with an open palm. The Poem that accompanied the text was "The Ball Once struck off, away flies the boy, to the next defined post, and then home with joy" So while important the book described a games called baseball but a game still very simple and without formal rules. It is not clear what other rules applied to this game of "baseball"