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miraclebravesI would like to expand upon an earlier post by Barry Sloate. Many of you know that Barry is as knowlegable about 19th century baseball as anyone in the country. Like Barry, I heartily recommend David Blocks new book "Baseball Before We Knew it": A Search for the Roots of the Game".
It is outstanding and is very thought provocating.
It might also be grist for some interesting posts here during the snow that many of us are about to be hit with on this cold Saturday morning!
One aspect of the book that I find very interesting is that David Block has uncovered evidence that dovetails very nicely into something that was suggested by the recent "find" in early 2004 (via John Thorn and others outstanding detective work) of a local ordinance that specifically mentions the game of "baseball". The "find" is a written document that identifies "baseball" as one of several games ("football" is another) that was actually outlawed way back in 1791 by the good townsfolk in Pittsfield, Mass. Seems the lawmakers wanted to save the windows in the new courthouse by banning those dreaded games.
Anyway my point is that David's work, coupled with the 1791 Pittsfield "find" raises these very interesting possibilities. Here are a couple:
1. Baseball did not "spring from" and was not "derived" from the alleged "ancient" game of rounders (sorry Mr Henry Chadwick). It seems that "rounders" was so identified by name, per David's research, 40 or 50 years AFTER the 1791 Pittsfield law.
Perhaps "rounders" sprung from the ancient game of "baseball", and not vice versa? (I hope this might induce a response from across the ocean from good old England.)
2. We now know that baseball was a distinct and identifiable game (called, oddly enough, "baseball") in this country decades BEFORE the various "earliest" newspaper accounts that have been uncovered in the last few years dating in the early 1820's.
3. To me, the Pittsfield find and David's book suggest a very real possibility that there just might be actual rules and (who knows) organized "baseball teams" not, as we have known for years, only in the 1800's but actually in the 1700's as well!
After all, why did the Pittsfield politicos bother to outlaw the game of "baseball" in 1791 unless it was played often and not necessarily as a fun little bat and ball game only restricted to children?
Who knows...perhaps adults played this game, in some informal but organized way, as early as the Revolutionary War period...or before??
Put another way, who knows what we will uncover in the (hopefully) not too distant future by scouring in courthouses, particularily in states that were pretty heavily populated in the 1700's?
Frank
01-22-2005, 08:24 AM
Baseball Roots
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