Oldest card ever: new article

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Posted By: Andrew

Apologies if you've already discussed this:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb260152.htm

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” - English Proverb

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Very Interesting!!!

Probably something similar to this 1822 baseball illustration:

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Great guy and he is also an avid Walter Johnson/Washington Senators collector.

The item is similar to a flash card and is part of a larger set of similar cards, non-baseball related. It represents a bat and ball game, but no evidence that it is baseball.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

The article mentions that Net54 board member DAVID BLOCK, the author of "Baseball: Before We Knew It" will be a member of the panel in Washington discussing the card.

David will be sure to clarify everyone on whether it was "baseball" or not... and whether baseball was a descendant of rounders, etc.

His book is a "must read."

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Posted By: barrysloate

David is actually in New York now and is doing a tour promoting his book. He stayed over my house this past Friday night. We were talking about this card and while we both agree it is really neat, it is not baseball but one of the many predecessors of the game. If you look at the bat, it is more like a cudgel, with a scooped end at the top. Great little find, but definitely not baseball.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I wonder if that opinion will keep David from being on the panel??

I'm glad that he is there to tell the TRUTH!!!


PS - Barry, please thank David once again for me for the autographed copy of his book!

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Posted By: barrysloate

I'm not sure if I'll see him again this trip- he and his wife are up in the Catskills- I invited them to my house in eastern Long Island as I plan to spend the balance of the summer there, but I don't think they will make it out. But I'll speak to him down the road for sure.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

...HAY !!!!

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Posted By: pete ullman

it looks like the little boy is swinging a lacrosse stick.

pete in mn

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Now that I have seen that card...

I went back and looked very closely at the 1822 illustration shown earlier in this thread.

If you look very closely at the TOP part of the "bat" in that drawing, it sure looks like the artist has intentionally drawn a "cross hatched wicket" enlarged area.

The 1822 drawing specifically refers to the stick as a "bat"... so maybe early bats had wickets?

I guess David Block would know more than I would.

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Posted By: jay behrens

This was just posted on the SABR-L list today by Richard Herschberger:

It turns out that David Block got it all wrong. From
the October 31, 1875 Philadelphia Sunday Mercury:

"The game of base ball is said to be very ancient.
The earliest astronomers evidently knew it, and it
probably had its origin in shooting stars, which the
superstitious ancients looked upon as a game of the
gods hurling and batting these luminous bodies through
a space, and like many other godlike things, tried to
imitate. The game was in great favor among the
Egyptians, whose level plains afforded fine grounds
for base balling; but it was left to the Greeks to
bring the game to its earliest perfection. At first
it was a source of healthful and vigorous recreation
for this wonderful people, and furnished their first
mathematicians with illustrations of parabolic curves,
arcs and lines. It was to their fondness for the
exercise of base ball that the Spartans owed their
endurance and invincibility as fighters. But after a
time the game was allowed to go into the hands of a
few athletes, who made a business of it, and the
people forgot their manly share in the exercise in
looking on and betting upon the result. While,
therefore, Greece owed much of her greatness to base
ball, the game had an important influence in her
decline, and (though historians are reticent about the
matter) it is not at all unlikley that the Greeks,
instead of drilling and equipping their hosts to
resist the Roman legions, preferred to go out and
witness a game of base ball between the Thermopylaes
and Atticas, and leave their cities an easy prey to
the conquerors of the world. But they had their
revenge, for they introduced the game into Italy, and
so strongly did the Romans take to it that it is
related of Nero that he sent an expedition into Africa
to get a supply of lilliputian people, so that their
heads could be used by the cruel emperor in his
games--and he was said to be as famous a pitcher as he
was a singer. Rome dates her decline from the
introduction of base ball; but even in their chains
the captive Romans subdued Goths and Vandals by the
charm of the great game. Base ball has evidently
taken a fast hold upon our great republic, but we have
this in our favor that may enable us to resist its
pulling down effects. We have the vitality that is
rising superior to bad government and the dishonesty
of supreme factions. Who shall say, then, that having
survived all these, we may not hope to survive even
that gloriously demoralizing game--base ball."




My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Josh Evans

Hmmmm...

One of the qualifiers for a baseball card being a baseball card is that there is some sort of advertising relating to it. It must be essentially a premium of sorts. Hence, the 1868 Brooklyn Atlantics or the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Peck & Snyder carte-de-visites are first in my book.

This piece is merely a game card. It may be baseball, it may be card, but it is certainly not a “baseball card.” A cool piece though but a baseball card as much as any of the more commonly found chap books of the period.

But definitely a neat and very smart promotion by Mr. Kevin Keating to say the least and he even got it into the Smithsonian (the National was a little easier). Good job Kevin and good exposure for the hobby.

But the Smithsonian should probably stick to what they know, wooly mammoths and the Spirit of St. Louis.

Josh

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Posted By: barrysloate

Josh is correct that the pictured card does not fit the strict definition of a baseball card, not only for the reasons he stated but also because it most likely depicts stool ball or poisoned ball or any one of the early bat and ball games pictured in David's book. And interestingly, even the 1822 Wood book sold in REA auctions nowhere contains the word "baseball." The bat the boy holds certainly resembles a baseball bat, and the very early date of 1822 is extremely significant, but it too may be one of the myriad games children played in the early half of the 19th century. All fascinating artifacts, but one must take care in determining what games are illustrated by the various woodcuts. Not until Robin Carver's 1834 Book of Sports did the first definitive illustration of a game of baseball appear in a totally American volume.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Barry:

Look VERY closely at the top of the bat in the 1822 REA book (posted above).

Do you see the same "cross-hatched bubble" that I see?

Or are my eyes just bad?

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

...is the stick balanced on the two stumps, behind the batter. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think David Block describes such a game in his book.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I see it, Scott...

and it looks sort of like the "trap" that Block describes when discussing "trap ball."

One could place a ball on one end of the stick... and then stomp his foot down on the other end of the stick...using the stump as a fulcrum...

and the ball pops straight up to him for him to hit.

Or were you thinking of some other game in the book?

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Posted By: Rob L

this engraving..



is the first engraving that clearly shows a baseball bat, base runner and fielder. Apparently, Alexander Anderson did this engraving c1832 and was published several times in the Babcock chap books through 1842.

Rob L

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I know that my definition of a "baseball card" is different than some folks...

but TO ME...

it cannot be a real "baseball card" unless it actually depicts a REAL baseball PLAYER who is identifiable from the card.

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Tobin Lithographs showing clowns playing baseball - NO, not "true baseball cards"

Cards with drawings of REAL big league baseball players that have the players' names on the cards - YES, true cards (even if the drawings barely resemble the player)

Even today, if someone draws a picture of their kid playing wiffle ball on a card-sized piece of cardboard and distributes them around town...

there is NOBODY that would consider this to be a "true baseball card."

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hal- you may be right about that bat too. Personally, I don't think the Wood engraving pictures baseball, though it could be, it's just not crystal clear. But the book has other salient features- it is the finest children's book of sports from the 1820's (and the 1822 is a second edition, with the original printed in 1820), is much larger than chapbooks typically found in the 1830's, and the copy REA sold may be unique. But that still skirts the main issue- does the woodcut picture children playing baseball, or some related game? My answer- I don't know.

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Posted By: identify7

This is a good start, Hal!

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it cannot be a real "baseball card" unless it actually depicts a REAL baseball PLAYER who is identifiable from the card.

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I agree, the player must be identifiable, not just the sport.

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Tobin Lithographs showing clowns playing baseball - NO, not "true baseball cards"



Again, I agree. However, I note that Tobin lithographs which identify the player, by this definition, are baseball cards.

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Cards with drawings of REAL big league baseball players that have the players' names on the cards - YES, true cards (even if the drawings barely resemble the player)



By specifying "big league", it appears to me that early cards are eliminated from consideration, since at the potential time of issuance a traditional big league did not exist. Perhaps the "big league" specification should be removed.

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Even today, if someone draws a picture of their kid playing wiffle ball on a card-sized piece of cardboard and distributes them around town...

there is NOBODY that would consider this to be a "true baseball card."



Because:
1) no player is identified
2) what other reasons?

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Posted By: Glenn

Gil,

Your reasoning re. Hal's deifintion of a baseball card is flawed on a couple of key points.


" Tobin Lithographs showing clowns playing baseball - NO, not 'true baseball cards'


Again, I agree. However, I note that Tobin lithographs which identify the player, by this definition, are baseball cards. "

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So by your logic (correct me if I'm wrong) if one made the claim "It isn't a book unless it is made of paper," and placed a roll of toilet paper in your hand, you would conclude that "by this definition" the toilet paper is a book?


continuing...

" Cards with drawings of REAL big league baseball players that have the players' names on the cards - YES, true cards (even if the drawings barely resemble the player)


By specifying "big league", it appears to me that early cards are eliminated from consideration, since at the potential time of issuance a traditional big league did not exist. Perhaps the "big league" specification should be removed. "

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Can we assume as well that if one claimed that anyone who had played for the New York Yankees had played in the major leagues that you would determine that anyone who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers (or had driven a car, or had bought a dozen eggs, or owned a dog) had therefore not played in the major leagues?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Glenn- I haven't heard that term since I took logic in college. There was a second "modus...something". What was it? I think it started with a "P".

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Posted By: Glenn

ponens

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Posted By: barrysloate

That's it- (it's been over 30 years).