1st Fictional baseball reference

[Archive]

Posted By: Jason Mishelow

This unspecting book from 1865 is titled "Uncle Nat; or, The Good Time Which George and Frank Had, Trapping,Fishing, Camping Out, etc" and contains the earliest fictional reference to baseball. Chapter five contains a sandlot game which is highlighted by an argument regarding the Mass Game vs the New York Game- i.e. whether or not soaking or throwinhg at the runner is allowed and by confirmation that even this early boy's were winning first ups by throwing the bat up grabing it and then have the captins go hand over hand to the top
this pick up also higlights the problem with pricing of baseball books- this editon is listed (and never sells) on most sites in the $1000 range when the true value is probably alot closer to my $65 ebay win- a note to book sellers lests start selling for prices that actually move product and allow new collectors to enjoy classic works

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom Russo

Barry Sloate mentioned Uncle Nat in his 1995 article for VCBC. I think he put $500- $600 on it but would probably agree that book prices have come down since then. Still, you don't get it for $65 if I know about it. I've been an underbidder at $200.00 or so a couple of times over the years. Great pick up. Congratulations.

[Archive]

Posted By: Anonymous

Tom
For some reason the seller didn't mention the baseball content so that may have kept the price a bit low- but if your looking keep checking on ebay, over the last couple of weeks I have seen a copy with a $250 buy it now which did not seem to attract much attention and may have gone unsold

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom Russo

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep a look out.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Uncle Nat appears to be among the earliest fiction we know of with at least some substantial baseball content.

However, I believe Jane Austen uses the term "baseball" in one of her novels around 1800. And there are other books, including one with native Americans playing baseball in the 1830's, that David Block has found since I wrote my article. When I have time I will check his bibliography.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jason mishelow

Barry is correct there were a couple of 18th century works which use the word baseball but do not give any info on what game is being referenced and a 1837 book which details a baseball like game played by native american's ( though it uses a fish head instead of a ball so it isn;t quite baseball)
There is also a 1860 work called the bobbin boy which decribes a game at ball but seems to describe a game much closer to Town Ball or Rounders then modern baseball